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Endgame incentive

onetontoadonetontoad Member Posts: 72 Arc User
This game would be complete if it some sort of endgame challenge content that had sort of steep requirements was introduced ,there is no real incentive to get epic gear or master all your skills in you class or aquire specific traits,a lot of the playerbase play this game because its startrek nothing else. While everything else should stay the same for stfs ,episodes etc a specific content should be made to challenge players to work as a team to complete say 10 stages of ground and space in a period of one week just like world of warcraft does with their endgame dungeons. So many elite players focus on dps and destroy everything in one blink but what if dps alone did not work without the science or engineers,Im not saying force the trinity system on players but maybe do somethnig similar ,a reason to get lvl 14 gear ,those traits and learn your class. Even though Im more of a casual player on this game I would love to see this just for somethnig to work towards.
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Comments

  • rattler2rattler2 Member, Star Trek Online Moderator Posts: 59,174 Community Moderator
    edited October 2016
    [sarcasm]But... but... mah DEEPS! It solves all problems![/sarcasm]

    The main problem is power creep has lead to a DPS centric mentality. It can't hurt you if its already dead. We have a bit of an objective based thing with Mirror Invasion, where Science Ships can close rifts faster and Cruisers can power up the satellites faster.

    When they revamped the difficulty levels, we had a massive spike in problems when they introduced fail conditions to the old Borg STFs. In my opinion, adding those conditions would have made sense in Elite, but Advanced, where most people would probably spend time, made no sense. And they were too easily exploited by Trolls wanting to frak people over for their own amusement. "Oh I'm just going to FAIL you for laughs so you get ZERO reward, and lock you out from trying again for a half hour. Have fun losers!"

    Gets real aggrivating when that happens.

    But I do agree we need some way to break away from the DPS mentality a bit so that non-DPS things are more viable, like Crowd Control. I too am a Casual, but I've also been in a couple successful Korfez runs (mostly thanks to NOT getting the Benthan wave), and even helped my fleet achieve victory in No Win when it was around (We used 3 Wells, 1 Vesta, and a Contortrix so LOTS of Gravity Wells). We need something to branch out a bit.
    db80k0m-89201ed8-eadb-45d3-830f-bb2f0d4c0fe7.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2ExOGQ4ZWM2LTUyZjQtNDdiMS05YTI1LTVlYmZkYmJkOGM3N1wvZGI4MGswbS04OTIwMWVkOC1lYWRiLTQ1ZDMtODMwZi1iYjJmMGQ0YzBmZTcucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.8G-Pg35Qi8qxiKLjAofaKRH6fmNH3qAAEI628gW0eXc
    I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
    The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
    normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
    colored text = mod mode
  • davefenestratordavefenestrator Member Posts: 10,865 Arc User
    "Space Barbie is the real endgame" :)

    Yes, the gear treadmill is currently mostly pointless except for those playing "improve my Combat Log Reader parses."
  • snoggymack22snoggymack22 Member Posts: 7,084 Arc User
    onetontoad wrote: »
    This game would be complete if it some sort of endgame challenge content that had sort of steep requirements was introduced

    I vote for Space Dragons! Big, colorful, fire breathing space dragons! With tons of trash mobs around them, making it like a 2 hour crawl to get to the fight and initiate it.

    And to even get in the zone everyone in the group needs to craft a special cloak for their ship!

    What say you?

    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • darkknightucfdarkknightucf Member Posts: 1,546 Media Corps
    Yes. I am glad there are other people who are talking about this issue, so that other people can see and read the additional thoughts from "new" people expressing their concerns about a lack of an End Game per se.
    @Odenknight | U.S.S. Challenger | "Remember The Seven"
    Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
    Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
    "A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
    I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
  • kodachikunokodachikuno Member Posts: 6,020 Arc User1
    edited October 2016
    onetontoad wrote: »
    just like world of warcraft does with their endgame dungeons.
    Just pointing out.... the new WoW expansion lost them quite a few players over these things... Some love it but it seems as many don't.

    That said I think the opposite of your suggestion would be better. Give adv/elite STF more of a point to be run, and then give them the barriers and other hurdles to make them more interesting. Possibly have 2 versions of given STF, the normal everyday one, then a much more difficult daily/weekly round robin one with various new mechanics added.

    So you could have a weekly "chain" of STF run in order with new hurdles and mechanics to spice them up for daily and weekly bonus rewards. So say monday you play a special version of TRIBBLE, tues its YYY, wed its ZZZ, etc. We have enough STF that don't get used to easily make 4 different "chains" like this so each month has 4 separate weekly flavors.

    edit:
    really? someone censored X X X w/o the spaces??? -.-
    tumblr_mr1jc2hq2T1rzu2xzo1_400.gif
    tacofangs wrote: »
    STO isn't canon, and neither are any of the books.
  • rattler2rattler2 Member, Star Trek Online Moderator Posts: 59,174 Community Moderator
    Yea... the forum censor has some weird things on its list. Only reason we got the word Hell back is because of the Year of Hell lockbox. If they didn't tweak the censor it would have been known as the Year of **** Box.
    db80k0m-89201ed8-eadb-45d3-830f-bb2f0d4c0fe7.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2ExOGQ4ZWM2LTUyZjQtNDdiMS05YTI1LTVlYmZkYmJkOGM3N1wvZGI4MGswbS04OTIwMWVkOC1lYWRiLTQ1ZDMtODMwZi1iYjJmMGQ0YzBmZTcucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.8G-Pg35Qi8qxiKLjAofaKRH6fmNH3qAAEI628gW0eXc
    I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
    The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
    normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
    colored text = mod mode
  • detheaterdetheater Member Posts: 86 Arc User
    I am a firm believer that the reason the end game has such issues is because they chose to ignore the holy trinity when making this game. Without the need for tanks and healers the only thing people will focus on is DPS (because now the only goal is to kill fast) which makes the end game rather boring because even though you can get your DPS over 100K there isn't any REAL reason to get it over 15-20K except for bragging rights and they can't make it required without alienating a good portion of their player-base.
  • rattler2rattler2 Member, Star Trek Online Moderator Posts: 59,174 Community Moderator
    edited October 2016
    detheater wrote: »
    I am a firm believer that the reason the end game has such issues is because they chose to ignore the holy trinity when making this game. Without the need for tanks and healers the only thing people will focus on is DPS (because now the only goal is to kill fast) which makes the end game rather boring because even though you can get your DPS over 100K there isn't any REAL reason to get it over 15-20K except for bragging rights and they can't make it required without alienating a good portion of their player-base.

    The Trinity wouldn't have worked anyways because any captain can fly any ship. And we have no large scale raids that would require that anyways. We have total freedom in our ship builds and aren't locked to certain gear types other than certain ships being able to mount Dual Heavies.

    In a way the Trinity is more apparent on the ground, since you can't boost your damage to crazy levels like you can in space. Being able to tank is just as important as being able to dish it out. As an Engie, I was able to shield tank Manus after the rest of my team got wiped out. I have a fleet mate who did the same but as a medic with heals. A Tac wouldn't have been able to do that. In space we can have anyone do pretty much any job.
    db80k0m-89201ed8-eadb-45d3-830f-bb2f0d4c0fe7.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2ExOGQ4ZWM2LTUyZjQtNDdiMS05YTI1LTVlYmZkYmJkOGM3N1wvZGI4MGswbS04OTIwMWVkOC1lYWRiLTQ1ZDMtODMwZi1iYjJmMGQ0YzBmZTcucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.8G-Pg35Qi8qxiKLjAofaKRH6fmNH3qAAEI628gW0eXc
    I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
    The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
    normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
    colored text = mod mode
  • kodachikunokodachikuno Member Posts: 6,020 Arc User1
    there is nothing holy about the trinity :P
    tumblr_mr1jc2hq2T1rzu2xzo1_400.gif
    tacofangs wrote: »
    STO isn't canon, and neither are any of the books.
  • asuran14asuran14 Member Posts: 2,335 Arc User
    I actually think you do have a form of soft trinity, in the fact you have yes the ability to tank/dps/heal as any of the three careers, but also each of the three careers do have a leaning towards specific methods of doing it (as well as perform better in areas than others). A science captain has more abilities that aid in shield tanking an shield healing, while engineers are a bit more hull-based, but with tactical is more of a evasive tanking style with a much more focused point on damage. Now even if you do look at that taking different ship types can aid your chosen style, by improving areas of your own career's weaknesses. Now that does not mean that each of them can not function in the other career's areas, but merely they have a specialization towards an area that give them slightly better performance in their own.

    I actually would not mind seeing a raid-like set of encounters/stfs. which have unique desired rewards. I mean I could see them putting back in the pre-change Borg stfs from when they were fully connected, maybe add a few more encounters, a bit more interesting mechanics. Also I don't think you need to make a trinity to have all three of the careers desirable in such content, I mean if each career had actual duties or functions in the stf tied to them, which would aid in the completion of the stf than i could see it. Like having abilities that are countered by the career abilities of a captain (not the boffs) could help, also having actual actions that certain careers are better suited to doing, even going so far as having like in MI that certain ship types are better suited for some tasks would work.

    I could see something like a Undine raid in which science captains could be used to stabilize rifts in the area, which would cause both the Undine to take more damage, but also maybe make it that the group is taking less damage overall and/or is not debuffed by being in fluidic space. While a engineering captain or a cruiser type ship might be needed/able to gather up vented aoe zones that keep expanding, and then convert that into something beneficial for the group as well. It is not so much making a set of encounters that are based on tank/healer/dps , but on making the true trinity of the game (careers of engineering, science, tactical) have more equal standing of value in the encounters both in any kind of content.
  • kontarnuskontarnus Member Posts: 289 Arc User
    Well, if Captain abilities ONLY modified boff and console abilities tied to the Captain's profession, then there could be a little more emphasis on the mmorpg trinity.

    Speaking as someone who plays a Tac main, Attack Pattern Alpha and Tactical Fleet buffing the dmg of science abilities seems silly.
    "Intelligence is finite, stupidity is infinite" -- Umberto Eco
  • asuran14asuran14 Member Posts: 2,335 Arc User
    kontarnus wrote: »
    Well, if Captain abilities ONLY modified boff and console abilities tied to the Captain's profession, then there could be a little more emphasis on the mmorpg trinity.

    Speaking as someone who plays a Tac main, Attack Pattern Alpha and Tactical Fleet buffing the dmg of science abilities seems silly.

    I an agree with that, though i could work it another way. What if base-line your career abilities were only going to affect the main career (tactical for this), but than if you say spent points into say the science sub-tree it would unlock your career abilities to affect that career's abilities, and also even opening up maybe giving your main career's abilities some bonus bonus based from that sub-career's functions/abilities. Maybe like if a tactical captain went deep into engineering he might gain a bonus effect of enhanced power-transfer rate while using attack-pattern alpha, while for science he might get the above bonus of his attack-pattern alpha affect both weapon an exotic damage. I think this level of interplay was missed out when they did the career trees.
  • asuran14asuran14 Member Posts: 2,335 Arc User
    I would also say that depending on which expansion you are talking, it was more of the fact that during warlords that the full focus of the endgame was on raiding alone. Which I do agree is not a good idea, you need more than merely one avenue to have a good endgame. Raiding is a nice endgame for the dungeon-crawler/instance type of player, while having raid difficulty level world content that is geared/tuned for the more single player crowd is also good, even though this will always cause issues between the two groups an is going to happen regardless in a game with so many different playstyles.
  • pwstolemynamepwstolemyname Member Posts: 1,417 Arc User
    edited October 2016
    Cyrptic have been trying to give us 'something different' to do at end game, for a long time, but they never get it right, and we keep playing the same three missions. If this is going to change we need to address some design philosophy:

    Many newer missions have set or minimum durations imposed, presumably to help keep their rewards from being devalued and encourage non dps builds. Pushing to run these missions more efficiently accomplishes nothing as it either means boredom, waiting for more enemies, or monotony, killing extra waves of identical enemies.

    The old borg STFs reward efficiency and push players to build their ships better and play smarter by rewarding more for time invested, and ramp difficulty for fulfilling or failing objectives in a way that promotes 'fun'. It also promotes frustration for some, but I don't see the frustrated people running the newer missions, so maybe the frustration isn't as bad as their forum winging.

    Lets look at two examples:

    Gateway to Grethor rewards you for getting a transport to the planet, by tasking you with getting more transports to the planet. Grethor penalizes you for not getting a transport to the planet, by tasking you with getting more transports to the planet.

    It rewards you for closing an enemy spawn portal by creating another enemy spawn portal, and it penalizes you for not closing an enemy spawn portal, by not creating any more enemy spawn portals (there is a portal limit).

    Gateway to Grethor is really nothing more then a 'fetch quest' with a little fight at the beginning and a little fight at the end, the majority of the mission is spent flying between different points and hitting the interact button. The experience doesn't adapt or change in the slightest regardless of how well or how badly you hit the interact button.

    Nothing you do during the first half of; 'Hit the button to close the green thingy' changes the second half of; 'Hit the button to close the green thingy' in any way.

    Lets compare to cure space(pre-power-creep). This also has a binary, you get a reward or don't switch, in the form of the kang. Why is the kang 'fun' and getting 20 transports to the planet not? There are a few reasons, firstly, protecting something twenty times is not twenty times more fun then protecting one thing once. secondly the kang presents the group with strategic options, whereas the transports do not.

    Dose the group try and blow up all three cubes at the same time, to limit the number of raptors that spawn? Dose the group take one cube at a time to limit the number of approach vectors that enemies come in on?

    Dose the group designate some one to defense? Dose each attacking group priorities bops and raptors over the cube they are assaulting and leave no one in defense?

    Back in Grethor there is no choice, split the group into two, run backwards and forwards between the green clouds until the timer is up. That's it. No choice, no consequence.

    The lack of reactive escalation is the big reason why the newer game content just isn't fun. Sure we have stages, but they don't react, and that's a large part of why they aren't fun. Lets go back to Grethor and give it the cure treatment to make it fun, it wouldn't take much:

    1) When one side's enemies are destroyed don't wait for the other side before spawning the transports for that side.

    2) Don't despawn enemies between waives, and have the boss ship spawn immediately, not after a 60 second wait for every one to get into position.

    3) Dont have enemies milling around waiting for a transport or a player to get into range, enemies should give the impression of having an objective too, and that shouldn't be stargazing, there is a war on and they should be out to win it.

    4) Remove the minimum time limit, instead of a minimum number of transports to the planet, give us something to blow up that stops the spawn portals and the radiation portals from being generated. The klingons can continue landing their ships while we deal with the retaliatory boss and after we have warped out.

    By making these changes we provide the group with consequences, rewards, and escalating presure.

    Removing the wait for the next stage encourages us to begin thinking about it, and where we want our ships to be before we complete the preceding stage. Instead of, action, relax, action, relax, action the mission becomes action from begining to end.

    Removing the minimum time limit and replacing it with something we can control (blowing something up) rewards us for optimizing our build and our strategy. This motivates us to play again and 'do better'. The current timer limits our ability to 'do better' and thus limits are motivation to play again.

    Allowing the two sides to progress individually, not despawning enemies and having those enemies actively interfere with us encourages us to think about when we want to trigger the escalation of the mission to the next stage and whether we can afford to ignore, or deal with additional enemies. These questions will provoke us to co-ordinate and strategize.

    Ok so that's my attempt to explain what's wrong with the last few years worth of end game content, whilst ignoring the elephant in the room, which is power creep. Sadly my suggestions do nothing to encourage a non-DPS focus, but honestly I don't think mission design is going to get us there. Cryptic have tried, but the players haven't enjoyed. If we want to move away from DPS, we need a massive game wide rebalance, which I don't see happening.

    Now I am going to bed.
  • detheaterdetheater Member Posts: 86 Arc User
    rattler2 wrote: »
    The Trinity wouldn't have worked anyways because any captain can fly any ship. And we have no large scale raids that would require that anyways. We have total freedom in our ship builds and aren't locked to certain gear types other than certain ships being able to mount Dual Heavies.

    You are absolutely correct it wouldn't work because it wasn't designed that way and that is what I was saying is the problem. It should have been designed that way. There is a reason that most MMOs use that model.

    You could still do it with allowing captains the flexibility they have now. An Eng Captain in an escort or Tac Captain in a Cruiser would be like an off tank that's a little better in either damaging or tanking where a Eng in a Crusier would be a straight up tank and a Tac in an Escort would be a DPSer... I'm sure you can see where I am going with it from there.

    That's what I think the problem is with the endgame which, like another poster said, can not be fixed without an overhaul. The endgame cannot be engaging much past the 10000th time you've ran crystalline catastrophe which is why I can rarely play this game regularly for more than a couple months at a time.

  • leemwatsonleemwatson Member Posts: 5,602 Arc User
    onetontoad wrote: »
    This game would be complete if it some sort of endgame challenge content that had sort of steep requirements was introduced ,there is no real incentive to get epic gear or master all your skills in you class or aquire specific traits,a lot of the playerbase play this game because its startrek nothing else. While everything else should stay the same for stfs ,episodes etc a specific content should be made to challenge players to work as a team to complete say 10 stages of ground and space in a period of one week just like world of warcraft does with their endgame dungeons. So many elite players focus on dps and destroy everything in one blink but what if dps alone did not work without the science or engineers,Im not saying force the trinity system on players but maybe do somethnig similar ,a reason to get lvl 14 gear ,those traits and learn your class. Even though Im more of a casual player on this game I would love to see this just for somethnig to work towards.

    In this day and age, if a game is hard and requires effort to complete, people won't play it because they want instant gratification. The very vast majority of people who boast 'uber-dps' are completely frightened off by anything that requires effort and thought. The STF Elite's were made with 'uber-dps' and effort in mind, but you watch how many people even attempt them. It's these same people that also complain about an apparent lack of end-game. What they really mean is 'we are entitled to more goodies for less effort'. Had Cryptic not been so generous in it's rewards and power-creep, we would not be where we are right now. Endgame for me, well I just do Episodes in a Sci ship. Vaping enemies just isn't fun without the threat of being destroyed!
    "You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
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