"Nanny runs" *can* be a representation of horribly inflated numbers. There are plenty of players in the game who get a team of friends together just to set a record to them that actually doesn't represent them at all. Now, in itself it's just a number, and I shouldn't care too much, but many of those also tend to be very elitist players who start to use those numbers (that don't really represent their actual gameplay) to trashtalk those, who know game far better than they do, but might be lower on DPS ladder (cause they don't use said cheap tactics).
Which is also why I've been careful to start elite mission runs even in high DPS channels, just because I know there are several people there who got in by teetering on the edge of channel rules and thus are actually not competent enough to be in my elite runs. But if one happens to point it out, the offender obviously gets offended and points to their "awesome" (nannied, but it's there on the table) DPS score.
Eh, pretty much every run is a nanny run, after a fashion, as DPS is a function of damage over time -- and said time is also determined by how well the team is doing as a whole. I mean, my own highest scores were in good teams (we talked about this before: good enough to help everyone's DPS go up, but not so good as to leave me without the possibility to get a shot in edge-wise).
But yeah, true nanny runs do exist; which I think is why the higher DPS channels (75k and up) require one to have a consistent record of doing similar DPS in the past. And that makes sense, of course.
"Nanny runs" *can* be a representation of horribly inflated numbers. There are plenty of players in the game who get a team of friends together just to set a record to them that actually doesn't represent them at all. Now, in itself it's just a number, and I shouldn't care too much, but many of those also tend to be very elitist players who start to use those numbers (that don't really represent their actual gameplay) to trashtalk those, who know game far better than they do, but might be lower on DPS ladder (cause they don't use said cheap tactics).
Which is also why I've been careful to start elite mission runs even in high DPS channels, just because I know there are several people there who got in by teetering on the edge of channel rules and thus are actually not competent enough to be in my elite runs. But if one happens to point it out, the offender obviously gets offended and points to their "awesome" (nannied, but it's there on the table) DPS score.
Eh, pretty much every run is a nanny run, after a fashion, as DPS is a function of damage over time -- and said time is also determined by how well the team is doing as a whole. I mean, my own highest scores were in good teams (we talked about this before: good enough to help everyone's DPS go up, but not so good as to leave me without the possibility to get a shot in edge-wise).
But yeah, true nanny runs do exist; which I think is why the higher DPS channels (75k and up) require one to have a consistent record of doing similar DPS in the past. And that makes sense, of course.
Obviously. Very few people complaining about "nannies" actually know what it is and confuse it with just a DPS boost given by good teamplay. However, let me give you a personal example.
One day I saw a guy complaining in high DPS league channel (think it was Diamond) how life is unfair and yet another person using 3/2 tactic had surpassed them. The reason? I had done few k DPS more than them in ISA with a similar build. And sure, it was a run that had exclusively my fleet members in it (including @peterconnorfirst and @seaofsorrows ), where Pete had requested in advance that after we clear the transformer group and the spheres appear, other folks head straight to tac cube and leave the spheres + gateway to my sci powers. So I ended up doing far better than in a "normal" run, cause we had coordination and no one killed the main source of AoE damagepool on map before I had a chance to even fire at them. Was that a nanny run? Some would obviously claim it was, even if the only thing the team specifially changed was the target selection. No one threw heavy amount of buffs at me, no one failed optional, no one shot at invulnerable things, no one let the mission take 15 minutes (even the thought of that and how it'd apparently boost DPS scores makes me laugh), heck, there weren't even any recluses in team.
And even then, if anyone asks me what my DPS capabilities are, I won't spurt them that number out, because it's my absolute best and won't actually accurately show my capabilities around the game, in other content. I will give them my HSE highscore (152k) and my HSE average (~120k), because that gives them better foresight what to expect from me in team.
However, I was now interested of said other person, so I looked them up from from SCM, and well... turns out their highscore was also in a 3/2 run, and wow, what a run it was - they missed gate doping % by a hair, with no damage whatsoever done to transformers or generators or any other cube than inital one. People like that are the reason I still consider some runs to be unsportsman-like (nannied, if you wish), because they only serve to inflate their own fragile ego and talk down other, arguably greater players.
I think that @meimeitoo somehow sums it up best with saying every teamed PvE run is a nannied one as it is always a result of team interaction. It is always just a question of how much a team stresses it into the extreme or leaves the factors to mere luck.
There is also the very common, almost classic, argument still in the room that a Nannie run is only one when a team supports only one player and not if one player supports a team. The thing is just that there is no difference here at all for me and I would end up splitting hair or finding comfort in rather staying in yet in another “scruby” bubble.
I mean take an average run of the mil ISA match. Who would get nannied?
- Does the highest DPS centric build profit the most from the –drr spam and dmg buffs that go around or does the lowest DPS build?
- Does the highest attack-in player profit the most from team heals or the lowest one?
- Does the fastest to reach targets suffer the least from hit point cannibalization or the slowest?
- Does the glass cannon profit the most from a tank or does the turtle?
Hehe, it’s all the same from a game view. The difference is just that in scenario A you hold a random deck of cards in your hands while in B it is stacked in your favor. Problem is just that everybody does that when it suits their purpose. It already starts when you enter a pug with a 150k build or when a diamond DPSer asks in Bronze for to set up a team. When it not suits their purpose however sure it’s a Nanny cuz that’s ways easier than facing the truth in Star Trek Online:
A team can always be much more than just the sum of its parts.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
And yea, @tunebreaker. I agree that the way some player act in DPS chans they often come close to being a hypocrite. That’s sad as they hurt the DPS community as a whole. I found very much comfort in the fact though that they all seem to have one thing incommon: They never get invited to the good parties.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Once you get to the higher end gameplay essentially every run is like that i'd imagine. Because all the players are doing "something" that will affect all the other people on the map/in the team. Be it using control/drain/stun powers, spitting out ApB on everything, creating passive AOE heal effects from traits or whatever.
In fact once you are at that level i'd hazard a guess and say you're actually fighting against your team more than the enemy. There's only so many hit points to go around in a given map and once you get a group of big hitters in there they are going to be fighting over the damage available to them, someone will be unlucky and miss out.
I've always seen the term "nanny run" as one where either 1 or all players are doing something very specific to aid the DPS potential of a player (or possibly players). They're not your standard team-run mission, they are only to better a singular piece of data for one single player.
[...]but you guys are showing me that it may actually be doable![...]
And this, I must admit, is a very good example of what that 'scrub' guy was talking about: not limiting oneself mentally! And I just realized that comments like “Scimitard” “Cookie cutter Build” or “Nannie Run” are -- if I understand the man correctly -- precisely what the true scrub would label being 'cheap' (aka, using any good and effective tactics to 'win' the game). And I can see how one could get tired of those remarks real fast.
In short, thank you for your post!
The entire post is quoteworthy, That just might be the most beautiful forumspost I ever saw.
Really good posts actually - very cool to see the constructiveness of this discussion.
People like that are the reason I still consider some runs to be unsportsman-like (nannied, if you wish), because they only serve to inflate their own fragile ego and talk down other, arguably greater players.
A few thoughts: (keep in mind thats just my opinion on things, not claiming it to be the entire truth )
DPS never equaled skill (and never will)- It's an easy number giving an approximation of whats going on - but every actually good player would understand that its highly dependent on circumstances.
I hope none of the really good players actually "DPS shame". I always thought that was primarily done by the "slighly above average" players. Simply because I usually saw what they were doing wrong, and therefore the numbers they produced were understandable. A lack of knowledge or experience in a certain field does not make someone a bad(/stupid) person. I probably would suck at the game if I logged in right now.
The combination of the fragile ego and an imaginary competitiveness over dps is probably where most of the hostility comes from. It is amazing how someone's ego can be damaged by some other person having a good run. That's how serious they take their DPS numbers. Identifying ones self esteem with a number that doesn't represent it all will always be a flawed system.
Celebrate achievements- be happy about them - but dont mistake them for being better than everyone else. If you can do that, you can be happy for someone else that had a good run - because your ego doesnt depend on them having a lower number than you.
And lastly to the example run of someone going for the spheres prematurely:
In swimming people learn pretty much no technique in school. Then they watch the olympics or something, and see people flying across the pool - beating water left and right, sending it flying everywhere. So they assume beating the water harder makes me go faster. And it does.
They practice beating the TRIBBLE out of it, and gain a marginal increase in speed. Measureable still, so it must be the right way.
Water is about a thousand times more dense then air and reducing drag should be the main goal for a casual swimmer trying to get a bit faster. But most are stuck in this loop of investing more energy to get a little faster. (Total Immersion by Terry Laughlin is a great book about that if you are interested)
My point is: People learn that going to the spheres and AoE'ing them down is good for DPS. Thus acting a little more selfish next time, going there even earlier. Each step learning they are increasing yet a little more with their DPS, so it must be good.
Don't underestimate how easily the human mind makes stuff fit to its own "world" - That's why Sirlin's Scrub story is so important. To go back and trying to keep oneself in check. Its not about downtalking other people.
Yup, once again, another example of the original usage being washed out. Nanny Run used to refer to a specific thing, and in knowledgeable circles, still does, but public usage has started to conflate it with any kind of team synergy.
And that’s what makes it so dangerous because it’s misused as top #1 advice from “pros” to scrub yourself up.
Post edited by peterconnorfirst on
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
[...]but you guys are showing me that it may actually be doable![...]
And this, I must admit, is a very good example of what that 'scrub' guy was talking about: not limiting oneself mentally! And I just realized that comments like “Scimitard” “Cookie cutter Build” or “Nannie Run” are -- if I understand the man correctly -- precisely what the true scrub would label being 'cheap' (aka, using any good and effective tactics to 'win' the game). And I can see how one could get tired of those remarks real fast.
In short, thank you for your post!
The entire post is quoteworthy, That just might be the most beautiful forumspost I ever saw.
Really good posts actually - very cool to see the constructiveness of this discussion.
LOL. Are you sure you were talking about my post?! Or did you mean that of Peter?
And lastly to the example run of someone going for the spheres prematurely:
In swimming people learn pretty much no technique in school. Then they watch the olympics or something, and see people flying across the pool - beating water left and right, sending it flying everywhere. So they assume beating the water harder makes me go faster. And it does.
They practice beating the **** out of it, and gain a marginal increase in speed. Measureable still, so it must be the right way.
Water is about a thousand times more dense then air and reducing drag should be the main goal for a casual swimmer trying to get a bit faster. But most are stuck in this loop of investing more energy to get a little faster. (Total Immersion by Terry Laughlin is a great book about that if you are interested)
My point is: People learn that going to the spheres and AoE'ing them down is good for DPS. Thus acting a little more selfish next time, going there even earlier. Each step learning they are increasing yet a little more with their DPS, so it must be good.
Don't underestimate how easily the human mind makes stuff fit to its own "world" - That's why Sirlin's Scrub story is so important. To go back and trying to keep oneself in check. Its not about downtalking other people.
I really like this example. And it really goes to show how 'stuck' one can be in one's own ways, whilst deluding oneself one is honestly attempting to making progress. People are often capable of admitting they're not good at something, but rarely mentally prepared to accept their entire approach is wrong.
"Nanny runs" *can* be a representation of horribly inflated numbers. There are plenty of players in the game who get a team of friends together just to set a record to them that actually doesn't represent them at all. Now, in itself it's just a number, and I shouldn't care too much, but many of those also tend to be very elitist players who start to use those numbers (that don't really represent their actual gameplay) to trashtalk those, who know game far better than they do, but might be lower on DPS ladder (cause they don't use said cheap tactics).
Which is also why I've been careful to start elite mission runs even in high DPS channels, just because I know there are several people there who got in by teetering on the edge of channel rules and thus are actually not competent enough to be in my elite runs. But if one happens to point it out, the offender obviously gets offended and points to their "awesome" (nannied, but it's there on the table) DPS score.
Eh, pretty much every run is a nanny run, after a fashion, as DPS is a function of damage over time -- and said time is also determined by how well the team is doing as a whole. I mean, my own highest scores were in good teams (we talked about this before: good enough to help everyone's DPS go up, but not so good as to leave me without the possibility to get a shot in edge-wise).
But yeah, true nanny runs do exist; which I think is why the higher DPS channels (75k and up) require one to have a consistent record of doing similar DPS in the past. And that makes sense, of course.
Obviously. Very few people complaining about "nannies" actually know what it is and confuse it with just a DPS boost given by good teamplay. However, let me give you a personal example.
One day I saw a guy complaining in high DPS league channel (think it was Diamond) how life is unfair and yet another person using 3/2 tactic had surpassed them. The reason? I had done few k DPS more than them in ISA with a similar build. And sure, it was a run that had exclusively my fleet members in it (including @peterconnorfirst and @seaofsorrows ), where Pete had requested in advance that after we clear the transformer group and the spheres appear, other folks head straight to tac cube and leave the spheres + gateway to my sci powers. So I ended up doing far better than in a "normal" run, cause we had coordination and no one killed the main source of AoE damagepool on map before I had a chance to even fire at them. Was that a nanny run? Some would obviously claim it was, even if the only thing the team specifially changed was the target selection. No one threw heavy amount of buffs at me, no one failed optional, no one shot at invulnerable things, no one let the mission take 15 minutes (even the thought of that and how it'd apparently boost DPS scores makes me laugh), heck, there weren't even any recluses in team.
And even then, if anyone asks me what my DPS capabilities are, I won't spurt them that number out, because it's my absolute best and won't actually accurately show my capabilities around the game, in other content. I will give them my HSE highscore (152k) and my HSE average (~120k), because that gives them better foresight what to expect from me in team.
However, I was now interested of said other person, so I looked them up from from SCM, and well... turns out their highscore was also in a 3/2 run, and wow, what a run it was - they missed gate doping % by a hair, with no damage whatsoever done to transformers or generators or any other cube than inital one. People like that are the reason I still consider some runs to be unsportsman-like (nannied, if you wish), because they only serve to inflate their own fragile ego and talk down other, arguably greater players.
Why is it unsportsmanlike? Is it unsportsmanlike "nannying" for race car drivers to have a team change their tires for them? No.
The DPS community have chosen content that includes a team for measuring individual performance. If playing to win it's only logical the rest of the team support the one being measured to reach the best possible score, rather than competing against eachother. If this is not a desired outcome you should use solo content instead.
And if using a teamed DPS score as a general measure of individual competence fails you, then it's a poor measure.
Yup, those were the OG Scimitards, back when Scimitard referred specifically to those people. They were all over Kerrat, too, getting blown up, because who'd have thought a big, slow target with limited ability to absorb punishment wouldn't fare well there?
And then they'd die...in a green cloud of shame. Remember the green cloud of shame?
I blew up my first Scimitar in Kerrat back in the day. And bonus points because the guy sent me PM#s saying i was cheating or some nonsense.
The original use of the term about 4 years ago i'd say was players who bought the ship and assumed it would make them God and they'd rule the game with it. So you' d see people flying right in ISE or trying to solo a side in KSE. More often that not they had the damage output of an asthmatic mouse and exploded more than the rest of us, then they'd ragequit or threw a tantrum in the team chat at the end.
In fact I reckon if you looked back through that 120-odd page "Worst STF Ever" thread Reyan posteda while back i know for a fact there will be perfect examples of this behaviour.
Honestly can't say I've seen the term used recently in a convesation, at least not in the last 6 months.
"Nanny runs" *can* be a representation of horribly inflated numbers. There are plenty of players in the game who get a team of friends together just to set a record to them that actually doesn't represent them at all. Now, in itself it's just a number, and I shouldn't care too much, but many of those also tend to be very elitist players who start to use those numbers (that don't really represent their actual gameplay) to trashtalk those, who know game far better than they do, but might be lower on DPS ladder (cause they don't use said cheap tactics).
Which is also why I've been careful to start elite mission runs even in high DPS channels, just because I know there are several people there who got in by teetering on the edge of channel rules and thus are actually not competent enough to be in my elite runs. But if one happens to point it out, the offender obviously gets offended and points to their "awesome" (nannied, but it's there on the table) DPS score.
Eh, pretty much every run is a nanny run, after a fashion, as DPS is a function of damage over time -- and said time is also determined by how well the team is doing as a whole. I mean, my own highest scores were in good teams (we talked about this before: good enough to help everyone's DPS go up, but not so good as to leave me without the possibility to get a shot in edge-wise).
But yeah, true nanny runs do exist; which I think is why the higher DPS channels (75k and up) require one to have a consistent record of doing similar DPS in the past. And that makes sense, of course.
Obviously. Very few people complaining about "nannies" actually know what it is and confuse it with just a DPS boost given by good teamplay. However, let me give you a personal example.
One day I saw a guy complaining in high DPS league channel (think it was Diamond) how life is unfair and yet another person using 3/2 tactic had surpassed them. The reason? I had done few k DPS more than them in ISA with a similar build. And sure, it was a run that had exclusively my fleet members in it (including @peterconnorfirst and @seaofsorrows ), where Pete had requested in advance that after we clear the transformer group and the spheres appear, other folks head straight to tac cube and leave the spheres + gateway to my sci powers. So I ended up doing far better than in a "normal" run, cause we had coordination and no one killed the main source of AoE damagepool on map before I had a chance to even fire at them. Was that a nanny run? Some would obviously claim it was, even if the only thing the team specifially changed was the target selection. No one threw heavy amount of buffs at me, no one failed optional, no one shot at invulnerable things, no one let the mission take 15 minutes (even the thought of that and how it'd apparently boost DPS scores makes me laugh), heck, there weren't even any recluses in team.
And even then, if anyone asks me what my DPS capabilities are, I won't spurt them that number out, because it's my absolute best and won't actually accurately show my capabilities around the game, in other content. I will give them my HSE highscore (152k) and my HSE average (~120k), because that gives them better foresight what to expect from me in team.
However, I was now interested of said other person, so I looked them up from from SCM, and well... turns out their highscore was also in a 3/2 run, and wow, what a run it was - they missed gate doping % by a hair, with no damage whatsoever done to transformers or generators or any other cube than inital one. People like that are the reason I still consider some runs to be unsportsman-like (nannied, if you wish), because they only serve to inflate their own fragile ego and talk down other, arguably greater players.
Why is it unsportsmanlike? Is it unsportsmanlike "nannying" for race car drivers to have a team change their tires for them? No.
The DPS community have chosen content that includes a team for measuring individual performance. If playing to win it's only logical the rest of the team support the one being measured to reach the best possible score, rather than competing against eachother. If this is not a desired outcome you should use solo content instead.
And if using a teamed DPS score as a general measure of individual competence fails you, then it's a poor measure.
I thought you were an anti-DPSer. Why do you care?
In any case, just like @ezriryan said (correctly so), while DPS is not equivalent of skill, it's "an easy number giving an approximation of whats going on". Plus, every content on game needs damage, thus, it's part of a measure one can use to determine player's skill, and it's easy to look up and compare. So problems start when someone needs to demonstrate that they're a godly player without being so, and uses very cheap tactics to prove it. To use your car driver analogy, it's not exactly fair when someone lifts their car into the air, flies to the final and then proclaims they won the race fair and square and how everyone else is just a loser.
So let me be clear:
I don't care how you do your numbers, but I care where and how you boast with them.
"Nanny runs" *can* be a representation of horribly inflated numbers. There are plenty of players in the game who get a team of friends together just to set a record to them that actually doesn't represent them at all. Now, in itself it's just a number, and I shouldn't care too much, but many of those also tend to be very elitist players who start to use those numbers (that don't really represent their actual gameplay) to trashtalk those, who know game far better than they do, but might be lower on DPS ladder (cause they don't use said cheap tactics).
Which is also why I've been careful to start elite mission runs even in high DPS channels, just because I know there are several people there who got in by teetering on the edge of channel rules and thus are actually not competent enough to be in my elite runs. But if one happens to point it out, the offender obviously gets offended and points to their "awesome" (nannied, but it's there on the table) DPS score.
Eh, pretty much every run is a nanny run, after a fashion, as DPS is a function of damage over time -- and said time is also determined by how well the team is doing as a whole. I mean, my own highest scores were in good teams (we talked about this before: good enough to help everyone's DPS go up, but not so good as to leave me without the possibility to get a shot in edge-wise).
But yeah, true nanny runs do exist; which I think is why the higher DPS channels (75k and up) require one to have a consistent record of doing similar DPS in the past. And that makes sense, of course.
Obviously. Very few people complaining about "nannies" actually know what it is and confuse it with just a DPS boost given by good teamplay. However, let me give you a personal example.
One day I saw a guy complaining in high DPS league channel (think it was Diamond) how life is unfair and yet another person using 3/2 tactic had surpassed them. The reason? I had done few k DPS more than them in ISA with a similar build. And sure, it was a run that had exclusively my fleet members in it (including @peterconnorfirst and @seaofsorrows ), where Pete had requested in advance that after we clear the transformer group and the spheres appear, other folks head straight to tac cube and leave the spheres + gateway to my sci powers. So I ended up doing far better than in a "normal" run, cause we had coordination and no one killed the main source of AoE damagepool on map before I had a chance to even fire at them. Was that a nanny run? Some would obviously claim it was, even if the only thing the team specifially changed was the target selection. No one threw heavy amount of buffs at me, no one failed optional, no one shot at invulnerable things, no one let the mission take 15 minutes (even the thought of that and how it'd apparently boost DPS scores makes me laugh), heck, there weren't even any recluses in team.
And even then, if anyone asks me what my DPS capabilities are, I won't spurt them that number out, because it's my absolute best and won't actually accurately show my capabilities around the game, in other content. I will give them my HSE highscore (152k) and my HSE average (~120k), because that gives them better foresight what to expect from me in team.
However, I was now interested of said other person, so I looked them up from from SCM, and well... turns out their highscore was also in a 3/2 run, and wow, what a run it was - they missed gate doping % by a hair, with no damage whatsoever done to transformers or generators or any other cube than inital one. People like that are the reason I still consider some runs to be unsportsman-like (nannied, if you wish), because they only serve to inflate their own fragile ego and talk down other, arguably greater players.
Why is it unsportsmanlike? Is it unsportsmanlike "nannying" for race car drivers to have a team change their tires for them? No.
The DPS community have chosen content that includes a team for measuring individual performance. If playing to win it's only logical the rest of the team support the one being measured to reach the best possible score, rather than competing against eachother. If this is not a desired outcome you should use solo content instead.
And if using a teamed DPS score as a general measure of individual competence fails you, then it's a poor measure.
I thought you were an anti-DPSer. Why do you care?
In any case, just like @ezriryan said (correctly so), while DPS is not equivalent of skill, it's "an easy number giving an approximation of whats going on". Plus, every content on game needs damage, thus, it's part of a measure one can use to determine player's skill, and it's easy to look up and compare. So problems start when someone needs to demonstrate that they're a godly player without being so, and uses very cheap tactics to prove it. To use your car driver analogy, it's not exactly fair when someone lifts their car into the air, flies to the final and then proclaims they won the race fair and square and how everyone else is just a loser.
Sure it is, if the race allows flying. Which ISA does. It allows other people to join in and buff you and whatnot, nothing unfair about that. It's how the mission is designed. In fact, you have to go to great lengths to arrange to run it alone.
But using a flying race to measure driving skill would be useless. Not because of racers using "very cheap tactics," but because it isn't a measure of driving skill in the first place, but of flying skill. So if ISA DPS isn't actually a measure of "godly playerness," then it shouldn't be used to "prove" that.
And I'm not an "anti-DPSer," I just don't get involved in it.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,581Community Moderator
I never really understood why ISA was declared the "official DPS Benchmark measuring stick" myself. You have way too many variables to take into consideration because you have 4 other people there with different abilities that can affect your DPS. Now if you can sustain those numbers on your own... that is impressive. But having to rely on others to increase your own numbers...
I'm not a DPSer. At best I can average around 10-12k DPS even on a PUG run on my main. Which is fine for Story and most PvE Queues (minus Korfez and its Benthan Wave). I admit every once in a while I am curious how I did... but I don't feel the need to have that DPS number rule my life as if it is the only thing that matters in the game.
I never really understood why ISA was declared the "official DPS Benchmark measuring stick" myself.
- close proximity of team
- allows for dense team interaction
- everybody can run it (no matter if 0,5k or 500k) with straight path of getting better through various means
- fun to play
If somebody would like to know his own DPS without teaminteraction there are foundary maps available. One could also overthink if the desire to do so makes any sense in an mmorpg. Most likely the reason why so few to none run those.
I don't feel the need to have that DPS number rule my life as if it is the only thing that matters in the game.
Neither do I nor any of the high end DPSer I know and I think I know most of them by now. Such comments realy makes one wonder whats going on in peeps heads at times.
Whatever, we cosider DPS is a fun side quests. If there would be anything more challenging things to do we would. If you look up the names that often turn up high on the leaderborad you would find a lot of them in PvP or to be old NWS veterans as well.
From all I was able to see so far good DPSer almost ever make up for good players in other aereas as well in STO. If cryptic would give us anything else worth of doing we would end up beeing best at that too.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Comments
Eh, pretty much every run is a nanny run, after a fashion, as DPS is a function of damage over time -- and said time is also determined by how well the team is doing as a whole. I mean, my own highest scores were in good teams (we talked about this before: good enough to help everyone's DPS go up, but not so good as to leave me without the possibility to get a shot in edge-wise).
But yeah, true nanny runs do exist; which I think is why the higher DPS channels (75k and up) require one to have a consistent record of doing similar DPS in the past. And that makes sense, of course.
Obviously. Very few people complaining about "nannies" actually know what it is and confuse it with just a DPS boost given by good teamplay. However, let me give you a personal example.
One day I saw a guy complaining in high DPS league channel (think it was Diamond) how life is unfair and yet another person using 3/2 tactic had surpassed them. The reason? I had done few k DPS more than them in ISA with a similar build. And sure, it was a run that had exclusively my fleet members in it (including @peterconnorfirst and @seaofsorrows ), where Pete had requested in advance that after we clear the transformer group and the spheres appear, other folks head straight to tac cube and leave the spheres + gateway to my sci powers. So I ended up doing far better than in a "normal" run, cause we had coordination and no one killed the main source of AoE damagepool on map before I had a chance to even fire at them. Was that a nanny run? Some would obviously claim it was, even if the only thing the team specifially changed was the target selection. No one threw heavy amount of buffs at me, no one failed optional, no one shot at invulnerable things, no one let the mission take 15 minutes (even the thought of that and how it'd apparently boost DPS scores makes me laugh), heck, there weren't even any recluses in team.
And even then, if anyone asks me what my DPS capabilities are, I won't spurt them that number out, because it's my absolute best and won't actually accurately show my capabilities around the game, in other content. I will give them my HSE highscore (152k) and my HSE average (~120k), because that gives them better foresight what to expect from me in team.
However, I was now interested of said other person, so I looked them up from from SCM, and well... turns out their highscore was also in a 3/2 run, and wow, what a run it was - they missed gate doping % by a hair, with no damage whatsoever done to transformers or generators or any other cube than inital one. People like that are the reason I still consider some runs to be unsportsman-like (nannied, if you wish), because they only serve to inflate their own fragile ego and talk down other, arguably greater players.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
There is also the very common, almost classic, argument still in the room that a Nannie run is only one when a team supports only one player and not if one player supports a team. The thing is just that there is no difference here at all for me and I would end up splitting hair or finding comfort in rather staying in yet in another “scruby” bubble.
I mean take an average run of the mil ISA match. Who would get nannied?
- Does the highest DPS centric build profit the most from the –drr spam and dmg buffs that go around or does the lowest DPS build?
- Does the highest attack-in player profit the most from team heals or the lowest one?
- Does the fastest to reach targets suffer the least from hit point cannibalization or the slowest?
- Does the glass cannon profit the most from a tank or does the turtle?
Hehe, it’s all the same from a game view. The difference is just that in scenario A you hold a random deck of cards in your hands while in B it is stacked in your favor. Problem is just that everybody does that when it suits their purpose. It already starts when you enter a pug with a 150k build or when a diamond DPSer asks in Bronze for to set up a team. When it not suits their purpose however sure it’s a Nanny cuz that’s ways easier than facing the truth in Star Trek Online:
A team can always be much more than just the sum of its parts.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
In fact once you are at that level i'd hazard a guess and say you're actually fighting against your team more than the enemy. There's only so many hit points to go around in a given map and once you get a group of big hitters in there they are going to be fighting over the damage available to them, someone will be unlucky and miss out.
I've always seen the term "nanny run" as one where either 1 or all players are doing something very specific to aid the DPS potential of a player (or possibly players). They're not your standard team-run mission, they are only to better a singular piece of data for one single player.
The entire post is quoteworthy, That just might be the most beautiful forumspost I ever saw.
Really good posts actually - very cool to see the constructiveness of this discussion.
A few thoughts: (keep in mind thats just my opinion on things, not claiming it to be the entire truth
DPS never equaled skill (and never will)- It's an easy number giving an approximation of whats going on - but every actually good player would understand that its highly dependent on circumstances.
I hope none of the really good players actually "DPS shame". I always thought that was primarily done by the "slighly above average" players. Simply because I usually saw what they were doing wrong, and therefore the numbers they produced were understandable. A lack of knowledge or experience in a certain field does not make someone a bad(/stupid) person. I probably would suck at the game if I logged in right now.
The combination of the fragile ego and an imaginary competitiveness over dps is probably where most of the hostility comes from. It is amazing how someone's ego can be damaged by some other person having a good run. That's how serious they take their DPS numbers. Identifying ones self esteem with a number that doesn't represent it all will always be a flawed system.
Celebrate achievements- be happy about them - but dont mistake them for being better than everyone else. If you can do that, you can be happy for someone else that had a good run - because your ego doesnt depend on them having a lower number than you.
And lastly to the example run of someone going for the spheres prematurely:
In swimming people learn pretty much no technique in school. Then they watch the olympics or something, and see people flying across the pool - beating water left and right, sending it flying everywhere. So they assume beating the water harder makes me go faster. And it does.
They practice beating the TRIBBLE out of it, and gain a marginal increase in speed. Measureable still, so it must be the right way.
Water is about a thousand times more dense then air and reducing drag should be the main goal for a casual swimmer trying to get a bit faster. But most are stuck in this loop of investing more energy to get a little faster. (Total Immersion by Terry Laughlin is a great book about that if you are interested)
My point is: People learn that going to the spheres and AoE'ing them down is good for DPS. Thus acting a little more selfish next time, going there even earlier. Each step learning they are increasing yet a little more with their DPS, so it must be good.
Don't underestimate how easily the human mind makes stuff fit to its own "world" - That's why Sirlin's Scrub story is so important. To go back and trying to keep oneself in check. Its not about downtalking other people.
Heh, you can’t fool me. You’d get the hang of it in no time captain.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
And that’s what makes it so dangerous because it’s misused as top #1 advice from “pros” to scrub yourself up.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
LOL. Are you sure you were talking about my post?!
I really like this example. And it really goes to show how 'stuck' one can be in one's own ways, whilst deluding oneself one is honestly attempting to making progress. People are often capable of admitting they're not good at something, but rarely mentally prepared to accept their entire approach is wrong.
The DPS community have chosen content that includes a team for measuring individual performance. If playing to win it's only logical the rest of the team support the one being measured to reach the best possible score, rather than competing against eachother. If this is not a desired outcome you should use solo content instead.
And if using a teamed DPS score as a general measure of individual competence fails you, then it's a poor measure.
I blew up my first Scimitar in Kerrat back in the day. And bonus points because the guy sent me PM#s saying i was cheating or some nonsense.
The original use of the term about 4 years ago i'd say was players who bought the ship and assumed it would make them God and they'd rule the game with it. So you' d see people flying right in ISE or trying to solo a side in KSE. More often that not they had the damage output of an asthmatic mouse and exploded more than the rest of us, then they'd ragequit or threw a tantrum in the team chat at the end.
In fact I reckon if you looked back through that 120-odd page "Worst STF Ever" thread Reyan posteda while back i know for a fact there will be perfect examples of this behaviour.
Honestly can't say I've seen the term used recently in a convesation, at least not in the last 6 months.
I thought you were an anti-DPSer. Why do you care?
In any case, just like @ezriryan said (correctly so), while DPS is not equivalent of skill, it's "an easy number giving an approximation of whats going on". Plus, every content on game needs damage, thus, it's part of a measure one can use to determine player's skill, and it's easy to look up and compare. So problems start when someone needs to demonstrate that they're a godly player without being so, and uses very cheap tactics to prove it. To use your car driver analogy, it's not exactly fair when someone lifts their car into the air, flies to the final and then proclaims they won the race fair and square and how everyone else is just a loser.
So let me be clear:
I don't care how you do your numbers, but I care where and how you boast with them.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
But using a flying race to measure driving skill would be useless. Not because of racers using "very cheap tactics," but because it isn't a measure of driving skill in the first place, but of flying skill. So if ISA DPS isn't actually a measure of "godly playerness," then it shouldn't be used to "prove" that.
And I'm not an "anti-DPSer," I just don't get involved in it.
I'm not a DPSer. At best I can average around 10-12k DPS even on a PUG run on my main. Which is fine for Story and most PvE Queues (minus Korfez and its Benthan Wave). I admit every once in a while I am curious how I did... but I don't feel the need to have that DPS number rule my life as if it is the only thing that matters in the game.
- close proximity of team
- allows for dense team interaction
- everybody can run it (no matter if 0,5k or 500k) with straight path of getting better through various means
- fun to play
If somebody would like to know his own DPS without teaminteraction there are foundary maps available. One could also overthink if the desire to do so makes any sense in an mmorpg. Most likely the reason why so few to none run those.
Neither do I nor any of the high end DPSer I know and I think I know most of them by now. Such comments realy makes one wonder whats going on in peeps heads at times.
Whatever, we cosider DPS is a fun side quests. If there would be anything more challenging things to do we would. If you look up the names that often turn up high on the leaderborad you would find a lot of them in PvP or to be old NWS veterans as well.
From all I was able to see so far good DPSer almost ever make up for good players in other aereas as well in STO. If cryptic would give us anything else worth of doing we would end up beeing best at that too.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.