> @seaofsorrows said: > lordsteve1 wrote: » > > Using a forum is not the same as gaming time. I have a pretty laid back job so have time to browse forums, but I can’t use that time in STO. So claiming forum post counts says anything about how casual a player is in the actual game is not true at all. > > > > > Of course you're right. There are just a very small group of people that seem to think that high post count means they're an authority. Obviously, that is not the reality of things.
Yeah maybe true. But there’s also a few round here that think a high DPS score in whatever arbitrary map makes them a higher authority too. I’m sure all sorts of people have valid points to make and neither post counts nor dps means either is less valid. Just a pity things keep getting divided into a sort of two tribes situation.
We’re all in the same boat. The queues are dead and it’s a combination of TRIBBLE rewards, bugs, boring repetition and lack of original content which entices different people that is to blame. Arguing about dps ain’t gonna help anyone yet people keep dropping personal dps scores about and name dropping people who are all powerful. Doesn’t really help and all it does is lead to people getting fed up with people “showing off”. The discussion needs to be separate from what the top players can do, or what the bottom ones cannot do. The changes proposed to queues aren’t gonna need x dps to pass, they’ll just make queues better for everyone. They aren’t perfect solutions but I think a lot of people (even those disagreeing in this thread) will agree better designed content will encourage more players to use said content. But perhaps what’s needed also is a bit of community action to drum up activity in the queues? I mean I’d allbthe good players who can help and teach people will only play within their very limited circles of friends, how is anyone going to be encouraged to do the queues. Players can choose to run queues with pugs or use the previously active multitude of channels, or they can hide away in tiny closed circles and wonder why everything is so dead. Cryptic might not listen to the suggestions but we can be the change we need if we desire.
Counter-proposal: Remove non-thematic marks, restore XP multiplier. Now both types of content have a point: Thematic queues for thematic marks, red alerts for ship XP grinding. They thus no longer compete against each other for the same market share.
Because reward homogenization is ultimately what kills queues: Only the most efficient reward-to-effort ratios survive in a homogenized market where everything pays the same stuff.
I could get on board with that!
I would however, still like to see queues get a revamp as was originally suggested. This suggestion gets people to need the queues, but if the queues aren't fun then it just leads to people quitting because they can't get what they need.
This suggestion in tandem with the original proposal would go a long way toward fixing this problem.
Using a forum is not the same as gaming time.
I have a pretty laid back job so have time to browse forums, but I can’t use that time in STO. So claiming forum post counts says anything about how casual a player is in the actual game is not true at all.
Being casual doesn’t mean you don’t play for x time or don’t post in the forums. It’s not something you can measure with timers or post counts; it’s not anything you can easily quantify. So yes there are casuals who spend hours online and have massive post counts.
Yeah - I'm in the same boat. Can post here at work, between tasks, but my actual in-game time is limited to a few hours each evening.
Well I’m in the same boat as well I guess. Nevertheless the same time allowed to spend in forums should be suffice to tend to STO Wiki, STO League Homepage or Reddit where I have heard we have lots of folks helping with builds and stuff too. Since half of it all is the understanding of how STO ticks and what works where best there is a lot that can be done off game to become good in game.
As things are now faw boats have taken a major setback. High DPS cannon ships centered on a sci crowd controller, let it be with cannons or epg/torps is in fact the “best” strategy we have at the moment to tend to HSE and they cut through other elites like buttah as well.
If we ever needed you in DPS Diamond Reyan, now is the time mister!
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
The discussion needs to be separate from what the top players can do, or what the bottom ones cannot do. The changes proposed to queues aren’t gonna need x dps to pass, they’ll just make queues better for everyone.
Completely agreed. Which is also why I didn't bring DPS up at all in OP.
But perhaps what’s needed also is a bit of community action to drum up activity in the queues? I mean I’d allbthe good players who can help and teach people will only play within their very limited circles of friends, how is anyone going to be encouraged to do the queues.
This starts a slightly different discussion altogether. But I'll bait - given if I have 4 good friends online who are not busy with something else, why should I pug? Why should the thought even cross my mind?
> @tunebreaker said: > This starts a slightly different discussion altogether. But I'll bait - given if I have 4 good friends online who are not busy with something else, why should I pug? Why should the thought even cross my mind?
Well I’ll provide an example I’m familiar with. You personally started a channel to promote a specific build style and get like minded players running content together. But currently said channel sits idle most days and it’s not even clear how many of the original members even play the game anymore. The channel “could” be getting used to group players up, it could be used for discussion but that has all moved elsewhere and it sits unused. I’m not saying you don’t run with your friends or what have you but there are places that could be getting used to encourage player participation that are unused.
All I’m saying is that the game gives us, the players, the tools to encourage participation but we’ve seemingly chosen to move to even more private groups and don’t really commingle anymore. If we were really worried about queues being dead and lacking players we could be using channels to encourage people. But we don’t. We’re all expecting Cryptic to change instead which is madness really, they’ve never shown any willingness to listen in the past.
Also @ruinthefun had the easiest solution to implement. Remove the uni-mark boxes from RA’s and add XP boosts back into them.
Back in the day if i wanted Omega marks I had to fight the Borg, same for undine marks or Voth etc. You had to lay conte t that was varied or you just didn’t get the rewards. Red alerts just meant you could get everything in one place, it was clear what was going to happen.
Don't know what other problems there are with it off the top of my head. Been forever since I saw the map.
Oh it's totally the 20 person requirement to even pop that makes it unplayed. Total agreement there.
I'd love to see it get the remastering treatment like the Minefield did.
It doesn't need remastering. They could just drop the 20 player requirement. Its easy to play even alone much less in a 5-team.
Of course the mission would really best work as an open instance, start as soon as someone queues and let people filter in as it goes, no waiting. But unfortunately, our wonderful new revamped queue system doesn't appear to support that feature anymore.
I never said they are seperate. I just said that it is a PART of the game.
You said "DPS+Knowledge". That's implying they are separate.
I didn't say that my Recon Destroyer DOES 15k max. I ESTIMATED since I've never been in a parse run. And general purpose build doesn't = I have no clue. It means I'm prepared for anything that gets thrown at me.
Then go and parse your Recon Destroyer please, don't throw around random estimations and then act offended that people judge you based on those estimations. And I'm talking about experience, 99% of the time when someone says they have a "general purpose" build, it's only good for being carried.
I can hold my own, and it fits my playstyle. Again... its a good foundation, and I am happy with where I am. I don't go into things I'm not comfortable with.
You claim you can hold your own, yet you *estimate* you do 15k. That's not holding your own, especially not in Korfez.
15k is not 'holding your own.' In fact, it's barely enough to hold up one's pants.
And ppl doing 15k is fine, honestly. After all, "Your fun isn't wrong." And DPS isn't everything, in the absolute; but tunebreaker is absolutely right in stating that most missions simply require 'X amount of NPC's to be dead at time Y.'
You flexibility (and durability which would mean nothing should you get most of the aggro on team like high DPSers often do) means absolutely nothing when your DPS is as low as it is.
And astute observation. Often ppl confuse 'holding my own' with 'not drawing enough aggro to even matter.' That's self-delusionary thinking, fancying you're durable, whilst, in fact, you're so underperforming, that NPC's mostly just ignore you.
Ok, maybe I worded it a bit uncorrectly, but let me quote you here: "MY strength isn't in power. Its in flexability and durability."
That sort of argument is quite recurring on this forum. Like "I don't do DPS, but I'm in a support-role." Or "I don't do DPS, but I use tactics." Or worse, "I don't do DPS, but I'm doing Science." LOL. And awesome players like Peter really *are* doing the support thingy, when need be, and par excellence. But mostly, let's just face it, it's just another way of being in denial about one lacking in DPS (but then telling oneself they're 'good' at something else). And the latter is probably why DPS-ers tend to get attacked rather often: people realize their own DPS is inadequate, but can't really bring themselves to fully admitting it. Maybe it's ego? Personally, I don't mind saying I suck. Even *my* numbers hardly qualify me for 'mid-level' ranking. But I don't adhere to some misguided thinking I'm conpensating for that with some imaginary other 'contributions.' Some folks simply understand this game a lot better than I do. There's no shame in that.
Which is what it all boils down to, I think: either step up, or accept where you're at in this game. No need to constantly 'needle' DPS-ers, though.
I never said they are seperate. I just said that it is a PART of the game.
You said "DPS+Knowledge". That's implying they are separate.
I didn't say that my Recon Destroyer DOES 15k max. I ESTIMATED since I've never been in a parse run. And general purpose build doesn't = I have no clue. It means I'm prepared for anything that gets thrown at me.
Then go and parse your Recon Destroyer please, don't throw around random estimations and then act offended that people judge you based on those estimations. And I'm talking about experience, 99% of the time when someone says they have a "general purpose" build, it's only good for being carried.
I can hold my own, and it fits my playstyle. Again... its a good foundation, and I am happy with where I am. I don't go into things I'm not comfortable with.
You claim you can hold your own, yet you *estimate* you do 15k. That's not holding your own, especially not in Korfez.
15k is not 'holding your own.' In fact, it's barely enough to hold up one's pants.
And ppl doing 15k is fine, honestly. After all, "Your fun isn't wrong." And DPS isn't everything, in the absolute; but tunebreaker is absolutely right in stating that most missions simply require 'X amount of NPC's to be dead at time Y.'
Most missions require no such thing. Most missions that involve a timer, it's to win, not to lose.
I don't know why people promote this as a solution when uni boxes were implemented because having queues only give out certain marks DIDN'T motivate people to play those queues, it just meant new players could never get those marks since no one played them.
Because that's only part of the solution. The rest is in the first post in this thread.
We're trying to get to why no one will play the content and find a way to make it so people want to play it. The reason the queues were empty before was because once people got what they needed, they didn't play the content any more. As the majority of the active players met their goal and moved away from a queue it made it more and more difficult for new players to get what they need because there were no other players queuing up. The solution is a combination of things like what TuneBreaker said in the original post, the normalization of rewards to make players time valuable and making it so that said rewards are desirable. Removing marks from the Red Alerts is a solution for the 3rd part only, it's not the entire solution. Simply put, players won't play content that isn't fun unless they absolutely have to and even then some still won't do it.
And ppl doing 15k is fine, honestly. After all, "Your fun isn't wrong." And DPS isn't everything, in the absolute; but tunebreaker is absolutely right in stating that most missions simply require 'X amount of NPC's to be dead at time Y.'
Exactly right. No one is saying that doing 15k is 'wrong,' for doing missions and enjoying the game. It is however, not being elitist to say it's wrong for doing Elite Queues. These queues are designed for high end builds with high end equipment, so yes.. if a 15k player queues for an Elite, I will say they are 'wrong.' They are hurting their team by queuing up for completely optional content that they are in no way qualified to handle.
Players are more then welcome to play in ways that are fun for them. They also have a personal responsibility to consider others and think about what they can contribute (or not contribute) before queuing for a mission. If playing Elite Content is what someone considers to be fun, then that's fine. But they have a personal responsibility to make sure they are capable of that content and make any needed adjustments if they can't. That's where the DPS people come in, we're happy to help those players if they want it. If they don't.. then no harm no foul.. it's all good.. but we don't expect to see them in Elites. Now if Elites were required, that would be a problem.. that would be forcing players into a DPS oriented play style in order to succeed. Luckily, that's not the case, so if someone doesn't want to pursue DPS then that's fine. They can just not queue up for Elites and they're fine.
I don’t think anyone is really saying they only do 15k and still go for elites though are they? I’ll maybe push 50 if I try really hard so I’d not presume to go into elites as I know it’ll be a miserable experience. So surely someone who finds advanced a challenge will not try to force themselves upon elite runs. Doing so is just being an TRIBBLE and something I’d definitely discourage.
But that 15k is fine for 90% of game content which is DJ e I’d players are happy with that level of play.
But the queues need to be something that encourages all players, not just elites, not just newbies. Rewards are one side. Better designs/mechanics are another. Realistically elite content for best players is important too.
Im loathe to say it but in regards to the reward marks I think getting people to play relevant content for x marks is going to have to be forced upon them. I’m always in favour of open gameplay, but the players have to be put in a situation where if you want say Undine marks, you play undine content. This nonsense with universal rewards might have been a solution to players struggling to get marks, but it has done more harm than good. If there were so many newer players struggling to get marks in the first place that warranted a change like that, then surely there were enough players to fill the queues up? I mean they wouldn’t change something just because of a minority of players.
> @tunebreaker said:
> This starts a slightly different discussion altogether. But I'll bait - given if I have 4 good friends online who are not busy with something else, why should I pug? Why should the thought even cross my mind?
Well I’ll provide an example I’m familiar with.
You personally started a channel to promote a specific build style and get like minded players running content together.
But currently said channel sits idle most days and it’s not even clear how many of the original members even play the game anymore.
The channel “could” be getting used to group players up, it could be used for discussion but that has all moved elsewhere and it sits unused.
I’m not saying you don’t run with your friends or what have you but there are places that could be getting used to encourage player participation that are unused.
All I’m saying is that the game gives us, the players, the tools to encourage participation but we’ve seemingly chosen to move to even more private groups and don’t really commingle anymore. If we were really worried about queues being dead and lacking players we could be using channels to encourage people. But we don’t. We’re all expecting Cryptic to change instead which is madness really, they’ve never shown any willingness to listen in the past.
The failure of TSC can be traced to multiple reasons. And sure, it's easy to #blamegruber and for a big part it's also spot on. But I honestly believe it's a spent force. I don't have the motivation to try and keep it alive. Almost all of the good sci players have left the game. The interest has waned. Those few who still pursue those kinds of builds we promoted make copies of builds done by Eli or myself and apply newest meta to it, but they have their own communities and thus have no incentives to hang out in a pretty much dead channel. Majority of my friends who are still playing are not interested very much in sci builds and even if they are, why use this particular channel over something more close-knit where we don't have to worry that someone's going to call you elitist for throwing a silly joke at the expense of zone, forums and top fleet players.
Players in general have also become a lot more lazier. Hardly anyone wants to put something together and then ask what should be changed or what else is there that's worth using. No, it's rather "pls give me a build to follow", and if you're lucky, they don't start to argue that you're doing something wrong. So it's pointless to have a similar discussion-based channel. Back when I just got into the DPS world, I remember all sorts of incredible stuff discussed in DPS channels, for example. Now, you're lucky to see even "lf4m ISA" there.
Just like any other themed chat channel (press F to pay respects to Aggronauts), TSC has simply lost it's relevance. Cryptic decided to push all the interested PvE-ers away. Those who stayed for the sake of their friends saw more and more people getting tired of the direction the game is going, got frustrated of seeing more and more misinformation and lazy thinking spread around and naturally encapsuled. I mean, we have multiple chat channels still in the game where you *can* ask for a run, but it's mostly the same people, and for the majority of elite capable people, it's easier to just look into your friends list and ask directly if anyone wants to join you. And if you just want a run going, you'll pug, or well, try to and hope for the best.
Simply put, players won't play content that isn't fun unless they absolutely have to and even then some still won't do it.
The problem with this entire line of reasoning is that player's don't care about fun, they care about profit margins. CCA is boring as hell, its a do nothing, and nothing happens, queue, but people play it because it offers the best profit margins.
Since most if not all adjustments the OP suggests address the time (not difficulty) effort of the said maps for good players they would increase the reward/effort ratio there as a result automatically so I’m glad to find you in full agreement here.
Sure it is hard to beat CCA but given the 300 players I know in game I have nobody in my friend list who exclusively limits his active gaming time to that map. Things get different during CCA event times of course where my friend list hardly seems to be able to run anything else. As somebody who parses CCA regularly it is also interesting to note that at best 10% of its players are responsible for this strong effort/reward ratio there in the first place. If they are incentivized to play something else the remaining 90% of the CCA population will likely find this map hardly lucrative at all. Play it with a bunch of players dishing out 2-8k DPS each surely would take the boredom for you out of it as well there.
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I dunno. CCA is a really odd outlier because with powercreep it’s possible to make it last barely 3mins with some really shoddy players. I did one yesterday that took 2.5mins and I was at 60k with every single other player down at sub-30k. I’m not a great player, I’m pretty average in most advanced content but that mission is stupid easy and a reward farmer’s wet dream. Any balancing of rewards needs to either match CCA in terms of effort:reward or just outright ignore it and hope other queues attract people with better rewards / better designs.
Suggesting that you should be rewarded for no effort is not a suggestion any dev will take.
I’m again glad to find you in full agreement with the OP as the addressed changes which, like you quoted, limit themselves to address the possible overall timeframe/duration and not the difficulty/tasks to beat those maps. In a way they would even make them more interactive and engaging and less of a “just sit it out” thingy as 90% of the player base in CCA got accustomed to while the remaining 10% make the lucrative effort/reward ratio happening.
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The problem with declaring "fun" as the end-all solution is that fun is entirely subjective. Some people will want challenge to overcome while others want X minutes of casual pewpew followed by a guaranteed win. Some want to optimize their resource gathering, others play to pass the time. There is no one thing you can say that will make something fun for everyone. Iy'd impossble.
But if there is a reward people want, they will at least try to play the content that gives it.
Because it doesn't make sense. Te whole point is that you are supposed to be playing for at least X amount of time to justify the reward they are giving you. The lack of this is the main problem with CCA, there should be more stages, with more damage lockouts, instead of just the two they have.
In that case, why should I strive to be a better player? It doesn't matter if I pull the bare minimum to finish the objective in allocated timeframe or give my best to complete it as fast as possible. Good game design rewards players who are better. Bad game design makes them do the same thing over and over again (or worse, just makes them wait) until the X amount of time has passed.
Mind you that Cryptic is selling us power. Why should I spend 3k ZEN for another ship, or open many lockboxes for another good trait if it ultimately doesn't matter how good I am, as long as I'm doing the bare minimum to complete the queue, cause with timegates, time to complete the queue is exactly the same and it doesn't matter if players are performing amazingly or just adequately enough?
Same reason people do in any game that has time gates(aka basically every MMO I can think of), because new enemies have new tactics which in tern require getting better, or at least different, gear to make them easier to combat.
Good game design doesn't just let people blow through content by using exploits to get 500K DPS, it makes them work for it by making things take time.
lol.. Right because things like flying around aimlessly waiting for portals to spawn or blasting wave after wave of totally unchallenging trash mobs waiting for a timer to expire are just fantastic examples great game design and skill.
I’m again glad to find you in full agreement with the OP as the addressed changes which, like you quoted, limit themselves to address the overall timeframe and not the difficulty if those maps. In a way they would even make them more interactive and engaging and less of a “just sit it out” thingy as 90% of the player base in CCA got accustomed to while the remaining 10% make the lucrative effort/reward ratios happening.
Wrong again, I am in complete disagreement with the OP because most of the OP's suggestions are just that.
Ah, so you are a strong advocate of the empty queue list we have and just find CCA, ISA and the red alert maps to be a disturbing and annoying abnormalities. Yea that makes sense. Sorry I have doubted you.
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Comments
> lordsteve1 wrote: »
>
> Using a forum is not the same as gaming time. I have a pretty laid back job so have time to browse forums, but I can’t use that time in STO. So claiming forum post counts says anything about how casual a player is in the actual game is not true at all.
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> Of course you're right. There are just a very small group of people that seem to think that high post count means they're an authority. Obviously, that is not the reality of things.
Yeah maybe true. But there’s also a few round here that think a high DPS score in whatever arbitrary map makes them a higher authority too.
I’m sure all sorts of people have valid points to make and neither post counts nor dps means either is less valid.
Just a pity things keep getting divided into a sort of two tribes situation.
We’re all in the same boat. The queues are dead and it’s a combination of TRIBBLE rewards, bugs, boring repetition and lack of original content which entices different people that is to blame.
Arguing about dps ain’t gonna help anyone yet people keep dropping personal dps scores about and name dropping people who are all powerful. Doesn’t really help and all it does is lead to people getting fed up with people “showing off”.
The discussion needs to be separate from what the top players can do, or what the bottom ones cannot do. The changes proposed to queues aren’t gonna need x dps to pass, they’ll just make queues better for everyone. They aren’t perfect solutions but I think a lot of people (even those disagreeing in this thread) will agree better designed content will encourage more players to use said content.
But perhaps what’s needed also is a bit of community action to drum up activity in the queues? I mean I’d allbthe good players who can help and teach people will only play within their very limited circles of friends, how is anyone going to be encouraged to do the queues.
Players can choose to run queues with pugs or use the previously active multitude of channels, or they can hide away in tiny closed circles and wonder why everything is so dead.
Cryptic might not listen to the suggestions but we can be the change we need if we desire.
I could get on board with that!
I would however, still like to see queues get a revamp as was originally suggested. This suggestion gets people to need the queues, but if the queues aren't fun then it just leads to people quitting because they can't get what they need.
This suggestion in tandem with the original proposal would go a long way toward fixing this problem.
Well I’m in the same boat as well I guess. Nevertheless the same time allowed to spend in forums should be suffice to tend to STO Wiki, STO League Homepage or Reddit where I have heard we have lots of folks helping with builds and stuff too. Since half of it all is the understanding of how STO ticks and what works where best there is a lot that can be done off game to become good in game.
As things are now faw boats have taken a major setback. High DPS cannon ships centered on a sci crowd controller, let it be with cannons or epg/torps is in fact the “best” strategy we have at the moment to tend to HSE and they cut through other elites like buttah as well.
If we ever needed you in DPS Diamond Reyan, now is the time mister!
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
This starts a slightly different discussion altogether. But I'll bait - given if I have 4 good friends online who are not busy with something else, why should I pug? Why should the thought even cross my mind?
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> This starts a slightly different discussion altogether. But I'll bait - given if I have 4 good friends online who are not busy with something else, why should I pug? Why should the thought even cross my mind?
Well I’ll provide an example I’m familiar with.
You personally started a channel to promote a specific build style and get like minded players running content together.
But currently said channel sits idle most days and it’s not even clear how many of the original members even play the game anymore.
The channel “could” be getting used to group players up, it could be used for discussion but that has all moved elsewhere and it sits unused.
I’m not saying you don’t run with your friends or what have you but there are places that could be getting used to encourage player participation that are unused.
All I’m saying is that the game gives us, the players, the tools to encourage participation but we’ve seemingly chosen to move to even more private groups and don’t really commingle anymore. If we were really worried about queues being dead and lacking players we could be using channels to encourage people. But we don’t. We’re all expecting Cryptic to change instead which is madness really, they’ve never shown any willingness to listen in the past.
Remove the uni-mark boxes from RA’s and add XP boosts back into them.
Back in the day if i wanted Omega marks I had to fight the Borg, same for undine marks or Voth etc. You had to lay conte t that was varied or you just didn’t get the rewards. Red alerts just meant you could get everything in one place, it was clear what was going to happen.
Of course the mission would really best work as an open instance, start as soon as someone queues and let people filter in as it goes, no waiting. But unfortunately, our wonderful new revamped queue system doesn't appear to support that feature anymore.
15k is not 'holding your own.' In fact, it's barely enough to hold up one's pants.
And ppl doing 15k is fine, honestly. After all, "Your fun isn't wrong." And DPS isn't everything, in the absolute; but tunebreaker is absolutely right in stating that most missions simply require 'X amount of NPC's to be dead at time Y.'
And astute observation. Often ppl confuse 'holding my own' with 'not drawing enough aggro to even matter.' That's self-delusionary thinking, fancying you're durable, whilst, in fact, you're so underperforming, that NPC's mostly just ignore you.
That sort of argument is quite recurring on this forum. Like "I don't do DPS, but I'm in a support-role." Or "I don't do DPS, but I use tactics." Or worse, "I don't do DPS, but I'm doing Science." LOL. And awesome players like Peter really *are* doing the support thingy, when need be, and par excellence. But mostly, let's just face it, it's just another way of being in denial about one lacking in DPS (but then telling oneself they're 'good' at something else). And the latter is probably why DPS-ers tend to get attacked rather often: people realize their own DPS is inadequate, but can't really bring themselves to fully admitting it. Maybe it's ego? Personally, I don't mind saying I suck.
Which is what it all boils down to, I think: either step up, or accept where you're at in this game. No need to constantly 'needle' DPS-ers, though.
Because that's only part of the solution. The rest is in the first post in this thread.
We're trying to get to why no one will play the content and find a way to make it so people want to play it. The reason the queues were empty before was because once people got what they needed, they didn't play the content any more. As the majority of the active players met their goal and moved away from a queue it made it more and more difficult for new players to get what they need because there were no other players queuing up. The solution is a combination of things like what TuneBreaker said in the original post, the normalization of rewards to make players time valuable and making it so that said rewards are desirable. Removing marks from the Red Alerts is a solution for the 3rd part only, it's not the entire solution. Simply put, players won't play content that isn't fun unless they absolutely have to and even then some still won't do it.
Exactly right. No one is saying that doing 15k is 'wrong,' for doing missions and enjoying the game. It is however, not being elitist to say it's wrong for doing Elite Queues. These queues are designed for high end builds with high end equipment, so yes.. if a 15k player queues for an Elite, I will say they are 'wrong.' They are hurting their team by queuing up for completely optional content that they are in no way qualified to handle.
Players are more then welcome to play in ways that are fun for them. They also have a personal responsibility to consider others and think about what they can contribute (or not contribute) before queuing for a mission. If playing Elite Content is what someone considers to be fun, then that's fine. But they have a personal responsibility to make sure they are capable of that content and make any needed adjustments if they can't. That's where the DPS people come in, we're happy to help those players if they want it. If they don't.. then no harm no foul.. it's all good.. but we don't expect to see them in Elites. Now if Elites were required, that would be a problem.. that would be forcing players into a DPS oriented play style in order to succeed. Luckily, that's not the case, so if someone doesn't want to pursue DPS then that's fine. They can just not queue up for Elites and they're fine.
I’ll maybe push 50 if I try really hard so I’d not presume to go into elites as I know it’ll be a miserable experience. So surely someone who finds advanced a challenge will not try to force themselves upon elite runs. Doing so is just being an TRIBBLE and something I’d definitely discourage.
But that 15k is fine for 90% of game content which is DJ e I’d players are happy with that level of play.
But the queues need to be something that encourages all players, not just elites, not just newbies.
Rewards are one side.
Better designs/mechanics are another.
Realistically elite content for best players is important too.
Im loathe to say it but in regards to the reward marks I think getting people to play relevant content for x marks is going to have to be forced upon them.
I’m always in favour of open gameplay, but the players have to be put in a situation where if you want say Undine marks, you play undine content.
This nonsense with universal rewards might have been a solution to players struggling to get marks, but it has done more harm than good. If there were so many newer players struggling to get marks in the first place that warranted a change like that, then surely there were enough players to fill the queues up? I mean they wouldn’t change something just because of a minority of players.
The failure of TSC can be traced to multiple reasons. And sure, it's easy to #blamegruber and for a big part it's also spot on. But I honestly believe it's a spent force. I don't have the motivation to try and keep it alive. Almost all of the good sci players have left the game. The interest has waned. Those few who still pursue those kinds of builds we promoted make copies of builds done by Eli or myself and apply newest meta to it, but they have their own communities and thus have no incentives to hang out in a pretty much dead channel. Majority of my friends who are still playing are not interested very much in sci builds and even if they are, why use this particular channel over something more close-knit where we don't have to worry that someone's going to call you elitist for throwing a silly joke at the expense of zone, forums and top fleet players.
Players in general have also become a lot more lazier. Hardly anyone wants to put something together and then ask what should be changed or what else is there that's worth using. No, it's rather "pls give me a build to follow", and if you're lucky, they don't start to argue that you're doing something wrong. So it's pointless to have a similar discussion-based channel. Back when I just got into the DPS world, I remember all sorts of incredible stuff discussed in DPS channels, for example. Now, you're lucky to see even "lf4m ISA" there.
Just like any other themed chat channel (press F to pay respects to Aggronauts), TSC has simply lost it's relevance. Cryptic decided to push all the interested PvE-ers away. Those who stayed for the sake of their friends saw more and more people getting tired of the direction the game is going, got frustrated of seeing more and more misinformation and lazy thinking spread around and naturally encapsuled. I mean, we have multiple chat channels still in the game where you *can* ask for a run, but it's mostly the same people, and for the majority of elite capable people, it's easier to just look into your friends list and ask directly if anyone wants to join you. And if you just want a run going, you'll pug, or well, try to and hope for the best.
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.
Since most if not all adjustments the OP suggests address the time (not difficulty) effort of the said maps for good players they would increase the reward/effort ratio there as a result automatically so I’m glad to find you in full agreement here.
Sure it is hard to beat CCA but given the 300 players I know in game I have nobody in my friend list who exclusively limits his active gaming time to that map. Things get different during CCA event times of course where my friend list hardly seems to be able to run anything else. As somebody who parses CCA regularly it is also interesting to note that at best 10% of its players are responsible for this strong effort/reward ratio there in the first place. If they are incentivized to play something else the remaining 90% of the CCA population will likely find this map hardly lucrative at all. Play it with a bunch of players dishing out 2-8k DPS each surely would take the boredom for you out of it as well there.
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Why not? Why are artificial timegates good idea?
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.
I did one yesterday that took 2.5mins and I was at 60k with every single other player down at sub-30k. I’m not a great player, I’m pretty average in most advanced content but that mission is stupid easy and a reward farmer’s wet dream.
Any balancing of rewards needs to either match CCA in terms of effort:reward or just outright ignore it and hope other queues attract people with better rewards / better designs.
I’m again glad to find you in full agreement with the OP as the addressed changes which, like you quoted, limit themselves to address the possible overall timeframe/duration and not the difficulty/tasks to beat those maps. In a way they would even make them more interactive and engaging and less of a “just sit it out” thingy as 90% of the player base in CCA got accustomed to while the remaining 10% make the lucrative effort/reward ratio happening.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
But if there is a reward people want, they will at least try to play the content that gives it.
Mind you that Cryptic is selling us power. Why should I spend 3k ZEN for another ship, or open many lockboxes for another good trait if it ultimately doesn't matter how good I am, as long as I'm doing the bare minimum to complete the queue, cause with timegates, time to complete the queue is exactly the same and it doesn't matter if players are performing amazingly or just adequately enough?
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.
And this just proves you're probably trolling. Pathetic.
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.
lol.. Right because things like flying around aimlessly waiting for portals to spawn or blasting wave after wave of totally unchallenging trash mobs waiting for a timer to expire are just fantastic examples great game design and skill.
You're embarrassing yourself.
Ah, so you are a strong advocate of the empty queue list we have and just find CCA, ISA and the red alert maps to be a disturbing and annoying abnormalities. Yea that makes sense. Sorry I have doubted you.
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