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Has something changed in space combat?

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  • edited November 2018
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  • peterconnorfirstpeterconnorfirst Member Posts: 6,225 Arc User
    Maybe if you end up taking the invite from SRS you can get a little sample of that that means while 4 competent players carry you through some of it.

    Yep, and then we will have to read about how easy elite truly is. :D

    Boy, thank god for combat log readers...
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  • lordsteve1lordsteve1 Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    Warning, very questionable maths alert:

    Well take HSE for example the first stage has what, ~30 ships to defeat? And a time limit of say 10 mins = 600 seconds. If we give each ship a very conservative 1 million HPs then that is 30M points of damage you must do in that time limit.

    So a single player there needs at least 50K DPS as a ballpark figure to get past that stage alone using my admittedly wonky maths. That's not taking into account shield of the enemy vessels, the incoming enemy fire, the fact the bigger enemies actually have more than 1M HPs, and surviving to actually kill things.

    So a claim of 30K is way too low for HSE as a starting figure. You're looking at 50K per player at least to not be a failure there i'd say and you still need a decent tank and a few science vessels to help out as well.
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  • where2r1where2r1 Member Posts: 6,054 Arc User
    With level 65, they've seemed to make (possibly accidentally) enemy damage, especially kinetic, scaling extra tough, to the point where already heavy-hitting enemies have the possibility to kill you 5x over with the same torpedo shot. Warp Core breaches are also doing ridiculously high damage that's more than capable of one-shotting you. And it seems enemy Feedback Pulse has also gotten heavy increase to its numbers.

    I wonder where the program is getting these numbers from to put in the logs. It got me thinking it may be transposing my ship's warp core breach numbers, instead of the torpedo's damage numbers?

    I was playing the Jem'Hadar mission "Home" yesterday to get the Polaron Endeavor box. And even at my level, I could see this, too. The kinetic damage value on torpedo hits looked more like the level of a ship blowing up in the vicinity. There is only one ship blowing up in the vicinity and that would be mine.
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  • peterconnorfirstpeterconnorfirst Member Posts: 6,225 Arc User
    edited November 2018
    lordsteve1 wrote: »
    Warning, very questionable maths alert:

    Well take HSE for example the first stage has what, ~30 ships to defeat? And a time limit of say 10 mins = 600 seconds. If we give each ship a very conservative 1 million HPs then that is 30M points of damage you must do in that time limit.

    So a single player there needs at least 50K DPS as a ballpark figure to get past that stage alone using my admittedly wonky maths. That's not taking into account shield of the enemy vessels, the incoming enemy fire, the fact the bigger enemies actually have more than 1M HPs, and surviving to actually kill things.

    So a claim of 30K is way too low for HSE as a starting figure. You're looking at 50K per player at least to not be a failure there i'd say and you still need a decent tank and a few science vessels to help out as well.

    Think we saw a slight increase of overall HP with Vil but it is close to be accurate yea. :)

    While ISA requirements per player should be around 10k (or 12 as somebody nitpicked here the other day) we are very familiar with HSE towards 40k for a player to do to be able to beat the timer of stage one. Even though not nailed with exact figures almost all the fail timer on elite maps seem to be in line as we noticed this fast when tending to those in various teams/toons knowing the average DPS of its members.

    Fez and the Gauntlet are a massive exception upwards. Both require players to fulfill separated or even solo actions. On Fez every player I know feels it prudent to have an 80k build available at least to interact well enough to tend to the different sub tasks of that map.

    Gauntlet is still a mystery or a cryptic prank. I did not do it often but know that I and my other team mates all had Diamond builds at our disposal so 160k upwards per player the one time where we barely made it.
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  • ucgsquawk#5883 ucgsquawk Member Posts: 279 Arc User
    I know this will be lost in the current argument over high level DPS slingers (I'll toss in a cent about that in a moment).

    On the original topic...I have noticed that my hull seems squishier until I'm loaded out with more resistances. As an example on console- I have a new romulan/borgBorg chara I created to use a tal shiar adapted BC I just got at the lobi sale. I am woefully underequipped (and hate the fact I'll never be able to afford the destroyer to complete the console set and have both Borg ships), my shield is a mk XII paratrinic, my weapons all mk XII vr or ur plasma while building the reps to get assimilated gear etc.

    My resistances are low at around 33% for now, but I have lots of engineering boff powers to help it for now.
    In a story mission against cardassians I was up against a Keldon, he reduced my hull to about 70% in the opening few salvoes with my shields still up.
    Then in same mission against a galor and a Keldon they had me to 22% hull with my shields still up, I actually had to run back out of range and regenerate hull before going back in, something I don't remember from the other times playing the mission...usually you can fight your way through them without getting that badly beaten (though usually they make me maneuver as they eat the shields).

    Now the second pass against them I suspect I had weakened them a bit and was able to drop them faster, but the first pass they ate my hull right trough the shields very fast.

    Similar story playing a vengeance in breach...the ships in the core room are my hull down to 75% hull through my shields very fast (though it's a much older toon so fairly well equipped and it was back up shortly and they were all dead).

    Just seems like there's almost more bleedthrough than one would expect.

    As to the current argument...average players can play in normal with average equipment.
    If you want to play elite you need some skill with the game but also better gear to back it up.
    Yes, to a certain extent of you max out your DPS to insane levels it can make up for some lack of skill, but not all of it.
    I am NOT saying high dps means no skill, I'm just saying that a lower skilled player like myself (I don't venture much beyond advanced with my mk XII equipment...need to upgrade someday) could make up for some of that skill with a maxxed out DPS build.
    I still wouldn't be on the level of the players in the video obviously, but it would help while learning.
    But the majority of players are working with what they have from missions, reps and the odd cstore ships to build. They won't hit that level, but neither do they have to play elite.
    If you take the long game of building skill and a good build then you should be into elite and face rolling normal...that's why they have different levels of queues...if you're good and have the build then go elite, otherwise normal to start, advanced for more challenge.

    Sorry, long post...more than my two cents worth.
  • peterconnorfirstpeterconnorfirst Member Posts: 6,225 Arc User
    .

    Sorry, long post...more than my two cents worth.

    But much appreciated and was a good read. :)
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  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    HSE needs an average of around 40K dps to complete without too much of a struggle, but it depends very much on the team makeup, if you have some good sci debuffs you can get away with a lower DPS per team.

    Wait what? How does having sci debuffs in team equate to enemies magically having lower HP?
  • edited November 2018
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  • seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,919 Arc User
    sophlogimo wrote: »
    [...]
    The fact that you don't think that higher level gear is needed for Elites just goes to further prove that you don't play this [...]

    "You don't agree with me, so you must be wrong"?
    I know this will be lost in the current argument over high level DPS slingers (I'll toss in a cent about that in a moment).

    On the original topic...I have noticed that my hull seems squishier until I'm loaded out with more resistances. As an example on console- I have a new romulan/borgBorg chara I created to use a tal shiar adapted BC I just got at the lobi sale. I am woefully underequipped (and hate the fact I'll never be able to afford the destroyer to complete the console set and have both Borg ships), my shield is a mk XII paratrinic, my weapons all mk XII vr or ur plasma while building the reps to get assimilated gear etc.

    My resistances are low at around 33% for now, but I have lots of engineering boff powers to help it for now.
    In a story mission against cardassians I was up against a Keldon, he reduced my hull to about 70% in the opening few salvoes with my shields still up.
    Then in same mission against a galor and a Keldon they had me to 22% hull with my shields still up, I actually had to run back out of range and regenerate hull before going back in, something I don't remember from the other times playing the mission...usually you can fight your way through them without getting that badly beaten (though usually they make me maneuver as they eat the shields).

    Now the second pass against them I suspect I had weakened them a bit and was able to drop them faster, but the first pass they ate my hull right trough the shields very fast.

    Similar story playing a vengeance in breach...the ships in the core room are my hull down to 75% hull through my shields very fast (though it's a much older toon so fairly well equipped and it was back up shortly and they were all dead).

    Just seems like there's almost more bleedthrough than one would expect.

    You post some pretty solid examples, definitely sounds like something is up.

    When you talked about Breach, it reminded me.. I recently did Breach Advanced (Also in a Vengeance) and had a very similar experience in the core room. I did survive it, but I recall decloaking and before I got off my opening Salvo my hull was in the Red. I never did find out what did it either.
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  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    sophlogimo wrote: »
    .
    [...]
    we are very familiar with HSE towards 40k for a player to do to be able to beat the timer of stage one[...]

    Well, 30k was way before ViL, so maybe that's it. Anyway: If you agree that 40k is sufficient, who in four galactic quadrants would not think that 80k, 160k, 320k are NOT overkill?

    First of all, 40k is not sufficient in most cases. 40k is a theoretical minimum on paper (derived from the fact that you need to beat phase 1 in 10 minutes and the total HP pool of enemies in phase 1 is a bit under 200m). However, that means that everyone need to stay alive, have their weapons blazing at enemies all the times (no time to fly in search of enemies or anything), nor does it account for damage dealt to shields or hull regen. Huge majority of players just doing ~40k are not capable for surviving that long, nor suited for that sort of coordination. Also the longer enemies stay alive, the longer tank needs to take incoming fire (provided you have one) and I know from experience that it's much easier to tank for a high-DPS group than for a low-DPS one.

    Thus, bringing more DPS in queue allows you to complete the content faster, worry less about the dangers (as you kill at least some of the enemies quickly) allows you to bring players/toons with lower DPS along (as your "excessive" DPS will carry them) and in general it's simply very therapeutic to see enemies just melt.
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  • ussvaliant#6064 ussvaliant Member Posts: 1,006 Arc User
    I thought they fixed the Kinetic Damage scaling though didn't they?

    I remember at one point I was getting one shotted in Tholian Red Alerts on a fairly regular basis. I even posted some of the ridiculous damage numbers they were hitting me with (it was in the Millions.) They addressed it in a patch several months ago and I haven't noticed it since.

    The only thing that still gets me from time to time is the Warp Core breaches, but I have just come to accept that as a danger of space combat. Feedback Pulse also gets me from time to time.. I suck at avoiding those. :smiley:

    I'm sure they only scaled it back for normal and left advanced and elite alone to be further looked into but I maybe wrong.
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  • peterconnorfirstpeterconnorfirst Member Posts: 6,225 Arc User
    edited November 2018
    sophlogimo wrote: »
    .
    [...]
    we are very familiar with HSE towards 40k for a player to do to be able to beat the timer of stage one[...]

    Well, 30k was way before ViL, so maybe that's it. Anyway: If you agree that 40k is sufficient, who in four galactic quadrants would not think that 80k, 160k, 320k are NOT overkill?

    Because it is only HSE and not the map with the highest DPS requirements handed out to us.

    It would also help if you could understand that with the absence of any entering requirements for the different difficulty settings for PvE in this game maps get constantly chosen by players who fail to contribute as much as the map requires. In the HSE scenario 2 or 3 players doing less DPS than the Huston, your allied NPC, the numbers you lined up quickly become required for the rest of the team to fabricate or the PvE is already lost before it is started. Sadly this is not an unlikely scenario, in every difficulty setting.

    Last but not least you should try to understand that the higher figures you bring in (300k) are not done by single individuals of a team alone but are a product of team interaction.
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  • lordsteve1lordsteve1 Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    That 40K is required by every player for nearly that entire 10min period though. So the second one guy dies, or someone's abilities misfire and go onto cooldown, or a ship "jumps" out of the way as can happen and shots miss....the required number of DPS for the rest of the team increases.

    So although it's easy to go "look you only need 40K why bring more" you're not looking at it as a dynamic situation where all manner of things can go wrong.

    Plus even if the map only needs 40K per player what's to stop someone using 50, 60, 100K in there? How is that going to negatively affect the mission if it's already a tough fight to begin with?
    I don't know what your average DPS for a ship is, but i suspect a lot of the hostility is because you are not able to get as high as these top players and you seem to expect everything to be dumbed down to your level rather than pull yourself up. Nobody expects you or any other player to have to do 100K or whatever, find a happy medium and enjoy the game. But don't go around arguing the game is too easy because of a minority, or asking for nerfs because you cannot match those players.

    Honestly I don't know what you expect the game to do anyway, if it's too easy and people are vaping stuff what do you think will be the solution given to us? We already saw the answer in the Delta Rising "difficulty" increases....i'll say no more.
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  • captainwellscaptainwells Member Posts: 718 Arc User
    I've noticed this too, particularly when it comes to kinetic damage. A time tested build went down in flames during content that I had previously played. So reworking things on my end proved to be the order of the day, sadly.
  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    sophlogimo wrote: »
    [...]
    First of all, 40k is not sufficient in most cases. 40k is a theoretical minimum on paper (derived from the fact that you need to beat phase 1 in 10 minutes and the total HP pool of enemies in phase 1 is a bit under 200m). However, that means that everyone need to stay alive, have their weapons blazing at enemies all the times (no time to fly in search of enemies or anything), nor does it account for damage dealt to shields or hull regen.[...]

    But there you confirm it: What the extra DPS beyond then does is compensate for such shortcomings. In other words, it makes it easier.

    Why was that even in dispute, then?

    Why do we need electricity? Live fire works just fine.
    Cars, planes, bikes? Pointless, good old walking gets you to the next village anyway.
    Writing? Nah, oral traditions passed down by generations are sufficient.
    Reality TV?... oh wait, damn you got me there...

    Point being, it's in human nature to strive for improvement. Without this, we'd be still in stone age making vague noises, rubbing sticks/stones together and spending all of our energy on finding food, escaping from predators and reproducing, as that's "sufficient enough" for survival.

    Good thing we've reached evolutionary to the stage where we have the option to be lazy. Similarly in game, it's totally fine only wanting to be "sufficent enough", but if someone wants to better themselves, they don't deserve to be ridiculed.
  • ucgsquawk#5883 ucgsquawk Member Posts: 279 Arc User
    If I could ask those arguing...it really looks like the argument has become one over the semantics of "high dps makes harder queues easier, not easy, but easier than lower DPS"...is that really what you're arguing now?

    At elite I certainly see you need good DPS/builds and skill with them...higher DPS makes it easier and lowers the bar on how skilled you need to be, doesn't entirely replace it and doesn't mean you aren't skilled, just makes it easier ...a combination of high skill and great DPS build makes for those insane two player elite runs. It's not going to happen for casuals like me...I'll be a long time reaching the tops in advanced I'm sure...but it does seem to make sense.

    Would be nice to be able to check our DPS on console though...in some ways it's tougher as we have less control over our abilities running them off of radial wheel menus and little control of power settings, on other hand we can set more abilities to auto activate as well.
  • casualstocasualsto Member Posts: 672 Arc User
    I've experienced this a few times at certain "silent" times in between seasons. It's called a silent nerf or a non-CL change. Basically you can't check any documents and you're left to see how you have lower numbers, deal less damage or simply get your TRIBBLE handed to you with a well-crafted, fine balanced build. Then a bunch of randoms comes and tells you to get good and that dps is evil.
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  • lordsteve1lordsteve1 Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    If I could ask those arguing...it really looks like the argument has become one over the semantics of "high dps makes harder queues easier, not easy, but easier than lower DPS"...is that really what you're arguing now?

    Yes that seems to be the argument here.

    Some people see those 2-man runs and think the game is too easy, despite the fact they are nowhere near the same level of gaming prowess.
    So they expect either a more difficult game (which Cryptic delivered in DR with ridiculous HP sponges) or nerfs to drag people down (as S13 did). Either way it doesn't help the game or the players or even the person initially complaining.
    If the game is too easy for the top 1% you really think making it harder for them is going to help anyone else?
    Alternatively, is nerfing the gear used by top end players really going to slow them down, or will it just hammer anyone less able already using said item with little alternatives?

    The whole argument misses the point that in any given build the potential is probably 40% gear and 40% piloting/skills, with the last 10% down to either luck or the RNG or teammates.
    So even the very best of uber-builds means sod-all in most people's hands. Anyone who gives their exact same build to a friend would definitely see different DPS numbers due to flying style etc.

    Imagine a race with two F1 cars, both identical but one has a more skilled/experienced driver. They both have equal potential in terms of gear equipped but the better driver stands more chance of winning the race. Same thing with getting high DPS scores.
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  • ucgsquawk#5883 ucgsquawk Member Posts: 279 Arc User
    The argument seems somewhat self evident that if you tweak your build to the highest DPS potential and are very good at the game (timing/position etc) then you will find the game easier.
    But for average players what does it matter as we aren't building DPS machines for the most part and are probably not as skilled at the game.

    I can run advanced with some small challenge using my mk vii vr equipped ships...I'm casual, I wouldn't try elite without a much better build and even then I know that my first attempts won't be helping teams much but you have to learn somewhere.
    If you aren't at that level of high dps/skill then enjoy standard/advanced play...high dps is possible but unlikely for average players so what's the issue?
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  • warpangelwarpangel Member Posts: 9,427 Arc User
    edited November 2018
    lordsteve1 wrote: »
    If I could ask those arguing...it really looks like the argument has become one over the semantics of "high dps makes harder queues easier, not easy, but easier than lower DPS"...is that really what you're arguing now?

    Yes that seems to be the argument here.

    Some people see those 2-man runs and think the game is too easy, despite the fact they are nowhere near the same level of gaming prowess.
    Don't know about them arguers, but I've thought the game is too easy long before seeing any 2-man runs. Pretty much since they removed the fail conditions on Advanced queues.

    And by "the game" I do of course mean the parts of the game the reward structure encourages us to play, not the handful of allegedly-super-hard Elite queues that people do only for bragging rights.
    So they expect either a more difficult game (which Cryptic delivered in DR with ridiculous HP sponges) or nerfs to drag people down (as S13 did). Either way it doesn't help the game or the players or even the person initially complaining.
    Cryptic delivered a (somewhat) harder game with DR in the form of fail conditions. Best thing that ever happened to the game, I came back from a long hiatus just for that. They then removed them in less than a year. The increase in enemy HP never did much more than attract useless whine.

    The infamous balance pass of S13 was, as others have noted, clearly intended to get people to buy new power creep to replace the nerfed stuff. And I agree, that was bad.
    If the game is too easy for the top 1% you really think making it harder for them is going to help anyone else?
    The game is too easy for everyone. That some people like it being too easy doesn't mean it's not too easy.

    It's too easy, not because there is too much DPS or gear or whatever, or because some players are too good or whatever. It's too easy because most of the content in the game is set up not to require much if any of the potential the game and it's players have to offer. What little hard content there is is gimped by lack of reason to play, whatever reward they would give is more easily acquired elsewhere.

    There is no logical progression from easy to hard content that players would go up on as they get better. Rather more or less everything is meant to be playable by "everyone." And content designed to be appropriate for total newbies inevitably means even slightly above average is already overpowered.
    Alternatively, is nerfing the gear used by top end players really going to slow them down, or will it just hammer anyone less able already using said item with little alternatives?
    The latter, of course. Nerfing won't solve anything. Fact is a skilled player can be totally OP in common content even with stock gear. It's simply impossible to make content that's simultaneously appropriate difficulty for a newbie on his 5th day playing and someone with years experience.

    The only way to give both an appropriate challenge, is to give them a different challenge. The game has three difficulty levels that should exist for that purpose, if only everything wasn't hopelessly skewed in favor of everyone running Advanced.
  • themadprofessor#9835 themadprofessor Member Posts: 1,203 Arc User
    edited November 2018
    > @spiritborn said:
    > qqqqii wrote: »
    >
    > sophlogimo wrote: »
    >
    > Haven't noticed anything consciously, no. But if it's true, all the better! Will make the game a lot more interesting on the long run.
    >
    >
    >
    > If I wanted to get one-shot by a single photon torpedo, I'd go looking for it in an Elite queue... not a "normal", where it happened, repeatedly. If you want that level of "challenge", that's where you go. Making the game even more aggravating than it already is, with it's long list of recurring bugs, including scaling issues, doesn't make the game more interesting, just broken.
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > Never had single photon 1 shot me in STO content, Torp abilities like "torp volley" or "torp high yield" sure but never a single base torp, not even on my reman or klingon character who run raiders and yes I've ran elite content with those, fairly recently too.

    I have, but only when doing a mission with a level 60 friend while I was a level 9. I was getting one-shotted by BoP turrets because they were scaled to a level 60 threat.

    Stupid move on my part, really.
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