#3: People are already min/maxing a specific build to exploit the existing score system. What's the difference if they're min.maxing healboats, versus the present min/maxing for DPS, except possibly that it's significantly easier to min/max DPS?
As someone who has "made an effort" to get the first place trophy in CC on every character, I don't think it'd be good for the game overall if that applied to the actual TFO rewards.
if there are more than one way to 'score' rewards, and they're spread out enough that no single person can rack them all up by him or her self, do get where I'm going with this? in such a system, the only way to lose, the only way to be a Loser, is not to play (aka turning AFK from a winning to a losing strategy).
that means shifting from "Showed up so got the same reward as the guy carrying the team" to a system that only rewards if you put forth the effort.
And you're forgetting that it's not about "effort" it's about gaming the scoreboard system. That requires you to tailor your build around it.
it's more difficult to game a scoreboard that requires active input and effort, than to game a scoreboard that rewards passivity.
Ok... what change do you think should be made to accomplish that?
I'm not sure what is more trolling, the guys who leave cause they don't like the instance or the people who sign up for advanced only to get pulled trough by others. Also its Cryptics fault for not making the TRIBBLE tfo's so unrewarding that people don't want to waste 10-15 mins for 30 marks.
C-Store Inc. is still looking for active members on the fed side. If you don't have a fleet feel free to contact me in game @stegi.
i alt f4 when the team can't do any damage or stay alive, im not wasting my time anymore, last time i did that i was in a ISA for almost 40 mins, nope not again, if you don't like me bailing on a mission then build for the mission, TFO's are not for noobs, even normal ones, you get your story gear first then think about tfo's you got battlezones to grind up in so stay the hell out of TFO's.
Your calling other people "noobs" would have more weight behind it if you didn't first admit it takes you 40 minutes to solo ISA.
Hahahaha touche
C-Store Inc. is still looking for active members on the fed side. If you don't have a fleet feel free to contact me in game @stegi.
One thing I would like to see added to RTFO's is if someone leaves during a TFO to add a new player(s) to the group to fill out the roster (WoW does this).
I was in a borg ground TFO and 2 people left and the 3 of us carried on only to be stopped because 2 people (3rd had to drop the shields elsewhere) just didn't produce enough dps to destroy the thingy. If the TFO code brought in 2 more people we could of finished it. Instead the 3 of us wasted a lot of time, which as you know is frustrating.
I know right!? The game doesn't know how to autobalance for when players leave.
As someone who used to do some AI editing i can tell you that is easier said than done.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Unless you got the time and the patience to detangle years old code from new code... something or other will break every once in a while.
You at least gotta give them credit for the work they do. Coding ain't easy. I may have only tried to program a simple microcontroller to alternate two LED lights... but it was not easy to get them to do that. Now add in the complexity of what we got in game... yikes.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
Not everyone is a troll. Some people do rage quit in a TFO I had one person yelling in one once and left.
Suggestion though. If someone leaves team it would be cool to re queue up to find a replacement person/s. Cause trying to do TFO's 2-3 people is really hard to do on advanced mode. When most enemy ships can 1-2 or 3 shot you.
Just my 2 cents worth of suggestion.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,667Community Moderator
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
Look at how your scoreboard, or reward system is currently structured, then toss it out, because it encourages passive play/aFK behaviors.
structure it like this:
Kills: X marks/Dil per individual kill.
Assists: X times 75% per assist on a kill. (both of you fire, both get 75% of the value regardless as long as both hit.)Debuffs cast will count as assists. (if you do the math, some of this may end up scoring MORE than the guys getting outright kills solo.)
Buffs: 50% of X for applying buffs-to other players who get kills or assists. (basically, tossing a buff onto another player during combat can get you fifty percent of their kill-value. this does not apply to self-buffing.)Buffs only worth points when applied to other players.
Heals: number-of-points restored times a fraction, but only for heals applied to other players (the more damage you heal on someone else the more your percentage goes up.) Heals are only worth points when applied to other players.
Mission Objectives: X value (Same as a kill) no fraction on assists. (this goes to your klikky bits like powering ships or closing portals.) Alternately, multiply mission objectives times X for mark values.
Total at the end of the mission per player. No 'guaranteed payouts', no consolation prizes. if you didn't do anything, you don't get anything.
as in nada, no "AFK penalty" needed, afk just doesn't get anything for the time they spent sitting in spawn.
The point is, selfish actions (self-buffing) aren't worth anything unless you're getting kills or adding your fire to assist in getting kills, self-healing only keeps you alive, it doesn't add to your score total or rewards...but, healing and aiding others on your team DO, which means you have to be in range TO do that, as opposed to camping the spawn and waiting the clock out.
active as opposed to passive, Co-op oriented, as opposed to self-oriented. (for instance, to get the heal points, someone has to be taking damage, to get the buff points someone else needs to be using it, and so on.)
Sounds like an ok scoring system, but.... is it better? Especially when you consider that this sort of score disparity is NORMAL:
This sample is from NW, since that game has itemized scoreboards. Same principle in STO though.
We stopped after completing the bronze stage because Ticket kept whining about how hard the enemies were beating the stuffing out of him... even though he didn't get KOed, he wasn't even the guy taking the most damage.
But, as you can see, Althes did more damage than everyone else on the team put together.
Psychokiller was the tank. Me? I 'm allergic to taking damage. It's like that Daffy Duck quote...
Obviously Camavoree was the healer, since the rest of us put together healed less than half that. That includes healing from items used and not just powers. 16k is actually not much healing. High level health potions can give you 8k HP.
The point to which I am eventually making my way. Would someone like Ticket bother queuing if he knew he was getting a fraction of the rewards the rest of us did?
For every Ticket who you mention, there are dozens who would queue up for the chance of improving their standings, their skill, for what points they can... the problem is, if your system serves only the Tickets, you lose a lot of the middle range players and wind up with empty queues, trolling, AFK's, all the problems we actually see right now.
"The Tickets"... I see you didn't bother asking yourself WHY Ticket was whining about getting the TRIBBLE kicked out of him. Was it because he was a bad player or was it because he was the lowest level player on the team, and knew just what level of beating the team would have to endure to actually finish the queue?
You see, to me, someone who is behaving as you describe, likely should either seek to improve himself, or leave, but he should NOT be the primary focus of development-when you develop and reward for the lowest-common-denominator, that is the kind of playerbase you will have-and they will complain endlessly.
You didn't pay attention to the concept of Gold/Silver/Bronze did you? We stopped after earning the Bronze reward, obtaining the Gold reward IS a motivation to try harder in and of itself. If you're using powerful enough characters, it's more a matter of continuing the massacre of poor dumb shlubs than a "proper" challenge. For example; If we'd had a second player like Althes instead of Ticket.
and we can't have that, which is how and why the PvP exploit in season 7 happened, and the 'fix' of gutting rewards from PvP happened in response. a Merit based system, where AFK or blatant surrenders (Mercy killings really) are not rewarded, was what the then-extant PvP community had asked for, and were denied. Now, the problem that was there, has spread to PvE, and again, it will be denied if they even hear the request at all.
Right, instead they will give use Core Assault V2.0 and we will "LIKE IT". Seriously... you want meaningful PvP? Core Assault is meaningful PvP.
For every Ticket who you mention, there are dozens who would queue up for the chance of improving their standings, their skill, for what points they can... the problem is, if your system serves only the Tickets, you lose a lot of the middle range players and wind up with empty queues, trolling, AFK's, all the problems we actually see right now.
"The Tickets"... I see you didn't bother asking yourself WHY Ticket was whining about getting the TRIBBLE kicked out of him. Was it because he was a bad player or was it because he was the lowest level player on the team, and knew just what level of beating the team would have to endure to actually finish the queue?
You see, to me, someone who is behaving as you describe, likely should either seek to improve himself, or leave, but he should NOT be the primary focus of development-when you develop and reward for the lowest-common-denominator, that is the kind of playerbase you will have-and they will complain endlessly.
You didn't pay attention to the concept of Gold/Silver/Bronze did you? We stopped after earning the Bronze reward, obtaining the Gold reward IS a motivation to try harder in and of itself. If you're using powerful enough characters, it's more a matter of continuing the massacre of poor dumb shlubs than a "proper" challenge. For example; If we'd had a second player like Althes instead of Ticket.
and we can't have that, which is how and why the PvP exploit in season 7 happened, and the 'fix' of gutting rewards from PvP happened in response. a Merit based system, where AFK or blatant surrenders (Mercy killings really) are not rewarded, was what the then-extant PvP community had asked for, and were denied. Now, the problem that was there, has spread to PvE, and again, it will be denied if they even hear the request at all.
Right, instead they will give use Core Assault V2.0 and we will "LIKE IT". Seriously... you want meaningful PvP? Core Assault is meaningful PvP.
TBH to this day it eludes me why the competitive queues are not a part of the random TFO
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
a move away from the catering to the selfish mindset is a step in the right direction for changing it, and for bringing the wayward and discouraged back to the game.
While I like your ideas of changing the way the system doles out rewards, because it suits my style of play, I don't think the basic problem - People Behaving Like Jerks Just Because They Can - is something that can be addressed by altering the code of a game. It needs to be addressed by the gaming community as a whole, and it needs to be addressed in-game, as it happens. If someone leaves a TFO, those who don't want this kind of behaviour have to take a few seconds to assure those left behind that *we* will stay and help. And back that statement up with actually helping others to enjoy the TFO, and forget about our rewards for a while. I was once in a Borg run, where one player with vastly superior skills, gear and experience directed the whole thing via commands given through chat - "attack X", "leave Y", "no grav well". A proper teamleader. We need more people like that.
Particularly in light of the coming loss of yet-another-unique feature of STO in the loss of Foundry. We've lost Exploration, Gateway, and now Foundry. many formerly active fleets are empty or abandoned, social zones are anything but, Roleplay is nearly nonexistent, you can only repeat story missions so many times before becoming sick of them, and queues are addressed on a time/reward basis by players as if they were onerous and disgusting tasks, rather than being voluntary content.
Different people want different things in a game. For some, it's all about the gear, for others it's all about "owning" someone and doing a little dance to show off afterwards. Others still, they want social interaction, roleplay, and cooperation. I used to be a GM back before MMOs existed, back when it was all pen & paper, and I've also been a community manager when the anonymity of the net first allowed people to embrace their inner jerk... I don't envy any dev who needs to come up with a solution for all those different player needs, in an anonymous environment, and in such a way that doesn't hurt company profits.
I have another idea: There are tons of resources for min-maxing builds, increasing DPS and grinding the system out there. Perhaps it's time for similar resources about how to cooperate and be a edit:good player? If the TFO Trolls can rise, perhaps the TFO Angels should rise as well?
i alt f4 when the team can't do any damage or stay alive, im not wasting my time anymore, last time i did that i was in a ISA for almost 40 mins, nope not again, if you don't like me bailing on a mission then build for the mission, TFO's are not for noobs, even normal ones, you get your story gear first then think about tfo's you got battlezones to grind up in so stay the hell out of TFO's.
Your calling other people "noobs" would have more weight behind it if you didn't first admit it takes you 40 minutes to solo ISA.
this shows ur likely one of the cookie cutter antiproton builds that I don't like playing with. I can crank out 50-60k on a plasma build, and that's enough. what's more fun is that its my build not someone elses build i pulled off a website because im not creative enough to come up with my own build. Nobody should have to solo an isa, and I wouldn't even want to try. I don't want to plow through it in seconds either because that's not fun. I play the game to kill time, so, there's that. if someone can solo an ISA at all the last thing you should be doing is insulting them for it. heck, you should be congratulating them.
your attitude here is what I don't like about a lot of the super high dpsers - you have taken on the unhelpful "you aren't good enough" attitude without offering advice/help.
i alt f4 when the team can't do any damage or stay alive, im not wasting my time anymore, last time i did that i was in a ISA for almost 40 mins, nope not again, if you don't like me bailing on a mission then build for the mission, TFO's are not for noobs, even normal ones, you get your story gear first then think about tfo's you got battlezones to grind up in so stay the hell out of TFO's.
Your calling other people "noobs" would have more weight behind it if you didn't first admit it takes you 40 minutes to solo ISA.
this shows ur likely one of the cookie cutter antiproton builds that I don't like playing with. I can crank out 50-60k on a plasma build, and that's enough. what's more fun is that its my build not someone elses build i pulled off a website because im not creative enough to come up with my own build. Nobody should have to solo an isa, and I wouldn't even want to try. I don't want to plow through it in seconds either because that's not fun. I play the game to kill time, so, there's that. if someone can solo an ISA at all the last thing you should be doing is insulting them for it. heck, you should be congratulating them.
your attitude here is what I don't like about a lot of the super high dpsers - you have taken on the unhelpful "you aren't good enough" attitude without offering advice/help.
AP hasn't been the best energy type to go in ages, best at the moment are phasers and disruptors IIRC
they require 10 people and RTFO is only for 5-man TFOs.
Should be easy to circumvent though.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Look at how your scoreboard, or reward system is currently structured, then toss it out, because it encourages passive play/aFK behaviors.
structure it like this:
Kills: X marks/Dil per individual kill.
Assists: X times 75% per assist on a kill. (both of you fire, both get 75% of the value regardless as long as both hit.)Debuffs cast will count as assists. (if you do the math, some of this may end up scoring MORE than the guys getting outright kills solo.)
Buffs: 50% of X for applying buffs-to other players who get kills or assists. (basically, tossing a buff onto another player during combat can get you fifty percent of their kill-value. this does not apply to self-buffing.)Buffs only worth points when applied to other players.
Heals: number-of-points restored times a fraction, but only for heals applied to other players (the more damage you heal on someone else the more your percentage goes up.) Heals are only worth points when applied to other players.
Mission Objectives: X value (Same as a kill) no fraction on assists. (this goes to your klikky bits like powering ships or closing portals.) Alternately, multiply mission objectives times X for mark values.
Total at the end of the mission per player. No 'guaranteed payouts', no consolation prizes. if you didn't do anything, you don't get anything.
as in nada, no "AFK penalty" needed, afk just doesn't get anything for the time they spent sitting in spawn.
The point is, selfish actions (self-buffing) aren't worth anything unless you're getting kills or adding your fire to assist in getting kills, self-healing only keeps you alive, it doesn't add to your score total or rewards...but, healing and aiding others on your team DO, which means you have to be in range TO do that, as opposed to camping the spawn and waiting the clock out.
active as opposed to passive, Co-op oriented, as opposed to self-oriented. (for instance, to get the heal points, someone has to be taking damage, to get the buff points someone else needs to be using it, and so on.)
Sounds like an ok scoring system, but.... is it better? Especially when you consider that this sort of score disparity is NORMAL:
This sample is from NW, since that game has itemized scoreboards. Same principle in STO though.
We stopped after completing the bronze stage because Ticket kept whining about how hard the enemies were beating the stuffing out of him... even though he didn't get KOed, he wasn't even the guy taking the most damage.
But, as you can see, Althes did more damage than everyone else on the team put together.
Psychokiller was the tank. Me? I 'm allergic to taking damage. It's like that Daffy Duck quote...
Obviously Camavoree was the healer, since the rest of us put together healed less than half that. That includes healing from items used and not just powers. 16k is actually not much healing. High level health potions can give you 8k HP.
The point to which I am eventually making my way. Would someone like Ticket bother queuing if he knew he was getting a fraction of the rewards the rest of us did?
For every Ticket who you mention, there are dozens who would queue up for the chance of improving their standings, their skill, for what points they can... the problem is, if your system serves only the Tickets, you lose a lot of the middle range players and wind up with empty queues, trolling, AFK's, all the problems we actually see right now. the difference being, that we're dealing with a toxified community, because the developers played to the Tickets of the world, then had to institute things like time-gates and delays in content, hamstrung and generally un-fun queue design, and a steadily narrowing player/payer base.
I'm not saying "Shrinking", I'm saying "Narrowing". where the STO community was once diverse, and attractive and exciting, it has become a mixture of toxicities, apathy, and boredom combined with gray faced accountants moving a slider from left to right. the present system does not play on creating a need for social interaction, so players sulk with chat turned off, or spam garbage into it all too often, behaving exactly as the game treats them-as single players in a single-player game whom are denied something by those awful NPC's that are, in fact, other players.
By trying to desperately retain the Tickets of the world, in other words, this "MMO" has been turned into something that drives new players out or into seclusion to avoid OTHER PLAYERS.
we've basically got the same problems that PvP gankfest games have, only with a less friendly and helpful or even social playerbase, and this needs to change.
a move away from the catering to the selfish mindset is a step in the right direction for changing it, and for bringing the wayward and discouraged back to the game.
Particularly in light of the coming loss of yet-another-unique feature of STO in the loss of Foundry. We've lost Exploration, Gateway, and now Foundry. many formerly active fleets are empty or abandoned, social zones are anything but, Roleplay is nearly nonexistent, you can only repeat story missions so many times before becoming sick of them, and queues are addressed on a time/reward basis by players as if they were onerous and disgusting tasks, rather than being voluntary content.
Revamping the rewards as I've laid out, could give new life to the Advanced queues that already exist, and spark honest, genuine interest in queues that are more creative than "Kill x things in y time for z Rewards plus Timegates" where only the most familiar, simplest and most solo-oriented queues even get played outside of random.
You see, to me, someone who is behaving as you describe, likely should either seek to improve himself, or leave, but he should NOT be the primary focus of development-when you develop and reward for the lowest-common-denominator, that is the kind of playerbase you will have-and they will complain endlessly.
But there's nothing to fear here-the Developers would never in a million lifetimes adapt the kind of system I'm talking about-not at Cryptic Studios, at any rate, because it violates their core ethics by rewarding merit and effort and involvement over mere sullen attendance.
and we can't have that, which is how and why the PvP exploit in season 7 happened, and the 'fix' of gutting rewards from PvP happened in response. a Merit based system, where AFK or blatant surrenders (Mercy killings really) are not rewarded, was what the then-extant PvP community had asked for, and were denied. Now, the problem that was there, has spread to PvE, and again, it will be denied if they even hear the request at all.
Have you played with this player base at all? I get yelled at all the frakking time for being one of those "evil" DPSer in minefield and taking away the first place prize. And that is just some random purple gear worth nothing...and you want to make it so that would get even worse. I ain't the best DPS person around even. Hell I ain't even really a DPS player...I just know how to build ships as I understand systems. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that players like the Ticket is rare in this game and not the norm. Hell not even the norm...they are by far the VAST majority of the player base. What you suggest won't make them better players...it will drive them away. What is worse is that those players who are good will also go away in the escalation between the average player in this game and those who know pretty much just the basics of gaming who gets called out for being an "evil": DPSer. Just look below for an example of this where somebody thinks that a 40 min ISA run is something to be proud about. My for fun ship that I use the most uses plasma and doesn't even remotely do the level of damage he claims and I can clear ISA alone in half that time in that ship. The only time I spent 40 min in ISA was when I was in a Valiant with common gear with two other players even WORSE than me. I would say our combined ISA DPS numbers would have been under 20k total. So we have players who on this board are proud of being bad at the game and thinks they deserve praise for something that is honestly super easy to achieve (because three players with common mark XII gear AND WORSE was able to do the same) and is lashing out at the "evil" DPSers...and you want to make this WORSE?
Just an FYI to shin, a 300k DPS team will clear ISA under 3 min. That means a TRUE 60k boat should be clearing that map alone in under 20 min. If you are getting that 60k for the best of the best carried run, you are looking at your actual DPS being around half that for a PUG. My for fun ship averages around 30-40k in PUG runs...with it spiking if I get one or two other not terrible players above that. And that ship can solo ISA in around 20 min. And I don't have super fancy gear...use plasma and I honestly suck at games. If you are taking 40 min to solo ISA in a 60k boat...you are doing something terribly wrong.
I wouldn't necessarily say the majority of STO players are the bad. Sure, Cryptic's anti-challenge attitude undoubtedly does put off significant number of more capable players, but I say the primary driver of the low average in STO has to do with effort rather than ability. Players don't take the time to improve their builds or learn to play better...because they don't have to. Why bother, when the majority of content can be won simply by showing up in whatever and doing whatever while the timer ticks down for the guaranteed reward? I know I don't put anywhere near as much thought into builds as I could.
That said, one thing the STO playerbase definitely does avoid like the plague is competition. Only need to look at the comprep queues and how many people dismiss them as "PvP" without even trying them. Nevermind the "losing" team still gets almost full reward there. Turning the queues into some kind of arcade high-score contest where only the highest DPS would get reward at all would surely drive players away. Even capable players.
Or encourage them to make 4 spare accounts to start queues with...alone.
The difference in Neverwinter, from what I remember from playing it when it first came out (I really do not know what is happening there now)....besides that scoreboard.....they have Gear Score.
In other words, I got locked out of queues and advancing to higher parts of the missions because I did not work to gain better gear. And I was required to complete lower level queues...which never popped for me, because no one was playing them. A lot of them were on clocks, I think, but I didn't know where or what time....if it didn't happen while I was on the game. I missed those, too.
Basically, it was rare that I could do those things....and that is where the better gear was. Which meant access to even higher gear, and gems, and all those token things...was locked away from me because I was not around the game enough. LOL!
(But that is not why I left the game...it was because of my vertigo. I was perfectly happy running around with my battle axe killing TRIBBLE mobs and hitting dragons or trolls in events and around the maps. Oh and the Pumpkin Hunts for Halloween.)
The problem STO has.....the loot drops stink unless you are scoring higher. IN other words, the players that NEED that gear, don't get it. And the players who could care less....rake it in. I can see the difference in loot drops when I play solo....and when I pair up with someone else.
(So, I guess, in some very infinitesimal way, the better players may be helping the more casual ones. But is trading to better gear from loot drops even talked about in this game....not really in a positive way.)
AND the other problem with STO.....there is a mix of players with a chasm of EVERYTHING between them (level, rep, specialization, gear, traits.....etc..).
I don't think playing to get points to fill in bars is working. Players want to play. "OH I need to spend time on Chores".....not so much.
++++++++++++++++++
ISA in 20 mins or ISA in 40 mins.....Does it matter that much?
Are you having fun doing it? Yes? No?
Because they mix everyone up so much in the queues....you will keep running into this difference in scale.
Can you handle it gracefully? It doesn't sound like any of the players can. Or want to.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
The problem STO has.....the loot drops stink unless you are scoring higher. IN other words, the players that NEED that gear, don't get it. And the players who could care less....rake it in. I can see the difference in loot drops when I play solo....and when I pair up with someone else.
The only drops in STO that are based on "score" are generic vendor trash worth a few EC/salvage. Nobody needs it anymore than anyone else.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Comments
My character Tsin'xing
Hahahaha touche
As someone who used to do some AI editing i can tell you that is easier said than done.
Unless you got the time and the patience to detangle years old code from new code... something or other will break every once in a while.
You at least gotta give them credit for the work they do. Coding ain't easy. I may have only tried to program a simple microcontroller to alternate two LED lights... but it was not easy to get them to do that. Now add in the complexity of what we got in game... yikes.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
Suggestion though. If someone leaves team it would be cool to re queue up to find a replacement person/s. Cause trying to do TFO's 2-3 people is really hard to do on advanced mode. When most enemy ships can 1-2 or 3 shot you.
Just my 2 cents worth of suggestion.
Well... I guess that's better than having them just stop helping and insulting you for the entire run until it finishes...
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
This sample is from NW, since that game has itemized scoreboards. Same principle in STO though.
We stopped after completing the bronze stage because Ticket kept whining about how hard the enemies were beating the stuffing out of him... even though he didn't get KOed, he wasn't even the guy taking the most damage.
But, as you can see, Althes did more damage than everyone else on the team put together.
Psychokiller was the tank. Me? I 'm allergic to taking damage. It's like that Daffy Duck quote...
Obviously Camavoree was the healer, since the rest of us put together healed less than half that. That includes healing from items used and not just powers. 16k is actually not much healing. High level health potions can give you 8k HP.
The point to which I am eventually making my way. Would someone like Ticket bother queuing if he knew he was getting a fraction of the rewards the rest of us did?
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing
TBH to this day it eludes me why the competitive queues are not a part of the random TFO
While I like your ideas of changing the way the system doles out rewards, because it suits my style of play, I don't think the basic problem - People Behaving Like Jerks Just Because They Can - is something that can be addressed by altering the code of a game. It needs to be addressed by the gaming community as a whole, and it needs to be addressed in-game, as it happens. If someone leaves a TFO, those who don't want this kind of behaviour have to take a few seconds to assure those left behind that *we* will stay and help. And back that statement up with actually helping others to enjoy the TFO, and forget about our rewards for a while. I was once in a Borg run, where one player with vastly superior skills, gear and experience directed the whole thing via commands given through chat - "attack X", "leave Y", "no grav well". A proper teamleader. We need more people like that.
Different people want different things in a game. For some, it's all about the gear, for others it's all about "owning" someone and doing a little dance to show off afterwards. Others still, they want social interaction, roleplay, and cooperation. I used to be a GM back before MMOs existed, back when it was all pen & paper, and I've also been a community manager when the anonymity of the net first allowed people to embrace their inner jerk... I don't envy any dev who needs to come up with a solution for all those different player needs, in an anonymous environment, and in such a way that doesn't hurt company profits.
I have another idea: There are tons of resources for min-maxing builds, increasing DPS and grinding the system out there. Perhaps it's time for similar resources about how to cooperate and be a edit:good player? If the TFO Trolls can rise, perhaps the TFO Angels should rise as well?
My character Tsin'xing
this shows ur likely one of the cookie cutter antiproton builds that I don't like playing with. I can crank out 50-60k on a plasma build, and that's enough. what's more fun is that its my build not someone elses build i pulled off a website because im not creative enough to come up with my own build. Nobody should have to solo an isa, and I wouldn't even want to try. I don't want to plow through it in seconds either because that's not fun. I play the game to kill time, so, there's that. if someone can solo an ISA at all the last thing you should be doing is insulting them for it. heck, you should be congratulating them.
your attitude here is what I don't like about a lot of the super high dpsers - you have taken on the unhelpful "you aren't good enough" attitude without offering advice/help.
AP hasn't been the best energy type to go in ages, best at the moment are phasers and disruptors IIRC
Should be easy to circumvent though.
That said, one thing the STO playerbase definitely does avoid like the plague is competition. Only need to look at the comprep queues and how many people dismiss them as "PvP" without even trying them. Nevermind the "losing" team still gets almost full reward there. Turning the queues into some kind of arcade high-score contest where only the highest DPS would get reward at all would surely drive players away. Even capable players.
Or encourage them to make 4 spare accounts to start queues with...alone.
In other words, I got locked out of queues and advancing to higher parts of the missions because I did not work to gain better gear. And I was required to complete lower level queues...which never popped for me, because no one was playing them. A lot of them were on clocks, I think, but I didn't know where or what time....if it didn't happen while I was on the game. I missed those, too.
Basically, it was rare that I could do those things....and that is where the better gear was. Which meant access to even higher gear, and gems, and all those token things...was locked away from me because I was not around the game enough. LOL!
(But that is not why I left the game...it was because of my vertigo. I was perfectly happy running around with my battle axe killing TRIBBLE mobs and hitting dragons or trolls in events and around the maps. Oh and the Pumpkin Hunts for Halloween.)
The problem STO has.....the loot drops stink unless you are scoring higher. IN other words, the players that NEED that gear, don't get it. And the players who could care less....rake it in. I can see the difference in loot drops when I play solo....and when I pair up with someone else.
(So, I guess, in some very infinitesimal way, the better players may be helping the more casual ones. But is trading to better gear from loot drops even talked about in this game....not really in a positive way.)
AND the other problem with STO.....there is a mix of players with a chasm of EVERYTHING between them (level, rep, specialization, gear, traits.....etc..).
I don't think playing to get points to fill in bars is working. Players want to play. "OH I need to spend time on Chores".....not so much.
++++++++++++++++++
ISA in 20 mins or ISA in 40 mins.....Does it matter that much?
Are you having fun doing it? Yes? No?
Because they mix everyone up so much in the queues....you will keep running into this difference in scale.
Can you handle it gracefully? It doesn't sound like any of the players can. Or want to.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'