DPS chasers insta-vaping everything DOES hamper the average player's ability to enjoy the game though, massively over-geared players soloing what should be group content often makes appropriately geared players think things like "Why am I even here? Why should I bother trying?". If I wanted to watch someone else kill stuff I'd go on Twitch, people who can destroy entire waves of enemies and even bosses before I manage to get even a single shot off do not belong in Normal difficulty queues at all. IMO events should not remove Advanced and Elite difficulties from the queues that are part of the event, and Random Elite queues should be an option as well.
First, I agree that advanced and elite difficulty should be available at all times and shouldn't be disabled purely because an event is going on. That's one thing I strongly disagreed with and made my opinions known about when it was done.
Now with that in mind, if you're going to make the assertion you did in the bolded section I highlighted above, I can just as easily assert the opposite. By that same token, people coming into content with subpar builds and damage output harm the ability of the team to complete the run and in some instances guarantee an instant fail because that guy isn't pulling his weight. I continue to point to Korfez as a prime example. That TFO requires everyone to pull a certain minimum amount of damage and be able to survive certain hits in order to progress. If the team can't hack it then it's an auto fail. Hypothetically speaking lets say it's 50k DPS just to quantify it for discussion. This means if everyone on that team can't pull 50k minimum, it will fail. If 4 of the guys are pulling that 50k, but the 5th guy is only doing 10k, that 5th guy has no right to be in there because he's harming the ability of the team to progress and enjoy the content in addition to not meeting the basic standards set by the game itself. So if you're going to make the assertion you did in bold, it cuts both ways. There's nothing wrong with expecting basic REASONABLE standards from people, which the game has set at 2% of the damage dealt in the entirety of the run. Even doing red alerts I have rarely seen people get an AFK from that. In fact I can count on one hand how many times in the average month I see someone legitimately earn an AFK penalty.
As I said before, the fun of people like the OP is not wrong. Likewise the fun of insta-vapers is not wrong. No one else in this game is responsible for your fun or that of anyone else. People like the OP and insta-vape players BOTH have the right to join random TFOs they have met the minimum requirements for. When I go into a run, I am not responsible for the enjoyment of the other 4 people on there. If that's now the standard, then by that logic should I have to stop using polarons on my Legend Galaxy because it breaks another guy's immersion on the team and his fun by seeing purple beams coming from the ship? If the non-insta vape players are going to say that the insta vape players shouldn't be allowed to do so much damage, then likewise I can say the non-insta vape players have no right to play anything above normal mode until they can hit 40k DPS, and if they never hit the 40k DPS then tough luck. It cuts both ways.
I generally stick to advanced or elite difficulty myself. Some days I like to push things on elite, and other days I just want to roll through things a bit easier and play on advanced. Simply because I have the ability to play on elite doesn't mean that's what I always want to do. Likewise when I play SWTOR, I am primarily a tank, yet sometimes I want to just blast things with lightning as a DPS.
Now I'm not opposed to higher tiers of difficulty being introduced as others have suggested. However I can tell you exactly how it's going to go. Let's say they introduce a new difficulty called Elite Plus. Alot of people are going to join this new difficulty even though they're clearly not ready for it, get stomped because they're not ready, then come on here demanding it be nerfed and saying it's too hard, which defeats the purpose of even adding the higher difficulty to start with, then we're right back to square one.
I think the best solution is just more incentives to play the harder content. Like, Korfez is one of the hardest queues you can ever due for a number of reasons, yet its very very rarely done. Why? There's not much reason to do it aside from just... the challenge of it. It doesn't offer anything unique aside from maybe an accolade or two over other queues.
And some old accolades don't even work anymore. Like, there once upon a time was accolades that unlocked a costume for completing the optionals for the Borg Queues on Elite difficulty. Now? Those accolades were never updated to work for the Modern Elites after the difficulty was expanded to include advanced. Even then that's only a one time reward but atleast its something.
I can tell you part of why it doesn't pop. For the longest time it had an issue where the final boss was bugged out and the resists on the boss were far far higher than they should be and you needed absurd amounts of armor pen and the like to even damage the boss. It took way too long to fix and that damage the reputation for TFO. On top of this Korfez also has a hefty DPS check at the start of the TFO. if your team doesn't bring their A game and wipe that first batch of enemies in a certain time, you will fail. Far too many times when I've gone into a random Korfez, I've been grouped with people who simply are not ready for that content and it auto fails.
I'm also not opposed to better rewards being offered. However I still see the scenario of people going into stuff they're not ready for, then complaining when they can't beat it being the norm that will happen. Folks can call me pessimistic if they want and maybe I am. I've seen it happen so many times in other games that maybe it has left me a little jaded, I won't deny that. However I still stand by those statements.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
DPS chasers insta-vaping everything DOES hamper the average player's ability to enjoy the game though, massively over-geared players soloing what should be group content often makes appropriately geared players think things like "Why am I even here? Why should I bother trying?". If I wanted to watch someone else kill stuff I'd go on Twitch, people who can destroy entire waves of enemies and even bosses before I manage to get even a single shot off do not belong in Normal difficulty queues at all. IMO events should not remove Advanced and Elite difficulties from the queues that are part of the event, and Random Elite queues should be an option as well.
First, I agree that advanced and elite difficulty should be available at all times and shouldn't be disabled purely because an event is going on. That's one thing I strongly disagreed with and made my opinions known about when it was done.
Now with that in mind, if you're going to make the assertion you did in the bolded section I highlighted above, I can just as easily assert the opposite. By that same token, people coming into content with subpar builds and damage output harm the ability of the team to complete the run and in some instances guarantee an instant fail because that guy isn't pulling his weight. I continue to point to Korfez as a prime example. That TFO requires everyone to pull a certain minimum amount of damage and be able to survive certain hits in order to progress. If the team can't hack it then it's an auto fail. Hypothetically speaking lets say it's 50k DPS just to quantify it for discussion. This means if everyone on that team can't pull 50k minimum, it will fail. If 4 of the guys are pulling that 50k, but the 5th guy is only doing 10k, that 5th guy has no right to be in there because he's harming the ability of the team to progress and enjoy the content in addition to not meeting the basic standards set by the game itself. So if you're going to make the assertion you did in bold, it cuts both ways. There's nothing wrong with expecting basic REASONABLE standards from people, which the game has set at 2% of the damage dealt in the entirety of the run. Even doing red alerts I have rarely seen people get an AFK from that. In fact I can count on one hand how many times in the average month I see someone legitimately earn an AFK penalty.
As I said before, the fun of people like the OP is not wrong. Likewise the fun of insta-vapers is not wrong. No one else in this game is responsible for your fun or that of anyone else. People like the OP and insta-vape players BOTH have the right to join random TFOs they have met the minimum requirements for. When I go into a run, I am not responsible for the enjoyment of the other 4 people on there. If that's now the standard, then by that logic should I have to stop using polarons on my Legend Galaxy because it breaks another guy's immersion on the team and his fun by seeing purple beams coming from the ship? If the non-insta vape players are going to say that the insta vape players shouldn't be allowed to do so much damage, then likewise I can say the non-insta vape players have no right to play anything above normal mode until they can hit 40k DPS, and if they never hit the 40k DPS then tough luck. It cuts both ways.
I generally stick to advanced or elite difficulty myself. Some days I like to push things on elite, and other days I just want to roll through things a bit easier and play on advanced. Simply because I have the ability to play on elite doesn't mean that's what I always want to do. Likewise when I play SWTOR, I am primarily a tank, yet sometimes I want to just blast things with lightning as a DPS.
Now I'm not opposed to higher tiers of difficulty being introduced as others have suggested. However I can tell you exactly how it's going to go. Let's say they introduce a new difficulty called Elite Plus. Alot of people are going to join this new difficulty even though they're clearly not ready for it, get stomped because they're not ready, then come on here demanding it be nerfed and saying it's too hard, which defeats the purpose of even adding the higher difficulty to start with, then we're right back to square one.
I think the best solution is just more incentives to play the harder content. Like, Korfez is one of the hardest queues you can ever due for a number of reasons, yet its very very rarely done. Why? There's not much reason to do it aside from just... the challenge of it. It doesn't offer anything unique aside from maybe an accolade or two over other queues.
And some old accolades don't even work anymore. Like, there once upon a time was accolades that unlocked a costume for completing the optionals for the Borg Queues on Elite difficulty. Now? Those accolades were never updated to work for the Modern Elites after the difficulty was expanded to include advanced. Even then that's only a one time reward but atleast its something.
I can tell you part of why it doesn't pop. For the longest time it had an issue where the final boss was bugged out and the resists on the boss were far far higher than they should be and you needed absurd amounts of armor pen and the like to even damage the boss. It took way too long to fix and that damage the reputation for TFO. On top of this Korfez also has a hefty DPS check at the start of the TFO. if your team doesn't bring their A game and wipe that first batch of enemies in a certain time, you will fail. Far too many times when I've gone into a random Korfez, I've been grouped with people who simply are not ready for that content and it auto fails.
I'm also not opposed to better rewards being offered. However I still see the scenario of people going into stuff they're not ready for, then complaining when they can't beat it being the norm that will happen. Folks can call me pessimistic if they want and maybe I am. I've seen it happen so many times in other games that maybe it has left me a little jaded, I won't deny that. However I still stand by those statements.
To be fair to people going into stuff they're not ready for, that already happens even now without additional incentives to do harder content. I still see people queuing even into the easiest content and somehow not being ready for it.
Adding more rewards or improving the rewards for harder content may make it more of an issue, but the issue already exists so I don't think it should stop something that would be overall good from being done, atleast personally.
By that same token, people coming into content with subpar builds and damage output harm the ability of the team to complete the run and in some instances guarantee an instant fail because that guy isn't pulling his weight.
Situations like that are why all MMOs should have a vote kick mechanic, I'll never understand why STO doesn't have one, but that's a whole different topic altogether.
As I said before, the fun of people like the OP is not wrong. Likewise the fun of insta-vapers is not wrong.
I didn't say ANYONE's fun was "wrong", what I was saying is that when one person is so massively over-geared that they Thanos-snap every enemy the second they warp in STO stops being a game for the other four players because all they can do is watch the explosions.
If the non-insta vape players are going to say that the insta vape players shouldn't be allowed to do so much damage
Personally I'd prefer a solution that involved encouraging higher DPS players to do the higher difficulties rather than putting a cap on DPS in lower difficulties, I just think you are far too quick to disregard the experience average players (those who ARE capable of contributing enough for the chosen difficulty) have when they are unlucky enough to get matched with someone who's using a build that could solo God.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,396Community Moderator
I still stand by my opinion, that one should "git gud" first, complain on the forum second.
Insta-vapers, as some people are called (we're calling names on this forum now) have invested time and energy for their performance and those people, who get an AFK penalty or low dps, did not (invest either time, nor energy).
I was a new player a few years ago and i've seen guys mop up maps even back then - so this isn't even a new "problem" (which it's not, get over it). This was over 7 years ago. Did you sleep till now?
Luckly my response wasn't "this can't be right, i have to start a campaign to stop it". Nope, i wen't to the drawing board and "gat gud".
There really is no right or wrong answer to this really. It's just a feature. Sort of like becoming an adult. It is going to happen because it has to happen. We all understand this is a business decision, and business will follow power. Because people will always pay for it. It's just the way it is. If power is a available and its within reach those that can reach it will reach for it.
I am definitely one of those players that would be considered problematic in this thread. I finish the 500K dps endeavors with one salvo of befaw. Literally, i just go to a tfo, turn on a few buffs and let a befaw rip and within that 10 second salvo i get my purple box and move on. So i am definitely in the higher echelons of dps. And from time to time I do view weaker players (not less skilled but weaker in terms of DPS) as newbies. It might be a mistake, but i don't really comprehend how anyone other then a new player cant make the red alert go down. And because of that view point I find myself white knighting them all the time which probably also sucks. But from my view I don't know if they are struggling or not, angry or not, relieved or not. I just see it mainly as, make the line go up and the red go down. And when i leave them alone and assume they got it, and then that hole they were filling becomes over run because they fell.
So there's a good chance i may have absolutely ruined the games and runs of alot of players without intending to. But I don't think i will stop because it harms the run for a person to struggle with making the red go down.
It's not a E-peen or a git gud thing, because it's not possible. You either are or you are not. You either have or you have not. sO telling a person to get better doesn't really make sense unless you are going to provide them with resources to do that. But also telling a person to dial back doesn't make sense because they have the resources to do it and it doesn't harm a person physically, but emotionally. And that's fine in a game. you get over it when the instance is over. But is that not a natural response to gaming? Kill everything and move on? I mean isn't that the point of star trek? Being hero's in hero ships? Saving other ships from destruction?
Granted I don't play anything under elite or advanced unless it's the event, then my apologies to the people in defend starbase one. but still.
Also, a lot of people have to realize, we made the game this way. I remember when i couldn't even fathom fighting a borg tac cube alone. Then players complained and now i can solo 4-5-6 in an escort. I feel that's funny when i look back on it. I don't remember anything other then that. Dying to the borg invisible torp. Those were the best days. Days i still do blame the community for stealing from me. Not really sure if its something to be sad about or not. Because I do feel if it had stayed the same, the vaping in this game would be even worse and more spread out because more players would have to participate in the standard, but i as a personal aside, would like to die on the field again. Oh, i guess i disproved my thesis just then and kinda too lazy to go back and edit or delete. well, is what it is. I guess we're all captains that way, looking to be alive in a fight to the death. So i guess i should leave people to their deaths, because it really is a good day to die and whom am I to steal these memories from them.
I can't join the anti-vaper coalition because it doesn't make sense to destroy the viability of the game to preserve the personal sensibility and spirit of the game, but i as a vaper will def not interfere with the memories players have yet to form. So thats that.
Even today, I had the following situation: got random-ed into a team, that couldn't get past a single rift in the undine assault TFO. So i went ahead and and cleared em all. It took more, than 30 seconds, trust me. If I wasn't present in the map, those people would still be playing that mission, as I write this post. And get the lowest mark payout (cause that mission actualy rewards quick completition, imagine that). Same can be said for gravity kills, where a weak team, without a strong dps-er can't do the mission on time to get all the mark bonuses. Did you ever play dranuur gauntlet? That map is saved countless times by a insta-vaper, because the majority of players can't handle the more chalanging enemys. And yes, it matters again, because you get far worse mark payouts, if you fail to protect the stations. Do i need to go on? Or do you see now, how pointless this whole thread is.
Honestly mate, i feel you're being a little aggressive with your remarks. None of my observations have been directed at you personally. If you feel that way, i can only speculate that you have misunderstood or misinterpreted my original post. Or my second post.
Though i do appreciate your opinion on this. I hope you understand that this is not about you personally, this about "the bigger picture". The long term effects of power creep and the widening skill gap on the long term morale of the community as a whole.
I use the term "instakillers" because it is a very accurate and easy to remember description of the way some players are able to "instantly kill" things in game.
My apologies if i have not made myself clear enough. I'm just voicing my concerns about a visible issue in a game i've enjoyed playing since 2012.
This is not about unprepared players on a too high difficulty level. It's about players with enough skill and ability to play well, being left out of gameplay by people who insist on soloing group content without thinking about the rest of the team in TFO's or the other players in a battlezone instance.
Does the ability to instantly vaporize everything in view, mean that it needs to be done, while excluding everyone else in the instance ?.
I have no idea, what your first post was about, but this one is pretty much insulting. You basicaly ask of people, who invested more time and resources into the game, to tailor their gameplay to those, who didn't. What you ask makes no sense, not in this game and not in real life either. Also your issue is the fact, that the builds gradualy progress over the years? Is the fact, that your suggestion of a dps cap would insta-frag this game, lost on you? I'm sorry for the "agression", but i'm not even sure if you're serious or just trolling at this point.
I have no idea, what your first post was about, but this one is pretty much insulting. You basicaly ask of people, who invested more time and resources into the game, to tailor their gameplay to those, who didn't. What you ask makes no sense, not in this game and not in real life either. Also your issue is the fact, that the builds gradualy progress over the years? Is the fact, that your suggestion of a dps cap would insta-frag this game, lost on you? I'm sorry for the "agression", but i'm not even sure if you're serious or just trolling at this point.
Sorry mate, but it's clear that you have misunderstood this discussion entirely and have no intention of finding out what it is about. Until you do, i won't bother replying to you again.
This discussion is not compulsory, you don't have to be here if you don't like the conversation.
Alright. Again, I'm going to have to ask y'all to calm down and stop sniping at each other. Otherwise, I will have to close this thread.
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I still stand by my opinion, that one should "git gud" first, complain on the forum second.
Preaching for everyone to "git gud" is not really a sustainable solution. Again, were everyone to be doing 600K+ DPS in content that is in no way designed for that, there is no challenge to the game and Cryptic may as well just hand out rewards for doing nothing.
I think a better question to be asking is if you invested so much time and effort into your high DPS build, why are you still running content on advanced level instead of elite? Were elite TFOs added into the random pool, would you queue for elite content only?
Part of the problem is perhaps some people are a little out of touch with how bad DPS power creep has got. As they are not looking at DPS logs they are not aware of just how high the creep has got.
Hopefully this isn't taken the wrong way. This is not aimed at anyone. What I am trying to say, like you are that 600k isn't even high anymore. 600k is not a high end build or a nannie run. 1 million isn't even anything special anymore.
The way I see it EDIT: based on veteran players.
10k to 20k your into ground DPS no one in space should be doing this low DPS.
100k is the equivalent of a single hanger pet level of DPS. (High level pet)
200k is the equivalent of 1 hangar bay worth of DPS.
400k is 2 hangar bays worth of DPS
600k to 1 million is an every day general build with a good tank.
1+ million is a high end build
2 to 2.5 million is the special pre made group runs with nannies.
That's how bad power creep has got and the problem is content is designed around 120k DPS per player at Elite level.
Or to put it another way. Ground builds now do enough DPS to enter the Bronze DPS space runs and hanger pets enter the Gold runs. Let alone talking space magic or main weapons which even a every day tank build can pass the Dimond requirements.
I'm half with OP here, in that power creep is a tad excessive nowadays. I mean being able to solo ISA+ should really be a fight, not sneeze and win, but that's me, I love a proper fight.
And high DPS doesn't necessarily mean you've gotten 'gud' either. Copying a build and a macro on your space bar to pump out 1 mill DPS does not equal skill. But that does not mean people should be obligated to copy a build off the net just to make someone's epeen glow.
I've never looked at a guide, never will, because I learned the long-way round over the decade+ I've been playing. Folk have different interpretations of fun, and provided it's with the TOS and not an exploit, leave them be....regardless of high or low DPS.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
From a game designer stand point (i used to work in the game industry a long time ago), the quick solution to keep the DPS folks happy, and the casual players happy would be to do the following...at least in my eyes.
1: The Omega Reputation or "The Borg One". It's one of if not the first reputation that people work through. From Tier 1 until completion of Tier 5 the character is locked to "Normal" TFO's for Borg. Upon completion of Tier 5 you are locked OUT of Normal and can only do Advanced. Upon completion of Tier 6 you can unlock Elite.
2: ALL major TFO's should have an "Elite" option added to queue and random
3: ...and this is the road i would go go down LAST. Talk to the major DPS groups. Ask them what they would want to see in a "standard" and "advanced" DPS testing zone map. A dedicated, purpose made map of mobs and structures that, upon completion of Tier 6 of Omega, people get access to. If "Normal" players queue up for these maps, a big warning sign pops up saying that this is a "Testing Simulation", and if their ship is not prepared adequately they will be removed, kind of like a current timeline version of the kobayashi maru test then award 4000 refined Dil every week to the top 3 DPS players who took part in ONE of the testing maps of their choice....which leads on to point 4...
4: A built in DPS meter in the client that is "Off" as standard but can be switched on in options. It will have basic drill down stats after the battle like who done how much damage, what done the damage...that kinda stuff.
Putting the above 4 things into the current game would avoid capping, avoid restricting, take only a few days work for the devs and would keep most (but not all) people happy. It would also mean that new players and casual players would see the "DPS maps" showing up, and winder what they are all about, and some of them might even consider going down the upgrade path to take part in them.
"You know when that shark bites, with its teeth dear... scarlet billows start to spread..."
I'm half with OP here, in that power creep is a tad excessive nowadays. I mean being able to solo ISA+ should really be a fight, not sneeze and win, but that's me, I love a proper fight.
And high DPS doesn't necessarily mean you've gotten 'gud' either. Copying a build and a macro on your space bar to pump out 1 mill DPS does not equal skill. But that does not mean people should be obligated to copy a build off the net just to make someone's epeen glow.
I've never looked at a guide, never will, because I learned the long-way round over the decade+ I've been playing. Folk have different interpretations of fun, and provided it's with the TOS and not an exploit, leave them be....regardless of high or low DPS.
Very well said. The problem with 'git gud' or spend copious amounts of cash to 'git gud' is that many of us don't HAVE copious amounds of cash.
Doesn't mean we aren't gud with what we got, we are. We can hold our own as long as there isn't some million-DPS boat in there vaping everything without giving the rest of us a chance to at least get a shot in.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
1: The Omega Reputation or "The Borg One". It's one of if not the first reputation that people work through. From Tier 1 until completion of Tier 5 the character is locked to "Normal" TFO's for Borg. Upon completion of Tier 5 you are locked OUT of Normal and can only do Advanced. Upon completion of Tier 6 you can unlock Elite.
Issue here is that so many Events award boxes of Rep marks on completion that you can easily reach level 5 in any of the Reps without doing their particular TFOs. I've run Borg-specific TFOs only when required for Events, especially the Event Campaigns, but I have level 5 in Omega Rep on several toons, and level 6 on two of them (eventually I realized the rewards for getting there weren't as useful for me as the resources spent doing so). I might - might - be able to keep up in an Advanced run, but my builds aren't nearly specialized enough for either my main or Tovan Khev to be useful in Elite content.
Also, in point 3, how would the system determine what is "adequate" preparation? We've got more energy-weapon types than there are actual particles to convey the energy, at least seven different kinds of torpedoes, enough consoles to choke a Dovalian space horse, and of course there's actual skill (my own choke point). "Gear score" turns out to be little more than an epeen buffer in the games where it's used, and our levels top out at 65, so what's the metric?
Also, in point 3, how would the system determine what is "adequate" preparation? We've got more energy-weapon types than there are actual particles to convey the energy, at least seven different kinds of torpedoes, enough consoles to choke a Dovalian space horse, and of course there's actual skill (my own choke point). "Gear score" turns out to be little more than an epeen buffer in the games where it's used, and our levels top out at 65, so what's the metric?
The metric would be taken from point 4, the built in DPS meter. If you aint doing enough sustained damage over a period of time you are automatically warped out of the map
"You know when that shark bites, with its teeth dear... scarlet billows start to spread..."
1. lock out untill all reputations are at tier 5 and one at tier 6. Elite when all are at 6.
2. No objections.
3. Not many if any major DPS groups active atm (AFAIK!).
4. DPS meter would promote DPS chasing even more and we see, that people can't even handle the current state of things.
That being said, it's highly unlikely, that such changes will be made anytime soon - if ever. The random elite ques are an object of public desire for a long time now. We also have a DPS test map on the tribble test server, which for some reason doesnt get carried over to the main server. I've heard there was a DPS meter, but did poorly and put out misleading numbers (???). And btw, capping and restricting is out of the question (a wet dream, a green dragon, a white rabbit, whatever you want) and that's not just my personal opinion, but a clear fact, since higher performance drives sales more than anything else. A single high performance trait (from d7 mw fdc) generates around 150 bucks for the devs.
People play TFOs mainly to generate marks, marks are used to fuel the projects. If you don't need to do projects, you don't need marks and there is other content to play. It's not even about the gear and traits, but to prepare one for the advanced content, by making him play normal content first. He presented this idea very clearly and there is strong logic behind it. Sadly you and the OP see only your ludicrous solution of damage capping and some kind of reserved gameplay, if one is presented with a team of slow players in a random tfo.
Let's close this one, it's going nowhere.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,396Community Moderator
I would also like to point out in point 1 that Event TFOs tend to drop down to normal difficulty so that EVERYONE can participate. Locking people out of Normal essentially locks players out of an Event associated with those particular TFOs.
Yes, people have many reasons, but the main reason is to generate marks, which are obviously the reward of a tfo. Generating marks without taking advantage doesn't make any sense. Or maybe it does to a specific person, but that's realy his thing and nobody else should be bothered about it. Nobody is trying to lock out anybody, but it seems that people are struggling to achieve minimal damage req. to bypass an AFK penalty and that needs to stop. I see no better way, than to prepare them for the tough goal of doing that minimal damage, by making them TRAIN to be capable of doing just that.
I would also like to point out in point 1 that Event TFOs tend to drop down to normal difficulty so that EVERYONE can participate. Locking people out of Normal essentially locks players out of an Event associated with those particular TFOs.
Which is a big mistake knocking down to normal difficultly. What they should do is allow private Elite groups. I can understand not having Elite in the Event button. But there is no harm and in fact a benefit in allowing Elite groups via the private menu. I personally found that forcing everyone down to normal has ruined event TFO's.
From a game designer stand point (i used to work in the game industry a long time ago), the quick solution to keep the DPS folks happy, and the casual players happy would be to do the following...at least in my eyes.
1: The Omega Reputation or "The Borg One". It's one of if not the first reputation that people work through. From Tier 1 until completion of Tier 5 the character is locked to "Normal" TFO's for Borg. Upon completion of Tier 5 you are locked OUT of Normal and can only do Advanced. Upon completion of Tier 6 you can unlock Elite.
2: ALL major TFO's should have an "Elite" option added to queue and random
3: ...and this is the road i would go go down LAST. Talk to the major DPS groups. Ask them what they would want to see in a "standard" and "advanced" DPS testing zone map. A dedicated, purpose made map of mobs and structures that, upon completion of Tier 6 of Omega, people get access to. If "Normal" players queue up for these maps, a big warning sign pops up saying that this is a "Testing Simulation", and if their ship is not prepared adequately they will be removed, kind of like a current timeline version of the kobayashi maru test then award 4000 refined Dil every week to the top 3 DPS players who took part in ONE of the testing maps of their choice....which leads on to point 4...
4: A built in DPS meter in the client that is "Off" as standard but can be switched on in options. It will have basic drill down stats after the battle like who done how much damage, what done the damage...that kinda stuff.
Putting the above 4 things into the current game would avoid capping, avoid restricting, take only a few days work for the devs and would keep most (but not all) people happy. It would also mean that new players and casual players would see the "DPS maps" showing up, and winder what they are all about, and some of them might even consider going down the upgrade path to take part in them.
Sorry, but that point 1 is among the worst things I've ever seen being proposed here.
It takes 20 days to complete the reputation. Players with more toons who can quickly gather resources for a new one don't necessarily need that long to get the necessary gear for their toon.
The current reputation level doesn't say much, beyond whether a player can be bothered to complete a clicky system (of which we have far too many to complete on new toons). That, and perhaps whether they are desperate enough for attention to want to use the Reputation Flourish ability.
As for creating elite versions of existing missions: it won't solve much.
We've had a discussion on this a while back, so I won't extensively repeat myself here. But:
1. Currently existing elite missions are barely played (I've never seen Azure Nebula elite public queue launch for example). Meaning there is plenty of challenge to be had, but players just don't want it. They prefer to play advanced, or only elites with pre-made teams. Which isn't true elite playing of course if you eliminate any and all uncertainty and challenge, so yeah.
The problem simply isn't that there is no challenging content.
2. By creating elite missions for everything else, you'd heavily inflate the meaning of 'elite'. It would become the new advanced, a level every player expects to reach at some point - just as we could see in the past, when everyone was actually playing what was called elite. And then stomped back to advanced, which everyone expected to be allowed to participate in, resulting in a lot of anger when they suddenly found out that maybe they weren't good enough yet.
Releasing new, truly elite content will only be useful for a handful of people - or it must involve creating more power creep and therefore do nothing to solve the issues permanently.
Personally I don't think that either DPS caps or new elite content are good solutions. What might work, is creating enemies that have certain defences that cannot be ignored entirely. They tried this with the Tzenkethi: shoot their cruisers first, hit them while in front of them, or else they'll be almost invulnerable etc.
That is, in principle, an interesting way of designing enemies. Make the player think, look, pay attention and reward situational awareness. Instead of just spamming spacebar from wherever he happens to be at that moment.
But of course, then you need to ensure that such defences and mechanics cannot simply be bypassed (i.e., prevent that stacking enough shield penetration or high enough damage will still destroy an enemy even though a player is behind it and too lazy to fly around it, to face them at the front --- or blow up a cube when there's still a nanite thingy underneath or next to it, as I've been seeing lately again too).
The solution should be to make sure that enemies work the way they were intended to work. With resistances, requiring tactics to be defeated etc.
That alone could already be enough of a challenge. Even, if not especially for the DPS heroes.
To be fair to people going into stuff they're not ready for, that already happens even now without additional incentives to do harder content. I still see people queuing even into the easiest content and somehow not being ready for it.
Adding more rewards or improving the rewards for harder content may make it more of an issue, but the issue already exists so I don't think it should stop something that would be overall good from being done, atleast personally.
I wasn't suggesting that as a reason to avoid adding better rewards. I've wanted to see the reward structure reworked for awhile now. For me UAA is the golden standard of what effort vs reward should be for TFOs. If you do the optionals you get a ton more marks. Even if you don't you still get a decent payout for the time and effort required. Some of the TFOs are just insulting in terms of their payout, even on elite. On this one I was simply stating what I see happening. Folks will go in not being ready, then complain saying it needs to be nerfed and there we would be again. I've seen it too many times in other games. If the bar is constantly lowered, people will adopt a "wait for the nerf" approach before even trying to do anything. Happened in WoW and elsewhere. Nerfing for absolute game busting reasons is one thing, such as a boss having 99% resists (hypothetical scenario) and needing to be downed in 2 minutes. What those people do is something else.
Situations like that are why all MMOs should have a vote kick mechanic, I'll never understand why STO doesn't have one, but that's a whole different topic altogether.
Agreed all MMOs should have one. The most common argument I see is "the elitists would just boot people not on their level" or something to that effect. I played WoW for years and unless someone was deliberately being a tool, had gone offline and wasn't coming back, or somehow got into something they clearly weren't ready for, the tool was never used. Same goes with SWTOR which I still play. And when I say "got into something they weren't ready for" I mean exactly that. You've got a guy doing all of 2k DPS when the TFO itself requires a minimum of 20k DPS and the group can't advance with that person there. Anyways that's all I'll say on that for the moment.
I didn't say ANYONE's fun was "wrong", what I was saying is that when one person is so massively over-geared that they Thanos-snap every enemy the second they warp in STO stops being a game for the other four players because all they can do is watch the explosions.
Personally I'd prefer a solution that involved encouraging higher DPS players to do the higher difficulties rather than putting a cap on DPS in lower difficulties, I just think you are far too quick to disregard the experience average players (those who ARE capable of contributing enough for the chosen difficulty) have when they are unlucky enough to get matched with someone who's using a build that could solo God.
Addressing these at once as they go together. You had previously stated "DPS chasers insta-vaping DOES hamper the ability of others to enjoy the game." When you say things like this, it indicates to me actual harm is being done and somehow that person is deliberately trying to harm the ability of others to play the game. Such as if someone were to bust out a 1m+ build and go into normal mode runs deliberately trying to AFK people. That is a COMPLETELY different ballgame to simply being grouped with a high dps player in randoms and someone accidentally catches an AFK penalty. You will never see those 600k+ type of runs on anything other than elite because the numbers simply aren't there. On top of this, almost all of those runs are done in pre-made teams by necessity. To avoid an AFK penalty only requires someone deal 2% of the damage for the entirety of the run with some TFOs being 1%. I don't find that to be unreasonable and find it extremely generous. Even in Red Alerts which are normal mode, I can count on one hand how many times I have seen someone catch an AFK penalty legitimately.
I'm not dismissing people who say they have had issues. I don't doubt that people have had bad luck of the draw before as I've been on both sides of that bad luck in my STO career. What I'm saying however is that I don't see this being a problem warranting things like DPS caps and other foolishness that has been suggested by people before. So long as people have met the minimum requirements to enter a specific TFO, be they someone meeting the bare minimum or an infinite DPS build, they both have the right to enter that TFO. It may not be fun if someone is doing only the bare minimum and they catch an afk penalty, or don't get to shoot as much, but that is the risk people take when they sign up for randoms. You are grouping with random people and will sometimes get good groups, and sometimes you will get bad. I am not responsible for the fun of other people and I find it ridiculous that other people are being asked to limit their builds, or asking Cryptic to limit the builds of others purely because other people don't like it. By that definition they are every bit saying the fun of those people is wrong. You specifically may not be doing that, but others are. If people want to avoid some of the risks of random groups, they have the option to form groups with like minded people, and also to improve their builds if damage is an issue.
Well no, you or anyone else are more than welcome to have your opinion and you are more than welcome to disagree with me. Just because we have a difference of opinion does not mean you are understanding the core issue however. There is a power creep problem. DPS is out of control and most of the content is simply not designed for it. Lecturing everyone to "git gud" or "improve their build" is not a solution. All it serves to do is exacerbate the issue. Again, were everyone able to achieve ludicrous levels of DPS, Cryptic may as well just hand out merits, dilithium and components without needing to even play the game because the content has become so trivial.
As for the rest, what is hypocritical is applying an arbitrary standard to others which you do not apply to yourself. Lecturing people expressing their view on how higher DPS builds are not fun for them by telling them "What you don't get to do is tell other people they have to do the same as you because you don't like it, or try to make the game do it for you." while not applying the same argument to the DPS crowd is hypocritical. If you are looking for people with bad habits, simply look in the mirror. You have some extremely bad habits of your own. I think you are misunderstanding or misrepresenting what the OP was trying to say with regard to the discussion of limiting DPS.
To address possible solutions, I personally do not see DPS limits as the answer. I am inclined to agree with adding Elite TFOs into the Random options and buffing the rewards for them. I have doubts that would be incentive enough for the DPS crowd to try them though.
As said above, I would love to see the reward structure altered with UAA as the golden standard of time and effort vs payout. Some TFOs are down right insulting in terms of payout. So if you want to talk changing reward structures, alright I'm down. What kind of payouts we talking?
For power creep, no one is denying that DPS has gotten alot higher in previous years. There are some instances where people do in fact need to "git gud". If someone is rolling into content with all mk v gear on their ship they got back at level 30 and they're now 65 and complaining things are too hard, then sorry but they need to up their game and get better gear. Even if they buy a bunch of mk xii very rare stuff from the exchange or re-run older missions. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen people complain about something being super hard only to find out they're running a ship with one of every kind of weapon type, cannon, torp, turret, dual bank, array, mine, single cannon, and wondering why they can't kill anything. Of course I've also seen some people with golded out everything and on paper the build is great, but their flying is worse than Troy's. Sometimes there are just objectively bad builds and tactics being used by people that are the problem. Is that to say that's always the case, no, it's simply saying sometimes it does happen. I am willing to help players improve if/when such a situation occurs so long as they're willing to learn and improve and have helped out quite a few people in my career and handed out billions of ec and millions of dilithium worth of things to people. However if someone isn't willing to learn or improve there is nothing I can do.
I read what the OP said and I stand by my previous statements. When someone outright says a DPS cap should be considered, what other way am I supposed to take that? Your logic in this instance is the equivalent of someone telling me the sky is green, yet I'm supposed to interpret it as them actually meaning blue. It makes no sense.
As to applying the standards across the board, I do. If I want to set a DPS record for myself I don't just hit random and pray for a good result. I go in with a pre-made team and avoid the randoms. If I want to avoid getting into a run with lower DPS people, again I go with pre-made teams. Likewise if people want to avoid the possibility of getting grouped with higher DPS people they have option of forming teams with like minded people. Again dude the sword cuts both ways and I haven't suggested otherwise. So long as both the DPS-chaser and non dps chaser have met the minimum criteria set forth by the game for the TFO, both have a right to use the random TFO feature. If a non-dps chaser presses the random button they are taking the risk they might get grouped with a DPS chaser and vice versa.
I think a better question to be asking is if you invested so much time and effort into your high DPS build, why are you still running content on advanced level instead of elite? Were elite TFOs added into the random pool, would you queue for elite content only?
While this part wasn't specifically addressed to me, I'm going to touch on it because it goes along with a point I have made before. Why do you think people with higher end builds should only play elite? Because that's what it sounds like you're suggesting is that folks like myself should be limited to elite only.
What if an endeavor wants me to play a TFO type I absolutely hate and want to just blow through it on advanced or even normal just to get it done? Suppose I have a fleetmate looking to improve his build and he need someone to help him get some marks. Should I be locked out of helping him because we both want to run on advanced? Or what if one day I just don't want to play on elite and deal with the extra headache that comes with it and just want to blitz a few runs?
Would I personally do random elites if the option was there, depends on which ones are in the pool and how many fleetmates I had with me. On my own probably not due to too many folks joining elites that are not ready for them and causing auto-fails. If I had some fleetmates with me, I probably would.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
1. Currently existing elite missions are barely played (I've never seen Azure Nebula elite public queue launch for example). Meaning there is plenty of challenge to be had, but players just don't want it. They prefer to play advanced, or only elites with pre-made teams. Which isn't true elite playing of course if you eliminate any and all uncertainty and challenge, so yeah.
The problem simply isn't that there is no challenging content.
Which begs the follow up questions of why is it that no one is playing Elite level content? Are the rewards too low? What would incentivize more players into Elite content?
Personally I am convinced that this is because most 'elite players' can actually only play elite content if there are four like-minded people present and everything becomes totally predictable. And easy.
Remember, we're talking mostly about people who have figured out how to shoot a lot of targets in a target-rich environment. And some people with big wallets too.
They're not necessarily good gamers. Nor do they have to be people who can deal with unexpected situations. They probably don't like a challenge either. If they were and did, they'd be PvP'ing because that's where the real challenge is, instead of shooting mindless HP sponges. As I noted above, even the enemies with mechanics that require some thinking to be overcome can just instead be defeated by doing the same mindless thing.
I highly doubt that it is because of the rewards. Cause who even needs more rewards when you can already play at elite level? There's nothing to be earned anymore, no higher level to work towards to.
Playing the game itself should be the reward at that point. And as I highly doubt that having everything be predictable and having to put in almost no effort at all is more interesting gameplay than actually dealing with some uncertainty and maybe a less-well equipped team mate, it's probably not about playing the game - and hence not about the only reward that should still matter.
From a game designer stand point (i used to work in the game industry a long time ago), the quick solution to keep the DPS folks happy, and the casual players happy would be to do the following...at least in my eyes.
1: The Omega Reputation or "The Borg One". It's one of if not the first reputation that people work through. From Tier 1 until completion of Tier 5 the character is locked to "Normal" TFO's for Borg. Upon completion of Tier 5 you are locked OUT of Normal and can only do Advanced. Upon completion of Tier 6 you can unlock Elite.
2: ALL major TFO's should have an "Elite" option added to queue and random
3: ...and this is the road i would go go down LAST. Talk to the major DPS groups. Ask them what they would want to see in a "standard" and "advanced" DPS testing zone map. A dedicated, purpose made map of mobs and structures that, upon completion of Tier 6 of Omega, people get access to. If "Normal" players queue up for these maps, a big warning sign pops up saying that this is a "Testing Simulation", and if their ship is not prepared adequately they will be removed, kind of like a current timeline version of the kobayashi maru test then award 4000 refined Dil every week to the top 3 DPS players who took part in ONE of the testing maps of their choice....which leads on to point 4...
4: A built in DPS meter in the client that is "Off" as standard but can be switched on in options. It will have basic drill down stats after the battle like who done how much damage, what done the damage...that kinda stuff.
Putting the above 4 things into the current game would avoid capping, avoid restricting, take only a few days work for the devs and would keep most (but not all) people happy. It would also mean that new players and casual players would see the "DPS maps" showing up, and winder what they are all about, and some of them might even consider going down the upgrade path to take part in them.
I myself have developed story content, custom maps and the like for other games before. I have never been a AAA studio dev, but I know what it takes to put certain things in games. Back in Timesplitters Future Perfect some of my maps were EA recommended downloads for weeks at the time. I also continue to make mods and other things for games like Space Engineers and some older games. In fact for Space Engineers I currently have an era mod that's essentially a complete rebalance of the game using my own stuff. I give that bit of background so you know I'm not talking out of my aft shuttle bay. Now to address these points you've named.
1: This is a big fat nope from me. As my cohort Rattler has pointed out, anymore events are typically dropped down to normal difficulty being the only available difficulty. This would essentially be locking people out of completing the events. You might say "put an exception in the code for events" which is alot of extra work when you could just let everyone join normals without some kind of lockout. Not to mention this first "solution" again is little more than an arbitrary limitation that will have no effect on performance. I've seen plenty of people who have golded out ships and gear that still have no clue how to use it. Simply having access to something doesn't confer expertise with said items on a person, just like owning a shotgun IRL doesn't make me an expert on firearms. Another thing to consider for this. Suppose I have a friend who needs help learning the Borg TFOs but hasn't gotten to t5 rep yet, you're essentially preventing he and I from playing together. Also as I asked prior to someone else, what if I get an endeavor that wants me to do a TFO I absolutely hate and want to blitz it on normal to get it done? Oops can't do that now. So guess i'm sitting my endeavors out for that day.
2: No arguments here, all TFOs should have normal, advanced, and elite options imo.
3: This already exists to an extent, the tribble testing map. If said map were improved and brought to holodeck, alot more tests could be done there. While this would be a controlled test environment I wouldn't mind seeing, it still doesn't give you an accurate measurement of what you're doing in the wild. Controlled environments are completely different animals to testing in the field. There should be no reward for using this map either because that just invites abuse.
4: DPS meters should be standard in every MMO. Unless you have a way to measure your numbers to know how much damage you're doing, healing you're putting out, threat you're generating etc, you will never know for sure if you're doing good or not. You can try to eyeball it, but what you see vs what's actually happening can be two VERY different things. Someone could think they're the best guy on the team but in reality are the lowest damage dealer in there. Likewise on the opposite side of the coin someone else could think he's the lowest man on the team, but in reality is doing more than the other 4 people combined.
DPS meters only tell you what you're doing in terms of threat, healing and damage. It's a meter that exists to give numbers, nothing more nothing less. People have to make the decision of what they do about those numbers on their own.
Overall thoughts: If a minimum set of standards is to be set, it can't be arbitrary. Locking people out of something based on their reputation level is arbitrary and has no effect on performance. If you're going to have a set of standards and basic minimums, it has to be at the TFO level itself. In order to clear phase one of the TFO, each person must be dealing a minimum of X damage and be able to survive Y damage from foes.
When balancing my armor and weapons for my Space Engineers mod, I had to decide how many shots I wanted a single armor block to take from a single copy of my weapons before the armor block broke. From there I adjusted the stats accordingly and shipped it off to players. The more weapons they bring to bear, the faster the block breaks. If folks want more damage resistance they can use more armor, if they want more damage output they can use more weapons.
With all of this said, no offense to you sir, but I would not play a game you had a hand in designing if you truly believe some of the things you've said here. Your standards for balance in my book leave much to be desired.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Comments
First, I agree that advanced and elite difficulty should be available at all times and shouldn't be disabled purely because an event is going on. That's one thing I strongly disagreed with and made my opinions known about when it was done.
Now with that in mind, if you're going to make the assertion you did in the bolded section I highlighted above, I can just as easily assert the opposite. By that same token, people coming into content with subpar builds and damage output harm the ability of the team to complete the run and in some instances guarantee an instant fail because that guy isn't pulling his weight. I continue to point to Korfez as a prime example. That TFO requires everyone to pull a certain minimum amount of damage and be able to survive certain hits in order to progress. If the team can't hack it then it's an auto fail. Hypothetically speaking lets say it's 50k DPS just to quantify it for discussion. This means if everyone on that team can't pull 50k minimum, it will fail. If 4 of the guys are pulling that 50k, but the 5th guy is only doing 10k, that 5th guy has no right to be in there because he's harming the ability of the team to progress and enjoy the content in addition to not meeting the basic standards set by the game itself. So if you're going to make the assertion you did in bold, it cuts both ways. There's nothing wrong with expecting basic REASONABLE standards from people, which the game has set at 2% of the damage dealt in the entirety of the run. Even doing red alerts I have rarely seen people get an AFK from that. In fact I can count on one hand how many times in the average month I see someone legitimately earn an AFK penalty.
As I said before, the fun of people like the OP is not wrong. Likewise the fun of insta-vapers is not wrong. No one else in this game is responsible for your fun or that of anyone else. People like the OP and insta-vape players BOTH have the right to join random TFOs they have met the minimum requirements for. When I go into a run, I am not responsible for the enjoyment of the other 4 people on there. If that's now the standard, then by that logic should I have to stop using polarons on my Legend Galaxy because it breaks another guy's immersion on the team and his fun by seeing purple beams coming from the ship? If the non-insta vape players are going to say that the insta vape players shouldn't be allowed to do so much damage, then likewise I can say the non-insta vape players have no right to play anything above normal mode until they can hit 40k DPS, and if they never hit the 40k DPS then tough luck. It cuts both ways.
I generally stick to advanced or elite difficulty myself. Some days I like to push things on elite, and other days I just want to roll through things a bit easier and play on advanced. Simply because I have the ability to play on elite doesn't mean that's what I always want to do. Likewise when I play SWTOR, I am primarily a tank, yet sometimes I want to just blast things with lightning as a DPS.
Now I'm not opposed to higher tiers of difficulty being introduced as others have suggested. However I can tell you exactly how it's going to go. Let's say they introduce a new difficulty called Elite Plus. Alot of people are going to join this new difficulty even though they're clearly not ready for it, get stomped because they're not ready, then come on here demanding it be nerfed and saying it's too hard, which defeats the purpose of even adding the higher difficulty to start with, then we're right back to square one.
I can tell you part of why it doesn't pop. For the longest time it had an issue where the final boss was bugged out and the resists on the boss were far far higher than they should be and you needed absurd amounts of armor pen and the like to even damage the boss. It took way too long to fix and that damage the reputation for TFO. On top of this Korfez also has a hefty DPS check at the start of the TFO. if your team doesn't bring their A game and wipe that first batch of enemies in a certain time, you will fail. Far too many times when I've gone into a random Korfez, I've been grouped with people who simply are not ready for that content and it auto fails.
I'm also not opposed to better rewards being offered. However I still see the scenario of people going into stuff they're not ready for, then complaining when they can't beat it being the norm that will happen. Folks can call me pessimistic if they want and maybe I am. I've seen it happen so many times in other games that maybe it has left me a little jaded, I won't deny that. However I still stand by those statements.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
To be fair to people going into stuff they're not ready for, that already happens even now without additional incentives to do harder content. I still see people queuing even into the easiest content and somehow not being ready for it.
Adding more rewards or improving the rewards for harder content may make it more of an issue, but the issue already exists so I don't think it should stop something that would be overall good from being done, atleast personally.
Situations like that are why all MMOs should have a vote kick mechanic, I'll never understand why STO doesn't have one, but that's a whole different topic altogether.
I didn't say ANYONE's fun was "wrong", what I was saying is that when one person is so massively over-geared that they Thanos-snap every enemy the second they warp in STO stops being a game for the other four players because all they can do is watch the explosions.
Personally I'd prefer a solution that involved encouraging higher DPS players to do the higher difficulties rather than putting a cap on DPS in lower difficulties, I just think you are far too quick to disregard the experience average players (those who ARE capable of contributing enough for the chosen difficulty) have when they are unlucky enough to get matched with someone who's using a build that could solo God.
What does God need with a Starship?
Looks like we're getting into a more constructive conversation, which is nice.
Insta-vapers, as some people are called (we're calling names on this forum now) have invested time and energy for their performance and those people, who get an AFK penalty or low dps, did not (invest either time, nor energy).
I was a new player a few years ago and i've seen guys mop up maps even back then - so this isn't even a new "problem" (which it's not, get over it). This was over 7 years ago. Did you sleep till now?
Luckly my response wasn't "this can't be right, i have to start a campaign to stop it". Nope, i wen't to the drawing board and "gat gud".
I am definitely one of those players that would be considered problematic in this thread. I finish the 500K dps endeavors with one salvo of befaw. Literally, i just go to a tfo, turn on a few buffs and let a befaw rip and within that 10 second salvo i get my purple box and move on. So i am definitely in the higher echelons of dps. And from time to time I do view weaker players (not less skilled but weaker in terms of DPS) as newbies. It might be a mistake, but i don't really comprehend how anyone other then a new player cant make the red alert go down. And because of that view point I find myself white knighting them all the time which probably also sucks. But from my view I don't know if they are struggling or not, angry or not, relieved or not. I just see it mainly as, make the line go up and the red go down. And when i leave them alone and assume they got it, and then that hole they were filling becomes over run because they fell.
So there's a good chance i may have absolutely ruined the games and runs of alot of players without intending to. But I don't think i will stop because it harms the run for a person to struggle with making the red go down.
It's not a E-peen or a git gud thing, because it's not possible. You either are or you are not. You either have or you have not. sO telling a person to get better doesn't really make sense unless you are going to provide them with resources to do that. But also telling a person to dial back doesn't make sense because they have the resources to do it and it doesn't harm a person physically, but emotionally. And that's fine in a game. you get over it when the instance is over. But is that not a natural response to gaming? Kill everything and move on? I mean isn't that the point of star trek? Being hero's in hero ships? Saving other ships from destruction?
Granted I don't play anything under elite or advanced unless it's the event, then my apologies to the people in defend starbase one. but still.
Also, a lot of people have to realize, we made the game this way. I remember when i couldn't even fathom fighting a borg tac cube alone. Then players complained and now i can solo 4-5-6 in an escort. I feel that's funny when i look back on it. I don't remember anything other then that. Dying to the borg invisible torp. Those were the best days. Days i still do blame the community for stealing from me. Not really sure if its something to be sad about or not. Because I do feel if it had stayed the same, the vaping in this game would be even worse and more spread out because more players would have to participate in the standard, but i as a personal aside, would like to die on the field again. Oh, i guess i disproved my thesis just then and kinda too lazy to go back and edit or delete. well, is what it is. I guess we're all captains that way, looking to be alive in a fight to the death. So i guess i should leave people to their deaths, because it really is a good day to die and whom am I to steal these memories from them.
I can't join the anti-vaper coalition because it doesn't make sense to destroy the viability of the game to preserve the personal sensibility and spirit of the game, but i as a vaper will def not interfere with the memories players have yet to form. So thats that.
Honestly mate, i feel you're being a little aggressive with your remarks. None of my observations have been directed at you personally. If you feel that way, i can only speculate that you have misunderstood or misinterpreted my original post. Or my second post.
Though i do appreciate your opinion on this. I hope you understand that this is not about you personally, this about "the bigger picture". The long term effects of power creep and the widening skill gap on the long term morale of the community as a whole.
I use the term "instakillers" because it is a very accurate and easy to remember description of the way some players are able to "instantly kill" things in game.
My apologies if i have not made myself clear enough. I'm just voicing my concerns about a visible issue in a game i've enjoyed playing since 2012.
This is not about unprepared players on a too high difficulty level. It's about players with enough skill and ability to play well, being left out of gameplay by people who insist on soloing group content without thinking about the rest of the team in TFO's or the other players in a battlezone instance.
Does the ability to instantly vaporize everything in view, mean that it needs to be done, while excluding everyone else in the instance ?.
"Need or Greed ?"
Sorry mate, but it's clear that you have misunderstood this discussion entirely and have no intention of finding out what it is about. Until you do, i won't bother replying to you again.
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Hopefully this isn't taken the wrong way. This is not aimed at anyone. What I am trying to say, like you are that 600k isn't even high anymore. 600k is not a high end build or a nannie run. 1 million isn't even anything special anymore.
The way I see it EDIT: based on veteran players.
That's how bad power creep has got and the problem is content is designed around 120k DPS per player at Elite level.
Or to put it another way. Ground builds now do enough DPS to enter the Bronze DPS space runs and hanger pets enter the Gold runs. Let alone talking space magic or main weapons which even a every day tank build can pass the Dimond requirements.
And high DPS doesn't necessarily mean you've gotten 'gud' either. Copying a build and a macro on your space bar to pump out 1 mill DPS does not equal skill. But that does not mean people should be obligated to copy a build off the net just to make someone's epeen glow.
I've never looked at a guide, never will, because I learned the long-way round over the decade+ I've been playing. Folk have different interpretations of fun, and provided it's with the TOS and not an exploit, leave them be....regardless of high or low DPS.
1: The Omega Reputation or "The Borg One". It's one of if not the first reputation that people work through. From Tier 1 until completion of Tier 5 the character is locked to "Normal" TFO's for Borg. Upon completion of Tier 5 you are locked OUT of Normal and can only do Advanced. Upon completion of Tier 6 you can unlock Elite.
2: ALL major TFO's should have an "Elite" option added to queue and random
3: ...and this is the road i would go go down LAST. Talk to the major DPS groups. Ask them what they would want to see in a "standard" and "advanced" DPS testing zone map. A dedicated, purpose made map of mobs and structures that, upon completion of Tier 6 of Omega, people get access to. If "Normal" players queue up for these maps, a big warning sign pops up saying that this is a "Testing Simulation", and if their ship is not prepared adequately they will be removed, kind of like a current timeline version of the kobayashi maru test then award 4000 refined Dil every week to the top 3 DPS players who took part in ONE of the testing maps of their choice....which leads on to point 4...
4: A built in DPS meter in the client that is "Off" as standard but can be switched on in options. It will have basic drill down stats after the battle like who done how much damage, what done the damage...that kinda stuff.
Putting the above 4 things into the current game would avoid capping, avoid restricting, take only a few days work for the devs and would keep most (but not all) people happy. It would also mean that new players and casual players would see the "DPS maps" showing up, and winder what they are all about, and some of them might even consider going down the upgrade path to take part in them.
Very well said. The problem with 'git gud' or spend copious amounts of cash to 'git gud' is that many of us don't HAVE copious amounds of cash.
Doesn't mean we aren't gud with what we got, we are. We can hold our own as long as there isn't some million-DPS boat in there vaping everything without giving the rest of us a chance to at least get a shot in.
Also, in point 3, how would the system determine what is "adequate" preparation? We've got more energy-weapon types than there are actual particles to convey the energy, at least seven different kinds of torpedoes, enough consoles to choke a Dovalian space horse, and of course there's actual skill (my own choke point). "Gear score" turns out to be little more than an epeen buffer in the games where it's used, and our levels top out at 65, so what's the metric?
The metric would be taken from point 4, the built in DPS meter. If you aint doing enough sustained damage over a period of time you are automatically warped out of the map
1. lock out untill all reputations are at tier 5 and one at tier 6. Elite when all are at 6.
2. No objections.
3. Not many if any major DPS groups active atm (AFAIK!).
4. DPS meter would promote DPS chasing even more and we see, that people can't even handle the current state of things.
That being said, it's highly unlikely, that such changes will be made anytime soon - if ever. The random elite ques are an object of public desire for a long time now. We also have a DPS test map on the tribble test server, which for some reason doesnt get carried over to the main server. I've heard there was a DPS meter, but did poorly and put out misleading numbers (???). And btw, capping and restricting is out of the question (a wet dream, a green dragon, a white rabbit, whatever you want) and that's not just my personal opinion, but a clear fact, since higher performance drives sales more than anything else. A single high performance trait (from d7 mw fdc) generates around 150 bucks for the devs.
Let's close this one, it's going nowhere.
Sorry, but that point 1 is among the worst things I've ever seen being proposed here.
It takes 20 days to complete the reputation. Players with more toons who can quickly gather resources for a new one don't necessarily need that long to get the necessary gear for their toon.
The current reputation level doesn't say much, beyond whether a player can be bothered to complete a clicky system (of which we have far too many to complete on new toons). That, and perhaps whether they are desperate enough for attention to want to use the Reputation Flourish ability.
We've had a discussion on this a while back, so I won't extensively repeat myself here. But:
1. Currently existing elite missions are barely played (I've never seen Azure Nebula elite public queue launch for example). Meaning there is plenty of challenge to be had, but players just don't want it. They prefer to play advanced, or only elites with pre-made teams. Which isn't true elite playing of course if you eliminate any and all uncertainty and challenge, so yeah.
The problem simply isn't that there is no challenging content.
2. By creating elite missions for everything else, you'd heavily inflate the meaning of 'elite'. It would become the new advanced, a level every player expects to reach at some point - just as we could see in the past, when everyone was actually playing what was called elite. And then stomped back to advanced, which everyone expected to be allowed to participate in, resulting in a lot of anger when they suddenly found out that maybe they weren't good enough yet.
Releasing new, truly elite content will only be useful for a handful of people - or it must involve creating more power creep and therefore do nothing to solve the issues permanently.
That is, in principle, an interesting way of designing enemies. Make the player think, look, pay attention and reward situational awareness. Instead of just spamming spacebar from wherever he happens to be at that moment.
But of course, then you need to ensure that such defences and mechanics cannot simply be bypassed (i.e., prevent that stacking enough shield penetration or high enough damage will still destroy an enemy even though a player is behind it and too lazy to fly around it, to face them at the front --- or blow up a cube when there's still a nanite thingy underneath or next to it, as I've been seeing lately again too).
The solution should be to make sure that enemies work the way they were intended to work. With resistances, requiring tactics to be defeated etc.
That alone could already be enough of a challenge. Even, if not especially for the DPS heroes.
I wasn't suggesting that as a reason to avoid adding better rewards. I've wanted to see the reward structure reworked for awhile now. For me UAA is the golden standard of what effort vs reward should be for TFOs. If you do the optionals you get a ton more marks. Even if you don't you still get a decent payout for the time and effort required. Some of the TFOs are just insulting in terms of their payout, even on elite. On this one I was simply stating what I see happening. Folks will go in not being ready, then complain saying it needs to be nerfed and there we would be again. I've seen it too many times in other games. If the bar is constantly lowered, people will adopt a "wait for the nerf" approach before even trying to do anything. Happened in WoW and elsewhere. Nerfing for absolute game busting reasons is one thing, such as a boss having 99% resists (hypothetical scenario) and needing to be downed in 2 minutes. What those people do is something else.
Agreed all MMOs should have one. The most common argument I see is "the elitists would just boot people not on their level" or something to that effect. I played WoW for years and unless someone was deliberately being a tool, had gone offline and wasn't coming back, or somehow got into something they clearly weren't ready for, the tool was never used. Same goes with SWTOR which I still play. And when I say "got into something they weren't ready for" I mean exactly that. You've got a guy doing all of 2k DPS when the TFO itself requires a minimum of 20k DPS and the group can't advance with that person there. Anyways that's all I'll say on that for the moment.
Addressing these at once as they go together. You had previously stated "DPS chasers insta-vaping DOES hamper the ability of others to enjoy the game." When you say things like this, it indicates to me actual harm is being done and somehow that person is deliberately trying to harm the ability of others to play the game. Such as if someone were to bust out a 1m+ build and go into normal mode runs deliberately trying to AFK people. That is a COMPLETELY different ballgame to simply being grouped with a high dps player in randoms and someone accidentally catches an AFK penalty. You will never see those 600k+ type of runs on anything other than elite because the numbers simply aren't there. On top of this, almost all of those runs are done in pre-made teams by necessity. To avoid an AFK penalty only requires someone deal 2% of the damage for the entirety of the run with some TFOs being 1%. I don't find that to be unreasonable and find it extremely generous. Even in Red Alerts which are normal mode, I can count on one hand how many times I have seen someone catch an AFK penalty legitimately.
I'm not dismissing people who say they have had issues. I don't doubt that people have had bad luck of the draw before as I've been on both sides of that bad luck in my STO career. What I'm saying however is that I don't see this being a problem warranting things like DPS caps and other foolishness that has been suggested by people before. So long as people have met the minimum requirements to enter a specific TFO, be they someone meeting the bare minimum or an infinite DPS build, they both have the right to enter that TFO. It may not be fun if someone is doing only the bare minimum and they catch an afk penalty, or don't get to shoot as much, but that is the risk people take when they sign up for randoms. You are grouping with random people and will sometimes get good groups, and sometimes you will get bad. I am not responsible for the fun of other people and I find it ridiculous that other people are being asked to limit their builds, or asking Cryptic to limit the builds of others purely because other people don't like it. By that definition they are every bit saying the fun of those people is wrong. You specifically may not be doing that, but others are. If people want to avoid some of the risks of random groups, they have the option to form groups with like minded people, and also to improve their builds if damage is an issue.
As said above, I would love to see the reward structure altered with UAA as the golden standard of time and effort vs payout. Some TFOs are down right insulting in terms of payout. So if you want to talk changing reward structures, alright I'm down. What kind of payouts we talking?
For power creep, no one is denying that DPS has gotten alot higher in previous years. There are some instances where people do in fact need to "git gud". If someone is rolling into content with all mk v gear on their ship they got back at level 30 and they're now 65 and complaining things are too hard, then sorry but they need to up their game and get better gear. Even if they buy a bunch of mk xii very rare stuff from the exchange or re-run older missions. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen people complain about something being super hard only to find out they're running a ship with one of every kind of weapon type, cannon, torp, turret, dual bank, array, mine, single cannon, and wondering why they can't kill anything. Of course I've also seen some people with golded out everything and on paper the build is great, but their flying is worse than Troy's. Sometimes there are just objectively bad builds and tactics being used by people that are the problem. Is that to say that's always the case, no, it's simply saying sometimes it does happen. I am willing to help players improve if/when such a situation occurs so long as they're willing to learn and improve and have helped out quite a few people in my career and handed out billions of ec and millions of dilithium worth of things to people. However if someone isn't willing to learn or improve there is nothing I can do.
I read what the OP said and I stand by my previous statements. When someone outright says a DPS cap should be considered, what other way am I supposed to take that? Your logic in this instance is the equivalent of someone telling me the sky is green, yet I'm supposed to interpret it as them actually meaning blue. It makes no sense.
As to applying the standards across the board, I do. If I want to set a DPS record for myself I don't just hit random and pray for a good result. I go in with a pre-made team and avoid the randoms. If I want to avoid getting into a run with lower DPS people, again I go with pre-made teams. Likewise if people want to avoid the possibility of getting grouped with higher DPS people they have option of forming teams with like minded people. Again dude the sword cuts both ways and I haven't suggested otherwise. So long as both the DPS-chaser and non dps chaser have met the minimum criteria set forth by the game for the TFO, both have a right to use the random TFO feature. If a non-dps chaser presses the random button they are taking the risk they might get grouped with a DPS chaser and vice versa.
While this part wasn't specifically addressed to me, I'm going to touch on it because it goes along with a point I have made before. Why do you think people with higher end builds should only play elite? Because that's what it sounds like you're suggesting is that folks like myself should be limited to elite only.
What if an endeavor wants me to play a TFO type I absolutely hate and want to just blow through it on advanced or even normal just to get it done? Suppose I have a fleetmate looking to improve his build and he need someone to help him get some marks. Should I be locked out of helping him because we both want to run on advanced? Or what if one day I just don't want to play on elite and deal with the extra headache that comes with it and just want to blitz a few runs?
Would I personally do random elites if the option was there, depends on which ones are in the pool and how many fleetmates I had with me. On my own probably not due to too many folks joining elites that are not ready for them and causing auto-fails. If I had some fleetmates with me, I probably would.
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Personally I am convinced that this is because most 'elite players' can actually only play elite content if there are four like-minded people present and everything becomes totally predictable. And easy.
Remember, we're talking mostly about people who have figured out how to shoot a lot of targets in a target-rich environment. And some people with big wallets too.
They're not necessarily good gamers. Nor do they have to be people who can deal with unexpected situations. They probably don't like a challenge either. If they were and did, they'd be PvP'ing because that's where the real challenge is, instead of shooting mindless HP sponges. As I noted above, even the enemies with mechanics that require some thinking to be overcome can just instead be defeated by doing the same mindless thing.
I highly doubt that it is because of the rewards. Cause who even needs more rewards when you can already play at elite level? There's nothing to be earned anymore, no higher level to work towards to.
Playing the game itself should be the reward at that point. And as I highly doubt that having everything be predictable and having to put in almost no effort at all is more interesting gameplay than actually dealing with some uncertainty and maybe a less-well equipped team mate, it's probably not about playing the game - and hence not about the only reward that should still matter.
I myself have developed story content, custom maps and the like for other games before. I have never been a AAA studio dev, but I know what it takes to put certain things in games. Back in Timesplitters Future Perfect some of my maps were EA recommended downloads for weeks at the time. I also continue to make mods and other things for games like Space Engineers and some older games. In fact for Space Engineers I currently have an era mod that's essentially a complete rebalance of the game using my own stuff. I give that bit of background so you know I'm not talking out of my aft shuttle bay. Now to address these points you've named.
1: This is a big fat nope from me. As my cohort Rattler has pointed out, anymore events are typically dropped down to normal difficulty being the only available difficulty. This would essentially be locking people out of completing the events. You might say "put an exception in the code for events" which is alot of extra work when you could just let everyone join normals without some kind of lockout. Not to mention this first "solution" again is little more than an arbitrary limitation that will have no effect on performance. I've seen plenty of people who have golded out ships and gear that still have no clue how to use it. Simply having access to something doesn't confer expertise with said items on a person, just like owning a shotgun IRL doesn't make me an expert on firearms. Another thing to consider for this. Suppose I have a friend who needs help learning the Borg TFOs but hasn't gotten to t5 rep yet, you're essentially preventing he and I from playing together. Also as I asked prior to someone else, what if I get an endeavor that wants me to do a TFO I absolutely hate and want to blitz it on normal to get it done? Oops can't do that now. So guess i'm sitting my endeavors out for that day.
2: No arguments here, all TFOs should have normal, advanced, and elite options imo.
3: This already exists to an extent, the tribble testing map. If said map were improved and brought to holodeck, alot more tests could be done there. While this would be a controlled test environment I wouldn't mind seeing, it still doesn't give you an accurate measurement of what you're doing in the wild. Controlled environments are completely different animals to testing in the field. There should be no reward for using this map either because that just invites abuse.
4: DPS meters should be standard in every MMO. Unless you have a way to measure your numbers to know how much damage you're doing, healing you're putting out, threat you're generating etc, you will never know for sure if you're doing good or not. You can try to eyeball it, but what you see vs what's actually happening can be two VERY different things. Someone could think they're the best guy on the team but in reality are the lowest damage dealer in there. Likewise on the opposite side of the coin someone else could think he's the lowest man on the team, but in reality is doing more than the other 4 people combined.
DPS meters only tell you what you're doing in terms of threat, healing and damage. It's a meter that exists to give numbers, nothing more nothing less. People have to make the decision of what they do about those numbers on their own.
Overall thoughts: If a minimum set of standards is to be set, it can't be arbitrary. Locking people out of something based on their reputation level is arbitrary and has no effect on performance. If you're going to have a set of standards and basic minimums, it has to be at the TFO level itself. In order to clear phase one of the TFO, each person must be dealing a minimum of X damage and be able to survive Y damage from foes.
When balancing my armor and weapons for my Space Engineers mod, I had to decide how many shots I wanted a single armor block to take from a single copy of my weapons before the armor block broke. From there I adjusted the stats accordingly and shipped it off to players. The more weapons they bring to bear, the faster the block breaks. If folks want more damage resistance they can use more armor, if they want more damage output they can use more weapons.
With all of this said, no offense to you sir, but I would not play a game you had a hand in designing if you truly believe some of the things you've said here. Your standards for balance in my book leave much to be desired.
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