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Too much DPS.
colonelmarik
Member Posts: 2,220 Arc User
I hesitate to post this, as I anticipate the usual circling of the wagons, but for three days now, it's been nearly impossible to participate in any queue missions at all. It's been going one of two ways.
Most common are the missions that are over before you can do anything. My Romulan was in one of the Borg missions (I don't recall what it's called) where the Tactical Cube appears near the end. He fired his Hyper Plasma torpedo, but both the Tac Cube AND the big portal thing were obliterated before it had fired all three torpedoes. Before that, whole spawns of enemies were being obliterated in less than a second.
Today, it was the Romulan minefield. I went around to the asteroids to free the freighters, but before I could free even one, that phase was over. By the time I warped to the three mines with the huge fleets of Romulans, they were wiped out before the animation of me warping in was over. I repaired one of the facilities, but before I could warp to the Falchion, it was already dead... took around 2 seconds. Just no way to enjoy missions like this. THREE DAYS this has been going on, but it's been an ongoing problem for years.
Of course, the opposite is also happening. Many of the more modern queue missions have been SO overtuned, in order to challenge people with ridiculous DPS, that more average players flat out CANNOT contribute. The Tzenkethi and Iconians are bad for this, but it still happens elsewhere too.
Why am I posting this? It's old news, I know. Truthfully, I feel the need to vent, but I also want to draw the attention of the developers to the problem... AGAIN. I feel like something needs to be done to improve the game balance. It shouldn't be possible for anyone to do SO much damage that it completely trivializes the game for them, and allows them to take the game away from other players... either by just blowing everything up instantly, or by the devs having to make things more difficult than most players can handle.
Flame on.
Most common are the missions that are over before you can do anything. My Romulan was in one of the Borg missions (I don't recall what it's called) where the Tactical Cube appears near the end. He fired his Hyper Plasma torpedo, but both the Tac Cube AND the big portal thing were obliterated before it had fired all three torpedoes. Before that, whole spawns of enemies were being obliterated in less than a second.
Today, it was the Romulan minefield. I went around to the asteroids to free the freighters, but before I could free even one, that phase was over. By the time I warped to the three mines with the huge fleets of Romulans, they were wiped out before the animation of me warping in was over. I repaired one of the facilities, but before I could warp to the Falchion, it was already dead... took around 2 seconds. Just no way to enjoy missions like this. THREE DAYS this has been going on, but it's been an ongoing problem for years.
Of course, the opposite is also happening. Many of the more modern queue missions have been SO overtuned, in order to challenge people with ridiculous DPS, that more average players flat out CANNOT contribute. The Tzenkethi and Iconians are bad for this, but it still happens elsewhere too.
Why am I posting this? It's old news, I know. Truthfully, I feel the need to vent, but I also want to draw the attention of the developers to the problem... AGAIN. I feel like something needs to be done to improve the game balance. It shouldn't be possible for anyone to do SO much damage that it completely trivializes the game for them, and allows them to take the game away from other players... either by just blowing everything up instantly, or by the devs having to make things more difficult than most players can handle.
Flame on.
Post edited by ambassadorkael#6946 on
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Comments
It's like its pointless to even try anymore.
I know my build works just fine in Normal and Advance, but I am not longer up against the enemies in these TFOs.
Its become a race to get to them before they disappear.
this ^
If the Devs don't want to change the current TFOs, then please just make 'Patrol' versions that scale.
I'll just run those with my one fleet mate left who hasn't quit yet because of this.
Having events always popping normals is annoying to everyone including people with the high end DPS builds. There are also so maps like the one you mention that only has a normal mode.
Keep.
It.
Civil.
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I like this suggestion. I've been in favour of Cryptic releasing scaling versions of missions for a while now. Some queues hardly ever launch, so allowing solo-play would help solve that issue too.
I'm one of those who, even if I COULD build a uber-dps boat, I wouldn't. I like what I have just fine. It gets me through content just fine and it's more fun to not kill things in one shot. This is my fun. Everyone has their own fun and their fun is not wrong, just very disrespectful of us lower-dps people when they choose to go into normal content, not are forced into them by events.
When i left, the "meta" (as it's called now) was Anti Proton, Borg Set (possibly with fleet shield/engine) and BO3. Infected: The Conduit on Advanced was not "easy" but it wasnt REALLY difficult and you still had to plan and in pugging in advanced it sometimes got scary hard. Khitomer on Advanced back then, especially when pugging, could be hair pullingly nerve wracking. Borg Red Alerts (back then they werent a "special event" were also not REALLY hard, but again, you had to watch your ship.
I came back about 3 weeks ago. Infected Conduit on Adv...done in under 3 mins. Sometimes under 2 mins. Khitomer is just a joke now and the red alerts have been repackaged as "new event content" that not really new event content, sorry, i just get the feeling that this game is now in maintenance mode with some of the decisions that have been taken.
The power creep is real.
As i said in the pervious thread, it caused 4 of my friends to quit within 2 days of coming back.
Fixing this would be tricky.
First of all, make all Patrols/TFO's have an elite option. That would need to be followed up with a rewards system that would actually entice the deeps players into the time sink (cause lets face it, elite tfo's are a big time sink) actually worth playing, maybe have the Elite TFO's give Endeavour points along with double the awards they are giving right now.
The "End Game" for ST:O is basically partially wrapped around those TFO's, so balancing things out, giving the DPS players something worthwhile to get their teeth into, which would then have the benefit of giving the "average" and casual player more free reign in the normal and adv TFO's would benefit everyone, the problem is doing it in a way that doesnt horribly break something.
Certainly.
However, I think one thing is being overlooked.
It's not just that events usually only come in normal difficulty nowadays. I believe that the constant running of events by itself - multiple at the same time, sometimes even - also has a detrimental effect.
If players are told to do something 14 or 20 times in a row, each day, for every day of the year, they're going to want it being done as fast as possible. I can't say I blame them for taking their best or fastest ship into such a mission to reduce the annoying part of the grind as much as possible.
I don't know what others think about this, but I feel that Cryptic should seriously consider reducing the number of events we're getting. Also because it's having a negative effect on what content can be played anyway - most queues already didn't launch very quickly and that's become much worse since everyone's being encouraged to play just the same one or two.
Your right that could go both ways... perhaps I want it to look like the show players could keep a loudout that could complete game objectives without help. (yes killing things in this game fast is actually the objective 9 times out of 10.... don't let x escape remove wave in x time frame release x number of ships ect those are DMG gates) I'm not saying there is anything wrong with a RP type build... but perhaps the discourteous behaviour is sticking to such builds and Qing for public DPS ques. Instead of doing solo mission content... or grouping with like minded friends.
As for preventing high dps players from playing content. Hey your issue is with Cryptic not players. I have yet to meet a discourteous STO player yet. High DPS players doing "normal" maps are almost in every single case in those maps because Cryptic has forced them there. Events that are only playable on normal.... maps that don't have anything but a normal. That is the current game we have. High DPS players play on E mode... when they can. They random Advance mode sure, its the only random que we have... and lets all be honest if there was a E mode random options players with RP builds would end up in that que, and the troll types that figure they will Q the E mode for higher reward and go plink plink and let the DPS players play the game for them.
I think this "issue" is blown out of proportion... and 3/4 of the players complaining would have nothing to be upset about if Cryptic simply allowed Advance mode versions of the event ques to exist. (I get that some really old maps like the mine field map the OP mentions is probably too old a map to be updated with an advance version)
Speaking as an intermediate player..
When it comes to certain EVENT maps that don't have a choice in difficulty and that aren't moderated in other ways (i.e. waves, timers, travel), there are some that I run WITHOUT using any buffs at all.
In space this means NOT using EPtW, an energy firing mode, or an attack pattern and on the ground means no kit or offensive captain abilities but just firing a hand held weapon.
In other words it's the equivalent of standing around and not doing much.
Thankfully, not all event maps require this because many are moderated in other ways.
They already do this all the time. Advanced random TFO's also.
No it does not proceed from that assumption. "As much damage as possible" is an exaggerated statement you created.
There are players that gimp themselves heavily in the name of having a canon experience and my suggestion continues to be that often by making some small changes to a build that increases the amount of damage done, even it it's via mobility, it can pay off generously in TFO enjoyment.
This could also help players who are away for many years, return to the game, and then complain that the game play isn't the same as it was almost a decade ago.
There isn't any way to prevent advanced or higher level players from running normal difficulty content but I doubt it happens much, unless forced by an event, as ultimately there isn't any challenge and the rewards are better elsewhere. Thankfully, a lot of the event maps are moderated in other ways.
All they have to do is add advance mode for events. That solves 90% of the gripping I'm sure.
Adding advance mode for a few of the oldest maps likely won't happen because Cryptic probably doesn't know how they work anymore and doing so would involve rebuilding them. Same reason they likely won't change too much for the Dyson ground zone.
The Events however... really they don't have any excuse to keep giving use Normal mode only events.
+1 for more Elite options
and +2 if you keep your characters reasonably canon
I don't mind the price of things so much, as the amount of things that are priced high; I'd prefer a subscription option, if it meant not having <$300 packs
Tal'Shiar/Reman Resistance/Romulan Nemesis uniform, pls.
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There used to be advanced difficulty for events and even a few elites. However people complained that they went in on advanced and couldn't clear it. So it was reduced and limited to normal mode only. I'm all for the difficulties returning and letting people play on whatever difficulty they like, provided they meet the minimum standards set forth by the game. I've voiced my thoughts behind the scenes many times about how I thought it was a bad idea to limit events to normal mode only.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
That is an interesting take. I never considered it was complaining that got them to remove the advance events.
Perhaps they have a solution now though.... they have an event tab now that I don't think we had back then ? (I could be misremembering) They could simply add a second option with the JOIN from the event tab. Add a XYZ Event (normal) [JOIN] and under it a XYZ Event (Advance) [JOIN]. I would have to think that would make it a little bit clearer for newer players. If need be they could always remove the Event tab from the standard QUE and just force people to launch the events from the Event tab. That would make it almost impossible to que the wrong difficulty.
While it may seem like the Devs don't listen to feedback since they don't respond on the forums they actually do listen. Limiting event runs to Normal level was one such case, as mentioned by Darkblade. The fires of Delta Rising was another example of them listening to feedback.
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Wait something related to Delta was per request ?
ahhh so your saying don't ask anything of Cryptic... or you'll get the best content ever and everyone will love it. That does sound good... I mean bad. I'm not sure.
No. They did some balance changes after a lot of feedback about the sheer XP and damage wall that spawned on release. Took some time to start balancing things out. I still remember having to grind like hell just to do the next mission in the Delta Arc. And it took me a whole hour just to do the mission Takedown, and most of that was just the space combat portion. I think they had originally balanced things around higher end builds. Anyways... the forums were on fire for a while after Delta Rising launched.
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Oh man, I remember just within the past 2 years, when I attempted to finish the Delta arc with my older characters, the sheer difficulty I was met with. The Vaadwaur ships dealt so much damage I was shredded within seconds. This was before I wisened up to upgrade my gear, and then noticed that, while I didn't exactly become a DPS god...I DID become much less squishy.