Thanks to all for the math behind it all. I'm baffled by the notion that defenses would have diminishing returns and damage WOULDN'T, but clearly it's more complicated than just that statement.
Oh, and I downloaded a parser, but I have no idea how to use it. There's no instructions, installation or otherwise. Combat Log Reader, if anyone can tell me what to do with it.
I'm glad you specified it was the Tzenkethi and not the Voth.
Damage by virtue of it's nature in game essentially forces a decent balance between cat1 buffs, cat 2 buffs, as well as crit chance and severity for alot of builds. If you don't have enough cat 1 buffs, then your base values will be underwhelming. Not enough cat 2 then overall values underwhelming. If you have a ton of chance but no severity then you'll crit more often sure, but it won't amount to much. If you have a ton of severity but no chance, you'll have some nasty hits when you crit but you won't be critting much. Damage potential is also heavily influenced by what debuffs are present on targets you're after. Debuffing can push resistances down really far and potentially into the negative in a few instances depending on how much is present. How aggressively you pilot, such as how often you activate powers against NPCs can also have an impact. Such as if you rarely touch your powers vs people who keep them on cooldown.
There can also be side effects to building for certain bits of damage or tank setups as well. Due to how my tank is setup, I went for a balance between tank and DPS for what I like to do. I prefer to be in the middle of that spectrum vs too far to one side or the other. On the better runs I can sustain 150k DPS with the tank build. Now for the side effect, although I've not been going for it, I have around 270-325 control expertise on the build from some of the consoles and traits I've used for other effects. While it didn't make my gravity well quite as strong as dedicated science builds, it did give me a gravity well pull that's stronger than alot of other non-sci builds.
In order to use the parser you need a combat log for it to read. To start a combat log you need to enter "/combatlog 1" into the chat box to start the log and "/combatlog 0" to stop it. Certain maps will be better at parsing than others. I would also recommend using the "-NoAutoRotateLogs" in the command line of your launcher or you'll have a ton of individual logs vs one concise one. From there point your parser towards the combat log file once you've generated one. Then you can have it tell you what the numbers were for the respective TFO. Some will be more consistent than others will, especially if you're too far away to accurately record the numbers of your team, such as can happen in a khitomer vortex as a hypothetical. In the Analysis Report you can see what individual powers did, what pets did and similar.
For the installation you just need to let the exe install it wherever you find convenient.
"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
funny, when I megawell them in the battlezone, they die fairly well
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,711Community Moderator
The Tzenkethi buff each other in close proximity. I think the frigates actually shield larger ships. Also Tzenkethi shields are really strong except from the forward arc, but then you gotta deal with their Tetryon weapons.
They're basically the Doom Turtles of STO. Really durable on the flanks, and pack a punch up front.
Crowd Control abilities that work on everyone else are not advisable with the Tzenkethi.
Now if only they too were affected by the black hole in Gravity Kills. When they first released that TFO they were, and we saw some very creative tactics develop from it.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
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Moved over to CAT myself at least for deeper dives. https://cat.danfai.de/ . I tend to still use SCM for quick overviews. I found when trying to look break a log down into more detail CAT is the better one. I know CLR is popular but I never got on with it as I found it rather unstable.
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,711Community Moderator
One thing to note is that the numbers also will reflect the length of the mission. One of the reasons we see such crazy numbers from Infected is that it can be knocked out quickly, thus it has to calculate the damage output from a smaller set of data. The longer the mission, the more data it collects, the lower the curve. At least that is my understanding of how Parsers work. The shorter the duration, the steeper the curve. That's another reason why I never understood the obsession with DPS in Infected.
It can be steamrolled these days
Team buffs/debuffs can affect personal DPS
If you really want to gauge your personal DPS you'd need to do so in a setting without teammates throwing out AP Beta or team buffs. Infected is just too chaotic. While it can give you an idea, there are 4 other variables that can throw the data one way or the other. But that's just me.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
One thing to note is that the numbers also will reflect the length of the mission. One of the reasons we see such crazy numbers from Infected is that it can be knocked out quickly, thus it has to calculate the damage output from a smaller set of data. The longer the mission, the more data it collects, the lower the curve. At least that is my understanding of how Parsers work. The shorter the duration, the steeper the curve. That's another reason why I never understood the obsession with DPS in Infected.
Infected Space is a "closed course" without any respawning enemies or silly timers which make it a good candidate for parsing. Sure, if a player completes it more quickly their damage per second goes up.
[*] It can be steamrolled these days
Usually I find that over several runs of ISA there's always some that will be with teammates that are "just right" (just like Goldilocks and the three bears).
[*]Team buffs/debuffs can affect personal DPS
Sometimes it can be easier to just take what you can get rather than obsessing about little details. Again, it's not just about a single parse. Most of my parses for a specific build are usually within about 10% of each other over multiple pug ISA runs.
If you really want to gauge your personal DPS you'd need to do so in a setting without teammates throwing out AP Beta or team buffs. Infected is just too chaotic. While it can give you an idea, there are 4 other variables that can throw the data one way or the other. But that's just me.
Yes. There's really no need to reinvent the wheel in this case.
Ok! Got it working (I think). Not sure how to post the results, so I'll just describe it.
Mission was Battle of the Binary Stars. Lots of Pew Pew. Not a particularly difficult mission.
Top DPS was 19,190.646
Next was 12,492.633
Next was me, at 10,401.347
Next was 9,182.082
Bottom was 5,692.087
So, I'm middle of the pack here. No one seemed to be clearing the field with absurd ease.
I'll do another and post some more results.
Did another, this time the Romulan Minefield. I had the highest DPS, a surprising 4,203.179, rather a drop from the Battle of the Binary Stars' number.
Is there a better way to read these? With results being as inconsistent as this, I'm wondering if there's a better way to evaluate it.
That's average numbers for a thing like that. Also keep in mind for a tfo like that you're going to have objectives that extend the time out, thus adding mission time and lowering DPS overall. Average DPS for players is 15k-50k for the community. Considering that TFO I would say you're actually closer to the 18k range if you were to parse an ISA. By sheer mechanics that Binary Stars can't really be nuked through.
However to go along with what I was illustrating before, that's a combined DPS of 56k give or take that was in there. If all of you spiked our damage up, that would've been around 168k coming down on stuff. Keep in mind you will see a large amount of variance in certain TFOs. Buffs/debuffs present will also effect your numbers as can range from the team if the parse can't see it to pick up the numbers.
Japori is decent for parsing. Argala is so so imo. ISA and Hive are some good ones to parse as well.
"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
One thing to note is that the numbers also will reflect the length of the mission. One of the reasons we see such crazy numbers from Infected is that it can be knocked out quickly, thus it has to calculate the damage output from a smaller set of data. The longer the mission, the more data it collects, the lower the curve. At least that is my understanding of how Parsers work. The shorter the duration, the steeper the curve. That's another reason why I never understood the obsession with DPS in Infected.
It can be steamrolled these days
Team buffs/debuffs can affect personal DPS
If you really want to gauge your personal DPS you'd need to do so in a setting without teammates throwing out AP Beta or team buffs. Infected is just too chaotic. While it can give you an idea, there are 4 other variables that can throw the data one way or the other. But that's just me.
Don't agree on without your teammates throwing out AP beta or team buffs but I do agree that ISA/ISE long ago stopped representing real DPS at least for the short runs. Its so short these days along with ship build and piloting being so over optimised that the DPS is not real DPS but spike damage. Many of those high end ISE run builds as soon you you put them in other other content like HSE the DPS plummets as its not real sustained DPS.
I see it all the time some DPSers gets so focused on ISE that they make changes to make there ship better at ISE not realising they are lowering there real DPS and lowering there performance in other TFO's. I have maps I use solo as its useful to gather data solo without team buffs. Then I prefer maps like HSE to represent real DPS for team work.
I just re-installed Combat Meter again, and, for fun, went to check whether my DPS is still on record. Apparently, even though I didn't send in the parse myself, I'm listed in an ISA for 120K. Slightly disheartening, seeing the highest players literally do over a million DPS, yikes. Still glad I'm not chasing the monkey any more, because it looks like I lost that battle ages ago.
EDIT: Just did 153K. But when I tried to upload it, CM said something like "Cryptic screwed up your map. Complain to them," LOL.
So after several Japori runs, my dps typically ranges between 8k and 10k. I see here that there are people doing millions... and this is considered balanced?
They're not doing "millions" in Japori or in any normal or most advanced difficulty TFO's. It's highly improbable that you'll ever see a parse over several hundred thousand let alone "millions" and that would only be applicable to a single map (ISA).
My ship, at 8-10k dps is ok in any TFO on normal.
Now that you have a parser set up have you considered using it to improve your ship's performance? Who knows, perhaps you'll end up being ok on advanced with only a few simple changes? Hopefully you installed a parser to better understand things..
My ship, at 8-10k dps is ok in any TFO on normal. If there are people doing MILLIONS of damage per second, how do the devs challenge them without making it completely beyond average players like me? How do they balance normal content (such as story arcs) so they're playable by both me and those people doing millions?
There are 3 difficulty levels for everything aside from event TFO's as well as various other ways to regulate a map such as timers, travel time, respawning enemy waves, etc. Most event TFO's use these "other" ways.
Players are not doing "millions" in story arc content, normal difficulty TFO's, and most advanced difficulty TFO's. There are a small handful of players that can probably break one million in ISA with the vast majority topping out at about a third of that or less.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,711Community Moderator
So after several Japori runs, my dps typically ranges between 8k and 10k. I see here that there are people doing millions... and this is considered balanced? My ship, at 8-10k dps is ok in any TFO on normal. If there are people doing MILLIONS of damage per second, how do the devs challenge them without making it completely beyond average players like me? How do they balance normal content (such as story arcs) so they're playable by both me and those people doing millions?
I think the range for Advanced is about 10-15k, so... you're probably sitting around the average for us normal players. As for the high end DPS builds... they could do an overall stat squish, but that could cause all kinds of problems in itself. The main thing is HOW people are getting these numbers. What combination of things is enabling it.
This is the big headache of ANY MMO, especially those with the build freedom of STO. World of WarCraft also had a damage output problem, but that was overall a result of verticle progression power creep as they kept adding to the level cap. STO is kind of awkward as I wanna say its less Verticle and more Lateral. We've plateau'd because of level cap, however we have alternate ways of gaining more power via different combinations of gear, traits, and ships. Being able to get entire sets of weapons with desirable mods, ships with desirable layouts, in many cases stat buffs from Duty Officers... our power creep is less straight forward and more shotgun spread.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
So after several Japori runs, my dps typically ranges between 8k and 10k. I see here that there are people doing millions... and this is considered balanced? My ship, at 8-10k dps is ok in any TFO on normal. If there are people doing MILLIONS of damage per second, how do the devs challenge them without making it completely beyond average players like me? How do they balance normal content (such as story arcs) so they're playable by both me and those people doing millions?
I think the range for Advanced is about 10-15k, so... you're probably sitting around the average for us normal players.
8-10K is "entry" range for advanced TFO's. IIRC you've previously stated you're at about 30K. With a simple keybind, an emergency conn hologram doff, and reliable cooldown reduction 30K can easily become several times that without much fuss or spending a dime.
So after several Japori runs, my dps typically ranges between 8k and 10k. I see here that there are people doing millions... and this is considered balanced?
They're not doing "millions" in Japori or in any normal or most advanced difficulty TFO's. It's highly improbable that you'll ever see a parse over several hundred thousand let alone "millions" and that would only be applicable to a single map (ISA).
Just looked it up. Top guy in ISA (Combat Meter) did over 11 million (Sic!) DPS. Second one, over 2 million, and then 5 with over 1 million. Means the top DPS-er did roughly 72x better than little old me.
So after several Japori runs, my dps typically ranges between 8k and 10k. I see here that there are people doing millions... and this is considered balanced? My ship, at 8-10k dps is ok in any TFO on normal. If there are people doing MILLIONS of damage per second, how do the devs challenge them without making it completely beyond average players like me? How do they balance normal content (such as story arcs) so they're playable by both me and those people doing millions?
This is what I was trying to talk about much earlier in the thread and why I laid out the math I did. You will NEVER see those kinds of numbers in normal mode ever as it's impossible. Reason being is there simply isn't enough available health for them to burn through as mobs die so fast. This is why alot of folks have shifted towards HSE for some of the ultra high records as there's more HP available on mobs purely by virtue of how the TFO functions. Also in order to get to those millions of DPS it requires coordination and team debuffs that you can't count on in random groups. In fact I would say it's impossible to get 750k in a pug group. Those millions of DPS runs are things you will never see unless you're part of their groups. Also again, running into those types of builds is extremely rare. What you're seeing most of the time when in groups where one appears to be present is the combined might of your team giving the illusion of a high DPS build being present.
Now the other problem you're going to have is if you nerf/buff something in the name of balancing, you're nerfing/buffing it for EVERYONE. You can't just nerf something someone uses for DPS builds without it effecting everyone who also uses it negatively. Likewise is true for buffs. As to how they balance it for ultra high end DPS and low end on normal mode to challenge both, simply put they don't. Normal is intended to be just that, normal. It's not meant to be the mid level challenge of advanced, and especially not the higher challenge of elite. Simply put normal mode is for anyone who wants to blast thing, be they lower end DPS or ultra high end DPS. Both sides of the DPS spectrum are able to run normal modes, with the difficulty curve favoring the lower end, where as on the opposite side of the coin elite modes will favor the high end.
Also there's a huge difference between playable and fun. Playable simply means it's possible to play it and functional. Fun and/or challenging is a completely different ballgame. Normal modes to me are playable, but aren't necessarily fun. This is why generally I prefer advanced for mindless blasting, and elites for when I want something more challenging. Normal mode simply put is the "you can say you're seeing stuff and playing the game" difficulty where as on the opposite end of the spectrum elites are the "you're going to fail if you don't bring your A game" difficulty. Normal modes are for anyone who wants to play, where as advanced and elite are meant for higher level challenges and aren't always meant for everyone. Normal mode is meant for anyone to be able to play from the low end to the high end dps. If one wishes to step into higher difficulty they'll need more DPS than before to succeed.
"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
So after several Japori runs, my dps typically ranges between 8k and 10k. I see here that there are people doing millions... and this is considered balanced?
They're not doing "millions" in Japori or in any normal or most advanced difficulty TFO's. It's highly improbable that you'll ever see a parse over several hundred thousand let alone "millions" and that would only be applicable to a single map (ISA).
Just looked it up. Top guy in ISA (Combat Meter) did over 11 million (Sic!) DPS. Second one, over 2 million, and then 5 with over 1 million. Means the top DPS-er did roughly 72x better than little old me.
Look at it the other way around in a positive light as your score is not little. Your top score is in the top 5% ish of the playerbase scores. I haven't looked at numbers recently to work your position out precisely. I bet if you do the math your right up there in the high end DPSers category. There are only a tiny fraction of the player base higher then your best score.
Those Elite 2 million+ runs are special runs with premade teams and premade plans with a planed flight path for each pilot and a lot of practice. I really wouldn't worry about competing against them when you are doing random runs with random people.
Most of those high end runs DPS would plummet if they joined a random run with random people. I don't even count there DPS as real DPS as the runs are so short its not DPS but spike damage. Put them in HSE and watch there real DPS fall.
"they could do an overall stat squish, but that could cause all kinds of problems in itself. The main thing is HOW people are getting these numbers. What combination of things is enabling it."
A large amount of it is planning, skill, piloting, knowledge, team work and then practise, lots and lots of practise to get the perfect combo of triggers at the right time and to make sure everyone is in the right position at the right moment.
So after several Japori runs, my dps typically ranges between 8k and 10k. I see here that there are people doing millions... and this is considered balanced?
They're not doing "millions" in Japori or in any normal or most advanced difficulty TFO's. It's highly improbable that you'll ever see a parse over several hundred thousand let alone "millions" and that would only be applicable to a single map (ISA).
Just looked it up. Top guy in ISA (Combat Meter) did over 11 million (Sic!) DPS. Second one, over 2 million, and then 5 with over 1 million. Means the top DPS-er did roughly 72x better than little old me.
Look at it the other way around in a positive light as your score is not little. Your top score is in the top 5% ish of the playerbase scores. I haven't looked at numbers recently to work your position out precisely. I bet if you do the math your right up there in the high end DPSers category. There are only a tiny fraction of the player base higher then your best score.
Hey now, you suddenly made me feel a lot better about my performance. Thank you!
Those Elite 2 million+ runs are special runs with premade teams and premade plans with a planed flight path for each pilot and a lot of practice. I really wouldn't worry about competing against them when you are doing random runs with random people.
I'm honestly really happy where I'm at. I can do all desired Advanced content I want to play, without much struggles. Still, I am baffled at the these insanely high numbers some teams can pull off.
Most of those high end runs DPS would plummet if they joined a random run with random people. I don't even count there DPS as real DPS as the runs are so short its not DPS but spike damage. Put them in HSE and watch there real DPS fall.
"they could do an overall stat squish, but that could cause all kinds of problems in itself. The main thing is HOW people are getting these numbers. What combination of things is enabling it."
A large amount of it is planning, skill, piloting, knowledge, team work and then practise, lots and lots of practise to get the perfect combo of triggers at the right time and to make sure everyone is in the right position at the right moment.
Hey now, you suddenly made me feel a lot better about my performance. Thank you!
This is why I've said for awhile we need an actual DPS meter in game from Cryptic. You thought you weren't doing nearly as good as you were. Being at 120k I believe it was, you are more than equipped to step into elites should you ever decide to do so. There are a ton of people in this game like yourself who are doing far better than they think they are, and likewise there are a ton of people in this game who are doing far worse than they think they are. In both cases it can warp the perception of certain ships, builds, combos and what have you because the numbers aren't known. Giving us an actual Cryptic meter just exposes what's already there in the form of combat logs and makes it much more accessible for folks to know their numbers and if they need to improve to reach goals, or they're good where they're at. Those who want to go higher have the numbers needed to improve, those that are good where they are can do whatever else it is they want to do.
"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
Hey now, you suddenly made me feel a lot better about my performance. Thank you!
This is why I've said for awhile we need an actual DPS meter in game from Cryptic. You thought you weren't doing nearly as good as you were. Being at 120k I believe it was, you are more than equipped to step into elites should you ever decide to do so.
Awww, thank you too! I will likely stick to Advanced queues, though, as I hate embarrassing myself, or bring others down.
There are a ton of people in this game like yourself who are doing far better than they think they are, and likewise there are a ton of people in this game who are doing far worse than they think they are. In both cases it can warp the perception of certain ships, builds, combos and what have you because the numbers aren't known. Giving us an actual Cryptic meter just exposes what's already there in the form of combat logs and makes it much more accessible for folks to know their numbers and if they need to improve to reach goals, or they're good where they're at. Those who want to go higher have the numbers needed to improve, those that are good where they are can do whatever else it is they want to do.
I am definitely in favor of such an accurate, single-player-only DPS meter, provided by Cryptic themselves! Would make things so much easier for all involved. Like a map, specifically designed for solo DPS. And if they do it real properly, it might even serve as a basis for a future pass-mark system, where you get to unlock playable levels for yourself (or subesquently be excluded from Tiers above your level). But it would have to be truly accurate, and not cluttered by what Team mates do, distance from each other on the map, etc. And, if for nothing else, ir will make the DPS-League's job a lot easier too.
One thing to note is that the numbers also will reflect the length of the mission. One of the reasons we see such crazy numbers from Infected is that it can be knocked out quickly, thus it has to calculate the damage output from a smaller set of data. The longer the mission, the more data it collects, the lower the curve. At least that is my understanding of how Parsers work. The shorter the duration, the steeper the curve. That's another reason why I never understood the obsession with DPS in Infected.
It can be steamrolled these days
Team buffs/debuffs can affect personal DPS
If you really want to gauge your personal DPS you'd need to do so in a setting without teammates throwing out AP Beta or team buffs. Infected is just too chaotic. While it can give you an idea, there are 4 other variables that can throw the data one way or the other. But that's just me.
thats why I run the starbase up near New Romulus, what is it, SB234? I run 4 times and average
I am definitely in favor of such an accurate, single-player-only DPS meter, provided by Cryptic themselves! Would make things so much easier for all involved. Like a map, specifically designed for solo DPS. And if they do it real properly, it might even serve as a basis for a future pass-mark system, where you get to unlock playable levels for yourself (or subesquently be excluded from Tiers above your level). But it would have to be truly accurate, and not cluttered by what Team mates do, distance from each other on the map, etc. And, if for nothing else, ir will make the DPS-League's job a lot easier too.
That's part of the purpose the proving grounds served in WoW. It was/is a map in game people could train at, albeit not entirely perfect but it served its purpose. Everything was contained to that map. So if one wished to implement the Gear check, Performance check, and Dungeon Journal as I advocated prior, if you made the performance check in that map, that was 100% you the player doing that. There was no cheese you could take in with you to clutter things up.
As for the form the parser should take, the better ones I've seen are the ones from WoW and SWTOR that read everything but allow you to focus in on one particular person if you wish. Such as for raiding I could see the entirety of my team, or focus on just my own numbers. The ones in WoW and SWTOR may not have been officially created by the games initially themselves, but were given official support because of how accurate they were. Recount being the one in WoW. When dude hit a rough spot and his computer died, he thought he would have to quit supporting it. Blizzard basically stepped in and said "so if we hook you up with this computer, what would we need to do in order to for you to work on this and show us how to maintain it ourselves?" But yes anytime I've advocated a parser be included, it always assumes that all necessary legwork has been/will be done with it. I might be insane, but even when developing my own stuff I never do things halfway. When suggesting things I always assume the proper work done as well.
"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
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,711Community Moderator
8-10K is "entry" range for advanced TFO's. IIRC you've previously stated you're at about 30K. With a simple keybind, an emergency conn hologram doff, and reliable cooldown reduction 30K can easily become several times that without much fuss or spending a dime.
As I don't parse myself... I estimate based on when I've been parsed in the past. My main's running a gold plated phaser build and I tend to chain FAW with AP Beta, which triggers Superior Area Denial, and I have Kemocite 1. I didn't reengineer anything, and I'm not running the Bajor Set for extra phaser as I prefer the Kobali set for the added healing. I've also got Reciprocity and All Hands on Deck. Its not the full build but you get an idea.
And this is either in a Sagan, Temporal Connie, a Lexington, or my recent acquistion of a World Razer. I got an alt who does something similar, but with the added bonus of Miracle Worker FDC Connie with Elite Valkyires, but NOT gold plated.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
if you have torpedos, the first strike bundle is worth the price of admission just for the maelstrom launchers. I routinely see 220 and 300K crits. I just ran argala/wanted and only took 20K shield damage (Have the heal shields endeavor.) I'm hoping not but i see a nerf coing
Comments
I'm glad you specified it was the Tzenkethi and not the Voth.
Damage by virtue of it's nature in game essentially forces a decent balance between cat1 buffs, cat 2 buffs, as well as crit chance and severity for alot of builds. If you don't have enough cat 1 buffs, then your base values will be underwhelming. Not enough cat 2 then overall values underwhelming. If you have a ton of chance but no severity then you'll crit more often sure, but it won't amount to much. If you have a ton of severity but no chance, you'll have some nasty hits when you crit but you won't be critting much. Damage potential is also heavily influenced by what debuffs are present on targets you're after. Debuffing can push resistances down really far and potentially into the negative in a few instances depending on how much is present. How aggressively you pilot, such as how often you activate powers against NPCs can also have an impact. Such as if you rarely touch your powers vs people who keep them on cooldown.
There can also be side effects to building for certain bits of damage or tank setups as well. Due to how my tank is setup, I went for a balance between tank and DPS for what I like to do. I prefer to be in the middle of that spectrum vs too far to one side or the other. On the better runs I can sustain 150k DPS with the tank build. Now for the side effect, although I've not been going for it, I have around 270-325 control expertise on the build from some of the consoles and traits I've used for other effects. While it didn't make my gravity well quite as strong as dedicated science builds, it did give me a gravity well pull that's stronger than alot of other non-sci builds.
In order to use the parser you need a combat log for it to read. To start a combat log you need to enter "/combatlog 1" into the chat box to start the log and "/combatlog 0" to stop it. Certain maps will be better at parsing than others. I would also recommend using the "-NoAutoRotateLogs" in the command line of your launcher or you'll have a ton of individual logs vs one concise one. From there point your parser towards the combat log file once you've generated one. Then you can have it tell you what the numbers were for the respective TFO. Some will be more consistent than others will, especially if you're too far away to accurately record the numbers of your team, such as can happen in a khitomer vortex as a hypothetical. In the Analysis Report you can see what individual powers did, what pets did and similar.
For the installation you just need to let the exe install it wherever you find convenient.
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funny, when I megawell them in the battlezone, they die fairly well
They're basically the Doom Turtles of STO. Really durable on the flanks, and pack a punch up front.
Crowd Control abilities that work on everyone else are not advisable with the Tzenkethi.
Now if only they too were affected by the black hole in Gravity Kills. When they first released that TFO they were, and we saw some very creative tactics develop from it.
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The exe version can be easier to set up. Think you might have downloaded the java version.
Combat Log Reader (CLR) https://sto-league.com/combatlogreader/
STO Combat Meter (SCM) https://dps.shivtr.com/pages/STOSCM
If you really want to gauge your personal DPS you'd need to do so in a setting without teammates throwing out AP Beta or team buffs. Infected is just too chaotic. While it can give you an idea, there are 4 other variables that can throw the data one way or the other. But that's just me.
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I'm interested to see what the newer patrols will parse for me, Might try one of those tomorrow after doing my rocket thing.
Usually I find that over several runs of ISA there's always some that will be with teammates that are "just right" (just like Goldilocks and the three bears).
Sometimes it can be easier to just take what you can get rather than obsessing about little details. Again, it's not just about a single parse. Most of my parses for a specific build are usually within about 10% of each other over multiple pug ISA runs.
Yes. There's really no need to reinvent the wheel in this case.
That's average numbers for a thing like that. Also keep in mind for a tfo like that you're going to have objectives that extend the time out, thus adding mission time and lowering DPS overall. Average DPS for players is 15k-50k for the community. Considering that TFO I would say you're actually closer to the 18k range if you were to parse an ISA. By sheer mechanics that Binary Stars can't really be nuked through.
However to go along with what I was illustrating before, that's a combined DPS of 56k give or take that was in there. If all of you spiked our damage up, that would've been around 168k coming down on stuff. Keep in mind you will see a large amount of variance in certain TFOs. Buffs/debuffs present will also effect your numbers as can range from the team if the parse can't see it to pick up the numbers.
Japori is decent for parsing. Argala is so so imo. ISA and Hive are some good ones to parse as well.
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I see it all the time some DPSers gets so focused on ISE that they make changes to make there ship better at ISE not realising they are lowering there real DPS and lowering there performance in other TFO's. I have maps I use solo as its useful to gather data solo without team buffs. Then I prefer maps like HSE to represent real DPS for team work.
EDIT: Just did 153K. But when I tried to upload it, CM said something like "Cryptic screwed up your map. Complain to them," LOL.
They're not doing "millions" in Japori or in any normal or most advanced difficulty TFO's. It's highly improbable that you'll ever see a parse over several hundred thousand let alone "millions" and that would only be applicable to a single map (ISA).
Now that you have a parser set up have you considered using it to improve your ship's performance? Who knows, perhaps you'll end up being ok on advanced with only a few simple changes? Hopefully you installed a parser to better understand things..
There are 3 difficulty levels for everything aside from event TFO's as well as various other ways to regulate a map such as timers, travel time, respawning enemy waves, etc. Most event TFO's use these "other" ways.
Players are not doing "millions" in story arc content, normal difficulty TFO's, and most advanced difficulty TFO's. There are a small handful of players that can probably break one million in ISA with the vast majority topping out at about a third of that or less.
I think the range for Advanced is about 10-15k, so... you're probably sitting around the average for us normal players. As for the high end DPS builds... they could do an overall stat squish, but that could cause all kinds of problems in itself. The main thing is HOW people are getting these numbers. What combination of things is enabling it.
This is the big headache of ANY MMO, especially those with the build freedom of STO. World of WarCraft also had a damage output problem, but that was overall a result of verticle progression power creep as they kept adding to the level cap. STO is kind of awkward as I wanna say its less Verticle and more Lateral. We've plateau'd because of level cap, however we have alternate ways of gaining more power via different combinations of gear, traits, and ships. Being able to get entire sets of weapons with desirable mods, ships with desirable layouts, in many cases stat buffs from Duty Officers... our power creep is less straight forward and more shotgun spread.
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8-10K is "entry" range for advanced TFO's. IIRC you've previously stated you're at about 30K. With a simple keybind, an emergency conn hologram doff, and reliable cooldown reduction 30K can easily become several times that without much fuss or spending a dime.
Just looked it up. Top guy in ISA (Combat Meter) did over 11 million (Sic!) DPS. Second one, over 2 million, and then 5 with over 1 million. Means the top DPS-er did roughly 72x better than little old me.
This is what I was trying to talk about much earlier in the thread and why I laid out the math I did. You will NEVER see those kinds of numbers in normal mode ever as it's impossible. Reason being is there simply isn't enough available health for them to burn through as mobs die so fast. This is why alot of folks have shifted towards HSE for some of the ultra high records as there's more HP available on mobs purely by virtue of how the TFO functions. Also in order to get to those millions of DPS it requires coordination and team debuffs that you can't count on in random groups. In fact I would say it's impossible to get 750k in a pug group. Those millions of DPS runs are things you will never see unless you're part of their groups. Also again, running into those types of builds is extremely rare. What you're seeing most of the time when in groups where one appears to be present is the combined might of your team giving the illusion of a high DPS build being present.
Now the other problem you're going to have is if you nerf/buff something in the name of balancing, you're nerfing/buffing it for EVERYONE. You can't just nerf something someone uses for DPS builds without it effecting everyone who also uses it negatively. Likewise is true for buffs. As to how they balance it for ultra high end DPS and low end on normal mode to challenge both, simply put they don't. Normal is intended to be just that, normal. It's not meant to be the mid level challenge of advanced, and especially not the higher challenge of elite. Simply put normal mode is for anyone who wants to blast thing, be they lower end DPS or ultra high end DPS. Both sides of the DPS spectrum are able to run normal modes, with the difficulty curve favoring the lower end, where as on the opposite side of the coin elite modes will favor the high end.
Also there's a huge difference between playable and fun. Playable simply means it's possible to play it and functional. Fun and/or challenging is a completely different ballgame. Normal modes to me are playable, but aren't necessarily fun. This is why generally I prefer advanced for mindless blasting, and elites for when I want something more challenging. Normal mode simply put is the "you can say you're seeing stuff and playing the game" difficulty where as on the opposite end of the spectrum elites are the "you're going to fail if you don't bring your A game" difficulty. Normal modes are for anyone who wants to play, where as advanced and elite are meant for higher level challenges and aren't always meant for everyone. Normal mode is meant for anyone to be able to play from the low end to the high end dps. If one wishes to step into higher difficulty they'll need more DPS than before to succeed.
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Those Elite 2 million+ runs are special runs with premade teams and premade plans with a planed flight path for each pilot and a lot of practice. I really wouldn't worry about competing against them when you are doing random runs with random people.
Most of those high end runs DPS would plummet if they joined a random run with random people. I don't even count there DPS as real DPS as the runs are so short its not DPS but spike damage. Put them in HSE and watch there real DPS fall.
"they could do an overall stat squish, but that could cause all kinds of problems in itself. The main thing is HOW people are getting these numbers. What combination of things is enabling it."
A large amount of it is planning, skill, piloting, knowledge, team work and then practise, lots and lots of practise to get the perfect combo of triggers at the right time and to make sure everyone is in the right position at the right moment.
Hey now, you suddenly made me feel a lot better about my performance. Thank you!
I'm honestly really happy where I'm at.
I really liked this post of yours.
This is why I've said for awhile we need an actual DPS meter in game from Cryptic. You thought you weren't doing nearly as good as you were. Being at 120k I believe it was, you are more than equipped to step into elites should you ever decide to do so. There are a ton of people in this game like yourself who are doing far better than they think they are, and likewise there are a ton of people in this game who are doing far worse than they think they are. In both cases it can warp the perception of certain ships, builds, combos and what have you because the numbers aren't known. Giving us an actual Cryptic meter just exposes what's already there in the form of combat logs and makes it much more accessible for folks to know their numbers and if they need to improve to reach goals, or they're good where they're at. Those who want to go higher have the numbers needed to improve, those that are good where they are can do whatever else it is they want to do.
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Awww, thank you too!
I am definitely in favor of such an accurate, single-player-only DPS meter, provided by Cryptic themselves! Would make things so much easier for all involved. Like a map, specifically designed for solo DPS. And if they do it real properly, it might even serve as a basis for a future pass-mark system, where you get to unlock playable levels for yourself (or subesquently be excluded from Tiers above your level). But it would have to be truly accurate, and not cluttered by what Team mates do, distance from each other on the map, etc. And, if for nothing else, ir will make the DPS-League's job a lot easier too.
thats why I run the starbase up near New Romulus, what is it, SB234? I run 4 times and average
Not me so much as it is the numbers themselves saying it. happy hunting on that front though. glad you've found what you like.
That's part of the purpose the proving grounds served in WoW. It was/is a map in game people could train at, albeit not entirely perfect but it served its purpose. Everything was contained to that map. So if one wished to implement the Gear check, Performance check, and Dungeon Journal as I advocated prior, if you made the performance check in that map, that was 100% you the player doing that. There was no cheese you could take in with you to clutter things up.
As for the form the parser should take, the better ones I've seen are the ones from WoW and SWTOR that read everything but allow you to focus in on one particular person if you wish. Such as for raiding I could see the entirety of my team, or focus on just my own numbers. The ones in WoW and SWTOR may not have been officially created by the games initially themselves, but were given official support because of how accurate they were. Recount being the one in WoW. When dude hit a rough spot and his computer died, he thought he would have to quit supporting it. Blizzard basically stepped in and said "so if we hook you up with this computer, what would we need to do in order to for you to work on this and show us how to maintain it ourselves?" But yes anytime I've advocated a parser be included, it always assumes that all necessary legwork has been/will be done with it. I might be insane, but even when developing my own stuff I never do things halfway. When suggesting things I always assume the proper work done as well.
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As I don't parse myself... I estimate based on when I've been parsed in the past. My main's running a gold plated phaser build and I tend to chain FAW with AP Beta, which triggers Superior Area Denial, and I have Kemocite 1. I didn't reengineer anything, and I'm not running the Bajor Set for extra phaser as I prefer the Kobali set for the added healing. I've also got Reciprocity and All Hands on Deck. Its not the full build but you get an idea.
And this is either in a Sagan, Temporal Connie, a Lexington, or my recent acquistion of a World Razer. I got an alt who does something similar, but with the added bonus of Miracle Worker FDC Connie with Elite Valkyires, but NOT gold plated.
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