I see a disconnect in the thread. part of the arguments are Elite players "invading" normal level content and wiping the floor with casual/lower end players, which I believe @annemarie30 is saying.
And I hear her, loud and clearly. And, throughout this thread, I have called Elite players invading lower Tier TFO's 'unsportsmanlike.' And I will stick to that.
Others are saying if you are a casual/low level player complaining about getting afk/wiped in Advanced/elite content, you need to improve. Both are valid comments.
Both are actually sides of the same coin. Playing content at a level you're clearly not ready for, is equally unsportsmanlike to your Team mates. But the latter is always a bit triggery, as it sounds like you're being forced/pressured into improving by others. And while sportsmanship is definitely a thing, I think improving yourself, to the point where you can comfortably participate at your chosen level, is primarily something you should do for yourself, as getting slaughtered all the time, or often incurring AFK-Penalties, is simply not fun. I recall, during Dilithium Rising, that I (temporarily) started playing patrols on Elite, to rake up XP (no, not at Japori). While I still rarely died, it was nonetheless a little too hard for comfort: getting three Feedback Pulses on you, in Elite, really does sting. My longwinded point being: it gets more fun when you play at your own level. And if you can't play comfortably at your own, chosen level, the logical inference is then that you seek to improve your own skill level/gear. Or you drop back to Advanced, like I did when I had leveled up to 65.
The second argument is simple enough. the game needs to parse your ability to perform at that level. If you can't you don't get to play. simple. You cannot reasonably expect to play in the majors when you are at best high school JV.
The opposite should hold too, then. Heavy weight boxers are not allowed to compete in a medium weight class. And I think that holds true universally, for almost all sports: once the class you belong to has been determined, you cannot compete either in a higher class, or a lower one, for that matter. Darkbladejk et al. have been defending the opposite, to which Annemarie has objected vehemently, and myself as well; namely that Elite players should be allowed in a Normal queue, and the rest of the team should just try and keep up, aka 'git gud.' Essentially arguing that the heavy weight boxer should be allowed to compete in a medium weight class, or lightweight class even. That position is entirely different from improving yourself, in order to play your current, self-chosen level of difficulty.
At this point it feels like its getting to be a bit circular. We just keep going around the same issue from different directions, occasionally pointing fingers, and... generally getting nowhere.
I agree; been feeling the same thing. Looks like old arguments are getting rehashed again (I am guilty of that myself too).
I honestly think that "elite" is just another label being thrown about almost indiscriminately in order to better enable a sense of outrage by those who stubbornly refuse to make any adjustments to their playstyle whatsoever.
"I got afk'd by a power playerwhaleuberdeepz elite player who was zipping about in a normal difficulty random TFO. I couldn't go anywhere because I was stuck in red alert"
"Do you have an Emergency Conn Hologram doff equipped?"
"No. What an outrageous suggestion! I will not make one single change! I've been playing this way since 2010. Nerf those dang elite players!"
"How do you know they were an elite player?"
"I call anybody doing better than me an elite player."
I'm not judging people and trying to beat people over the head and say they're not allowed to play until they can devote more time to gaming. What I said was "If someone is that hard pressed for time that they're having to rush and guarantee everything goes perfect to keep things from going squirrely, then imo they shouldn't be in the game to start with. They should wait until they have more time so they can slow down and enjoy the game, or utilize one of the other methods for getting things in game."
Do you not see the contradiction here? Go back over those statements. Go slowly. Read them as if someone else had written them and you have no idea what the thoughts behind those statements are.
If someone is having trouble competing at their chosen level, be it Normal, Advanced, or Elite, they alone are responsible for identifying problems and fixing them.
And what might that problem be on occasion? Let's take a look...
What if I want to be able to obliterate everything by just glaring in that direction like Superman with the Cosmic Armor and I don't want a challenge?
It's quite difficult to compete at one's chosen level of Normal when someone else wants to "be able to obliterate everything by just glaring in that direction".
One wonders if folks attempting to take the moral high ground here will ever put down their pencil and put a commensurate effort into trying to work around some of the issues they say they're experiencing.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,442Community Moderator
I don't mind going back over ground we've covered. Sometimes a new point will come up.
I don't agree that "forcing" a nerf on players won't solve the issue. To begin with nothing would be FORCED on anyone, you would CHOOSE your level of difficulty. As I see it, to increase difficulty you have to either make enemies stronger (which might put them out of reach of many players) or you make the players weaker (which would only affect those who choose this option, AND would have other benefits, such as allowing players of different skill and difficulty levels to play together).
That's some rather dynamic on the fly stuff that I don't think is even POSSIBLE in STO. And honestly I don't even know HOW that can be done. The closest thing I can even think of to something like this is how FF14 handles someone like me, who has a lot of high level classes including a lv 90 Machinist, getting put into even the first dungeon in the game with people just starting out. It literally scales you back to at least the highest appropriate level, abilities and all, for that dungeon.
STO can't do that. It would require locking out abilities and weapon slots in space, and abilities on the ground. And based on what you're wanting to happen... ON DEMAND for ANY SELECETED LEVEL. Do you know how many data points that is? Either 65 levels worth x the number of ships in game, or 6 tiers x number of ships in game. And thats just for space ALONE. Its a database NIGHTMARE. And that's not even including any accumulated Endeavor perk points or leveled skill points! AND THEN we have to consider at what point do we establish WHAT tier you're "supposed to be" for what content as well? What level are you supposed to be to do Infected Space? What level are you supposed to be to do Counterpoint? What level are you supposed to be to do Starbase 1? What... need I go on?
Oh and while we're at it... how will that bork the Loadout System, which already is a Finicky system in game? It will probably bork it far beyond Gre'thor and into god knows how many underworlds across the galaxy!
Oh and lets not forget that some people may not be actually properly geared either, which is its own can of worms. Should we be nerfed to improperly geared level as well to not leave them out of feeling abused by properly equipped players? Where does it stop?
Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't think anyone should be telling anyone else for any reason, NOT to play until they have "more time" to devote to gaming. One cannot sit in judgment of someone else's life like that. Perhaps that 30 minutes IS all the time they had allocated for gaming. Maybe that is due to a hectic schedule that doesn't have a lot of wiggle room. Or perhaps real life is just more interesting to them, and gaming not as important and therefore getting less time allocated to it. Whatever the circumstances or reasons, their gaming time is their gaming time, and no one should dictate to them when and how they spend it. So, let's try to be more understanding, ok? /soapbox
Fully agreed. If Annemarie says she only has 30 minutes of play time available, then I literally do not care whether someone else has people in their fleet who are either former/active military and/or police, or whatever, and can make more time for the game. Good for them; Annemarie, however, only has 30 minutes (again, she may have just been given an example, but that doesn't matter). It's not my place to tell anyone how much time they can afford to spend on the game. I fully sympathize with her not appreciating when Elite players stomp on her Normal level, and push her into an AFK-Penalty, as a result. And no, she normally doesn't get an AFK-Penalty, so she shouldn't have to get better, as she can play the content on her chosen difficulty level. Only time she cannot, is when players 2 levels higher than her, come in to ruin her fun. That's not cool.
EDIT: I thought I was over it, but I realize I'm still getting upset over this. And no, before anyone suggests it, I have never received an AFK-Penalty for not contributing enough (except for inadvertenly getting disconnected a few times over the years).
One wonders if folks attempting to take the moral high ground here will ever put down their pencil and put a commensurate effort into trying to work around some of the issues they say they're experiencing.
One could also wonder if higher performing players who are stepping down in difficulty can put some minimal effort in to dial back their performance just a tad as a courtesy to their fellow players.
No, I'm not going to deconstruct any of my builds at this time. I am a showcase for STO as to what can be achieved on a low budget with a little perseverance
and again, a Play my way or don't play comment. and again, why I will NEVER play TFOs. until your ilk realise you are the toxic elements in the game, nothing will improve
The toxic attitude is not coming from us, you are seeing negativity that is not there.
You are interpreting what we are trying to say incorrectly. We are not saying you have to play the game our way. We are saying if you played the tutorial and picked up the most basic gameplay mechanics and go into a TFO and do the bare minimum you won’t get hit with an AFK bar the very rare outliner cases.
If you are being hit by AFK time and time again and are blaming others players when they have done nothing wrong. Then you are being toxic and have a toxic attitude towards those players.
If you are doing less damage then someone on the ground with a pistol, while in your spaceship then the problem is not the other players.
All you have to do is 1/6 the damage of 1 hangar bay and if you are doing less than that you are doing something fundamentally wrong with your build. Something fundamentally wrong like manually turning auto fire off and then not firing your weapons. Blaming other players is not the right attitude and wont solve anything as the other players are not at fault.
The bar to avoid being hit by AFK is so low its near impossible to get lots and lots of AFK unless you are doing something wrong. Generally speaking getting hit by AFK a lot is not the fault of other players, its something the player that was hit by AFK is doing wrong. As was shown before in the data the uberDPSers are no the cause of the problem so please stop being toxic and blaming them.
Oh and lets not forget that some people may not be actually properly geared either, which is its own can of worms. Should we be nerfed to improperly geared level as well to not leave them out of feeling abused by properly equipped players? Where does it stop?
No one should be nerfed. Players should be allowed to stay as strong as they've become. Where they are strong, however, is the matter at hand. Should the Elite player be allowed to flex their strength in a Normal? That is the question.
But you see... my suggestion where the chosen difficulty effectively nerfs high dps players is specifically intended to allow them to participate in normal content without it being trivial. They would get more difficult enemies to destroy, and it wouldn't prevent the normal players from participating. It would level the playing field, if you will. They could still play on normal if they want to obliterate everything in a blink, but they could HAVE that challenge in ANY mission or TFO.
So, I'm not sure what the objection is, really. Forgive my density, I'm just not seeing the downside.
but this also begs the question, why are such advanced players queueing for normal instances and not advanced? Leave the normal queues for regular/new players. (exceptions to events that lack any difficulty)
Event content generally only comes in Normal difficulty unfortunately, so higher performing players have no other option.
My suggestion would change this. Elite players would simply set their difficulty to Elite and be able to participate in Normal difficulty content on a level field.
Clearly, I'm missing something, if this isn't desirable.
One of the areas you might be missing is most DPS doesn't come from gear. The ratio is debatable but I would say gear only makes up 10 to 20% of DPS. Which has two problems with you idea. The first being how do you identify the high DPS players and then once you have done that, I can see no practical way that to implant a nerf that will bring that high DPS player down to normal difficulty. If I set Elite and join normal difficulty how would you nerf me down to the other players?
By the way we already have a form of this feature in game if I join a level 45 team I get nerfed down to level 45. You can set it so the max level is the team leaders level. This also applies to zones If I enter a level 40 player zone my level 65 toon gets nerfed down to level 40. To be honest it doesn't really have much impact.
Furthermore I am not even convinced the high DPS player is the problem as all the data is showing the high DPS player is not causing problems generally speaking and is even rising up the DPS of the other players.
One wonders if folks attempting to take the moral high ground here will ever put down their pencil and put a commensurate effort into trying to work around some of the issues they say they're experiencing.
One could also wonder if higher performing players who are stepping down in difficulty can put some minimal effort in to dial back their performance just a tad as a courtesy to their fellow players.
I tired that in the Breach event and posted about my results a fair few pages back. It was not that easy and removed all the fun from the TFO event runs. It was very hard work and none of the other players seemed to appreciated it. I didn't run across anyone in the entire event who preferred me to dial back. Worse dialling back didn't seem to benefit the team and removed all the fun for myself. I am not saying never ever dial back just very often its not helping.
Do you not see the contradiction here? Go back over those statements. Go slowly. Read them as if someone else had written them and you have no idea what the thoughts behind those statements are.
You're reading things into what I said that simply are not there. You should do as you advised me and and read back over what I said and you will notice there are two things being discussed there, overall gameplay, and a specific point of gameplay. If you only have a limited time to play and can't afford for a single thing to go wrong and are stressing yourself out about it, then perhaps you should step back until another time when that stress isn't hanging over your head, or do something else in game that's not so stressful. The game is supposed to be fun and if you're constantly stressing about it, then why are you playing it? If folks want to play in that super stressed out state then more power to them, personally I'm not going to do that.
Now when you go into team based content like TFOs, you are responsible for your ability to keep up with the group and avoid the AFK penalty. I can't make you run speed boosts to keep up with the team, and I can't make you run a cohesive build that will let you avoid the AFK penalty. Only you can do that. If you choose to run a big beefy ship like the D'Deridex that moves at the speed of smell and you get grouped with 4 pilot escorts that can move fasted flying in reverse than you can flying forwards and they get to everything before you and nuke it before you have a chance to fire a shot, that's a you problem. Those 4 pilot ships did nothing wrong. The only way you'll avoid this is to have every ship in the game move at the same speed regardless of size.
If someone is having trouble competing at their chosen level, be it Normal, Advanced, or Elite, they alone are responsible for identifying problems and fixing them.
And what might that problem be on occasion? Let's take a look...
What if I want to be able to obliterate everything by just glaring in that direction like Superman with the Cosmic Armor and I don't want a challenge?
It's quite difficult to compete at one's chosen level of Normal when someone else wants to "be able to obliterate everything by just glaring in that direction".
So I'm going to ask you this. You say people like me are the problem for wanting to vape everything. Yet have you ever ran a parser to see what's going on for yourself and gather evidence? I don't remember who's ran parsers in here and who hasn't, but even then the question is valid. If you haven't then it's purely your subjective opinion. I'm sure by law of probability there is going to be the occasional run where ultra high DPS people get grouped with lower DPS people. If you're going to allow for custom player builds instead of predefined classes with predefined builds, there is going to be some disparity in what kind of outputs people have, that's unavoidable.
Myself and others have posted several bits of parsing data to showcase that in almost all cases people aren't seeing ultra high DPSers in their run, but the combined might of their team. If you get 5 people each doing 20k DPS on average, that's a combined total of 100k DPS going out to mobs on normal mode. If they're able to spike their damage to 3x normal like myself and others can do for a time, that's a combined spike of 300k. Even if they can only double their output briefly, that's still a combined spike of 200k DPS. It shouldn't be needed to say that things are going to melt super fast under those conditions on normal mode especially. We can sit here and debate all day, but the actual numbers will tell us whether there is this massive wave of uber DPS trolling people or not. So far the numbers have shown that's not the case.
Otherwise this line of logic you're pushing assumes that ultra high DPS people simply existing on a map with someone else equates to maliciousness and I do not accept that. If someone is following someone around and deliberately trying to AFK people, then get the evidence of that to the GMs and let them handle it as that's not cool.
Fully agreed. If Annemarie says she only has 30 minutes of play time available, then I literally do not care whether someone else has people in their fleet who are either former/active military and/or police, or whatever, and can make more time for the game. Good for them; Annemarie, however, only has 30 minutes (again, she may have just been given an example, but that doesn't matter). It's not my place to tell anyone how much time they can afford to spend on the game. I fully sympathize with her not appreciating when Elite players stomp on her Normal level, and push her into an AFK-Penalty, as a result. And no, she normally doesn't get an AFK-Penalty, so she shouldn't have to get better, as she can play the content on her chosen difficulty level. Only time she cannot, is when players 2 levels higher than her, come in to ruin her fun. That's not cool.
EDIT: I thought I was over it, but I realize I'm still getting upset over this. And no, before anyone suggests it, I have never received an AFK-Penalty for not contributing enough (except for inadvertenly getting disconnected a few times over the years).
Now apply that logic you're applying to my guild to annemarie and the rest of the playerbase. I gave that information about my guild to illustrate the thing that people miss when they cite the "I only have a limited time to play" argument. They may only have 30 minutes to play in a day, but the other 4 people in that TFO have lives outside of the game as well. Why should those other 4 people have to restructure the entirety of their gameplay around the one person? Why should their 30 minutes be anymore important than the 30 minutes of another person? Again the sword of equality is one that cuts both ways.
If she doesn't normally get hit with an AFK penalty as you say (and I hope she doesn't) then she's getting to play and benefitting from it, so what's the problem? You're arguing about an issue that by your own admission doesn't exist and that almost never happens save in very very distinct circumstances.
We've also seen by parse data that it's not the uber DPS coming into normal modes people are seeing and even then out of all the parse data we've seen, not a single time was a person actually given an AFK. So people are getting to participate and they are getting to play the TFOs and get progress out of them, they just don't feel like they did enough even though the game says they did. They're allowed to feel what they feel, but their teammates are not responsible for their feelings. You're correct that she doesn't have to change anything on her builds, however there could be potential consequences for that. If her or anyone else flies a super slow ship but refuses to add any kind of speed boost to it, then a possible consequence is that they may lag behind the group and not get to blast things as much as the others. If that should happen, then that is a consequence of the choice they made not to add speed boosts. So long as people continue to complain about certain issues, but stubbornly dig their heels in and refuse to do anything to help themselves first, they will continue to have issues. Just like someone who needs a surgery to relieve some pain they're having, but stubbornly refuses to go get the surgery.
"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
If you want to obliterate everything by looking at it... you would STILL be able to do so, by setting your difficulty to Normal. This would be no different that queueing in a Normal TFO. You would still be taking that content away from everyone else there, though... and THAT is the problem.
You keep saying that I would be taking content away from everyone yet you don't explain how I or anyone else is doing that.
Are they being preventing from joining certain content? Is someone following them around deliberately trying to AFK them? Because what you're saying doesn't mean what you think it does. To say someone is having content taken away from them means they can't experience the content and can't participate in it. If you're able to step through the door and join the TFO, then you have access to the content. If you're getting rewards from it then not only do you have access to it, but you're able to participate in said content and benefit from it. So this idea that content is being stolen from people is absolute rubbish.
There's more to playing a game than rewards. Honestly, I couldn't care less about the rewards the game provides, I'm there to have FUN. If I get to take one shot, and then everything is gone... I'm not having any fun. Even if I get rewards from the mission, I've missed out on the FUN.
And this right here is the breakdown because the goal post has shifted. Before hand it was about people being able to participate in TFOs and not get hit with an AFK penalty forced on them by high DPS players. It was pointed out with parse data that in almost all cases no actual high DPS players are present and people are getting to play the TFOs and benefit from them aka participate. This is further backed up by many people admitting they weren't getting hit with an AFK penalty. So people were arguing about something that by their own admission rarely if ever happens. Once this was pointed out the goal post shifted to you don't feel like you got to participate enough even though the game says you did.
Why should others be responsible for your subjective idea of fun? This is why I've asked you several times to define what you consider to have participated enough so the point can be debated properly.
To be clear, I'm not blaming the DPS players for having high DPS. If anyone is to blame, it's the developers, for letting it get to this point in the first place.
Except you are though. You basically said in plain black and white above that I would be taking content away from people by existing on the same map as them. And this entire thread has been about wanting nerfs to people like myself or others because of your subjective opinion that you're not having fun. Again you're allowed to say you're not having fun, and your fun is not wrong. Likewise my fun isn't wrong either. It shifted from people not getting to participate to people's subjective opinions on what is fun or not.
My goal clearly hasn't been achieved. Others here have already pointed out that Elite players can't participate in certain content except on Normal difficulty, which is what causes the problem we're discussing... that it's not fun to play. As I say, my suggestion would allow Elite players to have the difficulty level they desire, while allowing them to play alongside people on lower difficulty, all without hindering anyone's fun. As I said before, I'm not seeing how this isn't desirable.
If your goal is to allow all people to play with each other as you try to claim, then that's already possible right now the way things are setup. Lower DPS people and higher DPS people can join groups and play together without any changes needing to be made. If I wanted to take my 150k DPS tank build into a run with a new guy/gal that just started the game today and teach them the ropes I can do that. There is also already a scaling system in place for story modes for me to match their level that will scale me down to the highest available stats for their level while still affording me an advantage of having played longer. So if your goal is really to have all people be able to play together then congratulations you're already there.
Yet by virtue of the rest of your post that doesn't seem to be what you want. You say that your solution would "level the playing field without hindering anyone's fun", but ignore the fact that it requires my fun of being able to do higher DPS be restricted in favor of your fun. I offered to sit down with you and help you move some things around in your build to help you get to targets faster and be able to get more shots off so you can have that fun. I offered to hand you a full set of mk xv ultra rare gear, including putting you into a different cstore ship with a coupon I have if that's what it took. Instead of accepting that offer, you declined and have continued to insist that my fun and the fun of other people like me be restricted in favor of yours. Yet somehow you can't see why you're getting pushback? Respectfully dude I have to question if you really don't see it or if you're just deliberately ignoring it.
"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
No, I'm not going to deconstruct any of my builds at this time. I am a showcase for STO as to what can be achieved on a low budget with a little perseverance
Interesting. Why would you think you need to deconstruct your build? According to you, build has very little to do with performance.
But it's not really about "stuff". It's about how you use what you have. Cooldown reduction, ability actuation, piloting, mobility.. these are all far larger multipliers than "stuff" and are all areas that could merit a second look by a lot of players.
So if I am understanding you correctly, it is difficult to impossible for you to dial back or delay your activation of skills, piloting and such? If so, not sure that is all that believable.
I tired that in the Breach event and posted about my results a fair few pages back. It was not that easy and removed all the fun from the TFO event runs. It was very hard work and none of the other players seemed to appreciated it. I didn't run across anyone in the entire event who preferred me to dial back. Worse dialling back didn't seem to benefit the team and removed all the fun for myself. I am not saying never ever dial back just very often its not helping.
I disagree that dialing back is all that difficult to do, especially since as noted above.
That’s what I thought till I tried it throughout the Breach Event and it turned out to be way harder than I expected. I had to constantly fight muscle memory, instinct and to actively think not to act on knowledge. After 10+ years of playing I have habits that I have to actively fight against. Breaking habits and maintaining a high level of concentration throughout a TFO is hard work, harder than playing normally and removed all the fun at least for me. At times my concentration slipped and I went back high DPS mode.
Just to echo protoneous I found when testing in the Breach Event my DPS had very little to do with build. I would say between 80% to 90% of DPS is player knowledge and player skill not gear. To give an example I was proactive and was reacting to the pattern the subcores spawn in and positioned myself ready with skills ready. While the other players where waiting for the subcore to appear then fly over often with random skills triggering with no thought about what's coming up next. The other players didn't seem to like it if I hold back and waited for them to fly over.
Which leads me onto why it’s not that simple because you are more likely to upset other players by holding back. When I was holding back in the Breach Event from what I could tell not one single player appreciated me holding back. On the other hand, you risk getting comments like “why are you holding back” “why are you not contributing” ”why are you making the TFO take longer” “I am going to report you for not taking part” a long while back I was even accused of being AFK and the player said they would report me to a DM.
To be honest the impression I got was most player well into the 80%+ figure just did not care either way if you hold back or went full DPS. If you did hold back you where more likely to upset players then find one that a appreciated it.
One wonders if folks attempting to take the moral high ground here will ever put down their pencil and put a commensurate effort into trying to work around some of the issues they say they're experiencing.
One could also wonder if higher performing players who are stepping down in difficulty can put some minimal effort in to dial back their performance just a tad as a courtesy to their fellow players.
I tired that in the Breach event and posted about my results a fair few pages back. It was not that easy and removed all the fun from the TFO event runs. It was very hard work and none of the other players seemed to appreciated it. I didn't run across anyone in the entire event who preferred me to dial back. Worse dialling back didn't seem to benefit the team and removed all the fun for myself. I am not saying never ever dial back just very often its not helping.
Yes, TFO events are indeed a special case, and one hopes that soon they will be made available at a variety of difficulty levels (I sympathize with the devs having to hear complaints from people who select the wrong difficulty, but that's hardly Cryptic's fault, now is it?). However, what was being discussed earlier was the case where an Elite player chooses to queue for Normal so that they can "blast everything just by looking at it", as DB so colorfully put it, and denies mere Normal peasants any opportunity to learn - or even participate meaningfully.
Oh, and just so you know, Darkblade - it's become painfully clear that discussing this with you is pointless, so I shan't any further. I will just try to ask you to understand how telling someone not to even try running TFOs on Normal until they have more time to dedicate to "git gud" is indeed telling them how to play, and what they're not "allowed" to do.
Do you not see the contradiction here? Go back over those statements. Go slowly. Read them as if someone else had written them and you have no idea what the thoughts behind those statements are.
You're reading things into what I said that simply are not there. You should do as you advised me and and read back over what I said and you will notice there are two things being discussed there, overall gameplay, and a specific point of gameplay. If you only have a limited time to play and can't afford for a single thing to go wrong and are stressing yourself out about it, then perhaps you should step back until another time when that stress isn't hanging over your head, or do something else in game that's not so stressful. The game is supposed to be fun and if you're constantly stressing about it, then why are you playing it? If folks want to play in that super stressed out state then more power to them, personally I'm not going to do that.
Now when you go into team based content like TFOs, you are responsible for your ability to keep up with the group and avoid the AFK penalty. I can't make you run speed boosts to keep up with the team, and I can't make you run a cohesive build that will let you avoid the AFK penalty. Only you can do that. If you choose to run a big beefy ship like the D'Deridex that moves at the speed of smell and you get grouped with 4 pilot escorts that can move fasted flying in reverse than you can flying forwards and they get to everything before you and nuke it before you have a chance to fire a shot, that's a you problem. Those 4 pilot ships did nothing wrong. The only way you'll avoid this is to have every ship in the game move at the same speed regardless of size.
If someone is having trouble competing at their chosen level, be it Normal, Advanced, or Elite, they alone are responsible for identifying problems and fixing them.
And what might that problem be on occasion? Let's take a look...
What if I want to be able to obliterate everything by just glaring in that direction like Superman with the Cosmic Armor and I don't want a challenge?
It's quite difficult to compete at one's chosen level of Normal when someone else wants to "be able to obliterate everything by just glaring in that direction".
So I'm going to ask you this. You say people like me are the problem for wanting to vape everything. Yet have you ever ran a parser to see what's going on for yourself and gather evidence? I don't remember who's ran parsers in here and who hasn't, but even then the question is valid. If you haven't then it's purely your subjective opinion. I'm sure by law of probability there is going to be the occasional run where ultra high DPS people get grouped with lower DPS people. If you're going to allow for custom player builds instead of predefined classes with predefined builds, there is going to be some disparity in what kind of outputs people have, that's unavoidable.
Myself and others have posted several bits of parsing data to showcase that in almost all cases people aren't seeing ultra high DPSers in their run, but the combined might of their team. If you get 5 people each doing 20k DPS on average, that's a combined total of 100k DPS going out to mobs on normal mode. If they're able to spike their damage to 3x normal like myself and others can do for a time, that's a combined spike of 300k. Even if they can only double their output briefly, that's still a combined spike of 200k DPS. It shouldn't be needed to say that things are going to melt super fast under those conditions on normal mode especially. We can sit here and debate all day, but the actual numbers will tell us whether there is this massive wave of uber DPS trolling people or not. So far the numbers have shown that's not the case.
Otherwise this line of logic you're pushing assumes that ultra high DPS people simply existing on a map with someone else equates to maliciousness and I do not accept that. If someone is following someone around and deliberately trying to AFK people, then get the evidence of that to the GMs and let them handle it as that's not cool.
Fully agreed. If Annemarie says she only has 30 minutes of play time available, then I literally do not care whether someone else has people in their fleet who are either former/active military and/or police, or whatever, and can make more time for the game. Good for them; Annemarie, however, only has 30 minutes (again, she may have just been given an example, but that doesn't matter). It's not my place to tell anyone how much time they can afford to spend on the game. I fully sympathize with her not appreciating when Elite players stomp on her Normal level, and push her into an AFK-Penalty, as a result. And no, she normally doesn't get an AFK-Penalty, so she shouldn't have to get better, as she can play the content on her chosen difficulty level. Only time she cannot, is when players 2 levels higher than her, come in to ruin her fun. That's not cool.
EDIT: I thought I was over it, but I realize I'm still getting upset over this. And no, before anyone suggests it, I have never received an AFK-Penalty for not contributing enough (except for inadvertenly getting disconnected a few times over the years).
Now apply that logic you're applying to my guild to annemarie and the rest of the playerbase. I gave that information about my guild to illustrate the thing that people miss when they cite the "I only have a limited time to play" argument. They may only have 30 minutes to play in a day, but the other 4 people in that TFO have lives outside of the game as well.
Now you're just repeating your argument: "Others in my guild have found the time, therefore so can she." I will not go there. If Annemarie says she has only 30 minutes available per day, then I will simply take that at face value. Doing anything else is presumptuous.
If she doesn't normally get hit with an AFK penalty as you say (and I hope she doesn't) then she's getting to play and benefitting from it, so what's the problem?
The problem is the apparent Elite interlopers at Normal, causing her to get an AFK-Penalty (her words).
N.B. I'm not entirely convinced this is happening a lot, btw. I've never had it occur in my Advanced runs (I'm sure it *did* happen, but not enough for me to really notice, or affect me adversely). Looks to be more of an issue with Normal. And that makes sense, as Normal has no underlimit, as it were (housing utter newbies to ppl say, doing 20k). Still, she says it occurs, so I see no reason to disbelieve her.
We've also seen by parse data that it's not the uber DPS coming into normal modes people are seeing and even then out of all the parse data we've seen, not a single time was a person actually given an AFK.
How can you tell, from the parse data, no one was given an AFK-Penalty?
So long as people continue to complain about certain issues, but stubbornly dig their heels in and refuse to do anything to help themselves first, they will continue to have issues. Just like someone who needs a surgery to relieve some pain they're having, but stubbornly refuses to go get the surgery.
A more apt analogy would be to take a Junior Leage Rugby team: no one's getting injured at their own level, until a 'ringer' on the other team steps in, and turns out to be a Major League, professional player: then, and only then, do the players in JL get injured.
I will say this, it is a fair point that toning down your performance due to being forced into Normal difficulty content is not ideal either. This is why one of the suggestions I proposed would be to have event content come in every difficulty level so players like you could play at the difficulty level they want without having to adjust their play style.
Agreed, btw. Can't fault an Elite player for entering a lower Tier TFO, when said TFO is simply not available at Elite. That would be a good place to start for Cryptic.
How can you tell, from the parse data, no one was given an AFK-Penalty?
You can look at the overall DPS for each player and make a fairly accurate estimation on whether or not they got hit with a penalty.
True, but measuring DPS remains a tricky pony. Like in Cure Space Advanced, where ppl are too far apart really, DPS measurement gets skewed, as it were, as those too far away from you appear to have done less DPS in your own combatlog. So, measuring DPS comes with a 'localized' effect (one of the reasons, back in the day, ISA was chosen as touchstone for the DPS League: sufficient proximity to each other).
But overall you should be right: margins despite, if someone does less DPS than 1/5th of a single pet, that should show up.
I didn't read the entire thread, nor do I plan to. I just read select posts and now i'll give my 2 cents.
Nerfing DPS or putting a cap on it is a mistake. I've been playing the game since beta since I'd consider myself to be on the upper end of the DPS spectrum and can easily be put into the mix of DPSers people complain about.
The issue for us is, there are people who queue up for advanced/elite who have no place doing so. They do it for easy marks and the achievement. Barring the lack of DPS, they simply do not understand the simple mechanics for the TFO and/or refuse to listen or follow instruction. They join to be carried through the TFO.
I forgot which MMO it was (that I played once upon a time), but to queue up for a specific difficulty level instance you needed a gear level. Perhaps this should be instituted in STO to help mitigate lowbie pugs from joining public advanced or elite TFO/events. This can also be circumvented since people can just pay2win, but i think it will definitely help alleviate some of the issues.
“How can you tell, from the parse data, no one was given an AFK-Penalty?”
You don’t need to see all the DPS data you only need to see enough data to see them break past the 1% or 2% DPS limit which is tiny often around 400k total damage or less, which is as little as 1k dps to 4k dps map depending.
Or to put it another way if I see someone do 700k damage or 5k DPS it doesn’t matter if we miss the rest of their damage or DPS we can make a reasonable estimate that they have done enough to avoid AFK. Its not perfect and some maps are worse than others but generally it’s a guideline that seems to work.
I do question the quote you are quoting in that no parse data shows anyone being hit by an AFK as I did post some parse data showing a player hit by AFK although in that case it was 100% that players fault not from the DPS from any other player.
“A question for those who are saying that they are getting AFK penalties and such, which map(s) are you experiencing this on the most? My guess would be this is on Infected Space most all of the time. Perhaps adjusting that TFO may help alleviate the problem?”
I have seen other players get an AFK penalty while recording data for event TFO’s although in almost every case it was the players fault not from others doing too much DPS. The one exception being Defend StarBase1. I have myself been given multiple AFK penalties despite being way, way over the 2% DPS limit. I think (not proved) that map has an extra AFK detraction that incorrectly gives AFK penalties if you alt tab to much even if you are way over the required DPS requirements. Which is rather frustrating when you play in window mode, click off screen but still click back to respond to spawns. It’s the only map I have had problems with. I assume its some sort of anti bot measure that is incorrectly capturing players.
To save my already long post +1 for you Elite Event idea. If that was an option I would pick it 8 times out of 10.
One wonders if folks attempting to take the moral high ground here will ever put down their pencil and put a commensurate effort into trying to work around some of the issues they say they're experiencing.
One could also wonder if higher performing players who are stepping down in difficulty can put some minimal effort in to dial back their performance just a tad as a courtesy to their fellow players.
I tired that in the Breach event and posted about my results a fair few pages back. It was not that easy and removed all the fun from the TFO event runs. It was very hard work and none of the other players seemed to appreciated it. I didn't run across anyone in the entire event who preferred me to dial back. Worse dialling back didn't seem to benefit the team and removed all the fun for myself. I am not saying never ever dial back just very often its not helping.
Yes, TFO events are indeed a special case, and one hopes that soon they will be made available at a variety of difficulty levels (I sympathize with the devs having to hear complaints from people who select the wrong difficulty, but that's hardly Cryptic's fault, now is it?). However, what was being discussed earlier was the case where an Elite player chooses to queue for Normal so that they can "blast everything just by looking at it", as DB so colorfully put it, and denies mere Normal peasants any opportunity to learn - or even participate meaningfully.
Oh, and just so you know, Darkblade - it's become painfully clear that discussing this with you is pointless, so I shan't any further. I will just try to ask you to understand how telling someone not to even try running TFOs on Normal until they have more time to dedicate to "git gud" is indeed telling them how to play, and what they're not "allowed" to do.
I still think many of those cases of players thinking its Elite players joining normal and blasting everything are incorrect. When you look at the data it seems to show that the everyday casual normal players are blasting everything. Then Player X see the everyday causal player "blast everything just by looking at it" then mistakenly thinks its an Elite high DPS player then the elite high DPS player is being blamed for the actions of every day casual players.
Personally I don't agree with Elite player "denies mere normal peasants any opportunity to learn - or even participate meaningfully" when we looked at the data it showed that normal peasants as you put it, in fact gained DPS instead of losing DPS and still managed to participate when near the Elite player. Some of the posters on here even confirmed that there best runs was when there was a high DPS players in the group as the player brought up there performance level rather then lowered it. I am not saying players never lose DPS just that when you look at the data what player think is happening is not matching what is happening.
There is one outliner case that does cause problems. If you randomly join a group with 3 or 4 ubar DPSers and you are an every day casual player on some maps that can cause problems. But this is an extremely rare event as high DPSers are an absolutely tiny % of the player base. Outside of ISE/HSE the chance to come across a high DPS player is rather tiny. The chance to come across 4 high DPSers is well a very rare event.
Now, Darkblade and other, who are understandably proud of the time and effort they've put into their builds, hold that the problem here is with the "noobs" who in their view are obstinately refusing to spend the time and money to become Elite.
This is not what I'm advocating and I have never claimed the problem is "noobs refusing to spend the time and money to become elite". see more below.
Meimetoo isn't entirely in the wrong here, either; even Darkblade has admitted to occasionally going into Normal TFOs in order to feel more powerful, not just because an Event requires it. Some Elite players are like that - they've developed those skills and want to show them off, like the shadetree mechanic who knows how to soup up street cars into racers, and insists on demonstrating that skill on the nearest four-lane surface street (had one of those wipe out in the rain about four blocks from my house a couple months ago, almost destroying the memorial set up by the family of the one before him). And like those shadetree mechanics, they don't seem to care that they're ruining things for other people. (On the plus side, at least Elite braggarts aren't putting anyone in any actual physical danger.)
What I have said is that people are responsible for their own ability/inability to play the game, others are not. If someone is having trouble competing at their chosen level, be it Normal, Advanced, or Elite, they alone are responsible for identifying problems and fixing them. If they should seek help in identifying and fixing issues with their performance/build, I don't care to help them, but all I can do is make recommendations, I can't do the fixing for them. As meimeitoo if you're constantly hitting AFK penalties on advanced level, then one of two things needs to happen, either you play on normal again, or you up your build and skills until you can play on advanced without issues. If people are getting rewards, then they're getting to participate. Neither myself or anyone on the team is responsible for them feeling like it went too fast as that is their subjective opinion. If a person is constantly getting hit with an AFK penalty and constantly arriving too late to shoot things, but continues to use that build/ship giving them the AFK penalty and that's too slow to keep up, the problem is them, not the rest of the team.
What I have also said is that sometimes I don't always go into elite TFOs even though I'm capable of playing them because I don't always want to worry about having the fail condition hanging over my head if I don't do everything perfectly. Sometimes I just want to blast things for the sake of blasting without having to worry about doing everything perfectly or failing. Other times I play on that lower difficulty because there isn't a higher version that exists for that particular content. An uber DPSer isn't doing anything wrong by playing on a lower difficulty, nor is the lower DPSer doing anything wrong by joining an elite. Like everyone else, I have my opinions as to when I believe people should/shouldn't be in certain types of content. So long as you're getting rewards and not getting hit with an AFK penalty, you're getting to play and you're getting to participate so what's the issue?
We've also seen multiple different parses by multiple different people across multiple different runs showing that in almost all cases what people are seeing is not the presence of an uber DPSer, but the combined might of their entire team. So they're blaming one particular group of people that aren't even present.
Alot of people, a lot of my friends no longer play due to what I call the warframe effect.
its not really the players fault, but being new to the game and doing tfos for the first time, with insanely geared players where you don't get to do much because the better players blow everything up is not a fun experience.
And why its called warframe experience, is because new warframe players simply cannot keep up with veteran players who can clear the entire mission before the player even gets there.
its mitigated some in sto with time and gearing. But also there is a legit skill ceiling for some people, or age/reflexes. And expecting them to "git gud" really doesn't fix anything.
Is there a fix cryptic could reasonably implement? Unless they wanna create a higher tier difficulty to challenge veterans? likely not. This is primarily a power creep issue from years of hawking lootcrate gear onto us.
but this also begs the question, why are such advanced players queueing for normal instances and not advanced? Leave the normal queues for regular/new players. (exceptions to events that lack any difficulty)
Except this game is nothing like Warframe at all and the two games aren't even comparable. I've played Warframe since 2016 and it is absolutely NOTHING like STO. In Warframe you're limited by the frames and equipment you have unlocked, as well as the quality of your mods you have available. In Warframe me and little Timmy can have the same build on the same frame using the same equipment and mods, yet I'm going to do more damage because my mods have been upgraded where as Timmy's hasn't. I'm also older that Timmy, faster, and more experienced. Even if you gave me and Timmy the same quality of mods, as in upgrades, I'm still going to run circles around Timmy purely based on experience, that same would be true with STO. Warframe is also a MUCH faster paced game than STO has ever been and ever will be. Also in Warframe you have the option of doing missions solo should you choose. so you can still progress, just not as fast as running with the veteran players.
STO may have some missions that are a little more fast paced than others, but is nothing like Warframe at all. One thing they do have in common is you can run with people, or you can run solo. That's the only thing they have in common but they have that at least. In STO you have multiple ways to get marks and items from reputation. You can also obtain gear from story missions that they simply hand you. Oh you need a phaser, go do (mission), you need a polaron weapon then go over there, you want disruptor then go to that one, and so on. In STO there is an absurd amount of gear that you can get for free and it's far far easier to gear in STO than virtually any other MMO out there. If you're having trouble with TFOs, you can step back and grab some items from the story to boost you up without ever touching fleet gear.
As for people not considering something fun, again as I said, are you getting rewards and avoiding an AFK penalty? If the answer is yes then you're getting to play and you're getting to participate and things aren't getting insta vaped without you ever getting to fire a shot like some people have claimed. If you're getting rewards you're getting to shoot. So again I would have to ask, what's the problem other than people's subjective opinion of not liking it? Folks are entitled to their opinion that it wasn't fun and to feel like they didn't get to do enough. But simply having that opinion on its own doesn't mean there is an issue. If folks don't think they get to participate enough, then as I asked previously, what do you consider getting to participate enough? Specifically I'm asking you to quantify it. Is it a percentage of the teams damage you want to be able to reach? Is it a certain length of mission as in mission objectives you got to do? What do you consider as having been able to participate enough? Because I've seen a ton of people talk about not being able to participate even though they're getting rewards that say otherwise. And none of them have quantified this yet so an actual debate can be had, or advice given on how to get to that point. Lastly, we have multiple bits of parse data showing that the problem isn't uber DPS stepping into normal, but people thinking there is an uber DPS present because of the combined might of their team.
As for saying "leave the normal queues for regular/new players" that logic goes both ways. If you're going to say only X people are allowed to play normal modes, then by that same logic other people can say that only Y people are allowed to play advanced and elite. Then you're right back to the whole locking people out of content thing that people have said they hate.
Damn dude, you're very bitter and angry.
I wont be engaging you any further.
That map was used for farming by bots doing single player AFK runs. They changed something about it, so there could be some funky stuff going on. Btw anyone offered Marik help to get better? Or will this "topic" go on forever in circles?
Sounds to me though, like a lot of people don't consider queueing, and watching stuff explode before they get to do much very fun. And I agree. Theres nothing fun about queueing into something, and having all the work done before you can do much moe then fire a weapon off.
I couldnt even begin to suggest how to fix that. Again, I blame the power creep in sto.
Now you're just repeating your argument: "Others in my guild have found the time, therefore so can she." I will not go there. If Annemarie says she has only 30 minutes available per day, then I will simply take that at face value. Doing anything else is presumptuous.
That is not what I said so please don't put words in my mouth. If she says she only has 30 minutes, then I'm not debating that. What I am however saying is that she is one person in a vast playerbase of people and her 30 minutes a day is no more important than the 30 minutes a day of her teammates. The other 4 people on that team have lives just like she does and for all we know they're in the same boat of only playing 30 minutes per day. Why should they have to alter how they play in their 30 minutes per day to cater to how she prefers to play in her 30 minutes per day? THAT is what I am saying.
The problem is the apparent Elite interlopers at Normal, causing her to get an AFK-Penalty (her words).
N.B. I'm not entirely convinced this is happening a lot, btw. I've never had it occur in my Advanced runs (I'm sure it *did* happen, but not enough for me to really notice, or affect me adversely). Looks to be more of an issue with Normal. And that makes sense, as Normal has no underlimit, as it were (housing utter newbies to ppl say, doing 20k). Still, she says it occurs, so I see no reason to disbelieve her.
so again, where is the evidence of so called "elite interlopers" coming into runs and hitting people with penalties? Since you used annemarie as the example, she says this is happening, alright get me some evidence of it. From there we can discuss solutions that can be utilized on her side and potentially server side to prevent this from happening again. Are there changes she can make to her build and setup? Could she utilize different tactics without having to change her build? Can Cryptic alter their algorithms used for pulling random people to decrease the chances of this happening? If someone is going to make a claim like this, they bear the burden of proof to demonstrate that something is happening. And so far the evidence we do have shows that in fact in almost all cases no uber DPS are actually present and the so called uber DPS are being blamed for something they didn't do. I'm not going to advocate any kind of change without some kind of evidence of something happening because talk is cheap and anyone can claim anything whether it's true or not. And no I'm not calling her a liar before someone says anything. I am saying there is insufficient evidence to substantiate her claims.
How can you tell, from the parse data, no one was given an AFK-Penalty?
Fairly easily actually. The AFK penalty is 1%-2% of the damage dealt for the entirety of the map, meaning you have to do less than 1%-2% of the total damage for the entirety of that TFO to get hit with an AFK penalty, which is nigh impossible without something being bad wrong, such as internet crash or similar. To calculate if someone got a penalty or not, I only need to know 2 things, the total amount of damage dealt for the team, and how much damage each individual person did. From there it's simple math to figure out what percentage of the team's damage someone did. If they're below the 1%-2% threshold, they were probably hit with an AFK. If they are above this number, then we know they didn't get hit with one. Larger maps like Khitomer Vortex as one of the popular TFOs can skew the numbers, but not enough to invalidate the data. If someone is across the map from me and I can see they dealt 5% of the damage on the log, then in reality that number would be much higher if I was closer to them. The server itself keeps track of this stuff and how much damage each person dealt and is not limited by range like the combat logs we players have access to.
Such as the 72 second ISA run I gave as the example previously. The total amount of damage our team dealt in that run was just over 45m damage. The total damage dealt by the lowest guy in there was 1,857,000. From there I only need to do the math to figure out what percentage of 45m his damage comes out to, which was 4.57%. ISA is one of the 1% maps and even with a person in there cranking over 260k DPS, the lowest guy in there was never in any danger of an AFK penalty and it wasn't even close. If someone is consistently getting hit with an AFK penalty, this means they are consistently below that 1% threshold and something is majorly wrong with what they're doing.
A more apt analogy would be to take a Junior Leage Rugby team: no one's getting injured at their own level, until a 'ringer' on the other team steps in, and turns out to be a Major League, professional player: then, and only then, do the players in JL get injured.
Except that's not what we're talking about and not comparable here. You're comparing what amounts to a pvp situation against a mostly pve game like STO. In TFOs you're not competing against the other people on your team as it's a cooperative effort. Even then in STO every person has the same potential to acquire gear, ships and upgrades, with free to play methods taking longer but just as viable as someone paying cash. The only difference is the time it took to get there, with paying cash being like crossing the country by plane, and using free to play methods being like driving a car. Both will get you to your destination, but one is quicker. Regardless of the transportation method you took, the destination is the same. In STO you choose when to stop the gear grind and when you've reached a high enough level of power. Naturally those with higher power are going to outdo you. If all maps are open to all people, then there is going to be the possibility you might get high powered people in with lower powered people. That's not a flaw, that's working as intended.
"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
That map was used for farming by bots doing single player AFK runs. They changed something about it, so there could be some funky stuff going on. Btw anyone offered Marik help to get better? Or will this "topic" go on forever in circles?
See above. I offered to help him and kit him out with mk xv ultra rare gear, including handing him a cstore ship coupon if that's what it took. My offer was rejected.
"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
Let us all remind ourselfs, that STO, in its core, is a sandbox. We all came to this sandbox in basicaly same circumstances (don't even start a discussion about p2w, because I KNOW you can do GOOD in this game f2p). Now if you like it or not, the reality is that some people build big castles and some struggle to make a mud pie.
I have seen other players get an AFK penalty while recording data for event TFO’s although in almost every case it was the players fault not from others doing too much DPS. The one exception being Defend StarBase1. I have myself been given multiple AFK penalties despite being way, way over the 2% DPS limit. I think (not proved) that map has an extra AFK detraction that incorrectly gives AFK penalties if you alt tab to much even if you are way over the required DPS requirements. Which is rather frustrating when you play in window mode, click off screen but still click back to respond to spawns. It’s the only map I have had problems with. I assume its some sort of anti bot measure that is incorrectly capturing players.
Wow that is weird about the SB1 map. You are probably right there is something else going on there.
There very likely is. Until recently, you could solo-AFK a private SB1 Elite (cloak and let the timer run out). You never get an AFK-Penalty for a private session, so they must have changed something else; like maybe the amount of enemies you kill; or whether you have worked on enough escape lanes, etc.
In STO you choose when to stop the gear grind and when you've reached a high enough level of power. Naturally those with higher power are going to outdo you. If all maps are open to all people, then there is going to be the possibility you might get high powered people in with lower powered people. That's not a flaw, that's working as intended.
This is a fair point that a few people posting here seem to overlook. I do not think it is an issue that could ever be completely resolved short of locking players into or out of certain content. What I do believe can be done is to have more options available to entice higher performing players into difficulties they are built for, thereby lessening the impact of them being in Normal difficulty queues and events. You would still see high end performers stepping down into lower difficulty on occasion, it would just be more of a rare occurrence than what we see now.
Of course, people socializing to find like minded players and queuing for their own private matches solves the issue as you know who you are teamed with.
Another thing a few people posting here seem to overlook, is that 1 Elite player entering your TFO does not a catastrophe make. At least not in Advanced. When all 4 of them are Elite, except me? Maybe, but unless ppl purposely have it in for you, chances of that happening are low. The metric may be different for Normal, but on Advanced, sure, sometimes it goes faster than at other times, but I've never had it be a real issue for me.
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And I hear her, loud and clearly. And, throughout this thread, I have called Elite players invading lower Tier TFO's 'unsportsmanlike.' And I will stick to that.
Both are actually sides of the same coin. Playing content at a level you're clearly not ready for, is equally unsportsmanlike to your Team mates. But the latter is always a bit triggery, as it sounds like you're being forced/pressured into improving by others. And while sportsmanship is definitely a thing, I think improving yourself, to the point where you can comfortably participate at your chosen level, is primarily something you should do for yourself, as getting slaughtered all the time, or often incurring AFK-Penalties, is simply not fun. I recall, during Dilithium Rising, that I (temporarily) started playing patrols on Elite, to rake up XP (no, not at Japori). While I still rarely died, it was nonetheless a little too hard for comfort: getting three Feedback Pulses on you, in Elite, really does sting. My longwinded point being: it gets more fun when you play at your own level. And if you can't play comfortably at your own, chosen level, the logical inference is then that you seek to improve your own skill level/gear. Or you drop back to Advanced, like I did when I had leveled up to 65.
The opposite should hold too, then. Heavy weight boxers are not allowed to compete in a medium weight class. And I think that holds true universally, for almost all sports: once the class you belong to has been determined, you cannot compete either in a higher class, or a lower one, for that matter. Darkbladejk et al. have been defending the opposite, to which Annemarie has objected vehemently, and myself as well; namely that Elite players should be allowed in a Normal queue, and the rest of the team should just try and keep up, aka 'git gud.' Essentially arguing that the heavy weight boxer should be allowed to compete in a medium weight class, or lightweight class even. That position is entirely different from improving yourself, in order to play your current, self-chosen level of difficulty.
I agree; been feeling the same thing. Looks like old arguments are getting rehashed again (I am guilty of that myself too).
"I got afk'd by a power player whale uberdeepz elite player who was zipping about in a normal difficulty random TFO. I couldn't go anywhere because I was stuck in red alert"
"Do you have an Emergency Conn Hologram doff equipped?"
"No. What an outrageous suggestion! I will not make one single change! I've been playing this way since 2010. Nerf those dang elite players!"
"How do you know they were an elite player?"
"I call anybody doing better than me an elite player."
And what might that problem be on occasion? Let's take a look...
It's quite difficult to compete at one's chosen level of Normal when someone else wants to "be able to obliterate everything by just glaring in that direction".
That's some rather dynamic on the fly stuff that I don't think is even POSSIBLE in STO. And honestly I don't even know HOW that can be done. The closest thing I can even think of to something like this is how FF14 handles someone like me, who has a lot of high level classes including a lv 90 Machinist, getting put into even the first dungeon in the game with people just starting out. It literally scales you back to at least the highest appropriate level, abilities and all, for that dungeon.
STO can't do that. It would require locking out abilities and weapon slots in space, and abilities on the ground. And based on what you're wanting to happen... ON DEMAND for ANY SELECETED LEVEL. Do you know how many data points that is? Either 65 levels worth x the number of ships in game, or 6 tiers x number of ships in game. And thats just for space ALONE. Its a database NIGHTMARE. And that's not even including any accumulated Endeavor perk points or leveled skill points! AND THEN we have to consider at what point do we establish WHAT tier you're "supposed to be" for what content as well? What level are you supposed to be to do Infected Space? What level are you supposed to be to do Counterpoint? What level are you supposed to be to do Starbase 1? What... need I go on?
Oh and while we're at it... how will that bork the Loadout System, which already is a Finicky system in game? It will probably bork it far beyond Gre'thor and into god knows how many underworlds across the galaxy!
Oh and lets not forget that some people may not be actually properly geared either, which is its own can of worms. Should we be nerfed to improperly geared level as well to not leave them out of feeling abused by properly equipped players? Where does it stop?
Fully agreed. If Annemarie says she only has 30 minutes of play time available, then I literally do not care whether someone else has people in their fleet who are either former/active military and/or police, or whatever, and can make more time for the game. Good for them; Annemarie, however, only has 30 minutes (again, she may have just been given an example, but that doesn't matter). It's not my place to tell anyone how much time they can afford to spend on the game. I fully sympathize with her not appreciating when Elite players stomp on her Normal level, and push her into an AFK-Penalty, as a result. And no, she normally doesn't get an AFK-Penalty, so she shouldn't have to get better, as she can play the content on her chosen difficulty level. Only time she cannot, is when players 2 levels higher than her, come in to ruin her fun. That's not cool.
EDIT: I thought I was over it, but I realize I'm still getting upset over this. And no, before anyone suggests it, I have never received an AFK-Penalty for not contributing enough (except for inadvertenly getting disconnected a few times over the years).
No, I'm not going to deconstruct any of my builds at this time. I am a showcase for STO as to what can be achieved on a low budget with a little perseverance
You are interpreting what we are trying to say incorrectly. We are not saying you have to play the game our way. We are saying if you played the tutorial and picked up the most basic gameplay mechanics and go into a TFO and do the bare minimum you won’t get hit with an AFK bar the very rare outliner cases.
If you are being hit by AFK time and time again and are blaming others players when they have done nothing wrong. Then you are being toxic and have a toxic attitude towards those players.
If you are doing less damage then someone on the ground with a pistol, while in your spaceship then the problem is not the other players.
All you have to do is 1/6 the damage of 1 hangar bay and if you are doing less than that you are doing something fundamentally wrong with your build. Something fundamentally wrong like manually turning auto fire off and then not firing your weapons. Blaming other players is not the right attitude and wont solve anything as the other players are not at fault.
The bar to avoid being hit by AFK is so low its near impossible to get lots and lots of AFK unless you are doing something wrong. Generally speaking getting hit by AFK a lot is not the fault of other players, its something the player that was hit by AFK is doing wrong. As was shown before in the data the uberDPSers are no the cause of the problem so please stop being toxic and blaming them.
No one should be nerfed. Players should be allowed to stay as strong as they've become. Where they are strong, however, is the matter at hand. Should the Elite player be allowed to flex their strength in a Normal? That is the question.
By the way we already have a form of this feature in game if I join a level 45 team I get nerfed down to level 45. You can set it so the max level is the team leaders level. This also applies to zones If I enter a level 40 player zone my level 65 toon gets nerfed down to level 40. To be honest it doesn't really have much impact.
Furthermore I am not even convinced the high DPS player is the problem as all the data is showing the high DPS player is not causing problems generally speaking and is even rising up the DPS of the other players.
Now when you go into team based content like TFOs, you are responsible for your ability to keep up with the group and avoid the AFK penalty. I can't make you run speed boosts to keep up with the team, and I can't make you run a cohesive build that will let you avoid the AFK penalty. Only you can do that. If you choose to run a big beefy ship like the D'Deridex that moves at the speed of smell and you get grouped with 4 pilot escorts that can move fasted flying in reverse than you can flying forwards and they get to everything before you and nuke it before you have a chance to fire a shot, that's a you problem. Those 4 pilot ships did nothing wrong. The only way you'll avoid this is to have every ship in the game move at the same speed regardless of size.
So I'm going to ask you this. You say people like me are the problem for wanting to vape everything. Yet have you ever ran a parser to see what's going on for yourself and gather evidence? I don't remember who's ran parsers in here and who hasn't, but even then the question is valid. If you haven't then it's purely your subjective opinion. I'm sure by law of probability there is going to be the occasional run where ultra high DPS people get grouped with lower DPS people. If you're going to allow for custom player builds instead of predefined classes with predefined builds, there is going to be some disparity in what kind of outputs people have, that's unavoidable.
Myself and others have posted several bits of parsing data to showcase that in almost all cases people aren't seeing ultra high DPSers in their run, but the combined might of their team. If you get 5 people each doing 20k DPS on average, that's a combined total of 100k DPS going out to mobs on normal mode. If they're able to spike their damage to 3x normal like myself and others can do for a time, that's a combined spike of 300k. Even if they can only double their output briefly, that's still a combined spike of 200k DPS. It shouldn't be needed to say that things are going to melt super fast under those conditions on normal mode especially. We can sit here and debate all day, but the actual numbers will tell us whether there is this massive wave of uber DPS trolling people or not. So far the numbers have shown that's not the case.
Otherwise this line of logic you're pushing assumes that ultra high DPS people simply existing on a map with someone else equates to maliciousness and I do not accept that. If someone is following someone around and deliberately trying to AFK people, then get the evidence of that to the GMs and let them handle it as that's not cool.
Now apply that logic you're applying to my guild to annemarie and the rest of the playerbase. I gave that information about my guild to illustrate the thing that people miss when they cite the "I only have a limited time to play" argument. They may only have 30 minutes to play in a day, but the other 4 people in that TFO have lives outside of the game as well. Why should those other 4 people have to restructure the entirety of their gameplay around the one person? Why should their 30 minutes be anymore important than the 30 minutes of another person? Again the sword of equality is one that cuts both ways.
If she doesn't normally get hit with an AFK penalty as you say (and I hope she doesn't) then she's getting to play and benefitting from it, so what's the problem? You're arguing about an issue that by your own admission doesn't exist and that almost never happens save in very very distinct circumstances.
We've also seen by parse data that it's not the uber DPS coming into normal modes people are seeing and even then out of all the parse data we've seen, not a single time was a person actually given an AFK. So people are getting to participate and they are getting to play the TFOs and get progress out of them, they just don't feel like they did enough even though the game says they did. They're allowed to feel what they feel, but their teammates are not responsible for their feelings. You're correct that she doesn't have to change anything on her builds, however there could be potential consequences for that. If her or anyone else flies a super slow ship but refuses to add any kind of speed boost to it, then a possible consequence is that they may lag behind the group and not get to blast things as much as the others. If that should happen, then that is a consequence of the choice they made not to add speed boosts. So long as people continue to complain about certain issues, but stubbornly dig their heels in and refuse to do anything to help themselves first, they will continue to have issues. Just like someone who needs a surgery to relieve some pain they're having, but stubbornly refuses to go get the surgery.
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Are they being preventing from joining certain content? Is someone following them around deliberately trying to AFK them? Because what you're saying doesn't mean what you think it does. To say someone is having content taken away from them means they can't experience the content and can't participate in it. If you're able to step through the door and join the TFO, then you have access to the content. If you're getting rewards from it then not only do you have access to it, but you're able to participate in said content and benefit from it. So this idea that content is being stolen from people is absolute rubbish.
And this right here is the breakdown because the goal post has shifted. Before hand it was about people being able to participate in TFOs and not get hit with an AFK penalty forced on them by high DPS players. It was pointed out with parse data that in almost all cases no actual high DPS players are present and people are getting to play the TFOs and benefit from them aka participate. This is further backed up by many people admitting they weren't getting hit with an AFK penalty. So people were arguing about something that by their own admission rarely if ever happens. Once this was pointed out the goal post shifted to you don't feel like you got to participate enough even though the game says you did.
Why should others be responsible for your subjective idea of fun? This is why I've asked you several times to define what you consider to have participated enough so the point can be debated properly.
Except you are though. You basically said in plain black and white above that I would be taking content away from people by existing on the same map as them. And this entire thread has been about wanting nerfs to people like myself or others because of your subjective opinion that you're not having fun. Again you're allowed to say you're not having fun, and your fun is not wrong. Likewise my fun isn't wrong either. It shifted from people not getting to participate to people's subjective opinions on what is fun or not.
If your goal is to allow all people to play with each other as you try to claim, then that's already possible right now the way things are setup. Lower DPS people and higher DPS people can join groups and play together without any changes needing to be made. If I wanted to take my 150k DPS tank build into a run with a new guy/gal that just started the game today and teach them the ropes I can do that. There is also already a scaling system in place for story modes for me to match their level that will scale me down to the highest available stats for their level while still affording me an advantage of having played longer. So if your goal is really to have all people be able to play together then congratulations you're already there.
Yet by virtue of the rest of your post that doesn't seem to be what you want. You say that your solution would "level the playing field without hindering anyone's fun", but ignore the fact that it requires my fun of being able to do higher DPS be restricted in favor of your fun. I offered to sit down with you and help you move some things around in your build to help you get to targets faster and be able to get more shots off so you can have that fun. I offered to hand you a full set of mk xv ultra rare gear, including putting you into a different cstore ship with a coupon I have if that's what it took. Instead of accepting that offer, you declined and have continued to insist that my fun and the fun of other people like me be restricted in favor of yours. Yet somehow you can't see why you're getting pushback? Respectfully dude I have to question if you really don't see it or if you're just deliberately ignoring it.
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Just to echo protoneous I found when testing in the Breach Event my DPS had very little to do with build. I would say between 80% to 90% of DPS is player knowledge and player skill not gear. To give an example I was proactive and was reacting to the pattern the subcores spawn in and positioned myself ready with skills ready. While the other players where waiting for the subcore to appear then fly over often with random skills triggering with no thought about what's coming up next. The other players didn't seem to like it if I hold back and waited for them to fly over.
Which leads me onto why it’s not that simple because you are more likely to upset other players by holding back. When I was holding back in the Breach Event from what I could tell not one single player appreciated me holding back. On the other hand, you risk getting comments like “why are you holding back” “why are you not contributing” ”why are you making the TFO take longer” “I am going to report you for not taking part” a long while back I was even accused of being AFK and the player said they would report me to a DM.
To be honest the impression I got was most player well into the 80%+ figure just did not care either way if you hold back or went full DPS. If you did hold back you where more likely to upset players then find one that a appreciated it.
Oh, and just so you know, Darkblade - it's become painfully clear that discussing this with you is pointless, so I shan't any further. I will just try to ask you to understand how telling someone not to even try running TFOs on Normal until they have more time to dedicate to "git gud" is indeed telling them how to play, and what they're not "allowed" to do.
Now you're just repeating your argument: "Others in my guild have found the time, therefore so can she." I will not go there. If Annemarie says she has only 30 minutes available per day, then I will simply take that at face value. Doing anything else is presumptuous.
The problem is the apparent Elite interlopers at Normal, causing her to get an AFK-Penalty (her words).
N.B. I'm not entirely convinced this is happening a lot, btw. I've never had it occur in my Advanced runs (I'm sure it *did* happen, but not enough for me to really notice, or affect me adversely). Looks to be more of an issue with Normal. And that makes sense, as Normal has no underlimit, as it were (housing utter newbies to ppl say, doing 20k). Still, she says it occurs, so I see no reason to disbelieve her.
How can you tell, from the parse data, no one was given an AFK-Penalty?
A more apt analogy would be to take a Junior Leage Rugby team: no one's getting injured at their own level, until a 'ringer' on the other team steps in, and turns out to be a Major League, professional player: then, and only then, do the players in JL get injured.
Agreed, btw. Can't fault an Elite player for entering a lower Tier TFO, when said TFO is simply not available at Elite. That would be a good place to start for Cryptic.
True, but measuring DPS remains a tricky pony.
But overall you should be right: margins despite, if someone does less DPS than 1/5th of a single pet, that should show up.
Nerfing DPS or putting a cap on it is a mistake. I've been playing the game since beta since I'd consider myself to be on the upper end of the DPS spectrum and can easily be put into the mix of DPSers people complain about.
The issue for us is, there are people who queue up for advanced/elite who have no place doing so. They do it for easy marks and the achievement. Barring the lack of DPS, they simply do not understand the simple mechanics for the TFO and/or refuse to listen or follow instruction. They join to be carried through the TFO.
I forgot which MMO it was (that I played once upon a time), but to queue up for a specific difficulty level instance you needed a gear level. Perhaps this should be instituted in STO to help mitigate lowbie pugs from joining public advanced or elite TFO/events. This can also be circumvented since people can just pay2win, but i think it will definitely help alleviate some of the issues.
Or to put it another way if I see someone do 700k damage or 5k DPS it doesn’t matter if we miss the rest of their damage or DPS we can make a reasonable estimate that they have done enough to avoid AFK. Its not perfect and some maps are worse than others but generally it’s a guideline that seems to work.
I do question the quote you are quoting in that no parse data shows anyone being hit by an AFK as I did post some parse data showing a player hit by AFK although in that case it was 100% that players fault not from the DPS from any other player.
I have seen other players get an AFK penalty while recording data for event TFO’s although in almost every case it was the players fault not from others doing too much DPS. The one exception being Defend StarBase1. I have myself been given multiple AFK penalties despite being way, way over the 2% DPS limit. I think (not proved) that map has an extra AFK detraction that incorrectly gives AFK penalties if you alt tab to much even if you are way over the required DPS requirements. Which is rather frustrating when you play in window mode, click off screen but still click back to respond to spawns. It’s the only map I have had problems with. I assume its some sort of anti bot measure that is incorrectly capturing players.
To save my already long post +1 for you Elite Event idea. If that was an option I would pick it 8 times out of 10.
Personally I don't agree with Elite player "denies mere normal peasants any opportunity to learn - or even participate meaningfully" when we looked at the data it showed that normal peasants as you put it, in fact gained DPS instead of losing DPS and still managed to participate when near the Elite player. Some of the posters on here even confirmed that there best runs was when there was a high DPS players in the group as the player brought up there performance level rather then lowered it. I am not saying players never lose DPS just that when you look at the data what player think is happening is not matching what is happening.
There is one outliner case that does cause problems. If you randomly join a group with 3 or 4 ubar DPSers and you are an every day casual player on some maps that can cause problems. But this is an extremely rare event as high DPSers are an absolutely tiny % of the player base. Outside of ISE/HSE the chance to come across a high DPS player is rather tiny. The chance to come across 4 high DPSers is well a very rare event.
Damn dude, you're very bitter and angry.
I wont be engaging you any further.
I couldnt even begin to suggest how to fix that. Again, I blame the power creep in sto.
so again, where is the evidence of so called "elite interlopers" coming into runs and hitting people with penalties? Since you used annemarie as the example, she says this is happening, alright get me some evidence of it. From there we can discuss solutions that can be utilized on her side and potentially server side to prevent this from happening again. Are there changes she can make to her build and setup? Could she utilize different tactics without having to change her build? Can Cryptic alter their algorithms used for pulling random people to decrease the chances of this happening? If someone is going to make a claim like this, they bear the burden of proof to demonstrate that something is happening. And so far the evidence we do have shows that in fact in almost all cases no uber DPS are actually present and the so called uber DPS are being blamed for something they didn't do. I'm not going to advocate any kind of change without some kind of evidence of something happening because talk is cheap and anyone can claim anything whether it's true or not. And no I'm not calling her a liar before someone says anything. I am saying there is insufficient evidence to substantiate her claims.
Fairly easily actually. The AFK penalty is 1%-2% of the damage dealt for the entirety of the map, meaning you have to do less than 1%-2% of the total damage for the entirety of that TFO to get hit with an AFK penalty, which is nigh impossible without something being bad wrong, such as internet crash or similar. To calculate if someone got a penalty or not, I only need to know 2 things, the total amount of damage dealt for the team, and how much damage each individual person did. From there it's simple math to figure out what percentage of the team's damage someone did. If they're below the 1%-2% threshold, they were probably hit with an AFK. If they are above this number, then we know they didn't get hit with one. Larger maps like Khitomer Vortex as one of the popular TFOs can skew the numbers, but not enough to invalidate the data. If someone is across the map from me and I can see they dealt 5% of the damage on the log, then in reality that number would be much higher if I was closer to them. The server itself keeps track of this stuff and how much damage each person dealt and is not limited by range like the combat logs we players have access to.
Such as the 72 second ISA run I gave as the example previously. The total amount of damage our team dealt in that run was just over 45m damage. The total damage dealt by the lowest guy in there was 1,857,000. From there I only need to do the math to figure out what percentage of 45m his damage comes out to, which was 4.57%. ISA is one of the 1% maps and even with a person in there cranking over 260k DPS, the lowest guy in there was never in any danger of an AFK penalty and it wasn't even close. If someone is consistently getting hit with an AFK penalty, this means they are consistently below that 1% threshold and something is majorly wrong with what they're doing.
Except that's not what we're talking about and not comparable here. You're comparing what amounts to a pvp situation against a mostly pve game like STO. In TFOs you're not competing against the other people on your team as it's a cooperative effort. Even then in STO every person has the same potential to acquire gear, ships and upgrades, with free to play methods taking longer but just as viable as someone paying cash. The only difference is the time it took to get there, with paying cash being like crossing the country by plane, and using free to play methods being like driving a car. Both will get you to your destination, but one is quicker. Regardless of the transportation method you took, the destination is the same. In STO you choose when to stop the gear grind and when you've reached a high enough level of power. Naturally those with higher power are going to outdo you. If all maps are open to all people, then there is going to be the possibility you might get high powered people in with lower powered people. That's not a flaw, that's working as intended.
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See above. I offered to help him and kit him out with mk xv ultra rare gear, including handing him a cstore ship coupon if that's what it took. My offer was rejected.
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Let us all remind ourselfs, that STO, in its core, is a sandbox. We all came to this sandbox in basicaly same circumstances (don't even start a discussion about p2w, because I KNOW you can do GOOD in this game f2p). Now if you like it or not, the reality is that some people build big castles and some struggle to make a mud pie.
There very likely is. Until recently, you could solo-AFK a private SB1 Elite (cloak and let the timer run out). You never get an AFK-Penalty for a private session, so they must have changed something else; like maybe the amount of enemies you kill; or whether you have worked on enough escape lanes, etc.
Another thing a few people posting here seem to overlook, is that 1 Elite player entering your TFO does not a catastrophe make. At least not in Advanced. When all 4 of them are Elite, except me? Maybe, but unless ppl purposely have it in for you, chances of that happening are low. The metric may be different for Normal, but on Advanced, sure, sometimes it goes faster than at other times, but I've never had it be a real issue for me.