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.
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.
No Val I am not going to play the game in which you demand complex answers to things you assume are straight forward so as to enable a response in bold & goldenrod when you think you've found a contradiction.
Dialing back performance has quite a few facets to it depending upon the type of build. Please read "deconstruct" as applying to all aspects of a build including human input.
To repeat what I said before: "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".
A player could have an all Mark XVIII gold build but without the human inputs mentioned above in italics they won't do very well.
A player could have an all Mark XII white build and with the human inputs mentioned above in italics they will do very well.
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.
No Val I am not going to play the game in which you demand complex answers to things you assume are straight forward so as to enable a response in bold & goldenrod when you think you've found a contradiction.
Only slotting 1 beam, instead of 8, doesn't sound all that complex to me.
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.
They should not 'have to alter how they play in their 30 minutes per day.' But maybe they can be considerate as to where they play (aka, at their own level).
To truly solve this, Elite players, and Advanced ones alike, should not be allowed to enter lower Tier TFO's... but only under the following conditions:
1) All TFO's should come in Normal, Advanced and Elite;
2) Cryptic needs to build on its current internal parser to accurately determine someone's level (and err on the side of caution);
3) TFO's that only exist on Normal, plus Events, remain free-for-all;
4) The restriction should be per toon, not per account (as a particular toon on your account may not be decked out as well as other toons you have on that account,
This will lock no one out of content; it would likely be met with huge resistence, though.
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?
Her saying it's happening to her, is good enough for me. Would indeed be nice to know how many times it actually occurs, though.
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.
Only Cryptic can truly answer that, as I presume ppl on Normal are parsing less.
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.
That is a bit of an oversimplification, and maybe part and parcel of the 'git gud' mentality displayed in this thread (not just from you). It's like saying everyone can become rich, if they only choose to (which is obviously untrue, and entire economies would collapse if it were). Taking myself as an example, massive hand-eye coordination is required for when to press what, and still be able to not take your eye off the field. I'm not good at that. Others may have similar impediments, or entirely different ones that prevent them from becoming an Elite player.
N.B. Kudos on offering colonelmarik a free ship. That is definitely a gesture of good will.
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.
No Val I am not going to play the game in which you demand complex answers to things you assume are straight forward so as to enable a response in bold & goldenrod when you think you've found a contradiction.
Only slotting 1 beam, instead of 8, doesn't sound all that complex to me.
@meimeitoo we are both >150K DPS so for the purposes of this thread are Elite players. Please describe, in detail, everything you are doing as an Elite player who has stepped down into normal difficulty event queues to ensure your conduct is both respectful and morally correct
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.
No Val I am not going to play the game in which you demand complex answers to things you assume are straight forward so as to enable a response in bold & goldenrod when you think you've found a contradiction.
Only slotting 1 beam, instead of 8, doesn't sound all that complex to me.
@meimeitoo we are both >150K DPS so for the purposes of this thread are Elite players. Please describe, in detail, everything you are doing as an Elite player who has stepped down into normal difficulty event queues to ensure your conduct is both respectful and morally correct
LOL, cleverly done. And I feel flattered. But no, I'm not an Elite player, not by any stretch of the imagination. And events are exempt anyway, as Cryptic only offers them on Normal. This didn't used to be the case, btw. I distinctly remember being able to do the featured TFO's on Advanced, and still get the Event-daily. Then, one day, they decided to remove the Advanced/Elite TFO's from the queue during the Event -- for reasons unknown. They did the exact opposite of what they should have done (a certain recently introduced new mail/exchange system leaps to mind).
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.
No Val I am not going to play the game in which you demand complex answers to things you assume are straight forward so as to enable a response in bold & goldenrod when you think you've found a contradiction.
Only slotting 1 beam, instead of 8, doesn't sound all that complex to me.
@meimeitoo we are both >150K DPS so for the purposes of this thread are Elite players. Please describe, in detail, everything you are doing as an Elite player who has stepped down into normal difficulty event queues to ensure your conduct is both respectful and morally correct
..events are exempt anyway, as Cryptic only offers them on Normal.
Hey everybody, as an ELITE player@meimeitoo has declared events EXEMPT as Cryptic only offers them on Normal so from now on there's no need to dial things back in the interests of being respectful and morally correct
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.
No Val I am not going to play the game in which you demand complex answers to things you assume are straight forward so as to enable a response in bold & goldenrod when you think you've found a contradiction.
Only slotting 1 beam, instead of 8, doesn't sound all that complex to me.
@meimeitoo we are both >150K DPS so for the purposes of this thread are Elite players. Please describe, in detail, everything you are doing as an Elite player who has stepped down into normal difficulty event queues to ensure your conduct is both respectful and morally correct
..events are exempt anyway, as Cryptic only offers them on Normal.
Hey everybody, as an ELITE player@meimeitoo has declared events EXEMPT as Cryptic only offers them on Normal so from now on there's no need to dial things back in the interests of being respectful and morally correct
Indeed. Because what you're overlooking, is the fact that Events only existing on Normal makes them a free-for-all, meaning you can expect players of all levels in there, Elite, Advanced, and ppl who are actually matching the Normal level of the Event. Whereas in a regular Normal TFO, the fair assumption is that the majority of players therein are of Normal level.
so instead of screaming and posting walls of text, how about suggestions to fix it?
There have been quite a few suggestions made in this thread with regard to possible solutions. Would you care to follow your own suggestion here and discuss those or continue to do the very thing you are blaming others for?
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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.
No Val I am not going to play the game in which you demand complex answers to things you assume are straight forward so as to enable a response in bold & goldenrod when you think you've found a contradiction.
Dialing back performance has quite a few facets to it depending upon the type of build. Please read "deconstruct" as applying to all aspects of a build including human input.
To repeat what I said before: "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".
A player could have an all Mark XVIII gold build but without the human inputs mentioned above in italics they won't do very well.
A player could have an all Mark XII white build and with the human inputs mentioned above in italics they will do very well.
Only slotting 1 beam, instead of 8, doesn't sound all that complex to me.
They should not 'have to alter how they play in their 30 minutes per day.' But maybe they can be considerate as to where they play (aka, at their own level).
To truly solve this, Elite players, and Advanced ones alike, should not be allowed to enter lower Tier TFO's... but only under the following conditions:
1) All TFO's should come in Normal, Advanced and Elite;
2) Cryptic needs to build on its current internal parser to accurately determine someone's level (and err on the side of caution);
3) TFO's that only exist on Normal, plus Events, remain free-for-all;
4) The restriction should be per toon, not per account (as a particular toon on your account may not be decked out as well as other toons you have on that account,
This will lock no one out of content; it would likely be met with huge resistence, though.
Her saying it's happening to her, is good enough for me. Would indeed be nice to know how many times it actually occurs, though.
Only Cryptic can truly answer that, as I presume ppl on Normal are parsing less.
That is a bit of an oversimplification, and maybe part and parcel of the 'git gud' mentality displayed in this thread (not just from you). It's like saying everyone can become rich, if they only choose to (which is obviously untrue, and entire economies would collapse if it were). Taking myself as an example, massive hand-eye coordination is required for when to press what, and still be able to not take your eye off the field. I'm not good at that. Others may have similar impediments, or entirely different ones that prevent them from becoming an Elite player.
N.B. Kudos on offering colonelmarik a free ship. That is definitely a gesture of good will.
@meimeitoo we are both >150K DPS so for the purposes of this thread are Elite players. Please describe, in detail, everything you are doing as an Elite player who has stepped down into normal difficulty event queues to ensure your conduct is both respectful and morally correct
LOL, cleverly done.
Hey everybody, as an ELITE player @meimeitoo has declared events EXEMPT as Cryptic only offers them on Normal so from now on there's no need to dial things back in the interests of being respectful and morally correct
Indeed. Because what you're overlooking, is the fact that Events only existing on Normal makes them a free-for-all, meaning you can expect players of all levels in there, Elite, Advanced, and ppl who are actually matching the Normal level of the Event. Whereas in a regular Normal TFO, the fair assumption is that the majority of players therein are of Normal level.
bravo. work for MSNBC?