So the gear check thing, and infact anything to do with the serverside reading stats is out.
Judging by steam stats the game has plateaued out, and that plateau has remained even after Picard and Lower Decks started airing. Someone has to ask the basic question...
1. Why? a basic check on the server, be it gear, DPS average, whatever you say is out.. WHY?? it's perfectly do-able.
2. Cryptic has not exactly been forthcoming with supporting Steam since they developed ARC. They don't carry promos anymore, nothing. even the Zen rate sucks because if you spend $50 you don't get the bonus
With that said, I reject the premise that just because someone with a higher DPS plays on a lower difficulty it somehow means that person has bad intentions or is being a troll. I have the ability to play anything in this game on elite should I choose to do so. However there are times when I simply want something done as quickly as possible and don't want to deal with the headache that can be elite at times. Contrary to popular belief, people like myself who have the ability to play elite like to have a little mindless fun from time to time.
so you are good with trolling 4 other players by vaping everything before the others can fire.. noted
Ok, let's do be careful here, folks. Attacking an idea is one thing. Taking personal swipes at each other is another. Let's not snipe one another, please. Thank you.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
“Assumes DPS is the one and only measure of success in higher difficulty content.”
DPS effectively is the main measure due to how the game is designed at higher difficulty. Healing, tanking, team support, control don’t really matter beyond the most basic level. What matters is killing the target within the time limit allowed within the TFO which requires a set level of DPS. I used to play pure support ships that did nothing but help the team but the AFK penalty mechanical killed off that play style.
The few maps we had which where more than DPS mattered like the original No Win TFO got removed from the game and revamped in a worse version that is DPS only. The raids maps we used to have also benefited from tanking/healing but raid maps are long gone from STO. As long as you have the base level to survive and the base movement/piloting what else matters other than DPS? The real measure of success it completing the TFO successfully and generally the main requirement for that is DPS.
“Discourages players from experimenting with pure healer or pure tank builds which can be very effective for a team.“
They are just not useful to the team generally speaking with the way TFO's are designed. I cannot think of any point I found a pure healer or pure tank useful in todays version of STO. I know a few people running glass cannons like to have a 1 full tank in pre made ISE/HSE DPS runs. Even inside that niche area a healer is not that useful. Apart from the limited glass canon DPS runs I personally find the tanker and healer role not helpful. It doesn’t remotely help me or help complete the map. Its partly why I abandoned that playstyle.
At higher difficulty I can think of plenty of maps that have DPS requirements, but not one single map that has a control, healer, tanker or support requirements. Personally I like seeing a bit of control but even that is due to movement control (gravity well style) boosting DPS via AoE. DrainX style control is near useless.
Ok, let's do be careful here, folks. Attacking an idea is one thing. Taking personal swipes at each other is another. Let's not snipe one another, please. Thank you.
I agree with the Mods Like @baddmoonrizin and @rattler2 please be respectful to eachother and agree to disagree or get the ban hammer and have your posts removed.
so you are good with trolling 4 other players by vaping everything before the others can fire.. noted
Yes but those nasty low DPS players cannot play elite levels and muck up the fun of the DPS crowd, so it is all cool. Fear not! The Tripartite of Failure would lock the unwashed masses of low DPS peasants out of Advanced content too!
Its not the same though. There are TFO fail conditions based on DPS in Elite and optionals based on DPS in Advanced. The low DPS players are not just mucking up the fun they are causing things to fail even the entire TFO. Hence the idea to help them improve and make sure they are ready to enter Advanced/Elite by having a performance guidance level to aim for.
Why not make us Science players the New Meta, Build a new abilities like a fusion of Gravity Well and Tractor beam, or an ability that reverses the damage of attacks right back to the attacker, maybe even build ships that transforms in robots like a transformer.
“Assumes DPS is the one and only measure of success in higher difficulty content.”
DPS effectively is the main measure due to how the game is designed at higher difficulty. Healing, tanking, team support, control don’t really matter beyond the most basic level. What matters is killing the target within the time limit allowed within the TFO which requires a set level of DPS. I used to play pure support ships that did nothing but help the team but the AFK penalty mechanical killed off that play style.
The few maps we had which where more than DPS mattered like the original No Win TFO got removed from the game and revamped in a worse version that is DPS only. The raids maps we used to have also benefited from tanking/healing but raid maps are long gone from STO. As long as you have the base level to survive and the base movement/piloting what else matters other than DPS? The real measure of success it completing the TFO successfully and generally the main requirement for that is DPS.
“Discourages players from experimenting with pure healer or pure tank builds which can be very effective for a team.“
They are just not useful to the team generally speaking with the way TFO's are designed. I cannot think of any point I found a pure healer or pure tank useful in todays version of STO. I know a few people running glass cannons like to have a 1 full tank in pre made ISE/HSE DPS runs. Even inside that niche area a healer is not that useful. Apart from the limited glass canon DPS runs I personally find the tanker and healer role not helpful. It doesn’t remotely help me or help complete the map. Its partly why I abandoned that playstyle.
At higher difficulty I can think of plenty of maps that have DPS requirements, but not one single map that has a control, healer, tanker or support requirements. Personally I like seeing a bit of control but even that is due to movement control (gravity well style) boosting DPS via AoE. DrainX style control is near useless.
Expanding on this going back to the ranking system which used to be in game and I miss. This used to give points for healing and a loss of points for dying. Back then being a healer or tank sort of had a purpose as the player wanted to avoid dying and you earnt a better score for healing teammates. The people who scored 1st, 2nd, 3rd got extra rewards at the end of the TFO. Plus you got to directly compare your self to the team mates and it wasn't just about DPS. Is was an overall score based on heals and damage. If other players scored around 1500 points and I had 500 then I would know I was underperforming and be driven to improve. Bring back the score system in TFO's might be helpful? Not just a score at the end of the TFO either the old maps had the score UI during the entire run.
Why not make us Science players the New Meta, Build a new abilities like a fusion of Gravity Well and Tractor beam, or an ability that reverses the damage of attacks right back to the attacker, maybe even build ships that transforms in robots like a transformer.
Sci have been the meta before and I don't think many want to return to the days of reverse damage back to attackers. That was very unpopular hence why it got nerfed to the ground.
We already have transformer ships (not robots but ships that transform). If it was my say its the time for Carriers to be the new meta
DPS effectively is the main measure due to how the game is designed at higher difficulty. Healing, tanking, team support, control don’t really matter beyond the most basic level. What matters is killing the target within the time limit allowed within the TFO which requires a set level of DPS. I used to play pure support ships that did nothing but help the team but the AFK penalty mechanical killed off that play style.
Yes, ultimately DPS is what will defeat the enemy NPCs. TFOs are not the only higher difficulty content people are interested in playing though and the experience people are after varies greatly. People can team up together with builds to make them more into the traditional trinity type roles if they want to and be very effective, not to mention having a lot of fun doing it. We have fleet members who do this on the regular. I do agree that if you are queuing for public RTFO, then you should be focused mostly on DPS. Private teams are another thing.
They are just not useful to the team generally speaking with the way TFO's are designed.
I do not agree as I have found someone playing a tank build or healing or CC build can be useful, effective and helpful. It all depends on the team makeup, map being run and what enemy NPC group is involved.
I think people are getting too used to running ISAs against the Borg, wiping the map in under a minute and expecting that same experience of and forgetting about all the other content in the game. In a way, it is making the game less and less a multiplayer one and into a solo player game. If one person is easily capable of near instantly clearing content designed and intended for a team of five, why bother requiring a team then? Just make all TFO and event content solo capable and call it a day.
Not entirely convinced the trinity type roles can be effective as in I am sure it can pass the TFO but it sounds inefficient and suboptimal but as long as its viable that is all that matters. Nothing wrong with inefficient and suboptimal as long as its viable. If people want to play like that in groups I am all for it.
Even those private groups still need to hit the 550k+ group DPS that is required. Speaking of which group DPS is a better way to describe TFO's then single player DPS. People often talk bout ISE being 110k DPS per player but its really we should be talking about the TFO requirements as a group. So 550k group DPS for ISE should be the goal. Before the AFK penalty killed it off I used to enjoy playing full Command team support.
Personably I don't mind tankers and healers. Its just I find with how I build and play my ships I do not have a use for either. When I see them in a group I just ignore them knowing they will have no impact on me. EDIT: (Ignore them as in the healing/tanking part, I don't ignore the player)
What does gear checks have to do with the OP? if you want gear checks for advanced and elite content, fine, but it's not germane
to the OP. what does pertain is the lack of harder versions.
The OP complains about there being too much dps in the game and how they can't get a shot off to contribute because of this that or the other. I have asserted it's not a game issue but a player issue and folks need to take some responsibility for their own woes in the game. Others have advocated DPS limits to which I have advocated people need to be responsible for themselves instead of expecting others to nerf themselves on their behalf. I advocated a gear check, role check, and dungeon journal as a means of prepping people for content since the entire discussion sounds like bad luck of the draw and people not being ready for content.
In other words for people having issues of not being able to contribute, I am advocating 3 changes to get people ready and able to contribute if they're not currently and make sure they know where to get gear.
Exactly the point. erring on good intentions, the UberDPS player cleared the board on NORMAL. the last couple events (All of them?) are normal mode only. if an elite version had been available, again, assuming good intentions, the uber guy would have played that level and not been in the pug at all. if he had, then it raises the question of said player being a troll.
What board is being cleared ? The last couple of events have offered multiple normal difficulty TFO event maps that involve waves of enemies, timers, travel, and other tasks. These sort of maps can't be cleared quickly.
With that said, I reject the premise that just because someone with a higher DPS plays on a lower difficulty it somehow means that person has bad intentions or is being a troll. I have the ability to play anything in this game on elite should I choose to do so. However there are times when I simply want something done as quickly as possible and don't want to deal with the headache that can be elite at times. Contrary to popular belief, people like myself who have the ability to play elite like to have a little mindless fun from time to time.
so you are good with trolling 4 other players by vaping everything before the others can fire.. noted
Have you considered increasing your mobility ? It can make things a lot more fun versus being stuck in red alert while others have already moved on to a new set of targets.
I'll just add in from my PoV as to why DPS players are going into Normal/Advanced so much.
Issue #1) Elite generally requires a team of higher skilled players.
Given the skillgap STO has, you simply can't pug Elite queues and have a good experience. Rather, you typically need to setup a private group via specific channels or external sources like Discord to assemble a team of players capable of playing that content.
Issue #2) STO Server Performance has not been great in matches with heavily geared players.
Server performance has been an issue in STO for a while, but it certainly hasn't been getting better.
When you get into matches that have multiple highly built out players hitting all their buffs, the game doesn't always like it. This has caused many DPS chasers to quit over the past year, making issue #1 worse, as there are now less capable players for elite content.
Issue #3) Rewards for playing Elite have not aged well.
To be blunt, very few care about farming for R&D materials in the current state of the game.
Back in the day, grinding Elite to farm Salvaged tech was popular, but between Phoenix & Ultimate Upgrades, the demand for the Experimental upgrades has basically disappeared.
And the time:reward ratio heavily skews towards Advanced, especially given how much faster it is to get into an advanced queue vs elite.
Issue #4) DPS Players have to do dailies also.
To put it simply, we have dailies to do just like anyone else, and want to get them done as fast as we can. And with Cryptic limiting all of the latest events to normal difficulty, it means we are forced to play at lower difficulties.
In addition, for stuff like endeavors, opting for pug normal/advanced over privately arranged elite queues means we can get our dailies done in a fraction of the time. It's not like we can queue for any Elite queue and get a pop instantly.
Even trying to arrange private ISEs in the DPS channels can take 10-15+ minutes some days. Now imagine trying to arrange some other niche elite TFO. Simply not worth your time over just queuing for Advanced.
There's probably a few other points DPS players would add, but I think that sums up a majority of it from my PoV.
And also, as for conversation about lowering the DPS of players, that will never work in this game. They have tried it before (FBP/Embassy Plasma Console nerfs), and it only hurt the casual part of the playerbase long term. Meanwhile DPS Players found other routes and ended up doing even more DPS in the end.
Very important to keep in mind that gear is not the main factor that differentiates a DPS player from the average player. Rather its piloting and ability activation that are typically the core factors that determine player performance. Hence why you can see people copy a high DPS build they saw online, and yet only get a fraction of the performance.
Edit: And I would also add that selling us more power is a core part of their monetization approach. If they did something like a DPS cap, would mean people would hit that cap and stop buying things to improve their performance. Less $ for Cryptic.
Very easily bypassed (by your own admission) to the point of being meaningless and trivial. Players can buy gear from the exchange or receive from friends to circumvent actually earning it not to mention having to actually play the game to learn how to use said gear.
Pushes players into believing there are only very specific ways of building and equipping ships and that highest tier gear is a "must have."
Assumes DPS is the one and only measure of success and further promotes the "DPS is King" meta.
Potentially negative impact on ship sales in the Zen Store by forcing the player into focusing on DPS and DPS only.
Would require an inordinate amount of developer time to develop, test and maintain.
Promotes homogenization and stifles diversity in building and equipping ships.
Gates content by locking players out until they meet an arbitrary requirement, even if they are more than capable of participating with lower tier gear. Many players are able to play and contribute to Advanced level content without top of the line gear.
Does nothing to instruct the user about various Captain and BOFF skills, when to use them effectively, how to use them, what they do etc. Equipping a ship with all MkXV Epic gear is meaningless if the player has no idea how to use it effectively.
Assumes weapons are the only means to generate DPS.
The fact that you would resort to some of these arguments tells me that you haven't listened to a word I've said as some of these objections have already been dealt with previously. For that matter some of the objections you've raised are just objectively wrong.
So first up, you yourself have said before that you believe people with mk iv gear as one example shouldn't be taking builds like that into max level TFOs, and you've said that you believe high DPS people should use a lesser build as a "courtesy" to those in the run so they can have a better chance to participate. You've also said you agree that people that people who don't have lesser skills and gear shouldn't be attempting certain content. Clearly you have some standard as to who should and shouldn't be in certain content. So how are you going to sit here and pretend it's some big persecution if people are told to gear up a bit more and come back later? How are you going to say that guy with mk iv gear shouldn't be in that max level TFO, yet get mad at the idea of a system that tells him he's not ready and to come back later? Do you really not see the double standard there?
You say that a Gear Check would "stiffle build diversity" and promote homogenization, promote the mantra of "DPS is king" and push players to believe that there are only a very specific set of ways to make a ship. You also say a gear check would hurt zen ship sales and force people into thinking of only DPS. Okay, explain to us how that's the case. Explain to us exactly exactly how it would hurt zen ship sales and how it's going to make everything the same, and be specific. Because from where I sit it's going to encourage people to go after the ships with the more potent consoles, weapons and the like. If you're having trouble meeting the Role/Performance check, and you know you can get a better console or weapon from (ship) then you're going to go after that ship. In terms of build diversity, the gear check doesn't care what equipment you have, be it full science, torps or what have you so long as it meets the minimum level. You are correct that it doesn't tell you what equipment to use because again, that's not the point of the Gear Check. The Dungeon Journal and Performance Check are where you will learn those things one way or another.
Next, I'm not going to deal with the "DPS is king" claim in this section as measuring performance is not the point of the Gear Check. I will also touch more on the locking people out of content in the next section as well. However to your claim that the gear check assumes weapons are the only way to deal DPS, that is objectively false as it takes the entire build into account, not just the weapons. It looks at shields, engines, consoles, weapons, all of your equipment. So long as that equipment meets the minimum standard, the gear check doesn't care what it is. If the standard is mk xii very rare across the board, the gear check only cares that whatever is in the slot is at least mk xii very rare or above.
I saved the bypass and development time bits for last as they're the simplest ones and go towards a greater point. You say something like a gear check would take alot of time to create and shouldn't be done, yet are advocating entirely new difficulties and maps for those difficulties. It takes far far longer to create new difficulties and maps for those difficulties and to balance them than it ever would for a gear check. A gear check can be accomplished with a basic script that checks what is equipped in each slot, then unlocking based on what it detects. So maybe 5 minutes to write the script and test it. Even if it was more arduous than that, you can't say that a gear check shouldn't be done because it would take too long, then turn around and advocate something that would take even longer. Again do you not see how that would be a double standard?
Lastly on this section is the bypass argument. Do you know what it means to bypass something, especially in computing? Not saying that to be a jerk but legitimately asking. Because what you're describing is not a bypass at all. To bypass something means to sidestep it and go around, and not interact with it. If someone is buying gear from the exchange to meet the gear check, they're not bypassing the gear check at all, but going through it as they're supposed to. Again the gear check does not care whether the gear was bought, earned through missions, or both. All it cares about is if that person is rolling in there with at least mk xii very rare gear as the hypothetical and not mk iv gear per your example. To bypass the gear check would be if someone found a way to still get in the door using nothing but mk iv gear even though mk xii very rare was required, THAT is a bypass.
As others have pointed out, this game by deliberate design has no traditional MMORPG roles. That is not to say players cannot make them if they want to.
As I had suspected, this is not at all a "role" check, but a thinly veiled attempt to implement the DPS check you have long pined for. Your own words - "Let's say the minimum was 30k DPS for level 65 to keep it simple. " Nice try
Assumes DPS is the one and only measure of success in higher difficulty content.
Potentially negative impact on ship sales in the Zen Store by forcing the player into focusing on DPS and DPS only.
Discourages players from experimenting with pure healer or pure tank builds which can be very effective for a team.
Serves to further exacerbate many of the other related issues brought up in that it further promotes the "DPS is King" meta by creating even more high DPS players. All the new high DPS players will cause even more problems for events where only normal difficulty is available.
Does absolutely nothing to educate players on how to adapt to changing conditions on a team environment.
Would require an inordinate amount of developer time to implement a DPS check into the game and maintain the code.
Does nothing to take into account changes that may take place to gear. What happens when equipped gear is nerfed and the DPS is no longer what it was before? Are those players now locked out of content because their DPS dropped?
Assumes that hitting an arbitrary DPS figure once means that performance can be repeated all the time.
Further serves to trivialize Normal and Advanced difficulty content by adding more DPS into the mix.
Assumes that DPS is universal against every enemy NPC type. 35K DPS against the very easy Borg mobs in an ISA is different than fighting Tzenkethi or Vaadwaur or Terrans or Tholians.
I will give you slight credit here, you actually asked at least one legitimate question which I will save for last.
Again you say it would hurt zen sales, promote homogenization, stop experimenting and the like, and once again as I did above I'm going to ask you to elaborate on that. How is it going to hurt zen sales? How is it going to stop experimentation and the like? And do be specific. You try to say on one hand that STO is not a traditional MMO and doesn't have the traditional trinity roles. Yet you turn around and say that having a performance check would discourage the creation of pure healing and pure tank ships as a means of why it can't work. If STO doesn't have traditional roles as you claim, then how can a performance check discourage something that by your own logic doesn't exist? STO is more of a duo of tank and DPS than it is healing. Healing is split among the two.
For the claims of locking people out, "DPS is king", homogenization and the like. Whether you like it or not there are some builds that objectively superior in terms of survival and damage output. A ship using all mk ix vendor gear will NEVER have the same damage and survival potential that a ship using all mk xv golds will, I don't care how good the pilot is. If someone wants to experience the content of ISE and Korfez right now, there is a built in performance test they have to clear before they move on to the rest of the TFO, and that's the initial groups of foes. If you can't clear those groups in a specific timeframe, the TFO automatically fails. So yes as much as you might dislike it, DPS is absolutely king for those opening groups and there is already precedence for performance tests. In order to clear content in game you need a certain amount of firepower to get through foes or you will never get past the auto-heal that most of them have without an "i win" button. For tanks, you still need a certain amount of DPS to maintain your threat against the foes. While you still need to know mechanics in order to clear content, DPS is still an additional key measure to clearing said content. Certain builds just are not useful in clearing certain content with how the TFOs themselves are designed.
You're trying to play "gotcha" because I actually cited a number and said 30k DPS and trying to say "see you just want to DPS check everyone and lock everyone out you see as lesser", even though that's not what I've said at all. What I've said is that if people are meeting the basic standards set forth by the game itself, then I DO NOT CARE what level they are at even if it's the bare minimum, be they at 30k or 300k+. If the game required 30k, are they doing that 30k at the very least? If yes they're good, if not then sorry they're not ready and have no business in that TFO until they are. I cited 30k as an example so people would have a quantified example to work with and since most players are between 15k-50k in game. If you want to debate that it should be lower thank 30k, fine we can have that debate. But how are you going to sit here and act like it's controversial for me to say certain people below a particular threshold have no business in certain content when you yourself have said people with mk iv gear and subpar builds and skills shouldn't be in max level TFOs? I am not saying to those people "I'll make sure you never get into TFOs", what I'm saying to them is "you're not ready yet, get a little more equipment and practice a bit and then try again." It's no different than making sure your kid knows how to drive and has their license before you give them the car keys.
You say that the Performance Check doesn't teach mechanics and changing environments, when actually it does. In WoW if I was trying to clear the tank check, I was placed into a map that would mimic group conditions in a run. I would have DPS NPCs and a Healer NPC I had to watch out for. If something was going after the healer I needed to know how to taunt off the healer. If I was taking a large amount of damage I had to know to hit a defensive cooldown. I also had to know where to position the boss so he didn't cleave the group and make the healer's job harder. Healers had to keep a tank NPC alive and some DPS while watching for debuffs they could cleanse, and not standing in dumb. DPS had to know when to burst certain things down, how to not stand in dumb, what mobs to go after and when, where to stand to avoid things like a cleave and similar, all while maintaining their numbers. So it's objectively false to say that it never taught people anything. This is why the WoW variant had Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Endless level difficulties. To get into random content only required you clear silver level. The performance check was more than purely "do this DPS or else" but a trial by fire of things relevant to their chosen role, along with general mechanics they may encounter in raids and higher tier instances. Raid/instance specific mechanics could be covered in the dungeon journal. If they needed more gear or a specific piece of gear to clear a mechanic in the Role Check or something to clear the Gear Check, the dungeon journal told them where to get it.
In terms of developer time, we only need two things to measure someone's output, a combat log to know what numbers were dealt, and a parser to crunch the numbers in a reasonable time for us. We already have the combat log file and have had for years. The only thing we would need now is a parser, which conveniently there is one sitting in the tribble test map which can be upgraded and fleshed out to actually work better. So again these things already exist and there is already precedent for them. And before you say "see you just want a parser so you can look down on people", virtually every MMO out there has at least one parser so people can measure their stats. The fact that STO doesn't makes it an outlier in today's market.
Now to answer your question regarding if people would be locked out again should they fall below the minimum for a specific run. NO THEY WILL NOT. They never did that in WoW and they wouldn't be doing it here. If a person was able to get enough gear to clear the gear check, was able to clear the silver level of the performance check, and get into content yet fell below the minimum levels of output required, we knew one of 3 things was going on. Either the person had something going on outside of their control such as internet issues or other real life thing, they were having trouble with a raid/instance specific mechanic, or they simply weren't trying. If it was option 1, not much we could do depending on what it was. If it was option 2, we could see what part they're having an issue with and offer them help while planning accordingly. If it was option 3 and the person wasn't trying, we knew they were a troll looking for a free ride and could boot them from the group and not invite them back. If items were nerfed, people found alternatives to use. IF they saw a need to change the minimum levels, then the devs would do so, but I only ever knew of that happening once. So if a major nerf happened it's not like they could revisit the numbers.
Lastly on this section. You're not increasing the DPS ceiling at all, you're bringing the community floor up. You're making sure everyone has a certain level of DPS to take stuff out in a reasonable timeframe, and contribute to the team. I don't know about you, but I don't find it fun to be fighting a single borg probe for 5 hours. The performance check does NOT care how you make it to the minimum, only that you do. If you can get there through pure energy dps then great, if you can do it through science then great, if you can do it through torps, mines, or carrier shenanigans then great. I'm not sure who told you stuff like this would only allow for one type of build, but they lied to you and did you a huge disservice.
Superfluous as this information is already available in-game via mission text. Also available through a multitude of other sources and in much greater detail.
Would require a colossal amount of developer time to develop, test and maintain.
Encourages players to skip content in favor of those which only have gear they think they need.
Does absolutely nothing to educate players on how to adapt to changing conditions on a team environment.
Does absolutely nothing to educate players on the differences between Normal, Advanced and Elite content.
Discourages actually playing the content to experiment and find effective counter measures to NPC abilities and tactics on their own in lieu of being spoon fed the information.
Of all 3 parts of this system, this one would take the longest, purely because of the amount of items. However it's still not going to take nearly as long as you think. All that would need to be done is copy/pasting already available info into one concise area for people to read through and find what they need. They already maintain the tooltips and other information available in game so this is nothing new.
To say the dungeon journal doesn't educate people on changing conditions is objectively false, as it would contain the general mechanics people may encounter, and also the instance specific mechanics people may encounter. The dungeon journal is the book learning part of the system. It may tell you "this is a borg probe, it has items X Y Z as weapons, it has powers X Y Z it uses. These powers and weapons deal X damage type. Power Y can be interrupted. Power Z is a damage spike. Power X is a cleave" and gives people enough information to plan accordingly. Myself, you, BMR, and colonelmarik could each have read a journal entry and taken 4 separate groups into a raid each using 4 different strategies and all 4 of them work. The actual trial by fire of putting that information into practice is the job of the Performance Check and the actual instances/raids themselves. Dungeon journal gives you the book knowledge, Performance check helps you put the generalized mechanical knowledge into practice. The actual raids/instances themselves would then apply mechanics specific to them if they existed.
To say the dungeon journal didn't tell you the difference between normal, advanced, and elite is again wrong. Using the hypothetical borg probe entry I gave above, the entry for each level could be altered, or indicators given to signify you would only encounter Power Y in normal, Power X and Y in advanced, and Powers X Y Z in elite.
As for the skipping content in favor of things that only has what they need, I'm sorry but this one made me laugh because people already do this now. Aside from maybe playing it for the story, why would I play a mission that gives nothing but polaron gear if I'm looking for phaser gear? Unless I'm playing for the story why would I waste my time doing that? One thing I've learned over the years in creating story maps for other games and content for other games is that players will always take the path of least resistance in 99% of all cases. For that matter I do it now in SWTOR and other games. If I have a chance to drive around a group of 30 guys and get straight to my objective to save myself 10 minutes, why would I not? Why am I going to fight those extra mobs if I don't have to? And if anyone ever says "well I've never done that" them I'm straight up calling shenanigans. To actually try citing this as an issue is like complaining that someone with a flat tire on their car didn't check under the hood to make sure it was something else when I can see the flat tire plain as day. If you want players to play those alternative bits of content then you need to give them a reason to do so.
Lastly again, who is telling you that people can't still experiment to find what build works best for them? If I use method A to clear a specific thing, who is to say that someone else can't try method B, or even try to create method C? Nothing would be stopping people from doing that save their own unwillingness to do so. Even then some methods will be objectively superior to others depending on the goals.
4. The failures of the combination of Parts 1, 2 and 3
Fails to prevent high DPS players from entering lower difficulty matches and inflicting the AFK penalty on other players.
Fails to address the problems more high DPS builds will cause for event content that only comes in Normal difficulty.
Appears to assume that DPS requirements cannot be met with lower tier weapons by ignoring combinations of consoles, BOFF abilities and other means.
Favors keeping the status quo in lieu of developing higher difficulty content to provide high DPS players a more appropriate venue to test their builds.
Totally unnecessary as all of the problems it seeks to solve can already be solved by players doing their own research, socializing and teaming with friends, experimenting on their own etc.
No mention of this being a requirement for every character or account wide. If required for every character, this is adding yet another cumbersome layer of requirements that discourages creating alts.
I'm not even sure where to start with this section so I will address them in order.
-Preventing high DPS players from entering lower difficulty matches is NOT a failure as it was never meant to do so. Those high DPS players have met the minimum standards for that TFO and have just as much right to be in that TFO as the lower DPS players do. Lower DPS players do NOT own exclusive rights to the lower difficulty TFOs. Likewise if the lower DPS player meets the minimum standards for advanced and elite TFOs they too have a right to be in those advanced and elite TFOs. You complained above about locking people out of content, yet here are complaining that higher DPS players wouldn't be locked out of certain content. Talk about double standard hypocrisy. The entire point of the system is to make sure that EVERYONE is at a level they can participate at.
In order to even get an AFK penalty to start with, it means you dealt less than 2% of the damage for the entirety of the run. For many TFOs the AFK threshold is 1% of the damage for the entirety of the run. The only way you're going to see numbers that low is if you were legitimately AFK the entire time, you're new and have joined something you're not ready for yet, are someone like Bob who refuses to learn and get better, or something was going on completely out of your control like internet loss. To put this in perspective let's say 5 people go into one of the shorter ground TFOs and it only lasted 3 minutes, or 180 seconds. Let's also assume that combined the team did a total of 90k damage, which would translate to roughly 100 DPS per person. In order for someone to avoid the AFK penalty in that run, they would've had to deal a whopping 900 damage to get 1% of the damage for that run. Not 900 DPS, but 900 damage. That 4 shots from a weapon doing 250 damage a shot. Even less if it crits. If you can't get off 4 shots in 3 minutes, then you have much bigger issues to worry about. The longer our hypothetical ground TFO goes, the less and less damage is required to avoid an AFK penalty. Call me an elitist if you will, but unless you have something going on outside of your control such as internet loss, you deserve the AFK penalty in that hypothetical instance if you couldn't do a whopping 900 damage. True AFK penalties are extremely rare, and if you're getting hit with them constantly, then maybe you might want to step back and ask yourself what you're doing to prevent them before you go blaming other people.
-You're not adding more so called high DPS builds to the run or increasing the DPS ceiling at all. I already dealt with this above. All you're doing is bringing up the community floor so people are at a level where they can contribute without fear of an AFK penalty as it would be statistically non-existent in its chances of happening. Again I'm all for adding back higher difficulties for events, but as said above, those higher DPS people have just as much right to be there as everyone else does.
-I'm sure there are people out there who can squeak out the minimum DPS requirements using lesser equipment, but those people are the exception and not the rule. If they can meet the requirement with less gear then that's great, it means they won't have issues when they do actually hit the gear minimum and can go straight in once they tick off the Performance Check. Some people are more capable than others, this isn't new. However again we're applying one general standard to all people.
-You've accused me of assuming my proposal is the only solution, yet are advocating higher difficulty content as the only solution. Again do you not see the double standard here? If Cryptic wants to do some higher difficulty content, then by all means I'm not going to complain. At the same time, people who already can't compete in the lower tiers certainly won't be able to compete in the higher tiers. The Gear Check, Performance/Role check and dungeon journal bring the community floor up so people don't have to worry about not being able to compete in the first place.
Also please define "appropriate venue to test their builds". If I want to test a build on advanced before I go into elite, why should I not be allowed to do that? As long as I'm meeting the minimum standards for that advanced TFO, what business is it of yours if I'm bringing a higher DPS ship in there? Likewise if I'm in an elite run and you're meeting the basic minimums for the TFO it's none of my business what you choose to bring.
-You've previously said having options is a good thing. Do you no longer believe this? This gives people a new option in the dungeon journal to assist in their experimentation, a new map to try those experiments on with the Role Check map, and gives people the means to measure their success or lack of. So by your previous statement in this section, the so called evil DPSers are on their own maps away from you, so what's the problem now?
-Lastly on this point, WoW made it character specific which I would assume would be the same here. If you knew enough to get there on your first toon, then you already know what you need to do for your second and can get it done alot faster. If as you say people can just buy gear to clear the gear check, then go into the Performance Check and clear that out in no time.You already have to get new copies of doffs and certain character specific gear items already, so not exactly seeing a problem.
So you are advocating for a system (albeit a very flawed, very poorly thought out one) designed to lock players out of higher difficulty content to prevent them from causing headaches for high DPS players, while perfectly fine with high DPS players playing lower difficulties and causing problems for others. Very telling.
Finally dude, you yourself have said you don't think people with mk iv gear should be in max level TFOs and said that people with subpar builds and skill should be in those TFOs, so how are you coming at me over this when you yourself said certain people shouldn't be in certain TFOs? Seriously dude.
I am fine with people joining TFOs who have met the minimum requirements for those TFOs. Whether they're doing the bare minimum or 300x that bare minimum. I'm not sure what's so hard to understand about that concept. If you're not meeting the minimum standards of that TFO you have no right or business to be in that TFO in my book. Once you improve yourself then you are free to go back and participate.
As I said to colonelmarik, what you're arguing for is like going to a MTG tournament with a starter deck, getting rolled by people with stronger decks, then complaining you didn't get to play or participate as much as you wanted. You knew going into that tournament you could've taken a stronger deck and might encounter people playing decks much stronger than starter deck, yet you chose to use it anyways. If you wanted to play longer or have a higher chance of participating, you should've taken a deck that you knew would let you survive longer. If you didn't yet have a stronger deck, you should've waited until you did. Those people at that tournament are under zero obligation to use less powerful decks just because you want to bring a starter deck. Every deck is allowed to compete so long as they meet the rules for the format. At some point dude, you have to take responsibility for your own woes in the game. If you're having trouble getting to places, then you first need to do what you can to mitigate those issues, then we can talk about other people, but not until then.
"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
I'm curious about how players with leveless equipment would be affected by this hypothetical gear check. 🤔
To use spiral waves as the hypothetical, it would treat them as the highest level they top out as. Spirals stop scaling around 5% behind a mk xii very rare and convert to mk xii very rare when you slap them into the upgrade window. As such they would be treated as mk xii very rare.
With that said, I reject the premise that just because someone with a higher DPS plays on a lower difficulty it somehow means that person has bad intentions or is being a troll. I have the ability to play anything in this game on elite should I choose to do so. However there are times when I simply want something done as quickly as possible and don't want to deal with the headache that can be elite at times. Contrary to popular belief, people like myself who have the ability to play elite like to have a little mindless fun from time to time.
so you are good with trolling 4 other players by vaping everything before the others can fire.. noted
You do not own exclusive right to lower difficulty TFOs. So long as people have met the standards for that TFO they have a right to be there, be this normal, advanced or elite. If you bring a ship that's not fast enough to let you participate that's a you problem not a me problem. If you want to ensure you are able to get there in time to fire your weapons, then you should bring a ship with the highest chance to do so. If you bring a ship that moves at the speed of smell, then how long do you expect me to wait before I unload on something? How long do you expect me to wait for you? To use my previous MTG deck example, how many turns am I supposed to let play out before I start actually trying?
Someone playing on a lower difficulty does NOT constitute trolling on its own.
"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
Someone playing on a lower difficulty does NOT constitute trolling on its own.
However, someone playing on a lower difficulty specifically because it allows them to vape all the opposition before anyone else can even move might well be.
@darkbladejk you can continue to try and type out all the lengthy walls of text you like. your Tripartite of Failure is still a very, very poorly constructed concept on all levels. I notice that you could not even address the majority of specific issues that were brought to your attention. It seems you have utterly ignored them. To be brutally honest, it seems like you have lost any objectivity in a desperate attempt to prove your flawed failure of an idea as sound. In many instances, you answer your own questions with answers that dismantle your poorly thought out ideas.
It's really simple. Do you meet the minimum equipment requirements regardless of how you got there, if yes you're good to go. Did you demonstrate you have sufficient mechanical knowledge while maintaining a specific output level in the Role/Performance check map, if yes you're good to go. If you missed either of those, you can consult the journal to figure out what went wrong and/or where to get gear if needed. Not sure what's complicated about that. You either have it or you don't. Plenty of other games have such things implemented and have worked fine for years. Some were there from the start, some implemented after the fact. You will NOT convince me that somehow STO is the magic exception where its too complicated for them to do, but nerfing everyone is somehow the magic pill.
You only see it as complicated because you've looked for any way to shoot down solutions that aren't "nerf the evil DPSers" in essence. In other words it's okay for the lower DPS guys to demand the higher end people be nerfed or forced to use lesser builds. But woe be unto the DPSer that dares hold them to that same standard and demand they up their game and take a little responsibility for themselves. In other words, if someone brings a ship moving at the speed of smell into a run and can't get there fast enough to shoot something, it's somehow my fault they chose a slow ship and didn't get there in time. If you're going to demand that I bring a lesser powered ship into a run as a "courtesy" then how about you bring a ship into the run that allows you to keep up and actually get a shot off. You say it goes both ways, but you completely reject your responsibility for your own woes in game.
You answered your own question here. What about ships that do not have "more potent consoles, weapons and the like?"
Each time you desperately try to clarify a part of the Tripartite of Failure, it becomes even more complicated and continues to fail even more for an ever growing multitude of reasons that have already been clearly spelled out for you, including several glaring flaws you yourself have already admitted to. It is not a workable solution. Objectively reading your last attempt to sell the Tripartite of Failure, one can very easily come to a clear conclusion of how overly complicated it would be to develop and ludicrously cumbersome to maintain. If for no other reason that that alone, it is a complete failure and not worth the effort.
The overall issue of power creep is a broad and complex problem with many related parts. Your Tripartite of Failure does not solve a single one of them and makes much of the issue even worse.
Oh no we're not playing that game. If you want me to answer your question then answer mine. You said it would discourage build experimentation and harm sales. Again tell us how it would harm sales? Many people already buy ships based on what it can give them for a trait and equipment, this is nothing new. Likewise many people buy for nostalgia reasons or they think a ship is cool. If someone wants to buy that Galaxy class because of TNG, buy that Defiant because of DS9, or buy that Intrepid because of Voyager, nothing is stopping them from doing so. Since you clearly took issue with my mentioning certain ships may sell better than others, first how is that different from now? Second, how is it a bad thing if certain ships see increases over others in sales? No one is holding a phaser to anyone and saying "If you don't buy that ship with (thing) then I'm going to vaporize you." Just because some people might buy ships for their trait or their console does NOT mean you are obligated to do the same.
As said above it's really simple, either you have the equipment or you don't. Either you completed the Role/Performance check or you didn't. If you completed both you're good. If you didn't then you have the journal to help figure out what went wrong. Easily done with a few scripts, yet you expect me to believe it would take more time to do that than to create new difficulties and maps along with balancing them.
Show me where I said I owned any specific difficulty. Please quote the exact line. I have applied an equal standard across the board from the start. Each person is responsible for their own ability to participate in a TFO. If you choose a build and ship that's slower and can't participate as a result, that's on you. So long as people meet the minimum standards for a TFO, whatever those standards may be, they have a right to be there. For those who are not yet ready for certain TFOs I have advocated a track to get them ready. You will not find where I have advocated otherwise.
"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
I'm not sure of the mental gymnastics that goes into an overwhelmingly strong player insisting on doing normal content to troll other players. To spend all that money, and trust me to be a top DPS player you need to be spending in the 4-5 digits in this game to reach it, just to troll a hand full of strangers in a random pug, seems far fetched. I'm sure there are some people that do it, but that number has to be very small. I think its more reasonable to think that the majority of strong players that are in normal are just subjective to the person viewing it. And what identifies them as strong and yourself as not weak? Is it the ship? We get lock box ships once a year for free nowadays. So that can't be it? I don't know what it is or how you measure a players value by seeing them perform and comparing it to what? Other then your own performance and saying, "They are doing things i can't do, and i'm strong, so they must be uber strong." That player may seem strong when compared to you but when they enter advanced or elite, that person could be or would be the weakest link. So I think in that aspect I believe strength it's subjective.
I've seen way more times of a weaker players (Be it skill, or weapons platform) entering advanced or elite and just failing then I've seen oneshota's even in normal and I'm pretty much one of those one shota's in advanced and the Pugs still take forever. Take Peril over Pahvo or Dranur Gauntlet. I Go there to test builds because of the amount of food to eat. And I often see players get overwhelmed constantly. It's obvious what the strategy is in that instance. Players cover A and C in the beginning then 2 players for A and 2 for C with one strong DPs or CC player to cover C. You would think it's pretty basic tower defense but before you know it all the towers besides the one you are defending is below 25% and it's like Oh.... well that didn't go well. You are simply watching players pop one at a time around you. It never occurred to me to get angry at those players for being unskilled or weaker then me. Nor does it cross my mind to get angry at players stronger then me. I think, oh, they didn't pop their heal in time, or maybe there's a cooldown they missed. They can do it next time. This might just be an off run for them.
So it's all subjective. Do those players belong in advanced+? Probably, Probably not. It's not like I can judge their worth from how they perform in this setting. A monster in one pug doesn't make a monster in another. But you have to also remember that those are also the players that are one shotting normal.
So isn't all this too subjective and relies to much on conjecture, strawmen, and hypotheticals to actually be discussed in a serious manner? And even if you can come to a consensus, what exactly does that mean? Other then assuaging and messaging of ones ego its not going to amount to much when it doesn't make dollars then it doesn't make sense.
@darkbladejk , bruh, I do not believe that val has actually said anywhere that DPSers need to be nerfed, so that's an unfair accusation. In fact, he has stated that they need to be given more difficult content to engage with and better rewards to encourage engaging with it. And @valoreah , you are being intentionally provocative in your responses. We all get that you do not agree with blade's proposal, but you do not need to be inciteful in your rhetoric. From where I sit you are both talking past one another and this has become nothing more than talking in circles and getting nowhere. Is there a point to continuing this very public tête-à-tête?
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Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
I'm not sure of the mental gymnastics that goes into an overwhelmingly strong player insisting on doing normal content to troll other players. To spend all that money, and trust me to be a top DPS player you need to be spending in the 4-5 digits in this game to reach it,
Nah. I'm considered somewhat of a 'whalette', and have pretty much all top gear and ships; but my DPS sucks nonetheless. If DPS could be achieved throwing money at the game, I'd be a top DPS-er too. Granted, you're not going to do stellar DPS without good gear, but a fully decked-out top ship, with all the best trimmies, won't cost you thousands of dollars (I may have well spent that kind of money in my total STO game-life, but that is another matter). There are others reasons, which I outlined earlier in this thread, why DPS varies so insanely between players. But seeing how if not toxic, then 'angry' this thread has gotten, probably best if I stay the hell away from it.
N.B. I will say, though, that I've never gotten an AFK-penalty in an Advanced. As long as I can keep that up, I don't mind if much stronger players join the team.
The game is as it is and if you change one thing, it won't matter, because sooner or later a workaround or alternative will be found and we'll be at sq.1 again. I see two options:
a) turn the game on it's head and make it basicaly unrecognizable. Because you will have to do this, if you wish to change the current state of things.
b) introduce PVP and PVE game modes, which are independent of your usual build (you enter with a basic build and get aditional gear while playing the match itself - think something in the direction of mobas, but with some sort of original STO twist).
Or simplified: introduce some kind of gaming mode, that levels the playing field (purely skill based).
There are more solutions, i'm sure, but this is what i got.
Comments
1. Why? a basic check on the server, be it gear, DPS average, whatever you say is out.. WHY?? it's perfectly do-able.
2. Cryptic has not exactly been forthcoming with supporting Steam since they developed ARC. They don't carry promos anymore, nothing. even the Zen rate sucks because if you spend $50 you don't get the bonus
so you are good with trolling 4 other players by vaping everything before the others can fire.. noted
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The few maps we had which where more than DPS mattered like the original No Win TFO got removed from the game and revamped in a worse version that is DPS only. The raids maps we used to have also benefited from tanking/healing but raid maps are long gone from STO. As long as you have the base level to survive and the base movement/piloting what else matters other than DPS? The real measure of success it completing the TFO successfully and generally the main requirement for that is DPS.
They are just not useful to the team generally speaking with the way TFO's are designed. I cannot think of any point I found a pure healer or pure tank useful in todays version of STO. I know a few people running glass cannons like to have a 1 full tank in pre made ISE/HSE DPS runs. Even inside that niche area a healer is not that useful. Apart from the limited glass canon DPS runs I personally find the tanker and healer role not helpful. It doesn’t remotely help me or help complete the map. Its partly why I abandoned that playstyle.
At higher difficulty I can think of plenty of maps that have DPS requirements, but not one single map that has a control, healer, tanker or support requirements. Personally I like seeing a bit of control but even that is due to movement control (gravity well style) boosting DPS via AoE. DrainX style control is near useless.
I agree with the Mods Like @baddmoonrizin and @rattler2 please be respectful to eachother and agree to disagree or get the ban hammer and have your posts removed.
We already have transformer ships (not robots but ships that transform). If it was my say its the time for Carriers to be the new meta
Even those private groups still need to hit the 550k+ group DPS that is required. Speaking of which group DPS is a better way to describe TFO's then single player DPS. People often talk bout ISE being 110k DPS per player but its really we should be talking about the TFO requirements as a group. So 550k group DPS for ISE should be the goal. Before the AFK penalty killed it off I used to enjoy playing full Command team support.
Personably I don't mind tankers and healers. Its just I find with how I build and play my ships I do not have a use for either. When I see them in a group I just ignore them knowing they will have no impact on me. EDIT: (Ignore them as in the healing/tanking part, I don't ignore the player)
What board is being cleared ? The last couple of events have offered multiple normal difficulty TFO event maps that involve waves of enemies, timers, travel, and other tasks. These sort of maps can't be cleared quickly.
Have you considered increasing your mobility ? It can make things a lot more fun versus being stuck in red alert while others have already moved on to a new set of targets.
Issue #1) Elite generally requires a team of higher skilled players.
Given the skillgap STO has, you simply can't pug Elite queues and have a good experience. Rather, you typically need to setup a private group via specific channels or external sources like Discord to assemble a team of players capable of playing that content.
Issue #2) STO Server Performance has not been great in matches with heavily geared players.
Server performance has been an issue in STO for a while, but it certainly hasn't been getting better.
When you get into matches that have multiple highly built out players hitting all their buffs, the game doesn't always like it. This has caused many DPS chasers to quit over the past year, making issue #1 worse, as there are now less capable players for elite content.
Example ISE from my PoV:
Issue #3) Rewards for playing Elite have not aged well.
To be blunt, very few care about farming for R&D materials in the current state of the game.
Back in the day, grinding Elite to farm Salvaged tech was popular, but between Phoenix & Ultimate Upgrades, the demand for the Experimental upgrades has basically disappeared.
And the time:reward ratio heavily skews towards Advanced, especially given how much faster it is to get into an advanced queue vs elite.
Issue #4) DPS Players have to do dailies also.
To put it simply, we have dailies to do just like anyone else, and want to get them done as fast as we can. And with Cryptic limiting all of the latest events to normal difficulty, it means we are forced to play at lower difficulties.
In addition, for stuff like endeavors, opting for pug normal/advanced over privately arranged elite queues means we can get our dailies done in a fraction of the time. It's not like we can queue for any Elite queue and get a pop instantly.
Even trying to arrange private ISEs in the DPS channels can take 10-15+ minutes some days. Now imagine trying to arrange some other niche elite TFO. Simply not worth your time over just queuing for Advanced.
There's probably a few other points DPS players would add, but I think that sums up a majority of it from my PoV.
And also, as for conversation about lowering the DPS of players, that will never work in this game. They have tried it before (FBP/Embassy Plasma Console nerfs), and it only hurt the casual part of the playerbase long term. Meanwhile DPS Players found other routes and ended up doing even more DPS in the end.
Very important to keep in mind that gear is not the main factor that differentiates a DPS player from the average player. Rather its piloting and ability activation that are typically the core factors that determine player performance. Hence why you can see people copy a high DPS build they saw online, and yet only get a fraction of the performance.
Edit: And I would also add that selling us more power is a core part of their monetization approach. If they did something like a DPS cap, would mean people would hit that cap and stop buying things to improve their performance. Less $ for Cryptic.
So first up, you yourself have said before that you believe people with mk iv gear as one example shouldn't be taking builds like that into max level TFOs, and you've said that you believe high DPS people should use a lesser build as a "courtesy" to those in the run so they can have a better chance to participate. You've also said you agree that people that people who don't have lesser skills and gear shouldn't be attempting certain content. Clearly you have some standard as to who should and shouldn't be in certain content. So how are you going to sit here and pretend it's some big persecution if people are told to gear up a bit more and come back later? How are you going to say that guy with mk iv gear shouldn't be in that max level TFO, yet get mad at the idea of a system that tells him he's not ready and to come back later? Do you really not see the double standard there?
You say that a Gear Check would "stiffle build diversity" and promote homogenization, promote the mantra of "DPS is king" and push players to believe that there are only a very specific set of ways to make a ship. You also say a gear check would hurt zen ship sales and force people into thinking of only DPS. Okay, explain to us how that's the case. Explain to us exactly exactly how it would hurt zen ship sales and how it's going to make everything the same, and be specific. Because from where I sit it's going to encourage people to go after the ships with the more potent consoles, weapons and the like. If you're having trouble meeting the Role/Performance check, and you know you can get a better console or weapon from (ship) then you're going to go after that ship. In terms of build diversity, the gear check doesn't care what equipment you have, be it full science, torps or what have you so long as it meets the minimum level. You are correct that it doesn't tell you what equipment to use because again, that's not the point of the Gear Check. The Dungeon Journal and Performance Check are where you will learn those things one way or another.
Next, I'm not going to deal with the "DPS is king" claim in this section as measuring performance is not the point of the Gear Check. I will also touch more on the locking people out of content in the next section as well. However to your claim that the gear check assumes weapons are the only way to deal DPS, that is objectively false as it takes the entire build into account, not just the weapons. It looks at shields, engines, consoles, weapons, all of your equipment. So long as that equipment meets the minimum standard, the gear check doesn't care what it is. If the standard is mk xii very rare across the board, the gear check only cares that whatever is in the slot is at least mk xii very rare or above.
I saved the bypass and development time bits for last as they're the simplest ones and go towards a greater point. You say something like a gear check would take alot of time to create and shouldn't be done, yet are advocating entirely new difficulties and maps for those difficulties. It takes far far longer to create new difficulties and maps for those difficulties and to balance them than it ever would for a gear check. A gear check can be accomplished with a basic script that checks what is equipped in each slot, then unlocking based on what it detects. So maybe 5 minutes to write the script and test it. Even if it was more arduous than that, you can't say that a gear check shouldn't be done because it would take too long, then turn around and advocate something that would take even longer. Again do you not see how that would be a double standard?
Lastly on this section is the bypass argument. Do you know what it means to bypass something, especially in computing? Not saying that to be a jerk but legitimately asking. Because what you're describing is not a bypass at all. To bypass something means to sidestep it and go around, and not interact with it. If someone is buying gear from the exchange to meet the gear check, they're not bypassing the gear check at all, but going through it as they're supposed to. Again the gear check does not care whether the gear was bought, earned through missions, or both. All it cares about is if that person is rolling in there with at least mk xii very rare gear as the hypothetical and not mk iv gear per your example. To bypass the gear check would be if someone found a way to still get in the door using nothing but mk iv gear even though mk xii very rare was required, THAT is a bypass. I will give you slight credit here, you actually asked at least one legitimate question which I will save for last.
Again you say it would hurt zen sales, promote homogenization, stop experimenting and the like, and once again as I did above I'm going to ask you to elaborate on that. How is it going to hurt zen sales? How is it going to stop experimentation and the like? And do be specific. You try to say on one hand that STO is not a traditional MMO and doesn't have the traditional trinity roles. Yet you turn around and say that having a performance check would discourage the creation of pure healing and pure tank ships as a means of why it can't work. If STO doesn't have traditional roles as you claim, then how can a performance check discourage something that by your own logic doesn't exist? STO is more of a duo of tank and DPS than it is healing. Healing is split among the two.
For the claims of locking people out, "DPS is king", homogenization and the like. Whether you like it or not there are some builds that objectively superior in terms of survival and damage output. A ship using all mk ix vendor gear will NEVER have the same damage and survival potential that a ship using all mk xv golds will, I don't care how good the pilot is. If someone wants to experience the content of ISE and Korfez right now, there is a built in performance test they have to clear before they move on to the rest of the TFO, and that's the initial groups of foes. If you can't clear those groups in a specific timeframe, the TFO automatically fails. So yes as much as you might dislike it, DPS is absolutely king for those opening groups and there is already precedence for performance tests. In order to clear content in game you need a certain amount of firepower to get through foes or you will never get past the auto-heal that most of them have without an "i win" button. For tanks, you still need a certain amount of DPS to maintain your threat against the foes. While you still need to know mechanics in order to clear content, DPS is still an additional key measure to clearing said content. Certain builds just are not useful in clearing certain content with how the TFOs themselves are designed.
You're trying to play "gotcha" because I actually cited a number and said 30k DPS and trying to say "see you just want to DPS check everyone and lock everyone out you see as lesser", even though that's not what I've said at all. What I've said is that if people are meeting the basic standards set forth by the game itself, then I DO NOT CARE what level they are at even if it's the bare minimum, be they at 30k or 300k+. If the game required 30k, are they doing that 30k at the very least? If yes they're good, if not then sorry they're not ready and have no business in that TFO until they are. I cited 30k as an example so people would have a quantified example to work with and since most players are between 15k-50k in game. If you want to debate that it should be lower thank 30k, fine we can have that debate. But how are you going to sit here and act like it's controversial for me to say certain people below a particular threshold have no business in certain content when you yourself have said people with mk iv gear and subpar builds and skills shouldn't be in max level TFOs? I am not saying to those people "I'll make sure you never get into TFOs", what I'm saying to them is "you're not ready yet, get a little more equipment and practice a bit and then try again." It's no different than making sure your kid knows how to drive and has their license before you give them the car keys.
You say that the Performance Check doesn't teach mechanics and changing environments, when actually it does. In WoW if I was trying to clear the tank check, I was placed into a map that would mimic group conditions in a run. I would have DPS NPCs and a Healer NPC I had to watch out for. If something was going after the healer I needed to know how to taunt off the healer. If I was taking a large amount of damage I had to know to hit a defensive cooldown. I also had to know where to position the boss so he didn't cleave the group and make the healer's job harder. Healers had to keep a tank NPC alive and some DPS while watching for debuffs they could cleanse, and not standing in dumb. DPS had to know when to burst certain things down, how to not stand in dumb, what mobs to go after and when, where to stand to avoid things like a cleave and similar, all while maintaining their numbers. So it's objectively false to say that it never taught people anything. This is why the WoW variant had Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Endless level difficulties. To get into random content only required you clear silver level. The performance check was more than purely "do this DPS or else" but a trial by fire of things relevant to their chosen role, along with general mechanics they may encounter in raids and higher tier instances. Raid/instance specific mechanics could be covered in the dungeon journal. If they needed more gear or a specific piece of gear to clear a mechanic in the Role Check or something to clear the Gear Check, the dungeon journal told them where to get it.
In terms of developer time, we only need two things to measure someone's output, a combat log to know what numbers were dealt, and a parser to crunch the numbers in a reasonable time for us. We already have the combat log file and have had for years. The only thing we would need now is a parser, which conveniently there is one sitting in the tribble test map which can be upgraded and fleshed out to actually work better. So again these things already exist and there is already precedent for them. And before you say "see you just want a parser so you can look down on people", virtually every MMO out there has at least one parser so people can measure their stats. The fact that STO doesn't makes it an outlier in today's market.
Now to answer your question regarding if people would be locked out again should they fall below the minimum for a specific run. NO THEY WILL NOT. They never did that in WoW and they wouldn't be doing it here. If a person was able to get enough gear to clear the gear check, was able to clear the silver level of the performance check, and get into content yet fell below the minimum levels of output required, we knew one of 3 things was going on. Either the person had something going on outside of their control such as internet issues or other real life thing, they were having trouble with a raid/instance specific mechanic, or they simply weren't trying. If it was option 1, not much we could do depending on what it was. If it was option 2, we could see what part they're having an issue with and offer them help while planning accordingly. If it was option 3 and the person wasn't trying, we knew they were a troll looking for a free ride and could boot them from the group and not invite them back. If items were nerfed, people found alternatives to use. IF they saw a need to change the minimum levels, then the devs would do so, but I only ever knew of that happening once. So if a major nerf happened it's not like they could revisit the numbers.
Lastly on this section. You're not increasing the DPS ceiling at all, you're bringing the community floor up. You're making sure everyone has a certain level of DPS to take stuff out in a reasonable timeframe, and contribute to the team. I don't know about you, but I don't find it fun to be fighting a single borg probe for 5 hours. The performance check does NOT care how you make it to the minimum, only that you do. If you can get there through pure energy dps then great, if you can do it through science then great, if you can do it through torps, mines, or carrier shenanigans then great. I'm not sure who told you stuff like this would only allow for one type of build, but they lied to you and did you a huge disservice.
Of all 3 parts of this system, this one would take the longest, purely because of the amount of items. However it's still not going to take nearly as long as you think. All that would need to be done is copy/pasting already available info into one concise area for people to read through and find what they need. They already maintain the tooltips and other information available in game so this is nothing new.
To say the dungeon journal doesn't educate people on changing conditions is objectively false, as it would contain the general mechanics people may encounter, and also the instance specific mechanics people may encounter. The dungeon journal is the book learning part of the system. It may tell you "this is a borg probe, it has items X Y Z as weapons, it has powers X Y Z it uses. These powers and weapons deal X damage type. Power Y can be interrupted. Power Z is a damage spike. Power X is a cleave" and gives people enough information to plan accordingly. Myself, you, BMR, and colonelmarik could each have read a journal entry and taken 4 separate groups into a raid each using 4 different strategies and all 4 of them work. The actual trial by fire of putting that information into practice is the job of the Performance Check and the actual instances/raids themselves. Dungeon journal gives you the book knowledge, Performance check helps you put the generalized mechanical knowledge into practice. The actual raids/instances themselves would then apply mechanics specific to them if they existed.
To say the dungeon journal didn't tell you the difference between normal, advanced, and elite is again wrong. Using the hypothetical borg probe entry I gave above, the entry for each level could be altered, or indicators given to signify you would only encounter Power Y in normal, Power X and Y in advanced, and Powers X Y Z in elite.
As for the skipping content in favor of things that only has what they need, I'm sorry but this one made me laugh because people already do this now. Aside from maybe playing it for the story, why would I play a mission that gives nothing but polaron gear if I'm looking for phaser gear? Unless I'm playing for the story why would I waste my time doing that? One thing I've learned over the years in creating story maps for other games and content for other games is that players will always take the path of least resistance in 99% of all cases. For that matter I do it now in SWTOR and other games. If I have a chance to drive around a group of 30 guys and get straight to my objective to save myself 10 minutes, why would I not? Why am I going to fight those extra mobs if I don't have to? And if anyone ever says "well I've never done that" them I'm straight up calling shenanigans. To actually try citing this as an issue is like complaining that someone with a flat tire on their car didn't check under the hood to make sure it was something else when I can see the flat tire plain as day. If you want players to play those alternative bits of content then you need to give them a reason to do so.
Lastly again, who is telling you that people can't still experiment to find what build works best for them? If I use method A to clear a specific thing, who is to say that someone else can't try method B, or even try to create method C? Nothing would be stopping people from doing that save their own unwillingness to do so. Even then some methods will be objectively superior to others depending on the goals.
I'm not even sure where to start with this section so I will address them in order.
-Preventing high DPS players from entering lower difficulty matches is NOT a failure as it was never meant to do so. Those high DPS players have met the minimum standards for that TFO and have just as much right to be in that TFO as the lower DPS players do. Lower DPS players do NOT own exclusive rights to the lower difficulty TFOs. Likewise if the lower DPS player meets the minimum standards for advanced and elite TFOs they too have a right to be in those advanced and elite TFOs. You complained above about locking people out of content, yet here are complaining that higher DPS players wouldn't be locked out of certain content. Talk about double standard hypocrisy. The entire point of the system is to make sure that EVERYONE is at a level they can participate at.
In order to even get an AFK penalty to start with, it means you dealt less than 2% of the damage for the entirety of the run. For many TFOs the AFK threshold is 1% of the damage for the entirety of the run. The only way you're going to see numbers that low is if you were legitimately AFK the entire time, you're new and have joined something you're not ready for yet, are someone like Bob who refuses to learn and get better, or something was going on completely out of your control like internet loss. To put this in perspective let's say 5 people go into one of the shorter ground TFOs and it only lasted 3 minutes, or 180 seconds. Let's also assume that combined the team did a total of 90k damage, which would translate to roughly 100 DPS per person. In order for someone to avoid the AFK penalty in that run, they would've had to deal a whopping 900 damage to get 1% of the damage for that run. Not 900 DPS, but 900 damage. That 4 shots from a weapon doing 250 damage a shot. Even less if it crits. If you can't get off 4 shots in 3 minutes, then you have much bigger issues to worry about. The longer our hypothetical ground TFO goes, the less and less damage is required to avoid an AFK penalty. Call me an elitist if you will, but unless you have something going on outside of your control such as internet loss, you deserve the AFK penalty in that hypothetical instance if you couldn't do a whopping 900 damage. True AFK penalties are extremely rare, and if you're getting hit with them constantly, then maybe you might want to step back and ask yourself what you're doing to prevent them before you go blaming other people.
-You're not adding more so called high DPS builds to the run or increasing the DPS ceiling at all. I already dealt with this above. All you're doing is bringing up the community floor so people are at a level where they can contribute without fear of an AFK penalty as it would be statistically non-existent in its chances of happening. Again I'm all for adding back higher difficulties for events, but as said above, those higher DPS people have just as much right to be there as everyone else does.
-I'm sure there are people out there who can squeak out the minimum DPS requirements using lesser equipment, but those people are the exception and not the rule. If they can meet the requirement with less gear then that's great, it means they won't have issues when they do actually hit the gear minimum and can go straight in once they tick off the Performance Check. Some people are more capable than others, this isn't new. However again we're applying one general standard to all people.
-You've accused me of assuming my proposal is the only solution, yet are advocating higher difficulty content as the only solution. Again do you not see the double standard here? If Cryptic wants to do some higher difficulty content, then by all means I'm not going to complain. At the same time, people who already can't compete in the lower tiers certainly won't be able to compete in the higher tiers. The Gear Check, Performance/Role check and dungeon journal bring the community floor up so people don't have to worry about not being able to compete in the first place.
Also please define "appropriate venue to test their builds". If I want to test a build on advanced before I go into elite, why should I not be allowed to do that? As long as I'm meeting the minimum standards for that advanced TFO, what business is it of yours if I'm bringing a higher DPS ship in there? Likewise if I'm in an elite run and you're meeting the basic minimums for the TFO it's none of my business what you choose to bring.
-You've previously said having options is a good thing. Do you no longer believe this? This gives people a new option in the dungeon journal to assist in their experimentation, a new map to try those experiments on with the Role Check map, and gives people the means to measure their success or lack of. So by your previous statement in this section, the so called evil DPSers are on their own maps away from you, so what's the problem now?
-Lastly on this point, WoW made it character specific which I would assume would be the same here. If you knew enough to get there on your first toon, then you already know what you need to do for your second and can get it done alot faster. If as you say people can just buy gear to clear the gear check, then go into the Performance Check and clear that out in no time.You already have to get new copies of doffs and certain character specific gear items already, so not exactly seeing a problem.
Finally dude, you yourself have said you don't think people with mk iv gear should be in max level TFOs and said that people with subpar builds and skill should be in those TFOs, so how are you coming at me over this when you yourself said certain people shouldn't be in certain TFOs? Seriously dude.
I am fine with people joining TFOs who have met the minimum requirements for those TFOs. Whether they're doing the bare minimum or 300x that bare minimum. I'm not sure what's so hard to understand about that concept. If you're not meeting the minimum standards of that TFO you have no right or business to be in that TFO in my book. Once you improve yourself then you are free to go back and participate.
As I said to colonelmarik, what you're arguing for is like going to a MTG tournament with a starter deck, getting rolled by people with stronger decks, then complaining you didn't get to play or participate as much as you wanted. You knew going into that tournament you could've taken a stronger deck and might encounter people playing decks much stronger than starter deck, yet you chose to use it anyways. If you wanted to play longer or have a higher chance of participating, you should've taken a deck that you knew would let you survive longer. If you didn't yet have a stronger deck, you should've waited until you did. Those people at that tournament are under zero obligation to use less powerful decks just because you want to bring a starter deck. Every deck is allowed to compete so long as they meet the rules for the format. At some point dude, you have to take responsibility for your own woes in the game. If you're having trouble getting to places, then you first need to do what you can to mitigate those issues, then we can talk about other people, but not until then.
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To use spiral waves as the hypothetical, it would treat them as the highest level they top out as. Spirals stop scaling around 5% behind a mk xii very rare and convert to mk xii very rare when you slap them into the upgrade window. As such they would be treated as mk xii very rare.
You do not own exclusive right to lower difficulty TFOs. So long as people have met the standards for that TFO they have a right to be there, be this normal, advanced or elite. If you bring a ship that's not fast enough to let you participate that's a you problem not a me problem. If you want to ensure you are able to get there in time to fire your weapons, then you should bring a ship with the highest chance to do so. If you bring a ship that moves at the speed of smell, then how long do you expect me to wait before I unload on something? How long do you expect me to wait for you? To use my previous MTG deck example, how many turns am I supposed to let play out before I start actually trying?
Someone playing on a lower difficulty does NOT constitute trolling on its own.
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You only see it as complicated because you've looked for any way to shoot down solutions that aren't "nerf the evil DPSers" in essence. In other words it's okay for the lower DPS guys to demand the higher end people be nerfed or forced to use lesser builds. But woe be unto the DPSer that dares hold them to that same standard and demand they up their game and take a little responsibility for themselves. In other words, if someone brings a ship moving at the speed of smell into a run and can't get there fast enough to shoot something, it's somehow my fault they chose a slow ship and didn't get there in time. If you're going to demand that I bring a lesser powered ship into a run as a "courtesy" then how about you bring a ship into the run that allows you to keep up and actually get a shot off. You say it goes both ways, but you completely reject your responsibility for your own woes in game.
Oh no we're not playing that game. If you want me to answer your question then answer mine. You said it would discourage build experimentation and harm sales. Again tell us how it would harm sales? Many people already buy ships based on what it can give them for a trait and equipment, this is nothing new. Likewise many people buy for nostalgia reasons or they think a ship is cool. If someone wants to buy that Galaxy class because of TNG, buy that Defiant because of DS9, or buy that Intrepid because of Voyager, nothing is stopping them from doing so. Since you clearly took issue with my mentioning certain ships may sell better than others, first how is that different from now? Second, how is it a bad thing if certain ships see increases over others in sales? No one is holding a phaser to anyone and saying "If you don't buy that ship with (thing) then I'm going to vaporize you." Just because some people might buy ships for their trait or their console does NOT mean you are obligated to do the same.
As said above it's really simple, either you have the equipment or you don't. Either you completed the Role/Performance check or you didn't. If you completed both you're good. If you didn't then you have the journal to help figure out what went wrong. Easily done with a few scripts, yet you expect me to believe it would take more time to do that than to create new difficulties and maps along with balancing them.
Show me where I said I owned any specific difficulty. Please quote the exact line. I have applied an equal standard across the board from the start. Each person is responsible for their own ability to participate in a TFO. If you choose a build and ship that's slower and can't participate as a result, that's on you. So long as people meet the minimum standards for a TFO, whatever those standards may be, they have a right to be there. For those who are not yet ready for certain TFOs I have advocated a track to get them ready. You will not find where I have advocated otherwise.
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I've seen way more times of a weaker players (Be it skill, or weapons platform) entering advanced or elite and just failing then I've seen oneshota's even in normal and I'm pretty much one of those one shota's in advanced and the Pugs still take forever. Take Peril over Pahvo or Dranur Gauntlet. I Go there to test builds because of the amount of food to eat. And I often see players get overwhelmed constantly. It's obvious what the strategy is in that instance. Players cover A and C in the beginning then 2 players for A and 2 for C with one strong DPs or CC player to cover C. You would think it's pretty basic tower defense but before you know it all the towers besides the one you are defending is below 25% and it's like Oh.... well that didn't go well. You are simply watching players pop one at a time around you. It never occurred to me to get angry at those players for being unskilled or weaker then me. Nor does it cross my mind to get angry at players stronger then me. I think, oh, they didn't pop their heal in time, or maybe there's a cooldown they missed. They can do it next time. This might just be an off run for them.
So it's all subjective. Do those players belong in advanced+? Probably, Probably not. It's not like I can judge their worth from how they perform in this setting. A monster in one pug doesn't make a monster in another. But you have to also remember that those are also the players that are one shotting normal.
So isn't all this too subjective and relies to much on conjecture, strawmen, and hypotheticals to actually be discussed in a serious manner? And even if you can come to a consensus, what exactly does that mean? Other then assuaging and messaging of ones ego its not going to amount to much when it doesn't make dollars then it doesn't make sense.
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Nah. I'm considered somewhat of a 'whalette', and have pretty much all top gear and ships; but my DPS sucks nonetheless.
N.B. I will say, though, that I've never gotten an AFK-penalty in an Advanced. As long as I can keep that up, I don't mind if much stronger players join the team.
a) turn the game on it's head and make it basicaly unrecognizable. Because you will have to do this, if you wish to change the current state of things.
b) introduce PVP and PVE game modes, which are independent of your usual build (you enter with a basic build and get aditional gear while playing the match itself - think something in the direction of mobas, but with some sort of original STO twist).
Or simplified: introduce some kind of gaming mode, that levels the playing field (purely skill based).
There are more solutions, i'm sure, but this is what i got.