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.....
This comment is so far off the mark you missed the dart board and hit the moon. You don't need to spend a penny to get top DPS....all you need to do is copy a build off the net then claim you 'got gud' and 'got skill' But you're 100% incorrect about needing to spend money, especially tens of thousands!!
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
If you're having trouble getting to things before they're blown up, what are you doing to make sure you're able to get there in time first?
Let's take CSA, for instance. I fly to Cube 1, takes 30 seconds or so to blow it all up, and then I proceed to Cube 2... except it's gone already. This has nothing to do with mobility, but precisely with Damage Per Second: it takes me X seconds of output to do Y amount of damage. If I could do it faster, I'd be doing CSE.
What will I do about it? Em, nothing. This Advanced level was made for me. I shouldn't have to 'git gud', just because an Elite interloper decided to 'break' my-level TFO. That is like me asking you "When you have a weaker player in your team, what are you doing to make sure you're able to NOT get there in time first?"
Let's take CSA, for instance. I fly to Cube 1, takes 30 seconds or so to blow it all up, and then I proceed to Cube 2... except it's gone already. This has nothing to do with mobility, but precisely with Damage Per Second: it takes me X seconds of output to do Y amount of damage. If I could do it faster, I'd be doing CSE.
What will I do about it? Em, nothing. This Advanced level was made for me. I shouldn't have to 'git gud', just because an Elite interloper decided to 'break' my-level TFO. That is like me asking you "When you have a weaker player in your team, what are you doing to make sure you're able to NOT get there in time first?"
Couple of questions, do you mean ISA instead of CSA? Because when you say CSA I think of Crystalline instead of borg.
Second, are you actually getting hit with an AFK penalty or are you getting rewards from the TFO? If you're getting rewards you're not getting hit with an AFK penalty. If you are getting hit with an AFK penalty then that means you did less than 1% of the damage for the run as ISA is one of the 1% maps. If you are getting hit with an AFK penalty, how often are you getting hit with one? We talking a daily occurrence, once a week, twice a week? What kind of ballpark we talking, because if you're getting consistently hit with an AFK penalty, that is not normal at all.
Now with that said, the scenario you've described screams mobility issue to me. So I have to ask, what kind of ship are you flying and what engines are you using? Have you tried incorporating Emergency to Engines, Deuterium Surplus devices, using the Emergency Conn Officer or similar items? Are you using evasive maneuvers at all? Stacking evasive maneuvers along with deuterium surplus is more than enough to cross an ISA map super fast even in the beefiest of dreadnoughts, especially if you stack emergency to engines into that mix as well.
Even in something as big and beefy as the Borg Juggernaut I can cross the entire map in about 5 seconds or less using deuterium and evasive. Assuming a 30 second window to get in damage, that's still 25 seconds. Assuming it takes 5 additional seconds to set off my powers and I didn't charge them on route, that's still 20 seconds to get in some damage and is 5 full firing cycles with 8 weapons. When you are ready to move to the other side you can use Emergency to Engines to reset your Evasive Maneuvers if you have the Conn doff. Repeat the process of setting off your powers and firing which gives you 5 more firing cycles on the target, which is 10 full firing cycles of damage you're getting off. Assuming another 30 seconds in the middle of the map, even if you only get there with 10 seconds to spare, that's another firing cycle you can get in. In total you could've gotten off 11 FULL firing cycles of damage. What are you using and doing that you can't beat an AFK penalty with 11 full firing cycles of damage?
As for your analogy, if I'm hosting private runs I don't take people to content I know they're not ready for unless there was some kind of arrangement before hand. If someone is at 10k DPS why would I take them into something like Korfez, ISE, Dranuur Gauntlet, or any other elite when I know they're not ready for it? However we're not talking about private TFOs, we're talking about public runs with people you don't know. If people are going to insist that these evil DPSers are coming into TFOs and AFKing everyone all the time, I'm going to echo Potsey above and ask, where is the evidence of this? Do you have anything you can show me to demonstrate this?
Lastly, you do not have exclusive rights to lesser difficulties. So long as people have met the minimum standards for those TFOs, they have just as much right to be there as you do. If they are not meeting the standards that are hardcoded into the game itself, then in my book they have no right to be there yet.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Let's take CSA, for instance. I fly to Cube 1, takes 30 seconds or so to blow it all up, and then I proceed to Cube 2... except it's gone already. This has nothing to do with mobility, but precisely with Damage Per Second: it takes me X seconds of output to do Y amount of damage. If I could do it faster, I'd be doing CSE.
What will I do about it? Em, nothing. This Advanced level was made for me. I shouldn't have to 'git gud', just because an Elite interloper decided to 'break' my-level TFO. That is like me asking you "When you have a weaker player in your team, what are you doing to make sure you're able to NOT get there in time first?"
Couple of questions, do you mean ISA instead of CSA? Because when you say CSA I think of Crystalline instead of borg.
CSA = Cure Space Advanced
CCA = Crystalline Catastrophe Advanced
Second, are you actually getting hit with an AFK penalty or are you getting rewards from the TFO? If you're getting rewards you're not getting hit with an AFK penalty. If you are getting hit with an AFK penalty then that means you did less than 1% of the damage for the run as ISA is one of the 1% maps. If you are getting hit with an AFK penalty, how often are you getting hit with one? We talking a daily occurrence, once a week, twice a week? What kind of ballpark we talking, because if you're getting consistently hit with an AFK penalty, that is not normal at all.
It's almost as if you read none of my posts. But no, I have never incurred an AFK-penalty for doing too little DPS. Not even in Korfez I used to play. And why should I get an AFK-penalty in Advanced even? It's square at my level.
Now with that said, the scenario you've described screams mobility issue to me. So I have to ask, what kind of ship are you flying and what engines are you using? Have you tried incorporating Emergency to Engines, Deuterium Surplus devices, using the Emergency Conn Officer or similar items? Are you using evasive maneuvers at all? Stacking evasive maneuvers along with deuterium surplus is more than enough to cross an ISA map super fast even in the beefiest of dreadnoughts, especially if you stack emergency to engines into that mix as well.
My engine power is usually the lowest of them all. I just realized you can actually see my power levels in my signature image. And of course I use Evasive Maneuvers; but am not wasting a doff on it. Instead I use the Helmsman Trait, which gives me improved turn rate, and an Evasive Maneuvers every 50 seconds. It's not a mobility issue, though. In my example, Cube 2 is simply already gone when I turn around. Which was kinda my earlier point: it does not only take time to fly across a map, but also time to destroy a (group of) targets.
As for your analogy, if I'm hosting private runs I don't take people to content I know they're not ready for unless there was some kind of arrangement before hand.
In a private queue, you can bring whoever you want: that is entirely fair. You wouldn't invite me, and I wouldn't ask to be invited.
If people are going to insist that these evil DPSers are coming into TFOs and AFKing everyone all the time, I'm going to echo Potsey above and ask, where is the evidence of this? Do you have anything you can show me to demonstrate this?
I solo-ed a SB1 Elite, the other day. I managed, albeit barely. No way I could ever solo Korfez, of course (or even do enough DPS to be in an Elite team for that). But is this really an issue? I think those are just edge-cases. I never enter an Elite, simply because I don't want to embarrass myself. Nor have I ever incurred an AFK-penalty for doing too little DPS in an Advanced (I mean, I suck, but c'mon, I contribute more than 2%).
Lastly, you do not have exclusive rights to lesser difficulties. So long as people have met the minimum standards for those TFOs, they have just as much right to be there as you do.
Yeah, but that logic goes both ways; by your standards, you have no cause to complain if Advanced players enter 'your' Elite pugs. Turnabout is fair play.
I'm trying to understand y'all's math on this. Because it does seem like y'all are throwing out arbitrary numbers and assuming equal distribution of DPS. Sub 20k shouldn't be able to participate? If doing 1% of the total DPS is the minimum requirement to not end up with an AFK, and the total required DPS is 200k, then shouldn't the minimum requirement be 2k, presuming that the remaining 198k is spread out over the other 4 players? 🤔
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
So I have been leaving combatlog running for days and so far the only people I have seen get hit by the AFK penalty would have been hit even without a high DPSers in the group. All these charts are from random group normal map runs.
What’s interesting is if you look at spike DPS the majority of players are doing between 100k to 400k spike DPS in normal maps. For spike DPS, high DPS is the norm and it’s in fact the players who never break past 30k that are in the minority. This in turn suggests the problem is not the high DPSers but in fact the super low DPS people who have suboptimal builds or problems with their piloting skills. We should be looking at ways to bring up those outliners who are doing low DPS rather than looking at ways to bring down the high DPSers to their level.
What’s interesting about this data point is if we zoom in and take a closer look. I am light blue, noticed how every time I spike my DPS up a little it’s also spiking up purple who was next to me on the map. My high DPS isn’t causing that player a problem in fact its rising up there DPS. I am not pushing them out of being effective on the map.
I don’t believe the core problem is high DPSers. In fact, I don’t even think the players we are talking about are even high DPSers. From what I have seen the 100k to 300k spike DPS is the average everyday player. Which means the problem is the low-end people need to improve their player pilot skills and improve the builds. Rather than bringing down the so called high DPSers who are in fact not higher DPSers but the average player.
I behaved in this run and kept my DPS under 50k ish which was a lot harder than I expected, it took a massive amount of effort and removed the fun.
What I noticed is I was predicting and preparing upcoming encounters while the other players were waiting on reaction. An example is the Breach mini core section I was predicting the pattern and moving to the right area ready for the mini core to pop out while the other players sat still until the core appeared before starting to move. That gave me a large DPS boost that has nothing to do with gear and all down to piloting skill. All this talk about high end DPsers should lower their gear and use low end DPS loadouts. Well, it didn’t work because the big factor is player skill and it is really, really hard to switch off learnt skills.
Back to chart 1. The player that got hit by AFK penalty was the dark blue that did not start doing any damage till 230 seconds into the TFO. He wasn’t AFK he just had shocking poor piloting skills and damage output again bringing up my point the problem is not the higher DPSers.
Onto chart 2 which is sustained DPS the only player that got hit by the AFK penalty would been hit even without any high DPSers in the group as their combat time was 5 seconds long, again dark blue.
is the same run in chart 2 only switched from sustained DPS to spike DPS. What’s interesting is player Orange who only did 17k sustained DPS hit 90k spike DPS and hit high levels of spike DPS multiple times.
Looking at spike DPS over multiple runs the majority of player were doing spike DPS of 100k to 400k. In this run the 2nd weakest player hit 90k spike DPS. This seems to be the normal every day level for most players.
In this run why should the 4 players limit them self and sit there doing nothing so the 5th player who did a total of 0.58% damage can catch up. Even if we removed all high DPSers it would have done nothing to help. The problem isn’t the high DPSers which I don’t think are even high, the problem is with the dark blue player who did 0.58% of damage.
Now this is what I call moderately high DPS, it was a mistake but it serves a purpose. In this chart I got distracted, lost concentration, and briefly went full DPS mode until I refocused and rained myself in. 1.5 million spike DPS, (inset swear word, that was not the plan) I have been trying really hard to match the others players and keep my DPS down to 50k to 100k and its hard to unlearn skills not to mention fight muscle memory and not react to what I know is about to happen. Anyway 4 of us did 100k+ spike DPS during the run. The only player who didn’t was again dark blue who did 180k total damage. Not DPS sustained, not spike, just 180k damage throughout the entire run. That had nothing to do with the other players in the group and again comes down to poor piloting by the player. Even without my slip up that player would have been hit by the AFK penalty.
I have more data but I don’t want to spam graph after graph. I just thought it would be interesting to add some real data into this discussion. Feel free to degree with me on my views of the graphs.
My conclusion is the majority of veteran players are doing spike DPS of 100k+ if not in the range of 100k to 400k is normal. This is not high DPSers this is average every day players based on gathering data over the past week. Outside of new players the people doing sub 50k or sub 30k spike DPS are the ones who have problems with their build and/or there piloting skill. Generally speaking, the problem isn’t high end DPSers and if you remove the high end DPSers the ultra-low-end people would still have the same problem. My last conclusion is most people are doing way more spike DPS they then realise. A 20k sustained DPS player can be hitting 100k spike DPS.
Sorry for the long post, but there are graphs and data which is half the game of STO isn’t it? ( I get a lot of fun out of optimizing, spreadsheets and diving into combatlogs)
“It is using an arbitrary number limit that a player was required to hit only once and assumes the same level of performance forever, while not taking into account other players being able to make up for any deficiencies.”
Again with that word arbitrary. It is not an arbitrary number. Its based on a average to meet the bare minimum of what is required to not be carried or cause deficiencies in the group. Ideally you should be above this number as its a bare minimum and you shouldn't be running TFO's at the bare minimum.
It’s not meant to take into account other players carrying the underperforming player and making up for their deficiencies. It’s meant to show the player what they need to do so they are not being carried by the other players and show them what performance level they need to be to not cause the group any deficiencies.
I'm trying to understand y'all's math on this. Because it does seem like y'all are throwing out arbitrary numbers and assuming equal distribution of DPS. Sub 20k shouldn't be able to participate? If doing 1% of the total DPS is the minimum requirement to not end up with an AFK, and the total required DPS is 200k, then shouldn't the minimum requirement be 2k, presuming that the remaining 198k is spread out over the other 4 players? 🤔
There are two types of minimum DPS. There is the minimum DPS needed to not be hit with an AFK. Then there is the minimum DPS needed to complete the optional objectives or in the case of Elites the minimum DPS required to not fail the TFO. If the minimum DPS works out at 110k per player in ISE then I am not going to say a 20k DPS player should be locked out as I don't believe in that. But I would say the 20k DPS is way, way below the requirements and is not ready for ISE.
Going back to the 200k example. Yes in theory you could have one player do 2.1k and the other 4 players do 198k to hit the in that example the 200k minimum DPS requirement to pass the TFO. This doesn't mean they will pass it just means there is a chance to pass instead of it being impossible. Its fair to say outside of some niche cases the 2.1k player should ideally really be doing at least 40k in this example as at 2.1k they are barely a step away from the AFK ban and they are not really contributing meaningfully to the group.
Haven't gotten an AFK yet, but put it this way - there's been more than one occasion when I've typed into the chat, "If you wanted to solo this mission, you should have *said* so."
Not a lot of fun to be had when by the time I'm done dealing with the first group of enemies, somebody's speedrun through everything else. And I run only on regular difficulty - I'm almost 60, and putting my reflexes to the test isn't really terribly enjoyable any more.
Any team is comprised of people with varying degrees of experience and levels of skill. Those with a higher degree of skill or experience help others with less skills and experience. This is natural for any team, whether it be sports or in the business world or anywhere really. Not everyone on a team will be at exactly the same level nor do they need to be.
Of course not everyone will be at the same level or need to be. But in most group work both in games and every day life its common place to expect there to be a base line or a minimum level of competency. At the entry level you expect that level to be pretty wide ranging. Then at advanced level you would tighten up that minimum level of competency. By Elite level you expect everyone to be at a minimum competent and now what they doing. Which is what the DPS score is about helping players make sure they meet the very minimum level of competent. We are not talking about a DPS score system to show the skill level of every day player, we are talking the absolutely bare minimum and if you fall below this you are effectively not contributing to the group.
As far as "carrying" other players, on Normal and even on Advanced difficulty, there is no great hardship being imposed on a higher DPS player who decided to run an Advanced level queue. Honestly, is it really that much of a burden that you had a press a keybind three times instead of twice or finished a match in one minute instead of 45 seconds? If you are bringing a high DPS build into Advanced content and have far more than enough DPS output to clear the map solo in your sleep, what harm is there in others doing less overall damage than you? You got your reward for completion.
While its less important for normal its still a useful measure to have a DPS check. Take my data above multiple runs I had players doing 0.5% damage. While this doesn't tend to cause hardship at normal it can do and it gets worse the higher we move into Advanced and Elite or if there is not a higher DPS player there to make up for that players shortfall. What happens when that 0.5% player goes that wasn't so bad being completely unware of how poor they did and then jumps into advanced or jumps into Elite. That is what the DPS check helps to avoid.
As before I don't like limiting people but as a tool to help a player see how they are doing and comparing themselves to the baseline the TFO is built around could be useful. Think of a solo map that says this is the recommanded baseline for advanced, this is the recommanded baseline for Elite. This is what you did. That's a good thing that can only help. The idea is to give a player a tool to help them self improve and see where they fall in the effectiveness range to get ready for adv and Elite content. Personally I am not keen on a hard lockout, but as guideline I think it could have a useful function.
Haven't gotten an AFK yet, but put it this way - there's been more than one occasion when I've typed into the chat, "If you wanted to solo this mission, you should have *said* so."
Not a lot of fun to be had when by the time I'm done dealing with the first group of enemies, somebody's speedrun through everything else. And I run only on regular difficulty - I'm almost 60, and putting my reflexes to the test isn't really terribly enjoyable any more.
It may be hard to believe but setting up a keybind for a "basic offensive rotation" actually makes things EASIER so there's less need to test or rely upon aging reflexes as there's LESS things to click on.
In fact, the 5:1 reduction in button presses (shown below) is in practice often higher when other things are added to it.
ONE single key to activate sequentially: Photonic Officer --> emergency power to weapons --> beam or cannon firing mode --> attack pattern beta --> tactical team
You ain't the only person here that's not quite as young as they used to be The above is designed to make things EASIER and also works for young people.
All I'm trying to do is provide some simple as possible solutions to select things people are voicing concerns about so that perhaps their game can be more enjoyable.
I hesitate to post this, as I anticipate the usual circling of the wagons, but for three days now, it's been nearly impossible to participate in any queue missions at all. It's been going one of two ways.
Most common are the missions that are over before you can do anything. My Romulan was in one of the Borg missions (I don't recall what it's called) where the Tactical Cube appears near the end. He fired his Hyper Plasma torpedo, but both the Tac Cube AND the big portal thing were obliterated before it had fired all three torpedoes. Before that, whole spawns of enemies were being obliterated in less than a second.
Today, it was the Romulan minefield. I went around to the asteroids to free the freighters, but before I could free even one, that phase was over. By the time I warped to the three mines with the huge fleets of Romulans, they were wiped out before the animation of me warping in was over. I repaired one of the facilities, but before I could warp to the Falchion, it was already dead... took around 2 seconds. Just no way to enjoy missions like this. THREE DAYS this has been going on, but it's been an ongoing problem for years.
Of course, the opposite is also happening. Many of the more modern queue missions have been SO overtuned, in order to challenge people with ridiculous DPS, that more average players flat out CANNOT contribute. The Tzenkethi and Iconians are bad for this, but it still happens elsewhere too.
Why am I posting this? It's old news, I know. Truthfully, I feel the need to vent, but I also want to draw the attention of the developers to the problem... AGAIN. I feel like something needs to be done to improve the game balance. It shouldn't be possible for anyone to do SO much damage that it completely trivializes the game for them, and allows them to take the game away from other players... either by just blowing everything up instantly, or by the devs having to make things more difficult than most players can handle.
Flame on.
Just so folks remember what the thread is about. it's gone from discussion of a high DPS player vaping a TFO before the other player's torpedos get to the target. it's devolved to discussions of gear checks and other TRIBBLE elites can (and will) use to segregate the playerbase more and more. A lot of casual players are saying that the get good attitude of the elite players are spouting does nothing to help out the game experience. Now i agree, if you are a less than optimal player, you should not be in advanced or elite play. but when the elite go to the NORMAL level tfos, they have the choice of either de-gearing so the other players can actually play, or be self centered trolls who kill everything and possibly cause the other players AFK penalties.
Gear checks and skill checks should never apply to normal content. EVER. so what is the solution to make the game experience
fun for everyone?
It's almost as if you read none of my posts. But no, I have never incurred an AFK-penalty for doing too little DPS. Not even in Korfez I used to play. And why should I get an AFK-penalty in Advanced even? It's square at my level.
If you're not getting an AFK penalty this means you did in fact get to the targets and participate even if you didn't get to shoot as much as you might have liked. If you avoided the penalty they're not vaping things before you ever have a chance to play. So to sit here and pretend that things are gone before you ever have a chance to fire is disingenuous. You're getting to fire and you're getting to play, just not like you want to.
My engine power is usually the lowest of them all. I just realized you can actually see my power levels in my signature image. And of course I use Evasive Maneuvers; but am not wasting a doff on it. Instead I use the Helmsman Trait, which gives me improved turn rate, and an Evasive Maneuvers every 50 seconds. It's not a mobility issue, though. In my example, Cube 2 is simply already gone when I turn around. Which was kinda my earlier point: it does not only take time to fly across a map, but also time to destroy a (group of) targets.
On this point we've already established that you are in fact getting to shoot something since you're avoiding the AFK penalty. If everything was gone as quick as you say, you would have an AFK penalty every other run and by your own admission you've not gotten a penalty.
Now by what you've told me here, you're using one mobility power in evasive maneuvers once every 50 seconds. You're also using the Helmsman trait which gives you 10% turn rate and cuts the cooldown of evasive maneuvers by 10 seconds. In other words you're using a single mobility power meaning your ship is going to move at the speed of smell the rest of the time. You're not even using Deuterium Surplus which is a device giving you 350% speed and turn rate for 8 seconds, the equivalent of an Emergency to Engines in device form. You can get the device from the Alhena System Patrol's Defense Contract Mission and getting your Engineering crafting to level 5. No doff or boff changes needed.
So by what you've just told me here, you're using a single mobility power with a cooldown that's just about as long as the TFO itself and moving snail pace slow the rest of the time as a result. You're not using Deuterium Surplus, you're not using Emergency to Engines or anything else that could help you move faster and because of that you're getting outpaced as a result. Instead of being willing to change your build to include more than one mobility power, you're choosing to dig your heels in and blame the rest of the team for not allowing you to participate when YOU are the reason you're having trouble getting from A to B, all because you're stubbornly refusing to use one single device or change one single boff power. That's not a DPS problem, that's a you problem. Sorry but that's the reality of it.
Lastly, you do not have exclusive rights to lesser difficulties. So long as people have met the minimum standards for those TFOs, they have just as much right to be there as you do.
Yeah, but that logic goes both ways; by your standards, you have no cause to complain if Advanced players enter 'your' Elite pugs. Turnabout is fair play.
Double standards much. You don't get to assert ownership over advanced difficulty by saying "elite interlopers are breaking my map" as though you own the map and those people are intruders while also advocating changes that would effect us so called "elite interlopers", then turn around and get mad when we hold you to that same standard and say you need to use a better build if you want to participate more or participate in elites. You're willing to advocate changes be forced to me and mine, but are unwilling to change anything about your own builds, and want to get mad you get called on it? Yeah no.
You've already admitted you use only one mobility power and don't want to use the Conn doff. You also don't use Deuterium Surplus which is a simple device like a battery. You don't want to make any changes on your side, but want everything else to change for you. Sorry but no, that's hypocrisy.
And as for advanced players coming into elites, do they meet the hardcoded standards of the elite TFO itself to keep it from failing even if it's the exact minimum? If they do then welcome to elite. If not then they need to go back and train more and build themselves up first. You're acting like players such as myself were the ones that set these standards when Cryptic themselves programmed the TFOs to fail if a certain damage threshold wasn't being met.
"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 hesitate to post this, as I anticipate the usual circling of the wagons, but for three days now, it's been nearly impossible to participate in any queue missions at all. It's been going one of two ways.
Most common are the missions that are over before you can do anything. My Romulan was in one of the Borg missions (I don't recall what it's called) where the Tactical Cube appears near the end. He fired his Hyper Plasma torpedo, but both the Tac Cube AND the big portal thing were obliterated before it had fired all three torpedoes. Before that, whole spawns of enemies were being obliterated in less than a second.
Today, it was the Romulan minefield. I went around to the asteroids to free the freighters, but before I could free even one, that phase was over. By the time I warped to the three mines with the huge fleets of Romulans, they were wiped out before the animation of me warping in was over. I repaired one of the facilities, but before I could warp to the Falchion, it was already dead... took around 2 seconds. Just no way to enjoy missions like this. THREE DAYS this has been going on, but it's been an ongoing problem for years.
Of course, the opposite is also happening. Many of the more modern queue missions have been SO overtuned, in order to challenge people with ridiculous DPS, that more average players flat out CANNOT contribute. The Tzenkethi and Iconians are bad for this, but it still happens elsewhere too.
Why am I posting this? It's old news, I know. Truthfully, I feel the need to vent, but I also want to draw the attention of the developers to the problem... AGAIN. I feel like something needs to be done to improve the game balance. It shouldn't be possible for anyone to do SO much damage that it completely trivializes the game for them, and allows them to take the game away from other players... either by just blowing everything up instantly, or by the devs having to make things more difficult than most players can handle.
Flame on.
Just so folks remember what the thread is about. it's gone from discussion of a high DPS player vaping a TFO before the other player's torpedos get to the target. it's devolved to discussions of gear checks and other TRIBBLE elites can (and will) use to segregate the playerbase more and more. A lot of casual players are saying that the get good attitude of the elite players are spouting does nothing to help out the game experience. Now i agree, if you are a less than optimal player, you should not be in advanced or elite play. but when the elite go to the NORMAL level tfos, they have the choice of either de-gearing so the other players can actually play, or be self centered trolls who kill everything and possibly cause the other players AFK penalties.
Gear checks and skill checks should never apply to normal content. EVER. so what is the solution to make the game experience
fun for everyone?
My data is showing its not just high DPS players that are vaping the TFO. It is the average every day casual players that are vaping the TFO. You cannot ask the average every day players to degear as that's the majority of the playerbase.
The data I posted suggest the very high DPS are not causing AFK penalties generally but boosting the other players DPS. I also found that de-gearing doesn’t really help as it’s not as effective as you would think it would be. I tired to de-gear and it did not archive much as a large portion of DPS doesn’t come from gear.
After the experience I had trying to bring my self down to the basic starter level. I don’t think it’s fair to expect Elites players to do that. Its not practical or simple to bring our self down to the starter level. I still think the best solution is to allow us to run private Elite event TFO's. I don't like being in normal, I do not want to be there, forcing us into normal TFO's for events is not fun. In fact it ruins the event experience for me.
I hesitate to post this, as I anticipate the usual circling of the wagons, but for three days now, it's been nearly impossible to participate in any queue missions at all. It's been going one of two ways.
Most common are the missions that are over before you can do anything. My Romulan was in one of the Borg missions (I don't recall what it's called) where the Tactical Cube appears near the end. He fired his Hyper Plasma torpedo, but both the Tac Cube AND the big portal thing were obliterated before it had fired all three torpedoes. Before that, whole spawns of enemies were being obliterated in less than a second.
Today, it was the Romulan minefield. I went around to the asteroids to free the freighters, but before I could free even one, that phase was over. By the time I warped to the three mines with the huge fleets of Romulans, they were wiped out before the animation of me warping in was over. I repaired one of the facilities, but before I could warp to the Falchion, it was already dead... took around 2 seconds. Just no way to enjoy missions like this. THREE DAYS this has been going on, but it's been an ongoing problem for years.
Of course, the opposite is also happening. Many of the more modern queue missions have been SO overtuned, in order to challenge people with ridiculous DPS, that more average players flat out CANNOT contribute. The Tzenkethi and Iconians are bad for this, but it still happens elsewhere too.
Why am I posting this? It's old news, I know. Truthfully, I feel the need to vent, but I also want to draw the attention of the developers to the problem... AGAIN. I feel like something needs to be done to improve the game balance. It shouldn't be possible for anyone to do SO much damage that it completely trivializes the game for them, and allows them to take the game away from other players... either by just blowing everything up instantly, or by the devs having to make things more difficult than most players can handle.
Flame on.
Just so folks remember what the thread is about. it's gone from discussion of a high DPS player vaping a TFO before the other player's torpedos get to the target. it's devolved to discussions of gear checks and other TRIBBLE elites can (and will) use to segregate the playerbase more and more. A lot of casual players are saying that the get good attitude of the elite players are spouting does nothing to help out the game experience. Now i agree, if you are a less than optimal player, you should not be in advanced or elite play. but when the elite go to the NORMAL level tfos, they have the choice of either de-gearing so the other players can actually play, or be self centered trolls who kill everything and possibly cause the other players AFK penalties.
Gear checks and skill checks should never apply to normal content. EVER. so what is the solution to make the game experience
fun for everyone?
You're correct. This is essentially the argument. I find it unfathomable that an Elite level player, who would chose to run anything beneath Elite level for whatever reason, would then demand that the other players, who are appropriately running their level of gameplay, "get good" because they do not meet the same Elite standard.
Now, as I've said that I do not agree with the game restricting any player from playing as they please, that doesn't mean that some measure of self control cannot be used. But if an Elite player is going to step down into Advanced or even Normal, since they are outside of their sandbox, they have no right to demand those players, who are in their own sandbox, and with whom Elites will get teamed, to "get good".
Elite can always go back to Elite. But Advanced and Normal players, who are comfortable where they are and have no desire to "get good", have nowhere else to go. And, since pottsey has already shown and demonstrated that one can control oneself if one choses to, if you know for a fact when you step down into Advanced and Normal level content that you will most likely AFK someone and then you do, then yes, IMHO, you are trolling your fellow players.
I guess I had another 2 quatloos to share. 😏
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I'm trying to understand y'all's math on this. Because it does seem like y'all are throwing out arbitrary numbers and assuming equal distribution of DPS. Sub 20k shouldn't be able to participate? If doing 1% of the total DPS is the minimum requirement to not end up with an AFK, and the total required DPS is 200k, then shouldn't the minimum requirement be 2k, presuming that the remaining 198k is spread out over the other 4 players? 🤔
I'll try to break this down as much as I can. There are two thresholds being discussed. The first is how much output is required for the TFO itself to succeed, and the second is how much you need to avoid the AFK penalty.
So first, the 200k was a hypothetical damage threshold that Val threw out that a TFO might require the combined efforts of the team to be. In other words if all 4 of us mods and a 5th person were to enter a TFO, are we doing 200k combined DPS? If we are we will clear the TFO, if we don't it will fail.
In a TFO like ISE as one example, foes are grouped up alot more and could be blasted down faster as a result. If 4 of the people in our mod team run were doing 20k, and the last guy was 120k, the person at 120k can make up the difference for the other 4 people and the run will complete. Again this is because TFOs like ISE as so clustered together. If this was a TFO like Dranuur Gauntlet that requires the group to spread out and cover 3 different sections, that TFO is going to fail because the other 4 people do not have the output to defend the other sections as they're below the 40k minimum.
In the second scenario the run is guaranteed to fail even though the team combined is doing 200k because the damage isn't distributed like it needs to be. Even if we said our high numbers guy is now doing 1m DPS on his own, the run will still fail because he can't be in 3 places at once. This would mean 4 of the people in that run are not yet ready for the content. In elite TFOs all the objectives that were previously optional become required objectives that are hardcoded failure conditions if they're not met. This is something Cryptic themselves put in place, meaning one person who joins the TFO knowing they're not ready has caused a failure for the other 4 people in the run which is not fair to them. There are plenty of TFOs with mechanics requiring large areas to be covered like that.
When advocating the Dungeon Journal along with the Performance and Gear Checks, this is why I have advocated the 5th guy should be barred from public runs of higher tier content until he can demonstrate he's ready for those runs. He's still able to join on private with friends who may have agreed to carry him through, just not join a public TFO and force 4 random people to carry him. Lesser runs are not going to fail with a high DPS person in the group, but higher runs will fail with the lesser DPS person in the group. I do not find it fun to fail because one guy over-estimated himself and joined something he knew he wasn't ready for. If the person doesn't have the gear to meet the Gear check, they won't survive and be able to contribute to the run and will cause it to fail. If the person doesn't have the Performance to clear the Performance check, they will cause the run to fail. They can still play any difficulty with friends as that's a controlled environment, but won't be able to join public TFOs on advanced or elite until they prove they are ready.
Lastly on the AFK penalty. In order to avoid the AFK penalty, you only need to have dealt 1-2% of the team's damage for the entirety of the run. To give a real world example I will utilize an actual ISA run I did a few months back. Over the course of the run the team dealt combined 45m damage and ended the run in 75 seconds. In order to avoid the AFK penalty of 1% you would have needed to deal 450k damage, not DPS, but damage. This would equate to 6k DPS or more and the lowest guy in that run was at 27k DPS and never in any danger of being AFKed. Had the run gone to 150 seconds, that 6k to avoid the afk penalty would become 3k and so on. Assuming we wanted to AFK that guy at 27k DPS, the run would have needed to end in less than 15 seconds, and by the way ISA is setup that's not going to happen.
Using our hypothetical mod team run from before, none of the people would get hit with an AFK penalty from that run. This is why I find it disingenuous when people act like AFK penalties are being handed out left and right, because they're not. People are getting to play and they are getting to shoot, just not as much as they would like. I have no control over their perception of whether they got to shoot as much as they would like or not, yet some are advocating changes that would punish so called high DPSers based on a subjective whim.
@darkbladejk you are not reading or comprehending what @meimeitoo is referring to with regard to the CSA map. By the time @meimeitoo destroyed the first Cube group, the other players involved in the zergfest have already blown up the others. Faster movement to the second group would have made no difference. The Borg NPCs were already destroyed.
This is not a movement issue. It is high DPS builds enforcing the "zerg everything as fast as possible" mentality and play style on everyone else. This is yet another problem the Tripartite of Failure would not solve, only exacerbate.
Val, despite what you think I actually did read what was said. First off the team isn't going to just waltz over to the other side without making sure the first side is destroyed, or will explode as soon as they leave. That's not how people do ISA. Also from what you're saying, this would mean meimeitoo was not moving with the team and staying together but trying to do their own thing. Which begs the question why would they be running off on their own and not staying with the team?
They've also admitted they're not getting an AFK penalty so they are getting to participate. They've also said they have a 30 second window to attack the first cube. As I outlined above you can get there and set your powers off in about 10 seconds leaving enough time for 5 complete firing cycles to occur. Then assuming movement powers are used and another 20 seconds to destroy the other side, that's another 5 complete firing cycles. Even if they only got a single cycle in the middle on the gate and tac cube, that's 11 complete firing cycles. So it is objectively false to say they are not getting to participate and pretend like they're getting hit with an AFK penalty. They may not be getting to shoot as much as they would like, but they are getting to shoot.
"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
You're correct. This is essentially the argument. I find it unfathomable that an Elite level player, who would chose to run anything beneath Elite level for whatever reason, would then demand that the other players, who are appropriately running their level of gameplay, "get good" because they do not meet the same Elite standard.
Now, as I've said that I do not agree with the game restricting any player from playing as they please, that doesn't mean that some measure of self control cannot be used. But if an Elite player is going to step down into Advanced or even Normal, since they are outside of their sandbox, they have no right to demand those players, who are in their own sandbox, and with whom Elites will get teamed, to "get good".
Elite can always go back to Elite. But Advanced and Normal players, who are comfortable where they are and have no desire to "get good", have nowhere else to go. And, since pottsey has already shown and demonstrated that one can control oneself if one choses to, if you know for a fact when you step down into Advanced and Normal level content that you will most likely AFK someone and then you do, then yes, IMHO, you are trolling your fellow players.
I guess I had another 2 quatloos to share. 😏
To cover this really quickly since it wasn't there when I drafted my above reply.
Elite requires higher levels of coordination and there is no room for error. All the optionals from advanced and normal are now requirements with hard coded failure conditions if you don't meet them. If you fail one thing you fail the entire TFO. Sometimes those of us who can play elite like a little mindless destruction without thinking about that.
If someone fails a TFO because they didn't meet a specific condition, that's not people like me saying "get good", that's the game itself saying you missed it. I'm saying if people want to play on advanced and elite they should have to pull advanced/elite levels of weight to do it.
If that advanced TFO requires them to do 15k DPS to clear it, then they need to do 15k. If that elite requires 70k DPS to clear it, then they need to be doing 70k. These would be standards cryptic themselves put in place and hard coded into the TFOs. When I say that guy doing less than our hypothetical 70k has no business in elite, that's not just me telling him that, that's the hardcoded fail condition Cryptic put in place telling him that he's not ready for that content.
Also included some AFK penalty examples above to show they're not as common as people want to believe. They're in fact very rare.
My issue is that people are coming in and saying they're not getting to play because of so called high DPSers even though by their own admission they're avoiding the AFK penalty and getting rewards, which means they are getting to play. They're then advocating changes to effect people like myself and others who would qualify as high DPS by their standards, all while they remain untouched, then getting mad when they are held to that same standard. If they're going to advocate that folks be asked to bring a lesser ship or systems that would forcibly nerf people like myself, I see no reason I shouldn't be allowed to ask they bring a stronger ship.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,442Community Moderator
My 2 ECs... the only time I really panic right off the bat is when I see a Vaadwaur Juggernaut. Most tend to be vape builds. While I don't mind the occasional quick run... I still want credit for it.
None of this has anything to do with what baddmoonrizin was saying. It actually shows you are still lost in the DPS is king mindset.
BMR asked where the math was coming from. I explained where the math was coming from. If there are still questions then, BMR can ask those questions. Otherwise you are not needed to speak for them.
Wow! They got to fire off a single attack chain and got to play for 20 seconds! What fun!
You accuse me of not reading, yet didn't read yourself. Note that I said 11 firing cycles. Do you not know what a firing cycle is? Firing cycles are when you press spacebar on your weapons and fire for the next 4-6 seconds. Which is around 5 shots per weapon. If you're firing 11 cycles then you're firing your weapons for a minimum of 44 seconds. If the run only lasts 80 seconds, as meimeimetoo's hypothetical run would indicate, they're still present for over half of the run and they are participating. Whether they like how much they got to play is irrelevant to the fact that they did get to play. Had they adjusted their build to include some mobility, they would've been able to play the entire time.
Whether you want to debate the run was too short or not is irrelevant to the fact they are getting to play.
Just being honest, I think you need to read what baddmoonrizin posted again. Maybe read it a few times. You are very clearly missing the point.
I would suggest that you do the same with what I've posted, but you've already made up your mind that you're not going to listen no matter what and are in denial and none could possibly know as much as you. Even engaging with Potsey you have shown you have little to no regard for anything you're being shown, even concrete data showing that AFK penalties are not as common as you believe they are.
If you are avoiding the afk penalty you are getting credit for the run and you are getting to play. You just don't like how long you're getting to play, which is an opinion you're entitled to. If you know people are getting there and vaporizing things before you can get there, then you should try adding some mobility to keep up. If you're not willing to even try using more than a single mobility skill, sorry but that tells me that people just want to complain. I'm not responsible for your subjective perception of whether something is fun or not.
"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
Lastly, you do not have exclusive rights to lesser difficulties. So long as people have met the minimum standards for those TFOs, they have just as much right to be there as you do.
Yeah, but that logic goes both ways; by your standards, you have no cause to complain if Advanced players enter 'your' Elite pugs. Turnabout is fair play.
Double standards much. You don't get to assert ownership over advanced difficulty by saying "elite interlopers are breaking my map" as though you own the map and those people are intruders while also advocating changes that would effect us so called "elite interlopers", then turn around and get mad when we hold you to that same standard and say you need to use a better build if you want to participate more or participate in elites. You're willing to advocate changes be forced to me and mine, but are unwilling to change anything about your own builds, and want to get mad you get called on it? Yeah no.
Misrepresent much? LOL. For starters, I actally said
Seriously, the vibe I'm getting is, "We, the Elite, do not want you to drag down our Elite TFO, but we should feel free to enter your Advanced queues, and stomp all over, and ruin, your game." How's about we restrict NOBODY?! This is a casual game. "Your fun isn't wrong," remember?
And you're really being quite disingenuous here. This is not about you giving advice on how to get better for Elites, but about you, an Elite player, wanting to run Advanced queues, and then lecture the players there, who are rightfully playing at their own level, to 'git gud,' just to keep up with you. As I never incur an AFK-penalty at my Advanced level, I have therefore never 'advocated changes,' nor complained about these Elite interlopers. In general, though, I'd say an Elite player stomping on an Advanced queue is as 'unfair' as an Advanced player dragging down the group in an Elite: both allowed, but not necessarily a polite, team-friendly thing to do. You, however, only want to see your side.
You've already admitted you use only one mobility power and don't want to use the Conn doff. You also don't use Deuterium Surplus which is a simple device like a battery. You don't want to make any changes on your side, but want everything else to change for you. Sorry but no, that's hypocrisy.
Sorry but no, that's you misrepresenting my position again. I want to change nothing. I read your Tripartite Fail, and came to the conclusion -- long before this thread even -- that DPS is too fickle to measure accurately, and that all these 'quick solutions' don't really work.
And yes, I "don't want to make changes" on my side, because I'm happy where I am at, at Advanced, and doing well there, thank you. The only reason you suggest I, and others, change their build, is so can absolve yourself of feeling guilty when purposely playing on a lower level, wrecking the TFO for others. I don't have to 'git gud' to play on Advanced: I'm already good enough for that.
And yes, I "don't want to make changes" on my side, because I'm happy where I am at, at Advanced, and doing well there, thank you. The only reason you suggest I, and others, change their build, is so can absolve yourself of feeling guilty when purposely playing on a lower level, wrecking the TFO for others. I don't have to 'git gud' to play on Advanced: I'm already good enough for that.
Okay problem solved since you say you like where you're at. Then don't complain if/when you get grouped with what you call an elite player who also likes where they're at and you don't get to participate as much because you've dug your heels in and refused to change anything. Just as you say you don't want to change anything on your side, they don't have to change anything on their side either. Everyone keeps doing what they're doing and deals with what they're dealt be it unfun or not.
"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
And yes, I "don't want to make changes" on my side, because I'm happy where I am at, at Advanced, and doing well there, thank you. The only reason you suggest I, and others, change their build, is so can absolve yourself of feeling guilty when purposely playing on a lower level, wrecking the TFO for others. I don't have to 'git gud' to play on Advanced: I'm already good enough for that.
Okay problem solved since you say you like where you're at. Then don't complain if/when you get grouped with what you call an elite player who also likes where they're at and you don't get to participate as much because you've dug your heels in and refused to change anything. Just as you say you don't want to change anything on your side, they don't have to change anything on their side either. Everyone keeps doing what they're doing and deals with what they're dealt be it unfun or not.
And I don't complain. I'm pretty practical. As long as I don't get an AFK-penalty, I don't see a real issue with Elite players coming in. Were I to get a penalty every time, because of a massive migration of Elite players to Advanced, a problem might exist. But so long as this doesn't happen, I'm fine with it all. My issues is more with you complaing/shaming weaker players for entering an Elite, but want to reserve the right to play anything you want, for yourself. If you are allowed inside an Advanced queue, then others should feel free to enter an Elite. Personally, I don't do the latter, as I feel (like I said earlier) I would embarrass myself; but I believe others should have no quams entering your Elite queues, when you yourself feel uninhibited to join others' Advanced queues.
@darkbladejk you are not reading or comprehending what @meimeitoo is referring to with regard to the CSA map. By the time @meimeitoo destroyed the first Cube group, the other players involved in the zergfest have already blown up the others. Faster movement to the second group would have made no difference. The Borg NPCs were already destroyed.
This is not a movement issue. It is high DPS builds enforcing the "zerg everything as fast as possible" mentality and play style on everyone else. This is yet another problem the Tripartite of Failure would not solve, only exacerbate.
You're correct. This is essentially the argument. I find it unfathomable that an Elite level player, who would chose to run anything beneath Elite level for whatever reason, would then demand that the other players, who are appropriately running their level of gameplay, "get good" because they do not meet the same Elite standard.
Now, as I've said that I do not agree with the game restricting any player from playing as they please, that doesn't mean that some measure of self control cannot be used. But if an Elite player is going to step down into Advanced or even Normal, since they are outside of their sandbox, they have no right to demand those players, who are in their own sandbox, and with whom Elites will get teamed, to "get good".
Elite can always go back to Elite. But Advanced and Normal players, who are comfortable where they are and have no desire to "get good", have nowhere else to go. And, since pottsey has already shown and demonstrated that one can control oneself if one choses to, if you know for a fact when you step down into Advanced and Normal level content that you will most likely AFK someone and then you do, then yes, IMHO, you are trolling your fellow players.
I guess I had another 2 quatloos to share. 😏
To cover this really quickly since it wasn't there when I drafted my above reply.
Elite requires higher levels of coordination and there is no room for error. All the optionals from advanced and normal are now requirements with hard coded failure conditions if you don't meet them. If you fail one thing you fail the entire TFO. Sometimes those of us who can play elite like a little mindless destruction without thinking about that.
If someone fails a TFO because they didn't meet a specific condition, that's not people like me saying "get good", that's the game itself saying you missed it. I'm saying if people want to play on advanced and elite they should have to pull advanced/elite levels of weight to do it.
If that advanced TFO requires them to do 15k DPS to clear it, then they need to do 15k. If that elite requires 70k DPS to clear it, then they need to be doing 70k. These would be standards cryptic themselves put in place and hard coded into the TFOs. When I say that guy doing less than our hypothetical 70k has no business in elite, that's not just me telling him that, that's the hardcoded fail condition Cryptic put in place telling him that he's not ready for that content.
Also included some AFK penalty examples above to show they're not as common as people want to believe. They're in fact very rare.
My issue is that people are coming in and saying they're not getting to play because of so called high DPSers even though by their own admission they're avoiding the AFK penalty and getting rewards, which means they are getting to play. They're then advocating changes to effect people like myself and others who would qualify as high DPS by their standards, all while they remain untouched, then getting mad when they are held to that same standard. If they're going to advocate that folks be asked to bring a lesser ship or systems that would forcibly nerf people like myself, I see no reason I shouldn't be allowed to ask they bring a stronger ship.
My guy, I think you're missing the point. You're kinda caught up in your own argument. Try and take a step back and see this from a different perspective. I don't believe anyone here is advocating for Elite gameplay to be nerfed, so that players, who truly are not ready for it, can play it anyway without having to change or improve.
The issue is Elite players stepping down into Advanced and Normal gameplay and vaporizing everything before the players, who are skilled and appropriately geared for that level of gameplay, get to do much of anything.
Ok, so you say that you occassionally like to step down from Elite for "mindless destruction", so that you don't have to worry about the fail conditions associated with Elite. I get that. Fair enough.
The problem I am having, and the problem that most everyone else is having here, is that you cannot dictate to those players IN ADVANCED AND NORMAL GAMEPLAY that they must change/improve/"get good" just because you, as an ELITE, decided to play in their sandbox. That's unfair. They ARE geared appropriately. They ARE skilled enough for their level of content. The Elite is the odd one out.
Players' skills are going to naturally improve the more they play the game. Players are naturally going to use better gear as they advance as well, because better gear becomes available through loot drops, and then there's Reputation gear if they choose to go that route. They may not decide to craft and/or upgrade gear, but that's completely unnecessary to be successful.
No one here, except Elites, is talking about unskilled, under-geared players playing Elite level content, though. Everyone else is talking about Elites stepping down onto everyone else's playground. Hell, the OP even mentions getting zerged out of Romulan Imperial Minefield by uber-DPSers. A mission that becomes available at level 10! How is a level 10 supposed to "get good" and compete with that?
So, if you want to step down from the NBA and play a college-level or even high school-level basketball game, fine. You'll obviously dominate the court. But is everyone else gonna have as good of a time playing, if they never even get a chance to touch the ball? Is it fair for you to yell at them to "get good" when it's you out of your league and on their court? No, it's not.
Damnit, y'all made me use a sports reference. 🙄
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Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
You're correct. This is essentially the argument. I find it unfathomable that an Elite level player, who would chose to run anything beneath Elite level for whatever reason, would then demand that the other players, who are appropriately running their level of gameplay, "get good" because they do not meet the same Elite standard.
Now, as I've said that I do not agree with the game restricting any player from playing as they please, that doesn't mean that some measure of self control cannot be used. But if an Elite player is going to step down into Advanced or even Normal, since they are outside of their sandbox, they have no right to demand those players, who are in their own sandbox, and with whom Elites will get teamed, to "get good".
Elite can always go back to Elite. But Advanced and Normal players, who are comfortable where they are and have no desire to "get good", have nowhere else to go. And, since pottsey has already shown and demonstrated that one can control oneself if one choses to, if you know for a fact when you step down into Advanced and Normal level content that you will most likely AFK someone and then you do, then yes, IMHO, you are trolling your fellow players.
I guess I had another 2 quatloos to share. 😏
To cover this really quickly since it wasn't there when I drafted my above reply.
Elite requires higher levels of coordination and there is no room for error. All the optionals from advanced and normal are now requirements with hard coded failure conditions if you don't meet them. If you fail one thing you fail the entire TFO. Sometimes those of us who can play elite like a little mindless destruction without thinking about that.
If someone fails a TFO because they didn't meet a specific condition, that's not people like me saying "get good", that's the game itself saying you missed it. I'm saying if people want to play on advanced and elite they should have to pull advanced/elite levels of weight to do it.
If that advanced TFO requires them to do 15k DPS to clear it, then they need to do 15k. If that elite requires 70k DPS to clear it, then they need to be doing 70k. These would be standards cryptic themselves put in place and hard coded into the TFOs. When I say that guy doing less than our hypothetical 70k has no business in elite, that's not just me telling him that, that's the hardcoded fail condition Cryptic put in place telling him that he's not ready for that content.
Also included some AFK penalty examples above to show they're not as common as people want to believe. They're in fact very rare.
My issue is that people are coming in and saying they're not getting to play because of so called high DPSers even though by their own admission they're avoiding the AFK penalty and getting rewards, which means they are getting to play. They're then advocating changes to effect people like myself and others who would qualify as high DPS by their standards, all while they remain untouched, then getting mad when they are held to that same standard. If they're going to advocate that folks be asked to bring a lesser ship or systems that would forcibly nerf people like myself, I see no reason I shouldn't be allowed to ask they bring a stronger ship.
My guy, I think you're missing the point. You're kinda caught up in your own argument. Try and take a step back and see this from a different perspective. I don't believe anyone here is advocating for Elite gameplay to be nerfed, so that players, who truly are not ready for it, can play it anyway without having to change or improve.
The issue is Elite players stepping down into Advanced and Normal gameplay and vaporizing everything before the players, who are skilled and appropriately geared for that level of gameplay, get to do much of anything.
Ok, so you say that you occassionally like to step down from Elite for "mindless destruction", so that you don't have to worry about the fail conditions associated with Elite. I get that. Fair enough.
The problem I am having, and the problem that most everyone else is having here, is that you cannot dictate to those players IN ADVANCED AND NORMAL GAMEPLAY that they must change/improve/"get good" just because you, as an ELITE, decided to play in their sandbox. That's unfair. They ARE geared appropriately. They ARE skilled enough for their level of content. The Elite is the odd one out.
Players' skills are going to naturally improve the more they play the game. Players are naturally going to use better gear as they advance as well, because better gear becomes available through loot drops, and then there's Reputation gear if they choose to go that route. They may not decide to craft and/or upgrade gear, but that's completely unnecessary to be successful.
No one here, except Elites, is talking about unskilled, under-geared players playing Elite level content, though. Everyone else is talking about Elites stepping down onto everyone else's playground. Hell, the OP even mentions getting zerged out of Romulan Imperial Minefield by uber-DPSers. A mission that becomes available at level 10! How is a level 10 supposed to "get good" and compete with that?
So, if you want to step down from the NBA and play a college-level or even high school-level basketball game, fine. You'll obviously dominate the court. But is everyone else gonna have as good of a time playing, if they never even get a chance to touch the ball? Is it fair for you to yell at them to "get good" when it's you out of your league and on their court? No, it's not.
^^ Probably the most lucid post in the thread. I could have saved myself a whole lot of typing.
Yes, if a Normal or Advanced player wants to try Elite, they should bring a better build cause Advanced build just won't cut Elite content.
Normal/Advanced players ARE geared for Normal/Advanced TFOs and should not have to 'git gud' just because an overpowered, Elite player comes down to their levels to play.
Maybe the devs could add Advanced/Elite levels to Event TFOs. Would that solve the problem? Mostly. There will still be Elite-level players dropping down to do runs as fast as possible to get a daily over with.
Pretty sure they're not trying to troll 'lesser' builds with their uber builds. To me, if I've built something uber I'd use it in uber content. If I wanted to use it in Normal or Advanced I'd pick something for single player play-such as Patrols and story missions. I'll probably never have the uber build, but I can get through Advanced and participate enough to not get AFK'd. In fact, I think I only got AFK'd once, a very long time ago.
So, not complaining about Elites coming down, so long as I can still participate. Just don't expect me to change my build unless I just want to experiment with something.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
My guy, I think you're missing the point. You're kinda caught up in your own argument. Try and take a step back and see this from a different perspective. I don't believe anyone here is advocating for Elite gameplay to be nerfed, so that players, who truly are not ready for it, can play it anyway without having to change or improve.
Actually that very thing has been argued in the original post and in a subsequent post from the very beginning of the thread.
It shouldn't be possible for anyone to do SO much damage that it completely trivializes the game for them, and allows them to take the game away from other players... either by just blowing everything up instantly, or by the devs having to make things more difficult than most players can handle.
So, no... I wouldn't consider increasing my damage. Mobility isn't really an issue either, I'm often where I need to be. Consider the Tac Cube I mentioned. It warped in right next to me. I fired at it immediately, but it was destroyed before the hyperplasma fired its three torpedoes. My setup wouldn't help prevent that.
In these posts, the OP indicates they believe it shouldn't be possible for people to do so much damage and that the devs need to do something about. Simultaneously also saying they wouldn't consider increasing their damage or mobility as they like things where it is. I'm sorry but in my book, that's striking at people like me first. They're advocating that my output be reduced because they don't like my ability to generate said levels of output, while simultaneously not wanting to change anything of their own build to improve their ability to participate. To Marik's credit, he has been the most civil person arguing said point.
The issue is Elite players stepping down into Advanced and Normal gameplay and vaporizing everything before the players, who are skilled and appropriately geared for that level of gameplay, get to do much of anything.
Ok, so you say that you occassionally like to step down from Elite for "mindless destruction", so that you don't have to worry about the fail conditions associated with Elite. I get that. Fair enough.
The problem I am having, and the problem that most everyone else is having here, is that you cannot dictate to those players IN ADVANCED AND NORMAL GAMEPLAY that they must change/improve/"get good" just because you, as an ELITE, decided to play in their sandbox. That's unfair. They ARE geared appropriately. They ARE skilled enough for their level of content. The Elite is the odd one out.
Players' skills are going to naturally improve the more they play the game. Players are naturally going to use better gear as they advance as well, because better gear becomes available through loot drops, and then there's Reputation gear if they choose to go that route. They may not decide to craft and/or upgrade gear, but that's completely unnecessary to be successful.
I accept those people are saying they're not having fun. I also accept they think there is too much damage in the game, which they are entitled to as an opinion. I've even agreed with them that advanced and elite versions of event maps need to return as I despise being relegated to normal modes.
In this thread and in the last one before this, neither myself or anyone else said anything that amounted to "get good" until others first advocated that people like myself and others they would label as high DPS essentially have our builds nerfed or nerf ourselves because they have refused to change. I was content not to say anything unless someone else started the conversation, which is what happened with the first thread, and now here in this one. Had they not said something on these forums first, I wouldn't have said anything either. Yet certain people chose to come onto these forums and advocate that the devs make changes to negatively impact my build and others they would view as high DPS because they can't participate as much as they feel they should be able too. While simultaneously refusing to alter their own builds to allow them greater chance to participate. In other words, by default advocating everyone else is responsible for their ability to participate or lack of. And I wholly reject that notion. Essentially they're poking what they've admitted to be a beehive or may cause a "circling of the wagons" and then getting mad when the bees actually sting or there is a circling of the wagons.
Is it conceivable by sheer statistics and probability that someone could enter a lower level TFO and vaporize everything before anyone else has had a chance to fire, sure it could happen, and I've acknowledged this. Do a doubt that it's happened at some point, again no I don't. The game has been around long enough that I'm sure many statistically improbable events have happened. At the same time I refuse to believe that this is happening as often as some people in here want me to believe without some sort of evidence to back it up. If people are getting rewards for the TFO then this eviscerates the argument that they're not getting to participate, because if they couldn't participate at all then they would get hit with an AFK penalty, yet people in here are saying they're not seeing AFK penalties. So they are in fact getting to participate, just not as much as they would like to. They say they would like to participate more, okay fair enough. First, what are they doing on their part to give themselves the greatest chance to participate? If they know people are getting to targets before them, and destroying things before they can ever fire, have they tried to use a build with more mobility to it so they can keep up? If the answer is no, then they have no grounds to say it's not a mobility issue because they've never tried.
I'm of the mindset that so long as people meet the standards the game itself imposes, they have a right to be in any content they choose, be they exactly at the minimum standards or exceeding those standard 100 times over. If a TFO like Dranuur Gauntlet required 40k from each person (idk what the actual number for elite is but you get the idea), and they are not pulling that 40k and cause the TFO to fail, that's not me telling them they need to improve, that is the game itself as established by Cryptic telling them they need to improve. In that hypothetical scenario I am not the one that set that 40k, but Cryptic themselves when they hardcoded it into the TFO, yet people want to get mad at me for saying what the game is already telling them. I am not holding them to any kind of standard in that instance other than the one the game itself established, yet somehow I'm the bad guy. If people want to come onto these forums saying they think DPS should be toned down by the devs, thus effecting me and others, they can't get mad when on the opposite side of the coin I say they need to bring better builds if they're having trouble participating. It goes both ways on that and is a double standard to advocate I need to bring a lesser build and/or DPS needs to be toned down, while simultaneously refusing to change anything on their end to help themselves. THAT is what I have an issue with. They expect me to be the one to change while doing nothing on their side, yet get mad when I hold them to that same standard.
As for people improving by playing the game, generally I would agree, but there are plenty who refuse to learn and get better. I'm sure you saw my example of my former fleetmate that I named Bob. In fact I've shown you the build that Bob was using in that instance in mod chat before. Bob claimed he had been playing since beta, but died 18 times in normal mode. Yet got angry when my officer dared try to help him. Bob would not accept that he was in part to blame for his woes and insisted it was the game and refused to change anything, thus refusing to learn. This is why I have advocated the checks I do. It filters out people like Bob who would ruin it for others, while giving everyone else a path of progression to learn and improve. How far they choose to go down that path is up to them so long as they're meeting the minimums for the content as required by the game itself.
No one here, except Elites, is talking about unskilled, under-geared players playing Elite level content, though. Everyone else is talking about Elites stepping down onto everyone else's playground. Hell, the OP even mentions getting zerged out of Romulan Imperial Minefield by uber-DPSers. A mission that becomes available at level 10! How is a level 10 supposed to "get good" and compete with that?
So, if you want to step down from the NBA and play a college-level or even high school-level basketball game, fine. You'll obviously dominate the court. But is everyone else gonna have as good of a time playing, if they never even get a chance to touch the ball? Is it fair for you to yell at them to "get good" when it's you out of your league and on their court? No, it's not.
Damnit, y'all made me use a sports reference. 🙄
I can think of two ways to solve that issue, but there is a glaring elephant in the room that needs to be mentioned with that example. While I get what you're going for with the example, we're not talking about low level characters and people below max level here. We're talking about people who have had plenty of time to hit max level. I do not hold low level characters to the same standard I would a max level character. I'm much more inclined to have sympathy for a struggling level 10 character than I am someone who is max level, especially if that max level toon has been playing as long as some of the people in here hint that they've been playing. Now with that out of the way I will address the Minefield example.
-The first way that this can be solved is level brackets in the TFO system. Only those people within 10 levels of each other can join public TFOs together. This limits the the difference between stats to something far more manageable.
-The second solution is to apply a scaling mechanic similar to the one SWTOR uses. In SWTOR let's suppose you were on a planet for levels 26-32 and you're level 30. Let's suppose I wanted to bring my level 80 toon that's at max gear and damage level. Once I arrived on that planet, the game would scale me and my equipment down to level 32 and assume I am using the highest grade of equipment available for that level. In STO terms, if you were level 30 and could conceivably only access mk vii golds, then the game would assume I am 32 with mk vii golds. While I may have a slight stat advantage, you are still able to compete.
Lastly for the NBA example, again I get what you're going for but the analogy doesn't work in this instance. The NBA example implies by necessity that certain people can't obtain NBA status and can never make it to the NBA. It also implies by necessity that those people who can't get to the NBA can't have the skills said NBA player does, and in STO that's simply not the case. When we've talked before about ships in game and the like, I've mentioned that there are maybe 9 ships that I don't own because I have no interest in them and have a ton of toons that I've geared out. That's not an exaggeration. Everything I have now as a lifetime player, someone starting the game tomorrow could eventually have themselves, it will just take them longer to get there. The only exceptions possibly being the lifetime ships. Every skill, every ship, every power I am capable of obtaining and learning to use, they are capable of obtaining and learning to use as well. In terms of accessibility the entire playerbase is on equal footing. If they know they are having trouble with survival as one example, and they know there is a set in game that will give them greater survival, or a console off a certain ship in the cstore that could help them, yet they refuse to go after either of them, who is at fault?
I am saying, if people are going to advocate DPS be limited or nerfed so they can participate more, I'm going to also advocate they bring better builds at the same time so they have the greatest chance to compete from the start. Had the OP not said anything, I wouldn't have said anything on this subject either.
"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
Dude, I'm not even gonna point by point that, because it's becoming tedious and quite frankly, there's been enough rambling going on in this thread.
Ok, I concede that marik initially called for nerfing top-end DPS. I don't agree with that. Seeking DPS is a valid gameplay path for those who enjoy chasing that dragon. But of those in this thread, I believe, he is in the minority asking for that. Val, who you have most consistently butted heads with here, certainly wasn't asking for anything to be nerfed. In fact, Val's main point before getting sidetracked with your proposal, was that more Elite level content needs to be added and better rewards to incentivize playing it, to give DPSers a place to play without affecting Advanced and Normal level players.
But that proposal certainly wouldn't solve the problem either, because, by your own admission, Elites will drop down and play Advanced and Normal just to get through their dailies faster or to do "mindless destruction" without having to worry about Elite requirements, thereby, still causing "issues" for Advanced and Normal level players.
The NBA analogy is quite apropos, because it has little to do with whether one CAN make it to the NBA, but the fact that one isn't CURRENTLY in the NBA. So, dropping an NBA player on a high school basketball court and suddenly expecting the high schoolers to play at NBA level is absurd. One day, they may make it to the NBA, but today is not that day. And the NBA should stay in the NBA.
In all honesty, it doesn't matter what measures are put in place or content is provided by Cryptic. Players will always find a way to follow the path of least resistance and do things that are unintended. The crux of the matter, therefore, boils down to this: human behavior and human decency. Can you be a decent person to your fellow teammates, regardless of what level you or they are at?
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Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Darkblade, please read what I wrote. I play on Normal. I don't want to play Elite or Advanced.
My build is fine for Normal. I can contribute, even when some Elite player has decided to come dump all over my playground. But ideally, I'd like to do more than that - and when that option is taken from me, I may decide to stop playing TFOs in the first place. Which of course leads to a lower population in TFOs, and longer waits for any of them to pop...
Dude, I'm not even gonna point by point that, because it's becoming tedious and quite frankly, there's been enough rambling going on in this thread.
Ok, I concede that marik initially called for nerfing top-end DPS. I don't agree with that. Seeking DPS is a valid gameplay path for those who enjoy chasing that dragon. But of those in this thread, I believe, he is in the minority asking for that. Val, who you have most consistently butted heads with here, certainly wasn't asking for anything to be nerfed. In fact, Val's main point before getting sidetracked with your proposal, was that more Elite level content needs to be added and better rewards to incentivize playing it, to give DPSers a place to play without affecting Advanced and Normal level players.
But that proposal certainly wouldn't solve the problem either, because, by your own admission, Elites will drop down and play Advanced and Normal just to get through their dailies faster or to do "mindless destruction" without having to worry about Elite requirements, thereby, still causing "issues" for Advanced and Normal level players.
The NBA analogy is quite apropos, because it has little to do with whether one CAN make it to the NBA, but the fact that one isn't CURRENTLY in the NBA. So, dropping an NBA player on a high school basketball court and suddenly expecting the high schoolers to play at NBA level is absurd. One day, they may make it to the NBA, but today is not that day. And the NBA should stay in the NBA.
In all honesty, it doesn't matter what measures are put in place or content is provided by Cryptic. Players will always find a way to follow the path of least resistance and do things that are unintended. The crux of the matter, therefore, boils down to this: human behavior and human decency. Can you be a decent person to your fellow teammates, regardless of what level you or they are at?
I'm all for adding in additional content and have even said to Val that I agree with that proposal. I also feel for those who say they're having a hard time, but I reject the notion that their woes are exclusively caused by players like myself choosing to play on lower difficulties. I also reject the notion that if I use my strongest builds in advanced content I'm somehow trolling those players just like I also reject the notion people using their weakest builds on elite is trolling with one sole exception, so long as them using that weak build isn't causing the TFO to fail.
It really comes down to whether people believe Cryptic and developers are allowed to set standards for their games and people should be beholden to those standards. Such as our hypothetical 200k TFO that Val brought up before. If Cryptic themselves set the standard of 200k for the TFO and by extension 40k per person, is Cryptic wrong for setting that standard, and am I wrong for insisting people should have to meet that standard before being allowed in that TFO? It's akin to getting a driver's license. No parent is going to just hand the keys over to their 16yr old without making sure they've taught them to drive first, and that they have a license. I see it as no different for TFOs. I want people to be able to play and get into as high of content as they want to get into, but not at the cost of sabotaging that TFO into failure for others. I am not demanding they be the best driver in existence, I'm simply asking them to have a license and not wreck my car.
With regards to decency, I'm all for not being a tool to teammates in runs. At the same time I completely reject the notion that someone like myself taking my strongest build into advanced content amounts to me trolling. Because if that now counts as trolling, them bringing super weak builds into a TFO also counts as trolling. I reject the idea that I should have to bring a lesser build into advanced runs as that line of thinking seeks to make me entirely responsible for the ability or lack of, for other people to play the game. As I said, if I bring a slow ship into a TFO and everyone gets there before me and nukes things, but I'm not willing to change anything at all to even try to remedy the situation, who is at fault, me or the team? And if we're to the team is at fault for not waiting on me, how long are they supposed to wait on me past the briefing before doing their thing? People can call me old school, elitist, or what have you. but I'm of the mindset people have no right to things they have not earned, in game. Or in today's world earned and/or paid for. I'm also of the mindset people are responsible for their own ability or lack of in game. If people need help but don't ask, that's on them not me.
I disagree with the NBA analogy being valid because we're not talking about a pvp scenario but a pve co-op in a video game. There is no competition against other players and all have agreed to the same objectives. So long as people are getting rewards I see nothing wrong with anything. I've had plenty of runs that annoyed living daylights out of me in SWTOR over the years because of bad teammates, same with STO. So long as they're not actively trolling or failing the content for everyone else, I let it roll off, because I don't have to see those people again if I don't want to. The thing I want to know that I've yet to really get an answer from anyone over, at what point does personal responsibility come into play? If we're going to insist that it's decency to bring a lower power build into advanced, and I've waited a certain amount of time for them to get in a few shots, at what point are they then responsible for themselves? Where does my responsibility end and theirs begin? Because from where I'm sitting it seems like alot of people want to blame the so called evil DPS for all their woes, but don't want to acknowledge that they might just have a hand in their own issue.
"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
Comments
This comment is so far off the mark you missed the dart board and hit the moon. You don't need to spend a penny to get top DPS....all you need to do is copy a build off the net then claim you 'got gud' and 'got skill'
Let's take CSA, for instance. I fly to Cube 1, takes 30 seconds or so to blow it all up, and then I proceed to Cube 2... except it's gone already. This has nothing to do with mobility, but precisely with Damage Per Second: it takes me X seconds of output to do Y amount of damage. If I could do it faster, I'd be doing CSE.
What will I do about it? Em, nothing.
Couple of questions, do you mean ISA instead of CSA? Because when you say CSA I think of Crystalline instead of borg.
Second, are you actually getting hit with an AFK penalty or are you getting rewards from the TFO? If you're getting rewards you're not getting hit with an AFK penalty. If you are getting hit with an AFK penalty then that means you did less than 1% of the damage for the run as ISA is one of the 1% maps. If you are getting hit with an AFK penalty, how often are you getting hit with one? We talking a daily occurrence, once a week, twice a week? What kind of ballpark we talking, because if you're getting consistently hit with an AFK penalty, that is not normal at all.
Now with that said, the scenario you've described screams mobility issue to me. So I have to ask, what kind of ship are you flying and what engines are you using? Have you tried incorporating Emergency to Engines, Deuterium Surplus devices, using the Emergency Conn Officer or similar items? Are you using evasive maneuvers at all? Stacking evasive maneuvers along with deuterium surplus is more than enough to cross an ISA map super fast even in the beefiest of dreadnoughts, especially if you stack emergency to engines into that mix as well.
Even in something as big and beefy as the Borg Juggernaut I can cross the entire map in about 5 seconds or less using deuterium and evasive. Assuming a 30 second window to get in damage, that's still 25 seconds. Assuming it takes 5 additional seconds to set off my powers and I didn't charge them on route, that's still 20 seconds to get in some damage and is 5 full firing cycles with 8 weapons. When you are ready to move to the other side you can use Emergency to Engines to reset your Evasive Maneuvers if you have the Conn doff. Repeat the process of setting off your powers and firing which gives you 5 more firing cycles on the target, which is 10 full firing cycles of damage you're getting off. Assuming another 30 seconds in the middle of the map, even if you only get there with 10 seconds to spare, that's another firing cycle you can get in. In total you could've gotten off 11 FULL firing cycles of damage. What are you using and doing that you can't beat an AFK penalty with 11 full firing cycles of damage?
As for your analogy, if I'm hosting private runs I don't take people to content I know they're not ready for unless there was some kind of arrangement before hand. If someone is at 10k DPS why would I take them into something like Korfez, ISE, Dranuur Gauntlet, or any other elite when I know they're not ready for it? However we're not talking about private TFOs, we're talking about public runs with people you don't know. If people are going to insist that these evil DPSers are coming into TFOs and AFKing everyone all the time, I'm going to echo Potsey above and ask, where is the evidence of this? Do you have anything you can show me to demonstrate this?
Lastly, you do not have exclusive rights to lesser difficulties. So long as people have met the minimum standards for those TFOs, they have just as much right to be there as you do. If they are not meeting the standards that are hardcoded into the game itself, then in my book they have no right to be there yet.
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CSA = Cure Space Advanced
CCA = Crystalline Catastrophe Advanced
It's almost as if you read none of my posts.
My engine power is usually the lowest of them all. I just realized you can actually see my power levels in my signature image.
In a private queue, you can bring whoever you want: that is entirely fair. You wouldn't invite me, and I wouldn't ask to be invited.
In fact, I said pretty much the exact opposite:
Yeah, but that logic goes both ways; by your standards, you have no cause to complain if Advanced players enter 'your' Elite pugs. Turnabout is fair play.
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What’s interesting is if you look at spike DPS the majority of players are doing between 100k to 400k spike DPS in normal maps. For spike DPS, high DPS is the norm and it’s in fact the players who never break past 30k that are in the minority. This in turn suggests the problem is not the high DPSers but in fact the super low DPS people who have suboptimal builds or problems with their piloting skills. We should be looking at ways to bring up those outliners who are doing low DPS rather than looking at ways to bring down the high DPSers to their level.
What’s interesting about this data point is if we zoom in and take a closer look. I am light blue, noticed how every time I spike my DPS up a little it’s also spiking up purple who was next to me on the map. My high DPS isn’t causing that player a problem in fact its rising up there DPS. I am not pushing them out of being effective on the map.
I don’t believe the core problem is high DPSers. In fact, I don’t even think the players we are talking about are even high DPSers. From what I have seen the 100k to 300k spike DPS is the average everyday player. Which means the problem is the low-end people need to improve their player pilot skills and improve the builds. Rather than bringing down the so called high DPSers who are in fact not higher DPSers but the average player.
I behaved in this run and kept my DPS under 50k ish which was a lot harder than I expected, it took a massive amount of effort and removed the fun.
What I noticed is I was predicting and preparing upcoming encounters while the other players were waiting on reaction. An example is the Breach mini core section I was predicting the pattern and moving to the right area ready for the mini core to pop out while the other players sat still until the core appeared before starting to move. That gave me a large DPS boost that has nothing to do with gear and all down to piloting skill. All this talk about high end DPsers should lower their gear and use low end DPS loadouts. Well, it didn’t work because the big factor is player skill and it is really, really hard to switch off learnt skills.
Back to chart 1
Onto chart 2 which is sustained DPS
is the same run in chart 2 only switched from sustained DPS to spike DPS. What’s interesting is player Orange who only did 17k sustained DPS hit 90k spike DPS and hit high levels of spike DPS multiple times.
Looking at spike DPS over multiple runs the majority of player were doing spike DPS of 100k to 400k. In this run the 2nd weakest player hit 90k spike DPS. This seems to be the normal every day level for most players.
In this run why should the 4 players limit them self and sit there doing nothing so the 5th player who did a total of 0.58% damage can catch up. Even if we removed all high DPSers it would have done nothing to help. The problem isn’t the high DPSers which I don’t think are even high, the problem is with the dark blue player who did 0.58% of damage.
Now this is what I call moderately high DPS, it was a mistake but it serves a purpose. In this chart I got distracted, lost concentration, and briefly went full DPS mode until I refocused and rained myself in. 1.5 million spike DPS, (inset swear word, that was not the plan) I have been trying really hard to match the others players and keep my DPS down to 50k to 100k and its hard to unlearn skills not to mention fight muscle memory and not react to what I know is about to happen. Anyway 4 of us did 100k+ spike DPS during the run. The only player who didn’t was again dark blue who did 180k total damage. Not DPS sustained, not spike, just 180k damage throughout the entire run. That had nothing to do with the other players in the group and again comes down to poor piloting by the player. Even without my slip up that player would have been hit by the AFK penalty.
I have more data but I don’t want to spam graph after graph. I just thought it would be interesting to add some real data into this discussion. Feel free to degree with me on my views of the graphs.
My conclusion is the majority of veteran players are doing spike DPS of 100k+ if not in the range of 100k to 400k is normal. This is not high DPSers this is average every day players based on gathering data over the past week. Outside of new players the people doing sub 50k or sub 30k spike DPS are the ones who have problems with their build and/or there piloting skill. Generally speaking, the problem isn’t high end DPSers and if you remove the high end DPSers the ultra-low-end people would still have the same problem. My last conclusion is most people are doing way more spike DPS they then realise. A 20k sustained DPS player can be hitting 100k spike DPS.
Sorry for the long post, but there are graphs and data which is half the game of STO isn’t it?
Again with that word arbitrary. It is not an arbitrary number. Its based on a average to meet the bare minimum of what is required to not be carried or cause deficiencies in the group. Ideally you should be above this number as its a bare minimum and you shouldn't be running TFO's at the bare minimum.
It’s not meant to take into account other players carrying the underperforming player and making up for their deficiencies. It’s meant to show the player what they need to do so they are not being carried by the other players and show them what performance level they need to be to not cause the group any deficiencies.
Going back to the 200k example. Yes in theory you could have one player do 2.1k and the other 4 players do 198k to hit the in that example the 200k minimum DPS requirement to pass the TFO. This doesn't mean they will pass it just means there is a chance to pass instead of it being impossible. Its fair to say outside of some niche cases the 2.1k player should ideally really be doing at least 40k in this example as at 2.1k they are barely a step away from the AFK ban and they are not really contributing meaningfully to the group.
Not a lot of fun to be had when by the time I'm done dealing with the first group of enemies, somebody's speedrun through everything else. And I run only on regular difficulty - I'm almost 60, and putting my reflexes to the test isn't really terribly enjoyable any more.
While its less important for normal its still a useful measure to have a DPS check. Take my data above multiple runs I had players doing 0.5% damage. While this doesn't tend to cause hardship at normal it can do and it gets worse the higher we move into Advanced and Elite or if there is not a higher DPS player there to make up for that players shortfall. What happens when that 0.5% player goes that wasn't so bad being completely unware of how poor they did and then jumps into advanced or jumps into Elite. That is what the DPS check helps to avoid.
As before I don't like limiting people but as a tool to help a player see how they are doing and comparing themselves to the baseline the TFO is built around could be useful. Think of a solo map that says this is the recommanded baseline for advanced, this is the recommanded baseline for Elite. This is what you did. That's a good thing that can only help. The idea is to give a player a tool to help them self improve and see where they fall in the effectiveness range to get ready for adv and Elite content. Personally I am not keen on a hard lockout, but as guideline I think it could have a useful function.
It may be hard to believe but setting up a keybind for a "basic offensive rotation" actually makes things EASIER so there's less need to test or rely upon aging reflexes as there's LESS things to click on.
In fact, the 5:1 reduction in button presses (shown below) is in practice often higher when other things are added to it.
ONE single key to activate sequentially: Photonic Officer --> emergency power to weapons --> beam or cannon firing mode --> attack pattern beta --> tactical team
You ain't the only person here that's not quite as young as they used to be
All I'm trying to do is provide some simple as possible solutions to select things people are voicing concerns about so that perhaps their game can be more enjoyable.
Just so folks remember what the thread is about. it's gone from discussion of a high DPS player vaping a TFO before the other player's torpedos get to the target. it's devolved to discussions of gear checks and other TRIBBLE elites can (and will) use to segregate the playerbase more and more. A lot of casual players are saying that the get good attitude of the elite players are spouting does nothing to help out the game experience. Now i agree, if you are a less than optimal player, you should not be in advanced or elite play. but when the elite go to the NORMAL level tfos, they have the choice of either de-gearing so the other players can actually play, or be self centered trolls who kill everything and possibly cause the other players AFK penalties.
Gear checks and skill checks should never apply to normal content. EVER. so what is the solution to make the game experience
fun for everyone?
On this point we've already established that you are in fact getting to shoot something since you're avoiding the AFK penalty. If everything was gone as quick as you say, you would have an AFK penalty every other run and by your own admission you've not gotten a penalty.
Now by what you've told me here, you're using one mobility power in evasive maneuvers once every 50 seconds. You're also using the Helmsman trait which gives you 10% turn rate and cuts the cooldown of evasive maneuvers by 10 seconds. In other words you're using a single mobility power meaning your ship is going to move at the speed of smell the rest of the time. You're not even using Deuterium Surplus which is a device giving you 350% speed and turn rate for 8 seconds, the equivalent of an Emergency to Engines in device form. You can get the device from the Alhena System Patrol's Defense Contract Mission and getting your Engineering crafting to level 5. No doff or boff changes needed.
So by what you've just told me here, you're using a single mobility power with a cooldown that's just about as long as the TFO itself and moving snail pace slow the rest of the time as a result. You're not using Deuterium Surplus, you're not using Emergency to Engines or anything else that could help you move faster and because of that you're getting outpaced as a result. Instead of being willing to change your build to include more than one mobility power, you're choosing to dig your heels in and blame the rest of the team for not allowing you to participate when YOU are the reason you're having trouble getting from A to B, all because you're stubbornly refusing to use one single device or change one single boff power. That's not a DPS problem, that's a you problem. Sorry but that's the reality of it.
Double standards much. You don't get to assert ownership over advanced difficulty by saying "elite interlopers are breaking my map" as though you own the map and those people are intruders while also advocating changes that would effect us so called "elite interlopers", then turn around and get mad when we hold you to that same standard and say you need to use a better build if you want to participate more or participate in elites. You're willing to advocate changes be forced to me and mine, but are unwilling to change anything about your own builds, and want to get mad you get called on it? Yeah no.
You've already admitted you use only one mobility power and don't want to use the Conn doff. You also don't use Deuterium Surplus which is a simple device like a battery. You don't want to make any changes on your side, but want everything else to change for you. Sorry but no, that's hypocrisy.
And as for advanced players coming into elites, do they meet the hardcoded standards of the elite TFO itself to keep it from failing even if it's the exact minimum? If they do then welcome to elite. If not then they need to go back and train more and build themselves up first. You're acting like players such as myself were the ones that set these standards when Cryptic themselves programmed the TFOs to fail if a certain damage threshold wasn't being met.
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The data I posted suggest the very high DPS are not causing AFK penalties generally but boosting the other players DPS. I also found that de-gearing doesn’t really help as it’s not as effective as you would think it would be. I tired to de-gear and it did not archive much as a large portion of DPS doesn’t come from gear.
After the experience I had trying to bring my self down to the basic starter level. I don’t think it’s fair to expect Elites players to do that. Its not practical or simple to bring our self down to the starter level. I still think the best solution is to allow us to run private Elite event TFO's. I don't like being in normal, I do not want to be there, forcing us into normal TFO's for events is not fun. In fact it ruins the event experience for me.
You're correct. This is essentially the argument. I find it unfathomable that an Elite level player, who would chose to run anything beneath Elite level for whatever reason, would then demand that the other players, who are appropriately running their level of gameplay, "get good" because they do not meet the same Elite standard.
Now, as I've said that I do not agree with the game restricting any player from playing as they please, that doesn't mean that some measure of self control cannot be used. But if an Elite player is going to step down into Advanced or even Normal, since they are outside of their sandbox, they have no right to demand those players, who are in their own sandbox, and with whom Elites will get teamed, to "get good".
Elite can always go back to Elite. But Advanced and Normal players, who are comfortable where they are and have no desire to "get good", have nowhere else to go. And, since pottsey has already shown and demonstrated that one can control oneself if one choses to, if you know for a fact when you step down into Advanced and Normal level content that you will most likely AFK someone and then you do, then yes, IMHO, you are trolling your fellow players.
I guess I had another 2 quatloos to share. 😏
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I'll try to break this down as much as I can. There are two thresholds being discussed. The first is how much output is required for the TFO itself to succeed, and the second is how much you need to avoid the AFK penalty.
So first, the 200k was a hypothetical damage threshold that Val threw out that a TFO might require the combined efforts of the team to be. In other words if all 4 of us mods and a 5th person were to enter a TFO, are we doing 200k combined DPS? If we are we will clear the TFO, if we don't it will fail.
In a TFO like ISE as one example, foes are grouped up alot more and could be blasted down faster as a result. If 4 of the people in our mod team run were doing 20k, and the last guy was 120k, the person at 120k can make up the difference for the other 4 people and the run will complete. Again this is because TFOs like ISE as so clustered together. If this was a TFO like Dranuur Gauntlet that requires the group to spread out and cover 3 different sections, that TFO is going to fail because the other 4 people do not have the output to defend the other sections as they're below the 40k minimum.
In the second scenario the run is guaranteed to fail even though the team combined is doing 200k because the damage isn't distributed like it needs to be. Even if we said our high numbers guy is now doing 1m DPS on his own, the run will still fail because he can't be in 3 places at once. This would mean 4 of the people in that run are not yet ready for the content. In elite TFOs all the objectives that were previously optional become required objectives that are hardcoded failure conditions if they're not met. This is something Cryptic themselves put in place, meaning one person who joins the TFO knowing they're not ready has caused a failure for the other 4 people in the run which is not fair to them. There are plenty of TFOs with mechanics requiring large areas to be covered like that.
When advocating the Dungeon Journal along with the Performance and Gear Checks, this is why I have advocated the 5th guy should be barred from public runs of higher tier content until he can demonstrate he's ready for those runs. He's still able to join on private with friends who may have agreed to carry him through, just not join a public TFO and force 4 random people to carry him. Lesser runs are not going to fail with a high DPS person in the group, but higher runs will fail with the lesser DPS person in the group. I do not find it fun to fail because one guy over-estimated himself and joined something he knew he wasn't ready for. If the person doesn't have the gear to meet the Gear check, they won't survive and be able to contribute to the run and will cause it to fail. If the person doesn't have the Performance to clear the Performance check, they will cause the run to fail. They can still play any difficulty with friends as that's a controlled environment, but won't be able to join public TFOs on advanced or elite until they prove they are ready.
Lastly on the AFK penalty. In order to avoid the AFK penalty, you only need to have dealt 1-2% of the team's damage for the entirety of the run. To give a real world example I will utilize an actual ISA run I did a few months back. Over the course of the run the team dealt combined 45m damage and ended the run in 75 seconds. In order to avoid the AFK penalty of 1% you would have needed to deal 450k damage, not DPS, but damage. This would equate to 6k DPS or more and the lowest guy in that run was at 27k DPS and never in any danger of being AFKed. Had the run gone to 150 seconds, that 6k to avoid the afk penalty would become 3k and so on. Assuming we wanted to AFK that guy at 27k DPS, the run would have needed to end in less than 15 seconds, and by the way ISA is setup that's not going to happen.
Using our hypothetical mod team run from before, none of the people would get hit with an AFK penalty from that run. This is why I find it disingenuous when people act like AFK penalties are being handed out left and right, because they're not. People are getting to play and they are getting to shoot, just not as much as they would like. I have no control over their perception of whether they got to shoot as much as they would like or not, yet some are advocating changes that would punish so called high DPSers based on a subjective whim.
Val, despite what you think I actually did read what was said. First off the team isn't going to just waltz over to the other side without making sure the first side is destroyed, or will explode as soon as they leave. That's not how people do ISA. Also from what you're saying, this would mean meimeitoo was not moving with the team and staying together but trying to do their own thing. Which begs the question why would they be running off on their own and not staying with the team?
They've also admitted they're not getting an AFK penalty so they are getting to participate. They've also said they have a 30 second window to attack the first cube. As I outlined above you can get there and set your powers off in about 10 seconds leaving enough time for 5 complete firing cycles to occur. Then assuming movement powers are used and another 20 seconds to destroy the other side, that's another 5 complete firing cycles. Even if they only got a single cycle in the middle on the gate and tac cube, that's 11 complete firing cycles. So it is objectively false to say they are not getting to participate and pretend like they're getting hit with an AFK penalty. They may not be getting to shoot as much as they would like, but they are getting to shoot.
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To cover this really quickly since it wasn't there when I drafted my above reply.
Elite requires higher levels of coordination and there is no room for error. All the optionals from advanced and normal are now requirements with hard coded failure conditions if you don't meet them. If you fail one thing you fail the entire TFO. Sometimes those of us who can play elite like a little mindless destruction without thinking about that.
If someone fails a TFO because they didn't meet a specific condition, that's not people like me saying "get good", that's the game itself saying you missed it. I'm saying if people want to play on advanced and elite they should have to pull advanced/elite levels of weight to do it.
If that advanced TFO requires them to do 15k DPS to clear it, then they need to do 15k. If that elite requires 70k DPS to clear it, then they need to be doing 70k. These would be standards cryptic themselves put in place and hard coded into the TFOs. When I say that guy doing less than our hypothetical 70k has no business in elite, that's not just me telling him that, that's the hardcoded fail condition Cryptic put in place telling him that he's not ready for that content.
Also included some AFK penalty examples above to show they're not as common as people want to believe. They're in fact very rare.
My issue is that people are coming in and saying they're not getting to play because of so called high DPSers even though by their own admission they're avoiding the AFK penalty and getting rewards, which means they are getting to play. They're then advocating changes to effect people like myself and others who would qualify as high DPS by their standards, all while they remain untouched, then getting mad when they are held to that same standard. If they're going to advocate that folks be asked to bring a lesser ship or systems that would forcibly nerf people like myself, I see no reason I shouldn't be allowed to ask they bring a stronger ship.
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You don't have your own table when playing teamed content so it may be necessary to take care of things prior to putting your feet up.
Funny thing is I can recall this sort of analogy being used not too long ago in a different thread.
BMR asked where the math was coming from. I explained where the math was coming from. If there are still questions then, BMR can ask those questions. Otherwise you are not needed to speak for them.
You accuse me of not reading, yet didn't read yourself. Note that I said 11 firing cycles. Do you not know what a firing cycle is? Firing cycles are when you press spacebar on your weapons and fire for the next 4-6 seconds. Which is around 5 shots per weapon. If you're firing 11 cycles then you're firing your weapons for a minimum of 44 seconds. If the run only lasts 80 seconds, as meimeimetoo's hypothetical run would indicate, they're still present for over half of the run and they are participating. Whether they like how much they got to play is irrelevant to the fact that they did get to play. Had they adjusted their build to include some mobility, they would've been able to play the entire time.
Whether you want to debate the run was too short or not is irrelevant to the fact they are getting to play.
I would suggest that you do the same with what I've posted, but you've already made up your mind that you're not going to listen no matter what and are in denial and none could possibly know as much as you. Even engaging with Potsey you have shown you have little to no regard for anything you're being shown, even concrete data showing that AFK penalties are not as common as you believe they are.
If you are avoiding the afk penalty you are getting credit for the run and you are getting to play. You just don't like how long you're getting to play, which is an opinion you're entitled to. If you know people are getting there and vaporizing things before you can get there, then you should try adding some mobility to keep up. If you're not willing to even try using more than a single mobility skill, sorry but that tells me that people just want to complain. I'm not responsible for your subjective perception of whether something is fun or not.
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Misrepresent much? LOL. For starters, I actally said
And you're really being quite disingenuous here. This is not about you giving advice on how to get better for Elites, but about you, an Elite player, wanting to run Advanced queues, and then lecture the players there, who are rightfully playing at their own level, to 'git gud,' just to keep up with you. As I never incur an AFK-penalty at my Advanced level, I have therefore never 'advocated changes,' nor complained about these Elite interlopers. In general, though, I'd say an Elite player stomping on an Advanced queue is as 'unfair' as an Advanced player dragging down the group in an Elite: both allowed, but not necessarily a polite, team-friendly thing to do. You, however, only want to see your side.
Sorry but no, that's you misrepresenting my position again. I want to change nothing. I read your Tripartite Fail, and came to the conclusion -- long before this thread even -- that DPS is too fickle to measure accurately, and that all these 'quick solutions' don't really work.
And yes, I "don't want to make changes" on my side, because I'm happy where I am at, at Advanced, and doing well there, thank you. The only reason you suggest I, and others, change their build, is so can absolve yourself of feeling guilty when purposely playing on a lower level, wrecking the TFO for others. I don't have to 'git gud' to play on Advanced: I'm already good enough for that.
Okay problem solved since you say you like where you're at. Then don't complain if/when you get grouped with what you call an elite player who also likes where they're at and you don't get to participate as much because you've dug your heels in and refused to change anything. Just as you say you don't want to change anything on your side, they don't have to change anything on their side either. Everyone keeps doing what they're doing and deals with what they're dealt be it unfun or not.
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And I don't complain.
^^ Good to see some ppl get it.
My guy, I think you're missing the point. You're kinda caught up in your own argument. Try and take a step back and see this from a different perspective. I don't believe anyone here is advocating for Elite gameplay to be nerfed, so that players, who truly are not ready for it, can play it anyway without having to change or improve.
The issue is Elite players stepping down into Advanced and Normal gameplay and vaporizing everything before the players, who are skilled and appropriately geared for that level of gameplay, get to do much of anything.
Ok, so you say that you occassionally like to step down from Elite for "mindless destruction", so that you don't have to worry about the fail conditions associated with Elite. I get that. Fair enough.
The problem I am having, and the problem that most everyone else is having here, is that you cannot dictate to those players IN ADVANCED AND NORMAL GAMEPLAY that they must change/improve/"get good" just because you, as an ELITE, decided to play in their sandbox. That's unfair. They ARE geared appropriately. They ARE skilled enough for their level of content. The Elite is the odd one out.
Players' skills are going to naturally improve the more they play the game. Players are naturally going to use better gear as they advance as well, because better gear becomes available through loot drops, and then there's Reputation gear if they choose to go that route. They may not decide to craft and/or upgrade gear, but that's completely unnecessary to be successful.
No one here, except Elites, is talking about unskilled, under-geared players playing Elite level content, though. Everyone else is talking about Elites stepping down onto everyone else's playground. Hell, the OP even mentions getting zerged out of Romulan Imperial Minefield by uber-DPSers. A mission that becomes available at level 10! How is a level 10 supposed to "get good" and compete with that?
So, if you want to step down from the NBA and play a college-level or even high school-level basketball game, fine. You'll obviously dominate the court. But is everyone else gonna have as good of a time playing, if they never even get a chance to touch the ball? Is it fair for you to yell at them to "get good" when it's you out of your league and on their court? No, it's not.
Damnit, y'all made me use a sports reference. 🙄
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^^ Probably the most lucid post in the thread. I could have saved myself a whole lot of typing.
Yes, if a Normal or Advanced player wants to try Elite, they should bring a better build cause Advanced build just won't cut Elite content.
Normal/Advanced players ARE geared for Normal/Advanced TFOs and should not have to 'git gud' just because an overpowered, Elite player comes down to their levels to play.
Maybe the devs could add Advanced/Elite levels to Event TFOs. Would that solve the problem? Mostly. There will still be Elite-level players dropping down to do runs as fast as possible to get a daily over with.
Pretty sure they're not trying to troll 'lesser' builds with their uber builds. To me, if I've built something uber I'd use it in uber content. If I wanted to use it in Normal or Advanced I'd pick something for single player play-such as Patrols and story missions. I'll probably never have the uber build, but I can get through Advanced and participate enough to not get AFK'd. In fact, I think I only got AFK'd once, a very long time ago.
So, not complaining about Elites coming down, so long as I can still participate. Just don't expect me to change my build unless I just want to experiment with something.
Actually that very thing has been argued in the original post and in a subsequent post from the very beginning of the thread.
In these posts, the OP indicates they believe it shouldn't be possible for people to do so much damage and that the devs need to do something about. Simultaneously also saying they wouldn't consider increasing their damage or mobility as they like things where it is. I'm sorry but in my book, that's striking at people like me first. They're advocating that my output be reduced because they don't like my ability to generate said levels of output, while simultaneously not wanting to change anything of their own build to improve their ability to participate. To Marik's credit, he has been the most civil person arguing said point.
I accept those people are saying they're not having fun. I also accept they think there is too much damage in the game, which they are entitled to as an opinion. I've even agreed with them that advanced and elite versions of event maps need to return as I despise being relegated to normal modes.
In this thread and in the last one before this, neither myself or anyone else said anything that amounted to "get good" until others first advocated that people like myself and others they would label as high DPS essentially have our builds nerfed or nerf ourselves because they have refused to change. I was content not to say anything unless someone else started the conversation, which is what happened with the first thread, and now here in this one. Had they not said something on these forums first, I wouldn't have said anything either. Yet certain people chose to come onto these forums and advocate that the devs make changes to negatively impact my build and others they would view as high DPS because they can't participate as much as they feel they should be able too. While simultaneously refusing to alter their own builds to allow them greater chance to participate. In other words, by default advocating everyone else is responsible for their ability to participate or lack of. And I wholly reject that notion. Essentially they're poking what they've admitted to be a beehive or may cause a "circling of the wagons" and then getting mad when the bees actually sting or there is a circling of the wagons.
Is it conceivable by sheer statistics and probability that someone could enter a lower level TFO and vaporize everything before anyone else has had a chance to fire, sure it could happen, and I've acknowledged this. Do a doubt that it's happened at some point, again no I don't. The game has been around long enough that I'm sure many statistically improbable events have happened. At the same time I refuse to believe that this is happening as often as some people in here want me to believe without some sort of evidence to back it up. If people are getting rewards for the TFO then this eviscerates the argument that they're not getting to participate, because if they couldn't participate at all then they would get hit with an AFK penalty, yet people in here are saying they're not seeing AFK penalties. So they are in fact getting to participate, just not as much as they would like to. They say they would like to participate more, okay fair enough. First, what are they doing on their part to give themselves the greatest chance to participate? If they know people are getting to targets before them, and destroying things before they can ever fire, have they tried to use a build with more mobility to it so they can keep up? If the answer is no, then they have no grounds to say it's not a mobility issue because they've never tried.
I'm of the mindset that so long as people meet the standards the game itself imposes, they have a right to be in any content they choose, be they exactly at the minimum standards or exceeding those standard 100 times over. If a TFO like Dranuur Gauntlet required 40k from each person (idk what the actual number for elite is but you get the idea), and they are not pulling that 40k and cause the TFO to fail, that's not me telling them they need to improve, that is the game itself as established by Cryptic telling them they need to improve. In that hypothetical scenario I am not the one that set that 40k, but Cryptic themselves when they hardcoded it into the TFO, yet people want to get mad at me for saying what the game is already telling them. I am not holding them to any kind of standard in that instance other than the one the game itself established, yet somehow I'm the bad guy. If people want to come onto these forums saying they think DPS should be toned down by the devs, thus effecting me and others, they can't get mad when on the opposite side of the coin I say they need to bring better builds if they're having trouble participating. It goes both ways on that and is a double standard to advocate I need to bring a lesser build and/or DPS needs to be toned down, while simultaneously refusing to change anything on their end to help themselves. THAT is what I have an issue with. They expect me to be the one to change while doing nothing on their side, yet get mad when I hold them to that same standard.
As for people improving by playing the game, generally I would agree, but there are plenty who refuse to learn and get better. I'm sure you saw my example of my former fleetmate that I named Bob. In fact I've shown you the build that Bob was using in that instance in mod chat before. Bob claimed he had been playing since beta, but died 18 times in normal mode. Yet got angry when my officer dared try to help him. Bob would not accept that he was in part to blame for his woes and insisted it was the game and refused to change anything, thus refusing to learn. This is why I have advocated the checks I do. It filters out people like Bob who would ruin it for others, while giving everyone else a path of progression to learn and improve. How far they choose to go down that path is up to them so long as they're meeting the minimums for the content as required by the game itself.
I can think of two ways to solve that issue, but there is a glaring elephant in the room that needs to be mentioned with that example. While I get what you're going for with the example, we're not talking about low level characters and people below max level here. We're talking about people who have had plenty of time to hit max level. I do not hold low level characters to the same standard I would a max level character. I'm much more inclined to have sympathy for a struggling level 10 character than I am someone who is max level, especially if that max level toon has been playing as long as some of the people in here hint that they've been playing. Now with that out of the way I will address the Minefield example.
-The first way that this can be solved is level brackets in the TFO system. Only those people within 10 levels of each other can join public TFOs together. This limits the the difference between stats to something far more manageable.
-The second solution is to apply a scaling mechanic similar to the one SWTOR uses. In SWTOR let's suppose you were on a planet for levels 26-32 and you're level 30. Let's suppose I wanted to bring my level 80 toon that's at max gear and damage level. Once I arrived on that planet, the game would scale me and my equipment down to level 32 and assume I am using the highest grade of equipment available for that level. In STO terms, if you were level 30 and could conceivably only access mk vii golds, then the game would assume I am 32 with mk vii golds. While I may have a slight stat advantage, you are still able to compete.
Lastly for the NBA example, again I get what you're going for but the analogy doesn't work in this instance. The NBA example implies by necessity that certain people can't obtain NBA status and can never make it to the NBA. It also implies by necessity that those people who can't get to the NBA can't have the skills said NBA player does, and in STO that's simply not the case. When we've talked before about ships in game and the like, I've mentioned that there are maybe 9 ships that I don't own because I have no interest in them and have a ton of toons that I've geared out. That's not an exaggeration. Everything I have now as a lifetime player, someone starting the game tomorrow could eventually have themselves, it will just take them longer to get there. The only exceptions possibly being the lifetime ships. Every skill, every ship, every power I am capable of obtaining and learning to use, they are capable of obtaining and learning to use as well. In terms of accessibility the entire playerbase is on equal footing. If they know they are having trouble with survival as one example, and they know there is a set in game that will give them greater survival, or a console off a certain ship in the cstore that could help them, yet they refuse to go after either of them, who is at fault?
I am saying, if people are going to advocate DPS be limited or nerfed so they can participate more, I'm going to also advocate they bring better builds at the same time so they have the greatest chance to compete from the start. Had the OP not said anything, I wouldn't have said anything on this subject either.
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Dude, I'm not even gonna point by point that, because it's becoming tedious and quite frankly, there's been enough rambling going on in this thread.
Ok, I concede that marik initially called for nerfing top-end DPS. I don't agree with that. Seeking DPS is a valid gameplay path for those who enjoy chasing that dragon. But of those in this thread, I believe, he is in the minority asking for that. Val, who you have most consistently butted heads with here, certainly wasn't asking for anything to be nerfed. In fact, Val's main point before getting sidetracked with your proposal, was that more Elite level content needs to be added and better rewards to incentivize playing it, to give DPSers a place to play without affecting Advanced and Normal level players.
But that proposal certainly wouldn't solve the problem either, because, by your own admission, Elites will drop down and play Advanced and Normal just to get through their dailies faster or to do "mindless destruction" without having to worry about Elite requirements, thereby, still causing "issues" for Advanced and Normal level players.
The NBA analogy is quite apropos, because it has little to do with whether one CAN make it to the NBA, but the fact that one isn't CURRENTLY in the NBA. So, dropping an NBA player on a high school basketball court and suddenly expecting the high schoolers to play at NBA level is absurd. One day, they may make it to the NBA, but today is not that day. And the NBA should stay in the NBA.
In all honesty, it doesn't matter what measures are put in place or content is provided by Cryptic. Players will always find a way to follow the path of least resistance and do things that are unintended. The crux of the matter, therefore, boils down to this: human behavior and human decency. Can you be a decent person to your fellow teammates, regardless of what level you or they are at?
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Darkblade, please read what I wrote. I play on Normal. I don't want to play Elite or Advanced.
My build is fine for Normal. I can contribute, even when some Elite player has decided to come dump all over my playground. But ideally, I'd like to do more than that - and when that option is taken from me, I may decide to stop playing TFOs in the first place. Which of course leads to a lower population in TFOs, and longer waits for any of them to pop...
I'm all for adding in additional content and have even said to Val that I agree with that proposal. I also feel for those who say they're having a hard time, but I reject the notion that their woes are exclusively caused by players like myself choosing to play on lower difficulties. I also reject the notion that if I use my strongest builds in advanced content I'm somehow trolling those players just like I also reject the notion people using their weakest builds on elite is trolling with one sole exception, so long as them using that weak build isn't causing the TFO to fail.
It really comes down to whether people believe Cryptic and developers are allowed to set standards for their games and people should be beholden to those standards. Such as our hypothetical 200k TFO that Val brought up before. If Cryptic themselves set the standard of 200k for the TFO and by extension 40k per person, is Cryptic wrong for setting that standard, and am I wrong for insisting people should have to meet that standard before being allowed in that TFO? It's akin to getting a driver's license. No parent is going to just hand the keys over to their 16yr old without making sure they've taught them to drive first, and that they have a license. I see it as no different for TFOs. I want people to be able to play and get into as high of content as they want to get into, but not at the cost of sabotaging that TFO into failure for others. I am not demanding they be the best driver in existence, I'm simply asking them to have a license and not wreck my car.
With regards to decency, I'm all for not being a tool to teammates in runs. At the same time I completely reject the notion that someone like myself taking my strongest build into advanced content amounts to me trolling. Because if that now counts as trolling, them bringing super weak builds into a TFO also counts as trolling. I reject the idea that I should have to bring a lesser build into advanced runs as that line of thinking seeks to make me entirely responsible for the ability or lack of, for other people to play the game. As I said, if I bring a slow ship into a TFO and everyone gets there before me and nukes things, but I'm not willing to change anything at all to even try to remedy the situation, who is at fault, me or the team? And if we're to the team is at fault for not waiting on me, how long are they supposed to wait on me past the briefing before doing their thing? People can call me old school, elitist, or what have you. but I'm of the mindset people have no right to things they have not earned, in game. Or in today's world earned and/or paid for. I'm also of the mindset people are responsible for their own ability or lack of in game. If people need help but don't ask, that's on them not me.
I disagree with the NBA analogy being valid because we're not talking about a pvp scenario but a pve co-op in a video game. There is no competition against other players and all have agreed to the same objectives. So long as people are getting rewards I see nothing wrong with anything. I've had plenty of runs that annoyed living daylights out of me in SWTOR over the years because of bad teammates, same with STO. So long as they're not actively trolling or failing the content for everyone else, I let it roll off, because I don't have to see those people again if I don't want to. The thing I want to know that I've yet to really get an answer from anyone over, at what point does personal responsibility come into play? If we're going to insist that it's decency to bring a lower power build into advanced, and I've waited a certain amount of time for them to get in a few shots, at what point are they then responsible for themselves? Where does my responsibility end and theirs begin? Because from where I'm sitting it seems like alot of people want to blame the so called evil DPS for all their woes, but don't want to acknowledge that they might just have a hand in their own issue.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator