I wish people who say "just use tier 1 gear" would just go away. The whole point of grinding for the best gear is so you're capable of doing the hardest content. At least that's how it is in other MMOs. Somewhere along the way the devs forgot to give us the harder "elite" content.
I wish people who say "just use tier 1 gear" would just go away. The whole point of grinding for the best gear is so you're capable of doing the hardest content. At least that's how it is in other MMOs. Somewhere along the way the devs forgot to give us the harder "elite" content.
I don't think they forgot it. I don't think it was ever part of the plan. STO is intended to be a multi-player on-line game for fans of the franchise, or at least one part of the franchise as the devs have made it abundantly clear that this game is all about Picard. In theory an EQ style raiding endgame could get added, I don't think that would necessarily be a great improvement. Anyway, before they could do that they would have to give the game mechanics a complete overhaul, because totally OP tacscorts being the only viable gameplay combination is the root cause of all evil in STO.
As it is, I always have a lot of different things to do when I log in to STO.
Stop going for the most OP'd build on the best ship and try something different. Use all beams on your escort, stick your tac captain in a science ship, hell, jump in the GalX and have some fun. I'm in the process of finding the best possible build for the Galaxy retrofit. Stop crying for a challenge from cryptic and go fine one for yourself.
This is a bit odd to say but it tends to be true. Your friend should try doing STF's on normal, I have found that on normal STF's can tend to be harder then on elite.
I think ! very important Point to all this is that in the best STF's we are fighting the Borg and we are doing in 5 to 10 minuets , So were in cannon did the Borg become so easy to manage or kill ? Yeah it's a game and yeah none of us like the one shot kills, but The Borg are relentless with no feeling they come at us with numbers. Where is the vortex that suddenly opens and waves of Borg pour out to overwhelm us causing us to pull back and regroup?
Oh yeah there not going to do this because then we would be enjoying the game the challenge, instead we get timers in which we need to get things done.
I am sure the Timer and all that goes with it are there for 2 reasons . The first of lack of server space and second if your playing in the same mission for an hour and all you have is an hour you do nothing else ( which sadly , your in turn not thinking about spending money ).
I have a solution for the second and it is simple and maybe for the first also.....
first the second , in order to do the mission you must have a token obtained in what ever way PWE decides it's appropriate (ZEN, DILITHIUM, certain number of Stf runs ) this would limit the amount of people doing them. Personally I Think it would be Good to award the bonus run after doing all 8 Borg Elite STF's.
Now the first , If in fact it is an issue with server space Make the mission so that we can only do this once a week. A Weekly mission if you will, along with the requirnment that you did all 8 STF's this would thin out the heard.
Last , In the above Method it would also remove the trolls that come in just to mess things up, after all why would they waste there time doing all 8 Stf (that would take too long ).
The missions are easier because you have better kit. Rep passives, rep sets, fleet ships, fleet engi consoles, fleet sci consoles, new traits, ...
After a while people will complain and cryptic will roll out harder mobs, then people will complain about those and cryptic will release Mk XV gear and new ships with 12 consoles and Rank 60 and you will grind it all over again, Mr. Hamster.
Unless Cryptic can introduce a gear score system and make all PVE content scale up or down based on the gear sore of all teamed players, content will always seem unchallenging to long time players of STO.
The problem with just making PVE content hard enough to deal with the power creep that is the gear and traits that long term players of STO have is that newer or under geared players will be blown back to the stone age when they try to step foot in said content.
A Gear Score system with the tech in place so that the PVE content will take the gear score of all teamed members running the content and adjust the difficulty level of the content accordingly would go a long way in helping to keep newer and older players feeling somewhat challenged when playing the content.
Also, since you seem to be implying that you are leaving, can I have your stuff? I know other people have asked... but umm... I need it more than them.
Please consider it, thanks! ^_^
Original Join Date: January 2010 Original Name: -Gen-Alaris Days Subscribed: 1211 (As of May 26, 2013)
Bored after a month or so?? Your are kidding, right? Like there are soo many things you can do in-game now, I only wish i would have more time to play. As others mentioned, try PvP, Foundry Missions, Doff system... There is a ton of content in foundry and plenty of chalanges in PvP. And the doff system is very nice, I like it alot.
As for an extra challange, sure would be nice a sliderbar to adjust the difficulty for you alone, like how much dmg you are doing and how much you take, even in STFs, but I doubt thats possible. There is something similar for single missions, but i am talking here for each player independently, in STFs.
Also its possible, and I am not trolling or anything, but saying this with best intentions, maybe this game isnt for your friend. There are ppl that like hardcore, fast action games so ofc this game wont be for their taste.
Edit: Now i saw it, the idea with all 8 STFs tied together its bad IMO. Now I do like grounds, but not many ppl do, so there will be again lots of complaints about "forcing" ppl to do them, or even if as a bonus reward that it wouldnt be fair etc... Pre S6, when was mandatory to do each of them for a chance of prototype thingies, ppl didnt like that so i doubt they would like it now.
and u think harder game would be good?if they would made game a lot harder tons of ppl would rage quit since they would make game p2w since everyone would be forced to have 200$ ships
The request for the original stf missions to be returned has been repeated over and over. I personally campaign for this on a regular basis for the storyline but regretfully such request are ignored. Sad fact is that Cryptic sees the return of such things as a step backwards (the step back was splitting them up to begin with)
Anyways to make the game more challenging there would need to be a complete overhaul of the game, sto 2.0 so to speak. Updated AI and mechanics are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
This game is not easy, when the hardest mission on the game can be finish in 2 minutes, is because is just not easy.
When you can do the end game content with a tier 1 ship and MK I gear is because is just not easy.
When you can do the end game content by putting your ship in auto fire wile you go to the bathroom, is because is just not easy.
This game was easy before Free to play, now is beyond easy, and to said the true, I don?t know an English word to define the difficulty level of this game.
Most f2p games are a easy grindfest of sleeping at the keyboard and waking up to see you still got loot from the dungeon/raid/whatever
Someone posted a comment about how they let the timer run out on incursion or something and still get 35 fleet marks...and that made me facepalm irl
the simple fact is, if people want a challenge, they pay for it...
I play ff14 for the group dynamics and getting face rolled on the primal hard modes, I usually don't get angry till the 6th wipe in less than 60 seconds doing them....
but I pay for that game,
than I come back here for the more fun element of not stressing about gear damage, negative xp, and so forth....
games are one or the other not both anymore....luckily I don't have to pay for this one anymore...
If I understand correctly, what you guys want with the extra challenge is the following:
harder enemies, or enemies with larger resistances, or more hp, or tougher to kill...
which will, in turn, give you better rewards...
which will, in turn, make those enemies easier to kill...
Which the devs, in turn, will have to make tougher content to compensate for...
which will, in turn, give you better rewards...
...
Hmm. Do you see how that can quickly become literally impossible to achieve?
The best players are to be respected and lauded. Good for them! They 'beat' the game. Good on ya!
Except... that's not really the point of this game, imo. The point of this game, and most MMOs, imo, is the immersion, which has been addressed before. And not just the "I'm in Star Trek" immersion, but the "I'm in an alternate universe" immersion. The "I have myself a passel of ships (in fact, a passel of people/aliens piloting a passel of ships!) and I can blow things up good!!" immersion.
Obviously, the game would be better with 'better' mechanics, better pvp, better etc... but making a challenge for the cream of the crop makes the game nearly impossible for the casual player. Finding that balance is the Holy Grail of MMOs.
There are some solutions - foundry missions, artificially making the game a challenge for yourself - these are what some would call stopgap, others would call "Handicapping". Can't beat Tiger Woods? Of course you can't - so he spots you 25 shots. Can't beat Kobe? Fine, he spots you 40. Can't win in a fight with Tyson? Don't do that, that's just stupid, you will die.
Want to go 1v1 against a player with 6 months in the game when you're a Beta Lifer? Figure out a handicap - YOU ARE THE EXPERT!! Then get that much better against a JHAS with your T1 Miranda, and take pride in your handicap - even if you lose! Dare him to take you on. Think Tiger can't beat you on 18 holes with only a driver made in 1956? I think he probably (99.8%) could. Maybe he wouldn't take the bet... only because he has plenty of other challenges... but if he was bored? I bet he would.
Please reconsider ARC. Please make it optional, at the least. PLEASE.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
Years ago, there were games that we had that we played among our friends - the physically close, available, and interested friends. How many? Likely 3-20 MAX. Usually 3-4. These were peers - people you had much in common with - similar lifestyles, time constraints, resources ($$), temperament. The days before the UBIQUITOUS CONSTANTLY CONNECTED INTERWEBB PING STATUS UPDATE LOOKATMENOW!!!
Now... I am an adult with a job, and though I play a LOT of hours, relatively, (25-40/week) I can't hold a CANDLE to 8-12 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no other stuff to do and no other pressures to deal with. (Thank God I graduated college before MMOs!!!) Imagine the guy who plays 4-6 hours a week with 3 kids. Imagine the mom who plays 3 hours a week while the kids are at soccer practice, after a grueling day at work.
We have a VAST difference in skill levels, time, money, etc. Playing 40 hours a week for 2 years may make some gurus. Most won't reach that level. I don't care to compete with "Johnny College Paid For with no worries and all the time in the world to play".
If that guy pwns me, meh. And I don't want my game experience defined by his awesomeness.
Just some things to think about.
Please reconsider ARC. Please make it optional, at the least. PLEASE.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
If I understand correctly, what you guys want with the extra challenge is the following:
harder enemies, or enemies with larger resistances, or more hp, or tougher to kill...
which will, in turn, give you better rewards...
which will, in turn, make those enemies easier to kill...
Which the devs, in turn, will have to make tougher content to compensate for...
which will, in turn, give you better rewards...
...
.
No that is not what I am saying what I am saying is that they can give us a mission that has no time restriction that takes some sort of team effort to achieve. They do not need stronger enemies or new items. What they need is sort of what they had with the original cure ground potion where if you did not stay back and pick off your enemies you failed to get past that point.
I don't think you should be able to go in and just **** a map in 5 minutes and be done !
Yes we have the Best weapons and the Best gear, does this mean we get to destroy the maps and be done ?
Where is the enjoyment in that or the challenge ? I grind all the time for My rep for my fleet base for dilithium and quite Honestly Grinding gets tiring . I and as I am sure others want a few mission where the reward is having FUN if nothing else !!
I never once said we need new rewards or Items, What I want is a mission we do just for the challenge not the reward .
I wish people who say "just use tier 1 gear" would just go away. The whole point of grinding for the best gear is so you're capable of doing the hardest content. At least that's how it is in other MMOs. Somewhere along the way the devs forgot to give us the harder "elite" content.
Well, on the RP side of it, you can have it be, the chain of command has said you must use a particular ship, on a particular mission, for whatever reason, lol.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
If I understand correctly, what you guys want with the extra challenge is the following:
harder enemies, or enemies with larger resistances, or more hp, or tougher to kill...
which will, in turn, give you better rewards...
which will, in turn, make those enemies easier to kill...
Which the devs, in turn, will have to make tougher content to compensate for...
which will, in turn, give you better rewards...
...
Hmm. Do you see how that can quickly become literally impossible to achieve?
why continue to make better gear? Just make it different, 75% of this game is cosmetics anyway. I remember the original 3 stfs, 2 difficulties, RA and VA. And with the top gear back then it was still a challenge. That lasted a good while, till PWE made the game f2p which I was all for because it would bring in more players but in turn they dumbed to obivion. They can fix it, raise the level cap and insert proper endgame content the way it was before. Unfortunately I know they won't and I'm just wasting my time. The past is dead.
why continue to make better gear? Just make it different, 75% of this game is cosmetics anyway. I remember the original 3 stfs, 2 difficulties, RA and VA. And with the top gear back then it was still a challenge. That lasted a good while, till PWE made the game f2p which I was all for because it would bring in more players but in turn they dumbed to obivion. They can fix it, raise the level cap and insert proper endgame content the way it was before. Unfortunately I know they won't and I'm just wasting my time. The past is dead.
Inevitably, there will be comparisons. One or the other will be superior, because there are currently so many variables that the myth of 'perfect balance' is nigh unachievable.
So it's either 'power creep', or it's 'this new POS suxxors, it's less powerful than [Adapted MACO], so why should I buy it????'
My (second) point stands. In a pool of 20 people, one may be great. In a pool of 100,000, one thousand will inevitably be superb.
Please reconsider ARC. Please make it optional, at the least. PLEASE.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
Play the STFs with white equipment that is not optimized (e.g. one tetryon console, one phaser console, and one disruptor console) -- with one weapon of each type. Try a torp boat with no projectile doffs.
Use white space DOFFs.
Use free T5 ships or mirror ships.
Use the less powerful BOFF powers.
It's not difficult at all to make STFs challenging by using weaker equipment. The T1 ship idea is overkill. I can't imagine anyone doing Hive elite with a bunch of Connies, or Breach either.
I have a decently optimized T5 recon science ship and I can't tank a node in Breach even with HE III, PH 1, cranked shields, and other protective abilities. I have all purple XII gear (including two antiproton armors) and purple doffs. Good luck doing well with white stuff and without optimization.
I wish people who say "just use tier 1 gear" would just go away.
Same for the pretentious strutting peacocks who drone on and on about "OMG I wantz teh challenge!!!!1!!" in a freaking online game. You want challenge, join the International Handgun Metallic Silhouette Association and try to knock down a 30+ pound ram at 200 meters with a handgun. Your leet clicking skills and keybind timing don't impress me.
People who are big on challenge and achievement make up somewhere between 5 and 20% of most MMOs playerbases.
In turn, the amount of balancing and AI programming needed to satisfy those players usually winds up taking a lot more resources.
As a result, a lot of MMOs have shifted their development priorities.
And all those games are dead in the Water or declining in a massive way.
Funny enough, games which keep their focus on "hardcore gamers" are healthie and even growing!
Examples?
World of ********, declining in a massive snowball effect, since the "Elitist players" have been driven off because of Blizzard catering to the lazy people which cant be arsed to put effort into their hobby.
Its now on an all time LOW regarding subscribers.
Other example?
EVE Online, growing steadily, does it grow slowly? Yes, but steady.
Yet, funny enough, its only of interest for a more mature and hardcore audience.
But why?
Easy.
Hardcore gamers tend to STAY if they love something, they invest insane ammounts of time AND money for their hobby, more then most people would even invest in RL stuff like relationships...
While the "lazy TRIBBLE bunch" tends to jump from game to game, as soon as they get bored (which is usualy a few weeks in) yes, they DO drop a dollar or two during their stay.
but, why o why, would be the second group of more interest for companys?
Because Companys, ultimately, have to server the share Holders, and share holders dont give a single **** about what is going to happen next YEAR.
All they want are the biggest possible nummbers for Next QUARTER.
And from this shortsigthedness and greed, the "philosophie" has sprung, that you need as many players as possible, because getting 30% growth THIS quarter (and killing off your game next year) seems to be of more importance then getting only a growth of 5% this Quarter, but a stable and solid company Next Year.
Blizzards simple secret of sucess is this:
Building trust within the playerbase.
They showed, since the days of diablo 1 and starcraft, that they love their games, and care, patches where churned out even TEN years after the release of SC 1
That, plus games which interested "archievers" and hardcore competive players,
founded a base for a community to grow arround and from there, it was obvious what would happen after world of warcrafts release.
then you had the watering down, now you have the downfall.
And no, it is NOT a question of WoWs "Age", EVE online is even older
and no, i am NOT comparing the games, i am comparing how the companies go about building and maintaining their communities, and which focus is set for their individual communities.
So, long story short, you want sucess? You better get ready to deliver to those hardcore nerds!
From there, if you have that healthy baseline, go and spread more to the casuals,
and for heavens sake, DRIVE AWAY the baddys!
Imagine if you will.......5 Man team goes into holodeck to Practice tatics against the Borg....RED ALERT....... Your team is hailed from the bridge they are under Attack holodeck controls are off line along with Saftey protocols..You and your team are informed to stay alive it'll be 30 minutes to an hour till the repairs can be made.
You are now in a map with peramiters that you set up (PWE) You have only 2 concerns The First and most important...STAY ALIVE .. dead is dead and there is no RESPAWN only revive from another player! The second how to get out...answer finish the mission you started as a Practice run or wait till time runs out!!
Reward nothing if time runs out and whatever if any for completion.
The problem with just making PVE content hard enough to deal with the power creep that is the gear and traits that long term players of STO have is that newer or under geared players will be blown back to the stone age when they try to step foot in said content.
A Gear Score system with the tech in place so that the PVE content will take the gear score of all teamed members running the content and adjust the difficulty level of the content accordingly would go a long way in helping to keep newer and older players feeling somewhat challenged when playing the content.
Long rant incoming!
This is exactly the "problem" that happens whenever a game like WoW releases a new expansion or raises the level cap. It's well-summarized by the phrase:
"Green is the new Purple"
This is MORE of a problem for a game like STO, which is free and supported mainly by microtransactions. Increasing the upper limit of challenge in the aforementioned way would quickly invalidate the gains people get from buying new ships, which while optimally considered a so-called "sidegrade" (i.e. something that doesn't automatically confer advantage), are still attractive because they usually (usually!) guarantee that they are at least in some ways better than what you can get for free.
Anyway, the gear-score idea is a good one, but such dynamic difficulty systems are difficult to program, maintain, and execute on even in games with specific, dedicated "raiding" endgames, which STO in its current structure does not have (arguably it NEVER had this). We don't even know if the engine is capable of scaling in that kind of detail.
And implementing such a system is also risky, because if the game lowered the difficulty for your group because your group went in with a low gear score, why would you ever equip any better gear?
"Challenge" is best done when hand-crafted. Boss phases, scripting, and consistent escalation over the course of an encounter is difficult to handle procedurally, and more often than not the result is simply enemies that become damage sponges rather than genuine tests of tactics, strategy, and equipment.
Look at the difference between Infected Space Normal and Infected Space Elite. Veteran players have been running ISE so long that the plan and what to do comes as second nature, but when you really think about it, knowing what to do to come away with an optional in an Elite STF is actually pretty complicated.
And to be honest? Getting fancy fleet gear that's so awesome you can simply IGNORE the vaunted "10% rule" and carry ISE on sheer steamrolling POWERRRRR is also a great feeling.
We don't need "more challenging content", we need NEW content. More STFs to explore, figure out, and then break. More feature episodes to play once, then play once more to farm the rewards of. More rep systems and fleet holdings to give us an excuse to log in each day and slide some sliders. And so on.
Big picture is, this is exactly what Cryptic is doing, only not as smoothly or as quickly as they might need to to shut down the whiners.
The only problem is that no new queued event is even remotely as compelling as the Omega force STFs, so everyone still does that almost exclusively. But again, those events are artifacts of a time when STO was a subscription game, and the "contract" between content expectation and developer delivery was different.
In a subscription game like WoW, EVE, or SWTOR (they clearly prefer subs to F2Ps and behave accordingly), players are taught to expect "expansion packs" regularly. They release new content in big huge gulps to be consumed very quickly by veterans and slowly over time by everyone else.
F2Ps get by on a steady stream of smaller updates, designed to be engaged every day, regularly, by large amounts of players. In STO's model, that favors things like new ships, new rep systems, "adventure zones" with many repeatable quests, and events that can be done quickly and with little fuss. Not the best recipe for hardcore types that want to test the limits of their munchkin-math.
The question begs, why aren't you playing one of those superawesomesauce games with extra awesome on top because they are so awesomely 'hardcore' instead of posting here about how STO will fail doom-and-gloom because it is not awesomely 'hardcore'?
Comments
As it is, I always have a lot of different things to do when I log in to STO.
Oh yeah there not going to do this because then we would be enjoying the game the challenge, instead we get timers in which we need to get things done.
I am sure the Timer and all that goes with it are there for 2 reasons . The first of lack of server space and second if your playing in the same mission for an hour and all you have is an hour you do nothing else ( which sadly , your in turn not thinking about spending money ).
I have a solution for the second and it is simple and maybe for the first also.....
first the second , in order to do the mission you must have a token obtained in what ever way PWE decides it's appropriate (ZEN, DILITHIUM, certain number of Stf runs ) this would limit the amount of people doing them. Personally I Think it would be Good to award the bonus run after doing all 8 Borg Elite STF's.
Now the first , If in fact it is an issue with server space Make the mission so that we can only do this once a week. A Weekly mission if you will, along with the requirnment that you did all 8 STF's this would thin out the heard.
Last , In the above Method it would also remove the trolls that come in just to mess things up, after all why would they waste there time doing all 8 Stf (that would take too long ).
Unless Cryptic can introduce a gear score system and make all PVE content scale up or down based on the gear sore of all teamed players, content will always seem unchallenging to long time players of STO.
The problem with just making PVE content hard enough to deal with the power creep that is the gear and traits that long term players of STO have is that newer or under geared players will be blown back to the stone age when they try to step foot in said content.
A Gear Score system with the tech in place so that the PVE content will take the gear score of all teamed members running the content and adjust the difficulty level of the content accordingly would go a long way in helping to keep newer and older players feeling somewhat challenged when playing the content.
Also, since you seem to be implying that you are leaving, can I have your stuff? I know other people have asked... but umm... I need it more than them.
Please consider it, thanks! ^_^
Original Name: -Gen-Alaris
Days Subscribed: 1211 (As of May 26, 2013)
As for an extra challange, sure would be nice a sliderbar to adjust the difficulty for you alone, like how much dmg you are doing and how much you take, even in STFs, but I doubt thats possible. There is something similar for single missions, but i am talking here for each player independently, in STFs.
Also its possible, and I am not trolling or anything, but saying this with best intentions, maybe this game isnt for your friend. There are ppl that like hardcore, fast action games so ofc this game wont be for their taste.
Edit: Now i saw it, the idea with all 8 STFs tied together its bad IMO. Now I do like grounds, but not many ppl do, so there will be again lots of complaints about "forcing" ppl to do them, or even if as a bonus reward that it wouldnt be fair etc... Pre S6, when was mandatory to do each of them for a chance of prototype thingies, ppl didnt like that so i doubt they would like it now.
Grind any starbase that has only one or two active members and their alts. Still too easy for you?
Anyways to make the game more challenging there would need to be a complete overhaul of the game, sto 2.0 so to speak. Updated AI and mechanics are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
When you can do the end game content with a tier 1 ship and MK I gear is because is just not easy.
When you can do the end game content by putting your ship in auto fire wile you go to the bathroom, is because is just not easy.
This game was easy before Free to play, now is beyond easy, and to said the true, I don?t know an English word to define the difficulty level of this game.
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www.divisionhispana.com
Someone posted a comment about how they let the timer run out on incursion or something and still get 35 fleet marks...and that made me facepalm irl
the simple fact is, if people want a challenge, they pay for it...
I play ff14 for the group dynamics and getting face rolled on the primal hard modes, I usually don't get angry till the 6th wipe in less than 60 seconds doing them....
but I pay for that game,
than I come back here for the more fun element of not stressing about gear damage, negative xp, and so forth....
games are one or the other not both anymore....luckily I don't have to pay for this one anymore...
harder enemies, or enemies with larger resistances, or more hp, or tougher to kill...
which will, in turn, give you better rewards...
which will, in turn, make those enemies easier to kill...
Which the devs, in turn, will have to make tougher content to compensate for...
which will, in turn, give you better rewards...
...
Hmm. Do you see how that can quickly become literally impossible to achieve?
The best players are to be respected and lauded. Good for them! They 'beat' the game. Good on ya!
Except... that's not really the point of this game, imo. The point of this game, and most MMOs, imo, is the immersion, which has been addressed before. And not just the "I'm in Star Trek" immersion, but the "I'm in an alternate universe" immersion. The "I have myself a passel of ships (in fact, a passel of people/aliens piloting a passel of ships!) and I can blow things up good!!" immersion.
Obviously, the game would be better with 'better' mechanics, better pvp, better etc... but making a challenge for the cream of the crop makes the game nearly impossible for the casual player. Finding that balance is the Holy Grail of MMOs.
There are some solutions - foundry missions, artificially making the game a challenge for yourself - these are what some would call stopgap, others would call "Handicapping". Can't beat Tiger Woods? Of course you can't - so he spots you 25 shots. Can't beat Kobe? Fine, he spots you 40. Can't win in a fight with Tyson? Don't do that, that's just stupid, you will die.
Want to go 1v1 against a player with 6 months in the game when you're a Beta Lifer? Figure out a handicap - YOU ARE THE EXPERT!! Then get that much better against a JHAS with your T1 Miranda, and take pride in your handicap - even if you lose! Dare him to take you on. Think Tiger can't beat you on 18 holes with only a driver made in 1956? I think he probably (99.8%) could. Maybe he wouldn't take the bet... only because he has plenty of other challenges... but if he was bored? I bet he would.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
Important point here - why is that?
Years ago, there were games that we had that we played among our friends - the physically close, available, and interested friends. How many? Likely 3-20 MAX. Usually 3-4. These were peers - people you had much in common with - similar lifestyles, time constraints, resources ($$), temperament. The days before the UBIQUITOUS CONSTANTLY CONNECTED INTERWEBB PING STATUS UPDATE LOOKATMENOW!!!
Now... I am an adult with a job, and though I play a LOT of hours, relatively, (25-40/week) I can't hold a CANDLE to 8-12 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no other stuff to do and no other pressures to deal with. (Thank God I graduated college before MMOs!!!) Imagine the guy who plays 4-6 hours a week with 3 kids. Imagine the mom who plays 3 hours a week while the kids are at soccer practice, after a grueling day at work.
We have a VAST difference in skill levels, time, money, etc. Playing 40 hours a week for 2 years may make some gurus. Most won't reach that level. I don't care to compete with "Johnny College Paid For with no worries and all the time in the world to play".
If that guy pwns me, meh. And I don't want my game experience defined by his awesomeness.
Just some things to think about.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
No that is not what I am saying what I am saying is that they can give us a mission that has no time restriction that takes some sort of team effort to achieve. They do not need stronger enemies or new items. What they need is sort of what they had with the original cure ground potion where if you did not stay back and pick off your enemies you failed to get past that point.
I don't think you should be able to go in and just **** a map in 5 minutes and be done !
Yes we have the Best weapons and the Best gear, does this mean we get to destroy the maps and be done ?
Where is the enjoyment in that or the challenge ? I grind all the time for My rep for my fleet base for dilithium and quite Honestly Grinding gets tiring . I and as I am sure others want a few mission where the reward is having FUN if nothing else !!
I never once said we need new rewards or Items, What I want is a mission we do just for the challenge not the reward .
Well, on the RP side of it, you can have it be, the chain of command has said you must use a particular ship, on a particular mission, for whatever reason, lol.
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
why continue to make better gear? Just make it different, 75% of this game is cosmetics anyway. I remember the original 3 stfs, 2 difficulties, RA and VA. And with the top gear back then it was still a challenge. That lasted a good while, till PWE made the game f2p which I was all for because it would bring in more players but in turn they dumbed to obivion. They can fix it, raise the level cap and insert proper endgame content the way it was before. Unfortunately I know they won't and I'm just wasting my time. The past is dead.
Inevitably, there will be comparisons. One or the other will be superior, because there are currently so many variables that the myth of 'perfect balance' is nigh unachievable.
So it's either 'power creep', or it's 'this new POS suxxors, it's less powerful than [Adapted MACO], so why should I buy it????'
My (second) point stands. In a pool of 20 people, one may be great. In a pool of 100,000, one thousand will inevitably be superb.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
Use white space DOFFs.
Use free T5 ships or mirror ships.
Use the less powerful BOFF powers.
It's not difficult at all to make STFs challenging by using weaker equipment. The T1 ship idea is overkill. I can't imagine anyone doing Hive elite with a bunch of Connies, or Breach either.
I have a decently optimized T5 recon science ship and I can't tank a node in Breach even with HE III, PH 1, cranked shields, and other protective abilities. I have all purple XII gear (including two antiproton armors) and purple doffs. Good luck doing well with white stuff and without optimization.
Same for the pretentious strutting peacocks who drone on and on about "OMG I wantz teh challenge!!!!1!!" in a freaking online game. You want challenge, join the International Handgun Metallic Silhouette Association and try to knock down a 30+ pound ram at 200 meters with a handgun. Your leet clicking skills and keybind timing don't impress me.
And all those games are dead in the Water or declining in a massive way.
Funny enough, games which keep their focus on "hardcore gamers" are healthie and even growing!
Examples?
World of ********, declining in a massive snowball effect, since the "Elitist players" have been driven off because of Blizzard catering to the lazy people which cant be arsed to put effort into their hobby.
Its now on an all time LOW regarding subscribers.
Other example?
EVE Online, growing steadily, does it grow slowly? Yes, but steady.
Yet, funny enough, its only of interest for a more mature and hardcore audience.
But why?
Easy.
Hardcore gamers tend to STAY if they love something, they invest insane ammounts of time AND money for their hobby, more then most people would even invest in RL stuff like relationships...
While the "lazy TRIBBLE bunch" tends to jump from game to game, as soon as they get bored (which is usualy a few weeks in) yes, they DO drop a dollar or two during their stay.
but, why o why, would be the second group of more interest for companys?
Because Companys, ultimately, have to server the share Holders, and share holders dont give a single **** about what is going to happen next YEAR.
All they want are the biggest possible nummbers for Next QUARTER.
And from this shortsigthedness and greed, the "philosophie" has sprung, that you need as many players as possible, because getting 30% growth THIS quarter (and killing off your game next year) seems to be of more importance then getting only a growth of 5% this Quarter, but a stable and solid company Next Year.
Blizzards simple secret of sucess is this:
Building trust within the playerbase.
They showed, since the days of diablo 1 and starcraft, that they love their games, and care, patches where churned out even TEN years after the release of SC 1
That, plus games which interested "archievers" and hardcore competive players,
founded a base for a community to grow arround and from there, it was obvious what would happen after world of warcrafts release.
then you had the watering down, now you have the downfall.
And no, it is NOT a question of WoWs "Age", EVE online is even older
and no, i am NOT comparing the games, i am comparing how the companies go about building and maintaining their communities, and which focus is set for their individual communities.
So, long story short, you want sucess? You better get ready to deliver to those hardcore nerds!
From there, if you have that healthy baseline, go and spread more to the casuals,
and for heavens sake, DRIVE AWAY the baddys!
You are now in a map with peramiters that you set up (PWE) You have only 2 concerns The First and most important...STAY ALIVE .. dead is dead and there is no RESPAWN only revive from another player! The second how to get out...answer finish the mission you started as a Practice run or wait till time runs out!!
Reward nothing if time runs out and whatever if any for completion.
Long rant incoming!
This is exactly the "problem" that happens whenever a game like WoW releases a new expansion or raises the level cap. It's well-summarized by the phrase:
"Green is the new Purple"
This is MORE of a problem for a game like STO, which is free and supported mainly by microtransactions. Increasing the upper limit of challenge in the aforementioned way would quickly invalidate the gains people get from buying new ships, which while optimally considered a so-called "sidegrade" (i.e. something that doesn't automatically confer advantage), are still attractive because they usually (usually!) guarantee that they are at least in some ways better than what you can get for free.
Anyway, the gear-score idea is a good one, but such dynamic difficulty systems are difficult to program, maintain, and execute on even in games with specific, dedicated "raiding" endgames, which STO in its current structure does not have (arguably it NEVER had this). We don't even know if the engine is capable of scaling in that kind of detail.
And implementing such a system is also risky, because if the game lowered the difficulty for your group because your group went in with a low gear score, why would you ever equip any better gear?
"Challenge" is best done when hand-crafted. Boss phases, scripting, and consistent escalation over the course of an encounter is difficult to handle procedurally, and more often than not the result is simply enemies that become damage sponges rather than genuine tests of tactics, strategy, and equipment.
Look at the difference between Infected Space Normal and Infected Space Elite. Veteran players have been running ISE so long that the plan and what to do comes as second nature, but when you really think about it, knowing what to do to come away with an optional in an Elite STF is actually pretty complicated.
And to be honest? Getting fancy fleet gear that's so awesome you can simply IGNORE the vaunted "10% rule" and carry ISE on sheer steamrolling POWERRRRR is also a great feeling.
We don't need "more challenging content", we need NEW content. More STFs to explore, figure out, and then break. More feature episodes to play once, then play once more to farm the rewards of. More rep systems and fleet holdings to give us an excuse to log in each day and slide some sliders. And so on.
Big picture is, this is exactly what Cryptic is doing, only not as smoothly or as quickly as they might need to to shut down the whiners.
The only problem is that no new queued event is even remotely as compelling as the Omega force STFs, so everyone still does that almost exclusively. But again, those events are artifacts of a time when STO was a subscription game, and the "contract" between content expectation and developer delivery was different.
In a subscription game like WoW, EVE, or SWTOR (they clearly prefer subs to F2Ps and behave accordingly), players are taught to expect "expansion packs" regularly. They release new content in big huge gulps to be consumed very quickly by veterans and slowly over time by everyone else.
F2Ps get by on a steady stream of smaller updates, designed to be engaged every day, regularly, by large amounts of players. In STO's model, that favors things like new ships, new rep systems, "adventure zones" with many repeatable quests, and events that can be done quickly and with little fuss. Not the best recipe for hardcore types that want to test the limits of their munchkin-math.
This is simple truth. A toon is only begun at 50.