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Why Power Creep is a good thing.
ericshatner
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
There has been a lot of talk about power creep lately and Cryptic is somewhat to blame for using the term in their Rep nerf blog. I'd like to put forward an argument why power creep is important and why the alternative would be a lot worse.
Most classic MMOs use level cap changes to create drastic power shifting scenarios. This has some specific disadvantages for the social game environment. Endgame gear grind goes into a torpor in the months leading up to a level cap increase, as players rightfully just don't see the point of doing the work. This can lead to substantial server population drops before a rebound when the level cap is raised.
In STO where the F2P model is based around selling endgame assets, they are very limited in how they can reset the universe like they do in games with different models. Essentially an endgame reboot would cause massive uproar here. Imagine all your current shiny endgame ships just became like those level 40 ships you deleted months ago. But Cryptic/PWE still have to sell new ships to keep the servers running, and we want new ships too because we want stuff to be worth buying, so this leads to the incremental nudging up of the quality of the ships being released.
My central point is: This incremental raising of the gear is a good thing. Cryptic stays afloat, the servers stay up and running, we get a reason to be excited by new ships and the server populations stays more constant than it would do in an alternative scenario.
Now ships and gear aren't the only aspect to the game, but they are the most essential aspect of the current STO business model which doesn't charge for content directly.
IMHO, Cryptic misused the term power creep in the argument for the Rep nerf. The old rep system was just getting more and more out of balance between a new player and an old player. The general ship and item power creep that I argue for actually keeps a new player and an old player closer to the same footing which is a better experience for the new player and that is something we should all welcome. There are still subtle advantages to wider trait options and having access to old consoles and the like, and subtle advantages is exactly where the balance should be.
I hope this is helpful.
Most classic MMOs use level cap changes to create drastic power shifting scenarios. This has some specific disadvantages for the social game environment. Endgame gear grind goes into a torpor in the months leading up to a level cap increase, as players rightfully just don't see the point of doing the work. This can lead to substantial server population drops before a rebound when the level cap is raised.
In STO where the F2P model is based around selling endgame assets, they are very limited in how they can reset the universe like they do in games with different models. Essentially an endgame reboot would cause massive uproar here. Imagine all your current shiny endgame ships just became like those level 40 ships you deleted months ago. But Cryptic/PWE still have to sell new ships to keep the servers running, and we want new ships too because we want stuff to be worth buying, so this leads to the incremental nudging up of the quality of the ships being released.
My central point is: This incremental raising of the gear is a good thing. Cryptic stays afloat, the servers stay up and running, we get a reason to be excited by new ships and the server populations stays more constant than it would do in an alternative scenario.
Now ships and gear aren't the only aspect to the game, but they are the most essential aspect of the current STO business model which doesn't charge for content directly.
IMHO, Cryptic misused the term power creep in the argument for the Rep nerf. The old rep system was just getting more and more out of balance between a new player and an old player. The general ship and item power creep that I argue for actually keeps a new player and an old player closer to the same footing which is a better experience for the new player and that is something we should all welcome. There are still subtle advantages to wider trait options and having access to old consoles and the like, and subtle advantages is exactly where the balance should be.
I hope this is helpful.
Post edited by ericshatner on
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One major flaw with this logic, is if in fact a good majority of the veteran player base sees this, as too favorable for new player's, and not allowing for much or any room to separate them, it can also lead to a large decline of veteran player's, and a good majority if not all veteran player's spend or have spent loads of money.
Veteran player's want to be on top with all the work they put into this game, and to easily allow new player's to sit in the same seat as them with practically no work involved, can turn away a large amount of player's.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
The new set-up limits players to 4 chosen traits per ground, space, and T5 rep abilities, basically bringing everyone to the same number of skills. However, those who threw time at completing more reputation group still get more trait options, thus giving all player groups a clean compromise.
You need more challenging Content to push against your power creep. Without the upgraded content it is essentially a bazooka going up against a bb gun - and that only benefits those with self esteem issues.
Which at present it is not.
We are getting more and more powerful, but the endgame content, if one can call it that, remains unchanged.
Nor is new content particularly challenging.
As a 4 year life-timer, I don't agree with the above. What vet actually enjoy curb-stomping newer players while using the best gear / ships / skills when there is no challenge nor honor in it?
This is a good observation. I think Cryptic might be trying to address this with harder content. The issue seems to be that players are looking at effort/reward and are doing the easier content instead. This happened a lot with the Mirror event. You can see a different element of the issue with The Hive too, queues for that take significantly longer than other ESTF queues. All cryptic can do is create harder content, but people are still likely going to do the content with the highest return on time invested. The only other solution is to make rewards relative to the effort it takes to do the mission. There would be screams heard all around the world if they nerfed ISE or KASE....
It wasn't.
/10Char.
The ones who do it of course!!! :rolleyes:
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
See, this i think is where you've missed a step.
The thing about all those nice new shinies is that they're not meant just to have, but to use.
There has to be something to do with all that nice new OP goodness.
Currently, there isn't really much imagination being applied to that dynamic.
A really good PvP system would do it, especially if it had fleet vs fleet territory control.
Some more fleet actions along the lines of NWS, perhaps.
Or, failing that, stop being distracted by the shinies and actually engage with the idea of game balance.
That is pretty much how all MMO's work, but they can and do at times in some of them, go back and buff the older goodies.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
But if they're smart about it they can do it by adding breadth instead of depth. For example do a DPS power creep by coming up with more ways of doing it, give us more variety more flexibility, but have the old ways still work as well as ever. Create new science powers instead of coming up with Mk13 weapons. Etc.
OK the nice new shinies as you put it would have included the Risen corvette, the Dyson science destroyers and their C-store counterparts and the recently revamped Galaxy X dreadnought. Whilst owning and currently running the Gal X the others are nothing more than gimmicks. As for the more recent release of the the new tempest class escorts wheres the point in that one?
And as for the PvP system whilst I have no interest in PvP I do understand that a radical overhaul of this aspect of the game needs implementing it by its very description only benefits the PvPers so what about those of us the prefer to run PvE. Cryptics last answer to the PvE issue was to increase the health of all enemy Npc's which was pointless.
But I do agree that more missions similar to NWS would be welcome. But where as the original was based around DPS and crowd control , cryptic need to but effort into alternate methodologies. One place to start would looking at the TNG episode "Booby trap" and try to create something along these lines.
What should have happened:
- Make better tutorials which teach about game mechanics and proper builds.
- Streamlining game mechanics.
- Providing documentation on those game mechanics.
- Improving AI to create more challenge without resorting to 1 shot kills.
But the game is a business and so instead of teaching, they put out shiney after shiney. Clearly, the devs are so invested in power creep it gave me a good laugh when they nerfed reputation passives.
Regardless of gear, veterans will still out perform new players in every way due to their work in gaining knowledge. That's more than enough of an edge for me, and makes noobs warp out of Ker'rat constantly.
If (more like when) the game is dumbed down enough for my knowledge to stop being a strength, then I'll stop playing.
But heres the thing. Sooner or later all these new players will become the player with all the skills and traits you listied. Also , what has a new player got to look at now, to inspire to. If you take away the lifelong players achivements, what has the new player got to look forward to. You want to give people a reason to play the game for a long time. what cryptic has done is give everyone everything now so everyone is equal. What that has done is shorten the life of their game. Why would I play it for a long time, if I can log on and have everything in just a week or 2. Someone needs to teach cryptic what the definition of a mmo is. In a mmo starting out as the skinny guy with a wooden sword and a bucket helmet is a metaphore for when we start out in real life. After many months of playing the game you end up with the master sword and the god armour, again a metaphore for working hard and prospering in real life. You have to have something to work toward that really gives you a sense of acomplishment. Getting everything in a mmo in just a few weeks doesn't give you the feeling of a erned reward. In real life everyone knows when you work for something no matter how cheap or expensive it means more to you than anything free. That should be mimiced in a mmo. The longer you play the game and complete the reputation hubs the more powerful you character should become. If power creep is a issue. it needs to be looked at from a diffrent perspective. Instead of makeing everyone week why not make the enemys stronger. That would also give new players a reason to keep playing. so they can eventualy be strong enough to take on the latest threat to the galaxy. Cryptic you don't take away in a game you give. Anytime you make someones character weeker, you take one step closer to killing that character permently. Make ppls character stronger. Give them everything you can to make them ilmpossible to forget. You want to keep players playing. Thats the way you do it.
I agree. Cryptic has successfully taken the uniqueness out of ships as they add more cosmetic shinies and the new reputation system. Listen to the comments on Priority Ones. Players want more challenging content supporting end game and a more realistic to Star Trek game experience. So, No playable Undine or Borg ships. It still bugs me that bridge layouts and interiors do not match a ship build. Who would expect a Galaxy size engineering iinterior n a Defiant size engineering interior? The whole seek out new life forms is lost in the game and a more massive space map.
Note, I'm not stating the opinion of all players just players I've talked with.
humans like to challenge themselves, sometimes the best way to do it is against other humans (unfortunately its an oxymoron because of our history of blood with competing countries, but also good in that you got the likes of motorsport that bring people together to try win). you remove the challenge by overpowering things and there is no challenge to it and no reason to continue, and since we humans have an attention span that doesnt last that long without that challenge, without that reason to wonder why bothering... you work it out.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Yep. Vertical advancement bad, horizontal advancement good.
How is horizontal a advancement? It's not.
Really?
Getting more breadth is functionally the same as getting more depth, no?
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Well, all motion is ultimately circular.
None of us have ever moved in a straight line in our lives.
Not unless we do some very interesting calculations to take into account the curvature of the earth, our orbit around the sun and the expansion rate of the universe.
That is the fundamental flaw of STO for players who want a deeper, more engaging endgame. At the end of the day it is an MMO and a F2P one at that. The content is always going to be light and simple, the never-ending grind for new toys will never go away since that is what keeps players playing.
I do agree though that creep is bad, and simply relying on such a thing for the endgame is quite a lazy way to go about it. It is good that Cryptic have realised that they can't keep piling on more of the same, and instead are starting to offer alternatives and have us make a choice.
Something else to consider is that all of this is optional. As far as I am concerned a fresh lvl 50 player with no traits and no special gear can comfortably stand shoulder to shoulder with vets already if they know how to play.
I don't think it does. Advancement I see as a pyramid. You either go up or down.
Now if we think of Star Trek, advancement is also horizontal. In reference to history and/or Star Trek advancement in technology like computers or better yet the military. You first have bi-planes and now you have jet stealth fighters. The Federation started the Cochrane ship to the Enterprise-F on screen but the threat has been became bigger.
Put the Enterprise-F against a space shuttle with guns strapped on it. The -F would be overpowered(OP) or power creep but it has to deal with a bigger threat. The Borg.
Now, it seems to me STO don't have a bigger threat. The Borg was a nightmare season one but they haven't adapted to all the new content. I blame Cryptic for that.
I also blame Cryptic for making the Undine easy!
This. Right. Here. Soooooo much.
We need more and challenging endgame content here, so badly. I would even give Cryptic $5-10 for a few new STFs that had fun and challengeing mechanics rather that a bag of HP and one shot kills that our overpowered ships are going to smash anyway. Be smart devs.
Lemme say again to try to get Cryptics attention: I WILL GIVE YOU MONEY FOR BETTER ENDGAME!!!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Bxszx60ZwGw
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
What Cryptic actually should do is include more differences in kind rather than differences in scale. Differences in kind allow for responding using different approaches and tools, rather than just using bigger hammer to smash your opponent, which in turn gives more depth to the game. Most notable example where differences in kind are visible are weapon types. Sadly, STO as it is doesn't allow for many differences in kind - biggest differences in kind in this game, ships, are slowly becoming mixed and lines between escorts, raiders, cruisers, carriers and science vessels are becoming thinner and thinner. I wouldn't be surprised if, in a year, Cryptic releases a ship which has all the pros of each of the type and none of their cons (as pros of one type negate the cons of other).