I'm sorry some people are upset that 5k (or less) DPS ships aren't good enough for Advanced or Elite queues, but there's a pretty simple solution for that: stay out of those queues. If your ship isn't good enough to complete them at the new difficulty (bugs not withstanding) then you should change what you're doing. Whining about how hard it is doesn't do any good when it really doesn't take a lot of effort to understand the basics of good ship design and layout if you just pay attention. Nobody's telling you that you need to go out and set DPS records, however I don't think it's too much to ask that people actually try.
(In the interests of staying topical)
Because it reduces the game to a single play type, and everything not part of that type may as well be removed. That leaves for a very thin RPG, especially an RPG with as much material to draw on as this particular IP. Even something as archaic as the Trinity system is an improvement compared to that. Otherwise we end up with a game where every single person is the same dual FAW, APB, APO, dual Zemok, rom engines, EPTW3. That makes for a boringly one-dimensional game, little better than a rail shooter from the 80s.
@Spacebaronline: I don't play the Master Race in my futile protest against how easy it is to use, so the Scimitar wouldn't be something I could help with. I only make Starfleet builds. Klingons aren't interesting to me and the Master Race is a joke.
I know what you mean about the Scimitar - I can take a stock ship with green mk11 gear and no consoles and get it above 12k DPS with AtB or APB
But I have gone so casual these days that I don't have time for much other than a slam the spacebar build.
I do have a Tactical Avenger on my Original toon. Plus I fly a Vesta on a Science toon.
But we are getting off topic very fast in this thread. So let the horror stories continue.
"Because it reduces the game to a single play type"
Didn't we go over this already? This MMO is about damage. Almost every MMO is about damage. Using the gimmick abilities that don't cause direct damage works great in PvP, but not in PvE.
It's all well and good that you want content that doesn't involve DPS, and if you can get Cryptic to create some that doesn't require being able to do the maximum amount of damage in the quickest fashion possible, I'm all for it. However, there currently is no content that fits this criteria beyond the mini-puzzles present in some single player content. Until such time, it makes more sense to play to the style that will win rather than keeping some idealized version of a canonical ship and crew. If you can give me an example of PvE content that doesn't require a moderate level of DPS, I would love to see it.
If you can give me an example of PvE content that doesn't require a moderate level of DPS, I would love to see it.
NWS would be my first go to (old version, I have no idea what it is now). Sure you could brute-force your way through it if you wanted, but just as easily you could go at it with a build based around CC and careful bursting. Less about pouring on the DPS than it was about being in the right place at the right time with just the right tool, and otherwise controlling the situation between bursts.
The revamped Mirror Invasion would be my second choice. Again, if you wanted you could just FAW your way to victory if you had a team with a suitably high combined output, but a more common-level team of a cruiser built for maximum durability plus two escort/sci-ship teams could simply control the map despite that the 5 of them together might be putting out less fire than a single 30k fawboat.
Cryptic has demonstrated they can do it, they just don't very often.
This whole "you have a low DPS build that doesn't cut it" argument is getting old. My ship has great damage capability. It's not zomgsuperleetestever, but it's damned good in bursts, and mostly ignores enemy shields to boot. Between GW3, TBR2, proton barrage, spatial charges, tac buffs, and particle manipulator, I have an extremely high potential damage output. No, I don't have upgraded gear, just an upgraded ship. And that is quite enough to do good damage. Upgrading gear to mk 13 and 14 does not make THAT huge of a difference, to the point where you are doing ten times as much damage. The numbers do not lie. The jump in HP from normal to elite used to be about 42% more. Now it's more like 900% more. Advanced is not only a small change from the old elite. It's a huge one. And with half the rewards.
This whole "you have a low DPS build that doesn't cut it" argument is getting old. My ship has great damage capability. It's not zomgsuperleetestever, but it's damned good in bursts, and mostly ignores enemy shields to boot. Between GW3, TBR2, proton barrage, spatial charges, tac buffs, and particle manipulator, I have an extremely high potential damage output. No, I don't have upgraded gear, just an upgraded ship. And that is quite enough to do good damage.
Define "good" damage. I'm not saying this to be adversarial, I just want to make sure we're on the same page. For instance, I would define good as 12K DPS, maybe 10K at the least. Anything over that is fantastic. Now, if your argument is that, say, 4-6K DPS is "good", I would be inclined to disagree. The thing is, there's absolutely no reason anyone can't pull even just 12K. Seriously. Tac captains have it easiest obviously, but even Engineers and Science captains can too. No one has said that everyone should do monster 50K DPS builds or GTFO, but that's how you all seem to be taking it. It's honestly not that hard to hit 12K, and if everyone in a PUG were doing that and actually working together and not everyone Leroy Jenkins-ing it, you'd probably win the vast majority of the time. The game isn't trying to make you work harder, it's trying to make you work smarter, and actually work together. There's still a need for crowd control and healing, but just because you're doing those things doesn't mean you don't also have to pull your weight when it comes to dealing damage. There is absolutely no reason you should have PUGs where one person does over 50% of the damage total. None. Any time that happens what that says to me is that one person is probably carrying the rest through. The only other time one person should ever be that far ahead of the rest is if they are min-maxing to the degree that they're trying to set records, but you wouldn't do that in a PUG.
If some of you like flying rainbow boats or skittle boats or torp boats or whatever kind of boats that aren't as effective at completing Advanced Queues, all I'm saying is either leave them at home if you're going to queue up with randoms or fly them strictly with people that you know. Because if I'm actually trying to complete it and you come in with a ship that you know won't cut it, and I can tell won't cut it, I'm not going to be happy. I see all the time this sense of entitlement some people have that their playstyle should just work and be fine and carry them through. Sadly, that is not the case. It's very selfish to be stubborn and rude to not even consider using equipment and tactics that will help others when you play, considering this is a multiplayer game after all. You're putting your want to do whatever you want over the collective need to actually complete the objectives. And helping others isn't just about throwing out heals and crowd control, it's about actually dealing damage, because at the end of the day, you can say whatever you want about how you want to play and how hard the game is now, but bottom line is the mechanic that matters the most in this game is damage output. Period. Full stop. End of the line.
For people that really like Star Trek, you all seem to forget "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one." What you want is irrelevant if it doesn't cut it to complete the mission. And yeah, maybe at this very moment, some of the queues are buggy and maybe they are even a bit over the top in terms of how much more difficult they are, but when it's all said and done, this game isn't going to be the cakewalk so many of you have been drifting along at Level 50 on. I'm not sure what a lot of you expected, that finally we were getting a level cap increase and yet somehow nothing in the game was going to get harder? Especially when you haven't hit the new level cap yet? C'mon, be real. I fully expect in the next few weeks there will be enough collective moaning and gnashing of teeth that Cryptic will cave and nerf the difficulty, but personally I hope not, because having a challenge actually means there's a reason to keep playing the game and trying to get better at it.
If you're only measuring good damage in terms of DPS then you've missed part of the argument already.
You could do 10K, 12K or whatever else you think is acceptable but that's still not exactly the best way to measure your effectiveness. I could put together a BFAW cruiser and spam abilities all day long in infected space, but most of my shots hit invulnerable targets or at the very least all i'm doing is tickling multiple enemies rather than actually killing any.
A BOP or Raptor de-cloaking can launch a huge alpha strike that will kill anything in seconds but will then take several seconds to recharge, so their DPS is fairly low. But that doesn't make them less effective than some 20K+ FAW boat.
I've got a Vesta that uses HY enhanced bio-torps, and if I drop one of those it'll one shot a cube easily if it crits. But I can only do that every few seconds so my DPS overall is fairly low, most of my damage is spike damage. But i'm still highly effective because on top of that potential mega-crit damage I can put out every so often I can use CC and team heals to help everyone else out.
People need to start looking beyond DPS as a measure of effectiveness and then we'll maybe see some new tactics developed.
The STFs I've always enjoyed most were where we didn't roflstomp through the NPCs, we took our time and everyone brought something different to the fight.
I just want to address the improve your DPS or stay out of advanced and elites queues replies.
I think the current settings may be broken. My example on this thread was a normal queue and it was so inflated on npc damage avoidance that the timer ran out before the third wave in Fleet Alert. Not one of our ships was destroyed either, it was a pure wear them down slowly grind.
On Normal.
So my recommendation is to note these runs as launch day early installment weirdness and wait for the devs to normalize things.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
I wonder if the problem isn't so much the 'increased difficulty'/'increased HP & Resists' as it is the mechanism which temporarily raises you to Level 60. Could it be that our stats aren't being raised enough to match the content?
Define "good" damage. I'm not saying this to be adversarial, I just want to make sure we're on the same page. For instance, I would define good as 12K DPS, maybe 10K at the least. Anything over that is fantastic. Now, if your argument is that, say, 4-6K DPS is "good", I would be inclined to disagree. The thing is, there's absolutely no reason anyone can't pull even just 12K. Seriously. Tac captains have it easiest obviously, but even Engineers and Science captains can too. No one has said that everyone should do monster 50K DPS builds or GTFO, but that's how you all seem to be taking it. It's honestly not that hard to hit 12K, and if everyone in a PUG were doing that and actually working together and not everyone Leroy Jenkins-ing it, you'd probably win the vast majority of the time. The game isn't trying to make you work harder, it's trying to make you work smarter, and actually work together. There's still a need for crowd control and healing, but just because you're doing those things doesn't mean you don't also have to pull your weight when it comes to dealing damage. There is absolutely no reason you should have PUGs where one person does over 50% of the damage total. None. Any time that happens what that says to me is that one person is probably carrying the rest through. The only other time one person should ever be that far ahead of the rest is if they are min-maxing to the degree that they're trying to set records, but you wouldn't do that in a PUG.
If some of you like flying rainbow boats or skittle boats or torp boats or whatever kind of boats that aren't as effective at completing Advanced Queues, all I'm saying is either leave them at home if you're going to queue up with randoms or fly them strictly with people that you know. Because if I'm actually trying to complete it and you come in with a ship that you know won't cut it, and I can tell won't cut it, I'm not going to be happy. I see all the time this sense of entitlement some people have that their playstyle should just work and be fine and carry them through. Sadly, that is not the case. It's very selfish to be stubborn and rude to not even consider using equipment and tactics that will help others when you play, considering this is a multiplayer game after all. You're putting your want to do whatever you want over the collective need to actually complete the objectives. And helping others isn't just about throwing out heals and crowd control, it's about actually dealing damage, because at the end of the day, you can say whatever you want about how you want to play and how hard the game is now, but bottom line is the mechanic that matters the most in this game is damage output. Period. Full stop. End of the line.
For people that really like Star Trek, you all seem to forget "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one." What you want is irrelevant if it doesn't cut it to complete the mission. And yeah, maybe at this very moment, some of the queues are buggy and maybe they are even a bit over the top in terms of how much more difficult they are, but when it's all said and done, this game isn't going to be the cakewalk so many of you have been drifting along at Level 50 on. I'm not sure what a lot of you expected, that finally we were getting a level cap increase and yet somehow nothing in the game was going to get harder? Especially when you haven't hit the new level cap yet? C'mon, be real. I fully expect in the next few weeks there will be enough collective moaning and gnashing of teeth that Cryptic will cave and nerf the difficulty, but personally I hope not, because having a challenge actually means there's a reason to keep playing the game and trying to get better at it.
The fact of the matter is, advanced should only be slightly tougher than the old elites.
This doesn't mean a 500% increase in hp pool tougher, it means just a tougher overall challenge.
If someone prefers a somewhat low dps build, than it should be their prerogative and, not the top dps group/Dev's, as to how they should build their ship or, how much dps is required.
all I see is build your ship like this, thus requiring huge amounts of EC's + Dilithium + zen & possibly RL $ but, to top that all off, you can only use these few skills we recommend and, only these tiny few select pieces of gear, all while restricted to only the most expensive top of the line ships so, in other words only these few select ships qualify.
This is where the game kills any originality and, turns off many player's who prefer more than just the thin line of dps only or, go play with the kiddies attitude from the dps snobs.
To talk sense into the gotta be dps king or, nothing crowd is, like talking to an answering machine, yes it talks back but, provides no real response other than must do this only!
Well, upgraded my Tac Oddy to T-5U. Only does 10k DPS, and not survivable enough for Advanced, got blowded up from the initial sphere group, after the Cube popped, and I'm an Engineer! Also, forgot that FAW will hit the gens and blow them up before the guards die, (>.<) . Guess I'm sticking to norms for the time being.
I'm sticking with normal for the time being, yes i may not get as much dilithium but i will still get the xp off my kills which help with my leveling up.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Precisely - you only see what you want to see, no matter how untrue it is. You've shown it countless times.
Every time the topic of DPS comes up, there you are accusing DPSers of stuff they haven't said, except in your twistings.
Plenty of builds exist of essentially free to acquire (mission replay/doffing) stuff that can kick out enough DPS to do ISA. The vast majority of players actually bring better gear than that, so don't complain about costs of gear.
You would rather deny those exist and pretend all options are ridiculously expensive and require specific ships of specific gear and skills, when that level of DPS is several multiples away from what ISA requires.
Every T5 ship in STO could do enough DPS for ISA. Every single one, no need for T5-Us or T6, or even Fleet T5. Just a pilot with a brain.
Secondly, ISA requires 15k DPS per player in order not to fail the timer - pure basic maths. Low DPS builds do not belong in Elite level content, and anyone bringing a low DPS* build is trolling by deliberately making their team less effective, and perhaps even making it impossible for said team to do said STF.
Last week, every ship in STO, from a basic shuttle to the most potent Lockbox ship, could do ISE, as it only required 3k not to fail the timer, so low DPS builds didn't matter, as the average player brings about 4-6k DPS and so there was space to cover the extremely low DPS builds.
Now, the content has been revised to be vaguely where it was meant to be in the first place, and now low DPS builds are no longer capable of ESTFS.
You can run whatever you like outside of an STF - but in one you are part of a team, and that means you put aside "Mah playstylez!" and bring a ship that contributes.
And if you don't you are trolling. End of.
* low DPS being defined as below that needed to actually complete the content in the time available.
NOTE: This is an entirely different issue to the fact people have to do ASTFs and ESTFs to get material packs and Rep special items - those should be guaranteed drops, with a chance at extra at all levels, just rewarding more for Advanced and Elite.
Precisely - you only see what you want to see, no matter how untrue it is. You've shown it countless times.
Every time the topic of DPS comes up, there you are accusing DPSers of stuff they haven't said, except in your twistings.
Plenty of builds exist of essentially free to acquire (mission replay/doffing) stuff that can kick out enough DPS to do ISA. The vast majority of players actually bring better gear than that, so don't complain about costs of gear.
You would rather deny those exist and pretend all options are ridiculously expensive and require specific ships of specific gear and skills, when that level of DPS is several multiples away from what ISA requires.
Every T5 ship in STO could do enough DPS for ISA. Every single one, no need for T5-Us or T6, or even Fleet T5. Just a pilot with a brain.
Secondly, ISA requires 15k DPS per player in order not to fail the timer - pure basic maths. Low DPS builds do not belong in Elite level content, and anyone bringing a low DPS* build is trolling by deliberately making their team less effective, and perhaps even making it impossible for said team to do said STF.
Last week, every ship in STO, from a basic shuttle to the most potent Lockbox ship, could do ISE, as it only required 3k not to fail the timer, so low DPS builds didn't matter, as the average player brings about 4-6k DPS and so there was space to cover the extremely low DPS builds.
Now, the content has been revised to be vaguely where it was meant to be in the first place, and now low DPS builds are no longer capable of ESTFS.
You can run whatever you like outside of an STF - but in one you are part of a team, and that means you put aside "Mah playstylez!" and bring a ship that contributes.
And if you don't you are trolling. End of.
* low DPS being defined as below that needed to actually complete the content in the time available.
NOTE: This is an entirely different issue to the fact people have to do ASTFs and ESTFs to get material packs and Rep special items - those should be guaranteed drops, with a chance at extra at all levels, just rewarding more for Advanced and Elite.
Every T5 can be built up to 15k DPS? So we're talking Luna, with Tetryons, nothing else but DOffed, mission, and Rep loots can do this?
I fly a Vesta (the actual science one) normally. Much as you say, going off the fleet/rep grinds, and a crafted toy. 2x Aux Phaser cannons fore, thinking gravimetric torp, Adapted MACO set, Solanae warp core that gives 135 aux, KCB, Omni AP from mission (haven't gone crafting or shopping for an omni phaser) and omega torp (3 piece set) aft. Running full Vesta set (one piece in tac, one in eng, one in sci), two phaser boost consoles, two part gen consoles, the crafted hyper-part gen console, and assimilated console, and one neutronium armor. Advanced Danubes with tractor beams in hangar. Ship parses out around 6k or so DPS in the old ISE. Proposals to make this a 15k ship without making me give up the full vesta set (deflector phaser helps burst, AoE heal is always appreciated, if I could see torps I'd use the kinetic reflector more often, and the invinci-shield saves my bacon periodically...)
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
For Elite-difficulty I'd roughly agree that a ship needs to be built a certain way for a team, with Elite being the level where one is expected to build solely for effect and have to coordinate. Advanced however is where you get either, or else the veteran players doing things like 'lets mess around with a Proton Barrage vaper BoP or a new-alt fresh50 engie heal/tank Gal-R,' not the training-wheels Normal mode but still with room to do weird stuff and still succeed. Advanced is supposed to be the middle of the road medium difficulty that still has room to play a game. Otherwise we may as well all just join the DPS channel and build fawboats, but personally I'd rather eat glass than copy some mutual admiration society whose exploits caused this TRIBBLE-up in the first place. Elite can max out the snob appeal all it wants, but Advanced is supposed to be a lot more open-ended.
The fact of the matter is, advanced should only be slightly tougher than the old elites.
This doesn't mean a 500% increase in hp pool tougher, it means just a tougher overall challenge.
If someone prefers a somewhat low dps build, than it should be their prerogative and, not the top dps group/Dev's, as to how they should build their ship or, how much dps is required.
all I see is build your ship like this, thus requiring huge amounts of EC's + Dilithium + zen & possibly RL $ but, to top that all off, you can only use these few skills we recommend and, only these tiny few select pieces of gear, all while restricted to only the most expensive top of the line ships so, in other words only these few select ships qualify.
This is where the game kills any originality and, turns off many player's who prefer more than just the thin line of dps only or, go play with the kiddies attitude from the dps snobs.
To talk sense into the gotta be dps king or, nothing crowd is, like talking to an answering machine, yes it talks back but, provides no real response other than must do this only!
100% agree. And the really strange thing is, these top dps players reply to every message like we are talking about the hardest tier in the game.
Its almost like they dont even read what they respond too.
Its really very simple. The HARDEST tier in the game should be SUPER HARD and require very high dps. The tier UNDER that shouldnt. Im not sure how this is confusing to the "elite" players. I mean really they already get a super hard mode and they want to make the mode under that super hard too? Wow
Define "good" damage. I'm not saying this to be adversarial, I just want to make sure we're on the same page. For instance, I would define good as 12K DPS, maybe 10K at the least. Anything over that is fantastic. Now, if your argument is that, say, 4-6K DPS is "good", I would be inclined to disagree. The thing is, there's absolutely no reason anyone can't pull even just 12K. Seriously. Tac captains have it easiest obviously, but even Engineers and Science captains can too. No one has said that everyone should do monster 50K DPS builds or GTFO, but that's how you all seem to be taking it. It's honestly not that hard to hit 12K, and if everyone in a PUG were doing that and actually working together and not everyone Leroy Jenkins-ing it, you'd probably win the vast majority of the time. The game isn't trying to make you work harder, it's trying to make you work smarter, and actually work together. There's still a need for crowd control and healing, but just because you're doing those things doesn't mean you don't also have to pull your weight when it comes to dealing damage. There is absolutely no reason you should have PUGs where one person does over 50% of the damage total. None. Any time that happens what that says to me is that one person is probably carrying the rest through. The only other time one person should ever be that far ahead of the rest is if they are min-maxing to the degree that they're trying to set records, but you wouldn't do that in a PUG.
If some of you like flying rainbow boats or skittle boats or torp boats or whatever kind of boats that aren't as effective at completing Advanced Queues, all I'm saying is either leave them at home if you're going to queue up with randoms or fly them strictly with people that you know. Because if I'm actually trying to complete it and you come in with a ship that you know won't cut it, and I can tell won't cut it, I'm not going to be happy. I see all the time this sense of entitlement some people have that their playstyle should just work and be fine and carry them through. Sadly, that is not the case. It's very selfish to be stubborn and rude to not even consider using equipment and tactics that will help others when you play, considering this is a multiplayer game after all. You're putting your want to do whatever you want over the collective need to actually complete the objectives. And helping others isn't just about throwing out heals and crowd control, it's about actually dealing damage, because at the end of the day, you can say whatever you want about how you want to play and how hard the game is now, but bottom line is the mechanic that matters the most in this game is damage output. Period. Full stop. End of the line.
For people that really like Star Trek, you all seem to forget "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one." What you want is irrelevant if it doesn't cut it to complete the mission. And yeah, maybe at this very moment, some of the queues are buggy and maybe they are even a bit over the top in terms of how much more difficult they are, but when it's all said and done, this game isn't going to be the cakewalk so many of you have been drifting along at Level 50 on. I'm not sure what a lot of you expected, that finally we were getting a level cap increase and yet somehow nothing in the game was going to get harder? Especially when you haven't hit the new level cap yet? C'mon, be real. I fully expect in the next few weeks there will be enough collective moaning and gnashing of teeth that Cryptic will cave and nerf the difficulty, but personally I hope not, because having a challenge actually means there's a reason to keep playing the game and trying to get better at it.
My question for you is WHY do you think a tier that isnt even supposed to be the hardest in the game should be a dps race and only be beatable by people with huge amounts of dps? (tier 6 ships, etc)
Its beyond me why the "elite" players cant just PLAY THE ELITE TIER?! There is absolutely no reason why the tier under that should be this hard. Its really very simple.
For Elite-difficulty I'd roughly agree that a ship needs to be built a certain way for a team, with Elite being the level where one is expected to build solely for effect and have to coordinate. Advanced however is where you get either, or else the veteran players doing things like 'lets mess around with a Proton Barrage vaper BoP or a new-alt fresh50 engie heal/tank Gal-R,' not the training-wheels Normal mode but still with room to do weird stuff and still succeed. Advanced is supposed to be the middle of the road medium difficulty that still has room to play a game. Otherwise we may as well all just join the DPS channel and build fawboats, but personally I'd rather eat glass than copy some mutual admiration society whose exploits caused this TRIBBLE-up in the first place. Elite can max out the snob appeal all it wants, but Advanced is supposed to be a lot more open-ended.
Personally, Id make Normal be 5k, Advanced 10k, Elite 80k myself - however, I don't make these calls. Cryptic do, and they've decided Elite should be relatively Elite (there is a massive cliff between slightly Elite and fully Elite players) Advanced should be roughly where Advanced players are, and Normal is for everyone.
It sort of works too - bear in mind these STFs are A) intended for Level 60s with traits and Mk XIV gear, and will need to last for a couple of years of powercreep, and you can see why Cryptic have placed it where they have - in due course Advanced will become exactly where you pitch it should be.
We are only 2 days into DR, give it time. Sure, it may never become last week ISE easy, but then it should never have been as easy as ISE last week was.
Every T5 can be built up to 15k DPS? So we're talking Luna, with Tetryons, nothing else but DOffed, mission, and Rep loots can do this?
I fly a Vesta (the actual science one) normally. Much as you say, going off the fleet/rep grinds, and a crafted toy. 2x Aux Phaser cannons fore, thinking gravimetric torp, Adapted MACO set, Solanae warp core that gives 135 aux, KCB, Omni AP from mission (haven't gone crafting or shopping for an omni phaser) and omega torp (3 piece set) aft. Running full Vesta set (one piece in tac, one in eng, one in sci), two phaser boost consoles, two part gen consoles, the crafted hyper-part gen console, and assimilated console, and one neutronium armor. Advanced Danubes with tractor beams in hangar. Ship parses out around 6k or so DPS in the old ISE. Proposals to make this a 15k ship without making me give up the full vesta set (deflector phaser helps burst, AoE heal is always appreciated, if I could see torps I'd use the kinetic reflector more often, and the invinci-shield saves my bacon periodically...)
Yep - some require little to no effort (Scimitar) some require a fair amount of effort. (anything 2 Tac Boff/2 Tac Console)
Yours - Elite Scorpions instead of Danubes, far better DPS. (Scorps parse at an average of 3k - Danubes aren't that good)
Also consider Mk XIV upgrading, and the Sci Crafting trait - its a good one.
I would also drop the Omega Torp personally - if it is on target, your more potent fore weapons are not, and Reactive Deflection isn't quite worth running only 5 weapons for. Sure, it can be useful, but not that useful.
Otherwise, positioning and flight - how close are you to a target? Cannons have quite a drop off, if you aren't close they are much less effective.
Also, what boff skills and Doffs are you using?
Or, cheat and do a beam boat, you have the Boff and Tac Console space to do it. Torps are more fun mind.
My question for you is WHY do you think a tier that isnt even supposed to be the hardest in the game should be a dps race and only be beatable by people with huge amounts of dps? (tier 6 ships, etc)
Its beyond me why the "elite" players cant just PLAY THE ELITE TIER?! There is absolutely no reason why the tier under that should be this hard. Its really very simple.
100% agree. And the really strange thing is, these top dps players reply to every message like we are talking about the hardest tier in the game.
Its almost like they dont even read what they respond too.
Its really very simple. The HARDEST tier in the game should be SUPER HARD and require very high dps. The tier UNDER that shouldnt. Im not sure how this is confusing to the "elite" players. I mean really they already get a super hard mode and they want to make the mode under that super hard too? Wow
First, in no way is a T6 required for Advanced.
15k isn't a huge amount of DPS, it is a well built and well flown ship's DPS. It isn't some build breaking amount where you are forced into a certain way to go. (that is more like 30k plus)
Also, people were pugging and succeeding at this stuff on Tribble, and are on Holodeck, in T5s with Mk XII gear. In many respects. the content needs another buff already, never mind 2 or more years of power creep later when they will still be current.
This is content that has only been out on Holodeck for two days - people should not be beating it already.
Normal, Advanced, Elite; these names refer to a level of ability at something for a reason. Why should everyone be able to do Advanced or Elite content? Just because old ESTFs were succesfully puggable with T1s doesn't mean it is a correct state of play.
Finally, neither is super hard. Tedious? Yes. Unrewarding? Yes. Hard? No.
So let me get this straight. You want to be able to "take your time" completing objectives, but also you don't want it so hard that you actually have to put thought into your build's abilities. I don't think you can have it both ways, nor should you. There's absolutely no reason anyone should ever have to spend 20+ minutes or more on a PvE mission. It is entirely unnecessary. My question to you is, why do you think that people shouldn't be doing better? Did you honestly expect that you were just going to cruise into the Advanced queues with your same ship you've probably been flying for years and still roflstomp everything? That's naive.
Also, you don't need tier 6 ships to do 12K. You can easily get that in almost any standard T5 ship, even some of the ones with terrible console and Boff layouts. What I don't get is why some of you think that what is an easily attainable amount of respectable damage is so awful. Read my previous post again. No one is saying you need to be an ultimate min-maxer. No one. Find me one instance where anyone has said 30K DPS or GTFO. It would be awesome if everyone was capable of a consistent 20K DPS, 15K would be fine and 12K would probably get the job done most of the time with really good flying. As soon as anyone says you need to do more consistent damage it's like all of you turtle up and stop listening. Here's some simple truths regarding STO:
1)Very high DPS can cover up for crappy flying.
2)Really good flying can make up for less than stellar DPS.
3)Sucking at both means you and everyone else is going to have a bad time.
And I'm sorry, but saying you do high spike damage is basically just saying "I'm only useful some of the time". The people that do the best at this game are all about consistency. Doing consistent, persistent damage is one of the tools that will equip you for success. The only excuse for not being able to do enough damage to complete a PvE right now is because you just flat out don't want to. And frankly, that's the attitude a child would look at it with. "I don't want to because I don't want to." It's childish and petulant. Especially when it's a pretty proven method of success. It's not like there aren't people completing the Advanced queues right now. They're just playing smarter, and frankly, better than the people that aren't.
I know this is already long, but I want to address dareau's post specifically:
Every T5 can be built up to 15k DPS? So we're talking Luna, with Tetryons, nothing else but DOffed, mission, and Rep loots can do this?
I fly a Vesta (the actual science one) normally. Much as you say, going off the fleet/rep grinds, and a crafted toy. 2x Aux Phaser cannons fore, thinking gravimetric torp, Adapted MACO set, Solanae warp core that gives 135 aux, KCB, Omni AP from mission (haven't gone crafting or shopping for an omni phaser) and omega torp (3 piece set) aft. Running full Vesta set (one piece in tac, one in eng, one in sci), two phaser boost consoles, two part gen consoles, the crafted hyper-part gen console, and assimilated console, and one neutronium armor. Advanced Danubes with tractor beams in hangar. Ship parses out around 6k or so DPS in the old ISE. Proposals to make this a 15k ship without making me give up the full vesta set (deflector phaser helps burst, AoE heal is always appreciated, if I could see torps I'd use the kinetic reflector more often, and the invinci-shield saves my bacon periodically...)
You're illustrating my point perfectly here. A Luna IS perfectly capable of doing a decent amount of DPS, but not how you're suggesting. Mainly because Tetryons suck. I'm sorry they just do. The proc is useless once shields are down. Disruptor is far better for the proc, and Antiproton is better because of the inherent bonus to crit. Even Plasma is better because of the plasma damage proc. Also, if you're using cannons in PvE, you're doing it wrong. Beams have been shown time and time again to be better because they are much more consistent in their damage output. Cannons drop off in damage too much over 5km. The Solanae warp core is terrible compared to a Fleet Plasma-Infused Warp Core with W->A and AMP traits. Also, mixing energy types is bad because you either use beam-only tac consoles (assuming you're actually using all beams) or you only boost one energy type and not the other. Most all of the three piece set bonuses aren't worth it, there are much better options. There are some two piece bonuses I would say are very useful, such as the Hydrodynamics Compensator and Enhanced Bio-Molecular Photon and the Experimental Proton Beam and Proton Stabilizer Console. And the full Vesta set isn't doing you as many favors as you think. You'd be far more effective with better consoles that actually boost your abilities rather than use a slow recharging gimmicky ability. Also, you'd do much more damage in the Recon Vesta, since it actually has a decent amount of Tac console slots.
So again, this reinforces that yes you can get a moderate amount of DPS, but not without actually putting a modicum of thought into what you're doing. If the game was so easy that you could just throw whatever TRIBBLE consoles on your ship and breeze through everything, it would suck. It wouldn't be fun, because there would be no challenge. You all need to be asking yourselves, is there a better way of doing things than how I am doing them right now? And if that answer is yes (it almost assuredly is) you need to ask yourself why you're not doing that? Are you callous and uncaring for your fellow players so that their success is not also your success? Are you being lazy and simply don't want to put the effort into learning something new? Or are you simply being stubborn and obstinate because you want to play your "playstyle" and that's that? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, playing an MMO is probably not for you.
I know this is already long, but I want to address dareau's post specifically:
You're illustrating my point perfectly here. A Luna IS perfectly capable of doing a decent amount of DPS, but not how you're suggesting. Mainly because Tetryons suck. I'm sorry they just do. The proc is useless once shields are down. Disruptor is far better for the proc, and Antiproton is better because of the inherent bonus to crit. Even Plasma is better because of the plasma damage proc. Also, if you're using cannons in PvE, you're doing it wrong. Beams have been shown time and time again to be better because they are much more consistent in their damage output. Cannons drop off in damage too much over 5km. The Solanae warp core is terrible compared to a Fleet Plasma-Infused Warp Core with W->A and AMP traits. Also, mixing energy types is bad because you either use beam-only tac consoles (assuming you're actually using all beams) or you only boost one energy type and not the other. Most all of the three piece set bonuses aren't worth it, there are much better options. There are some two piece bonuses I would say are very useful, such as the Hydrodynamics Compensator and Enhanced Bio-Molecular Photon and the Experimental Proton Beam and Proton Stabilizer Console. And the full Vesta set isn't doing you as many favors as you think. You'd be far more effective with better consoles that actually boost your abilities rather than use a slow recharging gimmicky ability. Also, you'd do much more damage in the Recon Vesta, since it actually has a decent amount of Tac console slots.
So again, this reinforces that yes you can get a moderate amount of DPS, but not without actually putting a modicum of thought into what you're doing. If the game was so easy that you could just throw whatever TRIBBLE consoles on your ship and breeze through everything, it would suck. It wouldn't be fun, because there would be no challenge. You all need to be asking yourselves, is there a better way of doing things than how I am doing them right now? And if that answer is yes (it almost assuredly is) you need to ask yourself why you're not doing that? Are you callous and uncaring for your fellow players so that their success is not also your success? Are you being lazy and simply don't want to put the effort into learning something new? Or are you simply being stubborn and obstinate because you want to play your "playstyle" and that's that? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, playing an MMO is probably not for you.
On the first point, part of the reason I chose Tetryon is because I know they are considered the suckiest weapons as far as missions go, especially Infected Space and it's plethora of unshielded (and therefore un-affected by Tetryon) or non-moving (so who cares about those non-facing shields) targets...
Second of all, part of that portion of my post was challenging those who claim that 15k is some easy to reach number to provide examples of how to do so. Especially with the claimed "rep, mission loots, DOffing rewards" stockpiles - meaning no elite fleet anything - no guns, no [AMP], no hyper-resilient shields, etc. etc.
But then again, getting that Luna, or many other "non-DPS-optimized" ships to 15k is going to require a rebuild on a par with "escorts online" again, aka "don't care about career, put all skill points in tactical abilities so that they're 9, maybe a touch of skill points into shields, hull, power and maybe your science damage skill of choice, and run nothing but energy weapons and maximized DPS"...
As illustrated by part two of my post - the pimp my Vesta part - and the reply it's already drawn. Elite Fleet Scorps, AMP warp core, switch to beams, run 125 weapons power, pop aux batteries to make that GW 3 and HE II useful, Aventine for tac console, make sure that tac consoles are energy weapon of choice, so 3 consoles in Aventine's case, use AP or Disruptor over anything else (AP on a crit-heavy build, Dizzy otherwise)... Cookie cutterism and "escorts online" at it's finest...
Which is going to lead many people to possibly leaving. Science was slowly coming around to being "useful" again, mostly because the damage of many Sci powers in the right spot at the right time was equal to or exceeding that of an escort... Thinking GW III with that sci crafting trait and massive part gen skill vs. nanite spheres - chased with some scatter-fire to drop multiple shields letting all that kinetic damage actually hit hull...
And that is what a lot of "DPS Elitists" consistently fail to catch. Roles - aka having that Sci that can GW-stall or TBR-away the nanites while the rest of the team works on generators means that while the Sci isn't contributing directly to the 15k or whatever DPS necessary to wipe the mission in 15 min, but is directly and positively influencing the outcome by preventing the trigger of a fail condition, and maybe even softening up targets so that when the team comes to mow down those spheres they're already hurt and half dead from the Sci, meaning a quicker transition to the next phase (ahhh, the memories of busting that second transformer in ISE, tossing my GW III on the sphere-mob, and watching 5 ships cut into that cluster with BFaWs and CSVs mowing down the 10 pack in 30 seconds then immediately moving on to the gateway... sadly, it is a thing of the past now, even in the ISE-equivalent ISA...)
And yes, I'm fully aware that a 5 pack of 30k Scimitars don't need that GW III to cluster the targets for a 30 second shooting gallery, they can do it without the clustering in 35... and the DPS-Elites will say "see, DPS > Science". AKA "escorts online" again. If this is truly the case, then let's see the petitions to Cryptic to change all space captain powers to the tactical suite, and re-spec all the ships into "Tactical oriented" builds, so that whether we want to fly a Galaxy, Connie, NX, Vesta, Rhode Island, Defiant, whatever, we'd be contributing to the "one true way" of playing STO - that of the DPS master... Oh, and loot tables should be redrawn to support the one true way, too... can't let anyone think that a biofunction console to support crew is necessary like the flow cap or insulator providing ones...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
The concept you and many others seem to be failing to grasp is that being a good science officer and being able to contribute to damage output in a meaningful way are not mutually exclusive. And your complaint about what it takes to make a ship actually do damage shows that you either don't understand or don't care about the basic mechanics of the game. I suspect it's that you don't actually care, because you seem to be able to articulate the reasoning why these basics actually work, you just choose not to do them.
If consoles that boost energy type damage are better than consoles that boost specific weapon systems, it makes sense to stick with that one energy type to get the most benefit. If beams do better damage over a wider range of distances than cannons, it makes more sense to use beams. If kinetic projectiles are nearly useless against shields, and energy beams have no such correlating uselessness against hulls, it makes more sense to run all or nearly all beams.
Your main argument is that you don't want to actually do any of this stuff that would make your ship better. You know your ship would be better, but somehow that would be boring to you. You don't want to use fleet or rep gear because, what, it's too hard to get? What were you doing for the last few years most people have been topped out at 50? Failure to prepare on your part should not cause a hardship for me.
I don't personally have a Science-oriented character so for me this is a non-issue, but I've seen plenty of Science builds that can dish out damage, take it, and still contribute meaningful crowd control and healing abilities.
And your comment about the biofunction consoles made me chuckle a bit, because crew regen rate really doesn't have that much of an effect one way or another. So yes, in fact, they are very not necessary. I've never seen a serious build that includes one.
There's a reason most people with ships that can actually do decent amounts of damage all tend to run the same equipment, and skills, and Boffs. It's because it works. Someone already figured out all the hard work about what it takes to actually make best use of the mechanics of the game. Fighting against that only makes you seem silly and contrary. Again, NO ONE is telling you that 30K+ DPS is mandatory. But the math has been done on what it currently takes, and those of you that are lacking will still be lacking until you make the necessary changes. Until then, you're just dead weight in a PUG being carried by those that actually care enough to equip their ships to succeed.
As someone who intends to do elite in the long run I think this is sad and sort of shocking that the leetsters feel they need to have both advanced and elite. How does this make sense/be fair when they represent 1% or less of the population? As it is the 1% get at least 33% of queues along with better rewards. Do the 1% need 66% ? Is that the needs of the many?
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Meh, either way Cryptic broke their game even more. Don't know if they just got lazy, or to greedy. Either way, I think I'll go take another three year hiatus before I come back to this painful grind again. Have fun, don't pull out to much of your hair. I'm off to go play a real game, like ESO.
As someone who intends to do elite in the long run I think this is sad and sort of shocking that the leetsters feel they need to have both advanced and elite. How does this make sense/be fair when they represent 1% or less of the population? As it is the 1% get at least 33% of queues along with better rewards. Do the 1% need 66% ? Is that the needs of the many?
There is nothing "Elite" about doing minimum 13k for Advanced queues. 10-15k is the entry level DPS that any captain in any ship can get.
Intermediate DPS is 20k+
High DPS is 30k+
Elite DPS we are talking 40-50k+
Elite Queues require High to Elite level DPS. Advanced queues only need the Entry Level.
As someone who intends to do elite in the long run I think this is sad and sort of shocking that the leetsters feel they need to have both advanced and elite. How does this make sense/be fair when they represent 1% or less of the population? As it is the 1% get at least 33% of queues along with better rewards. Do the 1% need 66% ? Is that the needs of the many?
If the entire endgame is stripped down to a DPS race and you're a DPSer, it proves "I'm right, everyone else is wrong," and who doesn't like that feeling? And if everyone has to copy you, well they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, plus anyone who doesn't copy you, you get to turn up your nose at them for being so childish as to disagree with you. I mean if there wasn't at least some ego involved, why would people be posting videos of themselves or starting threads just to announce their latest accomplishments?
There is nothing "Elite" about doing minimum 13k for Advanced queues. 10-15k is the entry level DPS that any captain in any ship can get.
Intermediate DPS is 20k+
High DPS is 30k+
Elite DPS we are talking 40-50k+
Elite Queues require High to Elite level DPS. Advanced queues only need the Entry Level.
I have no idea what my dps is. I doubt it's 20,000. Probably more like 10 on average per character.
I have to ask - what is your citation for these dps levels? I've never seen these published in the game??
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Comments
(In the interests of staying topical)
Because it reduces the game to a single play type, and everything not part of that type may as well be removed. That leaves for a very thin RPG, especially an RPG with as much material to draw on as this particular IP. Even something as archaic as the Trinity system is an improvement compared to that. Otherwise we end up with a game where every single person is the same dual FAW, APB, APO, dual Zemok, rom engines, EPTW3. That makes for a boringly one-dimensional game, little better than a rail shooter from the 80s.
I know what you mean about the Scimitar - I can take a stock ship with green mk11 gear and no consoles and get it above 12k DPS with AtB or APB
But I have gone so casual these days that I don't have time for much other than a slam the spacebar build.
I do have a Tactical Avenger on my Original toon. Plus I fly a Vesta on a Science toon.
But we are getting off topic very fast in this thread. So let the horror stories continue.
Didn't we go over this already? This MMO is about damage. Almost every MMO is about damage. Using the gimmick abilities that don't cause direct damage works great in PvP, but not in PvE.
It's a MMO first and a RPG as an afterthought.
@Spacebaronline: http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=lesaseas30kfleetavengert5u_6059
That's an adaptation of my 42-medal 30k Fleet Avenger build on STOA
Leader of Quantum Mechanics
Member of DPS-30000
Vice Admiral of - Starfleet Command -
NWS would be my first go to (old version, I have no idea what it is now). Sure you could brute-force your way through it if you wanted, but just as easily you could go at it with a build based around CC and careful bursting. Less about pouring on the DPS than it was about being in the right place at the right time with just the right tool, and otherwise controlling the situation between bursts.
The revamped Mirror Invasion would be my second choice. Again, if you wanted you could just FAW your way to victory if you had a team with a suitably high combined output, but a more common-level team of a cruiser built for maximum durability plus two escort/sci-ship teams could simply control the map despite that the 5 of them together might be putting out less fire than a single 30k fawboat.
Cryptic has demonstrated they can do it, they just don't very often.
Define "good" damage. I'm not saying this to be adversarial, I just want to make sure we're on the same page. For instance, I would define good as 12K DPS, maybe 10K at the least. Anything over that is fantastic. Now, if your argument is that, say, 4-6K DPS is "good", I would be inclined to disagree. The thing is, there's absolutely no reason anyone can't pull even just 12K. Seriously. Tac captains have it easiest obviously, but even Engineers and Science captains can too. No one has said that everyone should do monster 50K DPS builds or GTFO, but that's how you all seem to be taking it. It's honestly not that hard to hit 12K, and if everyone in a PUG were doing that and actually working together and not everyone Leroy Jenkins-ing it, you'd probably win the vast majority of the time. The game isn't trying to make you work harder, it's trying to make you work smarter, and actually work together. There's still a need for crowd control and healing, but just because you're doing those things doesn't mean you don't also have to pull your weight when it comes to dealing damage. There is absolutely no reason you should have PUGs where one person does over 50% of the damage total. None. Any time that happens what that says to me is that one person is probably carrying the rest through. The only other time one person should ever be that far ahead of the rest is if they are min-maxing to the degree that they're trying to set records, but you wouldn't do that in a PUG.
If some of you like flying rainbow boats or skittle boats or torp boats or whatever kind of boats that aren't as effective at completing Advanced Queues, all I'm saying is either leave them at home if you're going to queue up with randoms or fly them strictly with people that you know. Because if I'm actually trying to complete it and you come in with a ship that you know won't cut it, and I can tell won't cut it, I'm not going to be happy. I see all the time this sense of entitlement some people have that their playstyle should just work and be fine and carry them through. Sadly, that is not the case. It's very selfish to be stubborn and rude to not even consider using equipment and tactics that will help others when you play, considering this is a multiplayer game after all. You're putting your want to do whatever you want over the collective need to actually complete the objectives. And helping others isn't just about throwing out heals and crowd control, it's about actually dealing damage, because at the end of the day, you can say whatever you want about how you want to play and how hard the game is now, but bottom line is the mechanic that matters the most in this game is damage output. Period. Full stop. End of the line.
For people that really like Star Trek, you all seem to forget "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one." What you want is irrelevant if it doesn't cut it to complete the mission. And yeah, maybe at this very moment, some of the queues are buggy and maybe they are even a bit over the top in terms of how much more difficult they are, but when it's all said and done, this game isn't going to be the cakewalk so many of you have been drifting along at Level 50 on. I'm not sure what a lot of you expected, that finally we were getting a level cap increase and yet somehow nothing in the game was going to get harder? Especially when you haven't hit the new level cap yet? C'mon, be real. I fully expect in the next few weeks there will be enough collective moaning and gnashing of teeth that Cryptic will cave and nerf the difficulty, but personally I hope not, because having a challenge actually means there's a reason to keep playing the game and trying to get better at it.
Vice Admiral of - Starfleet Command -
You could do 10K, 12K or whatever else you think is acceptable but that's still not exactly the best way to measure your effectiveness. I could put together a BFAW cruiser and spam abilities all day long in infected space, but most of my shots hit invulnerable targets or at the very least all i'm doing is tickling multiple enemies rather than actually killing any.
A BOP or Raptor de-cloaking can launch a huge alpha strike that will kill anything in seconds but will then take several seconds to recharge, so their DPS is fairly low. But that doesn't make them less effective than some 20K+ FAW boat.
I've got a Vesta that uses HY enhanced bio-torps, and if I drop one of those it'll one shot a cube easily if it crits. But I can only do that every few seconds so my DPS overall is fairly low, most of my damage is spike damage. But i'm still highly effective because on top of that potential mega-crit damage I can put out every so often I can use CC and team heals to help everyone else out.
People need to start looking beyond DPS as a measure of effectiveness and then we'll maybe see some new tactics developed.
The STFs I've always enjoyed most were where we didn't roflstomp through the NPCs, we took our time and everyone brought something different to the fight.
I think the current settings may be broken. My example on this thread was a normal queue and it was so inflated on npc damage avoidance that the timer ran out before the third wave in Fleet Alert. Not one of our ships was destroyed either, it was a pure wear them down slowly grind.
On Normal.
So my recommendation is to note these runs as launch day early installment weirdness and wait for the devs to normalize things.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
My character Tsin'xing
The fact of the matter is, advanced should only be slightly tougher than the old elites.
This doesn't mean a 500% increase in hp pool tougher, it means just a tougher overall challenge.
If someone prefers a somewhat low dps build, than it should be their prerogative and, not the top dps group/Dev's, as to how they should build their ship or, how much dps is required.
all I see is build your ship like this, thus requiring huge amounts of EC's + Dilithium + zen & possibly RL $ but, to top that all off, you can only use these few skills we recommend and, only these tiny few select pieces of gear, all while restricted to only the most expensive top of the line ships so, in other words only these few select ships qualify.
This is where the game kills any originality and, turns off many player's who prefer more than just the thin line of dps only or, go play with the kiddies attitude from the dps snobs.
To talk sense into the gotta be dps king or, nothing crowd is, like talking to an answering machine, yes it talks back but, provides no real response other than must do this only!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Precisely - you only see what you want to see, no matter how untrue it is. You've shown it countless times.
Every time the topic of DPS comes up, there you are accusing DPSers of stuff they haven't said, except in your twistings.
Plenty of builds exist of essentially free to acquire (mission replay/doffing) stuff that can kick out enough DPS to do ISA. The vast majority of players actually bring better gear than that, so don't complain about costs of gear.
You would rather deny those exist and pretend all options are ridiculously expensive and require specific ships of specific gear and skills, when that level of DPS is several multiples away from what ISA requires.
Every T5 ship in STO could do enough DPS for ISA. Every single one, no need for T5-Us or T6, or even Fleet T5. Just a pilot with a brain.
Secondly, ISA requires 15k DPS per player in order not to fail the timer - pure basic maths. Low DPS builds do not belong in Elite level content, and anyone bringing a low DPS* build is trolling by deliberately making their team less effective, and perhaps even making it impossible for said team to do said STF.
Last week, every ship in STO, from a basic shuttle to the most potent Lockbox ship, could do ISE, as it only required 3k not to fail the timer, so low DPS builds didn't matter, as the average player brings about 4-6k DPS and so there was space to cover the extremely low DPS builds.
Now, the content has been revised to be vaguely where it was meant to be in the first place, and now low DPS builds are no longer capable of ESTFS.
You can run whatever you like outside of an STF - but in one you are part of a team, and that means you put aside "Mah playstylez!" and bring a ship that contributes.
And if you don't you are trolling. End of.
* low DPS being defined as below that needed to actually complete the content in the time available.
NOTE: This is an entirely different issue to the fact people have to do ASTFs and ESTFs to get material packs and Rep special items - those should be guaranteed drops, with a chance at extra at all levels, just rewarding more for Advanced and Elite.
Every T5 can be built up to 15k DPS? So we're talking Luna, with Tetryons, nothing else but DOffed, mission, and Rep loots can do this?
I fly a Vesta (the actual science one) normally. Much as you say, going off the fleet/rep grinds, and a crafted toy. 2x Aux Phaser cannons fore, thinking gravimetric torp, Adapted MACO set, Solanae warp core that gives 135 aux, KCB, Omni AP from mission (haven't gone crafting or shopping for an omni phaser) and omega torp (3 piece set) aft. Running full Vesta set (one piece in tac, one in eng, one in sci), two phaser boost consoles, two part gen consoles, the crafted hyper-part gen console, and assimilated console, and one neutronium armor. Advanced Danubes with tractor beams in hangar. Ship parses out around 6k or so DPS in the old ISE. Proposals to make this a 15k ship without making me give up the full vesta set (deflector phaser helps burst, AoE heal is always appreciated, if I could see torps I'd use the kinetic reflector more often, and the invinci-shield saves my bacon periodically...)
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
For Elite-difficulty I'd roughly agree that a ship needs to be built a certain way for a team, with Elite being the level where one is expected to build solely for effect and have to coordinate. Advanced however is where you get either, or else the veteran players doing things like 'lets mess around with a Proton Barrage vaper BoP or a new-alt fresh50 engie heal/tank Gal-R,' not the training-wheels Normal mode but still with room to do weird stuff and still succeed. Advanced is supposed to be the middle of the road medium difficulty that still has room to play a game. Otherwise we may as well all just join the DPS channel and build fawboats, but personally I'd rather eat glass than copy some mutual admiration society whose exploits caused this TRIBBLE-up in the first place. Elite can max out the snob appeal all it wants, but Advanced is supposed to be a lot more open-ended.
100% agree. And the really strange thing is, these top dps players reply to every message like we are talking about the hardest tier in the game.
Its almost like they dont even read what they respond too.
Its really very simple. The HARDEST tier in the game should be SUPER HARD and require very high dps. The tier UNDER that shouldnt. Im not sure how this is confusing to the "elite" players. I mean really they already get a super hard mode and they want to make the mode under that super hard too? Wow
My question for you is WHY do you think a tier that isnt even supposed to be the hardest in the game should be a dps race and only be beatable by people with huge amounts of dps? (tier 6 ships, etc)
Its beyond me why the "elite" players cant just PLAY THE ELITE TIER?! There is absolutely no reason why the tier under that should be this hard. Its really very simple.
Personally, Id make Normal be 5k, Advanced 10k, Elite 80k myself - however, I don't make these calls. Cryptic do, and they've decided Elite should be relatively Elite (there is a massive cliff between slightly Elite and fully Elite players) Advanced should be roughly where Advanced players are, and Normal is for everyone.
It sort of works too - bear in mind these STFs are A) intended for Level 60s with traits and Mk XIV gear, and
We are only 2 days into DR, give it time. Sure, it may never become last week ISE easy, but then it should never have been as easy as ISE last week was.
Yep - some require little to no effort (Scimitar) some require a fair amount of effort. (anything 2 Tac Boff/2 Tac Console)
Yours - Elite Scorpions instead of Danubes, far better DPS. (Scorps parse at an average of 3k - Danubes aren't that good)
Also consider Mk XIV upgrading, and the Sci Crafting trait - its a good one.
I would also drop the Omega Torp personally - if it is on target, your more potent fore weapons are not, and Reactive Deflection isn't quite worth running only 5 weapons for. Sure, it can be useful, but not that useful.
Otherwise, positioning and flight - how close are you to a target? Cannons have quite a drop off, if you aren't close they are much less effective.
Also, what boff skills and Doffs are you using?
Or, cheat and do a beam boat, you have the Boff and Tac Console space to do it. Torps are more fun mind.
First, in no way is a T6 required for Advanced.
15k isn't a huge amount of DPS, it is a well built and well flown ship's DPS. It isn't some build breaking amount where you are forced into a certain way to go. (that is more like 30k plus)
Also, people were pugging and succeeding at this stuff on Tribble, and are on Holodeck, in T5s with Mk XII gear. In many respects. the content needs another buff already, never mind 2 or more years of power creep later when they will still be current.
This is content that has only been out on Holodeck for two days - people should not be beating it already.
Normal, Advanced, Elite; these names refer to a level of ability at something for a reason. Why should everyone be able to do Advanced or Elite content? Just because old ESTFs were succesfully puggable with T1s doesn't mean it is a correct state of play.
Finally, neither is super hard. Tedious? Yes. Unrewarding? Yes. Hard? No.
Also, you don't need tier 6 ships to do 12K. You can easily get that in almost any standard T5 ship, even some of the ones with terrible console and Boff layouts. What I don't get is why some of you think that what is an easily attainable amount of respectable damage is so awful. Read my previous post again. No one is saying you need to be an ultimate min-maxer. No one. Find me one instance where anyone has said 30K DPS or GTFO. It would be awesome if everyone was capable of a consistent 20K DPS, 15K would be fine and 12K would probably get the job done most of the time with really good flying. As soon as anyone says you need to do more consistent damage it's like all of you turtle up and stop listening. Here's some simple truths regarding STO:
1)Very high DPS can cover up for crappy flying.
2)Really good flying can make up for less than stellar DPS.
3)Sucking at both means you and everyone else is going to have a bad time.
And I'm sorry, but saying you do high spike damage is basically just saying "I'm only useful some of the time". The people that do the best at this game are all about consistency. Doing consistent, persistent damage is one of the tools that will equip you for success. The only excuse for not being able to do enough damage to complete a PvE right now is because you just flat out don't want to. And frankly, that's the attitude a child would look at it with. "I don't want to because I don't want to." It's childish and petulant. Especially when it's a pretty proven method of success. It's not like there aren't people completing the Advanced queues right now. They're just playing smarter, and frankly, better than the people that aren't.
I know this is already long, but I want to address dareau's post specifically:
You're illustrating my point perfectly here. A Luna IS perfectly capable of doing a decent amount of DPS, but not how you're suggesting. Mainly because Tetryons suck. I'm sorry they just do. The proc is useless once shields are down. Disruptor is far better for the proc, and Antiproton is better because of the inherent bonus to crit. Even Plasma is better because of the plasma damage proc. Also, if you're using cannons in PvE, you're doing it wrong. Beams have been shown time and time again to be better because they are much more consistent in their damage output. Cannons drop off in damage too much over 5km. The Solanae warp core is terrible compared to a Fleet Plasma-Infused Warp Core with W->A and AMP traits. Also, mixing energy types is bad because you either use beam-only tac consoles (assuming you're actually using all beams) or you only boost one energy type and not the other. Most all of the three piece set bonuses aren't worth it, there are much better options. There are some two piece bonuses I would say are very useful, such as the Hydrodynamics Compensator and Enhanced Bio-Molecular Photon and the Experimental Proton Beam and Proton Stabilizer Console. And the full Vesta set isn't doing you as many favors as you think. You'd be far more effective with better consoles that actually boost your abilities rather than use a slow recharging gimmicky ability. Also, you'd do much more damage in the Recon Vesta, since it actually has a decent amount of Tac console slots.
So again, this reinforces that yes you can get a moderate amount of DPS, but not without actually putting a modicum of thought into what you're doing. If the game was so easy that you could just throw whatever TRIBBLE consoles on your ship and breeze through everything, it would suck. It wouldn't be fun, because there would be no challenge. You all need to be asking yourselves, is there a better way of doing things than how I am doing them right now? And if that answer is yes (it almost assuredly is) you need to ask yourself why you're not doing that? Are you callous and uncaring for your fellow players so that their success is not also your success? Are you being lazy and simply don't want to put the effort into learning something new? Or are you simply being stubborn and obstinate because you want to play your "playstyle" and that's that? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, playing an MMO is probably not for you.
Vice Admiral of - Starfleet Command -
On the first point, part of the reason I chose Tetryon is because I know they are considered the suckiest weapons as far as missions go, especially Infected Space and it's plethora of unshielded (and therefore un-affected by Tetryon) or non-moving (so who cares about those non-facing shields) targets...
Second of all, part of that portion of my post was challenging those who claim that 15k is some easy to reach number to provide examples of how to do so. Especially with the claimed "rep, mission loots, DOffing rewards" stockpiles - meaning no elite fleet anything - no guns, no [AMP], no hyper-resilient shields, etc. etc.
But then again, getting that Luna, or many other "non-DPS-optimized" ships to 15k is going to require a rebuild on a par with "escorts online" again, aka "don't care about career, put all skill points in tactical abilities so that they're 9, maybe a touch of skill points into shields, hull, power and maybe your science damage skill of choice, and run nothing but energy weapons and maximized DPS"...
As illustrated by part two of my post - the pimp my Vesta part - and the reply it's already drawn. Elite Fleet Scorps, AMP warp core, switch to beams, run 125 weapons power, pop aux batteries to make that GW 3 and HE II useful, Aventine for tac console, make sure that tac consoles are energy weapon of choice, so 3 consoles in Aventine's case, use AP or Disruptor over anything else (AP on a crit-heavy build, Dizzy otherwise)... Cookie cutterism and "escorts online" at it's finest...
Which is going to lead many people to possibly leaving. Science was slowly coming around to being "useful" again, mostly because the damage of many Sci powers in the right spot at the right time was equal to or exceeding that of an escort... Thinking GW III with that sci crafting trait and massive part gen skill vs. nanite spheres - chased with some scatter-fire to drop multiple shields letting all that kinetic damage actually hit hull...
And that is what a lot of "DPS Elitists" consistently fail to catch. Roles - aka having that Sci that can GW-stall or TBR-away the nanites while the rest of the team works on generators means that while the Sci isn't contributing directly to the 15k or whatever DPS necessary to wipe the mission in 15 min, but is directly and positively influencing the outcome by preventing the trigger of a fail condition, and maybe even softening up targets so that when the team comes to mow down those spheres they're already hurt and half dead from the Sci, meaning a quicker transition to the next phase (ahhh, the memories of busting that second transformer in ISE, tossing my GW III on the sphere-mob, and watching 5 ships cut into that cluster with BFaWs and CSVs mowing down the 10 pack in 30 seconds then immediately moving on to the gateway... sadly, it is a thing of the past now, even in the ISE-equivalent ISA...)
And yes, I'm fully aware that a 5 pack of 30k Scimitars don't need that GW III to cluster the targets for a 30 second shooting gallery, they can do it without the clustering in 35... and the DPS-Elites will say "see, DPS > Science". AKA "escorts online" again. If this is truly the case, then let's see the petitions to Cryptic to change all space captain powers to the tactical suite, and re-spec all the ships into "Tactical oriented" builds, so that whether we want to fly a Galaxy, Connie, NX, Vesta, Rhode Island, Defiant, whatever, we'd be contributing to the "one true way" of playing STO - that of the DPS master... Oh, and loot tables should be redrawn to support the one true way, too... can't let anyone think that a biofunction console to support crew is necessary like the flow cap or insulator providing ones...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
If consoles that boost energy type damage are better than consoles that boost specific weapon systems, it makes sense to stick with that one energy type to get the most benefit. If beams do better damage over a wider range of distances than cannons, it makes more sense to use beams. If kinetic projectiles are nearly useless against shields, and energy beams have no such correlating uselessness against hulls, it makes more sense to run all or nearly all beams.
Your main argument is that you don't want to actually do any of this stuff that would make your ship better. You know your ship would be better, but somehow that would be boring to you. You don't want to use fleet or rep gear because, what, it's too hard to get? What were you doing for the last few years most people have been topped out at 50? Failure to prepare on your part should not cause a hardship for me.
I don't personally have a Science-oriented character so for me this is a non-issue, but I've seen plenty of Science builds that can dish out damage, take it, and still contribute meaningful crowd control and healing abilities.
And your comment about the biofunction consoles made me chuckle a bit, because crew regen rate really doesn't have that much of an effect one way or another. So yes, in fact, they are very not necessary. I've never seen a serious build that includes one.
There's a reason most people with ships that can actually do decent amounts of damage all tend to run the same equipment, and skills, and Boffs. It's because it works. Someone already figured out all the hard work about what it takes to actually make best use of the mechanics of the game. Fighting against that only makes you seem silly and contrary. Again, NO ONE is telling you that 30K+ DPS is mandatory. But the math has been done on what it currently takes, and those of you that are lacking will still be lacking until you make the necessary changes. Until then, you're just dead weight in a PUG being carried by those that actually care enough to equip their ships to succeed.
Vice Admiral of - Starfleet Command -
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
There is nothing "Elite" about doing minimum 13k for Advanced queues. 10-15k is the entry level DPS that any captain in any ship can get.
Intermediate DPS is 20k+
High DPS is 30k+
Elite DPS we are talking 40-50k+
Elite Queues require High to Elite level DPS. Advanced queues only need the Entry Level.
If the entire endgame is stripped down to a DPS race and you're a DPSer, it proves "I'm right, everyone else is wrong," and who doesn't like that feeling? And if everyone has to copy you, well they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, plus anyone who doesn't copy you, you get to turn up your nose at them for being so childish as to disagree with you. I mean if there wasn't at least some ego involved, why would people be posting videos of themselves or starting threads just to announce their latest accomplishments?
I have no idea what my dps is. I doubt it's 20,000. Probably more like 10 on average per character.
I have to ask - what is your citation for these dps levels? I've never seen these published in the game??
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."