It is f-ing insane to defend how it is now. Just have more different difficulties instead. It is such an easy solution that one must wonder what drugs people in Cryptic are on. That way everybody get to get the full content and those that do higher difficulty gets more reward. :P
Beside your definition of leacher is subjective to what you expect of people. If Cryptic wanted us to have a minimum they should have added a gear check. I know, gear is not everything but I am quite sure they could check basic DPS with Doffs and skills before starting STF.
Nice thought, but effectively ineffective, as you can still vary within (at least) a factor 2. Powerlevels, distance to enemy, combinating BO-Abilities, all those combined make quite a factor to your basic build
No content was made more difficult because Cryptic is obviously incompetent at balancing at development stage. The powercreep in game was obvious, and they even tried to correct it once..... then they went nuts and introduced powercreep like it was the best thing since sliced bread.
Once we all get MK XIV and full specializations together with starship traits they will have to up differculty even more if it is to be hard.
It is f-ing insane to defend how it is now. Just have more different difficulties instead. It is such an easy solution that one must wonder what drugs people in Cryptic are on. That way everybody get to get the full content and those that do higher difficulty gets more reward. :P
Beside your definition of leacher is subjective to what you expect of people. If Cryptic wanted us to have a minimum they should have added a gear check. I know, gear is not everything but I am quite sure they could check basic DPS with Doffs and skills before starting STF.
Cryptic has stated their intended players for each difficulty. If they were to implement any form of content gating, unless it was only for the public queues, that would prevent those players out there that find things to be too easy from tackling content in gear that would below that threshold. Cryptic's mistake, then, could be said in thinking that the community could think.
Cryptic's said they're kind of at a loss at the amount of DPS some of the folks out there are capable of doing...Hell, I linked Geko's comment there about part of it...
We did warn you that Elite is not for everyone. Its pretty extreme. Seriously, most players should not be able to do it.
But please note, that have already had some pretty well organized fleets blazing through Elite with apparent ease. It kinda blows me away honestly. We have a lot of diversity on skill in STO, so finding the right balance point may take time. We want to make a real challenge for our top players, so if players are succeeding easily (and they are), expect it to probably get harder.
...they didn't expect that.
Course, that range is something I complain about a bit when complaining about ratios/percentages and how they affect the game. Hell, posted this back with post #174 in this thread:
You can run Advanced using T5 9 console boats with mission rewards and random loot drops as a mediocre/average player and be overkill for the content. Before they nerfed Advanced into the ground, it might have been a different game...but they did nerf it into the ground. And they also added in a crapload more powercreep in the process, so somebody that's flying more than just that is going to be even more overkill for the content.
I've done this example elsewhere, and I should probably just quote it; but I'll go through it again...a variation of it.
Let's start with 7,000 DPS. For this 7,000 DPS, let's say the following is in play:
1) Average 100 Weapon Power.
2) Average 7km with Beams.
3) Average 75% active.
So let's take a look at two other players. First, one with the following in play:
1) Average 125 Weapon Power.
2) Average 4km with Beams.
3) Average 90% active.
125 Weapon Power vs. 100 Weapon Power. 100 Weapon Power provides +100% damage (((100 - 50) * 0.02) = 1). 125 Weapon Power provides +150% damage (((125 - 50) * 0.02) = 1.5).
7000 / 2 = 3500 * 2.5 = 8750
4km vs 7km with Beams. 7km does 76% damage. 4km does 88% damage. This is from the range penalty.
8750 / 0.76 = 11513.16 * 0.88 = 10131.58
90% active vs 75% active. Those are pseudo modifiers based on the player actively engaged instead of sitting out in the middle of nowhere doing nothing or moving at a snail's pace to the next engagement.
10131.58 / 0.75 = 13508.77 * 0.9 = 12157.89
And then the other player with what they've got in play:
1) Average 75 Weapon Power.
2) Average <10km with Beams.
3) Average 55% active.
75 Weapon Power vs. 100 Weapon Power. 100 Weapon Power provides +100% damage (((100 - 50) * 0.02) = 1). 75 Weapon Power provides +50% damage (((75 - 50) * 0.02) = 0.5).
7000 / 2 = 3500 * 1.5 = 5250
<10km vs 7km with Beams. 7km does 76% damage. <10km does 64% damage. This is from the range penalty.
5250 / 0.76 = 6907.89 * 0.64 = 4421.05
55% active vs 75% active. Those are pseudo modifiers based on the player actively engaged instead of sitting out in the middle of nowhere doing nothing or moving at a snail's pace to the next engagement.
4421.05 / 0.75 = 5894.74 * 0.55 = 3242.11
So there we are, our three players - no actual change in any gearing and let's see what we've got there in a simple three line TLDR comparison, eh?
Player A (Avg 100 Weapon Power, Avg 7km with Beams, Avg 75% Active): 7000 DPS
Player B (Avg 125 Weapon Power, Avg 4km with Beams, Avg 90% Active): 12157.89 DPS
Player C (Avg 75 Weapon Power, Avg <10km with Beams, Avg 55% Active): 3242.11 DPS
And keep in mind, that's without changing any gearing - just changing how the ship was flown. Hell, it's not taking into account buff/debuff cycling which would increase the gap between Player B and Player C even more. Put them on a team with similar players and that gap grows even more.
But sticking with those three lines, let's say we throw more gear at Player C, eh? We can technically see the modifiers that already exist based off of the 7000 DPS.
3242.11 / 7000 = ~0.4632
Say we threw enough gear at Player C that Player A would have been doing 15000, yeah? Then Player C would be doing...
15000 * 0.4632 = 6948
They still wouldn't be doing the original 7k Player A was and they're not touching the 12k Player B was doing. Speaking of Player B, what would happen if we threw that same gear at them?
12157.89 / 7000 = ~1.7368
15000 * 1.7368 = 26052
So we'd be looking at...
Player A) 15000 DPS
Player 26052 DPS
Player C) 6948 DPS
So the complaints about needing gearing and the like? No, at some point that Player C just needs to learn how to play.
Just those three things can make a huge difference with somebody running the exact same build.
Take Player A to 25000 there, and Player B's doing 43420 DPS while Player C's doing 11580 DPS...with the exact same build.
And again, that's before taking into account how somebody's managing their buffs/debuffs and how the team itself is doing as well.
It's why I talk about how they could put me in one of Ryan's rocking builds...and I'd be complete failsauce in it.
There's no doubt in my mind that the underlying mechanics for STO were not designed to take into account the sheer amount of powercreep that's been added to the game. I'm usually complaining about that once a week or more. I hate the following formula...
...and what it means in a game with all the powercreep this one has along with the mostly horizontal content the game has.
But suggesting that they create more difficulties? How? Does the game have the playerbase to support more difficulties?
Hell, I'd love for the game to have...
Casual
Normal
Advanced
Elite
Nightmare
...but it doesn't have the playerbase for it, does it?
So we've got...
Normal
Advanced
Elite
...for our tiers, where they can be broken down into something like the following:
Normal: Casual
Advanced: Casual, Advanced, Elite (because of no Elite existing)
Elite: Advanced, Elite (with the Elite not really feeling challenged in the least)
Casual folks can do Advanced...cause Casual folks are doing Advanced. Just because somebody's put a wee bit of effort into either becoming a better pilot or improving their gear doesn't suddenly make them not Casual. Cause getting from Normal to Advanced isn't that big of a trip. Meh, it's one of the reasons why I've suggested in the past that Normal become Casual, Advanced become Normal, Elite become Advanced, and something new be added for those Elite players out there.
But beyond that, there is also going to be the matter of balancing the content itself. There were Elite queues that are easier than Normal queues of other content. There are Advanced queues that are more difficult than Elite queues of other content.
They've got their statements regarding what they want Normal, Advanced, and Elite to be...then all Normal, Advanced, and Elite content should feel like that, yeah? Not a case that folks hit up SomethingElite because it's the easiest way to get something because it's easier than Advanced, Normal, or even other ways of getting stuff. That's a failure, imho.
If somebody's having a difficult time doing missions on Normal...shouldn't that tell them that maybe they're not ready for doing Advanced or Elite? If somebody's just rocking them...find Normal to be a breeze, then wouldn't that tell them they're ready to hit up Advanced?
Why doe Cryptic have to gate content? It's like a company putting down a Caution, Cuidado, Achtung yellow sign because the floor's wet..and somebody complaining that the company didn't put up a rope barricade. Don't get me wrong, I've argued for gating...cause folks do completely ignore all the signs then turn around and complain while ruining things for the folks that put in the least bit of effort because they paid attention to the signs.
I'm tired of folks trying to lay the blame on Cryptic for so many things, when there are obviously so many things actually to blame Cryptic for...they're all over the place, Cryptic screws up left, right, and center. But seriously, some folks just need to learn to take some personal responsibility and realize that they're the problem...not Cryptic...in that particular case.
Nice thought, but effectively ineffective, as you can still vary within (at least) a factor 2. Powerlevels, distance to enemy, combinating BO-Abilities, all those combined make quite a factor to your basic build
Even with a factor of 2 you get basic range of DPS that can tell you if build is valid for Advanced or whatever difficulty. Lets face it Game client crash bug and similar things will bring down DPS to 0 for duration, so it is just to get an general understanding of DPS not the exact amount (which is dependent on things like how skills are used and taking advantage of specializations etc).
A test server is supposed to be used to properly test patches before patching anything....
Leave them empty graveyard ques for awhile and they will wake up and fix it.
They won't bother if people break themselves to fit the game.
It's a lot like the stupid 120 second thing.
But that's kind of the thing...public queues may not be bumping, but that doesn't mean folks aren't playing them. All sorts of folks out there are playing all sorts of stuff. Before I left 10k, it was a trip to see folks using acronyms for content and trying to figure out just what the Hell they were talking about...cause folks are running pretty much everything out there, stuff that I had thought died off long ago. Whether it's Fleets, friends, the Battles folks, the DPS folks, all sorts of folks are out there having fun running content...
...that's the reporting error...
...and that the public queues are the way they are is a reflection on certain players - not the players as a whole nor on Cryptic.
Cause even if Cryptic did some form of gating, there would still be the trolls looking to TRIBBLE their fellow players over.
Some folks are just tired of leeches and trolls...they're not complaining about empty queues. They're off having fun.
If folks would stop leeching and trolling...the queues might get better, yeah?
Course, with pretty much everything but certain R&D mats being far easier to get outside of running queues - that wouldn't necessarily fix the queues like some would want.
This is an extremely casual and solo player friendly game. Even if nobody leeched or trolled, not everybody would suddenly rush back to the public queues or queues at all.
Say I roll a new toon...I've got no reason to hit up any queues for anything. The only reason I'd hit up a queue is if I wanted to do it for fun...kind of well, like it's been for a while now and it's even easier now with the BNPs/APCs.
This is the most casual/solo friendly MMO I've played going back to starting with UO back in '97. I didn't get this post count cause I'm being all hardcore and running all sorts of group content...I've got it cause the forums are over here on the one monitor while I'm dorking around doing relaxed solo stuff on the other monitor.
We've gone from a country that at least tried to make a reasonable effort to prepare the next generation for the world to a country that offers a daycare system to prepare the next generation for a welfare system.
Well that is true and false .
It's true that the US has in essence "sold itself out" in a rush for a quick profit .
In the Reagan era that was selling anything that wasn't bolted to the floor to the Japanese who showed up with big money , and in the Clinton era the dream of Globalization lead to the eventual outsourcing of jobs on a unhealthy scale .
Thus Republican and Democrat alike (while each having good points about them too) have made some blunders that echo down the years .
(and don't let me get started on the W.Bush era)
You also don't take into account that on a Global scale , we (due to our rapid technological advances) are at an uncertain point in terms of future professions (aka what jobs will become automated or extinct in the next 20-50 years) -- which leads to multiple disciplines being taught a an increasing frequency .
As to preparing the next generation -- education is just part of the package , as a balanced economy is based not just on education , but in the investment in infrastructure and the maintaining and the creation of additional job opportunities .
Take India as an example -- many ppl have higher education , but job opportunities are not available locally for the skills that have been taught .
And while , (from my POV) , we Globally have two major issues to tackle -- the average ageing of the Western (US & Europe) citizenry and global terror that has taken an increasingly religious tone -- the US is on a very slow recovery .
It's too slow to get noticed by those who believe that there is a magic pill to fix all the damage from the last 3 decades (2 sellouts and 2 drawn out wars/occupations) , but it has started .
The question is : when will you , the average Joe will start to demand that your iPhone , and your TV and your Car be made in America ?
See , the welfare system isn't the problem .
The problem is Wallmart (and other "big name" companies) .
Cheap and easy products -- that's what you've come to expect ... , just like 2.5 years of "focus on the casuals" by Cryptic has gotten you a playerbase that expects convenience and ease (making the rants against said players dubious to say the least) .
You're angry at the players who expect quick and easy ?
Isn't that what you have been taught as a nation to expect through your purchases -- when much of that "cheap and easy" is not coming from US manufacture -- which in turn costs your economy in the long term .
A nation that consumes more than it produces is bound for troubled waters .
See your insane debt as a nation for further details .
... don't take the above as an attack on the US per say , more like nom-nom's for thought ...
You're angry at the players who expect quick and easy?
Isn't that what you have been taught as a nation to expect through your purchases -- when much of that cheap and easy is not coming from US manufacture.
I guess that's where I get into the generational thing on it.
I've seen folks complain about how long an email takes...and I'm just sitting there, thinking about having to get down to the post office to buy a stamp to put on the letter that was going to take three days to a week or more to get to the person.
Folks complaining about their download speeds on their phone...vs. hoping to have the correct change and there being an empty phonebooth to make a call.
Folks getting their news in 140 characters or less...vs. fighting a newspaper that didn't quite want to fold right so you could read the story.
The list just goes on and on and on...
Hell, no doubt I probably looked spoiled compared to the generations before...having an old IBM Selectric II typewriter that dad brought home from work - that was some fancy schmancy.
edit: Meh, I still can't do ebooks. I've got to go to the library or bookstore to get a real book. I need that feel of the real book in my hands.
I'm thinking you need some Preparation-H and should hurry to the store for it...but remember that it's a topical ointment, not something you ingest...which your comment there would suggest you've done in the past.
Take the advice or ignore it kid, I don't particularly care. But when your entire position hinges on people accepting your word about data. Than it works out better when you avoid throwing temper tantrums or insulting anywhere from 25 to 90% of the people reading your posts.
...and doesn't that make you stop to wonder for a moment, how I've set that bar so low in who I'm complaining about in complaining about leeches? Course, if you look at the numbers highlighted, the 1-3k included <4k.
No, I just chalked the adjusted standard up to being the result of trying to make your position look stronger than it is. You see, by creating a lower standard of acceptable DPS than the one you have used in every other instance of this thread, you can make the number of people that are not performing acceptably in STF look significantly smaller and thus much less of a problem. Or in other words, the kind of disregard for facts and honest discourse that I've come to expect from people who think calling others 'lazy liberals' will score him points.
Now, if we actually look at your data set objectively, and apply 5k as a minimum dps. Despite your posts indicating that 7.5k as a fairer minimum, it being the average for the 5-10k dps that you keep quoting. Despite the community standard of 10k dps. And despite Ridcully's standard of 7k DPS based on a ballpark amount of damage that needs to be inflicted to stop probes. This, by the way, is a gift to you. It's liberal generosity in order to make you look better. Because by using 5K DPS as a hard minimum, you're only calling 28% of the people in your own, cherry picked data set, leechers.
I'm interested in honesty and transparency, so I'll inform you that I reached this figure by removing your redundant data and just replacing the 69 individual entries of your personal DPS with a single tick in the 'above 5k' column. This if ofcourse under the assumption that the origin of this data was from personal experience, or runs that you individually participated in, and that you routinely get more than 5k dps. If either of these are untrue, you can present providence for your data set and I'll adjust accordingly. I also removed the two DNC's as anomolies, rather than count them as sub-5k performances. That left us with 275 valid data points, 77 of them are below 5K.
Now, the topic at hand, just like I don't care when you feel it's acceptable to call someone a "lazy liberal" I also don't care when you think it's okay to call someone a "leecher." Both situations out you as an obnoxious child but add no clarity to the debate. Some people have low DPS, some people have high DPS, all of them are Cryptic's customers and all of them, apparently, are trying to do ISA.
So regarding the topic of the thread. According to Viral Dancer's data set, 1 in 4 people participating in ISA are pulling in less than 5k DPS. That's a significant portion of the in game population. Now, is this enough to justify changes being made to advanced STF's to accomodate that quarter of the customer base? Should Cryptic focus their directions on other changes, like adding BNP's to the Deferra Adventure zone, so that players unable to perform adequately, for whatever reason, do not feel like their own character advancement has been blocked? Or should cryptic focus their attentions away from the reputation system entirely?
Absolutely. The people who can't manage advanced shouldn't be doing advanced, they should be doing normal. Instead they're asking for a third nerf to advanced difficulty.
Advanced difficulty isn't even that "advanced" anymore, it's as absurdly easy as the old elites got after years of powercreep.
In the case of CSA, it's actually vastly easier than the old elite. I'm just an advanced player and I was managing to wipe out the three bays on my own (minus spheres which I left to last), while the rest of my team wasted their time trying to kill the odd Bird of Prey.
BSA? A little know how and it's mind numbingly easy.
In fact the only difficulty you get in the "advanced" queues comes from people not having a clue what to do... Which isn't something you should expect from someone queuing in advanced.
Take the advice or ignore it kid, I don't particularly care. But when your entire position hinges on people accepting your word about data that, it works out better when you avoid throwing temper tantrums or insulting anywhere from 25 to 90% of the people reading your posts.
I've dropped out a bunch of the logs previously in discussions and could easily drop out the rest to dropbox as well. If 25% to 90% of the people reading my posts are feeling insulted by them, that would be highly depressing...when I figure it should be about 2-3% of the folks that should be insulted by them.
Your kid and temper tantrum statements kind of make you come off as if you're a TRIBBLE hoping his testes drop while trying to look mature on the internet, you know?
No, I just chalked up to the adjusted standard being the result of trying to make your position look stronger than it is. By creating a lower standard of acceptable DPS than the one you have used in every other instance of this thread, and significantly lower than what is considered acceptable overall, you are able to isolate the number of players worthy of condemnation, and thus make your own position look better. Or in other words, the kind of disregard for facts and honest discourse that I've come to expect from people who think calling others 'lazy liberals' is relevant.
Post #172 was my first mention of DPS in the thread. Where I said the following...
"I'm still only doing 10-20% the potential DPS out there...and that 10-20% is already overkill for Advanced. Somebody showing up doing 1-2%...why would they do that? If there were five of them...the group would fail."
Potential DPS out there being ~100k mark or so, so 10-20k is overkill...somebody showing up doing 1-k...er, so how is 1-<4k lower than 1-2k?
Post #183 had this...
"STO...where folks are doing 50k-100k DPS, but the guy doing 5-7k DPS is called an elitist because he doesn't want a run to fail because of all the folks doing 0.5-2k DPS."
So again, how is 1-<4k lower than 0.5-2k?
Hell, this next one with post #218 I'll just quote...
No, I wouldn't expect a group doing that much to fail...unless it was mainly one person doing that damage and they were basically trolling the group. But to be honest, I wouldn't expect an ISA public pug to be doing that much to begin with, averaging 10-12k per player...at first thought, but I looked and things actually look better than they have.
Here are the last 13 (it's Friday the 13th)...
44344 (12142 - 2104)
77824 (31866 - 2114) (an anomaly, that 31k guy did 41%)
42622 (14843 - 2329)
36851 (10767 - 1947)
50130 (15223 - 3480)
55406 (15705 - 4909)
43048 (12380 - 942) (the 942 guy was active 14s out of 862)
49427 (27386 - 2839) (an anomaly, that 27k guy did 55%)
46302 (15407 - 4128)
90376 (38120 - 1353) (an anomaly, that 38k guy did 42%)
40697 (14815 - 2120)
86665 (30826 - 7258) (another type of anomaly, the 30k guy did 35% and the lowest was 7258, eh?)
42080 (12778 - 2200)
That 7258 guy...five of them...likely at least one person carrying a GW...and it might be a long run that puts some folks off, but they should not only avoid the fail but even score the Optional.
The 2104, 2114, 2329, 1947, and 3840 guys from those last five...what's their run going to look like?
Five folks doing 6-8k is a far cry from the potential that folks can manage in the game. That's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about content requirements vs. potential...and it's only about 1-2k DPS more than it was for ISE.
Saying that the new player that's doing 1-3k might not be ready for Advanced...it is what it is...five folks doing that is going to be a failure, yeah? Getting them from 1-3k to 6-8k isn't anything along the lines of trying to get them from 1-3k to 60-80k...Hell, even 20-30k.
Just to try to make that clearer, for where I'm coming from...Hell, even if those 1-3k folks got up to 4-5k; there are pretty good odds that there might be somebody in the 8-10-12k range that could cover the difference. There would still be that RNG risk of having five folks doing 4-5k and the group running into problems, but the way folks have been improving (used to be far more 30-40k groups than 40-50k) there's some room there.
Sure, some folks out there might want everybody doing 10k, 15k, 20k or more. I'm not one of them...I'm fingers crossed that folks will be in that 4-5k, 5-6k, 7k...range...when they're new to Advanced. Cause it's one thing to be new to Advanced and another to be new to the game and trying to do Advanced.
Are you feeling like a dumbass yet?
As for your "lazy liberals" thing...guess what? Just like I didn't say anything higher for the DPS, I didn't say that either. Do you have me totally confused with somebody else?
Now, if we actually look at your data set objectively, and apply 5k as a minimum dps. Despite your posts indicating that 7.5k as a farer minimum, it being the average for the 5-10k dps that you keep quoting. Despite the community standard of 10k dps. And despite Ridcully's standard of 7k DPS based on a ballpark amount of damage that needs to be inflicted to stop probes. This, by the way, is my gift to you, some of that liberal generosity. Because by using 5K DPS as a hard minimum, you're only calling 28% of the people in your own, cherry picked data set, leechers.
You are obviously having some sort of fundamental reading issue going on here...having some sort of hissyfit?
Because I'm interested in honesty and transparency, I reached this figure by removing your redundant data and just replacing the 69 individual entries of your personal DPS with a single tick in the 'above 5k' column. This if ofcourse under the assumption that the origin of this data was from personal experience, or runs that you individually participated in, and that you routinely get more than 5k dps. If either of these are untrue, you can present providence for your data set and I'll adjust accordingly. I also removed the two DNC's as anomolies, rather than count them as sub-5k performances. That left us with 275 valid data points, 77 of them are below 5K.
There were three...the DNC folks may have had higher or lower DPS than the rest of the group, they were people that only participated in a minor part of the run. There was a 860-something run where a guy did 942 DPS in 115s sort of thing.
And with my cutoff point the folks at below 4k...why did you chose 5k again?
Now, the topic at hand, just like I don't care when you feel it's acceptable to call someone a "lazy liberal" I also don't care when you think it's okay to call someone a "leecher." Both situations out you as an obnoxious child but add no clarity to the debate.
Your babbling along here as you have...making so many mistakes in what you think I've said when the information is all there to be quoted...
...leaves you looking...well, that would be all sorts of a TOS violation.
The folks I called leeches there...five of them...pretty much a guaranteed failure, no? Hence the low cut off point...cause even the 4-5k guy, like I said in reply to woodwhity in Post #302:
"It's pretty much that straightforward, yeah? I mean, it's that simple. There are just those tiny requirements for content compared to all the potential out there, right? Somebody showing up with lower DPS but bringing something else...is still trying to contribute...still trying to have a shot at a successful run."
That's not say you've been a complete waste of time. So getting back to the topic of the thread. According to Viral Dancer's data set, 1 in 4 people participating in ISA are pulling in less than 5k DPS. That's a significant portion of the in game population. Now, is this enough to justify changes being made to advanced STF's to accomodate that quarter of the customer base? Should Cryptic focus their directions on other changes, like adding BNP's to the Deferra Adventure zone, so that players unable to perform adequately, for whatever reason, do not feel like their own character advancement has been blocked? Or should cryptic focus their attentions away from the reputation system entirely?
For somebody complaining about folks being nice on the internet...you sure like to try to lob insults.
It's like I'm having a discussion with Niles, and even Frasier would /facepalm.
edit: This is the bit that got your panties all bunched up and caused your brain to stop functioning, yeah?
Then it is even worse, they have removed content for causal players.
If this is how they want it they should add gear requirement to even enter advanced or elite. That way I would not wast as much time of failed STF because of others.
I would also not make any more alts, but that is another matter, since game is for people that play advanced alts.
Sometimes I really wish an asteroid would hit the planet. The liberal socialist bull**** that's taken place over the past 15-20 years and led to all this ****ing TRIBBLE entitlement needs something like that to fix.
...which was said in reply to that reply to what I said here to somebody saying that Elite is meant for insane people; while pointing out the lengths Cryptic has gone to in making Advanced more accessible to people...
But that is what is wrong with this, advanced should be for causal players that want to get gear.
Elite is supposed to be for the insane people.
But seriously, advanced is supposed to be what replaced old elite, according to Cryptic, and the old elite were quite doable for causal players before this season.
That the advanced are supposed to have same difficulty as old elite is of course just bull****.... serious bull**** actually. They have more enemies then old elite and borgs have been buffed up, together with that optional is not optional but causes mission to fail if they fail.
Who ever came up with this idea should have his or her head examined. :rolleyes:
That's not what Cryptic said though. People keep saying that's what Cryptic said, but it's not what they said. Hrmm, I thought I'd posted it in this thread, but I guess it was in the other thread that was running tandem to this one initially.
So I'll quote two posts from that thread here...
The Pre-DR Elite weren't meant to be as easy as they were. Nerfing mobs for regular gameplay and the sheer amount of powercreep made them something that was very easy for even an average team to carry folks through.
Right with the announcement of the changes with going from Normal/Elite to Normal/Advanced/Elite they told folks Advanced would be more challenging than the Pre-DR Elites had become.
Folks probably just read the "headlines" as society tends to do these days and ignored what was said right under that.
They didn't leave the casual player out in the cold though, by any means. They added a way to get both BNPs and APCs without having to hit up any queued content. They had already added ways to get Isos/Implants without having to join queues when they added those. Neither Romulan nor Nukara gear require any of their so called Elite Marks.
So everything kind of falls into place, somewhat neatly.
Normal for casuals.
Advanced for "We expect Advanced to be for more skilled players and those who have invested in the game (ships and gear)."
Elite for "And we expect Elite to be for the best of the best. We don't expect most players to succeed on elite difficulty."
While providing a means for anybody to get the remaining gear that was restricted to having to run STFs without having to run a STF.
Hell, I grabbed my 2 APCs a day since they implemented that to grab the rest of the Delta set pieces. I got my Fluidic and Dyson stuff before that without running any STFs for it. Just like I got my Rom and Nukara stuff without having to do any teamed content. I get my various Marks from all Daily Reward Boxes they added which can all be acquired without having to hit up any STF.
Despite what bluegeek thinks about me being a "grizzled war veteran", lol, I play this game very solo and very casual. The only two "team" things I've done with the toon I rerolled for DR has been ISA and CCA. I didn't hit up ISA on the toon until Dec 30th...with all the talk when DR launched, I wasn't going to take him into an ISA knowing that he wasn't ready for it - wasn't until they nerfed it into the ground that I finally risked going in one. I might have a bit of "advanced" knowledge of the game going on, but I sure as Hell don't fly nor build at the "advanced" level...I go wheeeee!...and just try to meet minimum requirements for stuff (hence the waiting until the end of December on that toon).
edit: I forgot that I did some BHE back before they fixed the health of the NPCs. Got pulled into a "fun run" where two folks basically carried the other three of us, and it was pretty obvious that the scaling of difficulty was off on it so I hit up a few more to grab some APCs early on.
The vast majority of the game is for casuals...the means exist for casuals to get everything (well, outside of Accolades I guess) in the game without having to hit up an Advanced or Elite queue. Heh, I know...cause it's what I do...or should I say it's what I don't do to get the oodles of gear I've got that I can dork around with.
Then there's some Advanced queues for those that are a bit better, have invested a bit, etc.
Then there's some Elite queues for those that are a bit better than that, have invested a bit more than that, etc.
The Elite aren't what Cryptic thinks they are, and not all the Elites are there; so the actual "Elite" players out there aren't getting their challenge and are basically doing the same thing they were doing Pre-DR...just absolutely crushing the content the game has. Between that and what's going on/not going on with PvP...STO is still an extremely casual game.
What you used to refer to as Elite in our queued events and STFs is now known as Advanced. In the new Advanced versions of the queues you will see a similar level of challenge in the enemies that you are used to when the queues were labeled Elite. In addition, players with Captains under max level will find themselves bolstered up to level 60, the same level as their opponents. You wont gain seats or powers you didnt have, but your damage and other numerical values for your Captain and ship will be scaled up to match what you would do at this higher level.
Advanced does offer some new challenges as well. Many objectives that were optional in Normal mode are now required in Advanced mode. We hope you were paying attention during your playthroughs of Normal before jumping into Advanced. Beginning with the release of Delta Rising, failure to complete these formerly optional objectives will result in the immediate failure of the mission. Upon failure, you will receive a portion of the rewards that you would have received for completing the mission, so you still are rewarded for your time spent in the event.
Advanced mode also brings with it one or more new optional objectives as well. This may be an objective to complete the mission in set amount of time, or some other goal that can be achieved. Failure to do these optional mission objectives will simply prevent you from getting the bonus rewards for Advanced mode, and will not result in failure of the mission.
Successfully completing an Advanced version of an event will reward you with even more Marks than Normal as well as Dilithium Ore. In addition, you will receive a package of Advanced Queue R&D materials, with a chance at getting some of the highly sought after Very Rare R&D materials.
We are fully cognizant that there will be complaints that it's too hard. We have no intention of going back on Elite and making it easier to achieve. This is the brass ring for you all to aspire to.
If anything our worry is that one or two might be too easy compared to the rest. We'll take steps to remedy those situations asap.
Normal is level 50-60, with enemies and players scaled to level 50 in terms of "sidekicking".
Advanced is level 50-60, with enemies and players scaled up to level 60 in terms of "sidekicking", and enemies all use the Advanced difficulty adjustments.
Elite is level 60 only, and all enemies use the Elite difficulty adjustments.
Welcome to Delta Rising. A lot has changed in the game difficulty, and we are looking for your feedback.
Delta Rising was a massive addition, and we anticipate that we will need to make adjustments. So over the next few weeks expect changes in the baseline difficulty, advanced difficulty, and elite difficulty - and also expect rewards to change as we gather more metrics on play-times and success rates.
Our goal was to make basic difficulty and the story content something everyone can play - even with a standard T5 ship. Levels 1-50 are generally pretty easy at basic difficulty, so we felt 51-60 should step things up a bit. Although we expect 51-60 accessible everyone, those in T5 ships and non-upgraded gear should to start to feel a definite challenge as they approach level 60. We expect Advanced to be for more skilled players and those who have invested in the game (ships and gear). And we expect Elite to be for the best of the best. We don't expect most players to succeed on elite difficulty.
If I were to guess, I would expect basic to get some minor tuning, Advanced to get a little easier and Elite to get a lot harder - and rewards, like dilithium rewards, could potentially go up across queues once we are sure we are hitting the right mark. But this is just my guess at this time.
Until then, let us know your thoughts here, and we will take your feedback into consideration.
We did warn you that Elite is not for everyone. Its pretty extreme. Seriously, most players should not be able to do it.
But please note, that have already had some pretty well organized fleets blazing through Elite with apparent ease. It kinda blows me away honestly. We have a lot of diversity on skill in STO, so finding the right balance point may take time. We want to make a real challenge for our top players, so if players are succeeding easily (and they are), expect it to probably get harder.
As part of the recent Delta Rising expansion released for Star Trek Online, PvE queues underwent a major overhaul to follow a new difficulty schema providing for interesting challenges as players advanced to the new maximum rank of Fleet Admiral. Unfortunately, our first attempts at updating difficulty have not been universally successful and as a result we will be working towards bringing the challenge of these queues in line with where we think they should be.
The key change in difficulty to the PvE queues was the addition of failure conditions for Advanced and Elite difficulties. Since the release of Delta Rising, weve been monitoring several key metrics regarding player experiences in STO, including player success rates for each queue. Adding failure conditions to queues was meant to add a challenge to them and so no advanced or elite queues should have a 100% success rate. At the same time, however, we dont expect any queue to have a success rate that is so low that players who are appropriately geared will never experience a successful run.
We have already started making adjustments to content throughout STO in order to tune difficulty. Most recently there was an update to the modifiers applied to critter health and damage output for advance difficulty (not just for queues but also for solo content played with the difficulty slider set to this value). There are more, similar changes planned that will continue to tune these critter modifiers. Additionally, PvE queues will be evaluated on a per queue basis and potentially have their mission requirements, critter spawns or other aspects updated to help tune their specific difficulties.
This will be an ongoing process one that we hope we can resolve quickly but we think it is much more important to have our changes be the right ones. We will continue to communicate with the players about all these updates as they occur.
Charles Gray
Lead Content Designer
Star Trek Online
Shortly after launch of Delta Rising, I made a post asking for your input on balance for levels 51-60 balance. I wanted to take a moment and thank everyone for their input. Raising the level cap with 3 difficulty settings is a big task. The difference in skill and gear from one player to another can be very large, so getting the balance right can be a challenge.
A little over a week or so ago, we made some changes to difficulty. Based on additional feedback, as well as continuing data mining, we are in the process of making another pass. We will be noticeably reducing the HP and shields of all space critters from levels 51-60. This change will have more of an effect at level 60 than 51. This change will affect Basic and Advanced difficulty, but not affect Elite Difficulty.
Be sure to watch for additional posts from the devs on related changes. In relation to game difficulty, keep an eye out for posts on PvE queue difficulty as well as a post on changes to changes to rewards. Please focus your responses on the appropriate thread.
I posted a couple of weeks ago about planned changes we are making to both rewards throughout the game and the difficulty of PvE queues. What follows is a progress report of how those updates are coming along and what updates you can expect in the near future. As mentioned previously, this is an ongoing effort to improve STO and these first updates are not the entirety of what will be done.
Already Live:
Increased Dilithium Rewards
As part of the November 6th, 2014 update, dilithium rewards were increased in PvE queues to be 360/720/1440 dilithium for successful completion of normal/advanced/elite respectively. Additionally, dilithium rewards for all adventure and battle zones were increased by 50%.
Live Today:
New Fleet Action Rewards
Gorn Minefield, Starbase 24, Breaking the Planet, The Big Dig and Klingon Scout Force have all had their rewards updated. Upon successfully completing any of these fleet actions, all participants will be rewarded with 720 Dilithium, 20 Fleet Marks, 1 Normal Queue R&D Material Reward Package, Skill Points and Expertise, in addition to one piece of gear with rarity based upon their personal performance.
Battle of Korfez PvE Queue
The Battle of Korfez PvE queue now has a failure reward for completing the first challenge (Defeat Vaadwaur Task Force) but failing to complete the entire mission (Defeat V.S.W. Implacable and Stop Trilithium Torpedoes). The failure reward for this PvE queue is your choice of 10 Fleet or Delta Marks.
Federation/Klingon Starbase Incursion PvE Queues
The rewards for both versions of Starbase Incursion have been reduced after discovering that there was legacy data giving out rewards twice upon completing the queue. These rewards have been returned to their original and intended values.
Coming Soon:
Increased Delta Quadrant Sector Patrols Rewards
All of the sector patrols in the Syllerran and Devore Sectors that were released as part of Delta Rising have had their skill point rewards doubled. Additionally, the Parein System patrol Legacies now rewards a random piece of level-appropriate gear in addition to its other rewards, as the mission requires you to disable all enemy ships and thus you will not be getting loot drops from critter kills.
The Breach and Storming the Spire PvE Queues
Both The Breach and Storming the Spire will now offer Delta Marks as a choice for reward upon completing the mission. This includes both success and failure rewards and all difficulty versions of these two queues.
Charles Gray
Lead Content Designer
Star Trek Online
Another round of PvE queue updates have been made and are making their way to Tribble for extra testing. As mentioned previously, this is an ongoing effort to improve STO and this update (and those that came before) are not the entirety of what will be done.
New to Tribble this week:
No Win Scenario
The No Win Scenario, both Starfleet and Klingon versions, has been removed from the PvE queue list. With the increase in maximum player level from 50 to 60, we no longer feel this queue is accomplishing its job of providing an intense escalating challenge where players really have to struggle to advance to the later waves. We do have plans to revisit this queue in the near future and rebuild it so it can continue to live up to its name.
Mine Trap
The rewards for successfully completing this PvE queue have been increased by an additional 50% above what they have been previously. Additionally, the failure rewards have been increased by an additional 150% above their existing rewards.
Nukara Prime: Transdimensional Tactics
The rewards for successfully completing the Advanced and Elite versions of this PvE queue have been increased by an additional 100% above what they have been previously (the Normal versions success rewards remain unchanged). Additionally, the failure rewards for the Normal version of this PvE queue have been increased by an additional 50% above their existing rewards (the Advanced and Elite versions failure rewards remain unchanged).
Vault Shuttle Event
We have fixed a bug that was preventing players from accessing the Advanced version of this queue (using the PvE queue window to enter the Advanced version would take you to the Normal version). Additionally, the rewards for successfully completing this PvE queue have been increased by an additional 150% above the existing rewards.
Shortly after the launch of Delta Rising, we noticed the effects of what turned out to be a mathematical error in the way multiple Hitpoint and Shield buffing passive powers were interacting with one another. This interaction was occurring only on a small number of NPCs which met both of the following criteria:
- Have a passive Hitpoint and/or Shield Buff that increases these pools above what an NPC of their Rank would usually have.
- Are found on Advanced and/or Elite Difficulty maps.
NPCs meeting both of the above criteria do not scale at the same rate as the rest of the NPCs in the game. These NPCs are mainly the "boss type" NPCs seen in queues, but this change, because of how it interacts with the aforementioned calculations, will effect different NPCs to different extremes.
It will NOT change the Hitpoint/Shield values on any NPC encountered on a Normal Difficulty map. The vast majority of NPCs encountered on Advanced and Elite Difficulty will also see no change, as they do not rely upon additional Hitpoint/Shield boosts other than those supplied by the Difficulty setting.
A few examples of specific high-hitpoint Boss NPCs that will be affected are:
- Tholian Project Leader (Transdimensional Tactics)
- The Spawnmother (Bug Hunt)
- The Borg Queen (Into the Hive, both Space and Ground)
- VSW Implacable (Battle of Korfez)
(It is worth noting that this will not affect the Crystalline Entity, as her scaling is handled in a different manner.)
One of the most widespread issues that this will resolve, is that NPCs on the Ground that rely upon a hitpoint boost to offset a lack of shields (Undine, Bluegills, Salt Vampires, etc.) will see an across-the-board increase in their health after this change. Although this will end up appearing as a 33-50% increase in maximum hitpoints for these types of enemies on Advanced and Elite difficulty, it will actually bring them in line with every other NPC in the game. We will be monitoring this particular aspect of the changes to see if it must be tuned separately.
For those that are interested, Ive included a section about the math involved in this change below (titled The Math).
Increase to Skillpoints and Expertise from NPC Kills Base on Difficulty Modifier
We will also be increasing the SP and Expertise bonus for NPCs killed in Advanced and Elite mode. Numeric rewards in Advanced difficulty will increase from 125% to 150%, while in Elite difficulty they will increase from 200% to 250%.
Charles Gray & Jeremy Randall
Lead Content Designer, Systems Designer
Star Trek Online
The Math
For clarity's sake, we'll share the full mathematical issue, and its effects. For the purpose of this demonstration, let's use simplified numbers to illustrate the point of how this hitpoint buff interacts with the Difficulty Scaling buffs, and the NPC's base hitpoints (please note these are example values for simplicity, and not the true values in the game).
Base Hitpoints Value = 1
Elite Difficulty Hitpoints Modifier = 3
So here is a simple formula on how a typical NPC would scale:
1 * 3 = 3
So typical critters in Elite mode has 3x as many HP as in Basic mode. Now let's take the Tholian Project Leader as an example. This boss NPC is found in the queue map "Transdimensional Tactics" which can be played at Advanced and Elite setting, and he relies upon a passive Hitpoint Buff. The passive hitpoint buff on this particular NPC has a very high value.
Under the existing system, as it currently sits on Holodeck, these figures interact incorrectly. Their mathematical relationship could be presented as:
1 * (3 + 12) = 15
This results in the final Hitpoint value on Elite being far lower proportionally than other NPCs. By design, the equation was expected to be presented as:
(1 * 12) * 3 = 36
As you can see, the difference can be fairly drastic. This particular NPC possesses the highest Hitpoint Buff of any NPC in the entire game and is an extreme example. Most Boss NPCs have buff magnitudes in the 1-5 range, rather than being in the ~12 neighborhood.
Another round of PvE queue updates have been made and are making their way to Tribble for extra testing. This particular batch of updates has focused on increasing difficulty for queues that are being completed at a higher rate than expected and decreasing rewards for queues that have been over-rewarding as compared to the reward levels we have established across all PvE queues. We expect that these will be the only queues changed in such ways during this first pass of updates. As mentioned previously, this is an ongoing effort to improve STO and this update (and those that came before) are not the entirety of what will be done.
New to Tribble this week:
Bug Hunt
The rewards for successfully completing the Normal difficulty version of this PvE queue have been increased by an additional 25% above what they have been previously, while the rewards for successfully completing the Advanced difficulty version have been increased by an additional 50% and the rewards for successfully completing the Elite difficulty version have been increased by 75%.
The Cure Applied
The I.K.S. Kang has had its hull, shields and damage bonuses for Advanced difficulty reduced by half. The mark rewards for successfully completing the optional objective in Normal difficulty have been reduced from 25 marks to 15 marks. The optional objective in Normal difficulty has been updated for completing the queue in 15 minutes to completing the queue in 4 minutes or less. The objective in Advanced difficulty requiring that players complete the queue in 15 minutes or less has been updated to requires players to complete the queue in 9 minutes or less.
Crystalline Catastrophe
The base mark rewards for successfully completing Normal difficulty have been decreased from 40 to 30 marks and for successfully completing Advanced difficulty have been decreased from 70 to 60 marks. Additionally, the failure rewards for Advanced difficulty have been increased from 5 to 10 marks. The optional objective in Advanced difficulty has been updated from completing the queue in 10.5 minutes to completing the queue in 5 minutes or less. The optional objective in Normal difficulty and the objective in Advanced difficulty requiring that no more than 50% of players die during the Crystalline Entitys pulse power, now requires that no more than 30% of players die during this same phase. The Crystalline Entitys pulse power no longer has a safe inner distance and this pulse no longer damages or destroys Crystalline Fragments (large or small).
Colony Invasion
The base mark rewards for successfully completing this PvE queue have been decreased from 40 to 30 marks.
Fleet Alert
The mark rewards for completing waves one and two have been decreased from 10 to 5 marks. The mark rewards for completing wave five has been decreased from 18 to 15. The mark rewards for completing waves three and four remain unchanged at 10 marks.
Available on Tribble next week:
Atmosphere Assault
The rewards for successfully completing the Normal difficulty version of this PvE queue have been increased by an additional 250% above what they have been previously while the rewards for successfully completing the Advanced difficulty version have been increased by an additional 400% above what they have been previously. Additionally, the Elachi Walkers have had their hull and shields reduced.
Charles Gray
Lead Content Designer
Star Trek Online
To which I even explained the depth of my comments when it was initially raised that I was ranting about liberals...
...but you obviously didn't read - having your hissyfit.
Not liberals...not that broad a scope, not a stereotype thing there. I'll complain about certain liberals and certain liberal things just like I'll complain about certain conservatives and certain conservative things. I'm not big into the clumping together and sterotyping thing, but odds are in any particular group there are going to be the folks that stand out. We have it here on the forums a bunch...there are the PvE folks that tend to make PvE folks look bad, the PvP folks that tend to make PvP folks look bad, the DPS folks that tend to make DPS folks look bad, the casual folks that tend to make casual folks look bad...I'd prefer to point at the individuals and laugh or /facepalm rather than point to the group.
Kind of like both FOX and MSNBC have their "normal/moderate" folks that are either conservative or liberal...but they've also go their "extreme" folks too.
Not all liberals have been in favor of the completely non-competitive and entitled landscape that others have been pushing for the past couple of decades...just like not all conservatives are wingnuts.
It's like the one article linked about America not competing anymore...things being dumbed down. While I didn't want to bite on that article, cause it would have gone all over the place off topic and violating TOS left, right, and center...
...it's difficult not to look at how things have changed and go, "Duh!" that the country is not as competitive as it was. Sports are everybody's a winner! Science fairs are just everybody gets a little ribbon!
We've gone from a country that at least tried to make a reasonable effort to prepare the next generation for the world to a country that offers a daycare system to prepare the next generation for a welfare system. Other countries have realized that doesn't work and are taking steps to prepare their future generations for the world at large...another reason that we've fallen that much further behind.
No, cause you were off on your Fox News tirade by that point...
Perhaps you didn't read or I wasn't clear. I cannot solo "Even a Sphere" as in a Sphere by itself. NOT the MISSION itself. Now. when there are 10 of them and a few cubes, you really don't have much of a ****ing chance. I'll try Deferra though I DETEST ground. Like I got a Starship so I could play in the dirt ya know?
I've done this mission a HUNDRED times at least and seldom had difficulty with any version unless someone is really just paying no attention. Now after last update... 1 of 20??? C'mon, something changed and it's pretty obvious.
can't solo a sphere...perhaps you should reevaluate your build. they give me no problem. mk xiv faeht warbird. epic spire consoles, plasma beams. spheres melt at a decent rate. heck I can solo the cube and sphere in khitomer. problem isn't the stf. it's your build.
I've dropped out a bunch of the logs previously in discussions and could easily drop out the rest to dropbox as well. If 25% to 90% of the people reading my posts are feeling insulted by them, that would be highly depressing...when I figure it should be about 2-3% of the folks that should be insulted by them.
I'm sure you can drop many many columns of numbers. And, as I've already explained, devoid of context they are meaningless. Lets use your "69 ISA's"
How did you arrive by this sample of runs? Did you use the same method of acquiring team mates for each run? Were there any repeat players or common players, other than you, in each run?
These are all important questions that we need to determine the validity of your 'logs.' We don't ask them because we assume that you're engaging in debate honestly. When you prove that you aren't, it doesn't matter how many logs you post because nobody is going to give a TRIBBLE about them.
Your kid and temper tantrum statements kind of make you come off as if you're a TRIBBLE hoping his testes drop while trying to look mature on the internet, you know?
Thanks kid, I'll consider this sad attempt at gaining a moral high ground with all the credibility I would of ANYONE who has accused me of eating Preparation-H.
Post #172 was my first mention of DPS in the thread. Where I said the following...
"I'm still only doing 10-20% the potential DPS out there...and that 10-20% is already overkill for Advanced. Somebody showing up doing 1-2%...why would they do that? If there were five of them...the group would fail."
Removing the obvious mistake of indicating you, 20% of the party, were overkill at doing 10% of the damage and assuming you meant that 10 to 20k was overkill. This has no bearing as it does not establish a minimum DPS.
Potential DPS out there being ~100k mark or so, so 10-20k is overkill...somebody showing up doing 1-k...er, so how is 1-<4k lower than 1-2k?
Does not establish a minimum DPS either.
Post #183 had this...
"STO...where folks are doing 50k-100k DPS, but the guy doing 5-7k DPS is called an elitist because he doesn't want a run to fail because of all the folks doing 0.5-2k DPS."
So again, how is 1-<4k lower than 0.5-2k?
Hell, this next one with post #218 I'll just quote...
Did not establish a minimum DPS.
Are you feeling like a dumbass yet?
No because NONE of those quotes establish a minimum DPS. None of them are relevant to the point I was responding to, hell none of them were relevant to the point you were making earlier in your sad attempt to shame other players.
And with my cutoff point the folks at below 4k...why did you chose 5k again?
Talk about fundamental reading issues.
Explaining for the second time, and with fewer tricky words. I chose 5K because of your repeated claim that 5-10k (with some CC) is all that's needed to do an advanced STF, and to be nice. Had I chosen 7.5k, the halfway point between 5 and 10k, you would have looked even more ridiculous. So, according to your repeated claims, anyone doing less than 5k, even with some CC, is not doing enough DPS to complete advanced STF's. The better question would be why you chose 4k as a cut off when nothing that you've said in this thread or your posts indicates you think 4k is an acceptable DPS. At most you've claimed that 4k is where you have decided that somebody is trying, or has potential, as if your opinion on that should matter.
The rest of your post is responding to a section that was made to someone else, and on topic, as if I were still responding to you. It's hard to express the extent to which I don't care about his attempts at wit.
However, to be fair, I've credited to you multiple times the childish accusation that so many people are 'lazy liberals.'
Sometimes I really wish an asteroid would hit the planet. The liberal socialist bull**** that's taken place over the past 15-20 years and led to all this ****ing TRIBBLE entitlement needs something like that to fix.
This is the post I'm referencing when you call people who might want more content made available for casual players 'lazy liberals.' For those not following the discussion, Virusdancer is responding to a poster who pointed out that content is out of reach for some players because of the increase in difficulty.
Now, I'll admit, the abbreviation is not completely accurate, but 'lazy liberal' is definitely in the spirit of your hatred for the 'liberal socialist bull**** that's taken over the past 15-20 years and led to all this ****ing TRIBBLE entitlement needs something like that to fix." and your desire for an extinction level event.
Yeah, I could have quoted you directly and let you relive the shame of your childish outbust, but I decided to be nicer than that. Had I known you'd attempt to attack my credibility because of the small courtesy I made, I wouldn't have bothered.
I'll skip the rest, because no amount of you blathering on changes the reality of it...and I'll get to the obvious ingrown hair in the TRIBBLE that you're experiencing here:
This is the post I'm referencing when you call people who might want more content made available for casual players 'lazy liberals.' For those not following the discussion, Virusdancer is responding to a poster who pointed out that content is out of reach for some players because of the increase in difficulty.
Now, I'll admit, the abbreviation is not completely accurate, but 'lazy liberal' is definitely in the spirit of your hatred for the 'liberal socialist bull**** that's taken over the past 15-20 years and led to all this ****ing TRIBBLE entitlement needs something like that to fix." and your desire for an extinction level event.
Yeah, I could have quoted you directly and let you relive the shame of your childish outbust, but I decided to be nicer than that. Had I known you'd attempt to attack my credibility because of the small courtesy I made, I wouldn't have bothered.
You're saying I said something I did not say. Before you had said anything, somebody had raised the concern that I was saying something along those lines - where it came off that I was ranting at the liberals. I explained that wasn't the case. I even quoted that part of the discussion in my previous reply there. So that's twice now, mind you that's just in regard to this part and not everything else, where you've demonstrated all sorts of things that would result in a TOS violation and moderation if they were mentioned.
You even admit that it's not what I said, yet you go on about it being the spirit of what I said - again - even after the spirit of what was being said was pretty clearly spelled out in my original reply to aelfwin and in my quoting it for that last reply where I acknowledged that I was ticked off because of where the discussion had gone. So I'm not sure what kind of traumatic event you had in life with somebody that wasn't an extremist liberal, whether they were a moderate liberal, liberal conservative, or even an extreme conservative - but frankly that's your issue and I can only hope you get whatever counseling you obviously need for that.
As for those that might not have followed the discussion taking place there, I wonder if that's not the reason that I included the conversation in that last post there, eh? What I said in reply to what was said in reply to what I said...the discussion, you know, so folks could follow along with what was said. But as you have obviously not been able to follow the rest of it, you obviously could not follow that either.
As to your complaint there..."For those not following the discussion, Virusdancer is responding to a poster who pointed out that content is out of reach for some players because of the increase in difficulty."...that would definitely be a case of not following the discussion, where that reply was offered in response to having laid out the means by which Cryptic made the content more accessible. You know, well maybe not - likely not, along the lines of what I posted about...
Initial Complaint: "I have to be a burden to folks by running this content to get the gear so I don't have to be a burden to folks."
Cryptic: "Here's a way to get the gear so one doesn't have to feel like a burden to folks while running content."
Follow-Up Complaint: "They've taken content away from casual players."
...yeah, the whole here's a way to get some better gear so the content might be better enjoyed rather than having that sour experience?
But no, that might actually require the person do something...far easier just to complain that the content was taken away rather than realize Cryptic did something so folks could have a better experience all around there...
...and thus the frustrated desire for an asteroid to hit the planet. Over the top? Oh, definitely...frustration got the better of me. That's been stated a couple of times, yeah?
But somebody following the discussion would have realized that...
...somebody having a PTSD hissyfit on the other hand - well, yeah, that would be you.
One thing I think we should all make peace with is that STF's are not designed for casual players. This is one of the reasons I don't do them. Despite all my time playing and all of the time I've spent on the forums, I am still only a casual player. My wife would shake her head in disbelief at that statement, but it's true.
Everybody who does what these forums would consider decent DPS and what these forums would consider effective builds are people who spend a lot of time studying STO and tinkering with builds. Or copy-paste a build from someone else who does.
It's not trolling for those casual players to come in here and complain about game difficulty in an STF. There's a knowledge gap that they simply did not realize existed.
It's okay to try to educate them. It's not okay to belittle them.
So STFs are not meant to be for casual players?
This would mean that the entire reputation system is not for casual players... just like the R&D system.... all item upgrades... all R&D items.... ...
Without playing the STFs you barely have a chance to get the resouces to take part in nearly everything that cryptic has introcuded to the players over the past months and years.
We could always stop the time it take for the spheres (the first nanite sphere to be exact) to travel from the gate to the transformer. Lets call that travel time.
Now we take the HP of the Transformer. And by that we are very, very courteous, as we assume all Gens are taken down within the same second. But obviously if we wouldnt assume that, the minimum DPS required would rise.
So the minimum Team-DPS would be HP_Transformer/Travel_Time= Team_DPS_Min.
Obviously we have to assume that a team is composed of 5 players, so the Minimum player dps is DPS_MIN=Team_DPS_Min/5.
Now, obviously I assumed nobody has CC. That is a valid assumption, as you cant assume anyone in your pugteam has CC with them. Of course you can always ensure you have CC with you, but we are talking about a minimum dps for any given pug.
If we would go for optional, obviously this minimum dps would be (HP_Sum_Enemies/(15*60))/5, or to bring it in line HP_Sum_Enemies/4500.
Clearly they have jacked up the difficulty several times over. I can't even solo a sphere in my monster fleet patrol escort refit. Trip XIV Dual Heavy's up front, Elite regen turrets in back... The people are playing the parts right... it's just they literally overwhelm you.
I have been able to succeed once in about my last 20 tries... last few making sure to hook with quality players. This is getting crazy. I need one Damn Borg Neural Processor and of course will eventually need others and they have nearly destroyed the possibility of getting them.
STFs aren't a solo effort.
The chief complaint really needs to be: Why are more unqualified players playing Advanced and Elite STFs (with/without appropriate gear) when they have NO clue what to do. For the moment, I've given up on some of them. The other day, a FAIL within "Fleet Alert" -- how the heck does a team fail that?!? I was there; players weren't engaged at all. Court martials for all, but one of them who actually tried. Same (esp) with the Borg STFs. More and more, there are players who have NO idea what to do -- and they're trying for Advanced (even Elite) to score goodies. but ultimately killing the event. No one wins; the reset time affects those who were serious; precious gameplay time has now been destroyed by these player-types.
(Cryptic needs to have a qualification/certification where players must successfully win Normal matches with certain amounts of points, say 5 matches, to progress to Advanced, etc.)
So STFs are not meant to be for casual players?
This would mean that the entire reputation system is not for casual players... just like the R&D system.... all item upgrades... all R&D items.... ...
Without playing the STFs you barely have a chance to get the resouces to take part in nearly everything that cryptic has introcuded to the players over the past months and years.
Nope. STFs aren't meant for casual players.
I'm agreeing with you here:
There's no way to score various items, like Borg Neural Processors, to succeed in the Reputation system, then progress forward.
I'd interpret "casual" as someone who logs into STO, tries to get gear they need, but can't devote hours to grinding/crafting; they just want to play. But the lack of balance forces them to play Advanced or Elite ot try to get what they need. And they're neither savvy, nor geared up to succeed. STFs are NOT for casual players.
I'm sure you can drop many many columns of numbers. And, as I've already explained, devoid of context they are meaningless. Lets use your "69 ISA's"
How did you arrive by this sample of runs? Did you use the same method of acquiring team mates for each run? Were there any repeat players or common players, other than you, in each run?
It was stated that they were all public queue runs...so they were just random groups from hitting up the public queues. All I run are public queue pugs.
The obvious thing to point out would be that any results I had there would be skewed by my being there...so obviously I had an effect on those around me much like they did with me.
Removing the obvious mistake of indicating you, 20% of the party, were overkill at doing 10% of the damage and assuming you meant that 10 to 20k was overkill. This has no bearing as it does not establish a minimum DPS.
I'm not sure in the least why you find that so difficult to follow.
Five people doing 10-20k is overkill for ISA.
Five people doing 1-2k is going to fail...hard.
You're saying it has no bearing as it did not establish a minimum is kind of the point. You had me establishing a minimum when all I had posted was what I had posted...where I had not established a minimum for the requirement. I provided potential ranges of where the content could still be completed in a realistic fashion.
Say it was a case of looking at a 35k minimum...not stating that is a minimum, because there is that combination of the fail condition with the Nanites and the Optional with the 15 minutes. It makes it difficult in a sense to set that actual minimum because it will depend on the group...it's possible for somebody to carry quite a few players along with them. But let's say we set 35k as the minimum as a hypothetical. Across five players, that would mean 7k, right?
If somebody was doing 9k, though, wouldn't that mean somebody could do 5k? You'd still have that 35k met, right?
Let's drop somebody down to 1k though, that means the other four have to do 34k - so they'd have to average out to 8.5k, yeah? So four folks are doing 8.5k and one is doing 1k...what does the 1k person look like by comparison to the 8.5k guys?
Leech? Oh wait, they're contributing their 2.857% of the required DPS? They're a vital member of the team! Without the 2.857% they're doing...it couldn't be done!
The lower somebody is doing, the more somebody else has to do, right? So the lower somebody is doing, the more they're expecting somebody to cover for them, yeah?
Leech? But they're trying to get better gear? Oh, that's right, the other bit - and - you know, Cryptic making that easier for folks to get without having to be in that situation.
At some point, the expectation for the low amount has to take into account the reasonable expectation for the high end and everybody between the two...simple, yeah?
Explaining for the second time, and with fewer tricky words. I chose 5K because of your repeated claim that 5-10k (with some CC) is all that's needed to do an advanced STF, and to be nice. Had I chosen 7.5k, the halfway point between 5 and 10k, you would have looked even more ridiculous. So, according to your repeated claims, anyone doing less than 5k, even with some CC, is not doing enough DPS to complete advanced STF's. The better question would be why you chose 4k as a cut off when nothing that you've said in this thread or your posts indicates you think 4k is an acceptable DPS. At most you've claimed that 4k is where you have decided that somebody is trying, or has potential, as if your opinion on that should matter.
This is just mind-boggling to me, to be honest. You continue to state that I've said something when I haven't and state that I've not said something when I have. Even when it's quoted for you yet again. I mean, even there in what you just said...
"So, according to your repeated claims, anyone doing less than 5k, even with some CC, is not doing enough DPS to complete advanced STF's."
"The better question would be why you chose 4k as a cut off when nothing that you've said in this thread or your posts indicates you think 4k is an acceptable DPS."
Maybe the reason that I chose 4k as the cut off...was because it actually matched up with what I had said? Maybe it's because I did not make any claims that somebody doing less than 5k is not doing enough?
You know...like...if you were to read what was actually there?
I'll skip the rest, because no amount of you blathering on changes the reality of it...and I'll get to the obvious ingrown hair in the TRIBBLE that you're experiencing here:
So the only topic relevant portion of the discussion is over and now we get to discuss how saying you don't like conservatives sometimes either is not at all an explanation for why you felt accusing a fellow poster of entitlement born of "15-20 years of liberal socialist bull****" was a good idea. Oh boy.
You know what, I was going to challenge you to put your words into a context, ANY, context that made sense that wasn't "this guy is a lazy, entitled liberal, unwilling to do the work necessary to be good enough to play an advanced STF." I was going to ask you to explain the 'spirit' of what you said, if that wasn't it. But it occurs to me you wouldn't be able to so you wouldn't try, and instead you'd subject me to another mutli-paragraph off topic ramble, interspersed with childish allusions to insults that you would totally blow my mind with, if it wasn't for fear of violating the ToS. Thinking about it now though, no thanks, I've got a 12 year old who can do more than threaten, so I've had my fill of your half measures.
I will say before I go. I did read your response to Aelfwyn even before I made my original post.
It was a spineless, crowd-pleasing attempt to save face. But whether you hate some conservatives or not, and whether you blame "socialist liberal bull****" entirely for the loss of American competitiveness or just partially for the loss of American competitiveness doesn't matter, it's not relevant to the words you said to a poster on this thread about his particular concerns. It would have made any politician proud though, and your attempt to hide behind it now is about the level of competency that I've come to expect from you.
Edit: Some relevant stuff got said... yay?
I'm not sure in the least why you find that so difficult to follow.
Five people doing 10-20k is overkill for ISA.
Five people doing 1-2k is going to fail...hard.
You're saying it has no bearing as it did not establish a minimum is kind of the point. You had me establishing a minimum when all I had posted was what I had posted...where I had not established a minimum for the requirement. I provided potential ranges of where the content could still be completed in a realistic fashion.
Not hard to follow. I was poking fun at a typo you made. You see, you had said you did 10% of the DPS, and that doing 10% of the DPS was overkill. Hilarious.
The problem with these damage indicators is that we're trying to determine at which point children like you get to accuse people of playing content that is not for them. You've said repeatedly that STF's can be completed if players are performing at the uselessly broad range of 5-10k (with cc) so, at the very least, we can all agree that someone doing less than 4k (and maybe not bringing cc) is leaching.
Leaching, before you get confused, I am using as short hand for "being a burden" "getting carried" or any other situation in which someone may be relying on the superior skills of others to complete content he could not have completed either on his own, or with a team of equivalent players.
Now I know, I know, you define leech via an arbitrary damage range that has either no internal logic, or an internal logic that you can't explain. Woodwhity's definition is the one I'm using, because his at least makes sense.
We could always stop the time it take for the spheres (the first nanite sphere to be exact) to travel from the gate to the transformer. Lets call that travel time.
Now we take the HP of the Transformer. And by that we are very, very courteous, as we assume all Gens are taken down within the same second. But obviously if we wouldnt assume that, the minimum DPS required would rise.
So the minimum Team-DPS would be HP_Transformer/Travel_Time= Team_DPS_Min.
Obviously we have to assume that a team is composed of 5 players, so the Minimum player dps is DPS_MIN=Team_DPS_Min/5.
Now, obviously I assumed nobody has CC. That is a valid assumption, as you cant assume anyone in your pugteam has CC with them. Of course you can always ensure you have CC with you, but we are talking about a minimum dps for any given pug.
If we would go for optional, obviously this minimum dps would be (HP_Sum_Enemies/(15*60))/5, or to bring it in line HP_Sum_Enemies/4500.
It's just a tough one to come up with a number outside of "perfect" conditions though, eh?
Along the lines of what I last posted in the Worst STF thread...folks going along, this or that going on, somebody shoots at a Gen. Not even 4k damage to it, no kill message to the log, and the Gen's gone - here come the Nanites.
There's just so many lil' things like that, meh...
It would have made any politician proud though, and your attempt to hide behind it now is about the level of competency that I've come to expect from you.
I'm hiding? Having left it there? Having quoted it myself? Having explained why I said and thus having said it again? Said it was over the top - didn't apologize though. Lol, what planet are you posting from?
Dude, keep posting...it's entertaining as Hell. :rolleyes:
It's just a tough one to come up with a number outside of "perfect" conditions though, eh?
Along the lines of what I last posted in the Worst STF thread...folks going along, this or that going on, somebody shoots at a Gen. Not even 4k damage to it, no kill message to the log, and the Gen's gone - here come the Nanites.
There's just so many lil' things like that, meh...
Indeed, I am with you here. But there was someone else wanting a sound explanation of minimum dps.
Utterly incorrect. Nothing in the reputation system requires STFs.
My alt hit T5 in every reputation system before she ever went into an STF, and that was just to parse and see where she was at.
Besides which, it's only advanced STF's that have serious fail conditions. Normal STF's you can still force your way through to victory on raw, undirected effort and enthusiasm, regardless of your skill or gear level. Most of the time regardless of even whether your team is even logged in.
Indeed, I am with you here. But there was someone else wanting a sound explanation of minimum dps.
Oh, wasn't questioning it by any means...just that hang up I have about "complicating" things by throwing in the 9001 things that could go wrong, yadda-yadda-yadda...
So STFs are not meant to be for casual players?
This would mean that the entire reputation system is not for casual players...
Utterly incorrect. Nothing in the reputation system requires STFs.
My alt hit T5 in every reputation system before she ever went into an STF, and that was just to parse and see where she was at.
It's kind of a shame how many times in this thread alone this has been pointed out, much less all the other threads - folks are trying to help folks out all over the place with how they can get stuff...yet so many folks still don't know or they read somebody else saying you can't, and it just goes on from there.
Erm, reputation gear requires STFs. Reputation gear is part of the reputation system.
You can get BNPs from Defera.
You can get APCs from Kobali.
You can get Isos from the Dyson Battlezone.
You can get Implants from the Dyson Adventure zone.
Neither Rom nor Nukara require Elite Marks.
I played old ISE a few times when we managed to not pop the transformer in time (I did suck once). It didn't take nearly 45 minutes; the only time we took that long was in our T1 ISE. It was simple, go for the spheres, instead of trying to dps down the transformer was up. That was pretty evident, and I figured that out when I was basically a pug (2-5k, maybe?).
In that particular situation, I was in a 3k tank Oddy at the time.
I did the most DPS in that group, and was the only one who didn't repeatedly die.
Comments
Like normal-advanced-elite?
Nice thought, but effectively ineffective, as you can still vary within (at least) a factor 2. Powerlevels, distance to enemy, combinating BO-Abilities, all those combined make quite a factor to your basic build
Leave them empty graveyard ques for awhile and they will wake up and fix it.
They won't bother if people break themselves to fit the game.
It's a lot like the stupid 120 second thing.
Cryptic has stated their intended players for each difficulty. If they were to implement any form of content gating, unless it was only for the public queues, that would prevent those players out there that find things to be too easy from tackling content in gear that would below that threshold. Cryptic's mistake, then, could be said in thinking that the community could think.
Cryptic's said they're kind of at a loss at the amount of DPS some of the folks out there are capable of doing...Hell, I linked Geko's comment there about part of it...
...they didn't expect that.
Course, that range is something I complain about a bit when complaining about ratios/percentages and how they affect the game. Hell, posted this back with post #174 in this thread:
Just those three things can make a huge difference with somebody running the exact same build.
Take Player A to 25000 there, and Player B's doing 43420 DPS while Player C's doing 11580 DPS...with the exact same build.
And again, that's before taking into account how somebody's managing their buffs/debuffs and how the team itself is doing as well.
It's why I talk about how they could put me in one of Ryan's rocking builds...and I'd be complete failsauce in it.
There's no doubt in my mind that the underlying mechanics for STO were not designed to take into account the sheer amount of powercreep that's been added to the game. I'm usually complaining about that once a week or more. I hate the following formula...
Damage = Base * (1 - WeaponEnhancementBaseModifier) * (1 + WeaponPowerBoost) * (1 + WeaponEnhancementBoost) * (1 + SumAllStrengthBoost) * (1 + SumAllBonusBoost) * (1 - RangePenalty) * (1 - DamageResistance)
...and what it means in a game with all the powercreep this one has along with the mostly horizontal content the game has.
But suggesting that they create more difficulties? How? Does the game have the playerbase to support more difficulties?
Hell, I'd love for the game to have...
Casual
Normal
Advanced
Elite
Nightmare
...but it doesn't have the playerbase for it, does it?
So we've got...
Normal
Advanced
Elite
...for our tiers, where they can be broken down into something like the following:
Normal: Casual
Advanced: Casual, Advanced, Elite (because of no Elite existing)
Elite: Advanced, Elite (with the Elite not really feeling challenged in the least)
Casual folks can do Advanced...cause Casual folks are doing Advanced. Just because somebody's put a wee bit of effort into either becoming a better pilot or improving their gear doesn't suddenly make them not Casual. Cause getting from Normal to Advanced isn't that big of a trip. Meh, it's one of the reasons why I've suggested in the past that Normal become Casual, Advanced become Normal, Elite become Advanced, and something new be added for those Elite players out there.
But beyond that, there is also going to be the matter of balancing the content itself. There were Elite queues that are easier than Normal queues of other content. There are Advanced queues that are more difficult than Elite queues of other content.
They've got their statements regarding what they want Normal, Advanced, and Elite to be...then all Normal, Advanced, and Elite content should feel like that, yeah? Not a case that folks hit up SomethingElite because it's the easiest way to get something because it's easier than Advanced, Normal, or even other ways of getting stuff. That's a failure, imho.
If somebody's having a difficult time doing missions on Normal...shouldn't that tell them that maybe they're not ready for doing Advanced or Elite? If somebody's just rocking them...find Normal to be a breeze, then wouldn't that tell them they're ready to hit up Advanced?
Why doe Cryptic have to gate content? It's like a company putting down a Caution, Cuidado, Achtung yellow sign because the floor's wet..and somebody complaining that the company didn't put up a rope barricade. Don't get me wrong, I've argued for gating...cause folks do completely ignore all the signs then turn around and complain while ruining things for the folks that put in the least bit of effort because they paid attention to the signs.
I'm tired of folks trying to lay the blame on Cryptic for so many things, when there are obviously so many things actually to blame Cryptic for...they're all over the place, Cryptic screws up left, right, and center. But seriously, some folks just need to learn to take some personal responsibility and realize that they're the problem...not Cryptic...in that particular case.
I was thinking more like: Normal, Advanced, Elite and No Win Scenario (Well for most of us anyway :P ).
Even with a factor of 2 you get basic range of DPS that can tell you if build is valid for Advanced or whatever difficulty. Lets face it Game client crash bug and similar things will bring down DPS to 0 for duration, so it is just to get an general understanding of DPS not the exact amount (which is dependent on things like how skills are used and taking advantage of specializations etc).
A test server is supposed to be used to properly test patches before patching anything....
But that's kind of the thing...public queues may not be bumping, but that doesn't mean folks aren't playing them. All sorts of folks out there are playing all sorts of stuff. Before I left 10k, it was a trip to see folks using acronyms for content and trying to figure out just what the Hell they were talking about...cause folks are running pretty much everything out there, stuff that I had thought died off long ago. Whether it's Fleets, friends, the Battles folks, the DPS folks, all sorts of folks are out there having fun running content...
...that's the reporting error...
...and that the public queues are the way they are is a reflection on certain players - not the players as a whole nor on Cryptic.
Cause even if Cryptic did some form of gating, there would still be the trolls looking to TRIBBLE their fellow players over.
Some folks are just tired of leeches and trolls...they're not complaining about empty queues. They're off having fun.
If folks would stop leeching and trolling...the queues might get better, yeah?
Course, with pretty much everything but certain R&D mats being far easier to get outside of running queues - that wouldn't necessarily fix the queues like some would want.
This is an extremely casual and solo player friendly game. Even if nobody leeched or trolled, not everybody would suddenly rush back to the public queues or queues at all.
Say I roll a new toon...I've got no reason to hit up any queues for anything. The only reason I'd hit up a queue is if I wanted to do it for fun...kind of well, like it's been for a while now and it's even easier now with the BNPs/APCs.
This is the most casual/solo friendly MMO I've played going back to starting with UO back in '97. I didn't get this post count cause I'm being all hardcore and running all sorts of group content...I've got it cause the forums are over here on the one monitor while I'm dorking around doing relaxed solo stuff on the other monitor.
Well that is true and false .
It's true that the US has in essence "sold itself out" in a rush for a quick profit .
In the Reagan era that was selling anything that wasn't bolted to the floor to the Japanese who showed up with big money , and in the Clinton era the dream of Globalization lead to the eventual outsourcing of jobs on a unhealthy scale .
Thus Republican and Democrat alike (while each having good points about them too) have made some blunders that echo down the years .
(and don't let me get started on the W.Bush era)
You also don't take into account that on a Global scale , we (due to our rapid technological advances) are at an uncertain point in terms of future professions (aka what jobs will become automated or extinct in the next 20-50 years) -- which leads to multiple disciplines being taught a an increasing frequency .
As to preparing the next generation -- education is just part of the package , as a balanced economy is based not just on education , but in the investment in infrastructure and the maintaining and the creation of additional job opportunities .
Take India as an example -- many ppl have higher education , but job opportunities are not available locally for the skills that have been taught .
And while , (from my POV) , we Globally have two major issues to tackle -- the average ageing of the Western (US & Europe) citizenry and global terror that has taken an increasingly religious tone -- the US is on a very slow recovery .
It's too slow to get noticed by those who believe that there is a magic pill to fix all the damage from the last 3 decades (2 sellouts and 2 drawn out wars/occupations) , but it has started .
The question is : when will you , the average Joe will start to demand that your iPhone , and your TV and your Car be made in America ?
See , the welfare system isn't the problem .
The problem is Wallmart (and other "big name" companies) .
Cheap and easy products -- that's what you've come to expect ... , just like 2.5 years of "focus on the casuals" by Cryptic has gotten you a playerbase that expects convenience and ease (making the rants against said players dubious to say the least) .
You're angry at the players who expect quick and easy ?
Isn't that what you have been taught as a nation to expect through your purchases -- when much of that "cheap and easy" is not coming from US manufacture -- which in turn costs your economy in the long term .
A nation that consumes more than it produces is bound for troubled waters .
See your insane debt as a nation for further details .
... don't take the above as an attack on the US per say , more like nom-nom's for thought ...
I guess that's where I get into the generational thing on it.
I've seen folks complain about how long an email takes...and I'm just sitting there, thinking about having to get down to the post office to buy a stamp to put on the letter that was going to take three days to a week or more to get to the person.
Folks complaining about their download speeds on their phone...vs. hoping to have the correct change and there being an empty phonebooth to make a call.
Folks getting their news in 140 characters or less...vs. fighting a newspaper that didn't quite want to fold right so you could read the story.
The list just goes on and on and on...
Hell, no doubt I probably looked spoiled compared to the generations before...having an old IBM Selectric II typewriter that dad brought home from work - that was some fancy schmancy.
edit: Meh, I still can't do ebooks. I've got to go to the library or bookstore to get a real book. I need that feel of the real book in my hands.
Take the advice or ignore it kid, I don't particularly care. But when your entire position hinges on people accepting your word about data. Than it works out better when you avoid throwing temper tantrums or insulting anywhere from 25 to 90% of the people reading your posts.
No, I just chalked the adjusted standard up to being the result of trying to make your position look stronger than it is. You see, by creating a lower standard of acceptable DPS than the one you have used in every other instance of this thread, you can make the number of people that are not performing acceptably in STF look significantly smaller and thus much less of a problem. Or in other words, the kind of disregard for facts and honest discourse that I've come to expect from people who think calling others 'lazy liberals' will score him points.
Now, if we actually look at your data set objectively, and apply 5k as a minimum dps. Despite your posts indicating that 7.5k as a fairer minimum, it being the average for the 5-10k dps that you keep quoting. Despite the community standard of 10k dps. And despite Ridcully's standard of 7k DPS based on a ballpark amount of damage that needs to be inflicted to stop probes. This, by the way, is a gift to you. It's liberal generosity in order to make you look better. Because by using 5K DPS as a hard minimum, you're only calling 28% of the people in your own, cherry picked data set, leechers.
I'm interested in honesty and transparency, so I'll inform you that I reached this figure by removing your redundant data and just replacing the 69 individual entries of your personal DPS with a single tick in the 'above 5k' column. This if ofcourse under the assumption that the origin of this data was from personal experience, or runs that you individually participated in, and that you routinely get more than 5k dps. If either of these are untrue, you can present providence for your data set and I'll adjust accordingly. I also removed the two DNC's as anomolies, rather than count them as sub-5k performances. That left us with 275 valid data points, 77 of them are below 5K.
Now, the topic at hand, just like I don't care when you feel it's acceptable to call someone a "lazy liberal" I also don't care when you think it's okay to call someone a "leecher." Both situations out you as an obnoxious child but add no clarity to the debate. Some people have low DPS, some people have high DPS, all of them are Cryptic's customers and all of them, apparently, are trying to do ISA.
So regarding the topic of the thread. According to Viral Dancer's data set, 1 in 4 people participating in ISA are pulling in less than 5k DPS. That's a significant portion of the in game population. Now, is this enough to justify changes being made to advanced STF's to accomodate that quarter of the customer base? Should Cryptic focus their directions on other changes, like adding BNP's to the Deferra Adventure zone, so that players unable to perform adequately, for whatever reason, do not feel like their own character advancement has been blocked? Or should cryptic focus their attentions away from the reputation system entirely?
Absolutely. The people who can't manage advanced shouldn't be doing advanced, they should be doing normal. Instead they're asking for a third nerf to advanced difficulty.
Advanced difficulty isn't even that "advanced" anymore, it's as absurdly easy as the old elites got after years of powercreep.
In the case of CSA, it's actually vastly easier than the old elite. I'm just an advanced player and I was managing to wipe out the three bays on my own (minus spheres which I left to last), while the rest of my team wasted their time trying to kill the odd Bird of Prey.
BSA? A little know how and it's mind numbingly easy.
In fact the only difficulty you get in the "advanced" queues comes from people not having a clue what to do... Which isn't something you should expect from someone queuing in advanced.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
I've dropped out a bunch of the logs previously in discussions and could easily drop out the rest to dropbox as well. If 25% to 90% of the people reading my posts are feeling insulted by them, that would be highly depressing...when I figure it should be about 2-3% of the folks that should be insulted by them.
Your kid and temper tantrum statements kind of make you come off as if you're a TRIBBLE hoping his testes drop while trying to look mature on the internet, you know?
Post #172 was my first mention of DPS in the thread. Where I said the following...
"I'm still only doing 10-20% the potential DPS out there...and that 10-20% is already overkill for Advanced. Somebody showing up doing 1-2%...why would they do that? If there were five of them...the group would fail."
Potential DPS out there being ~100k mark or so, so 10-20k is overkill...somebody showing up doing 1-k...er, so how is 1-<4k lower than 1-2k?
Post #183 had this...
"STO...where folks are doing 50k-100k DPS, but the guy doing 5-7k DPS is called an elitist because he doesn't want a run to fail because of all the folks doing 0.5-2k DPS."
So again, how is 1-<4k lower than 0.5-2k?
Hell, this next one with post #218 I'll just quote...
Are you feeling like a dumbass yet?
As for your "lazy liberals" thing...guess what? Just like I didn't say anything higher for the DPS, I didn't say that either. Do you have me totally confused with somebody else?
You are obviously having some sort of fundamental reading issue going on here...having some sort of hissyfit?
There were three...the DNC folks may have had higher or lower DPS than the rest of the group, they were people that only participated in a minor part of the run. There was a 860-something run where a guy did 942 DPS in 115s sort of thing.
And with my cutoff point the folks at below 4k...why did you chose 5k again?
Your babbling along here as you have...making so many mistakes in what you think I've said when the information is all there to be quoted...
...leaves you looking...well, that would be all sorts of a TOS violation.
The folks I called leeches there...five of them...pretty much a guaranteed failure, no? Hence the low cut off point...cause even the 4-5k guy, like I said in reply to woodwhity in Post #302:
"It's pretty much that straightforward, yeah? I mean, it's that simple. There are just those tiny requirements for content compared to all the potential out there, right? Somebody showing up with lower DPS but bringing something else...is still trying to contribute...still trying to have a shot at a successful run."
For somebody complaining about folks being nice on the internet...you sure like to try to lob insults.
It's like I'm having a discussion with Niles, and even Frasier would /facepalm.
edit: This is the bit that got your panties all bunched up and caused your brain to stop functioning, yeah?
...which was said in reply to that reply to what I said here to somebody saying that Elite is meant for insane people; while pointing out the lengths Cryptic has gone to in making Advanced more accessible to people...
...so yeah, I was ticked.
To which I even explained the depth of my comments when it was initially raised that I was ranting about liberals...
...but you obviously didn't read - having your hissyfit.
No, cause you were off on your Fox News tirade by that point...
can't solo a sphere...perhaps you should reevaluate your build. they give me no problem. mk xiv faeht warbird. epic spire consoles, plasma beams. spheres melt at a decent rate. heck I can solo the cube and sphere in khitomer. problem isn't the stf. it's your build.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
I'm sure you can drop many many columns of numbers. And, as I've already explained, devoid of context they are meaningless. Lets use your "69 ISA's"
How did you arrive by this sample of runs? Did you use the same method of acquiring team mates for each run? Were there any repeat players or common players, other than you, in each run?
These are all important questions that we need to determine the validity of your 'logs.' We don't ask them because we assume that you're engaging in debate honestly. When you prove that you aren't, it doesn't matter how many logs you post because nobody is going to give a TRIBBLE about them.
Thanks kid, I'll consider this sad attempt at gaining a moral high ground with all the credibility I would of ANYONE who has accused me of eating Preparation-H.
Removing the obvious mistake of indicating you, 20% of the party, were overkill at doing 10% of the damage and assuming you meant that 10 to 20k was overkill. This has no bearing as it does not establish a minimum DPS.
Does not establish a minimum DPS either.
Did not establish a minimum DPS.
No because NONE of those quotes establish a minimum DPS. None of them are relevant to the point I was responding to, hell none of them were relevant to the point you were making earlier in your sad attempt to shame other players.
Talk about fundamental reading issues.
Explaining for the second time, and with fewer tricky words. I chose 5K because of your repeated claim that 5-10k (with some CC) is all that's needed to do an advanced STF, and to be nice. Had I chosen 7.5k, the halfway point between 5 and 10k, you would have looked even more ridiculous. So, according to your repeated claims, anyone doing less than 5k, even with some CC, is not doing enough DPS to complete advanced STF's. The better question would be why you chose 4k as a cut off when nothing that you've said in this thread or your posts indicates you think 4k is an acceptable DPS. At most you've claimed that 4k is where you have decided that somebody is trying, or has potential, as if your opinion on that should matter.
The rest of your post is responding to a section that was made to someone else, and on topic, as if I were still responding to you. It's hard to express the extent to which I don't care about his attempts at wit.
However, to be fair, I've credited to you multiple times the childish accusation that so many people are 'lazy liberals.'
This is the post I'm referencing when you call people who might want more content made available for casual players 'lazy liberals.' For those not following the discussion, Virusdancer is responding to a poster who pointed out that content is out of reach for some players because of the increase in difficulty.
Now, I'll admit, the abbreviation is not completely accurate, but 'lazy liberal' is definitely in the spirit of your hatred for the 'liberal socialist bull**** that's taken over the past 15-20 years and led to all this ****ing TRIBBLE entitlement needs something like that to fix." and your desire for an extinction level event.
Yeah, I could have quoted you directly and let you relive the shame of your childish outbust, but I decided to be nicer than that. Had I known you'd attempt to attack my credibility because of the small courtesy I made, I wouldn't have bothered.
You're saying I said something I did not say. Before you had said anything, somebody had raised the concern that I was saying something along those lines - where it came off that I was ranting at the liberals. I explained that wasn't the case. I even quoted that part of the discussion in my previous reply there. So that's twice now, mind you that's just in regard to this part and not everything else, where you've demonstrated all sorts of things that would result in a TOS violation and moderation if they were mentioned.
You even admit that it's not what I said, yet you go on about it being the spirit of what I said - again - even after the spirit of what was being said was pretty clearly spelled out in my original reply to aelfwin and in my quoting it for that last reply where I acknowledged that I was ticked off because of where the discussion had gone. So I'm not sure what kind of traumatic event you had in life with somebody that wasn't an extremist liberal, whether they were a moderate liberal, liberal conservative, or even an extreme conservative - but frankly that's your issue and I can only hope you get whatever counseling you obviously need for that.
As for those that might not have followed the discussion taking place there, I wonder if that's not the reason that I included the conversation in that last post there, eh? What I said in reply to what was said in reply to what I said...the discussion, you know, so folks could follow along with what was said. But as you have obviously not been able to follow the rest of it, you obviously could not follow that either.
As to your complaint there..."For those not following the discussion, Virusdancer is responding to a poster who pointed out that content is out of reach for some players because of the increase in difficulty."...that would definitely be a case of not following the discussion, where that reply was offered in response to having laid out the means by which Cryptic made the content more accessible. You know, well maybe not - likely not, along the lines of what I posted about...
Initial Complaint: "I have to be a burden to folks by running this content to get the gear so I don't have to be a burden to folks."
Cryptic: "Here's a way to get the gear so one doesn't have to feel like a burden to folks while running content."
Follow-Up Complaint: "They've taken content away from casual players."
...yeah, the whole here's a way to get some better gear so the content might be better enjoyed rather than having that sour experience?
But no, that might actually require the person do something...far easier just to complain that the content was taken away rather than realize Cryptic did something so folks could have a better experience all around there...
...and thus the frustrated desire for an asteroid to hit the planet. Over the top? Oh, definitely...frustration got the better of me. That's been stated a couple of times, yeah?
But somebody following the discussion would have realized that...
...somebody having a PTSD hissyfit on the other hand - well, yeah, that would be you.
So STFs are not meant to be for casual players?
This would mean that the entire reputation system is not for casual players... just like the R&D system.... all item upgrades... all R&D items.... ...
Without playing the STFs you barely have a chance to get the resouces to take part in nearly everything that cryptic has introcuded to the players over the past months and years.
Now we take the HP of the Transformer. And by that we are very, very courteous, as we assume all Gens are taken down within the same second. But obviously if we wouldnt assume that, the minimum DPS required would rise.
So the minimum Team-DPS would be HP_Transformer/Travel_Time= Team_DPS_Min.
Obviously we have to assume that a team is composed of 5 players, so the Minimum player dps is DPS_MIN=Team_DPS_Min/5.
Now, obviously I assumed nobody has CC. That is a valid assumption, as you cant assume anyone in your pugteam has CC with them. Of course you can always ensure you have CC with you, but we are talking about a minimum dps for any given pug.
If we would go for optional, obviously this minimum dps would be (HP_Sum_Enemies/(15*60))/5, or to bring it in line HP_Sum_Enemies/4500.
The chief complaint really needs to be: Why are more unqualified players playing Advanced and Elite STFs (with/without appropriate gear) when they have NO clue what to do. For the moment, I've given up on some of them. The other day, a FAIL within "Fleet Alert" -- how the heck does a team fail that?!? I was there; players weren't engaged at all. Court martials for all, but one of them who actually tried. Same (esp) with the Borg STFs. More and more, there are players who have NO idea what to do -- and they're trying for Advanced (even Elite) to score goodies. but ultimately killing the event. No one wins; the reset time affects those who were serious; precious gameplay time has now been destroyed by these player-types.
(Cryptic needs to have a qualification/certification where players must successfully win Normal matches with certain amounts of points, say 5 matches, to progress to Advanced, etc.)
I'm agreeing with you here:
There's no way to score various items, like Borg Neural Processors, to succeed in the Reputation system, then progress forward.
I'd interpret "casual" as someone who logs into STO, tries to get gear they need, but can't devote hours to grinding/crafting; they just want to play. But the lack of balance forces them to play Advanced or Elite ot try to get what they need. And they're neither savvy, nor geared up to succeed. STFs are NOT for casual players.
It was stated that they were all public queue runs...so they were just random groups from hitting up the public queues. All I run are public queue pugs.
The obvious thing to point out would be that any results I had there would be skewed by my being there...so obviously I had an effect on those around me much like they did with me.
I'm not sure in the least why you find that so difficult to follow.
Five people doing 10-20k is overkill for ISA.
Five people doing 1-2k is going to fail...hard.
You're saying it has no bearing as it did not establish a minimum is kind of the point. You had me establishing a minimum when all I had posted was what I had posted...where I had not established a minimum for the requirement. I provided potential ranges of where the content could still be completed in a realistic fashion.
Say it was a case of looking at a 35k minimum...not stating that is a minimum, because there is that combination of the fail condition with the Nanites and the Optional with the 15 minutes. It makes it difficult in a sense to set that actual minimum because it will depend on the group...it's possible for somebody to carry quite a few players along with them. But let's say we set 35k as the minimum as a hypothetical. Across five players, that would mean 7k, right?
If somebody was doing 9k, though, wouldn't that mean somebody could do 5k? You'd still have that 35k met, right?
Let's drop somebody down to 1k though, that means the other four have to do 34k - so they'd have to average out to 8.5k, yeah? So four folks are doing 8.5k and one is doing 1k...what does the 1k person look like by comparison to the 8.5k guys?
Leech? Oh wait, they're contributing their 2.857% of the required DPS? They're a vital member of the team! Without the 2.857% they're doing...it couldn't be done!
The lower somebody is doing, the more somebody else has to do, right? So the lower somebody is doing, the more they're expecting somebody to cover for them, yeah?
Leech? But they're trying to get better gear? Oh, that's right, the other bit - and - you know, Cryptic making that easier for folks to get without having to be in that situation.
At some point, the expectation for the low amount has to take into account the reasonable expectation for the high end and everybody between the two...simple, yeah?
This is just mind-boggling to me, to be honest. You continue to state that I've said something when I haven't and state that I've not said something when I have. Even when it's quoted for you yet again. I mean, even there in what you just said...
"So, according to your repeated claims, anyone doing less than 5k, even with some CC, is not doing enough DPS to complete advanced STF's."
"The better question would be why you chose 4k as a cut off when nothing that you've said in this thread or your posts indicates you think 4k is an acceptable DPS."
Maybe the reason that I chose 4k as the cut off...was because it actually matched up with what I had said? Maybe it's because I did not make any claims that somebody doing less than 5k is not doing enough?
You know...like...if you were to read what was actually there?
So the only topic relevant portion of the discussion is over and now we get to discuss how saying you don't like conservatives sometimes either is not at all an explanation for why you felt accusing a fellow poster of entitlement born of "15-20 years of liberal socialist bull****" was a good idea. Oh boy.
You know what, I was going to challenge you to put your words into a context, ANY, context that made sense that wasn't "this guy is a lazy, entitled liberal, unwilling to do the work necessary to be good enough to play an advanced STF." I was going to ask you to explain the 'spirit' of what you said, if that wasn't it. But it occurs to me you wouldn't be able to so you wouldn't try, and instead you'd subject me to another mutli-paragraph off topic ramble, interspersed with childish allusions to insults that you would totally blow my mind with, if it wasn't for fear of violating the ToS. Thinking about it now though, no thanks, I've got a 12 year old who can do more than threaten, so I've had my fill of your half measures.
I will say before I go. I did read your response to Aelfwyn even before I made my original post.
It was a spineless, crowd-pleasing attempt to save face. But whether you hate some conservatives or not, and whether you blame "socialist liberal bull****" entirely for the loss of American competitiveness or just partially for the loss of American competitiveness doesn't matter, it's not relevant to the words you said to a poster on this thread about his particular concerns. It would have made any politician proud though, and your attempt to hide behind it now is about the level of competency that I've come to expect from you.
Edit: Some relevant stuff got said... yay?
Not hard to follow. I was poking fun at a typo you made. You see, you had said you did 10% of the DPS, and that doing 10% of the DPS was overkill. Hilarious.
The problem with these damage indicators is that we're trying to determine at which point children like you get to accuse people of playing content that is not for them. You've said repeatedly that STF's can be completed if players are performing at the uselessly broad range of 5-10k (with cc) so, at the very least, we can all agree that someone doing less than 4k (and maybe not bringing cc) is leaching.
Leaching, before you get confused, I am using as short hand for "being a burden" "getting carried" or any other situation in which someone may be relying on the superior skills of others to complete content he could not have completed either on his own, or with a team of equivalent players.
Now I know, I know, you define leech via an arbitrary damage range that has either no internal logic, or an internal logic that you can't explain. Woodwhity's definition is the one I'm using, because his at least makes sense.
It's just a tough one to come up with a number outside of "perfect" conditions though, eh?
Along the lines of what I last posted in the Worst STF thread...folks going along, this or that going on, somebody shoots at a Gen. Not even 4k damage to it, no kill message to the log, and the Gen's gone - here come the Nanites.
There's just so many lil' things like that, meh...
I'm hiding? Having left it there? Having quoted it myself? Having explained why I said and thus having said it again? Said it was over the top - didn't apologize though. Lol, what planet are you posting from?
Dude, keep posting...it's entertaining as Hell. :rolleyes:
Indeed, I am with you here. But there was someone else wanting a sound explanation of minimum dps.
My alt hit T5 in every reputation system before she ever went into an STF, and that was just to parse and see where she was at.
Besides which, it's only advanced STF's that have serious fail conditions. Normal STF's you can still force your way through to victory on raw, undirected effort and enthusiasm, regardless of your skill or gear level. Most of the time regardless of even whether your team is even logged in.
Oh, wasn't questioning it by any means...just that hang up I have about "complicating" things by throwing in the 9001 things that could go wrong, yadda-yadda-yadda...
It's kind of a shame how many times in this thread alone this has been pointed out, much less all the other threads - folks are trying to help folks out all over the place with how they can get stuff...yet so many folks still don't know or they read somebody else saying you can't, and it just goes on from there.
Erm, reputation gear requires STFs. Reputation gear is part of the reputation system.
Free Tibet!
Reputation gear requires reputation marks and BNP, which, at least for Omega gear, can be obtained from the Deferra Adventure Zone.
You can get BNPs from Defera.
You can get APCs from Kobali.
You can get Isos from the Dyson Battlezone.
You can get Implants from the Dyson Adventure zone.
Neither Rom nor Nukara require Elite Marks.
In that particular situation, I was in a 3k tank Oddy at the time.
I did the most DPS in that group, and was the only one who didn't repeatedly die.
That is not how MMOs work.
You don't start raiding in order to gear up for raids.