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Losing the Focus of the Game's Origins
baldemort41
Member Posts: 21 Arc User
Long ago, in a galaxy...oops, wrong franchise.
Seriously, three years ago, STO was about putting a good--not uber--team together, learning tactics, and accomplishing a mission. Today, it's become all about 30k DPS, mathematics, and statistical analysis for those that enjoy number crunching...those that I call "Janeways."
We're not all Janeways, developer team. Some are Archers...they like to learn through trial and error, exploration, reasoning, and their "gut." Some are Kirks...really using their gut, courage/bravado, and swagger. Some are Picards...steady players that remain balanced, with imagination and more of a literary approach. Still others are Siskos...firm, pragmatic.
But this game should be able to serve all, not just the Janeways. And it should still be accessible for casual players, not just the hard-core grinders.
How many countless hours of work has the current dev team rendered virtually useless with their new content? Very few run ground STFs anymore, unless they've got a player base/group of friends that enjoy them. There are players who achieve Tier 5 Omega...and have NEVER run an STF.
Remember Nukara? How many players actually visit there anymore, unless it's to pick up their Tier 5 bonus?
The bottom line is that the game is turning into nothing more than an exercise in statistical analysis for those that feel the need to exploit every stat, analyze every function...and many of them...not all, but many...exclude any others who don't see things or play their way. This elitist mentality erodes the community of players that this game used to be. Now people have to "prove" their worth in the game by achieving a certain level of DPS, or they're not allowed into the good-ole-boy network of the 30K and over crowd.
How many players ACTUALLY PLAY the Elite levels? I'm guessing you'll find less than ten percent of the STO community even attempts it, and most of that ten percent tends to stick only with what they consider their "equals." What is the point of creating content that most of your player base cannot accomplish?
If the new EP and the devs are truly listening, they need to make the game and its endgame content accessible, and achievable, by more than a small percentage of the player base. A handful of those with all Legendary gear shouldn't determine the fate of all. The increase in NPC abilities that's coming will only enhance this problem
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
Seriously, three years ago, STO was about putting a good--not uber--team together, learning tactics, and accomplishing a mission. Today, it's become all about 30k DPS, mathematics, and statistical analysis for those that enjoy number crunching...those that I call "Janeways."
We're not all Janeways, developer team. Some are Archers...they like to learn through trial and error, exploration, reasoning, and their "gut." Some are Kirks...really using their gut, courage/bravado, and swagger. Some are Picards...steady players that remain balanced, with imagination and more of a literary approach. Still others are Siskos...firm, pragmatic.
But this game should be able to serve all, not just the Janeways. And it should still be accessible for casual players, not just the hard-core grinders.
How many countless hours of work has the current dev team rendered virtually useless with their new content? Very few run ground STFs anymore, unless they've got a player base/group of friends that enjoy them. There are players who achieve Tier 5 Omega...and have NEVER run an STF.
Remember Nukara? How many players actually visit there anymore, unless it's to pick up their Tier 5 bonus?
The bottom line is that the game is turning into nothing more than an exercise in statistical analysis for those that feel the need to exploit every stat, analyze every function...and many of them...not all, but many...exclude any others who don't see things or play their way. This elitist mentality erodes the community of players that this game used to be. Now people have to "prove" their worth in the game by achieving a certain level of DPS, or they're not allowed into the good-ole-boy network of the 30K and over crowd.
How many players ACTUALLY PLAY the Elite levels? I'm guessing you'll find less than ten percent of the STO community even attempts it, and most of that ten percent tends to stick only with what they consider their "equals." What is the point of creating content that most of your player base cannot accomplish?
If the new EP and the devs are truly listening, they need to make the game and its endgame content accessible, and achievable, by more than a small percentage of the player base. A handful of those with all Legendary gear shouldn't determine the fate of all. The increase in NPC abilities that's coming will only enhance this problem
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
Baldemort, K'Bald E Mort, D'Baldemort
Twelve toons, one mission...enjoy STO
House of DILLIGAF (KDF)
Twelve toons, one mission...enjoy STO
House of DILLIGAF (KDF)
Post edited by baldemort41 on
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The thing is, the loud minority, whether it be on here, twitter and or reddit were/are the most vocal about the changes in difficulty.
I've been a roamer and the occasional commenter on here a long time, and plenty of what I saw was "This game is too easy; I can run IGE myself in a tier 2 cruiser using only photon torpedoes."
Echo that 10x with claims of solo elite STF stats and videos in the devs faces all day long and you get someone with a hammer coming in and bludgeoning everything to what we have now.
Now I'm in no way condoning just how much the difficulty/hp/optionals were increased or put into effect, I'm just saying the majority of the minority complained for a more difficult game and they got one.
You're right. This game is becoming about min/maxing, and the gap between the "rich and poor" is widening, and short of some radical changes which they are actively trying to do and actively being sneered at on here there isnt a damned thing that can be done about it.
I'm one of those who only visit Nukara to pick up my T5 rewards.
A> I don't like ground most missions. I did my time in minion keybind hell back in Censoredcraft. While I could get APCs on Kobali now the micromanagement of my braindead boffs makes it a pain. Why yes captain, I willl pull a Han Solo on that Vaaduar on the far side of the map and bring back all its friends right as a new group ninja a spawns on you. Oh, wait, I didn't tell you I was running off? My bad. Good thing we have transporter buffers, right?
B> I don't like pointless hassles. Having to swap out my armor for an environmental suit and vice-versa is nothing but a pointless hassle. Yes, it may only take seconds. Yes, it is trivial. But given those two it should have its own slot or have conventional resists on par with normal armor. I got Omega ground sets just for the slower adaptation and instant refrequencer. It's also why I don't bother much with kits, especially now that the mission that gave you a random purple module is gone.
A + B means I always get my 600 Nukara marks for a captain during events.
I also don't like other players being able to dictate how I spend my time. I *used* to like Infected Conduit (old Elite). Now that Joe Rambo running off on his own costs me time instead of a few marks, it's just not worth it. (If you're going to say "just join a DPS channel and roflstomp it like the pros." Don't bother. Public Queues shouldn't require private teams to be successful at the lowest difficulty that awards the reputation currency.)
Isn't that what NORMAL difficulty STFs, etc are for?
Then progressing to ADVANCED STFs, etc when they felt able to?
Personally I think they made the jump from NORMAL NPC HP to ADVANCED NPC HP to much of a jump, thus encouraging players to spend $$$ to be able to upgrade their gear to do the 30k+ DPS. Getting more players spending $$$ was probably the underlying plan.
ELITE level content should be for those players who really need a challenge, not joe casual player, but I think they should have worked on running better scripted AI for the various difficulty levels instead of just increasing the NPC HP.
I don't worry about upgrading gear to EPIC levels except on the TRIBBLE server occasionally when I want to test something. There will always be some new better gear/build to try out for fun.
PS.... I do like the change allowing the borg neural processors, etc to be gained from more content than before as I now have some low level alts with BNPs just from running Defera with teams. :eek:
I still haven't seen elitism in the DPS channels. Heck, I've seen more elitism from the space rich in Doffjobs than anywhere else, except from various forum warriors.
For the most part, it is.
Thing is, for that audience, power sells. They buy ships for traits alone and upgrade all their stuff to 14 and buy a hundred keys for just the lobi with every new lockbox. For Cryptic they're the easiest people to sell to, since a bigger version of something that already exists is a lot easier to design than increasing variety. Plus they probably spend more than everyone else combined, so all the more reason to target them. Why wouldn't Cryptic's top brass do the least work for the most return?
The other four captain types (as you phrased it) may not like it, but they aren't the target audience.
Start off with an insult...
And the folks you call Janeaways aren't like that? Oh that's right, try to isolate other folks and separate them...no association...so you can scapegoat the imagined fiends being behind the issues one is experiencing.
Which gets into delusions about it not being just that...
Damn it, people aren't playing the game the way I want them to play the game...
So...?
The attempt at reinforcing the scapegoats as the problem and connected to the delusion that the game has changed...
To provide challenges for players of different levels that might enjoy different levels of difficulty...which would mean that they're not playing the way you think they should and shame on them!
More blah, blah, scapegoating and delusion...
And wrapping up with a quote that has nothing to do with the reality of the situation...
...lol, this was entertaining.
Get some therapy.
When a few players that think everything should be tailored to them run the entire future of a game, the game won't last long.
The other problem is, a lot of these same people are the ones constantly exploiting, causing higher difficulty with NPCs for casual players because of the elitist's "look at me" mentality.
Just because some people's existence is so sad that they validate themselves and their self-worth based on success in a game doesn't mean the game has to be ruined just to appease their fragile egos.
Twelve toons, one mission...enjoy STO
House of DILLIGAF (KDF)
Twelve toons, one mission...enjoy STO
House of DILLIGAF (KDF)
As for why harder Content in the game? So you have more reason to strive for new things. This is not uncommon in the industry. If you go play SWTOR you will see 192 Flashpoints and Operations Content, 186 Content, etc. The people who eventually earn the best gear want something challenging to use it on.
Twelve toons, one mission...enjoy STO
House of DILLIGAF (KDF)
Cryptic is making more money, no matter how many warm bodies are involved. 3/4 of the game could leave, but so long as it were the 3/4 that doesn't contribute any actual cash, why would Cryptic care at all? Other player aren't really desired insomuch as tolerated in the hopes they'll transition to such spenders as well.
Also, throwing out insults in your posts, maybe keep that to yourself, or else your discussion will just degenerate into pointless bravado and name calling, drowned in volume and bille. (That'll happen anyways with this topic, always does, but may as well not accelerate it).
Twelve toons, one mission...enjoy STO
House of DILLIGAF (KDF)
Based on the overall tone of your response, it seems you need it more atm. :rolleyes:
New content is designed to make you feel ill-equipped to complete it. The goal is that you will then seek out the means to better equip yourself. The dev team hopes you'll accomplish this by spending money.
At some point this methodology is going to fail. Trying to frustrate players into spending money only leads to further frustration... grouchy customers are not good customers.
However, games cost money to keep going so the the bigger question to ask is what can they do to keep the cash flowing without resorting to their current methods?
For example, I'd pay regularly for character customizations and vanity items, but how many others would? This game is made up of such a diverse set of people with their own interests I don't see how they can really target their revenue strategies to their playerbase.
There's no such thing as a free lunch, the question is how do you want to pay for what you're getting? I'd rather see in game advertising than I would one more lockbox or this continual push to pay for power.
Captain Ariel Trueheart Department of Temporal Investigations
U.S.S. Valkyrie - NCC 991701
=/\= ================================= =/\=
Truth hurts, eh? Here's the solution to your problems: http://www.walmart.com/ip/VAN45-Two-Sided-Vanity-Swivel-Mirror-1X-5X-Satin-Nickel/16497091
I could probably do with some anger management therapy to deal with folks like the OP that didn't learn some of the most basic things as a child.
Cause seriously, it's getting old. Cause it's hard not to figure that they're not like that in life too. Which means they're potentially causing all sorts of problems for society as well. And sure enough, society is reflecting those kind of folks more and more.
So yeah, there's definitely some frustration there where I could probably do with some sort of meditative therapy to help deal with that...not going to argue that in the least.
Yep, there are all sorts of folks that are disillusioned with how the game feels like it has changed for them - where they can go on and on about it, providing all sorts of constructive feedback (even negative feedback can be constructive)...and then there are posts like the OP's there.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Could I have worded my initial reply better? I can give it another go here.
"No, STO is not just for a specific type of player. All sorts of players, whether they think of themselves more like Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer, or some mix of them or as some other character that might have been promoted to the role of captain...enjoy the game. It's one of the great things about this game - it's both extremely casual and also has that underlying hardcore element. Cryptic has done a decent job, imho, of creating a game with mass appeal to potential captains out there.
As such, in acknowledging that different people might come at the game in a different manner; then you should be well aware that different people might enjoy playing different things with the game. This can mean that the stuff you personally enjoy may not get the play you wish it did. It's at times like this that one can sit back and complain or put some feelers out to see if there are others that enjoy that kind of play as well. Cause it's a game, right? We should be having fun here and there's plenty of fun to be had.
And as part of that, comes the necessary acceptance that not all players are going to be of the same skill, knowledge, gearing, and all the rest that makes it so great that we're all individuals and not just a bunch of clones, right? So there are some folks that might not be up to the challenge provided by some of the higher ranked content, but that doesn't mean that anybody's trying to exclude them from content. Cryptic has gone to great lengths to try to provide content for folks that might enjoy Normal, might enjoy Advanced, and might even enjoy Elite levels of difficulty. If they just did a single level, then some folks just aren't going to be having the fun they would, eh? It's pretty nifty, imho, that Cryptic's taken steps to try to provide for as many folks as they have.
There's fun to be had...just waiting for you...to boldly go...enjoy what STO has to offer."
But honestly, blue - it's all freakin' obvious stuff that shouldn't even need to be said and it just gets damn frustrating.
You are correct. This is something that many have tried to bring to their attention since before DR, but more so after DR, since it is now way worse. The DPS/power creep chase.
The main problem is that they are selling power creep, and then adjusting the queues for those that buy it. While elite was what we were told were for those chasing and buying DPS/power creep, they are messing up advanced queues in a tug-a-war against the DPS crowd.
If you look at the queues that do have elite options, the only rewards that you can get that will be worth it for some that you can't get elsewhere is the R&D stuff. But, most of the very high DPS players I know of don't even care about the R&D stuff, so they run advanced queues.
The reason for this is because there is no DPS per shot on weapons. This allows them to steamroll the advanced queues to get more rewards in less time.
Instead of fixing the problem, and being done with it, the developers in charge prefer to keep playing this tug-a-war game with the high DPS players. Sell power creep, and offer things that increase DPS-then turn around and adjust the advance queues so those with very high DPS can't complete them as quickly.
And normal is a joke. The old normal was unlocked at level 45, and was level 45. The normal we have now is so easy that level 40 players can do it, but they don't unlock till level 50. This just shows that the ones calling the shots don't know how to properly adjust content for the players.
We were told that we and the content was at level 50, but the high DPS players were doing level 60 DPS. So DR was suppose to balance that out. Instead, we are at level 60, high DPS players are doing level 70+ DPS, and the content for advance and higher is at level 65+.
They only moved the level cap to sell more DPS. And now they are right back at the same problem they created before DR.
They need someone in that can clean up this mess, and get STO back on track. Then more people will be in the game, and more will be coming back to it (instead of leaving).
Those very few that asked for harder content, that is what the developers said the new elite difficulty was for. Where is that content for the STFs/PVEs that still need it. Give the elitist what they were asking for, like they said they would, and stop messing up advanced will be a good start.
Maybe Cryptic took notes.
By the time someone gets all their Mk XII Rep/Fleet Gear they should easily be in the 8k+ DPS range; even without any real skill as far as Boffs or Doffs. As I stated above, my Fleet Sovereign was doing 15k DPS with that Gear and I am certainly not a PvP-caliber player.
So pre-Mk XII Rep Gear you do Normal, post Mk XII Rep Gear you do Advanced and slowly build to Mk XIV when you can do Elite.
I do not see how that is any different then any other game I have ever played. I recently spent a good 50 hours doing Shadow of Revan in SWTOR just to get 1 character to 186 Gear - and I still need to do dozens of additional FPs/Operations to get to it all to 192. Compound that with the fact that I had to do 8 weeks of repetitive mission grind to get all the character's Companions to 192 we are talking well over 100 /played hours just from level 55 to 60. I cannot see why anyone would think it should take less time or be easier in STO.
I know that a lot of people compare STO to other MMOs, but it is a different MMO. Just like Defiance is one I play. I can get a character to the very max level in less than a week and a half. But, I don't expect STO to be the exact same way.
And you are right that the normal should prepare players for advance, and that should prepare them for elite.
However, like I said in my previous post, the problem is that there are a lot of STFs/PVEs that don't have an elite option. This has resulted in the developers adjusting advance to make them harder for the players that should be in elite. Those that are not at that level are just screwed.
I don't want the advance to be just like the old elite, because they were steamrolled by MK X common gear by casual players with little to no effort, just knowing how to do the mission.
However, making advance queues harder for the elite players is not a "fix" either.
Also, putting a DPS cap per shot will keep the elite from steamrolling the advanced queues, and eliminate the need to adjust the whole mission for them.
As far as leveling, I do think that the level from 50-60 should have kept the pace of 1-50. Not because I just want to be max level. It is because the content for levels 50-60 was very limited for the large xp requirement. This means that casual players had to take long periods of time between episodes.
And instead of side missions, or content to make up for that huge gap, they just wanted us to run patrols. Which they just nerfed xp progression from them again. lol.
Also the CapSpec system should have never been tied to levels 50-60, because it makes it part of the leveling system, and therefore is not a long-term system. Especially when the use of gear is locked behind it.
With DR, there were some good episodes released (not the patrols, but the actual episodes), the art work was awesome, and I think the story is pretty good. I also liked getting more VO since I have bad eyesight, and have trouble reading the small text on the screen.
However, there are a lot of mistakes also that were made, and instead of fixing them, they are trying to do quick adjustments that are not getting them closer to fixing things.
But there is no proof for that having taken placed and one doesn't need to be anywhere near what the DPS Wizards do to be overkill for Advanced. Like thecosmic1 said, it was basically just average run of the mill folks were just absolutely steamrolling the content. It wasn't made more difficult (+1-2k DPS per player) for the Elite folks. Something requiring 5-6k per player instead of 3-4k per player to get the optional in ISA (vs ISE) isn't doing diddly squat for the folks that were doing 20k-100k before.
An average player in a T5 9 console boat using mission rewards and mission loot is going to be overkill for Advanced and even some Elite. A below average player might actually find it to feel Advanced. One of those "elitist" guys will just slaughter it.
If folks spent a 1/1000th of the time they spent complaining looking at what they're doing even for the briefest of moments, they'd be stomping Advanced too. One doesn't need FT6 ships, G14 gear out the wahzoo, Rep out the wahzoo, Specialization out the wahzoo, Traits out the wahzoo, etc out the wahzoo to do Advanced. Don't even need it for Elite.
Yeah, there are folks out there doing 30k, 50k, 75k, 100k+ DPS...but there's no content that requires anything anywhere near that. In another thread, I looked at the top ten DPS folks there and my last ten ISA runs...only one of my groups had a total DPS higher than the individual DPS of the #10 person.
Just because folks out there are capable of doing X, doesn't mean that X is anywhere near what's required. And because those folks are doing that X, obviously Advanced wasn't tuned for them.
Even if somebody just played once a week since DR launched, that should have been more than enough in-chair experience for them to have long passed the additional requirements for Advanced without having upgraded a thing. Little things like power settings, range to targets, and pathing/piloting between engagements are going to make a bigger impact on their play than loading up on upgrades and goodies. It's something that will just happen subconsciously even if one isn't focused on it...they'll just gradually move toward doing it.
Maybe one day Cryptic will put the Advanced difficulty in Normal, the Elite difficulty in Advanced, and actually create that Elite difficulty for those folks out there so they have something to do. Heh, I find it annoying when I'm just doing my random thing in a public pug and one of the 30-50k+ guys come along; cause I'm just not built to take the aggro from those guys...I'm built to have my fun down with the average players that are still just steamrolling Advanced like they did Elite before DR.
Well from the sound of things, the time devoted to testing out builds and crunching the numbers to get the best DPS numbers -- well all of that is going the way of EVE ... (aka "spreadshees R us") .
Forgive me, but I never heard of a player in TOR being able to output x 10 or x20 or more of the damage using comparable level gear .
... STO is in DPS lala land, but you're welcome to not see it ... , after all its very hard to see the difference s that are brought to light each and every day ...
I don't crunch numbers on my builds. I run CLR just to see what the numbers are. Other than higher is better, I'm just as clueless as when I got my first Antiproton Beam. I just put in what I think will make things go boom faster. All one type of energy weapons and tons of consoles to boost that damage. Every other free spot is filled with don't die consoles. I have a plasmonic leech because I heard it was cool, so I bought one on the exchange years ago, it still works just fine. Other than that, [Borg] stuff and my tacs the other consoles are loot drops. Besides some beams and the Obelisk freebie warp core I'm flying the same stuff as I had in 2013 and doing just fine in pugs. I do 20k+ damage in ISA, but I can't tell you which piece of equipment is responsible for what percentage of the damage. If they upgrade the bad guys again, I'll just do what I did this time. Go back to Normal queues to see what's what and try to find a bigger gun before moving back up.
But even that's not the whole game. If you base your enjoyment of the game simply on running queues, I feel bad for you. You got doffs. You got accolade hunting. You got *shudder* RP. You can play as a Ferengi and try to become ridiculously space-rich. Shoot I've been playing since beta and I'm still finding new stuff to entertain me. Took me this long to figure out that crafting is kinda fun. Join a low level fleet and help them move up. Sit and ESD and pronounce your views on religion and politics. Take one of those random PvP challenges issued there and spend an hour waiting for a Romulan to de-cloak, alpha strike you, then re-cloak. Not my idea of fun, but hey, who knows.
Wow that comment i so fitting.
You can play the game like we once did but that means playing lower level content. In order to play advanced you need the spreadsheets and a wallet. The items, skills, and abilities get nerfed sending you back to your wallet and spreadsheets again. This is to set the challenge and to earn more money for the game.
Somebody mentioned lock boxes. There was a Dev response at one point and I wish I had a link to it. One of the reasons for the lock box "ships" is to get around a contract with CBS. If they remove lock boxes we will not have access to certain ships. So it is a necessary evil to not just keep the game going, but to give players additional content.
One of the biggest issues players have is game balance and sadly it might get worse before getting better. Just wait till NPCs have intel abilities... test it on tribble and let us know how much you like it... It seems with each season there is a 6 month adjustment on everything being released. With what happened on 3/19/2015 in the house dominoes.. nobody knows where things are headed. Lets wait and see / hope for the best.
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