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What are your suggestions for fixing the current "DPS or fail"/MOAR HP meta?
praxi5
Member Posts: 1,562 Arc User
I don't think anyone is really happy with the way things currently are.
Pugs don't do enough damage to complete objectives. Content takes too long to complete. Everyone is seemingly forced into DPS builds, where tanks and CC are almost always useless compared to moar DPS (FAW IS LIFE!).
Hyper inflated NPC HP is not "difficult", adding a timer to that does not make it "Advanced" or "Elite."
How would you fix it?
Pugs don't do enough damage to complete objectives. Content takes too long to complete. Everyone is seemingly forced into DPS builds, where tanks and CC are almost always useless compared to moar DPS (FAW IS LIFE!).
Hyper inflated NPC HP is not "difficult", adding a timer to that does not make it "Advanced" or "Elite."
How would you fix it?
Post edited by praxi5 on
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Sure people will complain that it's TOO hard... but like in everything and anything it becomes time to adapt. You can see that with the Tac Beam whiners where they're claiming it's too hard. Well no TRIBBLE it's too hard if you have no shields and paper thin hulls and zero resistances just so you can do a million DPS. Force it so people need to use defenses and heals and build resistances into their ships and not just use the engineer slots for MOAR WEAPON POWER and universals.
Bring it so agro management is something you have to do. Bring back the unholy trinity so that you need a science ship to do CC and heals... and a cruiser isn't something you FAW with... but something that you draw the hits onto so that your escorts can do the primary amount of DPS.
But that's the issue here... the AI is so stupid and people are such whiners when anything gets even a little bit hard... that to quiet the mob and to make the devs job easier so they can design ever better dps creep ships... is to just increase HPs and make it MOAR DPS.
So really it's a dual issue. The mob wanting the easy route and not wanting to really work at it... the other mob that wants the biggest dps numbers around and no challenge so they can do that... and the devs who are lazy and simply want to make more power creep ships and don't want to fix the AI so it's even remotely challenging.
Some ideas:
Enemies with a strong damage reflection ability
low health enemies with ridiculous spike damage
adds that deal more damage for each other damaged mob within 10km (bfaw = suicide)
Mobs with insane energy resist (like 90 - 99%), and low kinetic resist
Self healing mobs with an interrupt mechanic
So you don't have making those other "challenge" builds more viable, instead of having everything cater to FAW, would benefit you at all?
You mean "if you can afford it" most of us can't even get those high numbers because...
A) we dont have enough time to play
the cost of upgrading alone ... urgh.
That being said, any style of build is capable of dealing enough damage to finish a mission. (5-10k as far as I'm concerned but others disagree.)
The problem with improving the ai is that the end result is an enemy that either hits harder or heals more. Adding healing just means more dps is necessary. Adding damage just means that people already struggling spend more time dead.
One thing I would like as started above is enemies with higher energy resists to encourage torpedoes or exotic. Adding EPTE to spheres a while back helped encourage crowd control but players weren't happy.
I have absolutely no idea how to encourage healing though.
Stats rollback for normal and advanced mobs and objectives or just advanced and no ffs I do not mean an entire content roll back that would be TRIBBLE I mean a STATS roll back for mobs. Normal Queue - 50 then Advanced 55 as so forth... be like it was before...go back to the way they were before DR. Have the mobs gear and such scale to the group average level and rarity...
Very rare - 50
Ultra Rare - 55
Gold - 60
and bam you have no problem..especially seeing as then it would be fun and balanced for the most part and there wouldn't be stupid amounts of HP+shields and dmg resist for mobs
Keep Elite (or w/e its called) for the "hardcore" 1% the way it is and everyones happy....
Seriously I can't understand why anyone would think the way Queues are at the moment is even remotely fun... unless you have enough dps to melt everything. pfft.
Plenty of builds were viable before now its all pew pew tac tac melt melt. it makes all other classes basically irrelevant and generally boring. with the exception by about 50% being the engineer class + dreadnoughts w/ pets.
I have ONE FAW build I have not used in 2 months. Most of my builds use torps and I use a cannon and torp build most of the time. On my Eng I focus on tanking and team support......I admittedly suck at sci so I don't even try. I will agree that ppl are focused on DPS and FAW but I like making more traditional builds work. And frankly coming on here and griping will do nothing. Play the game whatever way you want and have fun. and really gear isn't everything. I took my level 50 into an advanced with MK X gear and did fine......
Allow science to effectively disable enemies as a winning strategy. Allow cruisers to out last them (sulu and kirk vs the cloaked bird of prey, taking hit after hit after hit). Don't make it "just" kill faster.
Aim for a ship vs ship fight to take ~3 minutes. Use balancing factors similar to Nintendo's Mario kart where the guy in last place gets buffs and the guy in first place gets needs tokeep fights at a steady pace. Better players still win faster, bad players get crushed, but its throttled somewhat.
The goal would be drama vs action, strategy and timing, not brute force. And, seriously, full exp for disabling a ship. This should be done even if nothing else is.
It's driven by Cryptic efforts to push players into the upgrade system.
You want it to change? Start floating ideas for non-DPS-related dilithium sinks.
How quaint.
Better they work to normalize the DPS between each career. They've already started doing this, with single-hangar bay cruisers and secondary deflectors.
Moba style market = costumes only no power for real cash.
Take league of legends. You can buy skins and unlock champions with cash, but runes (power) only with "IP" their equivalent of dilithium. And champions can all be unlocked with IP.
Power doesn't have to be monetized, you can monetize space barbie. 60+ million players are willing to back this style of monetization.
And yes, the way cryptic is going is one option for balancing the classes. It wouldn't be my first choice, but it works. But this thread isnt about balance directly, its about reducing the need for damage to win. Adding damage to all clases and ships equally is not what the op is exploring.
Of course, that would require massive amounts of dev time and highly cheese off the significant portion of the game population who has thrown real money at improving their DPS. So the odds on that happening are not likely.
hell dude you can tank now. I have a friend of mine that can tank a tac cube and keep agro. She is awesome and I slip in with my tempest and BAM!!!
Cryptic has either ignored or said no to ideas of getting away from the DPS race. Either get used to it, or move on and play other content that doesn't require as much of it, or be open to the fact you may not be as effective as someone else because this is what the game is all about.
The fact that there are DPS channels should be an indication the 'DPS or nothing' is here to stay.
If it makes you feel any better, it's very easy to do, and doesn't have to be all that expensive. No wizard or rocket science degree is required with this game.
Here's an example...so to speak.
Typical current ISA, eh?
Phase 1) Dispatch the initial Cube and Spheres.
Phase 2) Blow the Gens and Trans, and then dispatch the Cube, Spheres, and Nanite Spheres.
Phase 3) Blow the Gens and Trans, and then dispatch the Cube, Spheres, and Nanite Spheres.
Phase 4) Dispatch the Tac Cube and Gateway.
Generally a straightforward coordinated DPSfest, yeah?
An ISA proposal, hrmmm?
Know how in the Mirror Invasion Event the Starbase is actually subject to attack? Notice that Starbase in ISA that's not subject to attack?
Know how in the Mirror Invasion Event there is the interaction with the Power Substations and Rifts? Heck, been to the Dyson Ground Battlezone and the nodes where you have to close whatever they are - take too long to close them all and they come back online?
Okay then...proceeding...
Phase 1) Fight off an assault on the Starbase. For a timed period, the Borg will continue to attack the Starbase. It's not about blowing up the attacking Borg as much as it is about keeping the Starbase alive. Bonuses would be received not for the amount of Borg killed, but for the amount of health the Starbase had at the end of the Phase. Whether 1 Borg or 9001 Borg were destroyed, the same amount of time passes and the Starbase health needs to be maintained for the bonus. This promotes a mix of DPS, healing, buffing, debuffing, crowd control, etc.
Phase 2) During a break in the assault, the players need to head over and shutdown the four Generators rather than destroy them. Of course, with them being Generators - they're going to be putting out energy. The ships shutting them down are going to be taking damage, which may require a combination of tanking and healing depending on the ship to get them shut down. Of course, as they're shutdown - the Nanite Spheres are going to come to get them back online. Forces will need to be split to deal with the Nanites (smaller number than currently) as the Generators are taken offline. Once the Generators are down, the Transformer will have no power...it's dead...no damage required.
Phase 3) Would be another assault on the Starbase similar to Phase 1.
Phase 4) Would be tackling the Gens/Trans on the other side similar to Phase 2.
Phase 5) Would be the final assault on the Starbase - another last batch of ships to come through before the Gateway went offline...it's dead...no damage required. It would play out similar to Phase 1 & Phase 3 with tougher targets...even in a timed fashion, as the Gateway will sputter out a series of ships before going completely offline.
Too complex? Probably...but in the end, the only way to address DPS is to address the PS part of DPS. Instead of timers that one races again, having timers that one has to experience aspects of the instance. Course, folks will hate that - takes too long - look at Breach and Storming, eh? DOA queues because of the combination of how easy the rewards were to get elsewhere and how long they would take compared to the other queues.
Just like your suggestion it rewarded all styles of play (engineers blocking the vamps with cover shields; people killing them; scis and engineers healing the civies,etc) there were uses for every class and skill.
So a space version like you propose might be possible.
The problem with that is there is a massive ego creep within the community itself, causing massive amounts of rage and stupidity on the forums and in game, if you want "teamwork" currently you pug.
Which unfortunately for most is something many don't want to do because they like it being straight forward and I agree, It really shouldn't be needed because of the way STO is as a game, its for both one should not be forced to play like the other or a certain way.
And a lot don't even want to touch anything higher than normal because they don't want to get flamed they just want to enjoy the game.
which is why I suggested what I did towards the bottom of page one, normal for the new comers, advanced for the people who know what they are doing but just want to have fun and get the resources necessary for the reps etc for gear and then have Elite for the people who want to pug.
I hope nobody subscribes to the idea that we should force socialization through voice communication it really is a drag sometimes and not only that people like to roleplay (yes I know this is heresy to some -_-) but its true especially for star trek and frankly I think we can all be in agreement as far as MMO's go STO is definitely not like other MMOs.
(sorry for the wall of text)
While I see where you are coming from, I think this would only result in a further narrowing of viable strategies (although a different one than is common today). AoE becomes less usable, single point DPS becomes more useful. Aceton Assimilators, FAW, TS, CSV, Grav Well, Tractor Beam Repulsors all lose out as an alternate to raw damage. Admittedly I would be affected - my main build is a AoE/CC Sci, using much of the above, so I might be biased. But my build has downsides - while I can melt groups in no time, single large bosses are difficult for me. On the other hand, some people can spike out almost any opponent but may get swarmed by billions of minors it would take too long to take down one by one. Both are fine - but take away the "multiple enemy" angle in favor of more "one on ones against worthy enemies" makes the first type obsolete, while on the other hand reducing bosses for more enemies favors the AoE build.
I think it would be a good thing if more builds would be viable depending on the situation (of course for PvE solo missions everything should work as long as it's at least half way decent), so creating different content for different builds would be the way to go. Admittedly I also don't see how to do it.
This is the second thread I see you posting that tanks and support are useless. You are spewing a lot of misinformation.
Top DPS is the most efficient way because killing something for 1 min is better than doing it in a gimped T1 for 25 mins. Except that effective tanks and support also do DPS. Because DPS directly proportional to your skill.
there are 50k+ DPS eng tanks, 70k+DPS sci recluse.
If you are going to restrict yourself into ISA, which is an easy mission, the only time you would need support ships if you are going for a record. Without those heals, CC and support, those top dpsers wont get top DPS. The same thing could be said of harder missions like HSE which you and others who posted in this thread but are absent in the table or show any proof that they frequent those kinds of mission that would at least prefer to bring tanks and support ships. So, why would you all need tanks and support ships when you all restrict yourself in easy missions like ISA with non-expert teams?
You can say that tanks and support ships are expert team ships, expert player ships.
OK, first off, I play CC. Both on my Tac and Sci (CC/Heal hybrid), and have been since Open Beta, so it's not like I have no idea what I'm talking about.
I also said that they're almost always less useful than DPS. Yeah, there are circumstances where they are quite useful. But more often than not, DPS gets the job done equally as well, but faster.
FEs?
Patrols?
Most PvE queues?
Battle Zones?
DPS does it better there.
In your examples of 50K tanks and 70k Recluses, they're pumping out damage too, which is my point. Damage > all. Is that Recluse running PSW? Scramble? Maybe some shield drains?
Like I said, I play CC because I find it way more fun than blind DPS. But there are only few instances where a heavily Sci or Eng focused build is going to help you out more than FAW.
My ideal setting for this game:
Leave "Normal" stuff alone.
For "Advanced" and "Elite" content the NPCs should be:
- Much reduced in HP. A happy medium between Pre-DR NPC HPs and where they sit now.
- NPCs actually doing many abilities like players can. Imagine this, a Borg Cube at Adv & Elite doing:
Tactical Team 1
Emergency Power to Shields 3
Transfer Shield Strength 1
Polarize Hull 1
Attack Pattern Delta 3
Beam Fire at Will 3
Torp Spread 3 of Plasma Torps
Engineering Team 3
Hazard Emitters 3
Tachyon Beam 1
Sometimes it may surge for a high powered damage spike and do:
Emergency Power to Weapons 3
Feedback Pulse 1
Tractor Beam 1
Beam Overload 3
Or do the classic TNG thing:
Borg Tractor Beam
Kinetic Cutting Beam to carve player ships up
And that's not counting what "smarter" Borg Probes, Spheres would be doing to you.
NPC ships should be doing a myriad of actions. Doing their own BUFFs on themselves as well as debuffs on players. With NPC ships actually doing buffs and heals on themselves and more attack powers, this will force open a myriad of abilities to be more useful in the game instead of just "Moar DPS." Because there are plenty of ways to mix certain abilities that would destroy high powered damage builds if you let NPCs do them. You'd need other ships to do debuffs, heals, etc instead of "Just lay more APB on it."
If NPCs did Tactical Team 1 all the time like players do, for example, that has HUGE ramifications in this game.
Before Delta Rising came out, I really hoped Cryptic would have smarter NPCs. What they gave us instead were the same Dumb, Mook NPCs with just inflated hulls. I was so disappointed.
With that said I think fewer, but more intelligent enemies with full skill rotations would be much more challenging and interesting.
Currently when cryptic introduces a new enemy they give it a couple bs abilities that make them more annoying then challenging.
Use the "Attack" setting as the default starship power setting for PCs; continue using "Balanced" as the default setting for NPCs.
What's with the need to shoehorn in the trinity?
the 4 ppl being carried by the 1 DPSer preDR was fun also? I guess the 4 ppl that are lower DPS than most pets found it "fun" to get free rewards & now can't fend for themselves. Don't blame Cryptic for being a low DPS freeloader, your laziness has finally hurt yourselves.
Three roles are better than one? Sure they're illogically artificial, but the current system is based entirely around minmaxing game mechanics and the AI and memorizing the missions, so tomato tomahto.