More HP does not change the current direction of the game.
I'm not disagreeing that the NPCs should be more interesting or anything, I was merely refuting the argument that increased HP necessarily encourages a DPS focus.
In most games, particularly ones with a Trinity-type balance system in place (and not even just MMOs), the reason you can't go pure-DPS is because it's literally impossible to kill the enemy (due to high effective health, be it through resistance, evasion, actual health, whatever) without them having sufficient opportunity to deal significant amounts of damage to the players.
In fact, when DR came it looked like a lot of people in the DPS-channels needed to either significantly increase their DPS to kill before they were killed, or give up some DPS in favor of defense/recovery.
If NPC health was inflated to 1 standard deviation of player DPS, then 40% of the players would still be able to just do DPS and win, thus it would encourage the DPS focus.
If NPC health was inflated to 2 standard deviations of player DPS, then only 5% of the players would still be able to just do DPS and win, which would discourage a DPS-only focus for the rest of the players.
This is tied into NPC damage of course - increasing their damage output is functionally equivalent to increasing their health beyond DPS capabilities, since both essentially mean "need higher DPS to out-DPS incoming damage", and if you can't out-DPS it then you need another method.
I'm pretty sure this was what Cryptic was going for, but players didn't step up and just whined about being unable to just DPS things to death.
I'm not disagreeing that the NPCs should be more interesting or anything, I was merely refuting the argument that increased HP necessarily encourages a DPS focus.
In most games, particularly ones with a Trinity-type balance system in place (and not even just MMOs), the reason you can't go pure-DPS is because it's literally impossible to kill the enemy (due to high effective health, be it through resistance, evasion, actual health, whatever) without them having sufficient opportunity to deal significant amounts of damage to the players.
In fact, when DR came it looked like a lot of people in the DPS-channels needed to either significantly increase their DPS to kill before they were killed, or give up some DPS in favor of defense/recovery.
If NPC health was inflated to 1 standard deviation of player DPS, then 40% of the players would still be able to just do DPS and win, thus it would encourage the DPS focus.
If NPC health was inflated to 2 standard deviations of player DPS, then only 5% of the players would still be able to just do DPS and win, which would discourage a DPS-only focus for the rest of the players.
This is tied into NPC damage of course - increasing their damage output is functionally equivalent to increasing their health beyond DPS capabilities, since both essentially mean "need higher DPS to out-DPS incoming damage", and if you can't out-DPS it then you need another method.
I'm pretty sure this was what Cryptic was going for, but players didn't step up and just whined about being unable to just DPS things to death.
That would be believable except that there are a lot of mission's with timers. Destroy x in y amount of time or you fail. There isn't any way for people to step up to that with something other then more damage.
The question the devs are asking is "What can we do to NPCs in order to drive ship sales"...
Fun, balanced game play is secondary to selling ships...
I'm guessing they've pushed the concept of upping HP as far as they can, the next tactic will be to introduce ships with unique abilities specifically designed to counter new tricks they are giving NPCs.
However, none of this matters if the NPC doesn't survive more than 10 seconds... As uninteresting as max-DPS is, you can't argue it's effectiveness when applied with sufficient quantity. Max DPS players will simply annihilate everything... the devs are targeting the average players by trying to put them JUST out of reach and encourage buying ships.
There's nothing the devs are going to do that could jeopardize that feeling of needing something bigger or better to progress.
...there was 2,340,945 base damage in.
...there was 1,531,109 heal out.
...there was 1 death.
The 81k HSE...
...there was 10,048,972 base damage in.
...there was 5,496,953 heal out.
...there were 16 deaths.
Like paxdawn says...maybe folks thinking ISA's too easy/etc should be hitting up HSE, eh?
Well, at least HSA...I think it's fun to try to hit up HSA...sure, it's been fail after fail so far pugging it (but folks have shown up doing 500-800 DPS); but that first engagement...the wall of Tac Cubes instead of the lone Tac Cube at the end of ISA - it's just fun!
It gets into more than just a few abilities and not paying attention...kind of fun, imho.
...there was 2,340,945 base damage in.
...there was 1,531,109 heal out.
...there was 1 death.
The 81k HSE...
...there was 10,048,972 base damage in.
...there was 5,496,953 heal out.
...there were 16 deaths.
Like paxdawn says...maybe folks thinking ISA's too easy/etc should be hitting up HSE, eh?
Well, at least HSA...I think it's fun to try to hit up HSA...sure, it's been fail after fail so far pugging it (but folks have shown up doing 500-800 DPS); but that first engagement...the wall of Tac Cubes instead of the lone Tac Cube at the end of ISA - it's just fun!
It gets into more than just a few abilities and not paying attention...kind of fun, imho.
Does HSE still suffer from the One Hit Kill weapons? As in, it's not really "difficult" in that it requires you to be able to heal/tank the damage, but rather you're going to die regardless?
Does HSE still suffer from the One Hit Kill weapons? As in, it's not really "difficult" in that it requires you to be able to heal/tank the damage, but rather you're going to die regardless?
Wouldn't know...heh, I'm not part of any channel that would throw together a group to do that.
Wouldn't know with HSA either, haven't had a group get that far yet...meh, but it's still fun trying.
Pretty sure they fixed (and broke and fixed again...er...multiple times) the one shot thing from back in pre-DR HSE. That was a trip...40km out. "You spawn." "No, you spawn." "I'm not going to respawn." "Somebody respawn." "You're insisting, why don't you?" "TRIBBLE this!"
Does HSE still suffer from the One Hit Kill weapons? As in, it's not really "difficult" in that it requires you to be able to heal/tank the damage, but rather you're going to die regardless?
Not really. Technically, the Lances are still in place, but now you really have to fly around or be afk to be hit by them/not reach the save zone.
The torpedo spreads are still nasty, but they are only dangerous if they happen to come from both Unimatrix ships at once.
The hardest part is the first one, since you now have 24 enemies close to each other, so you really have DPS against you, which can be negated with tactics of course.
Though of course I can only speak for me and my ships, I dunno what people think that cant make ISA a success.
Comments
I'm not disagreeing that the NPCs should be more interesting or anything, I was merely refuting the argument that increased HP necessarily encourages a DPS focus.
In most games, particularly ones with a Trinity-type balance system in place (and not even just MMOs), the reason you can't go pure-DPS is because it's literally impossible to kill the enemy (due to high effective health, be it through resistance, evasion, actual health, whatever) without them having sufficient opportunity to deal significant amounts of damage to the players.
In fact, when DR came it looked like a lot of people in the DPS-channels needed to either significantly increase their DPS to kill before they were killed, or give up some DPS in favor of defense/recovery.
If NPC health was inflated to 1 standard deviation of player DPS, then 40% of the players would still be able to just do DPS and win, thus it would encourage the DPS focus.
If NPC health was inflated to 2 standard deviations of player DPS, then only 5% of the players would still be able to just do DPS and win, which would discourage a DPS-only focus for the rest of the players.
This is tied into NPC damage of course - increasing their damage output is functionally equivalent to increasing their health beyond DPS capabilities, since both essentially mean "need higher DPS to out-DPS incoming damage", and if you can't out-DPS it then you need another method.
I'm pretty sure this was what Cryptic was going for, but players didn't step up and just whined about being unable to just DPS things to death.
That would be believable except that there are a lot of mission's with timers. Destroy x in y amount of time or you fail. There isn't any way for people to step up to that with something other then more damage.
Fun, balanced game play is secondary to selling ships...
I'm guessing they've pushed the concept of upping HP as far as they can, the next tactic will be to introduce ships with unique abilities specifically designed to counter new tricks they are giving NPCs.
However, none of this matters if the NPC doesn't survive more than 10 seconds... As uninteresting as max-DPS is, you can't argue it's effectiveness when applied with sufficient quantity. Max DPS players will simply annihilate everything... the devs are targeting the average players by trying to put them JUST out of reach and encourage buying ships.
There's nothing the devs are going to do that could jeopardize that feeling of needing something bigger or better to progress.
Captain Ariel Trueheart Department of Temporal Investigations
U.S.S. Valkyrie - NCC 991701
=/\= ================================= =/\=
I don't have Beta, I don't have EPtW, I don't use Antiproton and I'm not using a lot of Crit consoles.
I can easily do any content without trouble.
So what anyone really NEEDS is 8 beams, BFAW and a strict minimum of piloting knowledge.
...there was 2,340,945 base damage in.
...there was 1,531,109 heal out.
...there was 1 death.
The 81k HSE...
...there was 10,048,972 base damage in.
...there was 5,496,953 heal out.
...there were 16 deaths.
Like paxdawn says...maybe folks thinking ISA's too easy/etc should be hitting up HSE, eh?
Well, at least HSA...I think it's fun to try to hit up HSA...sure, it's been fail after fail so far pugging it (but folks have shown up doing 500-800 DPS); but that first engagement...the wall of Tac Cubes instead of the lone Tac Cube at the end of ISA - it's just fun!
It gets into more than just a few abilities and not paying attention...kind of fun, imho.
I miss the D'Deridex Defender.
Does HSE still suffer from the One Hit Kill weapons? As in, it's not really "difficult" in that it requires you to be able to heal/tank the damage, but rather you're going to die regardless?
Wouldn't know...heh, I'm not part of any channel that would throw together a group to do that.
Wouldn't know with HSA either, haven't had a group get that far yet...meh, but it's still fun trying.
Pretty sure they fixed (and broke and fixed again...er...multiple times) the one shot thing from back in pre-DR HSE. That was a trip...40km out. "You spawn." "No, you spawn." "I'm not going to respawn." "Somebody respawn." "You're insisting, why don't you?" "TRIBBLE this!"
Not really. Technically, the Lances are still in place, but now you really have to fly around or be afk to be hit by them/not reach the save zone.
The torpedo spreads are still nasty, but they are only dangerous if they happen to come from both Unimatrix ships at once.
The hardest part is the first one, since you now have 24 enemies close to each other, so you really have DPS against you, which can be negated with tactics of course.
Though of course I can only speak for me and my ships, I dunno what people think that cant make ISA a success.