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Reddit - [A Wizard of STO Presents] Full Disclosure

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  • daveynydaveyny Member Posts: 8,227 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    skollulfr wrote: »
    step one
    create game environment where competition is unavoidable
    step two
    foster said competition in order to monetise the race for better performance
    step three
    stifle and disrupt healthy competition so players have to get creative to express competitive drive
    step four
    claim to not want to create tension that would result from game internal scoring system for competition.
    step five
    blame players for scraping around for any competitive outlet they can find, getting antsy when the fruits of their investment are taken away due to blundering game design.


    it'l be the tau dewa thing all over again.

    Step Six
    ............ Take a moment to think about it..., then forget all that krap and just play the game for FUN.

    :cool:
    STO Member since February 2009.
    I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
    Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
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  • thenoname711thenoname711 Member Posts: 204 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    questerius wrote: »
    It's time to remove the divide between the DPS-channel and non-DPS channel crowds.

    How?

    Will you guarantee me that reasonable amount of runs in random queue on highest difficulty will not fail? DPS channels are good in increasing your odds of success, greatly increasing your odds of success. Or speeding up the process. GGA is puggable now that minimum number of transports have been decreased to 10. But trying to destroy all enemies solo because other 4 members of your team are total dumbheads is often half-hour long living hell. You can reduce that time at least to half with dps channels.

    Sure, maybe some highest ranking people are all about chasing highest dps number possible but I believe most other players are just searching for a decent team.
    Gameserver not found.
  • qziqzaqziqza Member Posts: 1,044 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    very interesting listen..

    im not really big on the dps hunt or dps channels, im happy with my 8-12k dps boats, and dont want to be in the position of letting an organised team down if i have a bad turn with my tremors or such. i also played wow for many years, and raiding really took it out of me too lol.

    most of us humans are by nature, competitive and goal orientated to lesser or greater degrees. so i understand that dps channels do provide a well structured, well meaning and organised environment, providing an outlet for those interested. i hear the word elitist bandied around, but the dps channel ideology isn't about elitism, it is just that certain of those players in them are elitist.

    i have been guilty of mentally vilifying the guys running these channels based purely on my occasional interaction with a number of their channel members. so after listening to the full recording, im feeling a little bit guilty about that, as i can see that some of these guys really just want an organised environment to satisfy that competitive nature, a place that allows players to team up with the like minded, but with an ideology based as much on honesty, transparency and integrity as it is on skill, performance and digits on a parse.
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  • foxrockssocksfoxrockssocks Member Posts: 2,482 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    How?

    Will you guarantee me that reasonable amount of runs in random queue on highest difficulty will not fail? DPS channels are good in increasing your odds of success, greatly increasing your odds of success. Or speeding up the process. GGA is puggable now that minimum number of transports have been decreased to 10. But trying to destroy all enemies solo because other 4 members of your team are total dumbheads is often half-hour long living hell. You can reduce that time at least to half with dps channels.

    Sure, maybe some highest ranking people are all about chasing highest dps number possible but I believe most other players are just searching for a decent team.

    GGA has ALWAYS been puggable. However there is an issue that all the competent people in DPS channels avoiding the PUGS inevitably, seriously reduce the number of competent people in PUGS.

    They should probably follow other MMOs in this regard and make it so that there are bonus rewards for PUGging. If you want your secure, short run, you get less rewards for it for not taking the PUG risk.
  • rossclansforce1rossclansforce1 Member Posts: 400 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    Thank you for not only clearing this up but showing proof. I don't agree with how all this went down or how it was handled. Your hand was forced. Not only did they go against league rules but crypic and steam. I would like to ask this post get closed before it blows up like the others and to have an investigation started to ban accounts violating terms. We came here to enjoy the game not deal with drama everyday.
    [img]>:)[/img]

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  • questeriusquesterius Member Posts: 8,522 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    How?

    Will you guarantee me that reasonable amount of runs in random queue on highest difficulty will not fail? DPS channels are good in increasing your odds of success, greatly increasing your odds of success. Or speeding up the process. GGA is puggable now that minimum number of transports have been decreased to 10. But trying to destroy all enemies solo because other 4 members of your team are total dumbheads is often half-hour long living hell. You can reduce that time at least to half with dps channels.

    Sure, maybe some highest ranking people are all about chasing highest dps number possible but I believe most other players are just searching for a decent team.

    Despite what the peeps at DPS channels would like you to believe, the large majority of PUG are successful in normal and advanced queues. For me it has been months since I've had a PUG fail.

    For elite queues it may be different since I've rarely seen those pop for a PUG (in space that is, on the ground they're amongst the fastest to fill out).
    This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
  • generalmocogeneralmoco Member Posts: 1,634
    edited June 2015
    What pitty...
  • ssbn655ssbn655 Member Posts: 1,894 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    IMHO players that are all DPS and nothing else are really the bottom of the barrel. THey miss the point of the game. Have fun, celebrate Star Trek and all it is about. Just what those players did in Tribble with ISA shows EXACTLY that. These DPS or nothing players are self appointed elitest jackasses. They don't care about anything but thier precious records and lord over everyone else by crowing "Look at me I'm the best". If they had thier way they would block anyone but them from having access to certian gear,traits,and ships. They are insecure people at best.
    So flame me if thats you thing and you have nothing better to do. I don't care what you say and you do not impress me. In fact I feel sorry for you. LLAP
  • kamipoikamipoi Member Posts: 365 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    Frankly the only lesson the community needs to learn from this is that dps is not the end all be all.

    its teamwork and fun that promotes good community and ive seen the dps race break fleets because they were striving for unrealistic goals and even punishing their more casual members for not reaching certain numbers.

    sure use the parsers to get an idea of how to improve your builds but at no point should anyone think they are better then anyone else just because a parser says they are doing high dps

    as for the drama between the admins of the channles its childish but what can be expected from overly competitive gamers like them?


    P.S. less pugs would fail if more folks were in the ques if all of the experienced players are in private ques that leaves the newer green players in the pug ques and thus a self feeding loop happens where the failure rate of pug ques goes up.
  • qziqzaqziqza Member Posts: 1,044 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    ssbn655 wrote: »
    IMHO players that are all DPS and nothing else are really the bottom of the barrel. THey miss the point of the game. Have fun, celebrate Star Trek and all it is about. Just what those players did in Tribble with ISA shows EXACTLY that. These DPS or nothing players are self appointed elitest jackasses. They don't care about anything but thier precious records and lord over everyone else by crowing "Look at me I'm the best". If they had thier way they would block anyone but them from having access to certian gear,traits,and ships. They are insecure people at best.
    So flame me if thats you thing and you have nothing better to do. I don't care what you say and you do not impress me. In fact I feel sorry for you. LLAP

    but surely the point of the game is subjective to each person.. we each get our fun or satisfaction from the way we choose to play. I'm certainly guilty of making a gross generalisation about the dps channels, however in light of this hoohaa and giving it some proper thought, with a little research, my generalisation was very wrong. considering the volume of players using the channels, it has only taken a small minority of players within the channels to besmirch their name and/or spoil the overall enjoyment for the many within them. so instead of looking at the dps channels as being a large collection of players with a broad spectrum of game-play ideologies and attitudes, it is often seen as being a collection of single minded elitists, and i really don't think this is true.

    the current situation is a good example of that.. the majority wanted to implement changes to help reestablish and maintain the integrity of the channels and as such the integrity, stability and trust within the community they have built around them. while a very small minority ended up acting more out of self interest with what appears to be little care for the community within the channels.

    drama aside, is it right to condemn or negatively label people for being interested in developing their dps? is it not just another metric to measure progression? a formalised system giving a specific value to their enjoyment or fun? some players focus on rp, some on rerun missions, some on squeezing everything they can out of a build, and of course we have the chat inhabiting encyclopaedia-stocanonists, who dress very well and love nothing more than chatting Trek.. so who is playing the game right and who is playing it wrong? why are people so focused on what others are doing anyway? we each play the game as we like too, there is no right or wrong.. there is trolling, foolishness and elitism in every aspect of this game.

    in my mind, the only way to play this game wrong, is by trying to tell anyone else they aren't playing it right.
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  • azniadeetazniadeet Member Posts: 1,871 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    The sad thing about this civil war is that it's being fought fundamentally over the most silly, esoteric reason imaginable.

    I actually agree with the Germans (for lack of a better term) in regards to which DPS records should stand; but it's definitely no reason to stage a coup. I just don't see why this small issue would be such a deal breaker for either side.
  • woodwhitywoodwhity Member Posts: 2,636 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    At the end of the day the question is "Who lies, and about what", two sides will have two stories.

    phalanx01 wrote: »
    Egostroking much? Honestly get over yourselves will you? Besides ISA and DPS parcers = fail to begin with people generally keep shooting the transformers and gate and it all gets added up, try doing a proper STF where DPS really comes into play like KASA, HSE etc. just stating that you're reading it up in ISA is info enough for me...

    Thats not a problem with the parser, its a problem of the game. After a certain distance it doesnt log everything, thus making KASA and other big maps only accurate for yourself and players who stayed the whole encounter in your side. Thus ISA is fairly accurate, except you do a split-run, then again, it is only accurate on your side.
    You can be generous to your companions in huge maps and double their dps if it seems low... if you want to judge them^^

    kamipoi wrote: »

    P.S. less pugs would fail if more folks were in the ques if all of the experienced players are in private ques that leaves the newer green players in the pug ques and thus a self feeding loop happens where the failure rate of pug ques goes up.

    Well, thats kind of cryptics fault, eh. Experienced players find queues unrewarded (reward/effort) compared to premades. If cryptic would want to change it, they should give bonus rewards for public matches.
    And before anyone complains, I pug regularly. Well, actually I pug far more often then I go premade. But I can very well understand the players that dont want to pug, because in the time you farm one Elite (ground) round, you can do 2-3 with a premade, including HGE (which I wouldnt call difficult with a pug... its more like a suizid mission^^).



    ssbn655 wrote: »
    So flame me if thats you thing and you have nothing better to do. I don't care what you say and you do not impress me. In fact I feel sorry for you. LLAP

    I pity you. So much hate, so much grief. Its so sad.
  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,594 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    As for taking 'sides' (LOL, I feel in highschool again), I remain firmly loyal to Agresiel, John, porch et al., aka those who originally created the channels. The hostile take-over attempt was a pretty douche, underhanded move, and not something to be supported or repeated. As the 'real' Malcomb Reynolds once said, "Next time you stab me in the back, have the guts to do it to my face!"

    On what actually caused the schism, I'm gonna say something risky here... I don't think Ryan et. al were entirely wrong arguing DPS is inherently a team effort (and no one denies that, actually). Since parsed DPS is, for a large part, a function of time, what is often refered to as 'individual' DPS is really just a misnomer to begin with. From that perspective, I can see that excluding a channel-qualification run, when 1 or 2 Recluses are present on the field, was frowned upon by them. The argument for doing so, after all, is that 5x APB3 (or 10x, even), in the hands of someone knowing what they're doing, is effectively doubling the DPS of the entire team. Yeah, that sounds a mite askew. But so are many other things, as Ryan argued. Like using (a newly revealed) use of Command ships. Or what when the entire team is using the 4-piece Iconian set? Or a well-coordinated Form Up? Where do you draw the line? Or, rather, as Ryan was trying to argue, can the line really even be drawn at all when -- coming full-circle -- everything is always a team-based effort?

    My longwinded point being, I don't envy the channel admins their job. I think it will be tough to determine what qualifies as a 'normal' run, and what should be deemed a 'specialized' run. I *do* support them, though, in their endeavour to try and keep each person's individual DPS record as 'honest' as possible. In the end, that should benefit all.
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  • alex284alex284 Member Posts: 366 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    dpsloss88 wrote: »
    WAR! I love how paranoid these guys are recording the audio from meetings. I have worked for veteran 7 figure salaried attorneys who could learn a lot from these guys...

    The stealth kick and invites are way beyond shady.... How the **** do we have admins with ethics like this? They should be in Congress or working for the NSA/FBI/CIA/ Whitehouse like all the other shady people....

    I think the conversation was recorded because one admin couldn't be there. Less about paranoia and more about being understanding.
  • dgdolphdgdolph Member Posts: 592 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    As a former PvP player I'm struggling to find any words for how epic the dps community failed...

    Hostile channel takeovers
    Banning Team focused Builds (even thinking about that is just an epic fail)
    Causing Lag on purpose to hamper other players
    Faking Log Files
    The elitism and e-peen

    I have never ever seen that quality of drama in the PvP Community. So, congratz to the PvE Heroes - you win the interwebz! You made my last couple of days, I've been laughing and facepalming me that hard I cannnot believe it's true.


    Well cryptic, I guess it's time to send every single dps channel admin on a lifetime vacation and focus again on the PvP crowd that actually knows what they are doing :)
  • alex284alex284 Member Posts: 366 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    On what actually caused the schism, I'm gonna say something risky here... I don't think Ryan et. al were entirely wrong arguing DPS is inherently a team effort (and no one denies that, actually). Since parsed DPS is, for a large part, a function of time, what is often refered to as 'individual' DPS is really just a misnomer to begin with. From that perspective, I can see that excluding a channel-qualification run, when 1 or 2 Recluses are present on the field, was frowned upon by them. The argument for doing so, after all, is that 5x APB3 (or 10x, even), in the hands of someone knowing what they're doing, is effectively doubling the DPS of the entire team. Yeah, that sounds a mite askew. But so are many other things, as Ryan argued. Like using (a newly revealed) use of Command ships. Or what when the entire team is using the 4-piece Iconian set? Or a well-coordinated Form Up? Where do you draw the line? Or, rather, as Ryan was trying to argue, can the line really even be drawn at all when -- coming full-circle -- everything is a always team-based effort?

    The line could quite simply be drawn at "trying to win." That is, if someone is in one of these rounds and is purposely reducing their DPS to boost someone else's (avoiding hitting the probes so someone else can nadion bomb them later, setting up Recluses to follow someone instead of maximizing DPS on the recluse, etc.), then that's shenanigans. Coordinating TF/IF? Well, that boosts everyone's DPS, so it's different.

    They just wanted a separate list for invites. Ryan and Felisean don't need recluses to get a 30k invite, so it really should make no difference to them.
  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,594 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    alex284 wrote: »
    The line could quite simply be drawn at "trying to win." That is, if someone is in one of these rounds and is purposely reducing their DPS to boost someone else's (avoiding hitting the probes so someone else can nadion bomb them later, setting up Recluses to follow someone instead of maximizing DPS on the recluse, etc.), then that's shenanigans. Coordinating TF/IF? Well, that boosts everyone's DPS, so it's different.


    And another would argue that doing all these things are just smart gameplay. To brand them 'shenanigans' is precisely underlining the inherent problems with such an approach. If clever, well-coordinated team effort runs are disqualified from counting as channel qualification-runs, then, indeed, I feel cause to worry.

    EDIT: Seriously, even 1 post further, and already you went from excluding qualification runs with Recluses in them, to excluding smart team play, and certain team members buffing/debuffing for others. Not to you specifically, but I sincerely hope that is NOT the slippery slope the admins intend to embark on. And, so far, they haven't given any indication they will, btw (which is a good thing).
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  • lordsteve1lordsteve1 Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    Causing Lag on purpose to hamper other players

    Is this actually a thing or are people just throwing random nonsense around now?

    I'd advise against stating things like this unless you have some serious proof, you're effectively accusing players of intentionally trying to destabilize the game.
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  • dgdolphdgdolph Member Posts: 592 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    lordsteve1 wrote: »
    I'd advise against stating things like this unless you have some serious proof, you're effectively accusing players of intentionally trying to destabilize the game.

    To be fair, that's just something I read in some discussions - I cant refer to any proofs. But to be honest aswell, I wouldn't be suprised at all. In the end, that's what bad players that are longing for the top tend to do: cheating, bull****ting around and doing unfair stuff. GG WP :D
  • rmy1081rmy1081 Member Posts: 2,840 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    And another would argue that doing all these things are just smart gameplay. To brand them 'shenanigans' is precisely underlining the inherent problems with such an approach. If clever, well-coordinated team effort runs are disqualified from counting as channel qualification-runs, then, indeed, I feel cause to worry.

    EDIT: Seriously, even 1 post further, and already you went from excluding qualification runs with Recluses in them, to excluding smart team play, and certain team members buffing/debuffing for others. Not to you specifically, but I sincerely hope that is NOT the slippery slope the admins intend to embark on. And, so far, they haven't given any indication they will, btw (which is a good thing).

    I think the problem with a heavily coordinated runs is that someone could get say 30k with only having a 10k ship and skill. This causes a problem when they then 30k channel pug. That individual wouldn't perform at a 30k level because they don't have that original team boosting their dps. As for keeping their records, I'm all for that, but I think they should have split the records into two sections: one for team effort dps and one for single effort dps because they are both inherantly different.
  • spencerb96spencerb96 Member Posts: 251 Media Corps
    edited June 2015
    lordsteve1 wrote: »
    Is this actually a thing or are people just throwing random nonsense around now?

    I'd advise against stating things like this unless you have some serious proof, you're effectively accusing players of intentionally trying to destabilize the game.

    Yes, they had at least 1 player in an ISA instance on Tribble for nearly a week using the Manheim Console heal bug.

    This bug was fixed Tuesday, May 19th on Tribble and pushed out on Thursday of that week. Here are the patchnotes containing info about it.

    • Manheim Device: Disabled healing interactions with past and future self in order to prevent excessive latency when interacting with certain Starship Traits.
    • This functionality may be restored at some point in the future, but was removed to improve server performance.
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  • alex284alex284 Member Posts: 366 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    And another would argue that doing all these things are just smart gameplay. To brand them 'shenanigans' is precisely underlining the inherent problems with such an approach. If clever, well-coordinated team effort runs are disqualified from counting as channel qualification-runs, then, indeed, I feel cause to worry.

    I don't see how *not* shooting at something that needs to be shot is "smart gameplay." Or how using inferior gear in order to buff one person's DPS at the expense of the team's dps is "smart gameplay."

    Unless the game is to boost one person's DPS. In which case, that's a different game than the one that most of us are playing and making a separate tab makes sense, although I wonder about the mechanics of separating those parses.

    And, no, I said nothing about excluding any type of ship or buff or whatever and I didn't even have another comment after the one you quoted so maybe you're mixing me up with someone else.

    Bottom line, same question: does ryan really need a team that avoids the probes in ISA and teammates to GW them so he can nadeon bomb them in order to get a 50k channel invite? No. So then why is so much energy being spent on trying to make sure that the channel invite list stays one and the same as the DPS record list? That's really what's at stake here: 1 tab vs. 2 tabs.
  • woodwhitywoodwhity Member Posts: 2,636 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    dgdolph wrote: »
    As a former PvP player I'm struggling to find any words for how epic the dps community failed...

    I have never ever seen that quality of drama in the PvP Community.

    Well, lets be honest here: The pvp-community was never near as big as the dps-leauge. And failed horribly at preserving itself. For the DPS-League(s) this is just a set-back, but how many new recruits do you hope to find for the pvp-community in the next year? Minus five?

    Well, its not a new thing that pvp-players only see other faults (or "exploits") and not their own.
  • foxrockssocksfoxrockssocks Member Posts: 2,482 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    And another would argue that doing all these things are just smart gameplay. To brand them 'shenanigans' is precisely underlining the inherent problems with such an approach. If clever, well-coordinated team effort runs are disqualified from counting as channel qualification-runs, then, indeed, I feel cause to worry.

    EDIT: Seriously, even 1 post further, and already you went from excluding qualification runs with Recluses in them, to excluding smart team play, and certain team members buffing/debuffing for others. Not to you specifically, but I sincerely hope that is NOT the slippery slope the admins intend to embark on. And, so far, they haven't given any indication they will, btw (which is a good thing).


    Do you really want a T1 ship with only torpedoes that somehow parses at 75k+ trying to kill the probes on its own in KSA? It will fail miserably. Any T5 ship doing 10k could handle them easily, so what is the issue?

    Obviously there is a serious problem when the team vastly skews the results, and that is the problem with using ISA as the gold standard for parsing. It is scientifically junk because of the wild team variable and the massive disproportionate influence the team can have.

    Team work is great and I'd be surprised if anyone was trying to claim it shouldn't be acceptable, but from my outside point of view, the numbers are simply worthless because there are absolutely no control measures to get any kind of results that can be compared side by side.
  • dgdolphdgdolph Member Posts: 592 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    woodwhity wrote: »
    Well, lets be honest here: The pvp-community was never near as big as the dps-leauge.
    It was as big years ago - even bigger ;)
    woodwhity wrote: »
    And failed horribly at preserving itself.
    Wasn't their fault. Cryptic just decided to stop catering to the PvP'ers and started to focus on PvE content and balance only. Under those circumstances, the pvp-community did remarkably well. (Bootcamp, channels, etc)

    PvP isn't dead because of the community - it's dead cuz it simply became unplayable.

    woodwhity wrote: »
    For the DPS-League(s) this is just a set-back, but how many new recruits do you hope to find for the pvp-community in the next year? Minus five?
    PvP is already dead and I don't expect any change - that's why I stopped playing.

    woodwhity wrote: »
    Well, its not a new thing that pvp-players only see other faults (or "exploits") and not their own.
    At least it's new for me :rolleyes:

    If what you said was true, PvP'ers would have been unable to adapt to any enemy teams. Needless to say that that's what PvP was all about :rolleyes:
  • tick0tick0 Member Posts: 243 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    Wow! That was embarrassing to read. :)
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    @f4tamy | Sad Pandas
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  • thisslerthissler Member Posts: 2,055 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    rushatsi wrote: »
    u know what, no way one person is responsible for that latency TRIBBLE that made isa unplayable. thats too ****ed up! the arrogance alone...

    You'd like to think that, but one of the first heal bugs could solo break any instance it was in. So this isn't much of a jump seeing as how we're adding interactions with other abilities, and not simply proccing incessant heals.
  • dgdolphdgdolph Member Posts: 592 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    thissler wrote: »
    You'd like to think that, but one of the first heal bugs could solo break any instance it was in. So this isn't much of a jump seeing as how we're adding interactions with other abilities, and not simply proccing incessant heals.
    Jem'Hadar Shields? I remember the lags of doom :D
  • millimidgetmillimidget Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2015
    kamipoi wrote: »
    Frankly the only lesson the community needs to learn from this is that dps is not the end all be all.

    its teamwork and fun that promotes good community and ive seen the dps race break fleets because they were striving for unrealistic goals and even punishing their more casual members for not reaching certain numbers.
    It's really not the DPS chase at fault. You could just as easily have a similar problem in an RP fleet, or any fleet. Bad fleets are bad. Bad channel admins are bad.
    "Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
This discussion has been closed.