I insist that the penalty is 'negatively affecting' the game of many on the low end of the scale, while actually failing to do anything else. Bots still run, leeches still leech, looters still loot. People who get a DC, or are just plain not able to do much damage get treated wrongly.
I am trying to find a better idea. I would be glad to have you share any you might have, and thanks.
The AFK penalty system is taking a very hard AI problem (human behavior analysis) and reducing it to a simple arithmetic. And it doesn't even use the preferred arithmetic (the amount of time you spent actually playing the game vs sitting around doing nothing). That it fails is not unexpected in the slightest.
It is my opinion that no algorithm Cryptic or any other videogame company is capable of coming up with will actually outsmart a human being anytime soon. Dedicated leeches will find ways around anything they put up, short of human GMing. But using active time would at least avoid the false positives.
Active time would do that. Is there anything that might be added to make this idea more attractive to those players who insist on seeing more result oriented measures( working from the idea that activity doesn't necessarily equate to results)? Can the two ideas be combined effectively or do they have to be mutually exclusive?
Would an AFK penalty still apply in your ideal version of 'active time'? Or, would you throw a penalty out in favor of Zero reward, for the sake of bad connections whatever?
You have a point about the casual players leaving, but the DPSers are not going to agree with a change to the system on that point. DPSers see casual players as the people ruining the game.
Well, if they could figure out your running dps then they could gate you so you don't run with. A super dps ship.
Or players start improve one self.
Why do Players insist that all players are playing at low than minimum requirement standards? Because that is what AFK Penalty in the current mechanic, a player bringing performance lower than is what even the minimum requirement for what a player should bring in that STF/difficulty for completion.
If all players were doing 0 DPS or 300 DPS or 1k DPS in ISA. How long will that take? I dont think it is not even how long it will take, the question would be if they can finish that mission at all because Mobs NPC have heal regeneration enough to outheal 5 lower DPS players.
You have a point about the casual players leaving, but the DPSers are not going to agree with a change to the system on that point. DPSers see casual players as the people ruining the game.
Casual players are suppose to play whatever the results are in the rewards since they are Casuals players not Competitive players.
Once you start caring about minor stuff like rewards AFK penalty, you aint a casual player anymore due to the necessity of repetition and competition. But another competitive player being outcompeted by other players.
"Casual players" has been the main excuse of players in all threads in General discussion for players who want to continuely perform below minimum requirements but gain equal rewards as those performing better them. From nerfing queues to AFK penalties. But in reality, those affected are not really Casual players.
Who left the game are those disgruntled and those who cannot adapt to changes to the games. Because if one is casual player, these performance issues should not be an issue since one is a Casual player. They still can play the game.
The AFK penalty system is taking a very hard AI problem (human behavior analysis) and reducing it to a simple arithmetic. And it doesn't even use the preferred arithmetic (the amount of time you spent actually playing the game vs sitting around doing nothing). That it fails is not unexpected in the slightest.
It is my opinion that no algorithm Cryptic or any other videogame company is capable of coming up with will actually outsmart a human being anytime soon. Dedicated leeches will find ways around anything they put up, short of human GMing. But using active time would at least avoid the false positives.
I am against this because it doesnt solve equality of rewards based on performance. I am against socialism in game. If they are going to fix the AFK Penalty and if ever they have the time, they should NoT based in on Active performance but statistical performance.
We cannot have 0-1% team contribution having equal rewards as 4 players equally sharing that 99% total team contribution even though all of them have equal active combat time performance.
Players should get what they deserve based on statistical performance not get freebies from other players performance.
shadowwraith77 is displaying a great example of the elitist ignorance from buying into this, in his claims the new players with no experience or traits should just do 6k dps(2% of 300k). which is likely to be a thing in 6 months given conduit runs of over 220k dps are already being recorded.
First of all Why in the world would a new player, who is unprepared, be in an advance? Why would a new player, unprepared be in a premade queue with that 220k DPS? Because that is the only way to get 220k DPS, in premades with Nannies.
Why do complainers equate new players as ignorant and lazy to improve one self? Not all new players refuse to improve oneself. Because you can still get AFK with veterans. Because the only qualification of getting AFK is not performing to the current mechanic. Getting AFK is not about new players but players who refuse to improve performance.
that presumption is based on what?
i am neither of of the groups of this false dichotomy you have created.
Why should casual players care about these stuff in the first place when they are casuals? Players caring about AFK Penalty, rewards, stuff and Players still can be defined as casuals?
How propesterous that is.
Neither did I even mention nor agree you were a casual player.
that point may be true of the 220k, but not of 150k(i referenced as a round number). not to mention, before i stopped playing due to how insipid and boring the games content has gotten for me, it was common to see dps logs posted in normal content. and far from rare for those logs to be getting posted by solo players putting out 60k dps.
something unthinkable even for most pre-mades 3 years ago, being done by one person.
3 years ago. Why should we based performance and what players can perform three years ago? That is three years less testing, knowledge, and three years less power creep.
Even if we remove 3 years of power creep, that is still three years of testing and knowledge.
that is as a result of elitism and self reference along with the in-group bias cryptic are manipulating.
established players dont want to admit that their ability to manipulate stats and optimise builds is anything other than their own piloting skill. the result of this being, anyone not part of the self identified group, are 'hostiles' and their actions mush be deliberate attacks.
You can still use all common stuff and achieve minimum mission DPS requirements. The excuse of remaining at AFK Penalty which is below minimum missions requirements of any STF/difficulty and mission beats the purpose of actually beating the queue.
I dont see hostile actions but other players telling the truth. If a player is bad do we say that player is good? If a player is underperforming for the queue do we say they are best? If a player gets AFK penalty, do we say they dont deserve even though there is a mechanics that tells otherwise? The reason why players are telling the truth because so that other players are aware they are not performing.
Certain Players are just too sensitive, ultra sensitive to see that these things hostile. virusdancer's mentioning of certain players having Fragile egos is correct.
the afk penalty as implemented, was not the only option cryptic had.
if they had gone with the scoreboard based rewards to stem the afk/bots, we would not be seeing the symptoms of systemic failure that led to this and other threads being created.
but, a scoreboard would have shown the significant instances of cryptics selling of power.
resulting in players questioning them, rather than attacking each other.
there is nowhere in this game where player can how their performance compares to other players before going into teamed content.
the story mode content could easily have tierd ratings at the end of the mision to show players how they did compared to others doing the mission, along with the build that player used, but this is not done, leaving players in the dark.
I have to agree with you that the game lacks in game information of what the optimal performance is.
However, all players have a choice once you get to that point. Even the game tells players they have abysmal performance by the AFK penalty or self awareness that they couldnt kill the mobs fast enough. Either a player Go start researching thru internet or the correct community and improving or stick to what they are doing. Which has become player choice.
Even with in game information lacking, players still have a choice in the current mechanics. To Improve or not to improve. To research or not Research. Self Reliance or Spoonfed.
thats what i was referencing in the last page when i mentioned the player-base stagnating into the two distinct groups of the established players and the recruits.
and frankly, i dont care about the ego's of either.
what i do care about is the cause and effect dynamics on the playerbase.
imo, cryptic is deliberately fostering all this animosity to drive their ship sales higher in a shrinking market, since 'managing' hostility in the playerbase to create (opposing) hierarchies is part of pay-to-win sales psychology.
as manipulating in-group bias can lead to subjects expending energy/resources competing for no reason than they have been told competing groups exist.
we saw this in the pve vs pvp balance arguments.
we saw this in the casual vs habitual player content arguments
we have this in the established vs newb access argument goin on now(in this thread).
shadowwraith77 is displaying a great example of the elitist ignorance from buying into this, in his claims the new players with no experience or traits should just do 6k dps(2% of 300k). which is likely to be a thing in 6 months given conduit runs of over 220k dps are already being recorded.
simple cause and effect of the games longevity.
it does not exist in a vacuum in which players cant opt out to play other games. which undermines the manipulation of player factions to drive ship sales.
constantly adding to the 'grind' of habituation systems to keep established players enguaged, simply results in higher barriers to entry for new players.
in this case, the afk penalty, providing that 2% number is accurate, 2% od 150k is still 3000 dps. which just 2 years ago was considered the baseline for doing estf.
every time this goes up its applying an empirical number to that barrier to entry which isnt variable like time to grind out rep sets.
and yes, cryptic demonstrate that they do know this animosity exists and how to manipulate it.
you can tell due to the increasing power of free sets they are putting in story missions to boost player survivability above what standard drops provide in order to obfuscate the failures happening ingame that they are implementing knowingly.
So, what feasible excuse is there for new player(s), not to be able to achieve 3k-6k dps?
Because they're new? That excuse will work for about a month, what than after?
3k is like easy shuttle dmg, 6k is easy tier 3-4 dmg, and most certainly easy tier 5-6.
Seeing people unable to even break 1k, is paultry to the point that even ground combat can beat that!
Call me what you will, but this isn't a school, that people need have study books handed to them teaching them how to do EVERYTHING in this game!
Here's a wrench, now go fix that car.....oh what's that, you don't know how to? Well, I guess you either better learn, start researching how, or simply give up!
Are you a give in kind of person, as opposed to actually learning/researching?
and there your attitude is encapsulated in 3 words.
the detrimental effects of culling the games player population with barriers to entry expressed empirically from the game with set numbers, and the social barriers to entry from toxic attitude from established players, are completely lost on you.
its utterly irrelevant if established players can do 3kdps in a shuttle. the fact that the active player-count is dropping proves that these factors are damaging the game.
knowingly exacerbating that, by driving away new players is tantamount to sabotage in its effects.
If the player number of underperforming players is dropping, than IMO good ridance, as I don't care to be stuck in a queue with them than!
Maybe original Mario Brothers is more up to their speed, you know, a directional pad + A & B, select and start buttons.
I mean, the wright brothers didn't advance flight technology, simply by someone sitting them down and showing them everything there is to know, they did have to experiment and learn quite a bit on their own.
Because things in this game, are just there to look pretty, and not to be interacted with for the sake of learning.
I literary tippled the DPS output on all my 9 chars as a mixing result of game evolution, adjustments and requirements the past year.
If I have triggered any AFK penalty in public queues I apologize. Please understand that I brought myself in a position to emit 30k, 50k, 70k ONLY to able to play with you in the first place.
The alternative would have been to witness one fail after the other. Care to join me?
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
yes. it shouldnt even have a reason to exist on account of alternate game systems that wouldnt result in the issue in the first place. yet here it is.
Yep we have and we can take the same topic we had last year with the fail criteria’s as perfect reference. Cryptic makes decisions over game mechanics as they see fit. The player’s react to them by playing this game or not. Cryptic will adjust if it’s necessary. We had a few unchallenging and stupid fail criteria back then. Now they are gone while good and challenging ones are still left in place.
If the AFK penalty poses a problem to the majority of players in this game it will get attended to. If it just hurts a minority it probably will not.
Public queues are neither the right place for players who emit less than 1% of a team DPS nor for those who emit 99% of the team DPS and who are annoyed over carrying the rest. Its easy enough to find a spot in between or go somwhere else.
Post edited by peterconnorfirst on
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Wow! Lots of anger here. I am probably only going to make it worse but here goes ...
paxdawn, sorry, but you miss so much detail in what others have said, and it shows. You continually, and I mean continually assume, after being told otherwise, that the players you are calling lazy, are trying to play Advanced queues. Many times it has been stated that normal queues, gated at level 5+ are a problem area, because those queues are being shared between well established 60's, and wet behind the ears 5's.
I have to assume you are willfully missing this detail, over and over and over again, or you have a cognitive problem that should count as a disability. Either way, since you don't seem to actually be responding to what others actually say, well to quote shadowwraith you should "simply give up!" Or learn to pay attention. As it sits now, your arguments often fail due to being based on false premises or misunderstanding. Please, please, if you want to argue a point, at least get a handle on what the other person is actually saying.
shadowwraith77, I have enjoyed some of your posts, actually, but many of the things you say, if taken to their logical conclusion, would result in this game imploding. Not you, or anyone would be playing it then, because the Cryptic staff would need to find other jobs. You are expressing an elitist attitude, of the sort that would eventually mean you were 'King of Nothing'. It's hard to be cool, when the people who really do own the club house have to mortgage it off to buy food, and you get kicked out. Culling the population that you actually need to support your playground is self destructive. I am being redundant in the hopes that one of these examples will get through your wall. Wake up! You need the rest of us more than we need you.
peterconnorfirst, Yeah, we are supposedly here to play a game, but how much playing are we really doing? Senseless is the word that most sensibly describes a lot of this. It is especially senseless because we are talking about a Star Trek game. The D in DPS should be Diplomacy, not damage. But damage is apparently the only proper measure of success in a game about peaceful if often dangerous space exploration. There is no diplomacy in the game except when the writers want to save a bad guy from justice (Sela!) oh wait ... I forgot, your duty officers can be diplomatic for you. You just do the 'killing' part of the game.
Not sure I understand your post earlier in full. But thanks for sharing.
skollulfr, I appreciate your concern for the larger community. I only hope you are wrong about Cryptic wanting this kind of animosity, just to drive sales. I would hope Cryptic wasn't going to burn down the forest they live in for a few quick bucks. If you are right, then how do you even try counter such poor critical thinking on their part? I just hope they aren't as self destructive as you are implying.
To everyone trying to find a way to put this all on the right track, thanks for trying to help. Trying to help displays nobility of spirit. Now if we could just agree on the best way to do that
Does anyone know if the Devs ever read this stuff? Is there any possibility that a Dev who might be reading this could let us know if any suggested fixes are feasible?
Anyway, for now, there is still a game called STO. Lets hope design choices don't kill it for all of us.
Basically if the reward was 100 marks, and 1000 dith, the top player gets 100% of their potential reward. The other four of five players can still each get 100% of the potential reward by just scoring 99.1% or better. In other words, the top player can get it done faster, more often, by helping others learn how to be better team mates, and by helping them also get higher rewards.
Yeah, this isn't exactly pretty, either. In order to get your reward, you have basically have to be the top player, or at least close enough for government work. Anyone else? Massively reduced reward. If you are half as good as the 100K Scimitard, you may as well not have bothered to show up, when you could have carried the mission solo. This is not a good plan.
I am trying to find a better idea. I would be glad to have you share any you might have, and thanks.
Well, people have popularly lobbied for a system in which people vote to designate the AFKer. This is, obviously, rife for abuse. The current system, on the other hand, isn't a huge improvement either. But what if we combined the two? Have a system in which players can flag the leecher, AND stack that with the current system. If nobody bothers to mention it, clearly, no harm, no foul, maybe he had good reason. If somebody DOES, on the other hand, the system will be brought into play. If the call was raised with justifiable cause, then the leecher receives the AFK penalty. If the call was NOT justified, then the reporter receives it instead for filing a false report. No more abuse problem, since trying to falsely get someone else banned gets YOU banned, in accordance with the ancient Code of Hammurabi. This two-layer system will largely eliminate the problem: If a bunch of 100Kers stomp a mission flat leaving a poor confused noob who could potentially eat an AFK penalty, they probably won't care enough about him to bother trying to report him. Similarly, it's very unlikely they'll bother to crash a queue just to try to report a random PUGmate, since there's a high risk they end up hoist on their own petard for it. In any event, such a system cannot do worse than the existing system, since everyone who would have been hit with this in the proposed system would have been hit for sure under the current.
I want to think about this for a bit before trying a detailed reply, but meanwhile, thanks. I appreciate your contribution.
and there your attitude is encapsulated in 3 words.
the detrimental effects of culling the games player population with barriers to entry expressed empirically from the game with set numbers, and the social barriers to entry from toxic attitude from established players, are completely lost on you.
its utterly irrelevant if established players can do 3kdps in a shuttle. the fact that the active player-count is dropping proves that these factors are damaging the game.
knowingly exacerbating that, by driving away new players is tantamount to sabotage in its effects.
Okay, I will give you that there is a toxic element in the playerbase that is NOT new player friendly...or casual friendly for that matter. And I do agree that the AFK penalty is a problem in the 5-60 missions at times (along with SNR and DC). But really?!? 1% of the total damage in the 50+ only mission? Seriously? You haven't figured out how to play this game by the time you reach 50 well enough to do 3k dps? If you think this SUPER easy game has too high of a barrier for you to overcome...well then video games may not be for you at all. Yes I am aware that the casual are needed to keep this game going. I am all for the casuals. But there is a level of stupid (and less then 1% is a pretty low mark) where you really need to be doing something else. If you are in any 50+ queues and you are not SNR or DCed and get the AFK penalty, you really might be in the too stupid to play group...because even NEW players should know better by then. Hell I have seen a scimmy get the AFK penalty for doing under 1k DPS in ISA...you accidently hit the space bar while moving forward and you should do more damage then that. I'm sorry, but there ain't no helping that. Yes, we want to keep the casuals...no we do not want to keep people like whoever was flying that scimmy.
Level 5 - 60 shared queues are almost entirely my area of concern. It is where the new players are most likely to meet with an AFK. It is also at a point in the game where they have little enough invested to make just uninstalling the game a much more likely option. We don't want that.
By level 50 you have had time to pick up gear, and have some idea how much harder enemies are becoming. If you get to level 50+ and enter those kinds of queues, you should expect more difficulty. However, if you are at level 5-10, and only using earned gear from just that toon, you are not a dps machine. Ever.
A level 5+ entry queue should not punish anyone. Let the 50+ punish as it does now, because that won't hurt the game so much.
I get the feeling that there is two different arguments going on here because the OP was not very clear that he got AFKed in a 5-60 mission and not the normal 50+ ones until later. Can we all agree (other then sarcasmdetector who seem to think that casuals should be flying like top DPSers) that getting the AFK penalty when you are say, level 10 flying with multiple kemoed TS3 torp boats is not the same as a level 60 player in a scimmy doing 1k DPS in ISA? Can we all also agree that the former is a case of the system failing the player and the second is a player failing the system?
YES!!!!! I will agree! thanks for your voice of reason.
A few thoughts: there should be NO public team queues where a level 5 could be paired with level 60 players. Even with the bump to level 50 for the noob and the nerf to a level 60 player, the difference in power is just too much. The level 5 toon is still only going to have 2 fore weapons and 1 aft. Also, maybe 1 boff of each type,with only 1 active power to be used. And 1 console of each type. The noob doesn't get a level 50 ship,only the temporary boost to power. There is the problem in a nutshell.
That being said,I actually have no solid answer to the issue at hand. I don't want people excluded from game content,I don't want new players getting disgusted and leaving the game,we need a larger playerbase anyway. The only possible thing I can think of is to create or adjust the low level queues for player level. For example,level 10-19's have the queue that they see on the stf screen,only joinable by them, 20-29's have theirs and so forth through all levels. This is the only possible option that I can see being workable,where new players can begin learning stf content without being overwhelmed by level 60 established players. Once reaching level 50,any player should have learned enough either ingame through a fleet or friends to be able to put out enough dps to not get an afk penalty,even if matched with high dps'ers.
This is an mmo,where group participation is encouraged and rewarded,by joining a fleet and/or other group activities. If you just want to play the game by yourself,don't join group activities and just enjoy the story. If you do want to join groups,start asking questions. While you may find some rude people who just want to ridicule(and they're in every online game,no matter the genre) put them on your ignore list and move along. I think you'll find that there are many helpful players who will take time to answer questions,provided they're not occupied with their own gameplay. If you join a fleet and no one is ever online or won't take the time to help,then you need to find a different fleet.
With a few exceptions,all public queues are about one thing:destroying enemies. And how does that get done? Damage,of course. A player who will not take the time to ask questions and/or do independent research about increasing said output is not a good teammate. A player can buff/debuff all day long and never kill the enemies,without doing damage also or having teammates who do the damage. There are literally hundreds of how-to videos on youtube,on many different topics,by many different players. Taking 20 minutes to watch one is a minor bit of time,compared with the hours of actual playing time that you put into just running through the storyline.
admiralkogar,I commend you for wanting to stand up for new players and help them along their chosen path. In turn, I think you need to encourage them to do as I've suggested,independent research,if they're really interested in teaming with other players.The game is what Cryptic/PWE has made it, a chase for more dps,and if a player can't at least try to keep up(notice I said TRY) then possibly their only choices are to quit the game and move along or learn from other players and improve. Unfortunately,there are people who refuse to do that and those people make the game less enjoyable for the rest of us. Those are the players to be avoided at all costs,not the dps'ers(and I'm proud to be a part of that group,even though there are undesirables in that group also) because without dps you cannot beat even the easiest sections of the game,whether story driven content or teaming in the queues.
I personally think there are two sides of this. I've been in some runs where someone tried to ineffectively yell and curse at me for playing a "PUG" when I was "clearly not a beginner." So, in some cases I think even some of the new players come in with animosity towards the more experienced players who have played and put in the time/resources to get good enough. Most of those I ignore because they are expecting certain criteria. IE my ability/inability to control my FAW targets.
Past cause of the ideology of doing cube and spheres on the left and right of ISA then 10% of the gens then take all down at the same time. This is so often used to explain how to do things that people fail to take into consideration the metas used in some peoples builds who use something like FAW or CSV or TS. Even a good HY on a proper setup can cause AOE. There many ways to do this game and people cancel out the belief system that anything outside of their "realm" of play that all else is TRIBBLE. IE, when we do ISA, we always do Left to right, how many of you considered doing Right to left? How many of you realized the distance is different that way?
Many get so systematic on the 2% of the runs possible that when you pull them to do others they are so lost they can't even function without a "what do I do?" question.
And then you have the other meta which is the high DPS who expect a pug advanced run to only contain experienced players. No means to control means a system that runs in controlled chaos.
Now, rather this OP was about a Fleet alert they joined at low level or not matters not. The fact doesn't change. He ended up in a mission in which either he was not familiar with or others were fast to kill things than he was or perhaps he got mis-labeled, which could be a cause but without video evidence or a combat log we're merely doing guesswork at what happened here.
Moral of the story, when you PUG you take a risk that you might not be the fastest around and might not deal enough damage to register high enough to be an active participant. This happens to be why I prefer forming my own runs. AFK penalty is not there. And I typically have that advantage without relying on some large DPS group channel to do that. I'm not in either DPS league nor am I to be found in some other large group run channel.
Anyone who wishes to join the group we have together is welcomed to as we use a Teamspeak server and have roughly 18 on average during the evening hours.
Need help with a mission to beat it? Visit http://pilotreviewshow.com to learn how we can help!
Honestly, I'm uncertain what purpose is actually served by an AFK penalty, as opposed to simply a lack of a reward. If people are attempting to leech missions without doing any work, not receiving a reward should be enough to discourage them from doing it, given that they waste their time and get nothing. If the goal is to punish people from griefing the mission through causing to be short-handed, there are, quite frankly, plenty more effective ways of causing grief. The punishment seems rather disproportionate to the (lack of) action. Especially in the OP's case, where, whether he tried to AFK or not, his actions appear to have passed without notice as his existence hadn't really registered to anyone anyway.
A no reward outcome is a valid option for a compromise imho. It is somewhere between the extremes. A new player could still learn from the experience, have a little fun, but not have the overt negative of being punished incorrectly.
I would expect the nugget in such a situation to be asking in the chat window 'Why didn't I get stuff?' but if the current AFK message was changed to an explanation that they scored so low it didn't count, that would probably help. Also, without a time out penalty they could get advice, make some changes, and go back in while the memory was reasonably fresh. NPCs offering the early queue missions could also explain before hand so a nugget would know going in, that a 'zero reward win', was a possibility.
Time vs DPS seems to be a heated area. From my position I see problems and advantages to each. I would be more happy with either as long as how the rule was applied, served to squash the possibility of false-positive based punishment. Again, even a zero reward isn't the same as being labelled and kept out of participation.
Time score plus DPS score divided by two. Average them maybe? Then decide if there is a need to invoke zero reward based on that.
A few thoughts: there should be NO public team queues where a level 5 could be paired with level 60 players. Even with the bump to level 50 for the noob and the nerf to a level 60 player, the difference in power is just too much. The level 5 toon is still only going to have 2 fore weapons and 1 aft. Also, maybe 1 boff of each type,with only 1 active power to be used. And 1 console of each type. The noob doesn't get a level 50 ship,only the temporary boost to power. There is the problem in a nutshell.
That being said,I actually have no solid answer to the issue at hand. I don't want people excluded from game content,I don't want new players getting disgusted and leaving the game,we need a larger playerbase anyway. The only possible thing I can think of is to create or adjust the low level queues for player level. For example,level 10-19's have the queue that they see on the stf screen,only joinable by them, 20-29's have theirs and so forth through all levels. This is the only possible option that I can see being workable,where new players can begin learning stf content without being overwhelmed by level 60 established players. Once reaching level 50,any player should have learned enough either ingame through a fleet or friends to be able to put out enough dps to not get an afk penalty,even if matched with high dps'ers.
This is an mmo,where group participation is encouraged and rewarded,by joining a fleet and/or other group activities. If you just want to play the game by yourself,don't join group activities and just enjoy the story. If you do want to join groups,start asking questions. While you may find some rude people who just want to ridicule(and they're in every online game,no matter the genre) put them on your ignore list and move along. I think you'll find that there are many helpful players who will take time to answer questions,provided they're not occupied with their own gameplay. If you join a fleet and no one is ever online or won't take the time to help,then you need to find a different fleet.
With a few exceptions,all public queues are about one thing:destroying enemies. And how does that get done? Damage,of course. A player who will not take the time to ask questions and/or do independent research about increasing said output is not a good teammate. A player can buff/debuff all day long and never kill the enemies,without doing damage also or having teammates who do the damage. There are literally hundreds of how-to videos on youtube,on many different topics,by many different players. Taking 20 minutes to watch one is a minor bit of time,compared with the hours of actual playing time that you put into just running through the storyline.
admiralkogar,I commend you for wanting to stand up for new players and help them along their chosen path. In turn, I think you need to encourage them to do as I've suggested,independent research,if they're really interested in teaming with other players.The game is what Cryptic/PWE has made it, a chase for more dps,and if a player can't at least try to keep up(notice I said TRY) then possibly their only choices are to quit the game and move along or learn from other players and improve. Unfortunately,there are people who refuse to do that and those people make the game less enjoyable for the rest of us. Those are the players to be avoided at all costs,not the dps'ers(and I'm proud to be a part of that group,even though there are undesirables in that group also) because without dps you cannot beat even the easiest sections of the game,whether story driven content or teaming in the queues.
Best of luck to all!
Thank you for the kind words.
Of course, I am not trying to 'dis' the dps experts. Our Fleet depends on them for the knowledge they provide, as well as the firepower they deliver in a team. We also need the new players, and I want them to ask me questions. If I see they are online, I try to ask, first thing, 'How are you doing? What mission? Is it going well? Do you need someone to run it with you?' or some combination. More experienced players I just say 'hello' to, and if they have a question, they don't usually need any invitations. If I have someone who reads English, and lags behind, and doesn't ask, or respond to chat, or seem to care, I will after a time, leave off with a 'You know where to get ahold of me' message. I did my job, they weren't doing theirs. Fair enough.
Also, I'm a generalist. I'm not the best at probably anything, so I try to make sure that questions I can't answer get to the person, or website that can. Lots of different fleet websites out there, with members asking the same kinds of questions, one to the next. There is some variety in answers, but you can see what is being tried, and what their members say is working for them.
Any experienced player can look stuff up with confidence. By level 50, your not so new, and neither is your character. Still there are surprises. Kemocite wasn't even a thing I worried about, till the last week or so. Still, I'm not worried about it much, can't afford it, and wouldn't buy it if I could, because it will get nerfed, and it isn't going to be a reliable tool till the dust settles. By then, if I want it, it may be cheaper. The point is I can research that stuff. An ex-noob can do it as well as I can.
Most of the time I will try to get five to do a run together, so it is less random. Afterwards we can talk about anti-proton weapons and whatever. Questions come up, gear gets traded, gifts get handed out, and it's very positive, even if we lose for some reason. (Kill the regenerator probes! Dahgnabbit!!) I see and agree with what you are saying.
I have to say, I like the vids just cause they are kind of fun. But yeah, informative also.
So how about the scoreboard idea? Scale rewards by the % if you like (I'd say round up to 1%, so 1 Fleet mark, and 3 dilithium maybe) and then people would learn to participate, but also see how they were actually doing, so they could see why the low reward.
Is that sounding like a possible answer?
Qapla
That would be TERRIBLE. I mean really, what other then DPS do we have for figuring out contribution %? Hull healed maybe? They can't really measure how much a grav well impacted the match. So with that in mind, that means DPS monsters gets more of the rewards. That means DPS becomes a meh, do it if you wanna to MUST DO IT to get anything. It would certainly make cryptic happy as it would push casual players into a pay up to get all these deeps item, doff, ships, boff, etc etc. But such a system would be the death of STO as it would be the death of the casuals.
Not only that, but let's say I decide to jump into a queue, even a normal one, and someone with a 100k dps ship is also there. I can do 5-6 k against the Starbase near new Romulus. So it takes me say 20 seconds to get my bearings and head to where I need to be. Even before my first torpedo hits the target it's gone because the guy in mommies basement has killed it. So am I a leech? Should I be penalized?.
There needs to be a skill gate no other solution will work
I personally think there are two sides of this. I've been in some runs where someone tried to ineffectively yell and curse at me for playing a "PUG" when I was "clearly not a beginner." So, in some cases I think even some of the new players come in with animosity towards the more experienced players who have played and put in the time/resources to get good enough. Most of those I ignore because they are expecting certain criteria. IE my ability/inability to control my FAW targets.
Past cause of the ideology of doing cube and spheres on the left and right of ISA then 10% of the gens then take all down at the same time. This is so often used to explain how to do things that people fail to take into consideration the metas used in some peoples builds who use something like FAW or CSV or TS. Even a good HY on a proper setup can cause AOE. There many ways to do this game and people cancel out the belief system that anything outside of their "realm" of play that all else is TRIBBLE. IE, when we do ISA, we always do Left to right, how many of you considered doing Right to left? How many of you realized the distance is different that way?
Many get so systematic on the 2% of the runs possible that when you pull them to do others they are so lost they can't even function without a "what do I do?" question.
And then you have the other meta which is the high DPS who expect a pug advanced run to only contain experienced players. No means to control means a system that runs in controlled chaos.
Now, rather this OP was about a Fleet alert they joined at low level or not matters not. The fact doesn't change. He ended up in a mission in which either he was not familiar with or others were fast to kill things than he was or perhaps he got mis-labeled, which could be a cause but without video evidence or a combat log we're merely doing guesswork at what happened here.
Moral of the story, when you PUG you take a risk that you might not be the fastest around and might not deal enough damage to register high enough to be an active participant. This happens to be why I prefer forming my own runs. AFK penalty is not there. And I typically have that advantage without relying on some large DPS group channel to do that. I'm not in either DPS league nor am I to be found in some other large group run channel.
Anyone who wishes to join the group we have together is welcomed to as we use a Teamspeak server and have roughly 18 on average during the evening hours.
I think what your saying is all very valid, and the offer to join in with you is really awesome.
So how about ditching an actual penalty, but using a time score averaged with a dps score to get an overall score to determine the size and/or possibility of a reward?
Am I getting closer to a compromise most could go with?
Also, some way of seeing the levels of characters actually in a queue as it forms, before it starts, might be nice. Thoughts?
Comments
Active time would do that. Is there anything that might be added to make this idea more attractive to those players who insist on seeing more result oriented measures( working from the idea that activity doesn't necessarily equate to results)? Can the two ideas be combined effectively or do they have to be mutually exclusive?
Would an AFK penalty still apply in your ideal version of 'active time'? Or, would you throw a penalty out in favor of Zero reward, for the sake of bad connections whatever?
Thanks
Qapla
You have a point about the casual players leaving, but the DPSers are not going to agree with a change to the system on that point. DPSers see casual players as the people ruining the game.
Or players start improve one self.
Why do Players insist that all players are playing at low than minimum requirement standards? Because that is what AFK Penalty in the current mechanic, a player bringing performance lower than is what even the minimum requirement for what a player should bring in that STF/difficulty for completion.
If all players were doing 0 DPS or 300 DPS or 1k DPS in ISA. How long will that take? I dont think it is not even how long it will take, the question would be if they can finish that mission at all because Mobs NPC have heal regeneration enough to outheal 5 lower DPS players.
Casual players are suppose to play whatever the results are in the rewards since they are Casuals players not Competitive players.
Once you start caring about minor stuff like rewards AFK penalty, you aint a casual player anymore due to the necessity of repetition and competition. But another competitive player being outcompeted by other players.
"Casual players" has been the main excuse of players in all threads in General discussion for players who want to continuely perform below minimum requirements but gain equal rewards as those performing better them. From nerfing queues to AFK penalties. But in reality, those affected are not really Casual players.
Who left the game are those disgruntled and those who cannot adapt to changes to the games. Because if one is casual player, these performance issues should not be an issue since one is a Casual player. They still can play the game.
I am against this because it doesnt solve equality of rewards based on performance. I am against socialism in game. If they are going to fix the AFK Penalty and if ever they have the time, they should NoT based in on Active performance but statistical performance.
We cannot have 0-1% team contribution having equal rewards as 4 players equally sharing that 99% total team contribution even though all of them have equal active combat time performance.
Players should get what they deserve based on statistical performance not get freebies from other players performance.
First of all Why in the world would a new player, who is unprepared, be in an advance? Why would a new player, unprepared be in a premade queue with that 220k DPS? Because that is the only way to get 220k DPS, in premades with Nannies.
Why do complainers equate new players as ignorant and lazy to improve one self? Not all new players refuse to improve oneself. Because you can still get AFK with veterans. Because the only qualification of getting AFK is not performing to the current mechanic. Getting AFK is not about new players but players who refuse to improve performance.
Why should casual players care about these stuff in the first place when they are casuals? Players caring about AFK Penalty, rewards, stuff and Players still can be defined as casuals?
How propesterous that is.
Neither did I even mention nor agree you were a casual player.
3 years ago. Why should we based performance and what players can perform three years ago? That is three years less testing, knowledge, and three years less power creep.
Even if we remove 3 years of power creep, that is still three years of testing and knowledge.
You can still use all common stuff and achieve minimum mission DPS requirements. The excuse of remaining at AFK Penalty which is below minimum missions requirements of any STF/difficulty and mission beats the purpose of actually beating the queue.
I dont see hostile actions but other players telling the truth. If a player is bad do we say that player is good? If a player is underperforming for the queue do we say they are best? If a player gets AFK penalty, do we say they dont deserve even though there is a mechanics that tells otherwise? The reason why players are telling the truth because so that other players are aware they are not performing.
Certain Players are just too sensitive, ultra sensitive to see that these things hostile. virusdancer's mentioning of certain players having Fragile egos is correct.
I have to agree with you that the game lacks in game information of what the optimal performance is.
However, all players have a choice once you get to that point. Even the game tells players they have abysmal performance by the AFK penalty or self awareness that they couldnt kill the mobs fast enough. Either a player Go start researching thru internet or the correct community and improving or stick to what they are doing. Which has become player choice.
Even with in game information lacking, players still have a choice in the current mechanics. To Improve or not to improve. To research or not Research. Self Reliance or Spoonfed.
So, what feasible excuse is there for new player(s), not to be able to achieve 3k-6k dps?
Because they're new? That excuse will work for about a month, what than after?
3k is like easy shuttle dmg, 6k is easy tier 3-4 dmg, and most certainly easy tier 5-6.
Seeing people unable to even break 1k, is paultry to the point that even ground combat can beat that!
Call me what you will, but this isn't a school, that people need have study books handed to them teaching them how to do EVERYTHING in this game!
Here's a wrench, now go fix that car.....oh what's that, you don't know how to? Well, I guess you either better learn, start researching how, or simply give up!
Are you a give in kind of person, as opposed to actually learning/researching?
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
If the player number of underperforming players is dropping, than IMO good ridance, as I don't care to be stuck in a queue with them than!
Maybe original Mario Brothers is more up to their speed, you know, a directional pad + A & B, select and start buttons.
I mean, the wright brothers didn't advance flight technology, simply by someone sitting them down and showing them everything there is to know, they did have to experiment and learn quite a bit on their own.
Because things in this game, are just there to look pretty, and not to be interacted with for the sake of learning.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I literary tippled the DPS output on all my 9 chars as a mixing result of game evolution, adjustments and requirements the past year.
If I have triggered any AFK penalty in public queues I apologize. Please understand that I brought myself in a position to emit 30k, 50k, 70k ONLY to able to play with you in the first place.
The alternative would have been to witness one fail after the other. Care to join me?
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Yep we have and we can take the same topic we had last year with the fail criteria’s as perfect reference. Cryptic makes decisions over game mechanics as they see fit. The player’s react to them by playing this game or not. Cryptic will adjust if it’s necessary. We had a few unchallenging and stupid fail criteria back then. Now they are gone while good and challenging ones are still left in place.
If the AFK penalty poses a problem to the majority of players in this game it will get attended to. If it just hurts a minority it probably will not.
Public queues are neither the right place for players who emit less than 1% of a team DPS nor for those who emit 99% of the team DPS and who are annoyed over carrying the rest. Its easy enough to find a spot in between or go somwhere else.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
paxdawn, sorry, but you miss so much detail in what others have said, and it shows. You continually, and I mean continually assume, after being told otherwise, that the players you are calling lazy, are trying to play Advanced queues. Many times it has been stated that normal queues, gated at level 5+ are a problem area, because those queues are being shared between well established 60's, and wet behind the ears 5's.
I have to assume you are willfully missing this detail, over and over and over again, or you have a cognitive problem that should count as a disability. Either way, since you don't seem to actually be responding to what others actually say, well to quote shadowwraith you should "simply give up!" Or learn to pay attention. As it sits now, your arguments often fail due to being based on false premises or misunderstanding. Please, please, if you want to argue a point, at least get a handle on what the other person is actually saying.
shadowwraith77, I have enjoyed some of your posts, actually, but many of the things you say, if taken to their logical conclusion, would result in this game imploding. Not you, or anyone would be playing it then, because the Cryptic staff would need to find other jobs. You are expressing an elitist attitude, of the sort that would eventually mean you were 'King of Nothing'. It's hard to be cool, when the people who really do own the club house have to mortgage it off to buy food, and you get kicked out. Culling the population that you actually need to support your playground is self destructive. I am being redundant in the hopes that one of these examples will get through your wall. Wake up! You need the rest of us more than we need you.
peterconnorfirst, Yeah, we are supposedly here to play a game, but how much playing are we really doing? Senseless is the word that most sensibly describes a lot of this. It is especially senseless because we are talking about a Star Trek game. The D in DPS should be Diplomacy, not damage. But damage is apparently the only proper measure of success in a game about peaceful if often dangerous space exploration. There is no diplomacy in the game except when the writers want to save a bad guy from justice (Sela!) oh wait ... I forgot, your duty officers can be diplomatic for you. You just do the 'killing' part of the game.
Not sure I understand your post earlier in full. But thanks for sharing.
skollulfr, I appreciate your concern for the larger community. I only hope you are wrong about Cryptic wanting this kind of animosity, just to drive sales. I would hope Cryptic wasn't going to burn down the forest they live in for a few quick bucks. If you are right, then how do you even try counter such poor critical thinking on their part? I just hope they aren't as self destructive as you are implying.
To everyone trying to find a way to put this all on the right track, thanks for trying to help. Trying to help displays nobility of spirit. Now if we could just agree on the best way to do that
Does anyone know if the Devs ever read this stuff? Is there any possibility that a Dev who might be reading this could let us know if any suggested fixes are feasible?
Anyway, for now, there is still a game called STO. Lets hope design choices don't kill it for all of us.
Qapla
I want to think about this for a bit before trying a detailed reply, but meanwhile, thanks. I appreciate your contribution.
Qapla
Level 5 - 60 shared queues are almost entirely my area of concern. It is where the new players are most likely to meet with an AFK. It is also at a point in the game where they have little enough invested to make just uninstalling the game a much more likely option. We don't want that.
By level 50 you have had time to pick up gear, and have some idea how much harder enemies are becoming. If you get to level 50+ and enter those kinds of queues, you should expect more difficulty. However, if you are at level 5-10, and only using earned gear from just that toon, you are not a dps machine. Ever.
A level 5+ entry queue should not punish anyone. Let the 50+ punish as it does now, because that won't hurt the game so much.
Qapla
YES!!!!! I will agree! thanks for your voice of reason.
Qapla.
That being said,I actually have no solid answer to the issue at hand. I don't want people excluded from game content,I don't want new players getting disgusted and leaving the game,we need a larger playerbase anyway. The only possible thing I can think of is to create or adjust the low level queues for player level. For example,level 10-19's have the queue that they see on the stf screen,only joinable by them, 20-29's have theirs and so forth through all levels. This is the only possible option that I can see being workable,where new players can begin learning stf content without being overwhelmed by level 60 established players. Once reaching level 50,any player should have learned enough either ingame through a fleet or friends to be able to put out enough dps to not get an afk penalty,even if matched with high dps'ers.
This is an mmo,where group participation is encouraged and rewarded,by joining a fleet and/or other group activities. If you just want to play the game by yourself,don't join group activities and just enjoy the story. If you do want to join groups,start asking questions. While you may find some rude people who just want to ridicule(and they're in every online game,no matter the genre) put them on your ignore list and move along. I think you'll find that there are many helpful players who will take time to answer questions,provided they're not occupied with their own gameplay. If you join a fleet and no one is ever online or won't take the time to help,then you need to find a different fleet.
With a few exceptions,all public queues are about one thing:destroying enemies. And how does that get done? Damage,of course. A player who will not take the time to ask questions and/or do independent research about increasing said output is not a good teammate. A player can buff/debuff all day long and never kill the enemies,without doing damage also or having teammates who do the damage. There are literally hundreds of how-to videos on youtube,on many different topics,by many different players. Taking 20 minutes to watch one is a minor bit of time,compared with the hours of actual playing time that you put into just running through the storyline.
admiralkogar,I commend you for wanting to stand up for new players and help them along their chosen path. In turn, I think you need to encourage them to do as I've suggested,independent research,if they're really interested in teaming with other players.The game is what Cryptic/PWE has made it, a chase for more dps,and if a player can't at least try to keep up(notice I said TRY) then possibly their only choices are to quit the game and move along or learn from other players and improve. Unfortunately,there are people who refuse to do that and those people make the game less enjoyable for the rest of us. Those are the players to be avoided at all costs,not the dps'ers(and I'm proud to be a part of that group,even though there are undesirables in that group also) because without dps you cannot beat even the easiest sections of the game,whether story driven content or teaming in the queues.
Best of luck to all!
Past cause of the ideology of doing cube and spheres on the left and right of ISA then 10% of the gens then take all down at the same time. This is so often used to explain how to do things that people fail to take into consideration the metas used in some peoples builds who use something like FAW or CSV or TS. Even a good HY on a proper setup can cause AOE. There many ways to do this game and people cancel out the belief system that anything outside of their "realm" of play that all else is TRIBBLE. IE, when we do ISA, we always do Left to right, how many of you considered doing Right to left? How many of you realized the distance is different that way?
Many get so systematic on the 2% of the runs possible that when you pull them to do others they are so lost they can't even function without a "what do I do?" question.
And then you have the other meta which is the high DPS who expect a pug advanced run to only contain experienced players. No means to control means a system that runs in controlled chaos.
Now, rather this OP was about a Fleet alert they joined at low level or not matters not. The fact doesn't change. He ended up in a mission in which either he was not familiar with or others were fast to kill things than he was or perhaps he got mis-labeled, which could be a cause but without video evidence or a combat log we're merely doing guesswork at what happened here.
Moral of the story, when you PUG you take a risk that you might not be the fastest around and might not deal enough damage to register high enough to be an active participant. This happens to be why I prefer forming my own runs. AFK penalty is not there. And I typically have that advantage without relying on some large DPS group channel to do that. I'm not in either DPS league nor am I to be found in some other large group run channel.
Anyone who wishes to join the group we have together is welcomed to as we use a Teamspeak server and have roughly 18 on average during the evening hours.
Top DPS 102k
A no reward outcome is a valid option for a compromise imho. It is somewhere between the extremes. A new player could still learn from the experience, have a little fun, but not have the overt negative of being punished incorrectly.
I would expect the nugget in such a situation to be asking in the chat window 'Why didn't I get stuff?' but if the current AFK message was changed to an explanation that they scored so low it didn't count, that would probably help. Also, without a time out penalty they could get advice, make some changes, and go back in while the memory was reasonably fresh. NPCs offering the early queue missions could also explain before hand so a nugget would know going in, that a 'zero reward win', was a possibility.
Time vs DPS seems to be a heated area. From my position I see problems and advantages to each. I would be more happy with either as long as how the rule was applied, served to squash the possibility of false-positive based punishment. Again, even a zero reward isn't the same as being labelled and kept out of participation.
Time score plus DPS score divided by two. Average them maybe? Then decide if there is a need to invoke zero reward based on that.
Thanks.
Qapla.
Thank you for the kind words.
Of course, I am not trying to 'dis' the dps experts. Our Fleet depends on them for the knowledge they provide, as well as the firepower they deliver in a team. We also need the new players, and I want them to ask me questions. If I see they are online, I try to ask, first thing, 'How are you doing? What mission? Is it going well? Do you need someone to run it with you?' or some combination. More experienced players I just say 'hello' to, and if they have a question, they don't usually need any invitations. If I have someone who reads English, and lags behind, and doesn't ask, or respond to chat, or seem to care, I will after a time, leave off with a 'You know where to get ahold of me' message. I did my job, they weren't doing theirs. Fair enough.
Also, I'm a generalist. I'm not the best at probably anything, so I try to make sure that questions I can't answer get to the person, or website that can. Lots of different fleet websites out there, with members asking the same kinds of questions, one to the next. There is some variety in answers, but you can see what is being tried, and what their members say is working for them.
Any experienced player can look stuff up with confidence. By level 50, your not so new, and neither is your character. Still there are surprises. Kemocite wasn't even a thing I worried about, till the last week or so. Still, I'm not worried about it much, can't afford it, and wouldn't buy it if I could, because it will get nerfed, and it isn't going to be a reliable tool till the dust settles. By then, if I want it, it may be cheaper. The point is I can research that stuff. An ex-noob can do it as well as I can.
Most of the time I will try to get five to do a run together, so it is less random. Afterwards we can talk about anti-proton weapons and whatever. Questions come up, gear gets traded, gifts get handed out, and it's very positive, even if we lose for some reason. (Kill the regenerator probes! Dahgnabbit!!) I see and agree with what you are saying.
I have to say, I like the vids just cause they are kind of fun. But yeah, informative also.
Thanks.
Qapla.
There needs to be a skill gate no other solution will work
I think what your saying is all very valid, and the offer to join in with you is really awesome.
Qapla.
Am I getting closer to a compromise most could go with?
Also, some way of seeing the levels of characters actually in a queue as it forms, before it starts, might be nice. Thoughts?
Qapla.