Can someone relieve me of holding a gun to all these players heads? I need to pee.. seriously folks, if you have issues with Bob doing 40K dps more than Dave... you need to walk away
There's a world of difference when the "scaling" is within 10% to 20% of each other ("base" of 10k, 11k = Advanced, 12k = elite), and when the scaling is on the order of 1,000% or even 10,000%. (Grav well "listed" to do 1.8k, pops off a 18k hit, that's a 1,000% bigger whack). Going from 10k to 100k is 10,000%...
Like some of these "legitimate" 100k builds (you know, the "real" DPSers and not the "I got nannied so I can haz me a big e-peen" peeps) that claim AHoD and Reciprocity are "necessary" traits to their build - that's $60 and/or months of grinding that I don't have. Same with Kemocite I... Perhaps to the level that I might be... dissuaded... from playing "competitive" STO (Read: participating in Queues & Events) because of a distinct "Pay(Grind) 2 Win" feel and the onslaught of... negative commentary... on how my "usually" 13k sustained DPS on a big target build is "fail" for Advanced content...
(and for those who see me parse at like 6k, yeah, I know that I'd be a lot closer to that 13k if I did silly things like stay around the transformer instead of heading over to GW a Nanite Train and then get killed / run to shed aggro or elect to "neglect" some aspect of my build to get higher engine power...)
And I will say it again. The definition of world's apart, large and small are irrelevant. The difference is always there. People will always notice that difference and find that their builds are not always up to par with other builds. People will always see the advantage in other builds and disadvantage in their own builds... and they will always ask for fair play. A more narrow gap is not fair play. Fair play is when everyone has the same number of chess pieces and equal number and equal size of grids to traverse.
And that $60 dollar may be why they might have a stronger character/ship than you. They just invested more time, effort, learning, research and money into their gaming. You said it yourself, you do not have time for it... and by all means then do not force yourself to playing the game and putting effort and resources into the game that you do not feel comfortable with. At the same time, do not ask the players who actually do that to play and invest in this game at the same level as you. I am not saying that their level is higher and yours is lower. Your levels of gaming are just different and perhaps just respect and accept that.
It is like going to the gym and seeing all the fit and strong looking men and women in there, and realizing that you yourself do not have the time, energy, resources and knowledge to do what they do... so instead you want to force the gym to reduce the amount of weights, limit how they can exercise and limit the number of hours they can exercise so that everyone is on equal platform.
You are missing the point. If everybody gets good, the problem becomes worse.
Do you even see the flawed idea there? Narrowing the gap or even removing the gap entirely (if it were possible) would practically make everyone "good" as you point it out. At least on a mechanical level as far as equipment, traits and abilities goes etc. Right now we have a variety of builds and distinct differences (even if some builds are more favored than others) because the gap is as wide as it is.
I am mostly shrugging at these threads and I will tell you why. Despite the few exceptions I have yet to see somebody from this DPS minority to really speak up about these issues. Yeah, they may not want to indiscriminate themselves but the point is. So far it's just one perspective and I consider this level of feedback perhaps a bit entitled and spoiled. It's not wrong and it's not stupid. Is it constructive criticism? Sometimes and sometimes not, but more often I personally see it more as plain complaining and whining than good arguments. Some of the things to get more "DPS"... and yes that is what we are talking about now, is not so difficult to achieve. I have posted some very decent and easy-to-get builds that I think can do more than people perhaps initially thought or expected. It just takes one to get off one's butt.
I see players post here asking for advice and help, and do you know why? It is because they acknowledge that they may not have enough knowledge to achieve a better build with the least resources invested, so instead they turn to the forums because they have are hungry for that knowledge. They want to learn and they did so because they got off their butts. If they have more questions they return. If they want things faster than what their time allows they may spend some money. Whatever they did and whichever way they chose to walk they nonetheless took that extra step and that is all what may be needed.
When I see players not being able to destroy things as fast and as efficient as I do... I do not care. I may giggle but it is not to make fun of them. It is because I know I was there once and to see how far I have pushed my own interest in this game to this level and see these results is rewarding. I don't complain or whine because these low DPS players are allowed to play that way and they are allowed to learn. Everyone has been there and everyone will be there. In the same way I hope that people will allow me to play the way I want in the way the game allows without complaining that I have learned too much, invested too much effort, time and knowledge, and spent too much money in this game. That's like a big slap in the face and I find it disrespectful and a lack of humility.
If you find that some members of the DPS community disrespect your way and your level of gaming then you should do what you would do in real life. You tell them to treat you the way they want to be treated. You tell them to back off in a civil way and accept that you are where you are because you are either learning or because you just want to be there and like it. Or you just ignore their comments altogether. I honestly don't even read the chat and parsing info that some people may post. I think people would feel so much more healthy playing STO if they just ignored the bad things that people say and just play the game the way they want, and didn't pay so much attention to all the differences in builds.
To respond to the commentary aimed at me:
1. "Game vs Gym" is a flawed comparison. A game should be "reasonably" fun for as many people as theoretically possible to choose to play, while Gym - and by extension exercise, is an activity that should be performed by everyone in one, way, shape, or form for health benefits, despite the "fun" factor they may find in it...
2. Same commentary about "PuGging vs Premade" applies to "e-peeners" as well, especially if their "intent" is to drop or AFK at the first sign of "unfavorable conditions"...
Now, to the "remaining" commentary - which is obviously directed more at the heart of this thread:
I'll ask one simple question:
How is "play the way you want to play" supported with "look into the forums to the specific build(s) listed, find the one that best fits your playstyle and budgets (time or financial), and use it - nothing else"?
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
And now imagine you had a way to reliably produce such experiences whenever you feel like it. Let us call that way... Elite queues?
Now, for that, a Battle Value system would be quite useful. "Normal" for the people who want to effortlessly blast through content. Advanced for people who want to think a bit. Elite for those who want extreme and tough fights. The battle value for the team is then selected for that difficulty level.
But that won't be the result of the BV system. And there's no way to reliably do that type of breakdown. And that also segregates the community. And ... more to the development team's own goals, that's not really the function of elite content.
I understand what you want out of the queuing process a lot better now. And I too find a lot of excitement in PUGs that go awry. But from everything I've read thus far, there's no real way I can think of to get the queuing system to do that consistently.
Starting an Undergeared Alt channel though, can get that done much more effectively. I've got three or four I'd happily run together with folks in a channel like that.
How would "effortlessly blast through content" be possible if the team's DPS (as determined as part of the BV of the team) is not enough to do that? If if it is barely enough to defeat everything in the given time?
How can it be true that a BV would not deliver that, if the BV is set to the right value?
I'm not a programmer. But I've played Cryptic games long enough to have quite a lot of firsthand experience with how their queues work and this seems like some coding and programming that doesn't fit anything they've ever done. Bort or Taco would be able to speak to this directly, but just working off of my experience with all of the company's games that I've played, I just don't see them being able to provide that level of player segragation.
I'd rather say it assigns people to the kind of play they want to enjoy, and brings those who are similar in that regard together.
It's still a segregation. And that does contradict some of your goals and commentary. I'm not trying to split hairs here either. It's kind of a core issue from what I've read.
What, if not tough content, is the function of the Elite queues?
In an MMO it's about tiered progression. All content ages in MMOs. And gets easier for players as powercreep or mudflation takes place. The dragon boss raid that debuts in 2016 and is super hard for your guild to finish and win, gets progressively easier as you do it more often. 1- Your guild gets used to the encounter and devises a strategy that works. 2- As you repeatedly defeat it with that winning strategy it becomes muscle memory for the group to defeat it. And 3- With each victory, the encounter rewards players with treasure. Each time you win more and more of your team get built up with those rewards. And eventually the encounter gets put on "farm mode" because everyone has geared up, learned to beat it with their eyes closed, and is currently moving on to other challenges.
Cryptic games are historically bad at implementing this type of tiered progression. But this game has a lot of those elements. It has reward system that takes progression to work through. (The reputations, and the resource cost for those items ... so like Iconian 4pc set is considered for a lot of builds, Best in Class ... or getting Lobi items, Very expensive or rare DOFFs, getting items from your fleet stores ... all of this requires time, effort and resources, and that is the progression path).
This is the root of powercreep. ISA is a perfect example. It's 5 years and change old in a 6 year game. That's more than 5 years of time spent getting newer items that increase your power while the map and its contents haven't improved nearly as much as the combatants.
Most MMOs are fine leaving old content old. They create newer encounters. That are progressively harder. So in 2016, it's not a big deal if you can run ISA in minutes and bully/faceroll/pummel it with ease. The larger problem is that while the gear has mudflated and power has crept, the encounters haven't kept at the same pace.
The development team would address this by creating newer content. Newer encounters. And they do. And they have.
But you run into some of the other design limitations of this game. Normal mode, casual play, and the very architecture built into the game and its development goals. Point blank, STO isn't designed and wasn't ever intended to be designed, like Everquest or World of Warcraft. So the content wasn't really intended to be as challenging as you want it to be. And that's a goal that you are not likely to see change. It's based on the game's own 6 years of being alive, as well as some of the results you see in your poll. A lot of players do not find the same fun in what you find fun and are aggressively (as you've seen) going to argue against the ideas you have.
I can. A battle value system.
I don't see it working the way you intend.
First, the game's own queueing system (as mentioned above) likely can't produce the effect you need.
And second, you seek chaos and the BV system as laid out here is actually organization, order and streamlining.
Here's a horrible unmathematic example, but from the thread on what people think average player DPS is, myself and another poster shared our anecdotal evidence of the past few months. It roughly correlates in that of the 5 man ISA team, 1 player is high DPS, over 75k. 3 players are in that 20 to 50k range. And 1 player is in the less than 10k range.
Your BV system makes this popular queue pop less.
The high DPS player has to now wait 5 times as long for a queue to pop. They won't bother with the queue at that point. Waiting 5 minutes to do a run that they plan to spend less than 5 minutes running, is a waste of their time.
The 3 players in the medium range have to wait longer as well. Likely about twice as long. This is the sweet spot so now you're waiting 2 minutes to pop a queue that takes you less than 5 minutes to defeat (because at 30k each that map goes away fast). This is not challenging. Nothing has changed except the wait time.
And finally the less than 10k group now waits 5 times as long to queue for a map that just got extremely hard for them to complete. Your idea makes it a longer wait to get to content. And as you've seen by the mountain of feedback you have collected, a lot of players do not want to be faced with that kind of challenge. Those players will get very upset.
Your idea for BV is an amazing suggestion and really can go far toward segregating and differentiating the playerbase more. But if your goal is to make more exciting, chaotic, fun and dangerous battle experiences, you're not going to achieve that goal with BV.
Anyone start one, I'd join. But I can't create and maintain it.
That's fine. I would like to take a moment to point out that Star Trek Battles Channel was originally created way back when by people who wanted a more canon-like experience (Fed ships with phasers and torps like in the shows being the most obvious example). But many of those players have evolved and are doing great with their builds and their parses and their metrics. Still that channel is really popular and it started out on a similar concept, trying to group up players who didn't want to perform at the bleeding edge of DPS, but rather wanted to play the way they found fun and the long time together and teamwork got them both far more popular and extremely effective results.
You may not be able to start the Undergeared Alt channel. But I think if it does get started, it can get you the experiences you are looking for in a way that I really don't think the development team can effectively code into the way the queue system works.
That's fine. I would like to take a moment to point out that Star Trek Battles Channel was originally created way back when by people who wanted a more canon-like experience (Fed ships with phasers and torps like in the shows being the most obvious example). But many of those players have evolved and are doing great with their builds and their parses and their metrics. Still that channel is really popular and it started out on a similar concept, trying to group up players who didn't want to perform at the bleeding edge of DPS, but rather wanted to play the way they found fun and the long time together and teamwork got them both far more popular and extremely effective results.
You may not be able to start the Undergeared Alt channel. But I think if it does get started, it can get you the experiences you are looking for in a way that I really don't think the development team can effectively code into the way the queue system works.
Funnily enough, I tried PvPing against someone on their STB build - it looked like a load of dual plasma beams with very little interruption. Not quite canon-like for me, that's for sure.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
And that is what we have now, and people are suggsting too divide it even further.
I don't know what you are on, but it can't be legal. I have to say, it has been a wild ride watching your threads. It is kind of like a mystery, where we have to figure out if you are trolling or being serious the whole time. Every time I think I have it figured out, you throw me a curve ball.
It is marvellous how one can ignore the core argument in a debate so enduringly.
Honestly I don't even know what the core here is. All I see are two or three people who seem to stubbornly refuse to let some players who have honestly had to work their asses off to get good DPS KEEP said DPS with some very... well for lack of a polite word, well, let's just go with WRONG reasoning.
Yes, I get that you guys don't like the fact that some of us have learned to obliterate the NPCs in seconds (if not shorter). Yes, I get it you guys don't like that some players don't like low DPS players. Yes, I get that you guys think that it's a problem.
What I don't get is why you're seeming to utterly REFUSE to look at it from the DPS players perspective. Most of us have worked months (if not years) to hit the DPS levels that we're at. Many of us used up huge amounts of resources (in game and out) just to perfect our builds. Most of us are still tweaking our builds to make them better. And yet you want us all to throw it away because you and a few others feel useless or are bored because we can cause so much destruction so quickly?
Anyone else want to explain to me how that kind of thinking is something other than utterly wrong?
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
Why would anyone need to wait longer? The queue just counts the BV up until enough BV is queued up. In the case of a 75k dpser who queues up for normal, he'd probably be alone anyway, so it'd be faster than ever. Even on Advanced, quite likely.
Because the level you're looking to queue at will take longer to assemble. And once the 10k people who do not share your vision of that being fun get wise to this change, they will stop queuing. And once the 75k people do it solo a few times, they will stop queuing. Your segregation makes the popular queues less popular.
I sense a misunderstanding here once again
Yes. The misunderstanding is definitely there. I can sum it best as:
What you find fun, is not what the players find fun. Your poll demonstrates that on a micro level. The 6 years of development evolution that this game has taken demonstrates that on a macro level.
Your suggestion to automate the system to enforce your version of fun will not be a popular change with the people who develop or play this game.
I have been reading the thread. And I've watched it start as ONE person trying to force others to think like they do. Then start to devolve into just whining arguments as more and more people seemed to disagree. I barely know what your original point was, since it seems to have changed. So instead of attacking me and what I think, why don't you try explaining in short and simple terms what it is you want?
Because if you can't even do that, then I don't think even you know exactly what it is you want.
... is utter nonsense, not supportable by anything said over the last, what, 5 pages of this thread?
Perhaps I should recommend you read your own thread as well. ALL OF IT. Not just posts by a few players here and there that agree with what it is you are trying to force feed the community.
I am starting to see why so many people aren't even bothering to comment anymore. And if you look at the results of your own poll, it's a pretty high % of people who are saying the game is fine compared to those who think it needs to change.
Going back to just the title of the thread, how does reducing PLAYER dps affect balance? If anything the game should be adjusted on the NPC level, not the player level. I won't deny that I get bored shooting HP sponges. That's probably why I don't play STO nearly as much as I used to. I loved what they did with the Vaadwuar and the Heralds, giving their ships improved AIs and actual BOff abilities that they used. I wasn't quite so fond of the Na'kuhl (science locks and other such things to get irritating), but I liked that they again improved the AI (even if it wasn't by much). Hell I was one of those players who was overjoyed when they first introduced the Voth with all the debuffs and actual... well, abilities!
So again, they just should improve the NPC AI and give them better capability to actually do more than slightly dent my shields. But nerfing a player's ability to deal damage? Why would you want to do that at all? Nerfs hurt so much more than they heal. If anything, instead of asking for the nerf bat on a very SMALL MINORITY OF PLAYERS, why not ask for the buff stick on the NPCs?
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
"Why would it take longer?"
"Because it will take longer."
That doesn't make sense to me. Can you explain with an example?
It takes right now about 1 minute for an ISA to pop. That ISA is populated with 1 person doing 2k DPS. 3 people doing 20k DPS. And one person doing 75k DPS.
Let's make your metric 100k combined BV for it to pop. This is because having a team map pop for a solo encounter is probably a bad design decision that I'm guessing the developers will not want to do. So you now need to give 2 people at 75k wanting in the go ahead. Let's just say that takes another 30 seconds. Now that 1 minute queue takes top DPS 1:30.
Three people at 20k need now 5 people at 20k. Same deal. Their one minute queue takes 1:30.
Now we get to YOUR level of fun. 10k DPS. That one person needs to wait for a team of 10 to be assembled. That's 10 minutes in the queue.
To do a queue that they are ill equipped to do. And will not like having to in that manner. Because even if their damage is up to par their build and the team's coordination will be off.
To achieve this, you need to:
1- Create new programming to calculate BV.
2- Tie it into the queuing system.
3- Revamp the queuing system to assemble teams that are smaller and larger than intended.
So you put the onus on the development team to create a system that may or may not be doable with the current game's code. And you are asking for them to do this when it clearly goes against their own development tendencies for the game's past 6 years. And, you're asking for this level of automation to be done for your version of fun, which your own poll demonstrates is not popular.
You are making the queues take longer.
You are making the game harder for people who do not want it to be harder.
You are impeding on other peoples' fun.
While you raise a bunch of excellent points about powercreep, DPS, skill balance, the state of the current content ... you then veer off course into a set of ideas that are not going to help the majority of players get fun out of their experience.
What you seem to continually misunderstand is ... a lot of players do not want your version of fun. You're outnumbered there. A lot of people want the fun, fast popping, easy to play, casual queuing system that currently exists.
You started this off asking why people don't queue for Hive Space Elite.
The answer is pretty obvious. A lot of players would rather play a fast and very easy ISA. It's why it's the most popular queue.
Reason was buried under a walls of text and mountains of pointless arguing. What about making "easy" queues open, like BZ or tholian/borg RA, leave advanced as it is, and make elite queues harder by adding random hazards like grav wells, random sequences, so you can't just follow same pattern again and again, and enemies that go trough phases with random attacks and random damage resistances or require certain attack vector to hit it's vulnerable spot?
No offense, but obviously that didn't work. Try again.
I think I'll just go with this thread doesn't work. I asked you nicely to just explain in simple terms, and you did exactly what you've done every time someone has tried reason with you. Buried your head in the sand.
I'm done.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
No, there may be some issues with that, but the devs should work on several other things first.
Hmm you know a thought occurred to me. Not once in any episode of Star Trek did the captains ever concern themselves with how much DPS they should or shouldn't have.
Hmm you know a thought occurred to me. Not once in any episode of Star Trek did the captains ever concern themselves with how much DPS they should or shouldn't have.
There's a few episodes where they're concerned with how much EPS they could or couldn't produce.
Also technically in Best of Both Worlds, their damage potential was questioned.
Comments
Also being able to inflict damage that's twice the HP of a cruiser is a bit much.
To respond to the commentary aimed at me:
1. "Game vs Gym" is a flawed comparison. A game should be "reasonably" fun for as many people as theoretically possible to choose to play, while Gym - and by extension exercise, is an activity that should be performed by everyone in one, way, shape, or form for health benefits, despite the "fun" factor they may find in it...
2. Same commentary about "PuGging vs Premade" applies to "e-peeners" as well, especially if their "intent" is to drop or AFK at the first sign of "unfavorable conditions"...
Now, to the "remaining" commentary - which is obviously directed more at the heart of this thread:
I'll ask one simple question:
How is "play the way you want to play" supported with "look into the forums to the specific build(s) listed, find the one that best fits your playstyle and budgets (time or financial), and use it - nothing else"?
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
But that won't be the result of the BV system. And there's no way to reliably do that type of breakdown. And that also segregates the community. And ... more to the development team's own goals, that's not really the function of elite content.
I understand what you want out of the queuing process a lot better now. And I too find a lot of excitement in PUGs that go awry. But from everything I've read thus far, there's no real way I can think of to get the queuing system to do that consistently.
Starting an Undergeared Alt channel though, can get that done much more effectively. I've got three or four I'd happily run together with folks in a channel like that.
I'm not a programmer. But I've played Cryptic games long enough to have quite a lot of firsthand experience with how their queues work and this seems like some coding and programming that doesn't fit anything they've ever done. Bort or Taco would be able to speak to this directly, but just working off of my experience with all of the company's games that I've played, I just don't see them being able to provide that level of player segragation.
It's still a segregation. And that does contradict some of your goals and commentary. I'm not trying to split hairs here either. It's kind of a core issue from what I've read.
In an MMO it's about tiered progression. All content ages in MMOs. And gets easier for players as powercreep or mudflation takes place. The dragon boss raid that debuts in 2016 and is super hard for your guild to finish and win, gets progressively easier as you do it more often. 1- Your guild gets used to the encounter and devises a strategy that works. 2- As you repeatedly defeat it with that winning strategy it becomes muscle memory for the group to defeat it. And 3- With each victory, the encounter rewards players with treasure. Each time you win more and more of your team get built up with those rewards. And eventually the encounter gets put on "farm mode" because everyone has geared up, learned to beat it with their eyes closed, and is currently moving on to other challenges.
Cryptic games are historically bad at implementing this type of tiered progression. But this game has a lot of those elements. It has reward system that takes progression to work through. (The reputations, and the resource cost for those items ... so like Iconian 4pc set is considered for a lot of builds, Best in Class ... or getting Lobi items, Very expensive or rare DOFFs, getting items from your fleet stores ... all of this requires time, effort and resources, and that is the progression path).
This is the root of powercreep. ISA is a perfect example. It's 5 years and change old in a 6 year game. That's more than 5 years of time spent getting newer items that increase your power while the map and its contents haven't improved nearly as much as the combatants.
Most MMOs are fine leaving old content old. They create newer encounters. That are progressively harder. So in 2016, it's not a big deal if you can run ISA in minutes and bully/faceroll/pummel it with ease. The larger problem is that while the gear has mudflated and power has crept, the encounters haven't kept at the same pace.
The development team would address this by creating newer content. Newer encounters. And they do. And they have.
But you run into some of the other design limitations of this game. Normal mode, casual play, and the very architecture built into the game and its development goals. Point blank, STO isn't designed and wasn't ever intended to be designed, like Everquest or World of Warcraft. So the content wasn't really intended to be as challenging as you want it to be. And that's a goal that you are not likely to see change. It's based on the game's own 6 years of being alive, as well as some of the results you see in your poll. A lot of players do not find the same fun in what you find fun and are aggressively (as you've seen) going to argue against the ideas you have.
I don't see it working the way you intend.
First, the game's own queueing system (as mentioned above) likely can't produce the effect you need.
And second, you seek chaos and the BV system as laid out here is actually organization, order and streamlining.
Here's a horrible unmathematic example, but from the thread on what people think average player DPS is, myself and another poster shared our anecdotal evidence of the past few months. It roughly correlates in that of the 5 man ISA team, 1 player is high DPS, over 75k. 3 players are in that 20 to 50k range. And 1 player is in the less than 10k range.
Your BV system makes this popular queue pop less.
The high DPS player has to now wait 5 times as long for a queue to pop. They won't bother with the queue at that point. Waiting 5 minutes to do a run that they plan to spend less than 5 minutes running, is a waste of their time.
The 3 players in the medium range have to wait longer as well. Likely about twice as long. This is the sweet spot so now you're waiting 2 minutes to pop a queue that takes you less than 5 minutes to defeat (because at 30k each that map goes away fast). This is not challenging. Nothing has changed except the wait time.
And finally the less than 10k group now waits 5 times as long to queue for a map that just got extremely hard for them to complete. Your idea makes it a longer wait to get to content. And as you've seen by the mountain of feedback you have collected, a lot of players do not want to be faced with that kind of challenge. Those players will get very upset.
Your idea for BV is an amazing suggestion and really can go far toward segregating and differentiating the playerbase more. But if your goal is to make more exciting, chaotic, fun and dangerous battle experiences, you're not going to achieve that goal with BV.
That's fine. I would like to take a moment to point out that Star Trek Battles Channel was originally created way back when by people who wanted a more canon-like experience (Fed ships with phasers and torps like in the shows being the most obvious example). But many of those players have evolved and are doing great with their builds and their parses and their metrics. Still that channel is really popular and it started out on a similar concept, trying to group up players who didn't want to perform at the bleeding edge of DPS, but rather wanted to play the way they found fun and the long time together and teamwork got them both far more popular and extremely effective results.
You may not be able to start the Undergeared Alt channel. But I think if it does get started, it can get you the experiences you are looking for in a way that I really don't think the development team can effectively code into the way the queue system works.
Funnily enough, I tried PvPing against someone on their STB build - it looked like a load of dual plasma beams with very little interruption. Not quite canon-like for me, that's for sure.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
I don't know what you are on, but it can't be legal. I have to say, it has been a wild ride watching your threads. It is kind of like a mystery, where we have to figure out if you are trolling or being serious the whole time. Every time I think I have it figured out, you throw me a curve ball.
Certainly is a hard thread to follow, though.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Honestly I don't even know what the core here is. All I see are two or three people who seem to stubbornly refuse to let some players who have honestly had to work their asses off to get good DPS KEEP said DPS with some very... well for lack of a polite word, well, let's just go with WRONG reasoning.
Yes, I get that you guys don't like the fact that some of us have learned to obliterate the NPCs in seconds (if not shorter). Yes, I get it you guys don't like that some players don't like low DPS players. Yes, I get that you guys think that it's a problem.
What I don't get is why you're seeming to utterly REFUSE to look at it from the DPS players perspective. Most of us have worked months (if not years) to hit the DPS levels that we're at. Many of us used up huge amounts of resources (in game and out) just to perfect our builds. Most of us are still tweaking our builds to make them better. And yet you want us all to throw it away because you and a few others feel useless or are bored because we can cause so much destruction so quickly?
Anyone else want to explain to me how that kind of thinking is something other than utterly wrong?
Because the level you're looking to queue at will take longer to assemble. And once the 10k people who do not share your vision of that being fun get wise to this change, they will stop queuing. And once the 75k people do it solo a few times, they will stop queuing. Your segregation makes the popular queues less popular.
Yes. The misunderstanding is definitely there. I can sum it best as:
What you find fun, is not what the players find fun. Your poll demonstrates that on a micro level. The 6 years of development evolution that this game has taken demonstrates that on a macro level.
Your suggestion to automate the system to enforce your version of fun will not be a popular change with the people who develop or play this game.
I have been reading the thread. And I've watched it start as ONE person trying to force others to think like they do. Then start to devolve into just whining arguments as more and more people seemed to disagree. I barely know what your original point was, since it seems to have changed. So instead of attacking me and what I think, why don't you try explaining in short and simple terms what it is you want?
Because if you can't even do that, then I don't think even you know exactly what it is you want.
Perhaps I should recommend you read your own thread as well. ALL OF IT. Not just posts by a few players here and there that agree with what it is you are trying to force feed the community.
I am starting to see why so many people aren't even bothering to comment anymore. And if you look at the results of your own poll, it's a pretty high % of people who are saying the game is fine compared to those who think it needs to change.
Going back to just the title of the thread, how does reducing PLAYER dps affect balance? If anything the game should be adjusted on the NPC level, not the player level. I won't deny that I get bored shooting HP sponges. That's probably why I don't play STO nearly as much as I used to. I loved what they did with the Vaadwuar and the Heralds, giving their ships improved AIs and actual BOff abilities that they used. I wasn't quite so fond of the Na'kuhl (science locks and other such things to get irritating), but I liked that they again improved the AI (even if it wasn't by much). Hell I was one of those players who was overjoyed when they first introduced the Voth with all the debuffs and actual... well, abilities!
So again, they just should improve the NPC AI and give them better capability to actually do more than slightly dent my shields. But nerfing a player's ability to deal damage? Why would you want to do that at all? Nerfs hurt so much more than they heal. If anything, instead of asking for the nerf bat on a very SMALL MINORITY OF PLAYERS, why not ask for the buff stick on the NPCs?
We don't need more dev intervention into our characters configuration. Leave something for the players to set up.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
It takes right now about 1 minute for an ISA to pop. That ISA is populated with 1 person doing 2k DPS. 3 people doing 20k DPS. And one person doing 75k DPS.
Let's make your metric 100k combined BV for it to pop. This is because having a team map pop for a solo encounter is probably a bad design decision that I'm guessing the developers will not want to do. So you now need to give 2 people at 75k wanting in the go ahead. Let's just say that takes another 30 seconds. Now that 1 minute queue takes top DPS 1:30.
Three people at 20k need now 5 people at 20k. Same deal. Their one minute queue takes 1:30.
Now we get to YOUR level of fun. 10k DPS. That one person needs to wait for a team of 10 to be assembled. That's 10 minutes in the queue.
To do a queue that they are ill equipped to do. And will not like having to in that manner. Because even if their damage is up to par their build and the team's coordination will be off.
To achieve this, you need to:
1- Create new programming to calculate BV.
2- Tie it into the queuing system.
3- Revamp the queuing system to assemble teams that are smaller and larger than intended.
So you put the onus on the development team to create a system that may or may not be doable with the current game's code. And you are asking for them to do this when it clearly goes against their own development tendencies for the game's past 6 years. And, you're asking for this level of automation to be done for your version of fun, which your own poll demonstrates is not popular.
You are making the queues take longer.
You are making the game harder for people who do not want it to be harder.
You are impeding on other peoples' fun.
While you raise a bunch of excellent points about powercreep, DPS, skill balance, the state of the current content ... you then veer off course into a set of ideas that are not going to help the majority of players get fun out of their experience.
What you seem to continually misunderstand is ... a lot of players do not want your version of fun. You're outnumbered there. A lot of people want the fun, fast popping, easy to play, casual queuing system that currently exists.
You started this off asking why people don't queue for Hive Space Elite.
The answer is pretty obvious. A lot of players would rather play a fast and very easy ISA. It's why it's the most popular queue.
I think I'll just go with this thread doesn't work. I asked you nicely to just explain in simple terms, and you did exactly what you've done every time someone has tried reason with you. Buried your head in the sand.
I'm done.
original join date 2010
Member: Team Trekyards. Visit Trekyards today!
There's a few episodes where they're concerned with how much EPS they could or couldn't produce.
Also technically in Best of Both Worlds, their damage potential was questioned.