Also one thing to remember is the parsing tool does show healing and tanking metrics. It's not talked about much, but the data is there. For me that's been the most helpful. I've been building this ship and steadily making improvements on it, trying to get it's DPS increased while maintaining its tanking. And then being able to look at the contribution of single skills has helped a ton Things like:
Finally seeing how Aux2SIF is performing for me let me see why it gets recommended so much
Noting how little I use some powers helps me make adjustments to my own performance.
Seeing what the individual contribution of Feedback Pulse is versus Gravity Well versus Tyken's Rift.
Heck right now I'm actually utilizing all three of those points to determine if I want to keep Science Team 2 as I use it very little, I get plenty of healing from other sources, and I could potentially use Destabilizing Resonance Beam or Tyken's Rift in its place, or switch to Feedback Pulse 1 and Gravity Well 2.
But I'd feel weird not having ST around, and then there's the debuff removal ...
Cause you make it out to be this massive issue, you post very often about how bad an experience isa happens to be. It smacks a bit of flogging that dead horse. Let it go man, let it go.
Indeed - but as I said a few posts ago, healing/tanking may be recorded but no-one cares about them; the only number that matters is the magic 'DPS' one.
You're right. That is the magic number everyone focuses on. And it's been that way in MMOs for a good long time. And Cryptic MMOs have unfortunately always had a problem in that overall that is the metric they utilize most.
However, we can at least add the other metrics to the conversation. There's a lot of tanks out there. There's a lot of builds and powers that rely on healing (though the tricky part in STO is that healing tends to be self-focused and not really engaged in a standard MMO way where Healer X heals Players A, B and C). I think a fun movement might be to start trying to change the conversation. Start talking about your highest HPS runs. Your highest ATKS-in%. I mean it seems silly but a little coordinated "bragging" about other stats could get the paradigm shifted a bit.
It's just a suggestion.
I've been a numbers and stats guy since I was a little kid collecting baseball cards. So while I understand the discomfort a lot of people have with the focus on parsing, for me, it's just another tool I'm using to analyze my own characters and their ships and what they do.
Cause you make it out to be this massive issue, you post very often about how bad an experience isa happens to be. It smacks a bit of flogging that dead horse. Let it go man, let it go.
Well if we're talking about dead horses how about the fact that almost any time someone says they find something hard a heap of people come in saying you can do 10, 20, 30K DPS with Mk X green gear. That's nearly always brought up but yet I think this thread has shown that the majority of people probably believe the average DPS to be nearer 10-20K, and probably at the lower end of that scale. I mean I could probably list 10 or some regular forum posters who are bringing their DPS scores into any and all threads and just waving them around, but I just accept that is what they want to do. I accept it and move on, I don't get offended because they are constantly banging on about how epic their build is or how fast it can kill things.
I mean @reyan01 is quite within his rights to point out that the current meta in the game has pushed something he used to enjoy into something he now despises. If people don't like what is being said they'll just have to ignore it or accept that not everyone sees things their way.
Except the argument is content should be changed because he doesn't like how fast others pew pew stuff. Not quite sure how your comments fit in with that.
Incidentally I care about attacks in when I'm tanking. I like that the info is shown in the parse.
And you can still play this way, easily. Just find the right crowd to run with then you will love isa again. Star trek battles, the science channel perhaps. To name just a few. Though tbh the science channel tends to run cpe more than anything.
Sorry some post look scabby cause I can't use quotes when on the phone.
You're in a nova, make it canon (if it's not already) and have a blast in some of the channels.
Honestly I'm not seeing all these elite pugs that blow through content with super high dps. You said you rarely run isa, not sure what your sample size is tbh. Done 4 runs the other day across the account, didn't run with anyone doing over 30k. Most were under 10k. And yes the day before again done some runs with 3 folks hitting 100k and above. i recognised them all from the dps channels though. It's a pug, you get all sorts.
For real, you can run with people that give not one jot about dps. It seems like you'd love that, so what's stopping you?
Feel like I've derailed this thread, imma step away now.
And you can still play this way, easily. Just find the right crowd to run with the you will love isa again. Star trek battles, the science channel perhaps. To name just a few. Though tbh the science channel tends to run cpe more than anything.
No offense here, honestly - but you are missing the point. Powercreep is such that even a competent PuG can make short work of ISA these days. And I guess I could do the 'play in lower tiered ships' thing - but that doesn't really appeal to me to be honest.
Somehow, I have a very different experience then you do in ISA.
Sure, I occasionally get in a PUG where we're all DPS monsters and we romp it, but just yesterday I did one with 2 very under geared players that was actually kind of tough. We did end up getting all the optionals, but it was close for a while.
Personally, I still have a varying range of ISA experiences in PUG groups. I'm sorry your experience has been so drastically different.
I will admit though, I don't run ISA very often anymore, so my sample size is small. I only run it maybe 2-3 times a week.
Honestly, I think I can understand where Reyan is coming from.
At one point shortly after DR, it was almost mandatory to use GW or TR or Tractor beam Repulsors to slow the spheres before they reached the generators. (exception being full teams of 20-30k+ players who probably didn't need to worry about CC)
For a while the recommendation was that if you're not doing a lot of damage (less then 10k) you would still be of value to a team by using Crowd Control skills, and throwing around some heals to teammates..
And to be fair, in todays game, even in 10k or Bronze (sometimes even in pugs), ISA is over in less then 3mins, and the need for crowd control stuff has been completely nullified. Myself I haven't used GW on spheres for well over 3-4 months, maybe longer.
There is just no need for it anymore. (Though its a good precaution to have GW slotted if you're running pugs - because you never know the skill level of the players you're teaming with).
I think PUGS are the only place left where GW might be useful, but I can believe it when someone says even in PUGS, its become less and less of a requirement.
I can see how that would upset some people. Especially if you're more of a team focused guy, and helping out by other means.
Telling someone to downgrade ships or gear for a greater challenge, is not always a good option for people. (Myself it sounds like it could be a fun challenge) but I'm pretty sure Reyan would not want to leave his trusty Nova, just to inject a little more challenge in the game. Or to be able to be a useful CC guy again.
I'm sure a lot of players have this philosophy.
And maybe they are seeing the need for their builds diminishing with each new lockbox release.
And to be fair...those releases have slowed little since DR.
I think PUGS are the only place left where GW might be useful, but I can believe it when someone says even in PUGS, its become less and less of a requirement.
I only pug STFs since I am not in a fleet nor have I joined a channel to join a team. Yeah, DPS can vary wildly in ISA pugs. If the specific captain I am using has GW, then I generally use it on the spheres. At the very least it is a precautionary action. But it is also fun to launch torp spread into a tight cluster of spheres.
I know many of the high DPSers appreciate a well placed GW. Or maybe they're just being polite to me.
I do understand @reyan01's frustrations on high DPS FAW ships as a torp boat captain. It's difficult but not impossible to keep up with them if you adjust your flying accordingly. It took me a while to learn how to fly with 50k players and up.
My flight patterns in a PUG are way different from when I am in a high DPS team. It takes a very aggressive flying style to keep up with anyone 75k and up in a Sci-Torp build.
I'm gonna be honest here. Yeah, I want to push my max as high as I can. Currently, I'm a little annoyed that I haven't come close to my personal best since the new season started. I'll also admit that seeing my parse where it is/was can be gratifying, but only in the context of my own performance, not against others. First thing I check is after an ISA (or more recently DPSM), is my overall DPS. But regardless of whether its worse or better than the run prior, I dive into what every ability did. How many crits did I have. What was my flanking %. What was my APS and Atks-In% and how often was I missed. To suggest that DPSers are only concerned with THE number is disingenuous. Sure, some may only care about that number, but if you're going to paint an entire group as being obsessed with numbers, at least give them credit where credit is due.
In all fairness, you and the other kinetic junkies (you know who I'm referring to) do rather well for yourselves in the dps department, and from where I'm sitting, are considered among the better players
The last game I played (pre S11.5) this notorious lo-DPS'er watched 4 players rage quit in KSE after killing the first gate and a single probe escaped, and I managed to win the mission solo about 3 hours later, with almost nothing more than green Mk XII weapons and mission award gear.
So DPS stats don't mean squat to me. Watching 'pro's rage quit after a few minutes always entertains.
Don't parsers have issues with range and entity damage? I seem to remember that some forms of non-weapon damage get entered into the combat log as if they were environmental effects.
For example: As a Romulan you can use projected singularity to great effect in Borg STFs. But while using it to trigger a chain breach on top of a structure is glorious, the log doesn't register the chain breach as DPS.
From what I've seen in game, the average SOLO DPS I run across in either events, patrols, pugs, etc, is usually 5-10k DPS (a VAST improvement over what used to just be 2-4k DPS). The average TEAM DPS I run across in pugs is usually around 10-15k DPS, again with some low, some high.
But this is sorta what I expected from what I know of the changes that they made to the game. At least with the adjustment to the skill tree, the whole thing is a lot more comprehensive than before. Easier to understand, easier to execute. If only they'd done this sooner... Now all they should do is make a tutorial that's a tad longer, a tad more boring, but much more explanatory of the game mechanics.
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.
I know many of the high DPSers appreciate a well placed GW. Or maybe they're just being polite to me.
I've had other people say they have been yelled at for using GW, if use properly they are extremely welcome. Now when it comes to standard TBR or Overwhelming force...Well, lets just say that I have often talked about buying up all of the overwhelming force boxes on the exchange and deleting them.
You know judging by what I've seen in this thread and the other one that was closed. People seem to have a odd idea about High Dpsers. I play the game to improve my science dps numbers (it's about all that's left for me now) and while I do enjoy a challenge I also run ISA for face rolling lols and just to make my easy dilithium every 30 minutes. The "Average DPS" seems like a non-issue and then power creep is here to stay because the moment the nerfbat gets pulled out people will abandon ship for the next new power creep free game that will have it in a few years.
I was thinking the same. But then I thought Dental could dig deeper into the root-canal of this issue so to speak.
And hold a contest to reward the most AVERAGE DPS. Which would kind of promote active participation (no real way to know how average your average DPS is if you're purposely trying to not do any DPS to get the lowest).
We're looking for the Mario Mendoza of STO after all! The Replacement Level Player!
Comments
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
Finally seeing how Aux2SIF is performing for me let me see why it gets recommended so much
Noting how little I use some powers helps me make adjustments to my own performance.
Seeing what the individual contribution of Feedback Pulse is versus Gravity Well versus Tyken's Rift.
Heck right now I'm actually utilizing all three of those points to determine if I want to keep Science Team 2 as I use it very little, I get plenty of healing from other sources, and I could potentially use Destabilizing Resonance Beam or Tyken's Rift in its place, or switch to Feedback Pulse 1 and Gravity Well 2.
But I'd feel weird not having ST around, and then there's the debuff removal ...
You're right. That is the magic number everyone focuses on. And it's been that way in MMOs for a good long time. And Cryptic MMOs have unfortunately always had a problem in that overall that is the metric they utilize most.
However, we can at least add the other metrics to the conversation. There's a lot of tanks out there. There's a lot of builds and powers that rely on healing (though the tricky part in STO is that healing tends to be self-focused and not really engaged in a standard MMO way where Healer X heals Players A, B and C). I think a fun movement might be to start trying to change the conversation. Start talking about your highest HPS runs. Your highest ATKS-in%. I mean it seems silly but a little coordinated "bragging" about other stats could get the paradigm shifted a bit.
It's just a suggestion.
I've been a numbers and stats guy since I was a little kid collecting baseball cards. So while I understand the discomfort a lot of people have with the focus on parsing, for me, it's just another tool I'm using to analyze my own characters and their ships and what they do.
Well if we're talking about dead horses how about the fact that almost any time someone says they find something hard a heap of people come in saying you can do 10, 20, 30K DPS with Mk X green gear. That's nearly always brought up but yet I think this thread has shown that the majority of people probably believe the average DPS to be nearer 10-20K, and probably at the lower end of that scale. I mean I could probably list 10 or some regular forum posters who are bringing their DPS scores into any and all threads and just waving them around, but I just accept that is what they want to do. I accept it and move on, I don't get offended because they are constantly banging on about how epic their build is or how fast it can kill things.
I mean @reyan01 is quite within his rights to point out that the current meta in the game has pushed something he used to enjoy into something he now despises. If people don't like what is being said they'll just have to ignore it or accept that not everyone sees things their way.
Incidentally I care about attacks in when I'm tanking. I like that the info is shown in the parse.
Sorry some post look scabby cause I can't use quotes when on the phone.
Honestly I'm not seeing all these elite pugs that blow through content with super high dps. You said you rarely run isa, not sure what your sample size is tbh. Done 4 runs the other day across the account, didn't run with anyone doing over 30k. Most were under 10k. And yes the day before again done some runs with 3 folks hitting 100k and above. i recognised them all from the dps channels though. It's a pug, you get all sorts.
For real, you can run with people that give not one jot about dps. It seems like you'd love that, so what's stopping you?
Feel like I've derailed this thread, imma step away now.
Somehow, I have a very different experience then you do in ISA.
Sure, I occasionally get in a PUG where we're all DPS monsters and we romp it, but just yesterday I did one with 2 very under geared players that was actually kind of tough. We did end up getting all the optionals, but it was close for a while.
Personally, I still have a varying range of ISA experiences in PUG groups. I'm sorry your experience has been so drastically different.
I will admit though, I don't run ISA very often anymore, so my sample size is small. I only run it maybe 2-3 times a week.
At one point shortly after DR, it was almost mandatory to use GW or TR or Tractor beam Repulsors to slow the spheres before they reached the generators. (exception being full teams of 20-30k+ players who probably didn't need to worry about CC)
For a while the recommendation was that if you're not doing a lot of damage (less then 10k) you would still be of value to a team by using Crowd Control skills, and throwing around some heals to teammates..
And to be fair, in todays game, even in 10k or Bronze (sometimes even in pugs), ISA is over in less then 3mins, and the need for crowd control stuff has been completely nullified. Myself I haven't used GW on spheres for well over 3-4 months, maybe longer.
There is just no need for it anymore. (Though its a good precaution to have GW slotted if you're running pugs - because you never know the skill level of the players you're teaming with).
I think PUGS are the only place left where GW might be useful, but I can believe it when someone says even in PUGS, its become less and less of a requirement.
I can see how that would upset some people. Especially if you're more of a team focused guy, and helping out by other means.
Telling someone to downgrade ships or gear for a greater challenge, is not always a good option for people. (Myself it sounds like it could be a fun challenge) but I'm pretty sure Reyan would not want to leave his trusty Nova, just to inject a little more challenge in the game. Or to be able to be a useful CC guy again.
I'm sure a lot of players have this philosophy.
And maybe they are seeing the need for their builds diminishing with each new lockbox release.
And to be fair...those releases have slowed little since DR.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
I only pug STFs since I am not in a fleet nor have I joined a channel to join a team. Yeah, DPS can vary wildly in ISA pugs. If the specific captain I am using has GW, then I generally use it on the spheres. At the very least it is a precautionary action. But it is also fun to launch torp spread into a tight cluster of spheres.
Maybe one day I will join a fleet...
I do understand @reyan01's frustrations on high DPS FAW ships as a torp boat captain. It's difficult but not impossible to keep up with them if you adjust your flying accordingly. It took me a while to learn how to fly with 50k players and up.
My flight patterns in a PUG are way different from when I am in a high DPS team. It takes a very aggressive flying style to keep up with anyone 75k and up in a Sci-Torp build.
But that's part of the fun for me.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
Oh and @e30ernest,
In all fairness, you and the other kinetic junkies (you know who I'm referring to) do rather well for yourselves in the dps department, and from where I'm sitting, are considered among the better players
So DPS stats don't mean squat to me. Watching 'pro's rage quit after a few minutes always entertains.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
For example: As a Romulan you can use projected singularity to great effect in Borg STFs. But while using it to trigger a chain breach on top of a structure is glorious, the log doesn't register the chain breach as DPS.
My character Tsin'xing
But this is sorta what I expected from what I know of the changes that they made to the game. At least with the adjustment to the skill tree, the whole thing is a lot more comprehensive than before. Easier to understand, easier to execute. If only they'd done this sooner... Now all they should do is make a tutorial that's a tad longer, a tad more boring, but much more explanatory of the game mechanics.
I've had other people say they have been yelled at for using GW, if use properly they are extremely welcome. Now when it comes to standard TBR or Overwhelming force...Well, lets just say that I have often talked about buying up all of the overwhelming force boxes on the exchange and deleting them.
I was thinking the same. But then I thought Dental could dig deeper into the root-canal of this issue so to speak.
And hold a contest to reward the most AVERAGE DPS. Which would kind of promote active participation (no real way to know how average your average DPS is if you're purposely trying to not do any DPS to get the lowest).
We're looking for the Mario Mendoza of STO after all! The Replacement Level Player!