The last time something like the OP wanted to happen (in all his threads) happened was the start of Delta Rising. In fact, what the OP wants is basically a re-hashed Delta Rising.
Wasn’t that the expansion that had me almost throw the game in the corner like 4/5 of my in game friends I had back then did?
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
So, if the reason nerfs are not wanted is that they lead to further nerfs
That's not why nerfs are disliked. That's an extension of game balance in an ever evolving dynamic game environment. Nerfs are disliked because people do not like punitive action taken against their video game avatars. That's it. It's just that simple.
People should just stop using the term "nerf" and refer to it as balance adjustment. Problem solved.
Adjustments need to be made from time to time regardless if people want their toys taken away or not.
The problem within STO is that everything and the kitchen sink stacks resulting in a small portion of the players reaching absurd/close to absurd (depending on one's point of view) damage output.
This stacking has reached such heights that the mechanism can no longer be described as "WAI" (working as intended) and that it is not a matter IF the balance will be adjusted but WHEN it will be adjusted.
Will the higher end DPS players be hit harder than the average player? Without a doubt, but as they are a mere minority (though a vocal one) it is best to quote our favorite Vulcan: "The Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" .
Personally i look forward to the day the adjustment happens for the simple reason that it will most likely force people to use some of the oldies like "teamwork and tactics".
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Words have meaning. We can call it scrumtralecented and as long as it "adjusts" game performance, people will still have an issue with it.
And for the sake of argument, let's say they cut overall performance by 20% (which would be rediculous) across the board and see how much this would impact the players, and for a frame of reference we'll use ISA.
Sure, the hit to statistical performance would be greater on the high-end, but in practice, it would be the low-end to mid-level players that would suffer the most. So keep asking for 20% if you want. But when it comes and you find yourselves unable to complete advanced content without failing optionals, don't come crying foul because they gave you what you wanted.
Words have meaning. We can call it scrumtralecented and as long as it "adjusts" game performance, people will still have an issue with it.
And for the sake of argument, let's say they cut overall performance by 20% (which would be rediculous) across the board and see how much this would impact the players, and for a frame of reference we'll use ISA.
Sure, the hit to statistical performance would be greater on the high-end, but in practice, it would be the low-end to mid-level players that would suffer the most. So keep asking for 20% if you want. But when it comes and you find yourselves unable to complete advanced content without failing optionals, don't come crying foul because they gave you what you wanted.
The current problem is the out of control stacking of powers and it stands to reason that this is where adjustments are going to be made. Since the high dps players currently make most use of the stacking of powers and traits i would not be surprised if the higher echelon is cut by 30-40% while the changes hardly have an impact for the average players.
Changes will not be made to individual powers, but rather to the way they stack. E.g. forced cool down on powers etc.
When adjustments are made it will not be the lower and middle tier which feel the burn.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Words have meaning. We can call it scrumtralecented and as long as it "adjusts" game performance, people will still have an issue with it.
And for the sake of argument, let's say they cut overall performance by 20% (which would be rediculous) across the board and see how much this would impact the players, and for a frame of reference we'll use ISA.
Sure, the hit to statistical performance would be greater on the high-end, but in practice, it would be the low-end to mid-level players that would suffer the most. So keep asking for 20% if you want. But when it comes and you find yourselves unable to complete advanced content without failing optionals, don't come crying foul because they gave you what you wanted.
The current problem is the out of control stacking of powers and it stands to reason that this is where adjustments are going to be made. Since the high dps players currently make most use of the stacking of powers and traits i would not be surprised if the higher echelon is cut by 30-40% while the changes hardly have an impact for the average players.
Changes will not be made to individual powers, but rather to the way they stack. E.g. forced cool down on powers etc.
When adjustments are made it will not be the lower and middle tier which feel the burn.
Exactly my sentiments. It would be great if 'Scotty' could take an actual look at the numbers and interactions of skill CD's and give the game a more 'realistic' feel in terms of actual damage, and whilst we're on the subject of damage, how about cooking up some proper damage maps, such as localized scoring damage (See SFC3, a much older game for great examples of that.) because the current ones feel really 'cheap'!
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
What's realistic about space combat? This is an MMO, not a futurist flight sim. If we're being "realistic," then all we would have is faction specific weapons, attack patterns would be a preset combat tactic, most of the content would be 1v1, and the only heals we would have would be reroute power from X. Science powers would fly out the door except in the rarest of cases (likely in some sort of storyline content). At this point, we aren't even discussing nerfs anymore. This is basically asking for a new game.
I would really like to know why there is always such an outcry even at the slightest chance of some numbers that are in favor of players in the game might be decreasing, not increasing when a change occurs? I mean, suppose they tuned down some stat for everybody. So what? It would be a change for everybody, and everybody would adapt. Why would one whine about it?
Imagine they tuned down damage, for instance - weapon damage in general. For everyone. Wouldn't that be equivalent to increasing the hitpoints to the NPC's (and players, if NPC's are just as affected)? Yet, the latter is usually getting less flak than even mentioining the former. I don't understand this. Can someone explain?
I think part of the problem is the seeming penalty that is given to some players. The 'balance' was undone not made better. Let me use an older 2d fighting game as an analogy.
You play Street Fighter and beat Player 2. He hates the fact you use kicks and beat him. So even though it is part of the game you, stop using the kicks. He still gets to. So you have been nerfed. Then Player 2 loses again and bemoans your using punches bests him too much. So once again there is a perfectly legitimate item of the game you may not use. Then you do it again and Player 2 curses you besting him with throws. So you set the controller down and walk away. Player 2 'beats' you now and crows about how genetically superior he is and how worthless you are.
Because you got handicapped. A nerf by itself may seem like balance. But it feels like a punishment for doing something that was working as intended. Now some like to be upset over fixes to unintended issues. Like getting to slot extra 360 beams or putting 2 console on your ship at once boosted your damage by 2000% instead of 20% as intended. (Those are figurative examples I know of no specifics of those two things happening. . . in STO.)
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
Ok Soph I'm just gonna have to be that person here...you are literally going in a repetitive circle at this point. People have said why nerfs are bad Ina. Multitude of ways and you keep going back to "but if it's unbalanced why get mad?" Point of the matter is if something is released in a broken state and gets fixed people get mad because what was once fun is now mundane. People like being overpowered and able to curb stomp bosses (granted not all are like that) and in the case of Kemocite some people paid ship level prices for full sets of Kemocite and were mad that a very large investment was basically stripped away.
[Inflamatory part of the post removed]
I worked hard for my build to reach where it's at I don't have a ton of money to dump into this game to convert Zen into Dilithium to make all my gear epic, I don't have tons of time to pour into massive amounts of grinding either, but over the course of nearly 6 years I've managed to build a Science based Character and Ship I have fun playing with and having my long term investments "adjusted" to the point where using them isn't worth it anymore is frankly insulting at a personal level. It's that simple.
You assume that people with high DPS scores dont use teamwork and tactics, you are completely wrong. I hang out with the high DPS crowd, and I can tell you that there is plenty of teamwork and tactics being used.
You fail to realize the DPS formula is D/S damage/second. Runs like ISA have limitied HP to damage. The better the team works together, including using the best set of tactics, the less time is wasted to correct and error because a teammate didn't coordinate with the rest of the team, and attacked the wrong target, popped of Tactical Fleet 3 at the wrong time, went the wrong direction and failed to engage with the rest of the group, etc., a well running team shaves a serious amount of time that BFI alone leaves on the table. This is called "killing the tail", and is a practice used by organizations in an effort of "constant improvement". The more smooth the players and teams processes for running these missions (and not just ISA btw), the less time each run takes.
With a shorter span of time required to run an STF, with a finite amount of hitpoints to destroy, each players DPS goes up because DPS is a function of time and the amount of hitpoints needed to be destroyed.
A player that scores 2 million hitpoints destroyed in a run that takes 2 minutes is going to have TWICE as much DPS than if they were in a run that the team took 8 minutes and the same player destroyed 4 million hit points, even though that player actually did more "damage".
One might consider a person "unreasonable", and having an emotional responce when that person claims that the reason why some people do significantly more DPS than others is because the game is "unbalanced". Personally, I would pretty much take such an assumption as to say that high DPS'ers are unethical, and cheating. Please enlighten us as to why those players shouldnt take it as such.
All that I have heard is that there is some "mystical" combination of skills, consoles, ships, etc, that a small population of the players use to gain an unfair/unreasonable advantage over other players but I have not read anything that suggets a true understanding of the game to really trace to a "root cause", which is further demonstrated by requesting a "x"% nerf to "damage", in the name of "balance". That knowing what to do in the runs better than they know he way home from work, and teaming up with other knowledgable players isn't a real consideration.
Please, enlighten us, be a pal and list us an example build/combinations, and how exactly they are being unethically used as a crutch by the top scorers to lord over the innocent players who are so impoverished in the DPS department that they are unable to improve thier quality of play.
As far as staq16's comment, I counter that complaining about the percieved/deduced/whatever you want to call it, imbalance of People doing high DPS, enough to have run multiple threads of the same issue in a short time but wording the point slighlty different needs to admitt that they have spent a lot of time and effort on a "meaningless game".
And by the way, I freely admitt that I am wasting my time on the threads discussing issues like this but just cant sit by and let people try and impose thier own belief, upon other people (many of whom I call friends), under the pretense of some skewed sense of justice.
In that case I'd agree that was unfair but what my ship does requires a VERY specific build and consoles and would take time to actually get and/or implement. And to be honest very little of what I use in game had ever been nerfed besides the science skills. My ship uses Torpedo spread 1 and 2 and that's it for tactical. The only other skills I have are Science damage skills, eng team, and Overload Subsystem Safeties III, my ship doesn't even use hull heals because the way I built the ship allows it to heal passively while using shield heals and buffs to stay alive! All that basically eliminates my ships ability to heal massive amounts of damage if I take too much fire (and that does happen requiring me to have to retreat to a safe distance while.popping immunities on occasion) but the tradeoff is that in a 2 to 3 minute ISA I pull around 80k dps (my latest parse was 78.93K) And that's what you and a ton of other players don't understand. The super high dps builds are built and designed and then meticulously tweaked to deal all the damage they do. Yes BFAW is a ability that may need some balancing (the fact that it has perfect accuracy allowing no chance to miss is one aspect) but it is not nearly the main culprit. If you copied a build on a forum right now that was rated for 150k dps I doubt you would do that much because you don't have the extra tidbits that make it work (ie. Traits, ship masteries, Boff traits, epic level gear, consoles, etc.) It's all those things along with team buffs and debuffs and a kowledge of when to buff up and how to manage cooldowns that make those work. Trust me I've had many people ask for my build and then need pointers to maximize it's effectiveness.
The original post specifically mentioned a specific solution (decrease damage), so why would we assume you meant something else? I'm honestly not trying to be a jerk here. I just don't understand.
As for balance, I seriously question if we would be having this discussion if the "average" player took advantage of the knowledge that is freely available. Even prior to 11.5 and the dreaded Uber power creep, FREE, 25-35K builds that required no special or "gimmicky" consoles were easily found on build sites. Yet we're supposed to believe that the game is terribly unbalanced.
There's a flip side to that though. Mainly when people cry that something is unfair it's usually based on the haves and have not's scenario. Kemocite is a prime example in this case as well. It was soo overpriced that very few players could get 1 if they didn't have it already. It was mainly those players and the ones suffering from.the double.proc calculation lag issue that complained. But to be fair that wasn't a nerf that was a fix to a broken skill. A nerf would be like the Quantum Phase Torpedo (who's effectiveness at blowing away shields is almost non existant now) getting it's effect reduced and expanded when you use Torpedo Spread (Neutronic got the same hit) but the developers did that to balance the issue of multiple AoEs and effects coming from 1 Torpedo Spread combined with a CC ability like Gravity Well making them perform better than what they intended.
Nerfs for Balance (when it's truely needed) are not bad (but cryptic has shown a horrendous tendency to reduce the values of 1 area of the game and blatantly ignore other facets that need it because that area is more popular among players)
Nerfs implemented to cater to a group (no matter how large) crying about how 1 players X is bigger/better than their X ARE BAD. Just because your ship/character/etc. Can't do 1 hundred trillion bazillion DPS and someone else who invested time and effort into the game to do it can doesn't mean you get to decide it's unfair. All that does is show you off as an entitled brat who thinks they deserve what someone else has without realising THEY EARNED IT!
So now, "chances are" I am "manifesting" a "psychological phenominon"? Just for kicks, am I supposed to take that as anything else but an insult?
No matter how carefully you word things, this thread is about nerfing the game. You have pointed to a specific group of player who do high DPS, mentioned that thier gap between them and oher players is "unfair", and ask why those players would see "nerfing as bad". Nerfing, according to some, is supposed to be done to bring an aspect of the game back to "balance". To suggest that something is "unfair" and needs to be "nerfed" is to say that aspect is "unbalanced", and by extension the players that use said "unfair" things are villified, and in so many words being called unethical and accused of cheating and abusing the system.
Say what you want, over he last several threads you have created and participated in, you have made your stance obvious, and when a this thread was made, its painfully obvious what your intentions is, and what you are inferring to.
Now please, I would like to see exactly what combination of things are so "unfair" that they need "nerfing", and set off my, and others, "psychological phenomenon".
And before anyone gets the wrong idea I'm not an Elitist/Epeen waving/DPS-GOD player (I have fleet members say im.the best Science player they know and to go to me for advice and that actually embarrasses me because I don't see myself that way). When I started this game I was no where close to what I am now. Ask many of my fleet mates who know me from just 3 years ago! I was terrible and had little idea of how to play beyond flying my ship and shooting things. Oddly enough I used PvP to improve to the point I'm at because shooting NPCs provide no challenge beyond outlast them. I steadily improved my builds, changed skills, upgraded gear, experimented with buff combos and console configurations, and gradually got better. At the point I'm at now my ship is peaking out on performance. I can improve it but that requires making my gear epic as there isn't much more I can do gear or skill wise. Once that happens improvements will come with better console choices and or better skills. Nerfs only reduce the performance I aim.towards and that's why I see them as bad. I play to make my ship survive longer in unwinnable situations and blow up the bad guy faster.
This thread is going in circles, from several people involved, bordering taking jabs at each other. Time to break that circle, at least for now. Pizza anyone?
Move on, nothing to see here.
/Closed
[10:20] Your Lunge deals 4798 (2580) Physical Damage(Critical) to Tosk of Borg.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator "bIghojchugh DaneH, Dumev pagh. bIghojqangbe'chugh, DuQaHlaH pagh." "Learn lots. Don't judge. Laugh for no reason. Be nice. Seek happiness."~Day[9] "Your fun isn't wrong."~LaughingTrendy
Comments
Wasn’t that the expansion that had me almost throw the game in the corner like 4/5 of my in game friends I had back then did?
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
That's not why nerfs are disliked. That's an extension of game balance in an ever evolving dynamic game environment. Nerfs are disliked because people do not like punitive action taken against their video game avatars. That's it. It's just that simple.
Adjustments need to be made from time to time regardless if people want their toys taken away or not.
The problem within STO is that everything and the kitchen sink stacks resulting in a small portion of the players reaching absurd/close to absurd (depending on one's point of view) damage output.
This stacking has reached such heights that the mechanism can no longer be described as "WAI" (working as intended) and that it is not a matter IF the balance will be adjusted but WHEN it will be adjusted.
Will the higher end DPS players be hit harder than the average player? Without a doubt, but as they are a mere minority (though a vocal one) it is best to quote our favorite Vulcan: "The Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" .
Personally i look forward to the day the adjustment happens for the simple reason that it will most likely force people to use some of the oldies like "teamwork and tactics".
And for the sake of argument, let's say they cut overall performance by 20% (which would be rediculous) across the board and see how much this would impact the players, and for a frame of reference we'll use ISA.
200K - 20% = 160K DPS
150K - 20% = 120K
100K - 20% = 80K
50K - 20% = 40K
25K - 20% = 20K
10K - 20% = 8K
Sure, the hit to statistical performance would be greater on the high-end, but in practice, it would be the low-end to mid-level players that would suffer the most. So keep asking for 20% if you want. But when it comes and you find yourselves unable to complete advanced content without failing optionals, don't come crying foul because they gave you what you wanted.
The current problem is the out of control stacking of powers and it stands to reason that this is where adjustments are going to be made. Since the high dps players currently make most use of the stacking of powers and traits i would not be surprised if the higher echelon is cut by 30-40% while the changes hardly have an impact for the average players.
Changes will not be made to individual powers, but rather to the way they stack. E.g. forced cool down on powers etc.
When adjustments are made it will not be the lower and middle tier which feel the burn.
Exactly my sentiments. It would be great if 'Scotty' could take an actual look at the numbers and interactions of skill CD's and give the game a more 'realistic' feel in terms of actual damage, and whilst we're on the subject of damage, how about cooking up some proper damage maps, such as localized scoring damage (See SFC3, a much older game for great examples of that.) because the current ones feel really 'cheap'!
I think part of the problem is the seeming penalty that is given to some players. The 'balance' was undone not made better. Let me use an older 2d fighting game as an analogy.
You play Street Fighter and beat Player 2. He hates the fact you use kicks and beat him. So even though it is part of the game you, stop using the kicks. He still gets to. So you have been nerfed. Then Player 2 loses again and bemoans your using punches bests him too much. So once again there is a perfectly legitimate item of the game you may not use. Then you do it again and Player 2 curses you besting him with throws. So you set the controller down and walk away. Player 2 'beats' you now and crows about how genetically superior he is and how worthless you are.
Because you got handicapped. A nerf by itself may seem like balance. But it feels like a punishment for doing something that was working as intended. Now some like to be upset over fixes to unintended issues. Like getting to slot extra 360 beams or putting 2 console on your ship at once boosted your damage by 2000% instead of 20% as intended. (Those are figurative examples I know of no specifics of those two things happening. . . in STO.)
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
[Inflamatory part of the post removed]
I worked hard for my build to reach where it's at I don't have a ton of money to dump into this game to convert Zen into Dilithium to make all my gear epic, I don't have tons of time to pour into massive amounts of grinding either, but over the course of nearly 6 years I've managed to build a Science based Character and Ship I have fun playing with and having my long term investments "adjusted" to the point where using them isn't worth it anymore is frankly insulting at a personal level. It's that simple.
You assume that people with high DPS scores dont use teamwork and tactics, you are completely wrong. I hang out with the high DPS crowd, and I can tell you that there is plenty of teamwork and tactics being used.
You fail to realize the DPS formula is D/S damage/second. Runs like ISA have limitied HP to damage. The better the team works together, including using the best set of tactics, the less time is wasted to correct and error because a teammate didn't coordinate with the rest of the team, and attacked the wrong target, popped of Tactical Fleet 3 at the wrong time, went the wrong direction and failed to engage with the rest of the group, etc., a well running team shaves a serious amount of time that BFI alone leaves on the table. This is called "killing the tail", and is a practice used by organizations in an effort of "constant improvement". The more smooth the players and teams processes for running these missions (and not just ISA btw), the less time each run takes.
With a shorter span of time required to run an STF, with a finite amount of hitpoints to destroy, each players DPS goes up because DPS is a function of time and the amount of hitpoints needed to be destroyed.
A player that scores 2 million hitpoints destroyed in a run that takes 2 minutes is going to have TWICE as much DPS than if they were in a run that the team took 8 minutes and the same player destroyed 4 million hit points, even though that player actually did more "damage".
The better TEAM gets the best DPS.
One might consider a person "unreasonable", and having an emotional responce when that person claims that the reason why some people do significantly more DPS than others is because the game is "unbalanced". Personally, I would pretty much take such an assumption as to say that high DPS'ers are unethical, and cheating. Please enlighten us as to why those players shouldnt take it as such.
All that I have heard is that there is some "mystical" combination of skills, consoles, ships, etc, that a small population of the players use to gain an unfair/unreasonable advantage over other players but I have not read anything that suggets a true understanding of the game to really trace to a "root cause", which is further demonstrated by requesting a "x"% nerf to "damage", in the name of "balance". That knowing what to do in the runs better than they know he way home from work, and teaming up with other knowledgable players isn't a real consideration.
Please, enlighten us, be a pal and list us an example build/combinations, and how exactly they are being unethically used as a crutch by the top scorers to lord over the innocent players who are so impoverished in the DPS department that they are unable to improve thier quality of play.
As far as staq16's comment, I counter that complaining about the percieved/deduced/whatever you want to call it, imbalance of People doing high DPS, enough to have run multiple threads of the same issue in a short time but wording the point slighlty different needs to admitt that they have spent a lot of time and effort on a "meaningless game".
And by the way, I freely admitt that I am wasting my time on the threads discussing issues like this but just cant sit by and let people try and impose thier own belief, upon other people (many of whom I call friends), under the pretense of some skewed sense of justice.
And that's what you and a ton of other players don't understand. The super high dps builds are built and designed and then meticulously tweaked to deal all the damage they do. Yes BFAW is a ability that may need some balancing (the fact that it has perfect accuracy allowing no chance to miss is one aspect) but it is not nearly the main culprit. If you copied a build on a forum right now that was rated for 150k dps I doubt you would do that much because you don't have the extra tidbits that make it work (ie. Traits, ship masteries, Boff traits, epic level gear, consoles, etc.) It's all those things along with team buffs and debuffs and a kowledge of when to buff up and how to manage cooldowns that make those work. Trust me I've had many people ask for my build and then need pointers to maximize it's effectiveness.
As for balance, I seriously question if we would be having this discussion if the "average" player took advantage of the knowledge that is freely available. Even prior to 11.5 and the dreaded Uber power creep, FREE, 25-35K builds that required no special or "gimmicky" consoles were easily found on build sites. Yet we're supposed to believe that the game is terribly unbalanced.
Nerfs for Balance (when it's truely needed) are not bad (but cryptic has shown a horrendous tendency to reduce the values of 1 area of the game and blatantly ignore other facets that need it because that area is more popular among players)
Nerfs implemented to cater to a group (no matter how large) crying about how 1 players X is bigger/better than their X ARE BAD. Just because your ship/character/etc. Can't do 1 hundred trillion bazillion DPS and someone else who invested time and effort into the game to do it can doesn't mean you get to decide it's unfair. All that does is show you off as an entitled brat who thinks they deserve what someone else has without realising THEY EARNED IT!
So now, "chances are" I am "manifesting" a "psychological phenominon"? Just for kicks, am I supposed to take that as anything else but an insult?
No matter how carefully you word things, this thread is about nerfing the game. You have pointed to a specific group of player who do high DPS, mentioned that thier gap between them and oher players is "unfair", and ask why those players would see "nerfing as bad". Nerfing, according to some, is supposed to be done to bring an aspect of the game back to "balance". To suggest that something is "unfair" and needs to be "nerfed" is to say that aspect is "unbalanced", and by extension the players that use said "unfair" things are villified, and in so many words being called unethical and accused of cheating and abusing the system.
Say what you want, over he last several threads you have created and participated in, you have made your stance obvious, and when a this thread was made, its painfully obvious what your intentions is, and what you are inferring to.
Now please, I would like to see exactly what combination of things are so "unfair" that they need "nerfing", and set off my, and others, "psychological phenomenon".
Pizza anyone?
Move on, nothing to see here.
/Closed
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator
"bIghojchugh DaneH, Dumev pagh. bIghojqangbe'chugh, DuQaHlaH pagh."
"Learn lots. Don't judge. Laugh for no reason. Be nice. Seek happiness." ~Day[9]
"Your fun isn't wrong." ~LaughingTrendy
Find me on Twitterverse - @jodarkrider