I think it's time to close this thread. Even a community moderator is engaging in what - from an outside perspective - just looks like trolling. Several people here have argued both for and against what they state throughout this thread, and it just seems to be going further downhill.
There are two very distinct camps, both blaming each other, and a lot of others who seem to be caught in the middle. Sad thing is that it's all about mechanics that Cryptic put in - intentionally or unintentionally. I don't understand why customers have to try to put blame on and attack each other. The decisions everyone is getting worked up over - good or bad - all come from Cryptic (and maybe PW). Kudos or blame all belong there.
That's more than a little misguided. Of course the origin of all the mechanics is Cryptic... they created the game....
The real question here is which of Cryptic's ideas were good and which were bad.
Nowhere have I said that DPS Chasing shouldn't be allowed period, but I do believe that it should be kept to private matches, private queues and regular mission content where it can't spoil anyone else's experience by preventing them from engaging. Like I illustrated the other day: A sportsman using a performance enhancing supplement, is not presenting their opponent with a fair contest, and in any such sporting event, invigilators and umpires will step in and take actions. People discovered to be using performance enhancing methods, have even been stripped of olympic medals, and in sime instances, banned from future competition. Apply that framework to this scenario, and all that's happened, is the performance enhancements have been taken away: No one's lost awards received nor been banned from future participation.
So now you're comparing people who bothered to learn how to DPS to people who use ILLEGAL performance enhancing drugs. That's just a barefaced insult. Yes, there were some DPS players who used questionable mechanics to boost their numbers. That's one of the reasons the DPS community split to begin with. But on both sides of that split, it's very VERY frowned upon to use things that are complete and utter glitches, actually broken, and just skew DPS to insane numbers.
Back when the Research Lab consoles first came out, there were people hitting DPS numbers in the MILLIONS. So what did the DPS community do? On both sides, they agreed to suspend all record keeping of those numbers until they were fixed. Every time there has been a blatantly BROKEN (as in not working as intended) mechanic/console/ability/ANYTHING, the DPS community has suspended number keeping, and waited until cryptic either fixed the issue, or specifically stated that anyone using those mechanics would not only not have their DPS recorded, but in some cases even be suspended from the DPS league.
The things we do with our ships and our builds aren't illegal, aren't broken, and aren't beyond the scope of EVERY SINGLE PLAYER. The things we do aren't against the rules of the game, aren't against the EULA of cryptic or PWE. So please, don't even go there.
However, knowing this would involve you being able to see more than one point of view as opposed to an almost painfully narrow tunnel of vision. I agree with badmoon at this point. You're not even listening to other points. Myself and a number of others have read your original post (way back on page 2 I think), addressed your points very specifically, and then just been told we're dead wrong, even after trying to explain our points of view specifically and with lots of details. The only things left we could possibly do would be to draw a picture and pretty diagrams to show you better.
And you just ignored us. You seem to be in the camp of "I know I'm right, don't bother me with facts". And you wonder why at this point we just dismiss what you have to say? Respect and sportsmanship (your favorite words it seems) goes both ways. And you have blatantly disrespected the entire DPS community. And you expect us to listen and respect what you have to say?
P.S. And as for you saying we should take an appropriately levelled ship into public events so others can feel like they're doing something useful? There are two counter answers for that. 1. Or others can get on our level and stop trying to weaken us so we can feel better (which you seem to think we all think, also blatantly wrong). 2. What makes you think we HAVE appropriately levelled ships? The ships we use are the ones we've put all of our time and resources into. If we were to use another ship, it would probably have default gear. Here's the kicker though. Even if most of us used ships that had as you put it "appropriately levelled gear", our knowledge of how the game works would still result in getting DPS usually double to triple that of a normal casual player. So it wouldn't matter unless you wanted all of us DPS guys to run around in Tier 1 mirandas/b'rels/t'liss's for all public events. Which honestly still wouldn't matter since there are DPS players who in full squads can get 5-6k DPS out of even tier 1 ships. So maybe you should just have us running around in T1 shuttles. Just so everyone else can feel better.
Are you seeing yet the ludicrousness of your argument?
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 don't like the new UI, but I guess it was necessary due to the continuing addition of new stfs. I just noticed longer queue times which is a clear negative.
Regarding the rebalancing. Overall I condsider it an improvement. And as with every other MMO: the wheel of fortune keeps on turning.
With quite a bit already passed since the launch of Season 13, I am confident when I say that it was even worse to STO than DR was back in 2014.
And no, I am not talking about story or new queues or something like that. I am talking about how game mechanics were changed and how it affected the playerbase.
With S13, the main culprits are obviously new (and not improved) Queue UI and Space Rebalance. In fact, those 2 are so detrimental to game that my friends list is emptier than before, hardly anyone talks in DPS channels and it takes really long time to start any pug queues. If you're having a bad part of the day, you could end up waiting 15 minutes to see even an ISA pop.
Was this really what this game needed? Even less activity? Neither of those changes was needed.
Old queue UI worked pretty well and the new one certainly didn't fix any problems, quite the opposite, it made queueing with teams and forming private matches even more painful. And even if they do start, the quality of pugs has dropped dramatically.
Which brings me to space rebalance... While I wasn't against reworking some things, I have always been opposed to big nerfs. And now looking at it, I miss the old meta. What good did the "equalisation" bring if people simply don't join the queues? Sure, I was slightly jealous when someone with half of my piloting skills did twice my damage and was more durable than me as well, just because they built their ship in a "more correct way", but ultimately it doesn't matter. DPS is just a number and at least I *could* start a queue back then. And don't fool yourself that power creep has stopped or that high DPSers have been brought down. People are still doing 300k+ in dedicated runs. It's always weaker players who suffer the most with changes like these.
I miss the times when everyone tried to tank so I didn't have to. I miss viable beam-sci builds. I miss Plasma Exploders that did decent damage, making it much easier for a newbie to carry their weight in a pug. And most of all, I miss the times when I didn't have to wait 10 mins for a pug to start, and when I didn't have to worry about the game not taking my teammate into the mission with me.
Oh, and PvP is still a joke. Still only 10 players playing it, perhaps only in decimals and not in binary nowadays. And "balance" is nowhere to be seen in there either.
I know I wouldn't oppose a complete reroll. Sure, I am fully aware it's extremely unlikely, but hey, one can dream.
OP if you think S13 was a disaster just wait till 13.5 comes around!
There is always going to be a performance gap between a brand new player and a 7 year vet. It does not take much for anyone to bring their ship up to snuff in terms of being able to contribute.
Point I was getting at was, even if Cryptic were to nerf everyone to the point where all ships/gear/stats/etc. were exactly the same for every player, there would still be someone better at the game because they are faster and/or more experienced, so crying for everyone to get nerfed to be "equal" results in nothing.
Absolutely true.
'Nerfing' things is never the path toward parity in player skill, it should only be used in cases when items are simply not functioning as the developer intended. It's especially difficult to create a sense of parity in an MMO since you have such a broad spectrum of player types. You have players that spend most of their day playing the game, researching builds, grinding resources, etc. And you also have the casual player that hops on occasionally, uses whatever gear they happen to find and takes a very relaxed approach to the game.
Fixing broken items is one thing, but massive changes in the interest of somehow equalizing skill level has always been a logical fallacy. There was a huge gap before the changes and that same gap is still present today.
Ok... when normalizing the high-end performance outliers of gear NEVER affects player skill, why would you think Devs balancing things would somehow expect it to? Good players gonna good. That's normal, expected, and even allowed in game design. We're seeing top players only parse 30 times the expected average performance, down from 50 times. Skill is still impactful. Good builds are still impactful. Job well done. And if they keep doing that regularly we might even skip some of the angst and histrionics of making needed changes 5 years late. For all the cynicism of "They're only doing this so they can sell the next overpowered thing!" I'm kind of curious... exactly what's come out that's as STUPIDLY game warping as the plasma consoles? Where's the new Plasma-leech-or-go-home console?
The skill revamp was aimed partially at helping casual player by reducing the number of bad choices and removing some of the in-setting technobabble that was burying the "I'm sorry, what the heck does this ACTUALLY DO?" that was going on in the old system. I'm looking at you, subspace decompiler. Those kinds of changes are the sort you do to bring low-to-average performance up. And we could use more of those two. A simple welcome to level 50/60 mission that puts some basic build advice in front of every player and gives them some XP for passing a "what do torpedoes do?" and "Why should I not mix beams and cannons" quiz.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
There is always going to be a performance gap between a brand new player and a 7 year vet. It does not take much for anyone to bring their ship up to snuff in terms of being able to contribute.
Point I was getting at was, even if Cryptic were to nerf everyone to the point where all ships/gear/stats/etc. were exactly the same for every player, there would still be someone better at the game because they are faster and/or more experienced, so crying for everyone to get nerfed to be "equal" results in nothing.
Absolutely true.
'Nerfing' things is never the path toward parity in player skill, it should only be used in cases when items are simply not functioning as the developer intended. It's especially difficult to create a sense of parity in an MMO since you have such a broad spectrum of player types. You have players that spend most of their day playing the game, researching builds, grinding resources, etc. And you also have the casual player that hops on occasionally, uses whatever gear they happen to find and takes a very relaxed approach to the game.
Fixing broken items is one thing, but massive changes in the interest of somehow equalizing skill level has always been a logical fallacy. There was a huge gap before the changes and that same gap is still present today.
The logical fallacy is the idea that the rebalancing was done to make players more equal, when in reality it was to make SKILLS more equal.
I don't like the new UI, but I guess it was necessary due to the continuing addition of new stfs. I just noticed longer queue times which is a clear negative.
Regarding the rebalancing. Overall I consider it an improvement. And as with every other MMO: the wheel of fortune keeps on turning.
There is always going to be a performance gap between a brand new player and a 7 year vet. It does not take much for anyone to bring their ship up to snuff in terms of being able to contribute.
Point I was getting at was, even if Cryptic were to nerf everyone to the point where all ships/gear/stats/etc. were exactly the same for every player, there would still be someone better at the game because they are faster and/or more experienced, so crying for everyone to get nerfed to be "equal" results in nothing.
But I never asked for nerfs making player results equal. In fact, that would be absolutely non-desirable to me. What I said, or was trying to say, is that the ratio of DPS, the numerical way in which player skill affects the raw numbers, should have its limits. Narrowing the gap may mean more competitive matches. Yes, if you're totally bonkers with your build it should still show, but a player with a well made "basic build" (which for me always means drop items only, no fleet or c-store or lockbox, no upgrades, but MkXII blue+ - not as a strict rule but as what I understand it to be) should at least be able to register, especially when flying well. It should still be worse, even decisively so, but it should be able to play the game.
And I think nobody called for equality (here. I call for "equality" in winter and summer races, taking out all gear, buff, skill effects, but that's a different story and only mentioned here before somebody calls me out on being hypocritical. But even then, as you said, some would win often, some hardly ever)
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
The logical fallacy is the idea that the rebalancing was done to make players more equal, when in reality it was to make SKILLS more equal.
Was that really the focus? I'm not being sarcastic.. I genuinely want to know if that's what was said.
The reason I question it is because the skills that seemed to get hit the hardest were science skills that weren't even over performing. The bulk of the power cut seemed to come from gear changes, specifically Embassy Consoles, Leech, etc.
If the focus of the reblance was truly making skills more equal then I have greatly underestimated the total level of failure.
The logical fallacy is the idea that the rebalancing was done to make players more equal, when in reality it was to make SKILLS more equal.
This is to some extent, true. However, it was pretty obvious from the changes that the adjustments were also made to target the high-end meta and some effort was made to increase the low-end performance. There was some really specific targeting involved. Overall, those changes worked out well in my opinion. However, I think we need more alternatives for the mid-end since the S13 changes have raised the costs of building a high-end (on-meta) ship.
This is false.
In my experience, simply changing your Privacy settings to only be visible to Friends and Fleetmates goes a long way to preventing spam. I have not received those spam friend invites or mail since changing that setting.
If you want STO without parsers, go to the console versions. There are no parsers there. Instead, players judge performance by timing their runs.
Funny thing is, even Devs use these "third-party" tools for their own testing. Borticus has admitted that the parsers the different leagues use (CLR and SCM) are pretty much better than their own internal tools.
IMO parsers were good for this game. With a lack of in-game feedback systems, parsers took the guess work out of ship building, lowering the costs for all players interested in honing their builds. Contrary to popular belief, parsers are not only used to measure damage, but to measure threat scales (for tanks), healing and debuffs (for support) and more recently, certain drains (for dedicated drainers). It is also a tool used by some players to provide constructive feedback on balance changes for both PvP and PvE.
I hope they do. The game is all about blowing stuff up, that requires damage. And some of them are really bad at it. Last night I was watching 4 people try to kill the Valdore in Khitomer Vortex Advanced. They couldn't get it below 99% a minute into the fight. It kept healing back to 100%. Also, I was watching (a different set of) 4 players try to kill the Assimilated Carrier in CSA and they only took it down to 97% after a minute of combat. The same went on in ISA where I got paired with 4 players doing less than 4k each and they weren't even scratching the Tac Cube while dying left and right (yes I paused again to watch what they were doing).
All of these players could have benefited from a bit of build improvement and piloting adjustments. They don't really need big DPS numbers at all, but they do need to at least have the desire to improve.
In my experience, simply changing your Privacy settings to only be visible to Friends and Fleetmates goes a long way to preventing spam. I have not received those spam friend invites or mail since changing that setting.
Then riddle me this. Last year, new AOY toon. Took it in a few ISA for some BNPs, got parsed (knew that by checking their site, didnt knew who and when did, that what really bothers me the most) and started to get spamed by gold spammers.
This year, after S13 big delete of their recording, got parsed again on 2 toons wich I was doin some CCAs, and started to be spammed again by gold stammers (looked afterwars been spammed at their site to check and there I was , man I really hate this). I am telling you they get copies of massive data of players @handle from there, even updtated every hour...
I hope they do. The game is all about blowing stuff up, that requires damage. And some of them are really bad at it. Last night I was watching 4 people try to kill the Valdore in Khitomer Vortex Advanced. They couldn't get it below 99% a minute into the fight. It kept healing back to 100%. Also, I was watching (a different set of) 4 players try to kill the Assimilated Carrier in CSA and they only took it down to 97% after a minute of combat. The same went on in ISA where I got paired with 4 players doing less than 4k each and they weren't even scratching the Tac Cube while dying left and right (yes I paused again to watch what they were doing).
All of these players could have benefited from a bit of build improvement and piloting adjustments. They don't really need big DPS numbers at all, but they do need to at least have the desire to improve.
And that is also DPSers fault. If those instances were pre-DR, without the whole Stupid HP buff, those players would've done allright. When DR plagued us, it was balanced after DPSers damage output... Not after average joes... And again you guys with these mentality of improvement, piloting and learning and such... DPSers lose the fact that this is a god damm game. Those words have no place in a game where you should be having fun and relax, not acting like a robot, moving in a pattern, activating skills like madman and such. Again, alot of ppl, DPSers and devs included, miss the whole concept of a game... Its shouldnt be some deluded of a Real Life thing, with "improving, learning" and other falancies. Yes, if you want to play like that, by all means.But dont force that into the majority of players, wich just want it to "Kirk it out", treat the game more like a movie, just go out there and have some fun, not leaning, improving, piloting and other non-sense... Becouse those players will eventually leave, if they havent allready done that like it happened with DR.
Bottom line...re-balancing happens in games. That in and of itself isn't the issue. The upgrade system is. If it was just a matter of switching out some modules and acquiring a couple of things for a new, post-rebalance build...would not have been an issue. Instead, people invested huge amounts of time and currency (ingame and perhaps out of game) to get their fits just so. Then the rug was yanked out from under them.
I'm sure Cryptic/PWE made a killing implementing the upgrade system but the lack of flexibility and the huge increase in cost vs what came before makes it hard to roll with any major changes without feeling abused.
Then riddle me this. Last year, new AOY toon. Took it in a few ISA for some BNPs, got parsed (knew that by checking their site, didnt knew who and when did, that what really bothers me the most) and started to get spamed by gold spammers.
This year, after S13 big delete of their recording, got parsed again on 2 toons wich I was doin some CCAs, and started to be spammed again by gold stammers (looked afterwars been spammed at their site to check and there I was , man I really hate this). I am telling you they get copies of massive data of players @handle from there, even updtated every hour...
Riddle me this as well, why have I not received any spam since changing who can see me in the map then?
It is easy to scan for online players who have not set their privacy setting accordingly in an instance. There is no need to scan DPS tables for that. A simple XMPP app can tell you everyone's @handles in a zone.
And that is also DPSers fault. If those instances were pre-DR, without the whole Stupid HP buff, those players would've done allright. When DR plagued us, it was balanced after DPSers damage output... Not after average joes...
I did not play before DR so I cannot comment on pre-DR damage numbers and how it affected the eventual DR adjustments. I was an average joe in the beginning of DR. I was able to adapt fine to the HP adjustments. You are also overestimating what is needed to overcome the DR NPC HP buff. A player can essentially have nothing but free gear from drops and mission rewards and still be effective in advanced content.
And again you guys with these mentality of improvement, piloting and learning and such... DPSers lose the fact that this is a god damm game. Those words have no place in a game where you should be having fun and relax, not acting like a robot, moving in a pattern, activating skills like madman and such. Again, alot of ppl, DPSers and devs included, miss the whole concept of a game... Its shouldnt be some deluded of a Real Life thing, with "improving, learning" and other falancies. Yes, if you want to play like that, by all means.But dont force that into the majority of players, wich just want it to "Kirk it out", treat the game more like a movie, just go out there and have some fun, not leaning, improving, piloting and other non-sense... Becouse those players will eventually leave, if they havent allready done that like it happened with DR.
Some people like to play casually, that's fine. I play casually too at times. Then there are people who enjoy pushing the boundaries of any game they go into (I also enjoy doing that to an extent). Either mode is fun depending on who you talk to. Who are you to judge what is right or wrong fun? The game essentially caters to both.
Those that want to play casually can do so in normal instances. Those who want a slightly higher level of play have advanced and those who really want to push the bounds have a few elite maps to play with.
What you're saying is akin to pro-basketballers shouldn't push their skills to the limit because basketball is a game. People play it at various skill levels, and that is fine. You have to face it; some people are passionate enough about the game to seek ways to get good at it, whether it be on PvP or PvE. That is good for STO.
the Queues were in that state before the UI changes, Meimei, they were in that state LAST YEAR.
Hi,
I have been playing STO’s queued PvE content for the past 5 years almost daily which means roughly half a dozen up to two dozen public or semi-public matches within the 3-4 hours of my average gaming time. I consider myself a PvE expert on topic.
While you are correct that the queues where already in a desolate situation a year ago the situation has gotten noticeably worse with S13. A year ago popular maps like ISA and CCA where popping in less than a minute and constantly had at least 20-30 players playing them. With the launch of S13 this dropped to a point where one often needs to wait 5, 10 sometimes even 15 (!) minutes for those maps to pop (just like all the other maps pre S13). Cryptic choose to hide the numbers of players on a map with the new UI so there is no way to tell but given the fact that the time it takes to play a map is much shorter than the respective queue time I highly doubt that there are more than one instance running anymore.
The only thing that changed with S13 were the nerfs and balance adjustments cryptic saw necessary given some of the vocal peeps around here and elsewhere demanding them. Question is just where are they now? They are not in ISA (I can tell you that!) and given the response of Spencer they aren’t on mass in any PvP instances either. They can’t populate anything because they never were any sort of noticeable mass to begin with. They were just a bunch of scrubs which could not keep up and most likely still can’t, even after cryptic nerfed the rest of us 40% into their direction.
The mass of players realy addressed by the nerfs where players like him:
Before S13 it was like having a really nice car. You only really needed it to get to work or go do the shopping but you enjoyed driving so much you just used to go on trips for the hell of it. Now it's like that car's been replaced by an Austin Allegro. I mean sure, it still mostly gets you to work and down the shops but it's just not that nice to drive. So, you stop going on trips and just stay in to watch netflix instead. Sad really.
He was the bread and butter, one of the 30 guys, which kept ISA and CCA running for me to enjoy! He also gave the reason why he does not play them that often anymore.
Those who were supposed to profit from the nerfs have no substance in game; those who got hurt by them in reality may have had only a small but at least a working one. Key word here is had.
That is what S13 changed.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
I have been playing STO’s queued PvE content for the past 5 years almost daily which means roughly half a dozen up to two dozen public or semi-public matches within the 3-4 hours of my average gaming time. I consider myself a PvE expert on topic.
While you are correct that the queues where already in a desolate situation a year ago the situation has gotten noticeably worse with S13. A year ago popular maps like ISA and CCA where popping in less than a minute and constantly had at least 20-30 players playing them. With the launch of S13 this dropped to a point where one often needs to wait 5, 10 sometimes even 15 (!) minutes for those maps to pop (just like all the other maps pre S13). Cryptic choose to hide the numbers of players on a map with the new UI so there is no way to tell but given the fact that the time it takes to play a map is much shorter than the respective queue time I highly doubt that there are more than one instance running anymore.
The only thing that changed with S13 were the nerfs and balance adjustments cryptic saw necessary given some of the vocal peeps around here and elsewhere demanding them. Question is just where are they now? They are not in ISA (I can tell you that!) and given the response of Spencer they aren’t on mass in any PvP instances either. They can’t populate anything because they never were any sort of noticeable mass to begin with. They were just a bunch of scrubs which could not keep up and most likely still can’t, even after cryptic nerfed the rest of us 40% into their direction.
The mass of players realy addressed by the nerfs where players like him:
Before S13 it was like having a really nice car. You only really needed it to get to work or go do the shopping but you enjoyed driving so much you just used to go on trips for the hell of it. Now it's like that car's been replaced by an Austin Allegro. I mean sure, it still mostly gets you to work and down the shops but it's just not that nice to drive. So, you stop going on trips and just stay in to watch netflix instead. Sad really.
He was the bread and butter, one of the 30 guys, which kept ISA and CCA running for me to enjoy! He also gave the reason why he does not play them that often anymore.
Those who were supposed to profit from the nerfs have no substance in game; those who got hurt by them in reality may have had only a small but at least a working one. Key word here is had.
That is what S13 changed.
Agreed completely.. well said.
In the end, they gave in to a very small but very vocal minority and the overall effect on the game has been hugely detrimental. On top of that, the players that they put off, the DPS'ers that some people think were such a detriment to the game were actually some of the biggest spenders and play a huge role in keeping this game online. The DPS guys shared information, helped others improve performance (if they wanted) and provided a large level of support for the game, and now all that is all but gone.
The Car example is a great way to sum it up, it used to be fun to drive, now it just gets me to work and back and isn't any fun any more. This exactly sums up how I feel and I have reduced my play time to almost nothing as a result.
I have been playing STO’s queued PvE content for the past 5 years almost daily which means roughly half a dozen up to two dozen public or semi-public matches within the 3-4 hours of my average gaming time. I consider myself a PvE expert on topic.
While you are correct that the queues where already in a desolate situation a year ago the situation has gotten noticeably worse with S13. A year ago popular maps like ISA and CCA where popping in less than a minute and constantly had at least 20-30 players playing them. With the launch of S13 this dropped to a point where one often needs to wait 5, 10 sometimes even 15 (!) minutes for those maps to pop (just like all the other maps pre S13). Cryptic choose to hide the numbers of players on a map with the new UI so there is no way to tell but given the fact that the time it takes to play a map is much shorter than the respective queue time I highly doubt that there are more than one instance running anymore.
The only thing that changed with S13 were the nerfs and balance adjustments cryptic saw necessary given some of the vocal peeps around here and elsewhere demanding them. Question is just where are they now? They are not in ISA (I can tell you that!) and given the response of Spencer they aren’t on mass in any PvP instances either. They can’t populate anything because they never were any sort of noticeable mass to begin with. They were just a bunch of scrubs which could not keep up and most likely still can’t, even after cryptic nerfed the rest of us 40% into their direction.
The mass of players realy addressed by the nerfs where players like him:
Before S13 it was like having a really nice car. You only really needed it to get to work or go do the shopping but you enjoyed driving so much you just used to go on trips for the hell of it. Now it's like that car's been replaced by an Austin Allegro. I mean sure, it still mostly gets you to work and down the shops but it's just not that nice to drive. So, you stop going on trips and just stay in to watch netflix instead. Sad really.
He was the bread and butter, one of the 30 guys, which kept ISA and CCA running for me to enjoy! He also gave the reason why he does not play them that often anymore.
Those who were supposed to profit from the nerfs have no substance in game; those who got hurt by them in reality may have had only a small but at least a working one. Key word here is had.
That is what S13 changed.
Agreed completely.. well said.
In the end, they gave in to a very small but very vocal minority and the overall effect on the game has been hugely detrimental. On top of that, the players that they put off, the DPS'ers that some people think were such a detriment to the game were actually some of the biggest spenders and play a huge role in keeping this game online. The DPS guys shared information, helped others improve performance (if they wanted) and provided a large level of support for the game, and now all that is all but gone.
The Car example is a great way to sum it up, it used to be fun to drive, now it just gets me to work and back and isn't any fun any more. This exactly sums up how I feel and I have reduced my play time to almost nothing as a result.
Thanks a lot Sea. Let’s hope Cryptic’s idea to funnel activities a bit with this new Endeavour System helps out. Hehe, I know we won’t get an activity saying “play ISA” but if it gets the player base mobilized I’m willing to let myself carry wherever it takes the teams I’m in. At least they are trying to address the current situation a tiny bit.
I also hope you give the weekend event a shot sir! If it’s anything like Sompek fun is guaranteed and the acc wide reward structure makes it basically grind free.
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The logical fallacy is the idea that the rebalancing was done to make players more equal, when in reality it was to make SKILLS more equal.
This is to some extent, true. However, it was pretty obvious from the changes that the adjustments were also made to target the high-end meta and some effort was made to increase the low-end performance. There was some really specific targeting involved. Overall, those changes worked out well in my opinion. However, I think we need more alternatives for the mid-end since the S13 changes have raised the costs of building a high-end (on-meta) ship.
Well, where would you start looking for things that are over-performing? Realistically, overperforming stuff will only be uncommon if it's like Kemo used to be and too hard to find for most to use it.
Heh, interisting video @patrickngo. And yea, story mode STF was best and still is if u get a full group willing to play those old maps in order.
But out of curiosity and given the fact that only Binary (I know it’s only competitive) made it into my daily, how would you describe the current S13 situation from a PvP perspective? Spencer already hinted that a few more gave it a shot after balancing, perhaps some old timers even; would you agree here? Did especially the adjustments to the fleet embassy consoles, so the undertaken gear nerfs, made matches better or more equal?
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Some people like to play casually, that's fine. I play casually too at times. Then there are people who enjoy pushing the boundaries of any game they go into (I also enjoy doing that to an extent). Either mode is fun depending on who you talk to. Who are you to judge what is right or wrong fun? The game essentially caters to both.
Those that want to play casually can do so in normal instances. Those who want a slightly higher level of play have advanced and those who really want to push the bounds have a few elite maps to play with.
What you're saying is akin to pro-basketballers shouldn't push their skills to the limit because basketball is a game. People play it at various skill levels, and that is fine. You have to face it; some people are passionate enough about the game to seek ways to get good at it, whether it be on PvP or PvE. That is good for STO.
You missed the "be all means". I am not judging. I was just saying how I view things. I could be asking the same to you, but I wont, like who are you to name players that dont have your mindset lazy Lucy and such?
Ohh and btw, the game doesnt caters for normal gameplay at all. Becouse we get back to the reward/efort ratio of normal queues. Its like scraping a bottom of a barrel for some peanuts... The reality is that everyone goes to Advance becouse normal its a mockery rewards wise. Cryptic, instaid of this Endevor thing, could've throw a bone at the normals and give it an incentive, like an Elite mark maybe. I can assure you that lots of ppl wouldve started playing normals instaid of Advanced. In your examples, you do realize those players struguling in advanced werent having fun at all, right?
Sure you get get an Elite Mark my converting 100 normal marks, but that its even a bigger of a waste of time.
Look what happened at the Mirror Event. I dare say were far more ppl, even the majority, that played on normal becouse you could get your gummy thingy from either of the versions. Unfortunelly, at the end, by making normal enemies lvl 60 it sure feel like a "Git Gud" message. Its discusting really. And you get even lvl 70 enemies in a lvl 50 map now in red alerts. Thats really bad.
Good analogy with the basketball players. Except what is not good for STO its that those passionate players trying to make "the norm" their way of play. And claiming players that dont play like that are just lazy...
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The real question here is which of Cryptic's ideas were good and which were bad.
My character Tsin'xing
So now you're comparing people who bothered to learn how to DPS to people who use ILLEGAL performance enhancing drugs. That's just a barefaced insult. Yes, there were some DPS players who used questionable mechanics to boost their numbers. That's one of the reasons the DPS community split to begin with. But on both sides of that split, it's very VERY frowned upon to use things that are complete and utter glitches, actually broken, and just skew DPS to insane numbers.
Back when the Research Lab consoles first came out, there were people hitting DPS numbers in the MILLIONS. So what did the DPS community do? On both sides, they agreed to suspend all record keeping of those numbers until they were fixed. Every time there has been a blatantly BROKEN (as in not working as intended) mechanic/console/ability/ANYTHING, the DPS community has suspended number keeping, and waited until cryptic either fixed the issue, or specifically stated that anyone using those mechanics would not only not have their DPS recorded, but in some cases even be suspended from the DPS league.
The things we do with our ships and our builds aren't illegal, aren't broken, and aren't beyond the scope of EVERY SINGLE PLAYER. The things we do aren't against the rules of the game, aren't against the EULA of cryptic or PWE. So please, don't even go there.
However, knowing this would involve you being able to see more than one point of view as opposed to an almost painfully narrow tunnel of vision. I agree with badmoon at this point. You're not even listening to other points. Myself and a number of others have read your original post (way back on page 2 I think), addressed your points very specifically, and then just been told we're dead wrong, even after trying to explain our points of view specifically and with lots of details. The only things left we could possibly do would be to draw a picture and pretty diagrams to show you better.
And you just ignored us. You seem to be in the camp of "I know I'm right, don't bother me with facts". And you wonder why at this point we just dismiss what you have to say? Respect and sportsmanship (your favorite words it seems) goes both ways. And you have blatantly disrespected the entire DPS community. And you expect us to listen and respect what you have to say?
P.S. And as for you saying we should take an appropriately levelled ship into public events so others can feel like they're doing something useful? There are two counter answers for that. 1. Or others can get on our level and stop trying to weaken us so we can feel better (which you seem to think we all think, also blatantly wrong). 2. What makes you think we HAVE appropriately levelled ships? The ships we use are the ones we've put all of our time and resources into. If we were to use another ship, it would probably have default gear. Here's the kicker though. Even if most of us used ships that had as you put it "appropriately levelled gear", our knowledge of how the game works would still result in getting DPS usually double to triple that of a normal casual player. So it wouldn't matter unless you wanted all of us DPS guys to run around in Tier 1 mirandas/b'rels/t'liss's for all public events. Which honestly still wouldn't matter since there are DPS players who in full squads can get 5-6k DPS out of even tier 1 ships. So maybe you should just have us running around in T1 shuttles. Just so everyone else can feel better.
Are you seeing yet the ludicrousness of your argument?
Regarding the rebalancing. Overall I condsider it an improvement. And as with every other MMO: the wheel of fortune keeps on turning.
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
OP if you think S13 was a disaster just wait till 13.5 comes around!
Absolutely true.
'Nerfing' things is never the path toward parity in player skill, it should only be used in cases when items are simply not functioning as the developer intended. It's especially difficult to create a sense of parity in an MMO since you have such a broad spectrum of player types. You have players that spend most of their day playing the game, researching builds, grinding resources, etc. And you also have the casual player that hops on occasionally, uses whatever gear they happen to find and takes a very relaxed approach to the game.
Fixing broken items is one thing, but massive changes in the interest of somehow equalizing skill level has always been a logical fallacy. There was a huge gap before the changes and that same gap is still present today.
The skill revamp was aimed partially at helping casual player by reducing the number of bad choices and removing some of the in-setting technobabble that was burying the "I'm sorry, what the heck does this ACTUALLY DO?" that was going on in the old system. I'm looking at you, subspace decompiler. Those kinds of changes are the sort you do to bring low-to-average performance up. And we could use more of those two. A simple welcome to level 50/60 mission that puts some basic build advice in front of every player and gives them some XP for passing a "what do torpedoes do?" and "Why should I not mix beams and cannons" quiz.
i would say the dyson science consoles...they kinda overbuffed those
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A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
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My character Tsin'xing
But I never asked for nerfs making player results equal. In fact, that would be absolutely non-desirable to me. What I said, or was trying to say, is that the ratio of DPS, the numerical way in which player skill affects the raw numbers, should have its limits. Narrowing the gap may mean more competitive matches. Yes, if you're totally bonkers with your build it should still show, but a player with a well made "basic build" (which for me always means drop items only, no fleet or c-store or lockbox, no upgrades, but MkXII blue+ - not as a strict rule but as what I understand it to be) should at least be able to register, especially when flying well. It should still be worse, even decisively so, but it should be able to play the game.
And I think nobody called for equality (here. I call for "equality" in winter and summer races, taking out all gear, buff, skill effects, but that's a different story and only mentioned here before somebody calls me out on being hypocritical. But even then, as you said, some would win often, some hardly ever)
Was that really the focus? I'm not being sarcastic.. I genuinely want to know if that's what was said.
The reason I question it is because the skills that seemed to get hit the hardest were science skills that weren't even over performing. The bulk of the power cut seemed to come from gear changes, specifically Embassy Consoles, Leech, etc.
If the focus of the reblance was truly making skills more equal then I have greatly underestimated the total level of failure.
The one trolling here is you. And challenging a forum moderator never ends well.
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My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
WTF How did I troll??? Did I took stuff out of context and quoted ppl to bait and troll them???
This is to some extent, true. However, it was pretty obvious from the changes that the adjustments were also made to target the high-end meta and some effort was made to increase the low-end performance. There was some really specific targeting involved. Overall, those changes worked out well in my opinion. However, I think we need more alternatives for the mid-end since the S13 changes have raised the costs of building a high-end (on-meta) ship.
This is false.
In my experience, simply changing your Privacy settings to only be visible to Friends and Fleetmates goes a long way to preventing spam. I have not received those spam friend invites or mail since changing that setting.
If you want STO without parsers, go to the console versions. There are no parsers there. Instead, players judge performance by timing their runs.
Funny thing is, even Devs use these "third-party" tools for their own testing. Borticus has admitted that the parsers the different leagues use (CLR and SCM) are pretty much better than their own internal tools.
IMO parsers were good for this game. With a lack of in-game feedback systems, parsers took the guess work out of ship building, lowering the costs for all players interested in honing their builds. Contrary to popular belief, parsers are not only used to measure damage, but to measure threat scales (for tanks), healing and debuffs (for support) and more recently, certain drains (for dedicated drainers). It is also a tool used by some players to provide constructive feedback on balance changes for both PvP and PvE.
I hope they do. The game is all about blowing stuff up, that requires damage. And some of them are really bad at it. Last night I was watching 4 people try to kill the Valdore in Khitomer Vortex Advanced. They couldn't get it below 99% a minute into the fight. It kept healing back to 100%. Also, I was watching (a different set of) 4 players try to kill the Assimilated Carrier in CSA and they only took it down to 97% after a minute of combat. The same went on in ISA where I got paired with 4 players doing less than 4k each and they weren't even scratching the Tac Cube while dying left and right (yes I paused again to watch what they were doing).
All of these players could have benefited from a bit of build improvement and piloting adjustments. They don't really need big DPS numbers at all, but they do need to at least have the desire to improve.
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The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
Then riddle me this. Last year, new AOY toon. Took it in a few ISA for some BNPs, got parsed (knew that by checking their site, didnt knew who and when did, that what really bothers me the most) and started to get spamed by gold spammers.
This year, after S13 big delete of their recording, got parsed again on 2 toons wich I was doin some CCAs, and started to be spammed again by gold stammers (looked afterwars been spammed at their site to check and there I was
And that is also DPSers fault. If those instances were pre-DR, without the whole Stupid HP buff, those players would've done allright. When DR plagued us, it was balanced after DPSers damage output... Not after average joes... And again you guys with these mentality of improvement, piloting and learning and such... DPSers lose the fact that this is a god damm game. Those words have no place in a game where you should be having fun and relax, not acting like a robot, moving in a pattern, activating skills like madman and such. Again, alot of ppl, DPSers and devs included, miss the whole concept of a game... Its shouldnt be some deluded of a Real Life thing, with "improving, learning" and other falancies. Yes, if you want to play like that, by all means.But dont force that into the majority of players, wich just want it to "Kirk it out", treat the game more like a movie, just go out there and have some fun, not leaning, improving, piloting and other non-sense... Becouse those players will eventually leave, if they havent allready done that like it happened with DR.
I'm sure Cryptic/PWE made a killing implementing the upgrade system but the lack of flexibility and the huge increase in cost vs what came before makes it hard to roll with any major changes without feeling abused.
my two cents
Riddle me this as well, why have I not received any spam since changing who can see me in the map then?
It is easy to scan for online players who have not set their privacy setting accordingly in an instance. There is no need to scan DPS tables for that. A simple XMPP app can tell you everyone's @handles in a zone.
I did not play before DR so I cannot comment on pre-DR damage numbers and how it affected the eventual DR adjustments. I was an average joe in the beginning of DR. I was able to adapt fine to the HP adjustments. You are also overestimating what is needed to overcome the DR NPC HP buff. A player can essentially have nothing but free gear from drops and mission rewards and still be effective in advanced content.
Some people like to play casually, that's fine. I play casually too at times. Then there are people who enjoy pushing the boundaries of any game they go into (I also enjoy doing that to an extent). Either mode is fun depending on who you talk to. Who are you to judge what is right or wrong fun? The game essentially caters to both.
Those that want to play casually can do so in normal instances. Those who want a slightly higher level of play have advanced and those who really want to push the bounds have a few elite maps to play with.
What you're saying is akin to pro-basketballers shouldn't push their skills to the limit because basketball is a game. People play it at various skill levels, and that is fine. You have to face it; some people are passionate enough about the game to seek ways to get good at it, whether it be on PvP or PvE. That is good for STO.
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The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
Hi,
I have been playing STO’s queued PvE content for the past 5 years almost daily which means roughly half a dozen up to two dozen public or semi-public matches within the 3-4 hours of my average gaming time. I consider myself a PvE expert on topic.
While you are correct that the queues where already in a desolate situation a year ago the situation has gotten noticeably worse with S13. A year ago popular maps like ISA and CCA where popping in less than a minute and constantly had at least 20-30 players playing them. With the launch of S13 this dropped to a point where one often needs to wait 5, 10 sometimes even 15 (!) minutes for those maps to pop (just like all the other maps pre S13). Cryptic choose to hide the numbers of players on a map with the new UI so there is no way to tell but given the fact that the time it takes to play a map is much shorter than the respective queue time I highly doubt that there are more than one instance running anymore.
The only thing that changed with S13 were the nerfs and balance adjustments cryptic saw necessary given some of the vocal peeps around here and elsewhere demanding them. Question is just where are they now? They are not in ISA (I can tell you that!) and given the response of Spencer they aren’t on mass in any PvP instances either. They can’t populate anything because they never were any sort of noticeable mass to begin with. They were just a bunch of scrubs which could not keep up and most likely still can’t, even after cryptic nerfed the rest of us 40% into their direction.
The mass of players realy addressed by the nerfs where players like him:
He was the bread and butter, one of the 30 guys, which kept ISA and CCA running for me to enjoy! He also gave the reason why he does not play them that often anymore.
Those who were supposed to profit from the nerfs have no substance in game; those who got hurt by them in reality may have had only a small but at least a working one. Key word here is had.
That is what S13 changed.
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Agreed completely.. well said.
In the end, they gave in to a very small but very vocal minority and the overall effect on the game has been hugely detrimental. On top of that, the players that they put off, the DPS'ers that some people think were such a detriment to the game were actually some of the biggest spenders and play a huge role in keeping this game online. The DPS guys shared information, helped others improve performance (if they wanted) and provided a large level of support for the game, and now all that is all but gone.
The Car example is a great way to sum it up, it used to be fun to drive, now it just gets me to work and back and isn't any fun any more. This exactly sums up how I feel and I have reduced my play time to almost nothing as a result.
Thanks a lot Sea. Let’s hope Cryptic’s idea to funnel activities a bit with this new Endeavour System helps out. Hehe, I know we won’t get an activity saying “play ISA” but if it gets the player base mobilized I’m willing to let myself carry wherever it takes the teams I’m in. At least they are trying to address the current situation a tiny bit.
I also hope you give the weekend event a shot sir! If it’s anything like Sompek fun is guaranteed and the acc wide reward structure makes it basically grind free.
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My character Tsin'xing
But out of curiosity and given the fact that only Binary (I know it’s only competitive) made it into my daily, how would you describe the current S13 situation from a PvP perspective? Spencer already hinted that a few more gave it a shot after balancing, perhaps some old timers even; would you agree here? Did especially the adjustments to the fleet embassy consoles, so the undertaken gear nerfs, made matches better or more equal?
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
You missed the "be all means". I am not judging. I was just saying how I view things. I could be asking the same to you, but I wont, like who are you to name players that dont have your mindset lazy Lucy and such?
Ohh and btw, the game doesnt caters for normal gameplay at all. Becouse we get back to the reward/efort ratio of normal queues. Its like scraping a bottom of a barrel for some peanuts... The reality is that everyone goes to Advance becouse normal its a mockery rewards wise. Cryptic, instaid of this Endevor thing, could've throw a bone at the normals and give it an incentive, like an Elite mark maybe. I can assure you that lots of ppl wouldve started playing normals instaid of Advanced. In your examples, you do realize those players struguling in advanced werent having fun at all, right?
Sure you get get an Elite Mark my converting 100 normal marks, but that its even a bigger of a waste of time.
Look what happened at the Mirror Event. I dare say were far more ppl, even the majority, that played on normal becouse you could get your gummy thingy from either of the versions. Unfortunelly, at the end, by making normal enemies lvl 60 it sure feel like a "Git Gud" message. Its discusting really. And you get even lvl 70 enemies in a lvl 50 map now in red alerts. Thats really bad.
Good analogy with the basketball players. Except what is not good for STO its that those passionate players trying to make "the norm" their way of play. And claiming players that dont play like that are just lazy...