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~*~Rethinking Rewards ~*~
nabreeki
Member Posts: 2,657 Arc User
There's been a lot of discussion about making the game more challenging for players with a basic (and above) understanding of the game. Note that there are many players who have not achieved this yet, and that's perfectly fine. We know that Cryptic will not implement a nightmare mode, or a permanent death option, but there are little incentives that Cryptic can execute in order to spur an interest in improving the capabilities of the average player. Instead of making maps HARDER, thus excluding players who can't handle them, focus on rewards.
Simply re-work how rewards are distributed in queues: all rewards should be based on a player's performance. Players with higher DPS should receive more rewards than players who barely contribute to the match. If a player does less than 1% of the total amount of damage in a PvE match, they receive no rewards. Not only that, they are also locked out of Elite queues until they successfully complete a set number of normal, and then, advanced matches.
This method eliminates the AFK ban for poor performance; instead, players can continue to run maps more appropriate to their level.
Everyone loves a good meritocracy. It's fair and moral to give more rewards and benefits to those who put in the most time and effort into improving their builds and their gameplay.
Players who can't match up will get sick of earning less, and will strive to be better in the future. The gimme-gimme players will protest, naturally, but they complain about everything anyway. Cryptic needs to draw a line in the sand and reward players what they're worth.
Simply re-work how rewards are distributed in queues: all rewards should be based on a player's performance. Players with higher DPS should receive more rewards than players who barely contribute to the match. If a player does less than 1% of the total amount of damage in a PvE match, they receive no rewards. Not only that, they are also locked out of Elite queues until they successfully complete a set number of normal, and then, advanced matches.
This method eliminates the AFK ban for poor performance; instead, players can continue to run maps more appropriate to their level.
Everyone loves a good meritocracy. It's fair and moral to give more rewards and benefits to those who put in the most time and effort into improving their builds and their gameplay.
Players who can't match up will get sick of earning less, and will strive to be better in the future. The gimme-gimme players will protest, naturally, but they complain about everything anyway. Cryptic needs to draw a line in the sand and reward players what they're worth.
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I would caution on rewards for DPS though. This will only fuel a P2W debate that to be honest, the game doesn't need. There are enough toxic players as it is.
Whilst I do agree that some may get a false positive, there are still a considerable amount of players that will AFK just to troll. Seen it so many times in the many years I have played that it is not funny.
For PVE, I'd be evil and have a mob spawn right next to any player being AFK so they have to participate one way or another
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
That said, ever since the competetive queues/reputation were release, I've started feeling that the ability to choose the tier (Normal, Advanced, Elite) you join should be removed, in favor of being assigned to the one you're suited to... assuming the system could ever be "trained" well enough to handle the task. Unfortunately, I wouldn't bet anything on such a system working that well.
Though also it is not merely how rewards are distributed that is an issue, but also just the fact that there is no incentive to learn the content, since you can get all of the things you need via doing advanced without fear of failing. If we had unique rewards that you can only get via doing certain things in missions, than players would feel an incentive to actually learn an do those things in the mission. An this does not need to be merely that doing optional objectives could give you stacking chance to get a reward from a unique pool of rewards tied to stfs, but it could also be that completing optional objectives in stfs gives you additional elite marks. Also in the case of content that uses time-gates they reduce the remaining time on the time-gate (they would want to rework the timers I am sure on the time-gates though), and again that would make actually doing an participating in the content more appealing an a better incentive.
dude, add some constructive criticism or something.
Lag denied your Heal
What happened to my Halon consoles
Poni?
Thank you for sticking thru to the second half. I try to read all posts, and evaluate the point of views of others even if I don't agree with the points myself. I would ask again read thru both, as I think we are on the same page just different views.
Going to address this in the same way you did a bit.- First: It is true that dps has become the main factor, yet what should be measured for contribution more? The raw dps/damage of a player, or the effective damage/dps of a player? Just a shift of going from raw to effective dps/damage output would make other sources of contribution more comparative, while not exactly making a huge change. Also one could say it would push builds/players into content suited to their output.
- second: I agree you should need to earn your way into the different difficulties of stfs. To me I think that both your contribution in the specific stf, and completing the optionals both could be used to determine if you should be doing what difficulty. Like needing to place with a certain amount of contribution, as well as completing the stf with all the optionals completed as well. This would show your abilities both for the mechanics in the stf, and how builds function.
- Third: I agree that stf (to me all of them really) should have unique rewards that would appeal to players to improve, and also re-focus their attention onto other things.
- Forth: To me the fact that some still fall short might speak to the incentive being just not appealing enough. This is why I was saying that maybe instead of giving added reg rep-marks they should give additional elite rep-mark/s, or in addition to the extra reg rep-marks, as for some that would be a much larger incentive.
I agree with most of your ideas on how to implement this too. Heck, some of it is in the game already anyway.
My old physics professor always used to say: “The most important part ladies and gentlemen is that you can imagine it”.
Thanks OP.
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Yeah, that's Cryptic's job.. and they're doing it well enough on their own.
Me too.. even though it really shines a light on the sad state the game is in.
I was going to post and attempt to expand on the suggestion by suggesting that it reward things other then DPS (completing objectives, healing, etc) but honestly.. the Nabreeki already addressed that and was absolutely right. Cryptic has already decided that these things don't matter so what would be the point? The way the game is now, if you're not doing damage you're not helping your team and I don't see them encouraging non DPS focused play styles.
While I don't like the idea over all, I am having a hard time finding an argument against it that has any real merit.
What I'd propose is a base reward that's decent but not great (and scaled to base difficulty of PvE queue so that harder queues gave more baseline) and a set of optionals that give a much greater reward to those capable of reaching them (and said optionals should also be such that it takes work to do them). That way you'd reward those players for their skill without punishing others.
EDIT:sure punish the AFKers but don't punish someone because they're not in diamond DPS league.
Is the guy using Gravity Well or Repulsor beams to push away nanite spheres from transformers in ISA but only have about 7k of DPS less worthy than the guy having 100k?
Sure, you could argue that if he had 100k, he could destroy the spheres and nullify the issue, but that's besides the point. No only does he help complete the objectives, he does this despite his lower DPS.
Same with a science person who has mostly heals, should he be punished for lacking DPS when he's spending his time keeping everyone alive or reviving them so they don't get locked outside a room or sent behind?
Also, when an objective needs interaction in a room and someone doesn't shoot anything just so they can reach the objective that doesn't require killing anything, they're helpful too. I've seen that many times in several games: enemies keep respawning until something is done and players focus on keeping killing them and not just to give others breathing room, leaving a poor fellow to do what needs to be done in the mission by themselves.
And even maps that are not dps centered arent played propperly by most people. Counterpoint advanced/elite as example. You don't need to shoot the infinite spawn all the time. just let 3 enemies of a group survive and you dont get more and than transport teams as much as you can. Sadly, most people just shoot the infinite spawn all the time
ingame: @Felisean
Most of what you mentioned so far has been very fair on the suggestion overall on this thread so far, however this little bit is interesting because how can one tell if the other player is really ready for elite? That player could have 40k dps and still not have all the details, rotations and what not down without the extra practice to make sure it's all down and the only way to figure out how to play elite is by trial and error. I think a little room could be afforded for players who are nearly there compared to those who are just not ready at all.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Hehe have not put that much thought into it, just acknowledged Nabreeki’s thread to be a good comedy reflection of the current state not only the game but also the player base is in.
With public PvE being in the bad shape it is now humor is the only approach to it all that is left.
Each and everybody who still wants to have a good time in PvE can do so under the current means available. Let it be in OCD or DPS League. The two of you should know that after doing numerous runs with me from ISA up to HSE. In my opinion the changes that would need to be done to make it more attractive for the masses are subtle like balancing the overall rewards better to the respective maps or giving elite modes to the popular ones. One could change it but no changes work if the majority of the lazy STO player base has trouble bringing in any sort of effort to go for it.
That’s mostly why I had such a good time reading the OP.
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Basic marks reward: 25.
Participation in the activity: >5% of the total dps done and/or interacting with npcs to progress the mission further. 75 marks rewarded.
Top dps/top interactions : 125 marks bonus (200 marks total for top dpser/interacters).
100 marks for participants (+5-10% total dps)
25 marks for being completely useless but filling the slot so that others may start the queue.
Sounds fair.
C'mon lets say 30 as they give the cruel and evil DPS elitists also something to laugh at, ok?
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This is completely true, there are maps that have parts that do not require actual DPS (or even any shooting - hello Borg Disco!) so how would you measure performance of players in these without looking to other aspects such as objectives, interacts, heals etc.
It is true that a LOT of the game is very DPS focused but there are most definitely missions which have ample other mechanics that could be used to measure a player's abilities and commitment to the run, and consequently their rewards.
The upcoming MI is a prime example. It actually has mechanics build in whereby interacting with the satellites and portals is good. If they actually progressed the mission beyond the time-gate that would be even better. But in an advanced run getting those portals closed should reward the player doing so more than someone who is just endless shooting the infinite spawn bad guys.
Counterpoint, Days of Doom, Azure Nebula, Gravity Kills, Vault Ensnared.....plenty of missions with non-DPS components that could be used as a measure.
right, people seem to forget that there is no real penalty for dying in STO. You die, you jump back in as if nothing had happened. And a dedicated healer is unnecessary anyway, since a tank is build around being able to heal himself anyway...even a dps class packs heals and mitigations high enough to survive long enough, without compromising their DPS.
Yes, healing should be rewarded, but not to an extend of a dedicated healer sacrificing his total dmg potential for what normaly amounts to 90% overheal anyway. On the other hand, if I did 1 mil. dmg and 1 mil. heal, and the other guy did 1.1 mil dmg and 0,5 mil. heal, I should still get first place in a match since I pressumably did also the tanking and played a more significant role, although tanking also a debatable role is.
Ofcourse, numbers can't really paint the complete picture of somebody's performance, but they are at least a way to provide a clue for people on how they perform in game in general.