Cryptic makes easy puzzles when players can solve it doing only one thing.
What can be done to fix this, though? How do you make content where DPS is not the only answer?
You know, and still be about fighting and battles?
you have that with counterpoint as example. shooting the infinite respawn there is just the dumbest thing you could do, its about transporting teams, closing rifts and shoot terok nor below 50%. but every time if i get this mission during random tfos 2-3 people are normaly just shooting the infinite respawn and not doing anything for the mission
Are you saying there is only one Queue where one would use something other than DPS to solve????
All the other ones are just about killing as fast as possible??? LOL!
Well, is it a wonder that players come in shooting, then???
That is what they been trained for....shoot first, ask questions later.
Is it because no one wants to do anything else?
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Cryptic makes easy puzzles when players can solve it doing only one thing.
What can be done to fix this, though? How do you make content where DPS is not the only answer?
You know, and still be about fighting and battles?
you have that with counterpoint as example. shooting the infinite respawn there is just the dumbest thing you could do, its about transporting teams, closing rifts and shoot terok nor below 50%. but every time if i get this mission during random tfos 2-3 people are normaly just shooting the infinite respawn and not doing anything for the mission
Are you saying there is only one Queue where one would use something other than DPS to solve????
All the other ones are just about killing as fast as possible??? LOL!
Well, is it a wonder that players come in shooting, then???
That is what they been trained for....shoot first, ask questions later.
Is it because no one wants to do anything else?
Well actually there's more queues than you think that require more than just DPS.
Gravity Kills requires someone to gather Hawking Particles, because just shooting everything non-stop doesn't actually progress the misison.
Tzenkethi Front requires someone to carry and deliver a bomb to each station, so in this mission you need to rely on those DPS guys to kill or distract the enemies guarding the stations preferably.
Procyon 5 although having that annoying repetition part requires you to close portals or the mission will not progress and enemies will just keep respawning.
Borg Disconnected can actually be done throughout the entire first phase without even firing a shot! You just need to free ships and not attacking them means they generally ignore you.
[...]
I'm glad you got some experience in HSE.[...]
Read my previous posts please and think about why I might feel anatagonized by that remark.
Which part should I reread? You demonstrated clearly that you had no idea how HSE plays. So after a recent post, in which you described finally running HSE, I said I'm glad. My whole post was obviously intended to be kind to you. But now you take one line out and make a vague accusation that I was, what? Patronizing?
This is ironic given that you're now accusing me of not reading your posts thoroughly enough. In fact, throughout this thread, you've been selectively pruning other people's arguments. For example, you keep banging on about how a single-player map is a better benchmark than ISA, which may be true, but it's completely beside the point. The point is that you're comparing apples to oranges, and then declaring that the oranges are too different from the apples. Imagine that instead of having a debate about DPS, we were trying to build a house together. Everyone except you is measuring in meters, and you're measuring in feet - or at least it seems that way. Gruber's score on your patrol map was much lower than what he usually scores in that ship.
Even if your benchmark is a better evaluation of individual performance, it's hopelessly contrarian to insist that all of the tens of thousands of people with ISA parses on record should parse a patrol map to appease you, instead of you taking 10 minutes to parse a couple of ISAs for comparison. Remember, you're the one who wants to point at high-end (ISA) DPS numbers and cry foul.
[...]
So yeah, am sulking a little and will get over it. But it was still embarassing, on BOTH counts.
It should not embarass you at all. It should embarass the systems devs, because preventing such stuff is basically their job.
No, it's not. In any competitive activity,
We aren't talking about PvP here. This is PvE, so by definition cooperative gaming.
We're not competing against our teammates. We're competing against the map, or the NPCs, or ourselves, or all of the above - but make no mistake, any game is by nature competitive. Whether cooperative or not, games have rules and victory conditions. And warpangel's exactly right to point out that in any competitive activity, most people are bound to find that others are better at it than they are. That can be disheartening, but it isn't in itself evidence of a serious problem.
Cryptic makes easy puzzles when players can solve it doing only one thing.
What can be done to fix this, though? How do you make content where DPS is not the only answer?
You know, and still be about fighting and battles?
you have that with counterpoint as example. shooting the infinite respawn there is just the dumbest thing you could do, its about transporting teams, closing rifts and shoot terok nor below 50%. but every time if i get this mission during random tfos 2-3 people are normaly just shooting the infinite respawn and not doing anything for the mission
Are you saying there is only one Queue where one would use something other than DPS to solve????
All the other ones are just about killing as fast as possible??? LOL!
Actually, very few queues are about killing as fast as possible. The most common (required) objective in queues is to wait out some timer.
The ones about killing things fast are the most popular, because there the players' actions make a real difference instead of being just an optional sidequest to the waiting.
What happened to the stuff about changes happening with combat in the game??? Is it FIXED?? <<better question.
Hell if I know. The game would need to stop lagging and rubber banding long enough for me to find out.
LOL! Yeah, when is that Magick the Gathering coming on line? Didn't this happen when they were bringing up Neverwinter, too?
Edit: Just signed on using the 64-bit option (was using 32-bit when I playing this morning). No more rubberbanding and running smoother on my computer.....for now.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
[...]
So yeah, am sulking a little and will get over it. But it was still embarassing, on BOTH counts.
It should not embarass you at all. It should embarass the systems devs, because preventing such stuff is basically their job.
No, it's not. In any competitive activity, almost everyone is going to find other people much better than themselves. And most people are going to find a whole lot of others better than themselves. It's inevitable. By definition, 50% of people must be below-average. The only solutions are to either get better or to stop being so competitive about it.
What you're suggesting is basically like demanding that the rules of ice hockey be changed to allow little kids to compete with NHL stars. Which is obviously impossible.
STO's problem with this is not the inevitable existence of differently skilled and equipped players. But the encouraging, by whatever means, of all people of different skill to play the same content in the same instances. Essentially, inviting NHL stars into little kids' games in the first place (and, via the poorly-designed AFK penalty, punishing the bottom end of the performance scale for a mismatch that wasn't any of their fault).
Yes, there are 'good' players and 'bad' players, and every game has that. But one could argue that a system where 'bad' players (or, just, people making a basic build with a basic understanding) and uber players can be separated by two orders of magnitude? Is a badly designed system. You can allow for skill/etc to separate the good from the bad, without it ending up that extreme.
(of course, one can also argue that the STO game mechanics have gotten so complex with so many interacting parts, that even the devs don't really have a clue how it all works. Which means they can't really reign it in.)
They could, by simply putting a hard cap on the damage a ship or ground character does'per second. It would be crude, but it would work.
I am not sure that would work, either. I can see where you are going with it, though.
Problem with capping DPS (or whatever in PvE)....it is just like with PvP with a cap on gear (vanilla)....it ends up static. There is no growth, nothing to learn, no new tactics to try....etc.... And doing the same thing over and over....it becomes boring.
++++++++++++++
Though, when I did the Starbase One TFO a week or so ago, with the Level 6 character....in a team with Level 65 characters.....that was just nuts. I don't care how it was scaled.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Well, before STO had that kind of ever-increasing DPS options, what people did was create alternate characters - which at that time was a way to try out new things, without having to invest to to three months.
You have to take STO as it is now.
Besides, I am talking about capping things. Capping things only creates apathy. You don't want to feed into that.
Right now, Cryptic IS CREATING a CAP. By not having Elite level for the High End players in the game. And trying to get them to play like I do or like you do.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Haven't noticed anything consciously, no. But if it's true, all the better! Will make the game a lot more interesting on the long run.
If I wanted to get one-shot by a single photon torpedo, I'd go looking for it in an Elite queue... not a "normal", where it happened, repeatedly. If you want that level of "challenge", that's where you go. Making the game even more aggravating than it already is, with it's long list of recurring bugs, including scaling issues, doesn't make the game more interesting, just broken.
Well, there ARE methods in the game to avoid that. Not just abilties that make you immune to torpedo damage (in the Miracle Worker specialization), but also consoles that increase your damage resistance or even simple avoiding of the vicinity of opponents who can do that.
Even on Normal, you should expect your enemy to be more than just a defenseless chicken to shoot at.
I doubt those consoles will stop a photon that does 65k damage or more in a single hit like some have been doing at random. The infamous invisible super torpedoes have made yet another comeback as well.
[...]
(of course, one can also argue that the STO game mechanics have gotten so complex with so many interacting parts, that even the devs don't really have a clue how it all works. Which means they can't really reign it in.)
They could, by simply putting a hard cap on the damage a ship or ground character does'per second. It would be crude, but it would work.
If by "work" you mean tell the players who know how to play they're not wanted here, yes.
[...]
(of course, one can also argue that the STO game mechanics have gotten so complex with so many interacting parts, that even the devs don't really have a clue how it all works. Which means they can't really reign it in.)
They could, by simply putting a hard cap on the damage a ship or ground character does'per second. It would be crude, but it would work.
Then again, as many have said now, apparently all Cryptic games are like that, and when that is the case, there can only be one logical conclusion: They WANT it that way.
I guess that means they earn more from those few who spend a lot than from those lots who only spend a little.
Pretty much ALL F2P games lives on the back of whales over the casuals...barring phone games where casuals can still keep a game alive...but even than many of those need whales just as much as the casuals. So any suggestion that says TRIBBLE the whales for the casuals ain't gonna work...period.
It isn't any different in the mobile space. The only F2P games that run on casuals are the ones that are mostly ad-supported. The rate of people who pay anything at all for F2P is very low, and the way they make up for that is by selling huge loads of stuff to the few people with more money than they can use.
[...]
(of course, one can also argue that the STO game mechanics have gotten so complex with so many interacting parts, that even the devs don't really have a clue how it all works. Which means they can't really reign it in.)
They could, by simply putting a hard cap on the damage a ship or ground character does'per second. It would be crude, but it would work.
Then again, as many have said now, apparently all Cryptic games are like that, and when that is the case, there can only be one logical conclusion: They WANT it that way.
I guess that means they earn more from those few who spend a lot than from those lots who only spend a little.
Pretty much ALL F2P games lives on the back of whales over the casuals...barring phone games where casuals can still keep a game alive...but even than many of those need whales just as much as the casuals. So any suggestion that says TRIBBLE the whales for the casuals ain't gonna work...period. Not only that, this can doesn't even TRIBBLE over it's casuals in favor of the whales. You can get elite ready ships with no money spent and very little time investment. Like say 60 hours or so invested. You can have a 100+k ship with like 150 hours invested or so. Now that doesn't mean YOU will be elite ready or do 100+k damage. Just means your ship CAN do it. I have seen scimmies do as low as ~500 dps...in a none mega DPS run. That ship with the base gear it comes with should be able to do 10 times that. And considering that I saw all cannon fire, s/he did not have the base gear. So BEST s/he is able to extract 10% of what a ship can do. More likely s/he is doing something like 5%...and at worst fractions of a percent if s/he is using an actual DPS build.
Emphasis mine. Well said.
People don't like hearing that their excuses aren't valid. Of course by that I don't mean to say that all players who can't crack six figures need an excuse; there's nothing wrong with playing the game casually - but there is a certain segment of the game's population that simultaneously sucks at the game and believes themselves to be experts at it. This type can frequently be seen accusing high-end teammates of hacking, or smugly insisting on the forums that DPSers are helpless on maps that have non-DPS winning conditions. Presumably they think that high-end players are smart enough to optimize their ships and piloting, but too stupid to figure out how to close a portal.
In any case, the notion that STO should impose harsh DPS caps is idiotic, and not just because of whales. Pretty much every MMO since the dawn of the industry has featured a significant character progression system, since long before F2P and cash shops came into being. A large part of what keeps players interested is the idea that they can make their toons stronger.
As far as whales go, in my experience the whales largely aren't powergamers. Whales are usually chasing aesthetics, and/or they're collectors/completionists. That's not to say that there isn't some overlap between the two groups, but the popular belief that the highest end players are also tossing thousands of dollars at the game is a misconception, probably born of jealousy. DPSers strike me more as the types to figure out what are the best purchases to optimize performance, and then to figure out how to get them in the easiest/cheapest way possible. I personally know many of the best DPSers, and most of them got the bulk of their assets through optimized grinding and/or market PvP.
Where we (again, referring generically to those dirty powergaming DPSers) add value to the game, is in spreading build/mechanics info to the playerbase, helping people learn/enjoy the progression system - hell, helping them learn how to play in the first place; STO does precious little to educate its players. I don't wanna overstate our importance, but I think that's a pretty big help to the community, and thus to Cryptic's bottom line.
QFT. The enemy damage output in elite is mostly fine, however the problem is those times when the enemies decide to spike, horribly high. No ship in game can withstand a TS of 6 torps, each dealing 100k post-res dmg through shields, without the help of either immunities or something like Invincible. Same with WCBs doing 200k through shields, each. A dedicated healer can't react to those spikes either. It's especially bad in places like HSE's phase 2 where apparently aggro doesn't matter too much, no matter how much tank tries. I've seen some unfortunate cases of extremely high-end teams getting wiped against fights with pickles, as they decided that it's right time to attack everyone *but* the tank, and to add extra insult to injury, they pop FBP at that time too.
Hm yea, I have been curious about that HSE stage 2 too.
Do the unships use torpedo spreads as well which not only hit the tank but others in team at the same time? You know much like we do with the player’s spread reaching multiple targets.
What do your more pro (than I am) tank friends think here, matter of fact aggro catching problem or more like nasty simultaneous attacks?
1) There's little actual in-game incentive to push your build harder, to achieve those big numbers, or fast times on missions. Outside of earning more resources to buy more powercreep what do ou gain from having a big DPS score, or completing Korfez or even HSE? Nothing. You don't gain a special title, or a nice shield cosmetic, or a unique boff for pushing yourself.
STO consists of dungeons with no prizes at the end, so no wonder people don't feel the need to really push themselves.
2) Everyone (top 1% and newbies alike) get dumped into the exact same content and instances. There's no real place for most players to run TFO's these days with dead channels and lack of good players to run and help in missions. So everyone is lumped into the Adv TFO's using the random system. That's like putting go-carts on the same track as F1 cars and expecting everyone to be in the same situation.
----
So, I don't think I'm one of the best tanks in the game, though people keep telling me that, I do have a really long history with the subject, which I'm going to talk about here a bit.
I started playing just a tad after Delta Rising (that november I believe). I had fun, got through the story, did fairly well (didn't die much), joined a growing fleet and helped get marks...and then I got to level 50 and had reputations open up. Well...elite marks as we now call them we're things you needed to get gear. So what do I do?
I join for CSA, my very first Advanced queue...and we failed...we failed HARD. Now it could have been others it could have been me I don't know, there was no way for me to tell how I was doing...and someone in team chat was going on about how we all sucked or something or other.
I decided then to start looking into how the game actually worked, in a maths sense, which I think is the key defining point in my STO 'career' (if you wish to call it that). I read up r/stobuilds for ages. I read threads going back years and years and years (back to when plasma consoles were adding flat plasma damage, the eras of the first tanks, and so on). I read about people I fly with and chit-chat now, and in my search came across tanks, and I really liked the idea. My fleet mates were dying all the time and if I could keep them alive they would enjoy the game better.
So I got a cruiser, some idea what I was doing, and I probably pugged ISA 100000 times over a few months, constantly trying to get better at being a tank. Grabbed a parser and started deep diving logs. Iterative testing is something I'm rather good at if I don't say so myself, and it payed off. I got noticed in a pug, I made friends who do HSE all the time, these same people I had read about on reddit. They were truly amazing, I was getting heals, I wasn't dead, I had no idea what was happening.
Time goes on, I do more, I learn, and by S11 I was starting to get into my own and main tank HSE. It was exciting...and once again I died and we failed horribly, but instead of being attacked I was congratulated for doing well...even though we all died and failed. It was a small ego booster that if this is how they acted when we lost imagine how happy they would be if we actually won!
S11.5 rolls around, we get a taunt and more damage. AW2 changes the tank game, tanks can do more and do better. FBP is discovered. DPSers can do more and better, numbers go up. S12 arrives and the foray into exotics starts, catapulting the game into an endless string of compound buffs.
Then we get hit with S13 and 90% of everything a tank was built on from here gets removed from being slottable (because in the world of tanking you really need to live on the edge to stay alive and hold threat). Healing power is reduced and it becomes harder to tank. Once again an exciting time. S13.5 comes around and there's some weird things happening. This is when I noticed drains were broke (and it took a year to fix), and here is when I notice some very strange interactions with threat.
Threat in S13.5, with many many other unintended side effects, was 'off'. You could feel it. We had already removed most of the +th sources but this was a change that happened in a day. I don't know how to describe it other than a taunt which normally would have held the attention of something no longer did. This is something we've been stuck with since then.
----
Did I have to give my entire sto history; not really, but context is for kings after all. So if I say that threat in the current state is wonky, weird, and doesn't seem to have any consistency, I want you to know that I do have some experience in this topic. And threat in its current state is indeed wonky, weird, and doesn't seem to have any consistency.
----
Now, with respect to the other discussion of the game being too hard and the difference of opinion here, I think the very high end / late game players are suffering from a diluted sense that a new/early players have, one both of skill and tried and tested ideas and experiences.
HSE is no longer difficult for me, I know the nuances and timing and thresholds for when to heal, where to be when activating certain abilities, and the flow the mission has. ISA I can fly with a stopwatch, my minimap, and my tray, as can several other queues.
New players and people who haven't pushed their own numeric performance to the extremes don't tend to have this. They play for their fun to actually be engrossed in the game, for the visuals, for the canon, or just lack the incredibly fast paced atmosphere high level / end game players have. This isnt to say that a long time player is an end game player either. I love some people but dear lord I wouldn't want them in a HSE run where we're trying for numbers, and their happy with how they play and it's fine.
What I guess I'm trying to say is that durability and the nuances needed in dealing damage are something people who try and teach then game sometimes forget about, since it's no longer an issue for us. We've been doing this for so long we forget how great of a contributor to durability Ablative Shell can be, or how simple the idea of using attack pattern beta/delta/omega with weapon enhancements might be, or how the DRR curve is absolute garbage when you want more resistances. We talk big games about how the net difference between types is like 5% from the top to the bottom we don't stop to think about the experiences we had to get here. My first time in HSE was so overloaded with heal consoles I wouldn't even use the same level now but I still did nothing compared to the people around me.
The game is centrally driven by DPS. The last real 'puzzle' TFO we had was Assault on Terrok Nor; and we all know how great that went. I don't think the developers wanted this but its how the game has become. To get the best rewards you need to "do x in y seconds", which often involves killing everything in that time, or dealing z damage in y time (z/y = 'minimum DPS', this is actually a really complicated thing as you need to account for movement times, spawn times, if you die or not, and if you want some buffer room or not).
Now in the face of overwhelming criticisms of "We don't like DPS focused queues" we get time gated things like swarm and SB1. It's not DPS driven...but its time gated.
----
We all play the same game. I don't like fighting with other people, and I don't like tense conflicts. The player damage disparity only grows with each nerf (see S13), with the people with experience and knowledge playing right beside people who have no clue to their own numbers and not a care about it. The ideal situation would be more relatively obtainable sources of higher DPS boosters (mk XII to mk XV is a really big one), durability boosters (Energy Refrequencers Buff is a good one for that), and it would be great if the game did more to help people keep track of their own numbers or teach them more on how queues work or how to do them...but the game doesn't.
There was an exercise into this a while ago with getting players to help out but the event was handled terribly by cryptic and even pushed these high end players out more.
I think at the end of the day people, all of us, need to think not only about the experiences of others, and weigh the voices of others according to how we believe their voices weight should be. That guy in the queue telling you to 'get gud'...how much does his opinion and words really carry, and if you focus on it will it create the game experience more negative to you? It's up to all of us to play the game how we want, if some of us want to seek to get the highest of high numbers than so be it. If others want to space-barbie their characters than so be it; but if you really really really want to get the high numbers than go ask for help, and be patient. All things worthwhile are worth waiting for after all.
--- @alcaatraz || I make tanks and do maths stuffs ---
Comments
Are you saying there is only one Queue where one would use something other than DPS to solve????
All the other ones are just about killing as fast as possible??? LOL!
Well, is it a wonder that players come in shooting, then???
That is what they been trained for....shoot first, ask questions later.
Is it because no one wants to do anything else?
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Well actually there's more queues than you think that require more than just DPS.
Gravity Kills requires someone to gather Hawking Particles, because just shooting everything non-stop doesn't actually progress the misison.
Tzenkethi Front requires someone to carry and deliver a bomb to each station, so in this mission you need to rely on those DPS guys to kill or distract the enemies guarding the stations preferably.
Procyon 5 although having that annoying repetition part requires you to close portals or the mission will not progress and enemies will just keep respawning.
Borg Disconnected can actually be done throughout the entire first phase without even firing a shot! You just need to free ships and not attacking them means they generally ignore you.
Which part should I reread? You demonstrated clearly that you had no idea how HSE plays. So after a recent post, in which you described finally running HSE, I said I'm glad. My whole post was obviously intended to be kind to you. But now you take one line out and make a vague accusation that I was, what? Patronizing?
This is ironic given that you're now accusing me of not reading your posts thoroughly enough. In fact, throughout this thread, you've been selectively pruning other people's arguments. For example, you keep banging on about how a single-player map is a better benchmark than ISA, which may be true, but it's completely beside the point. The point is that you're comparing apples to oranges, and then declaring that the oranges are too different from the apples. Imagine that instead of having a debate about DPS, we were trying to build a house together. Everyone except you is measuring in meters, and you're measuring in feet - or at least it seems that way. Gruber's score on your patrol map was much lower than what he usually scores in that ship.
Even if your benchmark is a better evaluation of individual performance, it's hopelessly contrarian to insist that all of the tens of thousands of people with ISA parses on record should parse a patrol map to appease you, instead of you taking 10 minutes to parse a couple of ISAs for comparison. Remember, you're the one who wants to point at high-end (ISA) DPS numbers and cry foul.
We're not competing against our teammates. We're competing against the map, or the NPCs, or ourselves, or all of the above - but make no mistake, any game is by nature competitive. Whether cooperative or not, games have rules and victory conditions. And warpangel's exactly right to point out that in any competitive activity, most people are bound to find that others are better at it than they are. That can be disheartening, but it isn't in itself evidence of a serious problem.
STO Builds Wiki
U.S.S. Pale Horse, a Jem'Hadar Warship build
Rough comparison of different damage types on high-end cannon builds
The ones about killing things fast are the most popular, because there the players' actions make a real difference instead of being just an optional sidequest to the waiting.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
LOL! Yeah, when is that Magick the Gathering coming on line? Didn't this happen when they were bringing up Neverwinter, too?
Edit: Just signed on using the 64-bit option (was using 32-bit when I playing this morning). No more rubberbanding and running smoother on my computer.....for now.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Yes, there are 'good' players and 'bad' players, and every game has that. But one could argue that a system where 'bad' players (or, just, people making a basic build with a basic understanding) and uber players can be separated by two orders of magnitude? Is a badly designed system. You can allow for skill/etc to separate the good from the bad, without it ending up that extreme.
(of course, one can also argue that the STO game mechanics have gotten so complex with so many interacting parts, that even the devs don't really have a clue how it all works. Which means they can't really reign it in.)
I am not sure that would work, either. I can see where you are going with it, though.
Problem with capping DPS (or whatever in PvE)....it is just like with PvP with a cap on gear (vanilla)....it ends up static. There is no growth, nothing to learn, no new tactics to try....etc.... And doing the same thing over and over....it becomes boring.
++++++++++++++
Though, when I did the Starbase One TFO a week or so ago, with the Level 6 character....in a team with Level 65 characters.....that was just nuts. I don't care how it was scaled.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
You have to take STO as it is now.
Besides, I am talking about capping things. Capping things only creates apathy. You don't want to feed into that.
Right now, Cryptic IS CREATING a CAP. By not having Elite level for the High End players in the game. And trying to get them to play like I do or like you do.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
I doubt those consoles will stop a photon that does 65k damage or more in a single hit like some have been doing at random. The infamous invisible super torpedoes have made yet another comeback as well.
Emphasis mine. Well said.
People don't like hearing that their excuses aren't valid. Of course by that I don't mean to say that all players who can't crack six figures need an excuse; there's nothing wrong with playing the game casually - but there is a certain segment of the game's population that simultaneously sucks at the game and believes themselves to be experts at it. This type can frequently be seen accusing high-end teammates of hacking, or smugly insisting on the forums that DPSers are helpless on maps that have non-DPS winning conditions. Presumably they think that high-end players are smart enough to optimize their ships and piloting, but too stupid to figure out how to close a portal.
In any case, the notion that STO should impose harsh DPS caps is idiotic, and not just because of whales. Pretty much every MMO since the dawn of the industry has featured a significant character progression system, since long before F2P and cash shops came into being. A large part of what keeps players interested is the idea that they can make their toons stronger.
As far as whales go, in my experience the whales largely aren't powergamers. Whales are usually chasing aesthetics, and/or they're collectors/completionists. That's not to say that there isn't some overlap between the two groups, but the popular belief that the highest end players are also tossing thousands of dollars at the game is a misconception, probably born of jealousy. DPSers strike me more as the types to figure out what are the best purchases to optimize performance, and then to figure out how to get them in the easiest/cheapest way possible. I personally know many of the best DPSers, and most of them got the bulk of their assets through optimized grinding and/or market PvP.
Where we (again, referring generically to those dirty powergaming DPSers) add value to the game, is in spreading build/mechanics info to the playerbase, helping people learn/enjoy the progression system - hell, helping them learn how to play in the first place; STO does precious little to educate its players. I don't wanna overstate our importance, but I think that's a pretty big help to the community, and thus to Cryptic's bottom line.
STO Builds Wiki
U.S.S. Pale Horse, a Jem'Hadar Warship build
Rough comparison of different damage types on high-end cannon builds
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So, I don't think I'm one of the best tanks in the game, though people keep telling me that, I do have a really long history with the subject, which I'm going to talk about here a bit.
I started playing just a tad after Delta Rising (that november I believe). I had fun, got through the story, did fairly well (didn't die much), joined a growing fleet and helped get marks...and then I got to level 50 and had reputations open up. Well...elite marks as we now call them we're things you needed to get gear. So what do I do?
I join for CSA, my very first Advanced queue...and we failed...we failed HARD. Now it could have been others it could have been me I don't know, there was no way for me to tell how I was doing...and someone in team chat was going on about how we all sucked or something or other.
I decided then to start looking into how the game actually worked, in a maths sense, which I think is the key defining point in my STO 'career' (if you wish to call it that). I read up r/stobuilds for ages. I read threads going back years and years and years (back to when plasma consoles were adding flat plasma damage, the eras of the first tanks, and so on). I read about people I fly with and chit-chat now, and in my search came across tanks, and I really liked the idea. My fleet mates were dying all the time and if I could keep them alive they would enjoy the game better.
So I got a cruiser, some idea what I was doing, and I probably pugged ISA 100000 times over a few months, constantly trying to get better at being a tank. Grabbed a parser and started deep diving logs. Iterative testing is something I'm rather good at if I don't say so myself, and it payed off. I got noticed in a pug, I made friends who do HSE all the time, these same people I had read about on reddit. They were truly amazing, I was getting heals, I wasn't dead, I had no idea what was happening.
Time goes on, I do more, I learn, and by S11 I was starting to get into my own and main tank HSE. It was exciting...and once again I died and we failed horribly, but instead of being attacked I was congratulated for doing well...even though we all died and failed. It was a small ego booster that if this is how they acted when we lost imagine how happy they would be if we actually won!
S11.5 rolls around, we get a taunt and more damage. AW2 changes the tank game, tanks can do more and do better. FBP is discovered. DPSers can do more and better, numbers go up. S12 arrives and the foray into exotics starts, catapulting the game into an endless string of compound buffs.
Then we get hit with S13 and 90% of everything a tank was built on from here gets removed from being slottable (because in the world of tanking you really need to live on the edge to stay alive and hold threat). Healing power is reduced and it becomes harder to tank. Once again an exciting time. S13.5 comes around and there's some weird things happening. This is when I noticed drains were broke (and it took a year to fix), and here is when I notice some very strange interactions with threat.
Threat in S13.5, with many many other unintended side effects, was 'off'. You could feel it. We had already removed most of the +th sources but this was a change that happened in a day. I don't know how to describe it other than a taunt which normally would have held the attention of something no longer did. This is something we've been stuck with since then.
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Did I have to give my entire sto history; not really, but context is for kings after all. So if I say that threat in the current state is wonky, weird, and doesn't seem to have any consistency, I want you to know that I do have some experience in this topic. And threat in its current state is indeed wonky, weird, and doesn't seem to have any consistency.
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Now, with respect to the other discussion of the game being too hard and the difference of opinion here, I think the very high end / late game players are suffering from a diluted sense that a new/early players have, one both of skill and tried and tested ideas and experiences.
HSE is no longer difficult for me, I know the nuances and timing and thresholds for when to heal, where to be when activating certain abilities, and the flow the mission has. ISA I can fly with a stopwatch, my minimap, and my tray, as can several other queues.
New players and people who haven't pushed their own numeric performance to the extremes don't tend to have this. They play for their fun to actually be engrossed in the game, for the visuals, for the canon, or just lack the incredibly fast paced atmosphere high level / end game players have. This isnt to say that a long time player is an end game player either. I love some people but dear lord I wouldn't want them in a HSE run where we're trying for numbers, and their happy with how they play and it's fine.
What I guess I'm trying to say is that durability and the nuances needed in dealing damage are something people who try and teach then game sometimes forget about, since it's no longer an issue for us. We've been doing this for so long we forget how great of a contributor to durability Ablative Shell can be, or how simple the idea of using attack pattern beta/delta/omega with weapon enhancements might be, or how the DRR curve is absolute garbage when you want more resistances. We talk big games about how the net difference between types is like 5% from the top to the bottom we don't stop to think about the experiences we had to get here. My first time in HSE was so overloaded with heal consoles I wouldn't even use the same level now but I still did nothing compared to the people around me.
The game is centrally driven by DPS. The last real 'puzzle' TFO we had was Assault on Terrok Nor; and we all know how great that went. I don't think the developers wanted this but its how the game has become. To get the best rewards you need to "do x in y seconds", which often involves killing everything in that time, or dealing z damage in y time (z/y = 'minimum DPS', this is actually a really complicated thing as you need to account for movement times, spawn times, if you die or not, and if you want some buffer room or not).
Now in the face of overwhelming criticisms of "We don't like DPS focused queues" we get time gated things like swarm and SB1. It's not DPS driven...but its time gated.
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We all play the same game. I don't like fighting with other people, and I don't like tense conflicts. The player damage disparity only grows with each nerf (see S13), with the people with experience and knowledge playing right beside people who have no clue to their own numbers and not a care about it. The ideal situation would be more relatively obtainable sources of higher DPS boosters (mk XII to mk XV is a really big one), durability boosters (Energy Refrequencers Buff is a good one for that), and it would be great if the game did more to help people keep track of their own numbers or teach them more on how queues work or how to do them...but the game doesn't.
There was an exercise into this a while ago with getting players to help out but the event was handled terribly by cryptic and even pushed these high end players out more.
I think at the end of the day people, all of us, need to think not only about the experiences of others, and weigh the voices of others according to how we believe their voices weight should be. That guy in the queue telling you to 'get gud'...how much does his opinion and words really carry, and if you focus on it will it create the game experience more negative to you? It's up to all of us to play the game how we want, if some of us want to seek to get the highest of high numbers than so be it. If others want to space-barbie their characters than so be it; but if you really really really want to get the high numbers than go ask for help, and be patient. All things worthwhile are worth waiting for after all.
Thank you for the good post! I usualy don't log into forums during weekend but had to after reading it on my phone.
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