Yes, people have many reasons, but the main reason is to generate marks, which are obviously the reward of a tfo. Generating marks without taking advantage doesn't make any sense. Or maybe it does to a specific person, but that's realy his thing and nobody else should be bothered about it. Nobody is trying to lock out anybody, but it seems that people are struggling to achieve minimal damage req. to bypass an AFK penalty and that needs to stop. I see no better way, than to prepare them for the tough goal of doing that minimal damage, by making them TRAIN to be capable of doing just that.
I would also like to point out in point 1 that Event TFOs tend to drop down to normal difficulty so that EVERYONE can participate. Locking people out of Normal essentially locks players out of an Event associated with those particular TFOs.
Which is a big mistake knocking down to normal difficultly. What they should do is allow private Elite groups. I can understand not having Elite in the Event button. But there is no harm and in fact a benefit in allowing Elite groups via the private menu. I personally found that forcing everyone down to normal has ruined event TFO's.
From a game designer stand point (i used to work in the game industry a long time ago), the quick solution to keep the DPS folks happy, and the casual players happy would be to do the following...at least in my eyes.
1: The Omega Reputation or "The Borg One". It's one of if not the first reputation that people work through. From Tier 1 until completion of Tier 5 the character is locked to "Normal" TFO's for Borg. Upon completion of Tier 5 you are locked OUT of Normal and can only do Advanced. Upon completion of Tier 6 you can unlock Elite.
2: ALL major TFO's should have an "Elite" option added to queue and random
3: ...and this is the road i would go go down LAST. Talk to the major DPS groups. Ask them what they would want to see in a "standard" and "advanced" DPS testing zone map. A dedicated, purpose made map of mobs and structures that, upon completion of Tier 6 of Omega, people get access to. If "Normal" players queue up for these maps, a big warning sign pops up saying that this is a "Testing Simulation", and if their ship is not prepared adequately they will be removed, kind of like a current timeline version of the kobayashi maru test then award 4000 refined Dil every week to the top 3 DPS players who took part in ONE of the testing maps of their choice....which leads on to point 4...
4: A built in DPS meter in the client that is "Off" as standard but can be switched on in options. It will have basic drill down stats after the battle like who done how much damage, what done the damage...that kinda stuff.
Putting the above 4 things into the current game would avoid capping, avoid restricting, take only a few days work for the devs and would keep most (but not all) people happy. It would also mean that new players and casual players would see the "DPS maps" showing up, and winder what they are all about, and some of them might even consider going down the upgrade path to take part in them.
Sorry, but that point 1 is among the worst things I've ever seen being proposed here.
It takes 20 days to complete the reputation. Players with more toons who can quickly gather resources for a new one don't necessarily need that long to get the necessary gear for their toon.
The current reputation level doesn't say much, beyond whether a player can be bothered to complete a clicky system (of which we have far too many to complete on new toons). That, and perhaps whether they are desperate enough for attention to want to use the Reputation Flourish ability.
As for creating elite versions of existing missions: it won't solve much.
We've had a discussion on this a while back, so I won't extensively repeat myself here. But:
1. Currently existing elite missions are barely played (I've never seen Azure Nebula elite public queue launch for example). Meaning there is plenty of challenge to be had, but players just don't want it. They prefer to play advanced, or only elites with pre-made teams. Which isn't true elite playing of course if you eliminate any and all uncertainty and challenge, so yeah.
The problem simply isn't that there is no challenging content.
2. By creating elite missions for everything else, you'd heavily inflate the meaning of 'elite'. It would become the new advanced, a level every player expects to reach at some point - just as we could see in the past, when everyone was actually playing what was called elite. And then stomped back to advanced, which everyone expected to be allowed to participate in, resulting in a lot of anger when they suddenly found out that maybe they weren't good enough yet.
Releasing new, truly elite content will only be useful for a handful of people - or it must involve creating more power creep and therefore do nothing to solve the issues permanently.
Personally I don't think that either DPS caps or new elite content are good solutions. What might work, is creating enemies that have certain defences that cannot be ignored entirely. They tried this with the Tzenkethi: shoot their cruisers first, hit them while in front of them, or else they'll be almost invulnerable etc.
That is, in principle, an interesting way of designing enemies. Make the player think, look, pay attention and reward situational awareness. Instead of just spamming spacebar from wherever he happens to be at that moment.
But of course, then you need to ensure that such defences and mechanics cannot simply be bypassed (i.e., prevent that stacking enough shield penetration or high enough damage will still destroy an enemy even though a player is behind it and too lazy to fly around it, to face them at the front --- or blow up a cube when there's still a nanite thingy underneath or next to it, as I've been seeing lately again too).
The solution should be to make sure that enemies work the way they were intended to work. With resistances, requiring tactics to be defeated etc.
That alone could already be enough of a challenge. Even, if not especially for the DPS heroes.
To be fair to people going into stuff they're not ready for, that already happens even now without additional incentives to do harder content. I still see people queuing even into the easiest content and somehow not being ready for it.
Adding more rewards or improving the rewards for harder content may make it more of an issue, but the issue already exists so I don't think it should stop something that would be overall good from being done, atleast personally.
I wasn't suggesting that as a reason to avoid adding better rewards. I've wanted to see the reward structure reworked for awhile now. For me UAA is the golden standard of what effort vs reward should be for TFOs. If you do the optionals you get a ton more marks. Even if you don't you still get a decent payout for the time and effort required. Some of the TFOs are just insulting in terms of their payout, even on elite. On this one I was simply stating what I see happening. Folks will go in not being ready, then complain saying it needs to be nerfed and there we would be again. I've seen it too many times in other games. If the bar is constantly lowered, people will adopt a "wait for the nerf" approach before even trying to do anything. Happened in WoW and elsewhere. Nerfing for absolute game busting reasons is one thing, such as a boss having 99% resists (hypothetical scenario) and needing to be downed in 2 minutes. What those people do is something else.
Situations like that are why all MMOs should have a vote kick mechanic, I'll never understand why STO doesn't have one, but that's a whole different topic altogether.
Agreed all MMOs should have one. The most common argument I see is "the elitists would just boot people not on their level" or something to that effect. I played WoW for years and unless someone was deliberately being a tool, had gone offline and wasn't coming back, or somehow got into something they clearly weren't ready for, the tool was never used. Same goes with SWTOR which I still play. And when I say "got into something they weren't ready for" I mean exactly that. You've got a guy doing all of 2k DPS when the TFO itself requires a minimum of 20k DPS and the group can't advance with that person there. Anyways that's all I'll say on that for the moment.
I didn't say ANYONE's fun was "wrong", what I was saying is that when one person is so massively over-geared that they Thanos-snap every enemy the second they warp in STO stops being a game for the other four players because all they can do is watch the explosions.
Personally I'd prefer a solution that involved encouraging higher DPS players to do the higher difficulties rather than putting a cap on DPS in lower difficulties, I just think you are far too quick to disregard the experience average players (those who ARE capable of contributing enough for the chosen difficulty) have when they are unlucky enough to get matched with someone who's using a build that could solo God.
Addressing these at once as they go together. You had previously stated "DPS chasers insta-vaping DOES hamper the ability of others to enjoy the game." When you say things like this, it indicates to me actual harm is being done and somehow that person is deliberately trying to harm the ability of others to play the game. Such as if someone were to bust out a 1m+ build and go into normal mode runs deliberately trying to AFK people. That is a COMPLETELY different ballgame to simply being grouped with a high dps player in randoms and someone accidentally catches an AFK penalty. You will never see those 600k+ type of runs on anything other than elite because the numbers simply aren't there. On top of this, almost all of those runs are done in pre-made teams by necessity. To avoid an AFK penalty only requires someone deal 2% of the damage for the entirety of the run with some TFOs being 1%. I don't find that to be unreasonable and find it extremely generous. Even in Red Alerts which are normal mode, I can count on one hand how many times I have seen someone catch an AFK penalty legitimately.
I'm not dismissing people who say they have had issues. I don't doubt that people have had bad luck of the draw before as I've been on both sides of that bad luck in my STO career. What I'm saying however is that I don't see this being a problem warranting things like DPS caps and other foolishness that has been suggested by people before. So long as people have met the minimum requirements to enter a specific TFO, be they someone meeting the bare minimum or an infinite DPS build, they both have the right to enter that TFO. It may not be fun if someone is doing only the bare minimum and they catch an afk penalty, or don't get to shoot as much, but that is the risk people take when they sign up for randoms. You are grouping with random people and will sometimes get good groups, and sometimes you will get bad. I am not responsible for the fun of other people and I find it ridiculous that other people are being asked to limit their builds, or asking Cryptic to limit the builds of others purely because other people don't like it. By that definition they are every bit saying the fun of those people is wrong. You specifically may not be doing that, but others are. If people want to avoid some of the risks of random groups, they have the option to form groups with like minded people, and also to improve their builds if damage is an issue.
Well no, you or anyone else are more than welcome to have your opinion and you are more than welcome to disagree with me. Just because we have a difference of opinion does not mean you are understanding the core issue however. There is a power creep problem. DPS is out of control and most of the content is simply not designed for it. Lecturing everyone to "git gud" or "improve their build" is not a solution. All it serves to do is exacerbate the issue. Again, were everyone able to achieve ludicrous levels of DPS, Cryptic may as well just hand out merits, dilithium and components without needing to even play the game because the content has become so trivial.
As for the rest, what is hypocritical is applying an arbitrary standard to others which you do not apply to yourself. Lecturing people expressing their view on how higher DPS builds are not fun for them by telling them "What you don't get to do is tell other people they have to do the same as you because you don't like it, or try to make the game do it for you." while not applying the same argument to the DPS crowd is hypocritical. If you are looking for people with bad habits, simply look in the mirror. You have some extremely bad habits of your own. I think you are misunderstanding or misrepresenting what the OP was trying to say with regard to the discussion of limiting DPS.
To address possible solutions, I personally do not see DPS limits as the answer. I am inclined to agree with adding Elite TFOs into the Random options and buffing the rewards for them. I have doubts that would be incentive enough for the DPS crowd to try them though.
As said above, I would love to see the reward structure altered with UAA as the golden standard of time and effort vs payout. Some TFOs are down right insulting in terms of payout. So if you want to talk changing reward structures, alright I'm down. What kind of payouts we talking?
For power creep, no one is denying that DPS has gotten alot higher in previous years. There are some instances where people do in fact need to "git gud". If someone is rolling into content with all mk v gear on their ship they got back at level 30 and they're now 65 and complaining things are too hard, then sorry but they need to up their game and get better gear. Even if they buy a bunch of mk xii very rare stuff from the exchange or re-run older missions. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen people complain about something being super hard only to find out they're running a ship with one of every kind of weapon type, cannon, torp, turret, dual bank, array, mine, single cannon, and wondering why they can't kill anything. Of course I've also seen some people with golded out everything and on paper the build is great, but their flying is worse than Troy's. Sometimes there are just objectively bad builds and tactics being used by people that are the problem. Is that to say that's always the case, no, it's simply saying sometimes it does happen. I am willing to help players improve if/when such a situation occurs so long as they're willing to learn and improve and have helped out quite a few people in my career and handed out billions of ec and millions of dilithium worth of things to people. However if someone isn't willing to learn or improve there is nothing I can do.
I read what the OP said and I stand by my previous statements. When someone outright says a DPS cap should be considered, what other way am I supposed to take that? Your logic in this instance is the equivalent of someone telling me the sky is green, yet I'm supposed to interpret it as them actually meaning blue. It makes no sense.
As to applying the standards across the board, I do. If I want to set a DPS record for myself I don't just hit random and pray for a good result. I go in with a pre-made team and avoid the randoms. If I want to avoid getting into a run with lower DPS people, again I go with pre-made teams. Likewise if people want to avoid the possibility of getting grouped with higher DPS people they have option of forming teams with like minded people. Again dude the sword cuts both ways and I haven't suggested otherwise. So long as both the DPS-chaser and non dps chaser have met the minimum criteria set forth by the game for the TFO, both have a right to use the random TFO feature. If a non-dps chaser presses the random button they are taking the risk they might get grouped with a DPS chaser and vice versa.
I think a better question to be asking is if you invested so much time and effort into your high DPS build, why are you still running content on advanced level instead of elite? Were elite TFOs added into the random pool, would you queue for elite content only?
While this part wasn't specifically addressed to me, I'm going to touch on it because it goes along with a point I have made before. Why do you think people with higher end builds should only play elite? Because that's what it sounds like you're suggesting is that folks like myself should be limited to elite only.
What if an endeavor wants me to play a TFO type I absolutely hate and want to just blow through it on advanced or even normal just to get it done? Suppose I have a fleetmate looking to improve his build and he need someone to help him get some marks. Should I be locked out of helping him because we both want to run on advanced? Or what if one day I just don't want to play on elite and deal with the extra headache that comes with it and just want to blitz a few runs?
Would I personally do random elites if the option was there, depends on which ones are in the pool and how many fleetmates I had with me. On my own probably not due to too many folks joining elites that are not ready for them and causing auto-fails. If I had some fleetmates with me, I probably would.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
1. Currently existing elite missions are barely played (I've never seen Azure Nebula elite public queue launch for example). Meaning there is plenty of challenge to be had, but players just don't want it. They prefer to play advanced, or only elites with pre-made teams. Which isn't true elite playing of course if you eliminate any and all uncertainty and challenge, so yeah.
The problem simply isn't that there is no challenging content.
Which begs the follow up questions of why is it that no one is playing Elite level content? Are the rewards too low? What would incentivize more players into Elite content?
Personally I am convinced that this is because most 'elite players' can actually only play elite content if there are four like-minded people present and everything becomes totally predictable. And easy.
Remember, we're talking mostly about people who have figured out how to shoot a lot of targets in a target-rich environment. And some people with big wallets too.
They're not necessarily good gamers. Nor do they have to be people who can deal with unexpected situations. They probably don't like a challenge either. If they were and did, they'd be PvP'ing because that's where the real challenge is, instead of shooting mindless HP sponges. As I noted above, even the enemies with mechanics that require some thinking to be overcome can just instead be defeated by doing the same mindless thing.
I highly doubt that it is because of the rewards. Cause who even needs more rewards when you can already play at elite level? There's nothing to be earned anymore, no higher level to work towards to.
Playing the game itself should be the reward at that point. And as I highly doubt that having everything be predictable and having to put in almost no effort at all is more interesting gameplay than actually dealing with some uncertainty and maybe a less-well equipped team mate, it's probably not about playing the game - and hence not about the only reward that should still matter.
From a game designer stand point (i used to work in the game industry a long time ago), the quick solution to keep the DPS folks happy, and the casual players happy would be to do the following...at least in my eyes.
1: The Omega Reputation or "The Borg One". It's one of if not the first reputation that people work through. From Tier 1 until completion of Tier 5 the character is locked to "Normal" TFO's for Borg. Upon completion of Tier 5 you are locked OUT of Normal and can only do Advanced. Upon completion of Tier 6 you can unlock Elite.
2: ALL major TFO's should have an "Elite" option added to queue and random
3: ...and this is the road i would go go down LAST. Talk to the major DPS groups. Ask them what they would want to see in a "standard" and "advanced" DPS testing zone map. A dedicated, purpose made map of mobs and structures that, upon completion of Tier 6 of Omega, people get access to. If "Normal" players queue up for these maps, a big warning sign pops up saying that this is a "Testing Simulation", and if their ship is not prepared adequately they will be removed, kind of like a current timeline version of the kobayashi maru test then award 4000 refined Dil every week to the top 3 DPS players who took part in ONE of the testing maps of their choice....which leads on to point 4...
4: A built in DPS meter in the client that is "Off" as standard but can be switched on in options. It will have basic drill down stats after the battle like who done how much damage, what done the damage...that kinda stuff.
Putting the above 4 things into the current game would avoid capping, avoid restricting, take only a few days work for the devs and would keep most (but not all) people happy. It would also mean that new players and casual players would see the "DPS maps" showing up, and winder what they are all about, and some of them might even consider going down the upgrade path to take part in them.
I myself have developed story content, custom maps and the like for other games before. I have never been a AAA studio dev, but I know what it takes to put certain things in games. Back in Timesplitters Future Perfect some of my maps were EA recommended downloads for weeks at the time. I also continue to make mods and other things for games like Space Engineers and some older games. In fact for Space Engineers I currently have an era mod that's essentially a complete rebalance of the game using my own stuff. I give that bit of background so you know I'm not talking out of my aft shuttle bay. Now to address these points you've named.
1: This is a big fat nope from me. As my cohort Rattler has pointed out, anymore events are typically dropped down to normal difficulty being the only available difficulty. This would essentially be locking people out of completing the events. You might say "put an exception in the code for events" which is alot of extra work when you could just let everyone join normals without some kind of lockout. Not to mention this first "solution" again is little more than an arbitrary limitation that will have no effect on performance. I've seen plenty of people who have golded out ships and gear that still have no clue how to use it. Simply having access to something doesn't confer expertise with said items on a person, just like owning a shotgun IRL doesn't make me an expert on firearms. Another thing to consider for this. Suppose I have a friend who needs help learning the Borg TFOs but hasn't gotten to t5 rep yet, you're essentially preventing he and I from playing together. Also as I asked prior to someone else, what if I get an endeavor that wants me to do a TFO I absolutely hate and want to blitz it on normal to get it done? Oops can't do that now. So guess i'm sitting my endeavors out for that day.
2: No arguments here, all TFOs should have normal, advanced, and elite options imo.
3: This already exists to an extent, the tribble testing map. If said map were improved and brought to holodeck, alot more tests could be done there. While this would be a controlled test environment I wouldn't mind seeing, it still doesn't give you an accurate measurement of what you're doing in the wild. Controlled environments are completely different animals to testing in the field. There should be no reward for using this map either because that just invites abuse.
4: DPS meters should be standard in every MMO. Unless you have a way to measure your numbers to know how much damage you're doing, healing you're putting out, threat you're generating etc, you will never know for sure if you're doing good or not. You can try to eyeball it, but what you see vs what's actually happening can be two VERY different things. Someone could think they're the best guy on the team but in reality are the lowest damage dealer in there. Likewise on the opposite side of the coin someone else could think he's the lowest man on the team, but in reality is doing more than the other 4 people combined.
DPS meters only tell you what you're doing in terms of threat, healing and damage. It's a meter that exists to give numbers, nothing more nothing less. People have to make the decision of what they do about those numbers on their own.
Overall thoughts: If a minimum set of standards is to be set, it can't be arbitrary. Locking people out of something based on their reputation level is arbitrary and has no effect on performance. If you're going to have a set of standards and basic minimums, it has to be at the TFO level itself. In order to clear phase one of the TFO, each person must be dealing a minimum of X damage and be able to survive Y damage from foes.
When balancing my armor and weapons for my Space Engineers mod, I had to decide how many shots I wanted a single armor block to take from a single copy of my weapons before the armor block broke. From there I adjusted the stats accordingly and shipped it off to players. The more weapons they bring to bear, the faster the block breaks. If folks want more damage resistance they can use more armor, if they want more damage output they can use more weapons.
With all of this said, no offense to you sir, but I would not play a game you had a hand in designing if you truly believe some of the things you've said here. Your standards for balance in my book leave much to be desired.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
People play TFOs mainly to generate marks, marks are used to fuel the projects. If you don't need to do projects, you don't need marks and there is other content to play. It's not even about the gear and traits, but to prepare one for the advanced content, by making him play normal content first. He presented this idea very clearly and there is strong logic behind it. Sadly you and the OP see only your ludicrous solution of damage capping and some kind of reserved gameplay, if one is presented with a team of slow players in a random tfo.
Let's close this one, it's going nowhere.
Some people accumulate marks after maxing reps not to get gear but to eventually turn them in for more dil. Unlike some I don't generate tons of dil all the time and I do use it to buy zen, even if I have to wait for it, simply because I have no funds to buy it with otherwise.
It's not always about the projects.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
Fyi you get 2x more dil out of your marks, if you do the daily (later hourly) 340 dil projects, instead of turning them in straight away. Also like i've said, it's not about the projects at all, but about the skill people would acumulate during the process.
So having read more comments on why people choose to play the way they play, i'll propose a few rhetorical questions.
-How much DPS does a player need to be able to play the game ?
-How much DPS is enough DPS ?
-Is it truly necessary to be able to solo group content ?
If folks want to be able to do the maximum DPS that is able to be done within the games mechanics, then would it be possible to add content with the specific purpose of reaching and testing maximum DPS, without the need to interfere with regular gameplay ?. (Not talking about difficulty levels)
Surely there's a way for the people who wish to be able to obliterate everything instantly, or quicker, to be able to do so without disrupting the game for everyone else. I understand the DPS Min/Max crew is only a small part of the community, but they are certainly committed to their way of playing.
I don't chase maximum DPS, i just achieve enough to play efficiently. So i have no idea what The DPS crew might want as far as DPS specific content goes. Perhaps someone more DPS minded can suggest some possible options.
So having read more comments on why people choose to play the way they play, i'll propose a few questions.
-How much DPS does a player need to be able to play the game ?
-How much DPS is enough DPS ?
Aprox 120k per player so 600k for the group give or take 50k to do Elite content. Many players aim for 200k to 300k so they have enough that the TFO wont fail if one of the group members is underperforming. Loosely speaking I would say 550k to 600k for the entire group is enough to play at Elite level. This is generalised as the number changes map to map. As for how much is enough that's a tricky question.
Some people have the mind set of 600k+ so they can pass all content no matter how terrible the rest of the group is. Some people get fun out of optimization and so can go way over 600k. Myself personally I like to be in the 200k to 300k range minimum when joining random people which I find is enough to cover that 1 or 2 members of the group doing under 120k. When with friends I am happy to go down to 120k as I know that's enough. If I go below 120k then I feel I am not contributing enough, not contributing my fair share.
So having read more comments on why people choose to play the way they play, i'll propose a few questions.
-How much DPS does a player need to be able to play the game ?
-How much DPS is enough DPS ?
-Is it truly necessary to be able to solo group content ?
If folks want to be able to do the maximum DPS that is able to be done within the games mechanics, then would it be possible to add content with the specific purpose of reaching and testing maximum DPS, without the need to interfere with regular gameplay ?. (Not talking about difficulty levels)
Surely there's a way for the people who wish to be able to obliterate everything instantly, or quicker, to be able to do so without disrupting the game for everyone else. I understand the DPS Min/Max crew is only a small part of the community, but they are certainly committed to their way of playing.
I don't chase maximum DPS, i just achieve enough to play efficiently. So i have no idea what The DPS crew might want as far as DPS specific content goes. Perhaps someone more DPS minded can suggest some possible options.
1. It was suggested by a Dev a year or so ago that around 12k should suffice to play episodes at level 65, and it might suffice for Adv, but 20k should see you cope well in them all. The problem with people using ISA as the barometer is that your DPS is highly likely to be seriously boosted by those in your team, especially in pre-made. Team synergies really distort your output. Heck, even a well placed GW build has 100% uptime, so it's hard to get a 'pure' DPS unless you specially can measure vs 1 enemy.
2. As in 1, it's 20k to be comfortable, 50k is a boon.
3. Not necessarily, but I have no issue carrying an underpowered/under-knowledged team. Every little helps. I know my Sci toon can solo ISA with all objectives met, mostly because it's a high-powered Control/Drain/Exotic build for my Sci ships. The build wouldn't be as effective in other ships because it relies on the Secondary Deflector to cause a ton of extra damage amongst other things.
A lot of what helps is being able to use Gravity Well to pull enemies in for secondary warp core explosion damage, with the exception of the Tzenkethi who are specially resistant to the tactic. Alot of folk also use Beam or cannon only builds, which can one-shot alot of weaker enemies. It's all about going really narrow in focus on your build. I know a few would have a fit because I run beams and torps, but I've made my build focus on the strengths of each weapon. Because I have a high drain build the quantum phase torp evaporates shields, leaving my rear dark matter torp proc to hit harder, whilst my phasers are taking down any remaining shield before they hit. I like being my own person with my own build I worked on. It may not hit the obscene heights of DPS chasers, but it works a treat.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,548Community Moderator
In my opinion... starting around lv 50 I'd say shooting for at least 10-15k DPS will get you comfortable to complete most content. Which is pretty easy with the right combination of damage consoles, weapons, and BOff abilities. And easily done with basic Mk XII gear. Blue at least, but preferably Purple. Even something as simple as slotting AP Beta could improve damage output. But by the time you hit 50 is about the time you should start synergizing your build as you're less likely to be changing gear every 10 levels. I still have characters at 65 running mk XII purple gear and doing alright for the content I play. If I happen to get upgrades that's great. But having synergized mk XII Purple gear and a decent build... should be more than enough for the average player to be comfortable in most content up to Advanced.
Thank you for your very precise and accurate DPS metrics, it's appreciated. But maybe i should Be more precise with my wording, those DPS question were more rhetorical in nature, as most of my questions have been so far. (i'll edit that post for others)
For instance, without getting too technical, is there a point in the DPS race where there is too much for regular gameplay ?.
I understand the reason why players enjoy pushing the boundaries of what's possible. But at what point does it become overkill ?
At what point does it become impractical to manage without overtly getting in the way of the average player ?.
A good grav well has many practical uses in many different scenarios, it add to and benefits gameplay in a positive way. Grav wells are a regular part of my playstyle, but i try not to use them unless i need to.
And referring to a much earlier comment, It's been said that some instances benefit from having someone there to clear the map of hostiles because the team are not up to the task of doing so themselves without failing the instance. Nobody is going learn how to play the instance if someone is there to do it all for them. It only teaches them to expect and rely on having someone to clear the map for them.
ps:Back in the days when TFO's were called STF's, there were no super overpowered DPS players around. If you failed a map, you failed it, no big deal. You learned how the game mechanics worked and you tried harder next time. Whether in a pre-built team or in a public queue, it did'nt matter.
You learned from your mistakes and sometimes the mistakes of others, and you went in and had another go until you got it down enough to win the scenario. That was where the fun was at. As for the equipment side of things, you learned that as you progressed through the story lines and other low level content.
Considering how much elite and high difficulty content there is in the game, yet it barely gets used at all, i'm prone to wonder if maybe a small number of high DPS players are sweeping through low and medium level content out of frustration, or worse, deliberately. Just guessing here, i can't speak for the motivations of others, but it's not unheard of.
In the first place, if DPS is allowed to get excessive (and it is), it trivialized much of the content.
In order to challenge such players, the developers NEED to increase the difficulty of the content to ever more absurd levels. This means that players with more average builds frequently CANNOT do such content, even though they're frequently thrust into it.
For example, I've been put into that Gravity Kills mission (the annoying one with the Tzenkethi) many times. My weapons simply cannot hurt them. Frequently, my shots are doing only 1-2 points of damage. I once got into a battle with ONE Tzenkethi cruiser, and I spent an HOUR trying to hurt it, and flatly could not. Of course, he couldn't really kill me either, but the issue is still the same. Now, I wouldn't claim to have anywhere near high dps, but I'd have to guess it's at least average, considering the advice I've received over the years.
Now, there are two ways this can go. You can make it easier to get more DPS, so everyone is instantly wiping everything out, but I don't see that as a solution. You don't want things to be too easy. The alternative is to scale back the top end, so it's not necessary to make absurdly difficult content. This means everyone should be able to do all the content, and should be reasonably challenged by all the content. This is why I think this is a better direction to take.
I've made a similar argument over at ESO. I don't WANT higher DPS, because I don't want to trivialize 90% of the game. That means there's content I flat out CANNOT do. It's the same thing here. I think it's bad design, developers must always seek to maintain game balance for the game to be healthy.
I can relate to this directly.
The Tzenkethi are one of the many enemy types that require you too think about the appropriate strategy and equipment to deal with them effectively. I threw what i had at them until i discovered what did and did'nt work against them, it took time but that's the whole point, because it was fun to find out.
Eventually if enough DPS is thrown around, then it bypasses those mechanics completely. If the target is instakilled, the opportunity to learn and utilize the gameplay tactics is now gone. I have specific builds for specific enemies, purely for the gameplay. That is part of the buildcraft that existed before instakills became a thing.
As for ESO. yeah, there is quite a lot of content that is out of my reach for those same reasons
You're nodding to guy, who can't destroy a tzenkheti cruiser after years of gameplay and calls it a problem . I knew this was a troll thread, I KNEW IT.
colonelmarik do you need help to git gud? I can throw together a f2p build, for which you will have to play a month and you'll end up doing more damage, than this ryokel guy ever did.
The game is NOT the problem here!
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,548Community Moderator
I've already told y'all more than once to stop going at each other.
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Sorry, but that point 1 is among the worst things I've ever seen being proposed here.
It takes 20 days to complete the reputation. Players with more toons who can quickly gather resources for a new one don't necessarily need that long to get the necessary gear for their toon.
The current reputation level doesn't say much, beyond whether a player can be bothered to complete a clicky system (of which we have far too many to complete on new toons). That, and perhaps whether they are desperate enough for attention to want to use the Reputation Flourish ability.
We've had a discussion on this a while back, so I won't extensively repeat myself here. But:
1. Currently existing elite missions are barely played (I've never seen Azure Nebula elite public queue launch for example). Meaning there is plenty of challenge to be had, but players just don't want it. They prefer to play advanced, or only elites with pre-made teams. Which isn't true elite playing of course if you eliminate any and all uncertainty and challenge, so yeah.
The problem simply isn't that there is no challenging content.
2. By creating elite missions for everything else, you'd heavily inflate the meaning of 'elite'. It would become the new advanced, a level every player expects to reach at some point - just as we could see in the past, when everyone was actually playing what was called elite. And then stomped back to advanced, which everyone expected to be allowed to participate in, resulting in a lot of anger when they suddenly found out that maybe they weren't good enough yet.
Releasing new, truly elite content will only be useful for a handful of people - or it must involve creating more power creep and therefore do nothing to solve the issues permanently.
That is, in principle, an interesting way of designing enemies. Make the player think, look, pay attention and reward situational awareness. Instead of just spamming spacebar from wherever he happens to be at that moment.
But of course, then you need to ensure that such defences and mechanics cannot simply be bypassed (i.e., prevent that stacking enough shield penetration or high enough damage will still destroy an enemy even though a player is behind it and too lazy to fly around it, to face them at the front --- or blow up a cube when there's still a nanite thingy underneath or next to it, as I've been seeing lately again too).
The solution should be to make sure that enemies work the way they were intended to work. With resistances, requiring tactics to be defeated etc.
That alone could already be enough of a challenge. Even, if not especially for the DPS heroes.
I wasn't suggesting that as a reason to avoid adding better rewards. I've wanted to see the reward structure reworked for awhile now. For me UAA is the golden standard of what effort vs reward should be for TFOs. If you do the optionals you get a ton more marks. Even if you don't you still get a decent payout for the time and effort required. Some of the TFOs are just insulting in terms of their payout, even on elite. On this one I was simply stating what I see happening. Folks will go in not being ready, then complain saying it needs to be nerfed and there we would be again. I've seen it too many times in other games. If the bar is constantly lowered, people will adopt a "wait for the nerf" approach before even trying to do anything. Happened in WoW and elsewhere. Nerfing for absolute game busting reasons is one thing, such as a boss having 99% resists (hypothetical scenario) and needing to be downed in 2 minutes. What those people do is something else.
Agreed all MMOs should have one. The most common argument I see is "the elitists would just boot people not on their level" or something to that effect. I played WoW for years and unless someone was deliberately being a tool, had gone offline and wasn't coming back, or somehow got into something they clearly weren't ready for, the tool was never used. Same goes with SWTOR which I still play. And when I say "got into something they weren't ready for" I mean exactly that. You've got a guy doing all of 2k DPS when the TFO itself requires a minimum of 20k DPS and the group can't advance with that person there. Anyways that's all I'll say on that for the moment.
Addressing these at once as they go together. You had previously stated "DPS chasers insta-vaping DOES hamper the ability of others to enjoy the game." When you say things like this, it indicates to me actual harm is being done and somehow that person is deliberately trying to harm the ability of others to play the game. Such as if someone were to bust out a 1m+ build and go into normal mode runs deliberately trying to AFK people. That is a COMPLETELY different ballgame to simply being grouped with a high dps player in randoms and someone accidentally catches an AFK penalty. You will never see those 600k+ type of runs on anything other than elite because the numbers simply aren't there. On top of this, almost all of those runs are done in pre-made teams by necessity. To avoid an AFK penalty only requires someone deal 2% of the damage for the entirety of the run with some TFOs being 1%. I don't find that to be unreasonable and find it extremely generous. Even in Red Alerts which are normal mode, I can count on one hand how many times I have seen someone catch an AFK penalty legitimately.
I'm not dismissing people who say they have had issues. I don't doubt that people have had bad luck of the draw before as I've been on both sides of that bad luck in my STO career. What I'm saying however is that I don't see this being a problem warranting things like DPS caps and other foolishness that has been suggested by people before. So long as people have met the minimum requirements to enter a specific TFO, be they someone meeting the bare minimum or an infinite DPS build, they both have the right to enter that TFO. It may not be fun if someone is doing only the bare minimum and they catch an afk penalty, or don't get to shoot as much, but that is the risk people take when they sign up for randoms. You are grouping with random people and will sometimes get good groups, and sometimes you will get bad. I am not responsible for the fun of other people and I find it ridiculous that other people are being asked to limit their builds, or asking Cryptic to limit the builds of others purely because other people don't like it. By that definition they are every bit saying the fun of those people is wrong. You specifically may not be doing that, but others are. If people want to avoid some of the risks of random groups, they have the option to form groups with like minded people, and also to improve their builds if damage is an issue.
As said above, I would love to see the reward structure altered with UAA as the golden standard of time and effort vs payout. Some TFOs are down right insulting in terms of payout. So if you want to talk changing reward structures, alright I'm down. What kind of payouts we talking?
For power creep, no one is denying that DPS has gotten alot higher in previous years. There are some instances where people do in fact need to "git gud". If someone is rolling into content with all mk v gear on their ship they got back at level 30 and they're now 65 and complaining things are too hard, then sorry but they need to up their game and get better gear. Even if they buy a bunch of mk xii very rare stuff from the exchange or re-run older missions. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen people complain about something being super hard only to find out they're running a ship with one of every kind of weapon type, cannon, torp, turret, dual bank, array, mine, single cannon, and wondering why they can't kill anything. Of course I've also seen some people with golded out everything and on paper the build is great, but their flying is worse than Troy's. Sometimes there are just objectively bad builds and tactics being used by people that are the problem. Is that to say that's always the case, no, it's simply saying sometimes it does happen. I am willing to help players improve if/when such a situation occurs so long as they're willing to learn and improve and have helped out quite a few people in my career and handed out billions of ec and millions of dilithium worth of things to people. However if someone isn't willing to learn or improve there is nothing I can do.
I read what the OP said and I stand by my previous statements. When someone outright says a DPS cap should be considered, what other way am I supposed to take that? Your logic in this instance is the equivalent of someone telling me the sky is green, yet I'm supposed to interpret it as them actually meaning blue. It makes no sense.
As to applying the standards across the board, I do. If I want to set a DPS record for myself I don't just hit random and pray for a good result. I go in with a pre-made team and avoid the randoms. If I want to avoid getting into a run with lower DPS people, again I go with pre-made teams. Likewise if people want to avoid the possibility of getting grouped with higher DPS people they have option of forming teams with like minded people. Again dude the sword cuts both ways and I haven't suggested otherwise. So long as both the DPS-chaser and non dps chaser have met the minimum criteria set forth by the game for the TFO, both have a right to use the random TFO feature. If a non-dps chaser presses the random button they are taking the risk they might get grouped with a DPS chaser and vice versa.
While this part wasn't specifically addressed to me, I'm going to touch on it because it goes along with a point I have made before. Why do you think people with higher end builds should only play elite? Because that's what it sounds like you're suggesting is that folks like myself should be limited to elite only.
What if an endeavor wants me to play a TFO type I absolutely hate and want to just blow through it on advanced or even normal just to get it done? Suppose I have a fleetmate looking to improve his build and he need someone to help him get some marks. Should I be locked out of helping him because we both want to run on advanced? Or what if one day I just don't want to play on elite and deal with the extra headache that comes with it and just want to blitz a few runs?
Would I personally do random elites if the option was there, depends on which ones are in the pool and how many fleetmates I had with me. On my own probably not due to too many folks joining elites that are not ready for them and causing auto-fails. If I had some fleetmates with me, I probably would.
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Personally I am convinced that this is because most 'elite players' can actually only play elite content if there are four like-minded people present and everything becomes totally predictable. And easy.
Remember, we're talking mostly about people who have figured out how to shoot a lot of targets in a target-rich environment. And some people with big wallets too.
They're not necessarily good gamers. Nor do they have to be people who can deal with unexpected situations. They probably don't like a challenge either. If they were and did, they'd be PvP'ing because that's where the real challenge is, instead of shooting mindless HP sponges. As I noted above, even the enemies with mechanics that require some thinking to be overcome can just instead be defeated by doing the same mindless thing.
I highly doubt that it is because of the rewards. Cause who even needs more rewards when you can already play at elite level? There's nothing to be earned anymore, no higher level to work towards to.
Playing the game itself should be the reward at that point. And as I highly doubt that having everything be predictable and having to put in almost no effort at all is more interesting gameplay than actually dealing with some uncertainty and maybe a less-well equipped team mate, it's probably not about playing the game - and hence not about the only reward that should still matter.
I myself have developed story content, custom maps and the like for other games before. I have never been a AAA studio dev, but I know what it takes to put certain things in games. Back in Timesplitters Future Perfect some of my maps were EA recommended downloads for weeks at the time. I also continue to make mods and other things for games like Space Engineers and some older games. In fact for Space Engineers I currently have an era mod that's essentially a complete rebalance of the game using my own stuff. I give that bit of background so you know I'm not talking out of my aft shuttle bay. Now to address these points you've named.
1: This is a big fat nope from me. As my cohort Rattler has pointed out, anymore events are typically dropped down to normal difficulty being the only available difficulty. This would essentially be locking people out of completing the events. You might say "put an exception in the code for events" which is alot of extra work when you could just let everyone join normals without some kind of lockout. Not to mention this first "solution" again is little more than an arbitrary limitation that will have no effect on performance. I've seen plenty of people who have golded out ships and gear that still have no clue how to use it. Simply having access to something doesn't confer expertise with said items on a person, just like owning a shotgun IRL doesn't make me an expert on firearms. Another thing to consider for this. Suppose I have a friend who needs help learning the Borg TFOs but hasn't gotten to t5 rep yet, you're essentially preventing he and I from playing together. Also as I asked prior to someone else, what if I get an endeavor that wants me to do a TFO I absolutely hate and want to blitz it on normal to get it done? Oops can't do that now. So guess i'm sitting my endeavors out for that day.
2: No arguments here, all TFOs should have normal, advanced, and elite options imo.
3: This already exists to an extent, the tribble testing map. If said map were improved and brought to holodeck, alot more tests could be done there. While this would be a controlled test environment I wouldn't mind seeing, it still doesn't give you an accurate measurement of what you're doing in the wild. Controlled environments are completely different animals to testing in the field. There should be no reward for using this map either because that just invites abuse.
4: DPS meters should be standard in every MMO. Unless you have a way to measure your numbers to know how much damage you're doing, healing you're putting out, threat you're generating etc, you will never know for sure if you're doing good or not. You can try to eyeball it, but what you see vs what's actually happening can be two VERY different things. Someone could think they're the best guy on the team but in reality are the lowest damage dealer in there. Likewise on the opposite side of the coin someone else could think he's the lowest man on the team, but in reality is doing more than the other 4 people combined.
DPS meters only tell you what you're doing in terms of threat, healing and damage. It's a meter that exists to give numbers, nothing more nothing less. People have to make the decision of what they do about those numbers on their own.
Overall thoughts: If a minimum set of standards is to be set, it can't be arbitrary. Locking people out of something based on their reputation level is arbitrary and has no effect on performance. If you're going to have a set of standards and basic minimums, it has to be at the TFO level itself. In order to clear phase one of the TFO, each person must be dealing a minimum of X damage and be able to survive Y damage from foes.
When balancing my armor and weapons for my Space Engineers mod, I had to decide how many shots I wanted a single armor block to take from a single copy of my weapons before the armor block broke. From there I adjusted the stats accordingly and shipped it off to players. The more weapons they bring to bear, the faster the block breaks. If folks want more damage resistance they can use more armor, if they want more damage output they can use more weapons.
With all of this said, no offense to you sir, but I would not play a game you had a hand in designing if you truly believe some of the things you've said here. Your standards for balance in my book leave much to be desired.
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Some people accumulate marks after maxing reps not to get gear but to eventually turn them in for more dil. Unlike some I don't generate tons of dil all the time and I do use it to buy zen, even if I have to wait for it, simply because I have no funds to buy it with otherwise.
It's not always about the projects.
-How much DPS does a player need to be able to play the game ?
-How much DPS is enough DPS ?
-Is it truly necessary to be able to solo group content ?
If folks want to be able to do the maximum DPS that is able to be done within the games mechanics, then would it be possible to add content with the specific purpose of reaching and testing maximum DPS, without the need to interfere with regular gameplay ?. (Not talking about difficulty levels)
Surely there's a way for the people who wish to be able to obliterate everything instantly, or quicker, to be able to do so without disrupting the game for everyone else. I understand the DPS Min/Max crew is only a small part of the community, but they are certainly committed to their way of playing.
I don't chase maximum DPS, i just achieve enough to play efficiently. So i have no idea what The DPS crew might want as far as DPS specific content goes. Perhaps someone more DPS minded can suggest some possible options.
Some people have the mind set of 600k+ so they can pass all content no matter how terrible the rest of the group is. Some people get fun out of optimization and so can go way over 600k. Myself personally I like to be in the 200k to 300k range minimum when joining random people which I find is enough to cover that 1 or 2 members of the group doing under 120k. When with friends I am happy to go down to 120k as I know that's enough. If I go below 120k then I feel I am not contributing enough, not contributing my fair share.
1. It was suggested by a Dev a year or so ago that around 12k should suffice to play episodes at level 65, and it might suffice for Adv, but 20k should see you cope well in them all. The problem with people using ISA as the barometer is that your DPS is highly likely to be seriously boosted by those in your team, especially in pre-made. Team synergies really distort your output. Heck, even a well placed GW build has 100% uptime, so it's hard to get a 'pure' DPS unless you specially can measure vs 1 enemy.
2. As in 1, it's 20k to be comfortable, 50k is a boon.
3. Not necessarily, but I have no issue carrying an underpowered/under-knowledged team. Every little helps. I know my Sci toon can solo ISA with all objectives met, mostly because it's a high-powered Control/Drain/Exotic build for my Sci ships. The build wouldn't be as effective in other ships because it relies on the Secondary Deflector to cause a ton of extra damage amongst other things.
A lot of what helps is being able to use Gravity Well to pull enemies in for secondary warp core explosion damage, with the exception of the Tzenkethi who are specially resistant to the tactic. Alot of folk also use Beam or cannon only builds, which can one-shot alot of weaker enemies. It's all about going really narrow in focus on your build. I know a few would have a fit because I run beams and torps, but I've made my build focus on the strengths of each weapon. Because I have a high drain build the quantum phase torp evaporates shields, leaving my rear dark matter torp proc to hit harder, whilst my phasers are taking down any remaining shield before they hit. I like being my own person with my own build I worked on. It may not hit the obscene heights of DPS chasers, but it works a treat.
For instance, without getting too technical, is there a point in the DPS race where there is too much for regular gameplay ?.
I understand the reason why players enjoy pushing the boundaries of what's possible. But at what point does it become overkill ?
At what point does it become impractical to manage without overtly getting in the way of the average player ?.
A good grav well has many practical uses in many different scenarios, it add to and benefits gameplay in a positive way. Grav wells are a regular part of my playstyle, but i try not to use them unless i need to.
And referring to a much earlier comment, It's been said that some instances benefit from having someone there to clear the map of hostiles because the team are not up to the task of doing so themselves without failing the instance. Nobody is going learn how to play the instance if someone is there to do it all for them. It only teaches them to expect and rely on having someone to clear the map for them.
ps:Back in the days when TFO's were called STF's, there were no super overpowered DPS players around. If you failed a map, you failed it, no big deal. You learned how the game mechanics worked and you tried harder next time. Whether in a pre-built team or in a public queue, it did'nt matter.
You learned from your mistakes and sometimes the mistakes of others, and you went in and had another go until you got it down enough to win the scenario. That was where the fun was at. As for the equipment side of things, you learned that as you progressed through the story lines and other low level content.
Considering how much elite and high difficulty content there is in the game, yet it barely gets used at all, i'm prone to wonder if maybe a small number of high DPS players are sweeping through low and medium level content out of frustration, or worse, deliberately. Just guessing here, i can't speak for the motivations of others, but it's not unheard of.
I can relate to this directly.
The Tzenkethi are one of the many enemy types that require you too think about the appropriate strategy and equipment to deal with them effectively. I threw what i had at them until i discovered what did and did'nt work against them, it took time but that's the whole point, because it was fun to find out.
Eventually if enough DPS is thrown around, then it bypasses those mechanics completely. If the target is instakilled, the opportunity to learn and utilize the gameplay tactics is now gone. I have specific builds for specific enemies, purely for the gameplay. That is part of the buildcraft that existed before instakills became a thing.
As for ESO. yeah, there is quite a lot of content that is out of my reach for those same reasons
colonelmarik do you need help to git gud? I can throw together a f2p build, for which you will have to play a month and you'll end up doing more damage, than this ryokel guy ever did.
The game is NOT the problem here!
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