I don't feel that the answer is to create more extreme difficulty activities. DPS players MIGHT do some of those, sometimes, but will still frequently be in the lower difficulty content because it satisfies their need to feel powerful. Additionally, such content would be inaccessible to most other, more average, players.
I feel like the best thing would be to flatten the curve... to make it increasingly difficult to increase DPS, so the top end would be lower, but still just as difficult to achieve. That way, you could still have bragging rights if you made it to the top 1% or so, but that top 1% wouldn't be so far beyond what others can do. This way, if the DPS players are seeking a challenge, they can get it from more normal content, and could even team with average players, who then wouldn't be completely irrelevant to the mission.
But then, it would mean recalibrating the WHOLE GAME, so I really doubt they would even consider such a thing. The balance is broken, but I fear it's far too late to fix it now.
You might be looking at this from the wrong prospective. I don't find most DPSers are about bragging rights or wanting to feel powerful, or getting in the top 1%. Lowering the DPS cap wont make normal content more challenging all it will do is make normal content even worse then it already is.
The solution isn't to bring high DPS players down into normal content. Personally I think the devs have made a massive mistake forcing us high end players into normal content for events. That is the real problem. Allow Advanced and Elite back as an option for events so high DPS player have a suitable place to do the event that is fun and challenging. Forcing high DPS players into normal has only served to ruin the experience for lower end players and ruin the experience for high DPS players.
If memory serves, I believe the reason for the removal of Advanced and Elite from Events was that Normal level and newbie players were accidentally queuing up for those instead of the Normal level Event, and they weren't receiving participation credit and generally not having a good time. They complained. And so, Cryptic removed Advanced and Elite, leaving Normal for Event runs to minimize/eliminate any confusion since Normal is the least common denominator. So, unless you can remove user error from queuing for the wrong Event level, I don't see how Cryptic can reintroduce Advanced and Elite. 🤷🏼♀️
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
If memory serves, I believe the reason for the removal of Advanced and Elite from Events was that Normal level and newbie players were accidentally queuing up for those instead of the Normal level Event, and they weren't receiving participation credit and generally not having a good time. They complained. And so, Cryptic removed Advanced and Elite, leaving Normal for Event runs to minimize/eliminate any confusion since Normal is the least common denominator. So, unless you can remove user error from queuing for the wrong Event level, I don't see how Cryptic can reintroduce Advanced and Elite. 🤷🏼♀️
Surly the solution is to remove Advanced/Elite from the events page and Task Force Page just as it is now. But still allow the private queues to be formed for events on Adv/Elite which we could do in the past. That solves the problem of user error in queuing from the two main pages while solving the problem of forcing us into normal which ruins the event experience.
It feels like the devs have decided to solve the problem of one group of players not having a good time by making it so another group of players no longer has a good time. Why not keep both groups happy since the function is in game to do that.
If memory serves, I believe the reason for the removal of Advanced and Elite from Events was that Normal level and newbie players were accidentally queuing up for those instead of the Normal level Event, and they weren't receiving participation credit and generally not having a good time. They complained. And so, Cryptic removed Advanced and Elite, leaving Normal for Event runs to minimize/eliminate any confusion since Normal is the least common denominator. So, unless you can remove user error from queuing for the wrong Event level, I don't see how Cryptic can reintroduce Advanced and Elite. 🤷🏼♀️
I thought that was actually the reason why they removed standard missions during events (example: regular Sompek not being available when there's an event, allowing players to only play the 7-round one).
As far as I can remember, we hadn't been given reasons for the normal difficulty-only events until now.
Players would never knowingly queue for a level of content higher than what they're comfortable with so it's a good thing that Cryptic is trying to minimize any confusion or user error.
I hesitate to post this, as I anticipate the usual circling of the wagons, but for three days now, it's been nearly impossible to participate in any queue missions at all. It's been going one of two ways.
Most common are the missions that are over before you can do anything. My Romulan was in one of the Borg missions (I don't recall what it's called) where the Tactical Cube appears near the end. He fired his Hyper Plasma torpedo, but both the Tac Cube AND the big portal thing were obliterated before it had fired all three torpedoes. Before that, whole spawns of enemies were being obliterated in less than a second.
Today, it was the Romulan minefield. I went around to the asteroids to free the freighters, but before I could free even one, that phase was over. By the time I warped to the three mines with the huge fleets of Romulans, they were wiped out before the animation of me warping in was over. I repaired one of the facilities, but before I could warp to the Falchion, it was already dead... took around 2 seconds. Just no way to enjoy missions like this. THREE DAYS this has been going on, but it's been an ongoing problem for years.
Of course, the opposite is also happening. Many of the more modern queue missions have been SO overtuned, in order to challenge people with ridiculous DPS, that more average players flat out CANNOT contribute. The Tzenkethi and Iconians are bad for this, but it still happens elsewhere too.
Why am I posting this? It's old news, I know. Truthfully, I feel the need to vent, but I also want to draw the attention of the developers to the problem... AGAIN. I feel like something needs to be done to improve the game balance. It shouldn't be possible for anyone to do SO much damage that it completely trivializes the game for them, and allows them to take the game away from other players... either by just blowing everything up instantly, or by the devs having to make things more difficult than most players can handle.
Flame on.
welcome to my world. It's worse for me because I refuse to clan up, ergo do not have access to the meta fleet gear
one thing they might try is a DPS counter for each toon, that way, the team selector could more closely match players
I hate to be so blunt, but I find it rather dumb that people were - apparently - queuing for the wrong difficulty.
I mean, how complex is the queue system?
I don't know what to tell you, man. People were apparently unable to get out of a room with one door, so they removed Exploration nebulas. 🤷♀️
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
I hesitate to post this, as I anticipate the usual circling of the wagons, but for three days now, it's been nearly impossible to participate in any queue missions at all. It's been going one of two ways.
Most common are the missions that are over before you can do anything. My Romulan was in one of the Borg missions (I don't recall what it's called) where the Tactical Cube appears near the end. He fired his Hyper Plasma torpedo, but both the Tac Cube AND the big portal thing were obliterated before it had fired all three torpedoes. Before that, whole spawns of enemies were being obliterated in less than a second.
Today, it was the Romulan minefield. I went around to the asteroids to free the freighters, but before I could free even one, that phase was over. By the time I warped to the three mines with the huge fleets of Romulans, they were wiped out before the animation of me warping in was over. I repaired one of the facilities, but before I could warp to the Falchion, it was already dead... took around 2 seconds. Just no way to enjoy missions like this. THREE DAYS this has been going on, but it's been an ongoing problem for years.
Of course, the opposite is also happening. Many of the more modern queue missions have been SO overtuned, in order to challenge people with ridiculous DPS, that more average players flat out CANNOT contribute. The Tzenkethi and Iconians are bad for this, but it still happens elsewhere too.
Why am I posting this? It's old news, I know. Truthfully, I feel the need to vent, but I also want to draw the attention of the developers to the problem... AGAIN. I feel like something needs to be done to improve the game balance. It shouldn't be possible for anyone to do SO much damage that it completely trivializes the game for them, and allows them to take the game away from other players... either by just blowing everything up instantly, or by the devs having to make things more difficult than most players can handle.
Flame on.
welcome to my world. It's worse for me because I refuse to clan up, ergo do not have access to the meta fleet gear
one thing they might try is a DPS counter for each toon, that way, the team selector could more closely match players
DPS counter will not, I repeat, will not work. It measures DPS in it's entirety, not on a per player basis. It measures what everyone is applying to everyone else, which ups individual measures of DPS. They could do a 'battle power' measure like in PSO2:NGS where gear has a score though.
"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.
If memory serves, I believe the reason for the removal of Advanced and Elite from Events was that Normal level and newbie players were accidentally queuing up for those instead of the Normal level Event, and they weren't receiving participation credit and generally not having a good time. They complained. And so, Cryptic removed Advanced and Elite, leaving Normal for Event runs to minimize/eliminate any confusion since Normal is the least common denominator. So, unless you can remove user error from queuing for the wrong Event level, I don't see how Cryptic can reintroduce Advanced and Elite. 🤷🏼♀️
This is 100% a UI/UX issue. No doubt it was much less an effort in time and money to just remove Advanced events than it is to rework the UI.
The game does an extremely poor job educating the player of the difference between Normal, Advanced and Elite settings for content, in addition to informing the player about the functionality of the TFO UI.
IMO the mission that sends you over to see D'Vak in DS9 to introduce you to TFOs should be overhauled to be much, much more informative in this regard.
The other problem is that some of the event content takes place in Battlezones which were never designed for high performing builds. This is akin to other MMORPGS sending max level players into the starter zones for quests. New and lower level players will never be able to compete.
On battlezones, 100% they need an advanced, not sure if an elite difficulty would work(how many players really are suited for that to participate regularly and progress, even with extreme high end performers?) but definently advanced is needed.
On the difficulty I agree though, the game still does a poor job of explaining things such as buff stacking and yeah, GUI needs to warn people of the differences between normal, advanced and elite, I mean it needs to be clear, some players may just even be assuming elite is only marginally harder than normal only to find out enemies have millions of HP to drill through and inflict a ton of damage.
And I think it should warn of the kind of players who tend to favor those difficulties are not only highly equipped but also very skilled and consistently equip high speed impulse, often such newer players don't even get to the fighting and get the lockout penalty for "idling"(even if they really werent, just not getting to fights in time).
I'd even state the game should do like the original doom does with nightmare mode: Warn the player when they first pick a higher difficulty, more-so if they have like low reps(no reps at tier 4 I think would be fine). Like, ahem, included descriptions;
Normal: Fine for players starting out who have not developed reputations. No heads up/warning given.
Advanced: For players who have either well developed reputations or know what they are doing. Warning given to players with undeveloped reputations(same warning applies to elite).
Elite: For maxed out players and experts only.
Many games do this why not STO?
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,689Community Moderator
DPS counter will not, I repeat, will not work. It measures DPS in it's entirety, not on a per player basis. It measures what everyone is applying to everyone else, which ups individual measures of DPS. They could do a 'battle power' measure like in PSO2:NGS where gear has a score though.
The problem with that road is that we start having discrimination based on Gear Score like in WoW. I have a friend who used to play WoW, and they saw toxic behavior over there over gear score that it makes the less desireable memebers of DPS League look like kittens. "You must have X Gear Score to run with us or else", "You must have X rating on OUR site to run with us or else"... it got pretty toxic. And it didn't matter if you knew the content and were running on an alt that did meet at least the minimum required gear score, if you got saddled with those kinds of players you got the boot for not conforming.
I don't know if that is the case with PSO2, but that was with WoW. A Gear Score would just give the toxic types more ammunition to use.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
DPS counter will not, I repeat, will not work. It measures DPS in it's entirety, not on a per player basis. It measures what everyone is applying to everyone else, which ups individual measures of DPS. They could do a 'battle power' measure like in PSO2:NGS where gear has a score though.
The problem with that road is that we start having discrimination based on Gear Score like in WoW. I have a friend who used to play WoW, and they saw toxic behavior over there over gear score that it makes the less desireable memebers of DPS League look like kittens. "You must have X Gear Score to run with us or else", "You must have X rating on OUR site to run with us or else"... it got pretty toxic. And it didn't matter if you knew the content and were running on an alt that did meet at least the minimum required gear score, if you got saddled with those kinds of players you got the boot for not conforming.
I don't know if that is the case with PSO2, but that was with WoW. A Gear Score would just give the toxic types more ammunition to use.
Additionally, another problem with gear score is that while you may have the necessary gear, doesnt mean you know how to use it effectively.
DPS counter will not, I repeat, will not work. It measures DPS in it's entirety, not on a per player basis. It measures what everyone is applying to everyone else, which ups individual measures of DPS. They could do a 'battle power' measure like in PSO2:NGS where gear has a score though.
The problem with that road is that we start having discrimination based on Gear Score like in WoW. I have a friend who used to play WoW, and they saw toxic behavior over there over gear score that it makes the less desireable memebers of DPS League look like kittens. "You must have X Gear Score to run with us or else", "You must have X rating on OUR site to run with us or else"... it got pretty toxic. And it didn't matter if you knew the content and were running on an alt that did meet at least the minimum required gear score, if you got saddled with those kinds of players you got the boot for not conforming.
I don't know if that is the case with PSO2, but that was with WoW. A Gear Score would just give the toxic types more ammunition to use.
I know exactly what you mean. It's not as big a problem in PSO2 because it has a lower population and the battlescore for content is pretty tight on minimums.....and alliances aren't worth anything at the moment because the game was released 2 years too early Literally less than 8 hours of story content after 2 years.
"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.
I suppose since gear score problem came up I should clarify since I figure someone probably will, on my "difficulty recommendations" thats something that I'd say would be client side, other players wouldn't see that.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
I hear and feel the same DPS issues as others. i have a build that is good, balanced, and not just a massive glass cannon.
the problem is that it's "DPS" as everything. And in one area, the game's gone backwards. In the mission S'harien's Swords, there was a warbird that adapted, you could only hurt it with beams to a point, then only torpedoes. and so on. So the ability to have it was there, but this was removed back in 2015.
Basically, we need TFP content that has 5 players and so needs 5 players, and ideally 5 players not running identical builds of ship. The boss triggers in both the Undine and Tzinkethi battlezones start that way, but its only really apparent in the Competitive TFOs, where players DPS is less relevant than their ability to work together. And that stuff gets marked down by many (well, some) because it does take more than just DPS to do. But it is the starfleet way to work as a team, and it's a matter of Klingon honor to be smart and not just be an overpowering bully (hence all the jokes about the great tribble hunt, and how 'glorious those battles must be')
The only way to deal with the DPS creep is to moderate it so that just having big DPS alone can't solve things, and certainly that you can't solo a mission eventually (else you don't have a 5 player TFO, you have a 1-to-5-player TFO)
And that's the only way you're going to get away from the powercreep, not by trying to nerf the DPS, because that'll just change the makeup of the min-max build. It's where you need to use all the players (or most of them, 4 say) and they need some secondary quality, like actually being able to survive.
It should say something about the DPS state in the game, where I've seen people say 'don't bother tweaking shields, they're irrelevant and just go down anyway, you just blow them up before they can deal you enough DPS to blow up your hull.
Until DPS isn't the answer to every single bit of content in the game, there's going to be people pushing the powercreep, and right now there's no other viable path.
If you want a parallel, look at the TV show BattleBots (a show I used to work on as one of the safety/tech inspection crew). There used to be 3 main bot types. High KE Spinners (horizontal, vertical and drum), control bots (ones with clamps/lifts/flippers) and wedges (that used drive power alone). Generally spinners beat control bots, control bots beat wedges, and wedges beat spinners. Few years ago, when going to ABC tv, they put in a rule of 'no wedges', because two wedges fighting each other is dull. Well, then every bot became a spinner, because controls don't have anyone to beat, and spinners don't have anyone to lose to. They changed the meta, to try and eliminate the boring (wedge on wedge) and ended up making one design philosphy key. it's deal out as much damage as you can, and kill them before they can kill you. And sure it can look spectacular, but it also gets kinda boring, because you lose all the variety.
Sure theres a Beam build, and a cannon build, and a EPG build and a carrier build, But they're all built around making a big alpha-strike and done. We need ways where everyone has to be involved in a mission to progress, and the "DPS guy" needs the cooperation of others, or their glass cannon is going to be shattered. For this reason, the Voth are some of the hardest ships to destroy, because they have that 180 shield, and sometimes reflection (just got my ship blown up twice in the contested zone when a citadel on the event used the reflective immunity matrix on me)
Is it any surprise then, that my favourite TFO is Binary circuit (only seem to be able to do that when its the universal) and the now removed Mine Trap (although it was great for the nearly 3 years it was in, between seasons 7 and 11)
DPS counter will not, I repeat, will not work. It measures DPS in it's entirety, not on a per player basis. It measures what everyone is applying to everyone else, which ups individual measures of DPS. They could do a 'battle power' measure like in PSO2:NGS where gear has a score though.
the database probably is not tracking the average DPS of each toon. If it were it would be very simple for the server to scan the queue ad match palyers with brackets of 2,5,8,10K damage, that way the 10,000 DPS player will never be matched with the 1M dps l33ts. so yes, if they did add a field to the toon database of average DPS for matching purposes it would work very well
To piggyback off the discussions around gear score, I have long advocated for a clear path of progression for people so they can know what content they're ready for, and more importantly what they're not. One thing STO lacks is a clear progression path that tells people how to get ready for the next tiers of content. A progression path can be set and measures put in place to know who is ready for what content, but I don't think some folks are going to like what it would take. To use the WoW comparison it can be done and WoW solved alot of their group content issues with 3 things.
1: Gear check
2: minimum DPS/Healing/Tanking check
3: dungeon journal so folks know where to get things
First up is a gear check. When used PROPERLY a gear check/gear score tells you if a person has the stats ON PAPER to contribute to the team and survive the content. That's the only thing gear score is good for is to tell you if someone should have the stats on paper to survive and contribute. It's a valid measure, but needs to be paired with other things to matter.
Wow paired the gear check with the minimum DPS/healing/tank check in order to tell if people were ready. They did this by the proving grounds which was sort of a training map. It had 4 difficulties. bronze, silver, gold, and endless. In order to get into the door for random content you had to have the minimum gear, and complete the silver level difficulty. If for example I wanted to tank it would recognize I'm a tank and have me complete certain tests that a tank would face. Such as keeping threat against a group of foes while a healer NPC keeps everyone alive, and some DPS NPCs wiped the group. The test would include taunting foes that break off, positioning the boss/foes based on mechanics, knowing when to hit a defensive cooldown and the like. Similarly for healers they had to keep certain people alive, knowing when to purge debuffs from people and the like. It didn't prepare you for everything but it prepared for the basics.
Then finally they gave people a dungeon journal that told where to get certain bits of equipment. Such as if you wanted polaron gear for a jem'hadar ship, it would tell you where you got certain polaron drops. The other big deal was that it would give you a basic rundown as to what you can expect from certain foes. It didn't outright say "do X Y Z to beat this boss." It would however tell you for example if fighting a borg pickle ship, "it has abilities x y z that deal damage type A and can be interrupted." It gave you enough info to formulate your own plans. You could have myself leading a group, BMR leading a group, Rattler leading a 3rd group, all of us using 3 different strats, and all 3 of them working.
With those 3 things WoW gave people a clear progression path so they know where to get certain gear, and had a goal to meet to get into random instances. This ensured that people had the stats on paper to survive the encounter and contribute to the team via gear check. Then ensured they're at least competent enough to contribute via the DPS/Tank/Healing check. If folks could get the gear, and complete the silver proving grounds, yet still couldn't compete in the actual instances, you knew one of a few things was going on. Either the person was having technical problems, a mechanic is tripping them up, or they're straight up not trying. Yes some people got locked out of higher difficulties they weren't ready for, but overall the group quality improved.
In terms of how it could work for STO, it would give minimum standards to shoot for so folks know if they're ready for advanced and elite content. If they're not ready it can give them an idea of what they need to get ready. Personally I don't play on normal mode unless I'm forced to do so purely because I might AFK someone. However at the same time it's also incumbent on people to mitigate their chances of getting AFKed as well. If you know you're joining a pool of players with higher DPS people and you're running a build that's not as potent be it by choice or not yet having access to the higher level gear, you bear some responsibility for that choice. If you go into a run with 4 pilot ships zipping across the map with high DPS and you're in a cruiser that moves at the speed of smell doesn't have the damage output those ships do and you get an AFK penalty, then that's on you in part.
"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
No thank you to gear checks/scores and no thank you to gear progression and all of the poor behavior it brings with it. Leave all of that in WoW where it belongs.
Gear progression already exists in this game in the form of upgrades, so that ship has sailed. It may not take the form WoW or SWTOR use, but it does exist.
Now with that said, if you're opposed to what I have said above, then what is your solution that allows people to know if they are ready for advanced and/or elite content or not? How do you propose people improve their equipment and improve their builds to be able to contribute to the team, be it a "canon" build or full min/max build?
"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
When it comes down to it, it's about letting the player know two things...
1: Are they ready for Advanced/Elite
2: How can they improve
As long as those two questions remain unanswered or theres a big Adobe Gaussian blur ontop of it, this problem will continue. From a standpoint of making it as "easy" as possible for the player and as easy as possible for the devs....
In Star Trek there are cadet and officer reviews, we've seen it in the show.
How about a Captains Review?
When the player is ready to take part in TFO's, or, when the player is jumping into their first random a "Scenario" for the Captain is played out in the holodeck with their current ship, this is the Gatekeeping part. It can be based off of part of ISE so the player goes into a "cut down" ISE on normal setting. There's only one generator active, no probes come in to heal and only two spheres above. That player has to take out that generator and the two spheres.
Yes, its over simplified, but a generator with only two sphere's guarding it and no probes healing it means the playing field is levelled for the new people coming into TFO's. If they end up taking too long, or they end up being killed by the two spheres, then the player will have a recommendation not to take part in Adv/Elite TFO content because their ship is simply not up to scratch to take part in them and they will die...a lot.
If they end up being recommended not to take part in Adv and Elite, a PADD is given to them with tips on how to increase damage, general tips on how to increase health.
The gatekeeping "Captain's Review" can be taken anytime by the player as they overhaul their ship. Encouraging the newer players to push their ship further up the ladder to get into those Adv TFO's by at least increasing damage and survivability is at least one part of the puzzle. The big problem is a lot of new players go into these TFO's and have no idea just how much of a DPS centric mess they are currently in.
You cant limit the high end players, the only way around it is to encourage the new or casual player to put a bit more time into kitting out their ship so they at least have a chance to get in and get damage done. If the bottom rungs of the player ladder are not being given some sort of advice on how to keep climbing, then the gap between the DPS chasers and the general casual playing public is just going to get increasingly worse within the random TFO's.
Personally, and from a former game dev standpoint, i would enlist the help of some of the YouTube STO creators as well. Have them make a "Beginners Guide to Adv/Elite TFO's" video, with their own standpoint of making a beam based and canon based build using only mission rewards or reputation bought ship parts. Once the creators have made those videos, blast them all out on the STO website and possibly even mention them on the PADD that's given to the player telling them that its recommended they don't take part in the Adv/Elite content.
Anything to give the casual/new TFO players that helping hand up to the next rung on the ladder is a good thing, it means they are happy having a better ship, and they see the results of that little bit of extra time they have put in.
"You know when that shark bites, with its teeth dear... scarlet billows start to spread..."
I never played WOW, but I had played guild wars, and I remember all to well the heroes ascent catch 22 "requirement" its community shoved down everyones throats for that;
To participate in heroes ascent, players required you to have at least hero title rank 3.
To get any progression towards that title requiresd participation in heroes ascent. Anyone without rank 3 thus cannot ever participate, ever.
(Edit: As player base thinned apparently, they dropped that catch 22, simply, no one left to play who had the "requirements".)
I feared that'd happen to city of heroes when it was live, and it partly did, with the incarnate trials, thankfully, it didn't get to such an absolute extreme like guild wars, or how gear checks apparently became in WoW. Thing is, elitist gamers love to manipulate communities into these kinds of systems to maximize there win %s, if due to how big a sore losers they universally are(and often not necessarily good at the game at all, why else do they require everyone else be perfect?).
All gear check/dps check ect, if displayed to others would do, is create that extreme level of elitism and exclusion that prevents progression entirely. Its why I stated for difficulties just recomendations for player expectations of those difficulties but thats all I advocate for, we shouldn't put in things that let elitists get intrusive on others and exclude others over not "being able to stomp the difficulty and having played the difficulty a few hundred times to even qualify for said difficulty setting to begin with".
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
Personally I don't play on normal mode unless I'm forced to do so purely because I might AFK someone. However at the same time it's also incumbent on people to mitigate their chances of getting AFKed as well. If you know you're joining a pool of players with higher DPS people and you're running a build that's not as potent be it by choice or not yet having access to the higher level gear, you bear some responsibility for that choice...
When it comes down to it, it's about letting the player know two things...
1: Are they ready for Advanced/Elite
2: How can they improve
These tools and resources already exist.
You cant limit the high end players, the only way around it is to encourage the new or casual player to put a bit more time into kitting out their ship so they at least have a chance to get in and get damage done.
This can be a delicate process. There is often active pushback against any form of self improvement or changes in play style. Try suggesting to a Starship Captain that perhaps they could equip or fly their ship a bit differently lol.
...i would enlist the help of some of the YouTube STO creators as well. Have them make a "Beginners Guide to Adv/Elite TFO's" video, with their own standpoint of making a beam based and canon based build using only mission rewards or reputation bought ship parts. Once the creators have made those videos, blast them all out on the STO website...
There are LOTS of very good guides out there from a variety of sources as well as places like "The Academy" here in this forum.
Anything to give the casual/new TFO players that helping hand up to the next rung on the ladder is a good thing, it means they are happy having a better ship, and they see the results of that little bit of extra time they have put in.
I think this should be left up to the individual player to learn in the way that best suits them. Let the individual make the choice of what content they want to run and at what difficulty they are comfortable with and find enjoyable. Individual players can try and fail and learn from their mistakes, or ask questions of other players, or search out builds on the internet or whatever other method they find works best for them. Your average player is intelligent enough to figure this out on their own. This game is not all that complicated to figure out.
So a couple of issues. First, how do you propose they know if they're improving or not? You say leave it up to the individual player but you don't cover how they're to measure their improvement or lack of. With what you've said you're also assuming that people want to improve as well which can be a very big assumption at times.
WoW instituting the gear check, dungeon journal, and role check served several purposes. First, it gave people a way to measure themselves and where they're at currently. If a person met the gear check and role checks, then they were good to go for group content. If they didn't meet the gear and role checks, they had the dungeon journal that told them where to get the things they needed to improve, and gave them information on various mechanics so they can formulate their own plans to counter those mechanics. It removed all excuses from people seeking to do group content. If they could meet those checks, then unless something happened that was out of their control, such as internet dropping or real life issues, they had zero excuses as to why they couldn't do things in group content. They had the gear, the had the basic mechanical knowledge, and had the information available to them via dungeon journal. The checks instituted gave folks a real time check on where they were and where they needed to advance.
Now this is where I see a misconception most people have. Just to make this clear, I am not saying you specifically, but speaking in general terms when I say this. Simply because in WoW I may have qualified to step into the highest tier raids or what have you, did NOT require me to play those higher tiers, only that I could. If I wanted to play the mid tier raids because I found them more fun, I could. All those checks did was ensure that if/when I did step into the higher tier raids, I was ready for them.
So again I have to ask. How do you propose people measure themselves to know if they need to improve or not? At what point do people take a little personal responsibility for their woes in game? If I go into TFO in a cruiser that moves at the speed of smell and I get grouped with 4 people in pilot ships who zip around and kill everything before I can get there, who's fault is it I didn't get there in time, them or me? In order to mitigate the chances of that happening when joining random TFOs, I can take a ship in there that's a bit faster and save my slower ship for private runs with friends.
For every person wanting to improve their setup and being willing to do so, I've seen just as many that are stuck in their ways and unwilling to change anything. And woe be unto the person who dares suggest someone from the second group needs to change something. Had a guy that was in my fleet for awhile that we found out was part of that second group. Back when the Colony first came out, myself, an officer and a new player were going into Dranuur Gauntlet normal mode to get some colony provisions at the time. We had just helped this new person put together a build and were about to go in when the 4th guy came online. We'll call him Bob. Bob asked to go along and we thought why not, 4th guy putting provisions in. During the run we got one of the nastier foes for normal mode. myself, the pug, and my officer came close to dying a couple of times but never did. The new person died twice due to lack of experience. Bob on the other hand died 18 times in a normal mode run. After the run I went afk to get a drink before we moved on. When I came back I caught the tail end of Bob raging at my officer. Bob messaged me right after telling me what happened while my officer was telling me the same thing in voice comms. My officer asked Bob "hey dude I noticed you had a hard time staying alive in there. You died 18 times in total. Is there anything we can do to help you out?" Bob took that as an insult to him and called my officer an elitist, along with many other things I won't repeat on this forum. All because my officer dared suggest he might need help. I bring that up to say this. For every person out there who is willing to change, adapt and the like, there is another who is like Bob that refuses to change anything.
The problem with folks like Bob is that it's never their fault in their minds. It's always the rest of the team and never him. It's the people coming in with their "pay to win" builds and the like that won't let him play. If he dies more than once or twice in certain things, it's too hard and needs to be nerfed. He was never willing to take responsibility for his part in making sure he has a fun experience. Now I have no problem with people like Bob playing what they like in game, but Bob needs to stay out of content he's clearly not ready for as it negatively impacts the other people on the team. The other problem with people like Bob is they often over-estimate their own ability and the power of their builds because they play story difficulty where they can sneeze in the direction of foes and wipe entire groups. Then when they step into advanced and/or elite and they get rolled, they think something is wrong with the game when there's not.
"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
I never played WOW, but I had played guild wars, and I remember all to well the heroes ascent catch 22 "requirement" its community shoved down everyones throats for that;
To participate in heroes ascent, players required you to have at least hero title rank 3.
To get any progression towards that title requiresd participation in heroes ascent. Anyone without rank 3 thus cannot ever participate, ever.
(Edit: As player base thinned apparently, they dropped that catch 22, simply, no one left to play who had the "requirements".)
I feared that'd happen to city of heroes when it was live, and it partly did, with the incarnate trials, thankfully, it didn't get to such an absolute extreme like guild wars, or how gear checks apparently became in WoW. Thing is, elitist gamers love to manipulate communities into these kinds of systems to maximize there win %s, if due to how big a sore losers they universally are(and often not necessarily good at the game at all, why else do they require everyone else be perfect?).
All gear check/dps check ect, if displayed to others would do, is create that extreme level of elitism and exclusion that prevents progression entirely. Its why I stated for difficulties just recomendations for player expectations of those difficulties but thats all I advocate for, we shouldn't put in things that let elitists get intrusive on others and exclude others over not "being able to stomp the difficulty and having played the difficulty a few hundred times to even qualify for said difficulty setting to begin with".
So a couple of things on this. You're never going to get rid of elitism 100% as there will always be those certain players that want to flex on everyone else. That's not just gaming history but human history. There will always be those certain people who think they're better than everyone else and they're somehow entitled. As to your comment regarding manipulating people to increase win percentages, what exactly are you winning in STO? I see people bring this argument up all the time as to why we shouldn't do anything, but none ever elaborates on what you're winning. With regards to player standards, people have a right to set whatever standards they want for private mode runs they are hosting. You don't have to like the standards they set, but your dislike of those standards doesn't negate their right to have them. In WoW when the GearScore addon came about and people wanting to be (choice of insult here) about my being a mix of 232 and 245 gear instead of exclusively 245, even though the game itself only required 232 across the board, I made my own groups.
Today though there is an advantage that is pretty much standard across all MMOs that didn't exist at that time, random group finder. Almost all MMOs today have them meaning you can NEVER be locked out of content if you've met the minimum standards for it. If for example lets say you wanted to do a piece of content that required 226 across the board as a minimum and you were at that 226 minimum, but all the private groups were demanding you be at 232+, all you had to do was join a random group. Where as the private groups may not take you, as is their right to exclude you, you could still get into the content. So this idea that people are going to be excluded from content because of elitist players if we instituted some kind of gear/roll checks is just bogus. If those were to be implemented and people aren't able to get in, it's because they're not meeting the minimum standards set forth by the game itself. It would be like something requiring all 226 gear, and you being in all 218 and being mad you can't get in. When the elitists find that none wants to play with them and they're not needed for people to see the content, they'll either fall in line or continue to be irrelevant.
As for being intrusive or excluding people, if a particular piece of content required everyone on the team do 50k DPS minimum and that 5th person isn't meeting that 50k minimum, they have no right to be in that TFO until they up their performance as they're not meeting the standard set forth by the game itself in that instance. It also guarantees the team will fail because they were not ready. In that instance 4 other people are negatively impacted because of the one, and that's not fair to the other 4 being expected to carry the 5th guy.
If you're expecting something to be 100% abuse proof before it's ever implemented, Cryptic may as well stop developing the game. There is no such thing as a 100% abuse proof system or feature. There are always going to be people who try to weaponize features and the like against their fellow players in some form or fashion. All you can do is minimize the issue.
As just one example, I have brought up how I wish there was an inspect player function that we could use to see what gear other people have equipped. Every time I bring that up people always jump straight to "people will just use it to shame other people who aren't as geared as them" and the like. While there are some in games like SWTOR who abuse the inspect function, if I am trying to help a guild member or even a random person that's asked for help, or accepted an offer of help, it save so much time as I can just inspect and go. There's no foolishness with having to get them in discord, get them to share their screen, have to direct them to click this, mouse over this or that, have them fumbling through menus for 30 minutes before I can even make heads or tails of what they're doing. Instead I can simply inspect what the person has, and tell them "if you want more damage, take off (thing 1) and (thing 2) then move (thing 3) to slot A and get to X amount of stat Y" and we're both on our way at that point. "Well it violates my privacy" they say next usually. Well no it doesn't because by even stepping foot into the game and running a combat log I can reverse engineer your build with 95% accuracy, and you could do the same for me. If I watch your buff icons I can tell what you're using. All that's accomplished by leaving an inspect function out of the game is making it harder to actually help people when the time comes and share information.
Lastly in regards to the loser comment, expecting someone to meet the basic minimum standards set forth by the game is not wrong and is not elitism. If it requires everyone do a minimum of 20k DPS, then expecting everyone in the run to be at 20k DPS is not elitism. If it only requires 20k DPS and someone in the group is expecting you to do 100k DPS, then that's elitism by far.
Point being if you're expecting 100% abuse proof features you're never going to see anything new.
"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
There is a problem with all gear check systems in that the devs cannot really know exactly what an object (weapon, shield, ect.) can do in every possible situation, so those checks are rough estimates at best. And using those rough checks to base a gating system on is a good way to turn off players.
Oddball roles and secondary effects of gear can all too easily throw off calculations. For instance, in Defiance I used to take my starting characters into open-group content in the gated-entry endgame part of the map (Silicon Valley) and do a lot of shoot-and-scoot with a flare pistol (it was a high-arc ballistic trajectory fire-DoT weapon) and would keep lighting up the NPCs to make them panic and roll around trying to put themselves out. It is not something that shows up in damage calculations (the flare pistol was not considered a high DPS weapon though they could cause a lot of overall damage spread across a battle if handled right).
After a while the devs stopped trying to enforce the gate because it was so easy to circumvent and a lot of people did it and the gate wasn't needed anyway because people who took low-level characters there either knew how to equip for it or soon figured out something that worked for them.
I also liked to do something like that in BDO (which also has open-group content) where the high level characters would tend to keep the attention of the boss or whatever while the lower-level characters would keep the adds busy, do various other support things, and take potshots at the boss when possible. It all worked out well for everyone with no gates and the minimum of elite ego toxicity problems. And if a player was careful and sneaky enough they could mug regular npc enemies in higher level areas than they should have been in too, though killing them could take quite a while.
To have any accuracy things like gear checks generally have to depend on a very limited, highly controlled gear/skill/technique and whatever else structure, and the more rigid it is the less interesting it tends to be for a lot of players. The more variety there is the more variables there are to try to keep on top of, and trying to keep it all under control quickly gets out of hand.
And yes, there are some "Bob" types in every game, just like there are toxic elites in every game. The majority of players nowadays tend to be neither one though, so game companies do not have to cater to either of them anymore (though some choose to do so) which leaves the field open for other player types to find a game that fits their styles.
STO is an odd sort of casual blend of open-world and lobby elements mixed into a very loosely-ordered story-driven system that has significant casual social elements to it. A lot of players find that refreshing after playing more restrictive structured games, and not having rigid rails helps a lot with both roleplaying (though there is not a lot of it here) and alts (which is a major emphasis in STO, to the point that they now have events to encourage making them). Highly tiered narrowly channeled content of the type that works best with gear checks and gates is not a good fit here except maybe as a sideline of some sort (which is already in the game in an informal way via private TFOs and the like).
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The solution isn't to bring high DPS players down into normal content. Personally I think the devs have made a massive mistake forcing us high end players into normal content for events. That is the real problem. Allow Advanced and Elite back as an option for events so high DPS player have a suitable place to do the event that is fun and challenging. Forcing high DPS players into normal has only served to ruin the experience for lower end players and ruin the experience for high DPS players.
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It feels like the devs have decided to solve the problem of one group of players not having a good time by making it so another group of players no longer has a good time. Why not keep both groups happy since the function is in game to do that.
I mean, how complex is the queue system?
I thought that was actually the reason why they removed standard missions during events (example: regular Sompek not being available when there's an event, allowing players to only play the 7-round one).
As far as I can remember, we hadn't been given reasons for the normal difficulty-only events until now.
welcome to my world. It's worse for me because I refuse to clan up, ergo do not have access to the meta fleet gear
one thing they might try is a DPS counter for each toon, that way, the team selector could more closely match players
I don't know what to tell you, man. People were apparently unable to get out of a room with one door, so they removed Exploration nebulas. 🤷♀️
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DPS counter will not, I repeat, will not work. It measures DPS in it's entirety, not on a per player basis. It measures what everyone is applying to everyone else, which ups individual measures of DPS. They could do a 'battle power' measure like in PSO2:NGS where gear has a score though.
On battlezones, 100% they need an advanced, not sure if an elite difficulty would work(how many players really are suited for that to participate regularly and progress, even with extreme high end performers?) but definently advanced is needed.
On the difficulty I agree though, the game still does a poor job of explaining things such as buff stacking and yeah, GUI needs to warn people of the differences between normal, advanced and elite, I mean it needs to be clear, some players may just even be assuming elite is only marginally harder than normal only to find out enemies have millions of HP to drill through and inflict a ton of damage.
And I think it should warn of the kind of players who tend to favor those difficulties are not only highly equipped but also very skilled and consistently equip high speed impulse, often such newer players don't even get to the fighting and get the lockout penalty for "idling"(even if they really werent, just not getting to fights in time).
I'd even state the game should do like the original doom does with nightmare mode: Warn the player when they first pick a higher difficulty, more-so if they have like low reps(no reps at tier 4 I think would be fine). Like, ahem, included descriptions;
Normal: Fine for players starting out who have not developed reputations. No heads up/warning given.
Advanced: For players who have either well developed reputations or know what they are doing. Warning given to players with undeveloped reputations(same warning applies to elite).
Elite: For maxed out players and experts only.
Many games do this why not STO?
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
The problem with that road is that we start having discrimination based on Gear Score like in WoW. I have a friend who used to play WoW, and they saw toxic behavior over there over gear score that it makes the less desireable memebers of DPS League look like kittens. "You must have X Gear Score to run with us or else", "You must have X rating on OUR site to run with us or else"... it got pretty toxic. And it didn't matter if you knew the content and were running on an alt that did meet at least the minimum required gear score, if you got saddled with those kinds of players you got the boot for not conforming.
I don't know if that is the case with PSO2, but that was with WoW. A Gear Score would just give the toxic types more ammunition to use.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
Additionally, another problem with gear score is that while you may have the necessary gear, doesnt mean you know how to use it effectively.
I know exactly what you mean. It's not as big a problem in PSO2 because it has a lower population and the battlescore for content is pretty tight on minimums.....and alliances aren't worth anything at the moment because the game was released 2 years too early
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
the problem is that it's "DPS" as everything. And in one area, the game's gone backwards. In the mission S'harien's Swords, there was a warbird that adapted, you could only hurt it with beams to a point, then only torpedoes. and so on. So the ability to have it was there, but this was removed back in 2015.
Basically, we need TFP content that has 5 players and so needs 5 players, and ideally 5 players not running identical builds of ship. The boss triggers in both the Undine and Tzinkethi battlezones start that way, but its only really apparent in the Competitive TFOs, where players DPS is less relevant than their ability to work together. And that stuff gets marked down by many (well, some) because it does take more than just DPS to do. But it is the starfleet way to work as a team, and it's a matter of Klingon honor to be smart and not just be an overpowering bully (hence all the jokes about the great tribble hunt, and how 'glorious those battles must be')
The only way to deal with the DPS creep is to moderate it so that just having big DPS alone can't solve things, and certainly that you can't solo a mission eventually (else you don't have a 5 player TFO, you have a 1-to-5-player TFO)
And that's the only way you're going to get away from the powercreep, not by trying to nerf the DPS, because that'll just change the makeup of the min-max build. It's where you need to use all the players (or most of them, 4 say) and they need some secondary quality, like actually being able to survive.
It should say something about the DPS state in the game, where I've seen people say 'don't bother tweaking shields, they're irrelevant and just go down anyway, you just blow them up before they can deal you enough DPS to blow up your hull.
Until DPS isn't the answer to every single bit of content in the game, there's going to be people pushing the powercreep, and right now there's no other viable path.
If you want a parallel, look at the TV show BattleBots (a show I used to work on as one of the safety/tech inspection crew). There used to be 3 main bot types. High KE Spinners (horizontal, vertical and drum), control bots (ones with clamps/lifts/flippers) and wedges (that used drive power alone). Generally spinners beat control bots, control bots beat wedges, and wedges beat spinners. Few years ago, when going to ABC tv, they put in a rule of 'no wedges', because two wedges fighting each other is dull. Well, then every bot became a spinner, because controls don't have anyone to beat, and spinners don't have anyone to lose to. They changed the meta, to try and eliminate the boring (wedge on wedge) and ended up making one design philosphy key. it's deal out as much damage as you can, and kill them before they can kill you. And sure it can look spectacular, but it also gets kinda boring, because you lose all the variety.
Sure theres a Beam build, and a cannon build, and a EPG build and a carrier build, But they're all built around making a big alpha-strike and done. We need ways where everyone has to be involved in a mission to progress, and the "DPS guy" needs the cooperation of others, or their glass cannon is going to be shattered. For this reason, the Voth are some of the hardest ships to destroy, because they have that 180 shield, and sometimes reflection (just got my ship blown up twice in the contested zone when a citadel on the event used the reflective immunity matrix on me)
Is it any surprise then, that my favourite TFO is Binary circuit (only seem to be able to do that when its the universal) and the now removed Mine Trap (although it was great for the nearly 3 years it was in, between seasons 7 and 11)
the database probably is not tracking the average DPS of each toon. If it were it would be very simple for the server to scan the queue ad match palyers with brackets of 2,5,8,10K damage, that way the 10,000 DPS player will never be matched with the 1M dps l33ts. so yes, if they did add a field to the toon database of average DPS for matching purposes it would work very well
1: Gear check
2: minimum DPS/Healing/Tanking check
3: dungeon journal so folks know where to get things
First up is a gear check. When used PROPERLY a gear check/gear score tells you if a person has the stats ON PAPER to contribute to the team and survive the content. That's the only thing gear score is good for is to tell you if someone should have the stats on paper to survive and contribute. It's a valid measure, but needs to be paired with other things to matter.
Wow paired the gear check with the minimum DPS/healing/tank check in order to tell if people were ready. They did this by the proving grounds which was sort of a training map. It had 4 difficulties. bronze, silver, gold, and endless. In order to get into the door for random content you had to have the minimum gear, and complete the silver level difficulty. If for example I wanted to tank it would recognize I'm a tank and have me complete certain tests that a tank would face. Such as keeping threat against a group of foes while a healer NPC keeps everyone alive, and some DPS NPCs wiped the group. The test would include taunting foes that break off, positioning the boss/foes based on mechanics, knowing when to hit a defensive cooldown and the like. Similarly for healers they had to keep certain people alive, knowing when to purge debuffs from people and the like. It didn't prepare you for everything but it prepared for the basics.
Then finally they gave people a dungeon journal that told where to get certain bits of equipment. Such as if you wanted polaron gear for a jem'hadar ship, it would tell you where you got certain polaron drops. The other big deal was that it would give you a basic rundown as to what you can expect from certain foes. It didn't outright say "do X Y Z to beat this boss." It would however tell you for example if fighting a borg pickle ship, "it has abilities x y z that deal damage type A and can be interrupted." It gave you enough info to formulate your own plans. You could have myself leading a group, BMR leading a group, Rattler leading a 3rd group, all of us using 3 different strats, and all 3 of them working.
With those 3 things WoW gave people a clear progression path so they know where to get certain gear, and had a goal to meet to get into random instances. This ensured that people had the stats on paper to survive the encounter and contribute to the team via gear check. Then ensured they're at least competent enough to contribute via the DPS/Tank/Healing check. If folks could get the gear, and complete the silver proving grounds, yet still couldn't compete in the actual instances, you knew one of a few things was going on. Either the person was having technical problems, a mechanic is tripping them up, or they're straight up not trying. Yes some people got locked out of higher difficulties they weren't ready for, but overall the group quality improved.
In terms of how it could work for STO, it would give minimum standards to shoot for so folks know if they're ready for advanced and elite content. If they're not ready it can give them an idea of what they need to get ready. Personally I don't play on normal mode unless I'm forced to do so purely because I might AFK someone. However at the same time it's also incumbent on people to mitigate their chances of getting AFKed as well. If you know you're joining a pool of players with higher DPS people and you're running a build that's not as potent be it by choice or not yet having access to the higher level gear, you bear some responsibility for that choice. If you go into a run with 4 pilot ships zipping across the map with high DPS and you're in a cruiser that moves at the speed of smell doesn't have the damage output those ships do and you get an AFK penalty, then that's on you in part.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
Gear progression already exists in this game in the form of upgrades, so that ship has sailed. It may not take the form WoW or SWTOR use, but it does exist.
Now with that said, if you're opposed to what I have said above, then what is your solution that allows people to know if they are ready for advanced and/or elite content or not? How do you propose people improve their equipment and improve their builds to be able to contribute to the team, be it a "canon" build or full min/max build?
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
1: Are they ready for Advanced/Elite
2: How can they improve
As long as those two questions remain unanswered or theres a big Adobe Gaussian blur ontop of it, this problem will continue. From a standpoint of making it as "easy" as possible for the player and as easy as possible for the devs....
In Star Trek there are cadet and officer reviews, we've seen it in the show.
How about a Captains Review?
When the player is ready to take part in TFO's, or, when the player is jumping into their first random a "Scenario" for the Captain is played out in the holodeck with their current ship, this is the Gatekeeping part. It can be based off of part of ISE so the player goes into a "cut down" ISE on normal setting. There's only one generator active, no probes come in to heal and only two spheres above. That player has to take out that generator and the two spheres.
Yes, its over simplified, but a generator with only two sphere's guarding it and no probes healing it means the playing field is levelled for the new people coming into TFO's. If they end up taking too long, or they end up being killed by the two spheres, then the player will have a recommendation not to take part in Adv/Elite TFO content because their ship is simply not up to scratch to take part in them and they will die...a lot.
If they end up being recommended not to take part in Adv and Elite, a PADD is given to them with tips on how to increase damage, general tips on how to increase health.
The gatekeeping "Captain's Review" can be taken anytime by the player as they overhaul their ship. Encouraging the newer players to push their ship further up the ladder to get into those Adv TFO's by at least increasing damage and survivability is at least one part of the puzzle. The big problem is a lot of new players go into these TFO's and have no idea just how much of a DPS centric mess they are currently in.
You cant limit the high end players, the only way around it is to encourage the new or casual player to put a bit more time into kitting out their ship so they at least have a chance to get in and get damage done. If the bottom rungs of the player ladder are not being given some sort of advice on how to keep climbing, then the gap between the DPS chasers and the general casual playing public is just going to get increasingly worse within the random TFO's.
Personally, and from a former game dev standpoint, i would enlist the help of some of the YouTube STO creators as well. Have them make a "Beginners Guide to Adv/Elite TFO's" video, with their own standpoint of making a beam based and canon based build using only mission rewards or reputation bought ship parts. Once the creators have made those videos, blast them all out on the STO website and possibly even mention them on the PADD that's given to the player telling them that its recommended they don't take part in the Adv/Elite content.
Anything to give the casual/new TFO players that helping hand up to the next rung on the ladder is a good thing, it means they are happy having a better ship, and they see the results of that little bit of extra time they have put in.
To participate in heroes ascent, players required you to have at least hero title rank 3.
To get any progression towards that title requiresd participation in heroes ascent. Anyone without rank 3 thus cannot ever participate, ever.
(Edit: As player base thinned apparently, they dropped that catch 22, simply, no one left to play who had the "requirements".)
I feared that'd happen to city of heroes when it was live, and it partly did, with the incarnate trials, thankfully, it didn't get to such an absolute extreme like guild wars, or how gear checks apparently became in WoW. Thing is, elitist gamers love to manipulate communities into these kinds of systems to maximize there win %s, if due to how big a sore losers they universally are(and often not necessarily good at the game at all, why else do they require everyone else be perfect?).
All gear check/dps check ect, if displayed to others would do, is create that extreme level of elitism and exclusion that prevents progression entirely. Its why I stated for difficulties just recomendations for player expectations of those difficulties but thats all I advocate for, we shouldn't put in things that let elitists get intrusive on others and exclude others over not "being able to stomp the difficulty and having played the difficulty a few hundred times to even qualify for said difficulty setting to begin with".
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
Yes, but simple solutions don't allow players to insist that role playing can complete a map.
Nicely said.
These tools and resources already exist.
This can be a delicate process. There is often active pushback against any form of self improvement or changes in play style. Try suggesting to a Starship Captain that perhaps they could equip or fly their ship a bit differently lol.
There are LOTS of very good guides out there from a variety of sources as well as places like "The Academy" here in this forum.
Why sure, it's just that easy
So a couple of issues. First, how do you propose they know if they're improving or not? You say leave it up to the individual player but you don't cover how they're to measure their improvement or lack of. With what you've said you're also assuming that people want to improve as well which can be a very big assumption at times.
WoW instituting the gear check, dungeon journal, and role check served several purposes. First, it gave people a way to measure themselves and where they're at currently. If a person met the gear check and role checks, then they were good to go for group content. If they didn't meet the gear and role checks, they had the dungeon journal that told them where to get the things they needed to improve, and gave them information on various mechanics so they can formulate their own plans to counter those mechanics. It removed all excuses from people seeking to do group content. If they could meet those checks, then unless something happened that was out of their control, such as internet dropping or real life issues, they had zero excuses as to why they couldn't do things in group content. They had the gear, the had the basic mechanical knowledge, and had the information available to them via dungeon journal. The checks instituted gave folks a real time check on where they were and where they needed to advance.
Now this is where I see a misconception most people have. Just to make this clear, I am not saying you specifically, but speaking in general terms when I say this. Simply because in WoW I may have qualified to step into the highest tier raids or what have you, did NOT require me to play those higher tiers, only that I could. If I wanted to play the mid tier raids because I found them more fun, I could. All those checks did was ensure that if/when I did step into the higher tier raids, I was ready for them.
So again I have to ask. How do you propose people measure themselves to know if they need to improve or not? At what point do people take a little personal responsibility for their woes in game? If I go into TFO in a cruiser that moves at the speed of smell and I get grouped with 4 people in pilot ships who zip around and kill everything before I can get there, who's fault is it I didn't get there in time, them or me? In order to mitigate the chances of that happening when joining random TFOs, I can take a ship in there that's a bit faster and save my slower ship for private runs with friends.
For every person wanting to improve their setup and being willing to do so, I've seen just as many that are stuck in their ways and unwilling to change anything. And woe be unto the person who dares suggest someone from the second group needs to change something. Had a guy that was in my fleet for awhile that we found out was part of that second group. Back when the Colony first came out, myself, an officer and a new player were going into Dranuur Gauntlet normal mode to get some colony provisions at the time. We had just helped this new person put together a build and were about to go in when the 4th guy came online. We'll call him Bob. Bob asked to go along and we thought why not, 4th guy putting provisions in. During the run we got one of the nastier foes for normal mode. myself, the pug, and my officer came close to dying a couple of times but never did. The new person died twice due to lack of experience. Bob on the other hand died 18 times in a normal mode run. After the run I went afk to get a drink before we moved on. When I came back I caught the tail end of Bob raging at my officer. Bob messaged me right after telling me what happened while my officer was telling me the same thing in voice comms. My officer asked Bob "hey dude I noticed you had a hard time staying alive in there. You died 18 times in total. Is there anything we can do to help you out?" Bob took that as an insult to him and called my officer an elitist, along with many other things I won't repeat on this forum. All because my officer dared suggest he might need help. I bring that up to say this. For every person out there who is willing to change, adapt and the like, there is another who is like Bob that refuses to change anything.
The problem with folks like Bob is that it's never their fault in their minds. It's always the rest of the team and never him. It's the people coming in with their "pay to win" builds and the like that won't let him play. If he dies more than once or twice in certain things, it's too hard and needs to be nerfed. He was never willing to take responsibility for his part in making sure he has a fun experience. Now I have no problem with people like Bob playing what they like in game, but Bob needs to stay out of content he's clearly not ready for as it negatively impacts the other people on the team. The other problem with people like Bob is they often over-estimate their own ability and the power of their builds because they play story difficulty where they can sneeze in the direction of foes and wipe entire groups. Then when they step into advanced and/or elite and they get rolled, they think something is wrong with the game when there's not.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
So a couple of things on this. You're never going to get rid of elitism 100% as there will always be those certain players that want to flex on everyone else. That's not just gaming history but human history. There will always be those certain people who think they're better than everyone else and they're somehow entitled. As to your comment regarding manipulating people to increase win percentages, what exactly are you winning in STO? I see people bring this argument up all the time as to why we shouldn't do anything, but none ever elaborates on what you're winning. With regards to player standards, people have a right to set whatever standards they want for private mode runs they are hosting. You don't have to like the standards they set, but your dislike of those standards doesn't negate their right to have them. In WoW when the GearScore addon came about and people wanting to be (choice of insult here) about my being a mix of 232 and 245 gear instead of exclusively 245, even though the game itself only required 232 across the board, I made my own groups.
Today though there is an advantage that is pretty much standard across all MMOs that didn't exist at that time, random group finder. Almost all MMOs today have them meaning you can NEVER be locked out of content if you've met the minimum standards for it. If for example lets say you wanted to do a piece of content that required 226 across the board as a minimum and you were at that 226 minimum, but all the private groups were demanding you be at 232+, all you had to do was join a random group. Where as the private groups may not take you, as is their right to exclude you, you could still get into the content. So this idea that people are going to be excluded from content because of elitist players if we instituted some kind of gear/roll checks is just bogus. If those were to be implemented and people aren't able to get in, it's because they're not meeting the minimum standards set forth by the game itself. It would be like something requiring all 226 gear, and you being in all 218 and being mad you can't get in. When the elitists find that none wants to play with them and they're not needed for people to see the content, they'll either fall in line or continue to be irrelevant.
As for being intrusive or excluding people, if a particular piece of content required everyone on the team do 50k DPS minimum and that 5th person isn't meeting that 50k minimum, they have no right to be in that TFO until they up their performance as they're not meeting the standard set forth by the game itself in that instance. It also guarantees the team will fail because they were not ready. In that instance 4 other people are negatively impacted because of the one, and that's not fair to the other 4 being expected to carry the 5th guy.
If you're expecting something to be 100% abuse proof before it's ever implemented, Cryptic may as well stop developing the game. There is no such thing as a 100% abuse proof system or feature. There are always going to be people who try to weaponize features and the like against their fellow players in some form or fashion. All you can do is minimize the issue.
As just one example, I have brought up how I wish there was an inspect player function that we could use to see what gear other people have equipped. Every time I bring that up people always jump straight to "people will just use it to shame other people who aren't as geared as them" and the like. While there are some in games like SWTOR who abuse the inspect function, if I am trying to help a guild member or even a random person that's asked for help, or accepted an offer of help, it save so much time as I can just inspect and go. There's no foolishness with having to get them in discord, get them to share their screen, have to direct them to click this, mouse over this or that, have them fumbling through menus for 30 minutes before I can even make heads or tails of what they're doing. Instead I can simply inspect what the person has, and tell them "if you want more damage, take off (thing 1) and (thing 2) then move (thing 3) to slot A and get to X amount of stat Y" and we're both on our way at that point. "Well it violates my privacy" they say next usually. Well no it doesn't because by even stepping foot into the game and running a combat log I can reverse engineer your build with 95% accuracy, and you could do the same for me. If I watch your buff icons I can tell what you're using. All that's accomplished by leaving an inspect function out of the game is making it harder to actually help people when the time comes and share information.
Lastly in regards to the loser comment, expecting someone to meet the basic minimum standards set forth by the game is not wrong and is not elitism. If it requires everyone do a minimum of 20k DPS, then expecting everyone in the run to be at 20k DPS is not elitism. If it only requires 20k DPS and someone in the group is expecting you to do 100k DPS, then that's elitism by far.
Point being if you're expecting 100% abuse proof features you're never going to see anything new.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
Oddball roles and secondary effects of gear can all too easily throw off calculations. For instance, in Defiance I used to take my starting characters into open-group content in the gated-entry endgame part of the map (Silicon Valley) and do a lot of shoot-and-scoot with a flare pistol (it was a high-arc ballistic trajectory fire-DoT weapon) and would keep lighting up the NPCs to make them panic and roll around trying to put themselves out. It is not something that shows up in damage calculations (the flare pistol was not considered a high DPS weapon though they could cause a lot of overall damage spread across a battle if handled right).
After a while the devs stopped trying to enforce the gate because it was so easy to circumvent and a lot of people did it and the gate wasn't needed anyway because people who took low-level characters there either knew how to equip for it or soon figured out something that worked for them.
I also liked to do something like that in BDO (which also has open-group content) where the high level characters would tend to keep the attention of the boss or whatever while the lower-level characters would keep the adds busy, do various other support things, and take potshots at the boss when possible. It all worked out well for everyone with no gates and the minimum of elite ego toxicity problems. And if a player was careful and sneaky enough they could mug regular npc enemies in higher level areas than they should have been in too, though killing them could take quite a while.
To have any accuracy things like gear checks generally have to depend on a very limited, highly controlled gear/skill/technique and whatever else structure, and the more rigid it is the less interesting it tends to be for a lot of players. The more variety there is the more variables there are to try to keep on top of, and trying to keep it all under control quickly gets out of hand.
And yes, there are some "Bob" types in every game, just like there are toxic elites in every game. The majority of players nowadays tend to be neither one though, so game companies do not have to cater to either of them anymore (though some choose to do so) which leaves the field open for other player types to find a game that fits their styles.
STO is an odd sort of casual blend of open-world and lobby elements mixed into a very loosely-ordered story-driven system that has significant casual social elements to it. A lot of players find that refreshing after playing more restrictive structured games, and not having rigid rails helps a lot with both roleplaying (though there is not a lot of it here) and alts (which is a major emphasis in STO, to the point that they now have events to encourage making them). Highly tiered narrowly channeled content of the type that works best with gear checks and gates is not a good fit here except maybe as a sideline of some sort (which is already in the game in an informal way via private TFOs and the like).