@protoneous uh... did you mean to put that entire thing as a quote? Cool if you did but just asking XD
"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
@protoneous uh... did you mean to put that entire thing as a quote? Cool if you did but just asking XD
No I didn't... alas. Can you figure out where I went wrong? I don't want to fuddle it up more at this point lol.
Fixed it! There was an extra "quote" tag in there towards the beginning of the post.
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
As far as believing that you are pigeonholed into piloting a specific class of ship, I cannot say where people get that idea from. As far as I know, the game does not tell you that you are stuck on any particular class of ship. Quite the opposite in my experience as that is one way Cryptic sells more ships.
That one I can tell you. It comes primarily from two places - the Trinity build of most MMOs, where healers get healer gear, tanks get tank gear, and so on; and from these forums.
And again, this bifurcates. Part one is the insistence that once held in these forums (which, thankfully, fell to the wayside a few years ago) that one's specialty should dictate one's ship - "a science captain is best in a science ship". Easily disproved with a little gameplay, but it was a prevailing opinion for a time anyway. Part two is the sensible statement that your gear should be of a type. Unfortunately, some folks misinterpret that as meaning that your gear should be be the same "type" that your character is (see Trinity, above), where it's meant to indicate that if you're running, say, antiproton, you should ideally have all antiproton weapons, and consoles that support increasing antiproton damage. (One of my captains is a Sci who is currently flying an escort with polaron weapons and consoles because she got so many of them from Reputation boxes. Those Sci skills come in handy sometimes.)
So, somehow those knowledgeable players (that must have done a lot of practicing, parsing, testing, and math) knew about all these predictable things newbies do and perhaps even how they think.
Here in the forums, over a period of many years, they patiently delivered they same message as I raged and screamed about being the Captain of my own ship and ranted about their abuse of the fancy P2W lockbox stuff. They backed this up by giving the same small bits of advice in-game and by ensuring that whenever they were part of a team that having fun was job #1
They even addressed my "stubborn" behavior in small and gentle ways over time so as to not upset my entire apple cart all at once.
Am certainly grateful for their patience and good cheer and am glad that over time I decided to take some of their advice to heart, one step at a time. It can be hard to break old habits but it sure does make the game a whole lot easier.
Great example of how player knowledge worked better than any arbitrary gear score would.
The sharing of player knowledge and experience CAN work very well but depends upon (in part) whether or not a player is willing to try different things.
Speaking only for myself it seems there was some barriers in place that I needed to reckon with prior to expanding my game play options.
As a longer term player, sometimes making changes seemed pretty tough as I had to overcome a lot of habits I had formed as well as assumptions I had made on how things "should" work based upon watching Star Trek on television for decades.
It is not rocket science to understand humans learn through trying and failing and through trial and error.
You are advocating for an arbitrary gear ranking system based on the premise players do not know what they are doing due to the game not being not informative enough to educate them. Players struggling to complete content or defeat NPCs are going to come to the realization that something is not right organically. Either they decide to try and make a change and improve or they do not. See this recent post here on the forums by @colonelmarik. He explains his difficulties in completing a particular mission and seeks the advice of his fellow players. This is just one example, and you should know in threads like that there is always more than one way to approach a problem.
A couple of things on this point. First, I am aware of the thread you mentioned and answered in that thread what I did to get past the mission. I also asked what he was using for equipment and modules in that thread because whether one likes it or not, the quality of your gear and what you actually chose to use has a huge impact on your performance. A mk xii very rare phaser simply is not going to have the potential of a mk xv gold phaser. In that instance, knowing what kind of captain he was, along with equipment he's using and had available was going to tailor my advice accordingly. Thankfully it seems he has since gotten past that level and no further issues were had from the looks of it. If I am wrong on that point he's welcome to say. In that context yes there is more than one way to approach the issue as he asked how other people got through it. Colonelmarik also wanted some kind of help where as many more simply don't.
Second, you're tunnel vision focusing on one part of what I advocated in the gear check and ignoring that I paired it with a role check and a dungeon journal. It assumes all 3 pieces are in use. It's not purely an arbitrary thing trying to exclude people, but giving people a reality check straight out of the gate so they have an idea of if they're ready for certain content or not. None of this waiting around and slamming your head against a wall for ages like @protoneous did or had to do until he realized what he was doing wasn't working. The game will straight up tell you that you're ready or that you're not ready. If a person is ready then great. If you're not ready then it gives you the knowledge of where to go to get gear should you need it, and where you failed the role check. It ensures they are ready for the higher tier content they want to go into, thus saving them a ton of aggravation wondering if they're ready, and also potential groupmates. If that person gets into a group and has issues you know it's one of 3 things going on, they have something going on outside of their control, they're still learning the mechanics at which time you can answer questions easier, or they're simply not trying.
Third, the gear check, role check, and dungeon journal in WoW were not arbitrary, but coincided with the minimum standards set forth by the game itself. If content required you to do 20k DPS as a minimum to clear it, the gear check required you to have gear that would give you the stats to meet this goal, the role check ensured you had the knowledge of your class to do so, and the dungeon journal supplied you with mechanical information to do so. Essentially they became a basic boot camp of sorts.
And yes, as elitist as it I'm sure some will say it sounds, there are alot of people in this game that simply do not know what they're doing. The game simply does not offer the kind of information and education in its operation that you give it credit for.
Sure, there are some who will throw up their hands and give up. Let them. These are not the kind of people I personally would want to team with anyway and an arbitrary gear score is not going to do anything to change their mind. If "Bob" is arguing with and unwilling to take the advice of a supposed fleetmate about improving their build, no arbitrary gear score is going to help him.
I also wanted to add that for every patient and helpful person out there who is willing to help out a fellow player, there is an elitist jerk. My own personal experience with raiding guilds in MMORPGs like WoW are more interested in using you to help their friends out than helping you achieve goals. They use things like gear scores to discriminate against other players. Not long ago, there was a thread on the CoH HC forums where quite a few people were discussing how they refuse to invite people to their teams if they do not have a specific badge count or specific accomplishment badge. Tools like gear scores do more to attract and foster these kinds of ignorant attitudes.
I used the name Bob because to outright give the guy's name would be naming and shaming. I still have photos of one of his builds from the time he was in my fleet and also a message log from the night he flipped out on my officer. Should he ever return and try to ask for help I have grounds to say "are you going to listen this time or are you going to flip out like last time."
Now with that said I'm glad you agree nothing is going to change the mind of people like Bob and you don't want to group with people like that. Which is all the more reason you should support adding the gear check, role check, and dungeon journal as it filters out people like Bob anyways until one of two things happen. They either swallow their pride and realize they're not Q's gift to the game like they thought they were and they then try to improve, or they give up and quit the game. Either is a win as I don't like grouping with people like that either. These 3 tools filter out people like Bob before they can ever use the random group finder to start with since they won't pass the checks due to their own stubbornness.
Now with regards to your mention of the CoH HC forums, what you're describing are private groups of people. Those private groups are free to set whatever standards they wish for their private runs, no matter how ridiculous you or I might think they are. If people don't like those standards, they are free to go elsewhere or form their own groups with like minded people. With as much as I've seen you preach about people being social and people like myself who would qualify as high DPSers forming our own groups, I'm surprised you of all people are bringing this up as an objection to new features. The only power those people have is over their own private groups. Just like in WoW when people gave me grief after the gear score addon was introduced, I formed my own groups. Then later when the random group finder was added, I just pressed the find group button and ignored the elitists.
Again no feature will ever be 100% abuse proof and elitists will always find a way to be elitists no matter what you do. However the benefits of instituting the Gear Check, Role Check, and Dungeon Journal far outweigh the potential risks. Further on this point, with the ability to form your own private groups and the ability to use the random group finder, the only way you can be locked out of content is if you choose to lock yourself out. There is also one last thing I should mention, the Gear Check, Role Check, and Dungeon Journal only applied to random group finder groups. If you had a full team of 5 people that wanted form their own private group, the game would generally still let people in the door even if they didn't meet the gear or role checks, they just couldn't random group their way in the door.
Another of Bob's many exploits was always staying angry with me that I would never take him on any of the fleet Battle of Korfez runs until he improved his builds and damage output. I told Bob many times that when he improved his builds and damage output and demonstrated to me that he had, I would gladly take him on the run. Until he could do so I wasn't going to waste the fleet's time or his since it would just auto-fail. Idk what the actual auto-fail DPS check is for Korfez but let's assume it was 50k. Bob at the time would've been lucky to break 20k. I offered to help him get to the 50k after I told him he wasn't yet ready, but he instead called me an elitist. Ignorance is Bob knowing he wasn't ready for the TFO but demanding I take him anyways. I find that far more infuriating than a guy being a tool because he's 5 points higher than me on the gear metric. If that's how dude wants to measure his success then cool. Otherwise how sad of an existence he must lead that he's measuring his life accomplishments purely by what he does in a video game.
Hard disagree on this one. If the game provides as much information as you say, then why is it so many people come out of the tutorial and otherwise not knowing how to set their weapons to auto-fire as just one glaring example? Why do so many people think that if you're a tactical toon, you have to use tac only ships or some similar combination? Why do so many people think that if a ship comes with a beam array, torpedo, dual bank, and single cannon up front that's how the ship has to be played?
You are adding much more into what I said. Please go back and re-read my post and take note of where I use words like basic and rudimentary to describe the information provided by the game. I did not say the game provides an overabundant wealth of detailed information.
As I recall, the tutorial does explain how to enable auto-fire, so if the player did not take the time to read it or hid the admittedly annoying pop-up help window that explains it, that is on them. As far as believing that you are pigeonholed into piloting a specific class of ship, I cannot say where people get that idea from. As far as I know, the game does not tell you that you are stuck on any particular class of ship. Quite the opposite in my experience as that is one way Cryptic sells more ships.
I said what I did on this part because it goes to my point. You make some pretty massive assumptions about how people will easily pick up on some of these extremely basic concepts because as you say, the game isn't hard to figure out. Yet many times over people don't. Too many people come out not knowing very basic things that you or I have known for years. I will continue to use the example of auto-fire on weapons as that is a godsend, but far too many don't know about it. Far too many people also think that if a ship comes with a beam array, dual bank, torpedo and single cannon up front, that's how the ship has to be played. Far too many people think that if you're a tactical captain you're only allowed to fly tactical ships, science is only allowed science, and engineering is only allowed engineering ships. You and I both know that's not the case in either situation, but the average players don't because the game does NOTHING to dispel these myths. For that matter the game doesn't even explain the difference between a +15% Bonus Phaser damage and +15% Phaser damage, and that's a HUGE one.
The point to bringing that up was to show that the information isn't as widespread and out there as you're wanting to believe. I wish it was and that more people knew about autofire coming out of the gate, and the myth about tactical only flying tactical and such wasn't so prevalent but it is.
I did not say it was, so no idea where you are getting that from. I merely suggested that the information provided is showing higher values for higher tier and higher quality equipment to provide the player with a basic understanding of gear and tier progression.
Never said that you did, but made the general statement and explained why that number is deceptive as it sits without further context.
You are correct that many players do not know all of the various intricacies of how weapons and consoles and stat multipliers work. I certainly did not when I first started playing. I did do my own research though to learn what I could, just as many others who want to learn will do. We all figured this stuff out without an arbitrary gear score system too.
Again you're tunnel visioning one part of a 3 part system as though the gear check is the only part of what I suggested when it's just one component of a larger machine. You're tunnel visioning one thing like it's the only thing I suggested when it's not. You need to step back and look at the entirety of what I suggested and not just the one part.
Now you and I may have figured certain things out, but that's because we wanted to and chose to. Again I do not expect people to know everything starting out. However there are some major things that the game should be teaching that it doesn't, such as the difference between a +15% Bonus Phaser Damage and +15% Phaser Damage. The game doesn't tell you the bonus damage is the higher boost or why. So a new player will not know the difference and could trade in their cat2 bonuses for all cat1. You and I doing things on our own are the exception and not the rule.
The dungeon journal would be a source for this basic knowledge that exists in game people can go to when they want to learn, or even just refer back to things. The gear check and role check give them a goal to work towards while also verifying they've learned what they have been reading. All of it goes together.
I do not at all disagree there is always room for improvement, but I would rather players do most of the detailed research and reporting on their own and leave Cryptic to developing actual content. The game changes often enough that it would be cumbersome for Cryptic to maintain detailed information. Players are going to do a far better job on it than any developer would anyway. No offense meant to the developers. Part of the community in MMORPGs are the players dedicated to a game that post information online for others to use and enjoy.
The problem again is that alot of people simply won't do the research and seek out the information outside the game as they view it as too much work. The dungeon journal only has to be compiled the initial time and afterwards it's as simple as updating text if/when something changes. Anytime they change what an ability does or something along those lines they have to change the tooltip anyways. It's as simple as copy/paste those changes to the dungeon journal as well. Maybe 5 seconds. Also fundamentals like the difference between cat1 and cat2 damage, autofire for weapons and the like won't be changing anytime soon. You're also assuming the dungeon journal would outright say "do X Y Z" when that's not the case at all. It simply gives you the basic information to form plans and strategies. Such as telling you the difference between cat1 and cat2 boosting, how to autofire weapons, where to get certain gear, and the abilities of certain foes. From there it's up to you to form your strategy.
Cryptic already has to maintain a large amount of info anyways in the form of ability tooltips and the like. All that's being done is copy/pasting it to one additional place. Nothing is stopping players from expanding on this with additional content outside of the game.
When it comes to knowing someone needs to improve, if it's left to the individual player, again who or what is going to tell them this? Who or what is going to tell them they're on the right track or no they're not?
I have already answered this. Players who cannot complete content or are struggling with certain things are going to know something is not right and something needs to change. As to who is going to help them, there are fleets, public chat channels, websites, social media etc. Researching, taking in information, trying different things through trial and error will teach them whether they are on the right track or not.
Except you didn't answer it, you gave a vague half answer. If the goal is for the player to improve and things are left up to the player, who or what is going to tell them they need to improve? Yes not being able to clear content is the most obvious way to know if they need to improve. However, what of the people who are able to clear content, but wish to improve further? How are they to measure their improvement or lack of? If a guy swaps out a console from what he had before and goes into content but can't tell if there is a difference in his performance or not, how is he to verify said difference or lack of? I'm asking you for specific metrics.
Good. Let people fail. It is perfectly OK to fail. That is a very clear indication for them that something they are doing is not right. There is absolutely nothing wrong with failing so long as you learn from it.
I'm glad you said this because it goes right along with what I've said. I'm all for letting people do the trial and error method, but not at the cost of entire groups failing time after time after time because one guy refuses to learn or get better.
Guys like Bob for example can do the trial and error bit in the Role Check map until he gets it right without subjecting 4 other people to his experimentation. Let him get his basics in order first before he attempts to join random groups. Once his basics are in order, it's a simple matter of mechanics. I have no issues helping folks learn mechanics, but I despise people who knowingly come into maps expecting a carry.
Well no, that is not really what I said. My question was more about asking if people with high DPS builds really need to bring their high DPS build into Normal event content. Doing so is clearly overkill. Some high DPS builds are complete overkill for Advanced level TFOs too.
Are some builds overkill for certain maps, absolutely. However that does not negate the right of that person to take that overkill build into content. Difficulty level is irrelevant to them having that right. Also the kind of high DPS builds you're talking about are extremely rare. Most of the playerbase is 50k DPS and below. At best maybe 20% of the playerbase is above 50k. Of that 20% that's above 50k DPS, maybe 1% are above 300k. Do I believe people are encountering those types of builds in the normals, of course. Do I believe it's as widespread of an issue people try to make it out to be, not even close. With that said, if I am forced into normal mode content for an event, I'm ending that map as quickly as I can so I can get in and get out and not linger longer than necessary.
You seem to be confused by this part of the discussion. What difficulty is being run is the important part here. Again, is a high DPS build really needed to end Normal difficulty event content in literal seconds? No, it really is not. Should you bring a low end, sub par build to run Elite level content? No, absolutely not. Do you understand how the door goes both ways here?
Also, corralling others into higher DPS builds is not making an already problematic situation any better. It is just making more players with higher DPS that will vaporize the content even faster. I do not believe this is what Cryptic intends to happen. They may as well just create "I Win" buttons for everyone that clears a map with no effort and gives out rewards for free. Some players actually want to enjoy piloting their ships in combat and events and/or TFOs ending in under 30 seconds is not providing any enjoyment for them. Building for higher DPS to speed through content is not a sustainable solution overall. The game will eventually need content designed for and balanced around higher performing builds.
And here's where I guarantee I'm going to get accused of hypocrisy. It does go both ways, but not how you think it does. So long as people are meeting the minimum standards set forth by the game itself, be it by just barely making it or exceeding those standards by light years, they have a right to be in that TFO. If they are not meeting those standards, they have no right to be in that TFO until they do. That person who has the build capable of ending a map in seconds has just as much right to enter normal mode TFOs as does the person with a less DPS focused build. If a higher level TFO requires someone to do 50k DPS and someone is doing exactly 50k DPS, then they have just as much right to be in that higher level TFO as the guy doing 500k. On the opposite side of the coin, if that person seeking to enter our hypothetical TFO requiring 50k DPS is only doing 25k DPS, they have no right to be in that TFO yet.
Now you might say "but wait that's a double standard", but actually it's not. The 25k DPS guy has no right to be in there because he's not meeting the minimum standards set forth by the game itself, which is the 50k DPS. Once he meets that requirement, he has every right to be in there. Until they meet that standard however he doesn't. I am applying an equal standard to both sides, just not in the way you like. Anyone meeting the minimum level set forth by the game itself has a right to be in there, whether they're right at the minimum level or light years ahead of it. At the same time I am also giving people a method and path of progression to reach that minimum standard.
If our hypothetical player gets to the 50k DPS minimum and decides not to shoot for additional DPS, that is his right not to take his builds higher. If on the opposite end of the coin he wants to shoot for 500k, he is free to do so. I am not now nor have I ever suggested everyone has to push to get every last one and zero out of their ship. I am however arguing that people need to meet a certain basic standard, and that standard is the minimum set by the game itself to clear the content. So long as the minimum standards have been met, the guys at the minimum are under no obligation to bring their numbers up, and the folks light years ahead are under no obligation to bring their numbers down.
With that last bit being about power creep, it's going to happen in any MMO. As cryptic releases new powers and abilities, people are going to get stronger and stronger over time, especially if they don't update the already existing content to take the new powers into account. I'll give you an example that was used to argue against flying mounts continuing to exist in WoW by one of their devs over there. "Suppose you have a quest that required you to enter a castle and rescue a person. In the era before flight you would run into the castle and fight your way through 30 mobs, click the cage and free the person. In the era of flight, you can land on the roof and click the cage through the roof without ever having to fight the 30 mobs, which is bypassing content." And yes they actually tried to call that bypassing content and used their lack of updating the content as grounds to argue against a feature.
Being that I've got some experience creating content for games, even though I'm not a AAA studio developer, I suggested a fix to their hypothetical scenario that took both sides into account. From their scenario, that told me the quest had never been updated to account for flying mounts being a thing and had stayed the same for years. It also told me that those 30 mobs were not part of the quest objectives but were simply trash mobs meant to slow you down, and that the cage didn't have a key. My solution was for them to change the quest to require a key for opening the cage and incorporating the 30 mobs into the quest objectives. The key could drop off the first guy, and it may not drop until the 30th guy, or make it so the person is afraid to come out until all 30 mobs have been dealt with, but in that situation you have made sure people fight the mobs while simultaneously giving them a second means of approaching the quest. Do they run in the front door like ye old school people, or do they approach from the air?
I'm a strong proponent of bringing the content to meet the players when and where possible. I consider nerfing to be a last resort. Less is often more when dealing with this stuff.
While this may be true for a select few people, I definitely would not agree it is true of everyone. There is a lot of nuance to this discussion.
Again strongly disagree. If someone's first thought is to jump straight into demanding DPS limits on everyone else while refusing to acknowledge their own part in their gaming woes, they are every bit the problem. Neither myself or anyone else is under an obligation to nerf ourselves because another person is doing the bare minimum and getting left in the dust as a result. Time and time again I see people complaining about things being too hard or having an issue with something, and 90% of the time it's their own fault for something they're doing or not doing. This is why when someone asks for help one of the first things I do is ask them what their build looks like as it's the obvious first step. Are they using a basic cohesive build? If they are then great, we can move on to tactics. If tactics are good then we move on to other areas such as if there is a bug preventing progress. If a person says "(thing) is too hard" and I ask them what they're running and how they're approaching it, and their first reaction is to instantly jump to "my build and tactics aren't the problem it's just too hard" then that tells me the person isn't interested in getting help at all, but just wants to whine and rant. I can deal with people who are having a rough time and are irritated but legitimately seeking help, but I have no time for whiners who aren't willing to help themselves and want me and everyone else to do everything for them.
This is part of why I advocate for the Gear Check, Role Check, and Dungeon journal. It sets clear and transparent standards of what people will need at the minimum level to succeed in higher level content, while also giving them a path to get there if they're not currently there. It removes all excuses from people while maintaining a transparent and objective view of a person's progress. If someone meets the gear check, but isn't clearing the roll check, then something they're doing or not doing is the problem and yes, it is on them. If the person meets all the checks and can't clear something, we know one of a few things is happening. Either something outside their control like internet issues, they need to bone up on or get used to certain mechanics a bit more which will come with time, or they're simply not trying.
So for me if people say they want things to change, yet all the time find excuses as to why changing anything can't or won't work, then I'm left with no other conclusion than to assume they don't want change. They enjoy the status quo and like to complain.
"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 glossed over a lot of the wall o' text posts, to the point of TL;DR. that said, some of the points I got were, Too bad you don't do a zillion DPS, it's on you to "git gud." I did not see much on how to fix it (which is obvious, make advanced and elite versions of every6thing released as a special event. It was said before, start pugging matching based on a average DPS score. as I think about that, it should be a 7, 14 or 30 day average.
None of this waiting around and slamming your head against a wall for ages like @protoneous did or had to do until he realized what he was doing wasn't working.
In this particular case I'll happily let myself be used as an example
In retrospect my game play would have been more enjoyable sooner if perhaps I had spent less time complaining and being stubborn and more time trying a few small changes in game.
What does gear checks have to do with the OP? if you want gear checks for advanced and elite content, fine, but it's not germane
to the OP. what does pertain is the lack of harder versions.
What does gear checks have to do with the OP? if you want gear checks for advanced and elite content, fine, but it's not germane
to the OP. what does pertain is the lack of harder versions.
The OP complains about there being too much dps in the game and how they can't get a shot off to contribute because of this that or the other. I have asserted it's not a game issue but a player issue and folks need to take some responsibility for their own woes in the game. Others have advocated DPS limits to which I have advocated people need to be responsible for themselves instead of expecting others to nerf themselves on their behalf. I advocated a gear check, role check, and dungeon journal as a means of prepping people for content since the entire discussion sounds like bad luck of the draw and people not being ready for content.
In other words for people having issues of not being able to contribute, I am advocating 3 changes to get people ready and able to contribute if they're not currently and make sure they know where to get gear.
"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
• Re-use some of the code from the Crystalline Entity TFO to enhance other TFOs by offering rewards to top participants using weights that include healing contributions. Consider giving credit for the percentage of damage received as well. This will make healing and tanking viable options. And make those rewards mark/dilithium based to incentivize the whales to diversify their efforts a bit.
• Adjust the Romulan Minefield TFO to prevent anyone from approaching the final encounter before all stations have been repaired. And/or weight station repair over damage dealt. You could handle the proximity problem by teleporting anyone approaching the final encounter back the the rendezvous point.
Personally, I would prefer to avoid randoms. But I run them out of necessity right now. It’s either that or spend more time playing mini-games such as doffing, admiralty, rep hourlies, & mining. It is more fun to fly a ship than to do any of those things IMHO.
I'm still not understanding how that can be the case? the whole, not getting a shot in within the event. The event instances are pretty wide open so it's not possible not to be able to get any shot at any dps.
Maybe it's hyperbole?
Well whatever the case I still don't find conversations about DPS and powercreep to be all that productive to the zeitgeist, because you can not change what was unintended and can only moderate what was intended. You will always fall into one of four camps. The aggressor, the defender, the helper, and the watcher.
If players would want a more productive conversation on the same topic, wouldn't it be more constructive to post a thread along the lines of
"I am struggling with my dps in the current event, does anyone know how I can remedy this quickly?"
or
"What's the current meta that a newer player can do quickly and cheaply to catch up to current players."
Things along those lines that aren't blaming or slandering or building animosity between people and such would literally lead to the same conversation you are currently having but will be more focused towards sharing information that will be helpful to new and old players.
Players would be more apt to share their thoughts, skills, and experiences. Such as what traits are working still and which are not, which effects are good on weapons, which consoles are good and which are not. What ship is worth it to get now and what can wait. What hanger pets can be useful or not. How to manage your money by setting goals to target and what items are worth the early look. I've been itching to explain to players how to do a 60% haste Befaw (Possible Befaw 2 - 3) with 0 weapons energy drain for pretty cheap. well cheapish.... i guess... its relative.
You could literally slide in your experiences in the events and your issues and people would be more sympathetic and eager to provide answers that you can try.
since these types of conversations will actually get you the help you need instead of the argument you don't.
What does gear checks have to do with the OP? if you want gear checks for advanced and elite content, fine, but it's not germane
to the OP. what does pertain is the lack of harder versions.
The OP complains about there being too much dps in the game and how they can't get a shot off to contribute because of this that or the other. I have asserted it's not a game issue but a player issue and folks need to take some responsibility for their own woes in the game. Others have advocated DPS limits to which I have advocated people need to be responsible for themselves instead of expecting others to nerf themselves on their behalf. I advocated a gear check, role check, and dungeon journal as a means of prepping people for content since the entire discussion sounds like bad luck of the draw and people not being ready for content.
In other words for people having issues of not being able to contribute, I am advocating 3 changes to get people ready and able to contribute if they're not currently and make sure they know where to get gear.
While I agree with some of what you are saying like no DPS caps, its a game issue as well, not just a player issue. If we exclude the new players are who still levelling up I believe you are underestimating power creep, the amount of higher DPS players and level of DPS the average veteran player does.
There has been a big rise in power creep and DPS increase over the past 6 months to a year with a corresponding large increase to peak DPS numbers. 300k to 600k used to be special pre made group with nannies, now that's an every day build. 1 million used to be the top end now that's nothing special. The maps are just not designed for that level of DPS and these people are being pushed into normal maps for events.
Power creep is so high we are now at a stage where 1 single hanger pet can hit that 50k DPS number you are talking about and 2 bays is within the 1% player base 300k number you picked yet along talking about the ships main weapons or Sci powers.
As a high DPS player myself I am starting to see AFK penalties to myself and none of your player ideas will solve that. In the recent Defend Star Base One Event I was forced into normal and multiple times got hit with AFK penalty and who knows how many other players I caused to get AFK penalties. As even the hangar pets where mass destroying everything yet alone main weapons. There just wasn't enough NPC's with enough hit points for the entire team to contribute enough in at least 3 of the event runs.
In the past I was fully on board with saying its a player issue. But now power creep is so high its starting to become a game issue that is steadily getting worse.
Sweet baby Kahless, can we stop with the walls of text, please?
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“You have no choice really as that is all that is available. The question is more about what is most courteous to other players, especially those who are not looking for matches to end in literal seconds and would like to enjoy the content. “
One of the reasons I don’t scale back my DPS is we have no control on the type of group we are going to be in for Events and random. I always take enough DPS to cover the other 4 players being useless and doing nothing. Its not that I expect the other 4 players to be useless but it happens and someone needs to cover there below DPS requirements for the TFO. This is where I agree with darkbladejk about having some sort of gear or DPS check.
If I scale back my DPS then I cannot cover the underperforming players which can make the entire TFO experience worse for everyone in the TFO. But if I don’t scale back my DPS I am overperforming when the other 4 people are hitting the TFO DPS requirements. Since the groups are random, I am swinging between over performing with DPS and having the right amount of DPS without changing my setup all depending on the group members. There is no way to know this beforehand, by the time I see the DPS log to work out what level of DPS I needed for that random group its to late.
One could argue the other side of the coin that it’s not courteous for those players to be under performing and dragging out the TFO or even making the TFO fail. Plus, if a player wants to finish a TFO as fast as possible “Speed Running” is an acceptable thing to do. In a random group you have to accept that other players will be playing differently to a different goal. That’s why we have private groups for when you want to play a TFO in a set way.
An example that happened just days ago. I was running the Breach Event and was inside the Breach clearing out the first area with the mini cores while 2 other players where still flying around outside despite the Breach warp button. By the time they got inside the rest of us was practically ready to finish blowing up the finial core room and make our way out. Not because we were rushing the inside because they were flying painfully slow down the trench and ignoring the warp button. I cannot remember if it was an ISE or ISA but there was one run where another player barely pulled 4k DPS which is totally unacceptable for that type of TFO. This is two examples where STO could do with a gear or DPS check system of some sorts to let the player know they are under performing for that TFO requirements.
Hitting a player with an AFK penalty isn’t really helping as the player might not even know why they got hit with an AFK penalty. A player can run a TFO have no indication of their own performance, no idea they are under performing and then they get hit by an AFK penalty with no idea why. Its not a good system in that regards. I am with you that sometimes the problem is 1 player doing to much DPS, just trying to look at the other side of the coin and how some sort of DPS or gear check might help.
I admit I have my concerns about a gear check system. But some sort of system or guidance could be helpful for the players doing 5k in an advanced TFO. I always liked the player score ranking with rewards linked to player performance that we used to get in TFO’s. I really do miss SB24 it was far better the Defend Starbase 1. This score system used to be linked to team support, healing not just DPS. No idea why that score system was removed. It used to encourage players to get better to earn better rewards while not punishing those that did poorly as they still got the base reward. It was nice having a ranking system that players could choose to engage in and see how they are preforming relative to other players.
Is there something in the forum rules about responses being below a certain length? I am happy to abide by it if there is such a rule.
No, it's just... geezus! I feel like I've run a marathon after reading some of these posts. LOL 😅
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Ya, agreed with op, couldn't read everything in here, i suppose making all tfo missions a single player patrol would be fine with me. I love co-op game play, and it isn't co-op game play if only one player is zooming around insta popping everything. So ya I'd rather play alone than not play a mission at all because its over before it started. I certainly miss the older tfo/stf's anyways, but some of those would have to change some because there was objectives that required team play. I also wouldn't have to put up with the ridiculous amount of ground/space vfx and sfx. All i've been playing (when i play), for a few months now, is story and patrol missions because of the power creep and vfx/sfx.
<image x3>
Just my own two quatloos, but I seriously doubt Cryptic finds Advanced level TFOs like this being doing so quickly acceptable.
Val, some feedback from my own perspective on the three parses you posted..
1) It's not "advanced level TFO's" (emphasis plural TFO's) but just "one single" advanced level map (ISA) that's gets completed very quickly at times. Just to clarify and again from my own perspective.
2) I doubt Cryptic has any issues with players using Infected Space Advanced as a parsing map.
3) Of the three parses you posted there was possibly one afk handed out for a player doing 3.75 K.
4) In some of those parses players doing a smaller amount of damage actually took a significant amount of threat and damage in. They might have even been working with the dps leader in order to multiply the level of the dps leader's magnificence, it's tough to say.
5) The way in which damage multiplies as a number of small changes are made in a player's mobility, timing, actuation, piloting, etc. is simply quite amazing. So to me, the parses you've posted don't scream nerf these "outlier players" at all, but rather impress upon me the level of piloting they've achieved and cause me to review my own list of areas in which I could improve my own piloting.
6) To me, there is nothing wrong at all with players doing 197.87, 249.69 or 354.18 K dps on this particular advanced map.
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. 🤷♀️
Ok, now that is one of the funniest things I have heard, but it absolutely doesn't surprise me. Those nebulas were freaking awesome though, I will miss them. Especially when they had hidden random exploration planets that popped up.
@pottsey5g question for you - how often are you seeing players doing subpar DPS in TFOs? From what I can see in parse results, and I run a fair amount of RTFOs every day (at least a dozen or more), players doing less than 10K DPS are rare. Most seem to be falling into the 15 to 30K average range.
I absolutely agree it is just as discourteous for players with clearly under powered builds to cause a TFO to fail. How often is that really happening though? Are you talking about failing optional conditions on Advanced TFOs or true fail conditions on Elite TFO runs?
Gear checks will not work for the reasons I pointed about above in that they are easily circumvented. Same with journals and such.
It is rare, its hard to say precisely as I don't keep track of combat logs unless I am gathering data on a project. I would say for any given TFO I would come across multiple overpowered players for every single under performing player. It feels like the majority of players hit the minimum DPS requirements for the TFO's being played.
Outside of Events I tend to stick to Elite so I see an average of more like 100k+ per player. In events well it depends on the map as maps with long pauses between combats naturally report a lower overall DPS. The Breach with how its designed will have a way lower DPS average then say Defend Star Base One. But we can still spot the players on either end of the DPS spread.
EDIT: "Are you talking about failing optional conditions on Advanced TFOs or true fail conditions on Elite TFO runs?"
Yes advanced and Elite for the most part. Normal is pretty much impossible to fail.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,442Community Moderator
Back when Delta Rising came out, Advanced DID have fail conditions.
They were WAY too easy to troll, and I myself have been a victim of someone purposefully failing an Infected Run. I believe it was set up like this.
Normal: No fail conditions, optionals.
Advanced: Normal Optionals become Mandatory with fail condition, new optionals.
Elite: Advanced Optionals become mandatory with fail conditions.
Back then I was in a run where someone decided to BLATANTLY troll us by "looking for his spec point". We all went left as per usual operating procedure in Infected... he went right and popped one of the Generators. "Nope. Not here," he said, and started flying around while we're SCRAMBLING to prevent the Nanite ships from repairing, which would fail us.
We failed, got the 30 minute cooldown, and no rewards. Troll got his lulz at our expense.
I personally am not a fan of fail conditions, especially ones that are way too easy to exploit.
This argument can be done both ways though. There is plenty of people in Advanced TFO's who don't belong there. Some don't know what to do, others do so little dps they can't get anything to blow ect... But nobody cares about that fact all they want is get pulled through so they get more marks and rep token. I do encounter those way more of then then any of those DPS Kings, but that is because I don't just play Borg TFO's I usually do randoms.
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I wrote a long post about this a long time ago with some solutions, and posted it, but it I got a message saying awaiting moderation and it just disappeared for some reason. It wasn't controversial so I don't know what happened there.
I don't think there is too much dps in the game, the problem is people geared for elite content are playing advanced TFOs because the elite TFO queues hardly ever pop. So what choice do you have but play advanced TFOs or play on a weaker alt. Thing is for those that have invested a lot of resources buying top tier ships, ships for traits and consoles, doffs, and bridge officer usually want to play with their most powerful ship setup. This leads to some elite captains playing advanced and blowing through advanced content in secs while advanced geared guys barely (if a all) fire a shot off. I know because I was one of the people on my main elite sci character who did this sometimes. I've also been on the other side of it on an advanced alt that barely managed to shoot anything due to someone else doing the same thing.
This is fairly easy to demonstrate. If you list all the space elites (and even ground elites) only in the task force panel and select all Elite TFOs, then wait. You'll can find yourself waiting for 2hrs + without any elite pug TFOs starting. I know because I've tried this several times to test this out.
I'm not sure what the game population is currently, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't help.
I've played STO for about 10 years on and off. There was a time elite pug queues (mainly borg space ones) would pop all the time. This slowly reduced to what it is today. Back then even if about 3-4 players were under geared for an elite, the other 1-2 could carry the win. Now if a space elite pops it usually results in a wipe because about 4 people aren't geared enough, but also it seems no one knows/reads the conditions that come up that tell you what you have to complete in order to avoid the TFO from failing outright.
Possible solutions (Space only):
(1) The jump between Advanced space TFOs and Elite is massive. This has been said many times in the past. It really feels like there should be a another TFO level between the two that have a lot less fail conditions, or conditions that are more easily met. A possible danger of this to risk spreading the player population even more thinly.
(2) I think the Elite TFO conditions should be re-worked for pugging. I mean there isn't really any point to elites if no one is playing them or a tiny amount of private queue guys are the only ones doing them, and let's face it, even then it's 95% ISE for dps parsing. Even that has dropped like a stone on the dps chat channels - I used to put teams together there. It would be nice to then have a random join elite setting too.
(3) Or here's a wild card. Elite space trials which if completed successfully with a particular captain on a particular ship with the gear/traits/doffs/ they used will grant that Captain elite combat ready status for that ship only (some special effect denoting this or a special icon by name). Some gear etc. would be permitted. This will allow only elite captains to queue for elite space TFOs. The trials will be arduous soloable mini versions of the full elites, where the same or similar fail conditions exist, which will not only tests the captain's tactical responses, flying skills, but also their ability to read and follow the conditions. Obviously this would require a lot thought especially concerning gear, but the point would be that you could join an elite and know you are teaming with people who are a similar level and know the elite.
Back when Delta Rising came out, Advanced DID have fail conditions.
They were WAY too easy to troll, and I myself have been a victim of someone purposefully failing an Infected Run. I believe it was set up like this.
Normal: No fail conditions, optionals.
Advanced: Normal Optionals become Mandatory with fail condition, new optionals.
Elite: Advanced Optionals become mandatory with fail conditions.
Back then I was in a run where someone decided to BLATANTLY troll us by "looking for his spec point". We all went left as per usual operating procedure in Infected... he went right and popped one of the Generators. "Nope. Not here," he said, and started flying around while we're SCRAMBLING to prevent the Nanite ships from repairing, which would fail us.
We failed, got the 30 minute cooldown, and no rewards. Troll got his lulz at our expense.
I personally am not a fan of fail conditions, especially ones that are way too easy to exploit.
For me fail conditions are what make TFO's rewarding and have a feeling of accomplishment when successfully complicated. Fail condition improve the experience at least for me. Its the auto win, you cannot fail TFO's that I find unsatisfactory to play as there is no feeling of reward just an easy handout. Saying that I don't mind fail conditions being Elite only as fail condition should be for more challenging TFO's.
Saying all this I don't like or agree with the 30 minuet cooldown on failing a TFO. That needs removing. In fact the entire AFK system needs looking at as I think it does more harm then good. I am not even sure why a TFO needs to go on a 30min cooldown when you complete it. Just what is the point of that other then to frustrate players in limiting what TFO's they can run.
I do encounter those way more of then then any of those DPS Kings, but that is because I don't just play Borg TFO's I usually do randoms.
Borg TFOs are included in the RTFO rotation, unless I am misunderstanding you?
@genemorph you have some interesting suggestions. I think your idea for the solo Elite mission has some merit. Do you think one of the primary reasons more people do not queue for Elite TFOs is because the rewards are simply not sufficient for the extra time and effort involved?
Well yes they are but you make an argument just posting ISA DPS Charts. Where are the ones from the Azure Nebula ect... It's been well known for a long time that ISA ISE are TFO maps used to measure your DPS. Those are the only ones you are posting. Where are the ones from Starbase 1 and other maps? I doubt you find anything like that because most people who care for DPS play either ISE or ISA to measure their builds. They do HIVE on occasion too but with you posting just results of ISA's gives me the impression you don't really other maps or the " I am seeing something like this 99% of the time with one player dominating the others. " can't be quiet true. I play alot of randoms I have a lot of chars and the only time I find there is somebody make huge amounts of DPS is in ISA, Cure or HIVE. There are exceptions to this in both ways you can find DPS in another TFO or you can find DPS Free in a Borg TFO.
For me its pointless to discuss something when I experience the other way around a lot more often. I have so many times people I have to pull through an TFO because they don't know what to do, they can't do any dps or they simple don't care and just want marks with the unequipped chars. Its a way bigger issue for me because I like to get full marks out of these TFO's, many times I fly Tzengethi Front Advanced and I have to lay all bombs but I can't defend the station and do all the bombs at the same time so the optional most of times is not reached because people have no clue what to do, nobody defending the station people are flying pew pew pew lets kill red. Though I live with that as people have to live with the guys who do alot of dps because they invested the time, money and effort into making their build superior to others.
To the whole DPS story, its obviously wanted by Cryptic. Why do I say that? Because they offer ships with traits or consoles to improve your DPS even though the ship type may not even be favorable for that like an Escort has a trait for a science ship ect... They make money that way.
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I do encounter those way more of then then any of those DPS Kings, but that is because I don't just play Borg TFO's I usually do randoms.
@genemorph you have some interesting suggestions. I think your idea for the solo Elite mission has some merit. Do you think one of the primary reasons more people do not queue for Elite TFOs is because the rewards are simply not sufficient for the extra time and effort involved?
Hi, yes I was going to mention this. But the truth is, in the past under-geared players were queuing for elites to get the higher rewards, and not as previously suggested that they had hit the elite queue button by mistake. The rewards across the board should be increased or something new added like a random purple XV level item reward for completion of the elite for everyone on the team (similar to the competitive PvE TFOs purple x2 XII purple gear for 1st place and x1 for 2nd place) and maybe also for the new level introduced - can call it Expert or Pro. The only issue I can see is everyone who is under-geared and their alts will also be queuing for them leading to frustration of a lot of failed elite attempts. With some thought this could be circumvented though.
I do encounter those way more of then then any of those DPS Kings, but that is because I don't just play Borg TFO's I usually do randoms.
Borg TFOs are included in the RTFO rotation, unless I am misunderstanding you?
@genemorph you have some interesting suggestions. I think your idea for the solo Elite mission has some merit. Do you think one of the primary reasons more people do not queue for Elite TFOs is because the rewards are simply not sufficient for the extra time and effort involved?
I cannot speak for other people. For myself rewards are not a factor. I don't pay any attention to marks or dill reward for any TFO.
Solo Elite TFO's sound like fun. There is even a player system in place with "Warpers" I think it you called which is a shout out in channel for players who warp out in the starting timer to leave someone to solo the Elite TFO. So there is clearly some level of demand for solo Elite TFO's. Been a warper a few times myself to help out.
The thread is yet another fine example that there is no need for an arbitrary gear check system. Seeking out advice from other players worked better than any arbitrary gear check did. It also proves that people are able to determine there is a problem on their own without any help, seek out advice, take the information in and make adjustments. All of this accomplished with no arbitrary gear check. Sure, gear is only a part of the equation, but it is not the whole part. @colonelmarik has been around for a number of years and I believe it a safe bet that he has completed most if not all of the content the game has to offer, so your idea of a "dungeon journal" would not have helped here. Dungeon journals and gear checks are arbitrary measures which more often than not do not take into what is the critical piece of the equation which is player experience and skill. Experienced players with moderate gear will outperform novice players with epic gear.
Again dude, you are hyper-focused and tunnel visioning on the gear check portion of a 3 part system. Seriously, stop assuming it's purely just a gear check because it's not. I get that you don't like that part of the idea but that's only one part of the equation. Second, your entire line of logic in this paragraph is no different than someone saying "we got through school without google, computers and the internet, so you're lazy if you need them to get through school."
Also I'm sure Marik has completed most everything in game if he's been around long enough, idk how long he's been playing and won't presume to speak for him on that. if he wants to tell us then that's up to him. With that said, while the dungeon journal is also a tool that can be used by veteran players, we are not the target audience for such a feature. Just like when STO adds more science ships to the game, I am not the target audience for such ships as I'm not a sci guy. Not every feature has to have every single person in mind when being created. I also find it disingenuous to acknowledge different people will be at different skill levels, yet insist that people with higher performance should lessen themselves for those not yet at their level.
I do not have tunnel vision, thank you. I mention an arbitrary gear check more because it is the most easily bypassed simply by purchasing Very Rare or Epic quality gear on the exchange, rendering that part of what is a silly idea meaningless and arbitrary. So are the journals and role checks.
First, role checks are pointless in this game. Outside of a few Elite level TFOs, there are no specific "tanking" or "healing" roles required. STO has never needed the "holy trinity" and was never designed with it in mind. (...)
As far as "journals", you already have things like Accolades here in STO which are obtained by completing various pieces of content. Even those are meaningless because as you so often point out, kind people like yourself will bring your high DPS ships to help friends and other people by carrying them through specific content.
You know I find this section to be extremely telling, especially the bit in bold, which I'll get to in a moment. You say you don't have tunnel vision, but in my book you do because you've laser focused on one part of a 3 part system and are pretending like it's the entire thing when it's not. You're also focusing way too much on the names vs what I actually said regarding those 3 parts.
First up, assuming that someone has started and is brand new, even if they were able to buy a ton of gear from the exchange to meet the gear check goal, they would be immediately halted by the Role Check if they didn't know how to use that gear. If our hypothetical new person is able to buy gear straight from the exchange and pass the role check immediately after, then that doesn't bother me because it tells me the person has at least some clue what they're doing and will be able to contribute to the team they meet. The entire point of the gear check, role check, and dungeon journal is to make sure people are ready for the content they're trying to get into to start with. If a person is able to figure out how to buy some gear then pass the role check straight into content right after, then great. If they're getting held up by the gear check or role check, then they know they have a little work to do still.
Second, calling it a Role Check does NOT mean I am calling for the trinity in this game. That's simply what it was called in WoW. If you object to it being called a Role Check, then call it a Performance Check or what have you. I'm not arguing the semantics. Point being is it's meant to verify the person has the basic mechanical knowledge of their chosen build to contribute to the team.
Now for the bit in bold. This I find to be the most telling thing so far as in the context of everything else said, you're basically expecting a free ride on the coats of the other group members. There is a huge difference between grouping with friends and carrying them vs joining a random group and being expected to carry someone. If I group with a friend that is undergeared and carry them, that's a conscious choice that I made knowing full well what I was getting into. Someone joining a random group expecting a free carry is a leech and not something I or anyone else agreed to. I NEVER agreed to carry that person, nor should I or anyone else have to. You want the rewards from that TFO or mission, carry your weight and earn it like everyone else or find friends that don't mind carrying you. Someone showing up to random TFOs expecting a carry is like someone getting hired at a job and expecting their co-workers to do their own jobs PLUS theirs while still expecting full pay for a job they didn't do. It's beyond entitled to expect random teams to carry someone.
WoW was designed that way from the ground up to put the players on the raid tier treadmill, specifically to keep them paying longer. A system working great in a game like WoW does not mean that system applies to or would be necessary or good for STO. They are two entirely different types of MMORPGs.
And yes, as elitist as it I'm sure some will say it sounds, there are alot of people in this game that simply do not know what they're doing. The game simply does not offer the kind of information and education in its operation that you give it credit for.
Most people, as I believe we have shown in threads like this one already, will figure things out on their own. We all did and we continue to learn as the game changes.
Now with that said I'm glad you agree nothing is going to change the mind of people like Bob and you don't want to group with people like that. Which is all the more reason you should support adding the gear check, role check, and dungeon journal as it filters out people like Bob anyways until one of two things happen. They either swallow their pride and realize they're not Q's gift to the game like they thought they were and they then try to improve, or they give up and quit the game. Either is a win as I don't like grouping with people like that either. These 3 tools filter out people like Bob before they can ever use the random group finder to start with since they won't pass the checks due to their own stubbornness.
Arbitrary gear checks would not help people like that. I have no doubt "Bob" would find something else to complain about. Or he would have "checked all the appropriate boxes" and complained when he failed again. No thank you and best of luck to them to find another game more to their liking.
The Gear Check, Role Check, and Dungeon Journal were NOT part of WoW originally. They only came about when the random group finder was added. Until that your only option for content was grouping with friends, or finding groups forming in chat. The group finder gave people a tool to experience content without having to rely purely on private groups. To make sure everyone was ready for the groups, the checks and journal were implemented. I have never once said that a feature working in one game automatically means it will work in another. However when multiple games have or have had similar systems that work, kinda hard not to notice.
Also again people in here are not most people. This forum represents a tiny fraction of the playerbase as a whole. While there are people like some of those in here who will figure it out, there are those who won't. The Gear Check, Role Check, and Dungeon Journal work as they filter out the Bob's who refuse to learn and improve while giving folks that reality check to see if they're ready or not before they slam their heads into a wall for years.
Yes, that is true they are private groups. I mentioned this example for a few reasons.
First, it shows how systems like what you are advocating for breed very bad and elitist behavior. Anything that will add to that kind of behavior is not needed in my opinion. There is already enough of it here, no need for more. Just imagine if the lovely people from a certain Fleet had this as yet another tool in their arsenal of bullying other players. No thank you.
Second, using measures like a badge count or arbitrary gear check are laughable in that they do not tell you anything about the player. As many veterans over on the CoH HC forums pointed out, the "low badge count" character being dismissed could be a 20 year veteran running an alt that is not focused on badging. Same thing applies to arbitrary gear checks and dungeon journals. A sub-par player who has been around for decades, who has been carried through TFO content by kind people like yourself and with piles of EC lying around can purchase a full set of MkXV Epic gear on the exchange. A brand new player who does not want to take the time to play catch up can visit their local goldfarmer and buy two billion EC to do the same thing. These are just two examples of how your proposed idea does not work. It is almost silly how easy it is to obtain Very Rare and above gear in this game simply by luck of the RNG. STO is not WoW where you can only obtain certain tier raid gear from certain dungeons in order to proceed to the next tier of dungeons to get the next tier of gear.
Third, implementing an unnecessary tool like this is more work than it is worth in terms of development. It is not just development time to create and test it, it is also future development time in maintaining it as the game changes. There are updates ships, abilities, BOFFs, consoles, kit modules etc. all the time. Someone at Cryptic would need to make sure it did not adversely impact this new system. All we ever hear from Cryptic is how they are short staffed and do not have the time to do a lot of different things. Adding this is a burden that would take away from doing more important things, like adding new content.
Fourth, whether intended or not, it is going to further serve to pigeonhole players even more into particular builds and play styles. Whether intended or not, this is corralling players into the "DPS is King" mindset.
So first up, I'm going to deal with the elephant in the room out of your second post, do not ever suggest to a person they go buy from a gold farmer as that is against ToS and does far more harm to the game than anything one of the so called evil DPS could ever do and will most likely result in a ban. Now back to our regularly schedule programming.
1: Again I am going to call shenanigans here. In STO as it sits currently we don't have an inspect function. So unless someone tells me what their gear is and they haven't cleared the role check, I would have no way of knowing if they have or not. The only way I could get a glimpse of their gear is to get them into a run and do a combat log and watch their buff bars. Even then I only get about 90% of the information. I don't know what their rarity of gear looks like or anything like that. Even with the inspect function in other games that have these systems I can count on one hand how many times in a given month I've ever seen someone gear shamed for anything. If someone is being a tool then that's what the ignore function is for. I'm sorry but I don't see elitists roaming around every corner like you do. 2: If someone is on an alt and they're a 20 year veteran of a game per your own hypothetical, then they should already know where to get the gear they need, how to get it, and be able to pass the role check easily. So this is a non-issue and you appealing to an outlier scenario. As for your hypothetical subpar player, he'll never clear the role check because the role checks are solo maps. So again he's got 2 options, improve or quit. If he improves then great. If he quits then you yourself saw nothing wrong with that before. Again stop focusing purely on one part of the system. We're talking minimum levels to get through the content, which already exist in game. If you can't pass the DPS check at the start of Korfez as one example, you fail. 3: This is is where I'm going to flat out say I don't believe you really want change. You say you do, but don't want any changes made to actually solve the issue. Everytime I've brought something up or others have, you shoot it down. So I have to ask, what do you really want them to do? 4: In some instances, yes you need to have a certain amount of firepower to clear something yes. Sorry but that's a reality in certain games. Even tanks have to be able to generate certain amounts of threat to do our jobs.
I object to it because it is an unnecessary feature in my opinion, and what you just posted here proves it. You eliminated running into elitists by forming your own groups. There is no reason players here cannot do the same as it is a guarantee to solve their problems. If you do not like running RTFOs and getting an AFK penalty because of the uber DPS players or you are annoyed by AFKers, then socialize, find a fleet of like minded players and team up together. You will never see a high DPS player or AFKer in your team again. Problem solved. Zero need for any new systems.
Having issues with completing content? Socialize, find like minded players, join publicly available chat channels and ask for advice. Problem solved. Zero need for any new systems.
I'm glad you posted this because it completely destroys any argument you had. By your own logic, if someone feels they are constantly running into people who are wiping entire maps before they can get a shot off to participate, then those people should just form their own groups. So why is this thread still here and why are people debating still by your own logic? For that matter why don't we just flat out remove the group finder outright since people can just form private groups and call it a day. By that same logic, folks don't like the balance of pvp as is right now, form a like minded group or so on. Now with that said, if people are going to insist on still using the group finder, then they either need to be willing to deal with so called uber DPS players they may run into and people trying to leech, or something needs to change with it. You can't say everyone should socialize yet always resort to splitting them into groups that never interact. Doesn't work that way.
Form a team with like minded players and you will not run into the issues of repeated failures. To be very honest, I cannot remember the last time I have been in an Advanced RTFO where the optional failed.
No question you have a right to bring a high DPS build into Normal event content. You have no choice really as that is all that is available. The question is more about what is most courteous to other players, especially those who are not looking for matches to end in literal seconds and would like to enjoy the content. I basically do the same as @protoneous does when engaging in Normal event content with a random group of people. I will tone down what I am doing in order to make sure they have the time to participate. I can easily ramp up if needed. I do try to be courteous to other players. You may be more selfish.
And here is where I call outright bs. First off, it is NOT selfish for people to want to use the strongest build they have in content, be that a 50k build or a 500k+ build. They took the time to get to that point and have earned the right to use that build. What IS however selfish is demanding that person to use a lesser build because one guy in the group thinks it's going too fast and he didn't get to shoot as much as he would like. Or another example of selfish is a guy coming into a run with a subpar build expecting a carry and causing a run to fail for 4 other people. Sorry but that one guy is not so important he gets to demand others carry him or change because of him. In demanding others use lesser builds you are doing exactly what you accuse me of doing, applying arbitrary standards to people while additionally hiding behind the guise of being "courteous". I used to play alot of MTG tournaments years ago. To argue that someone should use a lesser build in event TFOs to be "courteous" is like arguing that I shouldn't have used my best decks at those MTG tournaments because not everyone else can afford all the best cards and won't be allowed to play as long if they get beat too quickly.
People have had and will continue to have the private group option available to them. However that's not what this is about, but people using the random group finder. If folks want this issue with the random group finder fixed, something has to change, yet you continue to argue against change of any kind. So do you want to see something change or do you 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
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No I didn't... alas. Can you figure out where I went wrong? I don't want to fuddle it up more at this point lol.
Fixed it! There was an extra "quote" tag in there towards the beginning of the post.
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And again, this bifurcates. Part one is the insistence that once held in these forums (which, thankfully, fell to the wayside a few years ago) that one's specialty should dictate one's ship - "a science captain is best in a science ship". Easily disproved with a little gameplay, but it was a prevailing opinion for a time anyway. Part two is the sensible statement that your gear should be of a type. Unfortunately, some folks misinterpret that as meaning that your gear should be be the same "type" that your character is (see Trinity, above), where it's meant to indicate that if you're running, say, antiproton, you should ideally have all antiproton weapons, and consoles that support increasing antiproton damage. (One of my captains is a Sci who is currently flying an escort with polaron weapons and consoles because she got so many of them from Reputation boxes. Those Sci skills come in handy sometimes.)
The sharing of player knowledge and experience CAN work very well but depends upon (in part) whether or not a player is willing to try different things.
Speaking only for myself it seems there was some barriers in place that I needed to reckon with prior to expanding my game play options.
As a longer term player, sometimes making changes seemed pretty tough as I had to overcome a lot of habits I had formed as well as assumptions I had made on how things "should" work based upon watching Star Trek on television for decades.
A couple of things on this point. First, I am aware of the thread you mentioned and answered in that thread what I did to get past the mission. I also asked what he was using for equipment and modules in that thread because whether one likes it or not, the quality of your gear and what you actually chose to use has a huge impact on your performance. A mk xii very rare phaser simply is not going to have the potential of a mk xv gold phaser. In that instance, knowing what kind of captain he was, along with equipment he's using and had available was going to tailor my advice accordingly. Thankfully it seems he has since gotten past that level and no further issues were had from the looks of it. If I am wrong on that point he's welcome to say. In that context yes there is more than one way to approach the issue as he asked how other people got through it. Colonelmarik also wanted some kind of help where as many more simply don't.
Second, you're tunnel vision focusing on one part of what I advocated in the gear check and ignoring that I paired it with a role check and a dungeon journal. It assumes all 3 pieces are in use. It's not purely an arbitrary thing trying to exclude people, but giving people a reality check straight out of the gate so they have an idea of if they're ready for certain content or not. None of this waiting around and slamming your head against a wall for ages like @protoneous did or had to do until he realized what he was doing wasn't working. The game will straight up tell you that you're ready or that you're not ready. If a person is ready then great. If you're not ready then it gives you the knowledge of where to go to get gear should you need it, and where you failed the role check. It ensures they are ready for the higher tier content they want to go into, thus saving them a ton of aggravation wondering if they're ready, and also potential groupmates. If that person gets into a group and has issues you know it's one of 3 things going on, they have something going on outside of their control, they're still learning the mechanics at which time you can answer questions easier, or they're simply not trying.
Third, the gear check, role check, and dungeon journal in WoW were not arbitrary, but coincided with the minimum standards set forth by the game itself. If content required you to do 20k DPS as a minimum to clear it, the gear check required you to have gear that would give you the stats to meet this goal, the role check ensured you had the knowledge of your class to do so, and the dungeon journal supplied you with mechanical information to do so. Essentially they became a basic boot camp of sorts.
And yes, as elitist as it I'm sure some will say it sounds, there are alot of people in this game that simply do not know what they're doing. The game simply does not offer the kind of information and education in its operation that you give it credit for.
I used the name Bob because to outright give the guy's name would be naming and shaming. I still have photos of one of his builds from the time he was in my fleet and also a message log from the night he flipped out on my officer. Should he ever return and try to ask for help I have grounds to say "are you going to listen this time or are you going to flip out like last time."
Now with that said I'm glad you agree nothing is going to change the mind of people like Bob and you don't want to group with people like that. Which is all the more reason you should support adding the gear check, role check, and dungeon journal as it filters out people like Bob anyways until one of two things happen. They either swallow their pride and realize they're not Q's gift to the game like they thought they were and they then try to improve, or they give up and quit the game. Either is a win as I don't like grouping with people like that either. These 3 tools filter out people like Bob before they can ever use the random group finder to start with since they won't pass the checks due to their own stubbornness.
Now with regards to your mention of the CoH HC forums, what you're describing are private groups of people. Those private groups are free to set whatever standards they wish for their private runs, no matter how ridiculous you or I might think they are. If people don't like those standards, they are free to go elsewhere or form their own groups with like minded people. With as much as I've seen you preach about people being social and people like myself who would qualify as high DPSers forming our own groups, I'm surprised you of all people are bringing this up as an objection to new features. The only power those people have is over their own private groups. Just like in WoW when people gave me grief after the gear score addon was introduced, I formed my own groups. Then later when the random group finder was added, I just pressed the find group button and ignored the elitists.
Again no feature will ever be 100% abuse proof and elitists will always find a way to be elitists no matter what you do. However the benefits of instituting the Gear Check, Role Check, and Dungeon Journal far outweigh the potential risks. Further on this point, with the ability to form your own private groups and the ability to use the random group finder, the only way you can be locked out of content is if you choose to lock yourself out. There is also one last thing I should mention, the Gear Check, Role Check, and Dungeon Journal only applied to random group finder groups. If you had a full team of 5 people that wanted form their own private group, the game would generally still let people in the door even if they didn't meet the gear or role checks, they just couldn't random group their way in the door.
Another of Bob's many exploits was always staying angry with me that I would never take him on any of the fleet Battle of Korfez runs until he improved his builds and damage output. I told Bob many times that when he improved his builds and damage output and demonstrated to me that he had, I would gladly take him on the run. Until he could do so I wasn't going to waste the fleet's time or his since it would just auto-fail. Idk what the actual auto-fail DPS check is for Korfez but let's assume it was 50k. Bob at the time would've been lucky to break 20k. I offered to help him get to the 50k after I told him he wasn't yet ready, but he instead called me an elitist. Ignorance is Bob knowing he wasn't ready for the TFO but demanding I take him anyways. I find that far more infuriating than a guy being a tool because he's 5 points higher than me on the gear metric. If that's how dude wants to measure his success then cool. Otherwise how sad of an existence he must lead that he's measuring his life accomplishments purely by what he does in a video game.
I said what I did on this part because it goes to my point. You make some pretty massive assumptions about how people will easily pick up on some of these extremely basic concepts because as you say, the game isn't hard to figure out. Yet many times over people don't. Too many people come out not knowing very basic things that you or I have known for years. I will continue to use the example of auto-fire on weapons as that is a godsend, but far too many don't know about it. Far too many people also think that if a ship comes with a beam array, dual bank, torpedo and single cannon up front, that's how the ship has to be played. Far too many people think that if you're a tactical captain you're only allowed to fly tactical ships, science is only allowed science, and engineering is only allowed engineering ships. You and I both know that's not the case in either situation, but the average players don't because the game does NOTHING to dispel these myths. For that matter the game doesn't even explain the difference between a +15% Bonus Phaser damage and +15% Phaser damage, and that's a HUGE one.
The point to bringing that up was to show that the information isn't as widespread and out there as you're wanting to believe. I wish it was and that more people knew about autofire coming out of the gate, and the myth about tactical only flying tactical and such wasn't so prevalent but it is.
Never said that you did, but made the general statement and explained why that number is deceptive as it sits without further context.
Again you're tunnel visioning one part of a 3 part system as though the gear check is the only part of what I suggested when it's just one component of a larger machine. You're tunnel visioning one thing like it's the only thing I suggested when it's not. You need to step back and look at the entirety of what I suggested and not just the one part.
Now you and I may have figured certain things out, but that's because we wanted to and chose to. Again I do not expect people to know everything starting out. However there are some major things that the game should be teaching that it doesn't, such as the difference between a +15% Bonus Phaser Damage and +15% Phaser Damage. The game doesn't tell you the bonus damage is the higher boost or why. So a new player will not know the difference and could trade in their cat2 bonuses for all cat1. You and I doing things on our own are the exception and not the rule.
The dungeon journal would be a source for this basic knowledge that exists in game people can go to when they want to learn, or even just refer back to things. The gear check and role check give them a goal to work towards while also verifying they've learned what they have been reading. All of it goes together.
The problem again is that alot of people simply won't do the research and seek out the information outside the game as they view it as too much work. The dungeon journal only has to be compiled the initial time and afterwards it's as simple as updating text if/when something changes. Anytime they change what an ability does or something along those lines they have to change the tooltip anyways. It's as simple as copy/paste those changes to the dungeon journal as well. Maybe 5 seconds. Also fundamentals like the difference between cat1 and cat2 damage, autofire for weapons and the like won't be changing anytime soon. You're also assuming the dungeon journal would outright say "do X Y Z" when that's not the case at all. It simply gives you the basic information to form plans and strategies. Such as telling you the difference between cat1 and cat2 boosting, how to autofire weapons, where to get certain gear, and the abilities of certain foes. From there it's up to you to form your strategy.
Cryptic already has to maintain a large amount of info anyways in the form of ability tooltips and the like. All that's being done is copy/pasting it to one additional place. Nothing is stopping players from expanding on this with additional content outside of the game.
Except you didn't answer it, you gave a vague half answer. If the goal is for the player to improve and things are left up to the player, who or what is going to tell them they need to improve? Yes not being able to clear content is the most obvious way to know if they need to improve. However, what of the people who are able to clear content, but wish to improve further? How are they to measure their improvement or lack of? If a guy swaps out a console from what he had before and goes into content but can't tell if there is a difference in his performance or not, how is he to verify said difference or lack of? I'm asking you for specific metrics.
I'm glad you said this because it goes right along with what I've said. I'm all for letting people do the trial and error method, but not at the cost of entire groups failing time after time after time because one guy refuses to learn or get better.
Guys like Bob for example can do the trial and error bit in the Role Check map until he gets it right without subjecting 4 other people to his experimentation. Let him get his basics in order first before he attempts to join random groups. Once his basics are in order, it's a simple matter of mechanics. I have no issues helping folks learn mechanics, but I despise people who knowingly come into maps expecting a carry.
Are some builds overkill for certain maps, absolutely. However that does not negate the right of that person to take that overkill build into content. Difficulty level is irrelevant to them having that right. Also the kind of high DPS builds you're talking about are extremely rare. Most of the playerbase is 50k DPS and below. At best maybe 20% of the playerbase is above 50k. Of that 20% that's above 50k DPS, maybe 1% are above 300k. Do I believe people are encountering those types of builds in the normals, of course. Do I believe it's as widespread of an issue people try to make it out to be, not even close. With that said, if I am forced into normal mode content for an event, I'm ending that map as quickly as I can so I can get in and get out and not linger longer than necessary.
And here's where I guarantee I'm going to get accused of hypocrisy. It does go both ways, but not how you think it does. So long as people are meeting the minimum standards set forth by the game itself, be it by just barely making it or exceeding those standards by light years, they have a right to be in that TFO. If they are not meeting those standards, they have no right to be in that TFO until they do. That person who has the build capable of ending a map in seconds has just as much right to enter normal mode TFOs as does the person with a less DPS focused build. If a higher level TFO requires someone to do 50k DPS and someone is doing exactly 50k DPS, then they have just as much right to be in that higher level TFO as the guy doing 500k. On the opposite side of the coin, if that person seeking to enter our hypothetical TFO requiring 50k DPS is only doing 25k DPS, they have no right to be in that TFO yet.
Now you might say "but wait that's a double standard", but actually it's not. The 25k DPS guy has no right to be in there because he's not meeting the minimum standards set forth by the game itself, which is the 50k DPS. Once he meets that requirement, he has every right to be in there. Until they meet that standard however he doesn't. I am applying an equal standard to both sides, just not in the way you like. Anyone meeting the minimum level set forth by the game itself has a right to be in there, whether they're right at the minimum level or light years ahead of it. At the same time I am also giving people a method and path of progression to reach that minimum standard.
If our hypothetical player gets to the 50k DPS minimum and decides not to shoot for additional DPS, that is his right not to take his builds higher. If on the opposite end of the coin he wants to shoot for 500k, he is free to do so. I am not now nor have I ever suggested everyone has to push to get every last one and zero out of their ship. I am however arguing that people need to meet a certain basic standard, and that standard is the minimum set by the game itself to clear the content. So long as the minimum standards have been met, the guys at the minimum are under no obligation to bring their numbers up, and the folks light years ahead are under no obligation to bring their numbers down.
With that last bit being about power creep, it's going to happen in any MMO. As cryptic releases new powers and abilities, people are going to get stronger and stronger over time, especially if they don't update the already existing content to take the new powers into account. I'll give you an example that was used to argue against flying mounts continuing to exist in WoW by one of their devs over there. "Suppose you have a quest that required you to enter a castle and rescue a person. In the era before flight you would run into the castle and fight your way through 30 mobs, click the cage and free the person. In the era of flight, you can land on the roof and click the cage through the roof without ever having to fight the 30 mobs, which is bypassing content." And yes they actually tried to call that bypassing content and used their lack of updating the content as grounds to argue against a feature.
Being that I've got some experience creating content for games, even though I'm not a AAA studio developer, I suggested a fix to their hypothetical scenario that took both sides into account. From their scenario, that told me the quest had never been updated to account for flying mounts being a thing and had stayed the same for years. It also told me that those 30 mobs were not part of the quest objectives but were simply trash mobs meant to slow you down, and that the cage didn't have a key. My solution was for them to change the quest to require a key for opening the cage and incorporating the 30 mobs into the quest objectives. The key could drop off the first guy, and it may not drop until the 30th guy, or make it so the person is afraid to come out until all 30 mobs have been dealt with, but in that situation you have made sure people fight the mobs while simultaneously giving them a second means of approaching the quest. Do they run in the front door like ye old school people, or do they approach from the air?
I'm a strong proponent of bringing the content to meet the players when and where possible. I consider nerfing to be a last resort. Less is often more when dealing with this stuff.
Again strongly disagree. If someone's first thought is to jump straight into demanding DPS limits on everyone else while refusing to acknowledge their own part in their gaming woes, they are every bit the problem. Neither myself or anyone else is under an obligation to nerf ourselves because another person is doing the bare minimum and getting left in the dust as a result. Time and time again I see people complaining about things being too hard or having an issue with something, and 90% of the time it's their own fault for something they're doing or not doing. This is why when someone asks for help one of the first things I do is ask them what their build looks like as it's the obvious first step. Are they using a basic cohesive build? If they are then great, we can move on to tactics. If tactics are good then we move on to other areas such as if there is a bug preventing progress. If a person says "(thing) is too hard" and I ask them what they're running and how they're approaching it, and their first reaction is to instantly jump to "my build and tactics aren't the problem it's just too hard" then that tells me the person isn't interested in getting help at all, but just wants to whine and rant. I can deal with people who are having a rough time and are irritated but legitimately seeking help, but I have no time for whiners who aren't willing to help themselves and want me and everyone else to do everything for them.
This is part of why I advocate for the Gear Check, Role Check, and Dungeon journal. It sets clear and transparent standards of what people will need at the minimum level to succeed in higher level content, while also giving them a path to get there if they're not currently there. It removes all excuses from people while maintaining a transparent and objective view of a person's progress. If someone meets the gear check, but isn't clearing the roll check, then something they're doing or not doing is the problem and yes, it is on them. If the person meets all the checks and can't clear something, we know one of a few things is happening. Either something outside their control like internet issues, they need to bone up on or get used to certain mechanics a bit more which will come with time, or they're simply not trying.
So for me if people say they want things to change, yet all the time find excuses as to why changing anything can't or won't work, then I'm left with no other conclusion than to assume they don't want change. They enjoy the status quo and like to complain.
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In this particular case I'll happily let myself be used as an example
In retrospect my game play would have been more enjoyable sooner if perhaps I had spent less time complaining and being stubborn and more time trying a few small changes in game.
to the OP. what does pertain is the lack of harder versions.
The OP complains about there being too much dps in the game and how they can't get a shot off to contribute because of this that or the other. I have asserted it's not a game issue but a player issue and folks need to take some responsibility for their own woes in the game. Others have advocated DPS limits to which I have advocated people need to be responsible for themselves instead of expecting others to nerf themselves on their behalf. I advocated a gear check, role check, and dungeon journal as a means of prepping people for content since the entire discussion sounds like bad luck of the draw and people not being ready for content.
In other words for people having issues of not being able to contribute, I am advocating 3 changes to get people ready and able to contribute if they're not currently and make sure they know where to get gear.
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• Re-use some of the code from the Crystalline Entity TFO to enhance other TFOs by offering rewards to top participants using weights that include healing contributions. Consider giving credit for the percentage of damage received as well. This will make healing and tanking viable options. And make those rewards mark/dilithium based to incentivize the whales to diversify their efforts a bit.
• Adjust the Romulan Minefield TFO to prevent anyone from approaching the final encounter before all stations have been repaired. And/or weight station repair over damage dealt. You could handle the proximity problem by teleporting anyone approaching the final encounter back the the rendezvous point.
Personally, I would prefer to avoid randoms. But I run them out of necessity right now. It’s either that or spend more time playing mini-games such as doffing, admiralty, rep hourlies, & mining. It is more fun to fly a ship than to do any of those things IMHO.
Maybe it's hyperbole?
Well whatever the case I still don't find conversations about DPS and powercreep to be all that productive to the zeitgeist, because you can not change what was unintended and can only moderate what was intended. You will always fall into one of four camps. The aggressor, the defender, the helper, and the watcher.
If players would want a more productive conversation on the same topic, wouldn't it be more constructive to post a thread along the lines of
"I am struggling with my dps in the current event, does anyone know how I can remedy this quickly?"
or
"What's the current meta that a newer player can do quickly and cheaply to catch up to current players."
Things along those lines that aren't blaming or slandering or building animosity between people and such would literally lead to the same conversation you are currently having but will be more focused towards sharing information that will be helpful to new and old players.
Players would be more apt to share their thoughts, skills, and experiences. Such as what traits are working still and which are not, which effects are good on weapons, which consoles are good and which are not. What ship is worth it to get now and what can wait. What hanger pets can be useful or not. How to manage your money by setting goals to target and what items are worth the early look. I've been itching to explain to players how to do a 60% haste Befaw (Possible Befaw 2 - 3) with 0 weapons energy drain for pretty cheap. well cheapish.... i guess... its relative.
You could literally slide in your experiences in the events and your issues and people would be more sympathetic and eager to provide answers that you can try.
since these types of conversations will actually get you the help you need instead of the argument you don't.
There has been a big rise in power creep and DPS increase over the past 6 months to a year with a corresponding large increase to peak DPS numbers. 300k to 600k used to be special pre made group with nannies, now that's an every day build. 1 million used to be the top end now that's nothing special. The maps are just not designed for that level of DPS and these people are being pushed into normal maps for events.
Power creep is so high we are now at a stage where 1 single hanger pet can hit that 50k DPS number you are talking about and 2 bays is within the 1% player base 300k number you picked yet along talking about the ships main weapons or Sci powers.
As a high DPS player myself I am starting to see AFK penalties to myself and none of your player ideas will solve that. In the recent Defend Star Base One Event I was forced into normal and multiple times got hit with AFK penalty and who knows how many other players I caused to get AFK penalties. As even the hangar pets where mass destroying everything yet alone main weapons. There just wasn't enough NPC's with enough hit points for the entire team to contribute enough in at least 3 of the event runs.
In the past I was fully on board with saying its a player issue. But now power creep is so high its starting to become a game issue that is steadily getting worse.
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If I scale back my DPS then I cannot cover the underperforming players which can make the entire TFO experience worse for everyone in the TFO. But if I don’t scale back my DPS I am overperforming when the other 4 people are hitting the TFO DPS requirements. Since the groups are random, I am swinging between over performing with DPS and having the right amount of DPS without changing my setup all depending on the group members. There is no way to know this beforehand, by the time I see the DPS log to work out what level of DPS I needed for that random group its to late.
One could argue the other side of the coin that it’s not courteous for those players to be under performing and dragging out the TFO or even making the TFO fail. Plus, if a player wants to finish a TFO as fast as possible “Speed Running” is an acceptable thing to do. In a random group you have to accept that other players will be playing differently to a different goal. That’s why we have private groups for when you want to play a TFO in a set way.
An example that happened just days ago. I was running the Breach Event and was inside the Breach clearing out the first area with the mini cores while 2 other players where still flying around outside despite the Breach warp button. By the time they got inside the rest of us was practically ready to finish blowing up the finial core room and make our way out. Not because we were rushing the inside because they were flying painfully slow down the trench and ignoring the warp button. I cannot remember if it was an ISE or ISA but there was one run where another player barely pulled 4k DPS which is totally unacceptable for that type of TFO. This is two examples where STO could do with a gear or DPS check system of some sorts to let the player know they are under performing for that TFO requirements.
Hitting a player with an AFK penalty isn’t really helping as the player might not even know why they got hit with an AFK penalty. A player can run a TFO have no indication of their own performance, no idea they are under performing and then they get hit by an AFK penalty with no idea why. Its not a good system in that regards. I am with you that sometimes the problem is 1 player doing to much DPS, just trying to look at the other side of the coin and how some sort of DPS or gear check might help.
I admit I have my concerns about a gear check system. But some sort of system or guidance could be helpful for the players doing 5k in an advanced TFO. I always liked the player score ranking with rewards linked to player performance that we used to get in TFO’s. I really do miss SB24 it was far better the Defend Starbase 1. This score system used to be linked to team support, healing not just DPS. No idea why that score system was removed. It used to encourage players to get better to earn better rewards while not punishing those that did poorly as they still got the base reward. It was nice having a ranking system that players could choose to engage in and see how they are preforming relative to other players.
No, it's just... geezus! I feel like I've run a marathon after reading some of these posts. LOL 😅
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Val, some feedback from my own perspective on the three parses you posted..
1) It's not "advanced level TFO's" (emphasis plural TFO's) but just "one single" advanced level map (ISA) that's gets completed very quickly at times. Just to clarify and again from my own perspective.
2) I doubt Cryptic has any issues with players using Infected Space Advanced as a parsing map.
3) Of the three parses you posted there was possibly one afk handed out for a player doing 3.75 K.
4) In some of those parses players doing a smaller amount of damage actually took a significant amount of threat and damage in. They might have even been working with the dps leader in order to multiply the level of the dps leader's magnificence, it's tough to say.
5) The way in which damage multiplies as a number of small changes are made in a player's mobility, timing, actuation, piloting, etc. is simply quite amazing. So to me, the parses you've posted don't scream nerf these "outlier players" at all, but rather impress upon me the level of piloting they've achieved and cause me to review my own list of areas in which I could improve my own piloting.
6) To me, there is nothing wrong at all with players doing 197.87, 249.69 or 354.18 K dps on this particular advanced map.
Ok, now that is one of the funniest things I have heard, but it absolutely doesn't surprise me. Those nebulas were freaking awesome though, I will miss them. Especially when they had hidden random exploration planets that popped up.
Outside of Events I tend to stick to Elite so I see an average of more like 100k+ per player. In events well it depends on the map as maps with long pauses between combats naturally report a lower overall DPS. The Breach with how its designed will have a way lower DPS average then say Defend Star Base One. But we can still spot the players on either end of the DPS spread.
EDIT: "Are you talking about failing optional conditions on Advanced TFOs or true fail conditions on Elite TFO runs?"
Yes advanced and Elite for the most part. Normal is pretty much impossible to fail.
They were WAY too easy to troll, and I myself have been a victim of someone purposefully failing an Infected Run. I believe it was set up like this.
Back then I was in a run where someone decided to BLATANTLY troll us by "looking for his spec point". We all went left as per usual operating procedure in Infected... he went right and popped one of the Generators. "Nope. Not here," he said, and started flying around while we're SCRAMBLING to prevent the Nanite ships from repairing, which would fail us.
We failed, got the 30 minute cooldown, and no rewards. Troll got his lulz at our expense.
I personally am not a fan of fail conditions, especially ones that are way too easy to exploit.
I don't think there is too much dps in the game, the problem is people geared for elite content are playing advanced TFOs because the elite TFO queues hardly ever pop. So what choice do you have but play advanced TFOs or play on a weaker alt. Thing is for those that have invested a lot of resources buying top tier ships, ships for traits and consoles, doffs, and bridge officer usually want to play with their most powerful ship setup. This leads to some elite captains playing advanced and blowing through advanced content in secs while advanced geared guys barely (if a all) fire a shot off. I know because I was one of the people on my main elite sci character who did this sometimes. I've also been on the other side of it on an advanced alt that barely managed to shoot anything due to someone else doing the same thing.
This is fairly easy to demonstrate. If you list all the space elites (and even ground elites) only in the task force panel and select all Elite TFOs, then wait. You'll can find yourself waiting for 2hrs + without any elite pug TFOs starting. I know because I've tried this several times to test this out.
I'm not sure what the game population is currently, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't help.
I've played STO for about 10 years on and off. There was a time elite pug queues (mainly borg space ones) would pop all the time. This slowly reduced to what it is today. Back then even if about 3-4 players were under geared for an elite, the other 1-2 could carry the win. Now if a space elite pops it usually results in a wipe because about 4 people aren't geared enough, but also it seems no one knows/reads the conditions that come up that tell you what you have to complete in order to avoid the TFO from failing outright.
Possible solutions (Space only):
(1) The jump between Advanced space TFOs and Elite is massive. This has been said many times in the past. It really feels like there should be a another TFO level between the two that have a lot less fail conditions, or conditions that are more easily met. A possible danger of this to risk spreading the player population even more thinly.
(2) I think the Elite TFO conditions should be re-worked for pugging. I mean there isn't really any point to elites if no one is playing them or a tiny amount of private queue guys are the only ones doing them, and let's face it, even then it's 95% ISE for dps parsing. Even that has dropped like a stone on the dps chat channels - I used to put teams together there. It would be nice to then have a random join elite setting too.
(3) Or here's a wild card. Elite space trials which if completed successfully with a particular captain on a particular ship with the gear/traits/doffs/ they used will grant that Captain elite combat ready status for that ship only (some special effect denoting this or a special icon by name). Some gear etc. would be permitted. This will allow only elite captains to queue for elite space TFOs. The trials will be arduous soloable mini versions of the full elites, where the same or similar fail conditions exist, which will not only tests the captain's tactical responses, flying skills, but also their ability to read and follow the conditions. Obviously this would require a lot thought especially concerning gear, but the point would be that you could join an elite and know you are teaming with people who are a similar level and know the elite.
Saying all this I don't like or agree with the 30 minuet cooldown on failing a TFO. That needs removing. In fact the entire AFK system needs looking at as I think it does more harm then good. I am not even sure why a TFO needs to go on a 30min cooldown when you complete it. Just what is the point of that other then to frustrate players in limiting what TFO's they can run.
Well yes they are but you make an argument just posting ISA DPS Charts. Where are the ones from the Azure Nebula ect... It's been well known for a long time that ISA ISE are TFO maps used to measure your DPS. Those are the only ones you are posting. Where are the ones from Starbase 1 and other maps? I doubt you find anything like that because most people who care for DPS play either ISE or ISA to measure their builds. They do HIVE on occasion too but with you posting just results of ISA's gives me the impression you don't really other maps or the " I am seeing something like this 99% of the time with one player dominating the others. " can't be quiet true. I play alot of randoms I have a lot of chars and the only time I find there is somebody make huge amounts of DPS is in ISA, Cure or HIVE. There are exceptions to this in both ways you can find DPS in another TFO or you can find DPS Free in a Borg TFO.
For me its pointless to discuss something when I experience the other way around a lot more often. I have so many times people I have to pull through an TFO because they don't know what to do, they can't do any dps or they simple don't care and just want marks with the unequipped chars. Its a way bigger issue for me because I like to get full marks out of these TFO's, many times I fly Tzengethi Front Advanced and I have to lay all bombs but I can't defend the station and do all the bombs at the same time so the optional most of times is not reached because people have no clue what to do, nobody defending the station people are flying pew pew pew lets kill red. Though I live with that as people have to live with the guys who do alot of dps because they invested the time, money and effort into making their build superior to others.
To the whole DPS story, its obviously wanted by Cryptic. Why do I say that? Because they offer ships with traits or consoles to improve your DPS even though the ship type may not even be favorable for that like an Escort has a trait for a science ship ect... They make money that way.
Hi, yes I was going to mention this. But the truth is, in the past under-geared players were queuing for elites to get the higher rewards, and not as previously suggested that they had hit the elite queue button by mistake. The rewards across the board should be increased or something new added like a random purple XV level item reward for completion of the elite for everyone on the team (similar to the competitive PvE TFOs purple x2 XII purple gear for 1st place and x1 for 2nd place) and maybe also for the new level introduced - can call it Expert or Pro. The only issue I can see is everyone who is under-geared and their alts will also be queuing for them leading to frustration of a lot of failed elite attempts. With some thought this could be circumvented though.
Solo Elite TFO's sound like fun. There is even a player system in place with "Warpers" I think it you called which is a shout out in channel for players who warp out in the starting timer to leave someone to solo the Elite TFO. So there is clearly some level of demand for solo Elite TFO's. Been a warper a few times myself to help out.
Again dude, you are hyper-focused and tunnel visioning on the gear check portion of a 3 part system. Seriously, stop assuming it's purely just a gear check because it's not. I get that you don't like that part of the idea but that's only one part of the equation. Second, your entire line of logic in this paragraph is no different than someone saying "we got through school without google, computers and the internet, so you're lazy if you need them to get through school."
Also I'm sure Marik has completed most everything in game if he's been around long enough, idk how long he's been playing and won't presume to speak for him on that. if he wants to tell us then that's up to him. With that said, while the dungeon journal is also a tool that can be used by veteran players, we are not the target audience for such a feature. Just like when STO adds more science ships to the game, I am not the target audience for such ships as I'm not a sci guy. Not every feature has to have every single person in mind when being created. I also find it disingenuous to acknowledge different people will be at different skill levels, yet insist that people with higher performance should lessen themselves for those not yet at their level.
You know I find this section to be extremely telling, especially the bit in bold, which I'll get to in a moment. You say you don't have tunnel vision, but in my book you do because you've laser focused on one part of a 3 part system and are pretending like it's the entire thing when it's not. You're also focusing way too much on the names vs what I actually said regarding those 3 parts.
First up, assuming that someone has started and is brand new, even if they were able to buy a ton of gear from the exchange to meet the gear check goal, they would be immediately halted by the Role Check if they didn't know how to use that gear. If our hypothetical new person is able to buy gear straight from the exchange and pass the role check immediately after, then that doesn't bother me because it tells me the person has at least some clue what they're doing and will be able to contribute to the team they meet. The entire point of the gear check, role check, and dungeon journal is to make sure people are ready for the content they're trying to get into to start with. If a person is able to figure out how to buy some gear then pass the role check straight into content right after, then great. If they're getting held up by the gear check or role check, then they know they have a little work to do still.
Second, calling it a Role Check does NOT mean I am calling for the trinity in this game. That's simply what it was called in WoW. If you object to it being called a Role Check, then call it a Performance Check or what have you. I'm not arguing the semantics. Point being is it's meant to verify the person has the basic mechanical knowledge of their chosen build to contribute to the team.
Now for the bit in bold. This I find to be the most telling thing so far as in the context of everything else said, you're basically expecting a free ride on the coats of the other group members. There is a huge difference between grouping with friends and carrying them vs joining a random group and being expected to carry someone. If I group with a friend that is undergeared and carry them, that's a conscious choice that I made knowing full well what I was getting into. Someone joining a random group expecting a free carry is a leech and not something I or anyone else agreed to. I NEVER agreed to carry that person, nor should I or anyone else have to. You want the rewards from that TFO or mission, carry your weight and earn it like everyone else or find friends that don't mind carrying you. Someone showing up to random TFOs expecting a carry is like someone getting hired at a job and expecting their co-workers to do their own jobs PLUS theirs while still expecting full pay for a job they didn't do. It's beyond entitled to expect random teams to carry someone.
The Gear Check, Role Check, and Dungeon Journal were NOT part of WoW originally. They only came about when the random group finder was added. Until that your only option for content was grouping with friends, or finding groups forming in chat. The group finder gave people a tool to experience content without having to rely purely on private groups. To make sure everyone was ready for the groups, the checks and journal were implemented. I have never once said that a feature working in one game automatically means it will work in another. However when multiple games have or have had similar systems that work, kinda hard not to notice.
Also again people in here are not most people. This forum represents a tiny fraction of the playerbase as a whole. While there are people like some of those in here who will figure it out, there are those who won't. The Gear Check, Role Check, and Dungeon Journal work as they filter out the Bob's who refuse to learn and improve while giving folks that reality check to see if they're ready or not before they slam their heads into a wall for years.
So first up, I'm going to deal with the elephant in the room out of your second post, do not ever suggest to a person they go buy from a gold farmer as that is against ToS and does far more harm to the game than anything one of the so called evil DPS could ever do and will most likely result in a ban. Now back to our regularly schedule programming.
1: Again I am going to call shenanigans here. In STO as it sits currently we don't have an inspect function. So unless someone tells me what their gear is and they haven't cleared the role check, I would have no way of knowing if they have or not. The only way I could get a glimpse of their gear is to get them into a run and do a combat log and watch their buff bars. Even then I only get about 90% of the information. I don't know what their rarity of gear looks like or anything like that. Even with the inspect function in other games that have these systems I can count on one hand how many times in a given month I've ever seen someone gear shamed for anything. If someone is being a tool then that's what the ignore function is for. I'm sorry but I don't see elitists roaming around every corner like you do.
2: If someone is on an alt and they're a 20 year veteran of a game per your own hypothetical, then they should already know where to get the gear they need, how to get it, and be able to pass the role check easily. So this is a non-issue and you appealing to an outlier scenario. As for your hypothetical subpar player, he'll never clear the role check because the role checks are solo maps. So again he's got 2 options, improve or quit. If he improves then great. If he quits then you yourself saw nothing wrong with that before. Again stop focusing purely on one part of the system. We're talking minimum levels to get through the content, which already exist in game. If you can't pass the DPS check at the start of Korfez as one example, you fail.
3: This is is where I'm going to flat out say I don't believe you really want change. You say you do, but don't want any changes made to actually solve the issue. Everytime I've brought something up or others have, you shoot it down. So I have to ask, what do you really want them to do?
4: In some instances, yes you need to have a certain amount of firepower to clear something yes. Sorry but that's a reality in certain games. Even tanks have to be able to generate certain amounts of threat to do our jobs.
I'm glad you posted this because it completely destroys any argument you had. By your own logic, if someone feels they are constantly running into people who are wiping entire maps before they can get a shot off to participate, then those people should just form their own groups. So why is this thread still here and why are people debating still by your own logic? For that matter why don't we just flat out remove the group finder outright since people can just form private groups and call it a day. By that same logic, folks don't like the balance of pvp as is right now, form a like minded group or so on. Now with that said, if people are going to insist on still using the group finder, then they either need to be willing to deal with so called uber DPS players they may run into and people trying to leech, or something needs to change with it. You can't say everyone should socialize yet always resort to splitting them into groups that never interact. Doesn't work that way.
And here is where I call outright bs. First off, it is NOT selfish for people to want to use the strongest build they have in content, be that a 50k build or a 500k+ build. They took the time to get to that point and have earned the right to use that build. What IS however selfish is demanding that person to use a lesser build because one guy in the group thinks it's going too fast and he didn't get to shoot as much as he would like. Or another example of selfish is a guy coming into a run with a subpar build expecting a carry and causing a run to fail for 4 other people. Sorry but that one guy is not so important he gets to demand others carry him or change because of him. In demanding others use lesser builds you are doing exactly what you accuse me of doing, applying arbitrary standards to people while additionally hiding behind the guise of being "courteous". I used to play alot of MTG tournaments years ago. To argue that someone should use a lesser build in event TFOs to be "courteous" is like arguing that I shouldn't have used my best decks at those MTG tournaments because not everyone else can afford all the best cards and won't be allowed to play as long if they get beat too quickly.
People have had and will continue to have the private group option available to them. However that's not what this is about, but people using the random group finder. If folks want this issue with the random group finder fixed, something has to change, yet you continue to argue against change of any kind. So do you want to see something change or do you not?
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