Star Trek Online: Here We Go Again!

[Draegan]

When I come home for work, servers are down for maintenance.  When I go to leave for an hour servers are up.  When I just got home fucking servers are down again for maintenance.

wtf

[Kovacs]

Too easy is tank and spank.  

Too difficult is 'over tuned' encounters with unreasonably small windows of success either through gearing rquirements or compulsory encounter mechanics (See: Early Naxx) or the EQ1 version of encounters that require 7 increasongly random, esoteric and nonsensical actions in a specific order with no clues, visual or otherwise to the next required action.

I think challenging encountes are ones that require any combination of beneficial mob positioning, advanced kiting, countering, de-cursing, or debuffing mob abilities, timely CC and a high level of mana and DPS efficiency.

I think that players have a high level of tolerance for frustration when it's source is ones own obvious and reversible shorcomings.  If you are engaged in an encounter that you think you can beat if you would just do one more thing better than I think that's much more palatable than the frustration from facing an encounter with a hidden "You Lose Button" or one that's obviously under conned but required for your next upgrade.  

As for increasing the time invested per encounter, I think it only makes them more challenging inasmuch as they tend to stress efficiency.

[Surlyboi]

tl;dr Work more on the world less on trash.

This. A million times, this. I would play the most repetitive game, combatwise if the world was rich enough.

[Sheepherder]

Isn't there some sort of MMO street cred that involves beating "difficult" and "non-scripted" encounters?

When you make things easy, the target becomes how fast you can hammer through shit, or how much fodder you can take at once, or doing content with less than the recommended number of people, or non-standard group compositions.  Most of these activities have tangible rewards vis a vis less time required to get the shineys or ding.

[ghost]

Sorry, I was being a sarcastic bastard there.  I personally like "easy".  I don't have time for complicated shit any more. 

[NowhereMan]

Eh it doesn't need to be massively complicated. To be honest making combat into effectively a mini-game of shield control and laser targetting sound like it could be more entertaining than a lot of MMO combat. If PvE fights don't take too long and look dramatic enough then I could see that being a pretty mechanic, throw in a couple of things like optimal times to hit opponents with certain moves and combat could actually be entertaining and require attention (without being constant frantic clicking to keep up). That said it sounds like they really aren't doing much art wise with the ground stuff but you guys have made this sound like it might actually be worth having a go at.

[Tannhauser]

If they make space combat so easy I don't have to recharge shields or use my crew's special abilities then that would suck.  Star Trek is about tactical, cat and mouse destroyer vs. sub combat.  If they dumb it down to an arcade game that would be a disservice to the IP and the fans. 

Also, how do they balance a space mission?  Right now you go into a system that has 5 groups of 5 enemy ships.  Solo that's a long and somewhat difficult endeavor.  If you go in with a group however, it becomes easy. 

[tmp]

If they make space combat so easy I don't have to recharge shields or use my crew's special abilities then that would suck.  Star Trek is about tactical, cat and mouse destroyer vs. sub combat.  If they dumb it down to an arcade game that would be a disservice to the IP and the fans. 

Also, how do they balance a space mission?  Right now you go into a system that has 5 groups of 5 enemy ships.  Solo that's a long and somewhat difficult endeavor.  If you go in with a group however, it becomes easy. 

They're supposedly aware they overdid it with dumbing things down. Theoretically they should be able to tweak it now to get somewhere in the middle before "back then" and "now" which should probably appeal to most.

They do balancing by scaling amounts of enemies from what i've noticed; the same swarms get bigger if there's more people working on the mission. Playing solo i'd nearly always encounter 3x frigate, 1x 'strong' cruiser or 1x 'weak' battleship per group. With others these numbers go up.

[ghost]

Couldn't MMO producers get this "balance" shit at least somewhat right by now? 

[Threash]

Couldn't MMO producers get this "balance" shit at least somewhat right by now? 

You mean on the first try without any testing? no, why the hell would they.

[Malakili]

Couldn't MMO producers get this "balance" shit at least somewhat right by now? 

Given that Cryptic has been flailing wildly with balance patches in Champions since Open Beta, and still say its a priority, I don't expect them to hit the nail on the head with STO any time soon.

[Ghambit]

Couldn't MMO producers get this "balance" shit at least somewhat right by now?  

Given that Cryptic has been flailing wildly with balance patches in Champions since Open Beta, and still say its a priority, I don't expect them to hit the nail on the head with STO any time soon.

Funny thing is, they HAD the nail 'hit on the head' as far as PVE difficulty goes (before the last tweak).  This last round of care-bear was simply due to people bitching about alpha strikes.  Those same people are the ones who think MMOs should always just be run in, whip through content, grab loot, get out, and be able to do it with every class and loadout equally (using the same tactic each time).  Well, they ran in and got 'sploded - so they bitch and get their way.  I not once solo or in a group had an issue with alpha strikes prepatch, and what issues I had were entertaining.  Hell, it's the same deal in PotBS.  What asshat takes on a fleet of SoL broadside simultaneously and alone??  It's fuckin stupid.  

Then they go and do the same thing in ground combat and that gets patched to shit as well.  

One has to draw the line when they easy-mode a game so much that it pretty much kills the combat mechanics.  Lately, it seems like every MMO that has a non-standard system gets dumbed-down by traditional MMO difficulty expectations, thenceforth breaking said combat mechanic and dooming the game.

edit:
looks like they rebalanced late last night, but only in Tier 2.  Tier 1 they left in easy-mode.  So, your 10 lvl introduction to STO will pretty much be a mindless grind.  I guess that's par for the course in MMOs eh?  To me it's ludicrous.  If you dont die of boredom before lvl 10 and shelf the game, you're in for a rude awakening at lvl 11 (especially since you've basically learned nothing in the prior 10 lvls).

[Modern Angel]

[Those same people are the ones who think MMOs should always just be run in, whip through content, grab loot, get out, and be able to do it with every class and loadout equally (using the same tactic each time).  Well, they ran in and got 'sploded - so they bitch and get their way.  I not once solo or in a group had an issue with alpha strikes prepatch, and what issues I had were entertaining.  Hell, it's the same deal in PotBS.  What asshat takes on a fleet of SoL broadside simultaneously and alone??  It's fuckin stupid.  

Shut up and don't be dumb. That alpha strike shit was not fun and Starbase 24 devolved into 20 Starfleet ships waiting, stock still, for the first person to get creamed by the klingons before aggro settled into something approaching fun. I sat and watched people spawn in missions in the middle of four to six Klingon ships, SPAWN THERE, and get alphaed down. That was not fun. You want realistic ship combat go join the Navy. Me, I don't mind limited realism in MY SPACE SHIP COMBAT AND ALIENS game.

[Ghambit]

So, it's a problem with spawn points not the generic difficulty for the entire frakkin game.
And if it's not spawn points it's the simple fact people dont know how to kite and split apart fleets so they dont take full alphas to begin with... let alone properly loadout so if they did they could survive.

And in who's dictionary is it said a "space ship combat and aliens" game should automatically be dumbfuck easy?  Let alone a TREK game.
Has nothing to do with realism either.  And yah, I found more fun in occasionally getting blown to bits (and having to think) rather than just spamming the spacebar as you'd like it going "pew pew die aliens."

[Riggswolfe]

So, it's a problem with spawn points not the generic difficulty for the entire frakkin game.
And if it's not spawn points it's the simple fact people dont know how to kite and split apart fleets so they dont take full alphas to begin with... let alone properly loadout so if they did they could survive.

The problem was you'd have, say, 4-5 NPC ships in a tight little cluster. The first PC who fired a shot got attacked by all of them, even if .0005 seconds later the other PCs attacked. Those NPCs would stay on the PC until he was dead which was usually around 5-10 seconds unless the unlucky player had cooldowns to burn. Combine that with NPC ships shooting spreads of 4 torpedoes that automagically blew down shields and it was ugly.

[Venkman]

That sounds more like an AI decision making problem than an underlying balance one. In fact, I'd say the game was properly balanced in that scenario because one ship shouldn't survive the pounding of five.

What they needed to do was change the Alpha Strike system, not gimp things so that players had tougher ships.

[ghost]

Couldn't MMO producers get this "balance" shit at least somewhat right by now? 

You mean on the first try without any testing? no, why the hell would they.

Well, since every MMO is exactly the fucking same one could argue that they've had a shit ton full of "testing", no?

[Goreschach]

Couldn't MMO producers get this "balance" shit at least somewhat right by now? 

You mean on the first try without any testing? no, why the hell would they.

Well, since every MMO is exactly the fucking same one could argue that they've had a shit ton full of "testing", no?

Maybe that's why these games only need two months of beta these days. 

[Modern Angel]

So, it's a problem with spawn points not the generic difficulty for the entire frakkin game.
And if it's not spawn points it's the simple fact people dont know how to kite and split apart fleets so they dont take full alphas to begin with... let alone properly loadout so if they did they could survive.

And in who's dictionary is it said a "space ship combat and aliens" game should automatically be dumbfuck easy?  Let alone a TREK game.
Has nothing to do with realism either.  And yah, I found more fun in occasionally getting blown to bits (and having to think) rather than just spamming the spacebar as you'd like it going "pew pew die aliens."

There was no thinking involved. I've been around the block with MMOs a few times and the alpha strike shit was broken. It had nothing to do with how good you are or tactics or whatever sycophantic jackoff drivel you're spewing. Shit. Was. Broken. You read like general chat in every new game ever made.

What they needed to do was change the Alpha Strike system, not gimp things so that players had tougher ships.

Exactly.

[tmp]

Funny thing is, this game has no death penalty to speak of -- you get to sit out for 10 secs then are back in the action. No "durability hit", no repair cost, nothing.

And still 20+ people would just waste their and everyone else's time idling rather than go for it.

[jakonovski]

There was no thinking involved. I've been around the block with MMOs a few times and the alpha strike shit was broken. It had nothing to do with how good you are or tactics or whatever sycophantic jackoff drivel you're spewing. Shit. Was. Broken. You read like general chat in every new game ever made.

For whom is he being sycophantic, exactly?

[Furiously]

Funny thing is, this game has no death penalty to speak of -- you get to sit out for 10 secs then are back in the action. No "durability hit", no repair cost, nothing.

And still 20+ people would just waste their and everyone else's time idling rather than go for it.

We've been trained!

[01101010]

I don't want to put anyone into a bender here, but in terms of strat and the game, an alpha strike is pretty much the way players knock down the NPCs. Payback is sometimes a bitch I know, but the alpha strike is fairly justified - the AI was set to eliminate the first threat and all ships are ordered to target that ship. After that it becomes spread as to who fired on whom. With no death penalty, I can say I don't mind the 13-15 spawn timer if I was the one to jump into the puddle first.

[Montague]

I don't want to put anyone into a bender here, but in terms of strat and the game, an alpha strike is pretty much the way players knock down the NPCs. Payback is sometimes a bitch I know, but the alpha strike is fairly justified - the AI was set to eliminate the first threat and all ships are ordered to target that ship. After that it becomes spread as to who fired on whom. With no death penalty, I can say I don't mind the 13-15 spawn timer if I was the one to jump into the puddle first.

Drops on fleet actions are based on damage done (another Cryptic trademark carried over from ChampO), and dying = no damage. So people would sit around literally for 10-15 minutes waiting for some poor schlub to make the first move so they could get back to their leet DPS in hopes of getting #1 damage done for the blue loot drop.

[DaZog]

I sat and watched people spawn in missions in the middle of four to six Klingon ships, SPAWN THERE, and get alphaed down. That was not fun.

I had this happen a number of times trying to do the Deep Space Encounters. I'd load up the zone, and as soon as I appeared, I'd find the spawn point camped by two-three spawns of Klingons and I'd eat about ten or so deaths before I could clear them all and actually proceed. Really, really obnoxious.

[Ghambit]

I sat and watched people spawn in missions in the middle of four to six Klingon ships, SPAWN THERE, and get alphaed down. That was not fun.

I had this happen a number of times trying to do the Deep Space Encounters. I'd load up the zone, and as soon as I appeared, I'd find the spawn point camped by two-three spawns of Klingons and I'd eat about ten or so deaths before I could clear them all and actually proceed. Really, really obnoxious.

Did you choose a DSE instance that was populated?

[Tannhauser]

Why in the world would anyone play a cruiser then.  You tank and maybe blow up so your teammates get the drops.  Retarded.

[Ghambit]

Why in the world would anyone play a cruiser then.  You tank and maybe blow up so your teammates get the drops.  Retarded.

These are the same issues WAR had in PQs.  All you really gotta do is make "damage taken" nearly as important as "damage given" (all over the amount of deaths, which is played into via the spawn timer) and we're set.  Gimping an entire game isnt the solution to making loot drops fair in Fleet Actions.  Maybe Cryptic is just that stupid though.

[kildorn]

Assign values to damage taken/mitigated, debuffs, essentially any action. And assign a slowly ticking point penalty for being next to the spawn location for more than 30 seconds.

And don't be stingy with the rewards. Stop this top 5 shit, and hand out to a top 20% of players a blue, next 20% a green, etc.

PQs need to be used more in MMOs, they're FUN. I loved fleet actions. The devs just need to stop acting like they're 40 man raids that should drop one nice thing per reset.

[tmp]

Why in the world would anyone play a cruiser then.  You tank and maybe blow up so your teammates get the drops.  Retarded.

I play a cruiser with shitty gear (mostly mk.2-3 stuff greens and whites) and still make it pretty reliably in the top 5, that's with people flying a tier higher ships present and wanking over their mk.3-4 blue gear. Without higher tier people can easily make it to the top of list.

Escorts have ability to do more damage if they actually line up their shots but it can often mean more time spent not shooting anything while the cruiser keeps going pew pew pew and spamming torp salvos from both ends.

Also not sure how regular drops work, it seems to be randomly assigned to anyone who did some damage to the target. So you can get some decent stuff just being there and making sure your autofire is on.

[Koyasha]

There's autofire?  I got tired of this game when it pretty much consisted of spamming 'fire all beams' over and over, and occasionally timing my torpedo launches to hit when the enemy shields are down.  Being able to autofire weapons might make it tolerable to get high enough level to try a better ship.

[Ratman_tf]

Heh. I'd always be the guy wading in first. Seeing everyone hover around 'staring at their shoes' and being pussies waiting for the alpha strike sacrifice, and I'm like "Fucking Charge!" I'm tactical, so after the charge breaks up the AI, I'll come back and snipe bad guys and get my share of loot. 

[Modern Angel]

There's autofire?  I got tired of this game when it pretty much consisted of spamming 'fire all beams' over and over, and occasionally timing my torpedo launches to hit when the enemy shields are down.  Being able to autofire weapons might make it tolerable to get high enough level to try a better ship.

Yeah, you right click either beam or projectile weapon and it will autofire all weapons of that type when in the proper firing arc.

[LK]

Everything that I'm reading lately is incredibly retarded and makes me glad I never gave this game any serious consideration or even a passing glance to check it out.

Call me when there isn't an MMO that has mechanics that makes getting my dick chopped off and served as the main course at the Annual Cockmunch Ball sound more fun.

[01101010]

Everything that I'm reading lately is incredibly retarded and makes me glad I never gave this game any serious consideration or even a passing glance to check it out.

Call me when there isn't an MMO that has mechanics that makes getting my dick chopped off and served as the main course at the Annual Cockmunch Ball sound more fun.

I think I have a future sig file quote.