10yrs and dps scorecard chasers are still ruining the game.

Discussion in 'War Room (Powers, Artifacts, & Builds)' started by Spartanknight, Sep 4, 2020.

  1. Spartanknight New Player

    This game has been out for a long time and I have been here the whole time. The devs still make the same mistake they always do followed by the same lame excuse followed by the same outcome. Dps scorecard chasers cry about not getting top dps. They cry about the power/weapon that beat them until the devs listen. Of course player skill, skill points, and gear never gets factored into the criers not getting top spot. The devs then nerf said power/weapon. Then they give the excuse of it is easier to nerf one power/weapon than to buff all powers/weapons. But, here is the kicker. After the nerf, people then go cry about another power/weapon until that gets nerfed. Then they move to the next one and the next one. Which defeats the purpose of nerfing one instead of buffing all. Then those nerfed powers/ weapons get broke and can no longer compete which leads to a power/ weapon balance to all power/weapons. It happens ever time. Devs, instead of nerfing just buff the other power/weapons. That is what is really wanted. They want their power/weapon buffed so they feel they can compete. But, here is the best option by far. Get rid of the scorecard altogether. All it has done is cause problems for this game. Get rid of it so, people can just be happy with their power/weapon and how they use it. Because reality of it is there will never be balance. Those who work on loadouts and rotations will always be better than those who don't put in the time. That is why the power/weapon in another person's hand is able to beat the said power/weapon the crier is complaining about. The scorecard shouldn't matter. Being top means nothing if you can't beat the content. Around 10 years of making the same mistake. It is time to stop this pattern already.
    • Like x 5
  2. Miss Adora Loyal Player

    think they do that on purpose because they know they will jump to the flavor of month every time, and they fall for it all the time. In some ways I don't blame the devs for doing that. If they were as good as they claim they are, they should be able to take the worse power and top the score card with it.
    • Like x 3
  3. xxHELLSTROKExx Loyal Player

    Why is the scorecard the devil? Because some players use it to compete with each other? Take it away, lose possibly more than half the population. Bad for us all. Take it away, your group is struggling in a dps check scenario. Who's at fault? No clue, we can't see any info. Not sure what situations people need to be put in to realize that it has value. There are scoreboard chasers, no doubt. There are also plenty of players that use it as a tool, same as combat log, same as sparring targets. I personally will never change my mind that anyone asking for scoreboard removal isn't doing it for personal reasons. Aka they're always the weakest link. The competition types have fun with it, leave them alone. Tab over to one of the other pages and you won't have to see it. For most of us, it isn't about being top. It's about seeing that everyone is pulling their weight. Not all of us are here to carry.
    • Like x 5
  4. xxHELLSTROKExx Loyal Player

    But I do agree, we need to stop asking for nerfs/ buffs. It's a game based on super powers. Some powers are stronger than others, that's just how it is in comics so it's how it should be here. Either that, or make every single power have the exact same possibilities. Meaning move 1 for every power has a cost of 100 and does 1000dmg. Power 2 does 200/2000 and so on. List them like that and same cooldowns and everything. 0 build/ powerset choice difference. Sound lame? Sure does but balanced.
    • Like x 5
  5. Stanktonia Dedicated Player

    Scorecard has never been the problem, and as someone said above me, taking away the scorecard will take away the last competitive piece of the game away, since pvp isn’t being adjusted. The problem is, as you mentioned, the fact that there is always “over-nerfing” and never any buffs to lacking powers. The nerfing trend has never worked
    • Like x 2
  6. xxHELLSTROKExx Loyal Player

    How do we know they don't? What's the worst power? If there is a "worst" then wouldn't artifacts and iconics or a prec build nullify its weaknesses? A lot of players follow meta because they can't figure out what to do but there are players that come up with some great "thinking outside of the box" builds and excel. Agree with you tho, why would the devs not want people to chase metas/ create new ones. It's basically what people asking for nerfs/ buffs really want even if they don't realize it. Personally, I'm ok with certain things over performing if it means I get thru instances better/ faster.
  7. Mepps Sr. Community Manager

    This isn't true. Everything gets considered very carefully, and if this were true, all day every day would be spent on nerfs. More true: when changes happen, some people react disproportionately and go straight to extreme claims and conspiracy theories.

    What in this is an excuse? Adjusting 15 powersets instead of 1 is, doing the rough math here, 15x more work and time spent on this and not other things.

    Except, interestingly, when you buff and adjust all powers, people still go right on requesting more buffs and nerfs.

    That might be what some people think they want. At some point, though, the game isn't a game anymore because everyone has been buffed so much you can "win" the competition by rolling your face across the keyboard, or the fights don't last long enough for there to be any sort of competition.

    When everyone gets buffed past reasonable targets, we then have to go buff all of the NPCs and abilities to match. Now instead of adjusting one thing that's clearly an outlier or broken or too good, we are adjusting all powersets and redoing every piece of content in the game. We will again either have to use the "excuse" that we don't have time to adjust every powerset and redo the entire game, or stop making anything new for months or years.

    Many, many games have no scorecards whatsoever and have the exact same calls for nerfs and buffs, sometimes just less informed by numbers and more informed by gamer intuition (which is largely I'm the best, I should be first, devs fix it.)

    --

    We do adjust powers and powersets as needed when something has lagged behind or surged ahead of the rest. We do this because the extremes do make playing less fun, either for you because you're way behind, or for others, because their way behind. We do this because it makes tuning content even more difficult or impossible, since we can't predict when the stupid-powerful will show up or not. We do this because it limits our options designing new things in the game, whether that's new fight mechanics, artifacts, or other.

    When we're smashed into a corner designing around a problem, it limits the game's potential for everyone, and it is often better to address the problem in a realistic way - even if it is a nerf - than to continue limping along.


    Edit: Just a little insight into our perspectives and responsibilities as developers.
    • Like x 22
  8. Cordelia Well-Known Player

    Heh. Too true. The only change *I* would make to the scorecard is to make it NOT pop up automatically. It wouldn't help much, but might help a little.

    But notice, a lot of people fighting the Hydra are still chasing damage and not doing mechanics despite there being no scorecard, so I don't think a lack of scorecard will help with the "pew pew pew" attitude.
    • Like x 5
  9. Siramez Well-Known Player


    `When everyone gets buffed past reasonable targets, we then have to go buff all of the NPCs and abilities to match. Now instead of adjusting one thing that's clearly an outlier or broken or too good, we are adjusting all powersets and redoing every piece of content in the game. We will again either have to use the "excuse" that we don't have time to adjust every powerset and redo the entire game, or stop making anything new for months or years.`

    this is why you should hire more devs to actually work on buffing and nerfing all powers, npcs, etc as said above. i understand the time it takes to do all these, but having bigger team leads to less stress and more management, especially having half of the team working on new content, new styles, new things, while other half working on fixing bugs (should be their top priority) to keep the game healthy and also keeping the game last longer. you can start small, with the nature adjustments being a good starting place, and slowly over time look for other bugs that needs fixing, you can do that by looking on threads made by players that includes bugs, and/or youtubers showing the game bug.

    We do adjust powers and powersets as needed when something has lagged behind or surged ahead of the rest. We do this because the extremes do make playing less fun, either for you because you're way behind, or for others, because their way behind. We do this because it makes tuning content even more difficult or impossible, since we can't predict when the stupid-powerful will show up or not. We do this because it limits our options designing new things in the game, whether that's new fight mechanics, artifacts, or other.

    When we're smashed into a corner designing around a problem, it limits the game's potential for everyone, and it is often better to address the problem in a realistic way - even if it is a nerf - than to continue limping along.

    There are few powers (especially ice sorcery mental atomic) that are lacking behind in terms of dps due to their weak abilities, power cost, etc and no one is willing to go that power for dps because of the reasons i said. if you actually fix them, bring them to the current meta, people will be able to have more diversity to choosing the powers. if you dont fix them, you will expect more players go either nature or munitions because they are the current meta and best for dpsing to clear the content they can.
    • Like x 2
  10. BumblingB I got better.

    They tried the always buff route. This resulted in buffing content, then that showed outliers in powersets that got buffed. Then they went through and buffed those and the cycle continued until AMs were so powerful they couldn't add meaningful content.
    Then we got CR Differential... And we know what happened there...
    Ultimately they had to "revamp" and "change" _ALL_ content and powers. Which started the cycle over again.

    The problem isn't nerfing one power that is over used FOTM, it's that players feel they have to use said flavor to make good soup.

    What the devs should be looking at is how power creep is working in the game and not wait for player outcry to get X buffed/nerfed.
    • Like x 3
  11. xxHELLSTROKExx Loyal Player

    Too many things to respond to/ quote here but I'll at least try to go in order:
    Scorecard or not, if someone's has the "pewpewpew" mentality, nothing will change that. Hydra fight being a great example. Maybe they aren't as evil people as being implied. Maybe they just don't know. It's an odd thing to give a stranger the benefit of the doubt but sometimes it's ok to do so.
    Hiring more people: if you've ever run a business then you know that there's pros and cons to everything. They have their team and if that's how they want it, that is up to the "bean counters". I'd imagine adding more staff increases problems personally. They have been rather diligent as of late with fixes. All things considered in the year of 2020, I'd say they're doing well above average.
    Please stop listing powers that you think need adjustment. Specific things are 1 thing if you know the powerset well. I run sorcery, I do not want them touching a thing. Why? Because I'll run against anyone and usually come out on top or close to it. Are there players that can beat me? Sure, I'm still working on it but believe me: you can make any power more than capable enough to be great at your role/ dps. Some take more effort than others. Is that unfair? I don't think so, I think that's half the fun. When I pug, I almost always get a message along the lines of "wow, what are you doing?" Or if it's another sorcery user, "can I get some tips?". Sure thing, probably make a new friend out of it. Point is, stop asking for changes for every little thing. If you personally can't make a powerset work for you, change it. If you want to chase meta and switch to nature because something isn't working as intended, that is your right. But don't complain when it gets brought back into line. And claiming munitions as OP/ meta, I'd say find the most recent post about the munitions player getting out performed by a toon 20cr lower than them. Not saying munitions is weak, I'm saying not everyone is aware of metas. The game is built for many different player types, not just you.
    • Like x 2
  12. ALB Dedicated Player

    The problem with nerfing one and not bringing others up is another power will now be considered op. Nature did need fixing, but you all did fix nature and nerfed it at the same time. Imo, nature should have been fixed and left a lone. Nature problem was healers and other nature users keeping up dots for roar, not nature wolf or insectoid. Dollars to donuts, after nature nerf, 1 of 3 powers will be complained about now.
  13. Stanktonia Dedicated Player

    When did they try “the buffing the weaker powers approach”? , because before am’s when they revamped all powers, it definitely didn’t lead to some sort of imbalance.
  14. MsTickle Fate Devoted Player

    I assume you'll personally cover the costs of $60k or $100k or whatever the annual cost is, including salary and benefits and equipment, for a new hire, since you haven't explained otherwise how to fund these "more devs."

    Of course, I'm speculating about the costs of one person coming to between $50k and $100k. But since you want not just one, but "more," presumably we should multiply those numbers by four or five or six.

    I really look forward to these new devs, who will not actually be conjured up to work for free! Thanks for your paying for them!
    • Like x 2
  15. BumblingB I got better.

    It totally did. The original approach was to do 1 powerset at a time and cycle through. When they did that it caused some to either get way buffed (gadgets) or didn't change anything (nature) then they came out with a new power and caused them to have to go back to do them from the beginning (gadgets etc). This cycle happened 2 times before we got AMs. When AMs came out is when they decided to bring up the lower and leave the upper alone.

    This caused a different problem, when the lowest was buffed, it inadvertently buffed the upper because some powers shared similar mechanics. It also broke others.

    The one thing that happened during CR Differential was we got extremely close to the balance between powersets. All were producing similar results with a margin of difference. Of course, the content was broken and a lot of the powersets' AMs were very limited/boring, but it was almost balanced damage wise. Role wise was another deal altogether. (Nature bug anyone?)

    I was pretty active in the development testing and whatnot for a long time now. Ever since test server was up.

    TBH, the biggest problem was the introduction of T5. They jacked up the stats of enemies and created a massive amount of punishing damage to the player. Which resulted in them having to increase the stats of the player. Thus started the skyrocket exponential spiral of problems. I remember that one graph that I think Tunso posted when they were first doing the flattening of stats. That it was a gradual change and then a massive spike at T5 and it didn't stop from there.
    • Like x 1
  16. The Doctor Time Lord Committed Player

    I think that balancing a 10 year old environment that has grown organically is an incredibly difficult job. I have been here since launch and frankly, I have never seen the game more balanced than it is now. There is no longer a "must use" load out for any powerset (and I have played all of them at one time or another) and a player can stay representative in any content.

    Are there issues? Sure. But overall , since stats matter, we have seen a more evenly balanced game.

    I think that part of the issue is how many people see DPS in the game as being ONLY about damage. This may be encouraged by the scoreboard but I have also seen it in games with no scoreboard.

    I would never tell anyone how to see the DPS role or that there is a "right" or "wrong" way to play. As long as a player is having fun, IMO, they are playing the right way.

    Having said that, I see playing as a DPS to be much more than sucking every last damage point. It also involves power management, to aid the controller, Survivability to help out the tank and healer, and rallies to help team mates (even when it costs you some damage points). This is a team game .

    So when we are talking about nerfs and buffs, I think it is helpful to remember that not all players have the same approach to the game.
    • Like x 4
  17. PolishEagle Dedicated Player

    Agree. My main is troll. I do have lots of alt dps for farming the alerts. Precision, fire and nature could get topped in the alert easily by other powers I am not at liberty to say since I want them to float under the devs radar. Those three powers were great in raids when scorecard chasers really care that they are the number 3 or 4 dps. Honestly as someone who cares primarily about support, lack of burn only annoys me. I never cared who was topping scorecard. I only notice if things are going slow. These changes don't have me quitting or anything, but I have found myself more interested in other games. Oh and you number 3 or 4 dps complaining, I am sorry but with these nerfs, your still going to suck at dpsing. I know people that can make celestial and quantum do amazing things and they never complained about these fotm powers, they just figured a way to keep up. The whiners never had the talent to do that.
    • Like x 2
  18. PolishEagle Dedicated Player

    Oh and whiners, I will give you burn advice. Stop going on websites and YouTube pages to learn how to op burn. A lot of those loadouts are kind of trash and that is your problem. You are listening to someone tell you how to play instead of figuring it out on your own. These people also said when DWF came out you needed two trolls. They said when stats revamp came out that slotting your sp into power was the way to go.
    • Like x 1
  19. Clothez Active Player

    I can see you're angry about nature being nerfed, as you're probably a nature player and you were probably a precision flurry player before it got nerfed as well. The dev's don't nerf a power because people sit and whine about it and the scoreboard that they cannot top(unless its it's a glitch, which in this case, there are glitches/bugs with nature.) they nerf it because it is over performing waaaay too much (not just on the dps side, as you say for the dps crybabies comment) and making content a complete cheese. Munitions for example has been a ridiculous dps power ever since release, yet the only time devs have REALLY balanced it was with the one shot biggun nerf, why? Because people it was making raids and the mechanics of raids waaaay to easy with just one shotting groups of enemies doing millions of damage. They look at how raids work and what people are doing with certain abilities and powers to get through content, atm, its nature cheesing EoG and Roar DoT spam to beat elite in 14 minutes... not ok. Contrary to your belief, not everyone cares about the dps scoreboard, though it is a great tool, some people care about having a fun challenging raid that people don't just go nature to beat. I'll agree some of these nature changes are a bit odd, but that's why they are on test. Stop calling everyone a crybaby and help the devs figure out how to make it better for everyone.
  20. Qwantum Abyss Loyal Player

    Im not 100% my opinion and what i do and how i constructively use the scorecard applies here BUT here goes.
    I run a unorthodox loadout for my quantum DPS (details a available upon request).
    In short its an example of what your not really “supposed to do” but i am somehow able to make it work and best part is that its universal, any content, any time, any group composition and it works (Best part is i like it and its fun for me).
    I say to preface how i use the score card.
    My setup is NOT ideal but i understand i use it VERY well. So if theres issues with damage, i use myself as the target average (mostly a lil above average).
    Basically if i am bottom dps, the group is just slaying Because i am no slouch.
    If im in the middle (2-3 rank) then its pretty normal.
    If im top then the damage of the group is weak.

    Basically im the bar. Fail to reach the bar and u need to take a hard look because i dont conform to any pre-advised builds, dont change anything for the content, i just do my thing with whats fun.
    Somehow i make it work surprisingly well so exceed the bar an your a pretty good dps.

    I like the scorecard for this specific reason I know exactly where i should be so its easy to call damage needs by looking where im ranked.
    Data is lost if it goes away as well as the various ways we use it individually. Perhaps its not ideal but its the best we have.