[Bridger]

Greetings

As you all know I have become more active in the game again, special on Saturday and Sunday.

On Sunday I try to give advice on builds and answer together if other experienced players question people about the game.

On Saturday I enjoy playing the game chasing records with my fellow Fleet Mates. However, the way we are currently doing it the team is competitive to each other in our runs and blocking our potential by doing so.

So I wanted to suggest that we move on to a supportive play style for the ones that are interested in it.

What this would entail would mean a team of 4 supportive players and one focusing on getting a new record.
These runs are open for everyone and will be scored on a separate list.

The complicated part will be that supportive players will need to have different builds available to them ideally everyone should be able to fulfill three roles but two is probably more realistic.

I am looking forward hearing your thoughts.

[T'Tan]

We had a similar experience on our runs last Friday. When all participants are roughly the same DPS level you get a very smooth run but won't hit any records. I guess we are at the peak in our DPS league without tweaking on group composition.

Don't get me wrong, for me it is still much fun to run in groups like this. But in case someone is looking to set new records one would have to build the team for it and work together towards this goal.

Still, I really like your suggestion. And I would be happy to build for support. As a long term tank player with a lean to DPS I might not be too far away actually, but it would be great to learn a few more tricks to push it even more into support direction. I would love to join a UFP group focused on team success. By going round robin we would even avoid the cooldowns for ISE/HSE and could create new personal bests for "everyone".

Count me in.

[Sul-Matuul]

The problem with DPS run when there's so much power creep is that sooner of later the players are not so much fighting the enemies; as they are fighting each other to get the hits in.
If there's only a couple of million HP in total on all the enemies on the map then even a couple of high end players can be competing for the same targets. And in a 5-man queue you've got everyone trying their best and trying to get hits in; there's just no way for the potential damage to be fairly distributed as people want it.

My personal take is have record-beating runs with specialist teams, for those interested; but don't concentrate on these to the detriment of just playing the game.
Make sure there's plenty of non-parsed runs of a mixture of missions and content; something for everyone.

[darthnovawave]

Timing of fleet events is always a challenge for me, but it sounds interesting. I'm curious though how many of us out there have reasonable support and tank builds though. These kinds of builds generally aren't as well advertised in the "how to" resources out there, and aren't glamorized at all. Tanking can be tracked metric wise by Atks In and Dmg In numbers, but there is no "leaderboard" tracking and unless people die during runs nobody pays much attention. Support builds don't really even have an overt effectiveness metric to point to, so it is hard to recognize when you are doing it "right". I almost wonder if there should be some prework done within our community first to assess our readiness to do internal fleet premades, and maybe we should look to provide resources to point people towards to prep to take on non-dps roles.

[Petr]

I'm interested.

I'm used to mainly tanking anyway, so that's not far off from supporting. And I'm sure that with some preparation I can bring a number of support builds to the table. Just the Oddy alone that my main flies, with the flagship technologies console set and CF3 can be made into a good support for energy builds as well as kinetic.

And I would also like to try my hand at setting some records.

[Morris]

I like, and support, this idea. I know that there is the ever present concern that a group like this becomes perceived as elitist. I'm always concerned about that perception, as new players joining the Saturday event do comment about how low their DPS is compared to the 'regulars' at the Saturday event. As far as I've seen, with myself included, we've all been supportive, understanding, and try to be helpful with piloting techniques and build suggestions. There has been no hint of elitism, that I've seen.

That being said, the mere fact that many of us are so advanced in the game can be intimidating to newer players. Special Ops has been trying to accommodate for this, when event attendance allows, by splitting the advanced players into one group, and the less experienced into another, led by a Special Ops Commander. In this way, the less experienced group doesn't feel like they aren't contributing to the group, and the team lead can observe, and provide advice, as the team progresses. This team can also focus on random events, or special requests, to accumulate needed marks for the team. These marks help advance the players through the reputation system, gaining the experience, the bonuses, and the equipment needed for improving their builds. This also allows for progression in skill, through active in-game experience. Throughout this, both teams enjoy socializing, and developing friendships with fleet mates.

With Bridger's proposal, I see an opportunity, for not just achieving optimized records, but also for participants to learn new builds and play styles. We will be trying new things, and expanding our understanding of the game. Some of us may find new, preferred ways of playing STO. This also encourages teamwork and trust in your teammates. The general group would always take priority. Members of the advanced group can always run in the general group, using their tank and support builds, to support the general team, without outclassing the rest of the group in DPS, while also gaining experience themselves, piloting unfamiliar builds.

In conclusion, I very much support Bridger's proposal!

[Miles]

I'm also backing this idea; this will help those who hunt records. We just have to be careful not to walk the elitist path. Weekly events are open to everyone in UFP and have fun by running whatever the team wants to do.

[Bridger]

Thank you all for your feedback, we will take everything you said seriously.

What I can tell you 100% is that casual runs will always have priority over paresd runs.

However, what I can also tell you is that support builds will also increase what less experienced players or less developed builds will experience (I do not want to sound elitist at all) for example a good Tank can do a lot of good things for you.

The next step is preparing demo builds for the different support roles in three different levels Beginners, Advanced and Elite based on how expensive it will be to create a build and to make it easy for people to start fly those builds.

We are also going to create guides on how to fly those ships and builds.

This is also not going to happen overnight but some of us will be using said builds to create guides or to test them.

[Bridger]

Hello

I want to share a little update with you all, this Sturday 7th of May SOB will be on our TS and will give an intruduction on how Supported Runs are going to work.

Here is a guide for a Support Build and the possible ships to use for it.

https://docs.google.com/presentation...it#slide=id.p1

[darthnovawave]

Hello

I want to share a little update with you all, this Sturday 7th of May SOB will be on our TS and will give an intruduction on how Supported Runs are going to work.

Here is a guide for a Support Build and the possible ships to use for it.

https://docs.google.com/presentation...it#slide=id.p1

Just as a heads-up, this Sunday is "Mother's Day" for a number of countries, so there may be a fair number of people in the fleet who will be indisposed due to holiday-related travel. It might be nice if someone can capture some notes of the TS discussion for those of us that can't join, particularly if the conversation goes outside the scope of the torp support suggestions in Spencer's slides.

[Bridger]

Just as a heads-up, this Sunday is "Mother's Day" for a number of countries, so there may be a fair number of people in the fleet who will be indisposed due to holiday-related travel. It might be nice if someone can capture some notes of the TS discussion for those of us that can't join, particularly if the conversation goes outside the scope of the torp support suggestions in Spencer's slides.

Yes, I will make notes.

[Bridger]

Aloha

Last week we had our introduction course into the wonderful world of Supported Team Runs by our expert SOB.

We have learned a lot and I am 100% sure that we can pull those runs with a bit of training.

The elephant in the room is though that for this we need a dedicated team,Morris and myself are both ready to get serious with this but we need two more dedicated players that can run a Debuff Sci and a Debuff Tank as you can see below.

These builds are not hammered in Stone and we should be able to adapt them to other ships.

If any of you have serious interest in this , write a PM to Morris or me.

Debuff Tank:



Torp Support:



DEW Support:

[T'Tan]

Thanks a lot for the example builds! I'm very sorry that I couldn't make it last week.

Debuff Tank:

May I ask why the primary spec is Intel? Isn't that counterproductive on a tank? Currently, I'd use Temporal as primary due to the interaction with Ba'ul weaponry and Strategist as secondary.

[Bridger]

Thanks a lot for the example builds! I'm very sorry that I couldn't make it last week.



May I ask why the primary spec is Intel? Isn't that counterproductive on a tank? Currently, I'd use Temporal as primary due to the interaction with Ba'ul weaponry and Strategist as secondary.

Keep in mind it is a Debuff Tank not a Heavy Tank it is not made to sit there and take damage.

[Miles]

I have started a build on the Fleet Titan, but it will take some time to be on an acceptable status.