A Radical Way to Address Gauntlet 'Staleness'?
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in Make It So!
This is the most recent thread of many where players are referring to the Gauntlet as being ‘stale’. One of the primary reasons for this criticism is the frequent encounter of walls of the same character amongst their opponents. In contemplating how to overcome this issue, I began with two assumptions:
- players will strive to acquire the best available characters for the Gauntlet, and over time a substantial number will be successful in doing so (i.e., even when someone new with better stats is introduced into the game)
- when a player is the defender in a Gauntlet match (i.e., comes up as someone else’s chosen opponent), the game needs to continue using that player’s best available character for the skill combination from their Gauntlet crew to defend against the attacker – for example, if a MED/DIP match comes up, and if a player has Bartender Guinan in their current Gauntlet crew, then she should not be ignored and passed over for a weaker defender
Perhaps some players might disagree with the second assumption, and think having the game intentionally skip top defenders would be a good solution to getting easy opponents, but I suspect most players do not want the game making this choice for them. Therefore, my perhaps radical idea to spice up the Gauntlet is to instead put the choice into our hands (where I think it belongs).
One of the reasons why so many walls exist today is because with a total of 5 characters in your Gauntlet crew, if you have a strong selection of crew from which to choose from for the particular featured skill and traits, it is possible to effectively defensively cover most/all of the skills with at least 1 character. For example, if you have Mirror Phlox (as most players except the newer ones do), then you have a decent defender for all MED combinations; if you invested the 100,000 Honor to get Kahless, then you have a decent defender for all the CMD combinations.
So, to break up the walls, what if we made it not possible for players to cover so many skills with their Gauntlet crew, by reducing the size down from 5 to 3? In this way, everyone would have a weakness somewhere, but it would be our choice as to where, and we could be more strategic in our play. For example, if lots of players decided to use Locutus, Guinan, and Kahless, then I could beat them on many ENG combinations with my Tempted Data.
Do you think this idea is nuts? Or might you be interested to try it, and see how it would play out?
- players will strive to acquire the best available characters for the Gauntlet, and over time a substantial number will be successful in doing so (i.e., even when someone new with better stats is introduced into the game)
- when a player is the defender in a Gauntlet match (i.e., comes up as someone else’s chosen opponent), the game needs to continue using that player’s best available character for the skill combination from their Gauntlet crew to defend against the attacker – for example, if a MED/DIP match comes up, and if a player has Bartender Guinan in their current Gauntlet crew, then she should not be ignored and passed over for a weaker defender
Perhaps some players might disagree with the second assumption, and think having the game intentionally skip top defenders would be a good solution to getting easy opponents, but I suspect most players do not want the game making this choice for them. Therefore, my perhaps radical idea to spice up the Gauntlet is to instead put the choice into our hands (where I think it belongs).
One of the reasons why so many walls exist today is because with a total of 5 characters in your Gauntlet crew, if you have a strong selection of crew from which to choose from for the particular featured skill and traits, it is possible to effectively defensively cover most/all of the skills with at least 1 character. For example, if you have Mirror Phlox (as most players except the newer ones do), then you have a decent defender for all MED combinations; if you invested the 100,000 Honor to get Kahless, then you have a decent defender for all the CMD combinations.
So, to break up the walls, what if we made it not possible for players to cover so many skills with their Gauntlet crew, by reducing the size down from 5 to 3? In this way, everyone would have a weakness somewhere, but it would be our choice as to where, and we could be more strategic in our play. For example, if lots of players decided to use Locutus, Guinan, and Kahless, then I could beat them on many ENG combinations with my Tempted Data.
Do you think this idea is nuts? Or might you be interested to try it, and see how it would play out?
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Comments
Maybe.
Only when the RNG gives you that combination. How many merit refreshes will it take to do that? I'm not sure this will be an overall improvement, or just make it more frustrating.
There is a 'Part B' I had for this suggested change, but I ran out of time the other day to type it out (plus I did not want the original post to be too, too long).
With fewer characters in your Gauntlet crew, under the current rules, it would also reduce how many attacks you could perform against other opponents. To address this, I am also proposing a change to how 'fatigue' works in the Gauntlet, which would somewhat mirror what we have with Anti-Matter in Voyages. Specifically:
- if one of your crew successfully attacks an opponent, then their proficiency roll values would increase by 5% of their base 100% value (i.e., it would not be a compounded 5%, but a string of successful matches would take you to 105%, 110%, 115%, etc.)
- if one of your crew unsuccessfully attacks an opponent, instead of automatically going down to Zero strength, they would have their proficiency roll values would decrease by 30% (again from their base 100% value - for example, if they had climbed up to 105% after a successful match, then they would drop down to 75%)
- if a player was above 100% and wanted to maintain this strength after a lost match, they could use Dilithium to not experience the 30% drop
- players could at any time use Dilithium to get a crew member back to 100% strength, if they had a crew member anywhere between 0% to 95%
With these changes to how fatigue works, coupled with decreasing Gauntlet crew sizes to reduce the occurrence of 'walls', it would give you more incentive to spend:
- Merit to find a favorable Skills combination for your next match, OR
- Dilithium to maintain a character's higher strength after a lost match
Ultimately these changes would make it more readily possibly to pursue longer Win Streaks.
I'd do it by having every Gauntlet have two separate phases, with each lasting 24 hours. The first phase would run exactly the way Gauntlet does right now, and you'd pick five crew for it. However you'd also have to pick five different crew at that time for use in the second phase - and in the second phase, the traits would be randomized.
With 10 crew total, we'd all be fielding a wider array of characters in the gauntlet, and everyone would have a greater mix of strong and weak crew in each segment of it. If you run into a wall of Locutii in Phase 1, you can be pretty sure you won't in Phase 2.
Define "can always be beaten by your crew."
I wouldn't think that would require an explanation.
However, your opponent would have lower stats than any of your crew, so they can be easily beaten. Say by one of your crew that's stats are too low to beat other higher stat opponents.
I'm not saying a win every time, but, maybe a higher chance of a win from the RNG. I would be happy with a 70% chance of a win every time. Again, just my 2 cents.
Of course it does, and you've defined it as 70% chance - thanks.
I'm not sure whether I like this or not, but I'd say at the least that these opponents should have lower trophy value than the current min. Maybe 5 or even 3.
something like this for the 6 match-ups:
1) 200 pt: Find a good match-up above you in rank (or just below you if you're at or near rank 1), with good match of random skills.
2) 150 pt: Find a good match-up around your rank with good match of random skills.
3) 100 pt: Find a reasonable match-up just below your rank with a moderate match of random skills.
4) 50 pt: Find a reasonable match-up below your rank ...
5) 20 pt: Find a poor match-up below your rank ...
6) 10 pt: Find a poor match-up below your rank.
Really, the only time a "no matching skills" should show up is in #6 .. but not that often ... allow it occasionally, but try to find a weak match-up .. somebody with a 20-50 skill, or something silly.
That would then aware points based on the difficulty a bit more appropriately ... and allow players to go after certain tactics ... ie do I want to focus on streaks? fine, focus on the 10/20 pt ..
or do I want to try for top 10 ? then focus on the 200/150 pt ...
It would also .. naturally ... eliminate "the walls" ...
In other words . just "more better" logic needed for picking the opponents.