PvE - Episodes/Missions unplayable

mikadzukichi

Hi...

In the last few days I've been trying to play Episodes/Missions on some of my Chars which I still haven't completed on them. During that time I noticed that instead of *playing* a Mission it has become a *dying through* a Mission. Enemy-NPCs are hitting and critting with 40k to 80k dmg and killing me nearly instantaneously, with me only doing minor Damage (at best!) to them. Enemies I have been able to fight without problems or with some effort are now a huge hassle for me because they kill me up to 7 or even 10 times before I am able to take them down!

I have been looking through the Board and found two other Threads about the same problem.

Photon 30k-80k torpedo damage bug
Excessive power curve at normal difficulty

I think that if it is not a Bug, it is maybe as tomilak said in his Thread - the Power/Damage curve for the *NORMAL* difficulty setting has become to excessive with the Level-Cap increase from Lv 60 to Lv 65. Sure everyone will say now something like - *You must upgrade your weapons and other items from MK XII to MK XIV at least (at best to MK XV)!* or *Certainly, with the Level-Cap increase the damage done by NPCs also increased. Since the Level of them has also been adjusted.*. But let me say this to you:

1) For normale/casual Players like myself upgrading gear is easier said than done. Unlike other Players I do NOT have the ECs and Dilithium to upgrade all Gear to MK XIV/XV since I am not playing on a regular Basis, because I do not have the time to do so. Also it can not be that as a casual Player you must wait // have to wait for the Anniversary (Omega) Event or Phoenix-Box Event to happen (once respectively twice a year) and farm endlessly just to be able to play *NORMAL* Missions/Episodes you should be able to play with common/normal Loot.

2) Since the Level of the NPCs increased as well as their damage shouldn't there also be an increase to the Level of the Loot-Items droping from them???!!! Although those NPCs are adjusted to Lv 65 the Loot they drop is still MK XII and with those Items you can't do anything against them without being killed dozen of times. Before the increase to the new Level-Cap you were able to play *NORMAL* Missions/Episodes with the MK XII Loot-Items you received from NPCs. Those Items were only 2 (!!!) Levels below the Item-Level-Cap (MK XIV) and the difference between the stats was almost marginal. Now the Items you get from Lv 65 NPCs are still MK XII but instead of being 2 Level below the Cap they are now 3 (!!!) Levels below the Cap and the difference between the stats is almost like night and day!!!


If all of this will stay as it is a lot of casual Players like myself may or perhaps even will stop playing since they will get at first extremly agitated and further down the road completly frustrated by being killed over and over and over and over … and over again. Therefore I strongly urge the Devs to reevaluate the Power/Damage curve and the Item-Levels of the Loot droping from max. Lv NPCs!!! Players should be able to play and enjoy the *NORMAL* parts of the game (Missions/Episodes) with Items they get casually by playing the game casually.


Best regards

where2r1

Can you tell me which story arc you are in?

I am just taking my Main Level 65 they are at the end of the Cardassian Arc. I was just wondering where these god awful phantom NPCs are at...compared to where I am at. Thanks for your time.

mikadzukichi

where2r1 wrote: »

Can you tell me which story arc you are in?

I am just taking my Main Level 65 they are at the end of the Cardassian Arc. I was just wondering where these god awful phantom NPCs are at...compared to where I am at. Thanks for your time.

Last Mission I've played 5h ago was *Taris* in the Romulan Arc for Federation Characters. The Romulan Warbirds hit me with 7k-10k Disruptor Damage and 40k-80k Plasma and Kinetic Damage. For me the last thing was instant-death ...

where2r1

mikadzukichi wrote: »

Last Mission I've played 5h ago was *Taris* in the Romulan Arc for Federation Characters. The Romulan Warbirds hit me with 7k-10k Disruptor Damage and 40k-80k Plasma and Kinetic Damage. For me the last thing was instant-death ...

OK...my Fed Delta Recruit is still Level 11, so I won't have to worry about it, yet. Yea!

::::breathing sigh of relief:::::

OOPs...I forgot to thank you for your time.

postagepaid

There are some missions where you transition from ground to space and if you simply F through the chat you find yourself being shot at from all sides.

mattjohnsonva wrote: »

I can bet a million dollars that I can take my end game ship through every mission in the game on normal difficulty and not die once, so I doubt it's the game to be fair. Having said that, STO has more bugs than the Amazon rain forest so you may have found something, but to be sure you need to post empirical data.

An "end game" ship should have no bother with normal or advanced difficulty so saying that doesn't help things much does it?

Although you are correct in saying that without knowing their gear/abilities it'd be hard to make suggestions.

zerokillcf2011

Well, under the current game mechanic, NPC ships damage and abilities scale with your current level. So in that mission you should be somewhere around level 24-30? And if you died after "40k-80k" (which...how? that's a huge range, was it 40k or 80k?) it sounds like you may be in a tactical ship (i.e. glass cannon at that level) and you simply need to re-spec your ship. should be able to affordably get uncommon or even rare armor for your engineering slot. also make sure you aren't shooting a rainbow. Get all one type of weapon and the tactical consoles to match. Again, buying uncommon or rare should cost almost nothing, and could help on your dps. But again, just guessing until we know what you are working with. Also, revise your play style. Stay at a further range from the Rom cruiser (closer = more damage) and gives you a better chance to outrun plasma torp if need be. Make sure you have at least one engineering team for your BO, or at least polarized hull plating for your science BO, or both (again you can pay to buy those if you don't have them now) but both (properly timed) give a decent reduction to kinetic/physical damage for 5 or 10 seconds. Best of luck

doctorstegi

It's fair to say that MK XII gear is more then enough to play every mission content on normal with ease. The fact that you get hit so hard is a problem of your set up. For example if i invest everything from traits to consoles into offense to make more damage, i m wide open do be a one shot wonder. Neutronium alloy and something against kinetic damage works wonders.

It doesn't cost millions of EC to equip chars. For the last two events i geared some farm characters of mine to be able to play and do damage in the events for less then 500k EC each. Sure its not all purple gear but its enough to do the job without me running in the issue of dying.

While the game sure isn't bug free as somebody stated it shows some similarities with the amazon rain Forrest however in most case its a simple solution as of doing your skills, traits and gear right.

where2r1

You should just put that line in your siggy, azrael605, or you are going to be typing it a lot when the new players file in with Discovery.

mikadzukichi

mattjohnsonva wrote: »

Post your build
State your level
Post a link to a parse you've taken

Without the above we can't say if the problem is with the game or with the player.

On normal difficulty you can take a Tier one ship easily up to level 50, I've done it with not many deaths. I had a similar reaction when I started back on ESO and was having my bottom handed to me by any mob, it was, of course, my crappy build that was letting me down. After some research I soon started to be able to tank it.

I can bet a million dollars that I can take my end game ship through every mission in the game on normal difficulty and not die once, so I doubt it's the game to be fair. Having said that, STO has more bugs than the Amazon rain forest so you may have found something, but to be sure you need to post empirical data.

Sorry for not mentioning my Level and Gear-Level explicitly. I was/am talking about the max Level 65 and *CASUAL*/*COMMON* Gear MK XII (in purple!), as well as *COMMON*/*CASUAL* Gameplay on *NORMAL* difficulty Settings. Chars are btw. TAC, ENG and SCI (tried all).

Regarding my Setup. I am using the same setup I always used and never ever had any problems with. With that setup I was able to play 80%+ of the Game (e.g. all Episodes/Mission, normal STFs, etc.).

And about your statement that you can take your *END GAME*(!!!) ship through every mission. I don’t doubt that. I could do the same, if I had an end game ship with – I assume – golden MK XV Items equipped. But as I mentioned in my OP, I am talking about *CASUAL* Players and Items they have/can get.

zerokillcf2011 wrote: »

Well, under the current game mechanic, NPC ships damage and abilities scale with your current level. So in that mission you should be somewhere around level 24-30? And if you died after "40k-80k" (which...how? that's a huge range, was it 40k or 80k?) it sounds like you may be in a tactical ship (i.e. glass cannon at that level) and you simply need to re-spec your ship. should be able to affordably get uncommon or even rare armor for your engineering slot. also make sure you aren't shooting a rainbow. Get all one type of weapon and the tactical consoles to match. Again, buying uncommon or rare should cost almost nothing, and could help on your dps. But again, just guessing until we know what you are working with. Also, revise your play style. Stay at a further range from the Rom cruiser (closer = more damage) and gives you a better chance to outrun plasma torp if need be. Make sure you have at least one engineering team for your BO, or at least polarized hull plating for your science BO, or both (again you can pay to buy those if you don't have them now) but both (properly timed) give a decent reduction to kinetic/physical damage for 5 or 10 seconds. Best of luck

Like I wrote above. I am max Level 65 an playing the Missions/Episodes on Chars I still haven’t played them on. For example, atm I am playing the Romulan Arc Episode-Missions on my Level 65 ENG Federation Char. There I am using a Cruiser with all Phaser Beam Arrays MK XII in purple (CritD + Dmg), tactical Consoles for Phaser-Damage increase, the Omega-Repu Console, Neutronium Consoles and the Quantum Phase Set (Deflector, Impulse Engine, Shields). BOff-Skills are setup accordingly, based on Builds from STO DPS League. With this Build I never had problems before, but now I am getting nuked over and over again.

doctorstegi wrote: »

It's fair to say that MK XII gear is more then enough to play every mission content on normal with ease. The fact that you get hit so hard is a problem of your set up. For example if i invest everything from traits to consoles into offense to make more damage, i m wide open do be a one shot wonder. Neutronium alloy and something against kinetic damage works wonders.

It doesn't cost millions of EC to equip chars. For the last two events i geared some farm characters of mine to be able to play and do damage in the events for less then 500k EC each. Sure its not all purple gear but its enough to do the job without me running in the issue of dying.

While the game sure isn't bug free as somebody stated it shows some similarities with the amazon rain Forrest however in most case its a simple solution as of doing your skills, traits and gear right.

Well. That’s the same I was thinking – that MK XII Gear will be more than enough and that Players should be able to play the game (Missions/Episodes) on the *NORMAL* difficulty setting, on max Level 65 with the Items they can get through playing this content. Especially casual Players! But sadly, that seems not to be the case anymore. Even if you use MK XII (purple) gear you’ll get shot-down in seconds and do only some damage at best. Like I mentioned in my OP the damage from the enemies (e.g. Romulan ships in the Romulan Story Arc for Federation Chars) is around 40k to 80k with Torpedo and special attacks and around 5k to 8k with Beam attacks.

---

Under the assumption that this whole thing is not one of the Bugs in game, it seems for me as if the Devs did not take into consideration – with the whole Level increase to Level 65 and the increase in strength from NPCs accordingly – that NPCs on one side will now be (regarding their strength and damage) like Player-Ships stuffed with MK XIV / MK XV Gear (at least in green or blue quality). But Players especially Casual-Players on the other side will still only get MK XII Gear from those NPCs to use against them. There is NO MK XIV and MK XV white, green, blue or purple gear dropping anywhere in the game – only exception MK XIII from Reputation and some green/blue MK XIII items from some quests (I thin). All players need to upgrade their MK XII Gear (or other MK Gear) to MK XIII++ themselves.

Still under the assumption that it is not a Bug, there are only three options in my opinion to solve this.

1) Make it so that by choosing the *normal* difficulty setting for Missions/Episodes everything is scaled for MK XII Gear and by choosing the *advanced* setting for MK XIV+ Gear.

2) Overhaul all Loottables for all NPCs and include drops of MK XIII Gear in white, green, blue and rarely in purple.

3) Make a complete overhaul of the whole Damage/Power/Strength curve starting from MK X to MK XV.


Best regards

doctorstegi

mikadzukichi wrote: »

Hi...

In the last...

I actually take it back. I have had an experience today with Operation Gamma where a fleet buddy came gave up and I was like it can't be that hard. Well once i got down to his level he is a new player without much of anything I could see where people have a hard time finishing missions on normal. I actually made a post about it as well. So yeah forget what i said something is off, i just don't notice it usually cause experience and gear make seem like easy stuff, however if get take that gear away and put myself in a new players shoes without rep traits, star ship traits ect... It becomes a whole different story.

mikadzukichi

azrael605 wrote: »

To clarify, I'm not claiming the game is bug free, I'm saying that when DR hit and people said the changes made put it into an "unplayable state" due to enemy hp, damage done, too much xp needed to level, etc I played the Delta Arc on Elite in a T5U Galor. When people said the Vaadwaur were impossible on Elite I was taking them down. Were there bugs? Yes. Did those bugs effect me? Some. Did any bugs or other concerns such as given before make anything impossible or unplayable to me? No.

I have played the season 5 version of Crystalline when I was told it was impossible (how quaint), back then that was Korfez, which I also played when tokd it was unplayable, I love it now, I have very low wins, but I love it.

There may or may not be some bug in npc torps, not sure, haven't run into anything on my Narendra's mastery cruise that I noticed. I'm disputing using the unplayable terminology.

Well. I'll admit that *unplayable* may be more a catchphrase instead of an acurate discription. But as doctorstegi wrote, if you put yourself in the shoes of a Casual-Player who dies over and over and over and over again in an Episode/Mission on an normal difficulty setting, which should be playable without any problems (as long as the Player has apropriate Gear for the Level), you'll start to give up because of being frustrated at some point on the way. If you reach that point, the game becomes unplayable for you .


Best regards

markhawkman

Honestly? Sounds like you're doing it wrong. You gave a specific example of Romulans. It's pretty easy to get ganked by Romulans if a shield facing goes down right when they're firing more plasma torpedoes at you than should be legal. Especially since they like to tractor beam you first.

One of the old Romulan Mystery arc used to be SUPER bad about this. There was a triggered event where a D'd would decloak right on top of you, tractor beam you, then fire a massive volley of plasma seekers at you from point blank range. You pretty much needed to plan ahead of time for dealing with it. But if you avoided the de-cloak alpha, it wasn't a particularly hard fight.

where2r1

I use Mark 12 mostly purples on my Level 65. Though I have a few that are Ultra Rare that hit that on a chance. A lot of this stuff in the game is up to devices and other clickies helping out.

When up against Romulans in the early game I usually equip some of these things: https://sto.gamepedia.com/Ship_device#Deployable_devices

I get them from DOFF assignments and save them for my new characters.
Oh they are trade able....so you might find them on the Exchange, if anyone has bothered to corner that market.

mikadzukichi

Guys!!! Guys!!! And maybe ladies!!! Ladies!!!

Let me say it again since I am pretty sure no one has read what I worte, not only once but twice.

>>>> I AM USING THE SAME BUILD I HAVE BEEN USING SINCE LAST YEAR. WITH THAT BUILD I NEVER HAD ANY PROBLEMS WITH ANY OF THE !!!!!! --> NORMAL-MODE <-- !!!!! CONTENT! NOT WITH EPISODES, NOT WITH MISSIONS AND NOT WITH STFs! <<<<

As someone already mentioned before. You should be able to play the Game on NORMAL difficulty setting with T5 Ships and MK XII Gear, since those are the items you are receiving from playing the game as a casual player.

At the moment that is not possible. As I mentioned before you are dying over and over again, because NPCs are doing an insane amount of damage - as I said before. laughinxan discribed it perfectly in his thread over HERE.

laughinxan wrote: »

And how many new players are going to have the best neutronium armor console for that? Or mk14+ weapons when they don't drop anymore past 50 as some have said? This game has become punishing past 50 end of story on that. Besides not really teaching players tools to deal with things, it stops rewarding those tools and expects them to grind tons of dilithium and energy credits to upgrade things. Equipment less than 14 is unfit for combat, just as well say ships with mk12 stuff just as well be made of cardboard.

It's not just this mission which feels unapproachable. I was just going through "Minescape" and besides the strange fact the game forced me into using Tovan when I'd have rather used a much better equipped science officer I had, I was seeing cooper do 500-800 damage/hit with his main antiproton attack. I got killed inspite religious use of phasic shroud and nanite health monitor and as many defenses as I could muster. I feel there was no way I could have done it better, and that is what angers and annoys me about this game and the scaling at 65. In fact I am honestly seriously reconsidering touching this game anymore, it does nothing but fill me with rage as it's not fun anymore.

And course, I took in both attempts to get through the mission 100% deathless(from last checkpoint, I'm not satisfied with getting through anything after a respawn); torpedo(undodgable+untargetable one) taking me from full hull and shields to 20-30% health in space combat(so I tried to let voyager do most of the work) and that was with emergency power to shields 3 up. How are people expecting newcomers to stick around this game when the game does this to them with no warning or telegraphing routinely?

In fact it feels that near every other mission once you hit 65 is an unfair slog thats just insanely hard for no good reasons. Even with a very good bridge officer setup and stacked to the defenses it feels like without being loaded with max gear the game just sucks.

Torpedoes near or totally one-shotting the t-5 ships the newbies are likely to be flying, some bosses in ground combat one shotting you and even the bridge officers repeatedly, enemies not really following the rules, players not given enough tools to work with at first(newbies aren't given any kind of training manuals for useful bridge off skills and only have tour the galaxy for energy credits to get the bridge officer abilities that are important nore told where to get sufficient EC to buy those training manuals)....

This game consequently feels punishing. Like cryptic is trying to defeat players and make them lose rather than challenge them, which is why I shared the video above. That applies to everything when any amount of difficulty is apparent. Cryptic needs to learn that, they should be WANTING players to succeed inspite any difficulty, rather than simply keeping them from succeeding.

Also a player shouldn't have to respawn to beat a mission. That just makes it feel "cheap". Like theres no way you could win fairly so the game is allowing you to cheat through it. That isn't good.

---

For all those of you who asked me to post my build I am using on the Char I am talking about, here it is. I hope I did not left anything out.

BUILD


Best regards

echatty

I only play normal content, though my mains at lvl 65 are using various T6 ships/mk XIV gear.

But I do go to my alts sometimes to do content and they are usually in T6 ships/mk XII gear.

Sometimes I will take out a favored T5/T5-U ship out and play.

Haven't had any difficulty with any normal content.

vetteguy904

I got smoked by a Borg warp core breach of over 80K a couple days ago. some of the crits are getting rediculous. it's almost as if for every bit of crit building in YOUR toon the enemy applys it to YOU

warpangel

vetteguy904 wrote: »

I got smoked by a Borg warp core breach of over 80K a couple days ago. some of the crits are getting rediculous. it's almost as if for every bit of crit building in YOUR toon the enemy applys it to YOU

Warp core breaches are supposed to one-shot you.

vetteguy904

what they want is what was referred to as a "monty haul" game

markhawkman

mikadzukichi wrote: »

Guys!!! Guys!!! And maybe ladies!!! Ladies!!!

Let me say it again since I am pretty sure no one has read what I worte, not only once but twice.

What scenario are you trying to beat and failing? Looking at your build is one thing, but analyzing combat tactics is equally important.