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Random Task Force Operations - lack of diversity
risian6
Member Posts: 128 Arc User
I know randomness means that it is, in theory, still possible to get the same outcome over and over again.
However, those chances are very small. And they don't match how I have experienced the Random Task Operations.
I've done them somewhere close to 40, maybe 50 times now and about half of those were Romulan Imperial Minefield and Defend Starbase One. Perhaps another quarter were
- missions like Counterpoint, which is also selected quite often
- the three borg space missions (perhaps 8 times or so between the three of them).
The final quarter or so were missions like
- Breach (one time),
- Assault on Terok Nor (2),
- Bug hunt (2)
- Defend Rhiho station (3) and
- Vault ensnared (1).
That leaves dozens of missions that have not been selected once so far. Note also that ground missions are selected far less often than space missions.
One may like that or not, some may be happy with some of these missions being selected more often than others, but this is not the results you should get if the system was truly random. Literally two missions make up half the results, those plus another four account for three quarters of the result and out of the 30-40 missions that remain, only five others have happened so far.
Perhaps it is because I have only played normal missions so far that can also be accessed by lower level players, but even then the results make no sense and one would expect to see different missions pop up more often.
Don't get me wrong, the system was a great idea and the rewards totally make it worth it. But I refuse to believe that some missions are not deliberately being selected more often than others. And frankly, Starbase One gets boring real quick if you have done it a dozen times already. This system should be (and certainly has the potential to be) preventing the feeling that you have played content too often, so please make it so.
However, those chances are very small. And they don't match how I have experienced the Random Task Operations.
I've done them somewhere close to 40, maybe 50 times now and about half of those were Romulan Imperial Minefield and Defend Starbase One. Perhaps another quarter were
- missions like Counterpoint, which is also selected quite often
- the three borg space missions (perhaps 8 times or so between the three of them).
The final quarter or so were missions like
- Breach (one time),
- Assault on Terok Nor (2),
- Bug hunt (2)
- Defend Rhiho station (3) and
- Vault ensnared (1).
That leaves dozens of missions that have not been selected once so far. Note also that ground missions are selected far less often than space missions.
One may like that or not, some may be happy with some of these missions being selected more often than others, but this is not the results you should get if the system was truly random. Literally two missions make up half the results, those plus another four account for three quarters of the result and out of the 30-40 missions that remain, only five others have happened so far.
Perhaps it is because I have only played normal missions so far that can also be accessed by lower level players, but even then the results make no sense and one would expect to see different missions pop up more often.
Don't get me wrong, the system was a great idea and the rewards totally make it worth it. But I refuse to believe that some missions are not deliberately being selected more often than others. And frankly, Starbase One gets boring real quick if you have done it a dozen times already. This system should be (and certainly has the potential to be) preventing the feeling that you have played content too often, so please make it so.
Formerly known as Risian4. Risian6 is my new PS4-account. Fleetcaptain5 is my main PC account. I hope to actively play again on PC in a few months.
Now that that's made clear... on to the next issue: when are playable Voth coming, and where's are my T7 Vesta and C-store purchasable real life shuttle?
Now that that's made clear... on to the next issue: when are playable Voth coming, and where's are my T7 Vesta and C-store purchasable real life shuttle?
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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That means that in total, 4 missions (Starbase one, Romulan Minefield, Azure and Counterpoint) make up the bulk of the results with the first two of those making up close to a third - one half of the overall results. Most other missions, if selected at all, are not selected more than once or twice, and the lion's share of the missions have not been selected at all.
Now that that's made clear... on to the next issue: when are playable Voth coming, and where's are my T7 Vesta and C-store purchasable real life shuttle?
The random in rTFO does not mean "selected purely by chance" but as in "you don't know what you'll get". People on here seem to either ignore or not know that random have more than one definition.
What you see is a selection of the queues that people queue up for most, in part because some of those are for the TFO wrapper mission. Others are jut popular.
But yeah, if you want a rTFO to be selected purely by rng you need to queue up with a team of five.
I guess I missed that yeah.
But then it still makes no sense. Where's Crystalline Entity in the results for example? Somehow I find it hard to believe that people are no longer queueing for that. Or Fleet alert to name just two missions one would still expect to see more often then.
Also, if that's really true, then it is a pretty bad design choice. It basically means that the player is still dependent on what others are queuing for. And that players are being pulled in missions that would be played anyway - i.e., that they could just queue for using the regular system.
The way I understood it, this system was meant to reduce the lack of options and give players more options to play different missions.
Now that that's made clear... on to the next issue: when are playable Voth coming, and where's are my T7 Vesta and C-store purchasable real life shuttle?
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“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
How the system works is explained there, no point wondering about it here.
The system is not fulfilling two of those three objectives according to the OP.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Moderation Problems/Issues? Please contact the Community Manager
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Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
So get used to teamwork. Ad hoc cooperation is pretty much built in to human behavior.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
I'm fine with teamwork. i can't speak for the other 4 team members
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
Like a lot of people I went form running queue missions daily to not running any in months. The opposite to what was intended as the change made it harder and more cumbersome for me to get into the missions I want to play. In the circle of people I play with the change has done massive harm for no real benefit.
Why should we be grateful that many missions got made harder to get into, wait time has been massively increased and variety has been made worse? Overall this change has had a massive negative impact on players like myself to the point where it has ruined PvE for many. A big chunk of missions that used to be played have been killed off by the change.
All it did was move the bar of which variety of STF "pops". It is just a different set of missions from where it started off.
It went from STF #1. #2. #3. #4, #5 always busy....and switched it to STF #4, #5, #6, #7, #8.
What players (like the OP) expected: the system flipping them between STF #1, #2, #3, #4, #5......#47, #48, #49, #50.
How many have actually been able to participate in "a forgotten piece of older content"???
Yes, you CAN get a team faster....I will give you that.....but that is not the same as a variety of all the STF missions.
++++++++++++++++++
The Devs were asking why players pick and choose only a handful of STFs...they have 50 different queues.
The players responded: We want to play the other ones, but no one is ever "in line".
They tried changing the way the UI sorts them, in hopes more people would find the "forgotten" STFs.
They tried removing the ability to see how many players there were waiting, so people would quit rejecting it due to no one waiting in line.
Now, they are trying fill with random players....and there is still content in the STFs that is untouched.
AND, on top of that, from other threads I have read, people are now finding it impossible to run Elite or 10 player.
And I am a Solo player....and it is bad when I can see: this is NOT working out the way it was envisioned.
+++++++++++++++++++++
EDIT: The devs, also, mentioned they were going to put in fixes for STFs that players found issues with. And asked for feedback on that effort. I have no idea if that is taking place at all. They are trying to juggle too many changes in this game, right now.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
> Except in that notice they specifically say:
>
> * Have you longed for a greater sense of variety in your daily dose of Star Trek Online group content?
> * Do you ever just want to log into the game and play, without feeling picky about what it is?
> * Have you ever wanted to participate in a forgotten piece of older content, but found the prospect of forming a team cumbersome, if not downright impossible?
If there is one thing you learn about the News Announcement Blogs - they are never known for their clarity and precision in what they state. Many times mistakes from the past are directly copy/pasted into the next iteration without modification.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Typically the more a game emphasizes team mechanics the more widely they're picked up in the population. For years STO fixated around a small set of queues with reliable populations which didn't feature team mechanics beyond "everyone go to the same side first in ISA." The other queues were available on a much more limited basis. That dynamic has changed but the population hasn't necessarily caught up yet. So, let people work through it. Behavior doesn't change instantaneously and the most helpful thing anyone (dev or player) can do is simply try to lead by example in game.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
The dynamic has not changed recently, the devs are fixated on reducing teamwork in STO. Just look at all the queue and event revamps where team work has been stripped out or dumbed down. Given what the devs have done its no wonder team work is in such a bad state.
For me the Random Task Force changes destroyed the last of the team work I was experiencing in this game. It’s the nail in the coffin that has made me give up on team work in STO.
Then there was Storming the Spire...which pops up in my RTFOs a lot for reasons I don't understand.
My character Tsin'xing
As many as have tried. For the queues that are included in the system anyway. This does, of course, involve selecting those queues yourself, not blind jumping into the filler queue, letting others pick for you and moaning when they'd rather play ISA.
Yeah, surprise surprise, the content that's fast, easy and highly rewarding is still popular, who ever would've guessed.
You can pick the "untouched" queues yourself and get them filled with randos (if the queue is in the system) or you can be filler for someone else's selection. Obviously not both at the same time.
Because those reward so poorly compared to Random Advanced nobody wants to play them anymore.
Which is not to say they were at all well-rewarded to begin with, if you actually did the math reward/time, but the randoms really drive the point home because it doesn't even require any math to see the Random Advanced always pays better than Elite.
'This risian6' is complaining about a lack of diversity. Better get used to it, it's a habit of mine.
Nice to meet you too btw.
Now that that's made clear... on to the next issue: when are playable Voth coming, and where's are my T7 Vesta and C-store purchasable real life shuttle?
True, I have overlooked that bit about what constitutes 'randomness' here (or perhaps I didn't, I've been away for a few months so that may be it. Anyway). But let's be honest, in a game that's full of truly randomised stuff and boxes, it would be nice to have a truly randomised system for queues as it could bring some much needed diversity to what missions one can play.
Especially since they removed the numbers that indicated how many players were in a queue.
Granted, and linking back to what @baddmoonrizin said; I have played more different missions than probably would have been possible without the system. But that doesn't mean it's perfect and that there is no room for improvement.
I certainly think a truly randomised system would mean improvement.
Now that that's made clear... on to the next issue: when are playable Voth coming, and where's are my T7 Vesta and C-store purchasable real life shuttle?
I don't. The current system supports players' ability to choose what they want to play that would be lost if the system didn't fill waiting queues.
The missions I used to play before this system came out are no longer playable due to bad design changes in the system.