Random TFO: The De-Funning

imffs

1) Join Random TFO
2) Appear in CSA
3) Watch super damage builds get every kill award no matter what damage I do
4) Get an AFK penalty

Well that was de-funed. One minute of trying to land a punch. Twenty minutes to contemplate my crimes on the tree of woe. Nothing new here. But still irritating since that half hour was the only time I will have today to get in some STO time. Ah well nothing new here. :P

echatty

Yes, I've had that happen to me. I just go on and do other stuff while the timer runs out. I only do TFOs for Endeavors and Events anyway.

peterconnorfirst

imffs wrote: »

1) Join Random TFO
2) Appear in CSA
3) Watch super damage builds get every kill award no matter what damage I do
4) Get an AFK penalty

Well that was de-funed. One minute of trying to land a punch. Twenty minutes to contemplate my crimes on the tree of woe. Nothing new here. But still irritating since that half hour was the only time I will have today to get in some STO time. Ah well nothing new here. :P

Fortunately there is help:

https://www.sto-league.com/ship-builds/

You are welcome.

lordmalak1

Been there, done that. The AFK penalty is so awesome if your not a DPS leaguer.

warpangel

azrael605 wrote: »

Luckily that penalty only applies to the individual TFO you were in and not to the RTFO system so you can immediately go in for another RTFO and you are guaranteed not to get the same mission again. Seriously though, in CSA there are 3 enemy groups widely scattered, head for one that isn't being swarmed and pump out as much damage as you can, you only need to do 1 percent of total team damage.

Granted it's been years since I've seen it, but unless they've changed it the AFK penalty blocks all queues.

But yeah, good advice on how to avoid it. Also, aim at the cube, not the nanite probes. Since it's unkillable until the probes are gone, you're guaranteed to be able to hit it and it still counts as damage even though it heals instantly.

It is still rather unfortunate that players have to resort to such workarounds instead of playing the game normally, though.

salazarraze

warpangel wrote: »

It is still rather unfortunate that players have to resort to such workarounds instead of playing the game normally, though.

A better workaround would be to look at how you can improve your performance as a player. Back when I was terrible at STO, I decided that I didn't want to l get one shot by elite borg spheres anymore. I wanted to WIN so I did what anyone would do. I decided to seek out others that could help me improve.

STO isn't a difficult game but it does attract (people like me) those that were not used to MMO mechanics and were just Star Trek fans. We have (had) zero concept of how to build a ship or character at all which causes us to just smash our head at the wall as we die repeatedly without knowing why our setup is so terrible.

The answer to this problem is to find help from someone who does know how to setup a ship/character. Someone who does know how to pilot and how/when to activate boff/captain powers. We need things broken down and explained. STO has tons of gear pieces and combos, way more (I would think) than other MMOs. It's on us to figure out how to do better.

markhawkman

azrael605 wrote: »

Luckily that penalty only applies to the individual TFO you were in and not to the RTFO system so you can immediately go in for another RTFO and you are guaranteed not to get the same mission again. Seriously though, in CSA there are 3 enemy groups widely scattered, head for one that isn't being swarmed and pump out as much damage as you can, you only need to do 1 percent of total team damage.

So much this. don't try to beat them to the same target.

tigeraries

Just fly to a part of the map with mobs you can shoot at... so what if the optionals fail... I've been in Borg runs where folks with normal dps go off and shoot things and trigger mob spawns... they die but they get their hits in right? /shrug at the end of the day you still complete the que, just miss out on optionals sometimes. but I think these folks use random so they make it up with the reward box.

davefenestrator

> 2) Appear in CSA

If you're getting AFK in Advanced random TFO, perhaps your build or play style is not good enough for random TFOs at the advanced level yet. Pick Normal instead, since even when you're not getting AFK you might be dragging down your teams.

Sometimes the problem really is you, but it's fixable. Go to the Academy subforum and post, we're here to help.

centaurianalpha

davefenestrator wrote: »

> 2) Appear in CSA

If you're getting AFK in Advanced random TFO, perhaps your build or play style is not good enough for random TFOs at the advanced level yet. Pick Normal instead, since even when you're not getting AFK you might be dragging down your teams.

Sometimes the problem really is you, but it's fixable. Go to the Academy subforum and post, we're here to help.

Or sometimes the problem really is that the DPS'ers are so overpowered that they should be doing Elite TFO's, instead of punishing those who are working their way up. I've never parsed my DPS, nor do I care to, but as long as I'm not stuck in a TFO with one or more of these DPS-maxed freak ships, I can normally do quite well on most maps. But if I'm stuck with a grossly-mismatched team on account of the DPS gods, then what they are asserting is that theirs is the only way to correctly play the game, and the rest of us deserve to be banished from the queues.

My builds and characters are respectable, usually featuring Mk. XIII+ gear across the board, extra trait slots, full complements of VR ship DOffs, and fully completed reputations and commendations on T6 ships, with multiple-piece sets and complementary consoles. The idea that only DPS is worth striving for is repugnant, since I can tank with the best in all circumstances, but it just happens that the TFO system is really only set up to reward DPS, instead of balanced builds. And since the DPS'ers have no respect for any other style of play, you'll never see me waste my time helping them monopolize randoms...

lordmalak1

Yaaa, I can still hang with the big dogs in conduit elite with mk XII blue guns and some fleet gear but they hate having to watch over their shoulder in case I get overwhelmed or can't pop a gate on command. I don't even bother with the other TFO's it's usually over before I even get in range. Those DPS'ers should have their own sandbox to practice speed runs in.

salazarraze

centaurianalpha wrote: »

Or sometimes the problem really is that the DPS'ers are so overpowered that they should be doing Elite TFO's, instead of punishing those who are working their way up.

This doesn't make any sense. There is no elite RTFO or elite Cure Space for that matter.

seaofsorrows

lordmalak1 wrote: »

Yaaa, I can still hang with the big dogs in conduit elite with mk XII blue guns and some fleet gear but they hate having to watch over their shoulder in case I get overwhelmed or can't pop a gate on command. I don't even bother with the other TFO's it's usually over before I even get in range. Those DPS'ers should have their own sandbox to practice speed runs in.

1. There is no such thing as conduit Elite.
2. If you're using Mark XII Rare Quality Weapons in Adanced, you have no right to complain if you can't kill things fast enough.
3. Speed runs are always premade groups.. no one 'speed runs' PUG's. It's just a short queue.

Stick to normal until you have the skill set and build you need for advanced. If you want to do Advanced using Rare quality gear, then fine.. but you shouldn't be complaining that people carry you since that's exactly what you're queuing for.

chipg7

I have not had this happen, ever. And I regularly do random TFOs on Advanced. Mind you I make sure to take my best ship in with me, but even then... I'm primarily an RPer So it's definitely possible for anyone to do.

davefenestrator wrote: »

> 2) Appear in CSA

If you're getting AFK in Advanced random TFO, perhaps your build or play style is not good enough for random TFOs at the advanced level yet. Pick Normal instead, since even when you're not getting AFK you might be dragging down your teams.

This is a solid piece of advice.

If you are getting an AFK penalty in Advanced TFOs, then that should be a clear indication that you're not ready for Advanced TFOs - at least on that specific character. I know for certain that only my main is sufficiently geared to survive in the toughest of the Advanced TFOs if they happen to be the one that pops. I wouldn't dare try it on another character, because I'd be dead half the time anyways.

arionisa

I don't parse, cause I don't care what my number might be, but whether normal or advanced I have never gotten an AFK penalty. Not now, and not back when all I had was my last free ship equipped with nothing more than what I got from drops and missions. Of course, other than in my very early days when attacking any group larger than 2-3 ships by myself meant it was respawn time I have always watched where others were headed and went after a different group. Although I see it mentioned here as a "workaround", I always did (do) it because I enjoy the thrill of the fight and it's a lot more of a fight attacking a group alone compared to attacking as a group and just melting through them.

Unless you spend your whole time following someone else (with extremely high dps) from place to place so you never actually get to fight it is extremely difficult to not manage at least 1% of total damage.

duasyn

Watching a Timberwolf run borg conduit, he puts the damage/dps on screen. There was about 45M damage done total. So if the AFK penalty is 1% you have to do a total of >450k total damage. Battle was 2mins long. Unless you just happen to be grouped with uber dps god players, I would think it'd be likely you can do more than 450k in 2 mins (>3750 dps). I would hope that is do-able most runs. Popping all your CDs and getting one good damage spike should easily get you that.

I know some Borg RAs runs, I had to peel off and head to a different group cause people would pop cubes before I could hit <10k range.

chipg7

sophlogimo wrote: »

The problem is, of course, one of fundamental game balance. The devs will not address this, so you have to. In other words, select a good build, upgrade your gear, do ridiculously high damage and break all credibility of the TFO as an actual military action as opposed to a shooting gallery. It is sad and a waste of entertainment potential, but that's how they want you to play, apparently.

Or: Don't care for your damage, do auxiliary jobs instead: Transporting particles, TBR'ing Borg spheres away, intercepting missiles, that kind of stuff.

I feel they do address it though. This is very much a problem in Advanced TFOs, not all TFOs. And back when they first introduced the difficulty tiers (which for a long time even had mission-ending fail conditions), they made it clear that Advanced TFOs were explicitly not for everyone.

It was an attempt to address the imbalance caused by having everyone in the same queue. Players without a DPS focus were annoyed at getting paired with DPS-focused players, and vice versa. So they made most queues have at least two levels.

The problem is that the Advanced TFOs reward higher. It's supposed to give incentives for players to build a better ship, likely spending money in the process so also generates revenue for the game. But far too many players jump into them unprepared for the easiest access to marks and elite marks.

warpangel

chipg7 wrote: »

sophlogimo wrote: »

The problem is, of course, one of fundamental game balance. The devs will not address this, so you have to. In other words, select a good build, upgrade your gear, do ridiculously high damage and break all credibility of the TFO as an actual military action as opposed to a shooting gallery. It is sad and a waste of entertainment potential, but that's how they want you to play, apparently.

Or: Don't care for your damage, do auxiliary jobs instead: Transporting particles, TBR'ing Borg spheres away, intercepting missiles, that kind of stuff.

I feel they do address it though. This is very much a problem in Advanced TFOs, not all TFOs. And back when they first introduced the difficulty tiers (which for a long time even had mission-ending fail conditions), they made it clear that Advanced TFOs were explicitly not for everyone.

It was an attempt to address the imbalance caused by having everyone in the same queue. Players without a DPS focus were annoyed at getting paired with DPS-focused players, and vice versa. So they made most queues have at least two levels.

The problem is that the Advanced TFOs reward higher. It's supposed to give incentives for players to build a better ship, likely spending money in the process so also generates revenue for the game. But far too many players jump into them unprepared for the easiest access to marks and elite marks.

They said that. And then they went back on it and made Advanced for everyone anyway by removing the fail conditions. Since Advanced is impossible to lose and has more reward, there is no reason for anyone to ever play Normal, except for those queues which don't have an Advanced version.

They further reinforced this when implementing the random queues, by making random Advanced reward more than Elite. So now there's basically no reason to ever play Elite either, except for bragging rights.

chipg7

You're exactly right.

And it really shows that even if the loudest complainers get what they want, which was originally separating the DPSers and non-DPSers, they didn't like how it was done. So they had to significantly scale back.

Which sucks. I actually liked that the Advanced TFOs had fail conditions. It felt like more was on the line, and that you had to know the mission and your build well enough to succeed. And most often, the fail conditions weren't even shoot 'em up related.

- In Infected, you need to plan your attack in stages
- In Counterpoint, you had to close portals, and manage your attack and defense to keep DS9 above 50% and Terok Nor below
- In Cure Found, you had to protect the flagship

But the same players who didn't want to be paired with DPSers became angry that DPSers, who are objectively better at the game from a mechanical point of view, were getting the better rewards more easily.

And now we're seeing the return of the original argument - that DPSers make it hard for people who just want the rewards to get them

trennan

chipg7 wrote: »

You're exactly right.

And it really shows that even if the loudest complainers get what they want, which was originally separating the DPSers and non-DPSers, they didn't like how it was done. So they had to significantly scale back.

Which sucks. I actually liked that the Advanced TFOs had fail conditions. It felt like more was on the line, and that you had to know the mission and your build well enough to succeed. And most often, the fail conditions weren't even shoot 'em up related.

- In Infected, you need to plan your attack in stages
- In Counterpoint, you had to close portals, and manage your attack and defense to keep DS9 above 50% and Terok Nor below
- In Cure Found, you had to protect the flagship

But the same players who didn't want to be paired with DPSers became angry that DPSers, who are objectively better at the game from a mechanical point of view, were getting the better rewards more easily.

And now we're seeing the return of the original argument - that DPSers make it hard for people who just want the rewards to get them

Funny part about this is. Back when the Borg queues had Elites, and Advanced had fail conditions, we were having fun. Then along about the introduction of fleets and the T5-U, the DPS crew took off with it. Before this, sure, we complained about them being buggy, mainly in the one-shot invisi-torp area. After this, they suddenly became "to hard" as well.

Fast forward to current times, and well it's easy to see what side of the coin Cryptic chose to go with.

In ISA, if you get super-DPSer's in your group, avoiding the AFK penalty is super easy. Just, unload on the gate for the entire thing.

rattler2

Its not just the Invisi-Torp, which still crops up every once in a while. The Fail Conditions were just too easy for Trolls to exploit. And at the time everyone was still struggling to adapt to the new power creep because what once was just fine in the Old Elite was now not good enough for the new Advanced.

How many ways could a Troll ruin a fail condition Infected?

• Blow a generator on the opposite side, forcing the team to scramble to cover two sides at once
• Tractor Repulse a Nanite Sphere into the Transformer
• Gravity Well on the Transformer, drawing in Nanite Spheres

At the time even the DPS crew were adapting to the new power levels and how much HP the NPCs had. While most cases of failure were legit, there were also cases of Trolls intentionally failing people for teh lulz, locking them out of that particular STF because win or lose, it STILL went into the 30 minute cooldown.

While Fail conditions are fine, you also have to consider how easy it is for people to turn them against other players for their own amusement. One ability and a need to amuse yourself shouldn't be used to punish 4 other players just for a laugh.

davefenestrator

rattler2 wrote: »

...

While Fail conditions are fine, you also have to consider how easy it is for people to turn them against other players for their own amusement. One ability and a need to amuse yourself shouldn't be used to punish 4 other players just for a laugh.

Yep, this is one reason why we can't have nice things.

It's also impossible to detect things like this automatically, because it could be an honest mistake by a rookie or someone hitting the wrong button on their power tray.

rattler2

davefenestrator wrote: »

It's also impossible to detect things like this automatically, because it could be an honest mistake by a rookie or someone hitting the wrong button on their power tray.

I agree with this. Mistakes do happen. Its when you see it done deliberately, that's when the problem occurs. Activating TBR while trying to push spheres away can get messy and one might get pushed towards the Transformer. Understandable mistake. But getting BEHIND them and deliberately pushing towards the Transformer is the problem.

I can understand why some people put a Gravity Well on the Transformer, because in their mind they're probably thinking "It causes damage, so I'm helping to cause more damage". They may not be thinking about the PULL. In this case it might be harder to tell if it is a legit mistake or Trolling however.

Going off to the opposite side of everyone and popping a Generator could also be considered a mistake. However I have personally experienced deliberate sabotage of the group because said individual actually spoke up in team chat "looking for his spec point". THAT was Trolling. And blatantly obvious at that. Another example of deliberate action might be popping a generator and NOT doing anything about the spheres at all.

I understand mistakes happen. Its being able to tell the difference between a mistake and deliberate action that is the key.

markhawkman

sophlogimo wrote: »

The problem is, of course, one of fundamental game balance. The devs will not address this, so you have to. In other words, select a good build, upgrade your gear, do ridiculously high damage and break all credibility of the TFO as an actual military action as opposed to a shooting gallery. It is sad and a waste of entertainment potential, but that's how they want you to play, apparently.

Or: Don't care for your damage, do auxiliary jobs instead: Transporting particles, TBR'ing Borg spheres away, intercepting missiles, that kind of stuff.

Well I see it as more like going into Street Fighter's online multiplayer.

"Oh hey! I completed the story mode! I know how to play this game!"

Then you get rekt before landing a hit by a character you thought was rubbish.

From an in-universe perspective your character is a war hero. Not all war heroes are created equal.

duasyn

sophlogimo wrote: »

High end DPS in STO is BROKEN. It utterly, totally, fully destroys the combat mechanics. Any advanced content is made into a shooting gallery by the high end DPS that SHOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE, but is.

Unless Cryptic wants to tackle the ways people max out DPS there's nothing that can be done. For a long time I've believe that having no diminishing returns on tac consoles was a bad thing and now there are so many different things that add +X% damage that its just too much. When people put on five +35% consoles and there are univeral consoles and set powers that all have +X% damage, its no wonder why those that chase that DPS are leagues ahead of the casual player who slot a couple tac consoles and run with Mk XII weapons.

Cryptic can't tailor the game to the uber-dps or the majority of players will leave because everything is "too hard". So we end up with Godzilla swatting flies.

Just today for the endeavor of the Advacned Hive TFO during the initial borg group of cubes/spheres , I barely did any damage because they were popping before I my torpedoes even reached them. I think I did <3M damage and I have all Epic Mk 15 gear and good consoles. But someone had better, flew faster, and knew how/when to pop their CDs.