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Why are most of pve queues empty??

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  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,587 Arc User
    reyan01 wrote: »

    You were logged off that time already, but Zooey told yesterday in OCD chat how on event CCA map, her dedicated anti-CE boat now performs worse than her Andorian Escort (that uses standard CSV tactics).

    Okay - firstly this is NOT intended to be insulting or critical - it really isn't.

    But "dedicated CCA boat"?
    Firstly, on map that could be completed in 30 seconds by a PuG, I fail to see how a dedicated "anti-CE boat" is necessary. Unless the idea was to reduce the run to 15 seconds I guess.


    Necessary? Probably not; possible? Sure. In fact, on my Rom, I have a dedicated CCA runner, a Baltim Heavy Raider cannon boat, with that cannon console: you approach Entity, pop said console, and you're automagically jumped behind the CE, for yet even another +30% Raider dmg (on top of the Heavy Raider flanking you already got from the ship). Add a Terran DHC, and you're slicing thru the Entity like butter.

    It's a great build, and if only I were a better pilot, it would actually show. :) (Like that 'V' player mentioned here. She's obviously much better than me, and I now officially hate her, LOL; just kidding).
    3lsZz0w.jpg
  • angrytargangrytarg Member Posts: 11,001 Arc User
    The "window shopping" of reputation gear is the main problem methinks. You just have to grind marks in easy, quick content and you can get everything from a convenient window. Back in the days you had to play advanced and elite versions of queues to get unique drops from these specific queues to exchange for the top tier reputation items. The armour to show off was as much of a prestige item as it was a solid piece of equipment.

    Add that again - make every queue have a unique elite set you can only get via very rare drops. YES that's chance and you can play a hundred times without getting one - get over it, this is a game. Refine your gameplay and one day you get lucky!​​
    lFC4bt2.gif
    ^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
    "No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
    "A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
    "That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
  • protoneousprotoneous Member Posts: 2,952 Arc User
    shehchao wrote: »
    I tried to queue up but most of them have no players..... quite frustrating. Soni have to keep playig the same few missions over and over again to gain reputation points.
    Quite a timely thread for me personally as tonight while playing grinding the event and same couple queues over and over again to bring some alts up to snuff I was actually questioning how much longer I could do this and to what end? I logged out of the game.

    You've got some good explanations as to the "why" as well as some excellent suggestions on how to improve things, all from seasoned players whom I respect from either their previous posts in this forum, actions in-game, or both.

    All I can say is I truly miss the times where my old gang and myself did all sorts of things together just for the challenge and to figure out what works best and lament the passing of the days when we used to play just for fun.

    This thread really hits hard on a personal note for some reason.







  • lordsteve1lordsteve1 Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    @peterconnorfirst maybe the game does need to change significantly. Perhaps the queues are indicative of a bigger issue with the game. They are after all pretty much the only endgame content available.

    Perhaps content needs to have means of completing it, or means of measuring input that rely less on pure damage output. We already see it’s possible in the CE map, though sadly places like The Badlands have gone to opposite way by penalising players not doing as much damage.
    Maybe if rewards for maps were linked to a broader spectrum of measures so that all different types of builds were viable in end game content we’d be in a better place.

    Right now I can build a single target shutdown build that can leave the Tac cube in ISA a sitting duck for its entire life, but when someone posts a parse at the end and I have maybe 10-20k and everyone else has 50k+ it’s hard to feel appreciated by the team. They’d often just think it was some leech needing carried by their awesomeness rather than see that the lowest guy actually aided their damage output considerably.

    So I guess I’m saying that yes most builds do work these days and are useful but there’s no way to observe or measure, let alone reward these off-meta builds. Hence why I think diversity suffers in this game.
    SulMatuul.png
  • kiralynkiralyn Member Posts: 1,576 Arc User
    nimbull wrote: »
    They should remove marks from the red alerts and just up the dilithium ore a tad to not beat out PvE queues but compensate for the mark removals. They should also restrict marks to the theme of the mission you queue for so multiple marks outside of theme mark and fleet marks would be all that you get. Kinda like how gamma marks are only available from the swarm queue or fleet marks.

    Just to toss in something from the viewpoint of a basically-non-queuer....

    If the choice boxes went away from BorgRA/etc, I'd just go back to doing what I did from 2012-2016... getting nearly all my rep marks from Winter & Summer pet grinding. Before I discovered how easy BorgRA was (spring 17? or was it 16?), I think only my main got any marks from actual content, and that was just things you could get the marks from regular/solo questing - Nukara, Rom, Delta, and Omega. My other 6-8 alts (and the other reps) were done via holiday pets, tier-5 everything.

    And without the elite-mark conversion, the only gear I made was with the ~5 elites given for hitting T5.


    Not saying this is right, or the Way It Should Be, or anything like that. Just relating the experiences of someone who doesn't really do queues (BorgRA doesn't really feel like a 'queue', it's just so simple. And I discovered CCA is similar these days, because I needed an Advanced completion for my Gamma Recruit.)
  • jaephjaeph Member Posts: 77 Arc User
    From the perspective of someone who typically has an hour a day to do something:

    a) Queue up for something hard, wait for the queue to pop while I run through admiralty, doffs, etc, then get my marks.

    b) borg ra->romulan patrol->crystaline->tholian->delta patrol...sneak in my admiralty, doffs, etc...then maybe another borg and tholian since 30 mins have past.


    (b) is so much greater in terms of action and reward than (a) for my hour.

    I do wish there was an intense ground queue and a shuttle queue as straight-forward as the borg RA.

  • tasshenatasshena Member Posts: 525 Arc User
    angrytarg wrote: »
    The "window shopping" of reputation gear is the main problem methinks. You just have to grind marks in easy, quick content and you can get everything from a convenient window. Back in the days you had to play advanced and elite versions of queues to get unique drops from these specific queues to exchange for the top tier reputation items. The armour to show off was as much of a prestige item as it was a solid piece of equipment.

    Add that again - make every queue have a unique elite set you can only get via very rare drops. YES that's chance and you can play a hundred times without getting one - get over it, this is a game. Refine your gameplay and one day you get lucky!

    Ah, so make them more like the lockboxes? So lack of gear pieces after doing a queue hundreds of times causes people after the parts to say "TRIBBLE this, no more queues" or "bye, off for game xyz cause this one sucks"?​​
  • warpangelwarpangel Member Posts: 9,427 Arc User
    protoneous wrote: »
    shehchao wrote: »
    I tried to queue up but most of them have no players..... quite frustrating. Soni have to keep playig the same few missions over and over again to gain reputation points.
    Quite a timely thread for me personally as tonight while playing grinding the event and same couple queues over and over again to bring some alts up to snuff I was actually questioning how much longer I could do this and to what end? I logged out of the game.

    You've got some good explanations as to the "why" as well as some excellent suggestions on how to improve things, all from seasoned players whom I respect from either their previous posts in this forum, actions in-game, or both.

    All I can say is I truly miss the times where my old gang and myself did all sorts of things together just for the challenge and to figure out what works best and lament the passing of the days when we used to play just for fun.

    This thread really hits hard on a personal note for some reason.
    I've had that same thought for a long time. Why grind for resources to buy gear, that you can only use to grind more of the same content for more of the same resources? And the truth of the matter is there is no reason to do that. Not for me at least.

    So outside limited-time events I pretty much don't play much of anything. If I log in at all it's to do Admiralty or trade on the exchange. Even Space Barbie gets kinda pointless, if all my cool outfits are only seen standing in the crowd around the exchange console.

    STO fails on reasons to play. A reason, for each and every content and reward, "Why does the player want to play/have this?" And that's pretty much impossible if everything rewards the same generic currency. We have lots of content and lots of rewards, but they don't come together. You don't need the rewards to run the content, nor the content to get the rewards.

    There should be content where things are needed, and things for which said content needs to be played. Not just an endless array of equal "options," some more equal than others.
  • angrytargangrytarg Member Posts: 11,001 Arc User
    tasshena wrote: »
    Ah, so make them more like the lockboxes? So lack of gear pieces after doing a queue hundreds of times causes people after the parts to say "**** this, no more queues" or "bye, off for game xyz cause this one sucks"?

    No. Lockboxes require a purchase, I suggest to revert to the model that you have a reputation store and "window shopping" friendly basic version of the reputation gear, and a elite-version which you can get for rare drops from elite queues. Back then, you could purchase the basic reputation weapons and a Mk X version of the reputation gear for marks. The Mk X did not unlock special visuals and the stats were lower. A Mk XI version was purchasable for elite marks (which in turn could be also bought with marks). It would unlock the first tier of visuals and be better than Mk X of course. If you wanted the whole package with full visuals and best stats you had to partake in elite queues. Very rare "tech drops" were required to get the Mk XII version of the item, and each kind of tech drop would only drop in one of the queues. So to get the full Omega ground set you had to partake in the elite versions of all three ground queues (Infected, Cure and Khitomer). This was a long-term goal since end-game didn't offer much aside from PvP and Queues (same today) and you could cycle through the queues which were always full of people.

    It is a concept that keeps hack&slay games alive for decades now and raids in classic MMOs are still a thing. If people leave because they get too impatient or want everything handed to them on a plate - meh. I don't think too many people fall into that category. Lockboxes are 'dangerous' because you pay money for possibly nothing in return, queues you just play the game, it's what it's designed for.​​
    lFC4bt2.gif
    ^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
    "No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
    "A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
    "That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
  • protoneousprotoneous Member Posts: 2,952 Arc User
    warpangel wrote: »
    protoneous wrote: »
    shehchao wrote: »
    I tried to queue up but most of them have no players..... quite frustrating. Soni have to keep playig the same few missions over and over again to gain reputation points.
    Quite a timely thread for me personally as tonight while playing grinding the event and same couple queues over and over again to bring some alts up to snuff I was actually questioning how much longer I could do this and to what end? I logged out of the game.

    You've got some good explanations as to the "why" as well as some excellent suggestions on how to improve things, all from seasoned players whom I respect from either their previous posts in this forum, actions in-game, or both.

    All I can say is I truly miss the times where my old gang and myself did all sorts of things together just for the challenge and to figure out what works best and lament the passing of the days when we used to play just for fun.

    This thread really hits hard on a personal note for some reason.
    I've had that same thought for a long time. Why grind for resources to buy gear, that you can only use to grind more of the same content for more of the same resources? And the truth of the matter is there is no reason to do that. Not for me at least.

    So outside limited-time events I pretty much don't play much of anything. If I log in at all it's to do Admiralty or trade on the exchange. Even Space Barbie gets kinda pointless, if all my cool outfits are only seen standing in the crowd around the exchange console.

    STO fails on reasons to play. A reason, for each and every content and reward, "Why does the player want to play/have this?" And that's pretty much impossible if everything rewards the same generic currency. We have lots of content and lots of rewards, but they don't come together. You don't need the rewards to run the content, nor the content to get the rewards.

    There should be content where things are needed, and things for which said content needs to be played. Not just an endless array of equal "options," some more equal than others.

    I have to admit that at first I really didn't get what you were trying to say in another recent thread in which we exchanged viewpoints but last night after logging off my first thought was wow you were right. What you state here is an extension of the same message. My apologies.
  • lordsteve1lordsteve1 Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    ruinthefun wrote: »
    tasshena wrote: »
    Ah, so make them more like the lockboxes? So lack of gear pieces after doing a queue hundreds of times causes people after the parts to say "**** this, no more queues" or "bye, off for game xyz cause this one sucks"?​​
    If gear had actually been like lockboxes, the complaints would have been minimal. Not to mention the incentive to play would have been there.

    What's the one thing the old random drop system had that differs from lockboxes? You can TRADE lockbox loot. Nobody is ultimately DENIED anything from a lockbox. They just have to pay a price commensurate with what the person who got it probably had to pay to get it, because if that price was higher than that, people would start to gamble it for profit until supply and demand pushed the value of doing so down to near zero.

    This also offers a clear incentive to continue to play the content after I've got mine: Because if the item is desirable, yet people either can't or don't want to play the content, then *I* want to play the content so that I can profit from this market. Without a fungible reward, what happens? Welp, I've got mine, so long, suckers, I'm outta here. And so the queue sees a steady drain of veteran players that leave and never return, so the quality of people attempting the queue is always low, and thus the queue is effectively impossible to learn or even play because nobody plays it because WHY?

    10000% this!!!

    Add random gear drops to queues that are both desirable and fairly rare.

    Players can either play the queues to get the gear they want = more people playing queues to get things due to the randomness.

    OR

    Players can pay someone else who played the queues for the gear they want.

    This system provides two benefits right away, it puts players into queues and it creates a market for people to buy/sell the random gear drops to those unwilling to play the content. Everyone has access to the gear, they choose the way they get it.
    Those unwilling to play queues create a market for those of us happy to farm the gear and make a profit selling it to them. Prices will stabilize at a cost where people are willing to pay for the items. Supply will be controlled by the number of people willing to play content. Either the queues are stuffed full and healthy or a massive market opens up for those willing to go the distance.
    SulMatuul.png
  • warpangelwarpangel Member Posts: 9,427 Arc User
    lordsteve1 wrote: »
    ruinthefun wrote: »
    tasshena wrote: »
    Ah, so make them more like the lockboxes? So lack of gear pieces after doing a queue hundreds of times causes people after the parts to say "**** this, no more queues" or "bye, off for game xyz cause this one sucks"?​​
    If gear had actually been like lockboxes, the complaints would have been minimal. Not to mention the incentive to play would have been there.

    What's the one thing the old random drop system had that differs from lockboxes? You can TRADE lockbox loot. Nobody is ultimately DENIED anything from a lockbox. They just have to pay a price commensurate with what the person who got it probably had to pay to get it, because if that price was higher than that, people would start to gamble it for profit until supply and demand pushed the value of doing so down to near zero.

    This also offers a clear incentive to continue to play the content after I've got mine: Because if the item is desirable, yet people either can't or don't want to play the content, then *I* want to play the content so that I can profit from this market. Without a fungible reward, what happens? Welp, I've got mine, so long, suckers, I'm outta here. And so the queue sees a steady drain of veteran players that leave and never return, so the quality of people attempting the queue is always low, and thus the queue is effectively impossible to learn or even play because nobody plays it because WHY?

    10000% this!!!

    Add random gear drops to queues that are both desirable and fairly rare.

    Players can either play the queues to get the gear they want = more people playing queues to get things due to the randomness.

    OR

    Players can pay someone else who played the queues for the gear they want.

    This system provides two benefits right away, it puts players into queues and it creates a market for people to buy/sell the random gear drops to those unwilling to play the content. Everyone has access to the gear, they choose the way they get it.
    Those unwilling to play queues create a market for those of us happy to farm the gear and make a profit selling it to them. Prices will stabilize at a cost where people are willing to pay for the items. Supply will be controlled by the number of people willing to play content. Either the queues are stuffed full and healthy or a massive market opens up for those willing to go the distance.
    Yes. And what's best, the system would be self-stabilizing. Any queue that was hard, long or otherwise unpopular would have less supply, leading to higher price for the items, leading to more incentive to play it.

    But all of this is, of course, assuming the random drops are something people want/need in the first place. What little rare drops there are in the game now are rather low demand as it is.
  • lordsteve1lordsteve1 Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    warpangel wrote: »
    lordsteve1 wrote: »
    ruinthefun wrote: »
    tasshena wrote: »
    Ah, so make them more like the lockboxes? So lack of gear pieces after doing a queue hundreds of times causes people after the parts to say "**** this, no more queues" or "bye, off for game xyz cause this one sucks"?​​
    If gear had actually been like lockboxes, the complaints would have been minimal. Not to mention the incentive to play would have been there.

    What's the one thing the old random drop system had that differs from lockboxes? You can TRADE lockbox loot. Nobody is ultimately DENIED anything from a lockbox. They just have to pay a price commensurate with what the person who got it probably had to pay to get it, because if that price was higher than that, people would start to gamble it for profit until supply and demand pushed the value of doing so down to near zero.

    This also offers a clear incentive to continue to play the content after I've got mine: Because if the item is desirable, yet people either can't or don't want to play the content, then *I* want to play the content so that I can profit from this market. Without a fungible reward, what happens? Welp, I've got mine, so long, suckers, I'm outta here. And so the queue sees a steady drain of veteran players that leave and never return, so the quality of people attempting the queue is always low, and thus the queue is effectively impossible to learn or even play because nobody plays it because WHY?

    10000% this!!!

    Add random gear drops to queues that are both desirable and fairly rare.

    Players can either play the queues to get the gear they want = more people playing queues to get things due to the randomness.

    OR

    Players can pay someone else who played the queues for the gear they want.

    This system provides two benefits right away, it puts players into queues and it creates a market for people to buy/sell the random gear drops to those unwilling to play the content. Everyone has access to the gear, they choose the way they get it.
    Those unwilling to play queues create a market for those of us happy to farm the gear and make a profit selling it to them. Prices will stabilize at a cost where people are willing to pay for the items. Supply will be controlled by the number of people willing to play content. Either the queues are stuffed full and healthy or a massive market opens up for those willing to go the distance.
    Yes. And what's best, the system would be self-stabilizing. Any queue that was hard, long or otherwise unpopular would have less supply, leading to higher price for the items, leading to more incentive to play it.

    But all of this is, of course, assuming the random drops are something people want/need in the first place. What little rare drops there are in the game now are rather low demand as it is.

    Yup and that in itself is a massive issue with the game. There is no loot to go out and get. There's no reason to play most content as you can get everything elsewhere via easy-mode methods.
    Want marks for X rep - go do RA's, or farm monkeys on Risa.
    Want dilithium - run some Admiralty missions.
    Need rep gear - do RA's for marks, Admiralty for dil and then buy without even looking at the specific enemy for the rep.

    The game lacks one of the key components of an RPG type game, there's no incentive to do anything, no phat loot to seek out among the stars, no epic dungeon crawls to salivate over and battle through with your fleetmates, no hidden treasures on far away moons or hidden in gaseous anomalies.
    Everything can be acquired through as you put it "window shopping" and your captain need never really leave spacedock for the most part.
    It's a sad state of affairs really.
    SulMatuul.png
  • mustrumridcully0mustrumridcully0 Member Posts: 12,963 Arc User
    I hated the old system where getting the right item relied on a random drop. But IIRC, the items were not tradeable.

    If they were tradeable, I think that would change everything. At least about that mechanic.
    Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
  • angrytargangrytarg Member Posts: 11,001 Arc User
    > @mustrumridcully0 said:
    > I hated the old system where getting the right item relied on a random drop. But IIRC, the items were not tradeable.
    >
    > If they were tradeable, I think that would change everything. At least about that mechanic.

    But the queues were always full. Veteran players leavimg because they got their share is nothing that actually happened methinks, but there were far less queues available. Everything in Diablo 2 was tradeable so I guess being able to trade these drops could work, though I don't see it as a necessity. What would be required/helpful to play them should be purchasable or earnable in a intermediate game mode like a BZ letting you earn marks for the basic gear version. This allows you to fare better in the advanced one and that finally gets you in a position to earn the elite version which is your "badge of honour". Just buying this should come at a price then, lacking a title and the highest tier of visuals in my opinion.
    lFC4bt2.gif
    ^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
    "No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
    "A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
    "That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
  • bubblegirl2015bubblegirl2015 Member Posts: 830 Arc User
    This is a question asked time after time. Actually, I have seen this periodically ever since STO went F2P and created the queue system. Lots of Mr executives came and gone but nobody have ever conquered this riddle. They tried time gates, adding juicier bonus marks but most were short lived attempts.

    They really need to revamp this system again and perhaps make it more worthwhile for people to do them. Your guess is as good as mine for solutions. However, not sure if they would even listen to the playerbase since most times they do not have a history of listening to good suggestions.​​
    Wiki editor http://sto.gamepedia.com
    Original STO beta tester.
  • duncanidaho11duncanidaho11 Member Posts: 7,867 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    This is a question asked time after time. Actually, I have seen this periodically ever since STO went F2P and created the queue system. Lots of Mr executives came and gone but nobody have ever conquered this riddle. They tried time gates, adding juicier bonus marks but most were short lived attempts.

    They really need to revamp this system again and perhaps make it more worthwhile for people to do them. Your guess is as good as mine for solutions. However, not sure if they would even listen to the playerbase since most times they do not have a history of listening to good suggestions.​​


    It's a simple population ecology problem. There are X population sinks spread across N number of individuals. For there to be equal coverage there need to be...
    1. Proportional growth between the number of population sinks and that population
    2. No strong biasing force acting between those sinks
    STO is doing fine right now, perhaps better than ever, but consider that the number of queues has grown from the original STF's + miscellaneous by up to nine per season (3 types plus each difficulty.) It hasn't grown enough to provide full coverage across years of expansion. Furthermore, unlike a biological population there is no limiting factor on how many individuals can occupy a given sink nor, consequently, density dependent forces promoting emigration. It's not like CCA can ever reach capacity or become unprofitable because of its popularity. So, bias and good old behavioral autocorrelation (people play what's being played) can act without limitation, potentially aggregating a population of any size to a narrow set of queues. So, it's critical to manage available queues to meet population demands in real time (cutting anything which drops off.)

    Cryptic hasn't done that, the number of queues keeps expanding without concomitant or population-proportional retirements, so there's a lot of dead queues (covering the possibility of ad hoc matches occurring in spite of the odds.) Honestly, I don't think this is a problem worth corrective action (ie. massive retirements) because the expectation under this situation (that there should be equal queue coverage) is unrealistic given the dynamics and limitations at play. The queue system is inherently unbalanced, ergo dead queues aren't something to worry about (though still can be chipped away at, though never "solved," through small tools which tweak population psychology. Ex. a random queue button [a la Neverwinter], PVE events, and Endeavors.)
    Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
    Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
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  • sennahcheribsennahcherib Member Posts: 2,823 Arc User
    Everything in Diablo 2 was tradeable

    indeed, but how many time spent in game for 1 piece of gear, if it takes too long for completing a set; + the prices in the exchange which will be crazy as usual; finally players will left the game. Some players don't play at STO (missions, stfs etc), they play at earning ec.

    queues should be difficult ,no need of uber dps but more strategy and tactics, and they should give proper rewards for the difficulty and the time spent.

    The problem is also the content of the game; like the weekly rewards for doing again and again the same mission; it should be 1 piece of gear per 1 unique mission. Most of the time, I can't do 2 or 3 times the same mission.

    If Queues are empty, it is because this game lacks of players connected regularly, and in my opinion STO doesn't offer enough pleasure or fun.

    click this, click that, slide this, slide that + a lot of boring queues (isa, kva, undine stfs, gateway to grethor etc etc). All the stfs should be updated or changed after a moment to offer a fresh content.

    A boring game can't attract players or keep players, add to this a lot of mechanics which cost an arm, and you have a cocktail to scared the players.

    The problem is not the queues themselves, it is the whole game.

    If i continue to play at sto, it is more for my toons than for the content of the game itself.

    ps (nothing to do with the queues): Please remove all these crappy minigames put everywhere.
  • salazarrazesalazarraze Member Posts: 3,794 Arc User
    Ahem, OP we have a crystalline event going on right now which rewards ANY marks (except gamma). The most overpowered mark event in existence which continues to decimate all other queues. I mean, why on earth would you play storming the spire or gateway to grethor when you could just play crystalline?
    When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
  • dracounguisdracounguis Member Posts: 5,358 Arc User
    There need to be 2 things for queues to not die:
    Rewards per minute need to be roughly equal for all queues.
    Queues have to supply the marks players want.
  • peterconnorfirstpeterconnorfirst Member Posts: 6,225 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    lordsteve1 wrote: »

    @peterconnorfirst maybe the game does need to change significantly.

    Right now I can build a single target shutdown build that can leave the Tac cube in ISA a sitting duck for its entire life, but when someone posts a parse at the end and I have maybe 10-20k and everyone else has 50k+ it’s hard to feel appreciated by the team.
    reyan01 wrote: »

    Hear hear!

    I AM good at draining NPC ships and structures to uselessness and leaving them as easy pickings for the rest of the team.

    I’m sorry folks but really have to ask: Has this been the problem all those years?

    For some reason you made the decision to put emphasis on drain, disable and single target builds and pick ISA of all the maps to see how influential they are there or end up wondering if fez can be completed at all?

    I have no desire to mock you or anybody else but what you are doing is like wanting to have a big delicious pizza but at some point decided that it would be best to eat it with chopsticks. Thats no fun either and you are probably the last ones to finish it too.

    ISA consists of low to unshielded targets that need to be removed and for like 95% of the time you face more than one foe simultaneously. I really felt for you during the time where FAW was the default to go to option while everything else lacked so drastically behind but years of whining got the devs to change that. You really have choices now but instead of embracing those you rather have the fundamentals of PvE, remove space critters, changed. No, I really do not think that would work out. I see that every day in pug runs where the slightest aspects of team play fail to surface and any but the simplest tasks are even payed attention to. Now such aspects should be focused on to get the queues filled again?

    Listen, I really respect both of you, I enjoy reading your posts and with Steve I even had some good battles in game but on this topic I only see two realistic options. Use your builds and bring them to PvP/competative PvE or make some minor changes and start to have a good time in PvE. If you know how to make good drain/disable builds you can switch to EPG for example easily while the rest is most likely just a change in boff powers.
    Post edited by peterconnorfirst on
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    felisean wrote: »
    teamwork to reach a goal is awesome and highly appreciated
  • protoneousprotoneous Member Posts: 2,952 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    Ahem, OP we have a crystalline event going on right now which rewards ANY marks (except gamma). The most overpowered mark event in existence which continues to decimate all other queues. I mean, why on earth would you play storming the spire or gateway to grethor when you could just play crystalline?
    For variety? Fun? Not saying you're wrong to point out there's an event going on.
    There need to be 2 things for queues to not die:
    Rewards per minute need to be roughly equal for all queues.
    Queues have to supply the marks players want.
    That "RPM" term. Ugh. Agree about the marks players want bit though.

    Both answers are technically correct but don't forget about having fun or heck even doing something for a sense of accomplishment or reward.

    When you do things without any of the above in mind you end up with something like my first post in this thread. I'd like to blame my momentary loss of perspective on too much summer heat combined with a bad headache due to an air quality rating of "try to breathe as little as possible" (forest fire smoke) but I'm not sure that's the case. It really felt like the game was nothing more than trying to fill a tank until the gauge indicated it was full and then wondering why I needed a full tank in the first place.

    I'm really liking what angrytarg and ruinthefun are saying. Even if you don't fully agree with the re-introduction of that particular mechanic, read what they have to say about it's effect on the queues while it was around and how it can effect queues now that it's gone.
    lordsteve1 wrote: »
    The game lacks one of the key components of an RPG type game, there's no incentive to do anything, no phat loot to seek out among the stars, no epic dungeon crawls to salivate over and battle through with your fleetmates, no hidden treasures on far away moons or hidden in gaseous anomalies.
    Thanks for this, it engages one's imagination. Several new unique events per year as well designed as Arena of Sompek would go a long way to make your concept a reality. Things are feeling a little too recycled lately.

    Edit: spelling.

  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    lordsteve1 wrote: »

    @peterconnorfirst maybe the game does need to change significantly.

    Right now I can build a single target shutdown build that can leave the Tac cube in ISA a sitting duck for its entire life, but when someone posts a parse at the end and I have maybe 10-20k and everyone else has 50k+ it’s hard to feel appreciated by the team.
    reyan01 wrote: »

    Hear hear!

    I AM good at draining NPC ships and structures to uselessness and leaving them as easy pickings for the rest of the team.

    I’m sorry folks but really have to ask: Has this been the problem all those years?

    For some reason you made the decision to put emphasis on drain, disable and single target builds and pick ISA of all the maps to see how influential they are there or end up wondering if fez can be completed at all?

    I have no desire to mock you or anybody else but what you are doing is like wanting a big delicious pizza but somehow decided that it would be best to eat it with chopsticks. Thats now fun either and you are probably last ones to finish it too.

    ISA consists of low to unshielded targets that need to be removed and for like 95% of the time you face more than one foe simultaneously. I really felt for you during the time where FAW was the default to go to option while everything else lacked so drastically behind but years of whining got the devs to change that. You really have choices now but instead of embracing those you rather have the fundamentals of PvE, remove space critters, changed. No, I really do not think that would work out. I see that every day in pug runs where the slightest aspects of team play fail to surface and any but the simplest tasks are even payed attention to. Now such aspects should be focused on to get the queues filled again?

    Listen, I really respect both of you, I enjoy reading your posts and with Steve I even had some good battles in game but on this topic I only see two realistic options. Use your builds and bring them to PvP/copetative PvE or make some minor changes and start to have a good time in PvE. If you know how to make good drain/disable builds you can switch to EPG for example easily while the rest is most likely just a change in boff powers.

    I very much agree. Complaining about drain builds in ISA is like trying to boil water with a pan (doable, of course, but needlessly complicated and you're much better off using either a pot or a kettle). Just like Pete said, you just simply have nothing meaningful to drain in ISA. However, Sul, remember this run? I don't remember either Nirett or Sarah complaining about our drainboats, do you? Rather the opposite was true, we were all pretty amazed how effectively we cleared the map. In a team where you don't have complete scumbags around, effective drainers (and other form of non-direct-DPS-builds) are very often noticed and appreciated.

    And, to repeat it again - you simply need to destroy the enemy. That's how pretty much every mission the game works. The faster you do it, the better off your team is. You can have a team of 5 amazing shielddrainers or 5 amazing healers, but if they do absolutely nothing against enemy ship hulls, it's pretty mince team.
    reyan01 wrote: »
    THIS is one of my big issues with ISA, and one of the reasons I generally adopt a negative attitude toward it.

    I play Sci - FT5-U Rhode Island, drain or EPG boat.
    I SUCK at DPS; but I AM good at draining NPC ships and structures to uselessness and leaving them as easy pickings for the rest of the team. And whilst I do use energy weapons (unless am using my torpedo boat setup) my primary damage dealing most likely comes from sci abilities.

    And whilst I know that the sci shenannigans I performed would appear somewhere in a parse, truthfully, we all know no-one looks at or care about that - the only thing anyone really cares about in a parse is the almighty DPS score. And mine doesn't tend to top a completely mediocre 20k.

    I want to address this too. Here is a picture of my own damage numbers from the latest HSE I did (I have not saved any of my latest ISA runs).
    kDKb8Aa.png
    Do you notice a pattern there... something *odd* perhaps? Namely, there's not a shred of a hint to FAW, or CSV, instead you see... *drum roll please*... science abilities (and well, temporal abilities, and torpedoes).
    Overall, you can see I did 103k, which is slightly lower than my usual score (I average around 120k in HSE), but it's clearly no way a peashooter.

    From the "When did you start playing STO?" poll we can see that you started playing 2 years before me, so it's not like you didn't have enough time to grind for all the build components I have in order to make your ship count something. And before you can even start to think about "muh T6 Nova", my T5U Vesta is perhaps only 10-15k DPS behind my T6. Still a reliable 100k+ ship.

    Don't get me wrong, back when I started building this ship, it was total underdog. There were several players who just laughed at what I was doing and told me to go back to "actual builds". Sure, I was frustrated at times, but I didn't give up, and I didn't complain (well, too much at least, sometimes to @meimeitoo, who gracefully encouraged me to continue with this project). So I continued, and I couldn't be happier. Sure, the build has progressed quite a bit over the years and as new things have been released I have been adding those, but the core idea, as well as plenty of the components have stayed the same throughout all the years. This build (sometimes with minor alterations to my "everyday-build", to give it more healing or something) has completed every elite content in the game, completed a run where no one in team used any weapons, 2-manned HSE... and talking about DPS records, my highscore in ISA has been 227k, in HSE 165k. And those are maximums in lucky, premade team environments, sure, but seeing my USS Buteo Regalis on a map, you can be sure I'm bringing at least 100k additional DPS. What more could you want from a build anyway?

    It's not 100% my own accomplishment, of course. Chats with people like Eli, Nirett or Choro (who flew similar builds) were very enlightening at times, when they told me "hey, this piece of equipment exists too" and several times after testing it out I went from "meh, doesn't seem like I can replace anything" to "yes, that's going to be a new staple". But other people (and ship building guides) are exactly out there to help you, and if possible, why not utilize those means to better yourself. And of course, Cryptic's additions to the game (I still love Temporal Operative, thank you, whoever made this) has been extremely helpful too, there's no denying in that. If we wouldn't have those good options available, I might still not be able to break 50k, who knows.

    However, the difference I think is that while you were busy whining in forums how bad your ship performs, and how people in ISA are mean towards you, I was busy practicing my piloting, carefully thinking what to buy next, perhaps grinding towards something, discussing builds with other players or whatever. So no, I'm not compassionate, because I see your shortcomings to be no one elses fault but you. You (and so many others I've seen) have, for some reason chosen the way of "I whine until I'm out of air, but I will definitely not even try to get better". The resources are out there, you've chosen not to utilize them. With a build type like this, you can't even currently blame Cryptic for performing poorly, given how we've been given so many toys lately. Are there things they could do better? Well, obviously, a whole lot of them, and my post history should reflect that. But given how 20k is even possible with an abomination like this, you can't even #blamegruber in your current situation. The only person to blame, as well as the only person who you should look to for improvement, is you.
  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,587 Arc User
    lordsteve1 wrote: »

    @peterconnorfirst maybe the game does need to change significantly.

    Right now I can build a single target shutdown build that can leave the Tac cube in ISA a sitting duck for its entire life, but when someone posts a parse at the end and I have maybe 10-20k and everyone else has 50k+ it’s hard to feel appreciated by the team.
    reyan01 wrote: »

    Hear hear!

    I AM good at draining NPC ships and structures to uselessness and leaving them as easy pickings for the rest of the team.

    I’m sorry folks but really have to ask: Has this been the problem all those years?

    For some reason you made the decision to put emphasis on drain, disable and single target builds and pick ISA of all the maps to see how influential they are there or end up wondering if fez can be completed at all?

    I have no desire to mock you or anybody else but what you are doing is like wanting a big delicious pizza but somehow decided that it would be best to eat it with chopsticks. Thats now fun either and you are probably last ones to finish it too.

    ISA consists of low to unshielded targets that need to be removed and for like 95% of the time you face more than one foe simultaneously. I really felt for you during the time where FAW was the default to go to option while everything else lacked so drastically behind but years of whining got the devs to change that. You really have choices now but instead of embracing those you rather have the fundamentals of PvE, remove space critters, changed. No, I really do not think that would work out. I see that every day in pug runs where the slightest aspects of team play fail to surface and any but the simplest tasks are even payed attention to. Now such aspects should be focused on to get the queues filled again?

    Listen, I really respect both of you, I enjoy reading your posts and with Steve I even had some good battles in game but on this topic I only see two realistic options. Use your builds and bring them to PvP/copetative PvE or make some minor changes and start to have a good time in PvE. If you know how to make good drain/disable builds you can switch to EPG for example easily while the rest is most likely just a change in boff powers.

    I very much agree. Complaining about drain builds in ISA is like trying to boil water with a pan (doable, of course, but needlessly complicated and you're much better off using either a pot or a kettle). Just like Pete said, you just simply have nothing meaningful to drain in ISA. However, Sul, remember this run? I don't remember either Nirett or Sarah complaining about our drainboats, do you? Rather the opposite was true, we were all pretty amazed how effectively we cleared the map. In a team where you don't have complete scumbags around, effective drainers (and other form of non-direct-DPS-builds) are very often noticed and appreciated.

    And, to repeat it again - you simply need to destroy the enemy. That's how pretty much every mission the game works. The faster you do it, the better off your team is. You can have a team of 5 amazing shielddrainers or 5 amazing healers, but if they do absolutely nothing against enemy ship hulls, it's pretty mince team.
    reyan01 wrote: »
    THIS is one of my big issues with ISA, and one of the reasons I generally adopt a negative attitude toward it.

    I play Sci - FT5-U Rhode Island, drain or EPG boat.
    I SUCK at DPS; but I AM good at draining NPC ships and structures to uselessness and leaving them as easy pickings for the rest of the team. And whilst I do use energy weapons (unless am using my torpedo boat setup) my primary damage dealing most likely comes from sci abilities.

    And whilst I know that the sci shenannigans I performed would appear somewhere in a parse, truthfully, we all know no-one looks at or care about that - the only thing anyone really cares about in a parse is the almighty DPS score. And mine doesn't tend to top a completely mediocre 20k.

    I want to address this too. Here is a picture of my own damage numbers from the latest HSE I did (I have not saved any of my latest ISA runs).
    kDKb8Aa.png
    Do you notice a pattern there... something *odd* perhaps? Namely, there's not a shred of a hint to FAW, or CSV, instead you see... *drum roll please*... science abilities (and well, temporal abilities, and torpedoes).
    Overall, you can see I did 103k, which is slightly lower than my usual score (I average around 120k in HSE), but it's clearly no way a peashooter.

    From the "When did you start playing STO?" poll we can see that you started playing 2 years before me, so it's not like you didn't have enough time to grind for all the build components I have in order to make your ship count something. And before you can even start to think about "muh T6 Nova", my T5U Vesta is perhaps only 10-15k DPS behind my T6. Still a reliable 100k+ ship.

    Don't get me wrong, back when I started building this ship, it was total underdog. There were several players who just laughed at what I was doing and told me to go back to "actual builds". Sure, I was frustrated at times, but I didn't give up, and I didn't complain (well, too much at least, sometimes to @meimeitoo, who gracefully encouraged me to continue with this project). So I continued, and I couldn't be happier. Sure, the build has progressed quite a bit over the years and as new things have been released I have been adding those, but the core idea, as well as plenty of the components have stayed the same throughout all the years. This build (sometimes with minor alterations to my "everyday-build", to give it more healing or something) has completed every elite content in the game, completed a run where no one in team used any weapons, 2-manned HSE... and talking about DPS records, my highscore in ISA has been 227k, in HSE 165k. And those are maximums in lucky, premade team environments, sure, but seeing my USS Buteo Regalis on a map, you can be sure I'm bringing at least 100k additional DPS. What more could you want from a build anyway?

    It's not 100% my own accomplishment, of course. Chats with people like Eli, Nirett or Choro (who flew similar builds) were very enlightening at times, when they told me "hey, this piece of equipment exists too" and several times after testing it out I went from "meh, doesn't seem like I can replace anything" to "yes, that's going to be a new staple". But other people (and ship building guides) are exactly out there to help you, and if possible, why not utilize those means to better yourself. And of course, Cryptic's additions to the game (I still love Temporal Operative, thank you, whoever made this) has been extremely helpful too, there's no denying in that. If we wouldn't have those good options available, I might still not be able to break 50k, who knows.

    However, the difference I think is that while you were busy whining in forums how bad your ship performs, and how people in ISA are mean towards you, I was busy practicing my piloting, carefully thinking what to buy next, perhaps grinding towards something, discussing builds with other players or whatever. So no, I'm not compassionate, because I see your shortcomings to be no one elses fault but you. You (and so many others I've seen) have, for some reason chosen the way of "I whine until I'm out of air, but I will definitely not even try to get better". The resources are out there, you've chosen not to utilize them. With a build type like this, you can't even currently blame Cryptic for performing poorly, given how we've been given so many toys lately. Are there things they could do better? Well, obviously, a whole lot of them, and my post history should reflect that. But given how 20k is even possible with an abomination like this, you can't even #blamegruber in your current situation. The only person to blame, as well as the only person who you should look to for improvement, is you.


    You are a shiny example of someone who has shown it is absolutely possible to become better at this game. And also, which I wanted to say primarily, an equally good example of showing that "I did Sci-stuff, so I couldn't do DPS." is a demonstrably false statement (even though uttered often), as you do more DPS with your Science than the vast majority of players with their weapons.
    3lsZz0w.jpg
  • chrisedallen89chrisedallen89 Member Posts: 17,293 Arc User
    Simply put - it feels like Cryptic doesn't want us playing them. Over the past few years, they've done everything possible to make the process of playing PvE queues as painful as possible.

    I've known so many people who used to play them very actively (both in pugs and premades) and were very good at it, but grew so tired of Cryptic's antics that they just quit the game. First of all, there's the new Queue UI. They've streamlined it a lot and it finally works most of the time now, but when it came out, it was in a state of incredible bugginess for a long time, so that definitely pushed some ppl away.

    And then they've nerfed our stuff now countless of times, and have ignored majority of very solid player feedback, again to the point where so many players have just given up and found a game where they feel they are wanted more.

    And yes, some will surely come here and say that "well, there's no point in doing majority of queues because rewards are bad" or "there are so many queues that you just can't play them all". There's a degree of truth in that, but that's really mostly the sentiment of majority who are still left.

    However, this game used to have (up until 2017) a really healthy amount of players who just played the PvE queues because they liked it - either making builds to counter certain maps, just enjoying hours of random pew pew or whatever. Pug queues popped pretty reliably, perhaps needed max. 10 minutes of wait time. And there were tons of chat channels where you could put a really good premade team together. But over the years, Cryptic just told (or well, showed through actions) that group of people constantly that their fun is wrong, so a lot of them got the message and moved on. Moreover, Cryptic has constantly made it more difficult and expensive for players to get to "competent enough to carry your weight"-tier, so people are seeing more dead weights in their queues and naturally feel frustrated and don't want to pug anymore.

    The game is alive and doing well (presumably) because players with different mindsets are still supporting it financially. But the result is clear - you have bunch of dead queues.


    So, my suggestions to you - for any mark you have trouble obtaining, currently do the Crystalline event, but when that ends, play Red Alerts. Borg and Tholian RAs should have almost no chance of failing no matter how bad your team is, and they reward a choice of every mark (besides Gamma, at least for now) in game.
    Alternatively, search for active PvE players who are still left in game, and pester them to join you (hint, I'm one of those).
    Or join a chat channel where premade runs are still organized. DPS channels (both numbers and metals league) or Redditchat are not in very good shape and are all seeing an all time low activity, but can be still sometimes quicker solution than just waiting hours in an empty queue.

    Hard to disagree here. I would follow this advice. Coming from a guy who came back a few months ago.
  • peterconnorfirstpeterconnorfirst Member Posts: 6,225 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    However, Sul, remember this run? I don't remember either Nirett or Sarah complaining about our drainboats, do you? Rather the opposite was true, we were all pretty amazed how effectively we cleared the map. In a team where you don't have complete scumbags around, effective drainers (and other form of non-direct-DPS-builds) are very often noticed and appreciated.

    Fascinating! I am curious, have you guys, including Steve, made any attempts to use heavy drains on the Queen? Since stop shooting with energy weapons on her is not an option for high DPS runs we only have Subnuke ability form sci captain & intel as well as massive reduction of perception as hard counter for her feedback pulse (so far). I wonder how much that pulse can be reduced too when she loses much aux power in light of drains for example. :/
    Post edited by peterconnorfirst on
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    Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
    felisean wrote: »
    teamwork to reach a goal is awesome and highly appreciated
  • peterconnorfirstpeterconnorfirst Member Posts: 6,225 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    You are a shiny example of someone who has shown it is absolutely possible to become better at this game. And also, which I wanted to say primarily, an equally good example of showing that "I did Sci-stuff, so I couldn't do DPS." is a demonstrably false statement (even though uttered often), as you do more DPS with your Science than the vast majority of players with their weapons.

    I totally agree. Much like Felisean and Hellspawny, Tunebreaker is one those very few players around who really managed to embrace the core game-mechanics reaching from mathematical calculations over substantial, in depth testing up to the talent of putting it all into successful practice. It’s really stunning for those who get a chance to play alongside him.
    animated.gif
    Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
    felisean wrote: »
    teamwork to reach a goal is awesome and highly appreciated
  • tunebreakertunebreaker Member Posts: 1,222 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    You are a shiny example of someone who has shown it is absolutely possible to become better at this game. And also, which I wanted to say primarily, an equally good example of showing that "I did Sci-stuff, so I couldn't do DPS." is a demonstrably false statement (even though uttered often), as you do more DPS with your Science than the vast majority of players with their weapons.

    I totally agree. Much like Felisean and Hellspawny, Tunebreaker is one those very few players around who really managed to embrace the core game-mechanics reaching from mathematical calculations over substantial, in depth testing up to the talent of putting it all into successful practice. It’s really stunning for those who get a chance to play alongside him.

    LOL, now I feel my ego inflated quite a bit. Thanks, both of you. But haven't you read my forum signature - I only get high numbers and complete tough content because I get constantly carried. :D

    And to answer that drain question - Queen has got some crazy high resistances, and the video is before ViL, so they might be even higher now. So yes, while it is possible to drain her power levels completely to zero, it's not easy to do, and as you could also see from the video, it looks pretty proc-reliant. We had 3 drainers in there, but Queen wasn't still offline all the time, so it might not be something you'd want to attempt in a high-end DPS chasing run. I could set up my drainboat again of course and we can try and test it out in post-ViL context one day.
  • peterconnorfirstpeterconnorfirst Member Posts: 6,225 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    reyan01 wrote: »

    Thank you for so comprehensively explaining why I suck at the game. Really appreciate that.

    I did not read that post leading me to think you suck at STO. I just read it as a hint that you just most likely use suboptimal tools for a task at hand and thereby put unnecessary limits to your potential, chance of practice and fun. Happens to me all the time in STO.

    Now if you tell me that you have a great time in PvP with your build I gladly shut up forever about this but you simply keep on bringing ISA. :)
    animated.gif
    Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
    felisean wrote: »
    teamwork to reach a goal is awesome and highly appreciated
This discussion has been closed.