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What Do You Think - Pahvo Dissension

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  • thay8472thay8472 Member Posts: 6,100 Arc User
    It's meh.

    Map design is great. I love the night time effect.

    Objectives were easy to follow.

    Story wise? The Charon crashed on Pahvo and the Terrans just started putting agonisers on crystals for no reason.
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  • jagdtier44jagdtier44 Member Posts: 376 Arc User
    It's a decent TFO in my eyes, I don't see how anyone could not know what to do as it's literally the same mechanics we already did on Pahvo.. I mean hell they even give you a little starter trial at the beginning on the spire, and the paths to all the crystals are clearly laid out by the glowy trails. The 3-2 split you need to do isn't...to harsh as long as your not playing with total potatoes or an afker but I have to agree that the warp to spire button is really annoying. On 3 toons I clicked it accidentally probably 5 times thinking it was to drop another healing crystal that the Terrans had destroyed. This game heavily conditions us to just smack F when a pop up occurs this time that's not what you want to do till you finish off one of the 3 paths.
  • hippiejonhippiejon Member Posts: 1,581 Arc User
    It's Pretty. But we already knew that from playing the Anniversary missions. As expected , the art team does good , bordering on great work.

    But this is not an enjoyable TFO. At best , "meh" seems a good word to describe the experience.
    Since "Featured" TFOs are a (new) thing now , we only have Battle at the Binary Stars to compare it to, if we are to consider what they consider worthy of "featuring" as a TFO.

    In every way, this falls short.
    It's not balanced well.
    While easy enough to understand, the map is easy to get turned around on.
    Once again, Time Gated sections.
    Why the (Tribbling Tribble) are they still depending on this now tired method of extending a TFO's run time.
    Storywise, it makes no sense.

    Worth running on one toon for the account unlock shiny, but otherwise, once this is done it will be a TFO I only play when it unfortunately comes up in a random.
  • tvalavulcantvalavulcan Member Posts: 42 Arc User
    I thought the artwork was great. I had no problems with the alt I ran it on using Mk XII mission rewards. After running the anniversary mission, it was pretty easy to figure out the routine of cleaning the crystals. As someone said upthread, the beam to spire button showing up in the middle of the screen all the time was annoying at best. Maybe have it like Nimbus where if you move it cancels it. On the whole, I quite like this one. I probably won't intentionally queue this one after the event (since I normally stay away from ground stuff outside of missions), but if it shows up in a random I would do it.
  • ltminnsltminns Member Posts: 12,569 Arc User
    The (now) three Discovery themed TFOs are the source for Multiple Marks choice runs, with the Blue Moon Red Alerts being toppled from that mantle. With the removal of cooldowns on the Featured TFO they can guarantee that it will be run continuously.

    The Mark payout on this is not bad either.
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  • ilithynilithyn Member Posts: 903 Arc User
    I'm not quite sure why people are complaining about the time gates in this specific TFO. If you complete the goal before the timer runs out you proceed - making the whole thing go quicker - otoh if you fail, or aren't strong enough to save all the crystals/bring the captains down, you still complete it so it doesn't go on indefinitely. To me the way timegates are used in Pahvo Dissension is the only correct use of them.
    Like the first phase where you purify the the crystals one of my teams last night managed to do in half the time allotted because we split up, so we "saved" those five minutes or so.

    But as mention, that pop up with "transport to spire" really is annoying. It either needs to be change to "cancel on move" or alternately, just keep it out at the side of the screen so you have to manually click on it (and not just accidentally press F at the wrong time) to do it. This is honestly my only real gripe about this TFO.
    Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it.
  • postagepaidpostagepaid Member Posts: 2,899 Arc User
    Seemed to be a lot of players who didn't skim the brief so popped the agony things but ignored the crystal dropping and then complained it wasn't doing anything.

    Teleport to spire should only appear after the 3rd crystal in a chain is cleared not all the damn time.

    Terrain in some places looks flat but requires jumping to navigate.

    It's quite possible to clear a chain solo with mk12 gear (playing sci) which seems to negate the purpose of it being an "endgame" group activity.

    Skippable cutscenes YAY and no voiceover from some bloke struggling with bad facial prosthetics either.
  • wideningxgyrewideningxgyre Member Posts: 710 Arc User
    It seemed like a lot of folks did not figure out what needed to happen or a basic strategy to clear all the crystals (divide into two groups - send 2 people through tunnel and other three up the hill with the tunnel folks circling back when done). During the final stage, folks didn't seem to figure out that leaving one person to guard each root would be a simple approach, rather than everyone simply running around. While they may not be optimal strategies, they are simple to execute with PUGs to get the job done. Folks seemed to want to cluster together to pew pew, rather than complete the tasks.

    It makes me wonder whether more information is necessary - maybe a map pop-up during the briefing that shows all the locations so folks realize how many there are. More generally, "new" queues may need a bit more information on the first run since there is no external source with which a player can educate himself.

    Also, while I like the map to look at, the location and density of foliage often interferes with camera angles. The density of rocks and other items, especially smaller items, on the ground often leaves you stuck while running. Like the new DS9 - I like the authenticity of the new promenade, but running around becomes tedious because the map is just so crowded now.
  • lexers615#4253 lexers615 Member Posts: 186 Arc User
    edited February 2019
    My only gripe is that the "teleport to spire" button pops up at inappropriate times and the first time I hit it by accident and that meant that I wasted time running back to the combat area..
    I play 8 toons or so. I lost track how many times I teleported because I pressed "F" too many times (read: frenetically) so that the healing crystal spawns right after the agonizer blows, or trying to have a crystal spawn when a teammate just did and I'm not in Red Alert, or when the "elite captains" drop their loot, and I press "F" trying to grab it but someone else did a split second earlier, resulting in me teleporting a few meters away. I must have seen the teleportation cutscene well over 20 times so far.

    However, I think my bad habit is at fault here even if the teleportation button does show up at terrible moments. Could use a fix though.
  • iamynaughtiamynaught Member Posts: 1,285 Arc User
    Alright, I played this a few more times last night and my opinion of it hasn't improved at all. Granted, it hasn't gone down much either, but it's still not a 'fun' queue to play. I suppose it may improve as folks (including myself) get the hang of it more.
    jagdtier44 wrote: »
    ...and the paths to all the crystals are clearly laid out by the glowy trails.

    I follow those glowy trails and they tend to end at rock walls. Looking at the map and following the paths does the same thing. Perhaps it's due to my graphic settings, but I simply cannot find a way to get to any of the crystals if they are against the far east part of the map or in the southeast corner.

    This will not be a queue I play after the event unless I get stuck in it when I queue up for randoms. If it weren't for the rewards, I wouldn't even continue to play it thru the rest of the event. So I guess you got at least part of what you wanted, metrics.
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  • arabaturarabatur Member Posts: 407 Arc User
    I don't particularly enjoy ground maps and this one is no exception. I'll grind out 13 more, but that will be more than enough. Looks good though, kudos to the artists.
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  • saurializardsaurializard Member Posts: 4,385 Arc User
    Another case of correct and fun mission that will get on your nerves after a few runs because there is no possible variation, it's quite long unless the whole team knowing what to do, and you have to do it 14 times.

    The "teleport to spire" prompt is annoying. Either make it so it's a charging ability that can be interrupted by moving so you don't accidentally beam yourself away by accident, or only make it appear for the final fight, because overall, I have doubts about its usefullness.

    Also, the story behind it is not what I'd call a good excuse.
    Somehow, the various remains of the Charon still have:
    -working transporters despite its main source of power blowing up,
    -a lot of agonizers solely dedicated to brainwash the Pahvans,
    -a lot of Terrans agreeing to try doing the same thing despite narrowing escaping a fiery death thanks to a convenient space-time-dimension travel ;

    And despite what happened with Killy, nobody in the Alliance thought of rapidly beaming various science and security teams on the surface to assess and repair the damage, and secure the planet, even if the story mission said they would.
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  • aspartan1aspartan1 Member Posts: 1,054 Arc User
    Very attractive visually. Functionally nothing exciting but nothing bad either. The Teleport feature should really only be an option when finished with crystals. The time gate is not something I'm fond of in general and my preference is for it to go but I can see it if one has a crappy team.
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  • xyquarzexyquarze Member Posts: 2,114 Arc User
    edited February 2019
    I'll join the "generally positive" crowd. I had no problems with the paths and did understand the way it works early in my first run, except for the timer which is something you have to check out to understand. One note here:
    send 2 people through tunnel and other three up the hill with the tunnel folks circling back when done

    There are different sets of crystals you have to do (though from my observation so far I think the sets are fixed - e. g. it's 1-5-7 or 2-4-6, but not 4-5-6), some (at least one) don't require the tunnel route.

    On the negative side (apart from co players who forgot the interact or did not realize that a crystal needs to be replaced) I would say: it is a bit too long. By which I do not mean overall time (although it could be shorter on that regard) but especially the third crystal of each set is taking too long to be fun, because you usually have everything under control by now and are only pressing 1 and 2 without any challenge.

    As for the general timer, I agree that this is the way they should be: achieve goal, if you cannot achieve it in time, we'll just move on to the next goal.

    As for gear: one of my toons I played this with was even decked out in Mk V gear because they leveled a lot with doff/adm without me caring for the ground setup at all and forgetting about it - no major problems with dying, just the damage output was low. Granted, I don't draw much aggro this way, so that may contribute to survival. But it certainly doesn't need any special gear. And "Reputation Mk XII out of the box" certainly isn't special gear IMO anyway.

    Edit: some places are indeed hard to navigate due to invisible rocks sticking out or whatever causes it
    My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
  • jennycolvinjennycolvin Member Posts: 1,100 Arc User
    edited February 2019
    Long, brainless, repetitive. In short: boring as hell.
    There's no mechanics at all, just a set of repetitive tasks that you need to X times before advancing to the next stage - whether you do it before time run out or not is totally irrelevant, except for the fact that if the team is not good enough, then it's even more long.
    Also, the boss fight should be shorter.
    Environment is nice, but that's about it.

    (Trolling comments moderated out. - BMR)
    Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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    - quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;

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  • anodynesanodynes Member Posts: 1,999 Arc User
    It's awful! Just like so many fight-die-respawn-repeat aspect of the game, it's boring and frustrating... *Some* player with an all tier XV/epic gear go on trolling on how easy it is, but casual players with a blue/purple tier XII-XIII gear spend the whole round waiting to respawn!

    How about quitting the habit of making countless-minions style and fight-die-respawn-repeat style battles, and making challenging yet *FUN* ones??

    So, does a level 65 with no reputation gear, no reputation traits, all gear from mission rewards and drops, and just 17 specialization points (only 2 more than what you get just getting to level 65) count as "casual" to you, or is it just code for "someone who is like me or worse, but certainly no better?" I just did the TFO on just that character, and she died all of twice. There has been a an increase in difficulty for characters like that since the increase to level 65, but it isn't nearly as harsh as you make it out to be on ground, space is another matter.

    Casual players do have access to some ground sets that are comparable to at least the older reputation ground sets just as mission rewards. Specifically, the Romulan Imperial Navy set and the Na'kuhl Temporal Operative set. Both have some decent set bonuses and gimmicks to aid in your survivability. The character that I played with only had the Romulan Imperial Navy armor, though, and she managed to do fairly well. Casual players also have Omega event and Phoenix upgrades available to them, if they really feel that they need to upgrade.

    Now, for a suggestion for the queue itself, please change the beam to spire button to a low-priority interact-only, like the ones at the academies. That would fix the accidental F keying.

    Some have mentioned the 3-2 split for the first part, which is sound, however, if you are a well-geared player who knows what they're doing (you should be aware if this fits you) then perhaps you should think about watching where the others go and go off to be a team of one on an uncovered path. I did this on one of my other characters today, and got lucky enough to have the others split well among the other two paths, and we cut over 4 minutes off of the timer on the first section. Food for thought.
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  • lexers615#4253 lexers615 Member Posts: 186 Arc User
    edited February 2019
    Somebody mention AFK'ing earlier on, well, I just experience AFK brought to a whole new level. A guy in our team rushed toward the enemy as soon as he could, died, and never respawn. A second one remained at the respawn as soon as she did respawn, leaving only three of us to deal with the first round. A third player gave up like after five minutes. GOOD LUCK purifying anything at all when you're down to two players carrying the last 5 minutes of the first round. Final round was just as bad. When the timer was showing 1:30 left, I was the only one who was still steadily respawning when I died. Then, the guy who hadn't respawned in 10 minutes only joined us back 30s before the final timer expired and so did some of my mates... I was so pissed that I simply gave up at that point, holstered my gun, and stood still. "We" scored 15, had no bonus at all, and the Terrans' "Elite" captains never bothered showing up, as we already were having a whacking.

    Worst part: We're only at the day 2 of the event. What is it going to be in a week or so???
  • xyquarzexyquarze Member Posts: 2,114 Arc User
    Also, the boss fight should be shorter.

    What do you mean by "boss fight"? At least the last part with the "Elite Troops" rarely lasts longer than 30 seconds. (Not surprising, considering that the likes of Ian Kwon and Coraline Fletcher are only rare boffs ;) ) The first part of the 5 min timer could be more exciting though.
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  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    xyquarze wrote: »
    Also, the boss fight should be shorter.
    What do you mean by "boss fight"? At least the last part with the "Elite Troops" rarely lasts longer than 30 seconds. (Not surprising, considering that the likes of Ian Kwon and Coraline Fletcher are only rare boffs ;) ) The first part of the 5 min timer could be more exciting though.
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  • postagepaidpostagepaid Member Posts: 2,899 Arc User
    The "bosses" spawn at the worst location for that end section because the team will be spread out around them and with the waves being quite sporadic for a moderate dps group they die almost as soon as they appear.

    Really need some randomness about where they arrive although that would negate the cutscene.
  • trennantrennan Member Posts: 2,839 Arc User
    That moment when your alien species, created two or three years ago, meets Pahvo. Last adjustment was for the Jem'Hadar armor, well before Pahvo came out.
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  • anodynesanodynes Member Posts: 1,999 Arc User
    Somebody mention AFK'ing earlier on, well, I just experience AFK brought to a whole new level. A guy in our team rushed toward the enemy as soon as he could, died, and never respawn. A second one remained at the respawn as soon as she did respawn, leaving only three of us to deal with the first round. A third player gave up like after five minutes. GOOD LUCK purifying anything at all when you're down to two players carrying the last 5 minutes of the first round. Final round was just as bad. When the timer was showing 1:30 left, I was the only one who was still steadily respawning when I died. Then, the guy who hadn't respawned in 10 minutes only joined us back 30s before the final timer expired and so did some of my mates... I was so pissed that I simply gave up at that point, holstered my gun, and stood still. "We" scored 15, had no bonus at all, and the Terrans' "Elite" captains never bothered showing up, as we already were having a whacking.

    Worst part: We're only at the day 2 of the event. What is it going to be in a week or so???

    Tough luck, there. I've now done this 55 times over 3 days, all public queued. I've had players give up a couple of times, but never to that point. I do wonder about your observations, though, since this:
    or when the "elite captains" drop their loot, and I press "F" trying to grab it but someone else did a split second earlier, resulting in me teleporting a few meters away.

    from earlier in the thread, simply cannot happen, as that prompt does not exist during that stage of the TFO, being replaced by a briefing about what to do during that phase.

    No true AFKers for the whole TFO, yet. A few that die pretty often, and can't make much progress on anything, but some people just don't adapt to new scenarios, or are just not very good at the ground game. As such, I would see this:
    where2r1 wrote: »
    EEwwww....
    Timer are annoying and the whole mission is even more boring then battle of the binary stars. I like to be able to set the pace with my team and not just run down timers. It wont be long before this becomes yet another afk event mission.
    Forget it.

    and tell the poster to actually try it for themselves, rather than listen to forum prognosticators. I've personally found their crystal balls to be quite cloudy very often. Some will probably AFK. Some always do in any event where the special reward is guaranteed, such as any of these 3 week event queues, but it really doesn't appear to be catching on here.
    This is an MMO, not a Star Trek episode simulator. That would make for a terrible game.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    edited February 2019
    I've had one run where someone took a few minutes to start doing anything, then later that guy complained because he ended up doing a path solo. never seen someone actually AFK it.
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  • where2r1where2r1 Member Posts: 6,054 Arc User
    anodynes wrote: »
    No true AFKers for the whole TFO, yet. A few that die pretty often, and can't make much progress on anything, but some people just don't adapt to new scenarios, or are just not very good at the ground game. As such, I would see this:
    where2r1 wrote: »
    EEwwww....
    Timer are annoying and the whole mission is even more boring then battle of the binary stars. I like to be able to set the pace with my team and not just run down timers. It wont be long before this becomes yet another afk event mission.
    Forget it.

    and tell the poster to actually try it for themselves, rather than listen to forum prognosticators. I've personally found their crystal balls to be quite cloudy very often. Some will probably AFK. Some always do in any event where the special reward is guaranteed, such as any of these 3 week event queues, but it really doesn't appear to be catching on here.

    No thanks. Watched the videos.
    I would be lost or stuck on a rock...not AFK.
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  • asdfjkadfjkasfasdfjkadfjkasf Member Posts: 345 Media Corps
    Simple enough mission to do, one problem I am running into when queuing in is that you get someone who sits there afk not doing anything, or they don't move and shoot just in the last phase. They are just there to get their event item and that's it, kind of sad really.
  • shevetshevet Member Posts: 1,667 Arc User
    It looks pretty. The game play is manageable - I've been doing it with public pick-up groups, and haven't had any serious failures yet, so clearly enough people are understanding the instructions (not that "interact with stuff that wears a plot hat" and "shoot bad guys" is all that hard to handle, really). I fall into the category of "rubbish gamer with good gear", so overall I can just about pull my weight, I think.

    The one thing that depressed me was that list of enemy bosses. Well, one name on that list. Orinoco? We have to kill Wombles now? :'(
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  • stoutesstoutes Member Posts: 4,219 Arc User
    > @asdfjkadfjkasf said:
    > Simple enough mission to do, one problem I am running into when queuing in is that you get someone who sits there afk not doing anything, or they don't move and shoot just in the last phase. They are just there to get their event item and that's it, kind of sad really.

    Did about 5 queues this afternoon (gmt+2), got an average of 2 people afk'ing in at least 3 queues. Rather annoying.
  • xyquarzexyquarze Member Posts: 2,114 Arc User
    I only got one AFK person so far in 24 runs. He was not only AFKing, but also using a name from the show (without even trying to look that way) and the first to click "need" when the drops came, so not even really AFK. Apart from that I mostly had good runs, sometimes shaving off as many as 5 minutes from the first part with a 2-2-1 split.
    My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
  • peterconnorfirstpeterconnorfirst Member Posts: 6,225 Arc User
    edited February 2019
    aspartan1 wrote: »
    Very attractive visually. Functionally nothing exciting but nothing bad either. The Teleport feature should really only be an option when finished with crystals. The time gate is not something I'm fond of in general and my preference is for it to go but I can see it if one has a crappy team.

    I really hate time gates as well. Still I think on the new map there aren’t any real ones. We do get timer on each sub stage but they are rather only some sort of fail timer for optionals or auto clear timer to trigger the next stage. In any case we can finish them prematurely if we finish the respective tasks ahead of time. If we are on later at the same time we run it together if you like. We should be fast together. :)
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  • peterconnorfirstpeterconnorfirst Member Posts: 6,225 Arc User
    edited February 2019
    where2r1 wrote: »
    anodynes wrote: »
    No true AFKers for the whole TFO, yet. A few that die pretty often, and can't make much progress on anything, but some people just don't adapt to new scenarios, or are just not very good at the ground game. As such, I would see this:
    where2r1 wrote: »
    EEwwww....
    Timer are annoying and the whole mission is even more boring then battle of the binary stars. I like to be able to set the pace with my team and not just run down timers. It wont be long before this becomes yet another afk event mission.
    Forget it.

    and tell the poster to actually try it for themselves, rather than listen to forum prognosticators. I've personally found their crystal balls to be quite cloudy very often. Some will probably AFK. Some always do in any event where the special reward is guaranteed, such as any of these 3 week event queues, but it really doesn't appear to be catching on here.

    No thanks. Watched the videos.
    I would be lost or stuck on a rock...not AFK.

    Hehe yep, the layout on the map is mega confusing. Brilliant I suggested a team split on the map the other day and had @seaofsorrows follow me around in circles for pretty much nothing. Hope he didn't include that in his after action report to Starfleet. :D
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    felisean wrote: »
    teamwork to reach a goal is awesome and highly appreciated
This discussion has been closed.