This thread makes some really interesting reading now; it's over three years old now, and it has become a bit of a time-capsule, where we can see how the attitudes, tactics and approaches to the STF's have changed over the years.
MACO and Omega gear only obtainable through end-of-mission reward drops. IF you were lucky.
Rainbow boats.
The 10% rule.
Infected before it had a fail condition.
The three Borg STF's sometimes taking over an hour to complete
The affect of powercreep over the years
The event of Aux2Batt BFAW Scimitards clearing ISE (as it was) in under two minutes
It's funny, as whilst certain aspects of the STF's have changed, the core missions haven't really. Just thought I'd reflect on it, as this thread may or may not survive the forum transition and whilst a new one may be started, it's still interesting to read player's experience of such consistently popular content over the years.
I really enjoy this thread almost for the same reason, except its also a good laugh and reassuring that your not alone when it comes to terrible runs.
Not sure I've ever posted in here before, even though I know enough bad stories to make a few pages at least (massive understatement), but truthfully I think I enjoy reading other peoples posts more than writing my own. But thanks to this thread you do indeed get a feel of how things change as time goes on.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
Every time I do Borg Disconnected Advanced I say I'll take a tower alone. Every time without fail, someone joins me at it. Usually killing all the probes... Or worse, killing each mob that spawns until we get cubes.
When/If we get to the dreadnoughts, one of us will call a target. If we're really lucky, the majority of the team will focus fire on that target. What usually happens is 3/5 of the team fire at different targets.
Lets be honest, anything requiring a modicum of brain activity is far beyond the majority of STO players.
Anything.
Teamwork, simple problem solving, logic, being able to read... if an STF requires ANY of this, it's too hard for them. Unless they're carried, which is what happens most of the time.
I agree, but on the last point, remember not everyone speaks the same language in sto.
I was happily taking the right hand side on my own, destroying cubes, probes, generators and transformers etc.
I kept an eye on them on the left side, just to make sure. I saw they'd engaged some probes, so I thought everything was hunky dory.
I mean, there were four of them, why would they need my help?
Then the mission failed.
How... Just how!? There were FOUR OF THEM! FOUR!!
I had a similar experience the other day.
I was acting as r-side probe guard and at the same time knocked out half of the generators on that side to help out. Was being careful not to spawn the cube as my tiny sci vessel would get flattened by then in seconds without some support.
All the other 4 were l-side so i thought they'd handle it. Within 2 mins of the second phase we'd failed as they'd just ignored the probes and were all off attacking the furthest away transformer.
????
Do people just not know the mission or are they just outright idiots?
To make up for it last night I had an EPIC run through KSA with a pug group. Exceptional team communication with chat, Everyone knew the drill perfectly, everyone helped out when requests were made, all optional passed, everyone using their specialties for the right thing.
Worked like a treat and probably the first time I've really truly enjoyed a PVE queue since DR hit.
This is a post that is completely misplaced in this thread since it is neither a bad experience nor in an STF, but I wanted to share it.
One of my toons is happily minding its doffing when a Borg Red Alert appears. Since I was on a ship I still needed to master, I replied. Entering the Red Alert, I noticed I was the second one in there, there was already a small ship (not a Miranda, but close, maybe a Mirinda) fighting the five spheres/probes in front (so it was either beta or one of the two easy alpha spots). I was on a lesser toon with a wrong ship (I actually don't remember the details, either I had one destined for a beam build on a cannon build or the other way round), so the equipment was mostly what I found in the dustbin next to my desk, blue and green Mk XIs and down from there.
Anyways, I joined the fight and we were able to take the guys out, move on to the next cluster and so on. But it was hard. Mirinda didn't do any damage worth speaking of, neither did I, but together we managed to take out our four required groups with about a minute or so remaining.
So the cigar beams in, also another ship, some Rom T5 you get for free, dunno which one. We started gnawing on the cigar, every so often I took care of the probes before they became overwhelming, while Mirinda and Rommie fired at the cigar. Rommie was about my level, so at least some damage though not much. We were making progress though.
And then, with 13 seconds left, the cigar caught fire. We did it. (I also got a major boost towards my mastery during this). And in the chat Mirinda writes "Wow! That was fun!"
And indeed it was. I am used to my main toon being able to solo through the pre-cigar encounter within a couple of minutes. Most of my others can solo it too, though with less time left. I've never been alone in the last stage, so I don't know whether I could do it. And even if you have a not-as-great build, usually you get some Scimitar beaming in, so you can go visit the loo while the Borg blow up. None of that happened here. Just two mediocre and one new player. And we did it, biting our nails.
But this "That was fun!" really made my day. Probably, given the ship, it was Mirinda's first Red Alert. And we've given her a fun time (because in the end there were only two ships doing at least some damage). And in the end, isn't that what it's about?
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
To be honest, am sick of ISA in general just lately.
As it stands, I keep finding myself in teams that are comprised of either:
Clueless players with no idea what they're doing (actually preferred it when there was a fail mechanism in place, as it put these instances out of our misery).
or
BFAW spamming vape build bores, with instances that last two minutes.
I prefer to team with Star Trek Battles teams, who know what they're doing without reducing it to a boring BFAW spamming two mintue DPS fest, but am seldom online at the same time as most of them.
To be honest, having a challenge of any sorts is just impossible now it seems. If I want a challenge it seems I need to solo queue Big Dig or Breaking the Planet
I remember the days when being wiped was a possibility at almost any given point in a mission, especially on ground and that made it fun, something that was actually good and refreshing, and even somewhat entertaining at times. But it also made the successes, of all kinds, actually satisfying.
While I still try to give myself a challenge, its nothing compared to how it used to be. I very rarely have that feeling of impending doom nowadays (well, at least not in terms of game difficulty.......), and even in a terrible pug run of IGA (I was feeling that much in need of a challenge) where the other players ran away from the Borg, I stood my ground and took down everything myself. In the past, taking on a section of room by yourself was pretty much suicide.
It's just not right
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
To be honest, am sick of ISA in general just lately.
As it stands, I keep finding myself in teams that are comprised of either:
Clueless players with no idea what they're doing (actually preferred it when there was a fail mechanism in place, as it put these instances out of our misery).
or
BFAW spamming vape build bores, with instances that last two minutes.
I prefer to team with Star Trek Battles teams, who know what they're doing without reducing it to a boring BFAW spamming two mintue DPS fest, but am seldom online at the same time as most of them.
Have to agree with you reyan.
Most PVE queues these days are either a complete mess of people not following the mission instructions, or are over in minutes as some DPS monster flattens the whole map with BFAW spam or Kemocite weapons, giving everyone else an afk penalty.
ISA these days is the exact same run every time, it's literaly no fun any more for me as I know exactly what will happen at every moment. You could probably run it blindfold most days.
At least KSA or CSA can throw the odd curve ball with different mobs spawning if certain things happen in the map (Raptors or Negh'vars spawning, or Spheres joining the probes).
Almost every Gateway to Gre'thor advanced is the worst ever. People fighting in the asteroid belt or mid at the start. People ignoring the radiation gateways and only closing the spawning gateways. People ignoring the boss and trying to kill adds at the end. This whole stf is frustrating every time.
I had a GGA awhile back that was ummmmm shall we say sub optimal.
Admittedly I screwed up and hadn't paid attention to my loadout, doffs, and stations. I usually dont switch them and for some reason I had and that really slowed down my ability to contribute.
That being said, I went right with one other and other 3 to the left, killed both waves, (outside the optional thanks to my goof) and turned back to find the otherside 0/2, oh yay. Middle went standard and then the dreadnought.
Now I dont do GG that often, but everytime I see the last optional succeed it happens when the dreadnought gets obliterated first and fast. The problem with attacking the dreadnought alone is that when no one else attacks it you get the lasers from hell and "Who cares about your shields" Mir's all focused on you...
Just tried ANRA and got completely flattened by the Tholians.
First off the mark of hang a right and there's a 3pt ship to rescue there so I figure with my cloak i can sneak in an free it unhindered. WRONG!
My "wingman" stirred up the Tholians like someone kicking a hornets nest and they just launched BFAW spam with disruptor torps and weapon's offline all over the place. I think my weapons were offline for 90% of that first grueling fight.
All I could do was float around offline until the rest of the team arrived to help us tidy up. Poor old science ship is no match for a nest off p**sed of Tholians.
Then after that we still had 3 mins on the cloak for the optional and what does the game do....it spawns nothing but T'liss warbirds, so the optional becomes impossible when you added on the respawn timer for the shipyards.
Agree with you again. I rarely play ISA now as it's the same dull mission every time. Sometimes you get a good run with a random pug, either newbies who need help or something goes wrong and needs quick thinking to save the mission. But often it's a two minute BFAW spam-fest with half the players getting a penalty. They need to revitalise the older less popular queues to give some more options.
ISA as a pug is just unplayable for me now, which is a huge shame, yes I could probably steamroll it with my 2 mains but on my alts I try to be good with whatever... Usually...
Just after the advance queue nerf, One memorable one went like this, bad but with a silver lining:-
Me in a tac oddy on a fresh L50 toon and 4 other unknowns, first cube went in about 2 mins, I take all the aggro and die in the first min, wonderful, left transformer, I take all aggro and die twice before its gone, check my parser, 15k to me, everyone else under 5k, 1 left due to snr or quitting, no idea, don't care, we still hadn't lost the objective, its no biggie, I stocked up on components, Start transition over to the other side, chat now has a new team message... "This is usually quicker"... Look at the name, look at the parser, 2k... Hmm, I die again, I make a fatal mistake and type in chat, " sorry, this is a fresh alt, I'm taking too much aggro off over everything so keep dying" get some kind of insulting response from him as I'm making my way back about me not having the DPS to do the queue, noticing a nanite spheres a little to close to the 2nd trans I'm contemplating taking a penalty as I can't be bothered to deal with this guy, when the sphere gets dragged about 10km back to the gate entrance by a grav well of immense power, we now have a new drop in, in a tiny little Nova class, a new name appears on the parser, after following the forums for a bit, the names familiar to me, and I now know this isn't going to be so horrendous as initially thought. Abusive chat guy is now going off on one as I'm the only one with chat open, when new science guy tells him to shush and get on with things, I die a couple more times from pulling aggro, so does science guy, but we make it through without it failing anything
Science guy pms me later asking what the abusive guy was on about, I explain and thank him for coming in when he did, if it wasn't for his well built ship and crowd control we would have had lots more problems, yes we could have just let the optionals go, but if we did, what's the point of doing advanced when a normal would have taken less than half the time.
Anyway, I know you're out there science guy so thanks again, in fact I now roll that toon in a science ship because of you, lots of fun has been had
ISA is one of those missions where I always go by the rule of bring-your-own-grav well, as more often than not nobody else bothers to slow the nanite train. I learned months ago if you want crowd control, do it yourself. Works a treat most days and even if the team lacks DPS to flatten the transformers. Can hold up the train long enough for even the lowest DPS players to have a go.
DPS might help kill things faster but often it's the lowly science guy that will save things with some crowd control or shutdowns. DPS isn't everything.
ISA is one of those missions where I always go by the rule of bring-your-own-grav well, as more often than not nobody else bothers to slow the nanite train.
I learned months ago if you want crowd control, do it yourself.
Works a treat most days and even if the team lacks DPS to flatten the transformers. Can hold up the train long enough for even the lowest DPS players to have a go.
DPS might help kill things faster but often it's the lowly science guy that will save things with some crowd control or shutdowns. DPS isn't everything.
All the GW in the world, won't help the people who think it is important, to go after the spheres that pop in after each generator is destroyed, than take 10mins. just to destroy 1 of them!!!
Just had to drop out of a KSA run because it wasn't going to get finished inside of an hour at least.
We kill the tac cube fairly easily and then I go right with my Scryer and a guy in a Pathfinder. Now neither of us are going to be able to stand up to much punishment so we don't want too much aggro, but we can crowd control like a TRIBBLE and slow up the probe train until the heavy hitters finish left side.
Other side is a Rommie command warbird, a T6 escort carrier and something like an Andromeda-X i think.
They should handle it well enough so we'll just hold off probes and do what we can to damage the transformers.
Soon find out that Pathfinder guy only has 3 weapons slotted (or it looks that way), a turret of some kind, mines and chroniton torps. None of which he uses with any boff powers except once when he let off a torp spread.
He does drop some repair probes on me that helps me stay alive though but that really is it.
So I have to kill the probes and the generators and the cubes that spawn all single-handedly in a squishy science boat whilst he flies round doing nothing. I do't even know what has was trying to do as he spent most time trying to kill the invincible transformer.
Shortly after this the Andromeda has left and I notice the left side still haven';t killed a transformer despite having clearly higher DPS that our side.
In the end I got bored, spawned both cubes and went head to head with them, killing one before realizing it wasn't going to be ending any time soon. I left soon after.
My Scyer can do excellent crowd control and a lot of damage from torps but I can't hold the side against probes and kill everything else on my own without getting aggro from the whole map. It helps if people at least realise what they are doing wrong, Pathfinder guy never even had chat open to listen to what was being asked of him.
Whilst I remain sick and tired of the tired, boring routine that is ISA, I do still play it sometimes (partly because it's guaranteed to pop quite quickly.
So tiresome lately though - as have said before, it pretty much always go one of two ways:
BFAW spamming players who reduce the instance to something between laughable and pointless.
or
Clueless players who have NO idea what they're doing and seem to manage to flood the map with spheres.
I tend to run into a group of the latter hourly/daily!
ISA is one of those missions where I always go by the rule of bring-your-own-grav well, as more often than not nobody else bothers to slow the nanite train.
I learned months ago if you want crowd control, do it yourself.
Works a treat most days and even if the team lacks DPS to flatten the transformers. Can hold up the train long enough for even the lowest DPS players to have a go.
DPS might help kill things faster but often it's the lowly science guy that will save things with some crowd control or shutdowns. DPS isn't everything.
indeed, I carry gw1 and 3 on my pathfinder for the nanite ships, as soon as I see them spawn I break contact and dump a grav well on them, I carry 2 grav wells for the reduced cooldown timer.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Having gotten used to how bad people are in KSA at weekends, I've gotten used to doing the probes and both sides practically by myself. In one such occurrence I had to go AFK during the boss... Came back 5 minutes later to find he was still at 100%.
In one such occurrence I had to go AFK during the boss... Came back 5 minutes later to find he was still at 100%.
No wonder some people get AFK penalties.
seriously, people may complain about AFK penalties, but if people are that bad at the game that they do so little damage that they get one, people should take that time to reflect on their builds and how they play, because there is obviously something wrong.
And if people aren't even willing to overcome this little challenge there still is a ton of very easy, non group content that rewards marks, dilithium and crafting mats.
STFs are not mandatory.
In one such occurrence I had to go AFK during the boss... Came back 5 minutes later to find he was still at 100%.
No wonder some people get AFK penalties.
seriously, people may complain about AFK penalties, but if people are that bad at the game that they do so little damage that they get one, people should take that time to reflect on their builds and how they play, because there is obviously something wrong.
And if people aren't even willing to overcome this little challenge there still is a ton of very easy, non group content that rewards marks, dilithium and crafting mats.
STFs are not mandatory.
But in fairness a lot of the time the AFK penalty isn't explained to players other than "you didn't participate to our arbitrary standard which we've given you know idea of what it is exactly".
So even if a player performing badly gets one they are unlikely to understand why.
I mean just look at the new Badlands battlezone. It has rewards based entirely on participation but nobody has a clue what the required level is or how the measurement works. So you've got veteran players in T6 fleet ships getting ridiculous rewards because the system deems them to be not participating enough, or in other words going AFK.
Let the players know what they must to do avoid said penalties or nobody will pay any attention other than to get TRIBBLE off. There's not even a way to measure your DPS without 3rd party software so most players have no way to even measure their performance.
Let the players know what they must to do avoid said penalties or nobody will pay any attention other than to get TRIBBLE off. There's not even a way to measure your DPS without 3rd party software so most players have no way to even measure their performance.
I know, normaly this should go without saying. The game in general gives little to no feedback on your performance unfortunately. We'll see how this will turn out, personaly I think it is a step towards the right direction, but with cryptic you never know, so often they made a step into the right direction but stopped shortly afterwards.
In one such occurrence I had to go AFK during the boss... Came back 5 minutes later to find he was still at 100%.
No wonder some people get AFK penalties.
seriously, people may complain about AFK penalties, but if people are that bad at the game that they do so little damage that they get one, people should take that time to reflect on their builds and how they play, because there is obviously something wrong.
And if people aren't even willing to overcome this little challenge there still is a ton of very easy, non group content that rewards marks, dilithium and crafting mats.
STFs are not mandatory.
But in fairness a lot of the time the AFK penalty isn't explained to players other than "you didn't participate to our arbitrary standard which we've given you know idea of what it is exactly".
So even if a player performing badly gets one they are unlikely to understand why.
I mean just look at the new Badlands battlezone. It has rewards based entirely on participation but nobody has a clue what the required level is or how the measurement works. So you've got veteran players in T6 fleet ships getting ridiculous rewards because the system deems them to be not participating enough, or in other words going AFK.
Let the players know what they must to do avoid said penalties or nobody will pay any attention other than to get TRIBBLE off. There's not even a way to measure your DPS without 3rd party software so most players have no way to even measure their performance.
Let the players know what they must to do avoid said penalties or nobody will pay any attention other than to get TRIBBLE off. There's not even a way to measure your DPS without 3rd party software so most players have no way to even measure their performance.
I know, normaly this should go without saying. The game in general gives little to no feedback on your performance unfortunately. We'll see how this will turn out, personaly I think it is a step towards the right direction, but with cryptic you never know, so often they made a step into the right direction but stopped shortly afterwards.
Their performace can be measured, by the simple fact 4 players couldn't even dent the boss, pretty obvious if you ask me!
If a player is having an issue understanding this, than they need some form of help that even the game cannot provide.
The reason the afk penalty isn't putting it out there, is simply to try and prevent the actual leechers in this game, from knowing the exact figure to avoid 1, not that they cannot guesstimate how.
That's the difficult part really isn't it though. Having a means to measure performance would be a balance between giving poor players a way to improve by letting the see the numbers, and giving the leeches an exact figure to contribute to avoid penalties. Although I've got to admit that the thought and planning you'd need to put in to get just slightly over that level of contribution and no more, you'd be better off just playing the damned mission anyway! I mean where exactly is the fun in trying to do just the bare minimum amount when you could just play the game and enjoy it plus get the best rewards!
First attempt: got dc´ed after my second closed rift and couldn´t get back into the map. I was brave and queued again.
Second attempt: at least I made it until the dreadnought showed up, got dc´ed again. This time: internet dead.
Turns out that my ISP does some maintenance work. Well, I guess that´s it for me today.
This was not so much a bad run as some shockingly bad luck on my part.
Fighting Donatra in KSA and she decloaks and charges her Thalaron burst. I drop a GW3 on her and as i'm in the front of her I try to evasive out of there as i'll get flattened if that blast gets me, everyone else is doing the same.
Just as i'm almost out of the cone my grav well spawns an aftershock well, right in the direction I was going so she gets pulled sideways just as the blast goes off, killing me and half the team who were dodging at the same time.....
I run Infected Space a lot because it's the only one that I regard as idiot proof, only severe lack of skill can fail it.
In this case, I was wrong.
I had to see it a second time to confirm it, since I wasn't certain I was seeing it correctly the first time.
Someone on the team was using Gravity Well on the nanite transformer!
I looked over to the side and noticed the nanite spheres were getting uncomfortably close.
10 seconds later, failed optional.
Why in space would anyone use a Gravity Well on the nanite transformer instead of using it to keep the nanite spheres locked down?
I did consider telling the team the first time it happened, but the reaction I've had a few times means I don't bother trying to advise anyone on tactics or strategy anymore.
The first part is someone with an insecurity complex who self-appointed themselves leader gets aggressive because I try to fix the problems they are causing.
The next part is usually raging, claiming I don't know how to run STFs, insisting I've never run them before, calling me a noob and so on.
Third part is usually a rage quit when I don't bother responding to their immature behavior.
Edit: 2 more runs and the same mistake made, grav well on the nanite transformer, not the nanite spheres.
It has to be the same person, it strains the odds of probability that 3 different players keep making the same mistake.
After failing the optional because the grav well wasn't used on the nanite spheres, the player then proceeded to use it again on the nanite transformer, pulling the next group of nanite spheres into the transformer!
At that point, I gave up and took the 1 hour leaver penalty.
Post edited by tilarta on
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
The nanite transformer/grav well thing comes from a few of the high dpsers recommending/suggesting that you drop one there to draw in the spheres + kill the transformer in one go.Some people think this is the correct/only strategy without realizing the high dpsers usually run with private stf teams of other high dpsers who can vape the spheres in seconds so they have no time to heal anything.It's been around for a long while so it happens from time to time unfortunately. It's the price you pay in this pug life.
The grav well thing can work if the team is good enough to put out enough damage to kill it before the nanites get close. It does damage after all, and some players have grav wells doing huge amounts of DPS. Also the initial spheres (normal ones) that hang round the transformer can hinder the attackers on it so hoovering them all up can actually help, provided you don't suck up the nanites too.
As to actually rage-quoting because you lost the optional that is just daft. You still would have gotten marks plus the neural processor so the run was not going to be a waste. All you do is make it even harder for the rest of the team.
Comments
Ugh... I'll give you a hint.... IT'S NOT SHOOTING THOLIANS!
My character Tsin'xing
I really enjoy this thread almost for the same reason, except its also a good laugh and reassuring that your not alone when it comes to terrible runs.
Not sure I've ever posted in here before, even though I know enough bad stories to make a few pages at least (massive understatement), but truthfully I think I enjoy reading other peoples posts more than writing my own. But thanks to this thread you do indeed get a feel of how things change as time goes on.
I was happily taking the right hand side on my own, destroying cubes, probes, generators and transformers etc.
I kept an eye on them on the left side, just to make sure. I saw they'd engaged some probes, so I thought everything was hunky dory.
I mean, there were four of them, why would they need my help?
Then the mission failed.
How... Just how!? There were FOUR OF THEM! FOUR!!
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
I agree, but on the last point, remember not everyone speaks the same language in sto.
I had a similar experience the other day.
I was acting as r-side probe guard and at the same time knocked out half of the generators on that side to help out. Was being careful not to spawn the cube as my tiny sci vessel would get flattened by then in seconds without some support.
All the other 4 were l-side so i thought they'd handle it. Within 2 mins of the second phase we'd failed as they'd just ignored the probes and were all off attacking the furthest away transformer.
????
Do people just not know the mission or are they just outright idiots?
To make up for it last night I had an EPIC run through KSA with a pug group. Exceptional team communication with chat, Everyone knew the drill perfectly, everyone helped out when requests were made, all optional passed, everyone using their specialties for the right thing.
Worked like a treat and probably the first time I've really truly enjoyed a PVE queue since DR hit.
One of my toons is happily minding its doffing when a Borg Red Alert appears. Since I was on a ship I still needed to master, I replied. Entering the Red Alert, I noticed I was the second one in there, there was already a small ship (not a Miranda, but close, maybe a Mirinda) fighting the five spheres/probes in front (so it was either beta or one of the two easy alpha spots). I was on a lesser toon with a wrong ship (I actually don't remember the details, either I had one destined for a beam build on a cannon build or the other way round), so the equipment was mostly what I found in the dustbin next to my desk, blue and green Mk XIs and down from there.
Anyways, I joined the fight and we were able to take the guys out, move on to the next cluster and so on. But it was hard. Mirinda didn't do any damage worth speaking of, neither did I, but together we managed to take out our four required groups with about a minute or so remaining.
So the cigar beams in, also another ship, some Rom T5 you get for free, dunno which one. We started gnawing on the cigar, every so often I took care of the probes before they became overwhelming, while Mirinda and Rommie fired at the cigar. Rommie was about my level, so at least some damage though not much. We were making progress though.
And then, with 13 seconds left, the cigar caught fire. We did it. (I also got a major boost towards my mastery during this). And in the chat Mirinda writes "Wow! That was fun!"
And indeed it was. I am used to my main toon being able to solo through the pre-cigar encounter within a couple of minutes. Most of my others can solo it too, though with less time left. I've never been alone in the last stage, so I don't know whether I could do it. And even if you have a not-as-great build, usually you get some Scimitar beaming in, so you can go visit the loo while the Borg blow up. None of that happened here. Just two mediocre and one new player. And we did it, biting our nails.
But this "That was fun!" really made my day. Probably, given the ship, it was Mirinda's first Red Alert. And we've given her a fun time (because in the end there were only two ships doing at least some damage). And in the end, isn't that what it's about?
To be honest, having a challenge of any sorts is just impossible now it seems. If I want a challenge it seems I need to solo queue Big Dig or Breaking the Planet
I remember the days when being wiped was a possibility at almost any given point in a mission, especially on ground and that made it fun, something that was actually good and refreshing, and even somewhat entertaining at times. But it also made the successes, of all kinds, actually satisfying.
While I still try to give myself a challenge, its nothing compared to how it used to be. I very rarely have that feeling of impending doom nowadays (well, at least not in terms of game difficulty.......), and even in a terrible pug run of IGA (I was feeling that much in need of a challenge) where the other players ran away from the Borg, I stood my ground and took down everything myself. In the past, taking on a section of room by yourself was pretty much suicide.
It's just not right
Have to agree with you reyan.
Most PVE queues these days are either a complete mess of people not following the mission instructions, or are over in minutes as some DPS monster flattens the whole map with BFAW spam or Kemocite weapons, giving everyone else an afk penalty.
ISA these days is the exact same run every time, it's literaly no fun any more for me as I know exactly what will happen at every moment. You could probably run it blindfold most days.
At least KSA or CSA can throw the odd curve ball with different mobs spawning if certain things happen in the map (Raptors or Negh'vars spawning, or Spheres joining the probes).
Admittedly I screwed up and hadn't paid attention to my loadout, doffs, and stations. I usually dont switch them and for some reason I had and that really slowed down my ability to contribute.
That being said, I went right with one other and other 3 to the left, killed both waves, (outside the optional thanks to my goof) and turned back to find the otherside 0/2, oh yay. Middle went standard and then the dreadnought.
Now I dont do GG that often, but everytime I see the last optional succeed it happens when the dreadnought gets obliterated first and fast. The problem with attacking the dreadnought alone is that when no one else attacks it you get the lasers from hell and "Who cares about your shields" Mir's all focused on you...
Finished and by some miracle no one had rage quit
First off the mark of hang a right and there's a 3pt ship to rescue there so I figure with my cloak i can sneak in an free it unhindered. WRONG!
My "wingman" stirred up the Tholians like someone kicking a hornets nest and they just launched BFAW spam with disruptor torps and weapon's offline all over the place. I think my weapons were offline for 90% of that first grueling fight.
All I could do was float around offline until the rest of the team arrived to help us tidy up. Poor old science ship is no match for a nest off p**sed of Tholians.
Then after that we still had 3 mins on the cloak for the optional and what does the game do....it spawns nothing but T'liss warbirds, so the optional becomes impossible when you added on the respawn timer for the shipyards.
Sometimes you get a good run with a random pug, either newbies who need help or something goes wrong and needs quick thinking to save the mission.
But often it's a two minute BFAW spam-fest with half the players getting a penalty.
They need to revitalise the older less popular queues to give some more options.
Just after the advance queue nerf, One memorable one went like this, bad but with a silver lining:-
Me in a tac oddy on a fresh L50 toon and 4 other unknowns, first cube went in about 2 mins, I take all the aggro and die in the first min, wonderful, left transformer, I take all aggro and die twice before its gone, check my parser, 15k to me, everyone else under 5k, 1 left due to snr or quitting, no idea, don't care, we still hadn't lost the objective, its no biggie, I stocked up on components, Start transition over to the other side, chat now has a new team message... "This is usually quicker"... Look at the name, look at the parser, 2k... Hmm, I die again, I make a fatal mistake and type in chat, " sorry, this is a fresh alt, I'm taking too much aggro off over everything so keep dying" get some kind of insulting response from him as I'm making my way back about me not having the DPS to do the queue, noticing a nanite spheres a little to close to the 2nd trans I'm contemplating taking a penalty as I can't be bothered to deal with this guy, when the sphere gets dragged about 10km back to the gate entrance by a grav well of immense power, we now have a new drop in, in a tiny little Nova class, a new name appears on the parser, after following the forums for a bit, the names familiar to me, and I now know this isn't going to be so horrendous as initially thought. Abusive chat guy is now going off on one as I'm the only one with chat open, when new science guy tells him to shush and get on with things, I die a couple more times from pulling aggro, so does science guy, but we make it through without it failing anything
Science guy pms me later asking what the abusive guy was on about, I explain and thank him for coming in when he did, if it wasn't for his well built ship and crowd control we would have had lots more problems, yes we could have just let the optionals go, but if we did, what's the point of doing advanced when a normal would have taken less than half the time.
Anyway, I know you're out there science guy so thanks again, in fact I now roll that toon in a science ship because of you, lots of fun has been had
Don´t let it get you down. Just ignore them, proceed with the mission (as you did). To be upset about those <censored> isn´t worth it.
And yes, sci can save the day. I´m always grateful for sci guys in my team who are saving my tac posterior. Just sayin´
P.S.: 15k on a fresh level 50 toon is pretty good. Also just sayin´
I learned months ago if you want crowd control, do it yourself.
Works a treat most days and even if the team lacks DPS to flatten the transformers. Can hold up the train long enough for even the lowest DPS players to have a go.
DPS might help kill things faster but often it's the lowly science guy that will save things with some crowd control or shutdowns. DPS isn't everything.
All the GW in the world, won't help the people who think it is important, to go after the spheres that pop in after each generator is destroyed, than take 10mins. just to destroy 1 of them!!!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
We kill the tac cube fairly easily and then I go right with my Scryer and a guy in a Pathfinder. Now neither of us are going to be able to stand up to much punishment so we don't want too much aggro, but we can crowd control like a TRIBBLE and slow up the probe train until the heavy hitters finish left side.
Other side is a Rommie command warbird, a T6 escort carrier and something like an Andromeda-X i think.
They should handle it well enough so we'll just hold off probes and do what we can to damage the transformers.
Soon find out that Pathfinder guy only has 3 weapons slotted (or it looks that way), a turret of some kind, mines and chroniton torps. None of which he uses with any boff powers except once when he let off a torp spread.
He does drop some repair probes on me that helps me stay alive though but that really is it.
So I have to kill the probes and the generators and the cubes that spawn all single-handedly in a squishy science boat whilst he flies round doing nothing. I do't even know what has was trying to do as he spent most time trying to kill the invincible transformer.
Shortly after this the Andromeda has left and I notice the left side still haven';t killed a transformer despite having clearly higher DPS that our side.
In the end I got bored, spawned both cubes and went head to head with them, killing one before realizing it wasn't going to be ending any time soon. I left soon after.
My Scyer can do excellent crowd control and a lot of damage from torps but I can't hold the side against probes and kill everything else on my own without getting aggro from the whole map. It helps if people at least realise what they are doing wrong, Pathfinder guy never even had chat open to listen to what was being asked of him.
I tend to run into a group of the latter hourly/daily!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
indeed, I carry gw1 and 3 on my pathfinder for the nanite ships, as soon as I see them spawn I break contact and dump a grav well on them, I carry 2 grav wells for the reduced cooldown timer.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
No wonder some people get AFK penalties.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
seriously, people may complain about AFK penalties, but if people are that bad at the game that they do so little damage that they get one, people should take that time to reflect on their builds and how they play, because there is obviously something wrong.
And if people aren't even willing to overcome this little challenge there still is a ton of very easy, non group content that rewards marks, dilithium and crafting mats.
STFs are not mandatory.
But in fairness a lot of the time the AFK penalty isn't explained to players other than "you didn't participate to our arbitrary standard which we've given you know idea of what it is exactly".
So even if a player performing badly gets one they are unlikely to understand why.
I mean just look at the new Badlands battlezone. It has rewards based entirely on participation but nobody has a clue what the required level is or how the measurement works. So you've got veteran players in T6 fleet ships getting ridiculous rewards because the system deems them to be not participating enough, or in other words going AFK.
Let the players know what they must to do avoid said penalties or nobody will pay any attention other than to get TRIBBLE off. There's not even a way to measure your DPS without 3rd party software so most players have no way to even measure their performance.
I know, normaly this should go without saying. The game in general gives little to no feedback on your performance unfortunately. We'll see how this will turn out, personaly I think it is a step towards the right direction, but with cryptic you never know, so often they made a step into the right direction but stopped shortly afterwards.
Their performace can be measured, by the simple fact 4 players couldn't even dent the boss, pretty obvious if you ask me!
If a player is having an issue understanding this, than they need some form of help that even the game cannot provide.
The reason the afk penalty isn't putting it out there, is simply to try and prevent the actual leechers in this game, from knowing the exact figure to avoid 1, not that they cannot guesstimate how.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Although I've got to admit that the thought and planning you'd need to put in to get just slightly over that level of contribution and no more, you'd be better off just playing the damned mission anyway! I mean where exactly is the fun in trying to do just the bare minimum amount when you could just play the game and enjoy it plus get the best rewards!
First attempt: got dc´ed after my second closed rift and couldn´t get back into the map. I was brave and queued again.
Second attempt: at least I made it until the dreadnought showed up, got dc´ed again. This time: internet dead.
Turns out that my ISP does some maintenance work. Well, I guess that´s it for me today.
Apologies to both teams who were with me.
Fighting Donatra in KSA and she decloaks and charges her Thalaron burst. I drop a GW3 on her and as i'm in the front of her I try to evasive out of there as i'll get flattened if that blast gets me, everyone else is doing the same.
Just as i'm almost out of the cone my grav well spawns an aftershock well, right in the direction I was going so she gets pulled sideways just as the blast goes off, killing me and half the team who were dodging at the same time.....
In this case, I was wrong.
I had to see it a second time to confirm it, since I wasn't certain I was seeing it correctly the first time.
Someone on the team was using Gravity Well on the nanite transformer!
I looked over to the side and noticed the nanite spheres were getting uncomfortably close.
10 seconds later, failed optional.
Why in space would anyone use a Gravity Well on the nanite transformer instead of using it to keep the nanite spheres locked down?
I did consider telling the team the first time it happened, but the reaction I've had a few times means I don't bother trying to advise anyone on tactics or strategy anymore.
The first part is someone with an insecurity complex who self-appointed themselves leader gets aggressive because I try to fix the problems they are causing.
The next part is usually raging, claiming I don't know how to run STFs, insisting I've never run them before, calling me a noob and so on.
Third part is usually a rage quit when I don't bother responding to their immature behavior.
Edit: 2 more runs and the same mistake made, grav well on the nanite transformer, not the nanite spheres.
It has to be the same person, it strains the odds of probability that 3 different players keep making the same mistake.
After failing the optional because the grav well wasn't used on the nanite spheres, the player then proceeded to use it again on the nanite transformer, pulling the next group of nanite spheres into the transformer!
At that point, I gave up and took the 1 hour leaver penalty.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
It's the price you pay in this pug life.
Also the initial spheres (normal ones) that hang round the transformer can hinder the attackers on it so hoovering them all up can actually help, provided you don't suck up the nanites too.
As to actually rage-quoting because you lost the optional that is just daft. You still would have gotten marks plus the neural processor so the run was not going to be a waste. All you do is make it even harder for the rest of the team.