It didn't suck tha tbad. Though no one could move because it was the briefing time, we could still fire wepaons. Those dino's didn't stand a chance. What sucked came later in the same run. Freed a Scimi but it didn't register on the point count. And then it glitched to show the scimi marker over where it was, but nothing spawned.
Still, averaging 24 marks per run, plus the daily bonus, beats epoh hunting in my view.
Ugh, epohh hunting...
Once you've got it going, it's 200 or 400 marks every 5 days if you run stuff right. Sometimes more, if you get lucky crits. But it's still a horrible slog, like the rest of rommie rep...
I remember queueing up for Cure Ground (Elite) and it put me in a team with all players who were doing the map for the first time. So I had to explain to them how to do the nodes and turrets part. I even had to clarify that the bombs to plant next to the turrets are context sensitive and not actual bombs you need to have in your inventory.
I'm not unreasonable, we've all been new to a map or an STF. But if you're new to a map, at least play it on Normal first.
I remember queueing up for Cure Ground (Elite) and it put me in a team with all players who were doing the map for the first time. So I had to explain to them how to do the nodes and turrets part. I even had to clarify that the bombs to plant next to the turrets are context sensitive and not actual bombs you need to have in your inventory.
I'm not unreasonable, we've all been new to a map or an STF. But if you're new to a map, at least play it on Normal first.
Yeah, when I'm tutoring fleet newbies or helping them get the free Borg boff, I take 'em through normals. KAGN, CGN, even did ISN once. Elites are for people who know what they're doing.
Yeah, when I'm tutoring fleet newbies or helping them get the free Borg boff, I take 'em through normals. KAGN, CGN, even did ISN once. Elites are for people who know what they're doing.
Depends, when you make a whole premade, its wiser to go Elite, because of more marks. So 2 ppl can tutor 3 and still get full load.
Depends, when you make a whole premade, its wiser to go Elite, because of more marks. So 2 ppl can tutor 3 and still get full load.
Yeah, but the guys I'm tutoring are fleet members, most of whom don't have buy privs yet, with no rep gear and who've only been in-game for a couple months at most. And I'm usually the only tutor for 2 or 3 people.
I dunno, it's worked well the last couple of times.
Definately. I guess someone on the team came from the Dyson sphere and were fighting when the timer kicked in, so when it transferrred them into the map, it took those voth with them.
That sounds kinda awesome actually. Transfer map wormhole xD
I use cure space PUG's to test builds and I have just given my Eng Toon a new ship (Fleet Avenger Class) and decided to do a few test runs.
First Run - No-one watched the Kang
Second Run - No-one watched the Kang - Someone left a turret but it did not fire ??
Third Run - No-one watched the Kang
The other strange thing were:-
The Raptor Spawns when the first top probe was popped were ignored - watched some guy firing at a probe while getting blasted in the aft quarter from a raptor - till his ship went boom. (Was too busy dealing with other spawns to help him)
The Borg apparently have a new plasma trop which can hit you 13.5km from the cube that fired it (I want one if that is the range:P)
And the facepalm moment for me - I think I managed to blow up a team member on the third run by popping a raptor in close proximity to his ship - and he was about the best player on the team...:eek:
STFs have definitely gotten worse since Season 9. No longer can players rely on stacking power-creep reputation abilities; now every PUG seems to blow the optional because players no longer have the skill to handle ESTFs if they can't just roll infinite DPS.
ISE. Me in my aggro-gobbling tank fleet Ambassador, an Obelisk, an Avenger and two more. It looks bad when we take two minutes to clear the first Cube. It gets worse when I find the Obelisk is carrying nothing but tricobalts and a DBB and doesn't seem to be using its hangars at all, and the Avenger is a skittle-and-rainbow boat rolling a mix of DBBs, cannons and turrets, all of different types. Even with my Ambassador gobbling up aggro left and right, the rest of the group pops constantly, doesn't heal injuries, dies to single Spheres and ignores the 10 percent rule. Optional blown on the first transformer at 60% health and the skittlers keep going boom while I desperately try to keep them alive by gobbling all the aggro I can, but they turn out to completely lack any kind of DPS whatsoever. Not that my fleet Ambassador puts out 12k or anything, but when I'm the main damage-dealer, it's a problem.
Had a good one prior ISE. Me in my fully-geared tactical/tac Ody, two Scimitars, a catbox and one more. We head in to take down the first Cube and it becomes clear I and I alone am the DPS on this team. Both Scimitars pop against the first Cube. On to the first generator and someone starts tractor beam repulsors cheesing the spheres in random directions while one of the Scimitars sits motionless in front of the gateway, targeting spheres and occasionally throwing out a beam or two. I'm sticking to the 10% rule but the other two are blowing nodes one by one after I've softened them up. Both Scimitars pop again and again, Atrox pops, optional blown on the very first node. On to the next one, Scimitars go node by node, with one again planting himself near the Gateway and targeting nothing but spheres. Scimitars go boom, Atrox goes boom, tac Ody clears the transformer and spheres solo. Gateway takes about five minutes and so does the tactical cube, which both Scimitars sit still and try to Thalaron-vape, resulting of course in their going boom again and again. By now both Scimitars have laundry lists of six to eight injuries they aren't bothering to heal.
ESTFs suck in Season 9 world.
The artist formerly known as PlanetofHats.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
players no longer have the skill to handle ESTFs if they can't just roll infinite DPS.
Not sure if that is the case - The Scimitar can pump out DPS with a good build (not pay to win builds) and a good Scimitar Player can be an asset in PUG. Same with the Avenger Class, etc.
Problem is most players are not watching what other players are doing, not going to assist, not healing other players, not giving support,.. the list goes on and on..
The idea of PVE is to work together to achive a goal - this is no longer happening.
I have a Ody heal boat / tank - decent enough DPS but optimised for tanking/healing (including other player ships) which I just mothballed as the lack of teamwork made it non viable in game.
Problem is most players are not watching what other players are doing, not going to assist, not healing other players, not giving support,.. the list goes on and on..
The idea of PVE is to work together to achive a goal - this is no longer happening.
I think it's a little of both.
In the (distant) past players largely didn't have the DPS or sheer number of abilities to do everything on their own, so they needed to work together to complete a mission - it was never quite as clear-cut as the traditional MMORPG Trinity of "Tank/DPS/Healer", but different builds certainly leant in different directions. Usually you could expect to see a short tactics discussion at the start of a mission, and even for there to be a little bit of cross-healing to keep each other alive.
With power creep over time, things got to the point where there was no longer much danger of repeatedly dying (unless you were really unlucky) and you had enough DPS to kill anything with just your ship. So there was no longer any need for teammates to actually help each other or even communicate tactics, because you could just steamroll through everything brainlessly.
You can STILL steamroll through things brainlessly, but it takes a little bit more build tweaking. You don't get automatically granted a wide range of buffs anymore; you now need to actively select a limited number of buffs to "activate"; so you have to choose which ones are most beneficial depending on the situation.
Technically it's now possible to get BETTER performance than you could previously, because of the ability to change your character traits on the fly as well as your reputation traits.
The problem is that this performance increase isn't automatic. You need to stop and think a bit about what combination of abilities will make the most optimum setup, instead of just charging straight into a fight and expecting to be invincible.
Basically, people are only doing worse this season because "Derp Derp, Choosing is hard!" :P
(My Armitage is doing a lot better this season - DPS output is through the roof; and although my survivability has gone down a tiny bit it's mainly because of a choice I made to switch out a "Tanky" shield for a "DPS" one... I'm certainly still able to protect the Kang from all vectors at once whilst simultaneously killing a Cube in Elite Cure, and soloing a Planet Killer Boss in the 8472 missions is a lot of fun!)
When healing pug-teammates you always have to consider the rammification: Does the guy do enough DPS (or in cse) CC that he deserves heal? Its not really good to heal someone, then steal its aggro (vastly more DPS) and then needing heal for yourself, which just left your ship for a (mostly far) worse player. If the DD dies and only inferior players (who cant DPS nor CC) stay alive it hurts the team far more then just cutting the weak part from the chain
If I see some ppl worthy of heal, I heal. But those are rarely in pugs. Its different for premades and fleet-stfs of course
I will always try to help out a teammate, be they a heavy hitting dps monster or a newbie who's struggling. I know in most pugs very few players give out heals but at least those of us that do know that our ship is helping by both being able to put out adequate dps and heals when needed.
Regardless of how effective a player is and how low their dps is, a dead player does zero dps. So healing someone is always my preferred option, unless I desperately need my heals for my own ship.
And in STFs with the respawn timer slowing down how fast someone gets back to the fight having all your team alive helps greatly.
Plus if you have a slightly twisted mind, you heal the guy who is getting shot to bits and it means they can continue to be a meat shield a bit longer and let you put some hurt on the enemy!
A new one to me. CE elite, with a pre-built leecher group. One guy with 4-5 people from the same fleet autofollowing him flying in circles way above the CE spamming heals on each other.
Not a worst but funny. I am not a great player by any means but do try to improve and can hold my own and know what to do. I do blow up in ISE (a bit more lately after S9 went live and the only Borg ESTF I run).
Last night my fairly new Romulan (created and leveled up to 50 during the last XP Bonus Event) joined the queue. Most of the times my characters try to take in a ship with a GW on it and will work on blowing up the generator closest to where the Nanite Spheres enter and then make a GW run at the spheres and quick head back to help finish off the transformer. Well the Fleet Mogai I was using does not give that GW possibility. After I entered I looked around an saw two Scims. I said to myself that was going to be fairly quick. I looked at the Team listing and lo and behold there were four Scims in here. A cakewalk.
Either none of them had spec'd in a GW or something as the Nanite Spheres made it to repair the left transformer and the Bonus was lost. After finally finishing off that transformer I went over to the other one. The cube there was already destroyed. It would seem that two Scims must have gone to the right from the start while two 'took' care of the left side. I guess there wasn't enough Scim dps on the left side to put the transformer away before the repair probes made it over there.
I saw up to two Scims destroyed at the same time on taking out the final cube.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Azure Nebula Rescue. One guy must've not been paying attention when the map started and didn't even spawn until almost four minutes in. Two of the others bailed at two and three minutes.
Despite that we still managed to get 18 marks out of it.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Currently in Khitomer Space Elite, there is currently a griefer who is destroying the generators before destroying the cube on the wrong side. Once the nanite spheres came out he went "good luck".
Now the idiot is just flying around doing nothing.
Currently in Infected Space Elite, there is currently a griefer who is destroying the generators before destroying the cube on the wrong side. Once the nanite spheres came out he went "good luck".
Now the idiot is just flying around doing nothing.
Optional is lost.
What an idiot. Report him or something for trolling.
Also, it's ISE with the nanite spheres, not KASE. Easy mistake to make, though.
1. Cure Space Elite.
I went into the match and since most players target the rightmost cube first, I flew off in that direction.
Then I looked back and realized I was alone!
One player had positioned themselves between the Kang and the rightmost cube, focussing exclusively on the enemy ships.
The other three members of the team surrounded the Kang and did not move.
15 minutes of me attempting to dismantle the rightmost launch bay solo, the optional was lost.
And 20 seconds after that, the Kang was destroyed.
2. Khitomer Space Elite.
We got to the final stage, where Donatra is fighting the group.
For 20 minutes solid, she was cloaking as soon as she appeared.
I was lucky to get off two shots in succession before she cloaked again!
The reason why?
The players were engaging her at point blank range and using heavy amounts of hanger bay pets!
By the time they finally brought her down, I wasn't even bothering to attack her anymore, because as soon as I tried, she was gone again.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Just got out of a bad bad bad Borg Incursion. Things were alright... at first. Blew up the required swarm of Spheres right out of the gate, took care of a Cube, then a Tac Cube. For some reason, we started to falter. Probably around the time a player in a Tal Shiar Adapted Destroyer left and was replaced with someone in a Mirror Vo'quv.
Then, after popping the last cube came the wanna-be V'Ger. Everyone but me went after the Probes. And when one probe popped, more came out. More and more and everyone huddled outside of the Unimatrix's range. I was the only one who got in close to fight it.
Me. In a freebie Hegh'ta Heavy Bird of Prey outfitted with the Breen Space Gear collection, Quad Disruptor Cannons and a lot of praying that the rest of the guys would realize that we got an Unimatrix to kill.
Just by myself, I was able to save off 13% HP. 13% in a Hegh'ta. But, once a Regeneration Probe came up and started healing, I couldn't take it anymore, let myself die and once I respawned, I warped out.
Did ISE last night and we killed the cube and spheres in seconds thanks to a crazy powerful oddysey, which then got caught in 2 core breaches at once and died.
After that it got really tough, maybe oddy guy was put off by getting killed so early or something. We were killing the cube left side and then the transformers but I notice the nanite probes getting real close. Me in an avenger and a some sort of BOP go melt them but we're surrounded by spheres because it's taking ages to kill the generator.
We finally kill it and then mop up the spheres and probes. No big problems yet...
We go right, melt the cube and all the transformers except one that seems to get forgotten by the guys on that side as they are all shooting the generator and obviously having no effect.
By now there are loads of nanite probes swarming towards us and me and the BOP again get stuck into the fight, I come out barely alive and the generator goes down a lot quicker this time.
But the optional is gone now.
We move on to the gate and only then do we find out somebody has a grav well! Why the hell did they not use it earlier when we were getting swarmed with spheres trying to heal the generators!
I mean they were shooting it at the gate, which would damage it a bit but it should have been used for crowd control when we needed it. Never worked out which ship had it but the constantly spammed it on the gate and tac cube.
Honestly could not believe people would forget or not know when to use such a skill on a mission like that. It's pretty obvious a grav well is a lifesaver in many ISE matches.
Wow, that is a terrible misuse of Gravity Well! :eek:
If my ship has a LtComm Sci station, I make sure to spec Gravity Well I.
And I will always use it to slow down the Nanite Spheres in the hope it will give the rest of the team time to take out the Nanite Generator.
Just remembered another couple of incidents.
I don't remember why, but I was doing a CGE run.
We get to the first transformer set, 10 minutes later, the optional is lost and the shield is still up.
The team is just guarding the first transformer and ignoring the remaining two.
So I say, okay, your approach is just not working, this is what we are going to do, you are going to spread out, guard a transformer each and I'll be the runner.
The self-appointed leader then goes nuclear at me, saying I'm an idiot, that their tactic will work and I don't know what I'm doing.
My response is just to fall silent and stand with my back to the shield, far away from the combat.
Another 10 minutes later, they ragequits and the rest of the team gives up in frustration.
The shield was still up by the way.
And I've seen variations on that theme now and again.
You get this one player who designates himself the leader and then rages at the team when they fail.
I'm assuming they don't like someone with more experience to take charge because it shows how inexperienced they truly are.
Or it's an ego thing, they must be the leader because it makes them feel important.
And it's a smackdown to their personal self-worth when they realize that there is someone better who can take charge, so they start a fight.
This is why I practice a policy of complete silence in any STF, but especially ground STFs.
No matter how wrong it goes, I will say nothing, because I don't want to give the idiots any reason to see or remember my handle.
And now for a funny one:
I wanted to experiment with my new Active Immunity grenade against the Borg, so thought a CGE run would be an appropriate testing ground for feedback.
We get to the first set of transformers and we can't get past it.
I don't know about the other 2 players, but one of them was honest and said they'd never done it before.
At a certain point, the self-appointed leader starts raging at us, saying we'd never done this before, that we should practice normal runs before we go into Elite difficulty and we've never beaten an Optional at all.
Then they go to a corner and do nothing.
The reason I am laughing at them?
My Captain is wearing the MACO Optional armor costume.
The one you can only get if you complete all 6 Optionals, including the ground ones!
Someone just failed a spotcheck.
After a while, this idiot ragequits, the others just leave and I'm left alone with the new player.
I finally speak up and coach him on the required tactics while we're waiting for Cooldown lockout to expire.
The comment he makes when I am done is that it's better to do what I did and teach new players how to do it instead of screaming at them because they lack experience.
A case of WhatTheHeckDidIJustSee:
I was attacking the Probes in KASE, trying to stop them entering the Temporal Portal.
When all of a sudden the player behind me hits Tractor Beam Repulsors and pushes them into the portal!
My brain shut down in stunned disbelief, I didn't believe I'd just seen the player help the Borg break the Optional! :eek:
Although to be fair, I don't think they did it on purpose.
I've long been a advocate of the principle that players do not use TBR in their builds, since the potential for disaster can be too great if they use the power the wrong way.
I've also got a phrase which I haven't used publicly until now:
Injury Jockey
It's a certain kind of player who will show up to Elite Difficulty missions and not use regenerators to heal themselves.
I think the record was 10 injuries, 7 of them major.
Said player spent more time dead then actually playing, they were dead in one shot.
And naturally, the injuries just kept increasing since this player wasn't healing them.
By the time we reached Beccy of Borg, this player was dying from the Borg blinking at them!
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
I've had multiple occasions where some glitch was preventing me from using regenerators. I could see the debuffs from the injuries, and the injured button was there, but clicking on the button never showed a list of injuries.. not fun...
Now entering a match with injuries? that's just dumb...
One thing I've noticed from using TBR regularly is that lag can make it fire at the wrong time. Soo annoying....
I've had multiple occasions where some glitch was preventing me from using regenerators. I could see the debuffs from the injuries, and the injured button was there, but clicking on the button never showed a list of injuries.. not fun...
easily fixed; just open the dropdown and select a different ship, then reselect your active one
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Currently in Khitomer Space Elite, there is currently a griefer who is destroying the generators before destroying the cube on the wrong side. Once the nanite spheres came out he went "good luck".
Now the idiot is just flying around doing nothing.
Optional is lost.
Think I have met him...:rolleyes: or someone similar.
Originally Posted by jon59650
Currently in Infected Space Elite, there is currently a griefer who is destroying the generators before destroying the cube on the wrong side. Once the nanite spheres came out he went "good luck".
Now the idiot is just flying around doing nothing.
Optional is lost.
Decided last year to stop worrying about making the Optional. I'll still try for it and go flat out. It is important to some people. I understand this. And I do not want to disappoint my (temporary) team mates. But if whatever PUG team I am part of at the moment doesn't get the Optional, it isn't the end of the world for me.
Found something out after I'd been doing this for awhile. Griefers and idiots could no longer dictate to me whether or not I enjoyed playing ESTFs. I looked forward to replaying some of them again. I met some fine people who play this game. Who struck up a conversation with me when I typed in "GG Thnx!" And I got a Fleet invite out of it. To a T4 Fleet who are really enjoyable to just hang out with online.
ESTFs started to be fun again. Heck, STO started to be fun again. I know this is supposed to be a thread about bad experiences and all. But I cannot help but shout out a big "Thank You!" to the griefers and idiots who set out either deliberately or by accident to wreck the Optional on whatever ESTF I happened to be playing when I made this decision.
If this ruins the game for them or makes them unhappy that I spoiled them spoiling my fun, then I am good with it.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
It's pretty hard to fail the Optional in ISE, I think. People try their hardest to do so, however.
That's why I run 2 Grav Wells when I can, and my Fed Eng runs a Mirror Heavy Cruiser instead of the Excelsior or Avenger... because people will drop the Grav Well on top of the wrong thing, if they carry it at all.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Comments
Ugh, epohh hunting...
Once you've got it going, it's 200 or 400 marks every 5 days if you run stuff right. Sometimes more, if you get lucky crits. But it's still a horrible slog, like the rest of rommie rep...
I'm not unreasonable, we've all been new to a map or an STF. But if you're new to a map, at least play it on Normal first.
Yeah, when I'm tutoring fleet newbies or helping them get the free Borg boff, I take 'em through normals. KAGN, CGN, even did ISN once. Elites are for people who know what they're doing.
Depends, when you make a whole premade, its wiser to go Elite, because of more marks. So 2 ppl can tutor 3 and still get full load.
Yeah, but the guys I'm tutoring are fleet members, most of whom don't have buy privs yet, with no rep gear and who've only been in-game for a couple months at most. And I'm usually the only tutor for 2 or 3 people.
I dunno, it's worked well the last couple of times.
That sounds kinda awesome actually. Transfer map wormhole xD
First Run - No-one watched the Kang
Second Run - No-one watched the Kang - Someone left a turret but it did not fire ??
Third Run - No-one watched the Kang
The other strange thing were:-
And the facepalm moment for me - I think I managed to blow up a team member on the third run by popping a raptor in close proximity to his ship - and he was about the best player on the team...:eek:
ISE. Me in my aggro-gobbling tank fleet Ambassador, an Obelisk, an Avenger and two more. It looks bad when we take two minutes to clear the first Cube. It gets worse when I find the Obelisk is carrying nothing but tricobalts and a DBB and doesn't seem to be using its hangars at all, and the Avenger is a skittle-and-rainbow boat rolling a mix of DBBs, cannons and turrets, all of different types. Even with my Ambassador gobbling up aggro left and right, the rest of the group pops constantly, doesn't heal injuries, dies to single Spheres and ignores the 10 percent rule. Optional blown on the first transformer at 60% health and the skittlers keep going boom while I desperately try to keep them alive by gobbling all the aggro I can, but they turn out to completely lack any kind of DPS whatsoever. Not that my fleet Ambassador puts out 12k or anything, but when I'm the main damage-dealer, it's a problem.
Had a good one prior ISE. Me in my fully-geared tactical/tac Ody, two Scimitars, a catbox and one more. We head in to take down the first Cube and it becomes clear I and I alone am the DPS on this team. Both Scimitars pop against the first Cube. On to the first generator and someone starts tractor beam repulsors cheesing the spheres in random directions while one of the Scimitars sits motionless in front of the gateway, targeting spheres and occasionally throwing out a beam or two. I'm sticking to the 10% rule but the other two are blowing nodes one by one after I've softened them up. Both Scimitars pop again and again, Atrox pops, optional blown on the very first node. On to the next one, Scimitars go node by node, with one again planting himself near the Gateway and targeting nothing but spheres. Scimitars go boom, Atrox goes boom, tac Ody clears the transformer and spheres solo. Gateway takes about five minutes and so does the tactical cube, which both Scimitars sit still and try to Thalaron-vape, resulting of course in their going boom again and again. By now both Scimitars have laundry lists of six to eight injuries they aren't bothering to heal.
ESTFs suck in Season 9 world.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
Not sure if that is the case - The Scimitar can pump out DPS with a good build (not pay to win builds) and a good Scimitar Player can be an asset in PUG. Same with the Avenger Class, etc.
Problem is most players are not watching what other players are doing, not going to assist, not healing other players, not giving support,.. the list goes on and on..
The idea of PVE is to work together to achive a goal - this is no longer happening.
I have a Ody heal boat / tank - decent enough DPS but optimised for tanking/healing (including other player ships) which I just mothballed as the lack of teamwork made it non viable in game.
I think it's a little of both.
In the (distant) past players largely didn't have the DPS or sheer number of abilities to do everything on their own, so they needed to work together to complete a mission - it was never quite as clear-cut as the traditional MMORPG Trinity of "Tank/DPS/Healer", but different builds certainly leant in different directions. Usually you could expect to see a short tactics discussion at the start of a mission, and even for there to be a little bit of cross-healing to keep each other alive.
With power creep over time, things got to the point where there was no longer much danger of repeatedly dying (unless you were really unlucky) and you had enough DPS to kill anything with just your ship. So there was no longer any need for teammates to actually help each other or even communicate tactics, because you could just steamroll through everything brainlessly.
You can STILL steamroll through things brainlessly, but it takes a little bit more build tweaking. You don't get automatically granted a wide range of buffs anymore; you now need to actively select a limited number of buffs to "activate"; so you have to choose which ones are most beneficial depending on the situation.
Technically it's now possible to get BETTER performance than you could previously, because of the ability to change your character traits on the fly as well as your reputation traits.
The problem is that this performance increase isn't automatic. You need to stop and think a bit about what combination of abilities will make the most optimum setup, instead of just charging straight into a fight and expecting to be invincible.
Basically, people are only doing worse this season because "Derp Derp, Choosing is hard!"
(My Armitage is doing a lot better this season - DPS output is through the roof; and although my survivability has gone down a tiny bit it's mainly because of a choice I made to switch out a "Tanky" shield for a "DPS" one... I'm certainly still able to protect the Kang from all vectors at once whilst simultaneously killing a Cube in Elite Cure, and soloing a Planet Killer Boss in the 8472 missions is a lot of fun!)
If I see some ppl worthy of heal, I heal. But those are rarely in pugs. Its different for premades and fleet-stfs of course
Regardless of how effective a player is and how low their dps is, a dead player does zero dps. So healing someone is always my preferred option, unless I desperately need my heals for my own ship.
And in STFs with the respawn timer slowing down how fast someone gets back to the fight having all your team alive helps greatly.
Plus if you have a slightly twisted mind, you heal the guy who is getting shot to bits and it means they can continue to be a meat shield a bit longer and let you put some hurt on the enemy!
Darn things melt down even armored cruisers to slag. And escorts in there? ... Pop more than not.
U.S.S. Maelstrom, NCC-71417 (Constitution III-class/flagship) --- Fleet Admiral Hauk' --|-- Dahar Master Hauk --- I.K.S. qu'In 'an bortaS (D7-class / flagship)
Last night my fairly new Romulan (created and leveled up to 50 during the last XP Bonus Event) joined the queue. Most of the times my characters try to take in a ship with a GW on it and will work on blowing up the generator closest to where the Nanite Spheres enter and then make a GW run at the spheres and quick head back to help finish off the transformer. Well the Fleet Mogai I was using does not give that GW possibility. After I entered I looked around an saw two Scims. I said to myself that was going to be fairly quick. I looked at the Team listing and lo and behold there were four Scims in here. A cakewalk.
Either none of them had spec'd in a GW or something as the Nanite Spheres made it to repair the left transformer and the Bonus was lost. After finally finishing off that transformer I went over to the other one. The cube there was already destroyed. It would seem that two Scims must have gone to the right from the start while two 'took' care of the left side. I guess there wasn't enough Scim dps on the left side to put the transformer away before the repair probes made it over there.
I saw up to two Scims destroyed at the same time on taking out the final cube.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Despite that we still managed to get 18 marks out of it.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Now the idiot is just flying around doing nothing.
Optional is lost.
What an idiot. Report him or something for trolling.
Also, it's ISE with the nanite spheres, not KASE. Easy mistake to make, though.
1. Cure Space Elite.
I went into the match and since most players target the rightmost cube first, I flew off in that direction.
Then I looked back and realized I was alone!
One player had positioned themselves between the Kang and the rightmost cube, focussing exclusively on the enemy ships.
The other three members of the team surrounded the Kang and did not move.
15 minutes of me attempting to dismantle the rightmost launch bay solo, the optional was lost.
And 20 seconds after that, the Kang was destroyed.
2. Khitomer Space Elite.
We got to the final stage, where Donatra is fighting the group.
For 20 minutes solid, she was cloaking as soon as she appeared.
I was lucky to get off two shots in succession before she cloaked again!
The reason why?
The players were engaging her at point blank range and using heavy amounts of hanger bay pets!
By the time they finally brought her down, I wasn't even bothering to attack her anymore, because as soon as I tried, she was gone again.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Just got out of a bad bad bad Borg Incursion. Things were alright... at first. Blew up the required swarm of Spheres right out of the gate, took care of a Cube, then a Tac Cube. For some reason, we started to falter. Probably around the time a player in a Tal Shiar Adapted Destroyer left and was replaced with someone in a Mirror Vo'quv.
Then, after popping the last cube came the wanna-be V'Ger. Everyone but me went after the Probes. And when one probe popped, more came out. More and more and everyone huddled outside of the Unimatrix's range. I was the only one who got in close to fight it.
Me. In a freebie Hegh'ta Heavy Bird of Prey outfitted with the Breen Space Gear collection, Quad Disruptor Cannons and a lot of praying that the rest of the guys would realize that we got an Unimatrix to kill.
Just by myself, I was able to save off 13% HP. 13% in a Hegh'ta. But, once a Regeneration Probe came up and started healing, I couldn't take it anymore, let myself die and once I respawned, I warped out.
After that it got really tough, maybe oddy guy was put off by getting killed so early or something. We were killing the cube left side and then the transformers but I notice the nanite probes getting real close. Me in an avenger and a some sort of BOP go melt them but we're surrounded by spheres because it's taking ages to kill the generator.
We finally kill it and then mop up the spheres and probes. No big problems yet...
We go right, melt the cube and all the transformers except one that seems to get forgotten by the guys on that side as they are all shooting the generator and obviously having no effect.
By now there are loads of nanite probes swarming towards us and me and the BOP again get stuck into the fight, I come out barely alive and the generator goes down a lot quicker this time.
But the optional is gone now.
We move on to the gate and only then do we find out somebody has a grav well! Why the hell did they not use it earlier when we were getting swarmed with spheres trying to heal the generators!
I mean they were shooting it at the gate, which would damage it a bit but it should have been used for crowd control when we needed it. Never worked out which ship had it but the constantly spammed it on the gate and tac cube.
Honestly could not believe people would forget or not know when to use such a skill on a mission like that. It's pretty obvious a grav well is a lifesaver in many ISE matches.
If my ship has a LtComm Sci station, I make sure to spec Gravity Well I.
And I will always use it to slow down the Nanite Spheres in the hope it will give the rest of the team time to take out the Nanite Generator.
Just remembered another couple of incidents.
I don't remember why, but I was doing a CGE run.
We get to the first transformer set, 10 minutes later, the optional is lost and the shield is still up.
The team is just guarding the first transformer and ignoring the remaining two.
So I say, okay, your approach is just not working, this is what we are going to do, you are going to spread out, guard a transformer each and I'll be the runner.
The self-appointed leader then goes nuclear at me, saying I'm an idiot, that their tactic will work and I don't know what I'm doing.
My response is just to fall silent and stand with my back to the shield, far away from the combat.
Another 10 minutes later, they ragequits and the rest of the team gives up in frustration.
The shield was still up by the way.
And I've seen variations on that theme now and again.
You get this one player who designates himself the leader and then rages at the team when they fail.
I'm assuming they don't like someone with more experience to take charge because it shows how inexperienced they truly are.
Or it's an ego thing, they must be the leader because it makes them feel important.
And it's a smackdown to their personal self-worth when they realize that there is someone better who can take charge, so they start a fight.
This is why I practice a policy of complete silence in any STF, but especially ground STFs.
No matter how wrong it goes, I will say nothing, because I don't want to give the idiots any reason to see or remember my handle.
And now for a funny one:
I wanted to experiment with my new Active Immunity grenade against the Borg, so thought a CGE run would be an appropriate testing ground for feedback.
We get to the first set of transformers and we can't get past it.
I don't know about the other 2 players, but one of them was honest and said they'd never done it before.
At a certain point, the self-appointed leader starts raging at us, saying we'd never done this before, that we should practice normal runs before we go into Elite difficulty and we've never beaten an Optional at all.
Then they go to a corner and do nothing.
The reason I am laughing at them?
My Captain is wearing the MACO Optional armor costume.
The one you can only get if you complete all 6 Optionals, including the ground ones!
Someone just failed a spotcheck.
After a while, this idiot ragequits, the others just leave and I'm left alone with the new player.
I finally speak up and coach him on the required tactics while we're waiting for Cooldown lockout to expire.
The comment he makes when I am done is that it's better to do what I did and teach new players how to do it instead of screaming at them because they lack experience.
A case of WhatTheHeckDidIJustSee:
I was attacking the Probes in KASE, trying to stop them entering the Temporal Portal.
When all of a sudden the player behind me hits Tractor Beam Repulsors and pushes them into the portal!
My brain shut down in stunned disbelief, I didn't believe I'd just seen the player help the Borg break the Optional! :eek:
Although to be fair, I don't think they did it on purpose.
I've long been a advocate of the principle that players do not use TBR in their builds, since the potential for disaster can be too great if they use the power the wrong way.
I've also got a phrase which I haven't used publicly until now:
Injury Jockey
It's a certain kind of player who will show up to Elite Difficulty missions and not use regenerators to heal themselves.
I think the record was 10 injuries, 7 of them major.
Said player spent more time dead then actually playing, they were dead in one shot.
And naturally, the injuries just kept increasing since this player wasn't healing them.
By the time we reached Beccy of Borg, this player was dying from the Borg blinking at them!
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Now entering a match with injuries? that's just dumb...
One thing I've noticed from using TBR regularly is that lag can make it fire at the wrong time. Soo annoying....
My character Tsin'xing
the injuries will show up and be fixable then
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Think I have met him...:rolleyes: or someone similar.
Decided last year to stop worrying about making the Optional. I'll still try for it and go flat out. It is important to some people. I understand this. And I do not want to disappoint my (temporary) team mates. But if whatever PUG team I am part of at the moment doesn't get the Optional, it isn't the end of the world for me.
Found something out after I'd been doing this for awhile. Griefers and idiots could no longer dictate to me whether or not I enjoyed playing ESTFs. I looked forward to replaying some of them again. I met some fine people who play this game. Who struck up a conversation with me when I typed in "GG Thnx!" And I got a Fleet invite out of it. To a T4 Fleet who are really enjoyable to just hang out with online.
ESTFs started to be fun again. Heck, STO started to be fun again. I know this is supposed to be a thread about bad experiences and all. But I cannot help but shout out a big "Thank You!" to the griefers and idiots who set out either deliberately or by accident to wreck the Optional on whatever ESTF I happened to be playing when I made this decision.
If this ruins the game for them or makes them unhappy that I spoiled them spoiling my fun, then I am good with it.
That's why I run 2 Grav Wells when I can, and my Fed Eng runs a Mirror Heavy Cruiser instead of the Excelsior or Avenger... because people will drop the Grav Well on top of the wrong thing, if they carry it at all.
IKS Korrasami (Fleet B'rel Bird of Prey Retrofit T5-U)
@Thunderfoot, I also like the Lemonade approach to PUGs. I just do the best I can and if the others TRIBBLE up... well, things got interesting. :P
My character Tsin'xing
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
My character Tsin'xing