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Per Borticus' Request: Critter-Specific Feedback in the No-Win Scenario
naldoran
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Alright Borticus, I asked about the critter balance in No-Win while you were chatting in doffjobs, and you asked for a feedback thread in the PvE gameplay forums, so here it is.
First off, a very short summary of findings and context: Only Orions offer the possibility of beating wave 10, with every single other race presenting virtually insurmountable differences due to their various c-store console and bridge officer abilities. I (and my fleets) have run this mission dozens and dozens of times, and I've been to wave 10 about half a dozen times, so I've got a good idea of what does and doesn't work when it comes to doing well at this mission.
Now for the specific racial feedback. I am aware that after our Tribble feedback, Gozer concentrated the abilities on certain ships so that not every spawn would be using these abilities. In our experience however, as a practical matter, it is not feasible to both deal with warheads and even attempt to take out the ships with special abilities. In later waves dealing with specific ships is not even an option due to the sheer numbers which warp in. With EVE's targeting interface it might be doable, but not with STO's.
Breen: By far the worst of the lot when it comes to special abilities. Tyken's Rift & Energy Siphon have the ability to drain the transport's shield power to zero, making it's shields drop, which is an immediate game-over. They also have the sub-nucleonic beam ability to strip player's buffs. Knowing how to counter sub-nukes is not the problem, the lowered DPS from the buff strips and the sheer number of incoming sub-nukes vs. the number of available science teams is, even if you have a sci team on every ship. Fighting the Breen is simply not a winnable proposition beyond wave six or seven.
Jem'Hadar: They have sub-nukes, see Breen comments. The boarding parties can be dealt with through AoE, repulsors, tac teams, eng teams if the tac team doesn't catch them. The sub-nukes however are more than enough to make fighting the Jem'Hadar impractical.
Fehk'lari: These guys are annoying for a number of reasons. Firstly, the tricobalt devices lead to a large number of 1-hit kills due to lucky crits, they have a ton of pets which spam aceton beams at a rate which Hazards can't keep up with, and the pet spam makes keeping them under control even more difficult.
Gorn: Aceton Assimilators en masse. Enough said right there; the pvp community has made it's feelings on this particular console pretty clear, and they are devastating in numbers. Extra Bio-Neurals + Tractors just make it worse.
Klingons: When isometric charge can 1-shot the healer, it's not worth bothering against these guys.
Orions: Only weird thing they have is boarding parties, which we can counter relatively easily. Only race that beating wave 10 against seems feasible for.
Nausicans: The Scramble Sensors isn't bad, any experienced pvp'er knows how to fight while affected by it, but the Gravity Wells result in massive kinetic damage to the transport which even keeping Aux2Sif 3 and Hazards 3 on can't effectively counteract. Enough gravwells also start affecting the players making mobility difficult.
Romulans: the endless cloak / decloak game of the Scimitar Dreadnoughts makes fighting the romulans a long, frustrating experience to say the least. Viral Matrix quickly overwhelms engineering team availability, and the DoT from plasma torps on the transport when there is any downtime on Hazards can be devastating. Also seen the AoE death cone attack from the Scimitars do nasty things to the transport.
Tholians: Haven't fought them yet in NWS.
Federation: Shockwave Torpedoes & Tractor Beam repulsors make maintaining group cohesion / Extends on the transport next to impossible.
In my opinion, a number of these abilities aren't going to be balanced in this particular PvE context, such as sub-nukes, Assimilators or Iso Charges. When trying to make a serious effort at beating it, we just warp in and out of the private match until we get Orions. Giving us a choice of enemies or stripping all their active powers would do a lot to make NWS more fun.
First off, a very short summary of findings and context: Only Orions offer the possibility of beating wave 10, with every single other race presenting virtually insurmountable differences due to their various c-store console and bridge officer abilities. I (and my fleets) have run this mission dozens and dozens of times, and I've been to wave 10 about half a dozen times, so I've got a good idea of what does and doesn't work when it comes to doing well at this mission.
Now for the specific racial feedback. I am aware that after our Tribble feedback, Gozer concentrated the abilities on certain ships so that not every spawn would be using these abilities. In our experience however, as a practical matter, it is not feasible to both deal with warheads and even attempt to take out the ships with special abilities. In later waves dealing with specific ships is not even an option due to the sheer numbers which warp in. With EVE's targeting interface it might be doable, but not with STO's.
Breen: By far the worst of the lot when it comes to special abilities. Tyken's Rift & Energy Siphon have the ability to drain the transport's shield power to zero, making it's shields drop, which is an immediate game-over. They also have the sub-nucleonic beam ability to strip player's buffs. Knowing how to counter sub-nukes is not the problem, the lowered DPS from the buff strips and the sheer number of incoming sub-nukes vs. the number of available science teams is, even if you have a sci team on every ship. Fighting the Breen is simply not a winnable proposition beyond wave six or seven.
Jem'Hadar: They have sub-nukes, see Breen comments. The boarding parties can be dealt with through AoE, repulsors, tac teams, eng teams if the tac team doesn't catch them. The sub-nukes however are more than enough to make fighting the Jem'Hadar impractical.
Fehk'lari: These guys are annoying for a number of reasons. Firstly, the tricobalt devices lead to a large number of 1-hit kills due to lucky crits, they have a ton of pets which spam aceton beams at a rate which Hazards can't keep up with, and the pet spam makes keeping them under control even more difficult.
Gorn: Aceton Assimilators en masse. Enough said right there; the pvp community has made it's feelings on this particular console pretty clear, and they are devastating in numbers. Extra Bio-Neurals + Tractors just make it worse.
Klingons: When isometric charge can 1-shot the healer, it's not worth bothering against these guys.
Orions: Only weird thing they have is boarding parties, which we can counter relatively easily. Only race that beating wave 10 against seems feasible for.
Nausicans: The Scramble Sensors isn't bad, any experienced pvp'er knows how to fight while affected by it, but the Gravity Wells result in massive kinetic damage to the transport which even keeping Aux2Sif 3 and Hazards 3 on can't effectively counteract. Enough gravwells also start affecting the players making mobility difficult.
Romulans: the endless cloak / decloak game of the Scimitar Dreadnoughts makes fighting the romulans a long, frustrating experience to say the least. Viral Matrix quickly overwhelms engineering team availability, and the DoT from plasma torps on the transport when there is any downtime on Hazards can be devastating. Also seen the AoE death cone attack from the Scimitars do nasty things to the transport.
Tholians: Haven't fought them yet in NWS.
Federation: Shockwave Torpedoes & Tractor Beam repulsors make maintaining group cohesion / Extends on the transport next to impossible.
In my opinion, a number of these abilities aren't going to be balanced in this particular PvE context, such as sub-nukes, Assimilators or Iso Charges. When trying to make a serious effort at beating it, we just warp in and out of the private match until we get Orions. Giving us a choice of enemies or stripping all their active powers would do a lot to make NWS more fun.
12th Fleet | Sad Pandas | Starfleet M.A.C.O.
Post edited by naldoran on
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That being said, this is still good feedback on places where the other critter groups could potentially be tweaked. The big ones that stick out to me from personal experience are Energy Drain stacking, Aceton Assimilators and Isometric Charge.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
I'm not saying that they need to make it at the same level of an elite STF optional (beatable time and again with a very experienced group), but a little bit of slack would go a long way. My main complaint is with the bioneural warheads themselves able to take out players -- it's one thing for us to have to shoot them before they hit the freighter, it's another thing entirely to be shredded to pieces by them when there's over a dozen enemy ships in front of us at the same time.
I've gotten to Wave 10 several times (with a *lot* of practice and superb teammates) but until there's a tweak I think we'll continue to see 0 legitimate wins game-wide since it launched.
Also worth noting: KDF can't play against Orions, making it that much harder.
My STOwiki page | Reachable in-game @PhyrexianHero
Fed Armada: Section 31 (level 730, 2700+ members)
KDF Armada: Klingon Intelligence (level 699, 2100+ members)
The one shotting Isometric charge and chain jumping is so messed up it isn't funny, your whole team just dies in seconds when they go off. This happens on blockade, you see multiple charges hit the freighters and boom, nothing you can do can save that. On the plus side at least Feds can now Alpha strike most of the enemies with an Iso.
I'm not sure the Orions in general are under powered. They have a lot of fighters, in a mission like Blockade they'll take out the freighter pretty quick if nobody is watching it, while defending everyone is watching it.
I haven't seen the Romulans much myself, they aren't as bad as some others because the horrible cloaking patterns give you plenty of time to heal and rest.
I think the big problem is buffing or nerfing an enemy in general will affect other missions. I'd like to see a change to the Scimitar cloak, isometric charge, aceton assimilators, and the frequency of sub-nuc.
Enemies cloaking in the game are bugged anyway, we can find them with little effort, its just a boring game mechanic. It's made Donatra a faster and easier fight for me.
Completed Starbase, Embassy, Mine, Spire and No Win Scenario
Nothing to do anymore.
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People are unhappy, because they can't win the 'NO WIN SCENARIO'.
Doesn't that just say it all?
I can tell you as an accolade hunter who had to put up with coming in first place in Crystalline Entity and Gekli/Undine fleet action, obtaining a million latinum from dabo (no dev has given a reason why we can't bet more than 300 EC), all the elite STF optionals (with obtaining both Mk XII ground sets), and thousands of Deep Space Encounter mobs and Genesis-engine cluster maps this is probably the most annoying accolade out there.
My STOwiki page | Reachable in-game @PhyrexianHero
Fed Armada: Section 31 (level 730, 2700+ members)
KDF Armada: Klingon Intelligence (level 699, 2100+ members)
- Jem'Hadar with Subnucleonic Beam will now appear with far less frequency. Previously, all "Escort" type ships had this ability. Now, only a max of 1 per spawn group will have it, and even they have only a 50% chance of appearing in that spawn group.
- Breen Cruiser variants that possess Subnucleonic Beam will now only have a 50% chance of appearing within any spawn group.
- The Freighter that you defend in the mission will now be extremely resistant to Subsystem Energy Drains.
More individual abilities are still under review, and more changes may be forthcoming. But I figured I'd go ahead and let you know about a few of the changes we've already decided to make.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Buffing Orions should be the last thing done, and certainly the lowest priority to consider until the other races are in a playable state.
Edit: (Ninja'd by Borticus) Those are some extremely positive changes, just keep in mind how many Breen Cruisers appear per spawn group, along with how many spawn groups there are in waves 9 / 10. If the theoretical max number of sub-nukes (I also believe NPC sub-nukes have a <2minute cd) is more than half a dozen, it's still going to be crippling.
Yeah... the ridiculously slim chance of getting the necessary drops in the Elite STFs for those accolades pretty much made me concede victory to Gozer The Accolade Hater...
The NWS was just the final punch in the face...
I love challenges... I don't mind having to work with the guys from the Accolade channel either in doing this stuff... but having played 1000s of hours since start and running into all kinds of players, I can say those guys are the top in the game and if there's an honest way of beating the NWS... the guys in the Accolades channel would have done it by now.
I have yet to be in a PUG that has made it past level 5... which is probably by "design" but still... it'd be nice to see some kind of increase in difficulty rather than a brick wall.
Captain Ariel Trueheart Department of Temporal Investigations
U.S.S. Valkyrie - NCC 991701
=/\= ================================= =/\=
Please apply any potential fixes to the Isometric charge that Borg versions of KDF ships carry as well.
After finally getting the one-shot torpedos under control, we get iso-metric charge insta-wiping groups due to the NPC damage scale used for this power.
On top of that, at some point, the one-shot or near one-shot torpedos came back.
While good teams can still eat this stuff, the average PUG queue team really struggles with powers like this.
To be honest, one-shot powers on NPCs is never fun - a challenge (even more challenge than we have now would be very welcome) is great but getting killed by a high powered, target jumping attack that ignores shields and bypasses hull resistance is not.
I agree.
And just for clarification's sake: Any critter changes mentioned in this thread will be performed game-wide. They are not specific to NWS.
(Other than changes to the Freighter, for obvious reasons.)
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Again we offer the same services to you as we did to Gozer which he took us up on. Use us as the live guinea pigs.
We have multiple people with multiple toons who can do this mission over and over without stopping.
PLEASE look into tweaking the Isometric Charge. It may be that it's supposed to be on the "Klingon" critter group, but it's also on the "Borg Klingon" ships in The Cure. I was hit by ONE, Isometric Charge, just after my forward shields went down, and the Borg Klingon Negh'var that launched said Charge, dealt over 50k damage (in "Overkill" damage). I'm assuming this to be the dreaded "1-hit wonder torpedoes", aka Invisible Torpedoes.
Thanks for looking into J-man, and thanks for the reply.
I really dont mind Orions being buffed a bit, but the whole problem is that all factions are to out of whack, Viral spam, Subnuke spam, etc. its just annoying having to warp in and out all the time and wait for the best possible race to fight against.
Grav well and TB and other hull inflicting stuff is so gravely OP, even at wave 7/8 which are still doable easily with other species is just so overpowered though.
What about gorn and their warp plasma? same as the gravity well but the biggest problem is that the whole game gets bugged with warp poo. The bio neurals Reticles are sometimes not even visible anymore when we fight the (gorn i believe)
The reticles simply appear and disappear all the time on the bio neurals with warp poo being used in the NWS its a bug. Warp poo has always been bugged in this game, with the effects constantly appearing/disappearing, i think that everyone can back me up on this. It ONLY happens when warp poo is being used. And not being able to SEE warp poo itself makes the mission simply undoable because you cannot avoid it.
Thats my feedback. (btw I've been doing loads of NWS with the OP so I know whats going on)
Edit: perhaps something can also be done about those scrimitars which keep cloaking for ages, it doesnt really add anything to the difficulty level but its rather annoying. At some point they simply keep sitting under the rock, etc, recloak, bleh.
Even more ideally, we'd just reduce the number of NPCs by 80%, and make the remaining NPCs 500% more effective in terms of AI, power settings, skill use, equipment, and not just a dumb multiplier on health and damage. It would make PvE infinitely better.
on a serisous note: Like you changes, just wish fixing other things would take the priority that NWS now has, NPC overhaul would be great.....maybe fixing Kerrat...or..
Just buff orions and be done with it
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
My character Tsin'xing
The problem here isn't the skills being used on the freighter. it's hull heal power in general.
1. Sheild heal's are nearlly allways paired wit tac team which is a straight up 4X multiplier on the total effectivness of the heal.
2. Sheild heals apply a -X% incoming damage modifer, Hull heals add resistance rating, due to diminishing returns this means that in practise ships being sheild heald see their sheild damage reduced by half or more compared to hull damage.
3. Extend Sheilds is vastly more powerful than any hull heal. Now true there's no direct hull heal equivelent, but the result is to take the previous 2 elements and magnify them several fold.
That said I completely agree any of the other races mean that the mission is no win not because of the challenge rating but because of the mechanics.
Some abilities like Tykens are largely unavoidable or if you do manage to save the transport you die then instead through agro then the transport dies a bit later.
Breen have energy drain and snb, Fekiri have every known debuff and the kitchen sink...really when I see these guys I warp out.
Come wave 10 with 60 ships the amount of specials would be overwhelming with 4 elite platforms firing bios as well. If something were done to curb the frequency of these then that would I hope keep nws tough but not nerfed so hard the challenge is lost.
I'm inclined to believe nws is beatable in it's current state I really do. It will involve some precise builds and strategy, a heck of a lot of organisation and teamwork and maybe evne some p2w consoles BUT that's how every mission like nws starts and over time it gets relaxed until a decent premade can make it some/most of the time.
If changes do end up coming in that affect nws so be it but I'll be trying to beat it beforehand.
P.S. Maybe consider looking at the respawn cooldown. It can get a bit out of hand where a player can be out of action for 1-2 minutes and this doesn't reset after so long unlike other missions in STO. Not saying this should be changed but looked at at least. Maybe smaller increases in cooldown or a reset option after x time or x number of waves.