So let me get this ... the mission is fine because you loaded a bunch of pay consoles and were using a pay shuttle?
... riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Edit:
Oh Rep gear on a what is this intended for? lv 30-40? mission?
... riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Default shuttle, default gear, no DOFF ... this is how it should be beatable.
Your tone is irritating, more so because you are not getting what I'm saying. It is beatable like that. I was talking about doing it without being sent to the respawn at all. Or do you think you should be unkillable in white gear with no doffs? What's the point of gear in that case? If every mission can be completed without dying in default gear, where's the challenge?
I did it more than once. I mentioned the To'duj because it was particularly fun and didn't feel like any other STO mission.
On elite, I used theta and didn't die. Otherwise I died a few times on elite once I figured it out. The doffs would probably have made the difference, and replaying at cap with rep gear is something I'd definitely try because this mission is unique.
It's beatable on elite with default gear, but not without a few deaths in my experience. That seems about right, IMO.
If anybody wants to call for a nerf to this mission, give it another try focusing on the squad management and see if you change your opinion. That's what this mission really showcases.
_______________ CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that? Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
I found abducted to be long, and annoying to complete. I ended up wandering the same areas alot after clearing an eare, jsut becuase I took a worng turn somewhere in the dark with no map. I thought the engineer said they had emergancy power.. could we get a Few more lights on in there? The flashlight turns off as soon as yoiu're under fire. Which does not help combat much either.
Last stand... well i jsut got my D'deridex.. and while it's not the mission specifically... those elachi ships where Styill faster than my ship when I had them in tractor beams.
When defednign the photons station, the elachi ships kept dropping warp cores as loot. Not all of them, but the three that dropped loot, dropped a warp core.
I stopped and left during candkle in a hurricane. 20 minutes, and still on wave one. I had not blown up once, this that's no really a problem, but.. elechi endurance+speed does not make it easy to play through in a D'Deridex. Now the dialogue said soemthing about only handling the battleships, that'd have been better except there was only one in I assume the first wave, and the station shuttles were all gone in seconds. so I had no support.. I actually even called in some pirartes.. which did no good either. Maybe I'll come back to this and try to f8inish it when i have morwe time, opr maybe I'll go back and get my mogai out again, but for now I have to quit.
Up to this point, I've been really intrigued by the Romulan story line, like a great TV show, I couldn't wait to see what happened next.
Then I got to this Vengeance story arc, and after finishing it, I didn't just hate it, I despised it.
My D'Deridex ship didn't last past Abducted, it just wasn't fun, and no amount of 'situational' ability was going to make that ship worthwhile. I replaced it with a Zen store San Paulo, chucked the quad cannon for a full set of plasma DHC's.
Last Stand - Here things went pretty well, so I farmed it for the good Mk VIII weapons until the ship was full of them. I'm noticing some interesting things about Elachi space abilities and tactics that I was hoping to see explained in the story, to no avail.
Best Defense - Great Idea, and in my opinion, Horrible execution. I disliked it enough that I just choose to zerg thru it, rather than regear for doing it more properly.
Turnabout - No real issues with the first part of this mission, then I defeat the captain, and before I can shut down the destruct sequence, it feels like I had to fight the whole remaining crew. Surely this is the most defective destruct sequence ever. The ship should have surely blown up with me on it before I got to disable it. Then on "Hold the Pylon" there was 2 minutes left, where I mostly just waited with nothing to do.
Devil's Choice - After everything that vessel had just been thru, it just works fine? No Elachi tech discloser, no damage control, just "Next"? A prime chance to put some real Star Trek feel to the mission, but we just move on. Take a lesson from the Doomsday Machine episode you guys wrote here. This mission succeeded in getting me emotionally involved, but did nothing stimulate me on an intellectual level. Not a bad mission so far, but it didn't 'feel' real, could have been epic, was just ok.
Then I got back to New Romulas. Seriously? You've got to be kidding. This was beyond pointless. Before it was over, I was hoping for a loss condition, to no avail. Before it was over, I was rooting for the Elachi to win. To have this as the ending pretty much ruined the whole story arc for me.
Mainly, this was due to Elachi space mechanics, which is a separate topic all on its own. Apparently the rules and restrictions the rest of the game has to abide by, don't apply to the Elachi.
Indestructible High Yield Torpedoes, for an example. But that is just the begining.
I think I would have had better luck soloing an Admiral level, normal STF, as a captain.
Was this suppose to be the epic crowning jewel, to what before this, has been a truly epic story?
Actually, caustic plasma weapons are a pretty sweet reward... and you can get more of those on mission replays too.
I'm not sure how you can get a pay-shuttle on a Romulan character right now - I do know I took the time to shop around the shuttles and decided to buy myself the Kestrel Runabout.
The mission didn't get frustratingly difficult, but it did get me killed a few time. A few respawns later, I found ways to make myself less vulnerable... but in comparison to the Vault, this mission is indeed much deadlier so I do relate with Drakron on that level.
I think the symptom of the problem, as I observed it, is that the allied shuttles didn't have all that much staying power, which resulted in squadrons being destroyed and not being renewed fast enough. By the next pitched fight i got into, all the enemy squadron gets to focus on my Kestrel - that usually resulted in my death.
As long as the mission can be balanced so that you can reliably avoid being overpowered that way, I'd see it as a good thing. I'm loathe to suggest less enemies because when those dogfights are in full swings it's actually pretty entertaining and I wouldn't want it to get more easy. However, if survavibility due to attrition could be improved, that'd be a plus in my opinion.
this mission will not allow progress either so now there are two missions Ive found so far that dont work. The first is The Undying Hassans ship doesn't spawn, and the second is one of the incubation chambers will not allow progress no consoles are able to be activated in that room and the door on the farside is glitched too it starts to open then will not complete the process. I submitted a ticket last weekend about the Bug in Undying and it appears nothing has been fixed as of yet and launch is only six days away.
Actually, caustic plasma weapons are a pretty sweet reward... and you can get more of those on mission replays too.
I'm not sure how you can get a pay-shuttle on a Romulan character right now - I do know I took the time to shop around the shuttles and decided to buy myself the Kestrel Runabout.
The mission didn't get frustratingly difficult, but it did get me killed a few time. A few respawns later, I found ways to make myself less vulnerable... but in comparison to the Vault, this mission is indeed much deadlier so I do relate with Drakron on that level.
I think the symptom of the problem, as I observed it, is that the allied shuttles didn't have all that much staying power, which resulted in squadrons being destroyed and not being renewed fast enough. By the next pitched fight i got into, all the enemy squadron gets to focus on my Kestrel - that usually resulted in my death.
As long as the mission can be balanced so that you can reliably avoid being overpowered that way, I'd see it as a good thing. I'm loathe to suggest less enemies because when those dogfights are in full swings it's actually pretty entertaining and I wouldn't want it to get more easy. However, if survavibility due to attrition could be improved, that'd be a plus in my opinion.
My main gripe with it is that the enemy shuttles seem to respawn until you take out the Walker they're guarding.
I have to agree, it was disappointing not getting to see some of the Elachi weapons in Devil's Choice.
I read all the mission despcription before hand and was so hyped up for being able to fly an Elachi vessel, especially since they where kicking our butts since the begining, just disappointing
Vengance... Vengance is a good name for this series.. Last stand... Filled me with an urge to find the person responsible for the mission... and Revenge myself upon them! The Candle in ahurricane part took Over an Hour all by itself. This i rediculous, and extremely disheartening. I did decide to give my Big D anotyher chance. jsut went and made some crew and equipment changes.. with in my abilities to do so.. and It's that station was destroyed five hundredtimes over before I finished... probbaly befiore i even finished a whole wave.
Who thought this was a good idea? I almost rage quit several times, and I can see plenty of people I know doing jsut that. And what about new players? Trying out romulus first.. this is Not going to sell them on the game. That mission made me want to kill myself. I have hand cramps from trying to steer that monster of a ship around for Over an hour non stop.
It's a lovely looking ship, and the spirit of the mission is fine... but that mission, those enemies at thier current difficulty, and that ship.. it really needs to be.. shortened up. Make the Elachi less space gods of death, or maike it only one wave.. Something. Or I will get a genesis probe and from TRIBBLE's heart, i will Stabbeth Thee
Best defense.. Well meat grinder comes to mind. The space part is suffering from the last stand problems, though not quite as bad. But really.. it's the atmosphere portion. Wonderful idea, love it. I do... but.... You go in, and you fight a clearly superior force in superior numbers till you blow upm, and repsawn to do it all over again. Meat grinder. My dinky little shuttle did not stand a chance.
Still adding a little shuttle dog fighting is a neat idea. It jsut think it needs to be tweaked a bit.
The New Romulus space battle took forever in my D'Deridex. After I had replaced all its weapons and equipped it with beams it was a little better. But it is still way too slow for those Elachi ships. I then waited a few levels and tried the mission again in my new ship hmm can't remember the name: the smaller Haa'pax. To my surprise it took about 15 minutes to complete. And I didn't die. The D'Deridex, eventhough it's an iconic ship, was definitely not in the devs' mind when they designed that mission.
I think it would have made more sense if we could have kept the Elachi ship for the last battle. It would be easier to sneak behind the enemies and then it could be destroyed at the very end. Better yet: we could keep it:D
I'm hoping there will be more missions with the Elachi in the future. I really liked them. But I felt like the story was incomplete. There is something missing.
For the last mission in the series. I recommend adding romulan disruptor beam array and romulan disruptor dual heavy cannons. These weapons are the ship counter parts of the ground romulan disruptor awards in the frozen mission in the freedom series. These items are rare and can do both apply a damage resistance debuff like the disruptor type weapons. This weapons will have a chance to leave an anti proton residue. The icon for these weapons are identical to disruptors. To ensure they are rare these weapons should have one damage modifier. These weapons are connon the star trek universe as romulans use disruptors. If they can be added in this last mission of this series they can't be added to the cutting the cord mission of the freedom series.
No, I got what you are saying that is the mission is perfectible winnable when you use a pay **** and pay consoles.
Wow, still not listening. I went back with the To'Duj, so yes, I did play it with a normal shuttle. I'm going to infer that from the f2p in your handle and your attitude thus far that you have a kneejerk objection to paying for something in this game. So tell me, how should a game operate if nobody pays?
Yes, this mission should not kill the player ... or you think the Vault should require dozens of respawn?
Why shouldn't the mission kill the player on elite? What's the purpose of playing without the possibility of losing? And it's not even losing, it just respawn.
And dozens? No. Again, you're not reading my posts. The squads you command are your 10:1. Keep yourself from being focused by enemies and make sure your npc's are focusing on one target at at time. Really, you're pissed about this mission when you are doing it wrong.
This is the very first Small Craft mission for Romulan players, this is also potentially the very first Small Craft mission for new players.
And I think that's a fine reason for it to send players to the respawn. Force people to adapt and replay it if they want to get through without getting vaped.
You did it using a pay shuttle, people who this will end up doing it on the free shuttle because they are TRICKED into getting it by a previous mission and this is the very first Small Craft mission they do.
The very fact we are having this argument says all, the mission is BROKEN ... after the Vault I might, MIGHT agree with your point but its not after the Vault is it? its also not a lv 50 optional mission either ... its a REQUIRED STORY MISSION.
No, the fact that we are having this argument at is because you want a free game that does not challenge players. Easy on the caps, bro, because all story missions can be skipped, and you only think it's broken because it killed you a dozen times. A dozen respawns is pilot error, plain and simple.
So you don't want to pay for a game, and you don't want a game that contains the possibility of making you respawn. Huh. Well, there's always rp on Drozana.
_______________ CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that? Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
New arc, new observations. I actually might have used this line already...
Nothing noteworthy about meeting your new CO.
Also nothing to note about the shuttle pickup, although the fill out the forms thing was a nice touch.
And the shard is coming down again, so just Abducted this time.
---
ABDUCTED
Observations: We fight the Elachi for the first time in this one (well aside from that guy in Inst. 18 a little bit ago, he doesn't really count though). The ship battles aren't too bad, although previously when we went up against their ships they were much more formidable. Here they are just slightly more annoying than Orion corvettes; in essence they are said corvettes but with Subspace Jump consoles. No biggie.
Inside the station we fight some squads of them. They look creepy for sure, and have weird looking (but effective) drones. But the main thing I notice about them is their gait. Different walking animation and speed from most of the other sapient species you shoot in this game, so if you are used to normal combat in STO and use Shooter Mode it can be harder to lead you targets initially. Overall they are tough but fair targets.
Nice mission for sure. I sort of wish the "dark creepy space station" gimmick was utilized more here (man, if ALL the lights went out and you had to use your floating flashlight?), give it kind of a "Doom 3" feel. But people who only play fullbright missions because they hate the dark would complain, as would weak stomach players. So a good balance is probably struck here, I suppose. A good but not in the end memorable mission.
Issues/Bugs: When you beam over to the station and talk to Khaiel there, on his background image you can see that the two...uh...server rack kinda things by the main console he is in front of are inter-actable in the picture. Looks like someone forgot to turn their fobbing glow off before taking that screen shot.
---
OTHER NOTES: Ran into the USS Phlox on the way to Abducted. Apparently the captain of the ship said we fought side by side at the Vega battle? Not really, as I rolled up a Romulan character? Just because I allied with the Fed doesn't mean I have experiences by osmosis. Another rational explanation for this is three bottles of brandy in the morning for this officer but I think its simply a textual oversight.
While I generally like the Vengeance arc, the very last part of defending New Romulus is damned near impossible.
I'm flying the DD with the best equipment I have from leveling, and some common beam arrays from Command.
Even though the first waves went by relatively well, the final wave with that bloody Elachi dreadnought is not fun at all. This dreadnought is not fun to fight at all. It is way over powered. The HP is too high, there are too many support Elachi ships blowing me to pieces before I can do much damage to the dreadnought.
I have tried to kill the support ships, but then that bloody dreadnought kills me before I knew what hit me...
I have tried different set ups, but nothing helps. And speaking of nothing that helps... Yeah, that's what the re-inforcements do, nothing at all, they just sit there repairing themselves in a never ending loop.
Atleast give us the Enterprise F as re-inforcement, as that ship is better than what we get right now...
Is it intended that this mission is nearly impossible to do?? I have died so many times it's not even funny. If I had my Tac Odyssey or my Chimera fully kitted out like I have on Holo right now, then I might stand a chance, but as it is right now, it's just not fun to fight an enemy solo that's almost as strong as Donatra's SCIMITAR in KASE...
As for the shuttle mission: Perhaps have the destroyed squadrons automatically respawn whenever the player does?
I didn't really have a lot of trouble with the giant space battle. Then again, one of my live chars flies the original Oddy, so I have a lot of experience flying heavy cruisers. Two words: Dragon Flagship.
More of this arc. But before I go any further, I just want to make a note of something that I think is pretty important.
While flying through Alpha Centauri block to get to the next sector, I came across a system named NGC-863. Since the NGC is an established catalogue of extra-solar objects, I used the power of the Intarwebz to see what they were using. I thought it would be a nebula but it turns out that NGC-863 is a *galaxy* in real life.
I know Star Trek is un-science to the point where it has polywater in canon, but this pretty bad form no matter how you cut it.
Are you kidding me with Devil's choice? I mean seriously? The final battle. REALLY? That battle was basicly jsut back to back explosions. In fact in the end that was probbaly how I did the Bulk of my damage to the command ship. I'd get hammered all to TRIBBLE.. I'd stick myself to the commansd ship and try and explode on top of it for 1% or less damage. This was Not good. This was not Hard, this was.. I have no words for this. Elite STFs are at Least five Million times easier than this was. A lot less frustrating too. Come On?! What was the thought process here? Our players love to explode Alot, so let's give them a mission that's pretty much nothing but them exploding? I know the game shouldn't jsut be handed to you.. but Really? It's a clusterf--k.
Alos I've been losing sound effects since the elachi starbase. They disappear, or go quiet in comparison to the music. VO still seems to wrok fine, and obviously.. so does the music.
Devil's Choice: Defense of New Romulus definitely needs some balancing love. With all the powers the Eracthi have (Charged shot of doom, Viral Matrix, Hazard Emiters, Cluster tracker mines) having to deal with 10 ships focusing fire on you at once is a bit ridiculous.
I appreciate a challenge, and its nice to have large scale engagements to give players a sense of accomplishment, but this is just frustrating.
Also, keep trying to submit this as a bug, but kept getting 'Timeout attempting to submit to ticket server' error, so I have no Bug number for this.
I finally got to the finale, the Defense of New Romulus... and I was completely overwhelmed. The final wave with the control ship is absurdly large and powerful. The cavalry arrived to help me, and they just disappeared in the sea of enemy ships. I caught a glimpse of a friendly ship every now and then as I was blown up over and over again. If there's a way to whittle down the enemy ships, I didn't see it. No matter how many I destroyed, there were far more to fight.
If the key is to go after the control ship directly, well, that didn't work either. I can't dent it on my own, and there were effectively no friendly ships to help me, thanks to all the enemy dreadnaughts and battleships and escorts etc etc etc taking them out.
So I'll just go back to patrol missions to get my Romulan admiral to 50, and hope to see some patch notes that say the mission has been re-balanced.
I finally got to the finale, the Defense of New Romulus... and I was completely overwhelmed. The final wave with the control ship is absurdly large and powerful. The cavalry arrived to help me, and they just disappeared in the sea of enemy ships. I caught a glimpse of a friendly ship every now and then as I was blown up over and over again. If there's a way to whittle down the enemy ships, I didn't see it. No matter how many I destroyed, there were far more to fight.
If the key is to go after the control ship directly, well, that didn't work either. I can't dent it on my own, and there were effectively no friendly ships to help me, thanks to all the enemy dreadnaughts and battleships and escorts etc etc etc taking them out.
So I'll just go back to patrol missions to get my Romulan admiral to 50, and hope to see some patch notes that say the mission has been re-balanced.
My approach was to keep the AIs from getting KOed by grabbing as much aggro as possible. Sure, it doesn't SOUND like a good idea, but it worked for me.
I found that the key to Devil's choice was to play in the "cloak and dagger" style of romulans...
1) Cloak
2) Position yourself so that only 1 enemy ship is within 10 km
3) Decloak and engage with alpha strike at 1/4 impulse
4) 1 Enemy Ship is destroyed
5) Cloak
6) Repeat the above
Yes it takes roughly 15-25 minutes just for phase 3...and yes I lost my ship a total of 38 times figuring this out...but it works
Admiral Jisil T'ror Admiral Sovak Does anyone remember when we used to be explorers...
My good 12th Fleet fleetmate Yuzral pretty much depicted his experience of the Defense of New Romulus objective in one of his latest episodes of the Tribble Timewarp.
Yuzral's mostly trying to do this from the perspective of a new player so his gear/setup choices are more go-with-the-flow rather than optimal, mostly grounded with the idea that you've been a versatile warbird captain whom suddenly just got stuck and had to cope for several levels with a very differently ponderous and tanky D'deridex warbird.
Results? Yuzral idly wonders at some point if D'tan has an evacuation plan in mind. It seemed apt.
Yuzral's mostly trying to do this from the perspective of a new player so his gear/setup choices are more go-with-the-flow rather than optimal, mostly grounded with the idea that you've been a versatile warbird captain whom suddenly just got stuck and had to cope for several levels with a very differently ponderous and tanky D'deridex warbird.
Well, Yuzral makes a good point. It's clearly not meant to work like that. After the allies are effectively wiped out, it's up to the player to single-handedly wipe out an immensely powerful fleet. The average player isn't really up to that kind of feat at that point. Many players just might be encouraged to go play a different game at that point.
The way it's supposed to work is that the allies stay in the fight, giving you the opportunity to go after the control ship. You might still get blown up a few times thanks to all the firepower flying around; but at least the allies would still be there, keeping the enemy ships busy, while you try again.
It looks like this is going to go on Holodeck in its current gloriously broken form, which should make for some lively conversation before long.
I manage to hold until the reinforcements get there. But then what? it seems as if there's no end to that mission.
You're referring to the Defense of New Romulus portion, right? I agree. It's insanely impossible to beat. Same token, I do fine until allied reinforcements come, but there's just too many ships, and just as soon as reinforcements get here, they're obliterated and it's down to three ships vs. however many enemies, and there's just no way to beat it. I just skipped it. Also, the commander's announcements keep repeating like crazy, and they repeat even after I respawn and click depart system. I've had no (or very few and minor) other problems completing missions, and I only have two more missions in the Freedom series to finish.
You're referring to the Defense of New Romulus portion, right? I agree. It's insanely impossible to beat. Same token, I do fine until allied reinforcements come, but there's just too many ships, and just as soon as reinforcements get here, they're obliterated and it's down to three ships vs. however many enemies, and there's just no way to beat it. I just skipped it. Also, the commander's announcements keep repeating like crazy, and they repeat even after I respawn and click depart system. I've had no (or very few and minor) other problems completing missions, and I only have two more missions in the Freedom series to finish.
Hmm... I really get the feeling that you're doing something wrong.... I'd be happy to play through the mission in a team.
Hmm... I really get the feeling that you're doing something wrong.... I'd be happy to play through the mission in a team.
In this case, it's not a matter of doing something wrong. The mission is already wrong. The trick is to find a way to overcome the wrongness of the mission. I think it's safe to say that the average player trying it solo isn't going to find a way to do that without a great amount of effort and/or a great amount of luck.
Comments
Your tone is irritating, more so because you are not getting what I'm saying. It is beatable like that. I was talking about doing it without being sent to the respawn at all. Or do you think you should be unkillable in white gear with no doffs? What's the point of gear in that case? If every mission can be completed without dying in default gear, where's the challenge?
I did it more than once. I mentioned the To'duj because it was particularly fun and didn't feel like any other STO mission.
On elite, I used theta and didn't die. Otherwise I died a few times on elite once I figured it out. The doffs would probably have made the difference, and replaying at cap with rep gear is something I'd definitely try because this mission is unique.
It's beatable on elite with default gear, but not without a few deaths in my experience. That seems about right, IMO.
If anybody wants to call for a nerf to this mission, give it another try focusing on the squad management and see if you change your opinion. That's what this mission really showcases.
CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that?
Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
Last stand... well i jsut got my D'deridex.. and while it's not the mission specifically... those elachi ships where Styill faster than my ship when I had them in tractor beams.
When defednign the photons station, the elachi ships kept dropping warp cores as loot. Not all of them, but the three that dropped loot, dropped a warp core.
I stopped and left during candkle in a hurricane. 20 minutes, and still on wave one. I had not blown up once, this that's no really a problem, but.. elechi endurance+speed does not make it easy to play through in a D'Deridex. Now the dialogue said soemthing about only handling the battleships, that'd have been better except there was only one in I assume the first wave, and the station shuttles were all gone in seconds. so I had no support.. I actually even called in some pirartes.. which did no good either. Maybe I'll come back to this and try to f8inish it when i have morwe time, opr maybe I'll go back and get my mogai out again, but for now I have to quit.
Up to this point, I've been really intrigued by the Romulan story line, like a great TV show, I couldn't wait to see what happened next.
Then I got to this Vengeance story arc, and after finishing it, I didn't just hate it, I despised it.
My D'Deridex ship didn't last past Abducted, it just wasn't fun, and no amount of 'situational' ability was going to make that ship worthwhile. I replaced it with a Zen store San Paulo, chucked the quad cannon for a full set of plasma DHC's.
Last Stand - Here things went pretty well, so I farmed it for the good Mk VIII weapons until the ship was full of them. I'm noticing some interesting things about Elachi space abilities and tactics that I was hoping to see explained in the story, to no avail.
Best Defense - Great Idea, and in my opinion, Horrible execution. I disliked it enough that I just choose to zerg thru it, rather than regear for doing it more properly.
Turnabout - No real issues with the first part of this mission, then I defeat the captain, and before I can shut down the destruct sequence, it feels like I had to fight the whole remaining crew. Surely this is the most defective destruct sequence ever. The ship should have surely blown up with me on it before I got to disable it. Then on "Hold the Pylon" there was 2 minutes left, where I mostly just waited with nothing to do.
Devil's Choice - After everything that vessel had just been thru, it just works fine? No Elachi tech discloser, no damage control, just "Next"? A prime chance to put some real Star Trek feel to the mission, but we just move on. Take a lesson from the Doomsday Machine episode you guys wrote here. This mission succeeded in getting me emotionally involved, but did nothing stimulate me on an intellectual level. Not a bad mission so far, but it didn't 'feel' real, could have been epic, was just ok.
Then I got back to New Romulas. Seriously? You've got to be kidding. This was beyond pointless. Before it was over, I was hoping for a loss condition, to no avail. Before it was over, I was rooting for the Elachi to win. To have this as the ending pretty much ruined the whole story arc for me.
Mainly, this was due to Elachi space mechanics, which is a separate topic all on its own. Apparently the rules and restrictions the rest of the game has to abide by, don't apply to the Elachi.
Indestructible High Yield Torpedoes, for an example. But that is just the begining.
I think I would have had better luck soloing an Admiral level, normal STF, as a captain.
Was this suppose to be the epic crowning jewel, to what before this, has been a truly epic story?
I'm not sure how you can get a pay-shuttle on a Romulan character right now - I do know I took the time to shop around the shuttles and decided to buy myself the Kestrel Runabout.
The mission didn't get frustratingly difficult, but it did get me killed a few time. A few respawns later, I found ways to make myself less vulnerable... but in comparison to the Vault, this mission is indeed much deadlier so I do relate with Drakron on that level.
I think the symptom of the problem, as I observed it, is that the allied shuttles didn't have all that much staying power, which resulted in squadrons being destroyed and not being renewed fast enough. By the next pitched fight i got into, all the enemy squadron gets to focus on my Kestrel - that usually resulted in my death.
As long as the mission can be balanced so that you can reliably avoid being overpowered that way, I'd see it as a good thing. I'm loathe to suggest less enemies because when those dogfights are in full swings it's actually pretty entertaining and I wouldn't want it to get more easy. However, if survavibility due to attrition could be improved, that'd be a plus in my opinion.
SHORTEN LAST STAND!!!
I think I got carpal tunnel!
Thank you, you may resume normal forming.
USS Immortal NX-93608-F (Oddyssey Tactical Cruiser)
VADM Rogueshadow IRW Kirino Kosaka (Valdore Retrofit)
LT General Morbo IKS Karac (Bortasqu War Cruiser)
LT General Posu IKS Saya Takagi (Chel Grett Warship)
My character Tsin'xing
I read all the mission despcription before hand and was so hyped up for being able to fly an Elachi vessel, especially since they where kicking our butts since the begining, just disappointing
Who thought this was a good idea? I almost rage quit several times, and I can see plenty of people I know doing jsut that. And what about new players? Trying out romulus first.. this is Not going to sell them on the game. That mission made me want to kill myself. I have hand cramps from trying to steer that monster of a ship around for Over an hour non stop.
It's a lovely looking ship, and the spirit of the mission is fine... but that mission, those enemies at thier current difficulty, and that ship.. it really needs to be.. shortened up. Make the Elachi less space gods of death, or maike it only one wave.. Something. Or I will get a genesis probe and from TRIBBLE's heart, i will Stabbeth Thee
Best defense.. Well meat grinder comes to mind. The space part is suffering from the last stand problems, though not quite as bad. But really.. it's the atmosphere portion. Wonderful idea, love it. I do... but.... You go in, and you fight a clearly superior force in superior numbers till you blow upm, and repsawn to do it all over again. Meat grinder. My dinky little shuttle did not stand a chance.
Still adding a little shuttle dog fighting is a neat idea. It jsut think it needs to be tweaked a bit.
I think it would have made more sense if we could have kept the Elachi ship for the last battle. It would be easier to sneak behind the enemies and then it could be destroyed at the very end. Better yet: we could keep it:D
I'm hoping there will be more missions with the Elachi in the future. I really liked them. But I felt like the story was incomplete. There is something missing.
And dozens? No. Again, you're not reading my posts. The squads you command are your 10:1. Keep yourself from being focused by enemies and make sure your npc's are focusing on one target at at time. Really, you're pissed about this mission when you are doing it wrong.
And I think that's a fine reason for it to send players to the respawn. Force people to adapt and replay it if they want to get through without getting vaped. Tricked? What? You can skip any mission. No, the fact that we are having this argument at is because you want a free game that does not challenge players. Easy on the caps, bro, because all story missions can be skipped, and you only think it's broken because it killed you a dozen times. A dozen respawns is pilot error, plain and simple.
So you don't want to pay for a game, and you don't want a game that contains the possibility of making you respawn. Huh. Well, there's always rp on Drozana.
CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that?
Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
Nothing noteworthy about meeting your new CO.
Also nothing to note about the shuttle pickup, although the fill out the forms thing was a nice touch.
And the shard is coming down again, so just Abducted this time.
---
ABDUCTED
Observations: We fight the Elachi for the first time in this one (well aside from that guy in Inst. 18 a little bit ago, he doesn't really count though). The ship battles aren't too bad, although previously when we went up against their ships they were much more formidable. Here they are just slightly more annoying than Orion corvettes; in essence they are said corvettes but with Subspace Jump consoles. No biggie.
Inside the station we fight some squads of them. They look creepy for sure, and have weird looking (but effective) drones. But the main thing I notice about them is their gait. Different walking animation and speed from most of the other sapient species you shoot in this game, so if you are used to normal combat in STO and use Shooter Mode it can be harder to lead you targets initially. Overall they are tough but fair targets.
Nice mission for sure. I sort of wish the "dark creepy space station" gimmick was utilized more here (man, if ALL the lights went out and you had to use your floating flashlight?), give it kind of a "Doom 3" feel. But people who only play fullbright missions because they hate the dark would complain, as would weak stomach players. So a good balance is probably struck here, I suppose. A good but not in the end memorable mission.
Issues/Bugs: When you beam over to the station and talk to Khaiel there, on his background image you can see that the two...uh...server rack kinda things by the main console he is in front of are inter-actable in the picture. Looks like someone forgot to turn their fobbing glow off before taking that screen shot.
---
OTHER NOTES: Ran into the USS Phlox on the way to Abducted. Apparently the captain of the ship said we fought side by side at the Vega battle? Not really, as I rolled up a Romulan character? Just because I allied with the Fed doesn't mean I have experiences by osmosis. Another rational explanation for this is three bottles of brandy in the morning for this officer but I think its simply a textual oversight.
I'm flying the DD with the best equipment I have from leveling, and some common beam arrays from Command.
Even though the first waves went by relatively well, the final wave with that bloody Elachi dreadnought is not fun at all. This dreadnought is not fun to fight at all. It is way over powered. The HP is too high, there are too many support Elachi ships blowing me to pieces before I can do much damage to the dreadnought.
I have tried to kill the support ships, but then that bloody dreadnought kills me before I knew what hit me...
I have tried different set ups, but nothing helps. And speaking of nothing that helps... Yeah, that's what the re-inforcements do, nothing at all, they just sit there repairing themselves in a never ending loop.
Atleast give us the Enterprise F as re-inforcement, as that ship is better than what we get right now...
Is it intended that this mission is nearly impossible to do?? I have died so many times it's not even funny. If I had my Tac Odyssey or my Chimera fully kitted out like I have on Holo right now, then I might stand a chance, but as it is right now, it's just not fun to fight an enemy solo that's almost as strong as Donatra's SCIMITAR in KASE...
I didn't really have a lot of trouble with the giant space battle. Then again, one of my live chars flies the original Oddy, so I have a lot of experience flying heavy cruisers. Two words: Dragon Flagship.
My character Tsin'xing
While flying through Alpha Centauri block to get to the next sector, I came across a system named NGC-863. Since the NGC is an established catalogue of extra-solar objects, I used the power of the Intarwebz to see what they were using. I thought it would be a nebula but it turns out that NGC-863 is a *galaxy* in real life.
I know Star Trek is un-science to the point where it has polywater in canon, but this pretty bad form no matter how you cut it.
Alos I've been losing sound effects since the elachi starbase. They disappear, or go quiet in comparison to the music. VO still seems to wrok fine, and obviously.. so does the music.
I appreciate a challenge, and its nice to have large scale engagements to give players a sense of accomplishment, but this is just frustrating.
Also, keep trying to submit this as a bug, but kept getting 'Timeout attempting to submit to ticket server' error, so I have no Bug number for this.
If the key is to go after the control ship directly, well, that didn't work either. I can't dent it on my own, and there were effectively no friendly ships to help me, thanks to all the enemy dreadnaughts and battleships and escorts etc etc etc taking them out.
So I'll just go back to patrol missions to get my Romulan admiral to 50, and hope to see some patch notes that say the mission has been re-balanced.
My character Tsin'xing
1) Cloak
2) Position yourself so that only 1 enemy ship is within 10 km
3) Decloak and engage with alpha strike at 1/4 impulse
4) 1 Enemy Ship is destroyed
5) Cloak
6) Repeat the above
Yes it takes roughly 15-25 minutes just for phase 3...and yes I lost my ship a total of 38 times figuring this out...but it works
Admiral Sovak
Does anyone remember when we used to be explorers...
You hit the nail on head.
"The final annihilation of the life form known as Romulan" "Let the attack begin!!!!"
3rd wave begins here.
Yuzral's mostly trying to do this from the perspective of a new player so his gear/setup choices are more go-with-the-flow rather than optimal, mostly grounded with the idea that you've been a versatile warbird captain whom suddenly just got stuck and had to cope for several levels with a very differently ponderous and tanky D'deridex warbird.
Results? Yuzral idly wonders at some point if D'tan has an evacuation plan in mind. It seemed apt.
Well, Yuzral makes a good point. It's clearly not meant to work like that. After the allies are effectively wiped out, it's up to the player to single-handedly wipe out an immensely powerful fleet. The average player isn't really up to that kind of feat at that point. Many players just might be encouraged to go play a different game at that point.
The way it's supposed to work is that the allies stay in the fight, giving you the opportunity to go after the control ship. You might still get blown up a few times thanks to all the firepower flying around; but at least the allies would still be there, keeping the enemy ships busy, while you try again.
It looks like this is going to go on Holodeck in its current gloriously broken form, which should make for some lively conversation before long.
You're referring to the Defense of New Romulus portion, right? I agree. It's insanely impossible to beat. Same token, I do fine until allied reinforcements come, but there's just too many ships, and just as soon as reinforcements get here, they're obliterated and it's down to three ships vs. however many enemies, and there's just no way to beat it. I just skipped it. Also, the commander's announcements keep repeating like crazy, and they repeat even after I respawn and click depart system. I've had no (or very few and minor) other problems completing missions, and I only have two more missions in the Freedom series to finish.
My character Tsin'xing
In this case, it's not a matter of doing something wrong. The mission is already wrong. The trick is to find a way to overcome the wrongness of the mission. I think it's safe to say that the average player trying it solo isn't going to find a way to do that without a great amount of effort and/or a great amount of luck.