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One fundamental flaw in the 5 player PvE Map approach.
zerobang
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
My Fleet had a little KDF Fleetmark grind event scheduled for today.
One flaw became very obvious to me when 12 Players showed up.
12 / 5 doesn't work that well and isn't enough for the 20 player map either.
Instead of forcing us into 5 player maps (one less and we got to use the queue to get a random pug player to fill the slot, one too much and he has to sit out until maybe a slot frees up later?).
instead Cryptic should make their enemy encounters inside the maps scale dynamically to how many players are present, lets say 5 - 20 players as Cap for every default map that has 5 now. and the 20 Player Maps could be changed to 20 - 40 players if that many show up.
#1 this adds a certain replayability to everything because it would remove the static feel of every map in the game, always being played by 5 Players, always getting identical amount and type of enemies thrown at you. Kinda repetitive.
#2 Fleets could actually play together, no matter how many or few show up to a Fleet event.
Sure we players adapt to the circumstances, but isn't it Cryptics JOB to make the stuff adapt to OUR needs?
Instead of telling a group of 12 players to #1 split up into 2 groups and those other 2 that are left over have to idle until maybe a spot is free next round?
This never occured to me because i'm mostly a lone wolf and doing the PvE queue stuff and use various STF channels to find groups, but in a Fleet setting with random numbers of player showing up to play together, this pre-defined EVERYTHING approach is rather flawed.
And it is so easy, lets take Azure Nebula for example, just add 2 more asteroid bases with Spawnpoints for the Ships that you are supposed to rescue. And depending on the amount of Players the PvE queue throws in there you scale the Ships that need rescuing between the Bird of Prey for 1 point and more or less Scimitars for 5 points.
Heck with all the new Romulan Ships this could scale a whole different way.
The map where you rescue those freighters... just spawn appropriately more of them and faster.
It would probably be impossible to retrofit all old maps to scale like i suggested here, but
if you would design new maps with this scaling approach in mind that should come a lot more natural.
The PvE Queue wouldn't destroy matches by teaming up 5 players and then disconnecting one randomly leaving 4 players in a map designed for 5,
more players would be there from the start and if one or two players drop out, the enemy mobs that spawn get slightly reduced in difficulty or numbers.
Depending on the now visible wait times in the PvE queue, the game could decide on its own if it waits a minute or two to fill up a 5 player queue to anything between 5 and 20 before it starts, or if it is best to start instantly if 5 players are ready because it would take too long to wait for more.
If the map isn't running that long, players could join a map that has started and the difficulty would slightly go up.
....
but i guess it is just easier to make everything fit for 5 players OR 20 and be done with it, instead of TRIBBLE around with Playtesting for odd numbered matches.
This is the same kind of annoyance as the Timegated Defera Zone was, the game tries to tell me when or how to play, instead the game should adapt to how the players want to play it.
Same thing with the Borg Red Alerts....
5 players warp in, you can do the map, if just 2 warp in... oh well this is not happening *warps out again*.
Why not let it scale up to 20 players and then start the timer and tell us how many borg mobs we need to kill before the big battleship shows up and depending on the amount of players the big boss is that much harder to kill.
One flaw became very obvious to me when 12 Players showed up.
12 / 5 doesn't work that well and isn't enough for the 20 player map either.
Instead of forcing us into 5 player maps (one less and we got to use the queue to get a random pug player to fill the slot, one too much and he has to sit out until maybe a slot frees up later?).
instead Cryptic should make their enemy encounters inside the maps scale dynamically to how many players are present, lets say 5 - 20 players as Cap for every default map that has 5 now. and the 20 Player Maps could be changed to 20 - 40 players if that many show up.
#1 this adds a certain replayability to everything because it would remove the static feel of every map in the game, always being played by 5 Players, always getting identical amount and type of enemies thrown at you. Kinda repetitive.
#2 Fleets could actually play together, no matter how many or few show up to a Fleet event.
Sure we players adapt to the circumstances, but isn't it Cryptics JOB to make the stuff adapt to OUR needs?
Instead of telling a group of 12 players to #1 split up into 2 groups and those other 2 that are left over have to idle until maybe a spot is free next round?
This never occured to me because i'm mostly a lone wolf and doing the PvE queue stuff and use various STF channels to find groups, but in a Fleet setting with random numbers of player showing up to play together, this pre-defined EVERYTHING approach is rather flawed.
And it is so easy, lets take Azure Nebula for example, just add 2 more asteroid bases with Spawnpoints for the Ships that you are supposed to rescue. And depending on the amount of Players the PvE queue throws in there you scale the Ships that need rescuing between the Bird of Prey for 1 point and more or less Scimitars for 5 points.
Heck with all the new Romulan Ships this could scale a whole different way.
The map where you rescue those freighters... just spawn appropriately more of them and faster.
It would probably be impossible to retrofit all old maps to scale like i suggested here, but
if you would design new maps with this scaling approach in mind that should come a lot more natural.
The PvE Queue wouldn't destroy matches by teaming up 5 players and then disconnecting one randomly leaving 4 players in a map designed for 5,
more players would be there from the start and if one or two players drop out, the enemy mobs that spawn get slightly reduced in difficulty or numbers.
Depending on the now visible wait times in the PvE queue, the game could decide on its own if it waits a minute or two to fill up a 5 player queue to anything between 5 and 20 before it starts, or if it is best to start instantly if 5 players are ready because it would take too long to wait for more.
If the map isn't running that long, players could join a map that has started and the difficulty would slightly go up.
....
but i guess it is just easier to make everything fit for 5 players OR 20 and be done with it, instead of TRIBBLE around with Playtesting for odd numbered matches.
This is the same kind of annoyance as the Timegated Defera Zone was, the game tries to tell me when or how to play, instead the game should adapt to how the players want to play it.
Same thing with the Borg Red Alerts....
5 players warp in, you can do the map, if just 2 warp in... oh well this is not happening *warps out again*.
Why not let it scale up to 20 players and then start the timer and tell us how many borg mobs we need to kill before the big battleship shows up and depending on the amount of players the big boss is that much harder to kill.
Post edited by zerobang on
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I agree especially with the 5 vs 5 borg matches. It gets boring after a while because
with my fleet this is a major setback..
you say, looking for 4 for ise.. you get 6 or 8 people want to join.
the ones that dont make the team cant sit out and go for the next one.. cause it would take an hour.
eventually everyone is on a different timer and you end up having to pug
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