This is a casual mmo where pugs should be able to do everything. The game's population is too small to allow for only guild runs and on top of that is very anti social. I am in 3 different fleets across 5 toons and fleet chat is dead. No one teams up for content and everybody uses channels, when not queuing, which are nothing but manual queues. Heard the same from friends in other fleets.
Given the low pop, casual centric and anti social characteristics we need queues to be able to do what little content is here.
That's the thing, do we have dumbed down content so any newbie can play the game or do we actually have fun and challenging content that might encourage players to return to the game?
If things keep going in the direction they are, STO will be closed within 3 years because they have to keep making simple content than something players can really sink their teeth into.
Back to the topic. People keep forgetting that devs admitted the mechanics are broken. Lagging out even top rigs with hundred ships all firing is not challenging. The only people reporting success on elites are probably premades or teams with 2 or 3 p2w lock box escorts with god like DPS.
No, PuGs are winning in Elites as well. They are lucky instance without Mirror Universe Ships or Universe Ships that spawned in round 3 and the CE is too far away to have them aggroed.
But given the reward, really no difference to play on Elite.
That's the thing, do we have dumbed down content so any newbie can play the game or do we actually have fun and challenging content that might encourage players to return to the game?
If things keep going in the direction they are, STO will be closed within 3 years because they have to keep making simple content than something players can really sink their teeth into.
No, PuGs are winning in Elites as well. They are lucky instance without Mirror Universe Ships or Universe Ships that spawned in round 3 and the CE is too far away to have them aggroed.
But given the reward, really no difference to play on Elite.
That's the thing is that normal mode should be for the casual player who want to relax and have fun, elites should be significantly harder to present a challenge for seasoned players. Glad the event is being patched Monday, having 200+ MU ships spawn from 16+ unclosable rifts in 2mins with each of the ships having between 40-200k hulls was just a bad idea. In those instances I'm lucky if the server accepts input more than every 5 secs. Its not quite a slide show frame rate, but pretty close.
I don't think there is a way, honestly. My guess is that the Dev Team gave this what they thought was a bit of a buff, which in turn became overkill.
I challenge the Dev Team to complete this (with video evidence). I'm in a run now (died again) and the entity has recovered a good 1/3rd it's health. Any ship that gets close doesn't stick around long enough before it's blown apart (again) by the Terran ships.
I was in one this week where the HUGE mob of Mirror ships managed to park themselves, eventually, right around the spawn point. We were all dieing as soon as we spawned. Everyone eventually had to bail and to do that you had to get lucky. As soon as you spawned you were attacked and noone was able to survive long enough to run far enough. I finally spawned once and the mirror ships were too busy attacking others to attack me right away so I was able to bail. I was one of the last 3 to bail on the event. This was SUPPOSED to be a Normal, BTW. I don't know how those two last poor suckers made it out.
Was in another one two days later that was very similar and this time, after about 30 minutes into it, the Crystalline Entity apparently bailed. I died (for about the 5th time) and re spawned and the Mirror ships were there and the rest of the team, all still mixing it up, but the Entity was gone... not destroyed... just gone. This event is "glitched" big time.
I call Shenanigans! :P
*STO*Its mission: To destroy strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations... and then kill them, to boldly annihilate what no one has annihilated before!
If I go in by Cloak (alone) there is no weapons fire. The Entity doesn't fire at the Terran Ships, and the Terran Ships don't fire at the Entity. Both fire at me as soon as I decloak however. Shortly after that I'm back to respawning.
Yep, have seen this, too. In fact I have yet to ever see Mirror ships firing on the Entity.
*STO*Its mission: To destroy strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations... and then kill them, to boldly annihilate what no one has annihilated before!
The Tholian ships might not respawn, but the Terran ones do, and when you've got 30 (or more) of them blasting away at you before you get within 8km of the Entity you don't last long.
It's possible you were grouped with several people who had the best gear available, and knew exactly how to hit and when, but for everyone else, this mission is currently impossible. The game I was in wasn't winnable. There were too many Terran Ships, an ever regenerating Entity and not enough of us.
OR maybe he's just been lucky. I've also been shunted into at least one event where we warped in with only half a team. 1 team of 5 instead of 2.
*STO*Its mission: To destroy strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations... and then kill them, to boldly annihilate what no one has annihilated before!
We don't have time for your facts and your reasonable, thought-out adaptation to circumstances on the ground! Can't you see that this is the time for panicking because something is different?!?
"Aww... enough of your theories, Mr. Spock, whatta you gonna DO?!" :P
*STO*Its mission: To destroy strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations... and then kill them, to boldly annihilate what no one has annihilated before!
+1 confirm for terran ships ignoring the entity. I flew up to the Entity under cloak and the thousands of battleships were just sitting there. Also, everyone just shoots the Terran ships and ignores the Entity. The old version was better.
Exactly this! I've never observed Mirror ships firing on the Entity... and the Event from last year was just fine the way it was... it needed no "improvements".
*STO*Its mission: To destroy strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations... and then kill them, to boldly annihilate what no one has annihilated before!
I counted 7-10 rifts each with a good sized groups of mirror ships.. almos tall wil aggro together. makes this encounter unbeatable or nigh unto.
to the DEVs; please change it back to how it was and remove crystalline event event. I'm sorry but throwing masses upon masses of sihps at something is not good game design (we already have no win scenario anyways ... ).
Add to that the fact that, at least sometimes, you queue for a Normal and end up in an Elite, at least judging by how it plays. Normal SHOULD be easier than Elite... quite a bit easier, in fact. But I've queued for Normals that were every bit as difficult as an Elite.
*STO*Its mission: To destroy strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations... and then kill them, to boldly annihilate what no one has annihilated before!
That's the thing is that normal mode should be for the casual player who want to relax and have fun, elites should be significantly harder to present a challenge for seasoned players.
Technically you are correct, but given how the game has been corrupted by instant gratification and wanting the best rewards with the least effort has caused this to happen.
That's why I would like Cryptic to return more to the classic MMO roots and basically give players a choice. The Fast and rewarding route via instancing, or something more challenging like classic dungeons you have to travel to and do some work to get the reward. Which is why people want the old STFs back, not for the nostalgia, because it challenged players and actually got players to socialize.
Glad the event is being patched Monday, having 200+ MU ships spawn from 16+ unclosable rifts in 2mins with each of the ships having between 40-200k hulls was just a bad idea. In those instances I'm lucky if the server accepts input more than every 5 secs. Its not quite a slide show frame rate, but pretty close.
I still have my doubts, I don't think it will be enough. Sure it's less, but those Mirror ships will still cause trouble in a major way.
(this post is not directed at any one person in particular)
I want the whole game to be like this at end-game. It's all, all of it, FAR too easy. The moment anything deviates from the current 5 minute quickie format, the forums are filled to the brim with complaints. How old are we?
I'd much rather it were necessary to actually interact with people in a MMO in order to successfully complete the content. It's frankly boring otherwise and I'd sooner just go back to single player games. And pugs are pugs, before we even get to opening that whole can of worms.
Okay, that's what YOU want. Now here's what I want. I DON'T want a "challenge". My life has all the challenges I need or want, already. I play games to ESCAPE! What I pay for is an illusion. A chance to come play a game where I can be Capt. Kirk and always win and never be wrong. I also don't play MMO's for "socializing". If I wanted to interact with people I'd turn the computer off and go "out". I play computer games because I don't much like "people", generally speaking. I already spend my whole work day interacting with people... tons of 'em! Lots of individual persons I'm wild about... but "People"? BLEH :mad:... Why do I play MMO's rather than a stand alone game? Because an MMO has a more dynamic environment and more resources available than any client based experience I've ever encountered. For me that means more opportunities to entertain me the way I want to be entertained. And, seriously, guys and gals... you're looking for a challenge? What are you challenging here? Your ability to manipulate a mouse and keyboard?? :P
The "challenge" for the Devs is to create a game that can satisfy both you AND me. That's what the difference between Normal and Elite is supposed to do... in this case it's failing.
And for future reference I am the SOLE determiner of what's "good" for me... and "dieing" in a game, a little or a lot, is NOT! (nor anything else that contributes to frustration levels)
*STO*Its mission: To destroy strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations... and then kill them, to boldly annihilate what no one has annihilated before!
While investigating the MU aggro issues, I noticed that the Rifts are incorrectly set to respawn additional MU ships on far too frequent of a basis. Right now it's between 1 and 3 ships every 100 seconds.
We're changing that to every 600 seconds. So that should improve the number of ships you see when these hazards spawn.
Additionally, after extensive testing, I've determined that the MU ships DO fight the CE and Fragments, but that their Threat threshold is exceedingly low. So even a self-heal has a chance to pull a MU ship into fighting a player ship. We'll be addressing this to find a more reasonable middle ground.
Until these fixes are in, I can tell everyone the absolute best strategy for getting through the Mirror Ship phase: Ignore them completely. If you focus all of your damage on the Entity, you can force into the next phase of the encounter, at which point the Rifts and all Mirror Universe ships will despawn.
Many thanks for this, Randall! Info assimilated :P... will try, as best possible, to implement this advice. Of course it still takes only one person to "TRIBBLE the pooch"...
*STO*Its mission: To destroy strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations... and then kill them, to boldly annihilate what no one has annihilated before!
We've successfully isolated the bug that was causing Mirror Ships to not properly despawn when their Rifts collapse. We've also made it so that they're far more likely to target non-players with their attacks, but also frequently change targets.
I can't say when these changes will go live, but they're in.
Thanks for the continued feedback!
Thanks, again. Best response I've ever seen from you guys on an issue. Hope it's a trend :P. I look forward to implementation of the "fixes". Hopefully they can get this done next patch... or maybe even an emergency patch? (since it's a short term special event?)
*STO*Its mission: To destroy strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations... and then kill them, to boldly annihilate what no one has annihilated before!
This event can be considered as broken. If there are no mirror ships, things go smooth and easy, but when mirror ships appear, and that won't be a few, the game can quickly turn into a stalemate. Players leave, the Chrystal heals up, etc.
Sometimes a new group of players warp in, but it seems in that case, the mision is reset. I saw that happening, but I quite myself after two attemps. The mirrors ships do not hit hard, but there are to many of them and you do get aggro from them. You can lure the whole bunch away sometimes though. Mirror Mirandas have about 90,000 hullpoints (why no T5 Miranda?), the bigger ships have 120,000. They have amazing speed capabilities. It is almost impossible to outrun them.
One time we got through the Mirror ship zerg phase, I don't know why they were gone (what is the reason of their presence in the first place), but now the Chrystal was cluttered against the planet and almost covered with those black holes on the open side. It was impossible to destroy.
One of the most frustrating experiences I have seen in this game, I must say. The challenge lies in trying to get a high score. Also the massive amount of ships turns the game into an arcade fest; it is a complete break of the immersion. Have to say that I am not into the whole mirror universe thing in the first place.
With todays patch, the CE event has become literally unplayable due to massive lag.
As soon as i enter the event and people start shooting, my ship starts rubberbanding all over the place rendering me unable to even steer straight.
Even when i'm sitting ducks, not doing anything, my ships turns left and right on its own.
I don't know what you did to improve performance but it's NOT working. You just made it worse!
Worked fine for me. CE Elite and all the spam is gone. It is puggable again so kudos to the devs for having done something right for a change.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
With todays patch, the CE event has become literally unplayable due to massive lag.
As soon as i enter the event and people start shooting, my ship starts rubberbanding all over the place rendering me unable to even steer straight.
Even when i'm sitting ducks, not doing anything, my ships turns left and right on its own.
I don't know what you did to improve performance but it's NOT working. You just made it worse!
The patch wasn't intended to improve performance, it was intended to remove buggy MU spawn/behavior.
What you're seeing sounds like a network problem or an overloaded instance server.
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
My connection is just fine. As i said, the issues start after entering the instance. Outside of it, the client works just fine too.
It's also not a bad instance as it happens in every instance i join, regardless of character.
Zero lag here. Pointless static screen though and the whole things is way too easy now. I hate it when they nerf something to death in STO because the trekkies still don't know how to play the game.
You know Cryptic has Jumped the Proverbial Shark when they introduced Tractor Pulling to Star Trek Online!
Zero lag here. Pointless static screen though and the whole things is way too easy now. I hate it when they nerf something to death in STO because the trekkies still don't know how to play the game.
It is another grind that you have to do 2 * dozen times to get reward. I don't want it to be frustrating and time consuming. 10 - 15 minute trip is fine and working as intended now.
You want a "challenge" ... go into Hive Onslaught and enjoy being insta-jibbed a dozen times over. It will feel just like CE Elite was a day ago.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
With todays patch, the CE event has become literally unplayable due to massive lag.
As soon as i enter the event and people start shooting, my ship starts rubberbanding all over the place rendering me unable to even steer straight.
Even when i'm sitting ducks, not doing anything, my ships turns left and right on its own.
I don't know what you did to improve performance but it's NOT working. You just made it worse!
What are your computer specs-GPU and CPU-and what are your graphics settings? Also, have you run an internet speed test?
I did have some slowdown issues, but only when there were dozens of MU ships.... I am kinda wondering what the MU ships were shooting at myself, but... enh...
The patch is nice because it removed the heavy graphic load, but i liked the challenge of the MU spam. CE and CEE seem to be back to their boring old selves again.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Thanks, all you whining carebears, for getting us another boring grind.
Who's whining now?
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
I have read all of the posts on ce and no one has mentioned extending the event. The event runs for 3 weeks so if you do it everyday you can get a total of 21 shards, now if you have slotted the previous project on your rom char you will need 28 shards to complete both. This is unfair that rom chars can only complete one or the other and not both, as rom chars didn't exist during the last event. So why not extend the event by at least a week if not two weeks. That way ppl with rom chars can get the rewards for both projects. What do yalls think?
Helping people is my passion in life. If I see someone without a smile I try to give them mine.
Comments
That's the thing, do we have dumbed down content so any newbie can play the game or do we actually have fun and challenging content that might encourage players to return to the game?
If things keep going in the direction they are, STO will be closed within 3 years because they have to keep making simple content than something players can really sink their teeth into.
No, PuGs are winning in Elites as well. They are lucky instance without Mirror Universe Ships or Universe Ships that spawned in round 3 and the CE is too far away to have them aggroed.
But given the reward, really no difference to play on Elite.
That's the thing is that normal mode should be for the casual player who want to relax and have fun, elites should be significantly harder to present a challenge for seasoned players. Glad the event is being patched Monday, having 200+ MU ships spawn from 16+ unclosable rifts in 2mins with each of the ships having between 40-200k hulls was just a bad idea. In those instances I'm lucky if the server accepts input more than every 5 secs. Its not quite a slide show frame rate, but pretty close.
I was in one this week where the HUGE mob of Mirror ships managed to park themselves, eventually, right around the spawn point. We were all dieing as soon as we spawned. Everyone eventually had to bail and to do that you had to get lucky. As soon as you spawned you were attacked and noone was able to survive long enough to run far enough. I finally spawned once and the mirror ships were too busy attacking others to attack me right away so I was able to bail. I was one of the last 3 to bail on the event. This was SUPPOSED to be a Normal, BTW. I don't know how those two last poor suckers made it out.
Was in another one two days later that was very similar and this time, after about 30 minutes into it, the Crystalline Entity apparently bailed. I died (for about the 5th time) and re spawned and the Mirror ships were there and the rest of the team, all still mixing it up, but the Entity was gone... not destroyed... just gone. This event is "glitched" big time.
I call Shenanigans! :P
Yep, have seen this, too. In fact I have yet to ever see Mirror ships firing on the Entity.
OR maybe he's just been lucky. I've also been shunted into at least one event where we warped in with only half a team. 1 team of 5 instead of 2.
"Aww... enough of your theories, Mr. Spock, whatta you gonna DO?!" :P
Exactly this! I've never observed Mirror ships firing on the Entity... and the Event from last year was just fine the way it was... it needed no "improvements".
Add to that the fact that, at least sometimes, you queue for a Normal and end up in an Elite, at least judging by how it plays. Normal SHOULD be easier than Elite... quite a bit easier, in fact. But I've queued for Normals that were every bit as difficult as an Elite.
Technically you are correct, but given how the game has been corrupted by instant gratification and wanting the best rewards with the least effort has caused this to happen.
That's why I would like Cryptic to return more to the classic MMO roots and basically give players a choice. The Fast and rewarding route via instancing, or something more challenging like classic dungeons you have to travel to and do some work to get the reward. Which is why people want the old STFs back, not for the nostalgia, because it challenged players and actually got players to socialize.
I still have my doubts, I don't think it will be enough. Sure it's less, but those Mirror ships will still cause trouble in a major way.
Okay, that's what YOU want. Now here's what I want. I DON'T want a "challenge". My life has all the challenges I need or want, already. I play games to ESCAPE! What I pay for is an illusion. A chance to come play a game where I can be Capt. Kirk and always win and never be wrong. I also don't play MMO's for "socializing". If I wanted to interact with people I'd turn the computer off and go "out". I play computer games because I don't much like "people", generally speaking. I already spend my whole work day interacting with people... tons of 'em! Lots of individual persons I'm wild about... but "People"? BLEH :mad:... Why do I play MMO's rather than a stand alone game? Because an MMO has a more dynamic environment and more resources available than any client based experience I've ever encountered. For me that means more opportunities to entertain me the way I want to be entertained. And, seriously, guys and gals... you're looking for a challenge? What are you challenging here? Your ability to manipulate a mouse and keyboard?? :P
The "challenge" for the Devs is to create a game that can satisfy both you AND me. That's what the difference between Normal and Elite is supposed to do... in this case it's failing.
And for future reference I am the SOLE determiner of what's "good" for me... and "dieing" in a game, a little or a lot, is NOT! (nor anything else that contributes to frustration levels)
Many thanks for this, Randall! Info assimilated :P... will try, as best possible, to implement this advice. Of course it still takes only one person to "TRIBBLE the pooch"...
Thanks, again. Best response I've ever seen from you guys on an issue. Hope it's a trend :P. I look forward to implementation of the "fixes". Hopefully they can get this done next patch... or maybe even an emergency patch? (since it's a short term special event?)
Sometimes a new group of players warp in, but it seems in that case, the mision is reset. I saw that happening, but I quite myself after two attemps. The mirrors ships do not hit hard, but there are to many of them and you do get aggro from them. You can lure the whole bunch away sometimes though. Mirror Mirandas have about 90,000 hullpoints (why no T5 Miranda?), the bigger ships have 120,000. They have amazing speed capabilities. It is almost impossible to outrun them.
One time we got through the Mirror ship zerg phase, I don't know why they were gone (what is the reason of their presence in the first place), but now the Chrystal was cluttered against the planet and almost covered with those black holes on the open side. It was impossible to destroy.
One of the most frustrating experiences I have seen in this game, I must say. The challenge lies in trying to get a high score. Also the massive amount of ships turns the game into an arcade fest; it is a complete break of the immersion. Have to say that I am not into the whole mirror universe thing in the first place.
As soon as i enter the event and people start shooting, my ship starts rubberbanding all over the place rendering me unable to even steer straight.
Even when i'm sitting ducks, not doing anything, my ships turns left and right on its own.
I don't know what you did to improve performance but it's NOT working. You just made it worse!
- Judge Aaron Satie
The patch wasn't intended to improve performance, it was intended to remove buggy MU spawn/behavior.
What you're seeing sounds like a network problem or an overloaded instance server.
It's also not a bad instance as it happens in every instance i join, regardless of character.
It is another grind that you have to do 2 * dozen times to get reward. I don't want it to be frustrating and time consuming. 10 - 15 minute trip is fine and working as intended now.
You want a "challenge" ... go into Hive Onslaught and enjoy being insta-jibbed a dozen times over. It will feel just like CE Elite was a day ago.
- Judge Aaron Satie
What are your computer specs-GPU and CPU-and what are your graphics settings? Also, have you run an internet speed test?
If your post is anything like, "I have a sandwich so you can't be starving" it's time to rethink posting. ~thlaylierah
My character Tsin'xing
This.
Thanks, all you whining carebears, for getting us another boring grind.
Who's whining now?