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Official Feedback thread for the Solanae Dyson Sphere Adventure Zone
coldsnapped
Member Posts: 520 Cryptic Developer
Please leave all comments, feedback, and bugs in this thread for the Solanae Dyson Sphere Adventure Zone!
Solanae Dyson Sphere Adventure Zone:
Solanae Dyson Sphere Adventure Zone:
- Travel through the Tau Dewa Sector Block to a gate near the Jouret system.
- Travel through the gate requires a level 50 character.
- Sphere space is divided into two major zones:
- Allied Zone
- Joint Command Operations hold sway here and conduct scientific and military missions to defend their territory and shut down the sphere?s dangerous operations.
- Contested Zone
- Allies and Voth battle back and forth for control of strategically important towers which control the sphere's energy distribution network.
- Allied Zone
- Each zone is made up of Neighborhoods
- Each neighborhood has a dedicated mission giver that will grant the player a single thematically appropriate mission
- These missions are randomly selected from a pool of available missions
- Throughout the zone are small found missions that will randomly appear and give the player the opportunity to learn, fight, or explore the sphere.
- Zones also contain a number of events that will randomly appear, prompting everyone in the map to coordinate for a given task
- Rewards are based on scoreboard participation
- Each neighborhood has a dedicated mission giver that will grant the player a single thematically appropriate mission
- You will be rewarded with Dyson Marks and Commendations to use with the Dyson Joint Command Reputation.
- In addition to these rewards, you will also have the chance to find unique short missions, earn exploration accolades, and find rare or very rare duty officers that further tell the story of the sphere, its builders, and their mysterious disappearance.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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It is not.
Also, might just be me but I find the zone to be very difficult to find things to do, aside from blasting Voth ships so I just blasted Voth ships. Others may feel differently.
I am also getting this and I thought it was just me getting it lol
DELTA PRICE RISING
1) The massive size of things makes some things hard to locate and find. It would be nice if they were either plottable, like in sector space. Or at least marked on the map, so for instance if you wanted to exit the sphere you could clearly see where the transwarp gate is and get there.
2) are you suppose to get Dyson Joint Commendation For missions in the Adventure Zone. I completed two or three mission in the zone and got Marks but no Commendations.
We are aware of this issue, and have already fixed it internally. Thanks for reporting it!
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
We keep getting a 'Voth forces approaching' popup, and to report to the Spire Battlezone, but no Voth appear. Immediately after this I also get completely free and un-earned (15) dyson sphere marks. I think this is a bug, as when I first zoned in after the patch there were 3 Voth Citadel ships to destroy around the spire ; this mission text hints to the same. Here is a picture of it happening: http://s24.postimg.org/nrni3e0yc/screenshot_2013_10_26_04_35_52.jpg . As you can see it happens immediately after the popup informing us the mission to defend the spire from Voth forces has appeared; I hadn't partook of anything and it happens with some frequency, as you can see by the chatlog. (This screenshot was taken immediately after the following screenshot)
How to get Subcommander Kaol's 'Voth Beach head' mission? Complete all the golden pretzel missions? I can't do the one immediately beneath the central sphere.
Also, we captured all of the towers and gained complete control of the zone, when this happened: http://s16.postimg.org/5zsczakqs/screenshot_2013_10_26_04_31_59.jpg (neverending popups)
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
2) the wasteland is confusing. I could never really understand what to do. Their are these umbrellas with an objective that I couldn't figure out
3) all pets are very very slow to respond and follow
4) my recluse sure had a hard time climbing up to meet the voth sometimes
5) make mobs harder. My ship can take on a dread with 20 other ships no problem.
After spending 10 minutes trying to find it, I just gave up; as did quite a few people who were also in the same boat....
I have found this much the same. No problem with the pallets, but then you have to get the Voth Sabotuers. I discovered if you personally do not kill them you do not get credit, but the do not respawn so the mission becomes uncompleteable (I had to redo the mission 3 times before I could complete it).
There really needs to be some identifier or something for where your target is. A nav beacon or something.
besides the points already mentioned...
The most dangerous part of the Voth are their warp core explosions, when you are to close.
They hardly move, they sit nice and clustered for scatter volleys and torpedo spreads.
Quality over quantity. So far its just another bunch of hit points that slow you down, nothing more.
2) There was a marker on the map for a republic kestral shuttle pikcup. when i go near the shuttle nothing happens. not sure if this is part of something larger or if their should be a pop up to let me interact.
3) same thing with the cloaked supplies. i detected them but it wont let me interact.
4) its not immediately clear where the contested zone is. if you look at the map, the arrow to the sphere is on the map, but the arrow to the contested zone is outside the map. could be clearer and more uniform.
5) really needs some music while flying around. the music only kicks in on the joint events.
6) dont know if there is a problem with allied command - minefield. i deployed the satellites, and then waited in the cloud. destroyed the frigate in the bottom cloud, waited in the second, but did not realise i had to destroy the battleship, so flew up to the third cloud, and nothing happened. went back and destroyed the battleship but still nothing appeared in the top cloud.
It's a really fun zone in concept, but it definitely needs to have clearer directions or a central "quest hub" or something for the major quests.
I saw the neverending popups, too (well, they ended when the Voth ships were all dead).
One of the tower missions in the allied-controlled neighborhood couldn't be completed. The mission asks you to signal a task force, but in and around the mission circle on the map there is no prompt to do so. There was a large group of allied NPCs flying around, but no way to interact with them. And more allied NPCs half-embedded in the tower.
The mission was "Contested Zone - Allied Border - Tower Assault - Signal Task Group". I bug reported it in game.
__
My general thought on Voth in space is that they're still way too easy. If you've got a high-DPS ship (a STF build), you can easily overwhelm their defensive abilities and tank through their short "immune" periods. In a Vesta I was able to melt through a group that had a battleship and three cruisers solo without ever feeling endangered.
OTOH I realize there's a pretty large disparity between a 12k science ship and the average STO player. But the battleship was at least an interesting opponent when its Aceton shield was stuck on permanently.
Seriously, you got too much happening in these small areas, that it's really difficult to tell what's what and do what, because you are getting inundated with small missions. Just now, I was in the area south of the Dyson Command spire, and I'm getting several wave form missions, being attacked, getting grav welled, having discharge, cleaning up ions..... just in a small area. I had no idea WTF was going on. It was a literal spam fest with no clear objectives.
And honestly, I don't like all these peanut missions.
Mission Circles: You guys really need to create some kind of 3D Mission Objective Circle that tells you if the is above or below you.
And you need to use something other than white, because of the whitish background.
Compared to other Adventure zones: I was expecting to like this, but instead the way it's laid out caused me to dislike this zone. Compared to Defera, New Romulus, and even that frustratingly annoying Nukara (that zone is one of the places I hate in STO) they were easier to understand. You had a mission area that had quest NPCS and areas where you do that mission. But you don't have this with the Dyson Sphere.
(BTW, this doesn't feel "Big", like you guys bragged about. When you said sector, I was expecting large as if I was exploring a solar system, not a confined space.)
Overall: I'm not going to bother with this "Adventure zone" when if it's released (if it remains like this). I don't like doing a bunch of errand missions that give out peanuts. I rather do one of the new events to get the Dyson Commendation and call it a day. It's not fun. And I can assure you, people will get bored of this place real quick. So I would suggest going back to the blackboard on this.
BTW, I don't know what's with this zone, but occasionally my graphics freeze when I'm in this zone. Even happened in that opening cutscene. Another reason why not to come here.
Sorry, but this place gets an F from me.
Still I'm going to say it's not because the area is too small or too big, but because simply the quests lack direction, especially when we're talking about three dimensional thinking. I had one by the minefield to move a ship away from swarmers, and I drug it towards the circle as it said, once I got it there, the quest failed. Another it said to fight Voth ships near the minefield, to which we did, but it seemed no different then when the quest wasn't going. Oh that and Voth Bastion Battleships that were targetable but you couldn't fire on them because they were dead.
Then there was the nodes on some tower, where the quest never said that the nodes were only on that tower. The supply areas is a mess, with quests literally overlapping each other, but causing others to fail.
Then I finally figured out how to get to the contested area, and only five ships were there, and it didn't seem like the map scaled at all, and it was designed for two ships. Maybe the towers seemed to be taken faster by the Voth the more ships were there, but it wasn't hard at all, as the scaling seemed off.
Course there was the spam messages and the 10 free marks everyone previously mentioned. Had one quest in the area given to me by a Klingon General in the center to meet up at a rally point, which I did, got three Klingon ships, and was told to lead them into a fight against the Voth, which I did. Moment I got to the circle, the ships disappeared and was focused fired by the Voth. Killed most of them, was at 80 percent hull and 50 percent shields before being insta-gibbed by who knows what, my combat log just recorded a huge amount of unknown damage being dealt. Funny the quest didn't fail, but when I got back to the circle where the Voth were, nothing was there.
Another quest was down in a large debris field to help out a carrier. No carrier, in fact the only ship in the area was a Klingon named Raptor, but it was stuck on the debris, and if that was the carrier it didn't talk to me. Went up and down in the debris field, found no carrier and even spamming "F" did no good to bring in a carrier.
It does have potential, but it just needs more organization and a bit more direction. I don't need my hand being held, but when you're given a quest and have no direction at all, it becomes a lessen in frustration.
Not sure if this is what you meant in the patchnotes, but from the adventure zone I beamed into the Battleground, and while all the actors were in the central area, there was nothing on the field at all, nothing to capture, no Voth, nothing.
I think the adventure zone needs another quality control pass, too many bugs really to mention, no direction, scattered cluttered zones, half the quests don't even work, and when they do it becomes a scattered mess to finally figure it out.
Oh and I know you said it's been fixed internally, but please check to make sure the daily quest is fixed. Another interesting point, I got the daily quest, then was called into a Storming the Spire. Completed the STF, and got 40 marks, not the commendation I should have gotten for completing my first Dyson Sphere related major event. It seems because I got the daily adventure zone quest, (even though at the time it was only 84 percent completed) it was saying that was the commendation I should receive, not the first major event completed.
I know you don't want us stocking up on commendations, I can respect that, but if the zone is going to pick and choose what events you have to complete to get the commendation, and not give it to you for the first one you actually do complete that qualifies for it, you need to just give them to us and let us save them up.
But I like the fact missions are dotted around that you have to stumble across, random events pop up and there are dailies to do. it feels like i can go off and explore and find something interesting going on. That should be what an adventure zone is about.
Voth frigates could be a bit harder.
Im in the contested zone and there was a mission to shut down the forcefild generators on the top right hand side of the map. i did the first one and the second was inside a pillar so i could not reach it. the generator in question was the far right side, bottom one.
i dont know if there was a timer but the mission just vanished on me. i think one of the major zone missions may have caused it to disappear.
then i had one in the industrial zone to shut down the towers. i did 2 and again the third just dissapeared on me.
The Contested Zone was pretty cool though. I spent some time flying back and forth from the towers to capture them. It felt way too easy though. Even with only 2 ships we were able to retake and hold a tower. Might even be able to do it with just 1.
At one point 4 dreadnoughts showed up. They don't seem to be very dangerous though. A pack of us (maybe 5-7 or so) were able to rip though all 4 of them pretty quickly. They also seemed to head towards the 4 towers, but didn't quite make it all the way. They stopped short and kind of sat there until we shot at them.
Visually, the entire Dyson Sphere is incredible. I couldn't get enough of it. I found myself just aimlessly flying around enjoying the place while picking up and completing random missions along the way. Before I knew it, I had nearly 100 Dyson Marks. I'm good with that.
Mine Trap Supporter
Yep, that thing happened to me too, and i also found some voth frigates inside one of those structures, cant remember if it was inside one of the generators or another tower like structure around there, but i could target them but not shoot them, while they could target and shoot me, eventually killed me.
The dayly its a bit hard, well... not hard, but really time consuming. Did some transport protections, scans of radiation, deliver med suplies and it barelly completed to 18%
And I too found the entire zone too much, "of everything". Too many small zones, too many missions.... It gets really confusing in there. Not to mention there isnt an "escape way". I mean at first time i got lost in there and couldnt get out, and I wasnt the only one. Ungrey pls the button on the top of the screen to get to sector space whenever you want. Or at least add a button on the right, like the one on some ground maps, where you can choose your destination: ground zone, sector space...
There is just too many little jobs that are no different than errand (collect rat ear) missions. And it really kills the "adventure" ideal of the zone. And I honestly think people will get tired of this after the first couple of days, because they don't want to be doing these kinds of missions. And the "action" part....is really dull, just Pew Pew for 5 minutes.
Also I have to wonder about two things:
1) The need for the Supply Depot, why not just have the vendor at the Dyson Control? The zone is small enough, it really need one? Perhaps turn the Depot into a PvE capture and hold? (Well that's basically what the new territorial ground control is, isn't it?)
2) Atmospheric flight. After flying in the events and in the adventure zone, I have to question the need for it.
For starters, I don't think people would want to spend their hard earned Fleet Credits on a small buff for atmospheric flight if there is no need for it. Seems performance in the Adventure zone is really no different than regular space zones. And if they likely finish the Dyson Reputation before they could even unlock them. So they aren't likely to spend it on a small buff.
So just save us the trouble and just move it to the Reputation.
BTW, definitely get the UI team on making a 3D Mission Circle to give proper elevation queues.
At least I noticed some directional arrows for things at a different height than I was flying at, so I could see I had to go up or down - a good thing.
For the overwhelming amount of small missions: are there any plans on restricting them in quantity?
For example there might be a random set of missions I could get on one day and on the next one some different ones from the pool of available missions. If all possible missions are available at any time, the zone could rapidly loose interest of the players, as the whole content can be experienced in a relatively short amount of time, I fear.
For the Voth ships: I too think they are a bit weak. It didn't feel competitive fighting them with my Odyssey and its (rather good but not superior) gear. Even fighting the large ships I hardly lost any hull- or shield-hp. I have to see if the buffs from the nearly constant ally-controlled towers are that strong and thus responsible for this, but I doubt it.
I will test it out with my weaker-geared Romulan character as well, maybe its a bit more competitive then.
The buggy feeling: I am aware of playing at a testing-environment, so I'm confident in getting things fixed up. For the 2 hours I tested the zone so far it also might be the case I missed something to successfully complete all the missions I accepted, some expired for I didn't find the right spot in time, at least one didn't seem to trigger a needed spawn.
Overall not much of a problem for the current work in progress state of the zone.
I'm looking forward to further testing it the next days for a better impression of it
Join the GTribe MASSIVE UPRISING giveaway
Also spacial awareness of where exactly the mission objectives are seems to, yet again, be another annoying factor; I had to do the stupid spiral up or down thing with my ship more than a couple of times before the mission interaction button popped up.
Another thing, this adventure zone feels better suited to escorts and the more maneuverable science vessels than larger cruisers; was it even tested beforehand with cruisers in mind?
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
Sorry I read this sentence, and I started to simply laugh out loud. Really since when has ANYTHING in STO been tested beforehand with anything other then escorts in mind?
I am aware that it's a rhetorical question.
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Contested zone needs to be beefed up, and/or scale to players present. I think the control points are a missed opportunity to include some dreadnoughts. But at the very least, make the Voth much more aggressive about retaking them. Compared to the ground control points, the Voth dedicate less forces to hold them, and almost none to retake them once the initial force is defeated.
I have to say the doff integration is nice, though. I would like to see a more active role in the zone, but it's very impressive how much such a little thing adds to the zone. I would really like to see this in other zones, as I think I've done more with my doffs in the last two days on tribble than the last six months on holodeck.
Here is my take on some of the problems:
- The small missions would be better in a daily rotation. (like a third or half of them on one day, and the rest on other days)
- The contested zone in its current form is an invitation to afk farming. I can easily see numerous ships standing at the entrance while a handful of others defend the key points.
- The skybox does not do a very good impression of the inside, the curvature of the sphere looks really off relative to the zone ground.
- At the Ion fields (or what is it called) there is a tower with some silver, pipe like thing. I don't know for sure but judgeing from the other towers, thats a bug.
- Some toggleable overlay (like sector navigation) would be great for showing ceiling and ground limit. (note: the ship sliding on ground limit barrier looks bad, some auto rotation would be good even in sector space.)
And something remotely off topic but a long standing question of mine:
In Neverwinter the bug report tab shows the bug reports others made, so if it was reported by someone you can just click, that you have that problem, but in STO the search never returns anything.
Is it possible that the bug report tab is broken?
Of course, the big bug is the Daily mission not resolving... three days and I still cannot resolve it (yes, I know they are working the issue).
Also saw some ships that were untouchable because they were either too close to the building or embedded in the structure and made it impossible to directly engage (mines did work against them, but no damage was registered).
The adventure zone will be fun, but the current bugs need to be worked out to avoid a lot of player angst.