Why do players consistently fail the Mirror Universe optional?

tilarta

Another player recommended I play the Mirror Universe event to get extra expertise (as one of my characters is a bit short on it).

However, every single time I've played the event, I get so frustrated with one simple thing that I give up as soon as I get the target level of expertise I want, not even bothering to finish the hour! :mad:

When the Stadi shows up, there is an Optional Objective to destroy the escort groups.
Pretty much every time, the Stadi is obliterated before even one ship from those escort groups is destroyed.
And when the Stadi is gone, the Optional Objective is deactivated, so killing the groups retroactively has no purpose anymore.
The best I've gotten to is two groups before someone destroys the Stadi.

What particularly annoys me is the fact the writing is on the wall that it's in the player's best interests to destroy the additional ships.

From the mission dialogue pop-up before entering the queue:

Every ship you destroy gives you bonus skill points and expertise

I feel by stuffing up the optional objective, they're costing me extra expertise that may be gained.

You wouldn't get away with doing this during an EliteSTF, so why do they think it's acceptible to do it in the Mirror Universe event?



Can anyone explain why they destroy the Stadi and completely ignore the optional?

xablis

This would be because most people who participate in the mirror incursion do so only for the quick dilithium grind and are not interested in the xp or expertise. The quicker they down the Stadi, the quicker it is over and they can re-queue to grind another batch of dilithium, end of story.

gstamo01

Has to do with it being a timed event. They are chasing more runs per hour over optional exp.

Basically, what xablis said.

thutmosis85

tilarta wrote: »

Can anyone explain why they destroy the Stadi and completely ignore the optional?

STOWiki wrote:

NOTE: Completing the optional does not yield any additional rewards.

Because the optional is not what you think it is .... it's only about making 5 Dry Dock Ships a little bit weaker = basically wasting your time => just blow up the other 100 ships instead :P

PS : Blowing up every single ship on the map has nothing to do with the optional ...

tilarta wrote: »

When the Stadi shows up, there is an Optional Objective to destroy the escort groups.

Nope "Weakening Escort Groups" is there from the start .... no Optional on destroying though ...

crypticarmsman

I used to do the optional all the time (successfully). Once I noticed the optional had no real effect on the ultimate rewards (it just debuffs the ship adds); and honestly, with concentrated firepower directly on the adds (or the Stadi); you could fi0nish the run quicker then wasting time doing the optional; I STOPPED worrying about doing the optional altogether.

saxfire

because those few ships next to stadi are not worth anything, just re-que after the boss and get more xp from the big 4 groups. and OPTIONAL REWARDS NOTHING! other than lowering the stadi group health by 30% and then they heal it to full with their eng teams as they spawn, derp.

johngazman

xablis wrote: »

This would be because most people who participate in the mirror incursion do so only for the quick dilithium grind and are not interested in the xp or expertise. The quicker they down the Stadi, the quicker it is over and they can re-queue to grind another batch of dilithium, end of story.

thutmosis85 wrote: »

Because the optional is not what you think it is .... it's only about making 5 Dry Dock Ships a little bit weaker = basically wasting your time ... just blow up the other 100 ships instead :P

Blowing up every single ship on the map has nothing to do with the optional ...

Basically, this. Obviously, there is bonus XP for every ship destroyed. With the right team, however, you can tear through the MU so quick that the Optional is utterly irrelevant.

ursusmorologus

Yeah, pretty much, at end-game it is less effective to shut down the satellites than to just milk the event. The optional is very helpful at lower levels however, since it means all the ships that undock to assist Stadi are already damaged.

fraghul2000

When the Stadi shows up, there is an Optional Objective to destroy the escort groups

The optional objective is to "weaken" escort groups, not to destroy them, by activating satellites in the 4 corners of the map during phase 1.

There is no additional reward and no accolade attached to the optional, other than that the mirror ships that exit their drydocks during phase 2 will do so predamaged.

schneemann83

ursusmorologus wrote: »

Yeah, pretty much, at end-game it is less effective to shut down the satellites than to just milk the event. The optional is very helpful at lower levels however, since it means all the ships that undock to assist Stadi are already damaged.

No, it's never helpful to do the optional. Having less firepower while people activate the satellites and battlegroups moving out of their central position towards the satellites wastes more time than you gain.

aarons9

when you start the virus the other ships move towards the satellites..

its best to keep them bunched up so GW3 and a few torpedo spreads can knock them out faster.

doing the optional takes a 3 minute mission and turns it into a 7 or 8 minute one.
since you only have 1 hour to run them, you want to do them as quickly as possible to get the xp and dil.

questerius

In addition to the above, the MU event is the only time people get to blow up a Galaxy-X.
For many it is an almost religious experience and one they which to experience many times over so they skip the optionals.

bumblebush

Most of the players just ignore the optional and just go straight for the Stadi.

Usually only in s pug I always loose the optional cause there is never any communication in pugging.




Quote Owner

monkeybone13

It's easier to do it without touching the satellites for the optional.

In fact it pisses me off when someone actually attempts it, because the ships start heading for the satellite that was used and you end up having way too many ships to fight off at one time. :mad:

The optional doesn't get you any extra rewards or anything. All it does is make some of the ships at the end easier to kill.

Edit: And like others have said, it makes the mission take too long when attempting the optional. Most of us just want to get in and get our dilithium by doing it as many times as possible in the hour since the event has no cooldown.

ursusmorologus

johngazman wrote: »

Basically, this. Obviously, there is bonus XP for every ship destroyed. With the right team, however, you can tear through the MU so quick that the Optional is utterly irrelevant.

At low levels, when nobody has any firepower or hit-points, its helpful. You're not doing the mission quickly anyway.

deathsremnant

The optional only reduces the strength of the ships that spawn when stadi does. Basically peolpe running Mirror do it for fast XP, and dilith. Also most of us dont require the optional to run in and blow up dozens of mirror ships at a time.

The difference between a mirror optional and a E'STF optional, is the latter actually increases your rewards, the first does not.

red01999

tilarta wrote: »

Can anyone explain why they destroy the Stadi and completely ignore the optional?

Alright, please forgive me because I've only seen the optional attempted a few times, so I could be wrong.

However, I believe whenever you manage to complete one of the objectives, the ships that are stopped don't get counted for XP - they just don't even move, period. And as others have said, faster runs = more runs = more dil. So by completing the objective you are investing extra time and effort into an event that most people just want to do pew-pew on (this is, IMO, one of the best queues for that around) that actually nets you a net loss in both experience and dilithium.

That's why.

(Disclaimer - again, I COULD be wrong, feel free to correct me if I am, but even if I'm not, other posters are right)

notapwefan

because optionals are worthless.

It is like paparazzi chasing Kim Kharshidan's rear end, and Mr. West being in photo is just an optional.

stark2k

Grab any profession, equip an escort of your choice, and then add BO abilities like torpedo spread and fire at will, then go to town. MU event is about speed leveling and/or Dilithium farming at a rapid pace, like everyone has stated, optional nets you nothing but time drain.

mosul33

monkeybone13 wrote: »

It's easier to do it without touching the satellites for the optional.

In fact it pisses me off when someone actually attempts it, because the ships start heading for the satellite that was used and you end up having way too many ships to fight off at one time. :mad:

The optional doesn't get you any extra rewards or anything. All it does is make some of the ships at the end easier to kill.

Edit: And like others have said, it makes the mission take too long when attempting the optional. Most of us just want to get in and get our dilithium by doing it as many times as possible in the hour since the event has no cooldown.

Yeah, it pisses me off too when i see someone goes for the satelites, you tell them not to, even bother to explain them that its pointless and time wasting, yet they still do it.

@OP, the only time it pays off to destroy the ships that accompany Stadi at the end of the mission, wich as ppl in here allready said, dont have anything to do with the optional, is when you are hunting the accolade for destroying 200 federation ships as a federation captain or romulan federation allied captain, since those ships are among the ones that count, whatever it may be a bug or intended.

trekkat

You don't even have to kill the Stadi, unless you want your dil. You start getting your increased XP as soon as you start killing ships ... watch your XP reward notifications. It's the same after the Stadi is gone. You still get the increased XP for those last ships still floating around. Whether it is worth your time to kill them is another matter.

If you kill everything, you fly away with about 14k XP. An entire STF might give you 2k. Heck with any optional. The faster and more often you can blast through MU, the better.

hevach

Nobody mentioned (possibly didn't even notice): Half the ships you weaken with the optional have Engineering Team and immediately use it to undo half your work. Any that survive a minute or so undo the other half.

Even if they didn't undo your work, the mission is so ideally set up for AOE - gravity well followed by mass spray and pray, then just don't be inside the core breach chain reaction - that there's just no way for one player to hit the optionals before the other 4 complete the mission.