Ok, so you have this utterly batshi+ insane Level Ultimate play mode. Make it INVITE ONLY. In order to gain access you need a X0,000 DPS build, you need to have reached certain accolades in Normal and Elite mode, you have to score perfect on three qualification missions, and you need to maintain. If you get face-planted more than X times in a given period (say two days) you are ejected and have to re-qualify.
This keeps out the people who can't learn, won't learn and makes it interesting for those of you who demand the very best.
But you know if you make it like that, then those same people will then complain that they can't qualify, blah blah blah, my entire post all over again.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
The shield is great, the rest of the set not so much. Try running the Dyson shield with the assimilated engines and deflector. It gives you a boatload of built in healing.
I knew I should have chosen the Warp Core instead of the omnidirectional antiproton beam. I shelved that sucker pretty quickly later on. Now I wish I had the warp core, as it might have been better.
Actually I find the omnidirectional antiproton beam to be a nice alternative to turrets and it works with the beam abilities. You can put it on the back of a Aux cannon Vesta for the subsystem targeting abilities or on an escort for extra damage. On any ship really.
Star Trek Battles Channel - Play Star Trek like they did in the series!Avatar: pinterest-com/pin/14003448816884219Are you sure it isn't time for a "colorful metaphor"? --Spock in 'The Voyage Home' SCE ADVISORY NOTICE: Improper Impulse Engine maintenance can result in REAR THRUSTER LEAKAGE. ALWAYS have your work inspected by another qualified officer.
But you know if you make it like that, then those same people will then complain that they can't qualify, blah blah blah, my entire post all over again.
I'd have to say I personally don't care about the qualifier issue. When it comes to challenge content, I tend to play with people I know very well, people who are willing to dive in with me and get our face stomped in a few times or people who may have gotten it down but are willing to deal with me learning to catch up to where they are. In other words, I don't tend to PUG the most challenging content of the game til I'm comfortable with it myself.
When it comes to rewards, I have to say I actually like the reputation system a lot better than its previous incarnation of luck and chance and more luck. I will give you an example. One of my old fleet mates was brand new to the game at just about the time they nerfed our beloved STF's (splitting up ground and space and making them shorter) and I was showing him the ropes as he achieved level 50. I ran the full Infected Space and Ground, Cure Space and Ground, and KA Space and Ground so that he could be fully familiar. I even ran him through the Hive Space because he was doing quite well and following directions well. What annoyed me was not his fault, but a fault in the game design. Missions which I had done hundreds of times if not thousands he got the new fancy mk 12 rewards for with ease. Some of them on the first and second tries. As for myself and some other people I knew, the luck was much more severe in acquiring the Mark 12 gear.
The Reputation system ensures you that you will have to work to get the cool shiny. It can be a grind, and there is something inherently boring about buying up 1000's of commodities and such I will admit. The truth is though the Rep system is more interesting and fairer than what existed before.
Reputation is not without its problems of course. By releasing Reputation it means they're going to need to either remaster more difficult modes of game play, and new 'raid' type missions for us to perform in. Player skill in a lot of pve content is becoming less of a concern and between the Gear and Rep power creep it means players don't have to be as good as they use to be. This is fine in actuality for an MMO, so long as it means there is always something challenging and interesting to do. Its fun to build a character into power and have the ability to STOMP something. Being in a universe without any challenges though, that's a bit dull. The other problem with Reputation and Gear power creep is that the designers might just arbitrarily make a lot of old content vastly harder, which would limit the fun of new players. This is not a problem overall as a lot of old missions could really stand to have greater difficulty and rewards (Elachi Rhihho map I'm looking at you). Fairly often much of the content in the game that is as close as STO has to a Raid you can do in White MK 8 Gear and do so quite successfully. I know this is true because I've done it intentionally as a handicap and I know others who have done so as well.
All that I've said I believe is something a lot of players can agree with. I think there's something else that needs saying. What we really could stand to have is more strata of difficulty in content, and perhaps the bringing back and remastering of some old content. The way the old STF's operated was actually really cool. I liked the fact that to do the top notch STF you had to actually know how to play ground and space. I'm fine with having split up versions out there, but I know that I'm not alone in wanting to see the OPTION to play the STF's in something closer to their original format. This goes for other Fleet Actions which were either done away with like Ds9 or 'remastered' such as Starbase 24. We could also stand to have new challenge content. The moment I saw the Elachi when i played my Romulan the first time I was really excited. I kept thinking that these guys are what the Undine SHOULD HAVE BEEN in Terradome. They have interesting mechanics, wierd alien equipment, etc. I'd love to see Terradome come back and cleaned up, but I'd also like to see a good quality Elachi elite stf.
Finally, I'd like to discuss where a lot of the problems like these come from. Metrics. Metrics can tell you a lot about a business or an MMO but they do not tell you the whole story. There are a lot of Qualitative issues that alter player behaviors and activities that can not be directly accounted for by player desire or interest. Ultimately, they divided space and ground combat because there is a group of players who are dead set against any Ground Combat whatsoever. I'm happy those players have the option of enjoying the game their way now. I am not happy it is to the disadvantage of people who preferred or equally liked both elements of the game. The DS9 Fleet Action was a really great FA in the game, and the reason it was pulled was because of a small bug with the ending not giving rewards. It hasn't been worked on because apparently it didn't have enough people playing it. There is a reason for this fact though. A lot of people didn't even know about this fleet action. Additionally, it was inherently challenging and teaming made life a lot easier. Finally, the reward system really didn't promote its gameplay at all. The bug that caused the final space portion to not reward the players was a big turnoff since it was a long span of activity. Metrics can't tell you that, you need qualitative understanding of the problem. Why would a player spend 2.5 to 5 hours on an activity where he gets nothing, when he can go play an STF for 2 hours, and be guaranteed to get something useful to equip or sell. Its a no brainer. Crystalline Entity fell prey to this problem as well, and thanks to the way it was remastered it has become more widely accepted by the general populace. Now that people get Nukara marks from it, they flocked to it in droves.
If they want people to play all of their content they need to make rewards interesting for all of their content. This includes missions, and I think they've done a better job of that with the replayability of a lot of standard missions.
I'd have to say I personally don't care about the qualifier issue. When it comes to challenge content, I tend to play with people I know very well, people who are willing to dive in with me and get our face stomped in a few times or people who may have gotten it down but are willing to deal with me learning to catch up to where they are. In other words, I don't tend to PUG the most challenging content of the game til I'm comfortable with it myself.
When it comes to rewards, I have to say I actually like the reputation system a lot better than its previous incarnation of luck and chance and more luck. I will give you an example. One of my old fleet mates was brand new to the game at just about the time they nerfed our beloved STF's (splitting up ground and space and making them shorter) and I was showing him the ropes as he achieved level 50. I ran the full Infected Space and Ground, Cure Space and Ground, and KA Space and Ground so that he could be fully familiar. I even ran him through the Hive Space because he was doing quite well and following directions well. What annoyed me was not his fault, but a fault in the game design. Missions which I had done hundreds of times if not thousands he got the new fancy mk 12 rewards for with ease. Some of them on the first and second tries. As for myself and some other people I knew, the luck was much more severe in acquiring the Mark 12 gear. (...)
So the real problem was simply envy. All hack and slay games (and nothig else is STO) are originally based on chance. You would play the game and get excited when you found the rare shiny and felt a sense of accomplishment. There was a time when other people would be happy for you - but that's a sentiment sooo 30 years old.
Today we need instant gratification and we have to be better than others. Even better than our friends. We don't make work what we have, we want the best right away so we are en par or better than all the others. The reputation system effectively sucked the joy out of the game since everything is planned out. There is no dynamic whatsoever in STO.
What you consider "not fair" I'd consider "playing the game". Cryptic does put new carrots in front of our faces because there is a planned obsolescence of those carrots. If I was to play the same content over and over again, but with a chance of finding something special and unique I'd be more motivated. But STO is set up in a way that I 100% KNOW what's going to happen - precisely NOTHING until I grind out that rep. And that's boring, at least in my opinion.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Comments
But you know if you make it like that, then those same people will then complain that they can't qualify, blah blah blah, my entire post all over again.
Actually I find the omnidirectional antiproton beam to be a nice alternative to turrets and it works with the beam abilities. You can put it on the back of a Aux cannon Vesta for the subsystem targeting abilities or on an escort for extra damage. On any ship really.
SCE ADVISORY NOTICE: Improper Impulse Engine maintenance can result in REAR THRUSTER LEAKAGE. ALWAYS have your work inspected by another qualified officer.
I'd have to say I personally don't care about the qualifier issue. When it comes to challenge content, I tend to play with people I know very well, people who are willing to dive in with me and get our face stomped in a few times or people who may have gotten it down but are willing to deal with me learning to catch up to where they are. In other words, I don't tend to PUG the most challenging content of the game til I'm comfortable with it myself.
When it comes to rewards, I have to say I actually like the reputation system a lot better than its previous incarnation of luck and chance and more luck. I will give you an example. One of my old fleet mates was brand new to the game at just about the time they nerfed our beloved STF's (splitting up ground and space and making them shorter) and I was showing him the ropes as he achieved level 50. I ran the full Infected Space and Ground, Cure Space and Ground, and KA Space and Ground so that he could be fully familiar. I even ran him through the Hive Space because he was doing quite well and following directions well. What annoyed me was not his fault, but a fault in the game design. Missions which I had done hundreds of times if not thousands he got the new fancy mk 12 rewards for with ease. Some of them on the first and second tries. As for myself and some other people I knew, the luck was much more severe in acquiring the Mark 12 gear.
The Reputation system ensures you that you will have to work to get the cool shiny. It can be a grind, and there is something inherently boring about buying up 1000's of commodities and such I will admit. The truth is though the Rep system is more interesting and fairer than what existed before.
Reputation is not without its problems of course. By releasing Reputation it means they're going to need to either remaster more difficult modes of game play, and new 'raid' type missions for us to perform in. Player skill in a lot of pve content is becoming less of a concern and between the Gear and Rep power creep it means players don't have to be as good as they use to be. This is fine in actuality for an MMO, so long as it means there is always something challenging and interesting to do. Its fun to build a character into power and have the ability to STOMP something. Being in a universe without any challenges though, that's a bit dull. The other problem with Reputation and Gear power creep is that the designers might just arbitrarily make a lot of old content vastly harder, which would limit the fun of new players. This is not a problem overall as a lot of old missions could really stand to have greater difficulty and rewards (Elachi Rhihho map I'm looking at you). Fairly often much of the content in the game that is as close as STO has to a Raid you can do in White MK 8 Gear and do so quite successfully. I know this is true because I've done it intentionally as a handicap and I know others who have done so as well.
All that I've said I believe is something a lot of players can agree with. I think there's something else that needs saying. What we really could stand to have is more strata of difficulty in content, and perhaps the bringing back and remastering of some old content. The way the old STF's operated was actually really cool. I liked the fact that to do the top notch STF you had to actually know how to play ground and space. I'm fine with having split up versions out there, but I know that I'm not alone in wanting to see the OPTION to play the STF's in something closer to their original format. This goes for other Fleet Actions which were either done away with like Ds9 or 'remastered' such as Starbase 24. We could also stand to have new challenge content. The moment I saw the Elachi when i played my Romulan the first time I was really excited. I kept thinking that these guys are what the Undine SHOULD HAVE BEEN in Terradome. They have interesting mechanics, wierd alien equipment, etc. I'd love to see Terradome come back and cleaned up, but I'd also like to see a good quality Elachi elite stf.
Finally, I'd like to discuss where a lot of the problems like these come from. Metrics. Metrics can tell you a lot about a business or an MMO but they do not tell you the whole story. There are a lot of Qualitative issues that alter player behaviors and activities that can not be directly accounted for by player desire or interest. Ultimately, they divided space and ground combat because there is a group of players who are dead set against any Ground Combat whatsoever. I'm happy those players have the option of enjoying the game their way now. I am not happy it is to the disadvantage of people who preferred or equally liked both elements of the game. The DS9 Fleet Action was a really great FA in the game, and the reason it was pulled was because of a small bug with the ending not giving rewards. It hasn't been worked on because apparently it didn't have enough people playing it. There is a reason for this fact though. A lot of people didn't even know about this fleet action. Additionally, it was inherently challenging and teaming made life a lot easier. Finally, the reward system really didn't promote its gameplay at all. The bug that caused the final space portion to not reward the players was a big turnoff since it was a long span of activity. Metrics can't tell you that, you need qualitative understanding of the problem. Why would a player spend 2.5 to 5 hours on an activity where he gets nothing, when he can go play an STF for 2 hours, and be guaranteed to get something useful to equip or sell. Its a no brainer. Crystalline Entity fell prey to this problem as well, and thanks to the way it was remastered it has become more widely accepted by the general populace. Now that people get Nukara marks from it, they flocked to it in droves.
If they want people to play all of their content they need to make rewards interesting for all of their content. This includes missions, and I think they've done a better job of that with the replayability of a lot of standard missions.
So the real problem was simply envy. All hack and slay games (and nothig else is STO) are originally based on chance. You would play the game and get excited when you found the rare shiny and felt a sense of accomplishment. There was a time when other people would be happy for you - but that's a sentiment sooo 30 years old.
Today we need instant gratification and we have to be better than others. Even better than our friends. We don't make work what we have, we want the best right away so we are en par or better than all the others. The reputation system effectively sucked the joy out of the game since everything is planned out. There is no dynamic whatsoever in STO.
What you consider "not fair" I'd consider "playing the game". Cryptic does put new carrots in front of our faces because there is a planned obsolescence of those carrots. If I was to play the same content over and over again, but with a chance of finding something special and unique I'd be more motivated. But STO is set up in a way that I 100% KNOW what's going to happen - precisely NOTHING until I grind out that rep. And that's boring, at least in my opinion.
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