The breach elite new difficulty, intented or bug?

hunteralpha84

So, looking to farm some dyson marks I do my usual breach elite only this time it went horribly wrong.

First problem, I got to the first turret/cruiser thingie and BOOM the Voth's torpedo spread was bypassing my shields like they were nothing and hitting 45k on my hull resulting in pretty much instant death. So I think "ok maybe that was a freak accident" only for it to happen again. So, going in again with full buffs I manage to survive longer, each torpedo spread knocking about 25% of my hull at a time.

After about 5/6 deaths I manage to win and kill the shield node, I just figured something in the release changed my build and I would sort it out later. However, someone on the team then says that the voth were also one shotting him. So not just me then.

One after one the team starts leaving till it's me and one other guy. I stick close to him and target his targets and keep him healed and he does the same. It's going well and I think "hell we might just pull this off" until we get to the dreadnaught and oh my god did things go wrong.

We both were in cruisers with solid damage but the dreadnaught was taking us down like no bodies business. We hold out for a long time each time we respawn and get the thing down to 80% hull, no easy task when it goes back to 100% each time we died. Eventually we had to give up purely because it was unkillable with only two of us. Another thing I noticed was the dreadnaught was actually flying around and not merely stationary!

Anyway, I hope this difficulty is intended. It would be nice to have some challenge in the game. However, it was a little disappointing seeing people quit after a dying a few times, quote from a guy in a scimitar "not worth the repair costs"

nikkojt

I hope it isn't intended. I appreciate that some people want a challenge, but there's "a challenge" and then there's "this isn't even fun any more". Having played Breach Elite earlier today, this falls under the second category.

jaguarskx

Dunno yet. Haven't play Breach Elite in several days.

However, I am getting seriously mauled in the Borg Elite STFs recently. Then again my Sovereign class cruiser does not have any special gear on it because I have only advanced as far as the Temporal Ambassador main mission and absolutely no reputation gear. Just stuff than can be easily purchased off the Exchange for 200k ECs or less. Many times much less...

bendalek

Cryptic have been playing with almost all NPC's in game ... They didn't bother to tell us, the players, they were doing it, but since the so called "stability patch" the other week, I've noticed some other, sometimes drastic, changes in NPC behavior and difficulty levels.

Particularly things like 'spam' powers ... Enemies seem to all now have HY3 with 0 cooldown, so you end up with dozens of HY3 Plasma Torps following you around maps. Siphon and Tractor drones now outnumber stars in the Milky Way, and several enemies now seem to have Photonic Fleet that didn't have, or didn't use it before.


Some of it is good, leveling up some Romulan toons, I actually had to put points into PI's and SSR because they have HUGELY increased the rate of offline and power drain procs from Fed/Hirog/Cardie NPC's ... Mind you, we players also seem to have picked up this increase, so it's not all bad.

It made the lower level missions interesting and fun, not just a 'facetankroflstomp' like it used to be.

But some of it is just plain BAD!

deaftravis05

oh so it wasn't just me

sophus84at

knew something was different....

geekguy79

I'm seeing this problem whatever it is in the Voth Contested space map too. Its still manageable if working with a few other players on towers, but yesterday I could totally solo entire tower groups, today in my very very tankiest ship and build I'm getting absolutely creamed in seconds.

vivenneanthony

This new difficulty is good news!

outlaw51825

As one who wants a greater challenge in general this can be a good thing.

But getting consistently facerolled by a boss leads to pugs fleeing in terror and a lot of complaining.

Balancing the Challenge levels with the skill levels of the players is one of the toughest needles to thread and i prefer to side with the challenging forcing players to raise their game rather than catering to players.

That being said if its one shotting geared ships that's lazy overkill.

Now i haven't noticed this problem YET. And i might later, we'll see. I'm flying one of the better escorts in the game in my estimation.

noblet

outlaw51825 wrote: »

As one who wants a greater challenge in general this can be a good thing.

But getting consistently facerolled by a boss leads to pugs fleeing in terror and a lot of complaining.

Balancing the Challenge levels with the skill levels of the players is one of the toughest needles to thread and i prefer to side with the challenging forcing players to raise their game rather than catering to players.

That being said if its one shotting geared ships that's lazy overkill.

Now i haven't noticed this problem YET. And i might later, we'll see. I'm flying one of the better escorts in the game in my estimation.

I notice no difference tanking in my char with a2b cruiser, and faw kills just as fast. My escort, on the other hand, gets rolled, which is a new development.

The problem is, it screws both new players and players not using OP builds. At this rate, everyone will be in an a2b faw cruiser mashing spacebar.

geekguy79

Not everyone has, or wants, an A2B build, I have never run one, and refuse to on principal. But thats besides the point. I like a more challenging game too, but this is just broken.

Repeating what I just said in another thread about this;

I am seeing the same problem in the Voth Contested space zone as well. I like to do this zone purely for fun, no queus, no waiting, just flying around doing endless space combat for hours on end, it was perfectly fine yesterday, still very challenging, but manageable, and fun, after this mornings patch (4/23/14 patch) it has become completely impossible to assault a tower group without at least 2 or 3 people. Everything about the Voth has been completely ridiculously buffed, their fire goes through my shields like they don't exist, get caught in a few of their grav well spams, and my hull, on a ship running near 60% resistances to all damage and very high hull health, goes from max to zero in about 5 seconds.

This isn't buffed, this is broken.

bendalek

Yeah, some of the changes are, to use an overused term ... EPIC ... You actually have to back off a little and use proper positioning, timing and ... Skill :eek: ...

But some other NPC buffs are just plain lazy ... BSST's (Borg Stealth Super Torpedo's for the uninitiated) have had their frequency and damage buffed, but I noticed Donatra's super weapon, didn't hurt as much (my Qin actually survived it)

All round most of these, so far unannounced and unconfirmed, changes are great, they add some real "life and fun' to the game, and I congratulate Cryptic on them. Some though really need to be addressed ASAP!!

edgecrysger

Well i noticed that now breen npcs are a pain in the TRIBBLE. Not becasue they are hard, because they run all the time wtf... the frigates still does the same as before, they attack in groups and they use tractor beam on you, but the cruisers.. in 3 of 4 ocasions i needed to pursuit the ship for about 2 minutes before i can start shoting at him. Its not the typical defera daily mission behavoiur, its was something else..

And btw, the transphasic clusters now are blue... WTF!?...

dichtbringer

Didn't notice a difference so far, in fact my hyper-tanky JDread was able to tank all of Hive yesterday without dying for the first time ever.

The only real annoyance are the incessant yellow Undine grav wells, those things need to go.

lebtron

Just played the breach and they did indeed some changes. 5 unstoppable torps with 25-55k hull dmg each are a bit too much. I guess it is a bug, because you can avoid getting multiple torps with some tactics. But you cannot avoid getting those 55k dmg on a crit. And there are simply certain ships not having that much hull..

jaguarskx

Well, if Cryptic did make some behind the scene changes to make missions more challenging then that's fine. Can't always rely on the same tactics since that can make the game boring.

At least now I have a reason to buy Omega Rep gear since I have finally started devoting some time towards the rep systems.

adorenko

Breach Elite:

Tanks Only

:P

sonnikku

It's called the Breach because the enemy can now "Breach" your shields.

nikkojt

adorenko wrote: »

Breach Elite:

Tanks Only

:P

When I did it, I was flying a heavily tanked Assault Cruiser (on a tank-specced Engineer, no less). It went through my shield buffs, ate my hull heals, and proceeded to kill me after I'd run out of range and behind the Voth ship's hull.

fallfreeman

you arent alone. last about 30 seconds tops...most the time less than 15. Everything bypasses shields. This isnt a challenge...this is Dark Souls being played by a todler

varthelm

They are definitely messing with a bunch of stuff. Had the same experience in Breach in my fed dread. All the content I did was doing considerably more damage that day including content I had run the day before and was owning it.

I too would like some harder content, but I think what most people what is some indication of what changed, so we can better adjust to it. The same ship that was invincible one day should be made out of paper the next when nothing has been changed on the build

snoggymack22

I'm perfectly fine with the increase in damage. IF they counter that by making the bulwarks and the captial ship squishier. As it is, they take too long to kill meaning it's not very balanced.

The captial ship especially. It's just too much, it's carpal tunnel waiting to happen.

But making the enemies hit harder? Sure. It can add some fun and risk to the adventure. Making them hit harder while still having to take forever to chew through them? It's just not worth playing the encounter.

I don't mind the enemies having the potential to kill me, and being able to pressure me into more defense.

I do mind them being able to do that while forcing me to take so much longer to kill them. There needs to be some adjustments made with that in mind. To get it back to the right mixture of danger, fun, and time investment.

I have the same issue in Undine elite stuff. Planet Killers just take too long.

donowick

I noticed that damage to is not right either. I was fighting an undine ship with MK XII weapons and gear and the enemy shields were down and was only doing 30 to 60 damage to hull??My ship before season does around 7 k dps hmmm.

bbushwookie

donowick wrote: »

I noticed that damage to is not right either. I was fighting an undine ship with MK XII weapons and gear and the enemy shields were down and was only doing 30 to 60 damage to hull??My ship before season does around 7 k dps hmmm.

Yeah same here. Had Undine shields down and my MK XII Rommy DHC's were doing sub 100 damage up close with SCV2 and with weapons on full and a weapon battery. My VATA's did sub 500 damage with shields down on the breach, and then I was hit by turrets with crits of 50k and 70k.

noinfoavailable

The Voth with this amount of firepower should not have been remotely threatened by either the Borg or Undine, Devs need to keep this in perspective.

adamkafei

Hmm... I don't get damage figures that low, I do get cut down to 700 on normal (with 1500 to 1800 vs everything else) and 300 to 400 on elite vs Undine but never below 250...

dcpuser

Damage has definitely been beefed up (its even more glaring on the turret defenses since they were hitting somewhat harder than the ships prior to the Season 9 update) and I agree if this is intentional than the health of the ships and turrets need to be scaled downwards otherwise this is going to be part of the long list of ignored STFs by the players.

adjudicatorhawk

Tracked down the problem. It is a bug and we'll be fixing it.

platewearingbird

vivenneanthony wrote: »

This new difficulty is good news!

One shot kill torpedo spreads that ignore shields isn't difficulty, unless you can manually avoid them.

But since torpedos are most often than not a hit the moment they are launched, That is just flat out broken.

dcpuser

adjudicatorhawk wrote: »

Tracked down the problem. It is a bug and we'll be fixing it.

Thank you!

adorenko

blew up like 20 times, thats not normal. Its gotta be bugged.