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Tactical Impatience
reginamala78
Member Posts: 4,593 Arc User
So obviously as the power of our ships increase with each new release, tactics and planning become less important since you can just brute-force your way through everything. I'm sure some of us remember the days of 10%-ing the gates in KASE with two people dedicated to probe duty then playing 5km games with Donatra, vs these days when its back to kinda 'everyone go blow something up' and a pug still finishes in 4 minutes. People can do it, so that's what the game has become, I get that.
However I've had a couple of encounters over the last few days that have me wondering if that 'thinking takes too long; moar dakka!' is starting to get excessive and bleeding into general gameplay even when it shouldn't (more than normal, I mean). I'm not sure if its a question of learning the wrong lessons from some of the higher-end players, or just generally in a rush to have everything done in the shortest time possible, or what, but I'm curious if other people are seeing this same sort of growing impatience or sloppiness, or if I just had a couple bad encounters in a row, or what?
Encounter 1
ISE run from a public-but-dedicated channel, leveling a new sci toon in an anniversary Rom Dyson, Jem'Hadar set, polaron BAs, its a theme build (and an incomplete one at that), so its adequate but certainly not high end, but enough for ISE. I figure I'll be bottom of any parsing charts but I figure I can at least do some GW bunching and FAW softening, make easy targets for the DPSers to really get their murder on. Then the guy hosting the room states that the approach will be to hit both transformers at once and launches. Well, alright, I'm not a fan but I know the speedrunners like it and I need the Omega marks, so we go. Cube dies, people split up, start blasting generators, including the host in a DHC Scimitar, who's playing park and CRF to take out one generator at a time. Spheres start spawning and going in both directions, I evasive over and start throwing out my CC assortment to buy time for the demolitions (my DPS sucks in that ship anyways), but 45 seconds later I've burned my GW, TBR, and Singularity Jump, one side is only just chewing on the Transformer, the other is still working on generators. Needless to say, we didn't get the optional (haven't seen THAT in a while). Now obviously my in-progress ship was little help on that run, and newbies happen sometimes, but what disturbed me was that here was a group of players that were at a level where they really should have been using 10% still, but instead decided to copy the superDPS approach but without the superDPS ships. Just seemed to have this assumption that 'this tactic works for the best people!' without understanding why, or were just too impatient to take a more deliberate approach that might have taken a little longer but would have worked better. Did someone teach them badly, or they learn the wrong lessons, or has the game gotten so power-creepy they've learned to not care, or what?
Encounter 2
Undine Infiltration, pug from the queues. Launch, I notice that the first 5 suspects were all cleared, which probability says is unlikely, so I ask in team chat "We're getting a lot of clears, is everyone reading the clues?" Some guy shoots back "Doesn't matter, reward's the same." I point out "No you lose 2 marks for each one you get wrong." I'm not snarky or rude, but the guy responds "So what, not worth it. Just let it go." Now obviously a queued pug isn't likely to be a quality group, but marks are why we're doing this and reading just takes another few seconds, so why wouldn't you try and go 10/10 every time? Even for a pug, are people getting so impatient that just reading 2 sentences is too much trouble?
Encounter 3
NWS, KDF group from a public room, I got north, piloting a T'varo set up for GW+AOE = chain 'splosions, plus AA to take out the warheads. Fek'lhri, going alright (though killing my framerate), and floater is helping me a little more than I need, but we're progressing. However I noticed nobody is saving their dreads for CD recovery and transport healing (south having some problems, a few things getting through). We get to 10, I clear my side (my GW was still on CD from 9 but floater threw his in my direction), but when I turn around south and west are both down and the transport explodes seconds later. The thing is, afterwards cleaning up the leftover drops, I comment something like 'd'oh. I guess next time we better save a few more dreads, don't get caught off guard.' I then get corrected on my assumption, that apparently 'nobody' does that anymore and instead just powers through it so they don't have to deal with warhead pressure. Nobody was rude about it, but it was certainly news to me, as I'd always understood that the best approach to NWS was to use the dreads to create lulls and situational control, replace the chaos with clockwork precision (why I love the mission). Obviously that 'power through it' approach didn't work on this run whereas maybe if people had had all their CD's available we'd have won instead. More significantly though, it struck me as another example of people being dependent on brute force and in a such hurry to just be done rather than take a little longer for the tried-and-true approach.
These and little other things here and there. Yeah runs go bad, people disagree on tactics, stuff happens. But I just get the impression that more and more these days, more players have less patience, less willingness to use a tactical approach (even seeing it as a sign of weakness), an increasing reliance on force even when they personally lack the muscle to do so, just impatience and sloppiness. Maybe I've had a run of interesting encounters lately, or it really is an STO-cultural shift (brought on by power creep or game culture?), or maybe I'm just seeing things outright. Not sure, but curious enough to ramble at length. Have other people noticed this sort of thing change occurring, or what?
However I've had a couple of encounters over the last few days that have me wondering if that 'thinking takes too long; moar dakka!' is starting to get excessive and bleeding into general gameplay even when it shouldn't (more than normal, I mean). I'm not sure if its a question of learning the wrong lessons from some of the higher-end players, or just generally in a rush to have everything done in the shortest time possible, or what, but I'm curious if other people are seeing this same sort of growing impatience or sloppiness, or if I just had a couple bad encounters in a row, or what?
Encounter 1
ISE run from a public-but-dedicated channel, leveling a new sci toon in an anniversary Rom Dyson, Jem'Hadar set, polaron BAs, its a theme build (and an incomplete one at that), so its adequate but certainly not high end, but enough for ISE. I figure I'll be bottom of any parsing charts but I figure I can at least do some GW bunching and FAW softening, make easy targets for the DPSers to really get their murder on. Then the guy hosting the room states that the approach will be to hit both transformers at once and launches. Well, alright, I'm not a fan but I know the speedrunners like it and I need the Omega marks, so we go. Cube dies, people split up, start blasting generators, including the host in a DHC Scimitar, who's playing park and CRF to take out one generator at a time. Spheres start spawning and going in both directions, I evasive over and start throwing out my CC assortment to buy time for the demolitions (my DPS sucks in that ship anyways), but 45 seconds later I've burned my GW, TBR, and Singularity Jump, one side is only just chewing on the Transformer, the other is still working on generators. Needless to say, we didn't get the optional (haven't seen THAT in a while). Now obviously my in-progress ship was little help on that run, and newbies happen sometimes, but what disturbed me was that here was a group of players that were at a level where they really should have been using 10% still, but instead decided to copy the superDPS approach but without the superDPS ships. Just seemed to have this assumption that 'this tactic works for the best people!' without understanding why, or were just too impatient to take a more deliberate approach that might have taken a little longer but would have worked better. Did someone teach them badly, or they learn the wrong lessons, or has the game gotten so power-creepy they've learned to not care, or what?
Encounter 2
Undine Infiltration, pug from the queues. Launch, I notice that the first 5 suspects were all cleared, which probability says is unlikely, so I ask in team chat "We're getting a lot of clears, is everyone reading the clues?" Some guy shoots back "Doesn't matter, reward's the same." I point out "No you lose 2 marks for each one you get wrong." I'm not snarky or rude, but the guy responds "So what, not worth it. Just let it go." Now obviously a queued pug isn't likely to be a quality group, but marks are why we're doing this and reading just takes another few seconds, so why wouldn't you try and go 10/10 every time? Even for a pug, are people getting so impatient that just reading 2 sentences is too much trouble?
Encounter 3
NWS, KDF group from a public room, I got north, piloting a T'varo set up for GW+AOE = chain 'splosions, plus AA to take out the warheads. Fek'lhri, going alright (though killing my framerate), and floater is helping me a little more than I need, but we're progressing. However I noticed nobody is saving their dreads for CD recovery and transport healing (south having some problems, a few things getting through). We get to 10, I clear my side (my GW was still on CD from 9 but floater threw his in my direction), but when I turn around south and west are both down and the transport explodes seconds later. The thing is, afterwards cleaning up the leftover drops, I comment something like 'd'oh. I guess next time we better save a few more dreads, don't get caught off guard.' I then get corrected on my assumption, that apparently 'nobody' does that anymore and instead just powers through it so they don't have to deal with warhead pressure. Nobody was rude about it, but it was certainly news to me, as I'd always understood that the best approach to NWS was to use the dreads to create lulls and situational control, replace the chaos with clockwork precision (why I love the mission). Obviously that 'power through it' approach didn't work on this run whereas maybe if people had had all their CD's available we'd have won instead. More significantly though, it struck me as another example of people being dependent on brute force and in a such hurry to just be done rather than take a little longer for the tried-and-true approach.
These and little other things here and there. Yeah runs go bad, people disagree on tactics, stuff happens. But I just get the impression that more and more these days, more players have less patience, less willingness to use a tactical approach (even seeing it as a sign of weakness), an increasing reliance on force even when they personally lack the muscle to do so, just impatience and sloppiness. Maybe I've had a run of interesting encounters lately, or it really is an STO-cultural shift (brought on by power creep or game culture?), or maybe I'm just seeing things outright. Not sure, but curious enough to ramble at length. Have other people noticed this sort of thing change occurring, or what?
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Comments
I do get in PUGs where people are way smart, even with DPS-y ships. They wait on blowing Generators until all of them are on the low end... even if it's not strictly 10% rule, it's smarter to make sure everything is ready to go before blowing the gens. There are PUGs that will do that, and generally the best equipped ones will go that route unless they want to do the ePeen DPS measuring thing (but at least those types are FAWing).
Most of the time, you make up for people who never had to learn under lower DPS conditions. I build my builds around the worst case scenarios, not pure dakka. With my Fleet Hoh'sus, I can counter a lot of stuff. My B'rel Retrofit can also do it, but it's already too easy to do content with my B'rel, so I try not to use it much.
IKS Korrasami (Fleet B'rel Bird of Prey Retrofit T5-U)
For the borg missions like the old 10% or guard kang rules are a thing of the past.
LOL yeah my 6 gun B'rel should never ever get 2nd place in CCE much less 1st which I get all the time in it. even with the mighty MOs,sims & avengers FAW spaming like mad.
Indeed, another one that pissing me off is people firing energy weapons at aceton assimillters. Button mash till it dies tactics annoys me as well.
A fav one in ground I've gotten recently as I'm leving a new sci is people running to a spot (especially the generator trains) agroing the area to cause additional voth to spawn and then leaving... same in the undine battlezone, I'm 5 econds from clearing the starting the last weapon and 20 people show up to agro and spawn more unfine (who then start shooting me and keepign me from finishing the fire cycle). People don't have tactics.... they have rushing headlong into things without thinking and button mashing till they die or kill something.
I just bailed on an ISE. After the intial encounter, one guy went right while the rest went left. The guy that went right popped a Gen and then promptly died to the Cube. Two of the guys that went left popped a Gen before the Cube was down and any of the three other Gens on the left had been touched. I said I wished them luck, but I couldn't be bothered with trolls and would rather eat the hour.
Yeah, it might take months doing daily boxes on Defera on one guy - but I wouldn't have to pop the Excedrin to deal with garbage like that which comes up far too often these days.
Are they trolls? Are they guys that read some strat for obscene DPS builds and missed the DPS part of the strat? I simply don't have the patience - simply don't care.
As time goes on, I find that I want to play less and less with others.
Irony is that the 10% rule is a safe guard to avoid getting stuck for a lot of time.
Indeed, especially there where there is actually a mission failure with no rewards. With Cure Space, for example. Sure it's possible to just go pop cubes and guard the Kang, assuming there is enough DPS in teh group..... but I'd rather operating under teh asumption in a PUG that there is not enough DPS and get rewards, than not have enough and get nothing but a wait before I can play the map again.
Sadly the truth. Its pretty bad that I'm looking forward to building sandcastles not because sandcastles are awesome, but because it'll let me do something that other people can't TRIBBLE up with their impatience or laziness. I just wish the game would stop teaching that the solution to everything is POWWWWEEEEERRRRRR!!!! ala Jeremy Clarkson, or at least throw in a little James May every now and then. Its getting excessive.
Where are some good guides to these encounters at? I'd like to be as good as you are at these things.
Best regards,
T9
I'm not Regina but I can help
IN INFECTED SPACE ELITE (The Conduit)
1. Kill the first cube.
2. Everyone go left. Kill the cube above the Nanite Transformer.
3. Attack the Nanite Generators. Try to make sure they're all low on HP before you start actually destroying them. This is because Nanite Spheres spawn as soon as you kill one Generator, which will heal the Nanite Transformer and fail the optional.
4. Kill the Nanite Transformer. Ignore all Borg spheres until it's dead, unless a Nanite Sphere arrives and begins healing before you can kill it. If this happens, eliminate all Nanite Spheres (ignoring standard Spheres) and start on the Transformer again.
5. Finish up the Spheres, then repeat from step 2, but on the right.
6. Destroy the gateway. Avoid attracting the attention of the Tactical Cube because it will push your **** in. There are a couple of sweet spots around 7-10k away, and below the Gateway, where you're out of range of its weapons but can still hit it.
7. Destroy the Tactical Cube.
IN UNDINE INFILTRATION
The main thing here is to read the clues properly. Keep an eye out for answers that contradict the evidence (i.e. "Lastname Firstname never served in the Bajoran Militia" "I love being in the Bajoran Militia!") Also, at the beginning you can set your weapons on stun (look in the bottom right for the prompt) - it's advisable to do this unless you're confident your entire team hates Bajorans.
One of the potential optional objectives involves extinguishing fires. If you don't have a Fire Suppression Device, you can pick one up from various replicators around the map.
There used to be a picture here, but they changed signatures and I can't be bothered to replace it.
I have been avoiding group missions since I started playing the game at head-start. The reason being I like taking my time and enjoying all the things in the missions. Including taking screen shots at the best angles, of my ships, my toons, and my away teams.
I agree that strategy in this game is for the most part a dying art, but while that is true, there have been hints at more challenging (and hopefully more strategic) content to come in expansion 2.
Heres to hoping
Not sure if serious or sarcastic, but if serious I learned NWS using the guide at http://sto.gamepedia.com/Mission:_No_Win_Scenario/Walkthrough (which I believe Silverwings wrote, credit where credit is due), which is a solid and reliable approach to the mission. If sarcastic, I didn't post this way-too-long rant as anything like a bragging thing, just frustration over situations that are beatable with just a modicum of brainpower, yet seemingly less and less people willing to do so.
The forum used to be littered with posts by people complaining about teammates not listening to instructions or not following rules. It seems we've ended up at the other end of the spectrum here, where teammates might as well be NPC's blowing everything to bits. STO teams have always been a bit of a oud man out in the MMO world. That's because all the content is stupidly easy. If anything requires just an atom of coordination - Infected Ground? - the pug queue seems to die off.
Also, OP, we might be an older generation of players. I'm assuming you joined in the pre-lockbox era where all we had were the Omega sets. Coordination was more important, because every failed Elite was a potentially missed Prototype tech. Fail a Cure Elite now? /shrug. Someone will swear in team-chat and you move on to another mission because not much - except a little time - was lost.
On that note: I've always found people complaining about others letting probes through in KASE comical. It's kind of feels like if they are the first to complain about it - when no coordination attempt was made anyway - that they are not just as much responsible for it as the others are.
Protip: Any mission requiring thinking more complicated than "shoot this thing before you shoot this other thing" is too complicated to pug. Get a team from a channel like PublicEliteSTF and stop torturing yourself.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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