Aight.... the Crystalline Entity STF is just too darn hard at the moment.... my main character is fully and properly geared, and I get eaten alive! Before I could do the Elite version easily, but this is just ridiculous.
Please remove all the "extra's" from the STF.... this is no fun anymore :mad:
I seem to do fine in that and the queue is done in less then 15 minutes even when I pug. One thing you should remember is that the little shards are a pain in the butt. They do hurt when they jump you. So things thay push them away or Beam Fire At Will, Cannon Scatter Volley, Torpedo Spread and even dodging them seem to do the trick. Also one other thing is that the big buy like to do that shockwave. He only does it twice. He activates the shockwave at 80% and 33% (or close to them numbers). Just get 12km away and you will not pop.
Tactics is what comes down to it. This isn't like it was 2, 3 years ago with the crystalline entity where you had a five team and you had to fly to it. That was freaken hard and when you got too close you go POP. I feel it has been dumbed down a lot since then with all this tholian and little shard nonsence.
Edited: I also, just like to say, some people do find it hard and others find it stupid easy. I think its just the build and our tatics that we use in the queue. If you stay in once place, that really doesn't help. Well that's my thoughts on it. Cheers!
Aight.... the Crystalline Entity STF is just too darn hard at the moment.... my main character is fully and properly geared, and I get eaten alive! Before I could do the Elite version easily, but this is just ridiculous.
Please remove all the "extra's" from the STF.... this is no fun anymore :mad:
Translation, sci skills and black goo make it too hard, plz nerf. Frankly, it's loads of fun now and I don't find it hard at all. Hard was back in the day when the CE was damn near impossible to kill. The CE is just as killable as the regular CE PvE, it just has extra easily avoidable obstacles around it.
op you most be a bad player ive ran the Crystalline Entity ESTF 8X today with out one problems please inbox me your in game @ so i know to quit elite mission as soon as i see you in them. :P
That isn't actually what he said - he said "You are not meant..." not "I die from..." If you can survive it, that is a good 10 seconds on average saved over avoiding it.
Heh I think we're having a bit of a mix of who said what
He said that sometimes he had difficulty at staying alive/functional surviving the second wave blast.
To which I replyed that the blast isn't meant to be tanked. On a general term.
But if one can withstand it without any problem, sure, you can very well stay there and take it. But I think we both know that generally a lot of people can't take it. I see many blowing up from it.
op you most be a bad player ive ran the Crystalline Entity ESTF 8X today with out one problems please inbox me your in game @ so i know to quit elite mission as soon as i see you in them. :P
Tell you what, let us know your @handle so I can avoid your epeen in STFs and the like.
Something that grossly swollen is probably what's causing the gfx issues.
If you're running Crystalline Cataclysm (the special limited time event) and you're primarily interested (as I am) in just getting the requisite 14 shards then just run the regular. The immediate rewards aren't that much less, you'll still get your shard and once the limited time event is over (3 weeks) everything will go back to what it was. And the rewards for the 14 shards, per character, are WELL worth it...
*STO*Its mission: To destroy strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations... and then kill them, to boldly annihilate what no one has annihilated before!
Translation, sci skills and black goo make it too hard, plz nerf. Frankly, it's loads of fun now and I don't find it hard at all. Hard was back in the day when the CE was damn near impossible to kill. The CE is just as killable as the regular CE PvE, it just has extra easily avoidable obstacles around it.
LOL, now that you mention it, indeed, seems the CE has been nerfed into oblivion, and goes down very fast now. It used to take ages on Elite, even with a good team. Now it's just an 'easy-money' breeze.
If anything, CCE should be made harder. Like all those Mirror ships, with their puny mosquito sting: there're many of them, but you hardly even notice them. That used to be different, too.
EDIT: So yes, by all means, 'please change the Crystalline Entity STF back to what it was' :P
Harder? If anything I got the impression it's easier these days. I remember having to pew pew that CE for about 10 - 15 minutes before, now in PuGs in elite mode you're usually done in 7 minutes. I don't know OP, I really would say it's easier now then it used to be, maybe it's the way you build your ship for the encounter? Don't know...
It may seem obvious to some, but it wasn't to one of my fleetmates,
Evasive Manuvers is a dandy way to get away from the entity when it's charging up one of its blasts.
That is what i was doing all the time. If you know your ship can take the shockwave, just stay there without even moving. Its even easier and that is what i do with my big ships. With the exception of 2 of em, all my toons have ships that can hold the shockwave without dying. Of course they will take damage (this is not avoidable when the shockwave hits you) but nothing i can heal.
I dunno if for this reason, i ended all the time between first and third xDDD, but my ships are not filled with high-end gear and equipment, and still, i ended almost all the time 2nd and 3rd. In a couple of ocasions i just ended first. Unexpected for me.. but that happened.
What makes it tough to judge sometimes though is the fact the shockwave's damage is at least partially a function of how much damage the entity takes while it's charging up. Some days you get a team full of people who know to hold their fire at 66% and 33% and tanking it is easy, some days you get trigger happy spammers. Knowing when to stand your ground and when to dodge the shockwave is just one of the few strategic decisions built into the instance.
I may be in the minority here, but I'm enjoying CCE more during this event. And at least for me, the people I have been teamed with so far have basically smeared the CE on that nearby planet.
Even with that, I am finding the mission itself at least a little more challenging than the regular STF. The extra "curve balls" are a welcome change to the ordinary mission.
-AoP- Warrior's Blood (KDF Armada) / -AoP- Qu' raD qulbo'Degh / -AoP- ProjectPhoenix Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
There are no difficult missions in this game, just poor players you get teamed with that make the game hard. Elite/Normal mode the Entity is fine as is.
OP, this is temporary if you don't like it then do not worry as it will return to as it was before soon.
Now I have to disagree on the difficulty aspect. Sure, my glass cannon has died twice while I was not paying attention, but I have other ships to switch into should I decide to be more survivable.
If you want to keep playing this event over the next few weeks I recommend shopping the exchange for mirror ships that you might want to try for a tankier option. Put on a kinetic damage resist console and you should be okay.
Aight.... the Crystalline Entity STF is just too darn hard at the moment.... my main character is fully and properly geared, and I get eaten alive! Before I could do the Elite version easily, but this is just ridiculous.
Please remove all the "extra's" from the STF.... this is no fun anymore :mad:
Try flying to 9.9Km from the CE and then spam torpedoes, GW and TR.
B.t.w smashing spacebar and A2B BFAW does not work since the CE resists energy weapons.
Do the above and you'll survive.
There are a few tricks which guarantee a 1st place, but where would be the fun if i told you how to do that.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Try flying to 9.9Km from the CE and then spam torpedoes, GW and TR.
B.t.w smashing spacebar and A2B BFAW does not work since the CE resists energy weapons.
Do the above and you'll survive.
There are a few tricks which guarantee a 1st place, but where would be the fun if i told you how to do that.
Heal your team mates. Drop the bio molecular heal on a group of teammates with pets. Use the valdore console, use the gravimetric torp with the rom hyper plasma....
If you fly a squishy ship then remember "Keep your friends close, keep your enemies... " especially when the CE is charging.
@dahminus: you left out some of the most efficient means.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Heal your team mates. Drop the bio molecular heal on a group of teammates with pets. Use the valdore console, use the gravimetric torp with the rom hyper plasma....
That wasn't that fun...your right
i get 1st in elite in regular and even now during the so called reved up event version with my DHC antiproton Tork no torps at all. tac toon
Trophies for killing FEDS ahh those were the days.
Stop sucking. This thing is easy even in public queues. With a proper team it doesn't even take 5 minutes to beat. If anything they need to make it much, much, harder.
Try flying to 9.9Km from the CE and then spam torpedoes, GW and TR.
B.t.w smashing spacebar and A2B BFAW does not work since the CE resists energy weapons.
Curious, i ended first almost all of the times using my Arkif loaded with turrets and DCHS... are you sure about that?? what other factors can make someone to be first?
Aight.... the Crystalline Entity STF is just too darn hard at the moment.... my main character is fully and properly geared, and I get eaten alive! Before I could do the Elite version easily, but this is just ridiculous.
Please remove all the "extra's" from the STF.... this is no fun anymore :mad:
Before players QQ for better AI and more challenging PvE, as soon as better AI and more challenging content is implemented players QQ because it's too hard.
Really??
Sad Pandas PvP - Starfleet Dental Member - Lag Industries Leader
--
"What a time it was, with all the world against us, what a time it was... When all we did seemed wrong,
we've broken all our bonds, but life kept going on, what a time, what a time it was..." - Clem Tholet
Before players QQ for better AI and more challenging PvE, as soon as better AI and more challenging content is implemented players QQ because it's too hard.
Really??
welcome to mmos, we're a contrary bunch.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
There's only one factor*. Did you heal more than the other four guys on your team?
1st - healed more than the other four on your team
2nd - healed more than three of the others on your team
3rd - healed more than two of the others on your team
4th/5th/Did Not Place - did not heal as much as the three guys that healed the most.
I rarely come in first on any of my guys outside of Vegar. I regularly do with Vegar - but that's because he's built as a healer - I fly around in circles with him tossing heals to folks. The other guys - normally don't take that much damage and I don't pay much attention to the other players as far as tossing them heals while on those guys.
I'm not running spacebar overheals. I'm not ramming shards to have damage to heal. Etc, etc, etc...
Crystalline has some of the most easily exploited scoring...it's one of the reasons that the Valdore console was tweaked, because of how it contributes to the scoring nonsense in Crystalline.
Want to come in first? Spacebar overheal, ram Shards, and basically just exploit the broken mechanics behind the scoring...while trying not to die.
*Dying...can offset that. If you get popped a lot, it's going to affect your score adversely. Cam see that from the last run up there with Venit. The guy with 831k healing blew away Venit's healing (they were on the same team) - but that guy died three times. Way too many folks got blown up in that one though, lol - at 353.7k damage taken, Venit had the second lowest damage taken. Figure those folks were trying to game the system and a bunch of them lost out from them all buffing the Entity's damage.
Dunno about anyone else, but it feels a lot easier to me. Maybe because additional Tholian ships don't seem to spawn. They usually give me more trouble than the entity itself.
I got 1st place using alt farming toons that have green Mk xi gear and it was easy. Just spam those GWs with aftershocks.
Hexk, I've been stuck with teams were I'm the only one using GW which is essential for keeping those shards in place. Too many people just go in there thinking they can be space bar PvE heroes.
I guess I don't know anything about the scoring ... When running it in a PuG I don't bother healing others, but in my Oddy, I simply circle the entity broadsiding (after the initial bunch of trash is destroyed) and just spam TT1 and BFAW at the entity, interspersed with EPtS1 , HE1 and TSS for myself...
Get First ~ Third place every time ...
It's probably the easiest Mark mission in STO, and only slightly more dangerous than Epohh Tagging (have you ever stubbed your toe on one of those rocks? Or been bitten by one of those insects?) ...
Comments
I seem to do fine in that and the queue is done in less then 15 minutes even when I pug. One thing you should remember is that the little shards are a pain in the butt. They do hurt when they jump you. So things thay push them away or Beam Fire At Will, Cannon Scatter Volley, Torpedo Spread and even dodging them seem to do the trick. Also one other thing is that the big buy like to do that shockwave. He only does it twice. He activates the shockwave at 80% and 33% (or close to them numbers). Just get 12km away and you will not pop.
Tactics is what comes down to it. This isn't like it was 2, 3 years ago with the crystalline entity where you had a five team and you had to fly to it. That was freaken hard and when you got too close you go POP. I feel it has been dumbed down a lot since then with all this tholian and little shard nonsence.
Edited: I also, just like to say, some people do find it hard and others find it stupid easy. I think its just the build and our tatics that we use in the queue. If you stay in once place, that really doesn't help. Well that's my thoughts on it. Cheers!
Translation, sci skills and black goo make it too hard, plz nerf. Frankly, it's loads of fun now and I don't find it hard at all. Hard was back in the day when the CE was damn near impossible to kill. The CE is just as killable as the regular CE PvE, it just has extra easily avoidable obstacles around it.
Heh I think we're having a bit of a mix of who said what
He said that sometimes he had difficulty at staying alive/functional surviving the second wave blast.
To which I replyed that the blast isn't meant to be tanked. On a general term.
But if one can withstand it without any problem, sure, you can very well stay there and take it. But I think we both know that generally a lot of people can't take it. I see many blowing up from it.
Tell you what, let us know your @handle so I can avoid your epeen in STFs and the like.
Something that grossly swollen is probably what's causing the gfx issues.
........and my Fleet Nebula(with my Sci VA) is having a FIELD DAY in there!
LOL, now that you mention it, indeed, seems the CE has been nerfed into oblivion, and goes down very fast now. It used to take ages on Elite, even with a good team. Now it's just an 'easy-money' breeze.
If anything, CCE should be made harder. Like all those Mirror ships, with their puny mosquito sting: there're many of them, but you hardly even notice them. That used to be different, too.
EDIT: So yes, by all means, 'please change the Crystalline Entity STF back to what it was' :P
Evasive Manuvers is a dandy way to get away from the entity when it's charging up one of its blasts.
What makes it tough to judge sometimes though is the fact the shockwave's damage is at least partially a function of how much damage the entity takes while it's charging up. Some days you get a team full of people who know to hold their fire at 66% and 33% and tanking it is easy, some days you get trigger happy spammers. Knowing when to stand your ground and when to dodge the shockwave is just one of the few strategic decisions built into the instance.
Even with that, I am finding the mission itself at least a little more challenging than the regular STF. The extra "curve balls" are a welcome change to the ordinary mission.
Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Now I have to disagree on the difficulty aspect. Sure, my glass cannon has died twice while I was not paying attention, but I have other ships to switch into should I decide to be more survivable.
If you want to keep playing this event over the next few weeks I recommend shopping the exchange for mirror ships that you might want to try for a tankier option. Put on a kinetic damage resist console and you should be okay.
CCE is easy...but the CCE event is extremely hard.
C'mon, the OP's pulling your legs, guys...
So many folks giving advice as if the OP was saying CCE itself was hard, but read that OP again...
Try flying to 9.9Km from the CE and then spam torpedoes, GW and TR.
B.t.w smashing spacebar and A2B BFAW does not work since the CE resists energy weapons.
Do the above and you'll survive.
There are a few tricks which guarantee a 1st place, but where would be the fun if i told you how to do that.
Heal your team mates. Drop the bio molecular heal on a group of teammates with pets. Use the valdore console, use the gravimetric torp with the rom hyper plasma....
That wasn't that fun...your right
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
@dahminus: you left out some of the most efficient means.
What the hell could be more efficient then the valdore console and the bio molecular shield generator?
One is activated by just shooting and the other is a one click off...
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
i get 1st in elite in regular and even now during the so called reved up event version with my DHC antiproton Tork no torps at all. tac toon
Curious, i ended first almost all of the times using my Arkif loaded with turrets and DCHS... are you sure about that?? what other factors can make someone to be first?
Before players QQ for better AI and more challenging PvE, as soon as better AI and more challenging content is implemented players QQ because it's too hard.
Really??
we've broken all our bonds, but life kept going on, what a time, what a time it was..." - Clem Tholet
welcome to mmos, we're a contrary bunch.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
My character Tsin'xing
Here's some data from my last nine runs...
Numbers will be Damage - Healing - Damage Taken - Deaths.
Willard the Rat
Placed 3rd
Duration - 6:54
Sci, Fleet T'varo
Willard the Rat: 4078795 - 100770 - 112447 - 0
somebody: 1980237 - 233840 - 481986 - 0
somebody: 1757346 - 660111 - 324845 - 0
somebody: 1268626 - 32199 - 246728 - 1
somebody: 773091 - 146274 -352600 - 1
somebody: 682863 - 79902 - 275138 - 0
somebody: 598747 - 125593 - 187671 - 0
somebody: 539249 - 37164 - 102634 - 0
somebody: 343378 - 138572 - 201648 - 0
somebody: 227963 - 97851 - 382103 - 2
Rave
Placed 3rd
Duration - 5:50
Sci, Kar'Fi
somebody: 2172028 - 369338 - 199167 - 0
somebody: 1594188 - 61328 - 175879 - 0
Rave: 1292667 - 239284 - 97017 - 0
somebody: 1242435 - 421056 - 244556 - 0
somebody: 1079365 - 121610 - 208911 - 0
somebody: 981381 - 250001 - 181883 - 0
somebody: 693345 - 0 - 73092 - 0
somebody: 677693 - 266096 - 242335 - 0
somebody: 475357 - 77462 - 124242 - 0
somebody: 425349 - 50650 - 205482 - 1
Mysk
Did Not Place
Duration - 7:41
Sci, Varanus
somebody: 1901784 - 110668 - 424873 - 0
somebody: 1884929 - 186492 - 248467 - 0
somebody: 1565699 - 209511 - 278594 - 0
somebody: 1483917 - 386285 - 307109 - 1
somebody: 1470689 - 328284 - 83359 - 0
somebody: 1242982 - 265499 - 551144 - 0
Mysk: 1239602 - 147799 - 198641 - 0
somebody: 967871 - 64395 - 313072 - 2
somebody: 757147 - 14048 - 259777 - 1
somebody: 273076 - 219151 - 451869 - 3
Maal
Placed 2nd
Duration - 7:08
Eng, Mogh
somebody: 3091989 - 270293 - 445737 - 2
somebody: 1763498 - 297331 - 399435 - 2
somebody: 1056695 - 250635 - 211618 - 0
somebody: 1046152 - 108638 - 451629 - 2
somebody: 1002841 - 665736 - 281269 - 0
somebody: 988356 - 116534 - 313922 - 1
Maal: 905009 - 237700 - 287509 - 0
somebody: 691845 - 195510 - 275837 - 0
somebody: 613663 - 128604 - 282634 - 1
somebody: 328266 - 328010 - 414256 - 3
Vegar
Placed 1st
Duration - 8:17
Eng, Marauder
somebody: 2553878 - 85824 - 200324 - 0
somebody: 2015746 - 278367 - 473823 - 0
somebody: 1487243 - 286783 - 478199 - 2
somebody: 1328899 - 274840 - 299867 - 0
somebody: 1165478 - 552921 - 322767 - 0
Vegar: 1144961 - 557676 - 356793 - 0
somebody: 1047172 - 159446 - 330974 - 1
somebody: 560901 - 42096 - 119520 - 0
somebody: 534495 - 59302 - 316365 - 1
somebody: 416025 - 54764 - 376485 - 2
R'ebel
Did Not Place
Duration - 11:24
Eng, Haakona
somebody: 3269028 - 699906 - 676548 - 1
somebody: 2999194 - 399570 - 621052 - 0
somebody: 2011114 - 593959 - 884831 - 1
somebody: 1898756 - 256728 -616164 - 3
R'ebel: 1488350 - 496470 - 431008 - 0
somebody: 690487 - 473206 - 671932 - 2
somebody: 630931 - 298052 - 866325 - 2
somebody: 549755 - 482041 - 597080 - 0
somebody: 488280 - 297281 - 560792 - 3
somebody: 40455 - 0 - 58211 - 1 (afker)
Kopor
Placed 3rd
Duration - 5:01
Tac, Guramba
somebody: 2002259 - 151829 - 207980 - 1
somebody: 1942334 - 41700 - 87528 - 0
somebody: 1265982 - 419827 - 304501 - 0
somebody: 958855 - 73442 - 174059 - 1
somebody: 937495 - 13889 - 95774 - 0
Kopor: 861151 - 112852 - 104621 - 0
somebody: 753804 - 602957 - 222834 - 0
somebody: 697153 - 254125 - 214280 - 1
somebody: 645571 - 156609 - 242164 - 1
somebody: 181944 - 17999 - 263305 - 3
Nivuh
Placed 3rd
Duration - 7:36
Tac, B'rel
Nivuh: 2030197 - 193841 - 127422 - 0
somebody: 1449472 - 182565 - 304168 - 0
somebody: 1434587 - 108408 - 284350 - 0
somebody: 1381165 - 405156 - 337792 - 0
somebody: 1203675 - 5184 - 101849 - 0
somebody: 1172776 - 296032 - 307735 - 2
somebody: 1161075 - 67412 - 231119 - 0
somebody: 808064 - 646738 -496589 - 1
somebody: 644422 - 371701 - 314585 -- 0
somebody: 469820 - 50257 -352131 - 1
Venit
Placed 1st
Duration - 9:02
Tac, Mirror Qin
somebody: 2510865 - 242295 - 704706 - 2
Venit: 2444351 - 363682 - 353701 - 0
somebody: 1321377 - 384838 - 382628 - 0
somebody: 1070421 - 831440 - 638777 - 3
somebody: 1058427 - 163674 - 463629 - 2
somebody: 899068 - 317876 - 482666 - 1
somebody: 841757 - 470822 - 386590 - 1
somebody: 644389 - 797359 - 431001 - 2
somebody: 539233 - 183739 - 419981 - 0
somebody: 445234 - 64235 - 297735 - 1
There's only one factor*. Did you heal more than the other four guys on your team?
1st - healed more than the other four on your team
2nd - healed more than three of the others on your team
3rd - healed more than two of the others on your team
4th/5th/Did Not Place - did not heal as much as the three guys that healed the most.
I rarely come in first on any of my guys outside of Vegar. I regularly do with Vegar - but that's because he's built as a healer - I fly around in circles with him tossing heals to folks. The other guys - normally don't take that much damage and I don't pay much attention to the other players as far as tossing them heals while on those guys.
I'm not running spacebar overheals. I'm not ramming shards to have damage to heal. Etc, etc, etc...
Crystalline has some of the most easily exploited scoring...it's one of the reasons that the Valdore console was tweaked, because of how it contributes to the scoring nonsense in Crystalline.
Want to come in first? Spacebar overheal, ram Shards, and basically just exploit the broken mechanics behind the scoring...while trying not to die.
*Dying...can offset that. If you get popped a lot, it's going to affect your score adversely. Cam see that from the last run up there with Venit. The guy with 831k healing blew away Venit's healing (they were on the same team) - but that guy died three times. Way too many folks got blown up in that one though, lol - at 353.7k damage taken, Venit had the second lowest damage taken. Figure those folks were trying to game the system and a bunch of them lost out from them all buffing the Entity's damage.
Hexk, I've been stuck with teams were I'm the only one using GW which is essential for keeping those shards in place. Too many people just go in there thinking they can be space bar PvE heroes.
Get First ~ Third place every time ...
It's probably the easiest Mark mission in STO, and only slightly more dangerous than Epohh Tagging (have you ever stubbed your toe on one of those rocks? Or been bitten by one of those insects?) ...