It isn't just the same. And it isn't just the elite level. This screws over every gameplay difficulty level.
With rewards cut down to nothing -- because even on ELITE most matches fail and you get nothing for your wasted time -- there is no way to get out of a losing situation.
I have to disagree with you. I'm far from being a DPS addict; I have no idea what my DPS is and quite frankly I don't care. But I manage to hold my own in Advanced and Elite STF's. Granted they are tougher than they used to be and it was about time. I was sick and tired tired of ISE runs that lasted barely 5 minutes. But where I disagree the most is when people complain about the lack of rewards. Ok, the dilithium rewards could be a tweaked a little. But the fact that we don't get an item at the end is meaningless. There are so many drops now during an STF that I often run out of inventory space before the end of the run. Even selling to vendors will usually give 500k to 650k. I'd say this is well worth the effort.
I don't know how it has affected other players, but I know that I won't be playing my alts anymore. It's just way to much effort or money and I have neither the time nor inclination to bother with them anymore. I'll continue to play on my main character for now and hopefully they make some adjustments with the mission rewards.
I have to agree with you. I might have time for one alt but none of the others ones will ever see the Delta Quadrant. At least not for a long time.
Thank you for all of your feedback! We've tried our best to digest all of it, and distill it down to a few actionable items we can undertake over a short time frame, in order to get some changes into next week's patch.
Here are the adjustments we will be making:
Basic Difficulty:
* Hitpoint values @ Level 60 reduced to ~80% of current Holodeck values
* This means that enemies also scale less aggressively as you level up between 50 and 60.
Advanced Difficulty:
* Hitpoint values @ Level 60 reduced to ~70% of current Holodeck values
Elite Difficulty:
* Hitpoint values @ Level 60 increased to ~110% of current Holodeck values
These are likely to be the first of many, many changes, as we continue monitoring feedback and actual gameplay metrics. As more players reach level 60 and begin earning additional Specializations and Starship Masteries, as well as continue to Upgrade their Equipment, we anticipate playstyles and feedback will shift over time. As such, we're hesitant to make too many changes, too quickly.
Despite this caution, it was obvious to us that the NPC hitpoint values currently on Holodeck were having a negative impact on the quality of gameplay in Basic and Advanced, and the above changes are an attempt to alleviate that. Even these changes are still cautious though, and we're willing to consider additional reductions if they end up being deemed necessary.
We're still keeping an eye on NPC damage output, shield hardness, and more. There's always a chance that tweaks to those values may come in future patches.
We will not be making any adjustments to queue rewards just yet. Until these hitpoint modifiers are in place, and we have updated metrics and feedback to review, we're going to just change one aspect at a time.
And with that, I believe that this thread has run its course - I'm going to request to have it closed.
Thank you all again for your feedback and passion for this game. And for your patience as we continue to iterate on this process of making Star Trek Online an enjoyable and challenging experience.
smh
All you have to do is keep your promise.
The pre-DR Normal and Elite would be left as is and the new Elite would be for the fetish abuse gimps.
NO to ARC RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
We'll see on Thursday how things change. Right now there are more people playing normal than advanced, and way less than half playing stfs than I've ever seen - and I am up before 6 am eastern every day. Sure, many people are ignoring the stfs in favor of delta, but they would still be doing an odd one here and there.
I say before, the advanced has to get well under 20 minutes - really to 15 - to be viable. Also, if the numbers don't go back up to where they were I do believe we will see a slight increase in dil. Maybe to 680 or 720 for advanced. The marks and mats are more important to me.
All you have to do is keep your promise.
The pre-DR Normal and Elite would be left as is and the new Elite would be for the fetish abuse gimps.
Hell, with the way things are now, why would anyone fly a science ship into these advanced queues?
To crowd control and debuff something with crazy hitpoints? LOL?!
Two tactical consoles on ANY ship is absolutely hilarious as it stands now. What were you guys thinking?
What's my other choice? The dauntless? Don't get me started on that.
I'm experiencing major buyer's remorse regarding the delta pack's science offerings. Seriously.
You guys better do something meaningful, or else soon, it won't just be the advanced STFs players will be avoiding.
All you have to do is keep your promise.
The pre-DR Normal and Elite would be left as is and the new Elite would be for the fetish abuse gimps.
Sorry, actually. That's STILL a massive rewards cut. remember that before omega rep we used to get 2x as much dil PER RUN as we do now? They removed it all and everybody yelled at them (rightly so), so they put back precisely HALF of the dil rewards per-run.
Now look at this... they jack it up to insane level, then lower it to only slightly less insane levels but meanwhile have covered up the facts that the dil and rep token (i.e. BnP etc) are tied to the now-Elite levels, and that lesser levels get way less or NONE (in the rep token category).
So no. IMO they have to do more than live up to their promise. They have to restore rewards as WELL as live up to their promise. If we got X for running ISE before DR, we need to get exactly X when running ISA after DR. Not HALF of X (which Cryptic intends), but X (which we got before).
A Dev is a Dev, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a Dev, of course,
That is, of course, unless the Dev
Is the famous Tacofangs
Dont try to hang but ask the fang.
He'll beat you up with his own gang.
He's always working when you hear the clangs,
Talk to Tacofangs
A Dev is a Dev, and likes to nerf,
And this one will nerf till the meal is serve.
You never heard him talking in slangs?
Well, listen to this:
He is Tacofangs
I have to disagree with you. I'm far from being a DPS addict; I have no idea what my DPS is and quite frankly I don't care. But I manage to hold my own in Advanced and Elite STF's. Granted they are tougher than they used to be and it was about time. I was sick and tired tired of ISE runs that lasted barely 5 minutes. But where I disagree the most is when people complain about the lack of rewards. Ok, the dilithium rewards could be a tweaked a little. But the fact that we don't get an item at the end is meaningless. There are so many drops now during an STF that I often run out of inventory space before the end of the run. Even selling to vendors will usually give 500k to 650k. I'd say this is well worth the effort.
That may be so, however the dil reward drop vs the time taken to complete is unacceptable. Thing is rewards weren't well balanced before DR. Now Cryptic is halving or worse the rewards, while increasing time taken by factors people can't comprehend and balanced against equipment 90% of the playerbase won't see, well that just smacks of poor balance and design to me...
Oh and forgot to mention that dil usage went up by far more than 2x with DR's release, due to crafting coupled with upgrading. All requires lots of dil. Two modules for crafting can take up your daily cap straight up, let alone upgrading gear to Mk13 or 14...
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
they should restore the dil to the original levels before any reductions... then tie the rewards to time spent in mission... if you finish too fast then the mission was too easy so you get a reduced payout... if you finish within 15 seconds of the timer running out then you get full marks =p
they should restore the dil to the original levels before any reductions... then tie the rewards to time spent in mission... if you finish too fast then the mission was too easy so you get a reduced payout... if you finish within 15 seconds of the timer running out then you get full marks =p
true time sink for grinding...
That won't work because people wpuld just take there time to defeat it by using low lvl equipment and not use Boff powers thy should just restore the dil rewards to what they were. They tried something similar before when they removed the dil rewards from STFS this is similar but the forum rose in outrage it doesnt look like this has happened this time. Not that Cryptic seem to listen. Guess STF's are no longer worth doing for dilithium
NO TO ARC
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I rushed out and did an ISA and a Crystalline. (blows kiss icon) Perfect. Just over 2 minutes to spare on ISA. 1st in Crystalline in an enjoyable amount of time.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
you DO realize that 90% of this game cannot break 10k dps, right?
Yes I do... it's obvious the Devs don't!
Someone needs to give them a clue or basically they are gonna push a policy of elitism simply because player's don't like to fail.
The experience I had earlier in an Advanced Khitomer only adds to the frustration.
Split the team with 2 on one side and three on the other. The side I was on finished both transformers and had the gate to 25%. The other side still had one transformer (the back one) with two on the transformer and one on probe duty.
Next thing I know, one of the three decided to come to our side to help finish the gate instead of watching probes on their side.
Failed because probes got through!
Devs need to recognize this and follow through on their intent to make advanced Queues the same difficulty as old Elites.
Very simple... players need to hold their own weight because there is no more carrying the low DPS average players through these events any more and yet these players are still ruining Advanced Queues for those that can do them.
Either exclude sub lvl 60 toons from Advanced Queues or drop the difficulty!
Your first suggestion is not even an option. Your second is the one the devs PROMISED would be the case, but they lied (edit: I mean the dropped difficulty).
Gating advanced to level 60 is not going to fix this. If you start off with 5k dps you won't magically make it to 10k dps with specialization and some gear upgrades. It will take skill respec and a change in build and mentality. That's a lot to ask from your average casual player.
Making the optionals, you know optional again is a good first step in solving this fiasco.
Just taken out the easy parts and put in place the hard parts. So now we have to grind for skill and expertise points at the same time wonder if anyone will be joining the queue and stick to it. If they drop the queue after you press ENGAGE your out of luck.
I know 10k is a low bar, specially with the dr power creep. Still I look at the parses from my pugs and what I see tells me your average player is too far from that low bar that some specializations and better gear are going to all of a sudden make them good players. As you said they would have to at least change boff powers, which would be a good start.
A lot of these guys are happy and think they are good, and if you try to help they get angry. I guess unless cryptic changes the queues again it's either premade or play something else.
All it takes to make 10k is a few boff skills changed on the vast majority of ships.
Combined with proper skill spec and power levels 10k is within reach for every lvl 40 character.
But you're right in it would take a change of mentality for many.
This works well... in theory. However, my KDF aligned Romulan can no longer train BOFFs or have them trained at any trainer since DR went live. So I'm stuck with the skills my BOFFs have at the moment. :mad:
Maybe its just me....since I am one of those casual happy gamers but.....There is a reason they have the three different settings.
As a casual gamer it drives me crazy to join a normal STF and have snobbish 'pro' players just expect me to know the 'right way' to do it....never mind that they will only use the team channel to chew people out (after all we should all have voice chat right? What is WRONG with us?) Are we always efficient? No. Do we get the job done? Of course you cant fail normal. Advanced is....wait for it....ADVANCED so yes, its supposed to be harder. That's why its called advanced. Its not called DPS 20k, its not called Professional Player, its just called Advanced. Oh and the last level? Yah that one is called Elite...its there for the people that have the really good ships, and know exactly what they are doing.
Maybe its just me....since I am one of those casual happy gamers but.....There is a reason they have the three different settings.
As a casual gamer it drives me crazy to join a normal STF and have snobbish 'pro' players just expect me to know the 'right way' to do it....never mind that they will only use the team channel to chew people out (after all we should all have voice chat right? What is WRONG with us?) Are we always efficient? No. Do we get the job done? Of course you cant fail normal. Advanced is....wait for it....ADVANCED so yes, its supposed to be harder. That's why its called advanced. Its not called DPS 20k, its not called Professional Player, its just called Advanced. Oh and the last level? Yah that one is called Elite...its there for the people that have the really good ships, and know exactly what they are doing.
It is quite simple to minimize your chat window, OR turn off team chat, if you wish.
OR, I have to say, it is quite simple to stop whinging, and actually spare the ten minutes to find and read through the guide to any given stf you decide to try at a harder level. Its not going to come to you otherwise. While it is really embarrassing to be on the receiving end of some dumbass' verbal fury, please do embrace the idea of empathy, because it is equally embarrssing when someone who has not taken the effort to learn what to do in any given stf, and cannot be contacted via voice to be pointed in the right direction just takes 45(15+30 cooldown) minutes of your spare time and dumps it in the trashbin. No offence meant.
Sigh.... When a mission fails because of a now required "optional" for whatever reason a window should pop up CLEARLY stating why the mission failed so everyone knows what it going on. PUGs now are a damn nightmare !!! :mad:
Also give us the option of stopping the mission data window from minimizing! It really irks me it does not stay fully readable and I have to waste valuable seconds clicking on it to get it to open for a second or two...
Speaking of which.. WTF? The environmental time gates getting dropped on nearly everything are bad enough so stop putting them in the damn STFs!!! I'm getting tired of twitch based gaming. I want to have fun and try to help people learn stuff and not stress because I have to click a hundred times in 60 seconds!! That is not fun gaming at all!!!! If I wanted such gameplay mechanics I would play a FPS game or some other mindless mechanical oriented TRIBBLE.
If you are looking for an excellent PvE fleet consider: Omega Combat Division today.
Former member of the Cryptic Family & FriendsTesting Team. Sadly, one day, it simply vanished - without a word or trace...
Comments
I have to disagree with you. I'm far from being a DPS addict; I have no idea what my DPS is and quite frankly I don't care. But I manage to hold my own in Advanced and Elite STF's. Granted they are tougher than they used to be and it was about time. I was sick and tired tired of ISE runs that lasted barely 5 minutes. But where I disagree the most is when people complain about the lack of rewards. Ok, the dilithium rewards could be a tweaked a little. But the fact that we don't get an item at the end is meaningless. There are so many drops now during an STF that I often run out of inventory space before the end of the run. Even selling to vendors will usually give 500k to 650k. I'd say this is well worth the effort.
I have to agree with you. I might have time for one alt but none of the others ones will ever see the Delta Quadrant. At least not for a long time.
smh
All you have to do is keep your promise.
The pre-DR Normal and Elite would be left as is and the new Elite would be for the fetish abuse gimps.
RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
Hell, with the way things are now, why would anyone fly a science ship into these advanced queues?
To crowd control and debuff something with crazy hitpoints? LOL?!
Two tactical consoles on ANY ship is absolutely hilarious as it stands now. What were you guys thinking?
What's my other choice? The dauntless? Don't get me started on that.
I'm experiencing major buyer's remorse regarding the delta pack's science offerings. Seriously.
You guys better do something meaningful, or else soon, it won't just be the advanced STFs players will be avoiding.
Sorry, actually. That's STILL a massive rewards cut. remember that before omega rep we used to get 2x as much dil PER RUN as we do now? They removed it all and everybody yelled at them (rightly so), so they put back precisely HALF of the dil rewards per-run.
Now look at this... they jack it up to insane level, then lower it to only slightly less insane levels but meanwhile have covered up the facts that the dil and rep token (i.e. BnP etc) are tied to the now-Elite levels, and that lesser levels get way less or NONE (in the rep token category).
So no. IMO they have to do more than live up to their promise. They have to restore rewards as WELL as live up to their promise. If we got X for running ISE before DR, we need to get exactly X when running ISA after DR. Not HALF of X (which Cryptic intends), but X (which we got before).
My pants = peed.
That may be so, however the dil reward drop vs the time taken to complete is unacceptable. Thing is rewards weren't well balanced before DR. Now Cryptic is halving or worse the rewards, while increasing time taken by factors people can't comprehend and balanced against equipment 90% of the playerbase won't see, well that just smacks of poor balance and design to me...
Oh and forgot to mention that dil usage went up by far more than 2x with DR's release, due to crafting coupled with upgrading. All requires lots of dil. Two modules for crafting can take up your daily cap straight up, let alone upgrading gear to Mk13 or 14...
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
true time sink for grinding...
That won't work because people wpuld just take there time to defeat it by using low lvl equipment and not use Boff powers thy should just restore the dil rewards to what they were. They tried something similar before when they removed the dil rewards from STFS this is similar but the forum rose in outrage it doesnt look like this has happened this time. Not that Cryptic seem to listen. Guess STF's are no longer worth doing for dilithium
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
If not... then you need to follow your word when you post:
Advanced Queued events will be the same as old Elite Queues!
If you do indeed look for a tool.. minimum cutoff should be 10k DPS!
you DO realize that 90% of this game cannot break 10k dps, right?
LOL at your signature !
Yes I do... it's obvious the Devs don't!
Someone needs to give them a clue or basically they are gonna push a policy of elitism simply because player's don't like to fail.
The experience I had earlier in an Advanced Khitomer only adds to the frustration.
Split the team with 2 on one side and three on the other. The side I was on finished both transformers and had the gate to 25%. The other side still had one transformer (the back one) with two on the transformer and one on probe duty.
Next thing I know, one of the three decided to come to our side to help finish the gate instead of watching probes on their side.
Failed because probes got through!
Devs need to recognize this and follow through on their intent to make advanced Queues the same difficulty as old Elites.
Very simple... players need to hold their own weight because there is no more carrying the low DPS average players through these events any more and yet these players are still ruining Advanced Queues for those that can do them.
Either exclude sub lvl 60 toons from Advanced Queues or drop the difficulty!
Making the optionals, you know optional again is a good first step in solving this fiasco.
Time will only tell!
A lot of these guys are happy and think they are good, and if you try to help they get angry. I guess unless cryptic changes the queues again it's either premade or play something else.
a for bonus to crit build, b for bonus to dmg resist build & c for extra buff/heal build.
that way folks cant get TRIBBLE skill builds.
and lock min dps for all 3 modes.
also make it so you can switch in sector space at no cost.
That is the worst plan ever for a roleplaying game...
I do not think you understand what an RPG is...............
This works well... in theory. However, my KDF aligned Romulan can no longer train BOFFs or have them trained at any trainer since DR went live. So I'm stuck with the skills my BOFFs have at the moment. :mad:
As a casual gamer it drives me crazy to join a normal STF and have snobbish 'pro' players just expect me to know the 'right way' to do it....never mind that they will only use the team channel to chew people out (after all we should all have voice chat right? What is WRONG with us?) Are we always efficient? No. Do we get the job done? Of course you cant fail normal. Advanced is....wait for it....ADVANCED so yes, its supposed to be harder. That's why its called advanced. Its not called DPS 20k, its not called Professional Player, its just called Advanced. Oh and the last level? Yah that one is called Elite...its there for the people that have the really good ships, and know exactly what they are doing.
It is quite simple to minimize your chat window, OR turn off team chat, if you wish.
OR, I have to say, it is quite simple to stop whinging, and actually spare the ten minutes to find and read through the guide to any given stf you decide to try at a harder level. Its not going to come to you otherwise. While it is really embarrassing to be on the receiving end of some dumbass' verbal fury, please do embrace the idea of empathy, because it is equally embarrssing when someone who has not taken the effort to learn what to do in any given stf, and cannot be contacted via voice to be pointed in the right direction just takes 45(15+30 cooldown) minutes of your spare time and dumps it in the trashbin. No offence meant.
Also give us the option of stopping the mission data window from minimizing! It really irks me it does not stay fully readable and I have to waste valuable seconds clicking on it to get it to open for a second or two...
Speaking of which.. WTF? The environmental time gates getting dropped on nearly everything are bad enough so stop putting them in the damn STFs!!! I'm getting tired of twitch based gaming. I want to have fun and try to help people learn stuff and not stress because I have to click a hundred times in 60 seconds!! That is not fun gaming at all!!!! If I wanted such gameplay mechanics I would play a FPS game or some other mindless mechanical oriented TRIBBLE.
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
Lifetime no longer gives a forum title. That should be updated on the Lifetime page that mentions what you get. PMing the CSR doesn't work neither.