From the Public Elite Channel, Got into a team for a STF today and i can summarize the concenssus of what we think of "Elite mode" including my own.
[11:48] Mueppe@x: whats going on??????????????
[11:49] Nelson@x: Everything got buffed, like 10x.
[11:49] D'raysan@x: yep
[11:49] Mueppe@x: unkillable
[11:49] Seren Talla@x: This is ****ing stupid
[11:49] Mueppe@x: ?????????
[11:49] Vorel@x: bug
[11:49] D'raysan@x: this is ****ing lame
[11:50] Seren Talla@x: Whoever thought this difficulty up needs to be shot
[11:51] D'raysan@x: i guess we can leave
[11:51] Nelson@x: Yup. I won't be running this again till they change it, or I can upgrade all my gear. This is just straight up no fun.
[11:51] Seren Talla@x: Upgrade you gear? T20 gold wont do **** to this
[11:51] Mueppe@x:
[11:51] D'raysan@x: wonder how ground looks like
Mind you 3 birds of prey at the start of the Cure Space, Could not be killed by 4 High DPS ships. [15-18k average] and The new lockbox ship which im not sure of its general average. [the one you pay for for lobi now.] Infact, these 3 basic birds of prey where invincible.
Lets not get into how a single sphere was 1 shotting people in the spawn. As they reloaded.
Everyone wanted a challenge. You all sure as hell got one. :rolleyes:
I agree that current estf are a joke when played by players that are geared with all the rep/fleet items (but play a pug estf without all that fleet/rep gear and a standard tier 5 free ship and estf are not such a faceroll event)
Current normal stfs are a joke the rewards are garbage on top of the fact that no one queues for them.
Adding in more random ai one shots is a cheap way to add fake difficulty to the game.
Instead why not add ai that can use more abilites stuff like Feedback Pulse to stop the mentality of just BFAW everything or Aceton Beam or many of the other unused abilites.
I like the idea of making science captains/ships and engineering ships/captains more useful but if your gonna make the damage untankable/unhealable whats the point? Also good luck changing the meta at this point with nearly everyone playing as a tac captian in a tac ship/tac oriented cruiser.
Also anyone who thinks that elite or advanced will not be nerfed is living in a dream work if the majority of players cannot complete it they will quit (stf are pretty much the only thing left in this game once you complete the "story line") and that means less money for cryptic aka it will be nerfed to the old estf soon enough.
I agree that current estf are a joke when played by players that are geared with all the rep/fleet items (but play a pug estf without all that fleet/rep gear and a standard tier 5 free ship and estf are not such a faceroll event)
Current normal stfs are a joke the rewards are garbage on top of the fact that no one queues for them.
Adding in more random ai one shots is a cheap way to add fake difficulty to the game.
Instead why not add ai that can use more abilites stuff like Feedback Pulse to stop the mentality of just BFAW everything or Aceton Beam or many of the other unused abilites.
I like the idea of making science captains/ships and engineering ships/captains more useful but if your gonna make the damage untankable/unhealable whats the point? Also good luck changing the meta at this point with nearly everyone playing as a tac captian in a tac ship/tac oriented cruiser.
Also anyone who thinks that elite or advanced will not be nerfed is living in a dream work if the majority of players cannot complete it they will quit (stf are pretty much the only thing left in this game once you complete the "story line") and that means less money for cryptic aka it will be nerfed to the old estf soon enough.
On tribble borticus tried to say the ai already is more intelligent than people give it credit for, and it makes targeting decisions based on different priorities and which race NPC etc. But they die beforeanyone could see it. So, of course there's a huge thread about NPC HP being too high, and lots of discussion showing even with more HP, most NPC enemies are still as dumb as bricks.
Personally, I hope they drop the enemy HP a lot, then take dontdrunkimshoot s advice about how to get NPCs to use powers faster and smarter. Would be way more interesting.
All of us have parsed 15k+ (single target) on a good day. we failed it, simply could not kill the transformers in time before the nanite spheres got there. we used to be able to run ISE in 3 minutes.
as mentioned in other threads, people are saying that advanced was beefed up too much.
people are even failing fleet alert.
Yeap. I can vouch for the latter as we had five players in a PUG and all of us were running decent ships, but .... Just couldn't wear them down in the time allotted and got 21 marks for the effort.
Game might be taking a nose dive in the fun department for me.
Don't mind working for something but this .... is unreal.
Somehow I think that the players and cryptic are talking about different things when they talk about making the game more challenging.
NPCs are still outfittet with 2 to 5 (or 6?) abilitys they fire as soon as they can and the rest of the time most of them are just flying circles because they want to line up their nose with you. Or (now the Voodwore) fly away from you until they can turn around for another attack run (while you can follow them without even flying at your max speed so they will never turn around) while shooting down X00K of HP.
No smart ability use, no smart flying, just more DPS
I am not blowing smoke on anything. My point still stands. The Content can still be played using existing T5 ships - you simply cannot do it on Advanced unless you are marginally skilled. On Elite you need to have the best gear and ships available to you - which was made clear even in the Podcasts. But that is not stopping anyone from doing it even on Regular difficulty while they get better.
Have you even tried playing it?
It seems to be across the board too.
Not just STFs but fleet stuff.
The easiest of the fleet actions was red alert, nice simple, get newer lower ranked players in to start getting gear in the fleet bank ready for lvl50+. Now, even with a 5 man fleet team in heavy hitting ships, its near impossible, we got to wave 2 and ran out of time because the enemy are at ridiculous levels of hull and shields.
Thats massively inviting for lower ranked players isnt it?
There is now nothing a casual player can do to obtain marks for fleets and gear.
Theres nothing a lower ranked player can do for the same, or putting the accrued credits into the bank so they can upgrade upon hitting lvl50.
Cryptic have gone waaaaayyyy too far on this and all to appease the broken mechanic scimitar b***hes.
Its just one big scamming cash cow, force people to pay for upgrades just to be able to stand a chance in the most basic of PvE that was designed for all (Mainly a couple of the fleet missions).
This game was an utter joke before, now its just not even funny anymore.
All of us have parsed 15k+ (single target) on a good day. we failed it, simply could not kill the transformers in time before the nanite spheres got there. we used to be able to run ISE in 3 minutes.
This makes the paranoid/cynic in me want to see a new parse of the total HP in isa. You should have been fine. Makes me wonder if the HP on holodeck are the same as we saw on tribble.
It seems to be across the board too.
Not just STFs but fleet stuff.
The easiest of the fleet actions was red alert, nice simple, get newer lower ranked players in to start getting gear in the fleet bank ready for lvl50+. Now, even with a 5 man fleet team in heavy hitting ships, its near impossible, we got to wave 2 and ran out of time because the enemy are at ridiculous levels of hull and shields.
Thats massively inviting for lower ranked players isnt it?
There is now nothing a casual player can do to obtain marks for fleets and gear.
Theres nothing a lower ranked player can do for the same, or putting the accrued credits into the bank so they can upgrade upon hitting lvl50.
Cryptic have gone waaaaayyyy too far on this and all to appease the broken mechanic scimitar b***hes.
Its just one big scamming cash cow, force people to pay for upgrades just to be able to stand a chance in the most basic of PvE that was designed for all (Mainly a couple of the fleet missions).
This game was an utter joke before, now its just not even funny anymore.
VOTE WITH YOUR FEET.
I second this. same 5 man team as our ISA, fail the fleet alert. simply ran out of time.
Orb weavers with 288k hull + recluses with about a mil, NOT FUN CRYPTIC, NOT FUN
Its got to be borked. An STF, a fleet red alert and a crystalline entity, non of them completed.
Somebody parsed a tholian recluse in CE and it was hitting for 17k but also had shields and hull able to sustain 4-5 ships focussing fire on it.
I wasnt using the best build for PvE, Im more geared and set for PvP but my DEM, BO Alpha just did nothing, even against an unshielded target of a non capitol ship designation. That hit a crit of 70k, then cannons were constantly hitting for 6-7k a hit.
Basically, even small ships are getting towards boss levels in strength, then the bigger stuff is shooting past boss levels.
Dread to think what bosses are.......
If its designed for level 60, why introduce on stuff thats meant for new players too?
Why introduce it when they know, no one is at level 60.
Elite Mode is set to Level 60. The Advanced mode is what most would consider the old Elite to be. If you want a slightly tougher challenge before reaching Level 60 then play the content on Advanced.
"Slightly" as in Hitler was "Slighty" nasty.
Advanced is a ******n joke. The optional on Cure is now mandatory? Which pratt thought that would be fun, especially when you've got Spheres for days? Oh, and Normal doesn't award any BNPs, so for now until god only knows when, anyone who doesn't have top-end gear (i.e. New players) can't get the means to unlock high end gear.
Nice work Cryptic. Top notch. The motto for DR should be "Bro do you even Parse?" because it's basically become a DPS-fest. Again.
You're just a machine. And machines can be broken.
Was it Season 7 that removed the rewards from the Borg STF's? That was eventually "fixed" with lower dilithium and inferior equipment drops that had originally been present, but they were added back in. I'd guess that something similar will happen with the rewards, as at this point there is little benefit to running the queues that make up the vast majority of end game PvE play and PvP resource gathering. Stick with the Episodes, kill stuff in the Battlezones, and find alternate sources that trigger the Daily Bonus for the Rep Marks you want/need... the queues are going to be rather quiet for awhile.
Eventually, they'll adjust the hitpoint punching bags and rewards to appropriately reflect each other. Until then, kill time and NPC's away from the queues, grind up some levels and gear, and try again once adjustments have been made to your build and the queues.
Many folks will simply say f*** it and wander off before this can happen, of course, so in the end it will boil down to how many folks come for the added challenge compared to how many folks leave because of it.
**********************************************
Seriously, though... whose idea was it to reduce rewards at the same time difficulty increases were being implemented? That person needs to be given an 80 hour work week at minimum wage, then think about how that relates to a game that should be both fun and rewarding for its players. :P
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
Odd, how quickly you've changed your opinion from this post. :P
I can't wait until you twist this into something else with some interesting legal lingo gymnastics.
I see no conflicts in the linked post and the quoted one. A Dev saying you need upgrades for elites and cosmic saying you might want upgrades for advanced elite, but normal is fine on a 5.5fleet and maybe advanced too depending on player skill.
Even Epohh tagging is harder...they have cloaks and +50 speed
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Just so you know I have a thread going in the PvE section where you can post all your "Advanced" Q mission horror stories. I think there is going to be a lot of them going forward!
"Oh, and Normal doesn't award any BNPs, so for now until god only knows when, anyone who doesn't have top-end gear (i.e. New players) can't get the means to unlock high end gear..
All reps that need a special currency (omega, dyson, undine, delta) give that currency (bnps) in the daily/hourly box as a rare drop. You can keep getting hourly boxes after tier 5.
Cryptic difficulty is adding more health and moar damage to boring swarms of flying barns instead of, y'know, making them more difficult. Taking the exact same thing and making it last longer isn't difficult, it's annoying.
I am not blowing smoke on anything. My point still stands. The Content can still be played using existing T5 ships - you simply cannot do it on Advanced unless you are marginally skilled. On Elite you need to have the best gear and ships available to you - which was made clear even in the Podcasts. But that is not stopping anyone from doing it even on Regular difficulty while they get better.
I know this concept might be new to some... but we might have to use communication and strategy. :eek:
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.
The first ISA I ran was a total failure. Some guy went straight to a generator and ignored the cube (idk why people ever did that, and now it's even worse to do it). A sphere made it to the transformer and we failed. The second run I did I came with a science ship with gravity well, warp plasma and doffed TBR. I CC the heck out of every thing. We ran out of time and lost the optional but still beat the mission. My third run I went with fleet mates and I brought a T5U drain science brel. Nothing had shields and we finished fast.
It's looking like hybrid science ships is the way to go.
Oh and cross healing is a great skill. Heal the dude with agro so you don't get it when he dies.
All reps that need a special currency (omega, dyson, undine, delta) give that currency (bnps) in the daily/hourly box as a rare drop. You can keep getting hourly boxes after tier 5.
It sucks and is slow and random. But its there.
Not really. Because that's still random, and even if you did one every hour for 24 hours, there's no guarantee you'd get a BNP. Unlike before, where you absolutely would get one for an Elite STF. Bearing in mind that the difficulty is now less a curve and more a brick wall, normal should now award one BNP for a win, Advanced should reward two and Elite, three.
Otherwise, put the difficulty back to the way it was. There's absolutely no benefit to cutting out a large majority of the players because of power-creep and uber-builds.
You're just a machine. And machines can be broken.
Has no one been paying attention for the last couple of months?
I think most people saw "slightly more difficult" and inferred something completely different to what Cryptic had in mind for a "slight" difficulty increase.
"Slight" difficulty increase to Cryptic means "Drop a load on T6 ships and our terrible new crafting system and you might be up to the challenge for Advanced."
Don't even get me started on Elite.
You're just a machine. And machines can be broken.
Yes, I played it on Tribble; but my Fleet Sovereign can do 13k dps. I am not one of the 3,000 DPS players, even though I do not PvP. It was challenging but it was not impossible to do. I assume that if I attempt it in a T5U Fleet Sovereign when I am level 60 it will be even easier due to Trait bonuses - and easier still if I were using a T6 vessel. Plus I was doing it with Mk XII Gear. If I had been using Mk XIII I would have been looking at another, what, 20-30% bump in DPS? I will eventually attempt Elite in my ship as well; though I do not expect to win.
There is now nothing a casual player can do to obtain marks for fleets and gear.
You are aware that you can play the STFs on Regular/Normal mode and still get Marks, right? Plus you can do Ground STFs at higher difficulties if you feel that Ground is easier for you.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
You are aware that you can play the STFs on Regular/Normal mode and still get Marks, right? Plus you can do Ground STFs at higher difficulties if you feel that Ground is easier for you.
When was ground ever easier?
And what good are marks when all the Mk XII rep gear projects requires rep-specific items?
You're just a machine. And machines can be broken.
Not really. Because that's still random, and even if you did one every hour for 24 hours, there's no guarantee you'd get a BNP. Unlike before, where you absolutely would get one for an Elite STF. Bearing in mind that the difficulty is now less a curve and more a brick wall, normal should now award one BNP for a win, Advanced should reward two and Elite, three.
Otherwise, put the difficulty back to the way it was. There's absolutely no benefit to cutting out a large majority of the players because of power-creep and uber-builds.
Exactly why I said "it sucks and it is random".
The whole rep system was added to remove the random. And believe me, I ran hundreds of estfs before rep and got f-all out of it. Nothing random gets my seal of approval.
Comments
That's what it was sold as.
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Current normal stfs are a joke the rewards are garbage on top of the fact that no one queues for them.
Adding in more random ai one shots is a cheap way to add fake difficulty to the game.
Instead why not add ai that can use more abilites stuff like Feedback Pulse to stop the mentality of just BFAW everything or Aceton Beam or many of the other unused abilites.
I like the idea of making science captains/ships and engineering ships/captains more useful but if your gonna make the damage untankable/unhealable whats the point? Also good luck changing the meta at this point with nearly everyone playing as a tac captian in a tac ship/tac oriented cruiser.
Also anyone who thinks that elite or advanced will not be nerfed is living in a dream work if the majority of players cannot complete it they will quit (stf are pretty much the only thing left in this game once you complete the "story line") and that means less money for cryptic aka it will be nerfed to the old estf soon enough.
Personally, I hope they drop the enemy HP a lot, then take dontdrunkimshoot s advice about how to get NPCs to use powers faster and smarter. Would be way more interesting.
All of us have parsed 15k+ (single target) on a good day. we failed it, simply could not kill the transformers in time before the nanite spheres got there. we used to be able to run ISE in 3 minutes.
Yeap. I can vouch for the latter as we had five players in a PUG and all of us were running decent ships, but .... Just couldn't wear them down in the time allotted and got 21 marks for the effort.
Game might be taking a nose dive in the fun department for me.
Don't mind working for something but this .... is unreal.
U.S.S. Maelstrom, NCC-71417 (Constitution III-class/flagship) --- Fleet Admiral Hauk' --|-- Dahar Master Hauk --- I.K.S. qu'In 'an bortaS (D7-class / flagship)
NPCs are still outfittet with 2 to 5 (or 6?) abilitys they fire as soon as they can and the rest of the time most of them are just flying circles because they want to line up their nose with you. Or (now the Voodwore) fly away from you until they can turn around for another attack run (while you can follow them without even flying at your max speed so they will never turn around) while shooting down X00K of HP.
No smart ability use, no smart flying, just more DPS
"Here you got what you want" or so
Have you even tried playing it?
It seems to be across the board too.
Not just STFs but fleet stuff.
The easiest of the fleet actions was red alert, nice simple, get newer lower ranked players in to start getting gear in the fleet bank ready for lvl50+. Now, even with a 5 man fleet team in heavy hitting ships, its near impossible, we got to wave 2 and ran out of time because the enemy are at ridiculous levels of hull and shields.
Thats massively inviting for lower ranked players isnt it?
There is now nothing a casual player can do to obtain marks for fleets and gear.
Theres nothing a lower ranked player can do for the same, or putting the accrued credits into the bank so they can upgrade upon hitting lvl50.
Cryptic have gone waaaaayyyy too far on this and all to appease the broken mechanic scimitar b***hes.
Its just one big scamming cash cow, force people to pay for upgrades just to be able to stand a chance in the most basic of PvE that was designed for all (Mainly a couple of the fleet missions).
This game was an utter joke before, now its just not even funny anymore.
VOTE WITH YOUR FEET.
This makes the paranoid/cynic in me want to see a new parse of the total HP in isa. You should have been fine. Makes me wonder if the HP on holodeck are the same as we saw on tribble.
I second this. same 5 man team as our ISA, fail the fleet alert. simply ran out of time.
Orb weavers with 288k hull + recluses with about a mil, NOT FUN CRYPTIC, NOT FUN
BUT BUT..WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO ONE-SHOT THE NEW STUFF THAT'S LEVEL 60 WITH 60 GEAR!
We all knew the complaining was coming.
Somebody parsed a tholian recluse in CE and it was hitting for 17k but also had shields and hull able to sustain 4-5 ships focussing fire on it.
I wasnt using the best build for PvE, Im more geared and set for PvP but my DEM, BO Alpha just did nothing, even against an unshielded target of a non capitol ship designation. That hit a crit of 70k, then cannons were constantly hitting for 6-7k a hit.
Basically, even small ships are getting towards boss levels in strength, then the bigger stuff is shooting past boss levels.
Dread to think what bosses are.......
If its designed for level 60, why introduce on stuff thats meant for new players too?
Why introduce it when they know, no one is at level 60.
"Slightly" as in Hitler was "Slighty" nasty.
Advanced is a ******n joke. The optional on Cure is now mandatory? Which pratt thought that would be fun, especially when you've got Spheres for days? Oh, and Normal doesn't award any BNPs, so for now until god only knows when, anyone who doesn't have top-end gear (i.e. New players) can't get the means to unlock high end gear.
Nice work Cryptic. Top notch. The motto for DR should be "Bro do you even Parse?" because it's basically become a DPS-fest. Again.
Eventually, they'll adjust the hitpoint punching bags and rewards to appropriately reflect each other. Until then, kill time and NPC's away from the queues, grind up some levels and gear, and try again once adjustments have been made to your build and the queues.
Many folks will simply say f*** it and wander off before this can happen, of course, so in the end it will boil down to how many folks come for the added challenge compared to how many folks leave because of it.
Seriously, though... whose idea was it to reduce rewards at the same time difficulty increases were being implemented? That person needs to be given an 80 hour work week at minimum wage, then think about how that relates to a game that should be both fun and rewarding for its players. :P
I dont mind it being harder or taking a bit longer, but now, people are just leaving. 22 MILLION Hit Points. lol
Difficulty got a MEGA buff. WTF was anyone thinking?
I see no conflicts in the linked post and the quoted one. A Dev saying you need upgrades for elites and cosmic saying you might want upgrades for advanced elite, but normal is fine on a 5.5fleet and maybe advanced too depending on player skill.
Seems like two posts saying the same thing.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1251341
All reps that need a special currency (omega, dyson, undine, delta) give that currency (bnps) in the daily/hourly box as a rare drop. You can keep getting hourly boxes after tier 5.
It sucks and is slow and random. But its there.
There is a big difference between "I want oneshoots" and "I don't want to munch 10 on a Kazon ship that has more HP then a pre DR Borg Cube"
I know this concept might be new to some... but we might have to use communication and strategy. :eek:
SCE ADVISORY NOTICE: Improper Impulse Engine maintenance can result in REAR THRUSTER LEAKAGE. ALWAYS have your work inspected by another qualified officer.
It's looking like hybrid science ships is the way to go.
Oh and cross healing is a great skill. Heal the dude with agro so you don't get it when he dies.
Not really. Because that's still random, and even if you did one every hour for 24 hours, there's no guarantee you'd get a BNP. Unlike before, where you absolutely would get one for an Elite STF. Bearing in mind that the difficulty is now less a curve and more a brick wall, normal should now award one BNP for a win, Advanced should reward two and Elite, three.
Otherwise, put the difficulty back to the way it was. There's absolutely no benefit to cutting out a large majority of the players because of power-creep and uber-builds.
I think most people saw "slightly more difficult" and inferred something completely different to what Cryptic had in mind for a "slight" difficulty increase.
"Slight" difficulty increase to Cryptic means "Drop a load on T6 ships and our terrible new crafting system and you might be up to the challenge for Advanced."
Don't even get me started on Elite.
10 ppl avarage of 15 000 dmg/s
Shooting non stop
Time to complete ~ 25 minutes
Not counting Tholian interference where one of my fleet mates told me he checked Weaver's HP it was around 350 000 HP.
This is just maths. I was UNABLE to complete a single one CC(Advanced) because of the people dropping and leaving.
Reward 480 dil.
Sorry but this is unplayable.
Cryptic.... Fail.
You are aware that you can play the STFs on Regular/Normal mode and still get Marks, right? Plus you can do Ground STFs at higher difficulties if you feel that Ground is easier for you.
When was ground ever easier?
And what good are marks when all the Mk XII rep gear projects requires rep-specific items?
Exactly why I said "it sucks and it is random".
The whole rep system was added to remove the random. And believe me, I ran hundreds of estfs before rep and got f-all out of it. Nothing random gets my seal of approval.