Look more closely at pilot and operative. Stacking damage bonuses, shield penetration, etc. Multiple new sources of accuracy and damage resist debuff which boosts the whole team. And as a sci you can hold/slow so those acc buffs become crit and crit severity.
Edit and in regard to limited options, just looking at sci (my favorite) I have seen hybrid part gen/torp builds, pure particle, and hybrid debuffer/beamers all as viable just in the one week I was on tribble. Given a month there'll be even more viable builds. What I noticed missing were pure torp builds.
I don't see operative. I have upgraded vesta. Pilot is all defense from what I saw.
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."
the problem is not the difficulty, but all the timers, they are too short.
in khitomer in stasis, they have replaced the heavy tac drones by the elite tac drones, they are more difficult to kill, but the timer is the same. if even for this stf we need gold/epic gears to succeed the optional, then i can't imagine the new elite lvl60; only very rich whales will be able to do it with the optional.
Seriously, this is worse than New Coke. If you want to have this nightmarish difficulty, that's fine. Leave our old elites alone.
i agree, they should give us the good old elite stf, and the new uber elite stfs will be for the whales. i won't open my wallet for dil or super uber extra stuff
I don't see operative. I have upgraded vesta. Pilot is all defense from what I saw.
Operative/intelligence is the primary, pilot/commando are secondaries. I'm not in game to look up specific skills, but I do recall petal to the metal for a stacking damage buff based on how long you're at max speed. Plus at least one acc bonus.
There's a lockbox trait for alternating heals and exotic damage for +10% to each too. Probably too spend today, but in a week or so will be cheap on the ah.
Nope. You're assuming the AI has changed but it has not. You might get hit more often with one shots, because the encounters are longer but the difficulty itself has not changed. What is actually needed is a higher DPS to complete the content and saving the optionals.
I could be wrong, and possibly incur the wrath of the player base by stating this, lower dps/support boats are detrimental to advanced queues. Minimal dps to beat optional is somewhere around 15k per team member (see more details in this thread . Quite possibly, some pre formed teams might tolerate one support type captain to accompany them, but certainly not more than 2 per 5 man team. And these support types still have to pull their weight and that means producing a minimum of 15k dps with their science spammage.
DPS is the ultimate IWINbutton.
Assuming I've never tried advanced queues, I see.
The HP on the nodes hasn't gone up, from what I've seen. They die just as fast as they always did. It's just that now there are more mobs attacking that don't die to a sneeze. Sounds like a job for a FAW-spamming tank boat with high threat or a science vessel with crowd control skills.
The artist formerly known as PlanetofHats.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
I don't see operative. I have upgraded vesta. Pilot is all defense from what I saw.
He probably means intelligence officer specialization tree for your captain. Last tier adds +15% shield and armor penetration to your Tac/Eng/Sci Fleet ability for example. Edit: Actually it seems to be a separate ability.
Put the old elite mode back in the game! At the original reward level!
This is the biggest F-you to the playerbase I have ever seen from this game. Hands down.
Seriously, this is worse than New Coke. If you want to have this nightmarish difficulty, that's fine. Leave our old elites alone.
To me this is the second biggest. In my opinion, the worst was Stahl a couple years ago calling the decloaking dialogue box bug "working as intended," when it had been earlier listed as a bug. Oh yeah, and it later went back to being a bug and the topic was hushed up.
The transformers have much more hitpoints. The minitransformers seem the same. I have succeeded twice in ISE by the skin of our teeth. It really takes 2 grav well pilots to make it a sure thing.
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."
Look more closely at pilot and operative. Stacking damage bonuses, shield penetration, etc. Multiple new sources of accuracy and damage resist debuff which boosts the whole team. And as a sci you can hold/slow so those acc buffs become crit and crit severity.
Also, if you haven't yet do start working on the science crafting 15 trait, it letsmyour exotic damage critmbased on your particle generator skill, so the skill both boosts base damage and crit at once. That trait is quite impressive.
Edit and in regard to limited options, just looking at sci (my favorite) I have seen hybrid part gen/torp builds, pure particle, and hybrid debuffer/beamers all as viable just in the one week I was on tribble. Given a month there'll be even more viable builds. What I noticed missing were pure torp builds.
All of which, should be a desired want and, not a forced requirement!
I am all for, variety of difficulty but, this is not what we were given.
What we are given is, pfft lol normal, advanced that should be considered elite, and pfft lol elite which is advanced + 10%.
No one is, getting rewarded really for, what they wanted.
Instead they are given lengthier combat, with same or, worse yet less rewards involved.
He probably means intelligence officer specialization tree for your captain. Last tier adds +15% shield and armor penetration to your Tac/Eng/Sci Fleet ability for example. Edit: Actually it seems to be a separate ability.
He probably means intelligence officer specialization tree for your captain. Last tier adds +15% shield and armor penetration to your Tac/Eng/Sci Fleet ability for example. Edit: Actually it seems to be a separate ability.
Ah I got it. I'm holding out for the new specialization they said will be out soon as I'm really not into the whole spy thing.
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."
All of which, should be a desired want and, not a forced requirement!
I am all for, variety of difficulty but, this is not what we were given.
What we are given is, pfft lol normal, advanced that should be considered elite, and pfft lol elite which is advanced + 10%.
No one is, getting rewarded really for, what they wanted.
Instead they are given lengthier combat, with same or, worse yet less rewards involved.
That's like saying you shouldn't need to spend your skill points or train boffs. Except for the one crafting trait, and the one box trait, It is a part of leveling, it is the system that makes level 51-60 characters more powerful. Advanced is balanced for 60 not 50.
Edit to head off trolls, elite is for 60+top gear+top builds. Advanced scales you to 60, you're not fighting level 50 enemies but you do not need top gear.
Everyone here is so used to rolling their faces on the spacebar to defeat everything, when they changed the rules, it's thrown everyone off so horribly, it's not funny.
Players want to keep going with the DPS race. It feels like Cryptic wants to return the tank/DPS/squishy wizard roles to where it is and the DPS race people are being thrown for a loop.
Everyone here is so used to rolling their faces on the spacebar to defeat everything, when they changed the rules, it's thrown everyone off so horribly, it's not funny.
Players want to keep going with the DPS race. It feels like Cryptic wants to return the tank/DPS/squishy wizard roles to where it is and the DPS race people are being thrown for a loop.
I don't think this is it at all. My whole thing is surviving incredible punishment and I can still do that the same. The problem is this doesn't help 'win' the mission at all.
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."
I admit I was under the impression the advanced queues would be closer to the old elite queues than anything.
I'm not super excited that instead we get half the potential rewards and twice the mobs with five times the HP. It's like Santa just left a lump of coal in my stocking.
The artist formerly known as PlanetofHats.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
Ok i knew that a beefing of STFs was coming but this is crazy! ran a 5-man fleet ISA we got to the tac cube with 1:12 left and hadnt even scratched the gateway and the tac cube popped BFAW and wiped our whole team! WTF! i could see this in Elite but Advanced? OMG! I go on to note we had 3 scimitars a Scryer and a Palisade. This may wanna be rethought cryptic.
2 big disappointments today:
1) The insane Borg NPC buffs,
2) Khitomer Space deleted.
Khitomer was the best of the STFs.
To whoever rubberstamped this disgusting act, I hate you.
NO to ARC RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
Nonsense. It just requires some brains. You're an eng tank; you use your superior survival powers to draw aggro on the node defenders. I'm a tac; I use my mad DPS to help burn down nodes. And then a sci gravity-wells the spheres so we don't blow the objective.
The issue isn't killing things; I still do just as much damage, I'm just firing at a fatter target. The issue is now you need to use strategy and know your role. From what I've experienced so far, not a lot of people are doing either.
I do exactly everything you just said every time, I am not stupid. I am a team player.. I even suggest what we can do to complete the STF.
But now I cant even enjoy the game because everyone's always raging nobody listens and I don't have the time I need to sit around and only play with specific people so don't even suggest it. (and I don't believe most do either).
A friend is running all MKXIV gear on his tac escort..uses all his insta burst to try and kill off as many mobs as possible (in this instance probes on advanced) so we can get to the disconnected Borg. Only its impossible to actually use any kind of decent strategy. why? because you cant send a bunch of people one way without the others losing out and potentially failing not only that but the consistent plasma DoT and the inability to kill off the targets due to how tanky they are... i mean for god sake probes take as long to kill as ****ing tactical cubes from the old elites and this is in advanced..
you want a strategy? either nerf the advanced queue a bit and elite a little less than the nerf you give to advanced.
OR
Add a role/group finding Queue tool to the game (beyond the pathetic excuse for a group finding system we have) and give them a pre-STF lobby once a group so they can discuss what they are going to do before they do it instead of being forced on to some randoms mumble or teamspeak just to strategic for one STF.
or both.
To add this kind of jump/leap in difficulty and expect people to just instantly start brainstorming en masse without giving them a pre-match lobby is just idiotic and naive.
Note though my second suggestion has merit. though i still think advanced needs nerfing. not so much for elite.
In my opinion this is a good thing. 60-75% of people that were doing elite stfs before had no purpose there. They either lacked the gear or the skill ir both. They should of been doing normal. And the fact they weren't was what was preventing the devs from buffing the difficulty before now. The elite should always of been equal to the undine ques. From your description the stfs now sound like they are in a better place. I cant wait to test the new elite, just thinking of that challenge makes me drool.
So your saying people should have to be super hardcore players with the top gear to have even a chance to earn the advanced R&D mats?
That's like saying you shouldn't need to spend your skill points or train boffs. Except for the one crafting trait, and the one box trait, It is a part of leveling, it is the system that makes level 51-60 characters more powerful. Advanced is balanced for 60 not 50.
Edit to head off trolls, elite is for 60+top gear+top builds. Advanced scales you to 60, you're not fighting level 50 enemies but you do not need top gear.
Of course not...Youll just spend a great deal of time hacking at a Spruce Tree with a butter knife. Youll eventually make it through em.
Just finished CGA... seems fine. Team finished with 2:48 left on the opt clock. Fleetmate in a sci solo tanked Armek... no big deal.
The Elite Drones seem more plentiful, which take longer to kill... but they don't seem to pack the same punch as before. Where I used to have an occasional issue with survivability facing them, now I can just plug away at them.
Honestly, the Ground Advanced missions might take a little bit longer, but the difficulty actually feels easier with the new 'Elite' drones.
I'm actually excited to play the new Ground Elite missions. Maybe they add some of those assimilated Gorn... or Undine.
I'm glad I don't normally waste time with qued events anymore I'll try the new ques out of curiousity, but if they annoying instead of fun I won't bother. And the rewards for normal simply don't make it worth it to do them.
I will say people would be complaining less if dilithium rewards went back to what they should and normal granted items like Voth Cyber Implants and Isomophic Injections.
5 man strike group, top level t5 ships and gear all...and it took all 5 of us to take out one sphere...one sphere! come on! I'd expect the cube to take it and sit there smiling..but the sphere...
game devs..I know you said it'd be harder...but no one was expecting terminator level hard...and we dont even have a t-101 to back us up here.
the cube..was easy..the sphere hard, I heard the theory posited today that someone maybe perhaps accidentally swapped the stat sheets for the two?
that said..I will not be running the so called advanced level stfs, nor making use of the rep system at this rate. kind of hard to when the stfs that drop the required items are near impossible to beat.
Murphy's laws:
1- Murphy’s Law tells us that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
2- And anything that does go wrong will get progressively worse.
3- And if you survive the first two laws it’s time to panic.
Everyone here is so used to rolling their faces on the spacebar to defeat everything, when they changed the rules, it's thrown everyone off so horribly, it's not funny.
Players want to keep going with the DPS race. It feels like Cryptic wants to return the tank/DPS/squishy wizard roles to where it is and the DPS race people are being thrown for a loop.
Except they then put everything advanced or over on a compulsory timer. That drives full-DPS teams, because if you're dropping from 20k to 15k to tank, and your mate is dropping from 20k to 15k to CC/Heal then the remaining three DPS need to not only up their DPS to keep inline with the hitpoint bloat but also pick up the 10k between them that you're dropping. Because if you don't have a minimum DPS, you physically can't complete inside the timer. And that's ignoring variable factors like messing up positioning, a bad shove, etc.
TLDR - Overall run timers push the game more towards 5-high-dps-ships than towards any sort of 'balanced' team with dedicated role ships.
Comments
I don't see operative. I have upgraded vesta. Pilot is all defense from what I saw.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
This is the biggest F-you to the playerbase I have ever seen from this game. Hands down.
Seriously, this is worse than New Coke. If you want to have this nightmarish difficulty, that's fine. Leave our old elites alone.
in khitomer in stasis, they have replaced the heavy tac drones by the elite tac drones, they are more difficult to kill, but the timer is the same. if even for this stf we need gold/epic gears to succeed the optional, then i can't imagine the new elite lvl60; only very rich whales will be able to do it with the optional.
i agree, they should give us the good old elite stf, and the new uber elite stfs will be for the whales. i won't open my wallet for dil or super uber extra stuff
Operative/intelligence is the primary, pilot/commando are secondaries. I'm not in game to look up specific skills, but I do recall petal to the metal for a stacking damage buff based on how long you're at max speed. Plus at least one acc bonus.
There's a lockbox trait for alternating heals and exotic damage for +10% to each too. Probably too spend today, but in a week or so will be cheap on the ah.
Assuming I've never tried advanced queues, I see.
The HP on the nodes hasn't gone up, from what I've seen. They die just as fast as they always did. It's just that now there are more mobs attacking that don't die to a sneeze. Sounds like a job for a FAW-spamming tank boat with high threat or a science vessel with crowd control skills.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
He probably means intelligence officer specialization tree for your captain. Last tier adds +15% shield and armor penetration to your Tac/Eng/Sci Fleet ability for example. Edit: Actually it seems to be a separate ability.
To me this is the second biggest. In my opinion, the worst was Stahl a couple years ago calling the decloaking dialogue box bug "working as intended," when it had been earlier listed as a bug. Oh yeah, and it later went back to being a bug and the topic was hushed up.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
All of which, should be a desired want and, not a forced requirement!
I am all for, variety of difficulty but, this is not what we were given.
What we are given is, pfft lol normal, advanced that should be considered elite, and pfft lol elite which is advanced + 10%.
No one is, getting rewarded really for, what they wanted.
Instead they are given lengthier combat, with same or, worse yet less rewards involved.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Yes thanks!
Ah I got it. I'm holding out for the new specialization they said will be out soon as I'm really not into the whole spy thing.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
That's like saying you shouldn't need to spend your skill points or train boffs. Except for the one crafting trait, and the one box trait, It is a part of leveling, it is the system that makes level 51-60 characters more powerful. Advanced is balanced for 60 not 50.
Edit to head off trolls, elite is for 60+top gear+top builds. Advanced scales you to 60, you're not fighting level 50 enemies but you do not need top gear.
Everyone here is so used to rolling their faces on the spacebar to defeat everything, when they changed the rules, it's thrown everyone off so horribly, it's not funny.
Players want to keep going with the DPS race. It feels like Cryptic wants to return the tank/DPS/squishy wizard roles to where it is and the DPS race people are being thrown for a loop.
I don't think this is it at all. My whole thing is surviving incredible punishment and I can still do that the same. The problem is this doesn't help 'win' the mission at all.
"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 can still take the powers and ignore the name. Its not like using them makes an NPC pop out and slap a "hi I'm a spy" sign on you.
That said, hawk did say that saving points you still earn dil so you're not missing anything.
I'm not super excited that instead we get half the potential rewards and twice the mobs with five times the HP. It's like Santa just left a lump of coal in my stocking.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
2 big disappointments today:
1) The insane Borg NPC buffs,
2) Khitomer Space deleted.
Khitomer was the best of the STFs.
To whoever rubberstamped this disgusting act, I hate you.
RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
I do exactly everything you just said every time, I am not stupid. I am a team player.. I even suggest what we can do to complete the STF.
But now I cant even enjoy the game because everyone's always raging nobody listens and I don't have the time I need to sit around and only play with specific people so don't even suggest it. (and I don't believe most do either).
A friend is running all MKXIV gear on his tac escort..uses all his insta burst to try and kill off as many mobs as possible (in this instance probes on advanced) so we can get to the disconnected Borg. Only its impossible to actually use any kind of decent strategy. why? because you cant send a bunch of people one way without the others losing out and potentially failing not only that but the consistent plasma DoT and the inability to kill off the targets due to how tanky they are... i mean for god sake probes take as long to kill as ****ing tactical cubes from the old elites and this is in advanced..
you want a strategy? either nerf the advanced queue a bit and elite a little less than the nerf you give to advanced.
OR
Add a role/group finding Queue tool to the game (beyond the pathetic excuse for a group finding system we have) and give them a pre-STF lobby once a group so they can discuss what they are going to do before they do it instead of being forced on to some randoms mumble or teamspeak just to strategic for one STF.
or both.
To add this kind of jump/leap in difficulty and expect people to just instantly start brainstorming en masse without giving them a pre-match lobby is just idiotic and naive.
Note though my second suggestion has merit. though i still think advanced needs nerfing. not so much for elite.
So your saying people should have to be super hardcore players with the top gear to have even a chance to earn the advanced R&D mats?
Of course not...Youll just spend a great deal of time hacking at a Spruce Tree with a butter knife. Youll eventually make it through em.
The Elite Drones seem more plentiful, which take longer to kill... but they don't seem to pack the same punch as before. Where I used to have an occasional issue with survivability facing them, now I can just plug away at them.
Honestly, the Ground Advanced missions might take a little bit longer, but the difficulty actually feels easier with the new 'Elite' drones.
I'm actually excited to play the new Ground Elite missions. Maybe they add some of those assimilated Gorn... or Undine.
Seconded, I wonder how many players will walk away because of this nonsense.
game devs..I know you said it'd be harder...but no one was expecting terminator level hard...and we dont even have a t-101 to back us up here.
the cube..was easy..the sphere hard, I heard the theory posited today that someone maybe perhaps accidentally swapped the stat sheets for the two?
that said..I will not be running the so called advanced level stfs, nor making use of the rep system at this rate. kind of hard to when the stfs that drop the required items are near impossible to beat.
1- Murphy’s Law tells us that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
2- And anything that does go wrong will get progressively worse.
3- And if you survive the first two laws it’s time to panic.
Except they then put everything advanced or over on a compulsory timer. That drives full-DPS teams, because if you're dropping from 20k to 15k to tank, and your mate is dropping from 20k to 15k to CC/Heal then the remaining three DPS need to not only up their DPS to keep inline with the hitpoint bloat but also pick up the 10k between them that you're dropping. Because if you don't have a minimum DPS, you physically can't complete inside the timer. And that's ignoring variable factors like messing up positioning, a bad shove, etc.
TLDR - Overall run timers push the game more towards 5-high-dps-ships than towards any sort of 'balanced' team with dedicated role ships.