If the entire endgame is stripped down to a DPS race and you're a DPSer, it proves "I'm right, everyone else is wrong," and who doesn't like that feeling? And if everyone has to copy you, well they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, plus anyone who doesn't copy you, you get to turn up your nose at them for being so childish as to disagree with you. I mean if there wasn't at least some ego involved, why would people be posting videos of themselves or starting threads just to announce their latest accomplishments?
The issue is that you're denying objective reality.
The game requires damage to finish missions and finish queued events. You're arguing for something entirely different. It's obvious when you say "Damage Per Seconders (DPSers)" because you're demonstrating that you don't know what DPS actually means. It's Damage Per Second. It's a standard MMO term. The amount of damage you do is easily understood by how much you're doing per second, instead of what you're doing overall.
You're arguing against objective reality. If anyone turns up their nose at you, it's because you're telling them the sky is green when it's quite obviously blue.
The concept you and many others seem to be failing to grasp is that being a good science officer and being able to contribute to damage output in a meaningful way are not mutually exclusive. And your complaint about what it takes to make a ship actually do damage shows that you either don't understand or don't care about the basic mechanics of the game. I suspect it's that you don't actually care, because you seem to be able to articulate the reasoning why these basics actually work, you just choose not to do them.
If consoles that boost energy type damage are better than consoles that boost specific weapon systems, it makes sense to stick with that one energy type to get the most benefit. If beams do better damage over a wider range of distances than cannons, it makes more sense to use beams. If kinetic projectiles are nearly useless against shields, and energy beams have no such correlating uselessness against hulls, it makes more sense to run all or nearly all beams.
Your main argument is that you don't want to actually do any of this stuff that would make your ship better. You know your ship would be better, but somehow that would be boring to you. You don't want to use fleet or rep gear because, what, it's too hard to get? What were you doing for the last few years most people have been topped out at 50? Failure to prepare on your part should not cause a hardship for me.
I don't personally have a Science-oriented character so for me this is a non-issue, but I've seen plenty of Science builds that can dish out damage, take it, and still contribute meaningful crowd control and healing abilities.
And your comment about the biofunction consoles made me chuckle a bit, because crew regen rate really doesn't have that much of an effect one way or another. So yes, in fact, they are very not necessary. I've never seen a serious build that includes one.
There's a reason most people with ships that can actually do decent amounts of damage all tend to run the same equipment, and skills, and Boffs. It's because it works. Someone already figured out all the hard work about what it takes to actually make best use of the mechanics of the game. Fighting against that only makes you seem silly and contrary. Again, NO ONE is telling you that 30K+ DPS is mandatory. But the math has been done on what it currently takes, and those of you that are lacking will still be lacking until you make the necessary changes. Until then, you're just dead weight in a PUG being carried by those that actually care enough to equip their ships to succeed.
Rhetorical question: Why does the game provide so many options to "fail"? Is it the fault of the devs for not balancing everything, or is it the fault of the players who insist that there is only "one true way"?
On that note, do realize that this thread is not about the elite content, which is advertised to be exactly what you speak of (need to min-max so badly, make the required hyper-massive investements of time/grind/money, have the OP gear, etc. etc.), but the advanced content that is advertised to be "on a par" with the pre-DR "Elite" - which has been calculated to require a 3k DPS "bar", not 15k.
Therefore, back to the intent, thought, and goal of my postings in this thread.
One - There are claims made in this thread that hint of a T5 Luna, using nothing but DOffed, Rep, or mission-looted gear (end of mission, not random drop) that can breach this 15k barrier. I am calling this out, as I want to see it.
Two - I don't see anyone in this thread arguing that advanced must be doable with a "fresh" L50 rainbow boat - at least basic build knowledge (no rainbow/skittle, don't mix cannons and beams without understanding of what you're doing, stock the right consoles, try not to use powers with no discernable effect like Aceton beam or chared particle burst.) is required. However, when having maxxed out a rep chain and running the Mk XII kit from there isn't enough to complete an advanced queue, perhaps there are problems with either the players (we're clearly unskilled and don't know how to use our gear) or the mission balance. As I am only mildly versed in build knowledge - I know enough "cookie cutter" stuff min-maxxers have spewed on this forum over two years, but am not advanced enough to be one myself - I seek knowledge that can be brought to Cryptic to show that perhaps they're "overcompensating" or misadvertising their concept of "advanced"...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
I think the fault in your logic is that you assume that the pre-Delta Rising Elite queues were hard enough at a 3k DPS minimum bar. I assert that they were not. If Advanced only needed 3K DPS, at level 60, it would be a joke. I will also assert that there were a lot of people PUGing it that weren't even doing that. This was hidden by the fact that anyone actually doing 15K or better was carrying the rest of their team. Thus your thinking that 3K DPS is and should still be, sufficient. I personally had runs of the old ISE where I was only doing about 12.5K DPS and was still doing over 40% of the total damage by myself. And that's with staying together as a group, no 3-2 split happening.
I think you'll have a hard time convincing Cryptic that Advanced is far too hard (possible bugs not withstanding) in any sort of logical manner. If they nerf it, it will be because a lot of people would rather whine about it being so hard rather than put any effort into making their ships better, or getting new ships. I'm not trying to tell anyone they have to buy a new ship, btw. I for one don't plan on buying a Tier 6 ship anytime soon, but I did upgrade my Tier 5 Steamrunner and so far, I'd say it was worth the $7 I spent on it. You have to realize, of course it's going to be hard right now. Hardly anyone is at level 60, and the Advanced queues scale everything up to 60. From my understanding scaling up lower level gear is not as good as actually having top level gear.
You never said I couldn't upgrade gear, and everything there is available either through a rep system or on the exchange. Since I haven't actually upgraded all of these personally yet, I'm not sure what extra modifiers they might get, or whether they would get to Epic quality or not. But, that build flown by a competent pilot could probably get very close to 15K DPS if not surpass it. Would it take a fair amount of work to do? Yes. Would it be easier to use fleet gear for some of it? Also yes. I will also point out, I'm by no means an expert, and there are probably things I didn't think of that could be improved, but this is an all around solid build.
I have no idea what my dps is. I doubt it's 20,000. Probably more like 10 on average per character.
I have to ask - what is your citation for these dps levels? I've never seen these published in the game??
Total health/time allowed for mission/Number of players.
ISE last week was 3k - ISA is 15k. Hence why anyone not bringing 15k is trolling their team.
15k was claimed to be doable on every ship - not that every ship can do 15k on any weapon type on a suboptimal build. And Tetryon plus torps is a very suboptimal build.
Some ships, like a Scim, can better 15k on gear they leave a shipyard on - anything 2 tac boff/2 tac console can still do it, but needs far better spec.
Said 2 Tac Console/2 Tac Boff ships struggle to exceed 20k - Galaxy Retrofit/Star Cruiser excepted, as they at least can be dual-A2Bed to make them do 28k.
A Vesta could very easily do 15k, but not the way you were trying it. Still doable, just.
I think the fault in your logic is that you assume that the pre-Delta Rising Elite queues were hard enough at a 3k DPS minimum bar. I assert that they were not. If Advanced only needed 3K DPS, at level 60, it would be a joke. I will also assert that there were a lot of people PUGing it that weren't even doing that. This was hidden by the fact that anyone actually doing 15K or better was carrying the rest of their team. Thus your thinking that 3K DPS is and should still be, sufficient. I personally had runs of the old ISE where I was only doing about 12.5K DPS and was still doing over 40% of the total damage by myself. And that's with staying together as a group, no 3-2 split happening.
Perhaps I am taking Cryptic's statement of "the advanced of DR will be what the elites of today are" at too much face value. By that statement, Cryptic set up the belief that a ship capable of "breezing through" a (then) Elite, would have little problems completing a now-advanced. Had they said "the advanced of DR will be what we originally intended Elite to be", then the expectation could be set based on what elite needed back in S5 - specifically a T5, loaded with then-endgame Mk XI [borg] purples, and a full "STF set", whether it was a Mk X MACO/Omega/KHG, or the assimilated set - aka "late endgame gear" gotten after dozens of normal mode STFs...
You stand by the belief that Advanced = what elites were meant to be - aka needing a solid build of nigh-endgame stuff minimum. And on that logic trail, I can't fault you. So this is where I start to take and post blame on Cryptic's "lovely PR staff" that lead us astray, yet again...
And I'll even argue that 5k - 6k DPS was "almost enough" to "carry" a fail team to victory. I flew at least a dozen E-STFs where dumping a GW III on the nanite squad, then turning around to focus a sensor scanned deflector phaser on the transformer was just enough to pop it - proceeding to my nigh immediate death because the team couldn't pull the aggro of the now in range of me sphere mob before their focused on me fire popped me. Then, I'd regularly tank 40% of the E-Tac cube, "solo" (as in no complementary teammate heals) while stationary (or rocking between 1/4 forward and reverse) because I'd aggro the cube and nobody could pull that aggro away from me. Yes, I consider it a "fail" team when a "mediocre" Vesta build could out-aggro a team of escorts and cruisers...
I think you'll have a hard time convincing Cryptic that Advanced is far too hard (possible bugs not withstanding) in any sort of logical manner. If they nerf it, it will be because a lot of people would rather whine about it being so hard rather than put any effort into making their ships better, or getting new ships. I'm not trying to tell anyone they have to buy a new ship, btw. I for one don't plan on buying a Tier 6 ship anytime soon, but I did upgrade my Tier 5 Steamrunner and so far, I'd say it was worth the $7 I spent on it. You have to realize, of course it's going to be hard right now. Hardly anyone is at level 60, and the Advanced queues scale everything up to 60. From my understanding scaling up lower level gear is not as good as actually having top level gear.
Again, the "intent" vs "equal" thing. I could make a case if Advanced = old elite, but no case if advanced = intent of old elite. Semantics to be sure, but still, some arguments are won only on semantics, ask any lawyer.
You never said I couldn't upgrade gear, and everything there is available either through a rep system or on the exchange. Since I haven't actually upgraded all of these personally yet, I'm not sure what extra modifiers they might get, or whether they would get to Epic quality or not. But, that build flown by a competent pilot could probably get very close to 15K DPS if not surpass it. Would it take a fair amount of work to do? Yes. Would it be easier to use fleet gear for some of it? Also yes. I will also point out, I'm by no means an expert, and there are probably things I didn't think of that could be improved, but this is an all around solid build.
Interesting. Disruptors with touches of radiation damage, 2 console set for increased radiation procs, and the 2 piece dyson set bonus to radiation damage. Almost as naughty, if not naughtier, than a plasma burn boat with embassy consoles. Yeah, this build probably is close to 15k compatible even if half the upgrades don't go gold... My only "knock" on it is falling into the "predictable" nature of disruptors and their debuff - but hey, this is Rome and we need all the DPS we can slap on her... Though were you expecting the TBR pull DOff in this, or do you expect a pilot that can actually handle those twin TBRs with actual repulsion...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Lol, my inclination was that you would have a pilot that could use the Tractor beam repulsors as intended. However, it might be better off with a single TBR and a Grav Well 1 and 3 setup instead. I honestly didn't put a crazy amount of thought into it, and as I said before, making a Sci captain really shine isn't my specialty. That said, I do appreciate the praise and if the only thing you can knock on it is the disruptor proc, I'll take that as a compliment that I've learned my lessons well, lol.
I would agree with you in that if Cryptic's intent was to make people think Advanced was going to be exactly the same as the old Elite was, then they definitely led people astray. I tried to PUG an ISA earlier and failed spectacularly. Only myself and one other player even pulled over 10K before the first Nanite Sphere started healing the Transformer (I'm not sure, but I think someone blew one of the generators prematurely, I was busy working on the Cube over the one we were at when I saw the spheres warp in and tried to intercept). I will fully admit that my ship isn't really ready for it, and certainly not at a level where I can carry anyone doing half as much or less damage as me.
However, if their goal was to make Advanced actually challenging and force players to re-think how they do things, I would say that barring too much stubbornness on the part of the players, it will be a resounding success. And yes, maybe it will make them more money in terms of selling upgrades and ships and dilithium to get better gear for those ships. But, I like this game, and if more revenue coming in ends up meaning better content, I don't have a problem throwing down a few bucks here and there as long as it benefits me.
The sad part is a 10k ship is so easy to do - any level 40 Cruiser, mission reward AP weapons, AP Set, Solanae set, AP tac consoles, Doff B'Tran Cluster for A2B Technician Doffs and away you go, nice and simple 9-12k build captain type/piloting skill/ship choice dependant.
To 'rerail' the thread, and to share a silly story:
This first bit isn't on Advanced, but it adds context. My first Borg Disconnected run today, on Normal. Ran with one of the better PUGs I can remember, managed to coordinate the entire team so that we could simultaneously hold all three sites with considerable efficiency. We got the first optional with ease.
The second optional, however, failed as we couldn't scrounge up enough Borg to liberate at that point. By the time the third stage started, we realized we had completely drained the left site of Borg, though it was too late to route reinforcements to the remaining two; at this point, some of our cubes started popping or being reassimilated under all the pressure. We only got the Undine dreadnought, but that doesn't really matter.
However, this prompted me to attempt to reverse my tactics when I ran my first Advanced run (period), focusing everybody to one spawn point at a time. Didn't even finish the first stage, despite cleaning the place up with considerable efficiency...
The moral of the story is that you should only handle two spawns at a time.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Just tried running CE Advanced for the first time. To be honest, it's not all that different to me. The entity doesn't do any more damage with it's shockwave than it used to, I still survivie it with about 60% hull. The bigest problems I have are the fragments, the entity's regular beam attacks, and the players.
The fragments are doing considerably more damage than they used to. Of course, they completely ignore shields, so everyone is taking a lot more damage than I think they really should from these.
The Entity itself has a standard beam attack that seems to have been upgraded to the same level as the fragments. Now it nearly strips an entire shield facing AND seems to almost ignore shields and go straight to the hull. This should probably be lessened, or at least made to inflict more shield damage than hull damage.
And then, there's the players. Who all still seem to think they can just jump in and run it like they always have. And by that, I mean not one damn cruiser other than myself was healing anyone else. The escorts were still sitting in one spot, pew pewing away while not even bothering to distribute their shield power, and doing negligible damage because they were sitting 9.99 km away from the target. And only one person was doing anything about trying to keep the fragments under control.
We didn't even finish. Managed, to get it down to around 25%, and people just gave up and left. It's like they suddenly got bored. One guy, in a shiney new intel cruiser, died and didn't even bother respawning for about 10 minutes. Seriously, how the hell do you just give up and give everyone else a giant f&^# you after getting more than halfway through?
This goes for everyone; If you aren't willing to stick it out, and muddle through a tough mission, then stay the f$#k out of it. Don't enter these new advanced missions if you aren't going to try, or if you don't have a capable ship or equipment, because you just waste everyone elses time.
And this isn't the first time, by a long shot. The only bad stf experiences i've had have always been because of other players, and it's that exact reason that makes it necessary to have some single player stf's. I would much rather play on my own, without having to rely on other players not being total *******s and ruining a mission for everyone jsut because they don't have the ability to see something through. There also needs to be a severe leaver penalty for these people. Not just a hour long timer. That's nothing. Remove dilithium or marks from them, ban the account for 24 hours so they can't just switch to an alternate character, anything to really make them think twice about doing this ****.
I did an ISA run last night that only lasted about 3.5 minutes before we failed. I'm not 100% sure what happened, but I think one of the generators blew because the Spheres started warping in with the quickness. Only myself and one other guy even went over 10K DPS before we failed it. The next closest person was around 7K. So you still have people in pre-Delta Rising builds thinking they can roflstomp it with their same crappy gear they've had for years. A week ago we would have carried that match and probably come in around the 7-8 minute mark, which isn't too bad in my opinion.
I think what Cryptic needs to add for these queues is a vote to abandon option, that if you're just not going to finish it, but there's no way for you to fail out of it at that point, a majority or plurality vote can end the match with no penalty. It's not fair to people who were trying when people just say TRIBBLE it and leave, because then where you might have eventually had a chance, now you just don't even have the basic arithmetic to even hope to complete it. Maybe this is something that really only applies to the Crystalline queue at this point, I don't know. But personally I'd rather not waste an hour of my life just to end up leaving anyway after everyone else does.
It seems to me that sometimes Crystalline refills with new people but maybe only for the first couple minutes?
I was in one today where I was the last standing of my group of 5. And there were only 3 of 10 left. With only 3 people we can not lower the entity any further. And no new people were being added to the mission.
The sad thing is we were doing very well compared to the average run. But clearly it's just too frustrating for people.
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."
It seems to me that sometimes Crystalline refills with new people but maybe only for the first couple minutes?
I was in one today where I was the last standing of my group of 5. And there were only 3 of 10 left. With only 3 people we can not lower the entity any further. And no new people were being added to the mission.
The sad thing is we were doing very well compared to the average run. But clearly it's just too frustrating for people.
Agreed.
Sad to think, we're back at the point in which the CC was first introduced. It used to be near-impossible to finish the original CC mission -- esp with players giving up... CC was temporarily removed/modified/re-added for special events/completely revamped. And the pre-DR revamp worked.
The pre-DR CC and CC Elite PUGs were fun. There was just enough challenge in then-CC Elite PUGs to make sure you kept on your toes.
Within post-DR CC Normal, now that I've tried it: Disheartening. It was mostly players complaining in Chat*; some ditching; or a few who weren't respawning/staying AFK. I couldn't finish a single instance due to players giving up.
*I still don't get how people had any time to type in the Chat window. But that may explain why players weren't taking down the Tholians, or CC.
Within post-DR CC Advanced, now that I've tried it: Meh. My T5-U ROM Ar'Kif Retrofit build did pretty well, but it was like climbing up a massive waterfall. With enough effort, you could reach your goal. But damn, it was too much work. Fellow players tried to stick with it; thankfully, they did. And the low reward at the completion was a slap in the face.
And I'm not touching post-DR CC Elite any time soon.
All I saw is "I don't want to but I want all top rewards for it" in most of your posts.
Well you had that before. Now either put up, shut up and stick to the level that's specific to what you want....NORMAL Queues, or leave.
Wait, so because he doesn't want to use crutch abilities (bfaw, aux2batt, gw, TT etc) your solution is for him to stay out of the ones that give better rewards? That's not right. So what you're saying is thwt players who want to be unique in their builds and playstyle should be punished for it? That dps nuts, with their cookie cutter builds and crutch powers should be rewarded for being lame? That's terrible. Players who don't want to be dps fanatics shouldn't be forced into it just to get better rewards. The point of an mmo is to be your own person, to do what you want to do, how you want to do it. It I wanted to use what everyone else is using, or play how everyone else is playing, I'd go play battlestar Galactica online.
Its players with your mindset that ruin online games. You get bored with its because you do the same damn thing over and over, every single day, without even a though of changing it up once in a while, because gods forbid you have to work a little bit harder to try something new, and then you demand that the game be made harder, with no regard for how it affects anyone else, because if they aren't striving for over the top dps, and don't want to be another lame cutout, then they're obviously playing the game wrong and need to change.
Players like you should just stick to the lame PvP arena and stay out of PvE. Stop ruining the game for the players who want to be different.
All I saw is "I don't want to but I want all top rewards for it" in most of your posts.
Well you had that before. Now either put up, shut up and stick to the level that's specific to what you want....NORMAL Queues, or leave.
Because there is supposed to be a middle ground. Normal is derp mode and pointless to tinker in because EVERYTHING works and is pretty worthless once one knows a mission structure and has any kind of grasp on build mechanics. Elite is DPS and coordinated team and upgrades required, and as far as I'm concerned you can have it as extreme as you like, I'm happy to stay out of there. But Advanced is supposed to be the middle ground, where you can bring a canon theme build, or a healer, or a drainer, or a tank, or a vaper, and test it and give it the decent workout that Normal just can't provide. Normal is training wheels mode, and I'd like a little more variety than the binary choice of the mission I run in a Miranda, or else AOE or GTFO.
Personally I'd be happy with taking the old Elite, tripling the old HP, and keeping the extra spawns. Call that the new Advanced and I'm thrilled. But this new x10 stuff is just a slog that strips any variety out of the game.
As for the rewards argument, now you're just being insulting. I have 10 different characters, each one intentionally unique (the FAW DPS, the carrier, the healer, etc), and I'm not going to gut half of them because a couple of people have decided they're important and are gonna tell the rest of us what our builds should be. Its the principle of the thing.
Keep in mind we are 3 days into PvE Queue content that initial balance passes aside, may well never be looked at for a balance pass again. Certainly not for at least another few years.
By January we will have pugs succeeding consistently in Advanced Queues, and we will be exactly where you want the content to be.
By Next year, we will be back to last week where everyone can do Advanced and Elite Queues, and we will be back to needing tougher content because players vastly exceed the content.
Again.
STFs are intended to be some of the hardest parts of STO PvE - it was idiocy to have them so easy T1s could do them with optionals as they were.
The frakked materials, Rep Special Items and Dil drop rates are a separate but related issue.
Translation: STFs be FUBAR. Totally FUBAR. Too hard under anything by lowest skill set. At least for pubbing. With a fleet? Sure. Unless you're working w/trained people you know though, you're up the creek.
CSA. I joined a group through PublicEliteSTF. 4 of us were all newbies. 1 had connection problems (bad internet imba). I went in expecting it to be impossible, which, in hind sight, was really sad, because I'm level 52 and fly a T-5U Mobius with Fleet AP and a Mk XII MACO set. Needless to say, with 4 players badly outgunned and inexperienced, we got toasted.
2 tries later, I succeed in a run of very nice people with ISA. The rewards are sufficiently paltry for a mission I could have done in my sleep pre-DR. To summarize, until rewards are properly scaled, every experience will be a bad one, whether or not I win.
"My ship deals 2,000 DPS. I expect Cryptic to nerf everything so that I may continue to reign as king of nothing!"
Alright, dude, its nice that you can be a part of DPS-30K, but you don't have to be a **** to the rest of us while we all try to make our way to the new standard.
Go stomp out the Collective on Elite mode at lvl 60
And FYI I've hit 15k DPS many times on escorts without FAW or CSV (Not my main DPS boat). Just straight up piloting with CRFs. Mostly PvP builds with slight mods towards STFs.
I not only PvP but PvE as well.
And this is before DR so it's easier now with better gear!
And normals and advanced have been nerfed a little, so now you only need mission reward gear in order to succeed at ISA.
CSA. I joined a group through PublicEliteSTF. 4 of us were all newbies. 1 had connection problems (bad internet imba). I went in expecting it to be impossible, which, in hind sight, was really sad, because I'm level 52 and fly a T-5U Mobius with Fleet AP and a Mk XII MACO set. Needless to say, with 4 players badly outgunned and inexperienced, we got toasted.
2 tries later, I succeed in a run of very nice people with ISA. The rewards are sufficiently paltry for a mission I could have done in my sleep pre-DR. To summarize, until rewards are properly scaled, every experience will be a bad one, whether or not I win.
Alright, dude, its nice that you can be a part of DPS-30K, but you don't have to be a **** to the rest of us while we all try to make our way to the new standard.
Go stomp out the Collective on Elite mode at lvl 60
^^ What he said...go wave your 'win or else' flag somewhere else...; some of us simply don't have the time/resources/funds to put out that kind of dps...and I'm perfectly happy with my T5-U Fleet Nebula...nearly all Rep gear(some at Mk XIII)and immensely effective at Crowd Control and Support...still haven't cracked 4k dps with it and don't care....
Three Crystaline Elites, three times I've been left to it on my own only for th eentity to charge up every two minutes resulting in me getting fed up doing it alone and giving up.
Only positive side... finally not getting a leavers penalty when that happens.
I won't lie, Usually I am one for Increased difficulty. Hell even to such a degree it requires much more coordination to do however in this case it's gotten a tad out of hand.
- Near instant kill enemies
- Reports of and experienced the borg: Dissconnected Advanced just failing for no reason
- It near impossible to complete with randoms now which is counter productive to what the game as a MMO stands for: Playing the game with other people.
Not to mention that this is coming in with new content and equipment that was are only now trying to adapt to (borg joke excluded here XD.) I would be understandable if Most STFs didn't require splitting up so much but that is not the case. In fact I have seen more reports of people just quit playing till something is done about it then any of the past expansions. I can understand wanting to build something harder and more intensive on the players but there are better ways of doing it then discouraging even new players from giving it a shot. Such as the following
- Go back to how the STFs and stuff were before where you had them able to be done by current tech players. Instead making another level of difficulty seperated from what it was before that could be done as this. You want a example of what I mean. Normal, Advanced, Elite. Such as what the difficulty was for just missions when you could change how hard the content was that you were doing. (normal = before delta version, Advanced = Before delta version of elite, And elite = what was have now.)
This way it won't turn people away from doing the stuff as well as giving them the motivation to both make or join a fleet and or at the least a goal to work to as they progress through the other content.
- Amp up what can be earned from the normal of STFs and the like if your going to keep it the same as is because otherwise the rep system is going to lose its value and people are just going to quit playing after awhile regardless of what new content is added. I say this because you already got your combination of casual and hardcore gamers among the community. Regardless of what one person is though it starts to get discouraging when they start thinking out how long it would take to really get to be able to even remotely do end game stuff.
As a additional note to this there is nothing to prepare someone to go from normal to advanced like there was before.
I really hope that the devs do actually take a glance to these but if anyone else feels the same way and agrees with any of the above then add or even help just making this known to the developers that this is actually a real issue that just can't be put off till everything else is fixed with the update. I am sure we all could least use a sign knowing that we are being heard.
Note: Yes I know I am not exactly one to post much on here but usually I haven't had a need to up till now.
Been flying my T5U fleet Luna, only won a single Advanced queue and that was a forty+ minute slog through Crystalline Catastrophe. Everyone was competent, their seemed good as far as I could tell, there were only a few deaths on my half of the team (three or four), but it just took forever to whittle the entity down.
Then there was Infected, which had the genius team I was saddled with attempt to kill the second transformer BEFORE the cube guarding it. The nanite spheres were right on top of it before I even noticed them, I was too far away to knock them back in time and we failed the mission.
Borg Disconnected was just insulting. Borg swarmed all over me and I personally couldn't get more than one ship liberated before the first wave ran out, we only freed five in total. The ten Delta marks and Seven popping up to say "thanks for helping" felt like a slap in the face. This mission would be a lot better if you could liberate the Borg ships while taking damage, or if the Borg would stop shooting at me while I'm freaking CLOAKED using the Rom Rep ability.
I'm not doing advanced any more.
Admiral Katrina Tokareva - U.S.S. Cosmos, Yorktown-class Star Cruiser Admiral Dananra Lekall - R.R.W. Teverresh, Deihu-class Warbird General J'Kar son of K'tsulan - I.K.S. Dlahath, Vo'devwl-class Carrier
Comments
The issue is that you're denying objective reality.
The game requires damage to finish missions and finish queued events. You're arguing for something entirely different. It's obvious when you say "Damage Per Seconders (DPSers)" because you're demonstrating that you don't know what DPS actually means. It's Damage Per Second. It's a standard MMO term. The amount of damage you do is easily understood by how much you're doing per second, instead of what you're doing overall.
You're arguing against objective reality. If anyone turns up their nose at you, it's because you're telling them the sky is green when it's quite obviously blue.
Leader of Quantum Mechanics
Member of DPS-30000
Rhetorical question: Why does the game provide so many options to "fail"? Is it the fault of the devs for not balancing everything, or is it the fault of the players who insist that there is only "one true way"?
On that note, do realize that this thread is not about the elite content, which is advertised to be exactly what you speak of (need to min-max so badly, make the required hyper-massive investements of time/grind/money, have the OP gear, etc. etc.), but the advanced content that is advertised to be "on a par" with the pre-DR "Elite" - which has been calculated to require a 3k DPS "bar", not 15k.
Therefore, back to the intent, thought, and goal of my postings in this thread.
One - There are claims made in this thread that hint of a T5 Luna, using nothing but DOffed, Rep, or mission-looted gear (end of mission, not random drop) that can breach this 15k barrier. I am calling this out, as I want to see it.
Two - I don't see anyone in this thread arguing that advanced must be doable with a "fresh" L50 rainbow boat - at least basic build knowledge (no rainbow/skittle, don't mix cannons and beams without understanding of what you're doing, stock the right consoles, try not to use powers with no discernable effect like Aceton beam or chared particle burst.) is required. However, when having maxxed out a rep chain and running the Mk XII kit from there isn't enough to complete an advanced queue, perhaps there are problems with either the players (we're clearly unskilled and don't know how to use our gear) or the mission balance. As I am only mildly versed in build knowledge - I know enough "cookie cutter" stuff min-maxxers have spewed on this forum over two years, but am not advanced enough to be one myself - I seek knowledge that can be brought to Cryptic to show that perhaps they're "overcompensating" or misadvertising their concept of "advanced"...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
I think you'll have a hard time convincing Cryptic that Advanced is far too hard (possible bugs not withstanding) in any sort of logical manner. If they nerf it, it will be because a lot of people would rather whine about it being so hard rather than put any effort into making their ships better, or getting new ships. I'm not trying to tell anyone they have to buy a new ship, btw. I for one don't plan on buying a Tier 6 ship anytime soon, but I did upgrade my Tier 5 Steamrunner and so far, I'd say it was worth the $7 I spent on it. You have to realize, of course it's going to be hard right now. Hardly anyone is at level 60, and the Advanced queues scale everything up to 60. From my understanding scaling up lower level gear is not as good as actually having top level gear.
Also, I took your challenge, and created this build: http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=stoluna_7257
You never said I couldn't upgrade gear, and everything there is available either through a rep system or on the exchange. Since I haven't actually upgraded all of these personally yet, I'm not sure what extra modifiers they might get, or whether they would get to Epic quality or not. But, that build flown by a competent pilot could probably get very close to 15K DPS if not surpass it. Would it take a fair amount of work to do? Yes. Would it be easier to use fleet gear for some of it? Also yes. I will also point out, I'm by no means an expert, and there are probably things I didn't think of that could be improved, but this is an all around solid build.
Vice Admiral of - Starfleet Command -
Total health/time allowed for mission/Number of players.
ISE last week was 3k - ISA is 15k. Hence why anyone not bringing 15k is trolling their team.
15k was claimed to be doable on every ship - not that every ship can do 15k on any weapon type on a suboptimal build. And Tetryon plus torps is a very suboptimal build.
Some ships, like a Scim, can better 15k on gear they leave a shipyard on - anything 2 tac boff/2 tac console can still do it, but needs far better spec.
Said 2 Tac Console/2 Tac Boff ships struggle to exceed 20k - Galaxy Retrofit/Star Cruiser excepted, as they at least can be dual-A2Bed to make them do 28k.
A Vesta could very easily do 15k, but not the way you were trying it. Still doable, just.
Perhaps I am taking Cryptic's statement of "the advanced of DR will be what the elites of today are" at too much face value. By that statement, Cryptic set up the belief that a ship capable of "breezing through" a (then) Elite, would have little problems completing a now-advanced. Had they said "the advanced of DR will be what we originally intended Elite to be", then the expectation could be set based on what elite needed back in S5 - specifically a T5, loaded with then-endgame Mk XI [borg] purples, and a full "STF set", whether it was a Mk X MACO/Omega/KHG, or the assimilated set - aka "late endgame gear" gotten after dozens of normal mode STFs...
You stand by the belief that Advanced = what elites were meant to be - aka needing a solid build of nigh-endgame stuff minimum. And on that logic trail, I can't fault you. So this is where I start to take and post blame on Cryptic's "lovely PR staff" that lead us astray, yet again...
And I'll even argue that 5k - 6k DPS was "almost enough" to "carry" a fail team to victory. I flew at least a dozen E-STFs where dumping a GW III on the nanite squad, then turning around to focus a sensor scanned deflector phaser on the transformer was just enough to pop it - proceeding to my nigh immediate death because the team couldn't pull the aggro of the now in range of me sphere mob before their focused on me fire popped me. Then, I'd regularly tank 40% of the E-Tac cube, "solo" (as in no complementary teammate heals) while stationary (or rocking between 1/4 forward and reverse) because I'd aggro the cube and nobody could pull that aggro away from me. Yes, I consider it a "fail" team when a "mediocre" Vesta build could out-aggro a team of escorts and cruisers...
Again, the "intent" vs "equal" thing. I could make a case if Advanced = old elite, but no case if advanced = intent of old elite. Semantics to be sure, but still, some arguments are won only on semantics, ask any lawyer.
Interesting. Disruptors with touches of radiation damage, 2 console set for increased radiation procs, and the 2 piece dyson set bonus to radiation damage. Almost as naughty, if not naughtier, than a plasma burn boat with embassy consoles. Yeah, this build probably is close to 15k compatible even if half the upgrades don't go gold...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
I would agree with you in that if Cryptic's intent was to make people think Advanced was going to be exactly the same as the old Elite was, then they definitely led people astray. I tried to PUG an ISA earlier and failed spectacularly. Only myself and one other player even pulled over 10K before the first Nanite Sphere started healing the Transformer (I'm not sure, but I think someone blew one of the generators prematurely, I was busy working on the Cube over the one we were at when I saw the spheres warp in and tried to intercept). I will fully admit that my ship isn't really ready for it, and certainly not at a level where I can carry anyone doing half as much or less damage as me.
However, if their goal was to make Advanced actually challenging and force players to re-think how they do things, I would say that barring too much stubbornness on the part of the players, it will be a resounding success. And yes, maybe it will make them more money in terms of selling upgrades and ships and dilithium to get better gear for those ships. But, I like this game, and if more revenue coming in ends up meaning better content, I don't have a problem throwing down a few bucks here and there as long as it benefits me.
Vice Admiral of - Starfleet Command -
It wouldn't be too much to make it 15k either.
This first bit isn't on Advanced, but it adds context. My first Borg Disconnected run today, on Normal. Ran with one of the better PUGs I can remember, managed to coordinate the entire team so that we could simultaneously hold all three sites with considerable efficiency. We got the first optional with ease.
The second optional, however, failed as we couldn't scrounge up enough Borg to liberate at that point. By the time the third stage started, we realized we had completely drained the left site of Borg, though it was too late to route reinforcements to the remaining two; at this point, some of our cubes started popping or being reassimilated under all the pressure. We only got the Undine dreadnought, but that doesn't really matter.
However, this prompted me to attempt to reverse my tactics when I ran my first Advanced run (period), focusing everybody to one spawn point at a time. Didn't even finish the first stage, despite cleaning the place up with considerable efficiency...
The moral of the story is that you should only handle two spawns at a time.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
The fragments are doing considerably more damage than they used to. Of course, they completely ignore shields, so everyone is taking a lot more damage than I think they really should from these.
The Entity itself has a standard beam attack that seems to have been upgraded to the same level as the fragments. Now it nearly strips an entire shield facing AND seems to almost ignore shields and go straight to the hull. This should probably be lessened, or at least made to inflict more shield damage than hull damage.
And then, there's the players. Who all still seem to think they can just jump in and run it like they always have. And by that, I mean not one damn cruiser other than myself was healing anyone else. The escorts were still sitting in one spot, pew pewing away while not even bothering to distribute their shield power, and doing negligible damage because they were sitting 9.99 km away from the target. And only one person was doing anything about trying to keep the fragments under control.
We didn't even finish. Managed, to get it down to around 25%, and people just gave up and left. It's like they suddenly got bored. One guy, in a shiney new intel cruiser, died and didn't even bother respawning for about 10 minutes. Seriously, how the hell do you just give up and give everyone else a giant f&^# you after getting more than halfway through?
This goes for everyone; If you aren't willing to stick it out, and muddle through a tough mission, then stay the f$#k out of it. Don't enter these new advanced missions if you aren't going to try, or if you don't have a capable ship or equipment, because you just waste everyone elses time.
And this isn't the first time, by a long shot. The only bad stf experiences i've had have always been because of other players, and it's that exact reason that makes it necessary to have some single player stf's. I would much rather play on my own, without having to rely on other players not being total *******s and ruining a mission for everyone jsut because they don't have the ability to see something through. There also needs to be a severe leaver penalty for these people. Not just a hour long timer. That's nothing. Remove dilithium or marks from them, ban the account for 24 hours so they can't just switch to an alternate character, anything to really make them think twice about doing this ****.
I was impressed that despite failing the optional and taking so long - all 5 people stayed and no AFKing - good JOB!
I think what Cryptic needs to add for these queues is a vote to abandon option, that if you're just not going to finish it, but there's no way for you to fail out of it at that point, a majority or plurality vote can end the match with no penalty. It's not fair to people who were trying when people just say TRIBBLE it and leave, because then where you might have eventually had a chance, now you just don't even have the basic arithmetic to even hope to complete it. Maybe this is something that really only applies to the Crystalline queue at this point, I don't know. But personally I'd rather not waste an hour of my life just to end up leaving anyway after everyone else does.
Vice Admiral of - Starfleet Command -
I was in one today where I was the last standing of my group of 5. And there were only 3 of 10 left. With only 3 people we can not lower the entity any further. And no new people were being added to the mission.
The sad thing is we were doing very well compared to the average run. But clearly it's just too frustrating for people.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Sad to think, we're back at the point in which the CC was first introduced. It used to be near-impossible to finish the original CC mission -- esp with players giving up... CC was temporarily removed/modified/re-added for special events/completely revamped. And the pre-DR revamp worked.
The pre-DR CC and CC Elite PUGs were fun. There was just enough challenge in then-CC Elite PUGs to make sure you kept on your toes.
Within post-DR CC Normal, now that I've tried it: Disheartening. It was mostly players complaining in Chat*; some ditching; or a few who weren't respawning/staying AFK. I couldn't finish a single instance due to players giving up.
*I still don't get how people had any time to type in the Chat window. But that may explain why players weren't taking down the Tholians, or CC.
Within post-DR CC Advanced, now that I've tried it: Meh. My T5-U ROM Ar'Kif Retrofit build did pretty well, but it was like climbing up a massive waterfall. With enough effort, you could reach your goal. But damn, it was too much work. Fellow players tried to stick with it; thankfully, they did. And the low reward at the completion was a slap in the face.
And I'm not touching post-DR CC Elite any time soon.
Wait, so because he doesn't want to use crutch abilities (bfaw, aux2batt, gw, TT etc) your solution is for him to stay out of the ones that give better rewards? That's not right. So what you're saying is thwt players who want to be unique in their builds and playstyle should be punished for it? That dps nuts, with their cookie cutter builds and crutch powers should be rewarded for being lame? That's terrible. Players who don't want to be dps fanatics shouldn't be forced into it just to get better rewards. The point of an mmo is to be your own person, to do what you want to do, how you want to do it. It I wanted to use what everyone else is using, or play how everyone else is playing, I'd go play battlestar Galactica online.
Its players with your mindset that ruin online games. You get bored with its because you do the same damn thing over and over, every single day, without even a though of changing it up once in a while, because gods forbid you have to work a little bit harder to try something new, and then you demand that the game be made harder, with no regard for how it affects anyone else, because if they aren't striving for over the top dps, and don't want to be another lame cutout, then they're obviously playing the game wrong and need to change.
Players like you should just stick to the lame PvP arena and stay out of PvE. Stop ruining the game for the players who want to be different.
Because there is supposed to be a middle ground. Normal is derp mode and pointless to tinker in because EVERYTHING works and is pretty worthless once one knows a mission structure and has any kind of grasp on build mechanics. Elite is DPS and coordinated team and upgrades required, and as far as I'm concerned you can have it as extreme as you like, I'm happy to stay out of there. But Advanced is supposed to be the middle ground, where you can bring a canon theme build, or a healer, or a drainer, or a tank, or a vaper, and test it and give it the decent workout that Normal just can't provide. Normal is training wheels mode, and I'd like a little more variety than the binary choice of the mission I run in a Miranda, or else AOE or GTFO.
Personally I'd be happy with taking the old Elite, tripling the old HP, and keeping the extra spawns. Call that the new Advanced and I'm thrilled. But this new x10 stuff is just a slog that strips any variety out of the game.
As for the rewards argument, now you're just being insulting. I have 10 different characters, each one intentionally unique (the FAW DPS, the carrier, the healer, etc), and I'm not going to gut half of them because a couple of people have decided they're important and are gonna tell the rest of us what our builds should be. Its the principle of the thing.
By January we will have pugs succeeding consistently in Advanced Queues, and we will be exactly where you want the content to be.
By Next year, we will be back to last week where everyone can do Advanced and Elite Queues, and we will be back to needing tougher content because players vastly exceed the content.
Again.
STFs are intended to be some of the hardest parts of STO PvE - it was idiocy to have them so easy T1s could do them with optionals as they were.
The frakked materials, Rep Special Items and Dil drop rates are a separate but related issue.
Star Trek (On-Line) 12: So Very OP.
Translation: STFs be FUBAR. Totally FUBAR. Too hard under anything by lowest skill set. At least for pubbing. With a fleet? Sure. Unless you're working w/trained people you know though, you're up the creek.
Translation:
"My ship deals 2,000 DPS. I expect Cryptic to nerf everything so that I may continue to reign as king of nothing!"
Leader of Quantum Mechanics
Member of DPS-30000
CSA. I joined a group through PublicEliteSTF. 4 of us were all newbies. 1 had connection problems (bad internet imba). I went in expecting it to be impossible, which, in hind sight, was really sad, because I'm level 52 and fly a T-5U Mobius with Fleet AP and a Mk XII MACO set. Needless to say, with 4 players badly outgunned and inexperienced, we got toasted.
2 tries later, I succeed in a run of very nice people with ISA. The rewards are sufficiently paltry for a mission I could have done in my sleep pre-DR. To summarize, until rewards are properly scaled, every experience will be a bad one, whether or not I win.
Alright, dude, its nice that you can be a part of DPS-30K, but you don't have to be a **** to the rest of us while we all try to make our way to the new standard.
Go stomp out the Collective on Elite mode at lvl 60
And normals and advanced have been nerfed a little, so now you only need mission reward gear in order to succeed at ISA.
^^ What he said...go wave your 'win or else' flag somewhere else...; some of us simply don't have the time/resources/funds to put out that kind of dps...and I'm perfectly happy with my T5-U Fleet Nebula...nearly all Rep gear(some at Mk XIII)and immensely effective at Crowd Control and Support...still haven't cracked 4k dps with it and don't care....
Only positive side... finally not getting a leavers penalty when that happens.
Numerous players flying right up close to the entity, getting hit by every shard and buffing the entities damage to absurd levels.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Indeed - most of my ships are WAY under that figure, and they're as canon as can be. Where no canon exists, they look a bit like NPCs.
Granted, there's still a few things I could try to improve, but most of those involve ludicrous expenditures.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
- Near instant kill enemies
- Reports of and experienced the borg: Dissconnected Advanced just failing for no reason
- It near impossible to complete with randoms now which is counter productive to what the game as a MMO stands for: Playing the game with other people.
Not to mention that this is coming in with new content and equipment that was are only now trying to adapt to (borg joke excluded here XD.) I would be understandable if Most STFs didn't require splitting up so much but that is not the case. In fact I have seen more reports of people just quit playing till something is done about it then any of the past expansions. I can understand wanting to build something harder and more intensive on the players but there are better ways of doing it then discouraging even new players from giving it a shot. Such as the following
- Go back to how the STFs and stuff were before where you had them able to be done by current tech players. Instead making another level of difficulty seperated from what it was before that could be done as this. You want a example of what I mean. Normal, Advanced, Elite. Such as what the difficulty was for just missions when you could change how hard the content was that you were doing. (normal = before delta version, Advanced = Before delta version of elite, And elite = what was have now.)
This way it won't turn people away from doing the stuff as well as giving them the motivation to both make or join a fleet and or at the least a goal to work to as they progress through the other content.
- Amp up what can be earned from the normal of STFs and the like if your going to keep it the same as is because otherwise the rep system is going to lose its value and people are just going to quit playing after awhile regardless of what new content is added. I say this because you already got your combination of casual and hardcore gamers among the community. Regardless of what one person is though it starts to get discouraging when they start thinking out how long it would take to really get to be able to even remotely do end game stuff.
As a additional note to this there is nothing to prepare someone to go from normal to advanced like there was before.
I really hope that the devs do actually take a glance to these but if anyone else feels the same way and agrees with any of the above then add or even help just making this known to the developers that this is actually a real issue that just can't be put off till everything else is fixed with the update. I am sure we all could least use a sign knowing that we are being heard.
Note: Yes I know I am not exactly one to post much on here but usually I haven't had a need to up till now.
Then there was Infected, which had the genius team I was saddled with attempt to kill the second transformer BEFORE the cube guarding it. The nanite spheres were right on top of it before I even noticed them, I was too far away to knock them back in time and we failed the mission.
Borg Disconnected was just insulting. Borg swarmed all over me and I personally couldn't get more than one ship liberated before the first wave ran out, we only freed five in total. The ten Delta marks and Seven popping up to say "thanks for helping" felt like a slap in the face. This mission would be a lot better if you could liberate the Borg ships while taking damage, or if the Borg would stop shooting at me while I'm freaking CLOAKED using the Rom Rep ability.
I'm not doing advanced any more.
Admiral Dananra Lekall - R.R.W. Teverresh, Deihu-class Warbird
General J'Kar son of K'tsulan - I.K.S. Dlahath, Vo'devwl-class Carrier