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crypticgeko
Member Posts: 87
Welcome to Delta Rising. A lot has changed in the game difficulty, and we are looking for your feedback.
Delta Rising was a massive addition, and we anticipate that we will need to make adjustments. So over the next few weeks expect changes in the baseline difficulty, advanced difficulty, and elite difficulty - and also expect rewards to change as we gather more metrics on play-times and success rates.
Our goal was to make basic difficulty and the story content something everyone can play - even with a standard T5 ship. Levels 1-50 are generally pretty easy at basic difficulty, so we felt 51-60 should step things up a bit. Although we expect 51-60 accessible everyone, those in T5 ships and non-upgraded gear should to start to feel a definite challenge as they approach level 60. We expect Advanced to be for more skilled players and those who have invested in the game (ships and gear). And we expect Elite to be for the best of the best. We don't expect most players to succeed on elite difficulty.
If I were to guess, I would expect basic to get some minor tuning, Advanced to get a little easier and Elite to get a lot harder - and rewards, like dilithium rewards, could potentially go up across queues once we are sure we are hitting the right mark. But this is just my guess at this time.
Until then, let us know your thoughts here, and we will take your feedback into consideration.
Thanks, and we hope you enjoy Delta Rising.
LLAP
Delta Rising was a massive addition, and we anticipate that we will need to make adjustments. So over the next few weeks expect changes in the baseline difficulty, advanced difficulty, and elite difficulty - and also expect rewards to change as we gather more metrics on play-times and success rates.
Our goal was to make basic difficulty and the story content something everyone can play - even with a standard T5 ship. Levels 1-50 are generally pretty easy at basic difficulty, so we felt 51-60 should step things up a bit. Although we expect 51-60 accessible everyone, those in T5 ships and non-upgraded gear should to start to feel a definite challenge as they approach level 60. We expect Advanced to be for more skilled players and those who have invested in the game (ships and gear). And we expect Elite to be for the best of the best. We don't expect most players to succeed on elite difficulty.
If I were to guess, I would expect basic to get some minor tuning, Advanced to get a little easier and Elite to get a lot harder - and rewards, like dilithium rewards, could potentially go up across queues once we are sure we are hitting the right mark. But this is just my guess at this time.
Until then, let us know your thoughts here, and we will take your feedback into consideration.
Thanks, and we hope you enjoy Delta Rising.
LLAP
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The general consensus of the players I regularly game with: Too hard, too long, for little or no value. Add that to that astronomical shift in costs within the game, and suddenly the queues are not worth playing.
For the past year, the queues are the only reason to continue playing. There's not much else to do. You've killed exploration, and content (while really nice) is sadly 'not enough'.
I'll try to stay focused on the difficulty alone.
SPACE
1.) The Borg are wildly inconsistent in HP. That makes for an odd story telling device.
ISA spheres - tough to beat. Borg Disconnected - spheres explode when you TRIBBLE in their general direction. In Severed Ties - Damaged Borg Spheres can take more damage than those in ISA. Not sure why, they have the same hit points. Another mechanic at work.
2.) The rewards were slashed. No need to go into detail here.
3.) Completing the event within the timeframe has become extremely difficult.
Summary: Harder to complete, longer, for less than half the original reward. Not puggable. Not fun. New players need not apply.
Not all of us are flying 50K dps ships. Not all of us want to play like that. While the audience for this type of gameplay is vocal, I have watched groups of generally decent players (15K+ dps ea) fail the optional. I won't even try to describe the pug environment.
Given, over the next week new strategies will emerge. But it's clear, we're not doing it for fun anymore.
GROUND
I liked it. It was just challenging enough to make me want to do it again. Then I saw the reward. Meh.
NEW CONTENT
Great content - long boring battles. The ground stuff against the Vaardwar is immensely engaging, but the space battles drag on for so long I actually find myself thinking of other games to play.
I'm sure my impression will change as I make it to 60. The new ship mastery abilities, specializations etc - potentially very cool. But I'm finding the new content easier in T5-U ships than in the T6 ships. It's making me question the purchase of the Operations pack and $100 worth of zen for dilithium.
My suggestion:
Roll back the HP by 50%. We're not all 50K players here.
Restore and enhance the rewards. You're cheap. No one likes a cheap-skate. Seriously. If you want me to drop $250 on the next expansion, give me a reason to want to play.
Update the AI. Add random elements. Come up with a system that engages the 50K monster without squashing the 10K average joe. You know... programming.
Normal - difficluty is fine, rewards are too low (should be like old normal).
Advanced - difficulty is ok (however perhaps scaling HP of NPCS could be tuned down a little - say -10-25%). Rewards should be at least same as old Elite (as it is in fact harder than the old Elite).
Elite - difficulty is ok (it is supposed to be a challenge). Rewards are too little, especially given high chance of failure, there should be more partial rewards.
Finally... VR mats. Given the huge numbers of these required in crafting and upgrading, there are too few sources of these in regular game content. Now that the difficulty of Advanced is so much harder and fewer have a go heroes are able to complete this content the market from regular game play is going to dry up pushing up prices.
Obviously I am not so naive to think this isnt completely a bad thing for you as R&D packs are for sale in c-store/lockbox reward. However, I feel it's a bad thing for the game for those wishing to progress through f2p. Normal queues should give reasonable chance for VR mats. Advance should be GUARANTEED decent amount of VR mats. Elite should be GUARANTEED large amounts of VR mats.
Thanks and well done. I am pleasantly surprised by DR. Servers have been pretty stable considering. Upgrades of ships/gear is nice and something to do. New content is fun and well made. Best thing... Ops Pack available for Zen. Bought it straight away.
...#LLAP...
Especially once we start getting into specialisation skills and people become more and more powerful, advanced will get easier and easier.
I think, though I would have rather seen difficulty increased through NPC AI rather than just more ships with more HP. Right now NPCs don't make much use of abilities, so the HP is the MAIN aspect of difficulty and that's not difficult as much as it is time consuming, and it also continues the problem STO has had for a while where DPS is king.
Right now Science debiffs aren't of much use and tanks and healers are similarly not really required since every ship pretty much can handle damage on their own. I think altering NPCs to require a mix of roles rather than just always having to bring more guns would go far to increasing the difficulty. Seeing as these are group missions, teamwork needs to be more encouraged than it seems to be now (though this last point varies by queue)
Advanced - 1500 dil
Elite - 2500 dil
And make Adv a little easier. That is all and I will be happy.
Don't make changes on difficulty level until people have progressed to level 60 to give you a fair read.
Scaling of rewards, dilithium and crafting mats could be more progressive with the difficulty. Advanced perhaps could award a small amount more but elite quite a lot more.
VR mats for crafting will become gated/exclusive sales options for the most skilled players. Perhaps this is a good design, but it willl potentially choke the upgrade crafting system. You may wish to increase the contents of the R&D loot boxes.
A lot to do to make an informed opinion, so don't make any major changes on fine tuning until we can experience it at end game levels.
I am enjoying the expansion so far, but the part that has me worried is the price of the T6 ships and the upgrade tokens. As a F2P player, I have been exchanging my dilithium to zen over the last couple of months and I only have just under 1,000. Exchanging 8,000 dilithium to zen isn't enough I believe and takes way too much time.
With all of the dilithium costly items now in the game such as upgrades and converting dilithium to zen for the content, will this influence the dilithium refinement cap?
Thanks Geko
I do believe that the rewards should be increased to compensate for the higher difficulty and greater failure rate. A few assured VR Materials for Advanced and a few more for Elite would be nice.
That said, I have enjoyed this expansion so far. You all did a good job on the whole.
Basic Difficulty:
should stay basic but She amount of marks and rewards you get from basic STF's should be buffed however.
Advanced difficulty:
Should revert to the difficulty it was at before DR (Pre-DR elite) with increased amount of marks for victory and failure, the other rewards received should be improved as well. But still should be reduced compared to Elite but not so reduced that it feels like essentially taking years to get anything done.
Optional objective failure prospect should remain for this but should be renamed as optional gives off a false positive to players I.e: A player sees the word optional and will think its his choice whether to do it or not and that he or she can still win even if he or she doesn't do it.
That being said the queues should not in any shape or form scale you up In my honest opinion because it brings horrendous results as we have seen on launch. Ex. Borg disconnected basic should unlock for players at level 51 until they reach level 55 then Advanced becomes available as well and then at level 60 elite becomes available as-well there would be no need for scaling ships up to a specific level and quite frankly it hasn't worked very well at all.
Elite Difficulty:
Fine from what I have heard from other, haven't had a chance to try it yet so ill leave that to the more grind happy players who are already 60. Quite frankly though after my nightmarish experience with Borg disconnected at level 52 on advanced im not sure Id want to try elite at all at this current time.
Non-Difficulty related Suggestion, but relevant to queues:
I was quite angry earlier when I was arguing with someone on the forum about the difficulty settings however something decent came out of it, as I was rambling incoherently I did suggest that we should have pre-STF group lobbies so the groups that queued for the STF can play ahead before joining the STF map... that way they know what they are doing... Also allow for role picking as well so that if a group is looking for a science captain on elite they can get one... sure they can run with their fleets non-stop but that's why we have all this "elitist" TRIBBLE going round, no pun intended. This would also work for those who queue by themselves randomly. would be much better than the current tool we have..
it would be optional of course.
and you could add this to the DUN DUN DUN... PvP queues except it wouldn't be a pre-STF lobby for a group it would be a Pre-match lobby.
P.s whoever I was insulting earlier I apologise but the Queue changes really messed with my first hour or so with the expansion.
I believe Advanced needs to be toned down a bit. The jump in difficulty from Basic to Advanced is quite a steep one right now. I can see a steep climb from Advanced to Elite, but Advanced is too far right now in my opinion.
I believe that Advanced should be something that a skilled group can pull off, but it should be do-able by public groups that just did a 'quick join.'
Elite should be the one that requires a more focused coordinated team, Advanced needs to be toned down to increase changes of completion by public groups. Not all of us stick to just Fleet Groups, I enjoy jumping in via 'hot join' and just having some fun.
Right now, Advanced is far too much effort for the minimal reward, I would really like to see that adjusted. I would recommend lowering HP's on enemies by 15-20% across the board on Advanced.
Thank you for taking the time to consider our requests.
One thing i would request though is if queues are being redesigned to require an actual strat then can we get that 15-20second timer where nobody can move? If needed that time can be used to divide up player responsibilities. Maybe just make that 15second timer a standard thing for all queues.
currently it is still very possible for a team of T5 ship with pre-DR gear to complete these missions. it just requires a little more team work and a lot more smarts.
If Advanced does require a slight nerf, the best course would probably be to reduce the number of enemies back to what we had with the old queues, but keep the HP scaling the same.
As for Elite difficulty, this will require some discussion.
I agree it's a bit too early to be calling for the difficulty to be toned down since the reference pool is still to small launch day and even when we get most people to 60 it will take a bit of time for new tactical plans to arise.
I do think an eye should be kept on things, and I do still wish HP were lowered a bit to deemphasize DPS while increasing AI intelligence to reemphasize varied roles and teamwork, but to try and keep the difficulty similar.
If we all wait until level 60 before we have a hope in hell of completing something even as easy as Fleet Alert then it's going to be a sorry state of affairs, besides bringing crafting to a crashing halt.
Same goes for Fleet Alert or other rather normal Space Combat. Without high DPS it is now impossible to run those. Enemy Damage output is a joke, but as long a mere frigate is tanking as much as a battleship pre-expansion it is not worth the time.
(All being done in a Fleet Avenger Beamboat with Level 50 and partly Mk XIII Weapons/Gear)
Waiting for everyone to be lvl 60 and to have four ship traits, most of them doing nothing DPS-wise for cruisers by the way, ist a little wishful thinking, as long enemies can't really harm me but can outtank me and many others just until time limit exspires.
Suggestions:
Enemy HP-Scaling went crazy. -15% for advanced and i gueass we could live with it.
Rewards: The thought behind diminished rewards would be ok, but for Dilithium to scale 240/480/? is a little low. 360/720/? would be fine. Please consider the time advanced Queues need now.
Higher difficulty should be more than high HP and high numbers,rather more abilities or at least some intelligent use of the current ones.
480 / 960 / 1440 - anything less is a waste of time.
Waiting is all well and good but...
Will there be enough people around to keep the game profitable in a months time?
The frustration level is very high at this point, to a fairly large portion of the player-base.
Enough so, that many folks are just leaving and many are likely to not come back.
That's never good, no matter what your thoughts are on the difficulty levels now.
SWG comes to mind in a situation like this. I for one don't want this to be STO's, NGE.
<shrug>
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Besides, there are better ways of getting Dil than by STF queues imo, even before the change. I don't know about you, but the most frustration I've seen so far has been on these forums, and some who've tried the queues. And except for all but the newest, this shouldn't be enough to say 'enough is enough', especially since this is only launch day.
Besides, going by last month's player going-ons, even if you ignore the massive influx for DR, a good many people are still playing the game.
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
That said: decrease a lot the enemies' HP and shields, and increase a lot their AI: give us a challenge for our skills rather than for our cannons.
Bye / Qapl
The big mistake made in my eyes is the fact that the new difficulty is something that should have been OPTIONAL for some by choice and not something being forced upon everybody the way it has been done.
I fail to see the reason why you at Cryptic felt any need to tinker with the former elite Borg STF mode at all because it was the most enjoyed aspect of STO for a vast majority. It was simply the best running system in STOs endgame contend you ever made.
Many of us have played for years and developed our toons to a point where we could handle them the way we were used to and had fun in it. New players could adjust easily to it if guided or can learn it by themselves in a few weeks.
With the current system it feels like all game progression has been taken away from us and every further progression (u expect that from now on more than ever in form of tier 6 ships, gear upgrades) is just necessary to regain something we already had. This is not encouraging but rather gives the feeling of a major setback especially under consideration of the reduced rewards.
Solution is simple:
With all the current stuff available the former normal mode is nothing worth playing at all and I bet the new one isnt either. Queue lists show that. Just make 2 difficulty setting not 3 because common queue lists are deserted already and 3 settings dont make it better.
1) In setting 1 give us back exactly the former elite STF we are used to play (ISE; KASE; CSE; IGE; KAGE; CGE) and call them however u feel like. Reward it the same way u did before!
2) In setting 2 make it twice or three times as hard if u like with all your new fail criteria. Please keep in mind that things like exchanging heavy tac drones with elite tac drones like you did in kage is considered challenging as is to integrate more npcs to fight (at least up to a reasonable point). Just increasing the hull hit points like with the encountered ISE spheres on the other hand just feels incredibly unimaginative and is not fun to play. Reward this new elite mode accordingly and watch the queue lists closely to get a feedback if you did a good job.
This advice comes from an enthusiastic and good costumer of your product who played literarily thousands of elite STF the past two and a half years under many different circumstances and team constellations.
Pleas fix it asap!
- Connor
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Elite STF was better but the reward was completely out of whack with the time it took. The problem is you have halved the rewards while making it take x3 to x4 longer.