I think the advance mode needs toned down a bit, to be honest, but players will learn it. My only concern is new players and gearing up - so much of the better stuff requires isomorphic injections, neural processors, etc.
A lot of problems would be solved if the 'daily reward box' gave a player 1 of that faction's 'currency token'. That way every player could get the gear they wanted, people who hate the new difficulty can stay in basic and be happy, and those who actually desire a challenge can have what there is now.
I agree - the game needed more of a challenge. The problem with the current level of challenge is - there are way more players who were happy with easy mode then there were players who wanted a challenge. Without a happy medium, Cryptic could lose quite a bit of business. Elite should be for the best of the best, I completely agree. It should be hard, it should be brutal, and it should give damned good rewards for the players dedicated and skilled enough to do it. However, there are players who don't want that, and basic and advanced should cater more towards them.
I think it makes perfect sense to have Elite really Elite. Most of us should simply not be able to do it, and that may include me. THat is the only way it will have meaning as endgame content to the hardcore crowd.
But ADvanced probably should be closer to where it used to be. Though please don't use the old Infected Elite as measuring stick, I am afraid it was really way too easy.
But maybe that is a problem specific to Infected Elite and doesn't mean all the other Borg STFs need the same stats. Maybe ICE just needs a more fundamental change?
Though remember for all the new maps - the best strategies have not been figured out yet. Infected Elite was certainly figured out and I do not really remember ever seeing anyone doing something basically wrong as splitting between the nanite generators in PUGs. (I still saw people killing the nanite thingies one by one, rather than all at once, even in PUGs that definitely didn'T have the DPS or crowd control to intercept the Nanite Spheres, but that'S basically the second part of the winning strategy. The new missions we probably don't even have the first basic worked out and communicated to the majority of players.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
i'm curious if there will be anyone in the staff (geko or some other dev) who reads this thread, and take the feedback and suggestions to consideration, or it was just created to make us feel "yeah, they're workin on it, and what we say matters to them". i really hope some adjustments will happen, and my sarcastic side won't be right again....
Defiant
RnD and upgrade needs less RNG. Less lottery. Something has to change.
Thank you sincerely for engaging the community directly on this topic.
From your posting, one assumes you've been reading the forum feedback. You address many of the concerns which have been raised today. I can honestly say I agree with every single point you made in your post.
Some players, including myself, do have additional concerns and ideas -- not all of which will be reflected in the metrics.
For your consideration:
+ STF REWARDS
There's a definite catch-22 between working the Reputation system to earn skills/items, but being unable to qualify to earn them. Example: Being able to earn Borg Neural Processors, Voth Cybernetic Implants within the revamped STFs.
If Advanced and Elite levels are intended to remain at current levels, then create an alternative way to earn these items within the Normal level. Some players are seeking to grow their Reputation tiers so they are able to play/survive/have fun in the Advanced level. (And as you suggested, Elite should live up to its name: Elite.)
What about offering a choice in Normal between Marks, Dil, OR rep award (like 1 Voth Cybernetic Implant)?
In other words, give Normal level players a chance to advance in the Reputation system. Or change Advanced back to pre-DR "Elite" playability for a better chance at gaining those items.
+ THE VALUE OF UPGRADED/NEW SHIPS IN STFs
I've been trying to determine whether to go ahead and invest in T5/Fleet T5 upgrades to T5-U. Based on player feedback in this forum, I'm not comfortable buying ship upgrade tokens. (Which isn't good for Cryptic, as I'm one of your players/customers who spends real money on Zen.)
I'm not expecting to fly the U.S.S. Invulnerable/Invincible. But the T5-U upgrade doesn't keep me competitive in these updated STFs. (And some players are feeling the same about T6 ships, too.) Getting killed by a one-shot Crit = not fun. Spending more valuable game time trying to finish an STF that took less time before = buzzkill/burnout.
Making me spend more time earning less marks, less Dil = formula for abandoning STO.
The game is grindy enough as it is. I come home from work to play, not to go back to "work"; making the grind even more intensive is going to drive players away. More work, less fun, less players, less revenues.
+ BOOSTING STF REWARDS
Between the Dabo tables and the Crafting system, Cryptic seems hellbent to do gambling, er, randomization games.
Why not allow players to wager their hard-earned STF winning into a post-STF gamble?
Example:
Borg STF ends.
Player is rewarded with xx Marks, TRIBBLE Dil, TRIBBLE Experience.
Upon exiting the STF, player is prompted to wager xx amount for a chance to win xx number of extra Marks, Dil... or Borg Neural Processors.
Player can play or pass; participation doesn't affect outcome for other players.
REMEMBER...
Whatever you choose to do with the STFs, please remember:
Make it fun.
That's why we're here. (Well, some of us, anyways... )
THIS..... You pretty much took the words out of my mouth.... Great post.....
My only comment is that once ships are 60 and the skill trees are fleshed out I can only hope the advanced becomes far more routine. I'm a hardcore STF player and right now - well I just logged off hours ago and have no desire to log back on now....
Oh yeah... I also spend good money on the game. My investment in this game since development announcement is thousands of dollars. Hell I even spent about $500 last month - food for thought Cryptic....
If you are looking for an excellent PvE fleet consider: Omega Combat Division today.
Former member of the Cryptic Family & FriendsTesting Team. Sadly, one day, it simply vanished - without a word or trace...
But ADvanced probably should be closer to where it used to be. Though please don't use the old Infected Elite as measuring stick, I am afraid it was really way too easy.
Actually, with the new requirement of "fail one of what used to be optional and the whole mission fails", even Infected Advanced should be back in all other respects to the previous Infected Elite.
The problem with the new Advanced (old Elite) isn't that it's entirely too difficult, it's that the HP are so high now that it takes a LOT longer to do. Thus, it not only is very boring & drawn out to most, but to a lot of others, it gives the illusion of being more difficult. For example, when the Crystalline Entity takes 10 well-equipped people in upgraded ships 45 minutes to knock it down to 25%, and then it stays at 25%, there's an issue. It comes off as being impossible to kill, and therefore more difficult.
I'd be ok with bumping them up to twice as long, the 5-10 minutes they used to take would be upwards of 20. If that was the goal, it was missed by many quadrants. I've yet to play an Advanced queue that has finished through, everyone ends up quitting due to the HP stagnating at some point.
The other issue is the rewards. 480 for that in Advanced? Thanks, but no. Slashing the rewards for something when it was stepped up & made more challenging makes zero sense, and it's a GREAT way to kill the queues. No one will want to grind away for 45 minutes for a pittance, compared to the former reward.
What you used to refer to as Elite in our queued events and STFs is now known as Advanced. In the new Advanced versions of the queues you will see a similar level of challenge in the enemies that you are used to when the queues were labeled Elite.
So... what happened to the intent of this statement?
Advanced ques are just about impossible to complete with pugs!
though not having played the pve ques yet i have read a lot of feedback asking for advanced and elite to be made easier, i have also seen players ask for levels to stay as is and yet others say wait and see as we level up and get better weapons.
this leaves me with a question to you devs, it seems everyone is happy to leave normal as it is but my question is does the advanced and elite levels need to be pre-set, is there not a way for the game to measure the overall rating of a players ships and gear and scale accordingly, obviously in elite the scale would be set slightly higher than the advanced scale to begin with.
if it could be done this would mean even players with T5 ships and mk11 gear would be able to have a fun slightly challenging game while people using T5u or T6 and mk13 & mk14 gear would have similar fun slightly challenging game even though the difficulty level is set higher by the game the difference would be imperceptible to the player.
it would also mean that as players progress the and get better gear the game would gradually scale accordingly.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
I don't understand why a "normal" difficulty mission like Klingon Base Defense should have to be played at lvl 60. A reasonably-equipped T5 group got stomped by wave 2 of that mission (invaders were a horde of Felk'ri ships); at least we all got some marks & dil as a consolation. The "normal" Infected Conduit mission went quite normally by comparison, hence, my confusion. Unless additional gear/ships are provided by rank progression, it will be a rather expensive proposition to pass muster for lvl 60 content...
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STO player since November 2013
The rewards are definitely too low for the Advanced and Elite difficulties. This really goes a long way in deciding what content I play, especially when that play involves grinding. Increased DL for Advanced to 960 with a guaranteed BNP and have a bonus BMP for acquiring the optional. Loot needs to be returned as well. Considering the current trend, I think loot should be in the form of the following. Normal: blue crafting materials, Advanced: Purple crafting materials, Elite: Crafting multipliers (sorry, I can't remember the correct name for them).
All PvE Queue event should rewards a choice of marks or a 50/50 split on marks. Normal could be 50 marks or a 25/25 split between all available marks, players choice. Advanced could be similar but with a total of 70 marks rewarded and those could be split 35/35. Elite again would work similar with a total of 100 marks where the player would have the choice of 100 marks of one mark type or the player could choose a 50/50 split between two types of marks.
PvE Queue Difficulty
Normal seems to be fine the way it is for both space and ground.
Advanced seems to be fine in terms of enemy DPS but their hull HP is too high. For players at this level, it takes too long to kill things. Cutting their HP in half seems like the right move here. I haven't played any Advanced ground PvE Queue missions since Delta Rising launched.
I don't have much to say about Elite currently as I don't have access to the new elite queued missions. I do expect the AI to be fully ramped up to help make the enemies more challenging, not must taking longer to kill due to insane amounts of Hull HP. I haven't played any Elite ground PvE content as of yet but regular ground missions on Elite seem fine to me.
I would also like to see an elite version of Colony Invasion and the queues for this event specifically be changed to cross-faction. When trying to play this mission KDF side, it is hard to get a PuG instance of this going without waiting a half hour, if not longer. I really enjoy this PvE Queue mission but sadly, I don't get to enjoy it enough as the wait time to get one to launch is way too long.
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How to increase a difficulty how i imagine it? Add more abilities to npcs and not 2-10x more hp. What f.e. Borg energy adapt- for every 1k/s dmg 1% resist(counterable by scis), subnucleonic wave for big npcs as cubes and crystalines and not this wave for players (game breaking for pvp), some energy drain agaist a2b and more pressure dmg (healers finally useable in stf!) and no time limits (why? game only for dpsers?)
Colony Invasion is the ground equivilant of KDF/FED Fleet Alert. Yet Colony Invasion has had no changes at all done to it. Running it felt exactly like running it pre expansion.
However running Fleet alert is like running face first into a brick wall with the massive inflation of HP Pools.
Also Undine Infiltration Advanced, I don't notice a change in difficulty here either before old elite and new advanced.
Khitomer in Stasis Advanced ( Ground ) - Okay. A little bit of a long review here, as this is the only mission I've noticed a noticable difference that I played that hasn't already been screamed about ( CCA anyone? ) This right here is how Advanced Difficulty SHOULD be done. No massive inflation of hp pools. Just a more tougher encounter. If you applied this to your space encounters it'd go a long way to correcting what alot of people have been getting up in arms over, massive hp pool inflation.
Previously on pre expansion khitomer ground elite, you had a grand total of about 3, maybe 4 elite tact drones in the entire run.
New Advanced mode has like 1 to 2 Elite Tact Drones... PER pull. Every mob pack seemed to have at least 1, sometimes, 2 eltie tact drones.
This ramped up the difficulty, but only in terms of per encounter with incoming damage so you had to play SMARTER. There was no hp pool inflation like space, so it wasn't holding down a button and say, watching tv. Honestly. This is how Space Advanced SHOULD be done. Add more tougher enemies, make the encoutners harder in terms of tougher enemies, aka adding tact cubes, etc. Not this huge bloated HP Pools we see in space advanced.
Just did a pug FFA. Had a little over 2 min left after finally defeating wave 1 and 2. It was obviously going to fail. Would have been nice if the next wave would have showed up but all we did was sit there over the starbase with nothing to do but wait for 2 minutes for fail rewards, 11 fleet marks and 240 dilithium. Yeah, not worth anyone's time. Sad when even the NPCs know it is a waste of everyone's time to show up. The four folks I was with all stated that they have not finished a single FFA since the update. I am curious since the hardcore are the minority and the majority are the unwashed masses of pugs that just want to have a good time, how is this going to help the game in any way? Is FFA now end game content that you should not be doing until level 50 and in a maxed level 50 ship with complete tier XII gear? I have spent a TON of money on ships that are now obsolete even as T5Us. The game was fun before the new update, there was a point to playing STOs. Now it is NOT fun period. I have 18 toons across all factions because I simply had a ball playing STO. Now for the first time since open beta, I am wondering where to spend my time and money to have fun. When I see spoke persons for the game say things like "minor tweaks" yeah I hear "we made a choice to go in this direction and no matter the feed back we are going to run this baby off a cliff". Oh well, my opinion and how much fun I am having in game obviously means little to nothing as I am one person. Any way I can get a server that has the old game mechanics that were fun and made me feel like spending money on the game?
Perhaps you should read the rest of the Dev blog, specifically where they talk about "new challenges" being added to Advanced. Similar does not mean "exactly the same as it was before".
From reading that blog, it would appear that was talking about new Optionals to supplement the now mandatory "Old Optionals".
We have two fleets of 500 players each, the feedback i'm getting is they are not happy with the changes.
Please note about 80 percent of the people in our fleet are new, average, or part time players.
We know Elite 30K DPS players are in minority this means content should not be created for such a small group.
People also don't like content that creates ranks in the game the new difficulty is doing just that.
Below Par Player - One who cannot complete the ADV STFs and gets trolled in the forms for speaking out.
Biggest complaint people is they are discouraged when they fail the optionals and get no rewards.
(FYI : They should be called objectives not optionals. )
We went from 20 people on TeamSpeak to five after the average player become disenchanted.
These are people who did the old STFs in 5- 6 minutes and could not finish Fleet Alert, Advanced, Cure and Infected.
I put a positive spin on it and started telling the fleet to level up to 60.
The feedback I received was pretty bad, I believe its due to 75% all people dont like change.
Drastically changing majority of the players favorite content is not good due 75% all people dont like change.
Because 75% all people dont like change new content should have been added while leaving the old difficulty levels and rewards in place.
I see a few post in favor of the changes while they put down the people who dont like them shame on them.
Well you cannot argue that 75% all people dont like change and many business have gone broke due to drastic changes. (Star Wars Galaxies is a good example)
75% all people dont like change so why in the heck would any one think changing the most favored content would be accepted.
I really do hate the Advanced and Elite queues for Space. All that happened was NPCs got an extra decimal place in health/shield pools. All it did was make Advanced and Elite tedious because it takes several minutes to kill a single 250k probe alone. The probe can't even kill me, but I'm sitting here tapping the fire/tactical buff button over and over with nothing new. The content isn't more difficult; it is just boring.
I want to have more challenging content, but having more hit points to burn through doesn't make it more challenging. These queues would be so much more difficult if NPCs actually used more buffs, debuffs, healed themselves/others, and focused fire on players. For now I'm not even going to touch Advanced or Elite Space queues given the sheer amount of health I have to drain to progress the mission. That said I'll be spending a lot of time in the ground queues where NPCs obtained an acceptable health pool buff...but nothing stupid high like space.
I don't expect the advanced to be as easy as the elite was before. However, STO is focused towards the casual gamer. Yet, most of the casual gamers are not doing 35-50K DPS. A few things I would keep in mind are these:
Increasing the hull and shield hit points is not so much a challenge since newer ships and gear have always fed the power creep. Granted, knowing how to fly a ship players a lot into it. But just making them able to tank more is not adding a challenge, but just making it harder. A smarter AI would be a much better option.
You have the Normal difficulty for players to cut their teeth on. That is the way it should be. But, since you overly buffed the hull, and shield hit points for advanced, it makes it extremely hard for most of your players that don't do the "melt your face" DPS. Advanced should be the content that gives the average player a challenge, and makes them come away saying, "That was awesome!" I loved the fact that the Conduit had more spheres, and the Cure also. That added a nice touch to it.
If players want the hardest content, and want to see people die around them because of the difficulty, that is what elite is for.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying that players should be able to solo any STF, or drop the cubes while the nanite probes are still under them. Or that they should be able to drop the gate in the Conduit while at least one transformer is still up. However, if three average DPS players are attacking the BOP in the Cure as soon as they spawn, and they can't drop them before they can start firing on the Kang, then there are too many hit points there.
In one instance, we had two ships that were 15K builds, and the other three were around 9K. For almost the whole time, it was 5 players hitting BOP, and spheres. At 3 min left, other players started leaving, because it was pointless.
You already added more spheres to both missions. That was a pleasant surprise. I loved it. However, lower the hit points down, and make it doable for the average player. Let the elitist have the elite queues. That is why they are called elite.
About the rewards, if you are going to do anything with them, they should have been increased from where they were originally before DR. The normal should have become 960, the advanced 1920, and the elite should have given what they are worth to the elite that can run them, 3840.
Also, the developers have mentioned that the elite are for the best of the best, as I agree it should be. However, if you lock the VR mats behind it, then you are punishing those that don't have the money, resources, or time to get the best of the best gear, and try for it. Putting a decent chance to getting them in advanced, since they are going to be harder missions that the old elites, only makes sense. But, for elite, make it a guarantee drop of at least one, but can be higher. And if it hits on a higher number, like 2 or 3, then everyone in the team gets the same amount.
This will make the elite suitable for the elite, the advanced suitable for the average player, and normal for the ones that just get in them for a few marks to run rep projects, and don't care for the higher rewards. If you want to make three categories, and them be for different range of players, then making two of them focused more for elite is not doing the job.
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Perhaps you should read the rest of the Dev blog, specifically where they talk about "new challenges" being added to Advanced. Similar does not mean "exactly the same as it was before".
He didn't suggest that "similar' should mean "exactly the same", but nice straw man.
"Similar" is far closer to "the same" than it is to "2 to 4 times as long to complete."
What I find really funny is all these supposed elite cool kids club types spending more time making snide remarks, veiled insults, and enjoying seeing everyone have things taken away from them in advanced than they are enjoying their new elite tier they asked for (and also now acting like both advanced AND elite should be their little playgrounds and we are all welcome to go sit in the kiddie pool).
Perhaps you should read the rest of the Dev blog, specifically where they talk about "new challenges" being added to Advanced. Similar does not mean "exactly the same as it was before".
Really, changing what used to be optional to mandatory makes it similar even if everything else is the same. :P
Like others, I welcome the higher difficulty of the elite missions, but I have a serious issue with the higher Hp/shields of enemies on normal and advanced. As a general rule, there has to be a purpose for gear upgrades. In this case, the elite missions give us something to shoot for. This is good because elite missions are an expansion on what already exists.
When you change all pre-existing content to suddenly become so much stronger, even though we know our DPS numbers are the same we feel weaker by comparison. It pisses on all the hard work of the players in getting their ultra xii weapons and consoles when suddenly they feel like pea shooters. Players need a gold standard against which they can feel that their efforts have accomplished something. Our STFs were that standard (even fleet alerts!). They let us gauge our strength and lets be honest, gave us respite when we just wanted to blow things up. Now, our gold standard is so much stronger than before, making all of our past efforts feel worthless and causing players to quit and rage. Upgrades should be required to MOVE FORWARD, not to CATCH UP.
So in summary, yes, add new content that requires stronger gear, but leave alone what is already there. Let players continue to use that standard and don't be afraid of letting players dominate past foes with new weapons. Rewards will be scaled accordingly, so let them have fun for goodness sakes.
Rather than changing the difficulty of advanced, I would suggest reducing the mission cool down timer on these instead, if only for the sort term until more players have adjusted to the changes. It's VERY frustrating when doing for example Infected Space advanced and 1 player pops a gen before you can pop them all quickly and then take the transformer down, failing the STF and then having to wait for nearly an hour to try again.
The difficulty really isn't the problem, if you get an intelligent team it's still doable. The problem is that intially at least most teams will think that they have the DPS to just dash through it without any care, leaving you with a very very long wait to try again. Shorter waits would mean that people could practice more.
Oh and please, turn down the wobble on the Borg cubes, it makes me feel sick watching them wobble all over the place.... lol
More Extremely high HP is the absolute worse way to make a game harder. Yes we wanted a harder game, but not in that way. Smarter NPC's are what people wanted. Just allow them to use more Bridge officer powers.
Can't Cryptic script NPC's to use certain powers at a certain time?
Hell, a tac cube using Attack pattern alpha + Attack pattern Delta III would be cool. Script them to use science team when Subnulceonic beam hits. Can the NPC's even be scripted in STO?
If not, I understand HP is all you can edit. Either that or you guys are the "L" word...
Please don't be [L word]. I use to be [L word] too, but nothing ever got done (obviously).
The dress is gold and white. Over 70% people says so. When viewed from a certain screen angle it appears blue and black. The dress displayed on amazon is a blue and black dress, but it's not the same dress in the picture. If you're seeing blue & black you're slightly colored blind. A normal upright screen = white and gold.
There is no straw man. The poster I was replying to was rather clear that they felt that since they were able to complete Elite queues before, they should be able to complete the Advanced queues now, and asked the Devs whether this new difficulty was their intent.
The devs are likewise asking us if we feel what they delivered matches their intent.
Depends on who you ask. Apparently, the Devs feel the current Advanced is "similar" to what elite used to be.
Then I can know with certainty anything the devs say is worth spit since they don't acknowledge the existing word-idea relationship the rest of humanity operates on.
You'll find I've been saying the opposite. If they're going to increase the difficulty, they need to increase the rewards for it, not reduce them. It's asking to do more work for less pay.
The statement applies to who it was addressed to:
"supposed elite cool kids club types"
I'm lamenting the fact that nobody in this entire new queue system wins right now (in the more esoteric sense). The bulk of players have just had their progression rates squashed and their expenses soar simultaneously. The people who actually wanted something challenging now just get to squeak a few more DPS out of a build for 2-3x longer per run (yay?).
The only winners here are the people coming here posting for the sole purpose of pissing in both groups' cheerios was my point :9.
We have to invest an awful lot into the game - hundreds of thousands of dilithium per character not to mention acquiring the ships and consoles themselves - to be able to do the same exact content we were able to do for years up till Monday...for half the reward.
We have to invest an awful lot into the game - hundreds of thousands of dilithium per character not to mention acquiring the ships and consoles themselves - to be able to do the same exact content we were able to do for years up till Monday...for half the reward.
How are there people not offended by that?
Because there are a dozen threads for complaining about rewards. We have a thread where we have (had?) a dev's attention wanting to talk about the difficulty mechanics, lets stay on topic here.
Comments
A lot of problems would be solved if the 'daily reward box' gave a player 1 of that faction's 'currency token'. That way every player could get the gear they wanted, people who hate the new difficulty can stay in basic and be happy, and those who actually desire a challenge can have what there is now.
I agree - the game needed more of a challenge. The problem with the current level of challenge is - there are way more players who were happy with easy mode then there were players who wanted a challenge. Without a happy medium, Cryptic could lose quite a bit of business. Elite should be for the best of the best, I completely agree. It should be hard, it should be brutal, and it should give damned good rewards for the players dedicated and skilled enough to do it. However, there are players who don't want that, and basic and advanced should cater more towards them.
But ADvanced probably should be closer to where it used to be. Though please don't use the old Infected Elite as measuring stick, I am afraid it was really way too easy.
But maybe that is a problem specific to Infected Elite and doesn't mean all the other Borg STFs need the same stats. Maybe ICE just needs a more fundamental change?
Though remember for all the new maps - the best strategies have not been figured out yet. Infected Elite was certainly figured out and I do not really remember ever seeing anyone doing something basically wrong as splitting between the nanite generators in PUGs. (I still saw people killing the nanite thingies one by one, rather than all at once, even in PUGs that definitely didn'T have the DPS or crowd control to intercept the Nanite Spheres, but that'S basically the second part of the winning strategy. The new missions we probably don't even have the first basic worked out and communicated to the majority of players.)
RnD and upgrade needs less RNG. Less lottery. Something has to change.
My only comment is that once ships are 60 and the skill trees are fleshed out I can only hope the advanced becomes far more routine. I'm a hardcore STF player and right now - well I just logged off hours ago and have no desire to log back on now....
Oh yeah... I also spend good money on the game. My investment in this game since development announcement is thousands of dollars. Hell I even spent about $500 last month - food for thought Cryptic....
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
Actually, with the new requirement of "fail one of what used to be optional and the whole mission fails", even Infected Advanced should be back in all other respects to the previous Infected Elite.
I'd be ok with bumping them up to twice as long, the 5-10 minutes they used to take would be upwards of 20. If that was the goal, it was missed by many quadrants. I've yet to play an Advanced queue that has finished through, everyone ends up quitting due to the HP stagnating at some point.
The other issue is the rewards. 480 for that in Advanced? Thanks, but no. Slashing the rewards for something when it was stepped up & made more challenging makes zero sense, and it's a GREAT way to kill the queues. No one will want to grind away for 45 minutes for a pittance, compared to the former reward.
What you used to refer to as Elite in our queued events and STFs is now known as Advanced. In the new Advanced versions of the queues you will see a similar level of challenge in the enemies that you are used to when the queues were labeled Elite.
So... what happened to the intent of this statement?
Advanced ques are just about impossible to complete with pugs!
this leaves me with a question to you devs, it seems everyone is happy to leave normal as it is but my question is does the advanced and elite levels need to be pre-set, is there not a way for the game to measure the overall rating of a players ships and gear and scale accordingly, obviously in elite the scale would be set slightly higher than the advanced scale to begin with.
if it could be done this would mean even players with T5 ships and mk11 gear would be able to have a fun slightly challenging game while people using T5u or T6 and mk13 & mk14 gear would have similar fun slightly challenging game even though the difficulty level is set higher by the game the difference would be imperceptible to the player.
it would also mean that as players progress the and get better gear the game would gradually scale accordingly.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci
Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac
Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
Rewards
The rewards are definitely too low for the Advanced and Elite difficulties. This really goes a long way in deciding what content I play, especially when that play involves grinding. Increased DL for Advanced to 960 with a guaranteed BNP and have a bonus BMP for acquiring the optional. Loot needs to be returned as well. Considering the current trend, I think loot should be in the form of the following. Normal: blue crafting materials, Advanced: Purple crafting materials, Elite: Crafting multipliers (sorry, I can't remember the correct name for them).
All PvE Queue event should rewards a choice of marks or a 50/50 split on marks. Normal could be 50 marks or a 25/25 split between all available marks, players choice. Advanced could be similar but with a total of 70 marks rewarded and those could be split 35/35. Elite again would work similar with a total of 100 marks where the player would have the choice of 100 marks of one mark type or the player could choose a 50/50 split between two types of marks.
PvE Queue Difficulty
Normal seems to be fine the way it is for both space and ground.
Advanced seems to be fine in terms of enemy DPS but their hull HP is too high. For players at this level, it takes too long to kill things. Cutting their HP in half seems like the right move here. I haven't played any Advanced ground PvE Queue missions since Delta Rising launched.
I don't have much to say about Elite currently as I don't have access to the new elite queued missions. I do expect the AI to be fully ramped up to help make the enemies more challenging, not must taking longer to kill due to insane amounts of Hull HP. I haven't played any Elite ground PvE content as of yet but regular ground missions on Elite seem fine to me.
I would also like to see an elite version of Colony Invasion and the queues for this event specifically be changed to cross-faction. When trying to play this mission KDF side, it is hard to get a PuG instance of this going without waiting a half hour, if not longer. I really enjoy this PvE Queue mission but sadly, I don't get to enjoy it enough as the wait time to get one to launch is way too long.
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Colony Invasion is the ground equivilant of KDF/FED Fleet Alert. Yet Colony Invasion has had no changes at all done to it. Running it felt exactly like running it pre expansion.
However running Fleet alert is like running face first into a brick wall with the massive inflation of HP Pools.
Also Undine Infiltration Advanced, I don't notice a change in difficulty here either before old elite and new advanced.
Khitomer in Stasis Advanced ( Ground ) - Okay. A little bit of a long review here, as this is the only mission I've noticed a noticable difference that I played that hasn't already been screamed about ( CCA anyone? ) This right here is how Advanced Difficulty SHOULD be done. No massive inflation of hp pools. Just a more tougher encounter. If you applied this to your space encounters it'd go a long way to correcting what alot of people have been getting up in arms over, massive hp pool inflation.
Previously on pre expansion khitomer ground elite, you had a grand total of about 3, maybe 4 elite tact drones in the entire run.
New Advanced mode has like 1 to 2 Elite Tact Drones... PER pull. Every mob pack seemed to have at least 1, sometimes, 2 eltie tact drones.
This ramped up the difficulty, but only in terms of per encounter with incoming damage so you had to play SMARTER. There was no hp pool inflation like space, so it wasn't holding down a button and say, watching tv. Honestly. This is how Space Advanced SHOULD be done. Add more tougher enemies, make the encoutners harder in terms of tougher enemies, aka adding tact cubes, etc. Not this huge bloated HP Pools we see in space advanced.
Thank you for your time.
Cirran
From reading that blog, it would appear that was talking about new Optionals to supplement the now mandatory "Old Optionals".
Please note about 80 percent of the people in our fleet are new, average, or part time players.
We know Elite 30K DPS players are in minority this means content should not be created for such a small group.
People also don't like content that creates ranks in the game the new difficulty is doing just that.
Below Par Player - One who cannot complete the ADV STFs and gets trolled in the forms for speaking out.
Biggest complaint people is they are discouraged when they fail the optionals and get no rewards.
(FYI : They should be called objectives not optionals. )
We went from 20 people on TeamSpeak to five after the average player become disenchanted.
These are people who did the old STFs in 5- 6 minutes and could not finish Fleet Alert, Advanced, Cure and Infected.
I put a positive spin on it and started telling the fleet to level up to 60.
The feedback I received was pretty bad, I believe its due to 75% all people dont like change.
Drastically changing majority of the players favorite content is not good due 75% all people dont like change.
Because 75% all people dont like change new content should have been added while leaving the old difficulty levels and rewards in place.
I see a few post in favor of the changes while they put down the people who dont like them shame on them.
Well you cannot argue that 75% all people dont like change and many business have gone broke due to drastic changes. (Star Wars Galaxies is a good example)
75% all people dont like change so why in the heck would any one think changing the most favored content would be accepted.
I want to have more challenging content, but having more hit points to burn through doesn't make it more challenging. These queues would be so much more difficult if NPCs actually used more buffs, debuffs, healed themselves/others, and focused fire on players. For now I'm not even going to touch Advanced or Elite Space queues given the sheer amount of health I have to drain to progress the mission. That said I'll be spending a lot of time in the ground queues where NPCs obtained an acceptable health pool buff...but nothing stupid high like space.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
Increasing the hull and shield hit points is not so much a challenge since newer ships and gear have always fed the power creep. Granted, knowing how to fly a ship players a lot into it. But just making them able to tank more is not adding a challenge, but just making it harder. A smarter AI would be a much better option.
You have the Normal difficulty for players to cut their teeth on. That is the way it should be. But, since you overly buffed the hull, and shield hit points for advanced, it makes it extremely hard for most of your players that don't do the "melt your face" DPS. Advanced should be the content that gives the average player a challenge, and makes them come away saying, "That was awesome!" I loved the fact that the Conduit had more spheres, and the Cure also. That added a nice touch to it.
If players want the hardest content, and want to see people die around them because of the difficulty, that is what elite is for.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying that players should be able to solo any STF, or drop the cubes while the nanite probes are still under them. Or that they should be able to drop the gate in the Conduit while at least one transformer is still up. However, if three average DPS players are attacking the BOP in the Cure as soon as they spawn, and they can't drop them before they can start firing on the Kang, then there are too many hit points there.
In one instance, we had two ships that were 15K builds, and the other three were around 9K. For almost the whole time, it was 5 players hitting BOP, and spheres. At 3 min left, other players started leaving, because it was pointless.
You already added more spheres to both missions. That was a pleasant surprise. I loved it. However, lower the hit points down, and make it doable for the average player. Let the elitist have the elite queues. That is why they are called elite.
About the rewards, if you are going to do anything with them, they should have been increased from where they were originally before DR. The normal should have become 960, the advanced 1920, and the elite should have given what they are worth to the elite that can run them, 3840.
Also, the developers have mentioned that the elite are for the best of the best, as I agree it should be. However, if you lock the VR mats behind it, then you are punishing those that don't have the money, resources, or time to get the best of the best gear, and try for it. Putting a decent chance to getting them in advanced, since they are going to be harder missions that the old elites, only makes sense. But, for elite, make it a guarantee drop of at least one, but can be higher. And if it hits on a higher number, like 2 or 3, then everyone in the team gets the same amount.
This will make the elite suitable for the elite, the advanced suitable for the average player, and normal for the ones that just get in them for a few marks to run rep projects, and don't care for the higher rewards. If you want to make three categories, and them be for different range of players, then making two of them focused more for elite is not doing the job.
He didn't suggest that "similar' should mean "exactly the same", but nice straw man.
"Similar" is far closer to "the same" than it is to "2 to 4 times as long to complete."
What I find really funny is all these supposed elite cool kids club types spending more time making snide remarks, veiled insults, and enjoying seeing everyone have things taken away from them in advanced than they are enjoying their new elite tier they asked for (and also now acting like both advanced AND elite should be their little playgrounds and we are all welcome to go sit in the kiddie pool).
Makes you wonder what the real motive was.
Really, changing what used to be optional to mandatory makes it similar even if everything else is the same. :P
When you change all pre-existing content to suddenly become so much stronger, even though we know our DPS numbers are the same we feel weaker by comparison. It pisses on all the hard work of the players in getting their ultra xii weapons and consoles when suddenly they feel like pea shooters. Players need a gold standard against which they can feel that their efforts have accomplished something. Our STFs were that standard (even fleet alerts!). They let us gauge our strength and lets be honest, gave us respite when we just wanted to blow things up. Now, our gold standard is so much stronger than before, making all of our past efforts feel worthless and causing players to quit and rage. Upgrades should be required to MOVE FORWARD, not to CATCH UP.
So in summary, yes, add new content that requires stronger gear, but leave alone what is already there. Let players continue to use that standard and don't be afraid of letting players dominate past foes with new weapons. Rewards will be scaled accordingly, so let them have fun for goodness sakes.
The difficulty really isn't the problem, if you get an intelligent team it's still doable. The problem is that intially at least most teams will think that they have the DPS to just dash through it without any care, leaving you with a very very long wait to try again. Shorter waits would mean that people could practice more.
Oh and please, turn down the wobble on the Borg cubes, it makes me feel sick watching them wobble all over the place.... lol
Can't Cryptic script NPC's to use certain powers at a certain time?
Hell, a tac cube using Attack pattern alpha + Attack pattern Delta III would be cool. Script them to use science team when Subnulceonic beam hits. Can the NPC's even be scripted in STO?
If not, I understand HP is all you can edit. Either that or you guys are the "L" word...
Please don't be [L word]. I use to be [L word] too, but nothing ever got done (obviously).
The devs are likewise asking us if we feel what they delivered matches their intent.
Then I can know with certainty anything the devs say is worth spit since they don't acknowledge the existing word-idea relationship the rest of humanity operates on.
The statement applies to who it was addressed to:
"supposed elite cool kids club types"
I'm lamenting the fact that nobody in this entire new queue system wins right now (in the more esoteric sense). The bulk of players have just had their progression rates squashed and their expenses soar simultaneously. The people who actually wanted something challenging now just get to squeak a few more DPS out of a build for 2-3x longer per run (yay?).
The only winners here are the people coming here posting for the sole purpose of pissing in both groups' cheerios was my point :9.
How are there people not offended by that?
Because there are a dozen threads for complaining about rewards. We have a thread where we have (had?) a dev's attention wanting to talk about the difficulty mechanics, lets stay on topic here.