Just did Infected space advanced with a couple of cruisers, a science ship and one escort. was fine. takes longer so we failed the final optional but my team was hardly a dps group and probably not everyone was at 60 or rocking better gear and stats but it was ok.
given time it should get easier and easier. so what am i missing?
Just did Infected space advanced with a couple of cruisers, a science ship and one escort. was fine. takes longer so we failed the final optional but my team was hardly a dps group and probably not everyone was at 60 or rocking better gear and stats but it was ok.
given time it should get easier and easier. so what am i missing?
The fact that they took your rewards away?
Like I dunno, the fact that Elite STFs used to give me 2700 dilithium for 15 minutes of gameplay?
Now the Advanced gives 480 for the same amount of time?
I sympathize with all those who think its too hard. I myself think it isn't too hard, but then I wouldn't think of anyone else if I tried to speak for everyone.
I'm mad mostly because they nerfed my main dilithium source by about 600%. Also, because it's boring shooting at a bag of 500k HP.
Done CSA and ISA repeatedly, with optional. Probably the most fun I've had doing an space STFs.
Did CGA and KAGA, with optional. Again, probably the most fun I've had in a ground STF for a while, especially with how close we cut it with CGA.
So no, not undoable. Not undoable in the slightest. I'm not a big fan of increasing HP for "difficulty", but at the moment it's all we've got.
Also people keep forgetting the power creep/leap. After we've upgraded our weapons and grinded the captain specialisations the STFs will be quite a bit easier than they are now.
Done CSA and ISA repeatedly, with optional. Probably the most fun I've had doing an space STFs.
Did CGA and KAGA, with optional. Again, probably the most fun I've had in a ground STF for a while, especially with how close we cut it with CGA.
So no, not undoable. Not undoable in the slightest.
Also people keep forgetting the power creep/leap. After we've upgraded our weapons and grinded the captain specialisations the STFs will be quite a bit easier than they are now.
Yes, feed Cryptic your money to upgrade all your ships to Gold mk XIV...
Done CSA and ISA repeatedly, with optional. Probably the most fun I've had doing an space STFs.
Did CGA and KAGA, with optional. Again, probably the most fun I've had in a ground STF for a while, especially with how close we cut it with CGA.
So no, not undoable. Not undoable in the slightest.
Also people keep forgetting the power creep/leap. After we've upgraded our weapons and grinded the captain specialisations the STFs will be quite a bit easier than they are now.
You are awesome! Did you get it with a premade or got it repeatedly by going into a full pug or where you deliberately assembled a team comprised of players 10 times weaker than you?
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
You are awesome! Did you get it with a premade or got it repeatedly by going into a full pug or where you deliberately assembled a team comprised of players 10 times weaker than you?
CSA and ISA was pugged 50% of the time and successful for most of it (haven't failed CSA once, since it's now even easier than ISA).
CGA and KAGA was a premade.
It should also be noted that pugged ESTFs (especially ground STFs) were hardly successful immediately prior to DR, so there's no real change (and those ESTFs were hilariously easy). Except now there's more casuals back after a long hiatus, pugging missions is so much harder.
The only thing that makes an ASTF difficult is lack of knowledge and/or poor build. Don't know what to do? Go to the forums, the wiki or play the normal versions to get a grasp on it.
Very "casual" player? Pugging advanced difficulty may not be for you.
The only thing that makes an ASTF difficult is lack of knowledge and/or poor build. Don't know what to do? Go to the forums, the wiki or play the normal versions to get a grasp on it.
Very "casual" player? Pugging advanced difficulty may not be for you.
And thats the problem. Thx 4 confirming.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
B4 the changes and depending on which STF was run 1-3 players who know the drill were able to guarantee their positive outcome. That benefit is gone now and what makes STFs for the new or casual players an issue.
Im defending that not the fact that i was able to do ise or rml alone and cant do so naymore.
It does not matter if specific people are able to do these missions or not. Thats not even the point. I was able to do STFs with all options last night BUT
Fact is that these adv. missions unlock at lvl50 and are meant to be playable by lvl50 players with T5 ships and average gear. Given the fact that this is absolutely not possible anymore since unlike promised prior delta rising release the difficulty is still much higher than old Elite missions... plus the fact that the so called "optionals" are no optionals at all... they are fail conditions which make the game even harder... the devs should be ashamed for delivering such TRIBBLE to the players and even reducing the old rewards with what justification? -> none
Looking at the gameplay today the Delta Rising dev blogs prior the release of season 10 were full of lies.
It was said that all old content can be played with the old t5 ships and normal gear just like before -> this was a lie.
It was said the new Adv. Difficulty would be like the old Elite difficulty -> this was a lie.
It was said all old content can be played just like before -> this was a lie.
It was said we would get dilithium for level ups -> this was a lie.
There was so much promised by the developers and most these promised were instantly broken.
And before a moderator reminds me on the forum rules again just like last time... last time my statements were mainly assumptions based on the provided information... today these turned into facts.
I did a bit of advanced Queues last evening. DPS-wise, all my Groups were doing just fine. It really does feel like the old elite mode now. The optionals are a big issue however, because there's always someone who screws those up for the Team, ending the STF prematurely in the process and leaving everyone with a 60 Minute cooldown for that specific STF.
Especially that last part is very unfair towards the rest of the team and actively encourages griefing.
This can kill PUG-Play completely.
Cryptic, I understand that you don't want to railroad Players towards their rewards anymore, that you actually want us to work for it. Th
The optionals are a big issue however, because there's always someone who screws those up for the Team, ending the STF prematurely in the process and leaving everyone with a 60 Minute cooldown for that specific STF.
.
This can kill PUG-Play completely.
Right or even make premades have to revaluate whom to take along and whom not to. This is the only issue in combination with a reduced incentive to try to do so in the first place.
The old ESTF may have been easy sure but they were not at that for everybody and the options to run lower difficulties now are rewarded insufficiently for anything else than familiarize with basic rules which is not enough.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
There is no elite stf anymore just normal and advance. That is the big problem when I didn't see elite in que I figured it was because I wasn't 60. But when I turned 60 there still wasn't any elite stf. Why they did say a normal, advance and elite??? Oh and when a level 50 enters advance you raise their level to 60 ? Thought advance was level 50 and up lol . I understand elite level 60 only and it should be but advance is not elite anymore.
I can't figure why people keep treating advance as elite because it is not anymore it may seem like but it is not lol it is all screwed up lol
Dunno why they just didnt leave the STF's alone, this could of been done so much easier.
EG:
Normal: stays at what it was, no nerfs no buffs same rewards as before.
Elite: same again, no nerfs no buffs, same rewards as before.
Hardcore Elite: for our deeps players and players that what a much harder challenge. Bigger rewards for the difficulty.
Then rather than messing around trying to find a happy balance with all the STF's levels, They could of just worked with the community on this extra level of hardness till they found a balance that most liked.
Yep. Pretty much. I blame those elitist D-Bags from the DPS Channels with their complaints of "lack of challenge" that were ultimately their own fault for building to damage levels that remove challenge.
To be fair, it wasnt just the DPS channels that were calling for increased challenge form these missions. You've only got to look at the vidoes from the guys out of the Trade consortium fleets where they're blitzing through IGE in addition to minimal manning the ground missions. These had become all to easy to accomplish. What cryptic should have done is moved the Elites down to the advanced level, like everyone was expecting and simply added the higher difficulty one in above it. But simply increasing the HP points of a target and slapping in the pointless time gates was the lazy way out of it.
DPS or not or who is to blame or not is not the matter, matter is advanced mode is not doable for an elite guy, I put up my entire ship to Mk XIV cost me a lot of dilithium and guess what I'm maybe 10% stronger than before and PVE this is laughable you shoot those NPC's out in seconds.
In the new STF with my fleet we were overwhelmed more than once in an STF no matter what we tried.... They really have to change this with the next update because they not only blocking the fun but also the rep gear for me to get or anyone else in this matter
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"Coffee: the finest organic suspension ever devised. It's got me through the worst of the last three years. I beat the Borg with it."
As I keep seeing people apply "nightmare" mode to what has happened I keep getting my thoughts back brought to D3. I'm reading the same complaints from the STO playerbase and seeing the same response in programming from the devs. I even saw and posted in a recent thread about Cryptic making us play their way, their version of "fun".
The similarities are a little scary honestly. It never works out well when either the low-end players or the top tier players are catered to in their requests. It ends up being only a sub-group of a much larger playerbase, a minority ruling for a majority. I hardly ever post here because I simply was enjoying the game. The changes have made playing less fun and rewarding which has me coming here to post more.
I hate to say it but ISA is doable, and you don't need to be a hyper-dpser to do it. I pugged it in a dyson ship with a sci who I KNOW gets less than 10k dps. We were close on the timer at the end with 2 minutes left, but nothing else was an issue. Considering the amount of time we did take I doubt we had any real decent dps on the whole team, but we did it.
Yes, feed Cryptic your money to upgrade all your ships to Gold mk XIV...
The weak (in the wallet) shall perish...
The upgrade system is horribly flawed, the maths just doesn't add up on it. I understand Gold quality is quite a leap up in its own right but when we were testing this on tribble the devs just wouldn't talk with us about it, so now all those weak in the resources department are going to suffer.
Ironic really considering the devs explicitly stated they wanted new 50 to compete with old 50, or 60 now I guess.
But just to add, my fleet mates and myself ran some of the advanced queues for ground (except IGA which is apparently bugged) and we had no issue, but then we had decent gear. However they're certainly not the Elites of the past like the devs said they would be.
As to space, I've never been a fan of the DPS channels but then before you had a choice about how to play the content, now you do basically have to do DPS-heavy builds, especially when you get towards Elite.
Sad really, because making those builds isn't a walk in the park like before, resources are harder to come by, not to mention just levelling now is now a lot harder.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
Having given the STF's a go since the patch yesterday, its slightly better but not by much to be honest. The enemies are still taking too long to kill on Advanced and given they've added more enemy spawns to each STF, that is still a factor.
Cyptic really need to get a handle on this and now. This game is rapidly becoming no fun. Fix the God damn STF's back to what they were while they still have a userbase to play them.
Dunno why they just didnt leave the STF's alone, this could of been done so much easier.
EG:
Normal: stays at what it was, no nerfs no buffs same rewards as before.
Elite: same again, no nerfs no buffs, same rewards as before.
Hardcore Elite: for our deeps players and players that what a much harder challenge. Bigger rewards for the difficulty.
A very good question. And your solution was EXACTLY what the game needed and ALL it needed. The real pro players wanted a true nightmare mode, they should have been given it and left the 90% of other more casual or new players alone.
The devs looked at how much dilithium was being made with the old Borg elites and decided that it was too much. Cut rewards in half then increase the hp so it now takes the desired 480 dil per 15 minutes. Unfortunately they grossly miscalculated and isa is a mess.
A 15k dps faw boat will invariably pop a transformer early, can't help it. Almost better off to ignore the cube/sphere. The hp is so massive unless you are doing 15k you can't deal with all the spheres in a timely fashion. So you sit there rotating heals and faw/surgical strikes until you get carpel tunnel. How is that fun again? I could carry pugs and have fun, I could build wee 5k canon boats and have fun, now? Not so much.
If the population at large can't pug it, then I am pretty sure the game will slowly die. If that wasn't the case the devs would not have stepped in and patched it.
I can put together 20k dps ships, I can get through the hp slog, but it's not fun. And if it keeps not being fun I will stop playing. Enough folks come to the same conclusion the game dies.
Another pass at the issue is urgently needed Cryptic. At least the cca queue is doable now.
LOL! Stop using FAW mindlessly. People - just... think.
but but but but.... FAW makes my DPS parsers look better!
Really's it's always pissed me off when I've watched people pop up to the cube over the transformers in ISA and old ISE and start FAW spamming. There's a place where FAW Spam is good and places where it's bad.... when you need to be selective with targets to ensure mission goals... it's bad.
If the population at large can't pug it, then I am pretty sure the game will slowly die. If that wasn't the case the devs would not have stepped in and patched it.
I can put together 20k dps ships, I can get through the hp slog, but it's not fun. And if it keeps not being fun I will stop playing. Enough folks come to the same conclusion the game dies.
It surely already has started to, hence their very speedy attempt to fix it this week. They have made a catastrophic mistake with all this, listening only to the hardcore players with incredible DPS builds and those teaming with similar players.
What does everyone else do?
As you say, keep pugging, keep failing and eventually giving up. This could be a very fatal mistake for STO and I think the playerbase is generally reaching crunch time with it. They either properly fix this or a lot of people will be gone.
One has to remember that when joining an STF you're consenting to work together as a TEAM to obtain a goal.
The worst thing that happened to the STF's are two-fold. First came the STF "revamp" where the original STF's were remade into the severely nerfed, pale imitations of what we had up until now. Then came Legacy of Romulus and it's soft-core hand-holding combined with the Romulan crtD/crtH power creep.
These two elements contributed to people forgetting the TEAM aspect and they began to SOLO the STF's. For example, players will sit on the south sides of the Khitomer gates out of the way of anything that might bruise them and not bother helping with the probes. There was no reason to, one person (usually the unlucky schlep in the slow cruiser that got left behind) could handle the DPS. Another example in Infected is nobody bothering with the "10% rule" on the transformers. Everyone had enough DPS to not even bother co-ordenating their efforts.
Now, I mean no disrespect to the OP or to others in their commiseration of how horrible it seems. And, if the person reading this happens to be one of the few that actually give a damn about teamwork, kudos to you. But, hate to break it to the rest of you kids but it looks like you gotta actually learn to think about someone else - the other people on the team.
God forbid we had the original STF's back. They might actually be interesting again.
Indeed...... Last ISA I ran had someone epeen a-hole in an Aquatic Carrier pop gens early and then spend the rest of the time ******** about how the rest of us needed better DPS. Everyone else was just using the 10% rule and trying to coordinate.
That is part of the problem with some DPS junkies.... I mean, not everyone mind you who is optimizing their build for DPS is like that, but there are an appreciable number of DPS junkies who have developed tactics solely for the purpose of maximizing the values showing up in their DPS parser... but when you look at their tactics you realize that a vast majority of that damage is empty and has done nothing to contribute to the mission..... It's like the DPS version of empty calories.
I usually try to rotate from one gens to the next even with faw on to try to pop them in close timing. It just takes some thought, but honestly I popped gens trying to kill the cube before, and had to scramble to try and pop the others. In a pug you can't coordinate well, so one little mistake and you are staring at 1 hr cooldown and 10 marks. The whole isa instance is poorly balanced now.
Comments
given time it should get easier and easier. so what am i missing?
The fact that they took your rewards away?
Like I dunno, the fact that Elite STFs used to give me 2700 dilithium for 15 minutes of gameplay?
Now the Advanced gives 480 for the same amount of time?
I sympathize with all those who think its too hard. I myself think it isn't too hard, but then I wouldn't think of anyone else if I tried to speak for everyone.
I'm mad mostly because they nerfed my main dilithium source by about 600%. Also, because it's boring shooting at a bag of 500k HP.
That they have taken something away from us we already had while forcing higher obligations upon us at the same time.
They simply expect us to play in order to regain and not to advance. Thats the problem and what takes the fun out.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Did CGA and KAGA, with optional. Again, probably the most fun I've had in a ground STF for a while, especially with how close we cut it with CGA.
So no, not undoable. Not undoable in the slightest. I'm not a big fan of increasing HP for "difficulty", but at the moment it's all we've got.
Also people keep forgetting the power creep/leap. After we've upgraded our weapons and grinded the captain specialisations the STFs will be quite a bit easier than they are now.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Yes, feed Cryptic your money to upgrade all your ships to Gold mk XIV...
The weak (in the wallet) shall perish...
You are awesome! Did you get it with a premade or got it repeatedly by going into a full pug or where you deliberately assembled a team comprised of players 10 times weaker than you?
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Haven't spent a single dime and I wouldn't bother getting gold anyway.
CSA and ISA was pugged 50% of the time and successful for most of it (haven't failed CSA once, since it's now even easier than ISA).
CGA and KAGA was a premade.
It should also be noted that pugged ESTFs (especially ground STFs) were hardly successful immediately prior to DR, so there's no real change (and those ESTFs were hilariously easy). Except now there's more casuals back after a long hiatus, pugging missions is so much harder.
The only thing that makes an ASTF difficult is lack of knowledge and/or poor build. Don't know what to do? Go to the forums, the wiki or play the normal versions to get a grasp on it.
Very "casual" player? Pugging advanced difficulty may not be for you.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
And thats the problem. Thx 4 confirming.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Then that's been the same problem since the game went F2P. It's nothing new.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Obviously 90% of ingame playerbase seems to disagree.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
90%?
Where did you get that statistic from?
ESTFs have always been that way. Hence why the ESTF channels were originally set up, so people wouldn't have to pug it.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Resonance in forums and in game.
B4 the changes and depending on which STF was run 1-3 players who know the drill were able to guarantee their positive outcome. That benefit is gone now and what makes STFs for the new or casual players an issue.
Im defending that not the fact that i was able to do ise or rml alone and cant do so naymore.
Sure go ahead there.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Fact is that these adv. missions unlock at lvl50 and are meant to be playable by lvl50 players with T5 ships and average gear. Given the fact that this is absolutely not possible anymore since unlike promised prior delta rising release the difficulty is still much higher than old Elite missions... plus the fact that the so called "optionals" are no optionals at all... they are fail conditions which make the game even harder... the devs should be ashamed for delivering such TRIBBLE to the players and even reducing the old rewards with what justification? -> none
Looking at the gameplay today the Delta Rising dev blogs prior the release of season 10 were full of lies.
It was said that all old content can be played with the old t5 ships and normal gear just like before -> this was a lie.
It was said the new Adv. Difficulty would be like the old Elite difficulty -> this was a lie.
It was said all old content can be played just like before -> this was a lie.
It was said we would get dilithium for level ups -> this was a lie.
There was so much promised by the developers and most these promised were instantly broken.
And before a moderator reminds me on the forum rules again just like last time... last time my statements were mainly assumptions based on the provided information... today these turned into facts.
Especially that last part is very unfair towards the rest of the team and actively encourages griefing.
This can kill PUG-Play completely.
Cryptic, I understand that you don't want to railroad Players towards their rewards anymore, that you actually want us to work for it. Th
Right or even make premades have to revaluate whom to take along and whom not to. This is the only issue in combination with a reduced incentive to try to do so in the first place.
The old ESTF may have been easy sure but they were not at that for everybody and the options to run lower difficulties now are rewarded insufficiently for anything else than familiarize with basic rules which is not enough.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
I can't figure why people keep treating advance as elite because it is not anymore it may seem like but it is not lol it is all screwed up lol
EG:
Normal: stays at what it was, no nerfs no buffs same rewards as before.
Elite: same again, no nerfs no buffs, same rewards as before.
Hardcore Elite: for our deeps players and players that what a much harder challenge. Bigger rewards for the difficulty.
Then rather than messing around trying to find a happy balance with all the STF's levels, They could of just worked with the community on this extra level of hardness till they found a balance that most liked.
To be fair, it wasnt just the DPS channels that were calling for increased challenge form these missions. You've only got to look at the vidoes from the guys out of the Trade consortium fleets where they're blitzing through IGE in addition to minimal manning the ground missions. These had become all to easy to accomplish. What cryptic should have done is moved the Elites down to the advanced level, like everyone was expecting and simply added the higher difficulty one in above it. But simply increasing the HP points of a target and slapping in the pointless time gates was the lazy way out of it.
In the new STF with my fleet we were overwhelmed more than once in an STF no matter what we tried.... They really have to change this with the next update because they not only blocking the fun but also the rep gear for me to get or anyone else in this matter
"Coffee: the finest organic suspension ever devised. It's got me through the worst of the last three years. I beat the Borg with it."
The similarities are a little scary honestly. It never works out well when either the low-end players or the top tier players are catered to in their requests. It ends up being only a sub-group of a much larger playerbase, a minority ruling for a majority. I hardly ever post here because I simply was enjoying the game. The changes have made playing less fun and rewarding which has me coming here to post more.
The upgrade system is horribly flawed, the maths just doesn't add up on it. I understand Gold quality is quite a leap up in its own right but when we were testing this on tribble the devs just wouldn't talk with us about it, so now all those weak in the resources department are going to suffer.
Ironic really considering the devs explicitly stated they wanted new 50 to compete with old 50, or 60 now I guess.
But just to add, my fleet mates and myself ran some of the advanced queues for ground (except IGA which is apparently bugged) and we had no issue, but then we had decent gear. However they're certainly not the Elites of the past like the devs said they would be.
As to space, I've never been a fan of the DPS channels but then before you had a choice about how to play the content, now you do basically have to do DPS-heavy builds, especially when you get towards Elite.
Sad really, because making those builds isn't a walk in the park like before, resources are harder to come by, not to mention just levelling now is now a lot harder.
Cyptic really need to get a handle on this and now. This game is rapidly becoming no fun. Fix the God damn STF's back to what they were while they still have a userbase to play them.
A very good question. And your solution was EXACTLY what the game needed and ALL it needed. The real pro players wanted a true nightmare mode, they should have been given it and left the 90% of other more casual or new players alone.
A 15k dps faw boat will invariably pop a transformer early, can't help it. Almost better off to ignore the cube/sphere. The hp is so massive unless you are doing 15k you can't deal with all the spheres in a timely fashion. So you sit there rotating heals and faw/surgical strikes until you get carpel tunnel. How is that fun again? I could carry pugs and have fun, I could build wee 5k canon boats and have fun, now? Not so much.
If the population at large can't pug it, then I am pretty sure the game will slowly die. If that wasn't the case the devs would not have stepped in and patched it.
I can put together 20k dps ships, I can get through the hp slog, but it's not fun. And if it keeps not being fun I will stop playing. Enough folks come to the same conclusion the game dies.
Another pass at the issue is urgently needed Cryptic. At least the cca queue is doable now.
but but but but.... FAW makes my DPS parsers look better!
Really's it's always pissed me off when I've watched people pop up to the cube over the transformers in ISA and old ISE and start FAW spamming. There's a place where FAW Spam is good and places where it's bad.... when you need to be selective with targets to ensure mission goals... it's bad.
It surely already has started to, hence their very speedy attempt to fix it this week. They have made a catastrophic mistake with all this, listening only to the hardcore players with incredible DPS builds and those teaming with similar players.
What does everyone else do?
As you say, keep pugging, keep failing and eventually giving up. This could be a very fatal mistake for STO and I think the playerbase is generally reaching crunch time with it. They either properly fix this or a lot of people will be gone.
Indeed...... Last ISA I ran had someone epeen a-hole in an Aquatic Carrier pop gens early and then spend the rest of the time ******** about how the rest of us needed better DPS. Everyone else was just using the 10% rule and trying to coordinate.
That is part of the problem with some DPS junkies.... I mean, not everyone mind you who is optimizing their build for DPS is like that, but there are an appreciable number of DPS junkies who have developed tactics solely for the purpose of maximizing the values showing up in their DPS parser... but when you look at their tactics you realize that a vast majority of that damage is empty and has done nothing to contribute to the mission..... It's like the DPS version of empty calories.