Going back a few posts (this thread is very active), there are some legitimate complaints about not having enough people in the Normal queues. I think this is part of the problem. There are too many players who just want to jump into an Advanced without knowing what to do, so that's depleting the Normal queues. As players learn that they are not ready for Advanced, Normal will fill up again. I've noticed a slow improvement in the number of people in Normal, which has been useful during the R&D weekend when I just wanted to jump into a queue for the crafting mats.
Yes, there's an argument as well about not having rep gear. But I still use my Jem'Hadar engine on some builds, because it's awesome - especially as I slowly upgrade it. There are options for players who don't have rep gear. I think another problem is players who are approaching the game with a "give me everything right away" attitude. It will take time to gear up, that's a fact. I'm only just now starting to play Advanced on a regular basis, having taken some time to adjust some of my older builds and upgrade / replace my gear. And frankly, if you're a casual player you should not expect to be able to jump into an Advanced queue out of the gate. MMOs do not have a responsibility to explicitly over-reward casual players - that's why Normal queues exist, to slowly bring casual players up to speed. The problem, again, is not that Normal queues are not worth, or take too long to queue for. It's that too many players are exceeding their current level of play. Once the playerbase as a whole resettles, we will see Normal queues' numbers rise.
Also, I have to agree with several posters on here that it does not take a DPS king or a pay-to-winner to play Advanced. To be honest, I'm still using a few pieces of old Mk XII gear, and I'm running Advanced just fine. Do I crank out insane DPS? No. But I'm a sci captain, so I debuff the enemy as much as I can so the damage-dealers in the group can do their thing. Case in point: I just ran Conduit Advanced last night and we were about to lose to the Nanite Spheres, so I ran to Gravity Well them in place while throwing every debuff I had back at the transformer. It's about learning your roles, and the playerbase is slowly adapting to the new difficulty. A few weeks ago, I was lucky to have a 10% success rate in Conduit - now I'm probably seeing 80% success, just because players are learning the strategies over time. The PUG team occasionally has to correct a player or two, but I've seen a huge improvement in PUG know-how already.
And who is attacking who? Most of us are saying that all you moar DPS folks can have elite. Hell you can even have advanced...but IF that is to happen, the casuals NEED a working normal...which mean rep items and VR mats. YOUR the one who seems to advocating for the non functional normal to stay as it is to TRIBBLE over all the casuals in the game...so I fail to how MY position is the hostile one.
Casual gamers can't be expected to be rewarded as well as mid-range or the elite PvP crew. That would give no incentive for casual players to invest more time into the game. And really, how would it be fair to give freebies to casual players just because they want the goodies that the more active players have, but aren't willing to put in the effort? That's why I don't see the point in giving out VR materials at anything lower than Advanced.
Any player that wasn't already part of the top-end prior to DR needs to get their feet wet in Normal, gear up using loot drops, story rewards, and crafting, and then they can go into Advanced. I'm not a long-time player myself - I only joined the ranks this summer. So I'm feeling the pain of the new difficulty as much as anyone else is. But I recognized the cold fact that, at the launch of Delta Rising, I was in no way capable of running Advanced with regular success until I reworked some stale builds and upgraded some gear. After some work, I can now play Advanced.
Elite? Oh heck no. Not until I put some more work in. It's not fair to the players who can play Elite, to have to deal with my in-game inadequacy. I'll work my way up there over time.
Casual gamers can't be expected to be rewarded as well as mid-range or the elite PvP crew. That would give no incentive for casual players to invest more time into the game. And really, how would it be fair to give freebies to casual players just because they want the goodies that the more active players have, but aren't willing to put in the effort? That's why I don't see the point in giving out VR materials at anything lower than Advanced.
Any player that wasn't already part of the top-end prior to DR needs to get their feet wet in Normal, gear up using loot drops, story rewards, and crafting, and then they can go into Advanced. I'm not a long-time player myself - I only joined the ranks this summer. So I'm feeling the pain of the new difficulty as much as anyone else is. But I recognized the cold fact that, at the launch of Delta Rising, I was in no way capable of running Advanced with regular success until I reworked some stale builds and upgraded some gear. After some work, I can now play Advanced.
Elite? Oh heck no. Not until I put some more work in. It's not fair to the players who can play Elite, to have to deal with my in-game inadequacy. I'll work my way up there over time.
Before DR I was doing around 10k dps on main toon and had np problems finishing the elite stf's even in pugs. I'm up to to mk 13 gear mostly on ship and can do private matches in advance but that is all. I used to like to pug to help lower players get what they need. But now it is too unbalanced in advance for pugs. Advance was not suppose to be for just level 60 players elite was for level 60. So why do they scale advance to level 60? Shouldn't it be level 55?
Perhaps you are unfamilar with the term CASUAL GAMER. A good bulk of this game is/was CASUAL GAMERS. You can not expect them to go look things up...or learn gaming skills at a rate above that of a slug because they are CASUAL GAMERS who spend very little time in the game and they are not about to spend that time reading a how to manual...online or from other players. That is why the average DPS is so dismal. Also if your DPS needs A2B, none BOFF trainer boff skills, rep gear, zen gear, lobi gear, fleet gear, or any gear that costs millions of EC to reach that 20k DPS, then no, it is NOT something that is something a typical player in this game can reach. Remember CASUAL GAMERS.
And who is attacking who? Most of us are saying that all you moar DPS folks can have elite. Hell you can even have advanced...but IF that is to happen, the casuals NEED a working normal...which mean rep items and VR mats. YOUR the one who seems to advocating for the non functional normal to stay as it is to TRIBBLE over all the casuals in the game...so I fail to how MY position is the hostile one.
Well of course it would seem like that to you, that is all you want to see. You prove it endlessly, and this is just the latest example.
You don't like the truth that those casual gamers actually bring pretty good equipment builds, because it doesn't suit your agenda to justify your own badness.
You don't like listening to the countless points where we say gear doesn't matter as much as you want it to, because it doesn't suit your agenda to justify your own badness.
You don't like it when we point out how to do builds for free/very little, because it doesn't suit your agenda to justify your own badness.
You don't like it when we say you do not need stuff like "A2B, none BOFF trainer boff skills, rep gear, zen gear, lobi gear, fleet gear, or any gear that costs millions of EC" to do ASTFs (and you don't) because it doesn't fit into your agenda to justify your own badness.
You don't like it when we share our knowledge, because it doesn't fit in your agenda to justify your own badness.
Key point - you don't like it when facts are pointed out to you, because you want to justify your own failings, and you want to hide behind others to do it.
The most insulting part is you think we can't see you trying it.
I did an ISA on my Klingon tac, and we failed the entire mission, despite the fact that I was shooting the lone nanite sphere.
"Despite the fact"? You shouldn't have been shooting the nanite sphere, you should have been helping to murder the transformer. The only thing anyone should do to the spheres (until the transformer is down) is delay them.
If the team has enough DPS to nuke the sphere spawns, they should be nuking the transformer long before the spheres get there. If the team doesn't have enough DPS to wipe out the spheres, then they obviously should be focusing on the easier-to-kill transformer.
The problem is that the game REQUIRES you to play advanced to progress your gear. That is the only way to get rep items (BNP, ISO, APC, etc) and VR mats. If normal is suppose to be for the masses to learn and get better geared...well it's a failure because you CAN'T get better gear playing normal. They need to either change it so that normal drops the rep items (could even be only if you make the optional) and has a chance to drop VR mats (like advanced used to do)...or they need to make advanced doable for the masses. I would prefer they did the former instead of the latter...but as it stands, the casual masses are just screwed and that is not good for this playerbase.
The entire premise of this post is incorrect.
The only two rep items that require Advanced queues are BNPs and APCs.
The majority of rep gear (around 60%) don't require BNPs or APCs.
Because the Normal queues are EMPTY. Because of how Cryptic has structured it, I CAN'T just stick to Normal because NORMAL BASICALLY DOESN'T EXIST.
The reason the queues were empty the last two weeks is because everybody is doing Mirror. MIN is the easiest way to get the daily box for every single rep you have. Only now that most people have their shotguns am I seeing something other than a 10:1 ratio of MIN:Anything Else.
Just a few weeks ago when I was gearing up my (first) Romulan character, I knew I didn't belong in Advanced so I queued for Normal. She'd been in at least a half-dozen of them, none took more than a few minutes of waiting.
Aside from fun, they are the sole reason I used to run pve queues.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Bah...your a fraking moron. I have already POINTED OUT THAT GEAR DOESN'T MATTER IN THIS VERY THREAD AS THE TYPICAL CASUAL PUGGER WILL FAIL REGARDLESS OF GEAR IN CURRENT ADVANCED. The point of giving those items in normal is so that the casuals have a sense of PROGRESSION...even if they never get good enough to actually do harder content. They are there so that some of us, who have for funsie ships can jump in on normal and actually have people to play with. You can TRY and share all you want, but that won't help because they are CASUAL GAMERS.
And once again, please show me where a group of ships with what I just mentioned is able to do advanced borg disconnect. Really, show me the DPS crowd do that and I will give you that point...but the closest was some moar DPSer saying it ws doable because he brought along 4 people from the DPS channel and got carried since he failed 3 of 3 PUGs.
And WHAT FACTS?!? All you proved is that people with middling gaming skills can reach 20k DPS with some decent time or money investment...which isn't surprising. The problem is YOU seem unwilling to accept what the playerbase of this game is. YOUR the one ignoring facts here. A VERY important one for a game to survive. So all your you can do this or that is irrelivant since your ignoring the most important fact of all...which is this game is a casual game. Seriously...it is. If you think this game is a challenge of any sort...I'm sorry, but it seems your the one who is trying to cover up for your own badness at games.
Yet more inability to read and trying to hide to cover up your own inadequacy - and you expect anyone to take you seriously?
Further to that, as normal for you, you make out stuff is being said that is not being said. Why? Because you want to justify being a n00b by trying to put out slander on those who are not like you.
Just because you do not want to learn, doesn't mean everyone else does not. We are seeing pugs improve as people adapt and improve - but that doesn't fit in your n00b and proud of it attitude, so you ignore it. Just like your constant ignoring of facts shown across every thread someone calls you out for your n00bishness. Which is often.
You are not defending casuals, you are defending n00bs and trying to dress it up as defending casuals. Everyone can see through it. Just because someone only plays once a week doesn't mean they have to be bad, just they only play once a week.
People have shown you countless times these things, but you refuse to accept them, because it does not fit into your desire to justify being a n00b.
Your under the impression that everyone can run the game at a time where the BZ are active. If you are...then yes, your only missing two...if not...your more screwed.
And VR mats are important because they are used to craft superior upgrades for one thing. And they are currently the only good source of transferance of money from the people who have billions over several toons and the casual gamers. Although I suppose we can leave this out if all you moar DPSers are happy to TRIBBLE over more of your fellow players.
When my not-qualified-for-Advanced alt was pointed at the ground zone, I ended up killing a dinosaur with only one other guy around. I fell over twice, but we won just fine.
Space, I've actually never seen it completely deserted. The encounters scale to player numbers anyway - you can't solo it, but even 5 guys should have zero issues.
If you're crafting superior upgrades as a casual, you're doing it wrong. As someone who hasn't grinded crafting to level 20, it's much more cost-effective to sell mats on the Exchange and just buy the upgrades. That's because the crafters who actually use the mats price the upgrades with the expectation that they get 2 each crafting attempt.
I say casual players aren't on this forum whining about the elite queues being too hard, not being able to get some of the min-maxer rep gear, or not being able to craft something they could much easier buy on the exchange.
The casual players are playing the game, casually.
I don't know what to call the segment of the playerbase that seems to spend more time on the forums demanding more stuff for less effort than playing the game, but "casual" it isn't.
I loved the pre-DR omega stfs, the normal modes were for noobs and the elite ones were for the boys with the toys. I hate these damn timers and you devote time to just run out of time at the last second and lose, WHY CRYPTIC?
Captain Joseph Riker, U.S.S. Odyssey==General V'Mar, U.S.S. Blackwater-A==Admiral Laura Holmes, U.S.S. Forward Unto Dawn Grand Master Thotok, son of Koloth, I.K.S. Sompek==Dahar Master Shanara, I.K.S. Balth'Quv Admiral R'Tath V'Tirex, R.R.W. Dhael Glohha'enh==Commander Ta'eth Korval, R.R.W Hachae ch'Rhian==Admiral Vranuk, R.R.W Delevhas
Erm, this discussion here about ship gear and how awesome it is collectible without rep currency while playing boring missions over and over again instead is really interesting.
My question is just, does it address to the problem if most fail criteria are really challenging or rather annoying.
Sorry I do not get that. Im not challenged by them, neither if I wash through csa in a few mins with likeminded DPSers nor if I encounter a pug who messes a questioning in undine infiltration.
For as long as lvl 60 (50) is the only requirement for players to hit elite (or advanced) they will do. And rightly so cuz normal contend in this game is so insultingly easy that everybody who knows that tac consoles belong in the respective slot will be bored. The rest is a lomg term learning process which requires dedication and probably a few mess ups for the others. Some will bring, some will not. They will still be in elite the second they hit 60.
In a quiet embarrassing endeavour cryptic has demonstrated their inability to provide challenging, team work addressing contend. They can only do by rising hull hit points of critters which ends up in another unchallenging boredom. We will be stuck with that for a long time, likely forever.
For everybodys sake I really hope they remove some fail criteria, especially the timers, to give us all a chance to play happily together the way we always could the past years.
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No incentive to play normal(not a player made problem).
17 seconds to plan out the Rescue Three Ships in Azure Nebula Advance(again not a player made problem)
Advance and Elite space solely focused on DPS(again...not a player made problem)
This morning I pugged an Azure Nebula Advanced. I typed into group chat, "I can distract while someone gets tractor beams." I barely wrote that before the mission started. We did get the three free and time and we did express gratitude to each other, but its wrong wrong wrong to kick people out with nothing for a mistake/dc/or laziness.
Instead of KICKS(that is seriously hurting the morale of the player base)use bonus incentives to make people want to work hard, damn hard, on getting the OPTIONAL.
This is a no brainer of entertainment. You don't kick customers out of the store to make it more challenging because they WILL shop elsewhere.
Exactly...incentivize people to play harder or better. Make being lazy or stupid not worth it instead of the other way around.
Also, I said nothing of the difficulty in my post. I think the difficulty is fine. But a game is supposed to be fun and wasting 15-20 minutes in a queue and getting no rewards is NOT fun. I want to hear one of you say you like wasting your time in a queue to get nothing and that you think it is fun. No one thinks that is fun. The fact that you get nothing doesn't make it more challenging either. It just makes it frustrating when fail. Keep the difficulty where it's at but give 1/2 rewards for failure. Maybe a cell fragment where you need to combine 2 to make a whole. ANYTHING is better than the insulting 10 marks they give now.
For those that say it's the luck of the draw...you are right. And sometimes you are lucky and sometimes you are not. But when you are not, you shouldn't be totally punished for it. Having a suck team is punishment enough. It's not more fun to then get no rewards.
Frankly, I don't see why anyone is FOR rewarding nothing. Someone getting rewards for their time invested has no impact on your gameplay. Why would you care whether I suck but still get an APC? Is it that you all are just so elite that you couldn't bare knowing that someone with such inferior skill has good gear?
Again, keep the difficulty the same...since that is where the challenge is and is what everyone is clamoring about but change the end result if you fail.
No, you just THINK you do...you really don't. I accept YOUR premise that you can do good damage pretty dang easily in this game if your even REMOTELY a gamer type. I do NOT accept that this is the typical player of this game. There are WAY too many people who are here for the star trek name who have no idea about video games at all for your assertion to be true. Call then casual, call the noob, call them whatever you want...I call them the average player. You ignore the average players and you can kiss your game goodbye. And if you think you can replace the average STO player with hardcore gamers...think again. This game is so fraking simple, that unless they are into star trek, they won't even bother after they figured this game out in 2 weeks. And you KNOW my assertions are true...you just refuse to accept them.
Those same average players who are now improving their gameplay to make themselves get back to where they were pre-DR - anyone who came for Trekness has already left or drastically changed why they remain, as the only Star Trek remaining in STO is in flavour stuff, there is nothing of what made the shows here in Cryptic made content.
The average player brings a set up (boffs aside in most cases) that could do what they want post DR, if they knew how to use it.
For most, it is not they do not want to be good, it is that they don't know how to be good because the only stuff that actually teaches how is player made and they do not know where to look, and so they get caught up in doing the terrible grinds as if it would actually help them. That is a knowledge issue and well within the ability of STO players to sort.
This turned into a size contest quickly. Nobody but the loud Klingon and his friend are trying to validate their own skill. And that should stop before this thread gets locked. Here are the facts as I see them:
Most pugs that I have seen do low DPS due to a lack of time or money investment. They need the special items from the STFs, so they can begin to gear themselves and be less terrible. They do not need very rare materials. It is in the best interests of the game, then, that normal queue should reward EITHER marks or the special item, forcing more grind unless they choose to git gud and learn to do advanced.
As a side note, anyone saying that pugs bring decent builds needs to have their head examined. Most of my parses have them clocking in at 3-5k DPS.
Sardak (Science Officer): Captain of a 23k DPS R'Mor Temporal Science Vessel, R.R.W. Vathos Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
As a side note, anyone saying that pugs bring decent builds needs to have their head examined. Most of my parses have them clocking in at 3-5k DPS.
No, that means they don't know how to use any equipment they've got. The equipment isn't the issue (it could be better certainly, but it isn't the problem) it is them not being able to use it that is.
How dare they add content that is remotely challanging and requires some form of basic knowledge of a tatic, skill and atleast mediocre ship builds. And possibly requires me to talk to strangers!!!
When i queue for an advanced STF i want a button that gives me ALL the rewards once i press it. Anything else is elitism!
jokes aside, if anybody has a very hard time killing a single sphere...and is absolutely incapable of destroying a cube on their own or atleast with 1 other player together, should NOT queue for advanced difficulty.
A bare minimum of about 10k sustained DPS is a basic requirement for most advanced STFs. No matter the captain class and ship class, 10k DPS or don't bother queuing.
In the asian world, far east, whatever the f you want to call it, people don't play these games for fun, they play them for prestige. All joking aside, it's a serious business. Forcibly morphing STO into something along those lines is nge-style game suicidal. STO was so far removed from that type of experience it wasn't even funny. It was, kind of a chill out and have fun place.
A bare minimum of about 10k sustained DPS is a basic requirement for most advanced STFs.
but unless people are running winboat scimitar setups, it's a real real pain running an advanced, and chances are it will fail. So, that's it now? No more proper sci ships in advanced? Only DPS monkeys? If true, that's pretty sad. I've been trying to setup a vo'quv for for play, it's proven very challenging. The bird-of-prey pets turn pretty slow, they don't have a lot of on-target-time. And there just aren't enough tactical abilities.
EDIT: and don't bother bringing a proper engie-tank ship either. not enough dps.
anyway
The truly sad thing is that they have the mechanic to solve that instantly. They have three difficulty levels that could be used to make everyone happy. This is what it should be,
normal - you can do it, educational, but still fun. optionals definitely not required in any way.
advanced - you can do it, but work for it, shouldn't be so hard that minmax builds are required, pugs with mk14 gear should be able to accomplish this at a reasonable rate for reasonable reward. some optionals perhaps should be required, but shouldn't be so hard that crazy minmaxing is needed to complete them.
elite - pretty darn difficult, should require planning, all optionals required, give significant reward.
unfortunately, this is what it is now
normal - Almost too easy in some cases, but it gets the job done. however, the difficulty in some ques is set to advanced or elite! and there is fail on optional in some! that's insane, and it's cleared out the ques completely. Difficulty varies wildly by que.
advanced - minmax builds are recommended in some, and outright required in others. all optionals are required. no fun. takes freaking forever, and - rewards are pure TRIBBLE for the time invested.
elite - most are bizarre, I mean really, what were they thinking? But, I suppose some of that is ok. You have to give people something to shoot for. But if after months and months no one is really doing them ... it's wrong.
Also, I said nothing of the difficulty in my post. I think the difficulty is fine. But a game is supposed to be fun and wasting 15-20 minutes in a queue and getting no rewards is NOT fun. I want to hear one of you say you like wasting your time in a queue to get nothing and that you think it is fun. No one thinks that is fun. The fact that you get nothing doesn't make it more challenging either. It just makes it frustrating when fail. Keep the difficulty where it's at but give 1/2 rewards for failure. Maybe a cell fragment where you need to combine 2 to make a whole. ANYTHING is better than the insulting 10 marks they give now.
I think it's fun
Winning every time is honestly very boring. If the intention was for players to go into a queue, win every time, and get all the rewards they want, then there wouldn't be a point to having PvE at all. Just add a button in your inventory window that says "claim free VR mats and rep items" on a 30min cooldown, and that would have the same effect.
By being a game, I don't feel I've "wasted" any time going into a queue. Sure, a failure means I don't get rewarded, and there's a cooldown. But it's a game, and thus there is a chance for failure. A game where there is no chance for failure is a very poor game.
But from a game mechanics point-of-view, time spent in a queue is never wasted time - at least not anymore, considering the other new systems. Even if I fail a queue, I'm still gaining points towards my specialization trees, I can work towards ship mastery, claim loot drops, etc. The game already rewards any time spent playing, so there is no need to reward additionally if the queue fails. Queue rewards come from queue success only.
If half-rewards are given for failure, then that doesn't encourage anyone to get better. That would actually make it profitable for a player to jump straight into an Elite and let the queue fail as quickly as possible. The game cannot reward failure, otherwise not enough players will try to win.
When a queue failure is the result of someone a) not having a clue what to do and not really paying attention to the objectives, or b) completely ignoring the team's chat, that's a different story - that isn't fun. But when you have a team, even a pug, that's clearly trying and putting in a good effort all around, all you can say to each other is "gg, can't win 'em all," and move on. Then you evaluate what went wrong, adjust your strategies and your builds, etc.
For most, it is not they do not want to be good, it is that they don't know how to be good because the only stuff that actually teaches how is player made and they do not know where to look, and so they get caught up in doing the terrible grinds as if it would actually help them. That is a knowledge issue and well within the ability of STO players to sort.
This is it, thats the only problem there is. If they would make a tutorial (a real one) or at least make References to builds instead of screenshots (like "Visit stobuilds.org to learn about ship building, skills and equipment") there would be no problem with pugging advanced.
P.S.: The sit -if it exist- is just something I genericly generated^^
If they would make a tutorial (a real one) or at least make References to builds instead of screenshots (like "Visit stobuilds.org to learn about ship building, skills and equipment") there would be no problem with pugging advanced.
Ryan did a whole series explaining the gameplay mechanics and how to do STF's...
Old ISE, a team of low-DPS newbies spends 45 minutes destroying the gate, another 15 shooting the Tac cube, only to realize the thing regens faster than they can hurt it. Everyone goes home one by one, empty handed.
New ISA, same team, 2 minutes in they have just managed to kill the starting spawns and begun on the first transformer when the nanite spheres come in and the mission fails. Everyone gets booted out with their 10 marks and are free to do something else.
No, you just THINK you do...you really don't. I accept YOUR premise that you can do good damage pretty dang easily in this game if your even REMOTELY a gamer type. I do NOT accept that this is the typical player of this game. There are WAY too many people who are here for the star trek name who have no idea about video games at all for your assertion to be true. Call then casual, call the noob, call them whatever you want...I call them the average player. You ignore the average players and you can kiss your game goodbye. And if you think you can replace the average STO player with hardcore gamers...think again. This game is so fraking simple, that unless they are into star trek, they won't even bother after they figured this game out in 2 weeks. And you KNOW my assertions are true...you just refuse to accept them.
There are a lot of low dps players and players who are not good at gaming period in fact this is probably a norm as these people login for an hour or so per week to unwind. These people probably make up the bulk of the playerbase. I am retired recently and so am putting in insane hours into the game and I am also not the average player because I have always been good at games as they require you to have something that not everyone is born with called 'situational awareness' this is not meant to insult or anything I am simply pointing out that these people likely wont progress but have had a lot of fun in the game prior to changes now they get nothing for their trouble and so are less likely to play. A lot of these "average players" often have some disposable income to burn but will burn it in some other game that lets them have fun and pew pew things and just relax.
I have been in enough groups to realize that low dps is in fact the majority of the player base. I only pug and I have met many friends that way including a few that sent me a pm thanking me for persisting in an instance when others would get mad and call everyone names and leave but I play for fun whatever happens in a group happens still I have had an interesting experience since the onset of DR. There is the "leet' group entering normal instances of mirror and calling everyone names and then there are the average players just there to have fun who send me pm's and say hello and thanks and apologize for their low dps lol. The reality is they are low on time and just played this game for fun and they freely admit that they wont ever improve because they are already at their peak for a number of reasons. You can't improve if you dont have the innate traits that make "good gamers" good which are things like situational awareness. which is not necessarily something you can learn .. You either have it or you dont.. Some people are possibly disabled or older and just can't do any better from what I see their game is gone. Personally I find the advanced sort of unfun I simply dont enjoy them any longer I do one maybe two a day just for a change and I do a couple of elite ground q's (maybe).
I think the foundry is possibly the place to have fun now which is ironic because that is not really content that cryptic designed lol
Old ISE, a team of low-DPS newbies spends 45 minutes destroying the gate, another 15 shooting the Tac cube, only to realize the thing regens faster than they can hurt it. Everyone goes home one by one, empty handed.
New ISA, same team, 2 minutes in they have just managed to kill the starting spawns and begun on the first transformer when the nanite spheres come in and the mission fails. Everyone gets booted out with their 10 marks and are free to do something else.
Which one is a waste of time?
Good question, especially when a full hour mission CD timer is added now giving the group to think about what to do with those ten marks b4 trying and most likely failing again.
Now I imagine my contribution to the run if I ended up in that team:
- In old ISE I could have soloed the map ending in a successful run for me and the 4 others. I probably would only have noticed a slow match and/or a failed optional, but would gladly hit the next queue.
-In new ISA I would have also gotten 10 marks and would probably not play with that group anytime soon again.
The trouble of the fail criteria start in mixed teams which form up 90% of pugs.
Good teams arent remotely challenged anyway.
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Most pugs that I have seen do low DPS due to a lack of time or money investment. They need the special items from the STFs, so they can begin to gear themselves and be less terrible.
It is not the tools we use which make us good, but rather how we employ them.
They lack knowledge and skill, not the BNP/APC required gear.
If the "tank" doesn't do enough DPS, they're either not a tank or a failure to tank - an invulnerable ship that never takes aggro, does no appreciable damage, and thus contributes nothing to the team. A tank needs to hold aggro and survive - no more, no less. An invulnerable ship is not a tank because it is missing the other half of the prerequisites.
An engineer in a cruiser that actually knows what they're doing will easily break 10k, especially post-DR.
It's unbelievable the amount of people who'll attempt to justify their own lack of skill and knowledge by trying to lower the bar and attacking anyone better as not doing it properly, instead of learning and improving.
Comments
Aside from the fact you are ignoring the fact you can do an OP for ASTF build without ever going anywhere near an ASTF.
Yes, there's an argument as well about not having rep gear. But I still use my Jem'Hadar engine on some builds, because it's awesome - especially as I slowly upgrade it. There are options for players who don't have rep gear. I think another problem is players who are approaching the game with a "give me everything right away" attitude. It will take time to gear up, that's a fact. I'm only just now starting to play Advanced on a regular basis, having taken some time to adjust some of my older builds and upgrade / replace my gear. And frankly, if you're a casual player you should not expect to be able to jump into an Advanced queue out of the gate. MMOs do not have a responsibility to explicitly over-reward casual players - that's why Normal queues exist, to slowly bring casual players up to speed. The problem, again, is not that Normal queues are not worth, or take too long to queue for. It's that too many players are exceeding their current level of play. Once the playerbase as a whole resettles, we will see Normal queues' numbers rise.
Also, I have to agree with several posters on here that it does not take a DPS king or a pay-to-winner to play Advanced. To be honest, I'm still using a few pieces of old Mk XII gear, and I'm running Advanced just fine. Do I crank out insane DPS? No. But I'm a sci captain, so I debuff the enemy as much as I can so the damage-dealers in the group can do their thing. Case in point: I just ran Conduit Advanced last night and we were about to lose to the Nanite Spheres, so I ran to Gravity Well them in place while throwing every debuff I had back at the transformer. It's about learning your roles, and the playerbase is slowly adapting to the new difficulty. A few weeks ago, I was lucky to have a 10% success rate in Conduit - now I'm probably seeing 80% success, just because players are learning the strategies over time. The PUG team occasionally has to correct a player or two, but I've seen a huge improvement in PUG know-how already.
Casual gamers can't be expected to be rewarded as well as mid-range or the elite PvP crew. That would give no incentive for casual players to invest more time into the game. And really, how would it be fair to give freebies to casual players just because they want the goodies that the more active players have, but aren't willing to put in the effort? That's why I don't see the point in giving out VR materials at anything lower than Advanced.
Any player that wasn't already part of the top-end prior to DR needs to get their feet wet in Normal, gear up using loot drops, story rewards, and crafting, and then they can go into Advanced. I'm not a long-time player myself - I only joined the ranks this summer. So I'm feeling the pain of the new difficulty as much as anyone else is. But I recognized the cold fact that, at the launch of Delta Rising, I was in no way capable of running Advanced with regular success until I reworked some stale builds and upgraded some gear. After some work, I can now play Advanced.
Elite? Oh heck no. Not until I put some more work in. It's not fair to the players who can play Elite, to have to deal with my in-game inadequacy. I'll work my way up there over time.
Before DR I was doing around 10k dps on main toon and had np problems finishing the elite stf's even in pugs. I'm up to to mk 13 gear mostly on ship and can do private matches in advance but that is all. I used to like to pug to help lower players get what they need. But now it is too unbalanced in advance for pugs. Advance was not suppose to be for just level 60 players elite was for level 60. So why do they scale advance to level 60? Shouldn't it be level 55?
Well of course it would seem like that to you, that is all you want to see. You prove it endlessly, and this is just the latest example.
You don't like the truth that those casual gamers actually bring pretty good equipment builds, because it doesn't suit your agenda to justify your own badness.
You don't like listening to the countless points where we say gear doesn't matter as much as you want it to, because it doesn't suit your agenda to justify your own badness.
You don't like it when we point out how to do builds for free/very little, because it doesn't suit your agenda to justify your own badness.
You don't like it when we say you do not need stuff like "A2B, none BOFF trainer boff skills, rep gear, zen gear, lobi gear, fleet gear, or any gear that costs millions of EC" to do ASTFs (and you don't) because it doesn't fit into your agenda to justify your own badness.
You don't like it when we share our knowledge, because it doesn't fit in your agenda to justify your own badness.
Key point - you don't like it when facts are pointed out to you, because you want to justify your own failings, and you want to hide behind others to do it.
The most insulting part is you think we can't see you trying it.
"Despite the fact"? You shouldn't have been shooting the nanite sphere, you should have been helping to murder the transformer. The only thing anyone should do to the spheres (until the transformer is down) is delay them.
If the team has enough DPS to nuke the sphere spawns, they should be nuking the transformer long before the spheres get there. If the team doesn't have enough DPS to wipe out the spheres, then they obviously should be focusing on the easier-to-kill transformer.
The entire premise of this post is incorrect.
The only two rep items that require Advanced queues are BNPs and APCs.
The majority of rep gear (around 60%) don't require BNPs or APCs.
Why the heck does VR mats even come into this?
The reason the queues were empty the last two weeks is because everybody is doing Mirror. MIN is the easiest way to get the daily box for every single rep you have. Only now that most people have their shotguns am I seeing something other than a 10:1 ratio of MIN:Anything Else.
Just a few weeks ago when I was gearing up my (first) Romulan character, I knew I didn't belong in Advanced so I queued for Normal. She'd been in at least a half-dozen of them, none took more than a few minutes of waiting.
Anywhere, since you don't need BNPs for the KCB or Assimilated console.
Aside from fun, they are the sole reason I used to run pve queues.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Yet more inability to read and trying to hide to cover up your own inadequacy - and you expect anyone to take you seriously?
Further to that, as normal for you, you make out stuff is being said that is not being said. Why? Because you want to justify being a n00b by trying to put out slander on those who are not like you.
Just because you do not want to learn, doesn't mean everyone else does not. We are seeing pugs improve as people adapt and improve - but that doesn't fit in your n00b and proud of it attitude, so you ignore it. Just like your constant ignoring of facts shown across every thread someone calls you out for your n00bishness. Which is often.
You are not defending casuals, you are defending n00bs and trying to dress it up as defending casuals. Everyone can see through it. Just because someone only plays once a week doesn't mean they have to be bad, just they only play once a week.
People have shown you countless times these things, but you refuse to accept them, because it does not fit into your desire to justify being a n00b.
When my not-qualified-for-Advanced alt was pointed at the ground zone, I ended up killing a dinosaur with only one other guy around. I fell over twice, but we won just fine.
Space, I've actually never seen it completely deserted. The encounters scale to player numbers anyway - you can't solo it, but even 5 guys should have zero issues.
If you're crafting superior upgrades as a casual, you're doing it wrong. As someone who hasn't grinded crafting to level 20, it's much more cost-effective to sell mats on the Exchange and just buy the upgrades. That's because the crafters who actually use the mats price the upgrades with the expectation that they get 2 each crafting attempt.
The casual players are playing the game, casually.
I don't know what to call the segment of the playerbase that seems to spend more time on the forums demanding more stuff for less effort than playing the game, but "casual" it isn't.
Grand Master Thotok, son of Koloth, I.K.S. Sompek==Dahar Master Shanara, I.K.S. Balth'Quv
Admiral R'Tath V'Tirex, R.R.W. Dhael Glohha'enh==Commander Ta'eth Korval, R.R.W Hachae ch'Rhian==Admiral Vranuk, R.R.W Delevhas
My question is just, does it address to the problem if most fail criteria are really challenging or rather annoying.
Sorry I do not get that. Im not challenged by them, neither if I wash through csa in a few mins with likeminded DPSers nor if I encounter a pug who messes a questioning in undine infiltration.
For as long as lvl 60 (50) is the only requirement for players to hit elite (or advanced) they will do. And rightly so cuz normal contend in this game is so insultingly easy that everybody who knows that tac consoles belong in the respective slot will be bored. The rest is a lomg term learning process which requires dedication and probably a few mess ups for the others. Some will bring, some will not. They will still be in elite the second they hit 60.
In a quiet embarrassing endeavour cryptic has demonstrated their inability to provide challenging, team work addressing contend. They can only do by rising hull hit points of critters which ends up in another unchallenging boredom. We will be stuck with that for a long time, likely forever.
For everybodys sake I really hope they remove some fail criteria, especially the timers, to give us all a chance to play happily together the way we always could the past years.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Exactly...incentivize people to play harder or better. Make being lazy or stupid not worth it instead of the other way around.
Also, I said nothing of the difficulty in my post. I think the difficulty is fine. But a game is supposed to be fun and wasting 15-20 minutes in a queue and getting no rewards is NOT fun. I want to hear one of you say you like wasting your time in a queue to get nothing and that you think it is fun. No one thinks that is fun. The fact that you get nothing doesn't make it more challenging either. It just makes it frustrating when fail. Keep the difficulty where it's at but give 1/2 rewards for failure. Maybe a cell fragment where you need to combine 2 to make a whole. ANYTHING is better than the insulting 10 marks they give now.
For those that say it's the luck of the draw...you are right. And sometimes you are lucky and sometimes you are not. But when you are not, you shouldn't be totally punished for it. Having a suck team is punishment enough. It's not more fun to then get no rewards.
Frankly, I don't see why anyone is FOR rewarding nothing. Someone getting rewards for their time invested has no impact on your gameplay. Why would you care whether I suck but still get an APC? Is it that you all are just so elite that you couldn't bare knowing that someone with such inferior skill has good gear?
Again, keep the difficulty the same...since that is where the challenge is and is what everyone is clamoring about but change the end result if you fail.
I already did and do, you just refuse to accept it.
Those same average players who are now improving their gameplay to make themselves get back to where they were pre-DR - anyone who came for Trekness has already left or drastically changed why they remain, as the only Star Trek remaining in STO is in flavour stuff, there is nothing of what made the shows here in Cryptic made content.
The average player brings a set up (boffs aside in most cases) that could do what they want post DR, if they knew how to use it.
For most, it is not they do not want to be good, it is that they don't know how to be good because the only stuff that actually teaches how is player made and they do not know where to look, and so they get caught up in doing the terrible grinds as if it would actually help them. That is a knowledge issue and well within the ability of STO players to sort.
Most pugs that I have seen do low DPS due to a lack of time or money investment. They need the special items from the STFs, so they can begin to gear themselves and be less terrible. They do not need very rare materials. It is in the best interests of the game, then, that normal queue should reward EITHER marks or the special item, forcing more grind unless they choose to git gud and learn to do advanced.
As a side note, anyone saying that pugs bring decent builds needs to have their head examined. Most of my parses have them clocking in at 3-5k DPS.
Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler
Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
No, that means they don't know how to use any equipment they've got. The equipment isn't the issue (it could be better certainly, but it isn't the problem) it is them not being able to use it that is.
In the asian world, far east, whatever the f you want to call it, people don't play these games for fun, they play them for prestige. All joking aside, it's a serious business. Forcibly morphing STO into something along those lines is nge-style game suicidal. STO was so far removed from that type of experience it wasn't even funny. It was, kind of a chill out and have fun place.
This isn't entirely true,
but unless people are running winboat scimitar setups, it's a real real pain running an advanced, and chances are it will fail. So, that's it now? No more proper sci ships in advanced? Only DPS monkeys? If true, that's pretty sad. I've been trying to setup a vo'quv for for play, it's proven very challenging. The bird-of-prey pets turn pretty slow, they don't have a lot of on-target-time. And there just aren't enough tactical abilities.
EDIT: and don't bother bringing a proper engie-tank ship either. not enough dps.
anyway
The truly sad thing is that they have the mechanic to solve that instantly. They have three difficulty levels that could be used to make everyone happy. This is what it should be,
normal - you can do it, educational, but still fun. optionals definitely not required in any way.
advanced - you can do it, but work for it, shouldn't be so hard that minmax builds are required, pugs with mk14 gear should be able to accomplish this at a reasonable rate for reasonable reward. some optionals perhaps should be required, but shouldn't be so hard that crazy minmaxing is needed to complete them.
elite - pretty darn difficult, should require planning, all optionals required, give significant reward.
unfortunately, this is what it is now
normal - Almost too easy in some cases, but it gets the job done. however, the difficulty in some ques is set to advanced or elite! and there is fail on optional in some! that's insane, and it's cleared out the ques completely. Difficulty varies wildly by que.
advanced - minmax builds are recommended in some, and outright required in others. all optionals are required. no fun. takes freaking forever, and - rewards are pure TRIBBLE for the time invested.
elite - most are bizarre, I mean really, what were they thinking? But, I suppose some of that is ok. You have to give people something to shoot for. But if after months and months no one is really doing them ... it's wrong.
I think it's fun
Winning every time is honestly very boring. If the intention was for players to go into a queue, win every time, and get all the rewards they want, then there wouldn't be a point to having PvE at all. Just add a button in your inventory window that says "claim free VR mats and rep items" on a 30min cooldown, and that would have the same effect.
By being a game, I don't feel I've "wasted" any time going into a queue. Sure, a failure means I don't get rewarded, and there's a cooldown. But it's a game, and thus there is a chance for failure. A game where there is no chance for failure is a very poor game.
But from a game mechanics point-of-view, time spent in a queue is never wasted time - at least not anymore, considering the other new systems. Even if I fail a queue, I'm still gaining points towards my specialization trees, I can work towards ship mastery, claim loot drops, etc. The game already rewards any time spent playing, so there is no need to reward additionally if the queue fails. Queue rewards come from queue success only.
If half-rewards are given for failure, then that doesn't encourage anyone to get better. That would actually make it profitable for a player to jump straight into an Elite and let the queue fail as quickly as possible. The game cannot reward failure, otherwise not enough players will try to win.
When a queue failure is the result of someone a) not having a clue what to do and not really paying attention to the objectives, or b) completely ignoring the team's chat, that's a different story - that isn't fun. But when you have a team, even a pug, that's clearly trying and putting in a good effort all around, all you can say to each other is "gg, can't win 'em all," and move on. Then you evaluate what went wrong, adjust your strategies and your builds, etc.
Sry I cant say that, it would be a lie. Because I dont fail
This is it, thats the only problem there is. If they would make a tutorial (a real one) or at least make References to builds instead of screenshots (like "Visit stobuilds.org to learn about ship building, skills and equipment") there would be no problem with pugging advanced.
P.S.: The sit -if it exist- is just something I genericly generated^^
Ryan did a whole series explaining the gameplay mechanics and how to do STF's...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9ocZfZAHJk&list=UUzBWn8mUwYuUk1SSB7l_kAg
New ISA, same team, 2 minutes in they have just managed to kill the starting spawns and begun on the first transformer when the nanite spheres come in and the mission fails. Everyone gets booted out with their 10 marks and are free to do something else.
Which one is a waste of time?
There are a lot of low dps players and players who are not good at gaming period in fact this is probably a norm as these people login for an hour or so per week to unwind. These people probably make up the bulk of the playerbase. I am retired recently and so am putting in insane hours into the game and I am also not the average player because I have always been good at games as they require you to have something that not everyone is born with called 'situational awareness' this is not meant to insult or anything I am simply pointing out that these people likely wont progress but have had a lot of fun in the game prior to changes now they get nothing for their trouble and so are less likely to play. A lot of these "average players" often have some disposable income to burn but will burn it in some other game that lets them have fun and pew pew things and just relax.
I have been in enough groups to realize that low dps is in fact the majority of the player base. I only pug and I have met many friends that way including a few that sent me a pm thanking me for persisting in an instance when others would get mad and call everyone names and leave but I play for fun whatever happens in a group happens still I have had an interesting experience since the onset of DR. There is the "leet' group entering normal instances of mirror and calling everyone names and then there are the average players just there to have fun who send me pm's and say hello and thanks and apologize for their low dps lol. The reality is they are low on time and just played this game for fun and they freely admit that they wont ever improve because they are already at their peak for a number of reasons. You can't improve if you dont have the innate traits that make "good gamers" good which are things like situational awareness. which is not necessarily something you can learn .. You either have it or you dont.. Some people are possibly disabled or older and just can't do any better from what I see their game is gone. Personally I find the advanced sort of unfun I simply dont enjoy them any longer I do one maybe two a day just for a change and I do a couple of elite ground q's (maybe).
I think the foundry is possibly the place to have fun now which is ironic because that is not really content that cryptic designed lol
Good question, especially when a full hour mission CD timer is added now giving the group to think about what to do with those ten marks b4 trying and most likely failing again.
Now I imagine my contribution to the run if I ended up in that team:
- In old ISE I could have soloed the map ending in a successful run for me and the 4 others. I probably would only have noticed a slow match and/or a failed optional, but would gladly hit the next queue.
-In new ISA I would have also gotten 10 marks and would probably not play with that group anytime soon again.
The trouble of the fail criteria start in mixed teams which form up 90% of pugs.
Good teams arent remotely challenged anyway.
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It is not the tools we use which make us good, but rather how we employ them.
They lack knowledge and skill, not the BNP/APC required gear.
Let me guess, any science ship and "engie-tank" who actually does DPS isn't a "proper" sci ship/engie-tank?
If the "tank" doesn't do enough DPS, they're either not a tank or a failure to tank - an invulnerable ship that never takes aggro, does no appreciable damage, and thus contributes nothing to the team. A tank needs to hold aggro and survive - no more, no less. An invulnerable ship is not a tank because it is missing the other half of the prerequisites.
An engineer in a cruiser that actually knows what they're doing will easily break 10k, especially post-DR.
A "proper" science ship built and flown by people who know what they're doing should also break 10k.
It's unbelievable the amount of people who'll attempt to justify their own lack of skill and knowledge by trying to lower the bar and attacking anyone better as not doing it properly, instead of learning and improving.