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Punished for being a new character and being undergeared.
grethore
Member Posts: 41 Arc User
Ok, simply put. Queue for The Cure Space normal. Get in I fly out first to go attack the BoP coming from the right cube area. Two seconds later, boom cubes dead and all the gens are dead..as are all the raptors that spawn as well. About 10 seconds later, Far left cube goes up in smoke, and a few seconds later, the middle one is dead. And all this is long before I can even fly from the first to the second or 3rd cubes. Errr, ok, I'll hail the Kang. Done. Ok. I actually pulled aggro first on the assimilated carrier first, but 5 seconds later it's dead too along with the 2 spheres with it.
And this is where I get a sweet little message. "You have been assigned an AFK penalty for not participating enough." WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How the heck can I "participate enough" when people with all XIV gear and T6/T5u ships are in a NORMAL STF and kill everything faster than I can scratch their paint jobs?
So, in essense, I got the AFK penalty because I: A. was a newer character B. Am in the gearing up process. C. cannot 1 shot everything in sight.
Is that the jist of it? How wonderful that is that new characters are now punished for existing. I supposed EVERYONE is supposed to instantly have XIV gear on T6/T5u ships.
I mean, I was a little perturbed before while on my decently geared characters and there were other more geared players coming into the normal STF and 1 shotting everything, but atleast I could put some hurt on of my own. Now that I'm on a newer character, and am not even ready for the harder content, I can't do it because I won't get any Dilith or marks AND I'll get a nice fat little 2 hour STF ban.
How about forcing high geared players into the appropriate difficulty level so they can't TRIBBLE over newer players like this? Did you guys at Cryptic even think this whole thing through? At all? Talk about frustrating.
And this is where I get a sweet little message. "You have been assigned an AFK penalty for not participating enough." WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How the heck can I "participate enough" when people with all XIV gear and T6/T5u ships are in a NORMAL STF and kill everything faster than I can scratch their paint jobs?
So, in essense, I got the AFK penalty because I: A. was a newer character B. Am in the gearing up process. C. cannot 1 shot everything in sight.
Is that the jist of it? How wonderful that is that new characters are now punished for existing. I supposed EVERYONE is supposed to instantly have XIV gear on T6/T5u ships.
I mean, I was a little perturbed before while on my decently geared characters and there were other more geared players coming into the normal STF and 1 shotting everything, but atleast I could put some hurt on of my own. Now that I'm on a newer character, and am not even ready for the harder content, I can't do it because I won't get any Dilith or marks AND I'll get a nice fat little 2 hour STF ban.
How about forcing high geared players into the appropriate difficulty level so they can't TRIBBLE over newer players like this? Did you guys at Cryptic even think this whole thing through? At all? Talk about frustrating.
Post edited by grethore on
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I have the fortune that all my toons are at lvl 60 and are fully geared. After DR I doubt I ever bother with a new toon again.
Tention in endgame queues are pretty high atm because of the fail criteria. In order to contribute you have to.
- bring in DPS pre-requirenments not explained anywhere.
- Do not make mistakes that lead to instant fails.
- play after a community self evolved strategy not explained in game.
You are right the way the advanced/elite contend is handled endgame queued contend is a tough place to be for either new players or even veterans with new chars. The afk penalty is a joke the way it is implemented.
My advice for the time being is to play under the backup of the community you are in. So do we. I wish I could give you better advice but I have none to offer. At the moment almost are all queues are hardly playable in pugs because of fail risks and even reward poorly for pre-made teams. If i pug with a friend we only do so with high dps map cleaner builds. Suppose those u fell a victim to.
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Don't worry, more advanced players are screwed over by the non-optional optionals so they play normal instead.
Which then screws players like you over. Isn't it a wonderful little cycle of death and destruction Cryptic created in the pve queues?
Yes it was a pug. And it IS cryptic's problem because people too geared for content are flooding low level queues for the easy marks, and hurting lesser geared players, like me in my case, to the point of getting not only NO rewards, but a temp ban as well from STFs. Is it MY fault they could clear it faster than I could kill 1 thing? Is it MY fault they are on a well geared character?
And it's NOT an anomaly. These people are almost always in just about every STF I do now. Even on my decently geared but NON T6/T5u and XIV geared characters, I have to really push it hard to even compete with them. And normally, on those characters, I CAN hold my own against them, EXCEPT for their burst, which I just don't have available like they do.
I was in a normal STF, right where I should be going to gear up, earn marks and dilith. People will b*** and moan if someone undergeared goes into an advanced or elite, but now it seems the normals are where all the people who are geared for advanced and elites are going.
I don't mind grinding for my gear and earning it. That takes Dilith and marks. Can't earn those with what happened earlier. But where the heck am I supposed to go for it other than NORMAL STF's? Right?
It's not like they have to "Target" anyone. Just when you reach a certain gear level, no more slumming it in lowbie queue anymore. It used to be that you couldn't even queue for elites unless you had enough gear. (way back long before the rep system and even LoR came out) Why not something like that but in reverse.
I dont think i would blame Cryptic entirely. But they do share part of the blame for the current state of pug instance queues. For the stuff that the OP just experienced here is where i would lay blame:
1) overgeared/overskilled players who belong in adv/elite mode but instead do normal
2) undergeared/underskilled players who belong in normal mode but instead do adv/elite
3) Cryptic
What is driving player #1 out of adv and elite? rewards not worth it? that is something Cryptic can fix. Trolls messing up their runs? thats something Cryptic can fix too if they would police and punish trollish behavior. Player(s) #2 messing up adv/elite runs? that is something that player #2 can fix but only if they are willing. It is something Cryptic can fix if they do something like putting an item level requirements for adv and elite (and we all know how popular that would be). Premades are an option that player #1 can take but even though it is an option i think that it is BS that they should even have to do that. They have as much of a right to be in pug queues as anyone (assuming they are in the appropriate difficulty).
Between players and devs, the devs have more power and are in a better position to change the situation. I mean i could promise to keep my geared up toon out of normal mode instances **slowly crosses fingers behind back** but what good is that when nobody else will do the same? Since i doubt that the pugging community will ever get their s**t together i will probably end up doing premades. I'm slowly getting myself ready for it...just got my Java installed and got the parser and logged an ICN and one of these days i will log an ICA run to see where i stand.
Depends...are you able to kill an entire side of CSN all by yourself in less then 5 seconds?
I've found that most players do not have an actual awareness of the true passing of time and exaggerate. They could pop open a combatlog and realize that things they believe happened in mere seconds took far longer than they thought.
Consider activation delays on abilities - the actual programmed delays...work in UI delays - add in travel times...etc, etc, etc and you've already found yourself past the amount of time that many players believe passed during an event.
Do you really believe that folks in the 30-40k+ range are hitting up Normal queues in groups? Or is it more likely that the OP is making excuses? Whenever a post includes the word "punished" or the like, it takes on a melodramatic flair that could be entertaining if it weren't so tedious at this point...
No-one present in that scenario is at fault. One is trying to gear up in a manner that is designed. The others are trying to gain dilithium and marks in the most efficient manner.
The only ones who can bear fault are those who setup the balance mechanics for the game. When it's more efficient to run Normal when geared for Elite, the balance is wrong. When that impacts on someone trying to gear up to get to Advanced but can't get a shot in due to it being more efficient for Elite geared players to play through Normal, how is that the fault of those players?
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Do people in the 30-40k range hit up normal? i dont know let me ask sarcasmdetector if that was her i saw in an FFAN run a few weeks ago or if there is another @sarcasmdetector in game.
Also i cant comment on how well the OP can count. Maybe OP is a woman and he measures time in "i'll be ready in 5 minutes" time? But i track time pretty well...in my scrubby little ship that only logs 20k in an ICN (scaled down to 50) i flew up to a CSN cube popped all my CDs, tac fleet, fomm, bfaw3, apa, apo, eptw3, and dem+marion. Everything on one side dropped before the duration of my BFAW was up. BFAW buff duration was my stopwatch and as soon as the cube popped it ticked off. I havent been able to repeat it so the stars probably just lined up perfectly for me. That is me in a Narcine in XII rep and fleet gear. It will be a while before i get up to XIII or XIV gear so i can only imagine what it would be like.
And yes the OPs use of the word "punished" does make me roll my eyes and it makes me want to use an Inigo Montoya meme quote. But when i'm able to do the same thing in my scrubby little ship i kinda look past his poor choice of words and say 'yah i can see that happening'.
When you see one or more folks in a Normal that are obviously rocking DPS outside what others or yourself are doing...do you adjust your play though? Do you try to anticipate where you can best get in some shots and participate or do you throw your hands up in the air thinking about the thread you're going to start on the forums about it, eh?
I figure you more for looking at what you could do before running off to blame Cryptic...
I made a post about that the time afk pen went live....
afk pen seems to only compare dps....
its also possible to abuse the system.... just get 4 high dps guys pugging and if the unlucky random guy is too low BAMS 2h ban
even if he wansnt afk....
So basically adjust his playstyle to the point where he isnt really playing but tagging stuff in the hopes that he hits something to not get the afk penalty? (if that even actually happened to him). I'll adjust my playstyles depending on other players in the dungeon run, but not to this extreme. If somebody goes left and i normally go left then i'll go right. But adjusting my playstyle to account for the fact that i might end up with 4 other people in XIII or XIV in a normal run?
Is that playing? or is that playing catchup? Thats like a regular person getting in on a pug basketball game with actual NBA players and being happy that someone passed him the ball. YAY!!! i got to play! Kobe Bryant passed me the ball but then right away Michael Jordan swiped it out of my hands. But still! i got to play basketball with them!
And i already mentioned that i think that Cryptic is only partially to blame for this...i blame the players too. I'm not going to do some pie graph saying what percentage of the blame goes to who. But for me, inaction alone is enough to get partial blame...IE the lack of action vs instance trollers who intentionally TRIBBLE up objectives or do things like block off entrances with cover shield, that kind of thing. The lack of action to make sure people go to the right instance based on their gear or skill. Using WoW as an example...everybods favorite game to get compared to. IIRC there was a time when the LFG queues had no ilevel restriction. But that was because they had heroic keys. But you could still grind out rep get your heroic key and show up to a dungeon naked. But now the LF tool for dungeons and raids have an ilevel requirement. What brought about that change? too many Tauren Warriors showing up in LFG/LFR in wearing white wedding dresses? Thats one example of how Cryptic can do something to make sure people belong in the right queue. But again as i mentioned that wouldnt be a popular move. How about harsher punishment and actual enforcement of people who troll instances? thats another example of something Cryptic could do. It would be nice if we could all just use the honor system or something and go to the queue we belong in or we all decide to stop trolling instances. But yah...
Um, I WAS ready for a normal queue. Have all appropriate gear at X level, all blues. Not the best stuff I'll admit. But appropriate for my level, ship, and the queue I was in. Have my traits set right, Doffs on active to boost abilities etc.
And tell me this. I did a Crystaline entity right before this STF. First place thank you very much. So, you're assuming I was not ready for a normal 5 man STF when I can clearly hold my own against 9 other people in another situation when they are of similar level and gearing on that same character?
This isn't my first character FYI. I've been around a while. While not perfect in any way, I'm also not stupid and can generally put together a decently geared ship and perform at a very respectable level. Does this character belong in advanced or elite, absolutely not. Is it appropriately geared for a normal queue? Yes. Was I in a normal queue, uh huh yup. OH and FYI, normal queue are designed for people as low as 45 I think it is, which is IX gear level. I am definitely over that.
So, you're just ASSUMING I wasn't ready for a normal STF, based on what? Because something happened that I felt was unjust, so I said something?
The issue at hand is a pug queue is matching fresh captains with others who are well above the item level of the content. Thus creating a performance gap that cannot be overcome and is not intended for the content. It would be like having a high school football team play against a NFL team and then punishing the high school team for not being able to compete well.
And frankly, it's YOUR kind of disregard and "I'll do whatever I damn well want to" attitude that leads to people joining advanced and elite queues without any consideration of the other 4 people in that STF. People tend to just tune you out when you act like that towards them. Food for thought hmmm?
You can get 1st place in Crystalline without using a single offensive ability or having any weapons on the ship...
No, I didn't read the rest of what you said after that.
* DPS players playing below their level?
* Normal content is too easy?
* The mechanic behind the afk penalty?
* Gear/skill level OP?
* All of the above.
I've just read through the entire thread.
I can see how you felt this was not exactly fair, because Mk X should indeed be enough for CSN.
However.
I am currently advising a fleet member to avoid even Normal queues. He is level 52, has a Mk X plasma build. Still I am advising against it. I'm running with him through the episodes. Let him first get his Mk XI Jem'Hadar set or Mk XII Solanae set. Lets first grind some Polaron or Antiproton or Plasma or any type of weapon on Mk XII level from the storyline. Or let him buy cheap Mk XII from the exchange.
The reason I am doing this is because I know he could get in the same trouble as you.
So my advice to you would be exactly the same.
Considering you have more than one character, you should be able to get at least a 5k DPS ship with mission rewards and about 1 million EC shopping money on the exchange. This does not even need to be a ship designed by others, you probably can pick whatever works for you for 5k. And 5k combined with a Mk XI-XII free set should guarantee you survive and do the damage to avoid this scenario.
You could always attempt to go premade with fleet/friends, but I don't know if that is a realistic option for you.
The other solution would be to avoid the queues altogether. If you have a good ground build (even as simple as full Jem'Hadar set for example), you can play on Defera for your Omega marks and on Dyson Ground for your dilithium. A Defera run does not award too many marks, except for the daily bonus package. Dyson Ground rewards around 11k unrefined dilithium if you tag all three V-rexes, play all dailies and be present since the start of the zone. And that in about 20 minutes.
This is the method I am probably gonna use for my more recently-created characters.
Join the Deltas today!
Would be my vote...it needs tuning.
But telling other players to go elsewhere isn't the solution to that tuning. It's not the same as somebody not meeting the content requirements for an Advanced (TRIBBLE player imposed requirements, they can join channels for that - but if somebody's meeting the actual content requirements)...
I am also running a plasma build. And yes, it is on a Assault cruiser, /eye roll. Have 2 blue plasma infusers Mk X, 1 photon detonation assembly very rare (purple) Mk X, 5 Mk X rare plasma beam arrays, 1 MK X very rare plasma beam array. 2 Bio-molecular photon torpedoes, 1 front one rear both MK XII, one rare, one very rare. Maxed out on SS Energy weapons, weapons training, and targeting systems, 6 out of 9 on energy wep specialization and torp spec. Deflector is very rare positron, Combat engines, field stabilizing wc, and normal shields, (non covariant or regen or resilient), all MK X level rare or better except the warp core.
I know it's not a great setup. It's my starter set. It's good enough for the level of content I am queuing for. And in some cases, BETTER that what would drop in the STF anyways. Certainly far better than what you "NEED" since the queue opens up at level 45.
Right now, I'm going a little tanky and a little dpsy for doing the STF normals and for running missions. nothing wrong with that. I'm not screaming bloody murder because I'm not topping dps meters. I KNOW I won't be as an ENG in a cruiser. And I'm fine with that. But I do have a fairly decent grasp of what I need to do and in other circumstances, can definitely pull my own weight in one way or another.
Like in the mirror event, I would deliberately use draw fire to pull the mob packs away so someone else could close the rifts or activate the power transfer. I know to switch to Command - Strategic Maneuvering if we need to fly to another spot quickly...every little bit helps. I know that since I'm in a cruiser, it's better to broadside and get all my beams on target. It's not rocket science.
This is actually how i've been doing it for a long time. And it was because i didnt want to get left out of the action. But pre DR stuff didnt die as fast, but i was still usually one of the first to engage. I guess its served me well because post-DR I wont get left out of the CSN nukefests. Also come up with a plan of attack or a sequence of abilities that will allow you to front load the most amount of damage vs aoe and vs single target. I dont know what the damage threshold is for being considered AFK/not AFK. So come up with an opening rotation to put out as much dps in as possible. I would say do this even if you have to pad meters a little bit (as long as you can survive if you get aggro from whatever it is you pulled). After a few seconds you will be able to gauge if your 4 teammates are flying uber geared ships or if they are just average/slightly above average players.
I think it sucks for that you have to adjust your playstyle to have to deal with it. But you'll be waiting a long time for Cryptic or other players to do anything about it.
I would agree to a point. There certainly are some of those around yes. But, to play devil's advocate a little, the grind can get a tad....annoying.... at times. My 3 mains, yes 3, are all sufficiently geared to run advanced with little to no problems. I was running elites long before Legacy of Romulus came out. Never had any problems. And I have run some advanced since DR on them. Definitely harder than the old elites were. And yes there may be some truth to advanced and elites not being as efficient or as worthwhile because of the difficulty increase between normal and advanced. But that IS a cryptic problem. The rewards should reflect not only your success, but also reflect the increase in difficulty.
And frankly, players with the kind of attitude you describe will always be bad for ANY game. They tend to be caustic towards everyone around them, unfortunately the few like that I have run into in the real world, are exactly the same way in real life as well. And it tends to detract unfavorably from the community.
See, I don't understand that.
I go into a queue - I'm one of five people. If need be, I'm going to adjust what I'm doing to what they're doing. Cause I'm one of five people. I don't care if they don't adjust, I'm not them - but I know that the world's not wrapped around my pinky, so I'm going to adjust to the team. It's a team instance.
It's constantly a case of watching what is going on and adjusting to it. Say I'm flying over to do something, somebody flies over their faster - well yeah, annoying, but I'm going to adjust what I'm doing. I can say that I wish more folks paid attention to what was going on to what was going on, but that's all I'm saying anyway - is folks paying attention to what's going on and adjusting to what's going on.
Somebody goofs up something, am I going to sit there and rage at the person or I am going to try to adapt to that goof up. If I fat finger something or start lagging out, going to let the others know that so they have fair warning in case they need to cover something.
If I'm doing solo content, I'll do whatever I please...if I queue for team content, I'm going to adapt to the team.
The irony is, a lot of what you said I normally do anyways. AND, I'm usually the first person there anyways. They load pretty quick on my comp. And I always try to have something like THY or TS up while flying to the target, so that I can get a quicker second use out of it...Something anything where it'll come off CD soon so I can have one ready again quickly. And I normally use evasive maneuvers to get reoriented and moving onto the next target asap.
If anything, a lot of this is just common sense because there ARE timers on the optionals, and I do like to get the optionals. Haven't paid attention, but you used to get better rewards for getting the optionals too. Hopefully you still do.
And ya it is sad that it's in this state right now. And I agree that I shouldn't hold my breath on Cryptic and certainly not the "gamer community" to address any issues. And people wonder why gamers are looked down upon so badly? I don't wonder at all.
I'm not talking about simple adjustments. Like how i mentioned before...i always go left, but someone beat me to the left first so i have to go right.
I'm talking about doing everything possible to maximize his speed leaving the starting point. Right down to making sure he is cocked and ready to go once his controls become active. Right down to coming up with a preset sequence that he does every time he zones into the instance. Like when i zone into Cure Space my ship is still doing the warp in animation but i am already spamming F to get rid of the dialogue window, hitting E to get my speed up and once the dialogue window is gone i hit the button to activate full impulse and i go into a left turn. The only way someone beats me out of the CS starting area is if they have better latency than me and they load first. But a lot of times i am the first one away. And i also already have my approach preplanned out. Move to withing range of 4 nanites right and at 15km and still in full impulse i will pop tac fleet, APA, APO, BFAW, DEM. I spam my spacebar on my target so the instant i am 9.99km my weapon fires and i get put into combat which drops me out of full impulse. If I was doing a long sprint and i am low on weapon power and i need to put out a lot of dps then i'll pop my weapon battery or weapon capacitor whether i need to or not. The opening 1-2 volleys will kill the 4 nanites and i will slip into range of the last two and kill them too. Then retarget the cube FOMM and keep hammering away and bam everything dead.
I'm pretty methodical so i have something similar for the other instances that i do. This is just an old habit though from when i used to be a raid tank. It made me predictable to the other raiders in my guild so they knew when i was always about to do something. I was like a ghetto DBM countdown timer. They see me standing back with them it means i'm not ready to pull. They see me moving up, they know i am about to pull, they see me stop and they know in 3 seconds my rifle/bow shoots, heroic throw, charge and its on. With most of the PVE queues i do being preset i can do the same thing there. I go from A to B to C to D pretty much like clockwork. With an occasional adjustment here and there. I usually set myself up for solo play but if i find somebody tagging along with me and i see that their actions complement my own then i adjust a tiny bit to account for me working in a 2 or 3 man group.
But all that speed freak go go go stuff i do because i want to do it. I'm having to tell the OP to be just as fast because he has to do it.
Advance and Elite queue no joking matter so everyone who can't finish those are heading down to the normal queues with there max out level 13 and 14 gear.
Game play has changed and I doubt it will revert back because of all the player gear upgrades to the max.
Note just not the queues either Dyson Sphere - 8472 and Voth Daily/Hourly Space & Ground Battlezone are tougher too. Voth Space Battlezone vs Voth in Borg Disconnect Normal Queue are not the same Voth programmed I should say. But you can still take out the Voth Mother-Ship in both if you know how. The Borg Queen's Octahedron and 8472 Dreadnought takes a lot more fire power to take both of those down in the end. So with everyone so geared up it can be quick and easy kill.
I like how everyone tells anyone to go to Deferi Borg Invasion Ground BattleZone. Oh boy you have to deal with:
Drones
Tactical Drones
Heavy Tactical Drones
Elite Tactical Drones
Elite Tactical Assimilated Gorn (3 or more in a team to get them to appear and take this one out)
Let's not forget the Temple and Power Plant (Hard) Level 3 Floor (3 or more in a team) In your in for such a treat at these two areas. Sure there are Easy and Medium Levels too Task Missions you have to get prior to going to them. Or just do a free for all you only collect skill points or specialize skill points for FADM.
Again just another fun an excitement day...
Time will only tell!
While I love the KISS method, simple solutions don't always work. There are a bunch of people in XII rep and fleet purples who can't pull the dps that the best guys can do in a shuttle. You can't just ban people based off the quality of their ship or gear from doing normals. And some of the best guys can do advanced with pretty modes gear, so you can't ban poorly geared folks from advanced either. It is unfortunately not simple enough to generate a "sum of equipped items value" score and shuffle people off to the appropriate area.
Due to the complex nature of dps, there is no automated solution. The fix for the OP's problem is not complex --- FIX the stupid AFK logic which is poorly written.
There are a dozen simple solutions or more that would solve the bulk of the other problems, though....
two of the most obvious examples..
- 3 tiers of stf. Normal, advanced, elite. Advanced and normal do not fail on optionals. Elite does, but no timer. Normal provides gear up stuff --- it gives you the associated special rep item for projects/gear like borg neural processors etc. Advanced gives blue crafting mats and the gear token. Elite gives purple & blue mats and token.
or
- no cooldown if you failed a STF so you can try again if it fails.