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The queues are dead! Long live the Battle Zone!
coupaholic
Member Posts: 2,188 Arc User
I mentioned the below post in another thread:
I think this is a good idea, and rather than derail the original thread I thought it best to give the idea it's own thread for discussion (or likely savage dismemberment).
My opinion is that battle zones are better than queues in every way. Besides the obvious fact that they are more populated than queues other points to consider are:
- you can use any tier of ship with any build, and any captain with any Boffs on ground
- you can drop in when you want, and leave when you want. Can be 10 mins, can be an hour
- you can take part in actual large scale battles with many ships
- due to the design of them failure to hold objectives doesn't mean fail the entire mission
- an open BZ makes trolling or sabotaging the objectives much harder
So forget the queues, spend time making better battle zones! With some work they could make them the perfect endgame playground! For example:
- a single battle zone in eta for PvP, a mix between Ker'rat and capture the flag
- hourly spawns of boss entities or areas of the map for advanced and elite players, with required optionals for extra challenge
- bigger maps with more to explore and more diverse objectives for each highlighted area (hacking mainframes for territorial control, stealing enemy supplies and so on)
- additional rewards and/or buffs for teaming up
I could go on, the simple and open design of the BZ leaves room for all sorts of cool new features.
What say you?
At the risk of getting yelled at, I like the battle zones. They are the only real entertainment left at the endgame.
I would go so far as to say that Cryptic should forget about making new queues no-ones going to touch, and instead use that dev time in developing better battle zones.
I think this is a good idea, and rather than derail the original thread I thought it best to give the idea it's own thread for discussion (or likely savage dismemberment).
My opinion is that battle zones are better than queues in every way. Besides the obvious fact that they are more populated than queues other points to consider are:
- you can use any tier of ship with any build, and any captain with any Boffs on ground
- you can drop in when you want, and leave when you want. Can be 10 mins, can be an hour
- you can take part in actual large scale battles with many ships
- due to the design of them failure to hold objectives doesn't mean fail the entire mission
- an open BZ makes trolling or sabotaging the objectives much harder
So forget the queues, spend time making better battle zones! With some work they could make them the perfect endgame playground! For example:
- a single battle zone in eta for PvP, a mix between Ker'rat and capture the flag
- hourly spawns of boss entities or areas of the map for advanced and elite players, with required optionals for extra challenge
- bigger maps with more to explore and more diverse objectives for each highlighted area (hacking mainframes for territorial control, stealing enemy supplies and so on)
- additional rewards and/or buffs for teaming up
I could go on, the simple and open design of the BZ leaves room for all sorts of cool new features.
What say you?
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
No thanks, I think its just a matter of personal preferences but quiet frankly I cant sand battle zones anymore and hope that cryptic does anything they can to bring back live to queues.
The task I had so far faced in the available battle zones where somehow too repetitive in a single location for my taste. Finding workarounds for the Defera city bug as well as running after 3 T-Rex in order to grab the maximum reward was pretty much the downside of my existence in STO. I rather doff. The whole Kobali BZ just felt like a retextured Voth somehow and I bet future aditions wont be any different.
Queues are probably repetitive as well but there at least I meet the sporty aspect of teamplay much better. You know, you have seen 500 football matches but the 501th can still surprise u and excite you to the limit.
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1.) You do not get full rewards unless you run around and "tag" all t-rexes and planet killers.
I man what the flying fck? Who designs shiite like that and gets money for it?!
2.) Spaceships. We love our spaceships. So with every ground battlezone, make sure to add a space one too!
I've been chomping at the bit for another space Battlezone ever since the Undine one.. perferably one that doesn't use TRIBBLE encounter groups with unavoidable special abilities that make you lose control of your ship.
I also think a shuttle Battlezone would be fantastic - especially if it focused around doing things(not silly pop-up minigames) that rewarded crafting materials. Zipping around an asteroid field while prospecting rocks for mining ships and protecting them from raiders - that sort of thing. (Also, Intel/Command/Pilot Small Craft when?)
T-Rex, yes.. you're exactly right.
Rewards for Undine zone are dependent on Time Spent and how many points you helped clear. There is no reason to 'tag' Planet Killers.
As for the original topic, I agree 100% The ques are dead, they will stay dead because Cryptic refuses to adjust them to make them enjoyable. Every time I see that they're adding a new Que I just laugh because it's completely ridiculous that they're spending time and resources making more TRIBBLE that no one will play.
The Battlezones are the only good thing about this game. The Voth Ground and the Undine Space Zones are the only areas in the entire game where you can get reasonable reward for your efforts. All other 'end game' content is a complete and utter waste of time.
Making new Battlezones is the only logical and reasonable way to go.. which is exactly why Cryptic won't do it. They'll keep pushing their fail ques until the game is completely dead.
I also found Nukara to be kinda Meh , and while I liked the Map of the Dyson BZ , the Jurassic Park / Dinosaurcers theme was not something that kept my interest for very long ... -- and having to do something that you don't find interesting just for the awards ... , well we have the "events" for that ... .
I also don't think that future BZ's will be as awarding .
Dyson is awarding because Geko has an unhealthy Dinosaur fetish , and as we've seen with his "I loves Excelsior / You will never have the Ambassador / Galaxy lolwut " attitude , he's not above using underhanded methods to get players to play content that he want's to see played .
... I would not object to a "known location" (ESD / Quo'noS / DS9) to having an alternate existence as a BZ , as long as the foe & setup is actually interesting ...
Adding more zones will empty them. The player base will disperse itself. You may end with empty battle zones too at some point.
Is the Defera BZ still as horrendously buggy as it was just last September?
For all the talk about how beautiful Kobali is, I spent virtually no time observing that because it was both tedious and unrewarding.
However I love the Dyson Rep and Undine Rep BZs. I love them enough that my Deltalt who is likely to become my new main as a means back into the game, (barring some kind of deletion mechanic at the end of the event) will rig his away team out in Dyson and Counter-Command Rep gear. (Ship will probably be in Elite Fleet gear as that will require less upgrading but I digress.)
I hope they do both and give 'teh elitz' queues to measure their DPS while the rest of us are free to pursue fun fighting Heralds in the more casual environment of a battlezones.
Rather than more boring "kill these things within the time limit" (I'm looking at you, Herald sphere) queues, I'd love to see more, expanded BZs. I'd like to see some more dynamic elements added in.
Right now the objectives in the BZ stay the same. That Romulan singularity point will always be a Romulan singularity. Instead, I'd like to see a new BZ come out that has a pool of objectives but then randomly places those objectives around the map. Some types of objectives might not show up on a particular run too. That way no one run is exactly the same as another. Adds in a bit of variety there.
But yeah I very much agree. Bigger, better, more dynamic BZs is something that greatly interests me.
Mine Trap Supporter
I have played every que and every BZ STO has to offer at some point and I don't see why we should have to settle for one or the other. There can be both, but as always, it would take a lot of work to fix it.
My main issue with both ques and the older BZs is you can tell the age of them readily. The older content is markedly worse and shows all the poor design this game started with. It is hard to go back and change it all, but it needs to be brought up to a modern standard if it is going to be worth repeating.
Adjusting rewards is only one part of the fix. Indeed, by what standard is an honest reward set ? Should we have set rewards, or reward based on performance ? I like performance, personally, but then you can't know for certain how long your grind for X will take you.
That said, I think the repeatable content peaked with the Voth BZ. I was quite impressed with it the first time I played it, and really was hoping it would mark a lot more new content like it. I admit, I think I over-played it as by the time the Undine BZ came out, I was fairly burnt out on the grind. The latest, Kobali BZ, is not as good. It feels restrictive and there certainly arn't the same numbers playing it.
But ... even the battlezone encounters are heavily scripted. They are mostly just mission zones and not really "open combat" areas. You still have to do stuff, its just you get to choose which stuff to do.
The real open combat zones in the game are the encounter areas (like hostile Klingon patrols in sector block). But those are for low-level rep grinding and do not really do anything for you at higher levels.
Me too.
I think Defera and Nukara are both good zones for ground teaming. I like that you can work with other players toward the same objectives. However, both - Defera in particular - are buggy. They also can be boring/repetitive after a while. They also don't have a space zone, so no allure there for starship captains, just away team commanders.
The Solanae Zone is nice because you have the space and ground portions. There's plenty of things to do and little missions scattered all over the map, on top of the normal selection of hail the contact and get orders - transport the medical supplies to the ___ spire.
The queues aren't bad (well, I mean they are because Cryptic screwed them up by trying to please the uber-DPS crowd) but it's a set mission so you know what you're going to get. You know what you're going to get after enough time in the sphere too, but at least you have the option not to do something. In an STF you have to do the next thing in the mission or you fail. In the BZ, hey free ions are forming some technobabble in the zone - meh, some other ships will handle it. You don't get anything, but you don't lose anything either, and you can keep going on your merry way.
Bottom line, I like spending time in the battlezones because it's more immersive. However, the queues should not go away because 1) I don't like getting rid of content just because I don't do it that often, and 2) there is no adequate replacement for the queues as it stands now. The queues are unique content and if they were to go away, you don't have that content anymore.
MOAR CONTENT! FEWER BUGS!
I would also agree that BZ's ain't perfect. Players will continue to use the path of least resistance if on full on farming mode, from tagging dinos to shooting a single ship in the minefield of the allied zone for quick Dyson marks.
There is also the lag. Not sure if anyone has mentioned it, I've been out all day and only skimmed the replies, but in a full instance of the Undine zone fighting off the Voth at the end it can chug along.