Hmm, it has gotten laggy to an unbelievable level on my last run.
Our attacks got unselected with a delay and we kept rubber banding back and forth.
But at least we got a reward at end.
+1. i also had quite the rubber banding. I like the concept of scaling optionals. The first one being easier than the second and etc. To be honest my public run, we failed both optionals, but at least we completed the event. Also we were quite close to hit the first one, so i guess it is more of a group fault than saying that the event is impossible. I think they are pretty close to making the advanced events challenging but not impossible.
I've been avoiding all advanced/elite PvE queues since the changes that introduced the advanced difficulty. I tried them a few times early on, but none of the teams I was matched with had enough DPS or understanding of how to complete the missions to do it without failing due to the requirement to complete the optionals.
My DPS may not be spectacular, however it was good enough that before advanced difficulty was introduced I was usually able to help a team from a public queue complete the optionals on at least some of the queued PvE missions when playing on elite difficulty. This became impossible once advanced difficulty was introduced, as my DPS was no longer high enough for me to ensure that these optionals were successfully completed by myself.
Unfortunately the real issue here wasn't that people had poor DPS, it was that they didn't know what they were doing. Lets take the Infected (Space) STF mission as an example (I guess it's called "Infected: The Conduit" these days). If a team knew that all 4 generators around a transformer needed to be destroyed at the same time to give the best chance of destroying the transformer before the nanite spheres got there, then the optional was usually obtainable even if the team had relatively poor DPS. If even one of the players didn't know that, and one of the generators was destroyed too soon, then higher DPS was required to pull off the optionals as a players with low DPS usually had no hope of destroying the rest of the generators and the transformer before the nanite spheres got there.
The game gives no real tips on how to complete the mission without failing these optionals, and it seems like almost half or more of the players never see team chat (perhaps because they have their chat window minimized since they don't like it or are tired of all of the spam/politics on ESD and other popular starbases) so there is usually no way to communicate the information to the rest of the team while the mission is in progress. Add to this the fact that getting higher DPS in STO is not easy to figure out, and usually requires a lot of time, research, and effort to achieve unless you happen to join a large fleet that already knows a lot about DPS. This automatically doomed public advanced and elite PvE queues to failure once the optionals became requirements.
Because of all of the above nonsense, I am very relieved to see the optionals go back to being optional at least on advanced.
As for the rest of the changes, this video should demonstrate how I will feel about them (sorry about the black rectangle on the right of the video with the glitched mouse pointer, I didn't realize that Combat Log Reader's mini window wasn't being captured right).
So I call this out as sooooo many others and they 7 months later address baby steps is not even close to what they are doing but keep trying maybe I will not be so disappointed in my 200 buck investment.
Still cant even dream of reaching 10k dps so its untouchable by me
First, if there are no ships to rescue, there is no mission. 2nd the lag others have referred to has a direct impact on disabling tracker beams, so the time to do so becomes longer. Third, typically it takes about 10 secs to release a single tracker beam. There are 4 on each ship. If you do manage to get ships and they turn out to be T'liss warbirds worth 1 point. It is impossible to complete the option. If this is a matter of skill then the objective should at least be possible. Base on this math the mission with randomly spawned ship types makes the option kinda not a good idea.
This was a good mission for FM's. Don't mind changes but please, make proper use of the test server to make sure things work.
Today after patch, login servers went down, there are glitches in the new episode just release and your testing of Azure Nebula Rescue advanced was great, if filled with glitches.
Common Cryptic, we have come to expect better. Don't let us down, again.
Still cant even dream of reaching 10k dps so its untouchable by me
It took me a long time to get above 10,000 DPS as well. They've made trying to get there a convoluted mess.
Here's some videos that may help, if you don't already know how to get there (it's a long conversation in STO chat with someone who's DPS was breaking 30,000 and sometimes 40,000):
Obviously that doesn't explain everything, and the videos are a combined total of a little more than an hour (I apologize for the background noise from the guy on TeamSpeak).
Also, one thing I have noticed is that a lot of people claim that antiproton and plasma weapons are the best, but I can't get higher DPS with those types of weapons (usually get lower or exactly the same as phaser). When people talk about this, I think what they are not explaining is that they are talking about the reputation weapons (Romulan Plasma, Voth Antiproton, etc) and not the regular plasma and antiproton weapons that you buy off of the exchange or get as drops or mission rewards, however I have not tested this (I have not bothered putting time into either of these reputation systems beyond what was necessary to get the traits I needed to boost critical chance).
I'd also post a link to my ship's loadout on Gateway, but that doesn't seem to be working at the moment...
Don't tell that to my beamscort doing 40 to 50k but this is getting off topic.
Ya want to lower the chance of failure in advanced ques I can't argue with the logic in that as it will inflate some numbers, but if ya want to create a true incentive marks help but more xp would be the key. As it stands now xp for endgame seems to have ground to a halt. Let's seem some bonuses for the ques to rebalance where the "sweet spot" is for earning spec points. Especially since y'all are talking about expanding spec trees.
Edit - and address the lag issues rendering the ques unplayable. Its getting horrendous lately.
The rewards and failure conditions in Azure Nebula were not really a problem. The real issues that existed were:
1. Advanced rewards were basically the same as normal, making normal more rewarding.
2. The instance bugged regularly. Fix the numerous bugs, such as a location spawning Tholians, but no Romulan ship to be rescued. This effectively limits the players' ability to earn rewards through no fault of their own. This same issue will interfere with the new rewards system as well by preventing players from getting the needed points.
3. The mission took too long and doesn't have enough constant action. This makes it somewhat boring, especially for talented/geared players.
Hopefully, the changes to the advanced rewards fix the first problem, though I think that is unlikely because the enemies will still have fewer hull points in normal and be easier/faster to clear. And, there will always be newer/bad players with poor strategy and/or low-DPS joining the advanced queue, so you shouldn't have the expectation of freeing as many ships in advanced when doing a PUG.
My recommendations:
1. Increase spawn rate - the time interval between spawns at a location is too slow. I've sat for at least 1 minute and 30 seconds waiting for a spawn, numerous times. And, that was with me moving to different locations after clearing one spawn point. I've seen all points on the map empty with nothing for the players to do for similar lengths of time. To put that in perspective, in the time I spend waiting for spawns in Azure Nebula, effectively twiddling my thumbs and doing nothing, I could have completed The Cure (space).
2. Decrease the time of the mission - This queue takes too long and it's repetitive/boring at times. I generally complete The Cure (space) on normal in 2.5 minutes. Azure is on a timer and it takes 12 minutes. If you combine a reduction in the mission timer with an increase in spawn rate or rewards per ship freed, this will help Azure Nebula queues.
3. Reduce Cooldown timers for all queues - Why not make the timers 15 minutes? 1 hour or even as low as 30 minutes means I can clear many STFs before the ones I've run come off cooldown. There are only so many STFs that give the marks one might need for a specific project, so, why force people to sit around waiting for Cooldowns or do queues that they don't need? The result is that many people do not repeatedly run STFs - they just run the cycle of ones they need and then do something else. (Inlcuding logging out of the game.)
4. Fix the bugs - this should be obvious. Rewards aren't even close to as big of an issue. In fact, the bugs effect the rewards significantly. I don't even care if any Devs acknowledge the bugs, just fix them. I'm sure you have a good idea of what they all are. Changing the rewards has far less effect on people's desire to run the Azure Nebula STF than does the bugs in the map. Fix the bugs!
WTB T6 ship, for $30 of hard-earned money, with the following:
1. 8 Weapons, Battle Cloak, and 11 consoles (5 Tac/4 Sci)
2. At least 39,000 Hull at lvl 50 and at least 1.25 Shield mod
3. Commander Tac/Int BOFF and Uni Lt Comm BOFF stations
It could have 5 turn rate and look like a box, but I'd buy it ASAP!
Ran the new queue twice so far. First time was a write-off because someone sat AFK in the middle. Seriously, Cryptic can make all the changes they want to content, but you just can't change stupid - that's all on the player :P
Second run was more-or-less fine. Had quite a few low-value spawns, so we didn't get the optionals. But I don't have massive DPS and I didn't feel the team as a whole was ripping hulls too quickly either. We got close to the optionals, so a lucky spawn would've pushed us over.
One bug, two suggestions:
BUG:
Saveable ships are either not spawning on occasion, or the ship will just disappear during the battle with the Tholians. The tractor beams, THEY DO NOTHING
SUGGESTION:
The mission giver suggests she's from the RSE, but her ship's prefix is RRW, and the ships we save are labelled "Republic Ha'apax Warbird" and so on. Might want to take the time to update the text in the mission, while you've got the hood open on the code.
SUGGESTION:
When a series of T'liss 1's spawn, it's gonna be difficult to hit the optional given how long it takes to disable the tractor beams. It might be worth exploring the values. Maybe 2x the value of the low ships, increase the high guys a bit, and set 1.5x the requirement? So:
- T'liss = 2
- Dhelan = 4
- Ha'apax = 5
- Falchion = 7
- TARGET VALUE = 15
This way, if all T'liss spawn it'll only take eight instead of 10. So if all four locations pop a T'liss twice, you get the optional so long as everyone is able to solo a T'liss (plus one other player somewhere). That gives 2.5min per round, which is pretty fair for takedown and tractor disabling.
Also, two Falchions will no longer guarantee an optional's success, which means the team still needs to manage their activities well. The team as a whole just can't swarm a Falchion when it shows up, and one or two players will need to attend to other ships.
BUG:
Saveable ships are either not spawning on occasion, or the ship will just disappear during the battle with the Tholians. The tractor beams, THEY DO NOTHING
This bug has been in there for as long as I can remember. It has been reported countless times.
I've just finished my third run of Azure Nebula Rescue Advanced and every time we had an early buged out ship. Not only does this make getting the optionals impossible it also cuts future ship spawns by half.
And devs wonder why there are so many frustrated players around posting rage threads these days.
putting aside that it is totally bugged atm since no further ships are spawning so you cant rescue anything there.... this change on the optionals should get another thought
because if low level ships spawning then your optionals fail no matter how good you are and how hard you try this mission
that means that the game mechanics disallow you to finish the optionals... not your skills, your dps... the communication inside the team...
it simply becomes impossible to get the additional rewards because of how this game works.
It seems to me it would be a great time to delete tribble and reinstall it from holodeck because there must be a problem on tribble that transfers over bugs
Its just too weird and doesn't make sense
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
I hope you devs are logging in and playing this yourselves. You know, testing the game.
The average pug just isn't capable of 10 points in 4 minutes, nevermind 3. 3 ships in 3 minutes was easier.
As everyone else is saying, the low spawn numbers, bugged spawns and general lag isn't helping matters.
Also, by giving out full dilithium and materials for a fail you're encouraging people to afk and not care if they complete the optional. Very few are playing pves repeatedly for the marks.
We get 1 mark for each point and 5 marks for each optional objective or 10 in advanced.
with nothing else.
So that means if we do it normal and get 20 points we would get about 30 marks....for normal and 40 for advanced....
That's less marks then completing normal missions.....so why would people bother to do these events now?
I think I must be missing something.....I will log in and look..
The rewards to complete something like infected are low/poor in the first place very poor really and less than 1/2 of what they used to be
So doing a space STF is doing it for fun not rewards
unless you DPS it in 2 minutes then what will you do for something fun ?... That's the main reason I don't try to join the dps leagues
I could do 50k dps................but I totally wash out the entire game if I do
Those that like this gameplay I totally respect just my personal preference not to go uber DPS its not fun for me
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Finally got a chance to play this. Definitely an improvement, I can reasonably expect to actually complete it when I pug it now. We got the first optional, but just missed the second because a few too many T'liss's spawned, not the end of the world though since I still got my argonite gas. I hope you make similar changes to more queue's soon.
As mentioned above, the bug with ships not spawning is still there though.
Finally got a chance to play this. Definitely an improvement, I can reasonably expect to actually complete it when I pug it now. We got the first optional, but just missed the second because a few too many T'liss's spawned, not the end of the world though since I still got my argonite gas. I hope you make similar changes to more queue's soon.
As mentioned above, the bug with ships not spawning is still there though.
I tried it a few times but both times I did it didn't spawn high enough points to get the optionals. Most of the time it was only spawning the t'varos so there wasn't any chance in getting the optionals so I guess this is the new exploration system lol.
I tried it a few times but both times I did it didn't spawn high enough points to get the optionals. Most of the time it was only spawning the t'varos so there wasn't any chance in getting the optionals so I guess this is the new exploration system lol.
I agree that this particular optional objective does seem rather luck based, that could absolutely be better. It's still an improvement over the last version though where you only had about a 10% chance of completing the mission in your average pug. At least if you fail the optional now you still get all the important rewards, you just miss a couple of marks.
The gap between normal and advanced is so large it is ridiculous. Because of that gap the normals cannot be considered a learnign tool for advanced. Additional the fail optionals effectively killed any real possibility to learn in advanced.
So true.
I've learned through the grape vine that the community has created DPS channels, 10k, 20k, etc. for STF's.
So, for those that are working towards improving their DPS in the STF's (and being able to get loot that earns tier 5 rep. gear)...and can't be among players that KNOW what their are doing, how do we get to that level if the 10K, etc. players are untouchable.
And to answer one posters reply, I've read all the posts and watched all the YouTube vids...but that does not put me in touch with the experienced players that can help me advance in the STF's.
I guess where STO/PWE is concerned, they provide this "free" (but it's not really if you want to advance at a faster pace) game and don't really give a hoot who plays or wants to advance and get better gear, they want us to grind away for months and maybe get 1 piece of tier 5 gear and hope we spend real money along the way for ZEN, etc., to fill their pockets with profit.
I am so guilty of spending real money on STO it's embarrassing...
I do enjoy the game very much, it has become a hobby to me not just a game, and I will continue to spend "real" money as needed to do what I want...but it would be nice to have the opportunity to EARN the awesome gear from tier 5 rep. equipment and sets.
However, until PWE/STO fixes the STF's so that when you do spend time battling the Elite or Adv. you actually get something for it, I'll not waste my time on them.
I am so guilty of spending real money on STO it's embarrassing...
Ditto.
There was a time when I spent $100 each month on ZEN (sometimes more). I stopped after a little while, because I realized that it wasn't worth it, and I would rather spend the money on other things...
The PvE content I used to play on a daily bases becoming suddenly unobtainable via public queues was certainly part of that, but there's a lot more wrong with this game than just that. #1 problem is the "how can we make a quick buck" development model, where they focus too much on new content and not enough of fixing what's there. I still experience bugs with the controls that I reported years ago, the stupid buttons in the bridge officers' trays don't always activate when you click on them, and there are a number of other little bugs that they still don't seem to care to acknowledge or fix. I know a guy who would play this game and spend money on it if his gamepad or joystick would work with it, but of course they don't.
edit: I will not be tricked into replying to this thread. I will not be tricked into replying to this thread. I will not be tricked into replying to this thread.
I tried it a few times but both times I did it didn't spawn high enough points to get the optionals. Most of the time it was only spawning the t'varos so there wasn't any chance in getting the optionals so I guess this is the new exploration system lol.
This, times a hundred. You can't make an optional objective which is impossible to complete if the RNG decides to only give you 1 point ships... What's even the point of that? Unless they guarantee that the first few ships can get you the number of points required for the optional then this optional has nothing to do with player skill and everything to do with what the RNG god decides to give us.
Join date is wrong, I've actually been around since STO Beta.
True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event rewards!!
I do love that they are starting to pay attention to what was the problem with the queues, and starting to fix them. This is the first step they have made in fixing what messed them up, so there are a lot of tweaks to undo the mess that was made.
Seeing as they are starting to try to undo this mess, I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, and wait to see if they finish fixing this queue.
What we need to keep in mind is that there is no Elite difficulty for this queue. So, just like the Advance STFs, it have been adapted for the Elite level DPS players.
This means that the change they just made was 1 step in many that still needs to be done. But they need to make adjustments slowly, and think them through, or we can end up with another mess all over again.
Granted, this was not the smartest queue to test these changes on, it is still a start.
What needs to be done next is reduce some of the hp pool back down to Advance levels, and then start increasing how fast the higher ranked ships you need to rescue respawn. Either that, or lower the hp pool to Advance levels, and then lower the requirement for the optionals.
But, we need to give them time to finish fixing this queue. One step at a time, and they can start to bring life back into these queues, and the game. But if we try to rush them, then they will make the same mistakes they did when they were playing tug-a-war with the Elite level DPS players.
I say good job to them for realizing they made a mistake, and trying to fix it. And I hope that they do give us an Elite difficulty option for this queue, so that if they do bring the Advance back down to Advance levels, the Elite have a place to go.
Thank you again Cryptic for working so hard to try to fix the queues. This is a VERY good start to doing so. Please keep heading in this direction.
Leader of Elite Guardian Academy.Would you like to learn how to run a fleet? Would you like to know how to do ship builds (true budget as well as high end)?The join the Academy today!
This, times a hundred. You can't make an optional objective which is impossible to complete if the RNG decides to only give you 1 point ships... What's even the point of that? Unless they guarantee that the first few ships can get you the number of points required for the optional then this optional has nothing to do with player skill and everything to do with what the RNG god decides to give us.
I was really hoping that it would help to pep up the queues a little bit but, in game, it's as empty as ever.
I was really hoping that it would help to pep up the queues a little bit but, in game, it's as empty as ever.
Cause the actual reasons why the queues have been the way they are (long before DR) has nothing to do with the complaints some folks have been pushing...
...they just want to be able to leech stuff again.
So this is a great idea! Unfortunately, ANRA remains bugged, which still makes the "optionals" difficult (or impossible) to fulfill. It's nice that not meeting the optional does not cause auto-fail, but presently, meeting the optionals in ANRA has just as much to do with luck as it does skill (if not more so luck).
Get a bunch of T'varo spawns? Get even a single bugged spawn? You're S.O.L. Most cases, you can't afford to miss a single spawn in the time limit since respawn times are so long - I'd say your typical group will see, at most, 2 full sets of spawns in the time limit.
Again - love the concept. I think it's a great change. The execution has left some to be desired, unfortunately. (And I say this as someone who genuinely doesn't care about the bonus mark rewards; but I can see other players getting very upset that they miss their chance at bonuses through no fault of their team or their own.)
I am happy that this being done but the rewards should be bigger for. Step 2 if we manage to do the mission, in the time given. Step 1 & step 2 rewards or at lest half of step 1
Cause the actual reasons why the queues have been the way they are (long before DR) has nothing to do with the complaints some folks have been pushing...
...they just want to be able to leech stuff again.
folks folksy folk. And lies lies lies. Cryptics numbers obviously agree with the Vast majority of personal impressions given here on these forums. The participation in most of these missions has dwindled from instant pop with 50 and 60 people playing to a slow trickle. Yes there are some that were dying back in October and others that were DOA like undine assult, but to represent that the DR changes haven't reduced endgame pve queue participation by a vast amount - maybe 75%? - is a pretty shameful way to advance your dps channel worshiping.
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."
folks folksy folk. And lies lies lies. Cryptics numbers obviously agree with the Vast majority of personal impressions given here on these forums. The participation in most of these missions has dwindled from instant pop with 50 and 60 people playing to a slow trickle. Yes there are some that were dying back in October and others that were DOA like undine assult, but to represent that the DR changes haven't reduced endgame pve queue participation by a vast amount - maybe 75%? - is a pretty shameful way to advance your dps channel worshiping.
My what? Is there anything you don't just make up as you go along? Hell, your 75% number is a bigger pile of TRIBBLE than the thing I highlighted. Yes, people long before DR headed off to channels...not just the DPS channels, but other channels that exist out there as well, whether running with their fleets, KDF channels, Rom channels, Public Elite, Star Trek Battles, and the list goes on and on...to get away from folks like you. The number of folks even hitting up pugs has increased because folks have adapted. ISA pops a Hell of a lot faster than ISE did as does CCA compared to CCE.
It's like folks last played the game the first couple of weeks of DR and that's their reality...rather than what's actually going on.
Comments
+1. i also had quite the rubber banding. I like the concept of scaling optionals. The first one being easier than the second and etc. To be honest my public run, we failed both optionals, but at least we completed the event. Also we were quite close to hit the first one, so i guess it is more of a group fault than saying that the event is impossible. I think they are pretty close to making the advanced events challenging but not impossible.
My DPS may not be spectacular, however it was good enough that before advanced difficulty was introduced I was usually able to help a team from a public queue complete the optionals on at least some of the queued PvE missions when playing on elite difficulty. This became impossible once advanced difficulty was introduced, as my DPS was no longer high enough for me to ensure that these optionals were successfully completed by myself.
Unfortunately the real issue here wasn't that people had poor DPS, it was that they didn't know what they were doing. Lets take the Infected (Space) STF mission as an example (I guess it's called "Infected: The Conduit" these days). If a team knew that all 4 generators around a transformer needed to be destroyed at the same time to give the best chance of destroying the transformer before the nanite spheres got there, then the optional was usually obtainable even if the team had relatively poor DPS. If even one of the players didn't know that, and one of the generators was destroyed too soon, then higher DPS was required to pull off the optionals as a players with low DPS usually had no hope of destroying the rest of the generators and the transformer before the nanite spheres got there.
The game gives no real tips on how to complete the mission without failing these optionals, and it seems like almost half or more of the players never see team chat (perhaps because they have their chat window minimized since they don't like it or are tired of all of the spam/politics on ESD and other popular starbases) so there is usually no way to communicate the information to the rest of the team while the mission is in progress. Add to this the fact that getting higher DPS in STO is not easy to figure out, and usually requires a lot of time, research, and effort to achieve unless you happen to join a large fleet that already knows a lot about DPS. This automatically doomed public advanced and elite PvE queues to failure once the optionals became requirements.
Because of all of the above nonsense, I am very relieved to see the optionals go back to being optional at least on advanced.
As for the rest of the changes, this video should demonstrate how I will feel about them (sorry about the black rectangle on the right of the video with the glitched mouse pointer, I didn't realize that Combat Log Reader's mini window wasn't being captured right).
Still cant even dream of reaching 10k dps so its untouchable by me
This was a good mission for FM's. Don't mind changes but please, make proper use of the test server to make sure things work.
Today after patch, login servers went down, there are glitches in the new episode just release and your testing of Azure Nebula Rescue advanced was great, if filled with glitches.
Common Cryptic, we have come to expect better. Don't let us down, again.
It took me a long time to get above 10,000 DPS as well. They've made trying to get there a convoluted mess.
Here's some videos that may help, if you don't already know how to get there (it's a long conversation in STO chat with someone who's DPS was breaking 30,000 and sometimes 40,000):
Obviously that doesn't explain everything, and the videos are a combined total of a little more than an hour (I apologize for the background noise from the guy on TeamSpeak).
Also, one thing I have noticed is that a lot of people claim that antiproton and plasma weapons are the best, but I can't get higher DPS with those types of weapons (usually get lower or exactly the same as phaser). When people talk about this, I think what they are not explaining is that they are talking about the reputation weapons (Romulan Plasma, Voth Antiproton, etc) and not the regular plasma and antiproton weapons that you buy off of the exchange or get as drops or mission rewards, however I have not tested this (I have not bothered putting time into either of these reputation systems beyond what was necessary to get the traits I needed to boost critical chance).
I'd also post a link to my ship's loadout on Gateway, but that doesn't seem to be working at the moment...
Ya want to lower the chance of failure in advanced ques I can't argue with the logic in that as it will inflate some numbers, but if ya want to create a true incentive marks help but more xp would be the key. As it stands now xp for endgame seems to have ground to a halt. Let's seem some bonuses for the ques to rebalance where the "sweet spot" is for earning spec points. Especially since y'all are talking about expanding spec trees.
Edit - and address the lag issues rendering the ques unplayable. Its getting horrendous lately.
1. Advanced rewards were basically the same as normal, making normal more rewarding.
2. The instance bugged regularly. Fix the numerous bugs, such as a location spawning Tholians, but no Romulan ship to be rescued. This effectively limits the players' ability to earn rewards through no fault of their own. This same issue will interfere with the new rewards system as well by preventing players from getting the needed points.
3. The mission took too long and doesn't have enough constant action. This makes it somewhat boring, especially for talented/geared players.
Hopefully, the changes to the advanced rewards fix the first problem, though I think that is unlikely because the enemies will still have fewer hull points in normal and be easier/faster to clear. And, there will always be newer/bad players with poor strategy and/or low-DPS joining the advanced queue, so you shouldn't have the expectation of freeing as many ships in advanced when doing a PUG.
My recommendations:
1. Increase spawn rate - the time interval between spawns at a location is too slow. I've sat for at least 1 minute and 30 seconds waiting for a spawn, numerous times. And, that was with me moving to different locations after clearing one spawn point. I've seen all points on the map empty with nothing for the players to do for similar lengths of time. To put that in perspective, in the time I spend waiting for spawns in Azure Nebula, effectively twiddling my thumbs and doing nothing, I could have completed The Cure (space).
2. Decrease the time of the mission - This queue takes too long and it's repetitive/boring at times. I generally complete The Cure (space) on normal in 2.5 minutes. Azure is on a timer and it takes 12 minutes. If you combine a reduction in the mission timer with an increase in spawn rate or rewards per ship freed, this will help Azure Nebula queues.
3. Reduce Cooldown timers for all queues - Why not make the timers 15 minutes? 1 hour or even as low as 30 minutes means I can clear many STFs before the ones I've run come off cooldown. There are only so many STFs that give the marks one might need for a specific project, so, why force people to sit around waiting for Cooldowns or do queues that they don't need? The result is that many people do not repeatedly run STFs - they just run the cycle of ones they need and then do something else. (Inlcuding logging out of the game.)
4. Fix the bugs - this should be obvious. Rewards aren't even close to as big of an issue. In fact, the bugs effect the rewards significantly. I don't even care if any Devs acknowledge the bugs, just fix them. I'm sure you have a good idea of what they all are. Changing the rewards has far less effect on people's desire to run the Azure Nebula STF than does the bugs in the map. Fix the bugs!
1. 8 Weapons, Battle Cloak, and 11 consoles (5 Tac/4 Sci)
2. At least 39,000 Hull at lvl 50 and at least 1.25 Shield mod
3. Commander Tac/Int BOFF and Uni Lt Comm BOFF stations
It could have 5 turn rate and look like a box, but I'd buy it ASAP!
Second run was more-or-less fine. Had quite a few low-value spawns, so we didn't get the optionals. But I don't have massive DPS and I didn't feel the team as a whole was ripping hulls too quickly either. We got close to the optionals, so a lucky spawn would've pushed us over.
One bug, two suggestions:
BUG:
Saveable ships are either not spawning on occasion, or the ship will just disappear during the battle with the Tholians. The tractor beams, THEY DO NOTHING
SUGGESTION:
The mission giver suggests she's from the RSE, but her ship's prefix is RRW, and the ships we save are labelled "Republic Ha'apax Warbird" and so on. Might want to take the time to update the text in the mission, while you've got the hood open on the code.
SUGGESTION:
When a series of T'liss 1's spawn, it's gonna be difficult to hit the optional given how long it takes to disable the tractor beams. It might be worth exploring the values. Maybe 2x the value of the low ships, increase the high guys a bit, and set 1.5x the requirement? So:
- T'liss = 2
- Dhelan = 4
- Ha'apax = 5
- Falchion = 7
- TARGET VALUE = 15
This way, if all T'liss spawn it'll only take eight instead of 10. So if all four locations pop a T'liss twice, you get the optional so long as everyone is able to solo a T'liss (plus one other player somewhere). That gives 2.5min per round, which is pretty fair for takedown and tractor disabling.
Also, two Falchions will no longer guarantee an optional's success, which means the team still needs to manage their activities well. The team as a whole just can't swarm a Falchion when it shows up, and one or two players will need to attend to other ships.
This bug has been in there for as long as I can remember. It has been reported countless times.
I've just finished my third run of Azure Nebula Rescue Advanced and every time we had an early buged out ship. Not only does this make getting the optionals impossible it also cuts future ship spawns by half.
And devs wonder why there are so many frustrated players around posting rage threads these days.
because if low level ships spawning then your optionals fail no matter how good you are and how hard you try this mission
that means that the game mechanics disallow you to finish the optionals... not your skills, your dps... the communication inside the team...
it simply becomes impossible to get the additional rewards because of how this game works.
Yep, but it's worth mentioning again while they've got the code open.
Its just too weird and doesn't make sense
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
We get 1 mark for each point and 5 marks for each optional objective or 10 in advanced.
with nothing else.
So that means if we do it normal and get 20 points we would get about 30 marks....for normal and 40 for advanced....
That's less marks then completing normal missions.....so why would people bother to do these events now?
I think I must be missing something.....I will log in and look..
Power without Perception is Spiritually useless and therefore of no true value.
=^_^=
The average pug just isn't capable of 10 points in 4 minutes, nevermind 3. 3 ships in 3 minutes was easier.
As everyone else is saying, the low spawn numbers, bugged spawns and general lag isn't helping matters.
Also, by giving out full dilithium and materials for a fail you're encouraging people to afk and not care if they complete the optional. Very few are playing pves repeatedly for the marks.
The rewards to complete something like infected are low/poor in the first place very poor really and less than 1/2 of what they used to be
So doing a space STF is doing it for fun not rewards
unless you DPS it in 2 minutes then what will you do for something fun ?... That's the main reason I don't try to join the dps leagues
I could do 50k dps................but I totally wash out the entire game if I do
Those that like this gameplay I totally respect just my personal preference not to go uber DPS its not fun for me
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
As mentioned above, the bug with ships not spawning is still there though.
I tried it a few times but both times I did it didn't spawn high enough points to get the optionals. Most of the time it was only spawning the t'varos so there wasn't any chance in getting the optionals so I guess this is the new exploration system lol.
I agree that this particular optional objective does seem rather luck based, that could absolutely be better. It's still an improvement over the last version though where you only had about a 10% chance of completing the mission in your average pug. At least if you fail the optional now you still get all the important rewards, you just miss a couple of marks.
So true.
I've learned through the grape vine that the community has created DPS channels, 10k, 20k, etc. for STF's.
So, for those that are working towards improving their DPS in the STF's (and being able to get loot that earns tier 5 rep. gear)...and can't be among players that KNOW what their are doing, how do we get to that level if the 10K, etc. players are untouchable.
And to answer one posters reply, I've read all the posts and watched all the YouTube vids...but that does not put me in touch with the experienced players that can help me advance in the STF's.
I guess where STO/PWE is concerned, they provide this "free" (but it's not really if you want to advance at a faster pace) game and don't really give a hoot who plays or wants to advance and get better gear, they want us to grind away for months and maybe get 1 piece of tier 5 gear and hope we spend real money along the way for ZEN, etc., to fill their pockets with profit.
I am so guilty of spending real money on STO it's embarrassing...
I do enjoy the game very much, it has become a hobby to me not just a game, and I will continue to spend "real" money as needed to do what I want...but it would be nice to have the opportunity to EARN the awesome gear from tier 5 rep. equipment and sets.
However, until PWE/STO fixes the STF's so that when you do spend time battling the Elite or Adv. you actually get something for it, I'll not waste my time on them.
Ditto.
There was a time when I spent $100 each month on ZEN (sometimes more). I stopped after a little while, because I realized that it wasn't worth it, and I would rather spend the money on other things...
The PvE content I used to play on a daily bases becoming suddenly unobtainable via public queues was certainly part of that, but there's a lot more wrong with this game than just that. #1 problem is the "how can we make a quick buck" development model, where they focus too much on new content and not enough of fixing what's there. I still experience bugs with the controls that I reported years ago, the stupid buttons in the bridge officers' trays don't always activate when you click on them, and there are a number of other little bugs that they still don't seem to care to acknowledge or fix. I know a guy who would play this game and spend money on it if his gamepad or joystick would work with it, but of course they don't.
This, times a hundred. You can't make an optional objective which is impossible to complete if the RNG decides to only give you 1 point ships... What's even the point of that? Unless they guarantee that the first few ships can get you the number of points required for the optional then this optional has nothing to do with player skill and everything to do with what the RNG god decides to give us.
Seeing as they are starting to try to undo this mess, I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, and wait to see if they finish fixing this queue.
What we need to keep in mind is that there is no Elite difficulty for this queue. So, just like the Advance STFs, it have been adapted for the Elite level DPS players.
This means that the change they just made was 1 step in many that still needs to be done. But they need to make adjustments slowly, and think them through, or we can end up with another mess all over again.
Granted, this was not the smartest queue to test these changes on, it is still a start.
What needs to be done next is reduce some of the hp pool back down to Advance levels, and then start increasing how fast the higher ranked ships you need to rescue respawn. Either that, or lower the hp pool to Advance levels, and then lower the requirement for the optionals.
But, we need to give them time to finish fixing this queue. One step at a time, and they can start to bring life back into these queues, and the game. But if we try to rush them, then they will make the same mistakes they did when they were playing tug-a-war with the Elite level DPS players.
I say good job to them for realizing they made a mistake, and trying to fix it. And I hope that they do give us an Elite difficulty option for this queue, so that if they do bring the Advance back down to Advance levels, the Elite have a place to go.
Thank you again Cryptic for working so hard to try to fix the queues. This is a VERY good start to doing so. Please keep heading in this direction.
I was really hoping that it would help to pep up the queues a little bit but, in game, it's as empty as ever.
Cause the actual reasons why the queues have been the way they are (long before DR) has nothing to do with the complaints some folks have been pushing...
...they just want to be able to leech stuff again.
Get a bunch of T'varo spawns? Get even a single bugged spawn? You're S.O.L. Most cases, you can't afford to miss a single spawn in the time limit since respawn times are so long - I'd say your typical group will see, at most, 2 full sets of spawns in the time limit.
Again - love the concept. I think it's a great change. The execution has left some to be desired, unfortunately. (And I say this as someone who genuinely doesn't care about the bonus mark rewards; but I can see other players getting very upset that they miss their chance at bonuses through no fault of their team or their own.)
folks folksy folk. And lies lies lies. Cryptics numbers obviously agree with the Vast majority of personal impressions given here on these forums. The participation in most of these missions has dwindled from instant pop with 50 and 60 people playing to a slow trickle. Yes there are some that were dying back in October and others that were DOA like undine assult, but to represent that the DR changes haven't reduced endgame pve queue participation by a vast amount - maybe 75%? - is a pretty shameful way to advance your dps channel worshiping.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
My what? Is there anything you don't just make up as you go along? Hell, your 75% number is a bigger pile of TRIBBLE than the thing I highlighted. Yes, people long before DR headed off to channels...not just the DPS channels, but other channels that exist out there as well, whether running with their fleets, KDF channels, Rom channels, Public Elite, Star Trek Battles, and the list goes on and on...to get away from folks like you. The number of folks even hitting up pugs has increased because folks have adapted. ISA pops a Hell of a lot faster than ISE did as does CCA compared to CCE.
It's like folks last played the game the first couple of weeks of DR and that's their reality...rather than what's actually going on.