Then suggest something that limits trolling, provides options for people who don't have the time to make EC, and works for people that don't have a large enough friends list to form teams.
The various content with trollable objectives need to be redesigned/tweaked/touched up/etc so that those objectives are not subject to trolling.
Let's take a look at some of the ways one can troll Infected Space.
After the initial engagement, everybody appears to be heading left...Timmy Troll zips over the right as the engagement on the left starts and pops a right Gen. Group has to try to get over there to prevent that fail from happening.
After the initial engagement, which took a wee bit of time, everybody is heading left slowly/slowish...but Timmy Troll zips over there and pops the first Gen. Group has to try to get over there to prevent that fail from happening.
After the initial engagement, which went smoothly, folks have dropped the Gens pretty close together, and they're going at the Transformer...here comes Timmy Troll pushing some Nanites along with him using his TBR to push them toward the Trans.
After the initial engagement, which went smoothly, folks have dropped the Gens pretty close together, and they're going at the Transformer...here comes Timmy Troll dragging some Nanites along with him toward the Trans his DOFF'd TBR to pull instead of push.
After the initial engagement, which went smoothly, folks have dropped the Gens pretty close together, and they're going at the Transformer...here comes Timmy Troll who just loves his DOFF'd Gravity Well with his Gravigens and having that yank those Nanites over into the Trans.
After the initial engagement, which went smoothly, folks have dropped the Gens pretty close together, they're going at the Transformer, and Crowd Control Chris drops out his GW to buy the group some time...here comes Timmy Troll dragging some Nanites along with him toward the Trans his DOFF'd TBR to pull instead of push.
After the initial engagement, which went smoothly, folks have dropped the Gens pretty close together, they're going at the Transformer, and Crowd Control Chris drops out his GW to buy the group some time...here comes Timmy Troll pushing some Nanites along with him using his TBR to push them toward the Trans.
After the initial engagement, which went smoothly, folks have dropped the Gens pretty close together, they're going at the Transformer, and Crowd Control Chris drops out his GW to buy the group some time...but there's Timmy Troll popping shockwaves to break the Nanites out of the pull of the GW.
All sorts of shockwaves too, eh? And that list will go on and on...so many ways to cause that failed optional or failed objective. Course, there's also the 15 minute optional...bunch of those and other things can cause that to fail.
Hell, there's also going to be watching the guy going for his GDF - dropping out some Scramble and Iso/Ret/etc action...no GDF for you, denied, you can respawn now.
Course, that last one can happen anywhere - and - the making stuff take longer if there is no time limit on the run itself...can happen in all sorts of places as well.
Basically, Cryptic could take a look at reducing the ways that folks can troll - but they can't eliminate trolling...only way to avoid that is to find a channel where it's not allowed or run with folks that you know won't. Basically, people suck as people and take a perverse pleasure in ruining their fun.
* * * * *
How could one not have the time? Is the game shutting down? Cause otherwise, they will have the time. It might take them weeks to do something somebody does in days, months that somebody does in weeks, years that somebody does in months...but that's not a matter of not having the time. That's about how soon they want something...not wanting to wait...based on the amount of time they have available for the game.
There was a period of time where I had so much time available for the game...had 12 toons, was leveling two solo fleets, was DOFFing 3+ times a day, was outfitting all 12 toons like they were mains, was running all sorts of queues for fun, was doing all sorts of PvP, was working the Exchange out the wahzoo, was buyng with ingame currency all sorts of things to do testing of stuff, was over on Tribble testing...Hell, I must have been playing the game in my sleep cause of the sheer amount of time I was playing the game.
I don't have that kind of time now. I don't expect to be able to do and have everything I did with the time I had with the time I now have. I'll get what I get when I get it. Cause that's the kind of time I've got.
* * * * *
I have seven people on my friends list, and one friend request that I haven't accepted or declined. Of those seven people, only one of them still plays the game. I used to clear my friends list every 2-3 weeks, if I even accepted the friend requests in the first place - around the same time I'd clear out my ignore list. I just hit up the public queue system.
Do I talk about how some channels run? Sure, cause I used to hang out in OrganizedPvP back when I did PvP...I never x'd up though, cause even then I just did public pug PvP. I finally accepted the DPS-10,000 invite at some point, but I never x'd up - cause again, all I do is public pug runs. I don't think I was in that channel for two weeks before I left. Had only joined to have something to read while I was playing and doing whatever I was doing...but it wasn't very entertaining to read (and some other things).
Meena's in my KDF solo fleet, so I'm the only one there. I kept that fleet - the Fed one got abandoned. Willard's in Inner Circle, but that's a German fleet and I'm not German...got no clue what those fleet emails are talking about, lol. Six of those seven folks on my friends list are why I joined Inner Circle...so yeah, I'm in that fleet but I'm not really in that fleet I guess...I still do contributions, Hell, if I see a project that needs the various provisions I'll burn some creds to get that going. But I don't really play Willard anymore - log in from time to time on him, and I'm basically just running Meena. So there's the fleet channel I don't talk in, there's an international fleet channel I don't talk in, there was a PvP tourney channel that some of the high end PvP folks talked in that nobody talks in, there's an IC PvP channel where folks might pop in on Pidgin from time to time, but that's pretty much it...I'm not very social. Or maybe it's like preferring email to the telephone and so forth, I only want to be bothered when I want to be bothered...voila, post count on the forums - I only have to respond when I want to...yeah, not very social.
Hell, kind of feel bad looking at that one friend request - folks normally cancel it themselves after a period of time. I didn't feel right just rejecting it, probably should accept it, but they might want to talk in the game...meh. I'm usually just in there to do whatever I'm doing and then I'm out.
Wow, that kind of went all over the place...but anyway, so you don't have a big ol' friends list? What does that matter for folks that are just doing channel pugs anyway?
It's not just the DPS League channels, though personally 10k flowed more like a channel for folks just interested in farming than chasing DPS (which I assume took place more in the higher channels, though folks from the higher channels were oft around to answer questions for folks in 10k), out there - there are the Star Trek Battles folks which aren't about the DPS (or they weren't - that thread still pops up from time to time)...there are all sorts of different channels I've heard about outside of the various fleet channels folks have. Could even be a case of posting on the forums that you're interested in what channels are out there for somebody looking to...well, basically farming, eh?
And Hell, if you are a more sociable person (the stuff about the teamwork thing you mentioned earlier and folks playing together), you might even end up filling out that friends list, eh?
That is what needs answered and fixed. Are poor rewards keeping people out? Are objectives badly balanced and inappropriately difficult? Are enemies scaling/buffing too much? Are they simply not fun because the fail chance makes them frustrating? Is the difference in the way normal is played vs advanced too big because of these changes that it causes people to not actually know how to play it when they move up the tier?
These are questions that need to be answered so the problems can be fixed. Throwing out a ridiculous suggestion that Eddie not PUG doesn't solve the issues that every next Eddie will face.
The Eddies are just sick of it. Why PUG?
On a related note, so far I've seen PUG BOTSE to be more competent than pre-made dps channel BOTSE.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
A subset of players that aren't prepared for the run are players who aren't prepared but are oblivious to the fact that they are under-performing. In ISA for example (a map I always parse), some players are genuinely surprised at the parse results. Sometimes you don't even need to give advice. Just posting a parse on team chat can be a wake-up call for some.
The thing is, many players go about measuring how well their ship performs based on how it feels to them. They think they can melt stuff fast in STFs but they do not realize that it could have been someone else who did it for them. There are no in-game systems that tells you how well you built your ship and how well you are flying it. Some of us use a third party parser, but because it is not part of the game, I think the majority of the player base do not have it or are aware of its existence.
Now this is off topic, but I just thought I'd throw this one into the mix. A lot of the posts here tend to blame mission failures to stupidity, laziness or plain simple trolling but there are legitimately good-nature players that mean well. They just do not know how well they are performing because the game doesn't make that clear for them.
A subset of players that aren't prepared for the run are players who aren't prepared but are oblivious to the fact that they are under-performing. In ISA for example (a map I always parse), some players are genuinely surprised at the parse results. Sometimes you don't even need to give advice. Just posting a parse on team chat can be a wake-up call for some.
The thing is, many players go about measuring how well their ship performs based on how it feels to them. They think they can melt stuff fast in STFs but they do not realize that it could have been someone else who did it for them. There are no in-game systems that tells you how well you built your ship and how well you are flying it. Some of us use a third party parser, but because it is not part of the game, I think the majority of the player base do not have it or are aware of its existence.
Now this is off topic, but I just thought I'd throw this one into the mix. A lot of the posts here tend to blame mission failures to stupidity, laziness or plain simple trolling but there are legitimately good-nature players that mean well. They just do not know how well they are performing because the game doesn't make that clear for them.
I can agree and disagree with this statement, because if it is taking someone 2-20mins, just to take out a probe or a sphere, than they need maybe rethink what they are doing wrong!
Especially the probe!
I have literally watched someone, take 10mins, to tackle one sphere by themselves.
I have seen 4 people, take 5-8mins, just to tackle a single cube & sphere in KASA, while each died no less than 5X, heck 2 of those 4 died 16X & 18X in the whole mission.
I have seen one person, doing no lie, 2 digit and low 3digit dmg per shot with their beams.
I told them to put some power to their weapons, you know what they did, they popped a battery and voila, it doubled their dmg until the battery wore off, than they were back to taking 5mins to try and kill a sphere, took them 3-5mins to tackle a generator......a freaking generator!!!
You got people oblivious to using a map and, must be blind when there is a min-map on screen the whole time, people who do not ever seemingly interact with ANY npcs, asking where can I get hypos and/or, is the exchange the only place?
I mean, c'mon really people, the easiest things to figure out on their own and, they cannot do it.
50+ lvls of game play and, you haven't figured out you can change power settings, that there is an options category to make changes to, etc.
This game has imo, some of the most at times, brain dead players I have ever seen.
But, than you just have pure lazy players, demanding entitlement players, and trolls to boot always wanting everything, for little - no effort at all involved.
Well, the thing is in regards to challenge for myself, is there are times that I jump into a pug group and, I have 2-3 exp players scoring good - huge dps #'s, while I myself have kept my relatively small as to keep the challenge in this dept. for myself.
But, I also get players that cannot pump enough sustained dps, to even match a shuttle/fighter and, when I watch them closely, it's mainly because of their play style and/or build but, than again they could just be trolling!!!
Now, the other side of challenge for myself, is to play a mission that has the possibility of complete and utter failure, despite whether it has any other objective(s) to complete. [like an optional]
This is how I keep myself having fun, doing mostly what is deemed repeatable missions, for the sake of repeating them for X reason, whether that reason be to obtain marks/elite marks/train a fellow fleet member or friend/obtain R&D mats/etc.
They, like any mission run over and over again, become tedious so, I hope for them to still have a failure challenge at least and, than factor what it takes to dwarf myself down enough to add some more challenge, making it actually have some fun factor, to go with my side of tediousness.
Eliminate the failure in general and, than there becomes no point in nerfing myself, because it goes back to just being tedious in general, sapping any form of fun and challenge there could ever possibly be to it.
Well you bring in some solid points there you know and I understand your I need a risk to have a challenge attitude which is the same as Virus if element. I cant quiet grab Paxdis advanced performance inquisition attitude but ok, not my problem.
My threshold tolerance for players being in an STF has never been any numbers of their DPS. Sure if one struggles with a probstream one may have to look up ones build but other than that its more of a long term learning process peeps simply have to get through. And well they will but unfortunately in their difficulty setting of choice and we have to endure that, if we seek a challange.
I also must point out that especially DPS crowds in pugs once to often showed me that a lot of them tend to be spoiled or trolling buyusing their build to fire at will nanites prematurely and then exploding in embarrassment so their dsp is missing the moment its needed most but hey all of that is a mess to discuss
At some point one has to simply ask oneself whats good for the community. I know that not everybody can get what he wants and for me . what I want is a filled queue list so I get a constant pool of players where I simply dont care if they are good or bad and where I simply get a DIFFERENT team for a different unforeseeable experience. I dont get that in elite channels nor when I go in with fleet newbees.
Now whatever can be done to fill the queues should be done. And the echo of 10/14 still seems to reach today participation numbers and I experience it to be a lot greater than any trends Virus may have found out already happening b4 that.
Now if the call is to skip those fails to get the queues filled again Im for all that even if it means I sacrifice parts of my challenging fun. A supply of players (good and bad) is what I need and not a queue time estimate for IGA which says: -:-
The question often turns up if its the players inability to cope with DR change is their fault or the Devs? Sorry, cant blame it on the infinite mass of STO customers spread throughout the world and speaking different languages. It was cryptic choice and it would have been easy for them to create a surrounding everybody can get what he/she wants.
They simply could have made old Elite (exactly the way it was) to be current normal (but with old elite rewards) instead of that annoying easiness I see there today and I bet we could have spared ourselves a lot of these threads. Peeps who are unhappy with the change could have played that while others eager for risk and challenge could move on.
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I can agree and disagree with this statement, because if it is taking someone 2-20mins, just to take out a probe or a sphere, than they need maybe rethink what they are doing wrong!
Especially the probe!
I have literally watched someone, take 10mins, to tackle one sphere by themselves.
I have seen 4 people, take 5-8mins, just to tackle a single cube & sphere in KASA, while each died no less than 5X, heck 2 of those 4 died 16X & 18X in the whole mission.
I have seen one person, doing no lie, 2 digit and low 3digit dmg per shot with their beams.
I told them to put some power to their weapons, you know what they did, they popped a battery and voila, it doubled their dmg until the battery wore off, than they were back top taking 5mins to try and kill a sphere, took them 3-5mins to tackle a generator......a freaking generator!!!
You got people oblivious to using a map and, must be blind when there is a min-map on screen the whole time, people who do not ever seemingly interact with ANY npcs, asking where can I get hypos and/or, is the exchange the only place?
I mean, c'mon really people, the easiest things to figure out on their own and, they cannot do it.
50+ lvls of game play and, you haven't figured out you can change power settings, that there is an options category to make changes to, etc.
This game has imo, some of the most at times, brain dead players I have ever seen.
But, than you just have pure lazy players, demanding entitlement players, and trolls to boot always wanting everything, for little - no effort at all involved.
I think that is the rare worst-case scenario. I haven't really run into something that bad. Either those players genuinely do not know what they are doing, or they are trolling.
Speaking from experience, I thought my build/ship was awesome before. I could breeze through the Mirror event, solo a side on Borg Disconnected Normal and do various normal STFs without any issue. Only then when I learned how to parse and tested myself in ISA did I realize I was doing a mere 3-5k DPS at best. My ship felt good, but the numbers did not lie.
There are some deficiencies in this game that would prevent a casual player from objectively measuring their potential.
There is a huge gap in NPC HP from normal to advanced. You may feel like you are breezing through and vaping normal NPCs but you'll be in for a surprise in advanced and elite.
There is no in-game tool that will allow you to measure your performance. You need third party programs, and IMO that is not a good solution.
The game in itself does not teach you how to create good builds.
Some intricate stuff such as range drop-off, power level effects, etc. are not clearly laid out for new players.
While the removal of fails will allow groups to continue on and gain the rewards, I am not sure that this is the proper solution. ANRA now gives you Argonite, and a fair amount of dilithium every time. Argonite is one of the more expensive R&D materials so even if ANRA can take longer than other STFs, you still get compensated well for it. Yet ANRA rarely pops for me now. With fails and all, it used to be played more often. Now it's simply dead. If simple removal of fails was the answer, then surely this STF should be more populated, but it is not. ANRN seems to be doing better than ANRA.
While the removal of fails will allow groups to continue on and gain the rewards, I am not sure that this is the proper solution. ANRA now gives you Argonite, and a fair amount of dilithium every time. Argonite is one of the more expensive R&D materials so even if ANRA can take longer than other STFs, you still get compensated well for it. Yet ANRA rarely pops for me now. With fails and all, it used to be played more often. Now it's simply dead. If simple removal of fails was the answer, then surely this STF should be more populated, but it is not. ANRN seems to be doing better than ANRA.
I think largely this can be explained by azure never being a popular mission. It's one that people just don't get. It was run in olden times for being one of the few sources for Romulan marks but this is no longer the case. Later it was run for precious argonite, but this was when argonite was 660,000. Now that it's affordable I think many are happier to just buy it. It is affordable largely because enough people now run azure advanced.
The second issue is that the optional is still unlikely and the post fail part of the mission feels like a waste of time as the marks are very very low (always have been on this mission even doing very well on it).
Thankfully it is no longer the test case as we have all of the 3 Iconian missions which are running like buttah.
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."
That is why things need to change. PUGs have to be viable. If they are so bad that they can't be done reliably, then something in the system is broken. Believe me I can relate to the nonsense that ISA brings. I don't bother with it any more myself. But that isn't a long term solution for the game, for the queues.
Now whatever can be done to fill the queues should be done. And the echo of 10/14 still seems to reach today participation numbers and I experience it to be a lot greater than any trends Virus may have found out already happening b4 that.
I agree with most of what you said, but this especially. The queues need to be popping regularly, or they may as well not exist. They have to be changed and adjusted in ways beyond just the fail conditions to make that happen. Rewards are a big issue I think, especially in these days of endless spec grinding.
While the removal of fails will allow groups to continue on and gain the rewards, I am not sure that this is the proper solution. ANRA now gives you Argonite, and a fair amount of dilithium every time. Argonite is one of the more expensive R&D materials so even if ANRA can take longer than other STFs, you still get compensated well for it. Yet ANRA rarely pops for me now. With fails and all, it used to be played more often. Now it's simply dead. If simple removal of fails was the answer, then surely this STF should be more populated, but it is not. ANRN seems to be doing better than ANRA.
ANRA suffers from a lot of problems. Terrible rewards especially for the time it takes, bad scaling from normal, extremely frustrating enemies, huge bugs, and very badly designed objectives. I could use lots of Argonite but running ANRA is not enjoyable and not really worth the time even if it completes every time now.
That is why things need to change. PUGs have to be viable. If they are so bad that they can't be done reliably, then something in the system is broken. Believe me I can relate to the nonsense that ISA brings. I don't bother with it any more myself. But that isn't a long term solution for the game, for the queues.
Who is devs going to change the whole mechanics for? For a subset of the playerbase? WHy?
PuGs are viable. Except those who cannot complete advance whether the player dont belong in advance or the player cannot compensate for the lack quality of team nor accepting not to go to PuGs.
There are available in game solutions for these players who cannot in anyway forced themselves where they belong. Even now or before the recent patch you can literally PuG every advance and complete that advance mission. The choice being either improve self or improve team. If chose not to improve either one, suffer the fate of failure.
It was that simple. If you cannot accept that, it points to attitude and mentality problems. The complaints of this thread keeps going back, what the devs should do? When these players should ask themselves, what I did wrong or do I lack something to complete advance?
I agree with most of what you said, but this especially. The queues need to be popping regularly, or they may as well not exist. They have to be changed and adjusted in ways beyond just the fail conditions to make that happen. Rewards are a big issue I think, especially in these days of endless spec grinding.
Queues exists, private and public are viable. Public is viable except those who cannot compensate are the ones suffering.
Everyone can get the rewards. Except those who cannot get the rewards in advance chose not to get those rewards by not improving self, not improving team or getting out of PuGs.
PuG transfer of population to private queues has been going for years even before DR. So why should everyone even change their queuing habits for a subset of players or even forced to go back to PuGs?
Something they should have known before showing up. And since they are not bringing what is expected...Eddie is carrying them. There is no rationalizing around it. Eddie is carrying them.
Way oversimplified, Eddie is not carry people who actively try to help. He may be doing more of the dps, but that doesn't mean he is carrying them. Otherwise you would have to say that in any STF the top DPSer is carrying the rest. And I don't think most people will agree with that assesment.
With Eddie carrying the load since he's the only one that showed up prepared.
With Eddie doing mosr of the DPS, doesn't mean he is doing all the work. Just that he is inflicting more DPS than the others, for whatever reason. This is again leads down the path that all top DPSer's are carrying everyone else in thier group. No matter how much the other team members may actually being to get the conditions met in time. Again, he is not carrying them, he is workling with them.
It's almost impossible to address it, because of the variety of gameplay involved...which results in thresholds being set so low they might as well not be there. Other suggestions tend to open themselves to massive amounts of trolling.
But not addressing it leaves the problem to fester and cause more harm. So people need to help fix the problem and make things better. It's the better choice of the two options.
Ah, so Eddie's a potential cult leader with a savior complex that's going to form the Church of Eddie and have his disciples spread the good word?
WHAT!!!??? So deciding to help others and work with them sets you up as the Messiah? Just what are you taking to think that is the only results of those actions. And the only purpose for doing this. That is so off the wall and out of the realm of normalcy that I can't fathom how you got there. At no time does helping others mean you will be come a cult leader. Ugh, this concept of yours is just so stupid to me that I am going to not even respond to it anymore. Sorry if I offend, but .....
It's Eddie's choice. There's nothing stopping Eddie from trying to talk to folks at the end of a failed run either, is there? It doesn't automatically kick folks out...they have to leave. So if Eddie has some suggestions...and if folks are open to those suggestions instead of just ripping Eddie's head off.
Well, there is the problem of people leaving. SO yeah, Eddie can talk after the fact. But that doesn't help DURING the mission. And if no one responds, then it's not much of a discussion is it. And if everyone leaves, I guess he could talk to himself. But what's that going to do? Discussion during the fight could result in a successful mission, if there was a reason to stop and talk. Timers does more to make sure they don't talk, than making sure that they do talk.
Channel runs are usually channel pugs. They're still pugs. They're not premades. The difference is simply that the folks are generally prepared, not going to leech, and aren't going to troll. It's not about not pugging...it's still going to be pugging.
[ChannelWhatever] Eddie@nemesis: Anybody interested in running ISA? T-ISA.
[ChannelWhatever] Susie@generations: T-ISA
[ChannelWhatever] Frankie@undiscovered: T-ISA
[ChannelWhatever] Dottie@wrath: T-ISA
[ChannelWhatever] Mikey@search: T-ISA
[ChannelWhatever] Lorrie@frontier: T-ISA
[ChannelWhatever] Eddie@nemesis: T-ISA Full. Sorry, Lorrie - will catch you on the next run!
It's still pugging. It's just not public pugging which is subject to the folks looking to TRIBBLE up runs.
And how would people know of these channels? And why do they need to join a channel to form a group? Why can't the game be improved to make gameplay better and more supportive of Team play in a public PUG? I have been in this game a long time, and in the few channels I am a member of, there is not normally anybody in them during the times I play. So even channels are not doing the job. Public means to promote and support public PUGing is what is needed. Not private channels.
A single troll can cause that problem. A single leech or a single person unprepared isn't likely to cause that problem, depending on the rest of the group.
It's the gamble one takes while hitting up public queues. Hoping that there are no trolls while hoping there aren't too many leeches or folks just not prepared for the content.
Up until about a week ago (or two at this point), I was running at well over a 90% success rate on my public queue runs. In the past week and a bit, I've had more unsuccessful runs than I had all year up until that point.
During the times I play, it varies alot from STF to STF. Certain ones are more likely to succeed on Advanced than others. And quite a few more don't even pop while I am online. But for the ones I have been focusing on, I have had better runs since they have changed the requirements in them than not. And in the content that hasn't been changed, they still fail often than not by a single person trolling the group and warping out.
I figure it comes down to several things:
1) Simply the continuing case of more folks that are capable having gone to channel runs - it's been going on like that for years; which has made it more and more difficult as time goes along - reducing the capable pool, so to speak.
Funny, was never an issue till they changed STF's into this new model during the times I log in. Before these changes, I could select any STF and at any dificulty and have it pop in under 5 minutes. Now most don't have any activity in them, and those that do fail more often than succeed at Advanced. I haven't really ventured into Elite much, just because I haven't had enough runs in Advanced to feel like I have it down good enough to jump up to Elite. Lack of successful runs is really hampering me here.
2) The brutal lag.
I will acknowledge that some people have been having this issue. I have not.
3) Folks that have given up even trying to do runs because of the lag reducing the capable pool.
I can see that.
4) Folks showing up with their Delta Recruits unprepared and looking to be carried by that capable pool that simply no longer exists in a sufficient amount to cover them all.
Then the game should do a better job of preparing people for this. And that is what I think is missing from STO. Progression based advancement. And the teaching of core concepts within the game, as well as progression based preperations from Normal to advanced and then elite.
5) I'm not flying a carry build...I'm running with Meena and not Willard. Willard spams heals, grabs aggro, debuffs, buffs, does crowd control, etc, etc, etc...he can't solo stuff, but outside of trolls and a team full of leeches, he can generally carry folks. Meena's not built that way. I was tired of flying that way...it wasn't helping anybody - helping them get stuff, sure, but they weren't bothering to get better.
But according to you, you are supposed to make a carry build to play Advanced and Elite. And if they weren't bothering to get better, it best to find out why they aren't getting better first. Talking with them can open up them up to new possibiliities. Of course, you can't talk with people and plan things out if there is limited time to do stuff. Willard build sounds like it would really compliment how I play, since I have a fed escort build that is more glass cannon than I like it to be right now. Still looking for ways to up my survivability. I do soo much better when I got someone else healing me as I pew pew stuff. I've noticed a 2K increase on average to my dps when I get heals from tohers. And I wished the game did more to promote and support these other playstyles.
I think your viewpoint is based on what your expectations are from others. You expect them to be at about your level when running Advanced or Elite. Or that appears to be your position.
My position is that I expect people wanting to try and work together for the goal. And since the game does nothing to teach you the core mechanics and prepare you for group content, I don't expect them to have the same level of knowledge as me. And until the game creates content creates a way to teach people the core mechanics of group content, builds and skills, I will never expect people to be coming in knowing what to do. ANd as long as timers are in that content, I will not be expecting people to stop and plan because they have yet to do it so far.
There are in game solutions for all the stuff. Either improve self or team to get to advance without changing mechanics or buy stuff at the exchange.
We already know your answer to this like all those same people who complain about this thread issue, its simply flat rejection. So, it is by personal choice that you dont get these stuff. And because of that personal choice, you want the devs to change mechanics.
We have been consistent of our stand of solution of ingame mechanics like you guys have been consistent in your stand by flatly rejecting ingame mechanics in order to change the mechanics.
paxdawn, it has never been flat refusal.
Buying things is not fun content to play. Nor is it something i have time to go figure out and play. Nor is it everyones cup of tea.
I don't know enough people to form a team. Or I would. So a pre-made group is not an option.
I am just looking for a method for people to get things with out getting limited by other players. And doesn't require people to play something that they may not have the time or mindset to do. Econimics is not why I play this game. Nor should it be a requirement to play the game.
Your flat refusal to allow for other playstyles to exist si the only flat refusals I have seen, so far.
Wow, WOW sound like a total POS MMO imo and, I am glad I never had the chance to play it!
Winning thru attrition, is utterly the worst winner mentality, I could ever see a game incorporate!
It's like when I would watch my father, play military madness over and over again.
Once he learned the pattern for defeating the enemy, it became too easy, because the same pattern works every time, the game doesn't alter its pattern at all, like playing a game of chess with an utter simple pattern AI.
I asked myself, what is the point in playing it, if all you are going to do, is win every time with no actual challenge, why not maybe oh try a different pattern?
And, this is what WOW, as you mentioned, pans out to become imo, once you have established the exact pattern needed for success, due to no pressure from time constraints or failure possibility.
Lame!!!
And, super Mario brothers is a fun game, but I see you are the type, that doesn't like games that actually pressure players into teamwork, but instead encourage social cannot lose no pressure or challenge actually involved games.
Unless your idea of a challenge, is Krunk the caveman, figuring out how to breath challenging!
In WOW, there is no Attrition. On a wipe, everything is reset. SO you have to start from the beginning again on that boss and try to get him killed. SO no attrition. Just the same fight over and over again till you get it right. The only thing suffering is your gear, which you have to repair, and your buffs, which you have to reset. WOW exacts it price for completing content in repairs and time. That time is in how much time you have to dedicate to figure out the mechanics for your composition of players. Just because you have a plan, if your team composition changes, which it does when PUGing, then you have to refiger what will work, or who does what. Sometimes you don't have enough range to do a certain mechanic, that means you have to plan on wither moving a healer over to range, or make a melee guy run around alot. Or you might try using a another tank to hold aggro on adds to allow the range guys time to dps down the adds. All which requires every one rethink what hey are doing and how they are doing it. It's never consistantly the same. But general plans become more obvious as you go. And refinements happen during play to adjust for what you do and don't happen. It's very dynamic. And can be Very rewarding if you like working in teams. But then, the AI in WOW is smarter in doing things than STO's AI. It's designed to take advantages when it can.
I do like teamwork, And I do like it to have reason to have teamwork. But Timers do not promote teamwork. They promote a guns blazing approach with not strategy of note. Remove timers, maintain the diffulculty in other methods, and teamwork will be fostered and grow if the mechanics are set up to do that.
STO's STF's do not do that now. Except for the three new STF's. To me they are very good at fostering the team enviroment. At least on Normal. I normally succeed at all the optionals at this time in normal. I just haven't gone into advanced yet because the rewards there are not things I need. Which is fine with me.
Why would a leecher care? You really have to ask? Because they can get the rewards [advanced/elite with your dumb suggestion], just by showing up since the mission cannot technically ever fail!!!
So. They can't fail now. They just keep leeching till they get what they want. Nothing changes for them. Not changing things will just keep fostering the current leeching that is going on.
At least with the fail system in place, could take them hours - days even to get what they wanted and, it even forces some leechers to contribute some. [albeit so small as to avoid an afk penalty or, to make sure it doesn't fail]
Which is obviously not detering the leechers now. SO why harm ourselves because of them?
We already had mention from many people [you included I believe], that normals don't prepare people for advanced. [which is a complete load of TRIBBLE]
Been pointed out how there is no mechanic fostering teamwork in the game.
Fostering teamwork, comes from players wanting and encouraging it but, a good majority of pug groups don't really care and, would sooner just get it done for the rewards.
Because the there is nothing in Normals that is required of them to do teamwork. So they don't and just go guns blazing because it works to complete the mission. That's why I say there is no training in Normal for Advance.
And, people now who are prepared or, think they are for advanced, do advanced. But, many who are not ready for it or, are not prepared, keep doing it instead of going back to normal, unless they just figure that is the only way to get anywhere.
But there is nothing in Normals that tells you that you are ready for Advance. And unless you are going to say that you can get the optionals every time on your own. But that doesn't prepare you for the higher dificulty changes that are in Advanced. And the fact that what worked in Normal wont work in Advanced.
Normals feed you what you need as it is in marks, because quite a bit of your rep gear, can be had by marks alone and, there isn't even a need for that in advanced really.
What rep gear can only be gotten by marks? every bit of rep gear I have aquired had to use the elite marks.
Normals are not required, to feed you VR R&D mats, because again, nothing you craft, is actually needed for advanced.
Yet advance and elite is the only place you can get the VR mats. And if your fun is in crafting, then you are shut unless you run the Advance or Elite queues, prepared or not.
Your comments, keep boiling down to I want but, I don't want to actually work for it and, comes off sounding more and more, like a freaking leecher!!!
Again, oversimplification. I am not saying, nor have I ever said, that I want the difficulty to be lowered. I have only been saying that I would like to see the fails removed, to stop trolling, and for there be progression built into the STF's and that the STF's foster teamwork. The New STF's seem to be doing a better job of that from my experience so far.
Way oversimplified, Eddie is not carry people who actively try to help. He may be doing more of the dps, but that doesn't mean he is carrying them. Otherwise you would have to say that in any STF the top DPSer is carrying the rest. And I don't think most people will agree with that assesment.
If somebody is below the content's requirements (not a player's requirements, but the content's requirements) they are being carried. Somebody trading a lil' DPS for some crowd control or healing, buffing, debuffing, etc, etc, etc...they'd still be working at the content's requirements because of what they're doing. Somebody doing that while way below the content requirements or not doing that while below...they're being carried. The content has requirements...TRIBBLE player requirements, there are channels for those...but the content itself has requirements.
With Eddie doing mosr of the DPS, doesn't mean he is doing all the work. Just that he is inflicting more DPS than the others, for whatever reason. This is again leads down the path that all top DPSer's are carrying everyone else in thier group. No matter how much the other team members may actually being to get the conditions met in time. Again, he is not carrying them, he is workling with them.
I said prepared...not doing the most DPS...prepared. He's ready for the queue. He's familiar with the objectives, he's familiar with the map, he's meeting the content's minimum requirements, etc, etc, etc.
It gets into people thinking what they're doing is helping...but it's not...cause the content requirement is not being met. The content requirements tend to be so low compared to potential, that folks doing other stuff to help the run - shouldn't have much effort getting there. Pets themselves will usually do 1.5-2x the content's requirements. People showing up in their 1-3k DPS boats going, "I'm helping! I'm helping!"...aren't.
But again, I said prepared...not doing the most DPS.
But not addressing it leaves the problem to fester and cause more harm. So people need to help fix the problem and make things better. It's the better choice of the two options.
People suck, as people...not all, but there are going to be those folks that leech. People can fix the problem and they have...they don't run public queues. Voila...they don't have a problem with leeches. Problem resolved.
You can't force people to play. Games have been trying for well over a decade - players have been finding a way around the methods for well over a decade.
Folks will meet thresholds because thresholds will be so low because content requirements are so low compared to potential. Folks will automate to avoid inactivity - they can even bot the common pathing elements of the queues so it looks like they're just a really bad player.
Then you get into what happens with the leecher, eh? Do they just not get rewards? Cool, you've just turned them into a deadweight troll. Do they eat a penalty and are not able to queue? How many dozens of toons do they have? Does it kick them from the group? Great, you've got an empty slot..and...some poor slob's going to get dropped into a queue that's about to fail, eh?
People have been trying to come up with ways to deal with leechers since the dawn of time...
WHAT!!!??? So deciding to help others and work with them sets you up as the Messiah? Just what are you taking to think that is the only results of those actions. And the only purpose for doing this. That is so off the wall and out of the realm of normalcy that I can't fathom how you got there. At no time does helping others mean you will be come a cult leader. Ugh, this concept of yours is just so stupid to me that I am going to not even respond to it anymore. Sorry if I offend, but ....."
You were the one that said Eddie helps his first two disciples, then they plan on how they can go forth to help others, etc, etc, etc...Eddie's going to save the PUGworld from the PUGolypse!!
It wasn't just Eddie helping some folks out, like he might have been helped out. Wasn't just a case of hoping the folks Eddie helped would in turn help others like they had been helped.
Well, there is the problem of people leaving. SO yeah, Eddie can talk after the fact. But that doesn't help DURING the mission. And if no one responds, then it's not much of a discussion is it. And if everyone leaves, I guess he could talk to himself. But what's that going to do? Discussion during the fight could result in a successful mission, if there was a reason to stop and talk. Timers does more to make sure they don't talk, than making sure that they do talk.
It's rare even to get the "gg" at the end of a run...maybe one, maybe two folks. You pointed it out yourself...if no one responds, then it's not much of a discussion is it.
And it still comes down to what on Earth are they even supposed to be talking about? If the content were complex in the slightest, if it required more than a couple of seconds if that of discussion, etc, etc, etc...then there might just be something to talk about. As is, Cryptic knowing that it is an international community where there are going to be language barriers - has created content that basically needs next to zero discussion.
Quite a few folks out there, not going to say most, are likely just running the content to get it done to get something...and...they're going to want it done as quickly and efficiently as possible. If they want to chit chat, they'll hit up a social zone.
Besides, outside of language barriers - there's nothing to stop somebody from typing out "need help"...somebody disconnects/dies/etc, nothing to stop somebody saying "got it" and heading over there.
Do they need to discuss what's going on? No. It's Advanced...they're Advanced players. If they've got no clue...they're not...and don't belong there.
And how would people know of these channels? And why do they need to join a channel to form a group? Why can't the game be improved to make gameplay better and more supportive of Team play in a public PUG? I have been in this game a long time, and in the few channels I am a member of, there is not normally anybody in them during the times I play. So even channels are not doing the job. Public means to promote and support public PUGing is what is needed. Not private channels.
How do they know? Forums? They look? They don't sit on their fat lazy asses and expect everything to be handed to them on a silver tray? I mean, seriously...Advanced is going to mean some effort...so maybe they can put some effort into it.
Why do they need to join a channel? They don't...they can wallow with the leechers, trolls, and unprepared folks.
You can't fix people...and...with it being a people problem...that's that. One either hopes they get lucky with a good group, they hit up channels, or they do something else...and Cryptic appears to be fine adding more and more do something else.
During the times I play, it varies alot from STF to STF. Certain ones are more likely to succeed on Advanced than others. And quite a few more don't even pop while I am online. But for the ones I have been focusing on, I have had better runs since they have changed the requirements in them than not. And in the content that hasn't been changed, they still fail often than not by a single person trolling the group and warping out.
There are too many queues. Geko even realized this. But they keep adding more and more queues. STO doesn't have the playerbase to support a thriving public queue system with that many queues and so many reasons not to bother with them.
Funny, was never an issue till they changed STF's into this new model during the times I log in. Before these changes, I could select any STF and at any dificulty and have it pop in under 5 minutes. Now most don't have any activity in them, and those that do fail more often than succeed at Advanced. I haven't really ventured into Elite much, just because I haven't had enough runs in Advanced to feel like I have it down good enough to jump up to Elite. Lack of successful runs is really hampering me here.
Then the game should do a better job of preparing people for this. And that is what I think is missing from STO. Progression based advancement. And the teaching of core concepts within the game, as well as progression based preperations from Normal to advanced and then elite.
Here's the thing, then...if the game does such a crappy job of preparing people...then how is it that people are prepared? It's just another excuse.
But according to you, you are supposed to make a carry build to play Advanced and Elite. And if they weren't bothering to get better, it best to find out why they aren't getting better first. Talking with them can open up them up to new possibiliities. Of course, you can't talk with people and plan things out if there is limited time to do stuff. Willard build sounds like it would really compliment how I play, since I have a fed escort build that is more glass cannon than I like it to be right now. Still looking for ways to up my survivability. I do soo much better when I got someone else healing me as I pew pew stuff. I've noticed a 2K increase on average to my dps when I get heals from tohers. And I wished the game did more to promote and support these other playstyles.
How does one get better? They realize they could be better. They have a desire to be better. They work to get better. It's simple. It's straightforward. If they need help with something or have questions, then they ask. It's not some huge secret.
I really just don't get the talking thing. It's Advanced...it's not daycare.
I think your viewpoint is based on what your expectations are from others. You expect them to be at about your level when running Advanced or Elite. Or that appears to be your position.
I'm not sure how you're getting that. I expect them to be Advanced for Advanced and Elite for Elite. I don't run Elites...so if I expected them to be at my level...they'd be screwed. But if it says Advanced, then one should be Advanced...if it says Elite, then one should be Elite. It's not rocket science.
Say there's some content that requires 35k DPS from the team to avoid failing an objective. That's 7k per player, right? Say one of the players is below that...is that the end of the story? Not, imho. Are they doing some CC that reduces that 35k DPS requirement...where the reduction to it matches up with the lower amount they're bringing? Are they buffing others/debuffing NPCs to increase the DPS of the rest of the group...where that increase they're causing makes up for the lower amount they're bringing? Basically, are they still bringing their share?
Or are they showing up with 3k and expecting the other four guys to do 8k?
Cause in my limited experience (limited because I'm just one player amongst so many), it tends to be something like the following...
20k - 12k - 8k - 4k - 3k
...and the run is fine.
13k - 9k - 6k - 5k - 2k
...and the run is still fine.
9k - 6k - 5k - 3k - 2k
...and it's a guaranteed failure from the start.
9k might have thought to pack a little buffer, but they're prepared. 6k traded a little DPS for some other stuff to help out. 5k didn't bring any of that, but they're still trying. 3k and 2k?
Which is where I do my usual spiel about content requirements and TRIBBLE player requirements. Somebody wants everybody doing 10-20k+ DPS...there's a channel for that. But in a game where the potential is North of 100k, asking folks to do somewhere between 5-7% of that depending on what else they're bringing...doesn't seem like it's asking for too much.
I'd hate it if everybody was where I am (and lol, a bunch of folks would be ticked off if they were down where I am). Cause then it would just be wham, bam, done and boring...unless I could find the folks like to hit up HSA and maybe even move on to HSE.
I'm about content requirements...having that chance at successfully completing the run. Not a guaranteed success...not a guaranteed failure.
I'd like to be able to hit up something with a toon doing 8-9k and not have to worry about it being a guaranteed failed run cause I wasn't bringing a toon doing 15-20k.
My high, in case it is in question, is 25k...did it earlier today...wasn't expecting it, hadn't played Willard in forever because of the CBC lag stuff, had just thrown together a quick build to look at something for another thread, screwed up all sorts of things, got stuck in combat outside of 10km on the Gateway and so it was a massive around the houses slowboating affair - kept forgetting to relaunch pets - etc, etc, etc...I was expecting 12-14k perhaps if that.
My position is that I expect people wanting to try and work together for the goal. And since the game does nothing to teach you the core mechanics and prepare you for group content, I don't expect them to have the same level of knowledge as me. And until the game creates content creates a way to teach people the core mechanics of group content, builds and skills, I will never expect people to be coming in knowing what to do. ANd as long as timers are in that content, I will not be expecting people to stop and plan because they have yet to do it so far.
Sounds like a good set of expectations...for Normal. But we're talking Advanced...
Could a lot of these so called leechers be those zombies third party resellers of EC, items, etc. use to farm the game?
I've run into far more of the ultra-high DPS Scimitars that solo vape a generator while everyone else is clearing the cube than I have these near mythical leeches everyone is going on about.
They don't even bother with the spheres they spawned either even though they could just melt them in .0001 (rounded up) seconds.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The various content with trollable objectives need to be redesigned/tweaked/touched up/etc so that those objectives are not subject to trolling.
Let's take a look at some of the ways one can troll Infected Space.
snipped for brevity
Basically, Cryptic could take a look at reducing the ways that folks can troll - but they can't eliminate trolling...only way to avoid that is to find a channel where it's not allowed or run with folks that you know won't. Basically, people suck as people and take a perverse pleasure in ruining their fun.
And if you at least remove the fails from being trollable, then the people trying to do the content correctly will not feel like they wasted thier time in the game. And they still get some decent rewards for thier effort and no stupid lock out.
* * * * *
How could one not have the time? Is the game shutting down? Cause otherwise, they will have the time. It might take them weeks to do something somebody does in days, months that somebody does in weeks, years that somebody does in months...but that's not a matter of not having the time. That's about how soon they want something...not wanting to wait...based on the amount of time they have available for the game.
I don't have the time to figure out what sells, what doesn't. And what to do to make the EC. Basically, I don't have the time to be a speculator to the Exchange. I am there to play the game and have fun with the aspects of the game that I find fun. Not to waste my time on doing things I find boring or downright to much like a job to be fun. I don't mind waiting. Hell, I have waited for long periods of time to get things in this and other games enough times as it is. I remember the days of the random drops of markers for Omega gear. Never said a word during those days. I didn't mind the waiting.
There was a period of time where I had so much time available for the game...had 12 toons, was leveling two solo fleets, was DOFFing 3+ times a day, was outfitting all 12 toons like they were mains, was running all sorts of queues for fun, was doing all sorts of PvP, was working the Exchange out the wahzoo, was buyng with ingame currency all sorts of things to do testing of stuff, was over on Tribble testing...Hell, I must have been playing the game in my sleep cause of the sheer amount of time I was playing the game.
I have never had this much time.
I don't have that kind of time now. I don't expect to be able to do and have everything I did with the time I had with the time I now have. I'll get what I get when I get it. Cause that's the kind of time I've got.
Same here. I get it when I can. But that doesn't remove the fact that the STF's, as they are now, need to be overhauled to be improved. ANd that the improvements should be done to limit, if not remove, trolling, limit leeching, and teach core conceots for builds, and promote teamwork within a PUG. And Progression based content and rewards, where the game helps you get ready for the the next tier of dificulty is better as plan than the current system of no training at all.
* * * * *
Snipped for brevity
It's not just the DPS League channels, though personally 10k flowed more like a channel for folks just interested in farming than chasing DPS (which I assume took place more in the higher channels, though folks from the higher channels were oft around to answer questions for folks in 10k), out there - there are the Star Trek Battles folks which aren't about the DPS (or they weren't - that thread still pops up from time to time)...there are all sorts of different channels I've heard about outside of the various fleet channels folks have. Could even be a case of posting on the forums that you're interested in what channels are out there for somebody looking to...well, basically farming, eh?
And Hell, if you are a more sociable person (the stuff about the teamwork thing you mentioned earlier and folks playing together), you might even end up filling out that friends list, eh?
I know the DPS 10k channel requires you meet certain criteria. But what that criteria is, I am unsure. Since I don't get a response from them, I have to assume that they don't want me to join. And the DPS League OPen chanel (i forgets name) is very dead when I am on, and no one responds when I say anything there. As for the SF Battles channel, that seemed to be about doing things in cannon gear, not of interest to me at this time. I haven't heard of any other channels catering to PUG's.
And I am sort of a private person, while I would like to join PUG's, I am not that big on friends lists. I tend to be a quiet person. Hence my post count. In fact, this thread is the most I have responded in any thread. This is an odd thing for me to do.
I would much rather prefer that solo content would be created to allow me to get the same stuff that I can get in STF's.
A subset of players that aren't prepared for the run are players who aren't prepared but are oblivious to the fact that they are under-performing. In ISA for example (a map I always parse), some players are genuinely surprised at the parse results. Sometimes you don't even need to give advice. Just posting a parse on team chat can be a wake-up call for some.
The thing is, many players go about measuring how well their ship performs based on how it feels to them. They think they can melt stuff fast in STFs but they do not realize that it could have been someone else who did it for them. There are no in-game systems that tells you how well you built your ship and how well you are flying it. Some of us use a third party parser, but because it is not part of the game, I think the majority of the player base do not have it or are aware of its existence.
Now this is off topic, but I just thought I'd throw this one into the mix. A lot of the posts here tend to blame mission failures to stupidity, laziness or plain simple trolling but there are legitimately good-nature players that mean well. They just do not know how well they are performing because the game doesn't make that clear for them.
Yes, I agree. The game lacks any methods or means to let people know what they are doing well. Nor does it have any built in means to teach people the necessary skills.
At some point one has to simply ask oneself whats good for the community. I know that not everybody can get what he wants and for me . what I want is a filled queue list so I get a constant pool of players where I simply dont care if they are good or bad and where I simply get a DIFFERENT team for a different unforeseeable experience. I dont get that in elite channels nor when I go in with fleet newbees.
Now whatever can be done to fill the queues should be done. And the echo of 10/14 still seems to reach today participation numbers and I experience it to be a lot greater than any trends Virus may have found out already happening b4 that.
Now if the call is to skip those fails to get the queues filled again Im for all that even if it means I sacrifice parts of my challenging fun. A supply of players (good and bad) is what I need and not a queue time estimate for IGA which says: -:-
The question often turns up if its the players inability to cope with DR change is their fault or the Devs? Sorry, cant blame it on the infinite mass of STO customers spread throughout the world and speaking different languages. It was cryptic choice and it would have been easy for them to create a surrounding everybody can get what he/she wants.
They simply could have made old Elite (exactly the way it was) to be current normal (but with old elite rewards) instead of that annoying easiness I see there today and I bet we could have spared ourselves a lot of these threads. Peeps who are unhappy with the change could have played that while others eager for risk and challenge could move on.
I agree with this, especially that last paragraph. It's even a good idea for a possible way to fix things.
While the removal of fails will allow groups to continue on and gain the rewards, I am not sure that this is the proper solution. ANRA now gives you Argonite, and a fair amount of dilithium every time. Argonite is one of the more expensive R&D materials so even if ANRA can take longer than other STFs, you still get compensated well for it. Yet ANRA rarely pops for me now. With fails and all, it used to be played more often. Now it's simply dead. If simple removal of fails was the answer, then surely this STF should be more populated, but it is not. ANRN seems to be doing better than ANRA.
ANRA changes to objects have made it such that your not ever going to complete the optionals. That needs to be fixed to get ANRA back on track. At least that's my thoughts on it. (RNG used in the wrong way)
And if you at least remove the fails from being trollable, then the people trying to do the content correctly will not feel like they wasted thier time in the game. And they still get some decent rewards for thier effort and no stupid lock out.
They lose out on rewards from how many failed Optionals and the run takes how long because of that? Yeah, their time was wasted...it's how it was before DR...trolls wasting time.
Oh noes, get locked out of a single queue for 30 minutes because of a 2-3 minute failed run as opposed to being stuck in a run for 20-30 minutes for TRIBBLE rewards? During those 20-30 minutes, think of everything else that could have been done.
Trolling isn't anything new with DR. The failure and having the mission end instead of being held hostage...is the last minute call from the Governor sparing the players.
I don't have the time to figure out what sells, what doesn't. And what to do to make the EC. Basically, I don't have the time to be a speculator to the Exchange. I am there to play the game and have fun with the aspects of the game that I find fun. Not to waste my time on doing things I find boring or downright to much like a job to be fun. I don't mind waiting. Hell, I have waited for long periods of time to get things in this and other games enough times as it is. I remember the days of the random drops of markers for Omega gear. Never said a word during those days. I didn't mind the waiting.
You not wanting to do something might mean it is not an option for you, but that does not mean it is not an option.
I still don't get the waiting thing for the old STF stuff...but you've mentioned Ground a few times, no? Or am I mistaken there? But yeah, folks used to complain a bunch about Ground RNG and drops. Space, would normally have multiple sets within a week. Toon to 50 in a weekend, geared by the next weekend, ready for some PvP action...woot, woot...been a long time.
Same here. I get it when I can. But that doesn't remove the fact that the STF's, as they are now, need to be overhauled to be improved. ANd that the improvements should be done to limit, if not remove, trolling, limit leeching, and teach core conceots for builds, and promote teamwork within a PUG. And Progression based content and rewards, where the game helps you get ready for the the next tier of dificulty is better as plan than the current system of no training at all.
I know the DPS 10k channel requires you meet certain criteria. But what that criteria is, I am unsure. Since I don't get a response from them, I have to assume that they don't want me to join. And the DPS League OPen chanel (i forgets name) is very dead when I am on, and no one responds when I say anything there. As for the SF Battles channel, that seemed to be about doing things in cannon gear, not of interest to me at this time. I haven't heard of any other channels catering to PUG's.
DPS-10,000 requires you to have done 10,000+ DPS in an ISA run where the run was logged, parsed, and uploaded. An invite to the 10k channel will normally be sent within a couple of days. You do not automatically join the channel, you have to go to your channels and accept the invite. If you leave the channel, it will not be in your list to add again, you cannot add it again without an invite again, and having a run where you parse higher will not send you another invite (heh, yeah, I left the channel - don't want a reinvite, so I don't know how one would go about that - probably ask)...
And I am sort of a private person, while I would like to join PUG's, I am not that big on friends lists. I tend to be a quiet person. Hence my post count. In fact, this thread is the most I have responded in any thread. This is an odd thing for me to do.
I would much rather prefer that solo content would be created to allow me to get the same stuff that I can get in STF's.
And that's played a major part in how the queues have gotten to where they are...with everything being easier and easier to get outside of them; because of these kind of requests over the years.
That's an argument for killing off the public queues...not saving them.
ANRA changes to objects have made it such that your not ever going to complete the optionals. That needs to be fixed to get ANRA back on track. At least that's my thoughts on it. (RNG used in the wrong way)
The RNG was part of the problem with the old ANRA, though. It did not provide a consistent challenge for the Mandatory Objective. It could be easy. It could easily be beyond what the group could do.
If somebody is below the content's requirements (not a player's requirements, but the content's requirements) they are being carried. Somebody trading a lil' DPS for some crowd control or healing, buffing, debuffing, etc, etc, etc...they'd still be working at the content's requirements because of what they're doing. Somebody doing that while way below the content requirements or not doing that while below...they're being carried. The content has requirements...TRIBBLE player requirements, there are channels for those...but the content itself has requirements.
Where in the content does it state what the "requirements" are for the content/ No where. So there is no 'requirements'. At least none officially recognized and stated. If there are requirements, then why are they not enforced?
I said prepared...not doing the most DPS...prepared. He's ready for the queue. He's familiar with the objectives, he's familiar with the map, he's meeting the content's minimum requirements, etc, etc, etc.
It gets into people thinking what they're doing is helping...but it's not...cause the content requirement is not being met. The content requirements tend to be so low compared to potential, that folks doing other stuff to help the run - shouldn't have much effort getting there. Pets themselves will usually do 1.5-2x the content's requirements. People showing up in their 1-3k DPS boats going, "I'm helping! I'm helping!"...aren't.
But again, I said prepared...not doing the most DPS.
But if the argument has been that doing Normals preps you for Advanced, then doing the Normals has preped you for Advanced. And the only way some one would not be prepared is if they never did Normals. Yet, we see that people who have run Normals and could clear the mission on their own and get every optinal, walk into an Advance and they fail. Because Normals don't prepare you for Advance now. Only Advance really prepares you for what you are going to face in Advanced.
People suck, as people...not all, but there are going to be those folks that leech. People can fix the problem and they have...they don't run public queues. Voila...they don't have a problem with leeches. Problem resolved.
That is not solving the problem. That is avoiding the problem. Solving it would mean there is no more leeching. Leechin still exist, so the problem is not solved. They just are avoiding the issue.
You can't force people to play. Games have been trying for well over a decade - players have been finding a way around the methods for well over a decade.
Folks will meet thresholds because thresholds will be so low because content requirements are so low compared to potential. Folks will automate to avoid inactivity - they can even bot the common pathing elements of the queues so it looks like they're just a really bad player.
Then you get into what happens with the leecher, eh? Do they just not get rewards? Cool, you've just turned them into a deadweight troll. Do they eat a penalty and are not able to queue? How many dozens of toons do they have? Does it kick them from the group? Great, you've got an empty slot..and...some poor slob's going to get dropped into a queue that's about to fail, eh?
People have been trying to come up with ways to deal with leechers since the dawn of time...
So that means we should quit trying and and just avoid the problem. I don't think the leeching problem will ever be eliminated. But ways can be found to limit leeching as best as possible without impacting the players in any serious fashion.
You were the one that said Eddie helps his first two disciples, then they plan on how they can go forth to help others, etc, etc, etc...Eddie's going to save the PUGworld from the PUGolypse!!
It wasn't just Eddie helping some folks out, like he might have been helped out. Wasn't just a case of hoping the folks Eddie helped would in turn help others like they had been helped.
You organized them...
No I said that Eddie works with those that worked with him. And that they just might like each and start working together more often. Never said they would be going forth to help others or go conquer the PUGworld. I was a case of Eddie just helping others. And that there was chance that they might choose to freind up and work together more, improving themselves as they go.
It's rare even to get the "gg" at the end of a run...maybe one, maybe two folks. You pointed it out yourself...if no one responds, then it's not much of a discussion is it.
And it still comes down to what on Earth are they even supposed to be talking about? If the content were complex in the slightest, if it required more than a couple of seconds if that of discussion, etc, etc, etc...then there might just be something to talk about. As is, Cryptic knowing that it is an international community where there are going to be language barriers - has created content that basically needs next to zero discussion.
Except that is not true. There are lots of things to discuss, if peole would just decide to talk. In any one queue, I bet that a multi-page discussion on how to do a specific queue could be done could happen, IF, and only IF, people wanted to take the time and have a real discussion about it. Without trolling, or badmouthing to ruin it.
Quite a few folks out there, not going to say most, are likely just running the content to get it done to get something...and...they're going to want it done as quickly and efficiently as possible. If they want to chit chat, they'll hit up a social zone.
Besides, outside of language barriers - there's nothing to stop somebody from typing out "need help"...somebody disconnects/dies/etc, nothing to stop somebody saying "got it" and heading over there.
Do they need to discuss what's going on? No. It's Advanced...they're Advanced players. If they've got no clue...they're not...and don't belong there.
Unless they are advance players and because Normals are so easy to them that they can sleepwalk through it. And the strat they used on Normal doesn't work at Advanced. And I am sure people have done that in the past only to be ridiculed. So they don't anymore.
How do they know? Forums? They look? They don't sit on their fat lazy asses and expect everything to be handed to them on a silver tray? I mean, seriously...Advanced is going to mean some effort...so maybe they can put some effort into it.
Why do they need to join a channel? They don't...they can wallow with the leechers, trolls, and unprepared folks.
You can't fix people...and...with it being a people problem...that's that. One either hopes they get lucky with a good group, they hit up channels, or they do something else...and Cryptic appears to be fine adding more and more do something else.
The people problem can be mitigated by training from within the game, when done properly. That is not the current case.
There are too many queues. Geko even realized this. But they keep adding more and more queues. STO doesn't have the playerbase to support a thriving public queue system with that many queues and so many reasons not to bother with them.
Typical retcon...
I agree. There are to many queues. And paring some of the old ones should be done. But which ones? Who do you anger when you take thier favorite queues? Since they have taken some queues away already, the outrage from people has been loud and furious. SO when they do decide to do this, they have better have a plan in place to placate the huge outcry that will happen.
Personally, I would like to see all queues from more than seasons (So Like Season 7 or 8 and older paired down to just one SPace and one ground STF. Should help in the queueing department a lot.
Here's the thing, then...if the game does such a crappy job of preparing people...then how is it that people are prepared? It's just another excuse.
That's what I am saying. The game s does a bad job of preparing them. SO the content needs to be change to prepare them.
How does one get better? They realize they could be better. They have a desire to be better. They work to get better. It's simple. It's straightforward. If they need help with something or have questions, then they ask. It's not some huge secret.
I really just don't get the talking thing. It's Advanced...it's not daycare.
But how does one know they need to get better when someone else fails the mission? What in the game tells you that you do this or that better? What in the games tells you where you are at and what can be done to get better?
Notihing.
And asking the general public will net you responces from those telling you to get things you can't, actual useful advise, and at least twice the hatemail over the 'advice' as responses. Or at least, that seems the prevailing responces in general chat.
And considering the chatter that I see on ESD alone, maybe we really should consider this daycare. The juvenile statements I see there is in such abundance that I don't normally pay attention to it. And that is not unique to STO.
I'm not sure how you're getting that. I expect them to be Advanced for Advanced and Elite for Elite. I don't run Elites...so if I expected them to be at my level...they'd be screwed. But if it says Advanced, then one should be Advanced...if it says Elite, then one should be Elite. It's not rocket science.
But without truley defining what Advanced is and what Elite is, in game. It is rocket science. Cause you have to figure out what is needed to do the content on your own.
Say there's some content that requires 35k DPS from the team to avoid failing an objective. That's 7k per player, right? Say one of the players is below that...is that the end of the story? Not, imho. Are they doing some CC that reduces that 35k DPS requirement...where the reduction to it matches up with the lower amount they're bringing? Are they buffing others/debuffing NPCs to increase the DPS of the rest of the group...where that increase they're causing makes up for the lower amount they're bringing? Basically, are they still bringing their share?
Or are they showing up with 3k and expecting the other four guys to do 8k?
Cause in my limited experience (limited because I'm just one player amongst so many), it tends to be something like the following...
20k - 12k - 8k - 4k - 3k
...and the run is fine.
13k - 9k - 6k - 5k - 2k
...and the run is still fine.
9k - 6k - 5k - 3k - 2k
...and it's a guaranteed failure from the start.
9k might have thought to pack a little buffer, but they're prepared. 6k traded a little DPS for some other stuff to help out. 5k didn't bring any of that, but they're still trying. 3k and 2k?
Except, where in any content in STO, does it state that there are requirements? The only 'requirements' I have ever seen in any content is what your character level is. No gear checks, not DPS checks, nothing like it all. The content has no requirements outside of Level, and no way to compare each other in that respects in the game. The game just doesn't do anything to tell you what you have to be capable of to complete a specific queue.
Which is where I do my usual spiel about content requirements and TRIBBLE player requirements. Somebody wants everybody doing 10-20k+ DPS...there's a channel for that. But in a game where the potential is North of 100k, asking folks to do somewhere between 5-7% of that depending on what else they're bringing...doesn't seem like it's asking for too much.
If you mean that if the game showed you what your current capabilites are and showed what need to be able to do to get into an STF. Then I am all for it.
I'd hate it if everybody was where I am (and lol, a bunch of folks would be ticked off if they were down where I am). Cause then it would just be wham, bam, done and boring...unless I could find the folks like to hit up HSA and maybe even move on to HSE.
I'm about content requirements...having that chance at successfully completing the run. Not a guaranteed success...not a guaranteed failure.
I'd like to be able to hit up something with a toon doing 8-9k and not have to worry about it being a guaranteed failed run cause I wasn't bringing a toon doing 15-20k.
This I agree. But then I have completed Advanced queues with me doing 8 to 9k. I used to run 3 to 5k and complete runs all the time. I didn't know what my DPS was because I didn't see an in game way of knowing that. And later, when I finally came across parsers for STO. I learned where I was at and worked on improving myself.
My high, in case it is in question, is 25k...did it earlier today...wasn't expecting it, hadn't played Willard in forever because of the CBC lag stuff, had just thrown together a quick build to look at something for another thread, screwed up all sorts of things, got stuck in combat outside of 10km on the Gateway and so it was a massive around the houses slowboating affair - kept forgetting to relaunch pets - etc, etc, etc...I was expecting 12-14k perhaps if that.
Wasn't in question, but nice ro know. I don't think I have gotten much over 12K as a personal best since I statred parsing. Still trying to decipher those things and figure out what I can do to change things.
They lose out on rewards from how many failed Optionals and the run takes how long because of that? Yeah, their time was wasted...it's how it was before DR...trolls wasting time.
Yes, but I still got rewards. ANd I didn't feel like I was wasting my time, because I still got to go through all of the content. Yeah I might not be getting the optionals, but at least I got to run the content to see it and makes plans on how to deal with, or even better, tried plans and see how well they worked.
Oh noes, get locked out of a single queue for 30 minutes because of a 2-3 minute failed run as opposed to being stuck in a run for 20-30 minutes for TRIBBLE rewards? During those 20-30 minutes, think of everything else that could have been done.
Trolling isn't anything new with DR. The failure and having the mission end instead of being held hostage...is the last minute call from the Governor sparing the players.
Actually, you always had the option of leaving. SO no hostage situation. And Now, the games ends earlier and you don't get to see the rest of the content and plan out how to deal with it.
You not wanting to do something might mean it is not an option for you, but that does not mean it is not an option.
I still don't get the waiting thing for the old STF stuff...but you've mentioned Ground a few times, no? Or am I mistaken there? But yeah, folks used to complain a bunch about Ground RNG and drops. Space, would normally have multiple sets within a week. Toon to 50 in a weekend, geared by the next weekend, ready for some PvP action...woot, woot...been a long time.
I haven't actually mentioned ground. Except once, and not in this context. But the old way of getting gear, back in the day was based on an RNG drop. They changed that when they rolled out the Elite marks system and Reps. And you consume that content faster than me. It takes me weeks to get a toon to 50, and then a couple weeks to get them to max rep tier, and then a few more days or even a week to get all the space rep gear for one rep. I have limited time.
That's not a fact. That's an opinion.
Actually, it is a fact. It is quite factual to say that they need to be overhauled to be improved. Now it's my opinion that they need to be Improved.
DPS-10,000 requires you to have done 10,000+ DPS in an ISA run where the run was logged, parsed, and uploaded. An invite to the 10k channel will normally be sent within a couple of days. You do not automatically join the channel, you have to go to your channels and accept the invite. If you leave the channel, it will not be in your list to add again, you cannot add it again without an invite again, and having a run where you parse higher will not send you another invite (heh, yeah, I left the channel - don't want a reinvite, so I don't know how one would go about that - probably ask)...
That section would likely be a good place to ask about other options as far as channels or people that share your interests in running queues.
ok
And that's played a major part in how the queues have gotten to where they are...with everything being easier and easier to get outside of them; because of these kind of requests over the years.
That's an argument for killing off the public queues...not saving them.
While the entire leveling experience is done primarily through episode runs, which is all solo content. I would agree that The way the game starts you off is very Solo oriented. And if the keep catering purely to the idea of solo content, then yes, the queues will die. But I think the queues are dead more to them not making the queues progressive and teambuilding in nature. And that Normals queues are not learning centers for builds and skill use. Heck, I'd even go so far as to say that the episodes don't do anything to teach peole how to build out a ship and ground crew and what you should be considering for skills, traits and specializations. And that would go a long way towards help saving queues too.
The RNG was part of the problem with the old ANRA, though. It did not provide a consistent challenge for the Mandatory Objective. It could be easy. It could easily be beyond what the group could do.
And RNG in ANRA is even worse now. Before it was always possible to complete the optional, if people had the ability to kill the stuff in time. Now, doesn't even matter, either you get the RNG in your favor and have a chance, or (more likley) the right ships won't be poped up to even consider attempting the optional. No matter how good you are.
They lose out on rewards from how many failed Optionals and the run takes how long because of that? Yeah, their time was wasted...it's how it was before DR...trolls wasting time.
Oh noes, get locked out of a single queue for 30 minutes because of a 2-3 minute failed run as opposed to being stuck in a run for 20-30 minutes for TRIBBLE rewards? During those 20-30 minutes, think of everything else that could have been done.
Trolling isn't anything new with DR. The failure and having the mission end instead of being held hostage...is the last minute call from the Governor sparing the players.
If you feel like you're wasting your time and just want an easymode run then there is always normal.
I'd rather have a harder fight in advanced without the arbitrary fail kicking me out because of some stupid thing that doesn't actually prevent us from killing what needs to die. Today I had the misfortune of queuing up for GtG with two trolls. They warped out a little after we started and left us to do it with just 3. We pushed on, saved like 25-30 transports. The dreadnaught took a very long time to kill, but maybe 30-35 minutes total run time. If there was a fail timer on the last fight, that seriously would have pissed me off to get that far, wasting 10-15 minutes on the first half only to get kicked out on a more than possible fight.
Could I have done more with that extra 20 minutes lost? Sure. But I'd have to wait a half hour to do it again, so I saved time by not having a fail condition.
I'll definitely say that there should be some sort of vote system to allow a mutually agreeable quit that doesn't cost you a leaver penalty or a fail cooldown. If that was there, I probably would have used it and requeued. But since it wasn't I just pressed on and enjoyed a messy but uniquely epic fight that I wouldn't have with a premature fail condition.
Personally, I find the optionals are placed out of reach on many of the new queues as it is. Borg Disconnected, its insane trying to get all the optionals for normal, one reason I've never ever bothered with advanced. The borg saved can be done but it is such a pointlessly tight margin that should not be. The timers on the dreadnaughts are far more difficult and usually impossible for the teams in normal. Timers on GtG are pretty bad as well but much more doable than Borg disconnected. ANRA problems are well known. And lets not forget about the Bug Hunt bombing optional and how stupid that is.
Typically I'm getting my daily rewards anyway which make whatever 10-20 marks lost from the optionals irrelevant, so while they would be nice, they aren't really missed.
Yes we are. And why not have the same expectations at Advanced? To me, nothing in Normal preps your for Advanced anyways.
Normal preparation isnt forced. It is a choice of that player whether to understand, read the objectives what are the optionals and what are not. If they dont do that in Normal nor understand that in Normal, why do you expect them to do that in advance?
Yes, it doesnt force players to learn Advance in Normal although you still can learn it. However, like everything else, it is a personal choice made that specific player.
I'd rather have a harder fight in advanced without the arbitrary fail kicking me out because of some stupid thing that doesn't actually prevent us from killing what needs to die. Today I had the misfortune of queuing up for GtG with two trolls. They warped out a little after we started and left us to do it with just 3. We pushed on, saved like 25-30 transports. The dreadnaught took a very long time to kill, but maybe 30-35 minutes total run time. If there was a fail timer on the last fight, that seriously would have pissed me off to get that far, wasting 10-15 minutes on the first half only to get kicked out on a more than possible fight.
My rule in PuGs is always prepare for the worst. Either you bring enough alternate methods, like CC in ISA, to compensate or bring enough DPS to compensate the loss. In short bring enough to compensate if the 4 others needed to be carried to do content requirement.
If you were used to just carrying yourself with your playstyle or build, I dont bring that kind of build or playstyle at PuGs.
Personally, I find the optionals are placed out of reach on many of the new queues as it is. Borg Disconnected, its insane trying to get all the optionals for normal, one reason I've never ever bothered with advanced. The borg saved can be done but it is such a pointlessly tight margin that should not be. The timers on the dreadnaughts are far more difficult and usually impossible for the teams in normal. Timers on GtG are pretty bad as well but much more doable than Borg disconnected. ANRA problems are well known. And lets not forget about the Bug Hunt bombing optional and how stupid that is.
Borg Disconnect Advance requires teamwork or compensation to tag the first 3 phases, meaning speed, distraction and cloaking device if you are going to solo carry the PuG for 2-3 corners. The first 3 phases is not a DPS check. The dreadnought phase is a DPS check.
Had you all spent time asking me these questions rather than complaining, my time would be spent giving you all the advise to complete advance in PuGs.
Yes, I agree. The game lacks any methods or means to let people know what they are doing well. Nor does it have any built in means to teach people the necessary skills.
Why should that be up to the game, though? If a player wants to reach for the Advanced or Elite level, they're going to want to learn about the game more and hit up the off-line resources. The game really can't teach them that, hell, RyanSTO's video goes for an entire hour just for basics.
If a player wants to hit up Advanced without knowing how to play, they're going to get shot down on enough pre-mades and/or eventually get enough PUG fails to think 'I'm doing something wrong.' Then they'll go back to normals or start hitting up resources for help. Unless they're trolling, which will always be a potential possibility.
Where in the content does it state what the "requirements" are for the content/ No where. So there is no 'requirements'. At least none officially recognized and stated. If there are requirements, then why are they not enforced?
Here's an example:
Your goal is to destroy an entity before enemy NPCs come within a certain range of that entity. Before you can destroy that particular entity, you have to destroy four surrounding entities. The enemy NPCs begin their journey toward the primary target entity once one of the four surrounding entities has been destroyed.
You have the travel time that it will take for those enemy NPCs to get in range of the primary target entity.
You have the amount of health the primary and surrounding entities have, should one not drop the surrounding entities at approximately the same time.
You have the damage that needs to be done.
You have the time the damage has to be done in.
You have the DPS requirement for that objective.
One can attempt to delay the enemy NPCs from reaching primary entity, which will buy the group some additional time and thus lower the DPS requirement. But this is a pug group, and there is no guarantee that anybody will have anything available to delay the enemy NPCs.
Is it spelled out in a big glowing sign? No. Is it difficult to figure out? No.
And well, it's curious that you ask the following bit...
"If there are requirements, then why are they not enforced?"
...cause you've been arguing to remove that enforcement that does exist. If you can't do it in Advanced, the mission fails. If you can't do it in Normal, the optional fails.
And by only enforcing the fail of it in some fashion, it allows for both build and play diversity by allowing groups that have reached a consensus beforehand on how they want to tackle the queue to tackle it in various ways.
But if the argument has been that doing Normals preps you for Advanced, then doing the Normals has preped you for Advanced. And the only way some one would not be prepared is if they never did Normals. Yet, we see that people who have run Normals and could clear the mission on their own and get every optinal, walk into an Advance and they fail. Because Normals don't prepare you for Advance now. Only Advance really prepares you for what you are going to face in Advanced.
The argument is that Normal will familiarize you with the map and the objectives. It prepares you in that fashion. You do Normal, you learn the general requirements. You know where to go from each engagement to the next. You know what happens during each engagement. You know what needs to be done and what needs to be avoided. You learn the basics of the mission - the objectives - the map.
That does not mean one is ready for Advanced, but without that one is going to have a difficult time doing Advanced, no? If one shows up in Advanced, which is at a higher level of difficulty without knowing where to go, what to do, what not to do, what the objectives are, etc, etc, etc...what is going to happen with that run, right?
So running Normal will lead toward the player having some Advanced knowledge of the map and objectives. It will also give them that much more experience just piloting their boats and using their abilities, right? Good thing, yeah?
Surviving the damage from the Advanced mobs? Being able to kill the Advanced mobs?
Why would one think that some plink-plink from Normal mobs and slaughtering them in return would prepare one for Advanced?
Hitting up some Advanced or Elite missions/episodes/patrols...is going to give somebody a better idea, no? Having run the Normal queues, they're going to be able to extrapolate with a pretty good guesstimate between what they've been doing there with what will be needed. It's also going to give them more experience with their boat, tinkering with the build, and just working their way toward becoming the Advanced player that the Advanced queues are intended for...simple...straightforward.
Then there is also the community...waiting to answer questions folks might have, whether on the forums here, forums elsewhere, in various channels, in fleets, folks they might have met, etc, etc, etc. All sorts of folks that put a bunch of effort into trying to help folks...possibly cause when they were new they were helped as well.
That is not solving the problem. That is avoiding the problem. Solving it would mean there is no more leeching. Leechin still exist, so the problem is not solved. They just are avoiding the issue.
Problem: Unable to enjoy content because of leeches.
Solution: Run content free of leeches.
How is that not a solution? The content is being run, no? The person is getting what they wanted, yeah? Problem. Solution. Shazam.
It's along the lines of...
Problem: Getting wet while walking to car in driveway.
Solution: Build carport.
...didn't make the rain go away, but the problem is solved.
So that means we should quit trying and and just avoid the problem. I don't think the leeching problem will ever be eliminated. But ways can be found to limit leeching as best as possible without impacting the players in any serious fashion.
The folks that have gone to channel runs have not quit trying to find a solution to the problem. They have found a solution to the problem.
No I said that Eddie works with those that worked with him. And that they just might like each and start working together more often. Never said they would be going forth to help others or go conquer the PUGworld. I was a case of Eddie just helping others. And that there was chance that they might choose to freind up and work together more, improving themselves as they go.
As for Eddie. Maybe the three of them work so well to gether that they actually get to know each other, and start teaming up together more often in the future. Which adds to not only his experience, but to the other two as well. And the three of them can then possibly work together to get the unprepared get ready for the next effort.
You've got them teaming up together.
You've got the three of them working together to get the unprepared ready.
So yeah, you did organize them into going out to save the PUGworld.
Except that is not true. There are lots of things to discuss, if peole would just decide to talk. In any one queue, I bet that a multi-page discussion on how to do a specific queue could be done could happen, IF, and only IF, people wanted to take the time and have a real discussion about it. Without trolling, or badmouthing to ruin it.
That is a forum discussion. That is a planning discussion amongst a group of folks looking at doing something. That is perhaps a chat channel discussion where folks are bouncing ideas around. The thing friends or a fleet might do on teamspeak or the like.
It's also something that's been done to death and one can go through to read all about it in their free time...without expecting others to give up their time.
Unless they are advance players and because Normals are so easy to them that they can sleepwalk through it. And the strat they used on Normal doesn't work at Advanced. And I am sure people have done that in the past only to be ridiculed. So they don't anymore.
Would be nifty if there was some place one could look up various strategies for tackling Advanced content when one feels ready to move on from Normal...or...a place one could ask about it, yeah? Oh wait...
I agree. There are to many queues. And paring some of the old ones should be done. But which ones? Who do you anger when you take thier favorite queues? Since they have taken some queues away already, the outrage from people has been loud and furious. SO when they do decide to do this, they have better have a plan in place to placate the huge outcry that will happen.
Personally, I would like to see all queues from more than seasons (So Like Season 7 or 8 and older paired down to just one SPace and one ground STF. Should help in the queueing department a lot.
I'm not a fan of removing content. People like running what they like, and they should be able to run what they like. The difference for me would be with public and private. Everything would remain for folks to hit up via private runs. The public queues would go to a random map scenario based on the primary reward.
Somebody's looking for Omega Marks from Space? They queue for Task Force Omega...they get a random queue that provides Omega Marks. Etc, etc, etc.
Folks that enjoy running specific content will still be able to do that through private runs - so they don't lose anything, but it cuts down on the number of public facing queues.
That's what I am saying. The game s does a bad job of preparing them. SO the content needs to be change to prepare them.
I know that's what you're saying. I asked how could that possibly be true if there are people doing content other than Normal? If the game never prepared them...they could not be doing it, could they? So that's why it's just an excuse. Everything is there...everything is not handed to people on a platinum platter...it's there, everything they need to tackle Advanced. Elite...they're going to need some player help for that...but Elite is meant for players better than Advanced and requires more than Advanced.
But how does one know they need to get better when someone else fails the mission? What in the game tells you that you do this or that better? What in the games tells you where you are at and what can be done to get better?
Notihing.
And asking the general public will net you responces from those telling you to get things you can't, actual useful advise, and at least twice the hatemail over the 'advice' as responses. Or at least, that seems the prevailing responces in general chat.
And considering the chatter that I see on ESD alone, maybe we really should consider this daycare. The juvenile statements I see there is in such abundance that I don't normally pay attention to it. And that is not unique to STO.
Does the game include what's provided by CLR? (Combat Log Reader) No, it doesn't. A link to it can be found in the Official DPS League & DPS Channels Thread. It's an awesome player created/maintained tool that provides all sorts of information - damage in, damage out, healing in, healing out, aggro, what pets are doing, flanking %, critical hit %, accuracy/misses, shield healing/damage (in and out), hull healing/damage (in and out), information on resistances...etc, etc, etc...it's a massive tool.
So what would it take for Cryptic to go through and create such a tool...to maintain it...like CLR is maintained? Programmers, UI Artists, what kind of load is it going to put on the client if it's something running, and the list goes on and on...
...where not everybody's really going to care about that, it would have to be fit into the schedule, if there were problems those would have be scheduled to be fixed and fixed when?
It simply doesn't make any logical sense for Cryptic to do it themselves when there is such an awesome tool already available; and serious thanks goes out to omegashoker for it and anybody that helps in anyway to improve it and keep it going.
So one will have an idea on what they're doing, yeah? And there are the forums here and elsewhere where one can ask questions/ask for suggestions/etc...and folks are more than willing to help, yeah?
ESD is a cesspool. I didn't play a Fed toon for almost a year because I kept forgetting to switch over to another chat tab to avoid the garbage from ESD.
But without truley defining what Advanced is and what Elite is, in game. It is rocket science. Cause you have to figure out what is needed to do the content on your own.
Yep, had to do it on my own.
1) Go to forums.
2) Read.
3) Know.
Nobody came along while I was sleeping and poured the info in my ear.
Except, where in any content in STO, does it state that there are requirements? The only 'requirements' I have ever seen in any content is what your character level is. No gear checks, not DPS checks, nothing like it all. The content has no requirements outside of Level, and no way to compare each other in that respects in the game. The game just doesn't do anything to tell you what you have to be capable of to complete a specific queue.
I explained that earlier, but yeah-no, there's no gating in STO. Any time gating is brought up, people have a cow. They don't want to be gated from content even if five folks show up nowhere near what that content requires are going to fail miserably.
It's also been discussed out the wahzoo just how gating would even be possible.
Number of Normal runs unlocking an Accolade? Doesn't mean the person paid attention in those runs - they could have been carried there. So that doesn't mean they'll have any knowledge of the objectives/map/etc. It also does nothing about it being Normal mobs vs. Advanced or Elite mobs.
Have some math analyst go through and extrapolate a conversion of Normal DPS vs. Advanced DPS, so somebody would have to reach a certain threshold in Normal that was well above making Normal painfully easy?
The discussion goes on and on for countless pages in countless threads.
It's a player issue...a player has to address it. They have to show the initiative to look at what they're doing and ask other players about it. It's a MMO...there's a community.
Folks not pursuing options does not mean there are not options. It's why paxdawn and shadowwraith77 keep tending to say what they're saying, eh? Folks are ignoring options while complaining there are no options - no way to do things - when the options and how to do stuff is there, no? Bazinga...it's there.
If you mean that if the game showed you what your current capabilites are and showed what need to be able to do to get into an STF. Then I am all for it.
That was in asking it of the players...not of the game showing it to the players. Again, CLR's an awesome tool.
This I agree. But then I have completed Advanced queues with me doing 8 to 9k. I used to run 3 to 5k and complete runs all the time. I didn't know what my DPS was because I didn't see an in game way of knowing that. And later, when I finally came across parsers for STO. I learned where I was at and worked on improving myself.
Voila...you asked about it earlier...you answered it yourself. You wanted to know, you looked for a way to know, you found a solution, and you used it. That's initiative...that's something that is sorely lacking out there.
For something like ISE(pre-DR)/ISA(DR), I said the difference was 1-2k DPS. Folks said I was crazy. Well, if the required for ISE was ~5k and the required for ISA is ~7k...er...it is what it is. No, that's not the player requirement increase if they want to have their 4-7 minute ISA like they had their 4-7 minute ISE...but I'm kind of a TRIBBLE player requirements - there are separate channels for folks looking to do things at a certain pace.
Hell, I even had a thread talking about Mediocre Builds, Average DPS, But Still Having Fun or something (I'd have to look to see the actual thread title - won't link it because the builds I had in that thread I deleted from STOacademy). I advocated folks just trying to have fun while being in the 4-9k or 3-8k range. There were folks out there doing almost 90k at the time, the DPS Channels had different amounts, it was a different time in the game...but there were folks pushing their 15k, 20k, 30k back then too. Meh, if one wants to do that - go do it - have a blast...it's not needed for the content. But just like that content requirement shifted that little bit, so too did the range I advocated...
...and with that range being advocated, there was the middle-ground below it, and then folks that kind of just bugged me. Somebody showing up for ISE doing 1-2k or less (the 2k literally being 2000 and thus 2000 or below, not 2500 - that would fall into that middle-ground)...well, that's just looking to fail. Somebody showing up doing 1-3k or less...or 4k or less without bringing anything to help offset the reduced DPS which would help there be a chance at getting it done...well, that's just looking to fail.
Course, even with the lower end of the spectrum (the 4+/5k)...unless there's some buffer coming in from the others, well, too many players at that end is going to make run overly dicey.
Gets into the RNG of Groups stuff...and what paxdawn has been talking about with being able to carry the group. Having some buffer there to make up for what might be missing.
I used to shoot for 7-<10k range, figuring on carrying a bit of buffer - while also doing something else...healing, crowd control, debuffing, buffing...trying to help out those folks that were close to but not quite at the requirement. It's just not something where I was going to build to do the same for the folks showing up doing 1-<2k.
As time has gone on since Delta Rising, a lot of the folks that would been there also carrying some buffer - have moved on - leaving more and more a pool of those folks at or near the content requirements and many more that are still there doing 1-2K.
Looking on the DPS League Table...there are 6934 people listed at 10k or more...those are all folks with access to the DPS-10,000 channel and folks that might just not be hitting the public queues as much as they were, eh? ~2770 of them are doing 10-<15k DPS. The next channel after 10k is 30k...there are ~5962 people between 10k and <30k....Hell, there's ~4287 folks between 10k and <20k. That's not counting all the other folks that may have moved to various channels in the interim as well.
One might say, "Hey, folks going to channels made it worse!" How? No doubt, imho, it's worse...but how did they make it worse? Cause they're no longer helping to mask the underlying issue so everybody can conveniently avoid and ignore it? It's a bad thing to point out the problem? Yeah, no...imho...they found a solution and good for them. My solution would involve people being honest with themselves...but I've mentioned here and there I'm a little idealistic and delusional.
Wasn't in question, but nice ro know. I don't think I have gotten much over 12K as a personal best since I statred parsing. Still trying to decipher those things and figure out what I can do to change things.
Others might have...it was a simple disclosure thing. I'm not a 75k+ guy trying to keep the little guy down, but it does put me just outside the top 10% on the table.
Are you parsing with CLR or ACT or one of the others? Do you have a 10k invite sitting there?
Yes, but I still got rewards. ANd I didn't feel like I was wasting my time, because I still got to go through all of the content. Yeah I might not be getting the optionals, but at least I got to run the content to see it and makes plans on how to deal with, or even better, tried plans and see how well they worked.
But that's the thing...er...Normal, Advanced, Elite...they're not different maps. It's the same content at a different level of difficulty...one is not missing out on content from not being able to do Advanced or Elite.
Actually, you always had the option of leaving. SO no hostage situation. And Now, the games ends earlier and you don't get to see the rest of the content and plan out how to deal with it.
And eat a leaver penalty or wait until you hoped the leaver penalty did not apply...during which time you are held hostage? Again, the reply just above...you've seen it already in doing Normal.
I haven't actually mentioned ground. Except once, and not in this context. But the old way of getting gear, back in the day was based on an RNG drop. They changed that when they rolled out the Elite marks system and Reps. And you consume that content faster than me. It takes me weeks to get a toon to 50, and then a couple weeks to get them to max rep tier, and then a few more days or even a week to get all the space rep gear for one rep. I have limited time.
It's basically a case that I know next to nothing about Ground, it's just not my thing. I'll muddle through missions, in adventure/battle zones, but I'm not going to queue for it (BHE/BHA's the only intentional Ground stuff I did, and that's just cause it was just so damn easy at the time - easier than doing an episode).
With the leveling, meh, prior to S7 I refused to pay $5 for a respec...so I'd be rerolling my guys every 2-3 weeks and got pretty good at leveling toons. I rerolled everybody for S7. Course at the end of 2013, I deleted all but one toon (deleting 11 of 12) and rerolled 9 of them...er...let me check here:
Where the Reman had been the only one kept, so yeah, only 8...I had an additional slot I didn't use (was waiting on KDF aligned Ferengi, lol).
But then shortly before Delta Rising, I deleted all of them as well...oh well. But yeah, I'm pretty good at getting a toon 1-50 pretty fast. The 50-60 and so forth...yeah, not so good...lol.
Actually, it is a fact. It is quite factual to say that they need to be overhauled to be improved. Now it's my opinion that they need to be Improved.
If players were to improve...the queues would improve. What you stated was an opinion on how they could be improved...without evidence to support that the changes would actually result in an improvement of the queue. Opinion, untested theory, untested hypothesis...not a fact.
While the entire leveling experience is done primarily through episode runs, which is all solo content. I would agree that The way the game starts you off is very Solo oriented. And if the keep catering purely to the idea of solo content, then yes, the queues will die. But I think the queues are dead more to them not making the queues progressive and teambuilding in nature. And that Normals queues are not learning centers for builds and skill use. Heck, I'd even go so far as to say that the episodes don't do anything to teach peole how to build out a ship and ground crew and what you should be considering for skills, traits and specializations. And that would go a long way towards help saving queues too.
Leveling didn't used to be so solo...didn't used to be so quick. Folks actually hit up queues along the way...low level queues were bumping. Folks wanted faster. Folks wanted more solo. Low level queues died. The historic precedent for it already exists in the game itself.
Course, imho, it also created other factors there...cause that interaction with other players during the leveling process also provided feedback - allowed one to see how they were doing - and so forth...better preparing them for once they got to the endgame.
Folks didn't think about that with going more solo and making everything much faster...folks tend not to think about the consequences of their requests (Cryptic tends not to think about the consequences of them fulfilling those requests...or maybe they did, makes it easier for them to sell stuff to folks - more and more stuff, cause they won't realize how little it's helping them compared to other folks...but that's tinfoil hat area).
And RNG in ANRA is even worse now. Before it was always possible to complete the optional, if people had the ability to kill the stuff in time. Now, doesn't even matter, either you get the RNG in your favor and have a chance, or (more likley) the right ships won't be poped up to even consider attempting the optional. No matter how good you are.
It was possible for the old ANRA to be a high-end ANRN, an ANRA, or even an ANRE. It did not offer a consistent challenge to players expected to face an Advanced queue. If they'd gone with fixed instead of random spawns...they could have provided that consistent challenge, rather than it basically being a case of the group needing to capable of doing an ANRE just in case those were the spawns they got. It's an Advanced queue...not an Elite queue...they shouldn't have had to do that.
Well, er, and speaking of consistency...though some might consider this dirty pool...I don't quite get the complaints about failed optionals there when you dismissed optionals earlier in the discussion about trolls.
My rule in PuGs is always prepare for the worst. Either you bring enough alternate methods, like CC in ISA, to compensate or bring enough DPS to compensate the loss. In short bring enough to compensate if the 4 others needed to be carried to do content requirement.
Kk cool, now we are talking. How about some advice here?
- Interviews for UIA: I can get all of mine right let it be all 10 but have a hard time doing that in time before somebody else messes up the remaining ones failing the mission for me. Would frosted boots help out here?
- Hostage Rescue in DRSA: I manage to get up to 4/6 on elite within 3 minutes, perhaps with some motion accelerator 5/6 is possible on advanced but then I often seem out of options especially when the advanced pug manages to get to pre-aggrovate the cohorts without killing them and spreading em throughout the map.
- Crystalline Advanced: Well got some good firepower, debuffs for the entity as well as a laod of heals offering me 1st or 2nd place in pugs a lot better than the successful dealing with the fail by myself. The more I succeed in evading the blast the more I seem to encounters some hobby DPSer popping up on their attempts to score high on some charts. How do I carry them? More Debuffs? More heals? I mean its only 9 others I have to carry right?
- Disable power nodes in KAGA: Now I can demo all 6 successfully on first attempt bringing in the right toon OR I can lower the respective force fields in control room even with extending it for the advanced pug HOWERVER I have a hard time doing both at the same time. Some communication for coordination needed? Sure we have time for that... no we don't. There was this background timer, wasn't there?
- Hostage rescue in IGA: Rescuing hostages alone is possible and has been done by me. Especially on the second half where 2 have to be saved at a time within a timeframe of 15 seconds it gets interesting. HOWER so far I only manage to do that by not aggravating the other critters too intence BUT if I choose this strategy general DPS for critter removal suffers to a point where I cant fullfill the 15 minutes global time requirements for my teaml by myself. Perhaps some better ground gear will help me out?
Had you all spent time asking me these questions rather than complaining, my time would be spent giving you all the advise to complete advance in PuGs.
If all fail conditions in advanced would be designed in a way that the influence of a single individual could guarantee at least the positive outcome of an advanced mission we would look at a lot less problems here and that for me and for others meaning I would fill the queue list as well as others in the hope they meet me. I doubt universal advice can be given to CARRY your pugs through an advanced PvE. At least not if your horizon extends the ability to bring in cc for ISA or enough DPS to compensate for the mistakes of others.
As far as I am concerned cryptic is doing just that, you know. With the change they guarantee that the likeliness of a competed individual in a group out of 5 has a meaningful enough position to at least complete an advanced.
And thats the trick I bet, and what will trigger good players back to queues as well as bad ones knowing that the mission has a fair chance of succeeding either by doing the tough stuff for oneself or by relying on others for that for a while during the learning process on a difficulty setting of at least some meaning.
GOD, its not as if ANY of the above fail stuff would pose any form of challenge for a competed group. Fails are not even noteworthy then and peeps who happen to be in such a groups wont even notice if they are gone. Perhaps they should in the future if they want to uphold their marks income.
I think largely this can be explained by azure never being a popular mission. It's one that people just don't get. It was run in olden times for being one of the few sources for Romulan marks but this is no longer the case. Later it was run for precious argonite, but this was when argonite was 660,000. Now that it's affordable I think many are happier to just buy it. It is affordable largely because enough people now run azure advanced.
The second issue is that the optional is still unlikely and the post fail part of the mission feels like a waste of time as the marks are very very low (always have been on this mission even doing very well on it).
Thankfully it is no longer the test case as we have all of the 3 Iconian missions which are running like buttah.
Confirmed on Advanced. The Devs are doing it for those lining up for it and don't want to see a time estemate of -:-.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
In WOW, there is no Attrition. On a wipe, everything is reset. SO you have to start from the beginning again on that boss and try to get him killed. SO no attrition. Just the same fight over and over again till you get it right. The only thing suffering is your gear, which you have to repair, and your buffs, which you have to reset. WOW exacts it price for completing content in repairs and time. That time is in how much time you have to dedicate to figure out the mechanics for your composition of players. Just because you have a plan, if your team composition changes, which it does when PUGing, then you have to refiger what will work, or who does what. Sometimes you don't have enough range to do a certain mechanic, that means you have to plan on wither moving a healer over to range, or make a melee guy run around alot. Or you might try using a another tank to hold aggro on adds to allow the range guys time to dps down the adds. All which requires every one rethink what hey are doing and how they are doing it. It's never consistantly the same. But general plans become more obvious as you go. And refinements happen during play to adjust for what you do and don't happen. It's very dynamic. And can be Very rewarding if you like working in teams. But then, the AI in WOW is smarter in doing things than STO's AI. It's designed to take advantages when it can.
I do like teamwork, And I do like it to have reason to have teamwork. But Timers do not promote teamwork. They promote a guns blazing approach with not strategy of note. Remove timers, maintain the diffulculty in other methods, and teamwork will be fostered and grow if the mechanics are set up to do that.
STO's STF's do not do that now. Except for the three new STF's. To me they are very good at fostering the team enviroment. At least on Normal. I normally succeed at all the optionals at this time in normal. I just haven't gone into advanced yet because the rewards there are not things I need. Which is fine with me.
Timers do promote teamwork, maybe not to you iyo but, in other peoples opinion, they do.
Attrition by my definition, is the not being able to fully fail, in your description of WOW, you can simply stay put after wiping [if you can call it that] and, keep going back at it, till they finally complete it.
In that case, there is no actual failing, it is just keep trying until you either win or, give up and leave.
It's like running a normal on here w/o the optional, just keep trying until you succeed, doesn't matter how long it takes, because you simply cannot actually fail.
WOW has attrition, just like STO has attrition, the only big difference in STO, is it also has genuine failure mechanics as well, while WOW does not!!!
Games that have no pressure involved, imo promote nothing but waste your time and, imo would easily promote guns a blazing in your own words, far more than one that has pressure completion involved.
It's just, you obviously cannot handle pressure well and, cannot coordinate well in those circumstances so, you don't find it your kind of play style and, would prefer elimination of this, for those who do prefer it!
Comments
The various content with trollable objectives need to be redesigned/tweaked/touched up/etc so that those objectives are not subject to trolling.
Let's take a look at some of the ways one can troll Infected Space.
After the initial engagement, everybody appears to be heading left...Timmy Troll zips over the right as the engagement on the left starts and pops a right Gen. Group has to try to get over there to prevent that fail from happening.
After the initial engagement, which took a wee bit of time, everybody is heading left slowly/slowish...but Timmy Troll zips over there and pops the first Gen. Group has to try to get over there to prevent that fail from happening.
After the initial engagement, which went smoothly, folks have dropped the Gens pretty close together, and they're going at the Transformer...here comes Timmy Troll pushing some Nanites along with him using his TBR to push them toward the Trans.
After the initial engagement, which went smoothly, folks have dropped the Gens pretty close together, and they're going at the Transformer...here comes Timmy Troll dragging some Nanites along with him toward the Trans his DOFF'd TBR to pull instead of push.
After the initial engagement, which went smoothly, folks have dropped the Gens pretty close together, and they're going at the Transformer...here comes Timmy Troll who just loves his DOFF'd Gravity Well with his Gravigens and having that yank those Nanites over into the Trans.
After the initial engagement, which went smoothly, folks have dropped the Gens pretty close together, they're going at the Transformer, and Crowd Control Chris drops out his GW to buy the group some time...here comes Timmy Troll dragging some Nanites along with him toward the Trans his DOFF'd TBR to pull instead of push.
After the initial engagement, which went smoothly, folks have dropped the Gens pretty close together, they're going at the Transformer, and Crowd Control Chris drops out his GW to buy the group some time...here comes Timmy Troll pushing some Nanites along with him using his TBR to push them toward the Trans.
After the initial engagement, which went smoothly, folks have dropped the Gens pretty close together, they're going at the Transformer, and Crowd Control Chris drops out his GW to buy the group some time...but there's Timmy Troll popping shockwaves to break the Nanites out of the pull of the GW.
All sorts of shockwaves too, eh? And that list will go on and on...so many ways to cause that failed optional or failed objective. Course, there's also the 15 minute optional...bunch of those and other things can cause that to fail.
Hell, there's also going to be watching the guy going for his GDF - dropping out some Scramble and Iso/Ret/etc action...no GDF for you, denied, you can respawn now.
Course, that last one can happen anywhere - and - the making stuff take longer if there is no time limit on the run itself...can happen in all sorts of places as well.
Basically, Cryptic could take a look at reducing the ways that folks can troll - but they can't eliminate trolling...only way to avoid that is to find a channel where it's not allowed or run with folks that you know won't. Basically, people suck as people and take a perverse pleasure in ruining their fun.
* * * * *
How could one not have the time? Is the game shutting down? Cause otherwise, they will have the time. It might take them weeks to do something somebody does in days, months that somebody does in weeks, years that somebody does in months...but that's not a matter of not having the time. That's about how soon they want something...not wanting to wait...based on the amount of time they have available for the game.
There was a period of time where I had so much time available for the game...had 12 toons, was leveling two solo fleets, was DOFFing 3+ times a day, was outfitting all 12 toons like they were mains, was running all sorts of queues for fun, was doing all sorts of PvP, was working the Exchange out the wahzoo, was buyng with ingame currency all sorts of things to do testing of stuff, was over on Tribble testing...Hell, I must have been playing the game in my sleep cause of the sheer amount of time I was playing the game.
I don't have that kind of time now. I don't expect to be able to do and have everything I did with the time I had with the time I now have. I'll get what I get when I get it. Cause that's the kind of time I've got.
* * * * *
I have seven people on my friends list, and one friend request that I haven't accepted or declined. Of those seven people, only one of them still plays the game. I used to clear my friends list every 2-3 weeks, if I even accepted the friend requests in the first place - around the same time I'd clear out my ignore list. I just hit up the public queue system.
Do I talk about how some channels run? Sure, cause I used to hang out in OrganizedPvP back when I did PvP...I never x'd up though, cause even then I just did public pug PvP. I finally accepted the DPS-10,000 invite at some point, but I never x'd up - cause again, all I do is public pug runs. I don't think I was in that channel for two weeks before I left. Had only joined to have something to read while I was playing and doing whatever I was doing...but it wasn't very entertaining to read (and some other things).
Meena's in my KDF solo fleet, so I'm the only one there. I kept that fleet - the Fed one got abandoned. Willard's in Inner Circle, but that's a German fleet and I'm not German...got no clue what those fleet emails are talking about, lol. Six of those seven folks on my friends list are why I joined Inner Circle...so yeah, I'm in that fleet but I'm not really in that fleet I guess...I still do contributions, Hell, if I see a project that needs the various provisions I'll burn some creds to get that going. But I don't really play Willard anymore - log in from time to time on him, and I'm basically just running Meena. So there's the fleet channel I don't talk in, there's an international fleet channel I don't talk in, there was a PvP tourney channel that some of the high end PvP folks talked in that nobody talks in, there's an IC PvP channel where folks might pop in on Pidgin from time to time, but that's pretty much it...I'm not very social. Or maybe it's like preferring email to the telephone and so forth, I only want to be bothered when I want to be bothered...voila, post count on the forums - I only have to respond when I want to...yeah, not very social.
Hell, kind of feel bad looking at that one friend request - folks normally cancel it themselves after a period of time. I didn't feel right just rejecting it, probably should accept it, but they might want to talk in the game...meh. I'm usually just in there to do whatever I'm doing and then I'm out.
Wow, that kind of went all over the place...but anyway, so you don't have a big ol' friends list? What does that matter for folks that are just doing channel pugs anyway?
It's not just the DPS League channels, though personally 10k flowed more like a channel for folks just interested in farming than chasing DPS (which I assume took place more in the higher channels, though folks from the higher channels were oft around to answer questions for folks in 10k), out there - there are the Star Trek Battles folks which aren't about the DPS (or they weren't - that thread still pops up from time to time)...there are all sorts of different channels I've heard about outside of the various fleet channels folks have. Could even be a case of posting on the forums that you're interested in what channels are out there for somebody looking to...well, basically farming, eh?
And Hell, if you are a more sociable person (the stuff about the teamwork thing you mentioned earlier and folks playing together), you might even end up filling out that friends list, eh?
On a related note, so far I've seen PUG BOTSE to be more competent than pre-made dps channel BOTSE.
The thing is, many players go about measuring how well their ship performs based on how it feels to them. They think they can melt stuff fast in STFs but they do not realize that it could have been someone else who did it for them. There are no in-game systems that tells you how well you built your ship and how well you are flying it. Some of us use a third party parser, but because it is not part of the game, I think the majority of the player base do not have it or are aware of its existence.
Now this is off topic, but I just thought I'd throw this one into the mix. A lot of the posts here tend to blame mission failures to stupidity, laziness or plain simple trolling but there are legitimately good-nature players that mean well. They just do not know how well they are performing because the game doesn't make that clear for them.
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I can agree and disagree with this statement, because if it is taking someone 2-20mins, just to take out a probe or a sphere, than they need maybe rethink what they are doing wrong!
Especially the probe!
I have literally watched someone, take 10mins, to tackle one sphere by themselves.
I have seen 4 people, take 5-8mins, just to tackle a single cube & sphere in KASA, while each died no less than 5X, heck 2 of those 4 died 16X & 18X in the whole mission.
I have seen one person, doing no lie, 2 digit and low 3digit dmg per shot with their beams.
I told them to put some power to their weapons, you know what they did, they popped a battery and voila, it doubled their dmg until the battery wore off, than they were back to taking 5mins to try and kill a sphere, took them 3-5mins to tackle a generator......a freaking generator!!!
You got people oblivious to using a map and, must be blind when there is a min-map on screen the whole time, people who do not ever seemingly interact with ANY npcs, asking where can I get hypos and/or, is the exchange the only place?
I mean, c'mon really people, the easiest things to figure out on their own and, they cannot do it.
50+ lvls of game play and, you haven't figured out you can change power settings, that there is an options category to make changes to, etc.
This game has imo, some of the most at times, brain dead players I have ever seen.
But, than you just have pure lazy players, demanding entitlement players, and trolls to boot always wanting everything, for little - no effort at all involved.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Well you bring in some solid points there you know and I understand your I need a risk to have a challenge attitude which is the same as Virus if element. I cant quiet grab Paxdis advanced performance inquisition attitude but ok, not my problem.
My threshold tolerance for players being in an STF has never been any numbers of their DPS. Sure if one struggles with a probstream one may have to look up ones build but other than that its more of a long term learning process peeps simply have to get through. And well they will but unfortunately in their difficulty setting of choice and we have to endure that, if we seek a challange.
I also must point out that especially DPS crowds in pugs once to often showed me that a lot of them tend to be spoiled or trolling buyusing their build to fire at will nanites prematurely and then exploding in embarrassment so their dsp is missing the moment its needed most but hey all of that is a mess to discuss
At some point one has to simply ask oneself whats good for the community. I know that not everybody can get what he wants and for me . what I want is a filled queue list so I get a constant pool of players where I simply dont care if they are good or bad and where I simply get a DIFFERENT team for a different unforeseeable experience. I dont get that in elite channels nor when I go in with fleet newbees.
Now whatever can be done to fill the queues should be done. And the echo of 10/14 still seems to reach today participation numbers and I experience it to be a lot greater than any trends Virus may have found out already happening b4 that.
Now if the call is to skip those fails to get the queues filled again Im for all that even if it means I sacrifice parts of my challenging fun. A supply of players (good and bad) is what I need and not a queue time estimate for IGA which says: -:-
The question often turns up if its the players inability to cope with DR change is their fault or the Devs? Sorry, cant blame it on the infinite mass of STO customers spread throughout the world and speaking different languages. It was cryptic choice and it would have been easy for them to create a surrounding everybody can get what he/she wants.
They simply could have made old Elite (exactly the way it was) to be current normal (but with old elite rewards) instead of that annoying easiness I see there today and I bet we could have spared ourselves a lot of these threads. Peeps who are unhappy with the change could have played that while others eager for risk and challenge could move on.
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I think that is the rare worst-case scenario. I haven't really run into something that bad. Either those players genuinely do not know what they are doing, or they are trolling.
Speaking from experience, I thought my build/ship was awesome before. I could breeze through the Mirror event, solo a side on Borg Disconnected Normal and do various normal STFs without any issue. Only then when I learned how to parse and tested myself in ISA did I realize I was doing a mere 3-5k DPS at best. My ship felt good, but the numbers did not lie.
There are some deficiencies in this game that would prevent a casual player from objectively measuring their potential.
While the removal of fails will allow groups to continue on and gain the rewards, I am not sure that this is the proper solution. ANRA now gives you Argonite, and a fair amount of dilithium every time. Argonite is one of the more expensive R&D materials so even if ANRA can take longer than other STFs, you still get compensated well for it. Yet ANRA rarely pops for me now. With fails and all, it used to be played more often. Now it's simply dead. If simple removal of fails was the answer, then surely this STF should be more populated, but it is not. ANRN seems to be doing better than ANRA.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
I think largely this can be explained by azure never being a popular mission. It's one that people just don't get. It was run in olden times for being one of the few sources for Romulan marks but this is no longer the case. Later it was run for precious argonite, but this was when argonite was 660,000. Now that it's affordable I think many are happier to just buy it. It is affordable largely because enough people now run azure advanced.
The second issue is that the optional is still unlikely and the post fail part of the mission feels like a waste of time as the marks are very very low (always have been on this mission even doing very well on it).
Thankfully it is no longer the test case as we have all of the 3 Iconian missions which are running like buttah.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
That is why things need to change. PUGs have to be viable. If they are so bad that they can't be done reliably, then something in the system is broken. Believe me I can relate to the nonsense that ISA brings. I don't bother with it any more myself. But that isn't a long term solution for the game, for the queues.
I agree with most of what you said, but this especially. The queues need to be popping regularly, or they may as well not exist. They have to be changed and adjusted in ways beyond just the fail conditions to make that happen. Rewards are a big issue I think, especially in these days of endless spec grinding.
ANRA suffers from a lot of problems. Terrible rewards especially for the time it takes, bad scaling from normal, extremely frustrating enemies, huge bugs, and very badly designed objectives. I could use lots of Argonite but running ANRA is not enjoyable and not really worth the time even if it completes every time now.
Who is devs going to change the whole mechanics for? For a subset of the playerbase? WHy?
PuGs are viable. Except those who cannot complete advance whether the player dont belong in advance or the player cannot compensate for the lack quality of team nor accepting not to go to PuGs.
There are available in game solutions for these players who cannot in anyway forced themselves where they belong. Even now or before the recent patch you can literally PuG every advance and complete that advance mission. The choice being either improve self or improve team. If chose not to improve either one, suffer the fate of failure.
It was that simple. If you cannot accept that, it points to attitude and mentality problems. The complaints of this thread keeps going back, what the devs should do? When these players should ask themselves, what I did wrong or do I lack something to complete advance?
Queues exists, private and public are viable. Public is viable except those who cannot compensate are the ones suffering.
Everyone can get the rewards. Except those who cannot get the rewards in advance chose not to get those rewards by not improving self, not improving team or getting out of PuGs.
PuG transfer of population to private queues has been going for years even before DR. So why should everyone even change their queuing habits for a subset of players or even forced to go back to PuGs?
But according to you, you are supposed to make a carry build to play Advanced and Elite. And if they weren't bothering to get better, it best to find out why they aren't getting better first. Talking with them can open up them up to new possibiliities. Of course, you can't talk with people and plan things out if there is limited time to do stuff. Willard build sounds like it would really compliment how I play, since I have a fed escort build that is more glass cannon than I like it to be right now. Still looking for ways to up my survivability. I do soo much better when I got someone else healing me as I pew pew stuff. I've noticed a 2K increase on average to my dps when I get heals from tohers. And I wished the game did more to promote and support these other playstyles.
I think your viewpoint is based on what your expectations are from others. You expect them to be at about your level when running Advanced or Elite. Or that appears to be your position.
My position is that I expect people wanting to try and work together for the goal. And since the game does nothing to teach you the core mechanics and prepare you for group content, I don't expect them to have the same level of knowledge as me. And until the game creates content creates a way to teach people the core mechanics of group content, builds and skills, I will never expect people to be coming in knowing what to do. ANd as long as timers are in that content, I will not be expecting people to stop and plan because they have yet to do it so far.
KDF: Dahar Master Kan (Borg Klingon Tactical)::Dahar Master Torc (Alien Science)::Dahar Master Sisteric (Gorn Engineer)
RR-Fed: Citizen Sirroc (Romulan Science)::Fleet Admiral Grell (Alien Engineer)
RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
Dom-Fed: Dan'Tar (Jem'Hadar Science)
Dom-KDF: Kamtana'Solan (Jem'Hadar Science)
CoHost of Tribbles in Ecstasy (Zombee)
paxdawn, it has never been flat refusal.
Buying things is not fun content to play. Nor is it something i have time to go figure out and play. Nor is it everyones cup of tea.
I don't know enough people to form a team. Or I would. So a pre-made group is not an option.
I am just looking for a method for people to get things with out getting limited by other players. And doesn't require people to play something that they may not have the time or mindset to do. Econimics is not why I play this game. Nor should it be a requirement to play the game.
Your flat refusal to allow for other playstyles to exist si the only flat refusals I have seen, so far.
KDF: Dahar Master Kan (Borg Klingon Tactical)::Dahar Master Torc (Alien Science)::Dahar Master Sisteric (Gorn Engineer)
RR-Fed: Citizen Sirroc (Romulan Science)::Fleet Admiral Grell (Alien Engineer)
RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
Dom-Fed: Dan'Tar (Jem'Hadar Science)
Dom-KDF: Kamtana'Solan (Jem'Hadar Science)
CoHost of Tribbles in Ecstasy (Zombee)
And yet its the gold standard of successful MMOs.
Which means they must know what their doing by doing it that way.
In WOW, there is no Attrition. On a wipe, everything is reset. SO you have to start from the beginning again on that boss and try to get him killed. SO no attrition. Just the same fight over and over again till you get it right. The only thing suffering is your gear, which you have to repair, and your buffs, which you have to reset. WOW exacts it price for completing content in repairs and time. That time is in how much time you have to dedicate to figure out the mechanics for your composition of players. Just because you have a plan, if your team composition changes, which it does when PUGing, then you have to refiger what will work, or who does what. Sometimes you don't have enough range to do a certain mechanic, that means you have to plan on wither moving a healer over to range, or make a melee guy run around alot. Or you might try using a another tank to hold aggro on adds to allow the range guys time to dps down the adds. All which requires every one rethink what hey are doing and how they are doing it. It's never consistantly the same. But general plans become more obvious as you go. And refinements happen during play to adjust for what you do and don't happen. It's very dynamic. And can be Very rewarding if you like working in teams. But then, the AI in WOW is smarter in doing things than STO's AI. It's designed to take advantages when it can.
I do like teamwork, And I do like it to have reason to have teamwork. But Timers do not promote teamwork. They promote a guns blazing approach with not strategy of note. Remove timers, maintain the diffulculty in other methods, and teamwork will be fostered and grow if the mechanics are set up to do that.
STO's STF's do not do that now. Except for the three new STF's. To me they are very good at fostering the team enviroment. At least on Normal. I normally succeed at all the optionals at this time in normal. I just haven't gone into advanced yet because the rewards there are not things I need. Which is fine with me.
KDF: Dahar Master Kan (Borg Klingon Tactical)::Dahar Master Torc (Alien Science)::Dahar Master Sisteric (Gorn Engineer)
RR-Fed: Citizen Sirroc (Romulan Science)::Fleet Admiral Grell (Alien Engineer)
RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
Dom-Fed: Dan'Tar (Jem'Hadar Science)
Dom-KDF: Kamtana'Solan (Jem'Hadar Science)
CoHost of Tribbles in Ecstasy (Zombee)
Again, oversimplification. I am not saying, nor have I ever said, that I want the difficulty to be lowered. I have only been saying that I would like to see the fails removed, to stop trolling, and for there be progression built into the STF's and that the STF's foster teamwork. The New STF's seem to be doing a better job of that from my experience so far.
KDF: Dahar Master Kan (Borg Klingon Tactical)::Dahar Master Torc (Alien Science)::Dahar Master Sisteric (Gorn Engineer)
RR-Fed: Citizen Sirroc (Romulan Science)::Fleet Admiral Grell (Alien Engineer)
RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
Dom-Fed: Dan'Tar (Jem'Hadar Science)
Dom-KDF: Kamtana'Solan (Jem'Hadar Science)
CoHost of Tribbles in Ecstasy (Zombee)
Could a lot of these so called leechers be those zombies third party resellers of EC, items, etc. use to farm the game?
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
If somebody is below the content's requirements (not a player's requirements, but the content's requirements) they are being carried. Somebody trading a lil' DPS for some crowd control or healing, buffing, debuffing, etc, etc, etc...they'd still be working at the content's requirements because of what they're doing. Somebody doing that while way below the content requirements or not doing that while below...they're being carried. The content has requirements...TRIBBLE player requirements, there are channels for those...but the content itself has requirements.
I said prepared...not doing the most DPS...prepared. He's ready for the queue. He's familiar with the objectives, he's familiar with the map, he's meeting the content's minimum requirements, etc, etc, etc.
It gets into people thinking what they're doing is helping...but it's not...cause the content requirement is not being met. The content requirements tend to be so low compared to potential, that folks doing other stuff to help the run - shouldn't have much effort getting there. Pets themselves will usually do 1.5-2x the content's requirements. People showing up in their 1-3k DPS boats going, "I'm helping! I'm helping!"...aren't.
But again, I said prepared...not doing the most DPS.
People suck, as people...not all, but there are going to be those folks that leech. People can fix the problem and they have...they don't run public queues. Voila...they don't have a problem with leeches. Problem resolved.
You can't force people to play. Games have been trying for well over a decade - players have been finding a way around the methods for well over a decade.
Folks will meet thresholds because thresholds will be so low because content requirements are so low compared to potential. Folks will automate to avoid inactivity - they can even bot the common pathing elements of the queues so it looks like they're just a really bad player.
Then you get into what happens with the leecher, eh? Do they just not get rewards? Cool, you've just turned them into a deadweight troll. Do they eat a penalty and are not able to queue? How many dozens of toons do they have? Does it kick them from the group? Great, you've got an empty slot..and...some poor slob's going to get dropped into a queue that's about to fail, eh?
People have been trying to come up with ways to deal with leechers since the dawn of time...
You were the one that said Eddie helps his first two disciples, then they plan on how they can go forth to help others, etc, etc, etc...Eddie's going to save the PUGworld from the PUGolypse!!
It wasn't just Eddie helping some folks out, like he might have been helped out. Wasn't just a case of hoping the folks Eddie helped would in turn help others like they had been helped.
You organized them...
It's rare even to get the "gg" at the end of a run...maybe one, maybe two folks. You pointed it out yourself...if no one responds, then it's not much of a discussion is it.
And it still comes down to what on Earth are they even supposed to be talking about? If the content were complex in the slightest, if it required more than a couple of seconds if that of discussion, etc, etc, etc...then there might just be something to talk about. As is, Cryptic knowing that it is an international community where there are going to be language barriers - has created content that basically needs next to zero discussion.
Quite a few folks out there, not going to say most, are likely just running the content to get it done to get something...and...they're going to want it done as quickly and efficiently as possible. If they want to chit chat, they'll hit up a social zone.
Besides, outside of language barriers - there's nothing to stop somebody from typing out "need help"...somebody disconnects/dies/etc, nothing to stop somebody saying "got it" and heading over there.
Do they need to discuss what's going on? No. It's Advanced...they're Advanced players. If they've got no clue...they're not...and don't belong there.
How do they know? Forums? They look? They don't sit on their fat lazy asses and expect everything to be handed to them on a silver tray? I mean, seriously...Advanced is going to mean some effort...so maybe they can put some effort into it.
Why do they need to join a channel? They don't...they can wallow with the leechers, trolls, and unprepared folks.
You can't fix people...and...with it being a people problem...that's that. One either hopes they get lucky with a good group, they hit up channels, or they do something else...and Cryptic appears to be fine adding more and more do something else.
There are too many queues. Geko even realized this. But they keep adding more and more queues. STO doesn't have the playerbase to support a thriving public queue system with that many queues and so many reasons not to bother with them.
Typical retcon...
Here's the thing, then...if the game does such a crappy job of preparing people...then how is it that people are prepared? It's just another excuse.
How does one get better? They realize they could be better. They have a desire to be better. They work to get better. It's simple. It's straightforward. If they need help with something or have questions, then they ask. It's not some huge secret.
I really just don't get the talking thing. It's Advanced...it's not daycare.
I'm not sure how you're getting that. I expect them to be Advanced for Advanced and Elite for Elite. I don't run Elites...so if I expected them to be at my level...they'd be screwed. But if it says Advanced, then one should be Advanced...if it says Elite, then one should be Elite. It's not rocket science.
Say there's some content that requires 35k DPS from the team to avoid failing an objective. That's 7k per player, right? Say one of the players is below that...is that the end of the story? Not, imho. Are they doing some CC that reduces that 35k DPS requirement...where the reduction to it matches up with the lower amount they're bringing? Are they buffing others/debuffing NPCs to increase the DPS of the rest of the group...where that increase they're causing makes up for the lower amount they're bringing? Basically, are they still bringing their share?
Or are they showing up with 3k and expecting the other four guys to do 8k?
Cause in my limited experience (limited because I'm just one player amongst so many), it tends to be something like the following...
20k - 12k - 8k - 4k - 3k
...and the run is fine.
13k - 9k - 6k - 5k - 2k
...and the run is still fine.
9k - 6k - 5k - 3k - 2k
...and it's a guaranteed failure from the start.
9k might have thought to pack a little buffer, but they're prepared. 6k traded a little DPS for some other stuff to help out. 5k didn't bring any of that, but they're still trying. 3k and 2k?
Which is where I do my usual spiel about content requirements and TRIBBLE player requirements. Somebody wants everybody doing 10-20k+ DPS...there's a channel for that. But in a game where the potential is North of 100k, asking folks to do somewhere between 5-7% of that depending on what else they're bringing...doesn't seem like it's asking for too much.
I'd hate it if everybody was where I am (and lol, a bunch of folks would be ticked off if they were down where I am). Cause then it would just be wham, bam, done and boring...unless I could find the folks like to hit up HSA and maybe even move on to HSE.
I'm about content requirements...having that chance at successfully completing the run. Not a guaranteed success...not a guaranteed failure.
I'd like to be able to hit up something with a toon doing 8-9k and not have to worry about it being a guaranteed failed run cause I wasn't bringing a toon doing 15-20k.
My high, in case it is in question, is 25k...did it earlier today...wasn't expecting it, hadn't played Willard in forever because of the CBC lag stuff, had just thrown together a quick build to look at something for another thread, screwed up all sorts of things, got stuck in combat outside of 10km on the Gateway and so it was a massive around the houses slowboating affair - kept forgetting to relaunch pets - etc, etc, etc...I was expecting 12-14k perhaps if that.
The build (not optimized in the least, just thrown together): http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/index.php?build=sarrwhee25_5343
edit: If I try to DPS, I can't DPS for the life of me...if I'm just goofing...meh. /facepalm
Sounds like a good set of expectations...for Normal. But we're talking Advanced...
I've run into far more of the ultra-high DPS Scimitars that solo vape a generator while everyone else is clearing the cube than I have these near mythical leeches everyone is going on about.
They don't even bother with the spheres they spawned either even though they could just melt them in .0001 (rounded up) seconds.
I know the DPS 10k channel requires you meet certain criteria. But what that criteria is, I am unsure. Since I don't get a response from them, I have to assume that they don't want me to join. And the DPS League OPen chanel (i forgets name) is very dead when I am on, and no one responds when I say anything there. As for the SF Battles channel, that seemed to be about doing things in cannon gear, not of interest to me at this time. I haven't heard of any other channels catering to PUG's.
And I am sort of a private person, while I would like to join PUG's, I am not that big on friends lists. I tend to be a quiet person. Hence my post count. In fact, this thread is the most I have responded in any thread. This is an odd thing for me to do.
I would much rather prefer that solo content would be created to allow me to get the same stuff that I can get in STF's.
KDF: Dahar Master Kan (Borg Klingon Tactical)::Dahar Master Torc (Alien Science)::Dahar Master Sisteric (Gorn Engineer)
RR-Fed: Citizen Sirroc (Romulan Science)::Fleet Admiral Grell (Alien Engineer)
RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
Dom-Fed: Dan'Tar (Jem'Hadar Science)
Dom-KDF: Kamtana'Solan (Jem'Hadar Science)
CoHost of Tribbles in Ecstasy (Zombee)
Yes, I agree. The game lacks any methods or means to let people know what they are doing well. Nor does it have any built in means to teach people the necessary skills.
KDF: Dahar Master Kan (Borg Klingon Tactical)::Dahar Master Torc (Alien Science)::Dahar Master Sisteric (Gorn Engineer)
RR-Fed: Citizen Sirroc (Romulan Science)::Fleet Admiral Grell (Alien Engineer)
RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
Dom-Fed: Dan'Tar (Jem'Hadar Science)
Dom-KDF: Kamtana'Solan (Jem'Hadar Science)
CoHost of Tribbles in Ecstasy (Zombee)
I agree with this, especially that last paragraph. It's even a good idea for a possible way to fix things.
KDF: Dahar Master Kan (Borg Klingon Tactical)::Dahar Master Torc (Alien Science)::Dahar Master Sisteric (Gorn Engineer)
RR-Fed: Citizen Sirroc (Romulan Science)::Fleet Admiral Grell (Alien Engineer)
RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
Dom-Fed: Dan'Tar (Jem'Hadar Science)
Dom-KDF: Kamtana'Solan (Jem'Hadar Science)
CoHost of Tribbles in Ecstasy (Zombee)
ANRA changes to objects have made it such that your not ever going to complete the optionals. That needs to be fixed to get ANRA back on track. At least that's my thoughts on it. (RNG used in the wrong way)
KDF: Dahar Master Kan (Borg Klingon Tactical)::Dahar Master Torc (Alien Science)::Dahar Master Sisteric (Gorn Engineer)
RR-Fed: Citizen Sirroc (Romulan Science)::Fleet Admiral Grell (Alien Engineer)
RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
Dom-Fed: Dan'Tar (Jem'Hadar Science)
Dom-KDF: Kamtana'Solan (Jem'Hadar Science)
CoHost of Tribbles in Ecstasy (Zombee)
They lose out on rewards from how many failed Optionals and the run takes how long because of that? Yeah, their time was wasted...it's how it was before DR...trolls wasting time.
Oh noes, get locked out of a single queue for 30 minutes because of a 2-3 minute failed run as opposed to being stuck in a run for 20-30 minutes for TRIBBLE rewards? During those 20-30 minutes, think of everything else that could have been done.
Trolling isn't anything new with DR. The failure and having the mission end instead of being held hostage...is the last minute call from the Governor sparing the players.
You not wanting to do something might mean it is not an option for you, but that does not mean it is not an option.
I still don't get the waiting thing for the old STF stuff...but you've mentioned Ground a few times, no? Or am I mistaken there? But yeah, folks used to complain a bunch about Ground RNG and drops. Space, would normally have multiple sets within a week. Toon to 50 in a weekend, geared by the next weekend, ready for some PvP action...woot, woot...been a long time.
That's not a fact. That's an opinion.
DPS-10,000 requires you to have done 10,000+ DPS in an ISA run where the run was logged, parsed, and uploaded. An invite to the 10k channel will normally be sent within a couple of days. You do not automatically join the channel, you have to go to your channels and accept the invite. If you leave the channel, it will not be in your list to add again, you cannot add it again without an invite again, and having a run where you parse higher will not send you another invite (heh, yeah, I left the channel - don't want a reinvite, so I don't know how one would go about that - probably ask)...
The thread for the DPS Channels is: Official DPS League & DPS Channels Thread
It's stickied in the Feature Episodes, Events and PvE Content section of the forums.
That section would likely be a good place to ask about other options as far as channels or people that share your interests in running queues.
And that's played a major part in how the queues have gotten to where they are...with everything being easier and easier to get outside of them; because of these kind of requests over the years.
That's an argument for killing off the public queues...not saving them.
The RNG was part of the problem with the old ANRA, though. It did not provide a consistent challenge for the Mandatory Objective. It could be easy. It could easily be beyond what the group could do.
Yes we are. And why not have the same expectations at Advanced? To me, nothing in Normal preps your for Advanced anyways.
KDF: Dahar Master Kan (Borg Klingon Tactical)::Dahar Master Torc (Alien Science)::Dahar Master Sisteric (Gorn Engineer)
RR-Fed: Citizen Sirroc (Romulan Science)::Fleet Admiral Grell (Alien Engineer)
RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
Dom-Fed: Dan'Tar (Jem'Hadar Science)
Dom-KDF: Kamtana'Solan (Jem'Hadar Science)
CoHost of Tribbles in Ecstasy (Zombee)
And RNG in ANRA is even worse now. Before it was always possible to complete the optional, if people had the ability to kill the stuff in time. Now, doesn't even matter, either you get the RNG in your favor and have a chance, or (more likley) the right ships won't be poped up to even consider attempting the optional. No matter how good you are.
KDF: Dahar Master Kan (Borg Klingon Tactical)::Dahar Master Torc (Alien Science)::Dahar Master Sisteric (Gorn Engineer)
RR-Fed: Citizen Sirroc (Romulan Science)::Fleet Admiral Grell (Alien Engineer)
RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
Dom-Fed: Dan'Tar (Jem'Hadar Science)
Dom-KDF: Kamtana'Solan (Jem'Hadar Science)
CoHost of Tribbles in Ecstasy (Zombee)
If you feel like you're wasting your time and just want an easymode run then there is always normal.
I'd rather have a harder fight in advanced without the arbitrary fail kicking me out because of some stupid thing that doesn't actually prevent us from killing what needs to die. Today I had the misfortune of queuing up for GtG with two trolls. They warped out a little after we started and left us to do it with just 3. We pushed on, saved like 25-30 transports. The dreadnaught took a very long time to kill, but maybe 30-35 minutes total run time. If there was a fail timer on the last fight, that seriously would have pissed me off to get that far, wasting 10-15 minutes on the first half only to get kicked out on a more than possible fight.
Could I have done more with that extra 20 minutes lost? Sure. But I'd have to wait a half hour to do it again, so I saved time by not having a fail condition.
I'll definitely say that there should be some sort of vote system to allow a mutually agreeable quit that doesn't cost you a leaver penalty or a fail cooldown. If that was there, I probably would have used it and requeued. But since it wasn't I just pressed on and enjoyed a messy but uniquely epic fight that I wouldn't have with a premature fail condition.
Personally, I find the optionals are placed out of reach on many of the new queues as it is. Borg Disconnected, its insane trying to get all the optionals for normal, one reason I've never ever bothered with advanced. The borg saved can be done but it is such a pointlessly tight margin that should not be. The timers on the dreadnaughts are far more difficult and usually impossible for the teams in normal. Timers on GtG are pretty bad as well but much more doable than Borg disconnected. ANRA problems are well known. And lets not forget about the Bug Hunt bombing optional and how stupid that is.
Typically I'm getting my daily rewards anyway which make whatever 10-20 marks lost from the optionals irrelevant, so while they would be nice, they aren't really missed.
Normal preparation isnt forced. It is a choice of that player whether to understand, read the objectives what are the optionals and what are not. If they dont do that in Normal nor understand that in Normal, why do you expect them to do that in advance?
Yes, it doesnt force players to learn Advance in Normal although you still can learn it. However, like everything else, it is a personal choice made that specific player.
My rule in PuGs is always prepare for the worst. Either you bring enough alternate methods, like CC in ISA, to compensate or bring enough DPS to compensate the loss. In short bring enough to compensate if the 4 others needed to be carried to do content requirement.
If you were used to just carrying yourself with your playstyle or build, I dont bring that kind of build or playstyle at PuGs.
Borg Disconnect Advance requires teamwork or compensation to tag the first 3 phases, meaning speed, distraction and cloaking device if you are going to solo carry the PuG for 2-3 corners. The first 3 phases is not a DPS check. The dreadnought phase is a DPS check.
Had you all spent time asking me these questions rather than complaining, my time would be spent giving you all the advise to complete advance in PuGs.
Why should that be up to the game, though? If a player wants to reach for the Advanced or Elite level, they're going to want to learn about the game more and hit up the off-line resources. The game really can't teach them that, hell, RyanSTO's video goes for an entire hour just for basics.
If a player wants to hit up Advanced without knowing how to play, they're going to get shot down on enough pre-mades and/or eventually get enough PUG fails to think 'I'm doing something wrong.' Then they'll go back to normals or start hitting up resources for help. Unless they're trolling, which will always be a potential possibility.
Here's an example:
Your goal is to destroy an entity before enemy NPCs come within a certain range of that entity. Before you can destroy that particular entity, you have to destroy four surrounding entities. The enemy NPCs begin their journey toward the primary target entity once one of the four surrounding entities has been destroyed.
You have the travel time that it will take for those enemy NPCs to get in range of the primary target entity.
You have the amount of health the primary and surrounding entities have, should one not drop the surrounding entities at approximately the same time.
You have the damage that needs to be done.
You have the time the damage has to be done in.
You have the DPS requirement for that objective.
One can attempt to delay the enemy NPCs from reaching primary entity, which will buy the group some additional time and thus lower the DPS requirement. But this is a pug group, and there is no guarantee that anybody will have anything available to delay the enemy NPCs.
Is it spelled out in a big glowing sign? No. Is it difficult to figure out? No.
And well, it's curious that you ask the following bit...
"If there are requirements, then why are they not enforced?"
...cause you've been arguing to remove that enforcement that does exist. If you can't do it in Advanced, the mission fails. If you can't do it in Normal, the optional fails.
And by only enforcing the fail of it in some fashion, it allows for both build and play diversity by allowing groups that have reached a consensus beforehand on how they want to tackle the queue to tackle it in various ways.
The argument is that Normal will familiarize you with the map and the objectives. It prepares you in that fashion. You do Normal, you learn the general requirements. You know where to go from each engagement to the next. You know what happens during each engagement. You know what needs to be done and what needs to be avoided. You learn the basics of the mission - the objectives - the map.
That does not mean one is ready for Advanced, but without that one is going to have a difficult time doing Advanced, no? If one shows up in Advanced, which is at a higher level of difficulty without knowing where to go, what to do, what not to do, what the objectives are, etc, etc, etc...what is going to happen with that run, right?
So running Normal will lead toward the player having some Advanced knowledge of the map and objectives. It will also give them that much more experience just piloting their boats and using their abilities, right? Good thing, yeah?
Surviving the damage from the Advanced mobs? Being able to kill the Advanced mobs?
Why would one think that some plink-plink from Normal mobs and slaughtering them in return would prepare one for Advanced?
Hitting up some Advanced or Elite missions/episodes/patrols...is going to give somebody a better idea, no? Having run the Normal queues, they're going to be able to extrapolate with a pretty good guesstimate between what they've been doing there with what will be needed. It's also going to give them more experience with their boat, tinkering with the build, and just working their way toward becoming the Advanced player that the Advanced queues are intended for...simple...straightforward.
Then there is also the community...waiting to answer questions folks might have, whether on the forums here, forums elsewhere, in various channels, in fleets, folks they might have met, etc, etc, etc. All sorts of folks that put a bunch of effort into trying to help folks...possibly cause when they were new they were helped as well.
Problem: Unable to enjoy content because of leeches.
Solution: Run content free of leeches.
How is that not a solution? The content is being run, no? The person is getting what they wanted, yeah? Problem. Solution. Shazam.
It's along the lines of...
Problem: Getting wet while walking to car in driveway.
Solution: Build carport.
...didn't make the rain go away, but the problem is solved.
The folks that have gone to channel runs have not quit trying to find a solution to the problem. They have found a solution to the problem.
This is what you said...
You've got them teaming up together.
You've got the three of them working together to get the unprepared ready.
So yeah, you did organize them into going out to save the PUGworld.
That is a forum discussion. That is a planning discussion amongst a group of folks looking at doing something. That is perhaps a chat channel discussion where folks are bouncing ideas around. The thing friends or a fleet might do on teamspeak or the like.
It's also something that's been done to death and one can go through to read all about it in their free time...without expecting others to give up their time.
And well, you know, we're talking about Advanced.
Would be nifty if there was some place one could look up various strategies for tackling Advanced content when one feels ready to move on from Normal...or...a place one could ask about it, yeah? Oh wait...
That's a reply to the discussion on how do people learn about the various channels???
I'm not a fan of removing content. People like running what they like, and they should be able to run what they like. The difference for me would be with public and private. Everything would remain for folks to hit up via private runs. The public queues would go to a random map scenario based on the primary reward.
Somebody's looking for Omega Marks from Space? They queue for Task Force Omega...they get a random queue that provides Omega Marks. Etc, etc, etc.
Folks that enjoy running specific content will still be able to do that through private runs - so they don't lose anything, but it cuts down on the number of public facing queues.
I know that's what you're saying. I asked how could that possibly be true if there are people doing content other than Normal? If the game never prepared them...they could not be doing it, could they? So that's why it's just an excuse. Everything is there...everything is not handed to people on a platinum platter...it's there, everything they need to tackle Advanced. Elite...they're going to need some player help for that...but Elite is meant for players better than Advanced and requires more than Advanced.
Does the game include what's provided by CLR? (Combat Log Reader) No, it doesn't. A link to it can be found in the Official DPS League & DPS Channels Thread. It's an awesome player created/maintained tool that provides all sorts of information - damage in, damage out, healing in, healing out, aggro, what pets are doing, flanking %, critical hit %, accuracy/misses, shield healing/damage (in and out), hull healing/damage (in and out), information on resistances...etc, etc, etc...it's a massive tool.
So what would it take for Cryptic to go through and create such a tool...to maintain it...like CLR is maintained? Programmers, UI Artists, what kind of load is it going to put on the client if it's something running, and the list goes on and on...
...where not everybody's really going to care about that, it would have to be fit into the schedule, if there were problems those would have be scheduled to be fixed and fixed when?
It simply doesn't make any logical sense for Cryptic to do it themselves when there is such an awesome tool already available; and serious thanks goes out to omegashoker for it and anybody that helps in anyway to improve it and keep it going.
So one will have an idea on what they're doing, yeah? And there are the forums here and elsewhere where one can ask questions/ask for suggestions/etc...and folks are more than willing to help, yeah?
ESD is a cesspool. I didn't play a Fed toon for almost a year because I kept forgetting to switch over to another chat tab to avoid the garbage from ESD.
Yep, had to do it on my own.
1) Go to forums.
2) Read.
3) Know.
Nobody came along while I was sleeping and poured the info in my ear.
I explained that earlier, but yeah-no, there's no gating in STO. Any time gating is brought up, people have a cow. They don't want to be gated from content even if five folks show up nowhere near what that content requires are going to fail miserably.
It's also been discussed out the wahzoo just how gating would even be possible.
Number of Normal runs unlocking an Accolade? Doesn't mean the person paid attention in those runs - they could have been carried there. So that doesn't mean they'll have any knowledge of the objectives/map/etc. It also does nothing about it being Normal mobs vs. Advanced or Elite mobs.
Have some math analyst go through and extrapolate a conversion of Normal DPS vs. Advanced DPS, so somebody would have to reach a certain threshold in Normal that was well above making Normal painfully easy?
The discussion goes on and on for countless pages in countless threads.
It's a player issue...a player has to address it. They have to show the initiative to look at what they're doing and ask other players about it. It's a MMO...there's a community.
Folks not pursuing options does not mean there are not options. It's why paxdawn and shadowwraith77 keep tending to say what they're saying, eh? Folks are ignoring options while complaining there are no options - no way to do things - when the options and how to do stuff is there, no? Bazinga...it's there.
That was in asking it of the players...not of the game showing it to the players. Again, CLR's an awesome tool.
Voila...you asked about it earlier...you answered it yourself. You wanted to know, you looked for a way to know, you found a solution, and you used it. That's initiative...that's something that is sorely lacking out there.
For something like ISE(pre-DR)/ISA(DR), I said the difference was 1-2k DPS. Folks said I was crazy. Well, if the required for ISE was ~5k and the required for ISA is ~7k...er...it is what it is. No, that's not the player requirement increase if they want to have their 4-7 minute ISA like they had their 4-7 minute ISE...but I'm kind of a TRIBBLE player requirements - there are separate channels for folks looking to do things at a certain pace.
Hell, I even had a thread talking about Mediocre Builds, Average DPS, But Still Having Fun or something (I'd have to look to see the actual thread title - won't link it because the builds I had in that thread I deleted from STOacademy). I advocated folks just trying to have fun while being in the 4-9k or 3-8k range. There were folks out there doing almost 90k at the time, the DPS Channels had different amounts, it was a different time in the game...but there were folks pushing their 15k, 20k, 30k back then too. Meh, if one wants to do that - go do it - have a blast...it's not needed for the content. But just like that content requirement shifted that little bit, so too did the range I advocated...
...and with that range being advocated, there was the middle-ground below it, and then folks that kind of just bugged me. Somebody showing up for ISE doing 1-2k or less (the 2k literally being 2000 and thus 2000 or below, not 2500 - that would fall into that middle-ground)...well, that's just looking to fail. Somebody showing up doing 1-3k or less...or 4k or less without bringing anything to help offset the reduced DPS which would help there be a chance at getting it done...well, that's just looking to fail.
Course, even with the lower end of the spectrum (the 4+/5k)...unless there's some buffer coming in from the others, well, too many players at that end is going to make run overly dicey.
Gets into the RNG of Groups stuff...and what paxdawn has been talking about with being able to carry the group. Having some buffer there to make up for what might be missing.
I used to shoot for 7-<10k range, figuring on carrying a bit of buffer - while also doing something else...healing, crowd control, debuffing, buffing...trying to help out those folks that were close to but not quite at the requirement. It's just not something where I was going to build to do the same for the folks showing up doing 1-<2k.
As time has gone on since Delta Rising, a lot of the folks that would been there also carrying some buffer - have moved on - leaving more and more a pool of those folks at or near the content requirements and many more that are still there doing 1-2K.
Looking on the DPS League Table...there are 6934 people listed at 10k or more...those are all folks with access to the DPS-10,000 channel and folks that might just not be hitting the public queues as much as they were, eh? ~2770 of them are doing 10-<15k DPS. The next channel after 10k is 30k...there are ~5962 people between 10k and <30k....Hell, there's ~4287 folks between 10k and <20k. That's not counting all the other folks that may have moved to various channels in the interim as well.
One might say, "Hey, folks going to channels made it worse!" How? No doubt, imho, it's worse...but how did they make it worse? Cause they're no longer helping to mask the underlying issue so everybody can conveniently avoid and ignore it? It's a bad thing to point out the problem? Yeah, no...imho...they found a solution and good for them. My solution would involve people being honest with themselves...but I've mentioned here and there I'm a little idealistic and delusional.
Others might have...it was a simple disclosure thing. I'm not a 75k+ guy trying to keep the little guy down, but it does put me just outside the top 10% on the table.
Are you parsing with CLR or ACT or one of the others? Do you have a 10k invite sitting there?
If the expectations for Advanced are the same as for Normal, then why is it Advanced?
But that's the thing...er...Normal, Advanced, Elite...they're not different maps. It's the same content at a different level of difficulty...one is not missing out on content from not being able to do Advanced or Elite.
And eat a leaver penalty or wait until you hoped the leaver penalty did not apply...during which time you are held hostage? Again, the reply just above...you've seen it already in doing Normal.
It's basically a case that I know next to nothing about Ground, it's just not my thing. I'll muddle through missions, in adventure/battle zones, but I'm not going to queue for it (BHE/BHA's the only intentional Ground stuff I did, and that's just cause it was just so damn easy at the time - easier than doing an episode).
With the leveling, meh, prior to S7 I refused to pay $5 for a respec...so I'd be rerolling my guys every 2-3 weeks and got pretty good at leveling toons. I rerolled everybody for S7. Course at the end of 2013, I deleted all but one toon (deleting 11 of 12) and rerolled 9 of them...er...let me check here:
Reman - T'varo, Romulan - Haakona, Ferasan - B'rel, Lethean - Mirror Qin, Klingon - Mogh, Nausicaan - Guramba, Gorn - Varanus, Joined Trill - Kar'Fi, Orion - Marauder
Where the Reman had been the only one kept, so yeah, only 8...I had an additional slot I didn't use (was waiting on KDF aligned Ferengi, lol).
But then shortly before Delta Rising, I deleted all of them as well...oh well. But yeah, I'm pretty good at getting a toon 1-50 pretty fast. The 50-60 and so forth...yeah, not so good...lol.
If players were to improve...the queues would improve. What you stated was an opinion on how they could be improved...without evidence to support that the changes would actually result in an improvement of the queue. Opinion, untested theory, untested hypothesis...not a fact.
Leveling didn't used to be so solo...didn't used to be so quick. Folks actually hit up queues along the way...low level queues were bumping. Folks wanted faster. Folks wanted more solo. Low level queues died. The historic precedent for it already exists in the game itself.
Course, imho, it also created other factors there...cause that interaction with other players during the leveling process also provided feedback - allowed one to see how they were doing - and so forth...better preparing them for once they got to the endgame.
Folks didn't think about that with going more solo and making everything much faster...folks tend not to think about the consequences of their requests (Cryptic tends not to think about the consequences of them fulfilling those requests...or maybe they did, makes it easier for them to sell stuff to folks - more and more stuff, cause they won't realize how little it's helping them compared to other folks...but that's tinfoil hat area).
It was possible for the old ANRA to be a high-end ANRN, an ANRA, or even an ANRE. It did not offer a consistent challenge to players expected to face an Advanced queue. If they'd gone with fixed instead of random spawns...they could have provided that consistent challenge, rather than it basically being a case of the group needing to capable of doing an ANRE just in case those were the spawns they got. It's an Advanced queue...not an Elite queue...they shouldn't have had to do that.
Well, er, and speaking of consistency...though some might consider this dirty pool...I don't quite get the complaints about failed optionals there when you dismissed optionals earlier in the discussion about trolls.
Kk cool, now we are talking. How about some advice here?
- Interviews for UIA: I can get all of mine right let it be all 10 but have a hard time doing that in time before somebody else messes up the remaining ones failing the mission for me. Would frosted boots help out here?
- Hostage Rescue in DRSA: I manage to get up to 4/6 on elite within 3 minutes, perhaps with some motion accelerator 5/6 is possible on advanced but then I often seem out of options especially when the advanced pug manages to get to pre-aggrovate the cohorts without killing them and spreading em throughout the map.
- Crystalline Advanced: Well got some good firepower, debuffs for the entity as well as a laod of heals offering me 1st or 2nd place in pugs a lot better than the successful dealing with the fail by myself. The more I succeed in evading the blast the more I seem to encounters some hobby DPSer popping up on their attempts to score high on some charts. How do I carry them? More Debuffs? More heals? I mean its only 9 others I have to carry right?
- Disable power nodes in KAGA: Now I can demo all 6 successfully on first attempt bringing in the right toon OR I can lower the respective force fields in control room even with extending it for the advanced pug HOWERVER I have a hard time doing both at the same time. Some communication for coordination needed? Sure we have time for that... no we don't. There was this background timer, wasn't there?
- Hostage rescue in IGA: Rescuing hostages alone is possible and has been done by me. Especially on the second half where 2 have to be saved at a time within a timeframe of 15 seconds it gets interesting. HOWER so far I only manage to do that by not aggravating the other critters too intence BUT if I choose this strategy general DPS for critter removal suffers to a point where I cant fullfill the 15 minutes global time requirements for my teaml by myself. Perhaps some better ground gear will help me out?
If all fail conditions in advanced would be designed in a way that the influence of a single individual could guarantee at least the positive outcome of an advanced mission we would look at a lot less problems here and that for me and for others meaning I would fill the queue list as well as others in the hope they meet me. I doubt universal advice can be given to CARRY your pugs through an advanced PvE. At least not if your horizon extends the ability to bring in cc for ISA or enough DPS to compensate for the mistakes of others.
As far as I am concerned cryptic is doing just that, you know. With the change they guarantee that the likeliness of a competed individual in a group out of 5 has a meaningful enough position to at least complete an advanced.
And thats the trick I bet, and what will trigger good players back to queues as well as bad ones knowing that the mission has a fair chance of succeeding either by doing the tough stuff for oneself or by relying on others for that for a while during the learning process on a difficulty setting of at least some meaning.
GOD, its not as if ANY of the above fail stuff would pose any form of challenge for a competed group. Fails are not even noteworthy then and peeps who happen to be in such a groups wont even notice if they are gone. Perhaps they should in the future if they want to uphold their marks income.
Confirmed on Advanced. The Devs are doing it for those lining up for it and don't want to see a time estemate of -:-.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
May have been the gold standard but, I don't foresee it having such a huge influence anymore!!!
Timers do promote teamwork, maybe not to you iyo but, in other peoples opinion, they do.
Attrition by my definition, is the not being able to fully fail, in your description of WOW, you can simply stay put after wiping [if you can call it that] and, keep going back at it, till they finally complete it.
In that case, there is no actual failing, it is just keep trying until you either win or, give up and leave.
It's like running a normal on here w/o the optional, just keep trying until you succeed, doesn't matter how long it takes, because you simply cannot actually fail.
WOW has attrition, just like STO has attrition, the only big difference in STO, is it also has genuine failure mechanics as well, while WOW does not!!!
Games that have no pressure involved, imo promote nothing but waste your time and, imo would easily promote guns a blazing in your own words, far more than one that has pressure completion involved.
It's just, you obviously cannot handle pressure well and, cannot coordinate well in those circumstances so, you don't find it your kind of play style and, would prefer elimination of this, for those who do prefer it!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!