I won't be the one who complains about Elite now that the three levels are starting to be set appropriately. If I TRIBBLE up on one of the Elite Grounds, or the team overall does, so be it, that's the risk that come with running at the very highest level. If I am more concerned about a surer reward where it's not a complete faceroll, there's Advanced. Works for me.
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I won't be the one who complains about Elite now that the three levels are starting to be set appropriately. If I TRIBBLE up on one of the Elite Grounds, or the team overall does, so be it, that's the risk that come with running at the very highest level. If I am more concerned about a surer reward where it's not a complete faceroll, there's Advanced. Works for me.
Agreed.
Right now, the step from Normal to Advanced is far too drastic. This is the first step toward evening out the climb. There will still be adjustments needed for Elite to make them more worth while, but first things first.
I'm not sure how you feel that removal of current fail objectives from Advanced makes them the same as Normal. The enemies are still harder, a fail possibility still exists (it's just less likely,) it takes longer and has the potential to reward more.
It only rewards more than normal if you complete the optional objectives.
The failoptionals would not be an issue if PUGs were completing optional objectives.
Not even making them mandatory was enough for PUGs to look past the Optional tag.
You argued that the current proposal made it so there was no difference between Normal and Advanced and you were wrong.
My argument was that they could have achieved the same effect, of making it easier for PUGs to access elite marks via STFs and VR crafting mats, by just adding one of each as rewards to normal.
I also qualified it by stating that this would only be the case if all fail conditions are equally kind as the proposed ANR fail condition.
They need to be improved, but I don't see this as a major improvement. Just removing the failoptionals, or removing the Optional tag from failoptionals and making them outright fail conditions, would have been preferable to their tinkering with mark rewards.
Right now, the step from Normal to Advanced is far too drastic.
It's not.
That's what everyone in advanced queues or higher has been telling PUGs for ages. A little bit of effort to improve your build/playstyle is all that is necessary. It's only necessary because the leveling process is so undemanding, and does little to teach game mechanics.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
True for marks, but I think you're wrong for crafting and rep mats.
Which is why I said that if the fail conditions for every queue are as forgiving as the proposed fail condition for ANR (rescue zero ships), they could have achieved the same change by just tacking on an elite mark and an R&D material as reward for normals.
It sounds like some players would rather spend 30+ minutes per STF to receive 1 elite mark and 1 VR R&D material, instead of spending the minimal amount of time it takes to gear up for advanced.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
I have to wonder if some of the misplaced hatred toward "DPS" folks is simply from not knowing who the folks being douches are in runs at times. Just had a couple of folks go that route in an ISA run, and I can't remember the last time anybody had done anything like that...way before DR...before S9...probably before that.
But yeah, just a standard public queue ISA pug...
So the group popped the left Trans and was was finishing off the Nanites when I noticed more Nanites come through. Sure enough, somebody had gone right and popped the corner Gen right off the back. Trolling? Didn't know better? Don't know. Needless to say, one of the players starts off with the stupid comments...and...another guy chimed in with the yeah. At the end of the run (no, it didn't fail - the mistake the guy made was covered or his troll attempt failed), and the one guy that had initially complained said that he wished the guy got...well...a fatal disease. Some vulgar stuff there...while thanking everybody else. I told the guy that was pretty TRIBBLE cause the group covered.
The curious part was in looking at the parse afterward.
Player A) 20,034
Player 11,095
Player C) 5854
Player D) 5332
Player E) 5008
Player B was the guy that made the initial and vulgar comment. Player E was the guy that chimed in agreeing with Player E. Player D was the guy that popped the Gen early. Player C was quiet...just muddled along with the action. B died once, C twice, D twice, and E once.
Player E that chimed in agreeing with Player B about what Player D did (though, at that point - it was more of a good job idiots sort of thing, so it wasn't known that Player D did it)...that 5,008 was the highest they've been parsed. So uh...yeah...not a DPS person, eh?
Player B got a 10k invite out of that run. That was the first time they'd been parsed over 10k. I hope 10k enjoys his company...lol, though he won't last long there speaking like he did in that run. They'll just kick him.
It was the high parse for Player D as well, so it could have just been an honest mistake - which was covered - no big deal, kind of actually made it fun, imho. And they had to put up with the TRIBBLE from Player B and Player E? That's a bad experience. Guy left right after the vulgar comment...was a shame. Then again, Player B left right after I called him TRIBBLE for saying what he did. It kind of pissed me off...I just don't get that kind of thing during a run.
And I was sitting there during the run, not going to type a replay - was too busy trying to avoid the fail on it - and even I wondered what kind of monstrous DPS those guys might have been putting out or the like. It was nose to the Transformer, EM to drop the GW, swing around nose back to the Transformer, sort of thing so I couldn't really see what was going on. I tend to think others are doing much better than they are and that I'm doing much worse than I am. But yeah, no...a guy that never parsed over 10k and a guy that never parsed over 5k. /facepalm
It was a 13:44 run...3 guys under 6k, one barely over 5k, the guy just over 11k...and me playing my TRIBBLE off (I had some anger fueling me over what Player B and E had said to Player D...I wasn't going to let that ISA fail - looked like a mistake to me and the guy didn't deserve that TRIBBLE).
And after a smoke, thinking about it, while the change will likely mean I don't run any queues after they're finished doing it (cause I see it as a nerf and creating other problems)...I'd rather not run any more queues than have to see another player verbally assaulted like that again because of possibly failing a queue. I mean, ffs, it's just a freaking video game...that was just a disgusting display.
The removal of the fails is a good thing to be sure, but I really have a hard time why any thanks for cryptic are in order.
Advance now will grand peeps a game experience more like pre-DR elite IF they spend a couple of hundred thousand Dil for gear upgrades, grind for some spec points and do a few masteries. We only progress our toons in order to regain what we once had in old elite now being advanced, nothing more nothing less.
Cryptic hang the carrot a bit lower with this but hardly made it bigger for us to get. Thats what new elite mode is for I guess and I dont have any problems with that only with the lack of some favorite missions being granted an elite mode.
If I take the general participation in endgame queues into account and compare it to numbers from last year cryptic seems to be doing this more for them than for us anyway.
Im glad they change it however no thanks from me for it Im afraid. Its the players who should be thanked if they decide to give cryptics latest change a chance.
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It’s the players who should be thanked if they decide to give cryptic’s latest change a chance.
Yeah ... , I too don't favor gushing towards the same person who put in the fail timers and the non-optional-optionals -- the same ppl who are responsible for the non ending stream of "little nerfs" that end up being a whole Lotta big nerfs on the long run .
For me there are those who think up / implement the nerfs , and those who approved the nerfs .
Neither come off smelling like a rose ... , not for this latest awards nerf and not for taking 6 months to do SOMETHING about the queues .
...and just as a notice , I'll note that this does not go along the lines of "herding ppl with awards" that Geko outlined as a "strategy" . Make of that what you will ...
So they remove the mandatory optionals? Hope they hurry up and remove them from the other Missions too, like the Borg STfs. So what can i say?
One Word: FINALLY
Two words: About tine
five Words: Hope It works as intended
But, as a wise man said (several times) : I have a bad feeling about this.
Maybe it means that we just get more waypoints and less time to reach them.
If i read this"...or that they are not getting stuck in a situation where they cannot win." I dont know what to think about it.
What does "where they cannot win" mean and how much time do we have if its not a "serious challenge to achieve"? Rigt now the Mandatory optional time in "in Stasis" is way to short especially with new players, players who don´t have good geat but play this missions to get that gear
I somehow think that it won´t be as much fun as it was pre-DR but i am hoping for the best and see this as a step in the right direction
No, it doesn't, because people couldn't even learn in the first place.
Now, they won't have to learn anything all over again!!!
More brain dead player's, getting by on a nerfed down coloring book missions.
Here's a crayon all, don't go coloring outside the lines!
:mad:
Agreed. Now pugs will literally save 1 ship in 12 minutes because if it's not required they're not going to do it.
That mission wasn't that hard if you knew what you were doing. I'm not even an uber DPSer and I usually succeeded because I didn't hang out for the first minute at the spawn point picking my nose. Now you don't have to know what you're doing in normal or advanced, and there is no elite version of this queue.
I find the arguments about "helping people learn" rather disingenuous considering no one was learning pre-DR how to do the optionals in pugs and it makes no sense to take away the motivation to learn something in order to encourage people to learn something.
I also find the arguments about "beginners" needing advanced queues to be dumbed down beyond silly because it's called "advanced" not "beginner."
The bottom line is that this change makes it clear that these queues are for grinding (materials, bnps, marks, etc.) and not for having fun. I don't play them for rewards, I play them because I like to play them.
So they remove the mandatory optionals? Hope they hurry up and remove them from the other Missions too, like the Borg STfs. So what can i say?
One Word: FINALLY
Two words: About tine
five Words: Hope It works as intended
But, as a wise man said (several times) : I have a bad feeling about this.
Maybe it means that we just get more waypoints and less time to reach them.
If i read this"...or that they are not getting stuck in a situation where they cannot win." I dont know what to think about it.
What does "where they cannot win" mean and how much time do we have if its not a "serious challenge to achieve"? Rigt now the Mandatory optional time in "in Stasis" is way to short especially with new players, players who don´t have good geat but play this missions to get that gear
I somehow think that it won´t be as much fun as it was pre-DR but i am hoping for the best and see this as a step in the right direction
My god the line is saving 1 ship in 12 minutes. If you can't do that then please please please don't pug anything ever.
This is the problem with dumbing down the content that's already doable: it's infinitely regressive.
"3 ships in 3 minutes is soooooooooooooo hard!!!!"
"Ok, we'll make it 1 ship in 12 minutes."
"But what if that's too haaaaaaaaaaaaaard!"
"OK, we'll make it so that you have to engage a tholian once in 12 minutes. We just don't want people to get rewards if they do nothing."
"But I don't have a mk 14 gold reputation impulse engine!!!!!!!!!!! How can I be expected to get to a Tholian in 12 minuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutes???????!!!!!!!!!!"
I won't be the one who complains about Elite now that the three levels are starting to be set appropriately. If I TRIBBLE up on one of the Elite Grounds, or the team overall does, so be it, that's the risk that come with running at the very highest level. If I am more concerned about a surer reward where it's not a complete faceroll, there's Advanced. Works for me.
Can we hold you to that?
For me, reading all of the "advanced content is too hard for beginners" comments makes it pretty clear that most of these same folks will complain about elite soon enough.
The big learning curve issue with advanced is that there are fail conditions where there aren't any in normal. The solution, to me, was to put (easier) fail conditions in normal so people could get used to them. The other way to do it is to take them out of elite and advanced, because just taking them out of advanced means that people are going to be in for the same sort of shock in elite that they were getting in advanced.
Seriously, people upthread are wondering if saving 1 ship in 12 minutes in ANRA will be too hard. I will not be surprised at all if they go into elite (if ANRE ever gets released) and complain about fail conditions there.
For me, reading all of the "advanced content is too hard for beginners" comments makes it pretty clear that most of these same folks will complain about elite soon enough.
I don't discount it as possible, since people seem to complain about the most dumb things, but:
Advanced being completable by the average PUG means access to Ancient Power Cells, Borg Neural Processors and what-else-you-have in special reputation marks, as well as very rare crafting materials. That means the rewards contains everything that most players are really looking for.
Advanced is the old Elite. Players felt that this and all the desirable rewards that came with it, was "taken away" from them. Give it back, and they might be happy again and leave the Elite difficiculty to the Elite players.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Yeah ... , I too don't favor gushing towards the same person who put in the fail timers and the non-optional-optionals -- the same ppl who are responsible for the non ending stream of "little nerfs" that end up being a whole Lotta big nerfs on the long run .
For me there are those who think up / implement the nerfs , and those who approved the nerfs .
Neither come off smelling like a rose ... , not for this latest awards nerf and not for taking 6 months to do SOMETHING about the queues .
...and just as a notice , I'll note that this does not go along the lines of "herding ppl with awards" that Geko outlined as a "strategy" . Make of that what you will ...
Taking so long really hurt the game makes no sense to run people off.
Look at how long it took them to change the rewards for patrols and such.
Just don't think a good DEV is a good Game Master.
Play elites and be less concerned about how 'brain dead' other players are?
But those filthy plebeians will get their dirty hands on our pristine BNPs and APCs! They will be sullied, fallen, how could we use such things as used by mere commoners!
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
For me, reading all of the "advanced content is too hard for beginners" comments makes it pretty clear that most of these same folks will complain about elite soon enough.
The big learning curve issue with advanced is that there are fail conditions where there aren't any in normal. The solution, to me, was to put (easier) fail conditions in normal so people could get used to them. The other way to do it is to take them out of elite and advanced, because just taking them out of advanced means that people are going to be in for the same sort of shock in elite that they were getting in advanced.
Seriously, people upthread are wondering if saving 1 ship in 12 minutes in ANRA will be too hard. I will not be surprised at all if they go into elite (if ANRE ever gets released) and complain about fail conditions there.
The way I see it, what we were advertised pre-DR was that Normals would be easy (training) mode, Advanced would be equivalent to the old Elites and reasonably accomplished by those without all the top of the line gear, but Elites would require top of the line gear and would be tougher in other ways too, and that the majority of players would not be competitive at that level.
So from where I stand, it is only Advanced that was out of line with advertised expectations. I do not have the expectation that Elite should be dumbed down in any way even though it means for certain queues I am just not competitive at that level. There is one Ground STF so far (and I am training for a second that uses that same gear) where I *am* undeniably competitive at the Elite level, but it doesn't upset me to know that same setup and tactics will not allow me to go into a Ground queue NOT optimized for Counter-Command at the Elite level and expect the same results.
That is how it was originally advertised to us, and that is all I expect...so at least in my head there just isn't a reason to be upset about not being able to run the majority of Elites.
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I honestly can't see the logic in testing this out first on ANRA. Is this due to the non-optional optional being harder than the other ones? It just seems to me a rather obscure queue to use rather than a more frequented run like one of the Borg stfs.
I honestly can't see the logic in testing this out first on ANRA. Is this due to the non-optional optional being harder than the other ones? It just seems to me a rather obscure queue to use rather than a more frequented run like one of the Borg stfs.
I think it's because people still play the Borg STF's.
Azure Advanced has been a wasteland, people abandoned it because it was ridiculously hard to pass in a PUG. They picked a dead que to see if the change would bring people back to it.
That's why I'm going to make it a point to play this que as much as possible, and I'm going to completely ignore every other que. If the player numbers spike for Azure then they should finally see what we have been telling them for months and roll it out to all ques.
Advanced being completable by the average PUG means access to Ancient Power Cells, Borg Neural Processors and what-else-you-have in special reputation marks, as well as very rare crafting materials. That means the rewards contains everything that most players are really looking for.
Yes, but why? I mean, if you weren't capable of hacking it at advanced before, it was only because you didn't give a **** about your gear, to the point where you purposefully rocked an awful build.
But those filthy plebeians will get their dirty hands on our pristine BNPs and APCs! They will be sullied, fallen, how could we use such things as used by mere commoners!
Why the entitlement?
Why not, put 10m into making a build that can hack it at advanced?
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
Welcome to Delta Rising. A lot has changed in the game difficulty, and we are looking for your feedback.
Delta Rising was a massive addition, and we anticipate that we will need to make adjustments. So over the next few weeks expect changes in the baseline difficulty, advanced difficulty, and elite difficulty - and also expect rewards to change as we gather more metrics on play-times and success rates.
Our goal was to make basic difficulty and the story content something everyone can play - even with a standard T5 ship. Levels 1-50 are generally pretty easy at basic difficulty, so we felt 51-60 should step things up a bit. Although we expect 51-60 accessible everyone, those in T5 ships and non-upgraded gear should to start to feel a definite challenge as they approach level 60. We expect Advanced to be for more skilled players and those who have invested in the game (ships and gear). And we expect Elite to be for the best of the best. We don't expect most players to succeed on elite difficulty.
If I were to guess, I would expect basic to get some minor tuning, Advanced to get a little easier and Elite to get a lot harder - and rewards, like dilithium rewards, could potentially go up across queues once we are sure we are hitting the right mark. But this is just my guess at this time.
Until then, let us know your thoughts here, and we will take your feedback into consideration.
Shortly after launch of Delta Rising, I made a post asking for your input on balance for levels 51-60 balance. I wanted to take a moment and thank everyone for their input. Raising the level cap with 3 difficulty settings is a big task. The difference in skill and gear from one player to another can be very large, so getting the balance right can be a challenge.
A little over a week or so ago, we made some changes to difficulty. Based on additional feedback, as well as continuing data mining, we are in the process of making another pass. We will be noticeably reducing the HP and shields of all space critters from levels 51-60. This change will have more of an effect at level 60 than 51. This change will affect Basic and Advanced difficulty, but not affect Elite Difficulty.
Be sure to watch for additional posts from the devs on related changes. In relation to game difficulty, keep an eye out for posts on PvE queue difficulty as well as a post on changes to changes to rewards. Please focus your responses on the appropriate thread.
LLAP
Al Captain Geko Rivera
...and that's how it was. People can say that Advanced was tuned for the Elites all they want to, but nothing supports that argument. The minimal increase in DPS that ended up being required for Advanced (DR) compared to Elite (pre-DR) would have been the increase one would see along the way to 60.
The folks that were successful at ISE would be successful at ISA. When DR launched? Not a chance in Hell. Lol, no way - that was just heinous. But that was already gone at the start of November, and it was tuned down to reflect the simple increase from 50 to 60 with nothing more required.
Did they need to tweak some things? Doubt anybody would argue that. That was being said before DR was ever mentioned. ISE - CSE - KSE - HOSE...four Elite queues...not exactly the same difficulty across the four of them, yeah? Work in some CCE compared to Breach, Storming, Viscous, yeah?
Pretty much the queues that were rocking before DR...the queues that were dead before DR...guess what? Yeah, so I just don't get the DR killed off what was already dead.
Did Cryptic add in some new stuff where it was more HOSE than ISE for the Advanced? Yep, and just like it was before DR - those queues weren't all that lively.
It's just a huge pile of excuses at the end of the day...pure fabrication...a pretty imagination, if one will....sad delusion, if one prefers.
What changed? What honestly changed? Is people that couldn't positively contribute to something previously and were able to be carried by others could get the reduced final rewards as the Optionals were blown. That got taken away. Welfare rewards were taken away. And yes, those folks have been complaining about that something rough. Folks like to make out that it's a majority of the playerbase that had a problem, yeah? Go through and count the folks...there really aren't that many of them, are there? If it was the massive problem they're making it out to be - the forums would be flooded with complaints from all the average players that coundn't do it. They think because there might be half a dozen, dozen, even twenty folks agreeing with them that it's the majority, eh? Maybe once they got into a few thousand...it might be more than a blip.
Know what this change looks like? Looks like the change to DQ patrols. Reduced rewards that take longer to get. Tada...meh.
But hey, it's the typical well thought out complaints that we see from a few all the time.
Special Players: We need to be able to get rewards outside of the queues!
Cryptic: Here you go!
Special Players: People aren't running certain queues anymore!
Normal Players: No freakin' duh!
Some folks are just too eager and quick to go pointing at other things, finding all sorts of scapegoats rather than looking at themselves. The problem can never truly be addressed until the true problem is addressed.
"We expect Advanced to be for more skilled players and those who have invested in the game (ships and gear)."
Other folks...they've done that, no? They've paid attention, yeah? They've looked at how they're flying, right? They've looked at what they're flying, eh? So maybe they've gotten better at the game, maybe they've improved their gear some, maybe they've done both...so about right? And yep, that was the same thing for how the Elites were before DR. Nothing has changed there...
...just certain folks not able to get their welfare rewards as easily as the process which had started before DR was ever mentioned in the slightest had already started - folks heading off to various channels to get away from the leeches.
Which gets back to what I said earlier, about I'd gladly stop running queues if it meant one player didn't get...er, verbally - textually...assaulted like that. But duh, folks were doing that when folks screwed up Optionals long before DR anyway and it won't change that. It's just going to be a return to folks complaining that people weren't prepared for the content, people bailing on the content, folks grumbling because the queue dropped them in an already failed optional(s) run, and all the rest...who actually benefits from the change? Who will, meh - I hate to use the word - suffer from the change...er...be adversely affected by the change works better, yeah? And how long before those folks realize that things have been nerfed into the ground and if they'd instead spent 5-10 minutes looking at what they were doing instead...then everybody could have continued along at a happier pace instead?
Why don't you want people to be able to use the Omega and Delta reps that they put the marks in for?
If only it were possible to get every APC one could need in two weeks from running Kobali without ever hitting up a queue. If only it were possible to get BNPs even faster than that from hitting up Defera.
But hey, who cares about reality...these are the STO forums!
If only it were possible to get every APC one could need in two weeks from running Kobali without ever hitting up a queue. If only it were possible to get BNPs even faster than that from hitting up Defera.
But hey, who cares about reality...these are the STO forums!
So why do you care if they can now actually get them from pugging a queue? You know, like they used to be able to do back in the old elites?
New elite isn't going anywhere. Go play there and forget Advanced exists, filled with its dirty filthy uneducated scrubs.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
If only it were possible to get every APC one could need in two weeks from running Kobali without ever hitting up a queue. If only it were possible to get BNPs even faster than that from hitting up Defera.
But hey, who cares about reality...these are the STO forums!
I think in reality peeps want to advance their toons by playing fun contend.
One may go to the buged world of Defera for anything but hardly for fun.
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Comments
If you can't be bothered to read through the announcement detailing what the changes are, I can't help you man.
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You argued that the current proposal made it so there was no difference between Normal and Advanced and you were wrong.
The Elite proposal is what I would like to see, but I couldn't care less. Let the big money players have Elite Mode.. I don't care.
The current change still leaves a 'step up' from Normal to Advanced.
Agreed.
Right now, the step from Normal to Advanced is far too drastic. This is the first step toward evening out the climb. There will still be adjustments needed for Elite to make them more worth while, but first things first.
The failoptionals would not be an issue if PUGs were completing optional objectives.
Not even making them mandatory was enough for PUGs to look past the Optional tag.
My argument was that they could have achieved the same effect, of making it easier for PUGs to access elite marks via STFs and VR crafting mats, by just adding one of each as rewards to normal.
I also qualified it by stating that this would only be the case if all fail conditions are equally kind as the proposed ANR fail condition.
They need to be improved, but I don't see this as a major improvement. Just removing the failoptionals, or removing the Optional tag from failoptionals and making them outright fail conditions, would have been preferable to their tinkering with mark rewards.
It's not.
That's what everyone in advanced queues or higher has been telling PUGs for ages. A little bit of effort to improve your build/playstyle is all that is necessary. It's only necessary because the leveling process is so undemanding, and does little to teach game mechanics.
True for marks, but I think you're wrong for crafting and rep mats.
It sounds like some players would rather spend 30+ minutes per STF to receive 1 elite mark and 1 VR R&D material, instead of spending the minimal amount of time it takes to gear up for advanced.
But yeah, just a standard public queue ISA pug...
So the group popped the left Trans and was was finishing off the Nanites when I noticed more Nanites come through. Sure enough, somebody had gone right and popped the corner Gen right off the back. Trolling? Didn't know better? Don't know. Needless to say, one of the players starts off with the stupid comments...and...another guy chimed in with the yeah. At the end of the run (no, it didn't fail - the mistake the guy made was covered or his troll attempt failed), and the one guy that had initially complained said that he wished the guy got...well...a fatal disease. Some vulgar stuff there...while thanking everybody else. I told the guy that was pretty TRIBBLE cause the group covered.
The curious part was in looking at the parse afterward.
Player A) 20,034
Player
Player C) 5854
Player D) 5332
Player E) 5008
Player B was the guy that made the initial and vulgar comment. Player E was the guy that chimed in agreeing with Player E. Player D was the guy that popped the Gen early. Player C was quiet...just muddled along with the action. B died once, C twice, D twice, and E once.
Player E that chimed in agreeing with Player B about what Player D did (though, at that point - it was more of a good job idiots sort of thing, so it wasn't known that Player D did it)...that 5,008 was the highest they've been parsed. So uh...yeah...not a DPS person, eh?
Player B got a 10k invite out of that run. That was the first time they'd been parsed over 10k. I hope 10k enjoys his company...lol, though he won't last long there speaking like he did in that run. They'll just kick him.
It was the high parse for Player D as well, so it could have just been an honest mistake - which was covered - no big deal, kind of actually made it fun, imho. And they had to put up with the TRIBBLE from Player B and Player E? That's a bad experience. Guy left right after the vulgar comment...was a shame. Then again, Player B left right after I called him TRIBBLE for saying what he did. It kind of pissed me off...I just don't get that kind of thing during a run.
And I was sitting there during the run, not going to type a replay - was too busy trying to avoid the fail on it - and even I wondered what kind of monstrous DPS those guys might have been putting out or the like. It was nose to the Transformer, EM to drop the GW, swing around nose back to the Transformer, sort of thing so I couldn't really see what was going on. I tend to think others are doing much better than they are and that I'm doing much worse than I am. But yeah, no...a guy that never parsed over 10k and a guy that never parsed over 5k. /facepalm
It was a 13:44 run...3 guys under 6k, one barely over 5k, the guy just over 11k...and me playing my TRIBBLE off (I had some anger fueling me over what Player B and E had said to Player D...I wasn't going to let that ISA fail - looked like a mistake to me and the guy didn't deserve that TRIBBLE).
And after a smoke, thinking about it, while the change will likely mean I don't run any queues after they're finished doing it (cause I see it as a nerf and creating other problems)...I'd rather not run any more queues than have to see another player verbally assaulted like that again because of possibly failing a queue. I mean, ffs, it's just a freaking video game...that was just a disgusting display.
The removal of the fails is a good thing to be sure, but I really have a hard time why any thanks for cryptic are in order.
Advance now will grand peeps a game experience more like pre-DR elite IF they spend a couple of hundred thousand Dil for gear upgrades, grind for some spec points and do a few masteries. We only progress our toons in order to regain what we once had in old elite now being advanced, nothing more nothing less.
Cryptic hang the carrot a bit lower with this but hardly made it bigger for us to get. Thats what new elite mode is for I guess and I dont have any problems with that only with the lack of some favorite missions being granted an elite mode.
If I take the general participation in endgame queues into account and compare it to numbers from last year cryptic seems to be doing this more for them than for us anyway.
Im glad they change it however no thanks from me for it Im afraid. Its the players who should be thanked if they decide to give cryptics latest change a chance.
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Yeah ... , I too don't favor gushing towards the same person who put in the fail timers and the non-optional-optionals -- the same ppl who are responsible for the non ending stream of "little nerfs" that end up being a whole Lotta big nerfs on the long run .
For me there are those who think up / implement the nerfs , and those who approved the nerfs .
Neither come off smelling like a rose ... , not for this latest awards nerf and not for taking 6 months to do SOMETHING about the queues .
...and just as a notice , I'll note that this does not go along the lines of "herding ppl with awards" that Geko outlined as a "strategy" . Make of that what you will ...
One Word: FINALLY
Two words: About tine
five Words: Hope It works as intended
But, as a wise man said (several times) : I have a bad feeling about this.
Maybe it means that we just get more waypoints and less time to reach them.
If i read this"...or that they are not getting stuck in a situation where they cannot win." I dont know what to think about it.
What does "where they cannot win" mean and how much time do we have if its not a "serious challenge to achieve"? Rigt now the Mandatory optional time in "in Stasis" is way to short especially with new players, players who don´t have good geat but play this missions to get that gear
I somehow think that it won´t be as much fun as it was pre-DR but i am hoping for the best and see this as a step in the right direction
Agreed. Now pugs will literally save 1 ship in 12 minutes because if it's not required they're not going to do it.
That mission wasn't that hard if you knew what you were doing. I'm not even an uber DPSer and I usually succeeded because I didn't hang out for the first minute at the spawn point picking my nose. Now you don't have to know what you're doing in normal or advanced, and there is no elite version of this queue.
I find the arguments about "helping people learn" rather disingenuous considering no one was learning pre-DR how to do the optionals in pugs and it makes no sense to take away the motivation to learn something in order to encourage people to learn something.
I also find the arguments about "beginners" needing advanced queues to be dumbed down beyond silly because it's called "advanced" not "beginner."
The bottom line is that this change makes it clear that these queues are for grinding (materials, bnps, marks, etc.) and not for having fun. I don't play them for rewards, I play them because I like to play them.
My god the line is saving 1 ship in 12 minutes. If you can't do that then please please please don't pug anything ever.
This is the problem with dumbing down the content that's already doable: it's infinitely regressive.
"3 ships in 3 minutes is soooooooooooooo hard!!!!"
"Ok, we'll make it 1 ship in 12 minutes."
"But what if that's too haaaaaaaaaaaaaard!"
"OK, we'll make it so that you have to engage a tholian once in 12 minutes. We just don't want people to get rewards if they do nothing."
"But I don't have a mk 14 gold reputation impulse engine!!!!!!!!!!! How can I be expected to get to a Tholian in 12 minuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutes???????!!!!!!!!!!"
Etc. etc.
Can we hold you to that?
For me, reading all of the "advanced content is too hard for beginners" comments makes it pretty clear that most of these same folks will complain about elite soon enough.
The big learning curve issue with advanced is that there are fail conditions where there aren't any in normal. The solution, to me, was to put (easier) fail conditions in normal so people could get used to them. The other way to do it is to take them out of elite and advanced, because just taking them out of advanced means that people are going to be in for the same sort of shock in elite that they were getting in advanced.
Seriously, people upthread are wondering if saving 1 ship in 12 minutes in ANRA will be too hard. I will not be surprised at all if they go into elite (if ANRE ever gets released) and complain about fail conditions there.
Advanced being completable by the average PUG means access to Ancient Power Cells, Borg Neural Processors and what-else-you-have in special reputation marks, as well as very rare crafting materials. That means the rewards contains everything that most players are really looking for.
Advanced is the old Elite. Players felt that this and all the desirable rewards that came with it, was "taken away" from them. Give it back, and they might be happy again and leave the Elite difficiculty to the Elite players.
Play elites and be less concerned about how 'brain dead' other players are?
Taking so long really hurt the game makes no sense to run people off.
Look at how long it took them to change the rewards for patrols and such.
Just don't think a good DEV is a good Game Master.
But those filthy plebeians will get their dirty hands on our pristine BNPs and APCs! They will be sullied, fallen, how could we use such things as used by mere commoners!
The way I see it, what we were advertised pre-DR was that Normals would be easy (training) mode, Advanced would be equivalent to the old Elites and reasonably accomplished by those without all the top of the line gear, but Elites would require top of the line gear and would be tougher in other ways too, and that the majority of players would not be competitive at that level.
So from where I stand, it is only Advanced that was out of line with advertised expectations. I do not have the expectation that Elite should be dumbed down in any way even though it means for certain queues I am just not competitive at that level. There is one Ground STF so far (and I am training for a second that uses that same gear) where I *am* undeniably competitive at the Elite level, but it doesn't upset me to know that same setup and tactics will not allow me to go into a Ground queue NOT optimized for Counter-Command at the Elite level and expect the same results.
That is how it was originally advertised to us, and that is all I expect...so at least in my head there just isn't a reason to be upset about not being able to run the majority of Elites.
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I think it's because people still play the Borg STF's.
Azure Advanced has been a wasteland, people abandoned it because it was ridiculously hard to pass in a PUG. They picked a dead que to see if the change would bring people back to it.
That's why I'm going to make it a point to play this que as much as possible, and I'm going to completely ignore every other que. If the player numbers spike for Azure then they should finally see what we have been telling them for months and roll it out to all ques.
What changed?
Why the entitlement?
Why not, put 10m into making a build that can hack it at advanced?
This was Geko's post on November 4th...
...and that's how it was. People can say that Advanced was tuned for the Elites all they want to, but nothing supports that argument. The minimal increase in DPS that ended up being required for Advanced (DR) compared to Elite (pre-DR) would have been the increase one would see along the way to 60.
The folks that were successful at ISE would be successful at ISA. When DR launched? Not a chance in Hell. Lol, no way - that was just heinous. But that was already gone at the start of November, and it was tuned down to reflect the simple increase from 50 to 60 with nothing more required.
Did they need to tweak some things? Doubt anybody would argue that. That was being said before DR was ever mentioned. ISE - CSE - KSE - HOSE...four Elite queues...not exactly the same difficulty across the four of them, yeah? Work in some CCE compared to Breach, Storming, Viscous, yeah?
Pretty much the queues that were rocking before DR...the queues that were dead before DR...guess what? Yeah, so I just don't get the DR killed off what was already dead.
Did Cryptic add in some new stuff where it was more HOSE than ISE for the Advanced? Yep, and just like it was before DR - those queues weren't all that lively.
It's just a huge pile of excuses at the end of the day...pure fabrication...a pretty imagination, if one will....sad delusion, if one prefers.
What changed? What honestly changed? Is people that couldn't positively contribute to something previously and were able to be carried by others could get the reduced final rewards as the Optionals were blown. That got taken away. Welfare rewards were taken away. And yes, those folks have been complaining about that something rough. Folks like to make out that it's a majority of the playerbase that had a problem, yeah? Go through and count the folks...there really aren't that many of them, are there? If it was the massive problem they're making it out to be - the forums would be flooded with complaints from all the average players that coundn't do it. They think because there might be half a dozen, dozen, even twenty folks agreeing with them that it's the majority, eh? Maybe once they got into a few thousand...it might be more than a blip.
Know what this change looks like? Looks like the change to DQ patrols. Reduced rewards that take longer to get. Tada...meh.
But hey, it's the typical well thought out complaints that we see from a few all the time.
Special Players: We need to be able to get rewards outside of the queues!
Cryptic: Here you go!
Special Players: People aren't running certain queues anymore!
Normal Players: No freakin' duh!
Some folks are just too eager and quick to go pointing at other things, finding all sorts of scapegoats rather than looking at themselves. The problem can never truly be addressed until the true problem is addressed.
"We expect Advanced to be for more skilled players and those who have invested in the game (ships and gear)."
Other folks...they've done that, no? They've paid attention, yeah? They've looked at how they're flying, right? They've looked at what they're flying, eh? So maybe they've gotten better at the game, maybe they've improved their gear some, maybe they've done both...so about right? And yep, that was the same thing for how the Elites were before DR. Nothing has changed there...
...just certain folks not able to get their welfare rewards as easily as the process which had started before DR was ever mentioned in the slightest had already started - folks heading off to various channels to get away from the leeches.
Which gets back to what I said earlier, about I'd gladly stop running queues if it meant one player didn't get...er, verbally - textually...assaulted like that. But duh, folks were doing that when folks screwed up Optionals long before DR anyway and it won't change that. It's just going to be a return to folks complaining that people weren't prepared for the content, people bailing on the content, folks grumbling because the queue dropped them in an already failed optional(s) run, and all the rest...who actually benefits from the change? Who will, meh - I hate to use the word - suffer from the change...er...be adversely affected by the change works better, yeah? And how long before those folks realize that things have been nerfed into the ground and if they'd instead spent 5-10 minutes looking at what they were doing instead...then everybody could have continued along at a happier pace instead?
It's annoying...frustrating...mind-boggling.
Why don't you want people to be able to use the Omega and Delta reps that they put the marks in for?
If there's anyone with entitlement, it's you and your ilk that fear the plebs being able to *gasp* buy what their reps offer them.
Salvaged Tech will still only be up in Elite for you Hoity-Toity types so you can maintain an advantage over the hoi-polloi.
If only it were possible to get every APC one could need in two weeks from running Kobali without ever hitting up a queue. If only it were possible to get BNPs even faster than that from hitting up Defera.
But hey, who cares about reality...these are the STO forums!
So why do you care if they can now actually get them from pugging a queue? You know, like they used to be able to do back in the old elites?
New elite isn't going anywhere. Go play there and forget Advanced exists, filled with its dirty filthy uneducated scrubs.
I think in reality peeps want to advance their toons by playing fun contend.
One may go to the buged world of Defera for anything but hardly for fun.
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That's exactly who I heard in my head when I read that too
Fun ist allowed only for the pure of build.