How sure are you that it is accommodating too many individual PvE than the level of interest of support? Because you say so? Are you telling us you stole and TRIBBLE the official stat from cryptic? Because you can read everyones mind?
....No, because I can look at the current crop of PVE's and see that while SOME have a population capable of returning relatively quick matches many do not.
Do you seriously intend to dispute the idea that not all queues are equally playable, because if so the only thing I can say is "Try playing STO."
Again what is your basis that is a small population sample of the ones with interest in doing private queues? Because we do have to eliminate the population that have no interest in doing private queues like RPers or those who just log in to chat right?
Because the number of people that a given player would ask to form a private match (generally, their friends, fleet mates, and people at the other end of a channel) is much, much less than the total population (which the queues draw upon.) Again you're arguing against the least disputable points of my post. Its highly suspect.
For all we know, the PuG is healthy.
Why? A competent group starts a PuG queue, finish the mission before you log in or actually see there are people in that queue.
A totally bad group can be said of the same, purposely fail it or mistakenly fail it. Thus making you miss it the number of queue.
The only thing that you will see are long missions where people not competent enough to finish fast but competent enough trying to finish the mission. Thus prolonging the mission.
The only thing that is available to us in the population between PuGs and Private matches is befriend people who constantly do Private queues and finish it like the ToP DPS channels. From time to time, on different timezones, look at the # of instance their mission and the map their in. Compare that to do the current PuG queues. You then get a rough estimate of what PuGs and private population looks like. Except it is not as accurate as the stat belonging to cryptic.
And this isn't relevant. The issue I'm talkiing about is with the availability of certain PVE Queues. Private matches don't factor, the stated numbers don't factor. Queue accessibility does. The issue is that for a given population (ie. STO players) cryptic has continually added new queues perhaps well in excess with changes in the game's population (though the main thing to consider is just the proliferation of PVE queues). The result is that while some remain playable others recieve no attention and are thus practically unavailable (because the potential niche is subdivided too many times between alternatives, niche and main alike.) This is not only demonstratable in STO but during periods of population decline in other games that use a matchmaking system (such as the Halo series). Less popular playlists become even less available because despite a poprotional shift across all playlists the absolute decline in the less populated ones may pass beyond their threshold for survival (population ecology right there, which hammers home the point that this is a population dynamics issue.) However before you start into another misinterpretation let me be clear in saying that STO's issue from my point of view is with how Queues have been ADDED without (for the most part) compensating cuts. I'm making no case for the underlying population trend (except that it hasn't been extreme enough to overcome queue overpopulation, which is reasonable. We aren't crashing or exploding, we're somewhere in the middle.) Its just that between our additions and other game's declines we have analogous shifts relative to individual PVE queues.
So what do you do? Do you try to maintain all habitats under the fallacy that all choice at all times is good (try applying this idea while driving and see into what tree it gets you. Constraints exist and you have to consider them) or do you try to manage the population dynamics? Reduce the total number of sinks from an overdispersed state so through aggregation you can maintain stronger population interactions (incidentally this is still why we still have Kakapo's in the world, along with several other endangered species. I think STO can try it without too much concern). Then if need be open special areas (ie. event PVE's of various kinds) to host more diverse interactions without the cost of trying to maintain those at all times.
Then the game over the longer term (ie. a period of a few months) can have more queues and more available queues, only with SOME staggered over time. This isn't a new idea, rather its customary (in and out of gaming. In fact the concept of biological succession can be restated pretty much as this.)
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
I think the most frustrating thing about the queues is the "Leaver penalty" garbage. I was just in an ISA where a level 51 rolled up in a Constitution class. He wasn't clueless either, just your garden variety griefer. So I get to choose between either spending 25 minutes in this STF with this jackass for 10 marks and a handful of spec points, or warping out and getting banned from STF's for an hour. And the griefer risked no penalty whatsoever.
It's absolutely ridiculous that there is a mechanic in this game that, to all appearances, may as well have been designed to encourage people like that to intentionally waste other players' time.
I think the most frustrating thing about the queues is the "Leaver penalty" garbage. I was just in an ISA where a level 51 rolled up in a Constitution class. He wasn't clueless either, just your garden variety griefer. So I get to choose between either spending 25 minutes in this STF with this jackass for 10 marks and a handful of spec points, or warping out and getting banned from STF's for an hour. And the griefer risked no penalty whatsoever.
It's absolutely ridiculous that there is a mechanic in this game that, to all appearances, may as well have been designed to encourage people like that to intentionally waste other players' time.
Is there a way to "kick" one out of the group? I used to play a game where you could. If you got most of the group to agree with it. This way if one was AFK for a while, causing trouble, or not being part of it. Could be removed and hope someone new to replace them.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
There was .
It was abused .
It also sometimes didn't work, as it didn't pull in new players in place of the kicked player .
It was QQed about .
It was eventually removed, much later to be replaced with the hourly leaving penalty .
Now the leaving penalty is QQed about .
The show must go on .
Make all queues for 5 players, private queues can still play with the original amount of players if they want.
Create a tutorial and a practice version of each queue, mandatory, at least once per account to unlock normal queues.
Make advanced and elite queues unlockable, you unlock them by beating a queue with less difficulty (normal unlocks advanced, advanced unlocks elite).
Remove cooldown for failing.
Remove shared cooldown (so you only get cooldown on one difficulty and not all 3 at the same time).
Reduce cooldown to 15 minutes.
Reduce the amount of time based objectives, let people play at their own pace.
Increase the amount of conditional fail objectives.
Add a weekly random feature queue, beating said queue rewards 25, 50 or 100 REFINED dilithium (max:500/day), depending on difficulty, and 1, 2 or 3 special tokens that can be exchanged for special stuff, like costumes, pets, and other cosmetics, as well as special upgrade tokens for your gear and stuff from past events and featured episodes.
Increase rewards:
Normal queue: 500 dilithium, 1 normal R&D pack, 5000xp&expertise, 25k energy credits, 1 very rare item for best player, rare for 2nd and 3rd;
choose between:
100 marks
1000 bonus dilithium
100k energy credits
10k xp&expertise.
1 extra normal R&D pack
1 very rare item of your choosing
Advanced queue: 1k dilithium, 1 normal R&D pack, 1 advanced R&D pack, 10k xp& expertise, 50k energy credits, 2 very rare items for best player, 1 very rare for 2nd, 1 rare for 3rd.;
Choose between:
150 marks & 1 rep item (ex: borg neural processor)
2k bonus dilithium
200k energy credits
15k xp& expertise
1 extra advanced R&D pack
2 very rare items of your choosing
Elite queue: 1.5k dilithium, 1 Normal R&D pack, 1 advanced R&D pack, 1 elite R&D pack, 15k xp&expertise, 100k energy credits, 1 ultra rare item for best player, 2 very rare for 2nd, 1 very rare for 3rd;
Choose between:
I'm less concerned with general lack of players in queues - their current round of removing the insta-fails will make them a viable way for average players to chase elite marks and crafting mats again, and let people learn to play them instead of failing out with no clue what they did wrong - but with the vast differences in desireability between different queues.
The Breach, for example, is awesome. It's one of the coolest missions in the game. It also takes forever and gives middling rewards.
One-size-fits-all rewards for queues don't work, because each queue takes a different amount of time to complete and is a different difficulty. The rewards should be proportional to average completion time, and change based on that weekly - and include time queued in that average. This would naturally create a rotation of desireable queues, because the ones that took the longest to pop last week would give the best rewards this week.
There was .
It was abused .
It also sometimes didn't work, as it didn't pull in new players in place of the kicked player .
It was QQed about .
It was eventually removed, much later to be replaced with the hourly leaving penalty .
Now the leaving penalty is QQed about .
The show must go on .
Ok. The best solution is get with your Fleet or friends and do them. That way your all on par on what needs to be done.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I'm less concerned with general lack of players in queues - their current round of removing the insta-fails will make them a viable way for average players to chase elite marks and crafting mats again, and let people learn to play them instead of failing out with no clue what they did wrong - but with the vast differences in desireability between different queues.
The Objectives are the same, whether it is Optional or Mandatory. It tells you what they are, and it tells you that it failed. That people do not look to see what the Objectives are (it's right there on the screen) and they do not look to see why the run failed (it's right there on the screen)...is one of the excuses that I've never understood.
You learn the Objectives in Normal. You learn how to fly your boat from near the beginning of the game. When Normal seems too easy, it would hint at moving on to Advanced, yeah?
Normal starts off too easy and unrewarding? Then increase the difficulty of Normal and provide better rewards.
Suggesting that the ANRA Experiment was a success and they should apply that to the rest of the queues will likely kill off the few queues that do get run.
The Breach, for example, is awesome. It's one of the coolest missions in the game. It also takes forever and gives middling rewards.
One-size-fits-all rewards for queues don't work, because each queue takes a different amount of time to complete and is a different difficulty. The rewards should be proportional to average completion time, and change based on that weekly - and include time queued in that average. This would naturally create a rotation of desireable queues, because the ones that took the longest to pop last week would give the best rewards this week.
You had me up to the time in queue being part of the reward. It was part of the issue, imho, when they dropped out both Breach and Storming. That combination of how much easier/faster/more efficient it was to get rewards elsewhere compared to the blink 'n done style of the Borg runs. Then they did the same with the Undine. They should have revamped the Borg queues to be of a similar nature to where they were going with the other queues. Hell, it started before the Voth stuff with Azure Nebula.
(Time + Effort) * Difficulty Modifier = Reward
It's massively missing in almost all of Cryptic's content - not just the queues.
When one of the potential things that has driven some folks to private runs instead of public queues is trolling, removing the cooldown for failing would turn into a nightmare for some folks as they were constantly trolled - fingers crossed that some other group got stuck with them...etc, etc, etc.
But what if the run itself provided the option for the team to try again if they all voted for it? Everybody felt that everybody made a good faith effort to try to succeed, maybe some slight adjustments needed to be made, whatever, something where the group believed if they had another shot they could get it done...allowed them to vote, 5/5 votes and they could give it another go.
Comments
....No, because I can look at the current crop of PVE's and see that while SOME have a population capable of returning relatively quick matches many do not.
Do you seriously intend to dispute the idea that not all queues are equally playable, because if so the only thing I can say is "Try playing STO."
Because the number of people that a given player would ask to form a private match (generally, their friends, fleet mates, and people at the other end of a channel) is much, much less than the total population (which the queues draw upon.) Again you're arguing against the least disputable points of my post. Its highly suspect.
And this isn't relevant. The issue I'm talkiing about is with the availability of certain PVE Queues. Private matches don't factor, the stated numbers don't factor. Queue accessibility does. The issue is that for a given population (ie. STO players) cryptic has continually added new queues perhaps well in excess with changes in the game's population (though the main thing to consider is just the proliferation of PVE queues). The result is that while some remain playable others recieve no attention and are thus practically unavailable (because the potential niche is subdivided too many times between alternatives, niche and main alike.) This is not only demonstratable in STO but during periods of population decline in other games that use a matchmaking system (such as the Halo series). Less popular playlists become even less available because despite a poprotional shift across all playlists the absolute decline in the less populated ones may pass beyond their threshold for survival (population ecology right there, which hammers home the point that this is a population dynamics issue.) However before you start into another misinterpretation let me be clear in saying that STO's issue from my point of view is with how Queues have been ADDED without (for the most part) compensating cuts. I'm making no case for the underlying population trend (except that it hasn't been extreme enough to overcome queue overpopulation, which is reasonable. We aren't crashing or exploding, we're somewhere in the middle.) Its just that between our additions and other game's declines we have analogous shifts relative to individual PVE queues.
So what do you do? Do you try to maintain all habitats under the fallacy that all choice at all times is good (try applying this idea while driving and see into what tree it gets you. Constraints exist and you have to consider them) or do you try to manage the population dynamics? Reduce the total number of sinks from an overdispersed state so through aggregation you can maintain stronger population interactions (incidentally this is still why we still have Kakapo's in the world, along with several other endangered species. I think STO can try it without too much concern). Then if need be open special areas (ie. event PVE's of various kinds) to host more diverse interactions without the cost of trying to maintain those at all times.
Then the game over the longer term (ie. a period of a few months) can have more queues and more available queues, only with SOME staggered over time. This isn't a new idea, rather its customary (in and out of gaming. In fact the concept of biological succession can be restated pretty much as this.)
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
It's absolutely ridiculous that there is a mechanic in this game that, to all appearances, may as well have been designed to encourage people like that to intentionally waste other players' time.
Is there a way to "kick" one out of the group? I used to play a game where you could. If you got most of the group to agree with it. This way if one was AFK for a while, causing trouble, or not being part of it. Could be removed and hope someone new to replace them.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
There was .
It was abused .
It also sometimes didn't work, as it didn't pull in new players in place of the kicked player .
It was QQed about .
It was eventually removed, much later to be replaced with the hourly leaving penalty .
Now the leaving penalty is QQed about .
The show must go on .
Increase rewards:
Normal queue: 500 dilithium, 1 normal R&D pack, 5000xp&expertise, 25k energy credits, 1 very rare item for best player, rare for 2nd and 3rd;
choose between:
Advanced queue: 1k dilithium, 1 normal R&D pack, 1 advanced R&D pack, 10k xp& expertise, 50k energy credits, 2 very rare items for best player, 1 very rare for 2nd, 1 rare for 3rd.;
Choose between:
Elite queue: 1.5k dilithium, 1 Normal R&D pack, 1 advanced R&D pack, 1 elite R&D pack, 15k xp&expertise, 100k energy credits, 1 ultra rare item for best player, 2 very rare for 2nd, 1 very rare for 3rd;
Choose between:
The Breach, for example, is awesome. It's one of the coolest missions in the game. It also takes forever and gives middling rewards.
One-size-fits-all rewards for queues don't work, because each queue takes a different amount of time to complete and is a different difficulty. The rewards should be proportional to average completion time, and change based on that weekly - and include time queued in that average. This would naturally create a rotation of desireable queues, because the ones that took the longest to pop last week would give the best rewards this week.
telling a troll to stop trolling is like telling a human to stop breathing lol and even then they don't give up until they're bored.
so telling them to do anything is kinda redudant at this point. best solution is to simply ignore them
Ok. The best solution is get with your Fleet or friends and do them. That way your all on par on what needs to be done.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
The Objectives are the same, whether it is Optional or Mandatory. It tells you what they are, and it tells you that it failed. That people do not look to see what the Objectives are (it's right there on the screen) and they do not look to see why the run failed (it's right there on the screen)...is one of the excuses that I've never understood.
You learn the Objectives in Normal. You learn how to fly your boat from near the beginning of the game. When Normal seems too easy, it would hint at moving on to Advanced, yeah?
Normal starts off too easy and unrewarding? Then increase the difficulty of Normal and provide better rewards.
Suggesting that the ANRA Experiment was a success and they should apply that to the rest of the queues will likely kill off the few queues that do get run.
You had me up to the time in queue being part of the reward. It was part of the issue, imho, when they dropped out both Breach and Storming. That combination of how much easier/faster/more efficient it was to get rewards elsewhere compared to the blink 'n done style of the Borg runs. Then they did the same with the Undine. They should have revamped the Borg queues to be of a similar nature to where they were going with the other queues. Hell, it started before the Voth stuff with Azure Nebula.
(Time + Effort) * Difficulty Modifier = Reward
It's massively missing in almost all of Cryptic's content - not just the queues.
When one of the potential things that has driven some folks to private runs instead of public queues is trolling, removing the cooldown for failing would turn into a nightmare for some folks as they were constantly trolled - fingers crossed that some other group got stuck with them...etc, etc, etc.
But what if the run itself provided the option for the team to try again if they all voted for it? Everybody felt that everybody made a good faith effort to try to succeed, maybe some slight adjustments needed to be made, whatever, something where the group believed if they had another shot they could get it done...allowed them to vote, 5/5 votes and they could give it another go.