sigh... borg disco... great queue because the only thing you need is stratergy, tactics and coordination. ...and situational awareness. Even with Elite difficulty you can absolutely get away with the whole team doing 0 DPS (for the first 3 phases).
We need more queues like this that require some thinking, preparation on the part of the players, and teamwork by covering multiple locations.
The problem is not with the queue, it's the player base. they are just noobs, leeches, and trolls. Obviously not the whole player base, but it sure seems like a lot of the random pugs are like this.
I'm cool with this. And I get this about Borg Disco... it should be for people (like me) who aren't cruising with uber-DPS builds. Shoot, I should love this queue.
But I loathe it. Baffling.
This is why I believe Advanced queues are still a hot mess.
The formula I have applied since November is to only do missions where I can complete >50% of the objectives. I only pug missions.
The only queue where the formula is broken is Borg disconnected advanced. In that case you must be able to complete 100% of objectives to pug it.
Other missions like undine infiltration are only failed due to trolling behavior. I believe the brotherhood of the sword will fit into this category as well. For brotherhood they have adhered to the failqueue mechanics. It appears that if someone runs in and clicks the console before side missions have been completed it will fail. And this is much more likely to happen than in undine infiltration getting a question wrong. I will reevaluate brotherhood in a couple weeks, but I suspect I will skip it.
The Gateway space mission fits my formula and has been success 3/3 so far.
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's exactly the point I was making, LOL... that distinction right there. In my practice, however, it does not feel like the way Geko phrased that. It more feels like the latter portion of your statement.
It kind of gets back to the Tier 5 Starship Upgrade blog from August 27th...
When we first discussed increasing the level cap, one of the questions we first asked ourselves was What happens to Tier 5 ships?
Players have been invested in this tier of ships for 4 years and we wanted to avoid devaluing the time and money spent in obtaining them.
We wanted a fair solution instead of requiring players to absolutely need to obtain or purchase a whole new suite of starships for a new tier of content as we have in the past.
Weve approached starships very differently for the level 50 to 60 band.
First, we will allow players to upgrade most Tier 5 starships they own to a T5-U version.
This upgraded starship receives many of the perks of a Tier 6 starships minus a few bells and whistles.
More on the specifics of this later.
Second, all existing content, all new story content, patrols and most queues will not require a Tier 6 or Upgraded Tier 5 starship.
Only the most challenging new level 60 content will strongly benefit from using an upgraded Tier 5 starship or a Tier 6 starship, however it will not strictly require it.
...with that in mind for how it was when Delta Rising launched? Then what would that be for after things where changed by the next month, eh?
No doubt that all the upgrades, whether ships or gear - and - everything else...can definitely make things easier; but at what point is it crossing the threshold from being now capable of doing something because of the gear to the wham, bam, farming stage of things...yeah?
I tend to go with ISA analogies...cause well, it's ISA...it's one of the easiest and most common, eh? In order to hit the Mandatory and Optional, one needs X DPS (dependent on various other things like crowd control) to complete the run before the 15 minute CD expires - keeping in mind that the timer doesn't start until after the initial engagement completes. So a group could take 16 minutes or so, +/-, and still have a completely successful run of ISA, right? Yet there are folks that have complete cow if a run takes more than 5-7 minutes and it's end of the world it takes 9!
So sometimes I'm left to wonder whether the complaints/concerns about needing upgrades is about actually doing the content or wanting to do the content in an amount of time folks want to do it in...sort of thing...kind of like if folks were doing 5-9 minute ISE runs and they're now facing 9-13 minute ISA runs - that it's not about doing it, but just how long it takes...sort of thing again.
Each of the queues have their actual requirements...but a lot of players place their own requirements on top of that making them more than they are.
Added to that, of course, the nature of PUGing, and the inability to know if your teammates are "holding their end of the bargain"... and where does that leave us? PUGs are dead, and good riddance?
Depends on the player, no?
Gets into a gambling thing...I tend to be lucky there, it's rare that I'm going to have a group where everybody's dooming the run to failure before it starts. I'm not running queues because I need anything from them - I run them to have fun. I don't expect every queue to be a success...so if a group just misses an objective or the like, well, that's fine - will try again in half an hour and will go do another in the interim. It's only irritating, mostly, when it's obviously doomed from the start...there's a big difference, impe, between having a chance and having zero chance.
Some folks don't want any chance at failure and off they go to various channels or the like. If I can't lose...if there's no possibility of losing outside of bugs/latency/whatever...well, er, yeah...there's no fun in that for me. So all I do is pug, cause there's going to be that chance...not a big chance, but a chance all the same. It's allowed me to create other challenges for myself...seeing how much aggro I can hold, how much healing I can do, if things go south and TRIBBLE hits the fan, can I help recover...and so forth.
Going to depend on the player and what they're looking for... For some, no doubt the public queues are dead to them cause they want the guaranteed success and to see how fast they can do it. For some, no doubt the public queues are dead to them cause they don't want to do channel/fleet/private runs and they can't stand the folks showing up for public runs. For some, wheee....it's all good.
edit: There are going to be all sorts of "For some," going on there...
In the near future fail objectives are supposed to go away, the instance where you rescue romulan ships from Tholians is the test bed for those changes atm ... not sure why the new instances weren't that way by default though.
In the near future fail objectives are supposed to go away, the instance where you rescue romulan ships from Tholians is the test bed for those changes atm ... not sure why the new instances weren't that way by default though.
The reason why is that they are not going away. Azure was changed to normalize the price of argonite as they are now done aggressively promoting the sale of R&D packs. The cost of argonite was slowing the flow of dilithium into the upgrade system.
For some time it was 660,000 each argonite. After the extensive R&D promotions it went down to 240,000. Now with the Azure change it is 80,000 - same as plekton and radiogenic. To me the prices are now perfect and there is no barrier to upgrading as much as you like except dilithium.
I don't believe the failqueues will go away because having them increases the gameplay metrics. Introducing the elite mark turnin means that you must run more missions, which is good for the metrics. If you could do advanced a handful of times and get your iconian blingblobs you might be done with it in short order.
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."
Cryptic would have to find a way to gate content...to fix it...cause it's a people problem.
I totally agree, and in a way they have done already that, but people won't USE it as the measuring stick it is. The Featured content can be played on the same difficulty level selections( normal, advanced, elite) as the ques, and though its not the 'same' it does help prepare.
EXAMPLE: In many instances, the PVE Que'd content appears in a featured episode. I would suggest making players who have not completed the 'X' episodic PVE content on advanced/elites for 'Y' number of times, not be allowed to participate (option grayed out for them) in the corresponding que'd 'X' content until this 'Y' goal is accomplished, or until Z objectives/optionals are complete in the episodic content on the previously mentioned difficulty levels. Cryptic would have to change the rewards to scale better, the training value added would help the que'd content, but it would also need an incentive of increased reward for today's players to give up their speedy 'normal' runs, that give the same rewards, minus drop potential.
In my idea, normal episodic rewards would be green, advanced blue, and elite purple. The purple gear given now for normal completion. that purple gear was meant to help get to advanced. Crafting (invested time) will take your gear to elite or beyond, and allow for increased success (minus player skill)
Although not entirely the end all/be all solution, personally I only experience the patrols, or the new solo or grouped content, excluding ques, on Elite. Its my personal test for each ship I fly. I feel like the pace, the level of the mobs, give me more "Oh ****" moments to recover from, while also helping to teach me how to fly a particular ship better in hectic and impossible situations.
How many players actually do all of their non-que'd content on elite to practice, or would they rather get their marks/dil/rewards and move on? It definitely does not qualify for an elite que (gear check), but if more PUGs and people looking to learn actually played on hard all the time, the PUG learning issue wouldn't be so bad.
Good to great veteran players would like better preparation and attention to details from newer or less skilled players, and also understand it comes in the form of practice, asking questions, and just performing to your ships capabilities on their part.
Veterans who fall into "other" category are more concerned with their personal successes than that of the team, or else they would instruct for success as many do here time and again on the forums (thank you).
Some players even enter the que's in a ground setup, and flying their ship like its their space setup (I have done this myself).
Some players/teams you could put in a T4 ships who build ships that could complete Advanced and some you could put in a T7 who would never complete it with all the options. Some people will never be good. Just life.
Maybe if they increased the difficulty of Normal, eh? Wouldn't be such a gap too, yeah?
If you lack the ability to counterpoint my points then don't reply at all, and certainly don't throw out a pointlessly inflammatory reply by misrepresenting my words.
That said, yes they should increase the difficulty of normal. As I recall they actually lowered it with post DR changes which is absurd. Yet the optional fail nonsense in advanced remains unneeded, especially when it is so very poorly done.
The reason why is that they are not going away. Azure was changed to normalize the price of argonite as they are now done aggressively promoting the sale of R&D packs. The cost of argonite was slowing the flow of dilithium into the upgrade system.
For some time it was 660,000 each argonite. After the extensive R&D promotions it went down to 240,000. Now with the Azure change it is 80,000 - same as plekton and radiogenic. To me the prices are now perfect and there is no barrier to upgrading as much as you like except dilithium.
I don't believe the failqueues will go away because having them increases the gameplay metrics. Introducing the elite mark turnin means that you must run more missions, which is good for the metrics. If you could do advanced a handful of times and get your iconian blingblobs you might be done with it in short order.
Well, when they announced the change to Azure, they said it was a test of the changes to come to the other instances. With season 10 out now, I expect this to be one of the things at the top of their list, if they haven't been working on it the entire time. There are a fair amount of instances, so changing them all does take some time.
You know I do understand the frustration, but honestly STO is the ONLY MMO I know where players complain that they can't farm the new/harder(advanced/Elite) /perhaps requiring the new more powerful rep gear..queues a few days after an update.
I can ONLY imagine the OUTRAGE if these guys were playing World of War Craft and were upset at Blizzard because they could farm a new endgame raid instance one week post release.
IKR?
When I can't do a dungeon in GW2 and I see other people massively outperform me, I immediately conclude the problem is with me and make the effort to improve.
That doesn't seem to be a view shared by a large number of people on STO.
When I can't do a dungeon in GW2 and I see other people massively outperform me, I immediately conclude the problem is with me and make the effort to improve.
That doesn't seem to be a view shared by a large number of people on STO.
Its because of how sto works as compared to other games. In WoW, for example, if your group screws up everyone dies, you res and start that fight over again. If you keep failing, eventually the problem players are replaced, or the group disbands.
In STO, you get to res right where you left off, making challenging mechanics a simple matter of die, res, attack, die, repeat until you win. The fail objectives don't fix this, they compound the problem, as normal doesn't actually teach the mechanics since they can be bypassed, and the fail lockout is just stupid, often punishing people way too much for someone else's mistake.
What really needs to happen is all instances should be divided into phases, and the constant rezzing turned off on advanced. When you die, you stay dead unless someone else repairs/heals you. When everyone dies, you can res, and that phase is reset to its beginning. Oh and we need a vote kick function.
I need to correct my previous assessment on some points. First, there's a vast difference how Gateway plays out with a good team as opposed to two or three "shouldn't really be in advanced" players. The only true fail condition is both reasonable and doable, optionals also if the team brought their A-game.
It's amazing what kind of difference a [-Th] console and a couple of solid team mates can make. There's still too much disable spam, but the overall experience is less... explodey.
Brotherhood depends entirely on what the PUG roulette grants. Okay, the MACO fireteam is a little out of the way, and the mission objective list does hide the necessities without scrolling down, but still: how hard is it to read and understand basic instructions? DUUURR ME CLICKY NOW HUUURRR leads to 15 marks and a boot on the backside.
The Saving Private Orion dealie might be just badly thought out. He's somewhat hidden and prone to dying even when rescued, if the team doesn't have the means to heal him.
I've never liked private channels. They reek of elitism and attract people with bad attitudes (that's not to say all privateers are like that), plus PUGing is never the same twice. Now I'm starting to see the other side of the coin. All it takes is a couple of clueless/careless/illiterate people to wreck a queue. The first thing to do when faced with failure is to understand what went wrong and why, so that improvements can be made. Here we have some people who just keep queueing, repeating the same mistakes and somehow remaining oblivious to why or how it happens. It's almost enough to make me want to go private.
Meh. Eight failed advanced queues in a row is too much a waste of time. I'm just gonna pug bug hunt elite for good rewards and get the datacores by compensation.
Stronger players that liked to hop online and quickly jump into a pug are not doing that anymore, and why should they? Time IS Money. Who would want to waste their time carrying a pug for nothing. At least before DR it didn't matter who was in my team. The players who wanted to learn asked questions, and advice is free.
Some people may not want to carry freeloaders. And I won't defend an afker parked at spawn. But players isolating themselves to private channels or fleet only groups has a significant negative effect on STO, namely dead queues. It's not good advertising. It's not good business.
I bet there are a lot of good players out there that get a kick out of carrying a pug, if only cryptic would allow us to do it. Everyone walks out a winner and happy, and that is what entertainment is all about.
I immediately conclude the problem is with me and make the effort to improve.
a lot of players know that they are the problem (my latest recruit is not very good), but with the prices of the upgrades, for now she keeps MK X, MK XI weapons and Mk VIII, MK X gears.
Cryptics have helped to the creation of the "Pug problem"; the upgrade system is too expensive even if you have a lot of toons (i have 9 toons). I can't imagine the troubles for the players who have only 1 toon. A lot of them have surely already left the game <- supposition, not assertion
a lot of players know that they are the problem (my latest recruit is not very good), but with the prices of the upgrades, for now she keeps MK X, MK XI weapons and Mk VIII, MK X gears.
Cryptics have helped to the creation of the "Pug problem"; the upgrade system is too expensive even if you have a lot of toons (i have 9 toons). I can't imagine the troubles for the players who have only 1 toon. A lot of them have surely already left the game <- supposition, not assertion
9 toons and, you find it hard to upgrade the newer one to all mkxi - mkxiv?
Heck, I only got 6 [including my DR] and, none are below mkxii in everything!
It's really not that hard nor, expensive to outfit them IMO, just lots of people don't do it and/or don't care to do it.
Not saying you are one of them but, many multi-toon player's, simply negate a lot of them, for the sake of leech farming with them.
Not trying to come off mean either so, apologies up front as well.
Stronger players that liked to hop online and quickly jump into a pug are not doing that anymore, and why should they? Time IS Money. Who would want to waste their time carrying a pug for nothing. At least before DR it didn't matter who was in my team. The players who wanted to learn asked questions, and advice is free.
Some people may not want to carry freeloaders. And I won't defend an afker parked at spawn. But players isolating themselves to private channels or fleet only groups has a significant negative effect on STO, namely dead queues. It's not good advertising. It's not good business.
I bet there are a lot of good players out there that get a kick out of carrying a pug, if only cryptic would allow us to do it. Everyone walks out a winner and happy, and that is what entertainment is all about.
Brody ToS Veteran
It is only harmful for the leeches and trolls because that is their playstyle. There is normal for those that dont belong in advance. If you cant carry your whole team in advance Pug, you dont belong in advance. Nowadays you can even create your BNPs, etc through marks. so the excuse for people demanding to be in advance but dont belong there now gone.
If you want to know the time. those competent spend less time in the mission than those who are not. So yes Time is money. A competent can spend 30 mins a day but does 15-30 missions. While a less than competent player does 1 mission but is 50/50 fail or not. If you are competent, you most likely spend less time in the game or are more efficient in the game and most likely deserve to be in advance and elite.
Private channels are also queues. There are minimum requirements for certain channels to assure finishes. Because you still have to queue up in private channels.
A lot of doomsayers have come and go to this forum. But the game continues with its business model. It most likely the current system just harmed you and your playstyle.
When you die, you stay dead unless someone else repairs/heals you.
Having played Destiny quite a bit that doesn't fix the problem either. Gameplay mechanics can still be stupidly simple and sovled through the application of ones face direclty to the given wall. The respawn restriction simply makes any point of struggle arbitrarily more annoying (without contributing anything to depth or strategy of the game. You just plant the fail gate several steps back without conditioning players to change their approach. Gameplay is still the prime motivator there) and its questionable to say the least if a revive mechanic could be implemented in STO space combat without it being a finnicky and frustrating process (especially if, say, combat breaks the res).
IMO, let's not start mucking about with core game mechanics 5 years on (ie. how respawning works, there's a dubious change in the game now and its not going to be solved by going on another adventure through someone else's idea of how to make MMO's more difficult.) Cryptic just needs to manage its failable objectives better (azure nebula has the right philosphy, scale rewards based on performance and have the fail-gate there as a safety net for woefully prepared teams. That creates a challenge within existing mechanics for those that want/need it, but without heavy-handed progress restrictions of one kind or another.)
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!
Having played Destiny quite a bit that doesn't fix the problem either. Gameplay mechanics can still be stupidly simple and sovled through the application of ones face direclty to the given wall. The respawn restriction simply makes any point of struggle arbitrarily more annoying (without contributing anything to depth or strategy of the game. You just plant the fail gate several steps back without conditioning players to change their approach. Gameplay is still the prime motivator there) and its questionable to say the least if a revive mechanic could be implemented in STO space combat without it being a finnicky and frustrating process (especially if, say, combat breaks the res).
IMO, let's not start mucking about with core game mechanics 5 years on (ie. how respawning works, there's a dubious change in the game now and its not going to be solved by going on another adventure through someone else's idea of how to make MMO's more difficult.) Cryptic just needs to manage its failable objectives better (azure nebula has the right philosphy, scale rewards based on performance and have the fail-gate there as a safety net for woefully prepared teams. That creates a challenge within existing mechanics for those that want/need it, but without heavy-handed progress restrictions of one kind or another.)
I have to disagree with you with STO on advance objectives and higher.
There Is normal, advance, elite. The problem is players who don't belong at advance go to advance. There is normal for those players. Yes, there are players who can finish advance and are above normal. But the problem seems to be a certain group playebase insisting they belong in advance when they do not. So their solution would change the mechanic rather accepting the current mechanic by either going down to normal or improving themselves.
There are several words I could think of what kind of playerbase, but the most civil I can think of are the spoiled and self entitled players.
I have to disagree with you with STO on advance objectives and higher.
There Is normal, advance, elite. The problem is players who don't belong at advance go to advance. There is normal for those players. Yes, there are players who can finish advance and are above normal. But the problem seems to be a certain group playebase insisting they belong in advance when they do not. So their solution would change the mechanic rather accepting the current mechanic by either going down to normal or improving themselves.
There are several words I could think of what kind of playerbase, but the most civil I can think of are the spoiled and self entitled players.
Why do you not play elite?
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."
I have to disagree with you with STO on advance objectives and higher.
There Is normal, advance, elite. The problem is players who don't belong at advance go to advance. There is normal for those players. Yes, there are players who can finish advance and are above normal. But the problem seems to be a certain group playebase insisting they belong in advance when they do not. So their solution would change the mechanic rather accepting the current mechanic by either going down to normal or improving themselves.
There are several words I could think of what kind of playerbase, but the most civil I can think of are the spoiled and self entitled players.
Every player base can be thought of as such. People act according to their self interest rather than considering the groups needs. That however is just what you get with a mass amalgomation of people playing an entertainment product, objectively it should be about everyone but we're all in it, at some level, for ourselves.
That's why difficulty settings should be more accommodating. You can't trust that players will appropriately place themselves in the correct mode. Even if they aren't just looking to get as much as possible out of it, there's still the question of judgement.
Ergo, no absolute fail (except where the group simply cannot function) but rewards scale based on performance.
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!
Every player base can be thought of as such. People act according to their self interest rather than considering the groups needs. That however is just what you get with a mass amalgomation of people playing an entertainment product, objectively it should be about everyone but we're all in it, at some level, for ourselves.
That's why difficulty settings should be more accommodating. You can't trust that players will appropriately place themselves in the correct mode. Even if they aren't just looking to get as much as possible out of it, there's still the question of judgement.
Ergo, no absolute fail (except where the group simply cannot function) but rewards scale based on performance.
If that were the case, there won't be normal, advance or elite. Becuase they are just the same. Might as well scrap the difficulty level to accommodate for the few whinny players in the forum. Which would alienate those who do advance, elite. In the current situation, you are just alienating players who think they can play advance but only deserve normal.
The one you want already exists in normal difficulty.
I still use a lot of public queues. I have access to some dps-channels but seldom jump to those matches.
I like to go for a win with pugs. Sometimes it fails because people don't read the team chat, or anything else. Then there's a lot of problems with the STF's, like Korfez and the darn Benthans.
Now if more average hitters like me went to the public queues they might not be empty all the time.
And maybe those newer players would see how to do the queues, so public queues wouldn't be so bad.
Galavant!
"Use Temporal Skills to NERF EVERYTHING before it happened!" -Unknown source.
If that were the case, there won't be normal, advance or elite. Becuase they are just the same. Might as well scrap the difficulty level to accommodate for the few whinny players in the forum. Which would alienate those who do advance, elite. In the current situation, you are just alienating players who think they can play advance but only deserve normal.
The one you want already exists in normal difficulty.
Bull****, I said nothing about tweaking gameplay balance. Its the objectives that need tweaking.
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!
Why do you think I don't play elite? You can actually research this if I play elite or not since there is a community table for elite missions.
The question really is why don't you play normal?
I don't play normal because advanced and elite are pretty easy for me. Followup question. If you play elite why are you so worried about advanced?
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."
Bull****, I said nothing about tweaking gameplay balance. Its the objectives that need tweaking.
fair enough.
However, from a practical purposes sake, there is normal difficulty. Right now, the issue is players refusal to recognize their is a normal difficulty and that it is their option to improve themselves or their group or even an option queue up in normal or advance or not.
Also your solution has a flaw. Your suggested mechanic assumes that these are new players who no nothing and not veteran players who flatly refuse to improve or with illusory superiority complexes or leeches themselves. This current mechanic in advance, exposes who are the leeches and who are the undeserving.
I don't play normal because advanced and elite are pretty easy for me. Followup question. If you play elite why are you so worried about advanced?
Elite are pretty easy for you? really? Looks at ISA and HSE table for his name. I dont see you in Hive Space Elite. 14k DPS in ISA is easy really. Illusory superiority at its finest.
There are missions that have only advance and dont have elites.
Elite are pretty easy for you? really? Looks at ISA and HSE table for his name. I dont see you in Hive Space Elite. 14k DPS in ISA is easy really. Illusory superiority at its finest.
There are missions that have only advance and dont have elites.
Yes they are. I guess your looking at some sort of dps channel creepy data collection from one random mission? Some sort of cyberstalking spreadsheet? I have nothing whatsoever to do with these groups but am available for pvp anytime.
I know that it is impossible for most to imagine advancing anything besides a petty selfish argument. Sad really.
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."
I don't play normal because advanced and elite are pretty easy for me. Followup question. If you play elite why are you so worried about advanced?
Probably because, not every mission has an elite available atm so, people that are forced to run an advanced as the highest difficulty, don't find it challenging when some incompetent player causes a fail.
Comments
I'm cool with this. And I get this about Borg Disco... it should be for people (like me) who aren't cruising with uber-DPS builds. Shoot, I should love this queue.
But I loathe it. Baffling.
This is why I believe Advanced queues are still a hot mess.
The only queue where the formula is broken is Borg disconnected advanced. In that case you must be able to complete 100% of objectives to pug it.
Other missions like undine infiltration are only failed due to trolling behavior. I believe the brotherhood of the sword will fit into this category as well. For brotherhood they have adhered to the failqueue mechanics. It appears that if someone runs in and clicks the console before side missions have been completed it will fail. And this is much more likely to happen than in undine infiltration getting a question wrong. I will reevaluate brotherhood in a couple weeks, but I suspect I will skip it.
The Gateway space mission fits my formula and has been success 3/3 so far.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
It kind of gets back to the Tier 5 Starship Upgrade blog from August 27th...
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/7002133-tier-5-starship-upgrades
...with that in mind for how it was when Delta Rising launched? Then what would that be for after things where changed by the next month, eh?
No doubt that all the upgrades, whether ships or gear - and - everything else...can definitely make things easier; but at what point is it crossing the threshold from being now capable of doing something because of the gear to the wham, bam, farming stage of things...yeah?
I tend to go with ISA analogies...cause well, it's ISA...it's one of the easiest and most common, eh? In order to hit the Mandatory and Optional, one needs X DPS (dependent on various other things like crowd control) to complete the run before the 15 minute CD expires - keeping in mind that the timer doesn't start until after the initial engagement completes. So a group could take 16 minutes or so, +/-, and still have a completely successful run of ISA, right? Yet there are folks that have complete cow if a run takes more than 5-7 minutes and it's end of the world it takes 9!
So sometimes I'm left to wonder whether the complaints/concerns about needing upgrades is about actually doing the content or wanting to do the content in an amount of time folks want to do it in...sort of thing...kind of like if folks were doing 5-9 minute ISE runs and they're now facing 9-13 minute ISA runs - that it's not about doing it, but just how long it takes...sort of thing again.
Each of the queues have their actual requirements...but a lot of players place their own requirements on top of that making them more than they are.
Depends on the player, no?
Gets into a gambling thing...I tend to be lucky there, it's rare that I'm going to have a group where everybody's dooming the run to failure before it starts. I'm not running queues because I need anything from them - I run them to have fun. I don't expect every queue to be a success...so if a group just misses an objective or the like, well, that's fine - will try again in half an hour and will go do another in the interim. It's only irritating, mostly, when it's obviously doomed from the start...there's a big difference, impe, between having a chance and having zero chance.
Some folks don't want any chance at failure and off they go to various channels or the like. If I can't lose...if there's no possibility of losing outside of bugs/latency/whatever...well, er, yeah...there's no fun in that for me. So all I do is pug, cause there's going to be that chance...not a big chance, but a chance all the same. It's allowed me to create other challenges for myself...seeing how much aggro I can hold, how much healing I can do, if things go south and TRIBBLE hits the fan, can I help recover...and so forth.
Going to depend on the player and what they're looking for... For some, no doubt the public queues are dead to them cause they want the guaranteed success and to see how fast they can do it. For some, no doubt the public queues are dead to them cause they don't want to do channel/fleet/private runs and they can't stand the folks showing up for public runs. For some, wheee....it's all good.
edit: There are going to be all sorts of "For some," going on there...
The reason why is that they are not going away. Azure was changed to normalize the price of argonite as they are now done aggressively promoting the sale of R&D packs. The cost of argonite was slowing the flow of dilithium into the upgrade system.
For some time it was 660,000 each argonite. After the extensive R&D promotions it went down to 240,000. Now with the Azure change it is 80,000 - same as plekton and radiogenic. To me the prices are now perfect and there is no barrier to upgrading as much as you like except dilithium.
I don't believe the failqueues will go away because having them increases the gameplay metrics. Introducing the elite mark turnin means that you must run more missions, which is good for the metrics. If you could do advanced a handful of times and get your iconian blingblobs you might be done with it in short order.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I totally agree, and in a way they have done already that, but people won't USE it as the measuring stick it is. The Featured content can be played on the same difficulty level selections( normal, advanced, elite) as the ques, and though its not the 'same' it does help prepare.
EXAMPLE: In many instances, the PVE Que'd content appears in a featured episode. I would suggest making players who have not completed the 'X' episodic PVE content on advanced/elites for 'Y' number of times, not be allowed to participate (option grayed out for them) in the corresponding que'd 'X' content until this 'Y' goal is accomplished, or until Z objectives/optionals are complete in the episodic content on the previously mentioned difficulty levels. Cryptic would have to change the rewards to scale better, the training value added would help the que'd content, but it would also need an incentive of increased reward for today's players to give up their speedy 'normal' runs, that give the same rewards, minus drop potential.
In my idea, normal episodic rewards would be green, advanced blue, and elite purple. The purple gear given now for normal completion. that purple gear was meant to help get to advanced. Crafting (invested time) will take your gear to elite or beyond, and allow for increased success (minus player skill)
Although not entirely the end all/be all solution, personally I only experience the patrols, or the new solo or grouped content, excluding ques, on Elite. Its my personal test for each ship I fly. I feel like the pace, the level of the mobs, give me more "Oh ****" moments to recover from, while also helping to teach me how to fly a particular ship better in hectic and impossible situations.
How many players actually do all of their non-que'd content on elite to practice, or would they rather get their marks/dil/rewards and move on? It definitely does not qualify for an elite que (gear check), but if more PUGs and people looking to learn actually played on hard all the time, the PUG learning issue wouldn't be so bad.
Good to great veteran players would like better preparation and attention to details from newer or less skilled players, and also understand it comes in the form of practice, asking questions, and just performing to your ships capabilities on their part.
Veterans who fall into "other" category are more concerned with their personal successes than that of the team, or else they would instruct for success as many do here time and again on the forums (thank you).
Some players even enter the que's in a ground setup, and flying their ship like its their space setup (I have done this myself).
Some players/teams you could put in a T4 ships who build ships that could complete Advanced and some you could put in a T7 who would never complete it with all the options. Some people will never be good. Just life.
If you lack the ability to counterpoint my points then don't reply at all, and certainly don't throw out a pointlessly inflammatory reply by misrepresenting my words.
That said, yes they should increase the difficulty of normal. As I recall they actually lowered it with post DR changes which is absurd. Yet the optional fail nonsense in advanced remains unneeded, especially when it is so very poorly done.
Well, when they announced the change to Azure, they said it was a test of the changes to come to the other instances. With season 10 out now, I expect this to be one of the things at the top of their list, if they haven't been working on it the entire time. There are a fair amount of instances, so changing them all does take some time.
IKR?
When I can't do a dungeon in GW2 and I see other people massively outperform me, I immediately conclude the problem is with me and make the effort to improve.
That doesn't seem to be a view shared by a large number of people on STO.
Its because of how sto works as compared to other games. In WoW, for example, if your group screws up everyone dies, you res and start that fight over again. If you keep failing, eventually the problem players are replaced, or the group disbands.
In STO, you get to res right where you left off, making challenging mechanics a simple matter of die, res, attack, die, repeat until you win. The fail objectives don't fix this, they compound the problem, as normal doesn't actually teach the mechanics since they can be bypassed, and the fail lockout is just stupid, often punishing people way too much for someone else's mistake.
What really needs to happen is all instances should be divided into phases, and the constant rezzing turned off on advanced. When you die, you stay dead unless someone else repairs/heals you. When everyone dies, you can res, and that phase is reset to its beginning. Oh and we need a vote kick function.
It's amazing what kind of difference a [-Th] console and a couple of solid team mates can make. There's still too much disable spam, but the overall experience is less... explodey.
Brotherhood depends entirely on what the PUG roulette grants. Okay, the MACO fireteam is a little out of the way, and the mission objective list does hide the necessities without scrolling down, but still: how hard is it to read and understand basic instructions? DUUURR ME CLICKY NOW HUUURRR leads to 15 marks and a boot on the backside.
The Saving Private Orion dealie might be just badly thought out. He's somewhat hidden and prone to dying even when rescued, if the team doesn't have the means to heal him.
I've never liked private channels. They reek of elitism and attract people with bad attitudes (that's not to say all privateers are like that), plus PUGing is never the same twice. Now I'm starting to see the other side of the coin. All it takes is a couple of clueless/careless/illiterate people to wreck a queue. The first thing to do when faced with failure is to understand what went wrong and why, so that improvements can be made. Here we have some people who just keep queueing, repeating the same mistakes and somehow remaining oblivious to why or how it happens. It's almost enough to make me want to go private.
Some people may not want to carry freeloaders. And I won't defend an afker parked at spawn. But players isolating themselves to private channels or fleet only groups has a significant negative effect on STO, namely dead queues. It's not good advertising. It's not good business.
I bet there are a lot of good players out there that get a kick out of carrying a pug, if only cryptic would allow us to do it. Everyone walks out a winner and happy, and that is what entertainment is all about.
Brody ToS Veteran
a lot of players know that they are the problem (my latest recruit is not very good), but with the prices of the upgrades, for now she keeps MK X, MK XI weapons and Mk VIII, MK X gears.
Cryptics have helped to the creation of the "Pug problem"; the upgrade system is too expensive even if you have a lot of toons (i have 9 toons). I can't imagine the troubles for the players who have only 1 toon. A lot of them have surely already left the game <- supposition, not assertion
9 toons and, you find it hard to upgrade the newer one to all mkxi - mkxiv?
Heck, I only got 6 [including my DR] and, none are below mkxii in everything!
It's really not that hard nor, expensive to outfit them IMO, just lots of people don't do it and/or don't care to do it.
Not saying you are one of them but, many multi-toon player's, simply negate a lot of them, for the sake of leech farming with them.
Not trying to come off mean either so, apologies up front as well.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
It is only harmful for the leeches and trolls because that is their playstyle. There is normal for those that dont belong in advance. If you cant carry your whole team in advance Pug, you dont belong in advance. Nowadays you can even create your BNPs, etc through marks. so the excuse for people demanding to be in advance but dont belong there now gone.
If you want to know the time. those competent spend less time in the mission than those who are not. So yes Time is money. A competent can spend 30 mins a day but does 15-30 missions. While a less than competent player does 1 mission but is 50/50 fail or not. If you are competent, you most likely spend less time in the game or are more efficient in the game and most likely deserve to be in advance and elite.
Private channels are also queues. There are minimum requirements for certain channels to assure finishes. Because you still have to queue up in private channels.
A lot of doomsayers have come and go to this forum. But the game continues with its business model. It most likely the current system just harmed you and your playstyle.
Having played Destiny quite a bit that doesn't fix the problem either. Gameplay mechanics can still be stupidly simple and sovled through the application of ones face direclty to the given wall. The respawn restriction simply makes any point of struggle arbitrarily more annoying (without contributing anything to depth or strategy of the game. You just plant the fail gate several steps back without conditioning players to change their approach. Gameplay is still the prime motivator there) and its questionable to say the least if a revive mechanic could be implemented in STO space combat without it being a finnicky and frustrating process (especially if, say, combat breaks the res).
IMO, let's not start mucking about with core game mechanics 5 years on (ie. how respawning works, there's a dubious change in the game now and its not going to be solved by going on another adventure through someone else's idea of how to make MMO's more difficult.) Cryptic just needs to manage its failable objectives better (azure nebula has the right philosphy, scale rewards based on performance and have the fail-gate there as a safety net for woefully prepared teams. That creates a challenge within existing mechanics for those that want/need it, but without heavy-handed progress restrictions of one kind or another.)
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I have to disagree with you with STO on advance objectives and higher.
There Is normal, advance, elite. The problem is players who don't belong at advance go to advance. There is normal for those players. Yes, there are players who can finish advance and are above normal. But the problem seems to be a certain group playebase insisting they belong in advance when they do not. So their solution would change the mechanic rather accepting the current mechanic by either going down to normal or improving themselves.
There are several words I could think of what kind of playerbase, but the most civil I can think of are the spoiled and self entitled players.
Why do you not play elite?
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Every player base can be thought of as such. People act according to their self interest rather than considering the groups needs. That however is just what you get with a mass amalgomation of people playing an entertainment product, objectively it should be about everyone but we're all in it, at some level, for ourselves.
That's why difficulty settings should be more accommodating. You can't trust that players will appropriately place themselves in the correct mode. Even if they aren't just looking to get as much as possible out of it, there's still the question of judgement.
Ergo, no absolute fail (except where the group simply cannot function) but rewards scale based on performance.
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!
Why do you think I don't play elite? You can actually research this if I play elite or not since there is a community table for elite missions.
The question really is why don't you play normal?
If that were the case, there won't be normal, advance or elite. Becuase they are just the same. Might as well scrap the difficulty level to accommodate for the few whinny players in the forum. Which would alienate those who do advance, elite. In the current situation, you are just alienating players who think they can play advance but only deserve normal.
The one you want already exists in normal difficulty.
I like to go for a win with pugs. Sometimes it fails because people don't read the team chat, or anything else. Then there's a lot of problems with the STF's, like Korfez and the darn Benthans.
Now if more average hitters like me went to the public queues they might not be empty all the time.
And maybe those newer players would see how to do the queues, so public queues wouldn't be so bad.
"Use Temporal Skills to NERF EVERYTHING before it happened!" -Unknown source.
Bull****, I said nothing about tweaking gameplay balance. Its the objectives that need tweaking.
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 don't play normal because advanced and elite are pretty easy for me. Followup question. If you play elite why are you so worried about advanced?
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
fair enough.
However, from a practical purposes sake, there is normal difficulty. Right now, the issue is players refusal to recognize their is a normal difficulty and that it is their option to improve themselves or their group or even an option queue up in normal or advance or not.
Also your solution has a flaw. Your suggested mechanic assumes that these are new players who no nothing and not veteran players who flatly refuse to improve or with illusory superiority complexes or leeches themselves. This current mechanic in advance, exposes who are the leeches and who are the undeserving.
Elite are pretty easy for you? really? Looks at ISA and HSE table for his name. I dont see you in Hive Space Elite. 14k DPS in ISA is easy really. Illusory superiority at its finest.
There are missions that have only advance and dont have elites.
Yes they are. I guess your looking at some sort of dps channel creepy data collection from one random mission? Some sort of cyberstalking spreadsheet? I have nothing whatsoever to do with these groups but am available for pvp anytime.
I know that it is impossible for most to imagine advancing anything besides a petty selfish argument. Sad really.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
The objectives, should be a no brainer for most but, that doesn't seem to be the case.
Which would mean, either the lack of comprehension on the part of the player and/or, lack of caring on the part of the player.
Probably because, not every mission has an elite available atm so, people that are forced to run an advanced as the highest difficulty, don't find it challenging when some incompetent player causes a fail.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!