I advocated strongly for these changes in October, November, and December of 2014. Had they been implemented at that time it would have made a difference. By the time the anniversary came and went and the queues were left to fester still, it was too late. Insufficient numbers will return now as a result of these changes.
I will say that the Iconian advanced queues are absolutely perfect. This has made getting the Iconian marks for my 6 characters very pleasant.
I guess it will be exciting to finally pug borg disconnected advanced successfully. Although I gave up at the end of December I am still at 0.0% success pugging that. As for all the others. I guess I will give a golf clap for finally making the changes, but I (and most others) have moved on to other things in the game for the most part. For myself this is not because of failure or difficulty but because of no longer needing any resources - and just being out for fun now.
I wanted to second all of this. This is a change (or rather, a reversion) that has been a long time coming, and should have been put into place way back when it was clear that it was having an adverse effect on the playerbase. I suppose it's better late than never, and this is definitely a sign that things will be going in a better direction moving foreword but, yeah, the damage has already kind of been done, and it's unfortunate that things even got to this point before we had so much of an acknowledgement that it was a problem.
I also feel like the relaxing of the objectives in the Advanced versions of the Iconian STFs were better proof that the removal of strict fail objectives was a good idea, as opposed to the silliness that was just removing the fail objectives from Azure Nebula but, eh, whatever metrics they want to point at.... :rolleyes:
And yeah, again, while these changes finally leave me positive about the future of STFs in STO, and it will nice to be able to pug some STFs again when I'm up for some quick group action, until they introduce some additional new STFs and/or reputation system (oh, and fully fix the lag in certain other STFs), it's not like I have much incentive to que up for STFs anymore these days, since even if I need stuff like marks or dilithium or what have you, there are usually other and often easier ways of acquiring all that.
All that said, I'm still VERY glad this is finally happening.
"There will never be enough blood to wash away my need for vengeance! A single world...I could destroy a million worlds and it would not be enough! Your existence is an insult to the memory of my people! I will continue my fight, even if I must fight alone!"
I also feel like the relaxing of the objectives in the Advanced versions of the Iconian STFs were better proof that the removal of strict fail objectives was a good idea, as opposed to the silliness that was just removing the fail objectives from Azure Nebula but, eh, whatever metrics they want to point at.... :rolleyes:
...
All that said, I'm still VERY glad this is finally happening.
For ANRA, if it is likely to be dealt an unwinnable combination of ships, having the ships as a fail condition was a fail in basic game design.
I'm glad they are changing it but I hope it's slotting enough RCS consoles for the U.S.S. Titanic to avoid the iceberg they've been charging towards since DR was released.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
This has not been my experience pugging Iconian advanced missions - especially Gateway. One would expect these new missions that everyone needs for Iconian marks to attract the lowest possible skill spectrum of players. Yet I am gaining 120 to 130 marks each run.
Brotherhood Advanced regularly completes with full optionals, but thats because the optionals are so easy (now that they fixed the bugged escort mission). In my experience pugging Gateway Advanced is about 50/50 odds on clearing the starbase/shipyard in time and the dreadnought timer is much worse than that. Herald Sphere...even worse.
Here's another example. I calculated a few months ago that I've played ISA/ISE around 1000 times (a very low conservative estimate). In all of those runs, most before delta rising, I've never seen a group not try for the optional. And I've only seen something like 10 trolls in all that time.
That's likely. The totally clueless players will usually follow the group so someone accidentally going the wrong side is rare. ISA is really a good mission for beginners that way.
So-so with this. On the one hand, it's great - more completed runs = more rewards. On the other hand, it will bring us back to pre-DR level where everyone thinks their 1k rainbow-skittles build is awesome since they encounter no failed queues.
I'm still grateful for this update though Would be even more grateful if you brought No-Win Scenario back...
I don't mean to be nit-picky (read: I'm about to be niit-picky), but in the first sentence under the hearer "what this means for rewards" I think you want to use the possessive form of the pronoun. The end of the sentence would then read "... we expect that players will be able to earn more marks from playing these queues as [their] progress will no longer be halted prematurely."
We've seen some positive changes come from the Azure Nebula queue updates.
I'm wondering where you got this information? Azure is even more difficult now, with a strong team, both optionals almost always fail. And you're rolling out similar changes across the board for Advanced? Not what I would call a welcome change.
After consideration, we'll be updating the way our Advanced Queues work with some changes
Many of us regular players have done what Cryptic wanted and upgraded our characters. Although I understand that everyone progresses at different rates, it has now been 8 months since the level 60 (Delta) release and resistance was futile...we did comply.
Here is an example of Infected Manus advanced where the 15 minute "optional" is done with 8:04 left on the clock. This is not due to OP traits but simply good players who upgraded to Epic. It is simply to show you that WE NEED ELITES! Thanks in advance...;)
Brotherhood Advanced regularly completes with full optionals, but thats because the optionals are so easy (now that they fixed the bugged escort mission). In my experience pugging Gateway Advanced is about 50/50 odds on clearing the starbase/shipyard in time and the dreadnought timer is much worse than that. Herald Sphere...even worse.
That is more because the timers are set ridiculously short. I have only once seen a group in Borg Disconnected normal ever complete the timers on the dreadnaughts. It isn't even remotely realistic to meet the long timer for most groups.
Similarly in GGA I've been in a number of groups where we cruised right along, had no issues, people weren't dying endlessly, DPS felt good, but we just didn't quite have enough to make the timers. Everyone was more than appropriate for the STF, and these runs go quite smoothly, yet meeting the timers just wasn't going to happen. The DPS requirements for the optional timers are just too high to be appropriate.
Lets not also forget that the setting the bombs optional in Bug Hunt is near impossible. Not through player fault but the design issues.
Every queue that is dead means that it's not doable with a pug teams. Being too long, or the crafting rewards you get are common, meaning cheap, meaning not worth your time.
We've seen some positive changes come from the Azure Nebula queue updates. When we changed the optionals and how they were blocking player progress, we saw a lot of great feedback. After consideration, we'll be updating the way our Advanced Queues work with some changes that we'll be testing on tribble soon.
Thank you for news, the queues should be quite interesting
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
This may be too late. But I hope it isn't. Thank you. I'm overjoyed to see these changes.
The only thing is that it will be a bit difficult to judge how this plays out since we're in the middle of the Risa event, though it's choice for before bonus marks weekend. Hopefully this will put right, what once went wrong.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
I'm glad to see this is eventually coming to fruition after several months since the first indications.
One thing I'm curious about, regarding Azure Nebula Rescue in particular, have you guys been paying attention to our feedback regarding the new optionals? Optionals should always be possible (not always completed, but at least possible) yet with ANR you very often get 4 or 5 points worth of ships with an optional objective to free 10 points worth of ships, meaning the optional isn't optional at all, it's a pointless objective which you can't possibly achieve and thus get a reduced reward, because RNG.
Join date is wrong, I've actually been around since STO Beta.
True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event rewards!!
More and more people not ready for advanced queues are jumping into them, and are causes those wanting to do the optional parts to fail them. Many doing so on purpose, as they are only there for crafting maps and the rep item.
They only way around this is forming your own group, but that isn't always a viable option.
So when you can't form a group to do the optional parts, and you need to pug, you are stuck with still failing. You don't fail the mission, but you fail what you were trying to accomplish.
Something has to change here to discourage this sort of trolling of missions.
Viewing the numbers in the queues has been rather depressing. Favorites of mine like Mine Trap and The Big Dig are never filling due to the large numbers needed. In addition to these positive changes, it would be nice to see a scaled down number of players needed for these queues.
Viewing the numbers in the queues has been rather depressing. Favorites of mine like Mine Trap and The Big Dig are never filling due to the large numbers needed. In addition to these positive changes, it would be nice to see a scaled down number of players needed for these queues.
I really do miss doing the Big Dig and Klingon Scout force. The latter I've started doing solo whenever the daily fleet action mission shows up, but it takes a bit of time soloing it. 20 man queues used to pop quite often, it's a shame they've all died a death.
Join date is wrong, I've actually been around since STO Beta.
True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event rewards!!
I really do miss doing the Big Dig and Klingon Scout force. The latter I've started doing solo whenever the daily fleet action mission shows up, but it takes a bit of time soloing it. 20 man queues used to pop quite often, it's a shame they've all died a death.
I think we need a channel for the queues. Those interested in reviving them could interact and join up and revive them. I used to do Mine Trap more than once a day. Lots of fun. The Big Dig was always a good time too.
Deanna
I thought the DevBlog was quite clear - Advanced queues reward the same amount of marks as Normal queues for completion, but the optionals reward greater numbers of marks on Advanced.
whats not clear though is will the advanced reward any of the elite marks if nuggets fail the optional objectives or not. and i belive that is what he was referring to, since the normals do not give them anymore.
i believe the devs missed the point of the problem with all this. if the normals had rewarded the elite marks i don't think any of this would have been needed.
Trophies for killing FEDS ahh those were the days.
whats not clear though is will the advanced reward any of the elite marks if nuggets fail the optional objectives or not. and i belive that is what he was referring to, since the normals do not give them anymore.
"Additionally, it will be easier to earn elite reputation marks (Borg Neural Processors, Isomorphic Injections, etc.) and rare crafting materials as players will be able to finish these queues and earn those specific rewards as a result."
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."
seems like me and three other guys I fly with, can always hit the optional objectives when we are together, and pick up some one who knows what they are doing. the problem is, a lot of the time, we wind up with some guy or gal doing nothing but BFAW spam, which causes targets to blow up too soon, or bring whole groups from all over the map towards us.
While we can handle it given enough time, the way it was working was instant fail.
I hope this allows other newer players the chance to really learn how to pull this off with the higher HP's of enemies. A bit more strat needed than normals.
My mother always told me to walk away from a fight, The Marines taught me how.
However, considering all optionals failed in a given run, between Normal and Advanced, Advanced should reward more, simply because it's harder. Tying *all* extra bonuses to Optional completion is a mistake in my opinion, albeit it's not really a big deal. It's just inconsistent and illogical, and it bothers me a bit.
EDIT: actually, elite drops fill that gap, so I'm fine with it the way it was proposed. Move along, nothing to see here...
"Certain queues have failure conditions built into them even on their Normal modes, an example being Mine Trap. In these cases failure has been built in as a fundamental part of those queues. In these cases the queues rewarded the full array of rewards (elite marks, crafting packs, etc.) that they would if they had been succeeded, however the queue ends early."
You still get the completion rewards if you fail the mission? That seems like something a lot of people would take advantage of and defeats the purpose of playing the missions.
Yes, by that description, one would only need show up to collect their rewards and, need do absolutely nothing to get them!
And ironically, that's exactly what it said. The fail conditions were only ever referred to as "optional" by players complaining about them, never the game itself.
Actually, roughly 99% of the queues, the optionals were in fact optionals and, didn't cause a failure in advanced.
While the mandatory objectives, were confused as optionals, in which case the majority they weren't.
There was nothing wrong with the majority of them, it's just players are obviously blind to reading and, simple comprehension that makes them believe it was optional objectives fault!!!
i totally recall failure conditions being referred to as 'optional' in the three advanced space stfs:
kase '10 probes', cse kang, and ise nanite spheres.
Getting kind of mixed signals reading this. Do Advanced queues still reward the same number of marks as before, or now down to Normal levels of marks but made up for by bigger Optional rewards?
What Does This Mean for Rewards?
The total number of marks that players can earn from a given queue will be, with very few exceptions, either the same as they earned before this update or slightly improved.
I take this to mean that in most cases the mark rewards, without bonus objectives, will remain the same or increased a little. Edit: Though earlier in the blog it says that normal queues are going to award the same amount of base marks and advanced will award the same amount, across the board. This could mean that some queues will have their base marks, without optionals, reduced slightly to be standardized.
Hopefully they'll tell us soon just what the new standardized mark rewards for normal and advanced are going to be. The blog didn't say.
i totally recall failure conditions being referred to as 'optional' in the three advanced space stfs:
kase '10 probes', cse kang, and ise nanite spheres.
Those were not optionals in advanced!
They were in fact, mandatory.
The optionals for all 3, consisted of some form of completing a specific objective, in a given amount of time only, while everything else was mandatory.
Comments
I wanted to second all of this. This is a change (or rather, a reversion) that has been a long time coming, and should have been put into place way back when it was clear that it was having an adverse effect on the playerbase. I suppose it's better late than never, and this is definitely a sign that things will be going in a better direction moving foreword but, yeah, the damage has already kind of been done, and it's unfortunate that things even got to this point before we had so much of an acknowledgement that it was a problem.
I also feel like the relaxing of the objectives in the Advanced versions of the Iconian STFs were better proof that the removal of strict fail objectives was a good idea, as opposed to the silliness that was just removing the fail objectives from Azure Nebula but, eh, whatever metrics they want to point at.... :rolleyes:
And yeah, again, while these changes finally leave me positive about the future of STFs in STO, and it will nice to be able to pug some STFs again when I'm up for some quick group action, until they introduce some additional new STFs and/or reputation system (oh, and fully fix the lag in certain other STFs), it's not like I have much incentive to que up for STFs anymore these days, since even if I need stuff like marks or dilithium or what have you, there are usually other and often easier ways of acquiring all that.
All that said, I'm still VERY glad this is finally happening.
For ANRA, if it is likely to be dealt an unwinnable combination of ships, having the ships as a fail condition was a fail in basic game design.
I'm glad they are changing it but I hope it's slotting enough RCS consoles for the U.S.S. Titanic to avoid the iceberg they've been charging towards since DR was released.
That's likely. The totally clueless players will usually follow the group so someone accidentally going the wrong side is rare. ISA is really a good mission for beginners that way.
I'm still grateful for this update though
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I'm wondering where you got this information? Azure is even more difficult now, with a strong team, both optionals almost always fail. And you're rolling out similar changes across the board for Advanced? Not what I would call a welcome change.
Many of us regular players have done what Cryptic wanted and upgraded our characters. Although I understand that everyone progresses at different rates, it has now been 8 months since the level 60 (Delta) release and resistance was futile...we did comply.
Here is an example of Infected Manus advanced where the 15 minute "optional" is done with 8:04 left on the clock. This is not due to OP traits but simply good players who upgraded to Epic. It is simply to show you that WE NEED ELITES! Thanks in advance...;)
https://youtu.be/h4C559gjVjc
Here is an Entire mission of "Into The Hive Elite" done in less than 9 minutes.
https://youtu.be/GK5Jg5BRCRQ
Qapla'!...Shen'ara
That is more because the timers are set ridiculously short. I have only once seen a group in Borg Disconnected normal ever complete the timers on the dreadnaughts. It isn't even remotely realistic to meet the long timer for most groups.
Similarly in GGA I've been in a number of groups where we cruised right along, had no issues, people weren't dying endlessly, DPS felt good, but we just didn't quite have enough to make the timers. Everyone was more than appropriate for the STF, and these runs go quite smoothly, yet meeting the timers just wasn't going to happen. The DPS requirements for the optional timers are just too high to be appropriate.
Lets not also forget that the setting the bombs optional in Bug Hunt is near impossible. Not through player fault but the design issues.
Thank you for news, the queues should be quite interesting
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
thx a lot for this update.
The only thing is that it will be a bit difficult to judge how this plays out since we're in the middle of the Risa event, though it's choice for before bonus marks weekend. Hopefully this will put right, what once went wrong.
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
One thing I'm curious about, regarding Azure Nebula Rescue in particular, have you guys been paying attention to our feedback regarding the new optionals? Optionals should always be possible (not always completed, but at least possible) yet with ANR you very often get 4 or 5 points worth of ships with an optional objective to free 10 points worth of ships, meaning the optional isn't optional at all, it's a pointless objective which you can't possibly achieve and thus get a reduced reward, because RNG.
More and more people not ready for advanced queues are jumping into them, and are causes those wanting to do the optional parts to fail them. Many doing so on purpose, as they are only there for crafting maps and the rep item.
They only way around this is forming your own group, but that isn't always a viable option.
So when you can't form a group to do the optional parts, and you need to pug, you are stuck with still failing. You don't fail the mission, but you fail what you were trying to accomplish.
Something has to change here to discourage this sort of trolling of missions.
Aelfwin: ... WTF ...
...
I really do miss doing the Big Dig and Klingon Scout force. The latter I've started doing solo whenever the daily fleet action mission shows up, but it takes a bit of time soloing it. 20 man queues used to pop quite often, it's a shame they've all died a death.
I think we need a channel for the queues. Those interested in reviving them could interact and join up and revive them. I used to do Mine Trap more than once a day. Lots of fun. The Big Dig was always a good time too.
Deanna
whats not clear though is will the advanced reward any of the elite marks if nuggets fail the optional objectives or not. and i belive that is what he was referring to, since the normals do not give them anymore.
i believe the devs missed the point of the problem with all this. if the normals had rewarded the elite marks i don't think any of this would have been needed.
"Additionally, it will be easier to earn elite reputation marks (Borg Neural Processors, Isomorphic Injections, etc.) and rare crafting materials as players will be able to finish these queues and earn those specific rewards as a result."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
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seems like me and three other guys I fly with, can always hit the optional objectives when we are together, and pick up some one who knows what they are doing. the problem is, a lot of the time, we wind up with some guy or gal doing nothing but BFAW spam, which causes targets to blow up too soon, or bring whole groups from all over the map towards us.
While we can handle it given enough time, the way it was working was instant fail.
I hope this allows other newer players the chance to really learn how to pull this off with the higher HP's of enemies. A bit more strat needed than normals.
However, considering all optionals failed in a given run, between Normal and Advanced, Advanced should reward more, simply because it's harder. Tying *all* extra bonuses to Optional completion is a mistake in my opinion, albeit it's not really a big deal. It's just inconsistent and illogical, and it bothers me a bit.
EDIT: actually, elite drops fill that gap, so I'm fine with it the way it was proposed. Move along, nothing to see here...
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Yes, by that description, one would only need show up to collect their rewards and, need do absolutely nothing to get them!
Actually, roughly 99% of the queues, the optionals were in fact optionals and, didn't cause a failure in advanced.
While the mandatory objectives, were confused as optionals, in which case the majority they weren't.
There was nothing wrong with the majority of them, it's just players are obviously blind to reading and, simple comprehension that makes them believe it was optional objectives fault!!!
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kase '10 probes', cse kang, and ise nanite spheres.
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I take this to mean that in most cases the mark rewards, without bonus objectives, will remain the same or increased a little. Edit: Though earlier in the blog it says that normal queues are going to award the same amount of base marks and advanced will award the same amount, across the board. This could mean that some queues will have their base marks, without optionals, reduced slightly to be standardized.
Hopefully they'll tell us soon just what the new standardized mark rewards for normal and advanced are going to be. The blog didn't say.
Those were not optionals in advanced!
They were in fact, mandatory.
The optionals for all 3, consisted of some form of completing a specific objective, in a given amount of time only, while everything else was mandatory.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!