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There is a serious Trolling problem in Infected:Manus (the Starbase Ground STF)...
rahhmi
Member Posts: 145 Arc User
Greetings Friends.
I am posting today on a matter of grave importance...
There is a foul injustice taking place within Star Trek Online and for too long, Starfleet Dental administrators have overheard and occasionally even received complaints on the matter. The Culprit is Infected Ground Advanced... Or rather, Infected:Manus (Advanced).
While other STFs, and even missions, suffer from similar issues.. This one is of particular Heinousness and has lead to much frustration, annoyance, and anger among players who are simply, and desperately, trying only to further their Omega Reputation. Whenever you PUG (this means Pick-up group, it's the public queue) IGA, You're going to spend around 90% of your time playing with Trolls who deliberately ruin not only the mission, but it's objectives.. and even worse, your Immersion!
I also must apologize for the lack of knowledge amongst the players, and the general lack of attention from Developers on this matter, as it's been ongoing for literal YEARS In spite of the fact that this THIS MISSION IS HEAVILY DOCUMENTED ON YOUTUBE IN TUTORIAL FORM.
Once again, I am focusing ONLY on the Ground Advanced version of Infected:Manus.
- Most of your (Troll) team will be wearing a Reputation Armor (obvious troll so you will think they're going to be functional) with a helmet, and this will be their first time playing a ground Queue.
- These Trolls will often times be wearing terrible gear, which shouldn't even allow them to survive the non-advanced version of this queue.
- Often times, these trolls will not even be using a remodulator, and will stare as the green adapted symbol pops up from everything they're helping to kill. But since you can't see allies doing that, they can further grief that they're attacking but their damage is low.
- Immediately after entering, SOMEONE will talk to the first NPC, often before your team even fully loads in, thus starting the timer.
- In spite of any begging, pleading, or team chat, these malicious trolls will intentionally blow EVERY TRIGGERLINE.
- The Trolls will then deliberately IGNORE the Starbase personnel
- While doing this, they will Aggro EVERY SINGLE BORG nearby in an attempt to kill you while you're trying to rescue the Starbase Crew
- When you finally arrive at the room down the ramps, They will ignore that two Starbase Personnel are awaiting salvation as you try to destroy two mobs simultaneously, and you will most likely fail the objective at this point if you haven't already because this situation simply can't be DPS'd by one person.
- If you manage to make it to the boss room, you will find that the devs seem to be trying to destroy whatever immersion you might have left as Captain Ogen will no longer be a dedicated costume npc, but he will be a random generic borg of no consequence, and even worse.. often-times a Female borg!!!
- After defeating the boss, your team will stand around idle as the timer runs down rather than helping to activate the 3 consoles in order to lower the shield.
- As you progress through the mission, previous points re-assert themselves.
- In Manus/Rebecca's room, they will often jump into the plasma pit, killing themselves, claiming the issue is lag or that they're just bad at jumping.
- At this point, They will often refuse to help by activating consoles, or deliberately wait a moment so that you have to start over again repeatedly.
- Sometimes, they will simply leave at this point, thus having wasted half an hour of your time.
- If you manage to actually get to the point where you face Rebecca, they will stand as close to you as possible in an attempt to chain-kill you.
- Finally.. and unfortunately, this is the second one I worry the devs are not attending too... the ELITE version of Ground STF queues are no longer present. These elite queues allow you to get an advanced form of the Maco and OmegaForce armors which defines that you've truly gained elite status within these missions, and are someone who's knowledge on the subject should be respected rather than ignored.
These glaring problems have no doubt affected each and everyone one of the people that have played Ground STF queues (as many of them apply to all ground queues in general) present a serious problem with the queues in general! Especially the ground ones.
As time goes on, it's harder and harder to public queue for a mission and achieve an even mildly satisfactory result.
I humbly ask two things with this post... the first is that the Devs consider a way to globally fix issues like these.. especially the lack of Ground Elite Status accolades, and that players who've become disheartened both by Pug Queues AND Queues in general.. have hope. Your plight is recognized and sympathized with by the members of Starfleet Dental, And we will continue to argue on your behalf that something be done about these trolls who are ruining your immersion, and your gaming experience.
This Obvious and Deliberate Trolling has gone on too long, and must first be acknowledged before it can be stopped!
Thank you.
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Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I'm glad to see that someone else agrees with my post! Although please do not misrepresent these obvious Trolls as being simple "noobs".
Oh, i can usually tell the difference between them, but there are a fare share of noobs running the mission, that shouldn't be!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator
"bIghojchugh DaneH, Dumev pagh. bIghojqangbe'chugh, DuQaHlaH pagh."
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Plus, it fires in a cone, which is a bonus, given that Borg often cluster up.
I really can’t confirm that cuz we haven’t met a troll on that map in over a year, perhaps even much longer. We only encounter the bad players we seek. If there happen to be trolls left in this game I really hope they would queue up more often. The PvE endgame situation is as desolate as it can get with so few players playing it. Every single player who joins in would help at this point. It’s not as if trolling, leeching, AFKing or mistakes by single individuals would have much influence on the outcome of an advanced match from the perspective of fully geared and experienced players.
The powercreep released with and since delta rising rendered the problems they used to cause a long time ago into meaninglessness.
And erm...
Borg red alerts, Defera, Normal Difficulty setting, DPS channels, fleets, in game friends? Hard to believe that concluding the omega rep is still a thing in this game.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
And that's why I never played it. Because when I'd run it the first time, and do things wrong -- because I bloody was NOT born with the knowledge how to run this STF -- I'd get jumped at, and called names. "Troll" and "noob" being the softest ones.
And no, I wouldn't go into Adv. for the first run. Normal would be as "friendly"...
Also, what's missing in the list above, is the problems that the forcefields in this mission can cause when someone runs ahead, triggers the forcefield and lock the team out.
Usually to stay there cloaked or dropping disco balls...
IMHO, they should be made available again eventually, but not before some changes have been made. Concussive tachyon emission (which can, for some reason, be used far more often than other T5 rep abilities btw), the release of shield ignoring weapons which have completely removed the need to actually put some thought in your build and have completely trivialised borg content, and power creep in general are three important things that should be adressed first or when new elite versions of the maps are made.
Also, I'm wondering: shouldn't Borg AI be updated? Let's face it: they're one of the least threatening enemies on the ground. When you compare Defera with the Kobali battlezone, for example, it's clear to me that Borg AI is very outdated. Unless it was intended for them to be kind of ... dumb of course.
I have a similar problem. It does seem that the people who complain about people who don't have any kind of knowledge of the mission before they signed up to the game and then they call people trolls or noobs and complain about not having the best of the best gear AND this is on normal. I have been called noob myself, especially because of these "triggerlines".
What the heck of the triggerlines, what do they look like and how do you know what they look like and how do you pick one?
YOU TRIBBLE
There is trolling in IGA. It usually happens when someone (usually from the cult of oral hygiene. again, consider the source) sprints ahead of the team, into Ogen's room. That raises the force field at the door and prevents the team from progressing until the troll times out or the team leaves.
As for noobs not knowing the trigger lines, that's fine. My problem is with people who ignore chat and make no attempt to learn. If you don't know where the invisible trigger lines are, that's ok. The instruction "stay behind your teammates" should be enough to prevent any major TRIBBLE ups- because once you cross certain invisible lines on the map, the Borg begin assimilating the hostage. If you draw most of the Borg back to your position with ranged weapons, before crossing the line, you can then walk into the room with ease and rescue the hostage with little resistance.
So, if you don't know the trigger lines, just please stay behind your teammates. Until you get a sense for where they are. (Usually just in front of three point where the team stops to snipe.)
IGA is actually one of the few fun STFs that require a tiny bit of teamwork and strategy, rather than just faceroll shoot-em-up nonsense.
While I usually don't complain about gear (unless someone's using an energy weapon, and not remodulating it even after having explained twice in team chat how to do it and thus contributes literally nothing to the team) I can be quite annoyed when people keep rushing in, forcing others to rush in and get killed in the process. Not on normal though, there I understand that some do not know the mission.
The problem is, even if you explain things, most people will ignore the advice. I've met several people who tried to lead the team and explain things, basic tactics, ways to get the optional when they saw some people on the team needed it. I've done so myself. It's very rare, however, to actually see someone use the advice you're offering and that can be quite frustrating. Even simple advice like 'stay together and don't activate all drones at the same time' and 'don't stay near the opening of the next room, take cover behind one of the pillars or you'll get killed in seconds' (in Hive ground) are rarely followed. Entire team dead, help button gets heavily abused even though you can't reach them through the plasma floor or because you get shot at from all directions and you basically have to solo half the mission.
I've located myself on top of the trigger lines and said 'don't cross this line, lure the borg out first'. I think only 10 percent of the people I've met in all the PUGS I've played actually did that.
If no one is reading his chat in Khitomer ground... well then you have to be a very patient person cause there's literally not much else you can do than hope that someone will, eventually, look at his chat where you've explained things twice, sometimes three times.
A few weeks ago, I was in an IGA PUG and we were at the room with the last two remaining crewmen. One person was literally in front of the opening and thus had triggered the assimilation, so I rushed in, tried to save the crewman on the left (as I had said earlier, I would always go left and leave the crewman that's closer and thus easier to save to the other 4 (!) team members), no one else went right and then they blamed me 'for not waiting until the team was ready' and 'TRIBBLE up'. I tried to explain them, even linking to the map on the Wiki, that the trigger line is way before the entrance of that room, and that one of them thus had triggered the assimilation. They didn't get it, I believe they never bothered to look at the map cause all they kept saying was that I 'screwed up', that I 'was the only one in the room' and then some sentences in French that, I believe, were not said because they appreciated the advice I was giving... they were basically ignoring everything that mattered. The fact, also, that I managed to save one crewman alone and that the four of them were not able to save the one that's even closer (and also the fact that some of them were shooting completely different enemies that have no priority at all) also did not matter to them. I, apparantly, was the one who screwed up the mission. Right.
I'm always happy to offer advice or explain things... but since English is my second language and I also want to play the mission instead of only using chat all the time, it can be quite annoying when advice isn't followed. When people actually start to blame me for their own failure or not knowing things, I quickly lose patience with them, especially when I've already done more than the average team member, and most certainly when I'm playing Advanced and those basic facts are not known to all four other team members, who will proceed to be completely ignorant and not be bothered to check the facts while insulting those who step up and try to lead the team and coordinate the actions.
My experience has been that most people (and I myself) have no problem explaining things, the shouting and name-calling usually starts when they and their advice are completely ignored and when they must keep compensating for other's actions. Not that I agree with that kind of behaviour, but I can't say I blame someone for losing his temper eventually. I know how difficult it can be to lead a team when almost no one is bothering or even trying to learn, the fact that some people will actively obstruct the efforts or the teacher or even start being hostile to those who are taking initiative surely isn't helping or motivating.
I'd say that if someone claims to be an elite commander or an advanced player, he has a responsibility to try and teach new players the basics, as we all had to learn things. But it's not the sole responsibility of the team leader; those who are doing a mission for the first time should also put some effort in and try to learn things. And while I've seen some people lose patience with 'noobs', I think it's too simple to attack those more experienced players for getting annoyed. Most of those experienced players do try to teach after all, but there's only so much you can do if the audience (or in other words: those who should be reading team chat if they don't know what to do) isn't paying attention.
Most trigger lines are halfway the room or corridor, or at the end of a ramp. In the first two rooms you won't have to rush in, you can stay near the entrance of the next room and shoot the worker drones from there. This will make it easier to survive.
I know there was a foundry mission that explained this map... not sure if it still exists though. I don't remember the name.
1. My "fun", as it were, is usually tied somewhat to the performance of the team. Team success = my success = I get rewards. Team fail = no income...
1.5 "Undergeared" is such a subjective term. The mission is "balanced" for Mk XII whites with skill and understanding of the mission, reinforced by teamwork. Mk XIV everything should make the mission easier.
2. Yeah, and it would be expected that the "anyone" is at least somewhat concerned with "Teamwork".
3. Troll is "heavy"? Really? Are you on the receiving end of said commentary frequently - and downplay it that much? Last I checked, "Trolls" do not really function IRL - the consequences are too much for them to repeatedly do so. Therefore, it's a gamer term for a gamer syndrome... (unless you're trying to compare to the forum troll, but then, they're both out for the same thing, personal "enjoyment" at the expense of others (and communal enjoyment).
4. See 1.5
5. Queues are only "empty" because 90% of the runs (so I hear) have shifted to "private" runs - fleet, channel, etc. Oddly enough, if Cryptic somehow fixed the "troll" problem, many might start PuGging the queues again instead of relying on "alternate sources".
6-8. Oh the irony. People get better with experience. Experience that has moved away from generic, troll laden, "public" queues. And we're discussing one of the few remaining missions where "skill and execution" can't be masked with DPS - much as Scimitards can (and have) made required strategies like "10% rule" or "coordinated gateway destruction" things of the distant past. And if the game is truly as boring as you make it out to be, can I haz your stuffz? Since you more than likely should be playing something that excites you - like Eve...
9. Yet the playerbase metrics have (seemingly) indicated otherwise. It has led to the issuance of a statement that has been twisted into a popular STO meme. The whiners who aren't playing STO anymore obviously have time to whine - otherwise, the players are playing, so they can't counter-comment...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
One of the problems with the chat is that some people close it, or don't see messages (don't pay attention, or team mates' chats get lots in system spam that is there by default and few people bother with/know how to turn it off).
No number of advices can help if they keep it closed and don't see them.
That's why I try to get private runs with friends and fleet. Comfortable company, friendly people to ask questions, or TRIBBLE up together if it's our first run
Yeah I can understand that some people turn chat off. I think we should blame it on the brainless Gorn jokes that usually aren't even remotely funny anymore and the political nonsense (which usually aren't even well-thought out points or statements, but just dumb one-liners to stir things up and get under people's skin) in ESD zone chat.
I can't help but think that this is the main reason why people aren't reading their team chat.
done it...
generally I run this with three people who i know will work with me on the consoles.
that being said, yes I've seen that troll before and he was so mad he couldn't wreck it, but he tried...