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Dyson battlezone
risian4
Member Posts: 3,711 Arc User
This zone needs to be fixed. My suggestion is based on something I've read somewhere in another thread: place some forcefields around the silo's where the V-Rexes spawn to avoid them being instantly killed. Drop these forcefields after, say 1 minute, to give everyone, especially those that actually help to make them spawn, a chance to reach the silo and get a reward too.
A couple of minutes ago, I was capturing the Generator point in the park, the one that's closest to Command and next to the omega silo. Once this point was captured, I ran immediately to the silo, only to find that, in the maybe ten seconds it took me to get there, the V-rex was killed. I saw literally an army of security escorts, there must have been more than 20, and probably a lot of mines were laid there.
Surely this cannot be how things were intended to be? In less than 20 seconds total, the V-rex was down giving no one who wasn't camping a chance to fire a single shot. How is it possible that this issue, reported a dozen times in the last couple of months still hasn't been adressed, especially when things only seem to get worse?
A couple of minutes ago, I was capturing the Generator point in the park, the one that's closest to Command and next to the omega silo. Once this point was captured, I ran immediately to the silo, only to find that, in the maybe ten seconds it took me to get there, the V-rex was killed. I saw literally an army of security escorts, there must have been more than 20, and probably a lot of mines were laid there.
Surely this cannot be how things were intended to be? In less than 20 seconds total, the V-rex was down giving no one who wasn't camping a chance to fire a single shot. How is it possible that this issue, reported a dozen times in the last couple of months still hasn't been adressed, especially when things only seem to get worse?
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Well apparantly they're also using multiple accounts and the follow command. So that's exploiting. I see entire armies moving around, +20 security escorts, multiple copies of boffs (possibly through the shard of possibilities) and even players following other players where the movements simply aren't natural (as in, they're not made my human players, they're too automatic, almost robotic-like).
The camping has always been an issue indeed. But these exploits and stacking of abilities, resulting in one player being able to command a small army has made it much worse. Seriously, I've seen two instances now where more NPC's were following a single player than there were other players around.
We have never seen the T-rex's taken down so quick, we ran straight to the T-rex and he was probably at 10% HP if that, even though we were there as quick as normal, we didn't get the reward (we only got about 7 Dil from it) we managed to get to another T-rex but while I was able to get the reward from it (Tac) my girlfriend wasn't (Eng).
This is just too quick and as mentioned above, the people who actually work on completing the maps usually don't get the chance for the reward at the end even if they did a lot of work
Also they should have about 3x the health they have now.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
No it won't stop camping, that's true. But it will prevent people from dropping a couple of dozen mines, place turrets and such before the V-rex appears.
Also, by adding a small timer before the forcefields are dropped, those who are capturing the points can choose to capture the points that are next to the silos when the bar is almost filled. That's already happening now, but if there's too many campers even that won't guarantee a fair chance for everyone to get there in time. By adding a timer, they will have enough time to get from the last captured points to the silo and fire a few shots too. One minute should be enough for those who are capturing a point close to the silo to get there in time. Now you don't have a minute, often it will be almost dead in less than half a minute.
Your solution might work too. Although I think you'd still have the problem that, by making it spawn randomly, those who are capturing the points will still have a big chance to still not get there in time since they also have to find out where the Rex is.
The core of the problem is, I think, that those who are camping can fully prepare for the arrival of the V-rex. Removing that possibility would be, relatively, the easiest way to fix the issue. Adding randomness will make it more difficult for everyone, including those who are actually working for their reward. And those who are capturing the points and who are doing most of the work should, imo, have a chance to get a guaranteed reward above everyone else. I don't think adding randomness will help with that, it'll likely only increase the chances of everyone getting a lower reward because you spend more time searching for an enemy than fighting it.
I personally think a phase mechanic would work out for the best, because it doesn't matter how much DPS you do. This not only solves the current DPS meta and its relationship to the Voth battlezone, but makes the event future-proof for the inevitability of players becoming more powerful and thus dealing more damage.
Phase 1: Burn it down to 50% health. Begin phase 2.
Phase 2: V-Rex has Metaphasic Shields that make it immune to all the things. Spend phase 2 killing Voth reinforcements waiting for the metaphasic shields to burn out.
Phase 3: Metaphasic shields are down, kill the remaining 50% health.
The length of time on Phase 2 is equal to or greater than to the amount of time it takes for a player to run (unbuffed) from the farthest possible area of that particular zone. This means that no matter how slow you are or how far you are away from the V-Rex, you will be able to get there in time -- provided you don't get lost on the way there. In which case, that's your fault, not the game's.
But we'll see what Cryptic decides to do (if anything).
Recalculating the participation scoreboard wouldn't be a bad idea either, but that's a bit outside of my arena.
On their own, turrets are probably not the problem as you would need to do something similar to the ancient, long dead bug on Nukara that allowed for Engies to spawn a drone, die, and that drone becomes essentially an immortal entity with unlimited lifetime, thus allowing the engie to spawn another drone and repeat the process until the area is swarming with drones.
Mines do pack a punch, however as it is an engie ability, we'd have to consider how many engies are doing this unless there is a similar exploit like the old Nukara Drone bug that also works for mines.
Which brings us back to the Mini Redshirt Army. Again, how are they doing this? How many Tacs are spawning how many Redshirts?
Before we go to Buffing the V-Rex, I think we should focus on the cause first rather than just make an HP sponge. We all know how well that worked out when Delta Rising went live.
It was my understanding that it was the best expansion ever and the players loved it.
I got to agree upping the hp of the dinos might be more of a hindrance i the end than a help, and there are other methods of dealing with then just inflating the hp pools. Like i said you could despawn all turrets/mines an such in the area of the silo when it activates, even give the dinos a short term immunity buff that allows the other players time to get to the dinos prior to them being damage-able. You could also teleport everyone to the to the command-station an have them go from there making it that camping is rendered useless as you still will be ported to this area on the dinos spawning, though for those that don't want to or opt out of being ported back (like they are doing something other than the points an such, maybe achievements, or such) could be done that they are ineligible to gain credit for the dinos.
My favorite though is the idea of giving those that participate in the capturing of points overall or in that area atleast credit, maybe getting atleast 50-75% of the rewards for killing the dinos based on how much they participated in the area/zone, and then maybe give these players if they get full credit for a dino by downing it as normal they get a 10% bonus to the rewards from that dino specifically. This would reward players more actually taking part in the event an give these players the reward they worked for by making sure they get credit for the dino even if it is only 75% of the rewards, but also gives them a higher reward if they also were able to down the dinoes an so rewards actually fully taking part in the event completely an not camping.
It's probably a combination of things.
There's a clear indication that multiple accounts are being used, since one of the players was following another player automatically. There may have been even more players in that same team using the follow command, it was difficult to see but I did see at least one player that was basically acting like a robot. Of course, in theory, it's possible to have even more different accounts and use the follow command to let them all work together, which is, btw and IIRC, not allowed.
Even if it's just two player characters that are more or less glued together this way, if both players are tacs with a lot of Security doffs on active duty, that would explain how they manage to get well over 10 security escorts active at the same time. 2 Boffs per player, plus a shard of possibilities per account would be enough to create this small army I was seeing.
There are instances where there's 3 or 4 people laying mines. There have also been instances where you'd find 5, 6 or even more players waiting who all may have at least one Engineering boff or may be engineers themselves. Combined, and given that with some cooldown reductions one player can have 15 mines active at the same time, the damage done can be quite significant.
What abilities are being used isn't that important though. The main problem, imo, is that all these things are stacked before the V-rex even appears, and that sometimes half the players that are on the map are waiting for, and releasing all their combined firepower as soon as the V-rex spawns. Removing this option by making it impossible to stay near the silo, or at least near the spawning point as long as the progress bar isn't filled (plus, say, 1 minute) would be the most logical solution. Which can be either done by placing forcefields or as @asuran14 suggested, by transporting everyone back to the command center.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
You can blame power creep for stuff like this. it royally irks me when you have the wanna be ground dps gods that purposefully nuke the dinos just to prevent anyone else from getting the spawn. Should something be done, it would be nice to see, but at the same time it's not something that you can really do too much about.
For the security escorts, there are legitimate ways to get a metric ton of security escorts to follow you. Are there some not so legitimate ways to get them to do it, it wouldn't surprise me. If you think someone is exploiting then shoot me or one of the other Bug Hunters some information about how you think they're doing it and we'll investigate it.
Is that the way it was intended, no honestly it isn't, but it's a side effect of several issues. The biggest of those issues of course is power creep.
Placing turrets and mines is a legitimate tactic and not really something that needs to be prevented. it may be annoying but it is indeed a legitimate tactic.
Truthfully you can get around alot of this by learning the routes of the battlezone. if you have frosted boots, and know which way to go, you should be able to get at least one dino every time. Also the argument could be made, why should everyone else have to wait on you to get there just because you went off to the boonies of the zone.
camping is annoying, and yes it's a thing that should be discouraged, but at the end of the day there is no rule against camping which is why alot of people do it. If they can sit back and let everyone else do the work of capping the zones, why would they not. yes it's a jerk move to camp, but you can't force people to go out and help cap. should they benefit from the dinos they never helped to generate, no they shouldn't. However the argument could be made, what if someone has to go afk and happens to get back right when the dinos spawn. Should that guy be punished for RL concerns?
Overall if you think there are exploits going on, as I said above, then shoot me or one of the Bug Hunters some info and we'll take a look at it.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
I'm not saying that turrets and mines aren't legitimate tactics, the problem is that way too many people are placing them at a time at a point when and where they shouldn't. It may seem arrogant that I want to dictate how they play the game, but they should be capturing points, not stack literally all their abilities to kill an enemy that hasn't even arrived yet and that, should everyone adopt the same attitude as these campers, will never arrive at all.
Well, I don't know, maybe because those who are capturing the points are making it possible for the campers/leechers to shoot the V-rex? I've said it before in other threads, if they had at least the decency to wait for those that are making it possible for them to get a reward at all, then there wouldn't be a problem and I wouldn't mind at all. But there is a problem, since things get killed in mere seconds and that's not just power creep, it's a combination of power creep and camping.
This surely has nothing to do with lacking frosted boots or not knowing the zone. Like I said, I've been in multiple instances where I would be capturing the point next to a silo, activated my frosted boots only to find the V-rex being killed so quickly that it's simply impossible to get there.
I can't give much more information than I already have on the things which I assume are exploits since I can only describe what I've seen.
Oh god this tired old song.
I got to agree it is kinda why i suggested it again, as it is better to keep good idea around and mentioned, than letting them die out an stop being heard. Though i still think giving the players that are capping points leading up to dinos spawning a portion of credit for the dino of the area they're in, or the entire zone based off how many points they capped would be a nice option as well, most of all if it gives the player a boost if they actually get a kill on a dino. So lets say that if you participate in capping 50-75% of the points you get between 5-75% of the rewards for any dino killed, but than if you kill a dino you get full credit for that dino an a bonus of 10% as well. This would would a incentive an reward for players to participate i the zone event over camping the spawns, while also making it that even if you cann't get kills on the dinos you get some of the rewards as part of your participation in the capture part that is almost more important.
I understood what you meant but I was making the point. As long as they're not exploiting or cheating then it's none of my business how they use their abilities. we can argue all day about it being a jerk move but honestly this one isn't as big of an issue as you think it is. dropping mines and turrets is what engineers are good at doing. this one is much a do about nothing. Overall they do not owe it to you to not use certain abilities just so you can tag the dino.
Don't take this the wrong way dude, but the first sentence of that paragraph reeks of entitlement mentality. You are not owed anything by the other people in the battlezone, including the ability to kill a dino. If you can't get there in time then that's on you. Yes it sucks when you miss the dino spawns but that comes with the territory of the zone. you can argue that it's a jerk move for people to purposefully nuke the dino before anyone else can get it, and while I agree with that assessment as long as they did it legitimately then it's good. if you're having trouble making to the dinos in time, then try taking a different route to get yourself there. always plan ahead when you're down there and you won't have that many issues. Yes I agree camping is a jerk move, but again it's not breaking any rules.
As for the exploit stuff. From what you've described I don't see an exploit here. Everything so far seems legit, albeit a bit jerkish. If you can provide something to show that something is up such as a brief video clip or something like that then I can investigate it. Right now though I don't see anything wrong.
It's very possible to get there, you just have to plan ahead.
There is a huge difference between an open battlezone and an STF mission. In battlezones people come and go. With STFs it was never meant to be that way. It's meant for you to stay with 1 team for the entire mission. You also have to join a queue to get into the STF to start with. You don't have to do that with a battlezone. Further in the Dyson bz you must have done at least 1% damage to the dino to be given credit for him. As I said above, is it a jerk move to camp, yes it is. However it's not breaking any rules. Simply because you helped capture zones does not make it a right to tag the dino. as long as it's not breaking rules then it's not a high priority concern.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
They fixed tagging by implementing participation thresholds and... folks stopped tagging and simply aimed to hit the participation threshold instead. If a bunch of folks (hopefully allies, but just as likely alts or bots) can kill a V-Rex fast enough, they can ensure participating sufficiently for the reward and get en route to the next V-Rex as quickly as possible in order to participate there. It's a logical adaptation to the anti-tagging mechanics, albeit not very sporting for others.
The sad part is that it was tagging at the capture points that interfered with other players, rather than tagging the V-Rex, but the solution was applied to the whole zone rather than focusing solely on the issue at hand.
Use of abilities themselves is not an exploit, it's just that many abilities that can overlap are an example of the huge powercreep in the game these days. Just as a tac player I can call down polar on bombardment, throw a grenade, drop an Intel turret (uni kit module) and throw something like crystalline spike all at the same time. And I can stack all that on top of things like ambush to really ramp up the damage. Now if every player camped does that and more it's no wonder things get killed instantly.
I think the most appealing way of rewarding players fairly would be making your contribution to the whole zone affect the final reward. That way if you've just spent a hour fighting Voth away from 20+ points you get full marks and dilithium together with all the implants. But someone who just does the minimum and then camps the silo for 40 mins gets a lot less.
I think you should have to be involved in the capture of at least 30% of a section (e.g the park) to be counted as having participated in that section and be eligible for full rewards for that section. If you then move on to actively participate in the Rex kill you get a bonus reward for that section. And by capture I mean be in that point and have been fighting there for at least a third of the time it was going and have done a bare minimum of damage that varies on how many players were present.
There should also be a bonus for actually killing the Voth stealing the omega particles, so players actually stopping the failure of the objective get rewarded rather than just the dps monsters.
The problem with this suggestion is that we're talking an open battlezone where people pop in and out all the time. You could pop in just in time for the V-Rex hunt, and then boom, instant penalty for "not participating". While in theory it might discourage camping because of reduced rewards, it also punishes innocent people who just happened to show up late to the battlezone instance by sheer luck. When I went to the battlezone there were instances where I would pop in just in time to fight the V-Rex. While I didn't get as many marks because of not hitting any cap points, I still was able to participate in taking down the V-Rex and get full V-Rex rewards. And a few of those times I was actually parked at the silo itself pulsewaving the Voth until they stopped spawning before I attacked the V-Rex directly.
The core issue is not zone participation per se, but how quickly the V-Rex goes down due to a jerk move.
Perhaps a move towards making the rewards better match the participation would be better? I mean the absolute best reward you can get should in theory come from full zone participation plus getting the v-Rex at each section.
As it stands you get the most reward by camping a and killing 3 rexes in seconds, something's off there.
So if you just zone in and are in time to kill one dino you get a reward for that. If you get 3 dinos you get 3x the reward.
If you helped capture most of one section such as the park you get another reward at the end. And if you helped sufficiently in all 3 sections and with all 3 dinos you get maximum rewards, but that should be almost impossible based on the current gameplay situation as the zone is completed before you could manage that.
Then end fights should be rewArding enough to encourage players but the rest of the map should have a bigger potential profit, to encourage full participation over camping.
Have you actually seen this in action because it seems like you don't know what you're talking about.
As Risian4 mentioned we were also only one segment away, we ran straight there, already knowing the way (because we've played it so much) and when we got there the Dino had less that 10% HP and we didn't get credit for it.
Also we didn't have Frost Boots, does that now mean these boots are mandatory for completion of the map?!
That doesn't wash as these people are camping, they haven't helped on map completion but the people who have are the ones who aren't getting the credit for it.
You really need to see how quickly these Dinos are getting burnt down now compared to how it was in the past.
This, to me, proves you are arguing from a point of ignorance. You really don't know how fast these Dinos are being taken down. As has been mentioned people are only one segment away and are still not able to get credit for the Dino.