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Can we get some STF bosses that are more like players in terms of power?
captaintroika
Member Posts: 210 Arc User
EG, an actual full complement of weapons (most enemies only have a couple of guns) and boff skills comparable in selection to those a player would have (instead of just 3-4).
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it is only the fact that they have limited fire power that makes it a battle worth fighting.
that's why some players are so eager to get PVP updated, the chance to fight 1 on 1 or 5 on 5 against enemy on an even footing.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
I say: give the enemies three BOff Ability Slots and have each individual enemy get a random selection from all BOff Abilities when they spawn. It would spice things up nicely. That should not be too difficult to program, I would imagine.
I would love to see scenarios where mindless BFAW spam = guaranteed fail.
However, rewards would also have to be worthwhile for that effort.
The sad thing is that Cryptic got it right the first time they revamped STF's. They were challenging and hard, and the ONLY way to even beat the elites and option objectives was through planning and teamwork.
And the rewards were grand too, with gear and unique costume unlocks solely coming from the queues, requiring you to play ALL of the STF's if you wanted the full sets, not just farm ISA ad infinitum.
Best time I have "ever" had in STO, and sadly it didn't last and Cryptic ultimately caved to the self-entitled whiners and introduced the Omega Task Force reputation system.
In fact you are no longer even "rewarded" gear for completing the STF's, since the introduction of the reputation system they are locked behind a dilithium pay wall.
So would I... BFAW spam needs to to become a solution to some problems not a solution to ALL problems (or heck, modify the enemy FBP so its not a the equivalent of firing a spitball at a tank)
..funny isn't it though, how weak enemy FBP is compared to the anti-torpedo field power terran command ships have...
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Only thing that happens with increased difficulty here is, increased HP/Damage/More enemies. The AI is very bad in this game.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Most of the bosses we face are pretty much cannon fodder now due to power creep, and the fact we're facing them in a group. The only ones left other than the Borg Queen that are still a threat are story mission bosses that we face alone. The only true raid style boss entity we have is the Crystaline Entity, and we've learned how to fight it to the point its not really a challenge. The only time it is one is when we have the annual event, and that is only because we have random things happening.
The best example was when they mistakenly let a new form of harder Romulan D'deridex npc into the game.
The forums burned under the crying of how hard they were to kill, when in reality, they just needed more thought than just randomly mashing buttons...
While the tech may already exist in CO, STO is a different animal in terms of character development.
Not to mention you can nerf your mirror counterpart by flying a T2 Cruiser instead of a T6.
And I don't think the +1 Beard would work with a lot of our characters. I mean... bearded Gorn, or in my case bearded FEMALE Trill?
This is true.
The reality is that STO resides in a stagnant state of near coma. All people care about is their dps, dps is only measured via unsuported third-party-tool on a single map and when anything happens to interfere with the dps routines one learned by heart at this point to TRIBBLE with the numbers people RAGE. It happened, Borg used more abilities at one point and it might have happened you needed to "chase" a Borg sphere around infected, thus thwarting your dps numbers. People screamed so hard their heads went red and tears were flowing. Then Cryptic reverted all changes and probably dedcided to never, ever do something like this again.
I, like @alexraptorr , think STFs were best when you had to actually play them for the rewards. But people were sobbing and screaming how "unfair" it is to de dependant on random drops in a hack & slay MMO... Now everything's just window shopping and pay up. Yawn.
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"The Emperor of the Terran Empire Wesley Crusher and His Bio-Assimilated-Crystalline Web-Hexagonal-Multi Vector-World Destroyer-Time Dreadnought Carrier Ship."
On Normal all it does BFAW Everything on sight at a 12 range none diminishing with High Crit Severity and a chance to heal his shields and Hull per shots fired.
On Advance Still has the BFAW but this time keeps firing TS3 of specialized Tricobalt Torpedo with a 100% Shield Penetration and 5m AoE damage.
On Elite Same 2 powers on normal and advance but With Web Cannon, Power Absorption, Gravity Well, Shield AoE drain that is 10m wide, Able to Summon pets: T6 Valiant Mirror and can Heal Hull and Use a Time abilities like splitting to 2 and slowing everything around him but most of all has a Lance and Reflect.
And if! If for some Miracle you get to defeat it on any levels you will get: 50k Dilithium Fleet Voucher.
After 1 week of release not only did the Forums burn but mass riot on the streets and man hunt for the Cryptic/Arc/PW staff was rampant. Several of their facilities where Burn to the Ground by Activist who doesn't really know what do they really want.
Ehehe.
And yes I'm joking here
That's because the spheres with EPtE were just stupid beyond belief. They didn't use it intelligently, just randomly blast off like drunk drivers passing out, foot on the accelerator. While it may have slightly slowed down the players, having to follow them into the woods to kill them, it couldn't actually help them in any way. It only highlighted the fact that the enemies aren't actually trying to win, they exist only to be killed by us.
See, I'm not going to argue you on how those abilities were used. You are absolutely right, the mobs are not able to adapt to what players use, they do not recognize you using ability A and thus they use counter X, NPCs just randomly activate the ability as soon as the cooldown ends, resulting in enemies and allies often activating weapon abilities and emergency powers when nobody is around to shoot or overheal since they are at full health. This is not exactly intelligent behaviour and I completely agree with that.
However, it meant change. It's true that a random EPtE sphere doesn't add much challenge, but appearantly as @ruinthefun pointed out they didn't start to use these abilities once they were set "free" once the generators popped. Knowing that means the players could have adapted and avoided the EPtE madness. They could have incorporated more CC in the builds, tractor beams, drains, anything to hinder/impair the spheres doing that. But they didn't. All they did was rage and demand any changes undone, which in the end happened. That's not the spheres fault, NPC mobs will never be able to act even remotely like a human being, they just serve to make the challenge more variable and they ask you, the player, to sometimes adapt your acustomed tactics and manoeuvres. And that the majority of STOs playerbase is unwilling to do. You see it yourself, the queues are severly underplayed, only the one that requires the least icnentive and strategy imaginable is still top dog, all the others get abandoned as soon as the necessary rewards are earned. And that's not because the mobs are too boring.
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Second, throw in Elite versions for the Borg STF's and other queues, and throw in Mk XIV "Epic" quality versions of all the reputation gear as "rare drops".
That way those who are unwilling to put in real effort can still obtain the very best gear but at significant cost, while those willing to brave hordes of powerful and challenging enemies can recieve truly worthwhile rewards.
That's however not what EPtE does. There is a DOFF that adds a cleanse debuff effect, but regular EPtE simply adds flight speed and turn rate, it does not negate hold and control abilities. If your grav gens are skilled high enough, EPtE isn't really going to break a hold, it will just help when used with evasive and A2ID to loosen the grip. And since a DPS oriented shooty pew ship most likely will have next to nothing in grav gens of course the hold turns out to be ineffective. But the STF is a team oriented mission - you're not supposed to be a master of all trades, throw CCs and deal damage and tank and heal - but that's also something the players got used to - simply being able to do everything themselves and the soon they face a situation they might not be able to deal with this situation is immedeatly deemed broken, OP and needs to be removed from the game.
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Someone always complains. About everything. In the end, Cryptic decides how challenging they want the game to be, not the complainers. Unfortunately, Cryptic seems rather set on making this game extremely easy.