Other reasons are the more experience players don't want to play with a bunch of "n00bs" because they don't want their perfect guaranteed runs to be imperfect and less than guaranteed. They have slammed the door to anyone who wants to embrace challenge and made the others pay for missing even one optional. When on a "failed" run (so much as missing one optional) suicide is demanded by the DPSorGTFO crowd, I can no longer have any respect for them at all.
And of course another reason is that they must have been successful in driving out those who want to try out builds, embrace challenge, expand themselves etc, and yes of course the occaisional person who doesn't know what s/he is doing.
The queues can only suffer because too many people want to be complete a$$#oles.
I really, really, really hope you don’t believe yourself what you write here. I count quite a few top of the line DPSers in this game among my friends. I can quiet assure you that most of them like to pug and use the queues regularly to test one’s own abilities, to experiment and keep the very claustrophobic contend we have entertaining.
Many of them are even passionate pugger I meet in queues by coinsidence and on occasion we have even queued up together. Most of the DPSer I know, especially from the Metal league, are extremely easy and cool guys to be around with and which have managed to keep an open mind to new and fresh approaches to the same contend all the way. They encourage peeps wherever they can.
I could imagine that your experience originates form some of the peeps of the lower DPS standings as they more or less need the surrounding of teammates equally good to play undisturbed. And yea of course you may have black sheep on occasion but that you have everywhere and should not lead to generalization.
Ok then expect to play with other players. It's an MMO, not a single player FPS.
i think that was some /sarcasm dude.. or it maybe ties into another recent thread.. 'is STO becoming the largest online single player game' either way, massively multiplayer online does not mean 'have to play with other players' it just means 'have to share the game space with other players' (or aliens animals or whatnot)
if a person feels that other people are the problem, that is as valid an opinion regarding the state of play as any other. if we take that idea a step further, and hypothesise that the games direction is in part motivated, maybe even coerced by the player base, then it goes from being a valid opinion, to being somewhat of a valid reason for the state of the game.
Also, SWTOR has both solo and group missions. You can do both. However, if you want the nicest toys you have to do OPs/Heroics/Flashpoints with a group of people. Solo content is inferior to group content in terms of rewards. You even gain "social" points for working as a group to get even more "cool" toys.
Overall I think the SWTOR model is more balanced but then again they do have more subscribers and not a pure F2P content like STO. It's basically what you pay for.
They also have a very good subscription model, with Subscribers getting access to all the content at no additional cost, while free players have the choice of purchasing expansion packs.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
1000 'elite marks'? Who in the world has ever had 1000 BNPs or their other-reputation equivalents?!
At about 3 per day, I must have collected thousands already. I turn them in for Dilithium nowadays, but still. At 1 per STF (or up to 11, iirc, in the old days) it adds up real fast.
i think that was some /sarcasm dude.. or it maybe ties into another recent thread.. 'is STO becoming the largest online single player game' either way, massively multiplayer online does not mean 'have to play with other players' it just means 'have to share the game space with other players' (or aliens animals or whatnot)
if a person feels that other people are the problem, that is as valid an opinion regarding the state of play as any other. if we take that idea a step further, and hypothesise that the games direction is in part motivated, maybe even coerced by the player base, then it goes from being a valid opinion, to being somewhat of a valid reason for the state of the game.
just saying..
Sarcasm aside, we can speculate and posit all we like, the game is undoubtedly not going to go from MMO to single player. There have been all flavor of studies and articles posted over the years as to why gaming companies add multiplayer content to their games and why these are good for the long term health of a game. Making the game totally single player is counter productive to that.
i don't recall anyone seriously calling out to make STO a single player game, i think the original comment made, in that direction, was suggesting that they make current group content playable by a single player, similar to current missions, and then there was a reference to swtor as an example of its effectiveness. no mention of exclusively single player, unless i missed that.
i guess the fear of some would be that more players would likely opt to play end game instances as single player than in group, but wouldn't that also, in theory, promote better pugs? you cant carry yourself in solo if you have no idea what you are doing, so learning would be required, and once you know what you are doing, you'll be more confident in the group environment and have an all around better experience?
Ok then expect to play with other players. It's an MMO, not a single player FPS.
It's actually a bit of both. Yes, it's an MMO, but it's also set up in a way that makes people as self-reliant as possible. If not, people would get frustrated too fast, and walk away.
They also have a very good subscription model, with Subscribers getting access to all the content at no additional cost, while free players have the choice of purchasing expansion packs.
i bought the game on release, stopped playing shortly after it changed over to a f2p model. returned the end of last year during the build up to outlander. it is great fun running content with friends, but also being able to run most of the group content solo is totally awesome, especially if my friends are offline, or its silly o'clock and i just want to pass some time on my own. flexibility, when done right, is a great thing, and they done it right (aside from a few teething hiccups, but companions are fun again, and all is right in the swtor world lol)
They also have a very good subscription model, with Subscribers getting access to all the content at no additional cost, while free players have the choice of purchasing expansion packs.
i bought the game on release, stopped playing shortly after it changed over to a f2p model. returned the end of last year during the build up to outlander. it is great fun running content with friends, but also being able to run most of the group content solo is totally awesome, especially if my friends are offline, or its silly o'clock and i just want to pass some time on my own. flexibility, when done right, is a great thing, and they done it right (aside from a few teething hiccups, but companions are fun again, and all is right in the swtor world lol)
Yeah I agree, and it would be a simple fix too.
All you would need is to remove the requirement for a full 5 players to start private queues.
Maybe impose a 2 player restriction ONLY on those maps that "require" more than 1 player for specific tasks like on Infected Ground.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
Bit confused about this. I started a 'Big Dig' in a Private Queue solo a few months back.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Also, SWTOR has both solo and group missions. You can do both. However, if you want the nicest toys you have to do OPs/Heroics/Flashpoints with a group of people. Solo content is inferior to group content in terms of rewards. You even gain "social" points for working as a group to get even more "cool" toys.
Overall I think the SWTOR model is more balanced but then again they do have more subscribers and not a pure F2P content like STO. It's basically what you pay for.
Exactly what I was saying the person repling to what I had said being that you should not go into a mmo if you want to play a fully single player game had quoted me wrong if you look at the post that was from. Though swtor does have a larger focus on the player's story comparatively. Here is the actual post of the person that wrote the statement you were refering to, which had been fixed now to be quoted correctly.
Why would you play a Massively multi player game if you want to play by yourself in a single player experience?
Because it's the only current Star Trek game out here.
It's not my fault it's an MMO, believe me I would change that if I could.
Game companies prefer multiplayer as then they don't have to write AI code.
I'm not saying get rid of all the MP content for all you friendly people out there, just add a SOLO option to each Que to scoop up all us SOLO players out here.
SWTOR dropped in a bunch of previously raid only missions that are now SOLOable.
Light at the end of the tunnel and the Monolith is rising, pay attention Cryptic.
The queues are NOT fine, as some folks have suggested. There are too many of them available but non-starting at any given point in time and the effort:reward ratio isn't even across the board which naturally is going to discourage participation in some of them.
I don't mind PUGging occasionally, but I do mind waiting for a queue I want to play that never starts, for a reward I can't get because I can't play it.
There needs to be an alternative option,
#1: To allow queues to start with fewer than the minimum number of players and to adjust difficulty and reward to the number of players in the mission.
And/or,
#2: To rotate events based on a mission queue so that players are used to playing all of them and so that they are guaranteed to "pop" that queue during the event.
We've (as a community) told Cryptic over and over that these are the potential fixes for the queues. It's getting tiresome to repeat it.
5-man, 10-man, and 20-man minimum queues just don't work anymore, for most of the missions. 3-man might just fly. Some people do enough DPS that they can probably solo many a queue, if they could start it. We don't need mass raids anymore. We've got the battlezones for that. Maybe we need more of those, if Cryptic feels the need for mass participation events.
Events have a way of focusing attention that's been watered down by the sheer number of possible queues. The rewards wouldn't even need to be quite so lavish... or take so long to grind. They need to get to the point where they are running an event queue on a two week cycle year-round. I get that they would need time to revamp them one by one, as they have CC, Invasion, and now Breach. We can afford to be patient if things are moving in that direction, but they need to tell us what they want to do.
5-man, 10-man, and 20-man minimum queues just don't work anymore, for most of the missions. 3-man might just fly. Some people do enough DPS that they can probably solo many a queue, if they could start it. We don't need mass raids anymore. We've got the battlezones for that. Maybe we need more of those, if Cryptic feels the need for mass participation events.
Breach (Normal at least) is certainly soloable on a single char, withn the optional time limit.
Whilst I strongly disagree with nerfing other areas (like battlezones) in an attempt to push people into public queues, I do agree with the suggestion earlier in the thread to perhaps have weekly featured queue events, with some kind of bonus (like the queue giving +50% marks, or and extra elite token, etc)
@aesica I keep hearing about these people that couldn't get the piece of the set they needed, but I managed to collect 5 or 6 sets myself. Maybe I was just extremely lucky?
Yes, you were.
I was one of those who never got the full set no matter how many times I ran cure for the piece I needed, and I hated cure, so that only made the experience worse. Eventually I just gave up on it entirely.
@aesica : I suggested something like this in the begin of the thread. Keep the Mk XII rep store, but some rare drops for MK XIII or Mk XIV elite and veteran sets, each queue with a unique piece, would in my opinion greatly help to revitalize the queues and add something to strive for again.
If you mean XIII and XIV versions of rep store items, as well as the rep tier set projects, having those also available as lucky drops would work. Minus the set items, that's similar to what I proposed, only mine would put totally unique weaponry into the drop tables, further incentivizing players to run queued content. To give an example of what I mean, let's look at how the Iconian era would look:
The dropped gear would be bind to account on equip, so even if people didn't want it for themselves, they could still sell it. Adding the tier set projects (bind on pickup, of course) as well would be great, too. Assuming that's what you meant by elite/veteran sets.
Whilst I strongly disagree with nerfing other areas (like battlezones) in an attempt to push people into public queues
I agree with you. Sabotaging the battlezones is not the best solution for the queues. Neither is limiting other options for gameplay... I think it's great that there are so many different missions available. It's mainly the fixation on 5-or-none that's destroying queues. I'd take one or two of my boys on mission runs on a regular basis if we had the option of a 2 or 3 man queue.
When has it ever been easy to get 5 people together to agree on doing a certain thing at a certain time?
I like the queues. I used to enjoy playing them. But these days it's impossible to get anything to Pop that isn't an event, Crystalline, or ISA. I use the DPS channels with some success. But even the DPS channels are 99% ISA and whatever event is going on. Here's a list of things that I believe have killed the queues and possible solutions to those problems.
PROBLEM 1:We're coming up on 2 years since the R&D revamp. A glorious system that vastly improved the game. However (like many things since then) the revamp had a negative effect on the queues being filled. Before the R&D revamp, [Pen] didn't exist. Because of this, rep weapons were on par with lockbox weapons and drops. However, since the R&D revamp, crafted weapons have the clear advantage over lockbox and rep weapons. So players aren't being told to "grind their rep" for those weapons, but this is only a minor issue. At the same time, cryptic added R&D drops to the queues. This should have helped keep the queues full right? People want to build those sweet craftable weapons. Except that these mats are easily acquired from admiralty/doffing and the damage is still being felt from the fixed delta recruit exploit. Today we have a system in which the best energy weapons are acquired without ever entering a single queue.
SOLUTION 1: Remove Rare and Very Rare crafting mats and salvaged tech from anything that isn't a queue. Including all future delta recruits type rewards. Also, maybe some crafting mats sinks should have their requirements increased for a period of time, to drain out the excess form the DR exploit. These sinks are things like doff missions, fleet projects, actual crafting etc.
PROBLEM 2:Ok so the "best" energy weapons don't require you to enter the queues right? What about torpedoes, shields, deflector, impulse engines? If you want the Neutronic Torp, Romulan Hyper-Plasma Torp, Undine Rep Torp, Borg Rep Torps, you still have to do some queues right? Wrong. All torps/shields/deflectors/impulse/warp cores etc. etc. etc. don't require any queues to be played. We have today the battlezones and the patrols. Any and all marks plus ELITE marks can be had by not entering a single queue. You want that sweet Iconian shield? Just go to Kobali Prime and do the 2 missions for easy marks including ELITE marks. Lots of players do this to avoid playing the queues. Don't get me wrong, I love the battlezones. They're REALLY fun but they are also part of the problem with the queues.
SOLUTION 2: Revamp Elite marks. First, nerf elite marks rewards in battlezones by limiting ALL Elite marks earned from battlezones to say 1 or 2 per day. Meaning if you earned your 2 Iconian Elite marks from Kobali Prime, you can't earn any Voth Elite marks from the Dyson Battlezone. I would also like to remove regular marks from patrols but most players would be in an uproar over this. So maybe they should just remove the daily reward from patrols? Also make normal queues reward 1 Elite mark to compensate for the battlezone nerf. Make Advanced queues reward 2 Elite marks. Make ground Elite reward 2 Elite marks and Space elite reward 3 Elite Marks. Some Space Advanced queues and Ground Elite queues are easy right? So double the Elite Mark cost for Rep Items. All Rep Shields/Deflector/Impulse should now cost 10. Modules that cost 2 should now cost 4 etc.
PROBLEM 3: Events, like the current "The Breach" event are really fun. But I've been against them rewarding "any marks" for a long time now. I don't know about you, but lots of my characters need Terran Marks. Ok so let's check the regular Terran queues. Oh no, they're have ZERO players on standby. Ok let's go to the battlezone. Really? There's just ONE instance with ONLY 10 people in it. This is dreadfully slow. Oh well let's play "The Breach." Without including a daily reward, any and all toons get 140 Terran marks on normal difficulty. What? Really? Why on Earth would I ever play any queue or battlezone for my alts knowing that these events come around? I imagine that most players just put their alts into dry dock and wait for Crystalline/Mirror/The Breach to come around. Bonus marks weekend isn't really a problem or a solution since people just play the things that are already being played more.
SOLUTION 3: You aren't going to like it, but "any marks" have to stop being awarded for events. Only Fleet Marks, whatever marks make sense for the rep, and maybe, just maybe, the current marks should be rewarded for completing event queues.
PROBLEM 4 Let's say that I've finished all of my reps. 100% maxed out with all rep gear unlocked. So here I am with all of my sweet gear. What's the point of me playing these reps again? This isn't a new problem that I'm bringing up. We've all talked about this for years. The Borg STF's have (had actually) a solution for this. There is an accolade for completing all of the space queues 100 times. There is also the accolade for completing all of the queues on Elite difficulty with all optionals. Back when we had "No Win Scenario," there were accolades for completing various waves. Lots of people are happy that we don't have to play STF's 6,000 times to get lucky drops to get gear anymore. But perhaps there should be more incentives like the aforementioned accolades to keep people interested?
SOLUTION 4: Like I said above, add some accolades for completing queues. Perhaps there could be accolades for completing each one 100 times plus more accolades for completing optionals. Also, to borrow some terminology we could have a REAL REP SPONSOR SYSTEM. Right now we have the system in which we can "sponsor" our alts so that they don't have to grind as much rep. This system should stay in place since it encourages us to play with our alts. But perhaps, newer players and poorly outfitted alts, need "sponsors" to play queues with them? If there were a system in place in which a maxed rep player could team up with and sponsor a non-maxed player, it would encourage more players to play queues. The maxed player would need some kind of incentive like say... an accolade that unlocks a special visual for their rep gear. Or something like that.
PROBLEM 5: This is more of a fix for generic fleet queues. In the old days, old school fleet queues like "Colony Invasion" would pop fairly quickly. Now it's 100% dead every day. How do we give some love to these queues to keep people interested? The R&D boxes don't help since people only want advanced and elite R&D boxes. These queues already have dilithium rewards so it can't be that. I think that the answer is closer to the above problem than buffing any rewards. Perhaps a slight change in marks rewards would help though.
SOLUTION 5: Say you play "Colony Invasion" and your enemy is Klingons. Your reward should be fleet marks. Say the enemy is Undine. Your rewards should be a choice between Fleet Marks and Undine marks. Say your enemy is Jem'Hadar. There are no Dominion Marks (yet) so perhaps fleet marks and a few commodities like Unrefined ketracel should be included? Ok, also, like fleet alert (which pops very quickly, possibly due to what I'm about to suggest) you should add accolade rewards. Say one accolade for beating Klingons/Jem'Hadar/Hirogen in Colony Invasion 50 times. Perhaps there should be named bosses in queues like Colony Invasion that are tied to accolades like the named ships in Fleet Alert. Really, I think we might be on to something here with these accolades. Also let's say that some of these accolades are more than just a title. Perhaps they could unlock trophies for your ship interior or unlock special costume pieces like the Borg Elite accolade. Or maybe the accolades should be REPEATABLE (like beating Colony Invasion 100 times) and unlock a reward like dilithium or spec points or whatever. Really, I'm trying to get ideas for bringing the Glory Days of the queues back.
Well there you have it. Feel free to agree with me or crucify me. Or add your own ideas. Personally, I miss the days in which I could just run any queue, because the vast majority of them would pop within 2-3 minutes.
Ramble Ramble Ramble yada yada yada. Not one of these killed the queques. The over abundence of them is what killed them. So in short ignore the OP and reduce number of active queques by 2/3's with a few being permanent (Borg) and the rest rotate on a semi monthly basis. End of problem.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,162Community Moderator
Ramble Ramble Ramble yada yada yada. Not one of these kileld the queques. The over abundence of them is what killed them. So in short ignore the OP and reduce number of active queques by 2/3's with a few being permanent (Borg) and the rest rotate on a semi monthly basis. End of problem.
Considering people are working more than just Omega Rep, that would not work.
Ramble Ramble Ramble yada yada yada. Not one of these kileld the queques. The over abundence of them is what killed them. So in short ignore the OP and reduce number of active queques by 2/3's with a few being permanent (Borg) and the rest rotate on a semi monthly basis. End of problem.
Considering people are working more than just Omega Rep, that would not work.
Maybe but it would be a step in the right direction. I just used Omega as an example as that seems to be a stable one as far as queues go.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,162Community Moderator
Its stable because Infected Space Advanced is a decent farming STF. Quick and easy. Kitomer ground doesn't get a lot of attention, Infected ground doesn't get a lot of attention...
Generally its not one particular rep set that gets attention. Its whatever the current featured queues are and whichever one can be done the fastest with the most reward.
I like Colony Invasion, but that one hardly gets done because its ground and people prefer space.
Which makes it entirely reasonable to lament those areas where other people are allowed to ruin your experience.
I disagree. Again, if having other people on the game in the same instance as you - regardless if they are even anywhere near you or not - somehow "ruins your experience", then perhaps MMOs are not for you.
Even if you're seeking reputation marks? Right.
If you don't know how to earn rep marks without the queues, then you should do some research into the various adventure/battlezones that do not require a team or to be queued in order to play.
If you mean those aggravating ground maps where you spend most of your time sprinting from A to B, no sale. And there are other people interfering there, too.
Limited programming time is a valid reason not to produce single player versions of queued missions. Arbitrarily forcing people play together to unlock some shiny-for any reason- is not.
Comments
I'm not. I'm playing Star Trek Online.
I don't speak of all DPSers, just the a$$#oles.
i think that was some /sarcasm dude.. or it maybe ties into another recent thread.. 'is STO becoming the largest online single player game' either way, massively multiplayer online does not mean 'have to play with other players' it just means 'have to share the game space with other players' (or aliens animals or whatnot)
if a person feels that other people are the problem, that is as valid an opinion regarding the state of play as any other. if we take that idea a step further, and hypothesise that the games direction is in part motivated, maybe even coerced by the player base, then it goes from being a valid opinion, to being somewhat of a valid reason for the state of the game.
just saying..
Wrong...This is NOT the only Star Trek game nor MMO there:
http://startrek.gamesamba.com/lp/gg
Others:
Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force PS2
Star Trek: Encounters PS2
Star Trek: Conquest Wii
Also, SWTOR has both solo and group missions. You can do both. However, if you want the nicest toys you have to do OPs/Heroics/Flashpoints with a group of people. Solo content is inferior to group content in terms of rewards. You even gain "social" points for working as a group to get even more "cool" toys.
Overall I think the SWTOR model is more balanced but then again they do have more subscribers and not a pure F2P content like STO. It's basically what you pay for.
At about 3 per day, I must have collected thousands already. I turn them in for Dilithium nowadays, but still. At 1 per STF (or up to 11, iirc, in the old days) it adds up real fast.
i don't recall anyone seriously calling out to make STO a single player game, i think the original comment made, in that direction, was suggesting that they make current group content playable by a single player, similar to current missions, and then there was a reference to swtor as an example of its effectiveness. no mention of exclusively single player, unless i missed that.
i guess the fear of some would be that more players would likely opt to play end game instances as single player than in group, but wouldn't that also, in theory, promote better pugs? you cant carry yourself in solo if you have no idea what you are doing, so learning would be required, and once you know what you are doing, you'll be more confident in the group environment and have an all around better experience?
It's actually a bit of both. Yes, it's an MMO, but it's also set up in a way that makes people as self-reliant as possible. If not, people would get frustrated too fast, and walk away.
i bought the game on release, stopped playing shortly after it changed over to a f2p model. returned the end of last year during the build up to outlander. it is great fun running content with friends, but also being able to run most of the group content solo is totally awesome, especially if my friends are offline, or its silly o'clock and i just want to pass some time on my own. flexibility, when done right, is a great thing, and they done it right (aside from a few teething hiccups, but companions are fun again, and all is right in the swtor world lol)
I'm not saying it's aliens, but it's aliens!
Yeah I agree, and it would be a simple fix too.
All you would need is to remove the requirement for a full 5 players to start private queues.
Maybe impose a 2 player restriction ONLY on those maps that "require" more than 1 player for specific tasks like on Infected Ground.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
REALITY differs from the label they slap on the box, and you know it. This is a mostly single-player game that dabbles in multiplayer content.
Exactly what I was saying the person repling to what I had said being that you should not go into a mmo if you want to play a fully single player game had quoted me wrong if you look at the post that was from. Though swtor does have a larger focus on the player's story comparatively. Here is the actual post of the person that wrote the statement you were refering to, which had been fixed now to be quoted correctly.
I don't mind PUGging occasionally, but I do mind waiting for a queue I want to play that never starts, for a reward I can't get because I can't play it.
There needs to be an alternative option,
#1: To allow queues to start with fewer than the minimum number of players and to adjust difficulty and reward to the number of players in the mission.
And/or,
#2: To rotate events based on a mission queue so that players are used to playing all of them and so that they are guaranteed to "pop" that queue during the event.
We've (as a community) told Cryptic over and over that these are the potential fixes for the queues. It's getting tiresome to repeat it.
5-man, 10-man, and 20-man minimum queues just don't work anymore, for most of the missions. 3-man might just fly. Some people do enough DPS that they can probably solo many a queue, if they could start it. We don't need mass raids anymore. We've got the battlezones for that. Maybe we need more of those, if Cryptic feels the need for mass participation events.
Events have a way of focusing attention that's been watered down by the sheer number of possible queues. The rewards wouldn't even need to be quite so lavish... or take so long to grind. They need to get to the point where they are running an event queue on a two week cycle year-round. I get that they would need time to revamp them one by one, as they have CC, Invasion, and now Breach. We can afford to be patient if things are moving in that direction, but they need to tell us what they want to do.
Whilst I strongly disagree with nerfing other areas (like battlezones) in an attempt to push people into public queues, I do agree with the suggestion earlier in the thread to perhaps have weekly featured queue events, with some kind of bonus (like the queue giving +50% marks, or and extra elite token, etc)
I was one of those who never got the full set no matter how many times I ran cure for the piece I needed, and I hated cure, so that only made the experience worse. Eventually I just gave up on it entirely.
If you mean XIII and XIV versions of rep store items, as well as the rep tier set projects, having those also available as lucky drops would work. Minus the set items, that's similar to what I proposed, only mine would put totally unique weaponry into the drop tables, further incentivizing players to run queued content. To give an example of what I mean, let's look at how the Iconian era would look:
Rep store: Radiant antiproton weaponry
Lockbox: Herald antiproton weaponry
Rare queued content drops: Resonant disruptor weaponry
The dropped gear would be bind to account on equip, so even if people didn't want it for themselves, they could still sell it. Adding the tier set projects (bind on pickup, of course) as well would be great, too. Assuming that's what you meant by elite/veteran sets.
I agree with you. Sabotaging the battlezones is not the best solution for the queues. Neither is limiting other options for gameplay... I think it's great that there are so many different missions available. It's mainly the fixation on 5-or-none that's destroying queues. I'd take one or two of my boys on mission runs on a regular basis if we had the option of a 2 or 3 man queue.
When has it ever been easy to get 5 people together to agree on doing a certain thing at a certain time?
Then it is disingenuous to hang your argument on "Um, it's called, like, an MMO, or whatever."
Which makes it entirely reasonable to lament those areas where other people are allowed to ruin your experience.
Even if you're seeking reputation marks? Right.
Ramble Ramble Ramble yada yada yada. Not one of these killed the queques. The over abundence of them is what killed them. So in short ignore the OP and reduce number of active queques by 2/3's with a few being permanent (Borg) and the rest rotate on a semi monthly basis. End of problem.
Considering people are working more than just Omega Rep, that would not work.
Generally its not one particular rep set that gets attention. Its whatever the current featured queues are and whichever one can be done the fastest with the most reward.
I like Colony Invasion, but that one hardly gets done because its ground and people prefer space.
If you mean those aggravating ground maps where you spend most of your time sprinting from A to B, no sale. And there are other people interfering there, too.
Limited programming time is a valid reason not to produce single player versions of queued missions. Arbitrarily forcing people play together to unlock some shiny-for any reason- is not.