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Event - The Breach - Positive suggestions for next time
ultimatenewbie
Member Posts: 269 Arc User
Firstly, I just wanted to say thank you to the devs for bringing this queue back. It seemed like such a waste of development effort to have created such an epic mission only to pull it because of lack of use.
Also, I wanted to thank you for the various quality of life improvements that were made to the mission for the event. These include (if I remember correctly):
However, I thought that there would be some benefit in outlining some changes that could be made to improve the mission for "next time", for your consideration. For instance (expanded below):
1. The Subpower Core
Personally, I think this is the weakest part of the mission. In addition to it making no logical sense that anyone would build a piece of critical infrastructure that can teleport around three possible locations, this level is simply a source of massive griefing. The number of times that players shoot the 'fake' cores, resulting in electrical damage to (usually) multiple teammates, is very high. Now, I understand that pets will often fire on the core accidentally, and from time to time I fire at it because I'm TRIBBLE (but I apologise), but I dont think it is a positive aspect of the game when it is so easy to grief. Particuarly when the shock can actually do a fair bit of damage (particularly to weakened players just exiting battle from the Voth ships, for instance).
I think that best case scenario is that this stage of the mission is removed and we go directly to the main power core. Given the mission is already quite long, this stage makes no sense and the potential for griefing, I think the removal is justified.
As a fallback, make the Subpower Core either in one static place (but you dont know beforehand which door it is hiding behind), or three 'normal' Subpower Cores at lower HP so it takes roughly the same amount of time to complete the mission.
2. The initial rush
If memory serves, the original version of this mission involved all the players and various NPC ships of the three factions holding until the mission timer started, then everyone rushed for the dorsal channel/"Star Wars" part of the Citadel Ship. The Voth ship would then fire a massive beam, striking the various NPC ships and destroying them in one epic hit - however, the players would not be hit and make it to the channel. This, in my view, contributed to the feeling that you were actually attacking a ship that was capable of defending itself and was a really good feature of the mission.
However, the current version of the mission involves a range of NPC ships spawning, and flying towards the Citadel ship one by one whilst the players are still under the timer. Then those NPC ships just randomly explode for no reason. Only after all the NPC ships are dead, does the timer finish and the players rush towards the Voth ship - and noone is zapped. Its clearly inferior to the original setup.
Therefore, grateful if we could either go back to the original rush, or remove the NPC ships from the initial rush altogether.
3. Hardpoint respawn speed
Perhaps it is a more recent fix, but it seems that the hardpoints are now respawning very quickly. Not sure if this is deliberate or a bug (was it changed at the same time as the shortcut/exploit invisible wall?), but the result is now one can just camp in a location and shoot all the available hardpoints - by the time you've cycled through them, new hardpoints have respawned thus not requiring you to advance along the hull anymore. This is particularly the case for the large group of hardpoints just before the second Integrity Field Node on the dorsal channel of the Citadel ship.
Also, why are they 'hardpoints' - shouldnt we be shooting at weakpoints?
4. Rescue Ship Timers
Perhaps it is just me, but I think that the ship timers in the Hanger stage need to be increased - particularly for the ship that is on its own. That ship really can only be reliably reached by cloaked ships that fly directly to it at full impulse and not stop to close hanger doors or engage in battle. In my view, it should be reliably reachable by a non-cloaking ship that flies towards it at full impulse for as long as possible (as Voth ships will shoot you, dropping you to combat velocity), but continue to fly towards it (not turning in battle) and still have sufficient time to save the ship - in Normal difficulty. In advanced, if it is felt that it should be harder, the timer should require the use of full impulse and/or Attack Pattern Omega III to have sufficient speed to reach it. Either way, this would make it more noob friendly.
The other ship timers are OK, I think.
5. Reduce overall mission timer
It seems to me that virtually all of the Normal mission timers have an Optional objective that isnt well balanced - it seems to regularly have 18+ minutes of additional time. Perhaps this could be trimmed (on Normal) by 10 minutes - it might make people feel a bit more under time pressure without really negatively impacting many matches.
6. Daily mission timer
I think this has been suggested elsewhere before, but for events that award a daily item (eg, The Breach, Mirror Invasion, Anniversary etc), it would be extremely helpful for a clear mission timer that indicates how long until the daily reward is available on that character again. For someone that has quite a few alts, remembering can be hard (currently I use a R&D crafting project as a proxy) and for time-poor players who miss it by 10 minutes because yesterday they had a quick run is very frustrating.
Pretty please??
The Dreadnought is OK
One final point - in my view, devs should resist the calls for the dreadnought to be nerfed. Currently, it is an actual genuine battle (on most occasions) where the NPC doesnt melt before you can blink, you have to put some thought into what you are doing, and pay attention to your team's health. The dreadnought deploys skills and abilities that requires you to think about counters (from positioning your ship, to using debuffs and heals) and the challenge is, imo, important.
Still, it would be nice to fix the unseen magical one-shot-kills that the dreadnought seems to be able to regularly deploy (if you can see it coming, you might not get instagibbed) which would be a QoL improvement - particularly on Normal difficulty.
Grateful for suggestions/improvements from other players, and for favourable consideration by the development team.
Also, I wanted to thank you for the various quality of life improvements that were made to the mission for the event. These include (if I remember correctly):
- Improving the rewards - definitely makes it worthwhile for 180 marks or so of player's choice at Normal difficulty is really, really helpful for levelling Alts. The additional Event rewards (Dil, Admiralty Card) are also very shiny too!
- That you can rescue fed ships and close hanger doors whilst under attack/red alert - this was the most important QoL improvement that made running this mission 14 times on my alts achievable.
- The arrows leading out of the Fortress Ship after the core has been destroyed - very helpful, particularly for new players.
- The 'Regroup' buttons for the Breach and for the Power Core - again very helpful for new players who are split from the group, or for players that get stuck in the scenery like I did (damn subpower core jaws of death!!11!)
- The absence of a core explosion when the Dreadnought explodes - it would have killed me pretty much every time.
However, I thought that there would be some benefit in outlining some changes that could be made to improve the mission for "next time", for your consideration. For instance (expanded below):
- 1. The Subpower Core stage needs revision;
- 2. The initial rush;
- 3. Hardpoint respawn speed;
- 4. The rescue ship timers (particularly on Normal diff);
- 5. The overall mission timer could be shortened (on Normal diff); and
- 6. A daily rewards timer.
1. The Subpower Core
Personally, I think this is the weakest part of the mission. In addition to it making no logical sense that anyone would build a piece of critical infrastructure that can teleport around three possible locations, this level is simply a source of massive griefing. The number of times that players shoot the 'fake' cores, resulting in electrical damage to (usually) multiple teammates, is very high. Now, I understand that pets will often fire on the core accidentally, and from time to time I fire at it because I'm TRIBBLE (but I apologise), but I dont think it is a positive aspect of the game when it is so easy to grief. Particuarly when the shock can actually do a fair bit of damage (particularly to weakened players just exiting battle from the Voth ships, for instance).
I think that best case scenario is that this stage of the mission is removed and we go directly to the main power core. Given the mission is already quite long, this stage makes no sense and the potential for griefing, I think the removal is justified.
As a fallback, make the Subpower Core either in one static place (but you dont know beforehand which door it is hiding behind), or three 'normal' Subpower Cores at lower HP so it takes roughly the same amount of time to complete the mission.
2. The initial rush
If memory serves, the original version of this mission involved all the players and various NPC ships of the three factions holding until the mission timer started, then everyone rushed for the dorsal channel/"Star Wars" part of the Citadel Ship. The Voth ship would then fire a massive beam, striking the various NPC ships and destroying them in one epic hit - however, the players would not be hit and make it to the channel. This, in my view, contributed to the feeling that you were actually attacking a ship that was capable of defending itself and was a really good feature of the mission.
However, the current version of the mission involves a range of NPC ships spawning, and flying towards the Citadel ship one by one whilst the players are still under the timer. Then those NPC ships just randomly explode for no reason. Only after all the NPC ships are dead, does the timer finish and the players rush towards the Voth ship - and noone is zapped. Its clearly inferior to the original setup.
Therefore, grateful if we could either go back to the original rush, or remove the NPC ships from the initial rush altogether.
3. Hardpoint respawn speed
Perhaps it is a more recent fix, but it seems that the hardpoints are now respawning very quickly. Not sure if this is deliberate or a bug (was it changed at the same time as the shortcut/exploit invisible wall?), but the result is now one can just camp in a location and shoot all the available hardpoints - by the time you've cycled through them, new hardpoints have respawned thus not requiring you to advance along the hull anymore. This is particularly the case for the large group of hardpoints just before the second Integrity Field Node on the dorsal channel of the Citadel ship.
Also, why are they 'hardpoints' - shouldnt we be shooting at weakpoints?
4. Rescue Ship Timers
Perhaps it is just me, but I think that the ship timers in the Hanger stage need to be increased - particularly for the ship that is on its own. That ship really can only be reliably reached by cloaked ships that fly directly to it at full impulse and not stop to close hanger doors or engage in battle. In my view, it should be reliably reachable by a non-cloaking ship that flies towards it at full impulse for as long as possible (as Voth ships will shoot you, dropping you to combat velocity), but continue to fly towards it (not turning in battle) and still have sufficient time to save the ship - in Normal difficulty. In advanced, if it is felt that it should be harder, the timer should require the use of full impulse and/or Attack Pattern Omega III to have sufficient speed to reach it. Either way, this would make it more noob friendly.
The other ship timers are OK, I think.
5. Reduce overall mission timer
It seems to me that virtually all of the Normal mission timers have an Optional objective that isnt well balanced - it seems to regularly have 18+ minutes of additional time. Perhaps this could be trimmed (on Normal) by 10 minutes - it might make people feel a bit more under time pressure without really negatively impacting many matches.
6. Daily mission timer
I think this has been suggested elsewhere before, but for events that award a daily item (eg, The Breach, Mirror Invasion, Anniversary etc), it would be extremely helpful for a clear mission timer that indicates how long until the daily reward is available on that character again. For someone that has quite a few alts, remembering can be hard (currently I use a R&D crafting project as a proxy) and for time-poor players who miss it by 10 minutes because yesterday they had a quick run is very frustrating.
Pretty please??
The Dreadnought is OK
One final point - in my view, devs should resist the calls for the dreadnought to be nerfed. Currently, it is an actual genuine battle (on most occasions) where the NPC doesnt melt before you can blink, you have to put some thought into what you are doing, and pay attention to your team's health. The dreadnought deploys skills and abilities that requires you to think about counters (from positioning your ship, to using debuffs and heals) and the challenge is, imo, important.
Still, it would be nice to fix the unseen magical one-shot-kills that the dreadnought seems to be able to regularly deploy (if you can see it coming, you might not get instagibbed) which would be a QoL improvement - particularly on Normal difficulty.
Grateful for suggestions/improvements from other players, and for favourable consideration by the development team.
Post edited by ultimatenewbie on
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Comments
From my experience running Breach, the Dread is perfectly tankable in a decently-geared cruiser (MkXIV shields and EPTS, Aux2SIF and HE1) even at ridiculously low levels of Aux (I tend to run Aux2Bat setups). About the only thing you really need to watch are its tractors/control abilities which can be countered in a variety of ways. It definitely doesn't need a nerf.
The Dread in "Gateway to Gre'thor" is another story (mainly sue to all the adds) and I'd be loathe to try tanking that instance unaided without at least ET/ST and a copy of Rally Point Marker.