My thoughts on Miner Instabilities

itpalg

1. No sense of danger. Advanced doesn't seem to give any injuries (at least to me; I have seen injuries on others but didn't notice if they had them before they started).

2. No sense of danger = people just zerg this. Die? No problem. Don't wait for a revive by your doc/scientist that wants to feel important.

3. Why do NPCs seek me out exclusively it seems on my Temp character? As my team is shooting up the hill, I attempt to go down the side behind buildings, thus supposedly not being seen, and suddenly I am being chased by a handful of Naks like I am doing 100k dps and I MUST be taken out NOW! IGNORE EVERYONE ELSE SHOOTING YOU is the command they are given. TAKE OUT THE ONE THAT ISN'T SHOOTING YOU!!

4. I wish there was more to it. It seems a bit short. I will also reiterate the lack of danger. Why do we have to protect the Gorn shutting down the drills when he just heals back up on his own? Where is the failure?

5. I hate having to tab target to find the illusions, unless I am doing it wrong. They are hard for me to target otherwise.

I just had my longest game on this. I don't think this group really knew or cared what they were doing. Everyone kept dying, and everyone kept zerging. I have done this several times.

shadowfirefly00

Having played through this a few times myself, I find myself agreeing with most of these points, and would take this opportunity to offer the relevant dev personnel some constructive advice based on each in turn.

itpalg wrote: »

2. No sense of danger = people just zerg this. Die? No problem. Don't wait for a revive by your doc/scientist that wants to feel important.

Folks not bothering to wait for a revive (and its 'partner', folks not taking the time to revive downed teammates) is hardly unique to this STF. On the other hand, situations can arise where attempting to revive a comrade can cause problems of its own.

3. Why do NPCs seek me out exclusively it seems on my Temp character? As my team is shooting up the hill, I attempt to go down the side behind buildings, thus supposedly not being seen, and suddenly I am being chased by a handful of Naks like I am doing 100k dps and I MUST be taken out NOW! IGNORE EVERYONE ELSE SHOOTING YOU is the command they are given. TAKE OUT THE ONE THAT ISN'T SHOOTING YOU!!

I'm guessing that this is going on even with the 'aggressive posture' toggle being off; if so, and if it's something happening in ground content in general, it sounds like the AI tangos' priorities are in need of fine-tuning across the board.

4. I wish there was more to it. It seems a bit short. I will also reiterate the lack of danger. Why do we have to protect the Gorn shutting down the drills when he just heals back up on his own? Where is the failure?

Funny thing is, there's an easy way to resolve this one, partially presented in universe. After the Romulan assault is thwarted, it's noted that their drilling or whatever is causing geological instability in the area - perhaps the instability has escalated to the point that the players have X minutes to rescue the Gorn miners, storm the Romulan base, and have the specialist shut down the drills before Really Bad Things happen (entirely distinct from the 'drills are shut down in five minutes' bonus objective). If, as I recall correctly, the specialist doesn't do anything while healing, then it becomes a good idea to actually pay attention to him... it's one of the reasons you want a sci with Triage, or an engineer with any of the medical generators

Related would be the idea of adding career-track-specific optional objectives (something already found in multiple missions, most notably 'Mine Enemy' and 'Facility 4028') - for example, an engineer might be able to assist the specialist with his work, halving the time it takes to shut down a sub-console... but the team has to consider that while that's going on, there's only four of them actively putting fire downrange...

5. I hate having to tab target to find the illusions, unless I am doing it wrong. They are hard for me to target otherwise.

Indeed they are; as noted elsewhere split-beam rifles and weapons with chaining alt-fire are useful here, as are AoE abilities (I understand the Paradox Bomb is especially recommended because of its guaranteed 'grav well' effect). Incite Chaos can also have amusing results...

itpalg

When I play Defiance, I would say above 90% of the time, even 99% you can rely on someone reviving you.
I am not sure exactly why this is. I can't say it is really because you get points for it. Maybe it is the community feels and the need to have help.
Having points go towards extra marks or something may help get people to contribute. Defiance gives points for shooting the same NPC others are shooting (Teamwork I believe is the point name), among other situations you get points for.

As far as aggro, I have mentioned in another post/my stream/someone else's stram how I seem to get attacked over any of my away team, regardless if I am shooting or not, which is extremely annoying at times depending on the role I am trying to play (Sci? > support>debuff/ Eng>support, fabs, etc).

cmccart

I think the lack of any sense of danger comes from the fact that, in the vast majority of cases in this game as a whole, there is no real penalty for death. You just hit respawn, finish the mission, and cleanse whatever wounds may have shown up. A lot of the problems present in this STF have their roots in the format of the game itself, rather than the mission.

itpalg

This mission I never see any injuries to heal, and people go down alot below 60 it seems.
On an advanced queue, you should get one at least once playing this several times, which I have never.