Tzenkathi battlezone feedback

huijian

maybe its because I was flying solo, but the timers in Tzenkathi battlezone seemed a bit fast, and the Tzenkathi also seem to reclaim the allied controlled areas almost right away. Additionally my polymorphic probe arrays are tractoring the asteroids, but it doesn't seem to have any adverse effects.

mikoto123a

Had to watch from a streamed session as I could not log in.. (Again !!! - Ongoing issue with STO when launching)

Worried that too many hardcore players are saying it is too easy - Not everyones ship is DPS optimised and having to difficulty too high will drive more players away.

dragnridr

That's why the devs need to base their enemy's numbers off of players that are fresh level 60's with white mk XII gear, and not veteran level 60's with all epic mk XIV gear.

huijian

Its not a matter of dps, I have no trouble exterminating the Tzenkethi, also I expect I could do so just as easily with white MkXII gears. Instead of just blindly firing at enemies like dyson sphere or badlands you actually need to make proper use of the skills available to every player.
The problem with the battlezone is a matter of timing of area resets. Even when the "OP" players were testing it (later the same day as my original post in this thread) the devs had to manually spawn the bosses because the areas were resetting incorrectly.

pwstolemyname

As a long time science freek currently enjoying the return to promenance of science builds (from their origional high at launch) I read these lines about them on the news page:

'The Tzenkethi know the strength of their fellow comrades. As a result, certain Tzenkethi ships are able to make Tzenkethi technology operate more efficiently when they are in close proximity to each other.'

And imediatly knew there were entended as a counter to my playstyle. I had to log into tribble imediatly and see if I was going to needed to switch back into a beam or cannon build.

Once on tribble my options to fight them were limited, no ques were going to pop, so I headed to the battlezone to find some there.

First impression: The artists did a fantastic job, this zone looks fantastic.

Beyond this I am sad to say I found the battlezone rather disapointing. I wasnt able to escalate it of course, no one else was there, best I could do was capture zones and watch them turn back to red while i was elsewhere so I didnt get the full experiance, but I felt the 'game design' was more of the same. Mechanicly this zone didnt realy feel any differant to the badlands or the undine battlezone.

As to my origional quest, to see how the Tzenkethi would be to fight verse a MegaWell build, I was disapointed hear too. The zone itself seemed to be designed with the maximum gravity well size in mind, So grouping ships at all, without other players to cause extra ones to spawn was more challenging, once I did get small group in a well any mechanics in place to counter me were not particularly obvius or aparent.

At no point during any of my engagments in the battlezone did I feel at all imperraled or at risk of a warp core breech. Of course this was to be expected, but I had thought maybe the new 'anti-grouping; mechanic might in some way up the challenge for me and it did not.

What I did notice was that the Tzenkethi seemed a little more tanky then most other enemies, killing them took a little longer then I expected, even when I was only fighting one, so I dont know that this was the result of the 'anti-grouping' mechanic that is still mysterius in nature to me (possibly with more then 3 or 4 ships in a well its effect will be multiplied and more aparent?).

I was suprised by the resilience of the Tzenkethi ships as my science build deals damage directly though shields, and the blog had stated:

'Something that you’ll come to realize early on is that a Tzenkethi ship is highly resilient, and the strength of their shields is tough to rival. '

Which lead me to belive they would mostly be shield tanking, either this is not the case or their shields are able to negate a portion of exotic damage? Cirtainly they are tougher then most ships. Not that killing them was a problem, it wasnt, it just took a little longer then normal.

Ok so those are my impressions of the battlezone and the enemies. I would love to get some info from any one who developed this zone or the tzenkethi, regarding the design decisions and mechanics. Is this, as I suspected when I read the blog, meant to be countering my playstyle? or did I misinterpret the blog. Will I find my experiance changes significantly as the number of tzenkethi increase?

Will I realy be forced back into a beam boat or escort? I wouldnt mind going back to escorts, the days of escorts online when cannons ruled was fun, but placing the week spot and the high damage arc on the tzenkethi ships in the same place (rather then damage fore and weekness aft) seems like its giving the advantage to beem crusers rather then menoverble cannon escorts, and I am sick to death of brick like beam builds.