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The lonely Battlezone
szim
Member Posts: 2,503 Arc User
It's been almost 7 weeks since the Tzenkethi Battlezone was introduced. And numbers don't lie. It's prime time in Europe, 8pm on a Monday evening and there's one active zone with 9 players - two of which are AFK at the warp-in point. Yesterday (Sunday) late afternoon there were two active zones, both of them only half filled. It's no exaggeration to say this content has been abandoned by most of the playerbase.
The problems with this battlezone are still very much the same as on day one. The Tzenkethi recapture the points almost instantly and without warning. An issue that lets players fight for hours without ever seeing the final dreadnought phase.
But this is not supposed to be about complaining. It's supposed to be an appeal to the devs. This Battlezone could actually be a lot of fun. The capture point mechanics are interesting and innovative. But getting the final rewards for completion is way too tedious and sometimes outright impossible. Please consider fixing this issue soon before players abandon this otherwise great battlezone for good!
The problems with this battlezone are still very much the same as on day one. The Tzenkethi recapture the points almost instantly and without warning. An issue that lets players fight for hours without ever seeing the final dreadnought phase.
But this is not supposed to be about complaining. It's supposed to be an appeal to the devs. This Battlezone could actually be a lot of fun. The capture point mechanics are interesting and innovative. But getting the final rewards for completion is way too tedious and sometimes outright impossible. Please consider fixing this issue soon before players abandon this otherwise great battlezone for good!
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Comments
Keep in mind that the Breach is also going on still so that's probably a driving factor to the battlezone being devoid of people.
That might be one reason. But the Badlands Battlezone always has at least twice the amount of players in it. And this one is older and doesn't even offer the newest marks as reward. Given the new reputation Lukari marks should be in high demand.
The other Battlezones just need the players to learn the rules to the Battlezone and do whatever they want.
You capture the three arrays? Good, now hold the line for X minutes, no more no less.
You need 70% to capture this point? You have X minutes to reach that and stay over this number, no more no less.
You need to deliver more asteroids than the enemy? You have X minutes to do so, no more no less.
And unlike the Badlands the number of allied ships doesn't matter (except maybe with the "reach 70%" areas since you need to download enemy ship data to make the bar rise more), so it's really just a mandatory time limit and one of the reasons the Mirror Incursion event is hated.
And all for about 10 marks and 40 dil.
Yeah, thanks devs, but I think I'm just gonna farm red alerts and the Breach across my characters, it's gonna be faster and more rewarding.
I think the underwhelming rewards and the fast recapture without much of warning are the main reasons why the BZ isn't played anymore. I'm not too annoyed by the timers. But a performance based capture mechanic would be preferable. Removing the timers while increasing Tzenkethi resistance at capture points could be a viable solution.
I fear if Cryptic doesn't act soon the Tzenkethi Battlezone will become a ghost town for good.
The timer makes Asteroid Tug and Blockade easier, but extremely difficult for King of the Hill. Asteroid Tug just needs the players to capture more asteroids than the Tzenkethi when the timer goes out instead of capturing all 10. Blockade can be done with just one person for most of the time since you just need to keep one sector secure instead of worrying about all 3.
King of the Hill is too much of a pain. Have 68% captured, but the time goes out, then too bad. You have to start all over again and waste another 5 minutes. Also, King of the Hill gets recaptured every 5 minutes while it might be 10 minutes for the other zones.
It's a rare thing in MMORPGs, devs making content that is actually enjoyable and people want to do it, not because of the reward
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.'
The Zone is fine, but the mechanics are awful and riddled with bugs that were never fixed. When the zone went live, they did what? 3 maintenance patches to fix it.. and still didn't get it fixed right. After that, they seemed to have given up on it.
Simply put, Cryptic abandoned the zone, and the players followed suit. The work to fix the zone stopped and the zone is still not working right. There is no reason to expect players to spend their time and effort in a broken and badly designed area when it's far more fun and more profitable to just go somewhere else.
The last time I played it was right after their last attempt to fix it. That day, it was working, got the zone to complete.. all was god. Went back later that night and it was stuck again. Never went back, and haven't seen anymore patches for it. Total waste of time.
I'm waiting until I hear something good about it before I give it a try. Meanwhile, there are plenty of dinosaurs to shoot.
They work.
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.'
Absolutely.
Battle Zones are still very popular, it's only the new one that no one bothers with because it's a broken mess and a total waste of time. Honestly, it's ridiculous that this made it off Tribble and onto the live server to begin with.
One of my favorite things to do in this game is Battle Zones, I love them. I do the Badlands and Undine space zones all the time and never have any problem getting enough people to complete it. The new zone.. I won't even waste my time entering it.
Most of the people that are still there are doing that exact thing. The only reason I would go there was if I needed marks and I was on a cooldown for Borg and Undine Red Alerts. Even then though, I would be more likely to just wait 30 min then go to the new zone.
As I said before, it appears that Cryptic has given up on it so the players have followed suit. When was the last patch for it? If they're not going to fix it, the players aren't going to waste their time.
I actually enjoy the Battlezones and still go play in them fairly regularly just for the fun of it, BUT when I tried doing the new Tzenkethi Battlezone a few times it was always bugged in some way. The first time I went nothing would spawn at all-no enemies nothing. The second time certain zones couldn't be capture at all. The third time the captured zones were being recaptured almost immediately and even when we tried leaving players in captured zones to prevent capture they still reverted to the Tzenkethi. The final time I actually managed to finish the zone and didn't get a reward. It was a broken mess and I basically gave up on it. It really soured me to the point of not wanting to ever go back there again.
I'll stick with the voth BZ. Even after they ruined the biggest fun by nerfing dino tagging it's still the best one and there are usually at least 2-3 full instances.
Add on top of that the significant teething issues that should never have hit the live game and you have a place that had some interesting ideas, like the rock shoving, but quickly became pointless as you need the numbers to actually "win" the zone fight overall.
If I take an alt in for rep marks I tend to simply stick around one of the points unless I can instance hop into a full one. But the risk there is you hit one thats ending and those folk will leave after.
Another drawback is that the newest BZ is literally in the middle of nowhere.
Obviously for chasing gear you need the extra doohickey but options are there for those as well even if you go so far as to opt for patience and time one the one per day from marks.
Time-gated maps? Amazing. I can't wait to recommend Star Trek Online to all of my friends so we can sit and wait together for zero reason in addition to the 'soft' time gates provided by NPC hit points and mission objectives.
I can't wait for a new STO battlezone, one with added cut-scenes that can't be skipped. So much fun. (mandatory /sarcasm).