The problem with long runs is that the rewards are TRIBBLE poor.
If they actually started adding unique rewards or better scaling dilithium and mark rewards, then people might actually want to play them.
"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
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
The problem with long runs is that the rewards are **** poor.
If they actually started adding unique rewards or better scaling dilithium and mark rewards, then people might actually want to play them.
Or nerf the ones that are too easy while giving ones that take longer a bigger bonus. They should have it be based on average run time like foundry missions with the base amount they give now be for a run that takes 15 min. Average run time less than that and you get less. Average run time longer and you get more.
This.
Also, @sheldonlcooper it's not just time gatedness. IGA and KAGA are not time gated, just like their space counterparts. Yet these missions are also rarily played.
No, it hasn't got anything to do with whether it's possible to complete the mission if you're better (in other words, the absence of time gates). It's all about easy rewards for doing next to nothing, that's the only reason people play missions like ISA and CCA (and by extension, stuff like DRSE and so on).
The problem with long runs is that the rewards are **** poor.
If they actually started adding unique rewards or better scaling dilithium and mark rewards, then people might actually want to play them.
Or nerf the ones that are too easy while giving ones that take longer a bigger bonus. They should have it be based on average run time like foundry missions with the base amount they give now be for a run that takes 15 min. Average run time less than that and you get less. Average run time longer and you get more.
This.
Also, @sheldonlcooper it's not just time gatedness. IGA and KAGA are not time gated, just like their space counterparts. Yet these missions are also rarily played.
No, it hasn't got anything to do with whether it's possible to complete the mission if you're better (in other words, the absence of time gates). It's all about easy rewards for doing next to nothing, that's the only reason people play missions like ISA and CCA (and by extension, stuff like DRSE and so on).
I agree. Those borg missions do not seem to me like something today's player is willing to do. We at least have the brotherhood and the DRSE to play. We can say the DRSE is too easy but that's only because enough people know how to do it. If you don't know how to do it it's not easy at all with the very short timer. Brotherhood stands out to me as an example of one of the few in the last 2 years that's just right. They should use it as a model. In space I guess the tzenkethi front is as close as they have gotten recently. You can progress as fast as you can. but I think it still will die for being too complicated/not just shooting.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I'd normalise the rewards around voth BZ, people seem happy with that and I don't see why people should be expected to play an hour+ to make a 8k dil for one toon. Why not have bonus marks and dil, each week a different set of queues pays big, all the appeal of an event without the most of the downsides. that way they could run fewer events and make them a bit special.
The problem with long runs is that the rewards are **** poor.
If they actually started adding unique rewards or better scaling dilithium and mark rewards, then people might actually want to play them.
Or nerf the ones that are too easy while giving ones that take longer a bigger bonus. They should have it be based on average run time like foundry missions with the base amount they give now be for a run that takes 15 min. Average run time less than that and you get less. Average run time longer and you get more.
This.
Also, @sheldonlcooper it's not just time gatedness. IGA and KAGA are not time gated, just like their space counterparts. Yet these missions are also rarily played.
No, it hasn't got anything to do with whether it's possible to complete the mission if you're better (in other words, the absence of time gates). It's all about easy rewards for doing next to nothing, that's the only reason people play missions like ISA and CCA (and by extension, stuff like DRSE and so on).
Risian, Borg ground queues take actual communication to succeed. The Elite versions are some of the best examples of a "good" challenge the game has to offer. They should be the model for the rest of the game in terms of norm, adv, Elite.
But I'd never PUG them. Why ? Because 90% of the time the team you get doesn't know how to communicate. Or has chat turned off. It's no wonder those PUG queues are dead.
They're still quite popular for private groups however.
And yes, a lot of people gravitate towards the shorter missions, but that's not to exploit the game, some simply don't want to be bogged down in a 20-30min engagement.
Its one thing if an episode mission takes half hour, but it's another for pick up or private groups. With disconnects and limited playing time, people can't do that all the time.
And it's not as if people won't do the slightly longer missions, but the reward has to be fit for the time spent (in comparison to other options) as you say.
We have to look no further than Undine Assault Advanced for proof. Its a 15-20min mission. People do it frequently (at least in the dps channels) because its fun, and gives a fair mark payout.
Personally, I like the quick action rotation of Red Alerts, Deep Space Encounters, Patrols, ISA, CSA, KSA, CCA, UUA, FEZ, HSE, followed by UTTE, DRSE, BHE, BotSE, Hive Elite. I don't think there's anything wrong with lots of 5min missions to choose from.
If they would just give us proper norm, adv, elite (maybe even Epic) difficulties for every queue, AND balanced the rewards based on time. Then I would call THAT a successful "Balance Pass".
*But it would still take teamwork and communication to complete IGA/KAGA/Hive Elite
Yeah... that's basically what I said. I didn't say that they were exploiting easy missions but that they just want the easy rewards, fast.
I also disagree with the notion that people don't play the ground missions just because they require communication - it's not all that important. One slightly above average player like myself can carry a team in IGA, just like it's possible for others to do that in ISA. It has, therefore, everything to do with (easy) rewards; ISA will just always be a lot faster.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Actually, I've noticed that TR users are usually dragging down the team. On average.
Which isn't surprising though as it generally doesn't combine well with other things - mines, expose-exploit builds, debuffing and quickly utilising that. Synergy is the cornerstone of a good build and the TR doesn't combine well with these things - generally speaking, it's just an easy way to pew pew through content because it has one certain advantage.
In the end it's overrated. And usually it's the first sign of someone not knowing how to build against the Borg. The weapon was clearly released (or re-released rather) to give a specific portion of the playerbase a means of emancipation and play Borg content without having to think of good builds.
it ignores shields that take close to a dozen seconds to take down and doesn't require either equipping a TRIBBLE set for an insta-remod or a basic one that freezes you solid for 4 seconds
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Sigh... remodulation is not a problem. Maybe once or twice during a mission. But I think I've stated that before.
Limiting yourself in weapon choice because then you don't have to perform a certain action once or twice during an entire mission is exactly what I've been describing.
And there's so much shield ignoring TRIBBLE nowadays. Anyway, against Elite tac drones, the TR might have an advantage and even there it's minimal. A close up pulsewave shot (combined with mines for example, there it is again: synergy) can kill those just as well. Especially if said Pulsewave is part of a set, but even that isn't a requirement.
And that's just elite drones. Against most other targets, the 1-3 shots required to remove the shields of a target don't justify choosing a weapon that generally does not combine well with other things, but that's just my opinion.
Anyway, before going completely off-topic: the point was that ground missions are not time gated either, yet seldom played compared to their counterparts. So that can't be the main reason why it's not played.
Now... I don't know or remember why we're even discussing that as it has little to do with the Plasmonic Leech at first sight. It's funny how almost all topic eventually end with the state of the queues, ISA, or time gating becoming the topics of discussion
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
it ignores shields that take close to a dozen seconds to take down and doesn't require either equipping a **** set for an insta-remod or a basic one that freezes you solid for 4 seconds
i don't call that 'overrated'
Also, after re-reading this: this is exactly what I stated before. A weapon to easily allow the average player to play Borg content without having to put too much thought in their build. Emancipation thus. Thanks for confirming it
[quote="themadprofessor#9835;13182225"]Wow, there's enough salt in this thread to line the rim of every margarita glass from now to the 25th century.[/quote]
LOL... I'll have a Strawberry Salty Tear Margarita, thank you very much...
Yeah... that's basically what I said. I didn't say that they were exploiting easy missions but that they just want the easy rewards, fast.
I also disagree with the notion that people don't play the ground missions just because they require communication - it's not all that important. One slightly above average player like myself can carry a team in IGA, just like it's possible for others to do that in ISA. It has, therefore, everything to do with (easy) rewards; ISA will just always be a lot faster.
Yeah sorry, my bad Risian, I misread that part on easy rewards.
And I know what you mean 100%.
If you've got a good player or two on the team you almost don't need to communicate. But I've not had very good "PUG" experiences. And in fairness it's a lot easier to carry an ISA (no communication required) then KASA/IGA.
Personally I will not PUG borg ground because there's a few checkpoints you can't avoid that require teammates (like lowering the shields to the nodes) where others can mess it up if they don't know where to go, or what to do. So in my case it's not because of the crappy rewards (relative to the short missions), I just don't want to get stuck with a bum team and waste a bunch of time.
They're great missions though, as I'm sure you'll agree.
[quote="sophlogimo;13182710"].[quote="reyan01;13182680"][...] Therein lies the problem though. In the minds of too many players, those two oldest maps are the only ones that matter.[/quote]
Maybe the devs should just remove them from the game.
Or better yet, update them so that they are actually challenging not for the build, but for the player.
[/quote] Remove them and turn them into special events...
I have to say bravo. Cutting it to a max boost of 6 points per subsystem is a good start toward cutting power leap. The power levels were way out of control in the game.
Now please work on the Tac captain abilities buffing exotic damage ;-)
So take away the consoles and gear that buff Exotic damage from Tacs? Hey guy you don't need Tac ability to buff them to the moon.
Yeah... that's basically what I said. I didn't say that they were exploiting easy missions but that they just want the easy rewards, fast.
I also disagree with the notion that people don't play the ground missions just because they require communication - it's not all that important. One slightly above average player like myself can carry a team in IGA, just like it's possible for others to do that in ISA. It has, therefore, everything to do with (easy) rewards; ISA will just always be a lot faster.
Yeah sorry, my bad Risian, I misread that part on easy rewards.
And I know what you mean 100%.
If you've got a good player or two on the team you almost don't need to communicate. But I've not had very good "PUG" experiences. And in fairness it's a lot easier to carry an ISA (no communication required) then KASA/IGA.
Personally I will not PUG borg ground because there's a few checkpoints you can't avoid that require teammates (like lowering the shields to the nodes) where others can mess it up if they don't know where to go, or what to do. So in my case it's not because of the crappy rewards (relative to the short missions), I just don't want to get stuck with a bum team and waste a bunch of time.
They're great missions though, as I'm sure you'll agree.
Oh I certainly agree and can understand.
For me, requiring others is what makes a mission well designed. At the same time it is certainly true that this makes the mission less 'PUG-friendly' so to say - not to mention the possibility that certain players abuse these mechanisms to grieve others. Assault on Terok Nor is a good example of a mission that I would never PUG even though I really like the mission design and especially the end fight.
I'm going to have to call BS on this. The two most recent reputations, which generated what the last four space maps and QUEUES are Lukari and Temporal.
And nobody is completing those in under 20 seconds.
The only maps getting completed that fast are two of the oldest maps in the game.
In fact, I can't think of a single map in the Undine, Delta, Terran, Iconian, Temporal or Lukari offerings that can be cleared in under a minute. They are absolutely scaled for the current end-game.
But everyone PUGs the old/easy maps. Either to chase damage parse records, or to do something fast and easy.
You cannot call BS on my opinion of what I think is fun.
Of course no one is completing those in under 20 seconds because no one uses them. You must compare to the ones that are played. For instance, Borg Red Alert -- which unlocks near the end of the leveling cycle and not the beginning, mind you. When was the last time that you saw that Red Alert take the intended fifteen minutes to complete? If your answer is not 'today' or 'this week' then all of the game's content is most definitely not scaled to the current damage rate.
I'm going to have to call BS on this. The two most recent reputations, which generated what the last four space maps and QUEUES are Lukari and Temporal.
And nobody is completing those in under 20 seconds.
The only maps getting completed that fast are two of the oldest maps in the game.
In fact, I can't think of a single map in the Undine, Delta, Terran, Iconian, Temporal or Lukari offerings that can be cleared in under a minute. They are absolutely scaled for the current end-game.
But everyone PUGs the old/easy maps. Either to chase damage parse records, or to do something fast and easy.
You cannot call BS on my opinion of what I think is fun.
Of course no one is completing those in under 20 seconds because no one uses them. You must compare to the ones that are played. For instance, Borg Red Alert -- which unlocks near the end of the leveling cycle and not the beginning, mind you. When was the last time that you saw that Red Alert take the intended fifteen minutes to complete? If your answer is not 'today' or 'this week' then all of the game's content is most definitely not scaled to the current damage rate.
I'm not disputing your opinion of fun. I'm disputing the facts that you presented. Because they are inaccurate.
The game has developed well beyond the Crystaline Entity and the Borg storyline. Those maps are some of the first end-game encounters in Star Trek Online.
So when you say that the end-game is being completed in 20 seconds or less, you are only referring to one map, CCA. Because even ISA takes a smidge longer than 20 ticks. But in general I believe you will accuse me of semantics and state that you meant CCA and ISA together.
But that's not what the developers are creating anymore. Like I said, there isn't a single map in Lukari ... Temporal ... Iconian ... Terran ... Delta ... or Undine queues that can be completed in under 20 seconds. The developers have moved past this content and developed six whole storylines, six whole reputations, and more than 12 maps for all of this content to be in the queues. And all of it is balanced well beyond the nonsense everyone has been saying is making the game boring, too easy, and stagnant.
And that's the hypocrisy of posts like yours. There's whole theme that the game is stagnant, but it's the same two maps that people are using to make their point.
So yes, you're right, ISA and CCA are extremely stagnant. Duh. They're the same maps that people have been doing for five years, minimum.
The developers went and made alllllllll these other maps, which introduce a ton of other mechanics, enemies, interactions and rewards.
And contrary to what you're saying people do still enter a lot of the recent maps. You can pop an Iconian map, Temporal map and Lukari map regularly right now. The others on the list, well, they're old and dated too. The Undine maps? Eh, they're years old, so I don't really expect them to be all that active. People have moved on from them and can get those marks elsewhere if they want the rewards.
But eh, let's stick to Borg maps then. Since I'm sure ISA is on your list of "too easy to complete" content.
Disco takes more than 20 seconds to complete. And you can get a wide variety of marks from it. And it gets run regularly. So even "Borg" content that is newer is designed better than ... the oldest maps in the game. Which yes, have stagnated. Duh.
well, come on now, the reason for the most part is time gates. The old maps don't have them. And even the new ones that might not have hard time gates have 'soft time gates.' Even if they put the usual sit here for a minute twiddling your thumbs at the beginning of ISA CCA I bet their play would go down 50%.
personally, I think 5 minutes is a desirable run. Cryptic stated long ago they are looking for 20-30 minutes. Few will participate in that.
what i think is unfortunate is all the work that goes into these new queues and 90% of them are dead in a few weeks after the rep has moved on. to be brutally realistic, though, i don't see any way of preventing this anymore. the game has to move on to something different to survive. maybe this space balance is paving the way for that with some sort of pvp or something. i really don't know. will hang in as long as it lasts.
I agree with a lot of the responses made after my post.
There are time gates.
There are bad rewards for the longer time to complete missions.
ISA and CCA are fast, easy and good return for your time investment.
The Devs, who obviously track a ton of data, know this. They absolutely do.
I don't know what the solution is. But there has to be a happier medium to strike on the content. A sweet spot in time it takes to complete (20 to 30 minutes is way too long, under 1 minute seems to annoy a group of posters on the forums). So I say let's help the devs find that sweet spot.
And also, being a cagey old vet of MMOs, I'd recommend leaving ISA and CCA as is, just making their rewards less bang for the buck. Put the bigger carrots on sticks in front of other content.
That way people who want to parse, or do something that is super fast, casual and easy can still hop into one of those maps. But that people who want to chase better rewards, can go chase them in something that takes, say, mabye 5 to 7 minutes.
Disco takes more than 20 seconds to complete. And you can get a wide variety of marks from it. And it gets run regularly. So even "Borg" content that is newer is designed better than ... the oldest maps in the game. Which yes, have stagnated. Duh.
I'm sorry...BS on this bit. The last time I had a disco pop was last month or so. So if by regularly, you mean once a month...sure. Regularly as in I can do this in the one hour or so I play this game each night...no...not really. ISA and CCA on the other hand...I can always play those.
I had a Disco pop last week. It slows down a bit during events, but, it's run pretty regular.
Are you guys not playing during prime time playing hours or are you just not patient enough to wait more than a minute for a queue to pop because a lot of the queues DO pop, they just take longer to pop than ISA and CCA do.
Comments
If they actually started adding unique rewards or better scaling dilithium and mark rewards, then people might actually want to play them.
so an average 15 minute run with those numbers would award 600, 1200 and 1800 dil respectively
too much? not enough? just right?
and i have no idea how to calculate mark rewards, as those are all over the place currently
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
This.
Also, @sheldonlcooper it's not just time gatedness. IGA and KAGA are not time gated, just like their space counterparts. Yet these missions are also rarily played.
No, it hasn't got anything to do with whether it's possible to complete the mission if you're better (in other words, the absence of time gates). It's all about easy rewards for doing next to nothing, that's the only reason people play missions like ISA and CCA (and by extension, stuff like DRSE and so on).
I agree. Those borg missions do not seem to me like something today's player is willing to do. We at least have the brotherhood and the DRSE to play. We can say the DRSE is too easy but that's only because enough people know how to do it. If you don't know how to do it it's not easy at all with the very short timer. Brotherhood stands out to me as an example of one of the few in the last 2 years that's just right. They should use it as a model. In space I guess the tzenkethi front is as close as they have gotten recently. You can progress as fast as you can. but I think it still will die for being too complicated/not just shooting.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
My character Tsin'xing
Risian, Borg ground queues take actual communication to succeed. The Elite versions are some of the best examples of a "good" challenge the game has to offer. They should be the model for the rest of the game in terms of norm, adv, Elite.
But I'd never PUG them. Why ? Because 90% of the time the team you get doesn't know how to communicate. Or has chat turned off. It's no wonder those PUG queues are dead.
They're still quite popular for private groups however.
And yes, a lot of people gravitate towards the shorter missions, but that's not to exploit the game, some simply don't want to be bogged down in a 20-30min engagement.
Its one thing if an episode mission takes half hour, but it's another for pick up or private groups. With disconnects and limited playing time, people can't do that all the time.
And it's not as if people won't do the slightly longer missions, but the reward has to be fit for the time spent (in comparison to other options) as you say.
We have to look no further than Undine Assault Advanced for proof. Its a 15-20min mission. People do it frequently (at least in the dps channels) because its fun, and gives a fair mark payout.
Personally, I like the quick action rotation of Red Alerts, Deep Space Encounters, Patrols, ISA, CSA, KSA, CCA, UUA, FEZ, HSE, followed by UTTE, DRSE, BHE, BotSE, Hive Elite. I don't think there's anything wrong with lots of 5min missions to choose from.
If they would just give us proper norm, adv, elite (maybe even Epic) difficulties for every queue, AND balanced the rewards based on time. Then I would call THAT a successful "Balance Pass".
*But it would still take teamwork and communication to complete IGA/KAGA/Hive Elite
I also disagree with the notion that people don't play the ground missions just because they require communication - it's not all that important. One slightly above average player like myself can carry a team in IGA, just like it's possible for others to do that in ISA. It has, therefore, everything to do with (easy) rewards; ISA will just always be a lot faster.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Which isn't surprising though as it generally doesn't combine well with other things - mines, expose-exploit builds, debuffing and quickly utilising that. Synergy is the cornerstone of a good build and the TR doesn't combine well with these things - generally speaking, it's just an easy way to pew pew through content because it has one certain advantage.
In the end it's overrated. And usually it's the first sign of someone not knowing how to build against the Borg. The weapon was clearly released (or re-released rather) to give a specific portion of the playerbase a means of emancipation and play Borg content without having to think of good builds.
i don't call that 'overrated'
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Limiting yourself in weapon choice because then you don't have to perform a certain action once or twice during an entire mission is exactly what I've been describing.
And there's so much shield ignoring TRIBBLE nowadays. Anyway, against Elite tac drones, the TR might have an advantage and even there it's minimal. A close up pulsewave shot (combined with mines for example, there it is again: synergy) can kill those just as well. Especially if said Pulsewave is part of a set, but even that isn't a requirement.
Anyway, before going completely off-topic: the point was that ground missions are not time gated either, yet seldom played compared to their counterparts. So that can't be the main reason why it's not played.
Now... I don't know or remember why we're even discussing that as it has little to do with the Plasmonic Leech at first sight. It's funny how almost all topic eventually end with the state of the queues, ISA, or time gating becoming the topics of discussion
oh wait, no it isn't
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Also, after re-reading this: this is exactly what I stated before. A weapon to easily allow the average player to play Borg content without having to put too much thought in their build. Emancipation thus. Thanks for confirming it
LOL... I'll have a Strawberry Salty Tear Margarita, thank you very much...
Yeah sorry, my bad Risian, I misread that part on easy rewards.
And I know what you mean 100%.
If you've got a good player or two on the team you almost don't need to communicate. But I've not had very good "PUG" experiences. And in fairness it's a lot easier to carry an ISA (no communication required) then KASA/IGA.
Personally I will not PUG borg ground because there's a few checkpoints you can't avoid that require teammates (like lowering the shields to the nodes) where others can mess it up if they don't know where to go, or what to do. So in my case it's not because of the crappy rewards (relative to the short missions), I just don't want to get stuck with a bum team and waste a bunch of time.
They're great missions though, as I'm sure you'll agree.
Therein lies the problem though. In the minds of too many players, those two oldest maps are the only ones that matter.[/quote]
Maybe the devs should just remove them from the game.
Or better yet, update them so that they are actually challenging not for the build, but for the player.
[/quote] Remove them and turn them into special events...
So take away the consoles and gear that buff Exotic damage from Tacs? Hey guy you don't need Tac ability to buff them to the moon.
Oh I certainly agree and can understand.
For me, requiring others is what makes a mission well designed. At the same time it is certainly true that this makes the mission less 'PUG-friendly' so to say - not to mention the possibility that certain players abuse these mechanisms to grieve others. Assault on Terok Nor is a good example of a mission that I would never PUG even though I really like the mission design and especially the end fight.
You cannot call BS on my opinion of what I think is fun.
Of course no one is completing those in under 20 seconds because no one uses them. You must compare to the ones that are played. For instance, Borg Red Alert -- which unlocks near the end of the leveling cycle and not the beginning, mind you. When was the last time that you saw that Red Alert take the intended fifteen minutes to complete? If your answer is not 'today' or 'this week' then all of the game's content is most definitely not scaled to the current damage rate.
I'm not disputing your opinion of fun. I'm disputing the facts that you presented. Because they are inaccurate.
The game has developed well beyond the Crystaline Entity and the Borg storyline. Those maps are some of the first end-game encounters in Star Trek Online.
So when you say that the end-game is being completed in 20 seconds or less, you are only referring to one map, CCA. Because even ISA takes a smidge longer than 20 ticks. But in general I believe you will accuse me of semantics and state that you meant CCA and ISA together.
But that's not what the developers are creating anymore. Like I said, there isn't a single map in Lukari ... Temporal ... Iconian ... Terran ... Delta ... or Undine queues that can be completed in under 20 seconds. The developers have moved past this content and developed six whole storylines, six whole reputations, and more than 12 maps for all of this content to be in the queues. And all of it is balanced well beyond the nonsense everyone has been saying is making the game boring, too easy, and stagnant.
And that's the hypocrisy of posts like yours. There's whole theme that the game is stagnant, but it's the same two maps that people are using to make their point.
So yes, you're right, ISA and CCA are extremely stagnant. Duh. They're the same maps that people have been doing for five years, minimum.
The developers went and made alllllllll these other maps, which introduce a ton of other mechanics, enemies, interactions and rewards.
And contrary to what you're saying people do still enter a lot of the recent maps. You can pop an Iconian map, Temporal map and Lukari map regularly right now. The others on the list, well, they're old and dated too. The Undine maps? Eh, they're years old, so I don't really expect them to be all that active. People have moved on from them and can get those marks elsewhere if they want the rewards.
But eh, let's stick to Borg maps then. Since I'm sure ISA is on your list of "too easy to complete" content.
Disco takes more than 20 seconds to complete. And you can get a wide variety of marks from it. And it gets run regularly. So even "Borg" content that is newer is designed better than ... the oldest maps in the game. Which yes, have stagnated. Duh.
I agree with a lot of the responses made after my post.
There are time gates.
There are bad rewards for the longer time to complete missions.
ISA and CCA are fast, easy and good return for your time investment.
The Devs, who obviously track a ton of data, know this. They absolutely do.
I don't know what the solution is. But there has to be a happier medium to strike on the content. A sweet spot in time it takes to complete (20 to 30 minutes is way too long, under 1 minute seems to annoy a group of posters on the forums). So I say let's help the devs find that sweet spot.
And also, being a cagey old vet of MMOs, I'd recommend leaving ISA and CCA as is, just making their rewards less bang for the buck. Put the bigger carrots on sticks in front of other content.
That way people who want to parse, or do something that is super fast, casual and easy can still hop into one of those maps. But that people who want to chase better rewards, can go chase them in something that takes, say, mabye 5 to 7 minutes.
My character Tsin'xing
I had a Disco pop last week. It slows down a bit during events, but, it's run pretty regular.
Are you guys not playing during prime time playing hours or are you just not patient enough to wait more than a minute for a queue to pop because a lot of the queues DO pop, they just take longer to pop than ISA and CCA do.