Story missions in a party

goldenavariel

I and 4 friends play every Tuesday and have since the Delta Recruit event. It's been fun but...

For an MMO, STO really doesn't seem to like teams playing their story missions. Especially the later ones. There are the annoying things like falling through Voyager's or K-13's floors ("if you fall don't click anything!") or someone getting stuck in a rail when beaming into the Tuterien's sphere ("we'll be one man short for this battle, sorry you don't get to participate") because those areas are too small for 5+ people (/stuck almost never works). It happens in space too when the increased number of enemy starships cause some to get stuck in terrain. They can shoot you but you can't shoot them - oh well, everyone abort and let's start all over assuming it will ever work. The less said about how the dialog works in a team the better - It's a mess and I think a major part of the really bad things that happen...

The killer transitions. Sometimes it's people left behind and we cannot continue the mission without exiting and trying again. We've decided Alliances can only be done solo or at most 2 players. Worse are the times when everyone does transition but 1 or more team members have somehow not gotten credit for having completed the previous part.

That last one is the most frustrating. Tonight, 2 people, including my wife, somehow didn't get credit for defending the Annorex in Midnight so when we all got finished we have a "Continue..." button. We're going to have to repeat the fight for Sol plus the whole part on ancient Iconia. I assume some dialog for them got dropped when the "Team Map Transfer" to Iconia popped up. It's insane - they were there the whole time so why didn't they get credit? It has happened to all of us at one point or another and usually it's because someone clicked past a dialog too fast and we didn't get our turn to "Accept" and therefore complete the talk-to objective or whatever before we were swept along.

I really like STO but we don't have this problem with other games we play in and that includes other Cryptic games. This is a multi-player game, right? Why can't these missions work right for teams?

Sorry to vent and I don't guess I know what the answer to fix it is, but multiple weeks of something going wrong in every single session is starting to wear on all of us.

arionisa

Granted, STO could should needs to be much more consistent when it comes to team play. Sometimes one person doing something gives the whole team credit for it, other times each individual has to do it, sometimes one person going through a door which causes a map transition brings the whole team along, other times it doesn't, and sometimes the next person going through that door actually joins the first one, other times they get sent to a different instance. Sometimes one person interacting with a dialogue box effects the entire team no matter where they are, other times it only effects the ones within a certain distance. Team play in missions should be consistent from mission to mission, either everyone gets credit no matter who does something or everyone has to actually do it, no matter what mission it is. Either everyone gets sent to the next map no matter who triggers it or where they are, or no one gets transferred until everyone is together (or clicks on an accept button).

Unfortunately, it's almost as though team play on missions was an afterthought and one person actually put some thought and effort into modifying missions for team play, while another did the bare minimum required to even be able to say the mission could be played as a team. So, the missions the first one worked on work well for teams, while the second set.......

That being said, although there are a lot some problems with team play, some of the problems that you bring up are "self inflicted". When playing as a team you should never, ever click through a dialogue without ensuring that all team members are ready first, at least not until you absolutely certain it isn't gong to totally trash the team play of the mission. Same thing for going through doors/turbolifts etc. It is still a game problem limitation that should not exist but the limitation is there and after the first or maybe second/third time of it happening it should become second nature to make sure the entire team is ready before taking any action that could TRIBBLE things up.

warpangel

Not remembering to use crude workarounds for undocumented limitations random bugs does not make the problems "self inflicted."

goldenavariel

Trying to keep 5 players from clicking through dialog, especially when it isn't clear which dialog option will advance the mission and which will just advance the dialog is not easy even when you are trying. Sometimes your dialog goes away and the button you thought you were pushing was actually the button for the NEXT dialog and everyone yells they weren't ready. It isn't always as easy as asking if everyone is ready. Otherwise, I agree, everything needs to be more consistent.

thunderfoot

One of the things I really enjoy in this game is riding shotgun for a newer player. And it does not a matter a bit what the content is. To see and hear them experience something ingame for the first time I played through years ago is fun. Whenever I do this, I generally make them lead on the team and I always try to match their level. I stay away from the Dialogue choices, and the rest of the buttons, until after they have used them first. Hard sometimes when they choose wrong. TeamSpeak helps alot here. As does team Chat if everyone does not have TS.

There really should be some more consistency about one player being able to speak or make a choice for the entire Team.