Really? The Tzenkathi couldn't have just told us this at the start? Now we're going to have another invasion from a race that's been dormant for X years? Let me guess ... T'Ket found the Hur'q, and will use them as revenge for the loss of M'Tara? or L'Miren ending the Iconian War?
though really cryptic why when face with said enemy is a klingon warrior given only two choices confusion or asking for recommendations, you really couldn't keep your fed baised writing in check for one mission. quite frankly you all should be ashamed of yourselves for that. out of professionalism if nothings else. otherwise it was quite fun.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
I really loved the episode, first time i played it solo the 2nd time with a fleet member and will play this one many more times. The episode has a good build up, also the pace is good and i love the ending. You can see much work and effort has been put into this.
Was fun and think though the Hur'q swarmer's were easy to handle feels like there is more to it and were used just to test out who is inhabiting the galaxy now.
Do think that the Dominion knows about this enemy if the changelings maybe were around for long time and chances are they are facing them as well in the Gamma Quadrant.
Odo was a surprise. Never expected him and wonder if the DS9 actor is doing the voice.
As for DS9, if there is some rumor of it getting revamped this was the chance to do it. Just like what happened to ESD.
Well, apart from the fact of the usual failure of Federation diplomacy that was the premise of all this (hey, geniuses, before you send Starfleet, how about you TALK to the Tzenkethi and ask what this is all about?)...
How do you open diplomatic negotiations with a species that doesn't want to talk and is committing genocide with WMDs? They were literally "Get out of our way or die".
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
Message eaten by forums again. Thanks copy-paste:
I thought it was obvious from Quinn's debriefing in I-don't-know-which mission and what the Tzenkethi admiral said that the Alliance tried to negotiate and the Tzenkethi governement basically flipped them the Great Bird of the Galaxy as a answer because it didn't deem the Alliance trustworthy/strong enough.
As for opinions, I think it started quite weak and felt rushed (hey, we capture ONE admiral and it's apparently enough to thwart all the Tzenkethi efforts in the galaxy or at least seriously impede their progress). 2 big cool reveals though. Also, it was nice seeing Neth Parr in action again. I want her as a Boff!
Also the difficulty was quite out-of-sync compared to how the plot was evolving:
-player mows down Tzenkethi forces and shoots down all torpedoes before they even enter DS9's targeting range. DS9 promptly says they took a heavy beating.
-player utterly trashes weak Hur'q forces without damage to DS9. DS9 suffers the fate of ESD in Surface Tension.
-player gets swarmed by tiny weak swarmers yet still survives without much issues. All other allies manage to die a horrible scripted fate.
Another badly thought out and terribly scripted mission. So you kill all the enemy in seconds, they are clearly no threat but scripts cause all your friends to blow up. I don’t want to post spoilers but when the big station friend blows up there was 1 tiny spawn ship miles away. It makes no sense.
What I see is no or few enemy on the screen as they are all dead but the allies are all talking about warp core breaches, terrible damage and often blowing up on full health with no enemy around. Its a massive disconnect that ruins the mission.
Also as a carrier ship based around pets it’s a really frustrating mission one of the worst in game. You have to constantly respawn your pets and they constantly lose all ranks. Its that bad I do not want to play carriers any more in this mission. It was horrible.
EDIT: What's worse is that station was retrofitted for war full of weapons and defense. It should have been able to hold its own without any of the fleets yet alone 3 fleets backing it up. It doesn't make sense how such a tiny weak force can cause so much damage.
There's times when reading this forum that I can't help but wonder if Gameplay and Story Segregation is a dead concept only I know about...
The problem is worse then that. Its not just that we have massive logical inconsistencies between what is conveyed through the gameplay and what is conveyed through the story. This mission also has massive logical inconsistencies in the story from the current story without even looking at the gameplay.
I don't think more enemies are needed, quite enough of them flying around already. People without decent AoE will probably play a while... While about diplomacy: if you care to inquire with Admiral Whoopy-Doopy-Yoopy (sorry, forgot the name) he will flat out state that they don't trust alliance members for various reasons to listen to them. You may call it a cheap cop out, but it is addressed.
As for the mission: maps were great, as usual, the Tzen ship was nice, the "Transporter" especially, the damaged DS9 looked awesome.
But yeah, for me that was about it. The first three space maps seemed a bit like "STO by numbers revisited". Battle for Bajor was okay-ish but with a certain lack of real battle athmosphere. Ground combat was nice but nothing too special, both captain and admiral went down way too quickly. And then the Hur'q - they did less damage than the swarmers in this one asteroid map (okay, we had a shuttle there), yet, as others said, people keep exploding left and right. Even after the battle is over.
It wasn't a bad episode as such, but neither was it a particularily good one IMO, and I was expecting something more after I was very happy with the last couple of episodes.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
Went in with a carrier and first thought was oh great it's another warp here warp here warp here FU carrier users we love that long spawn timer. Felt like a lesser version of the dyson/undine arc conclusion.
The umpteen zone changes also still drop off buffs like cruiser commands, cryptic really need to have this stuff carry over during a mission if they're going to have toggle abilities in the game.
Got better after the location became more fixed.
A lot of the chat seemed late with kuumarke offering to take care of torps I'd already destroyed each time we hit a new map or the alliance ships deciding to go boom with nothing left to endanger them.
Station sequence was a tad short but nice atmosphere although the first console to fiddle with had a flashing yellow glow that could do with an epilepsy warning.
Ramped up nicely at the end although the dominion leaders voice line sounded really bad like it had been copied off an old vhs tape, guessing that contracts not been nailed down yet. Shame that their arrival was one of those hated things in games, a midcombat cutscene.
Swarmers just seemed infatuated on sniffing the backside of my ship. Is this an anti cannon escort mechanic of some sort because in a cruiser with beams it just felt daft. Maybe if they rammed you, backed off and repeated it might make sense but as is looks bit silly.
Played through on my f2p and it occured to me that if the tzenkethi took a moment to extract their heads from their posteriors they'd have realised that they could have got the KDF to help with the simple phrase, "the hurq", and in doing so they'd have also got the rest of the alliance to join in.
The stations seemed like a rehash of the mirror invasion station based STF, just closer.
Another observation was that you had to actually be scraping the hull of the enemy station to be in range for pbaoe abilities like charged particle burst
Played through on my f2p and it occured to me that if the tzenkethi took a moment to extract their heads from their posteriors they'd have realised that they could have got the KDF to help with the simple phrase, "the hurq", and in doing so they'd have also got the rest of the alliance to join in.
They'd have to know about the Klingon history with the Hur'q for that. Which they probably don't, considering Hur'q is a Klingon word and probably not the name the Tzenkethi use.
It was enjoyable enough. I still like Brushfire better though. I agree with some of the criticisms above. The super special surprise at the end was nice but reeked of the "To be continued" meme, in fact you should have had that in there.
Was a nice blast-fest, and a few good environments. Pacing was okay and VO was okay. DS9 is tougher than the game portrayed though, however, nice excuse for the hopeful 'refit'. Intrigued by what Odo needs to talk about, but felt this should've been added to the end of the mission.
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
Was Loriss maybe a wee bit obvious with her victory is life announcement given thats the name tagged onto the expansion?
Might be because my f2p captain is a tad shorter than the lifer I played through it on but the railings around the mass effect map in the final station fight blocked line of sight for me yet the tzenkethi could shoot me through them.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,669Community Moderator
They'd have to know about the Klingon history with the Hur'q for that. Which they probably don't, considering Hur'q is a Klingon word and probably not the name the Tzenkethi use.
Yea... I believe the Tzenkethi called them Drantzuli.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
I don't know who does the writing for these missions, but this mission evoked allot of emotions - excitement, apprehension, surprise and finally a desire to jump out of my seat and give a whoop and shout out for the good guys. Great story telling and awesome job of pulling us into it. 2 thumbs up!
Message eaten by forums again. Thanks copy-paste:
I thought it was obvious from Quinn's debriefing in I-don't-know-which mission and what the Tzenkethi admiral said that the Alliance tried to negotiate and the Tzenkethi governement basically flipped them the Great Bird of the Galaxy as a answer because it didn't deem the Alliance trustworthy/strong enough.
As for opinions, I think it started quite weak and felt rushed (hey, we capture ONE admiral and it's apparently enough to thwart all the Tzenkethi efforts in the galaxy or at least seriously impede their progress). 2 big cool reveals though. Also, it was nice seeing Neth Parr in action again. I want her as a Boff!
Also the difficulty was quite out-of-sync compared to how the plot was evolving:
-player mows down Tzenkethi forces and shoots down all torpedoes before they even enter DS9's targeting range. DS9 promptly says they took a heavy beating.
-player utterly trashes weak Hur'q forces without damage to DS9. DS9 suffers the fate of ESD in Surface Tension.
-player gets swarmed by tiny weak swarmers yet still survives without much issues. All other allies manage to die a horrible scripted fate.
Posted this elsewhere, but it probably should have gone here...
So... I'm not sure what I'm supposed to get excited about. I found the entire thing underwhelming, from start to finish.
First, we have a space battle. After that, we have a space battle. Then, to mix things up, we have a space battle. We get called back to DS9, finally, where we have a space battle. Then an enemy starbase warps in (/facepalm... bases are STATIONARY), and we have a space battle. Finally, we get the Hur'q, and have a space battle.
Am I supposed to be excited by the new enemy? I mean, they're just like every other enemy in the game, a bunch of hit points to shoot and be shot by, with no personality at all (yet, to be fair).
At least the voice acting was good this time out.
I would be far more interested in seeing some new game systems. How about exploration? How about some kind of reason for SCIENCE and ENGINEERING officers? I mean, combat is the purview of the Tactical officers. Science officers should be doing research, and Engineers should be building things... but we get none of that. Just more shoot-em-ups.
Yawn.
I think the issue you guys both faced with the difficulty is a result of your DPS simply being too much for what the map was designed for. Every mission is designed for players that have an adequate DPS in order to complete them. Not everyone in the game needs to have high DPS for the average story mission.
As for your particular comments @colonelmarik, the reason why we still don't have exploration in the game yet is because they're still in the process of coming up with something worthwhile. It's not exactly something that they can just add into the game, not if we want to be happy with it. Big systems take time to come out.
Engineering and Science officers do have a purpose in this game. Engineering officers in space are supposed to be more for support on the battlefield, healing ship hull. Science on the other hand is supposed to be a space wizard, casting powers like gravity wells (though not against the tzenkethi) and applying debuffs in order to make the Tactical player's job easier to deal damage. At least, that's how I would see it. Not everyone playing the game is going to be tactical officers.
MY LTS character I ran it on is an engineer and I'm neither a dps chaser nor someone that follows a meta or build guide (I've only found escorts to be close to fun on console and never liked cannons as a weapons choice) yet I was hitting the thing with npc's announcing their death after everything hostile had died.
With barely any upgraded weapons either as I prefer to use my dil elsewhere. Granted they were in a vonph but the ship is just a platform for the gear you use.
As the combat wasn't too bad I might do some more runs over the weekend with others, only one of whom is a tac as I found them to be pretty dull when I made the character back at launch.
Comments
Maps were great, love the Tzenkathi interior.
+1 Odo!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=740Eo5J7S7g
though really cryptic why when face with said enemy is a klingon warrior given only two choices confusion or asking for recommendations, you really couldn't keep your fed baised writing in check for one mission. quite frankly you all should be ashamed of yourselves for that. out of professionalism if nothings else. otherwise it was quite fun.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
Do think that the Dominion knows about this enemy if the changelings maybe were around for long time and chances are they are facing them as well in the Gamma Quadrant.
Odo was a surprise. Never expected him and wonder if the DS9 actor is doing the voice.
As for DS9, if there is some rumor of it getting revamped this was the chance to do it. Just like what happened to ESD.
People that guessed the new threat could be the Hur'q were right. Finally we'll learn a bit about them, then.
I think the Tzenkethi are a bit dumb that they didn't just tell us. They could have even kept shooting their doomsday guns while they'd do it.
And we're clearly bad at diplomacy if we can't get them to even tell us that.
My character Tsin'xing
How do you open diplomatic negotiations with a species that doesn't want to talk and is committing genocide with WMDs? They were literally "Get out of our way or die".
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
I thought it was obvious from Quinn's debriefing in I-don't-know-which mission and what the Tzenkethi admiral said that the Alliance tried to negotiate and the Tzenkethi governement basically flipped them the Great Bird of the Galaxy as a answer because it didn't deem the Alliance trustworthy/strong enough.
As for opinions, I think it started quite weak and felt rushed (hey, we capture ONE admiral and it's apparently enough to thwart all the Tzenkethi efforts in the galaxy or at least seriously impede their progress). 2 big cool reveals though. Also, it was nice seeing Neth Parr in action again. I want her as a Boff!
Also the difficulty was quite out-of-sync compared to how the plot was evolving:
-player mows down Tzenkethi forces and shoots down all torpedoes before they even enter DS9's targeting range. DS9 promptly says they took a heavy beating.
-player utterly trashes weak Hur'q forces without damage to DS9. DS9 suffers the fate of ESD in Surface Tension.
-player gets swarmed by tiny weak swarmers yet still survives without much issues. All other allies manage to die a horrible scripted fate.
What I see is no or few enemy on the screen as they are all dead but the allies are all talking about warp core breaches, terrible damage and often blowing up on full health with no enemy around. Its a massive disconnect that ruins the mission.
Also as a carrier ship based around pets it’s a really frustrating mission one of the worst in game. You have to constantly respawn your pets and they constantly lose all ranks. Its that bad I do not want to play carriers any more in this mission. It was horrible.
EDIT: What's worse is that station was retrofitted for war full of weapons and defense. It should have been able to hold its own without any of the fleets yet alone 3 fleets backing it up. It doesn't make sense how such a tiny weak force can cause so much damage.
Look forward to the next one.
As for the mission: maps were great, as usual, the Tzen ship was nice, the "Transporter" especially, the damaged DS9 looked awesome.
But yeah, for me that was about it. The first three space maps seemed a bit like "STO by numbers revisited". Battle for Bajor was okay-ish but with a certain lack of real battle athmosphere. Ground combat was nice but nothing too special, both captain and admiral went down way too quickly. And then the Hur'q - they did less damage than the swarmers in this one asteroid map (okay, we had a shuttle there), yet, as others said, people keep exploding left and right. Even after the battle is over.
It wasn't a bad episode as such, but neither was it a particularily good one IMO, and I was expecting something more after I was very happy with the last couple of episodes.
The umpteen zone changes also still drop off buffs like cruiser commands, cryptic really need to have this stuff carry over during a mission if they're going to have toggle abilities in the game.
Got better after the location became more fixed.
A lot of the chat seemed late with kuumarke offering to take care of torps I'd already destroyed each time we hit a new map or the alliance ships deciding to go boom with nothing left to endanger them.
Station sequence was a tad short but nice atmosphere although the first console to fiddle with had a flashing yellow glow that could do with an epilepsy warning.
Ramped up nicely at the end although the dominion leaders voice line sounded really bad like it had been copied off an old vhs tape, guessing that contracts not been nailed down yet. Shame that their arrival was one of those hated things in games, a midcombat cutscene.
Swarmers just seemed infatuated on sniffing the backside of my ship. Is this an anti cannon escort mechanic of some sort because in a cruiser with beams it just felt daft. Maybe if they rammed you, backed off and repeated it might make sense but as is looks bit silly.
The stations seemed like a rehash of the mirror invasion station based STF, just closer.
Another observation was that you had to actually be scraping the hull of the enemy station to be in range for pbaoe abilities like charged particle burst
They'd have to know about the Klingon history with the Hur'q for that. Which they probably don't, considering Hur'q is a Klingon word and probably not the name the Tzenkethi use.
Might be because my f2p captain is a tad shorter than the lifer I played through it on but the railings around the mass effect map in the final station fight blocked line of sight for me yet the tzenkethi could shoot me through them.
Yea... I believe the Tzenkethi called them Drantzuli.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
I don't know who does the writing for these missions, but this mission evoked allot of emotions - excitement, apprehension, surprise and finally a desire to jump out of my seat and give a whoop and shout out for the good guys. Great story telling and awesome job of pulling us into it. 2 thumbs up!
I think the issue you guys both faced with the difficulty is a result of your DPS simply being too much for what the map was designed for. Every mission is designed for players that have an adequate DPS in order to complete them. Not everyone in the game needs to have high DPS for the average story mission.
As for your particular comments @colonelmarik, the reason why we still don't have exploration in the game yet is because they're still in the process of coming up with something worthwhile. It's not exactly something that they can just add into the game, not if we want to be happy with it. Big systems take time to come out.
Engineering and Science officers do have a purpose in this game. Engineering officers in space are supposed to be more for support on the battlefield, healing ship hull. Science on the other hand is supposed to be a space wizard, casting powers like gravity wells (though not against the tzenkethi) and applying debuffs in order to make the Tactical player's job easier to deal damage. At least, that's how I would see it. Not everyone playing the game is going to be tactical officers.
With barely any upgraded weapons either as I prefer to use my dil elsewhere. Granted they were in a vonph but the ship is just a platform for the gear you use.
As the combat wasn't too bad I might do some more runs over the weekend with others, only one of whom is a tac as I found them to be pretty dull when I made the character back at launch.