It is wrong to be stuck in an Elite or Advanced Q because of bad players who shouldn't be playing them. You have a leaver penalty. And that's fine. But being stuck in a Q for 15 minutes because players who don't have the gear to play it is wrong.
The first time a player attempts a queue at a higher level they are not going to be expert at completing it. It might even take them several attempts to get better at playing it.
If you expect fast and perfect completion then don't play PUGs. Join a channel and find other experience players.
With respect... It's not about the gear... It's about the players.
For the past 3 weeks, I've been playing Advanced and Elite queues with Very Rare Mk 12 gear...
Every single run I've been in that has failed, as the direct result of players not being able to comprehend what to do... heck... Some of the winning missions I've run, I was the heaviest hitter with around 2 mil damage...
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
With my new Jem, I found myself 'guilty' of queueing higher too. I ran CCA and such, and Advanced queues that rewarded me the doo-dads I needed for the rep gear. This is pretty much a design-flaw in the system, though; or, more like a 'chicken & the egg' thingy: 'You are only ready for the Advanced queues when you got the good gear; but, in order to get the good gear, you need to do the Advanced queues.' It's always been that way. The first week or so of CCA was rather horrible, with everyone around me dying a lot too, as they all showed up in their new Jem ships as well. I didn't blame them, as I was in the same boat.
With my new Jem, I found myself 'guilty' of queueing higher too. I ran CCA and such, and Advanced queues that rewarded me the doo-dads I needed for the rep gear. This is pretty much a design-flaw in the system, though; or, more like a 'chicken & the egg' thingy: 'You are only ready for the Advanced queues when you got the good gear; but, in order to get the good gear, you need to do the Advanced queues.' It's always been that way. The first week or so of CCA was rather horrible, with everyone around me dying a lot too, as they all showed up in their new Jem ships as well. I didn't blame them, as I was in the same boat.
Agreed, you can't fault under geared players for playing Advanced Queues. There is however, no reason at all for them to be in Elites. The big problem with Advanced is exactly what you said.. it's the only way to get some of the Elite Reputation Marks that you need for the Rep Gear you would usually use to play Advanced Queues. Veteran players can handle Advanced using mission rewards with little problem, but not every player can. Those players that can't are left to hope someone will carry them through Advanced. This is why I try and be easy on players in PUG games when playing in Advanced Queues.
If they are in Elite however, they should know better. There is no excuse for someone being an a PUG Elite without proper gear or knowledge of the map.
With my new Jem, I found myself 'guilty' of queueing higher too. I ran CCA and such, and Advanced queues that rewarded me the doo-dads I needed for the rep gear. This is pretty much a design-flaw in the system, though; or, more like a 'chicken & the egg' thingy: 'You are only ready for the Advanced queues when you got the good gear; but, in order to get the good gear, you need to do the Advanced queues.' It's always been that way. The first week or so of CCA was rather horrible, with everyone around me dying a lot too, as they all showed up in their new Jem ships as well. I didn't blame them, as I was in the same boat.
Agreed, you can't fault under geared players for playing Advanced Queues. There is however, no reason at all for them to be in Elites. The big problem with Advanced is exactly what you said.. it's the only way to get some of the Elite Reputation Marks that you need for the Rep Gear you would usually use to play Advanced Queues. Veteran players can handle Advanced using mission rewards with little problem, but not every player can. Those players that can't are left to hope someone will carry them through Advanced. This is why I try and be easy on players in PUG games when playing in Advanced Queues.
If they are in Elite however, they should know better. There is no excuse for someone being an a PUG Elite without proper gear or knowledge of the map.
^^ Well spoken! And, indeed, the rules for Elite queues are different: there's no excuse for being in one, unless you can handle it.
I've observed that many missions are either completed with great ease, or it's a real struggle. There seems to be nothing in between those extremes anymore.
Just yesterday, I was in an ISA where the others (mostly consisting of Jem'Hadar) kept dying, two people left, the other two weren't really powerful.
At one moment I managed to bring the Transformer down to a few percent while they were all over the place, having moved on to the right side, fighting spheres everywhere and so on. Then it was repaired.
With some prudence I could kill most spheres and then the three of us (after having rallied the other two remaining players) could destroy it. The other side wasn't really a problem, strangely enough. We finished in 18 minutes or so, with my ship having to tank and deal most of the damage to the Gateway and Cube.
And all this was just after an ISA on another toon that was finished in a minute or two, with hardly a single shot fired from my ship (probably because @peterconnorfirst was in it lol).
There should be no time limit though. The first described fight was interesting. Definitely more interesting than the one that was over before I knew it.
With my new Jem, I found myself 'guilty' of queueing higher too. I ran CCA and such, and Advanced queues that rewarded me the doo-dads I needed for the rep gear. This is pretty much a design-flaw in the system, though; or, more like a 'chicken & the egg' thingy: 'You are only ready for the Advanced queues when you got the good gear; but, in order to get the good gear, you need to do the Advanced queues.' It's always been that way. The first week or so of CCA was rather horrible, with everyone around me dying a lot too, as they all showed up in their new Jem ships as well. I didn't blame them, as I was in the same boat.
The jem'hadar starter ship and gear is more than enough for any Advanced queue in the game. Though I would advise replacing the ridiculous mixed cannons and beams setup with one or the other.
With my new Jem, I found myself 'guilty' of queueing higher too. I ran CCA and such, and Advanced queues that rewarded me the doo-dads I needed for the rep gear. This is pretty much a design-flaw in the system, though; or, more like a 'chicken & the egg' thingy: 'You are only ready for the Advanced queues when you got the good gear; but, in order to get the good gear, you need to do the Advanced queues.' It's always been that way. The first week or so of CCA was rather horrible, with everyone around me dying a lot too, as they all showed up in their new Jem ships as well. I didn't blame them, as I was in the same boat.
The jem'hadar starter ship and gear is more than enough for any Advanced queue in the game. Though I would advise replacing the ridiculous mixed cannons and beams setup with one or the other.
That's exactly what I did first thing. Replaced beams with cannons. Though he hasn't been queuing or anthing, I just agree a ship should have either beams or cannons, not both.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
I've noticed that the initial gear that comes with a lot of ships is stupid not a very good set up. Makes one think that the person designing the ships has never actually played the game.
I would disagree with the notion that you'll be only advanced-capable if you've already done the very same advanced queues multiple times and got the respective reputation gear.
Nukara and Romulan reps have no elite marks, thus everything is available from Normal. Fleet gear is also available without doing any advanced queues. Furthermore, all BZs (possibly excluding gamma, but it's a fake BZ anyway) have normal-tier enemies while having possibility to earn elite marks as their rewards. Plus plenty of newer mission rewards are not too shabby either. If any of those aforementioned options won't make you ready for advanced, it would probably be better for you to find another hobby, cause anything not possible to earn that way won't help you anyway.
(I'm excluding the 100 mark = 1 elite mark conversion, because while it's possible, it's horribly slow and not a practical option to solely rely on for anyone.)
And yes, I know as well as anyone that advanced queues have the highest chance of popping, but that's another topic altogether.
But, being on topic - I really don't see how an advanced queue would take horrible amount of time even if you're the only person in queue who is capable of doing something. If you *do* experience something like this, it might be worth checking your own build as well.
And elites will fail sooner or later anyway if you're team is not good enough. Furthermore, most of the missions have timegates set up in a way that you'll progress or fail after a set amount of time anyway.
I would disagree with the notion that you'll be only advanced-capable if you've already done the very same advanced queues multiple times and got the respective reputation gear.
There are always ppl who can do everything with white Mk II gear. But I'd say most players can't do so comfortably. So, most will seek to obtain rep gear, at one point or another.
And yes, obviously, those feeling undergeared for an Advanced queue still CAN finish it -- albeit barely. That was the whole point of the discussion: ppl are doing the Advanced queues because they want the good gear, but had rather gone in with the better gear to begin with.
And simply, Advanced queues reward better. People will seek those higher rewards, and risk that maybe they'll fail. Since these are only Advanced queues, I see no problem with that practice, really.
I would disagree with the notion that you'll be only advanced-capable if you've already done the very same advanced queues multiple times and got the respective reputation gear.
There are always ppl who can do everything with white Mk II gear. But I'd say most players can't do so comfortably. So, most will seek to obtain rep gear, at one point or another.
The irony of that being that rep gear isn't really that much better, statistically speaking, than the free/dirt cheap stuff available everywhere. Slapping some on without knowning what you're doing probably won't make much of a difference.
And yes, obviously, those feeling undergeared for an Advanced queue still CAN finish it -- albeit barely. That was the whole point of the discussion: ppl are doing the Advanced queues because they want the good gear, but had rather gone in with the better gear to begin with.
And simply, Advanced queues reward better. People will seek those higher rewards, and risk that maybe they'll fail. Since these are only Advanced queues, I see no problem with that practice, really.
I don't see any problem with that practice, either. Not as the queues are now at least.
Advanced really is Normal+, ever since they nixed the fail conditions. There is little point queuing anything at all on Normal, except for those queues that are not available Advanced and some event queues if you just want the event trinket ASAP.
And especially all those timed auto-win queues there is absolutely no reason to play on Normal even in theory, since the Advanced version will automatically win in the exact same time, all regardless of player performance anyway, and gives higher reward.
But of course, I do think it's a mistake Cryptic made them that way.
Let's just learn to behave when being carried: Use your buffs/debuffs and heals on the guy who carries/tanks the whole queue. If your scimitar/vengeance dies, you're usually self healing yourself from 98% to 100% HP while you just killed your team's powerhouse via negligence or lack of participation.
There are always ppl who can do everything with white Mk II gear. But I'd say most players can't do so comfortably. So, most will seek to obtain rep gear, at one point or another.
And yes, obviously, those feeling undergeared for an Advanced queue still CAN finish it -- albeit barely. That was the whole point of the discussion: ppl are doing the Advanced queues because they want the good gear, but had rather gone in with the better gear to begin with.
And simply, Advanced queues reward better. People will seek those higher rewards, and risk that maybe they'll fail. Since these are only Advanced queues, I see no problem with that practice, really.
I think you misunderstood me. You don't need absolutely anything from advanced queues to obtain items I mentioned earlier. The only difference between, say, CCN and CCA rewards is the amount of marks rewarded (and the mk of 1st-3rd place item(s)). Is Nukara 2pc+Fleet Resilient, that is available from doing only normal queues, the absolute cream of the crop these days? Of course not, but if someone says they need something better to make themselves advanced-ready, they're either a very bad player or very bad liar.
It's not about whether players should practice that behaviour or not - you know me, I don't care at all about undergeared players in my advanced queues, hell, I don't care too much who are in my elites. I'm just saying that the whole premise of "I can't get good gear unless I do advanced queues undergeared X times and get that specific rep gear" is false.
Why would you expect anything OTHER than undergeared players in a queue, though? I mean, what is the reason to do queues in the first place? To GET GEAR. Once you HAVE the gear, it is no longer purposeful to do that queue anymore,
Yep, you answered your own question. The purpose of the queues is getting gear. If queues rewarded nothing -- except maybe some Dilithium -- ppl wouldn't really be doing them (even the Dilithium you're getting mostly serves the purpose of... getting gear).
So, if you find yourself in such a queue and it's not going well, ask yourself: Why are YOU in there? Are you the aforementioned undergeared player looking to actually get somewhere? If so, you can hardly complain that others just like you are in there. Or are you a DPSwanker, in which case, why do you even care what others are doing and how do you even notice they exist?
LOL @ 'DPSwanker'
A queue is played primarily -- as the mountain climber said about the mountain -- because it's there. It's at the core of every MMO: the ability to make progress/get some new gear. I think there's only a small window where players truly 'need' gear. Like I really don't need all those endless mission reward sets; but I'm getting them anyway, because they're there to be had.
Elite Marks directly instead of the 100:1 slow walk.
At this time, Gamma Recruits to get to that 100 Queue Unlock.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
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.'
As far as gear goes, you can get a full set of mk xii very rare gear just by doing missions. That includes, shields, weapons, and even consoles. They may not be the most potent things right out of the box, but will be more than enough to clear most content in game. If nothing else they will give you enough damage and survival to not be a burden on team. I don't think folks realize today just how much stuff they actually can get from the story missions without ever having to touch an STF queue. I see nothing wrong with expecting a basic standard to be able to clear the queue, especially for something like Korfez. On the opposite side of that coin I see far too many instances of folks expecting people to be able to do 40 billion DPS the same as them.
At the end of the day no matter what the standards are set at, short of giving folks an "I win button" there will always be folks that simply can't clear. The question is how to get as many folks through as possible without making it a miserable experience for all. Simply adding auto-fails alone does not guarantee folks will get better as folks will always take the path of least resistance.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
It is wrong to be stuck in an Elite or Advanced Q because of bad players who shouldn't be playing them. You have a leaver penalty. And that's fine. But being stuck in a Q for 15 minutes because players who don't have the gear to play it is wrong.
Given most Advanced/Elite queues are stated in the description to take 20 minutes; what makes you think Cryptic would set any timer for less then that? (IE It's 5 minutes longer than you need to wait now.)
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
At the end of the day no matter what the standards are set at, short of giving folks an "I win button" there will always be folks that simply can't clear. The question is how to get as many folks through as possible without making it a miserable experience for all. Simply adding auto-fails alone does not guarantee folks will get better as folks will always take the path of least resistance.
I believe that's the wrong question. Getting "as many folks through as possible" is not a good design goal for a game. Playing a game is about overcoming challenge. There must be a goal for the player(s) to pursue, and something to oppose them in that pursuit, whether other players or the game itself. This means that some players, possibly many players, must lose. Without a chance of failure, there can be no true victory either.
Timed auto-win is like playing football with only one team on the field. They are obviously going to "win" and nothing they do while waiting for the clock to run out is going to change that.
Nothing can guarantee players will get any better at anything. All you can do is give them a reason to try, by putting up challenges and rewarding players if/when they overcome them.
'A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on, and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away.'
- Doctor Philip Boyce
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
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.'
With my new Jem, I found myself 'guilty' of queueing higher too. I ran CCA and such, and Advanced queues that rewarded me the doo-dads I needed for the rep gear. This is pretty much a design-flaw in the system, though; or, more like a 'chicken & the egg' thingy: 'You are only ready for the Advanced queues when you got the good gear; but, in order to get the good gear, you need to do the Advanced queues.' It's always been that way. The first week or so of CCA was rather horrible, with everyone around me dying a lot too, as they all showed up in their new Jem ships as well. I didn't blame them, as I was in the same boat.
Agreed, you can't fault under geared players for playing Advanced Queues. There is however, no reason at all for them to be in Elites. The big problem with Advanced is exactly what you said.. it's the only way to get some of the Elite Reputation Marks that you need for the Rep Gear you would usually use to play Advanced Queues. Veteran players can handle Advanced using mission rewards with little problem, but not every player can. Those players that can't are left to hope someone will carry them through Advanced. This is why I try and be easy on players in PUG games when playing in Advanced Queues.
If they are in Elite however, they should know better. There is no excuse for someone being an a PUG Elite without proper gear or knowledge of the map.
Nope, you can get every Elite mark from the 100 mark trade in per day, in the reputation itself. It just takes longer is all. So, no, the queues are not the only way to get the Elite Mark. Just the fastest.
Comments
It's possible I could manage advanced, but if I queue it's usually for normal.
If you expect fast and perfect completion then don't play PUGs. Join a channel and find other experience players.
For the past 3 weeks, I've been playing Advanced and Elite queues with Very Rare Mk 12 gear...
Every single run I've been in that has failed, as the direct result of players not being able to comprehend what to do... heck... Some of the winning missions I've run, I was the heaviest hitter with around 2 mil damage...
Agreed, you can't fault under geared players for playing Advanced Queues. There is however, no reason at all for them to be in Elites. The big problem with Advanced is exactly what you said.. it's the only way to get some of the Elite Reputation Marks that you need for the Rep Gear you would usually use to play Advanced Queues. Veteran players can handle Advanced using mission rewards with little problem, but not every player can. Those players that can't are left to hope someone will carry them through Advanced. This is why I try and be easy on players in PUG games when playing in Advanced Queues.
If they are in Elite however, they should know better. There is no excuse for someone being an a PUG Elite without proper gear or knowledge of the map.
^^ Well spoken! And, indeed, the rules for Elite queues are different: there's no excuse for being in one, unless you can handle it.
Just yesterday, I was in an ISA where the others (mostly consisting of Jem'Hadar) kept dying, two people left, the other two weren't really powerful.
At one moment I managed to bring the Transformer down to a few percent while they were all over the place, having moved on to the right side, fighting spheres everywhere and so on. Then it was repaired.
With some prudence I could kill most spheres and then the three of us (after having rallied the other two remaining players) could destroy it. The other side wasn't really a problem, strangely enough. We finished in 18 minutes or so, with my ship having to tank and deal most of the damage to the Gateway and Cube.
And all this was just after an ISA on another toon that was finished in a minute or two, with hardly a single shot fired from my ship (probably because @peterconnorfirst was in it lol).
There should be no time limit though. The first described fight was interesting. Definitely more interesting than the one that was over before I knew it.
That's exactly what I did first thing. Replaced beams with cannons. Though he hasn't been queuing or anthing, I just agree a ship should have either beams or cannons, not both.
Nukara and Romulan reps have no elite marks, thus everything is available from Normal. Fleet gear is also available without doing any advanced queues. Furthermore, all BZs (possibly excluding gamma, but it's a fake BZ anyway) have normal-tier enemies while having possibility to earn elite marks as their rewards. Plus plenty of newer mission rewards are not too shabby either. If any of those aforementioned options won't make you ready for advanced, it would probably be better for you to find another hobby, cause anything not possible to earn that way won't help you anyway.
(I'm excluding the 100 mark = 1 elite mark conversion, because while it's possible, it's horribly slow and not a practical option to solely rely on for anyone.)
And yes, I know as well as anyone that advanced queues have the highest chance of popping, but that's another topic altogether.
But, being on topic - I really don't see how an advanced queue would take horrible amount of time even if you're the only person in queue who is capable of doing something. If you *do* experience something like this, it might be worth checking your own build as well.
And elites will fail sooner or later anyway if you're team is not good enough. Furthermore, most of the missions have timegates set up in a way that you'll progress or fail after a set amount of time anyway.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
There are always ppl who can do everything with white Mk II gear. But I'd say most players can't do so comfortably. So, most will seek to obtain rep gear, at one point or another.
And yes, obviously, those feeling undergeared for an Advanced queue still CAN finish it -- albeit barely. That was the whole point of the discussion: ppl are doing the Advanced queues because they want the good gear, but had rather gone in with the better gear to begin with.
And simply, Advanced queues reward better. People will seek those higher rewards, and risk that maybe they'll fail. Since these are only Advanced queues, I see no problem with that practice, really.
I don't see any problem with that practice, either. Not as the queues are now at least.
Advanced really is Normal+, ever since they nixed the fail conditions. There is little point queuing anything at all on Normal, except for those queues that are not available Advanced and some event queues if you just want the event trinket ASAP.
And especially all those timed auto-win queues there is absolutely no reason to play on Normal even in theory, since the Advanced version will automatically win in the exact same time, all regardless of player performance anyway, and gives higher reward.
But of course, I do think it's a mistake Cryptic made them that way.
I think you misunderstood me. You don't need absolutely anything from advanced queues to obtain items I mentioned earlier. The only difference between, say, CCN and CCA rewards is the amount of marks rewarded (and the mk of 1st-3rd place item(s)). Is Nukara 2pc+Fleet Resilient, that is available from doing only normal queues, the absolute cream of the crop these days? Of course not, but if someone says they need something better to make themselves advanced-ready, they're either a very bad player or very bad liar.
It's not about whether players should practice that behaviour or not - you know me, I don't care at all about undergeared players in my advanced queues, hell, I don't care too much who are in my elites. I'm just saying that the whole premise of "I can't get good gear unless I do advanced queues undergeared X times and get that specific rep gear" is false.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
Yep, you answered your own question. The purpose of the queues is getting gear. If queues rewarded nothing -- except maybe some Dilithium -- ppl wouldn't really be doing them (even the Dilithium you're getting mostly serves the purpose of... getting gear).
LOL @ 'DPSwanker'
A queue is played primarily -- as the mountain climber said about the mountain -- because it's there. It's at the core of every MMO: the ability to make progress/get some new gear. I think there's only a small window where players truly 'need' gear. Like I really don't need all those endless mission reward sets; but I'm getting them anyway, because they're there to be had.
Elite Marks directly instead of the 100:1 slow walk.
At this time, Gamma Recruits to get to that 100 Queue Unlock.
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.'
At the end of the day no matter what the standards are set at, short of giving folks an "I win button" there will always be folks that simply can't clear. The question is how to get as many folks through as possible without making it a miserable experience for all. Simply adding auto-fails alone does not guarantee folks will get better as folks will always take the path of least resistance.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
Given most Advanced/Elite queues are stated in the description to take 20 minutes; what makes you think Cryptic would set any timer for less then that? (IE It's 5 minutes longer than you need to wait now.)
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Timed auto-win is like playing football with only one team on the field. They are obviously going to "win" and nothing they do while waiting for the clock to run out is going to change that.
Nothing can guarantee players will get any better at anything. All you can do is give them a reason to try, by putting up challenges and rewarding players if/when they overcome them.
- Doctor Philip Boyce
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.'
Nope, you can get every Elite mark from the 100 mark trade in per day, in the reputation itself. It just takes longer is all. So, no, the queues are not the only way to get the Elite Mark. Just the fastest.