If I join an Elite pug without knowing the map do you think I could expect some backlash from the other players on the team?
Random queuing is for Normal/Advanced only. What remains is the same as any introduction to a PVE queue. You never have any control on how much experience your team mates have and if random queuing happens to introduce a lot of players to a lot more queues, then that's a good thing. They may not have experience starting out but they'll soon get that by playing the queue, just as we learned these TFO's in the first place. The result: more players who know these TFO's exist and how to work through them.
IMO, concerns about dealing with random players who're new to certain PVE's is a call to step up and try to help people as best you can. I don't think they're a development concern (such that one might say the system should be changed to restrict players from having new experiences.)
How is putting people into a queues which are broken and/or unfun and leave a bad play experience a good thing?
Some queues are really bad and leave a poor play experience. Others are ok if you are in a competent team but a nightmare otherwise. Conceivably if you are new and do not know where to start you might hit random. If you happen to land in those poor missions randomly a few times you are more likely to quit from a poor play experience. As a new player its much better to look at the list as see what is popular as those will be the more fun ones.
I am sure some randoms will end up in some good experiences. But you cannot just pretend it’s all positive and ignore the negatives. Random STF’s are going to lead more people into more frustrating situations that leave a negative play experience. I can see a lot of people trying out random STF's landing in the bad queues and abandoning the feature.
While not everyone agrees on which queues are good and bad pretty much all of us agree there are bad queues that we avoid for good reason. How are players going to feel when they land in those bad queues and have to either play them or abandon there play session altogether. Its not going be a positive play experience that's for sure.
“IMO, concerns about dealing with random players who're new to certain PVE's is a call to step up and try to help people as best you can.”?
While I am all for helping new players its not always practical. For example yesterday I ran the Breach. One of the players has massive amounts of red damage on his ship enough to make him almost useless. I politely pointed out in chat his ship is damaged. He ignored chat the entire mission.
On the surface this seems like a good idea, however we really need to look at the real problems as this is a simple solution to a very complicated multi-faceted issue. There are reasons why some STF's are not played. This goes beyond the risk vs reward mentality as some of the queues are broken or are just not fun. Some queues need new mechanics as they are built on old mechanics that really have no place anymore. These things happen when you have a game approaching a decade old (8.5 years). Some of the mechanics do not work well and some of it is just not fun and people avoid it like the Telurian plague. There is also the bias between space and ground that will cause serious issues if not addressed. Anything that is beyond pew pew pew plus random is asking for trouble (yes I know asking people to think shouldn't be so hard).
The rewards being provided are nowhere near enough for me to even consider trying this out. Way to much risk (My Time and sanity) vs the rewards (not enough to peek interest). Maybe something more unique, as stated earlier in this thread like a ground or space set. How about a point system that can be spent on unique items/ships/accelerators. I am just saying that dilithium and marks are not the best things to award more of as there is an abundance of ways to acquire those items. Award refined dilithium, that would peek some interest (Will never happen) . Then again it should not be about the rewards and should be about having fun but as Quark said in DS9's In the Pale Moonlight "No. I think we can call it a bribe. And thank you, Captain. Thank you for restoring my faith in the ninety-eighth Rule of Acquisition: "Every man has his price." In the end its about WIIFM (Whats In It For Me)
Original name before the merge Ice_Knight. Join Date 7/29/08
[How is putting people into a queues which are broken and/or unfun and leave a bad play experience a good thing?
Some queues are really bad and leave a poor play experience. Others are ok if you are in a competent team but a nightmare otherwise. Conceivably if you are new and do not know where to start you might hit random. If you happen to land in those poor missions randomly a few times you are more likely to quit from a poor play experience. As a new player its much better to look at the list as see what is popular as those will be the more fun ones.
Let's address a couple of points here:
1. New players might play broken queues.
That's why the devs are asking in this thread for feedback on which queues are in fact broken so they can either pull them from eligibility or fix them before AoD (something we got confirmation on during last night's Ten Forward Weekly. Jesse is one of the devs involved in fixing broken TFO's, as identified by the community.)
2. New players might play terrible queues.
Again, the devs are asking for feedback on which queues we'd like to see included. If there is something that is completely unplayable because of design, name it because that is constructive feedback. Asking that new players stick to what's popular is a complete non-starter because in no terms should a player be limited from queues they are qualified to play because you think that having them in your matches might be a greater complication than benefit. Popular queues tend to be highly reductive (see. reward/effort) and that is neither to everyone's interest or even the best way to present STO to a newcomer (considering what they'll have played while leveling [see. other changes coming with AoD], end-game grinding favorites may easily be too simplistic.) Those TFO's will be an effective grinding choice once/if newcomers reach that level of resource need but players should be aware of what else the game has to offer. Enter: random queues either directly introducing them to new TFO's or simply making much of the PVE system playable again (so players have a reasonable chance to explore TFO's for themselves in the first place.)
While I am all for helping new players its not always practical.
While not every player is able to see or process constructive team feedback it should never be held as a point against making the attempt or including that player in the first place.
Post edited by duncanidaho11 on
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[How is putting people into a queues which are broken and/or unfun and leave a bad play experience a good thing?
Some queues are really bad and leave a poor play experience. Others are ok if you are in a competent team but a nightmare otherwise. Conceivably if you are new and do not know where to start you might hit random. If you happen to land in those poor missions randomly a few times you are more likely to quit from a poor play experience. As a new player its much better to look at the list as see what is popular as those will be the more fun ones.
Let's address a couple of points here:
1. New players might play broken queues.
That's why the devs are asking in this thread for feedback on which queues are in fact broken so they can either pull them from eligibility or fix them before AoD (something we got confirmation on during last night's Ten Forward Weekly. Jesse is one of the devs involved in fixing broken TFO's, as identified by the community.)
2. New players might play terrible queues.
Again, the devs are asking for feedback on which queues we'd like to see included. If there is something that is completely unplayable because of design, name it because that is constructive feedback. Asking that new players stick to what's popular is a complete non-starter because in no terms should a player be limited from queues they are qualified to play because you think that having them in your matches might be a greater complication than benefit. Popular queues tend to be highly reductive (see. reward/effort) and that is neither to everyone's interest or even the best way to present STO to a newcomer (considering what they'll have played while leveling [see. other changes coming with AoD], end-game grinding favorites may easily be too simplistic.) Those TFO's will be an effective grinding choice once/if newcomers reach that level of resource need but players should be aware of what else the game has to offer. Enter: random queues either directly introducing them to new TFO's or simply making much of the PVE system playable again (so players have a reasonable chance to explore TFO's for themselves in the first place.)
While I am all for helping new players its not always practical.
While not every player is able to see or process constructive team feedback it should never be held as a point against making the attempt or including that player in the first place.
I think you are being unrealistically optimistic as based on experience I do not expect the devs will make the require changes or that random STFs will provide this positive play experience you are expecting.
Even if the devs do make the changes random STF’s shouldn’t even have been announced until after those changes had been made or at the very minimum at the same time. Announcing and bringing out random STF’s before fixing the STFs is just sabotaging the feature. People are going try it, hit the problems I described and abandon it. By the time the fixes are applied the damage will be done. Going by experience I do not expect the devs will delay random STF's until all the pointed out problems with STF's are fixed.
My other concern is the devs do not have the best track record of admitting mistakes and fixing things they have made worse. Take the original no Win as a prime example of an overwhelming positive feature being turned into an overwhelming negative feature and the devs refuse to admit the mistake.
I am not convinced the way random STF has been designed in a way that’s for the players best interest and it’s not even truly random either. It has a strong slant in dropping random people into the same limited selection of missions that people are playing a lot while rarely if at all at times dropping people into the queues with no one in. Do not be surprised when you get chance to test it that there should be a strong bias to the same old often played queues.
So much baseless fear mongering. "The randos will KILL OUR GAME FOR GOOD OH NOEZ!F". Just wait and see, I don't know why a "rando" is that much different from someone clicking the only queue with players in it. PUGs were evil incarnate the whole time, now it's RTFOs appearantly.
The more I examine this new system, the more pointless it becomes. What is the purpose?
IF you already play public queues and IF you already enjoy all the queues, then you get a tiny bonus for playing content you already enjoy. Yay, I guess?
If the intent is to increase the number of players participating in queued content, then they don't seem to have a grasp of why players are not queuing. Players join private channels to form teams to complete specific content with a group of capable players. The player needs specific marks or inventory-clogging elite widgets and thus play specific content for them. If players want dilithium, the frequently populated queues offer more (and the Dyson Ground Battlezone pays out the best). This new system offers no incentive to leave your private channel. I do not see how this system will "revitalize" the public queues.
I am not convinced the way random STF has been designed in a way that’s for the players best interest and it’s not even truly random either. It has a strong slant in dropping random people into the same limited selection of missions that people are playing a lot while rarely if at all at times dropping people into the queues with no one in. Do not be surprised when you get chance to test it that there should be a strong bias to the same old often played queues.
On Tribble, it chose things that are not commonly played on the live server. It's possible it was programmed to EXCLUDE all queues that currently get played regularly.
I am not convinced the way random STF has been designed in a way that’s for the players best interest and it’s not even truly random either. It has a strong slant in dropping random people into the same limited selection of missions that people are playing a lot while rarely if at all at times dropping people into the queues with no one in. Do not be surprised when you get chance to test it that there should be a strong bias to the same old often played queues.
On Tribble, it chose things that are not commonly played on the live server. It's possible it was programmed to EXCLUDE all queues that currently get played regularly.
From what I can see it has a bias towards queues that already have people waiting but not full. So more often than not you end up in the same limited range queues not the rarely played ones with no one in. But who knows what behind the scenes tweaks they will do with how it picks random by the time it goes live. All I know is it is not truly random at the moment.
Tribble is a bit misleading as the pop is so low you get a higher chance of there not being any queues waiting. We wont be able to fully judge the bias until it goes live
I'm incredibly bothered by your ability to pose kurland for such pictures and would like this ability more than anything you've ever actually put in the game.
I am not convinced the way random STF has been designed in a way that’s for the players best interest and it’s not even truly random either. It has a strong slant in dropping random people into the same limited selection of missions that people are playing a lot while rarely if at all at times dropping people into the queues with no one in. Do not be surprised when you get chance to test it that there should be a strong bias to the same old often played queues.
On Tribble, it chose things that are not commonly played on the live server. It's possible it was programmed to EXCLUDE all queues that currently get played regularly.
From what I can see it has a bias towards queues that already have people waiting but not full. So more often than not you end up in the same limited range queues not the rarely played ones with no one in. But who knows what behind the scenes tweaks they will do with how it picks random by the time it goes live. All I know is it is not truly random at the moment.
Tribble is a bit misleading as the pop is so low you get a higher chance of there not being any queues waiting. We wont be able to fully judge the bias until it goes live
In other words, you're making prophecies of doom based on speculation?
Anyways, I like the idea they're going with. having one guy queue Bug Hunt then the system grab 4 people from the random list and dump them into Bug Hunt sounds good.
...if elites are 'unpuggable' (or so devs say) and so were denied tfo-ability...
...shouldn't they have their rewards massively raised as in the current tfo 'lockbox' system, even on the lowest tiered rewards (combined with base rewards) an advanced gets equal or better rewards than an elite run?
As it is, the tfo system is basically telling us to eschew elites and settle for advance, effectively PUNISHING players for wanting to play at a higher difficulty with lower rewards except for the elite mark widget (which can be bought for 100 marks/day, so a moot point)
Why should I waste time and resources on getting my builds up to elite standard when I can toss an adequately armed ship/ground pounder in a tfo and get more rewards for my time?
I am not convinced the way random STF has been designed in a way that’s for the players best interest and it’s not even truly random either. It has a strong slant in dropping random people into the same limited selection of missions that people are playing a lot while rarely if at all at times dropping people into the queues with no one in. Do not be surprised when you get chance to test it that there should be a strong bias to the same old often played queues.
On Tribble, it chose things that are not commonly played on the live server. It's possible it was programmed to EXCLUDE all queues that currently get played regularly.
From what I can see it has a bias towards queues that already have people waiting but not full. So more often than not you end up in the same limited range queues not the rarely played ones with no one in. But who knows what behind the scenes tweaks they will do with how it picks random by the time it goes live. All I know is it is not truly random at the moment.
Tribble is a bit misleading as the pop is so low you get a higher chance of there not being any queues waiting. We wont be able to fully judge the bias until it goes live
In other words, you're making prophecies of doom based on speculation?
Anyways, I like the idea they're going with. having one guy queue Bug Hunt then the system grab 4 people from the random list and dump them into Bug Hunt sounds good.
Sure if you want to call deduction making prophecies go ahead. It is very clear the bias is going to be worse on live in that you will more likely hit premade queues and so it will be less random but we wont know precisely how much till its live.
I too would like that idea with one tweak. Set a short timer before dumping the random people in the queue. Give the queue say 5mins ish or a reasonable time to start . This gives a chance for a team to form made up of people who want to be in it and planned to be in the queue. That gets rid of a lot of the negative aspect of random STF's that a lot of people have said they do not like. At the same time the change has no negative impact on the people who want random STF's,
Sure if you want to call deduction making prophecies go ahead. It is very clear the bias is going to be worse on live in that you will more likely hit premade queues and so it will be less random but we wont know precisely how much till its live.
Deduction is based on evidence not speculation. Your line of reasoning greatly oversteps what is supported by evidence.
Sure if you want to call deduction making prophecies go ahead. It is very clear the bias is going to be worse on live in that you will more likely hit premade queues and so it will be less random but we wont know precisely how much till its live.
Deduction is based on evidence not speculation. Your line of reasoning greatly oversteps what is supported by evidence.
Yes deduction is based on evidence, experience and logic which is what I am doing. Based on that logic and evidence I am speculating on the outcome. I do not see how my reasoning greatly overstep evidence. All the evidence points to what I said being correct that random STF is not truly random but has a bias and that bias of what a player experiences will change from tribble to live to be less random. Like I said before I cannot work it out precisely but it’s clear to see that should happen.
On Tribble there is high ratio time spent with no one or few people waiting in queues. So when you press random you get dumped into a random STF. But on Live it’s the other way around there is a high ratio of queues that have not started with people in. Based on the devs description and based on evidence from testing on tribble we can see that Random STF will be dumping people into those pre active but not started queues before creating a random new queue.
For example in my time zone on live its common to see around 10 ish different queues waiting to start which is about normal for this time of day. Many of those are included in random STF’. So if I could press random STF I would land in one of those queues. This is common and more often than not I should keep landing in those same limited range of queues instead of experienceing the full random range of STF I get on tribble. I am not saying you will never see queues outside that range only that it will happen a lot less on live then it does on tribble.
You can simulate the above by getting enough friends on tribble. Get a few to start queuing different queues and you hit random STF. You should more often then not land in your friends queue instead of random. At least at this time of day.
Random STF is so bias that once you have worked out which missions are not included you can predict which batch of missions you are going to land in pretty accurately if you use it enough.
Hence why I suggested random STF should be programed to ignore new queues until they have hit a certain age limit. As its not really random as more often then not its dumping you into the same limited batch of missions.
Another major complaint about Random STF that will have a major negative effect on me is it removes showing how many people are queuing and estimated start time. Due to time zone I play in and due to having limited play time I use that feature heavily to pick which of my favourite short list of queues to do.
For example I do not pick CE or other favourites unless the estimated start time is below 5 mins . I also avoid the longer queues as I do not have time to do them. Now it is impossible for me to work out when to play CE or to pick a different queue or which queue. If I spend to long waiting around I do not have time to play the queue and random STF doesn’t drop people in the queues I want to play. This feature could stop me logging in every day and playing a quick short queue and I do not see a way around this problem.
I know this will not be a problem for everyone but for those of us that use that feature its a major problem that will stop us playing the game.
On Tribble there is high ratio time spent with no one or few people waiting in queues. So when you press random you get dumped into a random STF. But on Live it’s the other way around there is a high ratio of queues that have not started with people in. Based on the devs description and based on evidence from testing on tribble we can see that Random STF will be dumping people into those pre active but not started queues before creating a random new queue.
For example in my time zone on live its common to see around 10 ish different queues waiting to start which is about normal for this time of day. Many of those are included in random STF’. So if I could press random STF I would land in one of those queues.
I hereby rebrand this usng the TFO moniker, Totally Fubar Operations.
While I understand you are tryying to breath life back into the old STFs, Special Task Forces(which is what they're called), queues are just the means to get to them.
However, this is going to serve to likely push more players away from the game. Here, play this randomly selected Totally Fubar Operation, that no one has done, or hasn't done in a long time, and there for doesn't really know how to do. This is the first thing that comes to mind here.
Second thing that comes to mind is, "Here do this random TFO for crahp rewards, with a bonus chance at more crahp rewards." Reading over what you have for it, there's just no reason to even bother with it. If you take a terd and polish it, Guess what! It's still a terd. This does nothing but polish said terd.
However, I do applaud Cryptic for this. They finally took something, we have suggested over the years and used it. Granted, we also discussed various forms of how to reward players for it as well. To bad you didn't listen on that part. But still, it's good you took a suggestion we've made over the years and made something bad from it.
On Tribble there is high ratio time spent with no one or few people waiting in queues. So when you press random you get dumped into a random STF. But on Live it’s the other way around there is a high ratio of queues that have not started with people in. Based on the devs description and based on evidence from testing on tribble we can see that Random STF will be dumping people into those pre active but not started queues before creating a random new queue.
For example in my time zone on live its common to see around 10 ish different queues waiting to start which is about normal for this time of day. Many of those are included in random STF’. So if I could press random STF I would land in one of those queues.
really? which ones?
It changes day to day and based on which timezone you are in. On a Sunday at the time I made my last post there is on avenge around 10 different queues waiting to start. Some of which like CE are not included so with random STF I would expect more often than not in that timeframe to land in those same 6 or 7 valid missions when selecting random STF instead of experiencing a wide selection of missions.
But I care less about that and more about the fact I can no longer see the estimated start time. So I can no longer work out when I can play my favourite queues in the morning. Which in turn means there is no point logging into the game every day anymore. As an example with the changes I can no longer see if I have time for a quick CE before I log out or if I have to skip it as the wait time is to long and select something else. Which for me is a major negative of this new feature.
Queue Instance has been cancelled due to player declines. Queue Group remains in queue.
only had to click accept 9 times in a row to try to finally pug Crystal Entity on PC. GL to those wanting to use this new system
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
On Tribble there is high ratio time spent with no one or few people waiting in queues. So when you press random you get dumped into a random STF. But on Live it’s the other way around there is a high ratio of queues that have not started with people in. Based on the devs description and based on evidence from testing on tribble we can see that Random STF will be dumping people into those pre active but not started queues before creating a random new queue.
For example in my time zone on live its common to see around 10 ish different queues waiting to start which is about normal for this time of day. Many of those are included in random STF’. So if I could press random STF I would land in one of those queues.
really? which ones?
It changes day to day and based on which timezone you are in. On a Sunday at the time I made my last post there is on avenge around 10 different queues waiting to start. Some of which like CE are not included so with random STF I would expect more often than not in that timeframe to land in those same 6 or 7 valid missions when selecting random STF instead of experiencing a wide selection of missions.
But I care less about that and more about the fact I can no longer see the estimated start time. So I can no longer work out when I can play my favourite queues in the morning. Which in turn means there is no point logging into the game every day anymore. As an example with the changes I can no longer see if I have time for a quick CE before I log out or if I have to skip it as the wait time is to long and select something else. Which for me is a major negative of this new feature.
And how often are the estimates correct? Seriously though popular queues are popular queues, whether you can see the highly inaccurate timer or not.
On Tribble there is high ratio time spent with no one or few people waiting in queues. So when you press random you get dumped into a random STF. But on Live it’s the other way around there is a high ratio of queues that have not started with people in. Based on the devs description and based on evidence from testing on tribble we can see that Random STF will be dumping people into those pre active but not started queues before creating a random new queue.
For example in my time zone on live its common to see around 10 ish different queues waiting to start which is about normal for this time of day. Many of those are included in random STF’. So if I could press random STF I would land in one of those queues.
really? which ones?
It changes day to day and based on which timezone you are in. On a Sunday at the time I made my last post there is on avenge around 10 different queues waiting to start. Some of which like CE are not included so with random STF I would expect more often than not in that timeframe to land in those same 6 or 7 valid missions when selecting random STF instead of experiencing a wide selection of missions.
But I care less about that and more about the fact I can no longer see the estimated start time. So I can no longer work out when I can play my favourite queues in the morning. Which in turn means there is no point logging into the game every day anymore. As an example with the changes I can no longer see if I have time for a quick CE before I log out or if I have to skip it as the wait time is to long and select something else. Which for me is a major negative of this new feature.
And how often are the estimates correct? Seriously though popular queues are popular queues, whether you can see the highly inaccurate timer or not.
Try playing at this time of day even CE can take 5+ min to start on some days. The estimates are a guideline that tend to be around about correct and extremely useful at this time of day. (see timestamp on my post). Without the estimates I cannot play many of the queues because otherwise I can queue up, wait to long and not have time to run it. Or if I queue up too long I do not have time to change to a different one.
It doesn't just impact people like me who play in 20 or 30min timeslots. When ever you are nearing the time you have to come off those estimates allow you to work out if you have time for 1 more queue or not. You might not use them but for some people they are essential. I use them to judge if I can run CE or not and other queues. Random STF doesn't help it just means I cannot run queues any more at this time of day.
EDIT: I am going to copy and paste from my other post below increase the devs read this thread and not the other one.
For example events are not part of random STF and if I queue normal Breach today I would have failed to get my event run as there are zero people queuing up for it. If I put it up to advance I can see its has more players and join in and I can do the daily event. After random STF this will be impossible for me to do as all that information is hidden.
For example events are not part of random STF and if I queue normal Breach today I would have failed to get my event run as there are zero people queuing up for it. If I put it up to advance I can see its has more players and join in and I can do the daily event. After random STF this will be impossible for me to do as all that information is hidden.
this is a HORRIBLE example. because during an event, people would queue for the event for the same reason you did. If they wanted to finish the event, why would they use RTFO?
And that doesn't include Mark/Dil farmers.
and here's an idea, if you are deciding which difficultly has more people in it, queue for both. whichever one starts had more ppl in it
if the wait time and player count is what you are upset about, then suggest that they be kept in.
I
However, this is going to serve to likely push more players away from the game. Here, play this randomly selected Totally Fubar Operation, that no one has done, or hasn't done in a long time, and there for doesn't really know how to do. This is the first thing that comes to mind here.
Second thing that comes to mind is, "Here do this random TFO for crahp rewards, with a bonus chance at more crahp rewards." Reading over what you have for it, there's just no reason to even bother with it. If you take a terd and polish it, Guess what! It's still a terd. This does nothing but polish said terd.
I think thats why they asked for some real feedback on problem TFOs
there are already quite a few posts with good feedback on problem TFOs already. will they fix them? dunno.
as for the rewards, I agree the low-end tiers are sorta weak. Even though they have no cooldown, they are a bit on the low side especially if you end up in a few long TFOs in a row.
Have to remember, this new system is optional. People who prefer the old method can still use the old method
The only potential issue that bothers me is people dropping out. Will the system auto back-fill the empty slots?
I think thats why they asked for some real feedback on problem TFOs
there are already quite a few posts with good feedback on problem TFOs already. will they fix them? dunno.
Well this was the focus of the play with the Devs live stream. Going through the various TFOs and playing them. they made a few useful observations while doing it.
as for the rewards, I agree the low-end tiers are sorta weak. Even though they have no cooldown, they are a bit on the low side especially if you end up in a few long TFOs in a row.
Have to remember, this new system is optional. People who prefer the old method can still use the old method
The only potential issue that bothers me is people dropping out. Will the system auto back-fill the empty slots?
I think unless random TFOs offer something unique, something you can't get any other way, the system is doomed to fail. Most veteran players won't be motivated into playing old queues by rewarding marks and dilithium. And many new players might be hesitant to drop into a queue they know nothing about. In any case, there are better, quicker ways to earn both dilithium and marks. Why would I queue up for random TFOs if there's a good chance that I'm going to play a queue I don't particularly like, just to earn rewards of which I already have more than enough?
Add a random chance for a new ultra rare space and ground set to drop from random TFOs, sets that are at least as good as any reputation set, and watch queues buzzing with activity.
I think unless random TFOs offer something unique, something you can't get any other way, the system is doomed to fail.
They already tired this back with the Borg tech drops that were needed to get the gear before the reps were a thing, didn't solve anything.
Actually, it did. Queue activity was a lot higher then. People claimed to have played hundreds of Borg queues without getting the desired borg tech drop. And the situation now and then isn't comparable anyways. We now have 12 different reputations and various missions offering a wide range of space and ground sets to anybody who dislikes random chance drops.
Nope, I recall the agony of myself, and many other people, ever finding anyone who wanted to play Cure, no one did Cure, it was all ISA ISA ISA! even back then.
No way. I clearly remember doing a lot of Cure.
I even remember doing a lot of Infected Manus up to the early days of the Rep system.
That WAS the endgame.
Random drops could help, but honestly, they would have to be much better than anything you could get from Missions, Rep, or Crafting/Fleet to get people in the queues.
The best bet would be to put some VERY expensive items in the Rep systems and remove the choice boxes from the Red Alerts. This would give people a reason to play those queues over the RAs without having to resort to RNG. Many players like to feel they are making some sort of progress and not completely at the mercy of the RNGod. (I'm old school. I would camp an NM for days for a chance to get a drop )
in another thread, someone suggested they add the XP bonus back and remove the choice boxes in RAs. That alone wouldn't fix the problem, but it would help populate the queues without make the RAs pointless.
Choice boxes should be limited to Events and the Random Queue.
I guess the agony was getting in a group with people who knew what they were doing.
Hitting all 3 consoles at the same time in the final room of Manus.....UGH
“this is a HORRIBLE example. because during an event, people would queue for the event for the same reason you did. If they wanted to finish the event, why would they use RTFO?
And that doesn't include Mark/Dil farmers.
and here's an idea, if you are deciding which difficultly has more people in it, queue for both. whichever one starts had more ppl in it
if the wait time and player count is what you are upset about, then suggest that they be kept in.”
Well I did suggest they stay in but certain people called my post out as BS when it’s not. I do not see it as a horrible example as you need to know if you are doing normal advanced or Elite so you can make sure you have the right setup and can estimate how long it will take as advance/elite all take longer than normal. I would hate to queue up for something I don’t have time for and drop out leaving the team down a member.
Another example that might suit you better. Dranuur Beach Assault is fun to play but I avoid normal as its boring. Right now I can see when other people are playing advance or Elite work out if I have time to run it and join. After Random STF comes out I can no longer see that info so its impossible to know when to join other people playing and impossible to work out if I have time to run it. Like many of the quures I play Randoms STF doestn drop people in them.
So once Random STF comes out the changes will mean I get to play less of my favourite queues with other people. Which is counter productive, the opposite to what random STF is meant to do.
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Some queues are really bad and leave a poor play experience. Others are ok if you are in a competent team but a nightmare otherwise. Conceivably if you are new and do not know where to start you might hit random. If you happen to land in those poor missions randomly a few times you are more likely to quit from a poor play experience. As a new player its much better to look at the list as see what is popular as those will be the more fun ones.
I am sure some randoms will end up in some good experiences. But you cannot just pretend it’s all positive and ignore the negatives. Random STF’s are going to lead more people into more frustrating situations that leave a negative play experience. I can see a lot of people trying out random STF's landing in the bad queues and abandoning the feature.
While not everyone agrees on which queues are good and bad pretty much all of us agree there are bad queues that we avoid for good reason. How are players going to feel when they land in those bad queues and have to either play them or abandon there play session altogether. Its not going be a positive play experience that's for sure.
While I am all for helping new players its not always practical. For example yesterday I ran the Breach. One of the players has massive amounts of red damage on his ship enough to make him almost useless. I politely pointed out in chat his ship is damaged. He ignored chat the entire mission.
The rewards being provided are nowhere near enough for me to even consider trying this out. Way to much risk (My Time and sanity) vs the rewards (not enough to peek interest). Maybe something more unique, as stated earlier in this thread like a ground or space set. How about a point system that can be spent on unique items/ships/accelerators. I am just saying that dilithium and marks are not the best things to award more of as there is an abundance of ways to acquire those items. Award refined dilithium, that would peek some interest (Will never happen) . Then again it should not be about the rewards and should be about having fun but as Quark said in DS9's In the Pale Moonlight "No. I think we can call it a bribe. And thank you, Captain. Thank you for restoring my faith in the ninety-eighth Rule of Acquisition: "Every man has his price." In the end its about WIIFM (Whats In It For Me)
Let's address a couple of points here:
1. New players might play broken queues.
That's why the devs are asking in this thread for feedback on which queues are in fact broken so they can either pull them from eligibility or fix them before AoD (something we got confirmation on during last night's Ten Forward Weekly. Jesse is one of the devs involved in fixing broken TFO's, as identified by the community.)
2. New players might play terrible queues.
Again, the devs are asking for feedback on which queues we'd like to see included. If there is something that is completely unplayable because of design, name it because that is constructive feedback. Asking that new players stick to what's popular is a complete non-starter because in no terms should a player be limited from queues they are qualified to play because you think that having them in your matches might be a greater complication than benefit. Popular queues tend to be highly reductive (see. reward/effort) and that is neither to everyone's interest or even the best way to present STO to a newcomer (considering what they'll have played while leveling [see. other changes coming with AoD], end-game grinding favorites may easily be too simplistic.) Those TFO's will be an effective grinding choice once/if newcomers reach that level of resource need but players should be aware of what else the game has to offer. Enter: random queues either directly introducing them to new TFO's or simply making much of the PVE system playable again (so players have a reasonable chance to explore TFO's for themselves in the first place.)
While not every player is able to see or process constructive team feedback it should never be held as a point against making the attempt or including that player in the first place.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
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Even if the devs do make the changes random STF’s shouldn’t even have been announced until after those changes had been made or at the very minimum at the same time. Announcing and bringing out random STF’s before fixing the STFs is just sabotaging the feature. People are going try it, hit the problems I described and abandon it. By the time the fixes are applied the damage will be done. Going by experience I do not expect the devs will delay random STF's until all the pointed out problems with STF's are fixed.
My other concern is the devs do not have the best track record of admitting mistakes and fixing things they have made worse. Take the original no Win as a prime example of an overwhelming positive feature being turned into an overwhelming negative feature and the devs refuse to admit the mistake.
I am not convinced the way random STF has been designed in a way that’s for the players best interest and it’s not even truly random either. It has a strong slant in dropping random people into the same limited selection of missions that people are playing a lot while rarely if at all at times dropping people into the queues with no one in. Do not be surprised when you get chance to test it that there should be a strong bias to the same old often played queues.
IF you already play public queues and IF you already enjoy all the queues, then you get a tiny bonus for playing content you already enjoy. Yay, I guess?
If the intent is to increase the number of players participating in queued content, then they don't seem to have a grasp of why players are not queuing. Players join private channels to form teams to complete specific content with a group of capable players. The player needs specific marks or inventory-clogging elite widgets and thus play specific content for them. If players want dilithium, the frequently populated queues offer more (and the Dyson Ground Battlezone pays out the best). This new system offers no incentive to leave your private channel. I do not see how this system will "revitalize" the public queues.
My character Tsin'xing
Tribble is a bit misleading as the pop is so low you get a higher chance of there not being any queues waiting. We wont be able to fully judge the bias until it goes live
Anyways, I like the idea they're going with. having one guy queue Bug Hunt then the system grab 4 people from the random list and dump them into Bug Hunt sounds good.
My character Tsin'xing
...if elites are 'unpuggable' (or so devs say) and so were denied tfo-ability...
...shouldn't they have their rewards massively raised as in the current tfo 'lockbox' system, even on the lowest tiered rewards (combined with base rewards) an advanced gets equal or better rewards than an elite run?
As it is, the tfo system is basically telling us to eschew elites and settle for advance, effectively PUNISHING players for wanting to play at a higher difficulty with lower rewards except for the elite mark widget (which can be bought for 100 marks/day, so a moot point)
Why should I waste time and resources on getting my builds up to elite standard when I can toss an adequately armed ship/ground pounder in a tfo and get more rewards for my time?
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I too would like that idea with one tweak. Set a short timer before dumping the random people in the queue. Give the queue say 5mins ish or a reasonable time to start . This gives a chance for a team to form made up of people who want to be in it and planned to be in the queue. That gets rid of a lot of the negative aspect of random STF's that a lot of people have said they do not like. At the same time the change has no negative impact on the people who want random STF's,
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On Tribble there is high ratio time spent with no one or few people waiting in queues. So when you press random you get dumped into a random STF. But on Live it’s the other way around there is a high ratio of queues that have not started with people in. Based on the devs description and based on evidence from testing on tribble we can see that Random STF will be dumping people into those pre active but not started queues before creating a random new queue.
For example in my time zone on live its common to see around 10 ish different queues waiting to start which is about normal for this time of day. Many of those are included in random STF’. So if I could press random STF I would land in one of those queues. This is common and more often than not I should keep landing in those same limited range of queues instead of experienceing the full random range of STF I get on tribble. I am not saying you will never see queues outside that range only that it will happen a lot less on live then it does on tribble.
You can simulate the above by getting enough friends on tribble. Get a few to start queuing different queues and you hit random STF. You should more often then not land in your friends queue instead of random. At least at this time of day.
Random STF is so bias that once you have worked out which missions are not included you can predict which batch of missions you are going to land in pretty accurately if you use it enough.
Hence why I suggested random STF should be programed to ignore new queues until they have hit a certain age limit. As its not really random as more often then not its dumping you into the same limited batch of missions.
For example I do not pick CE or other favourites unless the estimated start time is below 5 mins . I also avoid the longer queues as I do not have time to do them. Now it is impossible for me to work out when to play CE or to pick a different queue or which queue. If I spend to long waiting around I do not have time to play the queue and random STF doesn’t drop people in the queues I want to play. This feature could stop me logging in every day and playing a quick short queue and I do not see a way around this problem.
I know this will not be a problem for everyone but for those of us that use that feature its a major problem that will stop us playing the game.
My character Tsin'xing
While I understand you are tryying to breath life back into the old STFs, Special Task Forces(which is what they're called), queues are just the means to get to them.
However, this is going to serve to likely push more players away from the game. Here, play this randomly selected Totally Fubar Operation, that no one has done, or hasn't done in a long time, and there for doesn't really know how to do. This is the first thing that comes to mind here.
Second thing that comes to mind is, "Here do this random TFO for crahp rewards, with a bonus chance at more crahp rewards." Reading over what you have for it, there's just no reason to even bother with it. If you take a terd and polish it, Guess what! It's still a terd. This does nothing but polish said terd.
However, I do applaud Cryptic for this. They finally took something, we have suggested over the years and used it. Granted, we also discussed various forms of how to reward players for it as well. To bad you didn't listen on that part. But still, it's good you took a suggestion we've made over the years and made something bad from it.
But I care less about that and more about the fact I can no longer see the estimated start time. So I can no longer work out when I can play my favourite queues in the morning. Which in turn means there is no point logging into the game every day anymore. As an example with the changes I can no longer see if I have time for a quick CE before I log out or if I have to skip it as the wait time is to long and select something else. Which for me is a major negative of this new feature.
only had to click accept 9 times in a row to try to finally pug Crystal Entity on PC. GL to those wanting to use this new system
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
My character Tsin'xing
It doesn't just impact people like me who play in 20 or 30min timeslots. When ever you are nearing the time you have to come off those estimates allow you to work out if you have time for 1 more queue or not. You might not use them but for some people they are essential. I use them to judge if I can run CE or not and other queues. Random STF doesn't help it just means I cannot run queues any more at this time of day.
EDIT: I am going to copy and paste from my other post below increase the devs read this thread and not the other one.
For example events are not part of random STF and if I queue normal Breach today I would have failed to get my event run as there are zero people queuing up for it. If I put it up to advance I can see its has more players and join in and I can do the daily event. After random STF this will be impossible for me to do as all that information is hidden.
this is a HORRIBLE example. because during an event, people would queue for the event for the same reason you did. If they wanted to finish the event, why would they use RTFO?
And that doesn't include Mark/Dil farmers.
and here's an idea, if you are deciding which difficultly has more people in it, queue for both. whichever one starts had more ppl in it
if the wait time and player count is what you are upset about, then suggest that they be kept in.
I think thats why they asked for some real feedback on problem TFOs
there are already quite a few posts with good feedback on problem TFOs already. will they fix them? dunno.
as for the rewards, I agree the low-end tiers are sorta weak. Even though they have no cooldown, they are a bit on the low side especially if you end up in a few long TFOs in a row.
Have to remember, this new system is optional. People who prefer the old method can still use the old method
The only potential issue that bothers me is people dropping out. Will the system auto back-fill the empty slots?
My character Tsin'xing
Add a random chance for a new ultra rare space and ground set to drop from random TFOs, sets that are at least as good as any reputation set, and watch queues buzzing with activity.
Actually, it did. Queue activity was a lot higher then. People claimed to have played hundreds of Borg queues without getting the desired borg tech drop. And the situation now and then isn't comparable anyways. We now have 12 different reputations and various missions offering a wide range of space and ground sets to anybody who dislikes random chance drops.
No way. I clearly remember doing a lot of Cure.
I even remember doing a lot of Infected Manus up to the early days of the Rep system.
That WAS the endgame.
Random drops could help, but honestly, they would have to be much better than anything you could get from Missions, Rep, or Crafting/Fleet to get people in the queues.
The best bet would be to put some VERY expensive items in the Rep systems and remove the choice boxes from the Red Alerts. This would give people a reason to play those queues over the RAs without having to resort to RNG. Many players like to feel they are making some sort of progress and not completely at the mercy of the RNGod. (I'm old school. I would camp an NM for days for a chance to get a drop
in another thread, someone suggested they add the XP bonus back and remove the choice boxes in RAs. That alone wouldn't fix the problem, but it would help populate the queues without make the RAs pointless.
Choice boxes should be limited to Events and the Random Queue.
Hitting all 3 consoles at the same time in the final room of Manus.....UGH
Another example that might suit you better. Dranuur Beach Assault is fun to play but I avoid normal as its boring. Right now I can see when other people are playing advance or Elite work out if I have time to run it and join. After Random STF comes out I can no longer see that info so its impossible to know when to join other people playing and impossible to work out if I have time to run it. Like many of the quures I play Randoms STF doestn drop people in them.
So once Random STF comes out the changes will mean I get to play less of my favourite queues with other people. Which is counter productive, the opposite to what random STF is meant to do.
Accept for the old method is being changed, it is not as usable as the current system.