I would like to see gear (character locked) that could possibly be rewarded from the diffrent taskforces. Vanity Items, weapons and ship gear. Like a good Exsample: a very rare chance on Borg space opperation to get a Borg Plasma Tractor Beam array. A weapon with an automatic speed debuf per pulse while applying a slightly higher than normal plasma DoT. Not an outright super weapon but something that could to play around with. Another exsample would be something like a Tholian crystaline ground weapon, simular to what they are always pelting you with on ground missions. Give it a proc chance for a weaker tholian web snare. I know it would be a bit of a long task to design and impliment unique rewards per task force opperation but it would give the player base more temptation to go back and replay ones they dont like or that are harder to complete.
I'd like to see this as well. Maybe we can get a really cool MACO Environmental suit, or a new MACO suit costume that has a backpack and all sorts of cool tidbits on it.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
LOTRO introduced this random Queue concept in their Instance Finder at the end of 2011. It is still in place but not used very much, people go to Specific Instance in the Finder instead and start directly.
Simple way to overcome the 'difficulties' people would have if they didn't know if they were getting into a Space or Ground TFO - do what they did with Personal Traits. They created two Personal Trait buckets, one for Space and one for Ground. Just do the same with Active Reputation Traits.
Have a Primary and Secondary Specialization for Space and Ground.
Post edited by ltminns on
'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.'
I wish you guys would do something with the specializations, you know, make them changeable on the fly. There is other stuff that needs attention before you give STO an TRIBBLE.
I wish you guys would do something with the specializations, you know, make them changeable on the fly. There is other stuff that needs attention before you give STO an TRIBBLE.
That's another reason for needing to separate TFO into space vs. ground -- specialization and rep traits.
The current queues, except for the more popular ones, began losing their appeal overall back when a couple of years ago Cryptic diminished their rewards for normal completion & upped the requirement for the reputation special items possibly being rewarded. Not everyone can compete the Advanced/Elite queues. Back in the good ol' days where that "rebalancing" was awesome for players too.
Cryptic's statement about this future Random Task Force Operations: "The thrill of discovery is everywhere, as you won’t know which content you’re about to experience until you’ve arrived and are ready to conquer the task(s) set before you! Each set of Randoms (Normal and Advanced) includes matches from both Space and Ground, so be sure that both your Ship and Captain are fully equipped and ready before you take the plunge."
So what that could mean is all that hard work & investment of choosing a Specialization & completing all those skill points in it won't matter & tough luck if you're set-up for space & you get ground or vice versa. Cryptic needs to keep that separation of space & ground selectable as it is now & them not realizing that in the announcement just shows how out of touch some of Cryptic is with STO. Otherwise this attempt at trying to revitalize the soon to be gone queues could be a good thing given the other information which is more marketing hype than details. Given Cryptic's past this new method probably too won't help the average player a lot but some, & it will probably make the "whale" player receive proportionally even more. " We Want Your Feedback!" is encouraging & hopeful but that is only if Cryptic truly intends to listen to the feedback.
First as me and others found... the years old fire issue on the undine ground 'tfo' is STILL broken so that needs removing or fixing
Secondly, marks need to be normalised - I don't want to do Rhino elite and get less marks than advanced, or less than other missions
Thirdly..really, yet another rngbox? The rewards are good and all, but I hate rewards being down to probability and unknown odds - If you have 99% chance of common and rare and 0.00000003% chance of an epic, I'd know not to expect a lucky drop (really Cryptic, its high time you publish the odds of each rngbox in the game)
RNGboxes are awful and are utterly unimagniative... myself, I'd rather have a flat reward such as proto-omega kits or rep/fleet dilitium or a flat sized box of marks over a miniscule chance for a greater reward by chance
Yeah, no. It's a pass from me then. Mildly positive news for those worried about the build/spec side of things, though given that they're only becoming aware right now that this will be an issue I wouldn't expect to see it at launch.
Another reason I'm not touching this, it's not at all thought out. The whole problem with ground vs space builds and specs is so damn obvious it should have been thought of already.
Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it.
"we have decided to retire the rather bland moniker of “queue” to describe our PvE group content. Instead, we are going to begin calling them by the term “Task Force Operations"
This is the kind of no-change change that sets my teeth to itching.
To quote the immortal bard...
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Or in this case a queue is still a queue no matter the name you put on it. I'll still be calling them queues, too old to change my ways now.
Anyway...
What excites you, or makes you anxious, about the prospect of opting into Randomized content, and why?
I like the idea of perhaps doing some of the queues I like that don't seem to pop as much anymore, unless they are part of an Endeavor.
I wouldn't mind being able to try some of the queues I've simply never done before because they don't pop anymore.
I would absolutely HATE being stuck in a queue that I dislike. And that alone is enough for me to not want to try this system.
Also, as many others have pointed out, there would have to be an option for Ground only, Space only or Mixed.
Since you revamped the queue system not too long ago and allowed us to queue for any number of specific ones we wanted, I have felt like it was already a random setup. The rewards for this system do seem slightly lacking, but not horrible. I think if you added an additional "Elite Mark" of choice to the VR and up rewards, even on normal, that would get some interest from folks. The rewards on normal could be 1 extra "Elite Mark" (of choice) if you get the VR reward, 2 extra for UR and 3 extra for Epic. Advanced could double those rewards, or even start at a lower rarity so that there is an increase over normal.
Which existing TFOs do you hope see more play time under this system, and why?
I like Twin Tribulations well enough and really enjoy Binary Circuit, but since Competitive PvEvP matches will be excluded from this, that won't happen. Kind of sad too since these queues haven't popped for me in about a year, it means I'm left getting Competitive Marks through RA's or events like the CE and the currently running Breach or trading in birds/monkeys on Risa.
Miner Instabilities is one of those queues I did at the time of its release to help get Temporal marks. The space queues were, and still are, not all that fun, especially the Battle of Procyon V. I actually came to rather enjoy Miner Instabilities, but I've not had it pop in easily more than a year.
I seem to remember liking, or at least not hating, Vault: Ensnared back in the day. I wouldn't mind trying it again just to see if I forgot something as to why it never pops anymore.
But truthfully, while I wouldn't mind playing them again, I can't say that I'd go out of my way to queue up for them. So I suppose, really, there are not any queues I would be overjoyed to see pop again, but there are several I wouldn't mind seeing from time to time. But the entire randomness of this new system means that if I want one of those specific queues, someone, likely myself, would have to queue for it and get it filled with folks in the random pool. At which point this entire random reward system is doing nothing for me, so why bother?
Which existing TFOs would you consider yourself ‘unlucky’ to be placed in, and why?
Good gawd, where do I start?
Breach, non-event version - This queue can be done, but the rewards are so low compared to the time it takes, the scaling is so broken and for some reason players think it's fine to AFK it. Yeah, if I got stuck in this abomination in a random PUG I'd quit and take the stupid penalty. And my penalty might even be over before the rest of the team would be finished with the queue anyway.
Storming the Spire- I tried this once, not the least bit of fun to be had here and I've never been tempted to "give it another shot". Considering how few people I see queued for it, I'm apparently not the only one.
Gateway to Gre'thor & Herald Sphere - The missions themselves are "ok" (barely), but the rewards absolutely stink. I'd play them but I'd be kicking myself if I got stuck in one of them, or heaven forbid back to back.
Assault on Terok Nor - Done it a few times, got the general idea of how it plays but since so many players think you solve all problems in this game with firepower, this queue can quickly become a complete clusterf***. Pass.
Battle of Procyon V - Some folks like this queue, I am not one of them. I'd rather run Days of Doom 3 times in a row and the last 2 times with ZERO rewards than run this thing once. I just dislike it that much. And I really don't care for DoD all that much, but it's at least palatable.
Gravity Kills - Another one of those some like it I don't queues. Don't really care for the Tzenkethi Front queue, but I'd rather run it than this.
Overall, with what has been presented to us at this time, I think this system is a waste of development time. However, the whole point of this was to get feedback and player opinions so that improvements can be made and for that reason alone I'm willing to take a "wait and see" attitude before passing final judgement. But if player concerns aren't taken into account and positive changes made, then this will likely be an absolute failure, IMO.
And now this bit of news from the Devs... (thanks ilithyn)
it needs rewards other than a mark box and dilithium, its own special currency for items that can only be obtained from doing the randon ques, or perhaps 1 lobi per que, otherwise if its marks and dill ppl are after they will do CCA on their toons/alts back to back,
Now if they put a 'Choose your own Elite Mark' box too, that'd be great.
Yes, Cryptic needs to take meds to get away from RNGness. Just say you get X bonus for random queuing. You give someone into a crappy queue and then give them a crappy loot box, you aren't helping your cause!
Sometimes I think I play STO just to have something to complain about on the forums.
Hey Folks. Just wanted to pop in for a quick response, summarizing some of the feedback thus far.
First, I'll quote myself from Twitter here:
Including both Ground+Space is absolutely intentional, and exceedingly unlikely to be altered. But addressing Build/Spec concerns that stem from this choice is definitely on my list for further review.
"Further review" is obviously open to a lot of interpretation (purposefully!), but could include considerations that have been mentioned here by players. Things like region-specific builds, or allowing region-specific Specs to be active simultaneously. No promises here, obviously, but it's a big enough concern - and a totally understandable one, at that - that it will definitely be explored.
Here are a few other specific points of feedback I wanted to respond to:
"There are too many broken/buggy TFOs!"
Ok. Send us lists, please, with specific details about the bug(s) being encountered. There are more than 100 TFOs to weed through, and we're doing our best internally. But there's just no reasonable comparison between the volume of "playtesting" that you players can carry out, compared to what we can accomplish internally. If you see something that is broken, we need to know exactly where and how in order to be able to pursue a fix of any kind.
This type of feedback without specifics is frankly worthless to us.
That said...
"Azure Nebula Rescue is a buggy mess!"
Yes! Almost-actionable feedback! It'd only be better if it was more specific. Fortunately, we already are aware (we think) of what the issues are/were with this content.
ANR has recently undergone a major update to fix a lot of logic failures that could cause the ships to not spawn in as expected (or, will very soon be undergoing these updates). I'd invite you all to try this one out on Tribble to see if the issues have already been addressed.
"Older TFOs don't reward well enough to be worth this!"
Entirely possible. Our hope is that - at least for the initial release - the additional rewards earned from entering via Random will offset these concerns.
One of our sub-goals of this system is to generate a larger volume of specific, actionable feedback and data analytics for the various TFOs available to players in our game, with a long-term eye on improving/updating this content (and/or its associated rewards) and creating a more consistent experience. Right now, most of the data we have available only shows that certain TFOs aren't played, but sadly can't specify why. We're going to be doing a lot more internal reporting on player statistics after Random TFOs roll out, to see how actual play data compares to anecdotal feedback we've already been receiving. We'll be looking at factors like "# of Seconds to Complete" and "Average Rewards" as compared to things like "Average Player Damage Dealt/Received" and much, much more.
"The presence of ((Specific TFO)) will cause me to not want to use this system."
This is understandable feedback, but I'd ask anyone making this assertion to once again look at the list of the types of TFOs already being Excluded. Thus far, the ones I've noticed causing this complaint have already been excluded. (Examples: Fleet Alert, Competitive Rep TFOs)
"What happens with EV Suit content?"
This is why we have come to rely on players for feedback! I frankly hadn't thought of this specific issue, in among the myriad others that have already been reviewed. Until we find a way to improve the EV Suit functionality and understandability, we may have to just remove the Ground-Nukara TFOs from Random eligibility.
---
Thank you all again for showing so much interest and passion in this that you're willing to discuss it in such depth. I hope you'll invest just as much time and interest in trying it out on Tribble when it becomes available for testing.
Also, thanks for the kind words regarding the attitude/voice of this Dev Blog. I had a lot of fun writing it, and hope to be able to replicate similar fun styles with future announcements. This is a GAME, after all. Let's all have some fun!
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
I like the idea on premise, But what's to say an under geared person will not just Que to be carried? This must be addressed for this concept to succeed.
It is the main reason private avenues (private Que's): The missed and Be-Loved STF's of old where impossible to do or get into if one was not in an active guild (fleet) or had friends.
Other games have addressed this to some extent by Not allowing a player in to an instance (i.e. a raid) if you do not have the appropriate gear; while others use an achievement system to track if a player may or may not Que for the difficulty selected.
I hope STO takes this into consideration; the old instances where a grind; the team concept of 5 players being 1 tank 1 heals and 2 dps with the third slot a fill was nice. It gave us the community a sense of achievement at the end. It was scrapped due to how long it took Pug (Pick Up Group) to find a group.
It was when Que's started the same reason for concern during live streams and form post that pointed out the very same thing about under geared people in Que's that fell on death ears while the public Que system started to die.
This game is kept alive by our Love for Star Trek; Please take great care and address the lecher issue before releasing this new way to Stand in line.
This is an awful lot of fanfare on what amounts to rebranding and a random button on something that should probably have already had one. Like yeah, the random button might be interesting (though the way its being implemented will probably still leave many ques unplayed) but this probably warranted an underlined bullet point in some patch notes somewhere. Also, like all other companies, you need to understand that no one gives a TRIBBLE about your rebranding. Seriously, only you find that exciting. A rose is a rose and fertilizer is fertilizer whatever name you choose to call it
This is why we have come to rely on players for feedback! I frankly hadn't thought of this specific issue, in among the myriad others that have already been reviewed. Until we find a way to improve the EV Suit functionality and understandability, we may have to just remove the Ground-Nukara TFOs from Random eligibility.
Always thought that EV suits should have their own slot on characters and not sharing the slot w/ the armor.
Sometimes I think I play STO just to have something to complain about on the forums.
This is an awful lot of fanfare on what amounts to rebranding and a random button on something that should probably have already had one. Like yeah, the random button might be interesting (though the way its being implemented will probably still leave many ques unplayed) but this probably warranted an underlined bullet point in some patch notes somewhere. Also, like all other companies, you need to understand that no one gives a **** about your rebranding. Seriously, only you find that exciting. A rose is a rose and fertilizer is fertilizer whatever name you choose to call it
I disagree, but of course both of our viewpoints are subjective.
Marketing does work, even if we like to pretend that we alone are immune to its wiles.
Hiding a new way to play the game in patch notes would mean missing out on the pre-release feedback from players that the developers asked us for. See the post from bortuscryptic above. Considering our feedback to possibly make adjustments to the design is a good thing.
ehh i don't mind. I'll probably use it some once tier 6 reps come out since i'll need to farm literally everything again (i mean i still need to farm everything but i don't need borg marks right now so i avoid the queues, unless i can get other marks)
But this is more or less how i would queue up right now if all i'm looking to do is play, so free stuff for doing what i've been doing sounds good to me.
@borticuscryptic
You want specific. Okay. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread the Fire phase in Undine Infiltrator is bugged and causes autofail on Elite. Sometimes causes autofail even when not on Elite even though that shouldn't be able to happen. You simply can't put the fires out, no matter what.
This bug have been around for year. It have been reported for years. I know because I've done my share - and more than my share - of reporting it.
You want specifics? Great. The thing is though that a lot of these bugs have been reported, in detail, time and again, only to be ignored.
But okay, I'll go through my list of bugs in queues (foots or whatever they're called now) and report them. Again. Maybe they will finally get attention now, after being reported for a few years.
Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it.
As someone who constantly pugs PvE and uses the current queue system, i'll be passing big time on this. Like many others I play content I enjoy. I won't be queuing up for a random match regardless of the reward.
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.
Including both Ground+Space is absolutely intentional, and exceedingly unlikely to be altered.
So you know, if you want us to play more ground, the best way to do it would be to make ground combat more interesting. All you have to do is look at the number of skills and ways in which you can customize your ship, vs. the same for your captain, and you can see why space is far more interesting. It has nothing to do with the setting, it is all about the fact that the game mechanics are so much simpler on the ground.
This is why we have come to rely on players for feedback! I frankly hadn't thought of this specific issue, in among the myriad others that have already been reviewed. Until we find a way to improve the EV Suit functionality and understandability, we may have to just remove the Ground-Nukara TFOs from Random eligibility.
Always thought that EV suits should have their own slot on characters and not sharing the slot w/ the armor.
What I'd really like, and what would also draw in new players interest (we're getting a big influx of long absentees, along with probably a swathe of new folk who will come in with the Discovery release, I've seen it being advertised actively on a number of sites I visit) is to revisit old rewards that players might have missed in the past. Things like that old freighter from a past winter event. That Krenim science ship that you need to complete the Command Cruiser console set. That cute Risian Corvette. It would be neat if players would have a way to retroactively unlock those. Perhaps you could put in a way for this queueing system to reward players with this somehow? Via specialty event projects or something?
Reviving old queues is definately a nice idea. There are tons I've never even tried. Avoid ground queues, as ground combat isn't STO's strongsuit, sadly.
This is why we have come to rely on players for feedback! I frankly hadn't thought of this specific issue, in among the myriad others that have already been reviewed. Until we find a way to improve the EV Suit functionality and understandability, we may have to just remove the Ground-Nukara TFOs from Random eligibility.
You could do it like the infamous "Kurland here." mission... er.. I mean Boldly they Rode. IE the spawn point is a room with a crate of EV suits and if you don't have one you can get one. Of course the EV suit from that mission is junk, so maybe something less junky.
Personally I use my non-ground-team Boffs for EV suit storage so I can simply swap if needed, but I doubt everyone does that. Also I'm actually crazy enough to use the Nukara ground sets on certain characters, so some of my captains would just turn the suit on.
it needs rewards other than a mark box and dilithium, its own special currency for items that can only be obtained from doing the randon ques, or perhaps 1 lobi per que, otherwise if its marks and dill ppl are after they will do CCA on their toons/alts back to back,
Now if they put a 'Choose your own Elite Mark' box too, that'd be great.
I could see it having an elite mark as part of rewards for advanced.
I agree that in light of how specializations currently work having separate space and ground pools would be wise. The potential issues with certain operations needing specialized equipment (remodulators and/or EV suits) a particular player might not have previously had a need would explain their not being in the rotation (Transdimensional Tactics comes to mind) until some means is provided to ensure that players do have said gear (a few missions do this already, so it's not that far a leap).
I would also hope for two more things: one, that this is not the only planned means of engendering interest in older operations; and two, that said older operations will be getting revamped/debugged as needed.
I would like to see gear (character locked) that could possibly be rewarded from the diffrent taskforces. Vanity Items, weapons and ship gear...
A good idea, sir. I would add to that pool some of the items normally rewarded from certain faction-exclusive missions, such as the caustic-plasma weapons (which themselves need to be filled out into a proper family, a conversation for another time).
Comments
I'd like to see this as well. Maybe we can get a really cool MACO Environmental suit, or a new MACO suit costume that has a backpack and all sorts of cool tidbits on it.
Maybe perhaps make it part of the new T6 Reps?
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Simple way to overcome the 'difficulties' people would have if they didn't know if they were getting into a Space or Ground TFO - do what they did with Personal Traits. They created two Personal Trait buckets, one for Space and one for Ground. Just do the same with Active Reputation Traits.
Have a Primary and Secondary Specialization for Space and Ground.
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.'
That's another reason for needing to separate TFO into space vs. ground -- specialization and rep traits.
The choice to play space or ground must be possible
Cryptic's statement about this future Random Task Force Operations: "The thrill of discovery is everywhere, as you won’t know which content you’re about to experience until you’ve arrived and are ready to conquer the task(s) set before you! Each set of Randoms (Normal and Advanced) includes matches from both Space and Ground, so be sure that both your Ship and Captain are fully equipped and ready before you take the plunge."
So what that could mean is all that hard work & investment of choosing a Specialization & completing all those skill points in it won't matter & tough luck if you're set-up for space & you get ground or vice versa. Cryptic needs to keep that separation of space & ground selectable as it is now & them not realizing that in the announcement just shows how out of touch some of Cryptic is with STO. Otherwise this attempt at trying to revitalize the soon to be gone queues could be a good thing given the other information which is more marketing hype than details. Given Cryptic's past this new method probably too won't help the average player a lot but some, & it will probably make the "whale" player receive proportionally even more. " We Want Your Feedback!" is encouraging & hopeful but that is only if Cryptic truly intends to listen to the feedback.
First as me and others found... the years old fire issue on the undine ground 'tfo' is STILL broken so that needs removing or fixing
Secondly, marks need to be normalised - I don't want to do Rhino elite and get less marks than advanced, or less than other missions
Thirdly..really, yet another rngbox? The rewards are good and all, but I hate rewards being down to probability and unknown odds - If you have 99% chance of common and rare and 0.00000003% chance of an epic, I'd know not to expect a lucky drop (really Cryptic, its high time you publish the odds of each rngbox in the game)
RNGboxes are awful and are utterly unimagniative... myself, I'd rather have a flat reward such as proto-omega kits or rep/fleet dilitium or a flat sized box of marks over a miniscule chance for a greater reward by chance
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Yeah, no. It's a pass from me then. Mildly positive news for those worried about the build/spec side of things, though given that they're only becoming aware right now that this will be an issue I wouldn't expect to see it at launch.
Another reason I'm not touching this, it's not at all thought out. The whole problem with ground vs space builds and specs is so damn obvious it should have been thought of already.
My character Tsin'xing
To quote the immortal bard...
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Or in this case a queue is still a queue no matter the name you put on it. I'll still be calling them queues, too old to change my ways now.
Anyway...
I like the idea of perhaps doing some of the queues I like that don't seem to pop as much anymore, unless they are part of an Endeavor.
I wouldn't mind being able to try some of the queues I've simply never done before because they don't pop anymore.
I would absolutely HATE being stuck in a queue that I dislike. And that alone is enough for me to not want to try this system.
Also, as many others have pointed out, there would have to be an option for Ground only, Space only or Mixed.
Since you revamped the queue system not too long ago and allowed us to queue for any number of specific ones we wanted, I have felt like it was already a random setup. The rewards for this system do seem slightly lacking, but not horrible. I think if you added an additional "Elite Mark" of choice to the VR and up rewards, even on normal, that would get some interest from folks. The rewards on normal could be 1 extra "Elite Mark" (of choice) if you get the VR reward, 2 extra for UR and 3 extra for Epic. Advanced could double those rewards, or even start at a lower rarity so that there is an increase over normal.
I like Twin Tribulations well enough and really enjoy Binary Circuit, but since Competitive PvEvP matches will be excluded from this, that won't happen. Kind of sad too since these queues haven't popped for me in about a year, it means I'm left getting Competitive Marks through RA's or events like the CE and the currently running Breach or trading in birds/monkeys on Risa.
Miner Instabilities is one of those queues I did at the time of its release to help get Temporal marks. The space queues were, and still are, not all that fun, especially the Battle of Procyon V. I actually came to rather enjoy Miner Instabilities, but I've not had it pop in easily more than a year.
I seem to remember liking, or at least not hating, Vault: Ensnared back in the day. I wouldn't mind trying it again just to see if I forgot something as to why it never pops anymore.
But truthfully, while I wouldn't mind playing them again, I can't say that I'd go out of my way to queue up for them. So I suppose, really, there are not any queues I would be overjoyed to see pop again, but there are several I wouldn't mind seeing from time to time. But the entire randomness of this new system means that if I want one of those specific queues, someone, likely myself, would have to queue for it and get it filled with folks in the random pool. At which point this entire random reward system is doing nothing for me, so why bother?
Good gawd, where do I start?
Breach, non-event version - This queue can be done, but the rewards are so low compared to the time it takes, the scaling is so broken and for some reason players think it's fine to AFK it. Yeah, if I got stuck in this abomination in a random PUG I'd quit and take the stupid penalty. And my penalty might even be over before the rest of the team would be finished with the queue anyway.
Storming the Spire- I tried this once, not the least bit of fun to be had here and I've never been tempted to "give it another shot". Considering how few people I see queued for it, I'm apparently not the only one.
Gateway to Gre'thor & Herald Sphere - The missions themselves are "ok" (barely), but the rewards absolutely stink. I'd play them but I'd be kicking myself if I got stuck in one of them, or heaven forbid back to back.
Assault on Terok Nor - Done it a few times, got the general idea of how it plays but since so many players think you solve all problems in this game with firepower, this queue can quickly become a complete clusterf***. Pass.
Battle of Procyon V - Some folks like this queue, I am not one of them. I'd rather run Days of Doom 3 times in a row and the last 2 times with ZERO rewards than run this thing once. I just dislike it that much. And I really don't care for DoD all that much, but it's at least palatable.
Gravity Kills - Another one of those some like it I don't queues. Don't really care for the Tzenkethi Front queue, but I'd rather run it than this.
Overall, with what has been presented to us at this time, I think this system is a waste of development time. However, the whole point of this was to get feedback and player opinions so that improvements can be made and for that reason alone I'm willing to take a "wait and see" attitude before passing final judgement. But if player concerns aren't taken into account and positive changes made, then this will likely be an absolute failure, IMO.
And now this bit of news from the Devs... (thanks ilithyn)
Yup, with those words right there I won't even bother with this system.
Losing faith in humanity, one person at a time.
Now if they put a 'Choose your own Elite Mark' box too, that'd be great.
While I do space ones 99% of the time, I disagree. You want a rando loot box, you take your chances on getting ground.
Now, you have my interest. I really don't care about the random queued content.
Yes, Cryptic needs to take meds to get away from RNGness. Just say you get X bonus for random queuing. You give someone into a crappy queue and then give them a crappy loot box, you aren't helping your cause!
First, I'll quote myself from Twitter here:
"Further review" is obviously open to a lot of interpretation (purposefully!), but could include considerations that have been mentioned here by players. Things like region-specific builds, or allowing region-specific Specs to be active simultaneously. No promises here, obviously, but it's a big enough concern - and a totally understandable one, at that - that it will definitely be explored.
Here are a few other specific points of feedback I wanted to respond to:
- "There are too many broken/buggy TFOs!"
Ok. Send us lists, please, with specific details about the bug(s) being encountered. There are more than 100 TFOs to weed through, and we're doing our best internally. But there's just no reasonable comparison between the volume of "playtesting" that you players can carry out, compared to what we can accomplish internally. If you see something that is broken, we need to know exactly where and how in order to be able to pursue a fix of any kind.This type of feedback without specifics is frankly worthless to us.
That said...
- "Azure Nebula Rescue is a buggy mess!"
Yes! Almost-actionable feedback! It'd only be better if it was more specific.ANR has recently undergone a major update to fix a lot of logic failures that could cause the ships to not spawn in as expected (or, will very soon be undergoing these updates). I'd invite you all to try this one out on Tribble to see if the issues have already been addressed.
- "Older TFOs don't reward well enough to be worth this!"
Entirely possible. Our hope is that - at least for the initial release - the additional rewards earned from entering via Random will offset these concerns.One of our sub-goals of this system is to generate a larger volume of specific, actionable feedback and data analytics for the various TFOs available to players in our game, with a long-term eye on improving/updating this content (and/or its associated rewards) and creating a more consistent experience. Right now, most of the data we have available only shows that certain TFOs aren't played, but sadly can't specify why. We're going to be doing a lot more internal reporting on player statistics after Random TFOs roll out, to see how actual play data compares to anecdotal feedback we've already been receiving. We'll be looking at factors like "# of Seconds to Complete" and "Average Rewards" as compared to things like "Average Player Damage Dealt/Received" and much, much more.
- "The presence of ((Specific TFO)) will cause me to not want to use this system."
This is understandable feedback, but I'd ask anyone making this assertion to once again look at the list of the types of TFOs already being Excluded. Thus far, the ones I've noticed causing this complaint have already been excluded. (Examples: Fleet Alert, Competitive Rep TFOs)- "What happens with EV Suit content?"
This is why we have come to rely on players for feedback! I frankly hadn't thought of this specific issue, in among the myriad others that have already been reviewed. Until we find a way to improve the EV Suit functionality and understandability, we may have to just remove the Ground-Nukara TFOs from Random eligibility.---
Thank you all again for showing so much interest and passion in this that you're willing to discuss it in such depth. I hope you'll invest just as much time and interest in trying it out on Tribble when it becomes available for testing.
Also, thanks for the kind words regarding the attitude/voice of this Dev Blog. I had a lot of fun writing it, and hope to be able to replicate similar fun styles with future announcements. This is a GAME, after all. Let's all have some fun!
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
It is the main reason private avenues (private Que's): The missed and Be-Loved STF's of old where impossible to do or get into if one was not in an active guild (fleet) or had friends.
Other games have addressed this to some extent by Not allowing a player in to an instance (i.e. a raid) if you do not have the appropriate gear; while others use an achievement system to track if a player may or may not Que for the difficulty selected.
I hope STO takes this into consideration; the old instances where a grind; the team concept of 5 players being 1 tank 1 heals and 2 dps with the third slot a fill was nice. It gave us the community a sense of achievement at the end. It was scrapped due to how long it took Pug (Pick Up Group) to find a group.
It was when Que's started the same reason for concern during live streams and form post that pointed out the very same thing about under geared people in Que's that fell on death ears while the public Que system started to die.
This game is kept alive by our Love for Star Trek; Please take great care and address the lecher issue before releasing this new way to Stand in line.
Always thought that EV suits should have their own slot on characters and not sharing the slot w/ the armor.
I disagree, but of course both of our viewpoints are subjective.
Marketing does work, even if we like to pretend that we alone are immune to its wiles.
Hiding a new way to play the game in patch notes would mean missing out on the pre-release feedback from players that the developers asked us for. See the post from bortuscryptic above. Considering our feedback to possibly make adjustments to the design is a good thing.
But this is more or less how i would queue up right now if all i'm looking to do is play, so free stuff for doing what i've been doing sounds good to me.
You want specific. Okay. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread the Fire phase in Undine Infiltrator is bugged and causes autofail on Elite. Sometimes causes autofail even when not on Elite even though that shouldn't be able to happen. You simply can't put the fires out, no matter what.
This bug have been around for year. It have been reported for years. I know because I've done my share - and more than my share - of reporting it.
You want specifics? Great. The thing is though that a lot of these bugs have been reported, in detail, time and again, only to be ignored.
But okay, I'll go through my list of bugs in queues (foots or whatever they're called now) and report them. Again. Maybe they will finally get attention now, after being reported for a few years.
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.
So you know, if you want us to play more ground, the best way to do it would be to make ground combat more interesting. All you have to do is look at the number of skills and ways in which you can customize your ship, vs. the same for your captain, and you can see why space is far more interesting. It has nothing to do with the setting, it is all about the fact that the game mechanics are so much simpler on the ground.
Agreed.
Reviving old queues is definately a nice idea. There are tons I've never even tried. Avoid ground queues, as ground combat isn't STO's strongsuit, sadly.
Personally I use my non-ground-team Boffs for EV suit storage so I can simply swap if needed, but I doubt everyone does that. Also I'm actually crazy enough to use the Nukara ground sets on certain characters, so some of my captains would just turn the suit on. I could see it having an elite mark as part of rewards for advanced. I'm reasonably certain that the point of making it a random choice between space or ground is because the most popular TFOs are space TFOs.
My character Tsin'xing
I would also hope for two more things: one, that this is not the only planned means of engendering interest in older operations; and two, that said older operations will be getting revamped/debugged as needed.
A good idea, sir. I would add to that pool some of the items normally rewarded from certain faction-exclusive missions, such as the caustic-plasma weapons (which themselves need to be filled out into a proper family, a conversation for another time).
This amused me, sir; thank you.