I singled out this, since... what is it that the players enjoy, then?
They do not enjoy the queues. There is also a large number of players who hate Ground content. Borticus asked players awhile ago "what do you like about STO?". Most people in the thread talked about "story driven content", which is not the majority of queues. Feel free to browse the thread.
That's speculation, something you seem to be awfully sure of. And yes, if we're talking about the unfortunate case where player hates queued content altogether, my proposed changes won't help anything. But, again, I believe those people to be in minority, simply because I can't see there's much else to do in game. However, I chatted with various people, and they all confirmed that they would queue up more often to queues they currently avoid if Cryptic would make them less tedious.
You chatted with people who like public queues, but have issues with some of them. I don't know if you talked to players who dislike public queues or players who dislike the queue system in general. Your suggestions may improve the enjoyment for players who like the public queues, but dislike some of the individual missions for the reasons you stated. At best, players who already use public queues will queue for something other than the missions they prefer. It does not address the concerns of people who queue privately. As a result, you will not see an increase in the number of players using the public queues. You will see more players trying different queues (as those players who already queue publicly will be more inclined to try a different queue).
I singled out this, since... what is it that the players enjoy, then?
They do not enjoy the queues. There is also a large number of players who hate Ground content. Borticus asked players awhile ago "what do you like about STO?". Most people in the thread talked about "story driven content", which is not the majority of queues. Feel free to browse the thread.
That's speculation, something you seem to be awfully sure of. And yes, if we're talking about the unfortunate case where player hates queued content altogether, my proposed changes won't help anything. But, again, I believe those people to be in minority, simply because I can't see there's much else to do in game. However, I chatted with various people, and they all confirmed that they would queue up more often to queues they currently avoid if Cryptic would make them less tedious.
You chatted with people who like public queues, but have issues with some of them. I don't know if you talked to players who dislike public queues or players who dislike the queue system in general. Your suggestions may improve the enjoyment for players who like the public queues, but dislike some of the individual missions for the reasons you stated. At best, players who already use public queues will queue for something other than the missions they prefer. It does not address the concerns of people who queue privately. As a result, you will not see an increase in the number of players using the public queues. You will see more players trying different queues (as those players who already queue publicly will be more inclined to try a different queue).
Fyi, most of the people I talked to do private queues much more often than pugs. I'm also one of those.
They do not enjoy the queues. There is also a large number of players who hate Ground content. Borticus asked players awhile ago "what do you like about STO?". Most people in the thread talked about "story driven content", which is not the majority of queues. Feel free to browse the thread.
Facenating! Erm.. sorry but do we have any story driven content in game that has you log more than once in a while every few months? Anything?! I mean I was done with ViL new stories after like 4h of play time...
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Fyi, most of the people I talked to do private queues much more often than pugs. I'm also one of those.
So, the changes you suggest, will cause you (and those you talked to) to PUG more frequently? You will leave your private and premade channels behind?
I think you are exaggerating here. You and your associates would like to see changes in the queues to benefit your playstyle. Most players who queue privately do so because they want competent players to help them complete the content so they can get the most reward with the least amount of frustration and time spent in the queue. None of your suggestions increase the competence of the average PUG player. There is no reason for most private queue players to join a public queue. There are players right now who want an option to boot a player from their mission because of "trolling" or "incompetence". As distasteful as I find that suggestion, it at least addresses why players go private in the first place.
Facenating! Erm.. sorry but do we have any story driven content in game that has you log more than once in a while every few months? Anything?! I mean I was done with ViL new stories after like 4h of play time...
Feel free to read the thread. I was asked where I got my information from. That is my source. Players responding to a dev question. Ask those players what they are looking for, because it is not the in the queues.
You will leave your private and premade channels behind?
No.
It's not the one or the other. Sure, you can't do both at the same time, but there's 24 hours in a day. I queue rarely for pugs alone, but it's weekly occurence where it's just me, @peterconnorfirst and maybe someone else from our fleet online, so we join into pug queue, cause it's easier, takes less hassle and with more popular queues quicker than to yell out in every possible chat channel we're in to find other players.
Feel free to read the thread. I was asked where I got my information from. That is my source. Players responding to a dev question. Ask those players what they are looking for, because it is not the in the queues.
I would bet the folks complaining were mostly clueless forumites who can't wrap their head around the fact that it's always much slower process to create a story than to consume it. It's an MMORPG, you simply need some replayable content in game (which we have in form of queues) to keep players interested for longer time than just initial, and perhaps a second and third playthrough of the story.
As excellent as Portal or Life is Strange are (much better than STO's storyline, I might add), I have played STO for *far* longer, cause story alone can't simply make up hours of long playtime. MMORPG setting, on the other hand, wants players to invest their time into the game every day.
You chatted with people who like public queues, but have issues with some of them. I don't know if you talked to players who dislike public queues or players who dislike the queue system in general. Your suggestions may improve the enjoyment for players who like the public queues, but dislike some of the individual missions for the reasons you stated. At best, players who already use public queues will queue for something other than the missions they prefer. It does not address the concerns of people who queue privately. As a result, you will not see an increase in the number of players using the public queues. You will see more players trying different queues (as those players who already queue publicly will be more inclined to try a different queue).
First of all, if someone doesn't like queuing for content at all, then obviously, they will likely not benefit from this or any other idea focused on improving the queued experience. Those players are in the game for other reasons, and they can continue to enjoy the content they prefer.
Let me ask you this.. why do you think we queue privately? You think it's because we just don't want to play with 'filthy pugs' or that we only want to play missions with people we know? You assume it's some elitist thing? There are various reasons why people run private queues but the main reason is because we simply can't run them publicly because no one queues for them. If you have a channel full of people that like to run queues, it's easier to find team mates there then it is to queue up for one of the many queues and hope others magically follow suit. The majority of the 'private' matches I run are usually me and 1 or 2 others and the rest public. If we can get 3/5 people to queue up, that often times gets people to feel there is a chance it would actually pop and queue up themselves.
Now if the queues were more popular among the general public, would I stop queuing with people I know? No.. but I would be far more inclined to run that content when those people weren't on with me. People will always play with their friends, and there is nothing wrong with that. People running privately made teams aren't the problem, the problem is that people outside those 'circles' either don't feel the content is accessible for some reason or they simply don't enjoy running that content.
You and your associates would like to see changes in the queues to benefit your playstyle
And here is the problem. You're making this unnecessarily adversarial and I wonder exactly why that is. This is a suggestion to help get more people into the queues, but you seem to be focused on finding some nefarious hidden agenda that simply isn't present. It's a very simple idea really.. if the queues are more fun and less of a chore, people are more willing to play them. I am one of those afore mentioned 'associates' and yes.. this will benefit us.. how? because it benefits the game overall which is good for us and everyone else. I humbly suggest you step back and stop looking for some hidden evil motive that simply isn't present. You approach us like some elitist group pushing our own agenda.. the fact is.. most of us met.. in public queues. That's how we meet people.. that's how we make friends in this game is by playing together. It's how we build our fleets and how we populate these 'private' channels. More public interaction is good for all of us.
You are under the impression that this proposal is one of exclusivity when that couldn't be more false. The idea is actually the exact opposite, we want more people to play with not less. We don't care what type of players they are either, most of us are happy to play with pretty much anyone.
Recently, we have seen Cryptic trying to revitalize Queues (rebranded into TFOs). So, I thought real hard why I don't get myself into some of the TFOs, and when I ran out of thoughts, asked several of my friends to share their opinions too. So while some parts of my post and criticisms are not exactly my own personal thoughts, they are absolutely a concern shared by multiple people in game.
And actually, it really boils down to that most of the offerings in game are just repetitive, tedious and sometimes downright annoying after multiple times of playing. Rewards, as they currently are, are more of a mid-tier problem, since while obviously players are driven to queues that give out the most rewards for least effort, ultimately it doesn't start to matter once you have solid fleet of Admirality ships to get your daily dil and thousands of marks just waiting in your Assets tab. Rewards surely play their part, but I don't want to discuss those in this post - it's about mission designs themselves.
So, apart from poor rewards, what makes the queues so unappealing? Mostly timegates, or bad mechanics. All of the popular queues (sans Swarm, but I predict it will die down soon) are totally case of "how good team is" = "how fast you complete the mission". There's no senseless waiting or at worst cases trying to fight the game rather than NPCs. But that's minority of the queues in game.
Rather, so many queues in game have timers that you simply have to wait to run out, before you either progress to next stage or mission can end. Even worse, that horrible practice has also crept into latest storyline missions. And the mandatory timers are not just annoying, they are also anti-immersive. As one of my friends said: "if a fleet is invading, they don't gain more ships just because you can kill them extra fast;
or realistically they wouldn't, anyway". Yet we see this practice in so many queues today. And at the same time, it doesn't give you any incentive to play well, cause you know the mission will be over in X minutes anyway.
Another extremely annoying feature is how either being shot at or shooting yourself completely breaks almost every interaction on missions, whether it is closing a portal, transport or whatever. Thus, an incredibly good QoL change would be if at least being shot at wouldn’t cancel said interactions. Said mechanic feels just to be thrown in to annoy the hell out of everyone, while actually not adding a layer of challenge.
Thus, I, with a little help from my friends, compiled a list of worst offenders, and thought what might be good ideas to perhaps revitalize those. I'm not saying that all of my suggestions are perfect, but something needs to change and just complaining and yelling "fix it now!!!" while not offering anything at all didn't seem very right thing to do either. Also, I apologize if I left something important out, but it's open forum, you readers can always add your own thoughts.
Assault on Terok Nor – console sequence is unintuitive, there's no real indication which consoles might be the right ones, so it becomes mindless running around and pressing F. Also other players can mess up your progress. Possible fix: Keep 3 consoles only you need to activate in correct sequence, and mission progresses as soon as one player gets it right. Activating wrong console resets sequence only for that player, not for the entire team. Alternative possible fix: If a logic puzzle is absolutely needed, maybe replace the console run with something similar to Quark’s Lucky Seven (where Rom hacks Odo’s computer), that only 1 person needs to complete.
Azure Nebula Rescue – ideally, it’s 12 minutes of doing exactly the same stuff, and the reward is only determined by luck - not very good mission design if you ask me. Current state is doing something for 3 minutes and waiting 9 for nothing to happen - it's horribly bugged and needs to be fixed ASAP. Possible fix: there are 4 asteroid bases, and 4 classes of ships to be rescued. Assign one ship to each base and have the mission to end as soon as you’ve rescued 2 ships from each class. Autofail when you don’t manage to do so in 12 minutes.
Battle of Procyon 5 – same **** 3 times in a row. I know you wanted to make it look like the actual “battle of Procyon 5”, but it just feels so dumb and unappealing. Possible fix: Cut parts 1 and 2 entirely and change the interaction mechanic per my interaction paragraph in this post, and it could possibly become one of my favourite missions in game.
Binary Circuit – mission is absolutely awesome, but the race mechanic between 2 teams (for some unexplained reason) + required amount of 10 players can be offputting. Possible fix: Make it a single team, 5 player mission.
Borg Disconnected Possible fix: Make the stage progress as soon as the team manages to save 15 disconnected Borg vessels.
Counterpoint – actually, this mission doesn’t seem to have a big problem with getting players, so probably not a big priority, but for QoL improvement… Possible fix: Have the mission autoprogress as soon as the team has closed 5 portals and transported 15 troops.
Days of Doom – I know it’s integral part of the mission, so I have a hard time of coming up with a meaningful change, but 10 minutes of waiting until Scotty finishes his core is incredibly unpopular among large part of players.
Dranuur Gauntlet – this would be a fun mission, but it suffers from what's possibly the worst execution in the game. Killing enemies faster just means enemies spawn faster and you get **** faster. And the mobs move right to and past the satellites and will spawncamp the players, and when you're not quick enough, they'll spawn more waves whether or not you finished the current one.
Special comment from a tank friend: tanking doesn’t help at all, it's impossible to draw fire away from defense satellites. Possible fix: Fix the aggro and design the mission to autoprogress as soon as you’ve cleared X number of enemy groups. Fix the respawn location so that players aren’t under fire from all three groups as they re-enter. And make it possible to heal the defense satellites.
Gateway to Grethor Possible fix: mission progresses to boss stage as soon as 15 transports get through. Autofail when they don’t after allocated time.
Herald Sphere Possible fix: Stage 2 progresses as soon as you kill 5 Herald attack groups. Autofail when you can’t do it in 4 minutes or when 15 ships get through. Stage 3 - fix the bug with command ships and have it autoprogress as soon as you kill 1, maybe 2 groups of herald forces. Link to bug
Storming the Spire – probably my personal favourite mission, but so many of my friends are complaing about timegates, so here goes. Possible fix: Mission autoprogresses as soon as you get 50% control of the spire. Autofail when you fail to do that in 10 minutes or when Voth get more than 150 troops.
Swarm - 3rd stage is too long and gets repetitive. Possible fix: Mission autocompletes when X number of transports get through.
Undine Infiltration – mission was very popular until the fire extinguish mechanic was changed and turned into an incredibly bugged state. Possible fix: Revert it back to the previous state.
You chatted with people who like public queues, but have issues with some of them. I don't know if you talked to players who dislike public queues or players who dislike the queue system in general. Your suggestions may improve the enjoyment for players who like the public queues, but dislike some of the individual missions for the reasons you stated. At best, players who already use public queues will queue for something other than the missions they prefer. It does not address the concerns of people who queue privately. As a result, you will not see an increase in the number of players using the public queues. You will see more players trying different queues (as those players who already queue publicly will be more inclined to try a different queue).
First of all, if someone doesn't like queuing for content at all, then obviously, they will likely not benefit from this or any other idea focused on improving the queued experience. Those players are in the game for other reasons, and they can continue to enjoy the content they prefer.
Let me ask you this.. why do you think we queue privately? You think it's because we just don't want to play with 'filthy pugs' or that we only want to play missions with people we know? You assume it's some elitist thing? There are various reasons why people run private queues but the main reason is because we simply can't run them publicly because no one queues for them. If you have a channel full of people that like to run queues, it's easier to find team mates there then it is to queue up for one of the many queues and hope others magically follow suit. The majority of the 'private' matches I run are usually me and 1 or 2 others and the rest public. If we can get 3/5 people to queue up, that often times gets people to feel there is a chance it would actually pop and queue up themselves.
Now if the queues were more popular among the general public, would I stop queuing with people I know? No.. but I would be far more inclined to run that content when those people weren't on with me. People will always play with their friends, and there is nothing wrong with that. People running privately made teams aren't the problem, the problem is that people outside those 'circles' either don't feel the content is accessible for some reason or they simply don't enjoy running that content.
You and your associates would like to see changes in the queues to benefit your playstyle
And here is the problem. You're making this unnecessarily adversarial and I wonder exactly why that is. This is a suggestion to help get more people into the queues, but you seem to be focused on finding some nefarious hidden agenda that simply isn't present. It's a very simple idea really.. if the queues are more fun and less of a chore, people are more willing to play them. I am one of those afore mentioned 'associates' and yes.. this will benefit us.. how? because it benefits the game overall which is good for us and everyone else. I humbly suggest you step back and stop looking for some hidden evil motive that simply isn't present. You approach us like some elitist group pushing our own agenda.. the fact is.. most of us met.. in public queues. That's how we meet people.. that's how we make friends in this game is by playing together. It's how we build our fleets and how we populate these 'private' channels. More public interaction is good for all of us.
You are under the impression that this proposal is one of exclusivity when that couldn't be more false. The idea is actually the exact opposite, we want more people to play with not less. We don't care what type of players they are either, most of us are happy to play with pretty much anyone.
Is it, really? It's a suggestion by and for people who have admitted in this very thread they run queues because they love them so much they'd forfeit the rewards to grind them without cooldowns.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course. But people like that already play the queues. They aren't the ones that need to be attracted into them.
The people that need to be attracted are the ones that consider repeating content a chore no matter what it is. A means to an end. People who will ask "what's in it for me" before playing anything. And if the answer to that question is "nothing you couldn't get easier/faster/better somewhere else" they won't care how "fun" you think the content is. Their fun is somewhere else, with the better rewards.
The mistake is in assuming that making queues more fun for you, who already play them, would automatically make them more fun for others, who don't.
You chatted with people who like public queues, but have issues with some of them. I don't know if you talked to players who dislike public queues or players who dislike the queue system in general. Your suggestions may improve the enjoyment for players who like the public queues, but dislike some of the individual missions for the reasons you stated. At best, players who already use public queues will queue for something other than the missions they prefer. It does not address the concerns of people who queue privately. As a result, you will not see an increase in the number of players using the public queues. You will see more players trying different queues (as those players who already queue publicly will be more inclined to try a different queue).
First of all, if someone doesn't like queuing for content at all, then obviously, they will likely not benefit from this or any other idea focused on improving the queued experience. Those players are in the game for other reasons, and they can continue to enjoy the content they prefer.
Let me ask you this.. why do you think we queue privately? You think it's because we just don't want to play with 'filthy pugs' or that we only want to play missions with people we know? You assume it's some elitist thing? There are various reasons why people run private queues but the main reason is because we simply can't run them publicly because no one queues for them. If you have a channel full of people that like to run queues, it's easier to find team mates there then it is to queue up for one of the many queues and hope others magically follow suit. The majority of the 'private' matches I run are usually me and 1 or 2 others and the rest public. If we can get 3/5 people to queue up, that often times gets people to feel there is a chance it would actually pop and queue up themselves.
Now if the queues were more popular among the general public, would I stop queuing with people I know? No.. but I would be far more inclined to run that content when those people weren't on with me. People will always play with their friends, and there is nothing wrong with that. People running privately made teams aren't the problem, the problem is that people outside those 'circles' either don't feel the content is accessible for some reason or they simply don't enjoy running that content.
You and your associates would like to see changes in the queues to benefit your playstyle
And here is the problem. You're making this unnecessarily adversarial and I wonder exactly why that is. This is a suggestion to help get more people into the queues, but you seem to be focused on finding some nefarious hidden agenda that simply isn't present. It's a very simple idea really.. if the queues are more fun and less of a chore, people are more willing to play them. I am one of those afore mentioned 'associates' and yes.. this will benefit us.. how? because it benefits the game overall which is good for us and everyone else. I humbly suggest you step back and stop looking for some hidden evil motive that simply isn't present. You approach us like some elitist group pushing our own agenda.. the fact is.. most of us met.. in public queues. That's how we meet people.. that's how we make friends in this game is by playing together. It's how we build our fleets and how we populate these 'private' channels. More public interaction is good for all of us.
You are under the impression that this proposal is one of exclusivity when that couldn't be more false. The idea is actually the exact opposite, we want more people to play with not less. We don't care what type of players they are either, most of us are happy to play with pretty much anyone.
Is it, really? It's a suggestion by and for people who have admitted in this very thread they run queues because they love them so much they'd forfeit the rewards to grind them without cooldowns.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course. But people like that already play the queues. They aren't the ones that need to be attracted into them.
The people that need to be attracted are the ones that consider repeating content a chore no matter what it is. A means to an end. People who will ask "what's in it for me" before playing anything. And if the answer to that question is "nothing you couldn't get easier/faster/better somewhere else" they won't care how "fun" you think the content is. Their fun is somewhere else, with the better rewards.
The mistake is in assuming that making queues more fun for you, who already play them, would automatically make them more fun for others, who don't.
You just quoted my one post, I have already conceded that balancing rewards is just as much a part of the equation as the fun of the mission itself.
I do not disagree with you, rewards also have to be adjusted to draw in players.
Ok, so, Gravity Kills... why on earth have you removed the "black hole kills tzenkethi" mechanic. Just played it with fleeties and I naturally pushed the dread near black hole event horizon as soon as possible. However, it actually made the mission more painful, cause the dread just stood there taking no damage, meanwhile me and the team started to get dragged into the hole.
It was fun map where you could actually use different tactics to win - but not anymore it seems.
The way I see it you are either in a minority here with your opinion or you would have found a way to not care about what it is that keep players being obsessed with ISA while you are not or somehow are as well but puzzeled about it...
Acutally... I never understood the obsession with ISA and why so many view it as the end all measuring stick. As I said in my post... its a good foundation, but relying on that alone is not enough to prepare anyone for any situation.
While it is true that if you have enough damage output... everything in game is a nail and you're a sledgehammer. But that's usually on the high end of the scale. The rest of us who are low to mid range... not so easy to steamroll.
The TRUE power... is knowledge. Even with low to mid range DPS, knowing how to effectively fight more than one enemy type will tip the scales in your favor.
The Borg are straight forward with few gimicks. They shield rip and slap you with instant boarding parties. That's about it. But that is not true of ALL enemy types.
Iconians actually use Intel powers, which can really mess with you.
Breen and Hirogen use Subnuc, which can mess with your cooldowns.
Hur'q like to swarm your tail and have counter FAW ability on top of some positional immunity capability.
Terran/Federation and Klingon NPCs have access to console abilities like Players, depending on the ship.
Na'Kuhl have immunity duplication.
Voth have directional immunity shields that reflect damage back, with size depending on the size of the ship.
The Borg do not prepare one for different tactics used by different enemy groups. Lets face it... 50k DPS is pretty powerful... but if you're pouring that 50k into the side of a Voth Bulwark that has its immunity shield up on that arc... you're not doing 50k. You're doing 0. No point in beating your head against a wall thinking DPS is the only tactic no matter what. Maneuvering will help.
So overall... DPS as a foundation is good. But DPS alone is not the whole answer. Knowing your enemy... THAT is important.
They removed the black hole trick? Geeez, that was one of the few times where a pure control build could have awesome fun without worrying about damage output! Boooo Cryptic!
Anyhooo, on the subject at hand i think it's clear we all have various options on the matter but like Warpangel said a few posts up, most of us probably play the content anyway so we don't need to be attracted to the queues.
What this thread REALLY needs is responses from newer players who are having issues with the queue system, be they lack of players to run with due to dead queues, lack of interest, seeing poor rewards, find the missions too hard/easy/boring/long etc.
We need to hear from those people who unlike us old farts, actually have a reason why they avoid or cannot play the queues and don't do them in private matches.
Having the choice of marks in red alert had not helped
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Ok, so, Gravity Kills... why on earth have you removed the "black hole kills tzenkethi" mechanic. Just played it with fleeties and I naturally pushed the dread near black hole event horizon as soon as possible. However, it actually made the mission more painful, cause the dread just stood there taking no damage, meanwhile me and the team started to get dragged into the hole.
It was fun map where you could actually use different tactics to win - but not anymore it seems.
If its not a bug, I'd guess the same reason they removed dino tagging, stopped you from storing marks boxes, excluded everything and the kitchen sink from the weekend bonuses, minimized the rewards from the Foundry and PvP, etc. They don't want players to come up with clever ways to do things. You're supposed to do things the slow way and if there is anything you can do to make things better it needs fixing.
It's a bad policy that makes the game worse every time, but they keep doing it.
Having the choice of marks in red alert had not helped
Yep, that one is a mega fiasco. After DR release cryptic is doing everything they can to help players to get stuff easy. Sad part is just that too easy ends up leaving us with no game to play left.
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The way I see it you are either in a minority here with your opinion or you would have found a way to not care about what it is that keep players being obsessed with ISA while you are not or somehow are as well but puzzeled about it...
Acutally... I never understood the obsession with ISA and why so many view it as the end all measuring stick. As I said in my post... its a good foundation, but relying on that alone is not enough to prepare anyone for any situation.
While it is true that if you have enough damage output... everything in game is a nail and you're a sledgehammer. But that's usually on the high end of the scale. The rest of us who are low to mid range... not so easy to steamroll.
The TRUE power... is knowledge. Even with low to mid range DPS, knowing how to effectively fight more than one enemy type will tip the scales in your favor.
The Borg are straight forward with few gimicks. They shield rip and slap you with instant boarding parties. That's about it. But that is not true of ALL enemy types.
Iconians actually use Intel powers, which can really mess with you.
Breen and Hirogen use Subnuc, which can mess with your cooldowns.
Hur'q like to swarm your tail and have counter FAW ability on top of some positional immunity capability.
Terran/Federation and Klingon NPCs have access to console abilities like Players, depending on the ship.
Na'Kuhl have immunity duplication.
Voth have directional immunity shields that reflect damage back, with size depending on the size of the ship.
The Borg do not prepare one for different tactics used by different enemy groups. Lets face it... 50k DPS is pretty powerful... but if you're pouring that 50k into the side of a Voth Bulwark that has its immunity shield up on that arc... you're not doing 50k. You're doing 0. No point in beating your head against a wall thinking DPS is the only tactic no matter what. Maneuvering will help.
So overall... DPS as a foundation is good. But DPS alone is not the whole answer. Knowing your enemy... THAT is important.
Knowledge is Power
Guard it well
Well I dont know all DPSer in game but I can speak for most that do 150k more or less than me that none of us will find any of your hints to lead to more excitment as ISA does. It's not as we would not have beaten all those foes countless times in the past without breaking into sweat.
Post edited by peterconnorfirst on
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My point of view is from the low to mid range. I average about 10-12k in my cruisers, which are all general purpose balance builds. Pretty sure my Recon Destroyer can hit around 15k more often. Haven't been in an ISA with a parse with her yet. But I got what I feel is some good Phaser goin' on her.
My point of view is from the low to mid range. I average about 10-12k in my cruisers, which are all general purpose balance builds. Pretty sure my Recon Destroyer can hit around 15k more often. Haven't been in an ISA with a parse with her yet. But I got what I feel is some good Phaser goin' on her.
Those numbers are not low-to-mid range. Knowledge or not, those are bare minimum in order not to be a dead weight in advanced.
You do realize that for a player who has played the game for 6+ years (source: when did you start playing STO? thread), those numbers are incredibly low? Like, laughably so. There are people matching or even topping those numbers using either Boarding Parties or Torpedo+FAW (sic) combos as their main damage source, or flying Tufflis. Sure, 10k was respectable enough when we had T5 and mk XII VR (with UR limited to fleet items), but those days are long gone. Even dedicated healers are doing at least 30k these days.
Oh, and the word combination "all general purpose balance build" is immediate sign that the person talking has absolutely no credibility when it comes to game mechanics.
My point of view is from the low to mid range. I average about 10-12k in my cruisers, which are all general purpose balance builds. Pretty sure my Recon Destroyer can hit around 15k more often. Haven't been in an ISA with a parse with her yet. But I got what I feel is some good Phaser goin' on her.
It realy boils down to what you would like to do or become good at. For me or most other DPSer I know is that ISA or HSE are fun side quests, an opportunity to push the game to the boundaries of what can be done. It is not as if we would not appreciate a lot of other stuff as well. Problem is just that all else at the moment has trouble to catch up.
As far as your DPS is concerned, dont you ever feel bad about it as it again only depends on what you like to do. My support build also "only" hits 12k in ISA but I can assure you that my heartbeat gets realy fast on it when i push my team-mates beyond 400k.
Post edited by peterconnorfirst on
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I don't feel bad about my DPS. I'm actually pretty happy with it.
MY strength isn't in power. Its in flexability and durability. I actually surprised a PvPer one time with how durable I was in a PvE build.
My general playstyle is "jack of all trades, master of none". I'm no specialist. But I can face just about anything you throw at me. The ONLY specialist build I have is my TOS Sci's Almost Megawell Crossfield, and her legit Megawell Fleet Nautilus. But the Crossfield isn't a one trick pony either. She's got some flexability.
I don't feel bad about my DPS. I'm actually pretty happy with it.
MY strength isn't in power. Its in flexability and durability. I actually surprised a PvPer one time with how durable I was in a PvE build.
My general playstyle is "jack of all trades, master of none". I'm no specialist. But I can face just about anything you throw at me. The ONLY specialist build I have is my TOS Sci's Almost Megawell Crossfield, and her legit Megawell Fleet Nautilus. But the Crossfield isn't a one trick pony either. She's got some flexability.
Meanwhile, you once claimed Korfez is too hard and were surprised anyone has ever completed it.
I did. HOWEVER... This was on the same Megawell build Nautilus that I have... combined with two other Megawell ships and at least one DPS Vengeance. These same ships actually used to be able to beat the Korfez boss just fine. Now they struggle to even get it down to 80%.
I did. HOWEVER... This was on the same Megawell build Nautilus that I have... combined with two other Megawell ships and at least one DPS Vengeance. These same ships actually used to be able to beat the Korfez boss just fine. Now they struggle to even get it down to 80%.
Something's screwy with that.
You were either carried or are comparing old Korfez (where it resembled more an advanced queue than an actual elite in terms of difficulty) to new one (that's true Elite). Probably both.
I wasn't carried. Our Megawell builds don't care about shields. We're talking 3 ships with around 400 Graviton Generator skill. That's around a 20km Gravity Well with some good shield pen damage. The ONLY ship I'm willing to use in Korfez is my Fleet Tin Can w/ a Golf Ball. Especially if the Benthan Wave comes up because its easier to corral the Vaadwaur and cause chain reaction Core Breaches. And we had no problems with the Boss Ship in the past.
Now... I don't know what they did but that ship is practically immune to everything. And we've done nothing to our builds.
Having the choice of marks in red alert had not helped
Yep, that one is a mega fiasco. After DR release cryptic is doing everything they can to help players to get stuff easy. Sad part is just that too easy ends up leaving us with no game to play left.
The fact that some of the older queues like Vault Ensnared are totally ignored, they are a victim of putting choice of marks into red alerts.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
I wasn't carried. Our Megawell builds don't care about shields. We're talking 3 ships with around 400 Graviton Generator skill. That's around a 20km Gravity Well with some good shield pen damage. The ONLY ship I'm willing to use in Korfez is my Fleet Tin Can w/ a Golf Ball. Especially if the Benthan Wave comes up because its easier to corral the Vaadwaur and cause chain reaction Core Breaches. And we had no problems with the Boss Ship in the past.
Now... I don't know what they did but that ship is practically immune to everything. And we've done nothing to our builds.
If you managed to complete an elite queue with a ship capable of 15k max DPS in ISA, you were carried alright. Or again, are talking about the old Korfez (change took place around a year ago) that was elite only by name, difficulty was actually advanced. And GravGen (CtrlX, actually) has absolutely no effect on your GWs damage. CtrlX affects range only. And the ship seems to be "practically immune to everything" cause you can't do any meaningful damage.
I mean, you're the perfect example of a forumite. High post count, spouting constant random nonsense (spiced with digs directed at DPSers), believing that you're an awesome player, being completely oblivious to the fact that you actually aren't and having no clue how the game actually works.
Comments
You chatted with people who like public queues, but have issues with some of them. I don't know if you talked to players who dislike public queues or players who dislike the queue system in general. Your suggestions may improve the enjoyment for players who like the public queues, but dislike some of the individual missions for the reasons you stated. At best, players who already use public queues will queue for something other than the missions they prefer. It does not address the concerns of people who queue privately. As a result, you will not see an increase in the number of players using the public queues. You will see more players trying different queues (as those players who already queue publicly will be more inclined to try a different queue).
Fyi, most of the people I talked to do private queues much more often than pugs. I'm also one of those.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
Facenating! Erm.. sorry but do we have any story driven content in game that has you log more than once in a while every few months? Anything?! I mean I was done with ViL new stories after like 4h of play time...
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
I think you are exaggerating here. You and your associates would like to see changes in the queues to benefit your playstyle. Most players who queue privately do so because they want competent players to help them complete the content so they can get the most reward with the least amount of frustration and time spent in the queue. None of your suggestions increase the competence of the average PUG player. There is no reason for most private queue players to join a public queue. There are players right now who want an option to boot a player from their mission because of "trolling" or "incompetence". As distasteful as I find that suggestion, it at least addresses why players go private in the first place.
Feel free to read the thread. I was asked where I got my information from. That is my source. Players responding to a dev question. Ask those players what they are looking for, because it is not the in the queues.
It's not the one or the other. Sure, you can't do both at the same time, but there's 24 hours in a day. I queue rarely for pugs alone, but it's weekly occurence where it's just me, @peterconnorfirst and maybe someone else from our fleet online, so we join into pug queue, cause it's easier, takes less hassle and with more popular queues quicker than to yell out in every possible chat channel we're in to find other players.
I would bet the folks complaining were mostly clueless forumites who can't wrap their head around the fact that it's always much slower process to create a story than to consume it. It's an MMORPG, you simply need some replayable content in game (which we have in form of queues) to keep players interested for longer time than just initial, and perhaps a second and third playthrough of the story.
As excellent as Portal or Life is Strange are (much better than STO's storyline, I might add), I have played STO for *far* longer, cause story alone can't simply make up hours of long playtime. MMORPG setting, on the other hand, wants players to invest their time into the game every day.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
First of all, if someone doesn't like queuing for content at all, then obviously, they will likely not benefit from this or any other idea focused on improving the queued experience. Those players are in the game for other reasons, and they can continue to enjoy the content they prefer.
Let me ask you this.. why do you think we queue privately? You think it's because we just don't want to play with 'filthy pugs' or that we only want to play missions with people we know? You assume it's some elitist thing? There are various reasons why people run private queues but the main reason is because we simply can't run them publicly because no one queues for them. If you have a channel full of people that like to run queues, it's easier to find team mates there then it is to queue up for one of the many queues and hope others magically follow suit. The majority of the 'private' matches I run are usually me and 1 or 2 others and the rest public. If we can get 3/5 people to queue up, that often times gets people to feel there is a chance it would actually pop and queue up themselves.
Now if the queues were more popular among the general public, would I stop queuing with people I know? No.. but I would be far more inclined to run that content when those people weren't on with me. People will always play with their friends, and there is nothing wrong with that. People running privately made teams aren't the problem, the problem is that people outside those 'circles' either don't feel the content is accessible for some reason or they simply don't enjoy running that content.
And here is the problem. You're making this unnecessarily adversarial and I wonder exactly why that is. This is a suggestion to help get more people into the queues, but you seem to be focused on finding some nefarious hidden agenda that simply isn't present. It's a very simple idea really.. if the queues are more fun and less of a chore, people are more willing to play them. I am one of those afore mentioned 'associates' and yes.. this will benefit us.. how? because it benefits the game overall which is good for us and everyone else. I humbly suggest you step back and stop looking for some hidden evil motive that simply isn't present. You approach us like some elitist group pushing our own agenda.. the fact is.. most of us met.. in public queues. That's how we meet people.. that's how we make friends in this game is by playing together. It's how we build our fleets and how we populate these 'private' channels. More public interaction is good for all of us.
You are under the impression that this proposal is one of exclusivity when that couldn't be more false. The idea is actually the exact opposite, we want more people to play with not less. We don't care what type of players they are either, most of us are happy to play with pretty much anyone.
^^ Totally Awesome analysis! Voted accordingly.
Ha, why, thank you!
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course. But people like that already play the queues. They aren't the ones that need to be attracted into them.
The people that need to be attracted are the ones that consider repeating content a chore no matter what it is. A means to an end. People who will ask "what's in it for me" before playing anything. And if the answer to that question is "nothing you couldn't get easier/faster/better somewhere else" they won't care how "fun" you think the content is. Their fun is somewhere else, with the better rewards.
The mistake is in assuming that making queues more fun for you, who already play them, would automatically make them more fun for others, who don't.
You just quoted my one post, I have already conceded that balancing rewards is just as much a part of the equation as the fun of the mission itself.
I do not disagree with you, rewards also have to be adjusted to draw in players.
It was fun map where you could actually use different tactics to win - but not anymore it seems.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
Acutally... I never understood the obsession with ISA and why so many view it as the end all measuring stick. As I said in my post... its a good foundation, but relying on that alone is not enough to prepare anyone for any situation.
While it is true that if you have enough damage output... everything in game is a nail and you're a sledgehammer. But that's usually on the high end of the scale. The rest of us who are low to mid range... not so easy to steamroll.
The TRUE power... is knowledge. Even with low to mid range DPS, knowing how to effectively fight more than one enemy type will tip the scales in your favor.
The Borg are straight forward with few gimicks. They shield rip and slap you with instant boarding parties. That's about it. But that is not true of ALL enemy types.
The Borg do not prepare one for different tactics used by different enemy groups. Lets face it... 50k DPS is pretty powerful... but if you're pouring that 50k into the side of a Voth Bulwark that has its immunity shield up on that arc... you're not doing 50k. You're doing 0. No point in beating your head against a wall thinking DPS is the only tactic no matter what. Maneuvering will help.
So overall... DPS as a foundation is good. But DPS alone is not the whole answer. Knowing your enemy... THAT is important.
Guard it well
Anyhooo, on the subject at hand i think it's clear we all have various options on the matter but like Warpangel said a few posts up, most of us probably play the content anyway so we don't need to be attracted to the queues.
What this thread REALLY needs is responses from newer players who are having issues with the queue system, be they lack of players to run with due to dead queues, lack of interest, seeing poor rewards, find the missions too hard/easy/boring/long etc.
We need to hear from those people who unlike us old farts, actually have a reason why they avoid or cannot play the queues and don't do them in private matches.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
It's a bad policy that makes the game worse every time, but they keep doing it.
Yep, that one is a mega fiasco. After DR release cryptic is doing everything they can to help players to get stuff easy. Sad part is just that too easy ends up leaving us with no game to play left.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Well I dont know all DPSer in game but I can speak for most that do 150k more or less than me that none of us will find any of your hints to lead to more excitment as ISA does. It's not as we would not have beaten all those foes countless times in the past without breaking into sweat.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Those numbers are not low-to-mid range. Knowledge or not, those are bare minimum in order not to be a dead weight in advanced.
You do realize that for a player who has played the game for 6+ years (source: when did you start playing STO? thread), those numbers are incredibly low? Like, laughably so. There are people matching or even topping those numbers using either Boarding Parties or Torpedo+FAW (sic) combos as their main damage source, or flying Tufflis. Sure, 10k was respectable enough when we had T5 and mk XII VR (with UR limited to fleet items), but those days are long gone. Even dedicated healers are doing at least 30k these days.
Oh, and the word combination "all general purpose balance build" is immediate sign that the person talking has absolutely no credibility when it comes to game mechanics.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
It realy boils down to what you would like to do or become good at. For me or most other DPSer I know is that ISA or HSE are fun side quests, an opportunity to push the game to the boundaries of what can be done. It is not as if we would not appreciate a lot of other stuff as well. Problem is just that all else at the moment has trouble to catch up.
As far as your DPS is concerned, dont you ever feel bad about it as it again only depends on what you like to do. My support build also "only" hits 12k in ISA but I can assure you that my heartbeat gets realy fast on it when i push my team-mates beyond 400k.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
MY strength isn't in power. Its in flexability and durability. I actually surprised a PvPer one time with how durable I was in a PvE build.
My general playstyle is "jack of all trades, master of none". I'm no specialist. But I can face just about anything you throw at me. The ONLY specialist build I have is my TOS Sci's Almost Megawell Crossfield, and her legit Megawell Fleet Nautilus. But the Crossfield isn't a one trick pony either. She's got some flexability.
Meanwhile, you once claimed Korfez is too hard and were surprised anyone has ever completed it.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
Something's screwy with that.
You were either carried or are comparing old Korfez (where it resembled more an advanced queue than an actual elite in terms of difficulty) to new one (that's true Elite). Probably both.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
Now... I don't know what they did but that ship is practically immune to everything. And we've done nothing to our builds.
The fact that some of the older queues like Vault Ensnared are totally ignored, they are a victim of putting choice of marks into red alerts.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Thank you. Motivation is on an all time low in PvE and any bit of support for what tune did here is much appreciated.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
If you managed to complete an elite queue with a ship capable of 15k max DPS in ISA, you were carried alright. Or again, are talking about the old Korfez (change took place around a year ago) that was elite only by name, difficulty was actually advanced. And GravGen (CtrlX, actually) has absolutely no effect on your GWs damage. CtrlX affects range only. And the ship seems to be "practically immune to everything" cause you can't do any meaningful damage.
I mean, you're the perfect example of a forumite. High post count, spouting constant random nonsense (spiced with digs directed at DPSers), believing that you're an awesome player, being completely oblivious to the fact that you actually aren't and having no clue how the game actually works.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.