Yep that one is somewhat cool. That’s why I thought 800 zen for the acc wide outfit + 1 ultimate upgrader is a bargain in light of this total fail of a map.
Yep that one is somewhat cool. That’s why I thought 800 zen for the acc wide outfit + 1 ultimate upgrader is a bargain in light of this total fail of a map.
pay them 4 bad content?
Those I know that did the buy out option did so using Dilithium or with Zen Stipend. We were all very intentionally not spending cash on the buy out for that very reason.
Yep that one is somewhat cool. That’s why I thought 800 zen for the acc wide outfit + 1 ultimate upgrader is a bargain in light of this total fail of a map.
pay them 4 bad content?
Those I know that did the buy out option did so using Dilithium or with Zen Stipend. We were all very intentionally not spending cash on the buy out for that very reason.
Also a zero sum game there. In my case doing the buyout takes the place of buying the Cardassian species option for an upcoming character. If not that then the buyout is digging into my zen savings fund for new ships and other c-store releases. The buyout is a good fallback to a grind in cases of personal circumstance (ex. vacation, work, school) but to simply avoid an under-developed queue its more of a hit (since on top of the negative reaction to the TFO there's the secondary effect of not being able to buy something else which is of greater impact for long-term gameplay.) Add to that, the resulting dead-zone in the schedule for which the TFO was meant to fill. In the ideal "buyout as an emergency fallback" case that's not an issue (folks wouldn't have been able to play anyway) but for those simply avoiding a queue it's a definite hole, an otherwise unnecessary trade-off, and a missed opportunity.
Altogether the mechanics of this aren't good and if they were looking to create a community event to tide folks over until April 11th...well you guys could have done an extended series of Foundry universal endeavors and highlighted dev-favorites through blogs. As it is Cryptic's officially letting that run its course without input and putting up a minimally recycled TFO in contrast (when the Foundry itself is an extended lecture on how to re-use content well.)
So on top of the mechanics, the optics aren't good either (and in ways that compliment other hits the community's been taking.) Hopefully the roadmap update next week can help shift inertia to a more positive direction.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Very disappointing in this TFO. Why do they even imagine players would not notice the copy/paste job? If there is no time for a new story/design why in the world just do another grind EXACTLY similar to Dranuur. Might as well just do nothing and sell the new ship. It really leaves a messed impression to the playerbase.
Please bring back AoS for a change...at least that was a great challenge than this NOT so new TFO.
To be fair, it was a topic on these forums already before this that the "retired" STOs were to be reworked and come back. I thought the "rework" part would be a bit more extensive though.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
It offers less gameplay than Mirror Invasion but takes longer.
Imagine the sound of a huge block of ice falling into water and you get the idea of what this sentence made me feel about the mission before even checking it out.
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Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Yep that one is somewhat cool. That’s why I thought 800 zen for the acc wide outfit + 1 ultimate upgrader is a bargain in light of this total fail of a map.
pay them 4 bad content?
Those I know that did the buy out option did so using Dilithium or with Zen Stipend. We were all very intentionally not spending cash on the buy out for that very reason.
Yeah, not crazy about DSC stuff so my stipend has been piling up for awhile. So a no-brainer to get an Ultimate Upgrade and 10 skips of this Dranuur Gauntlet clone mission for no out of pocket money.
That's what this board is supposed to be for afterall.
Well said!
I think the players are perfectly entitled to voice our opinions on such a shoddy piece of work for the game. We have done,and still do for many, put our cash into this game so why should we not tell them when we feel they have made zero effort with a new piece of "content".
It's not melodrama, it's the voice of many long-term players about the state of the game. Which going by this latest pathetic attempt looks to be going downhill.
Imagine the sound of a huge block of ice falling into water and you get the idea of what this sentence made me feel about the mission before even checking it out.
Generally speaking it takes less time then Mirror Invasion. Mirror Invasion has a hard time limit of, at minimum, 11 minutes.
Peril over Pahvo is only like 7-8.
Your math fails you.
After the briefing and the first wave which is required to kill, the timers are:
30 seconds talk
1 minute satellite activation (not cut short even if the team gets them up faster)
5m combat
20s talk some more
1m satellite upgrades
5m combat
That's 12 minutes and 50 seconds, minimum. Plus the briefing and however long it takes for the team to finish the first wave.
Apart from it being too easy with the lack of Advance or Elite there is one very positive thing about this TFO. It’s very friendly towards mines and mine layer builds. For players like myself it is a good mission that is loads of fun with massive overlapping explosions. I just love laying a mine field and watching a squad of ships fly right into it and this TFO excels at that.
If it wasn’t for the lack of Advance/Elite I would rate it in my top 3 most fun bits of content just because it works so well with mines and explosions. Like The Swarm which for me is the no1 TFO you know where the big wave of ships are going to enter so you can setup an ambush and that is so much fun. I for one like the mechanics of play in this TFO. Its one of the more fun ones.
For the satelite upgrades for the second wave, engineers should NOT upgrade, have someone else do it. A barrier that is as fragile as a piece of cardboard is not going to do anything. I even find the engineer satelites can even be especially stupid, placing barriers behind themselves as enemies are approaching from in front of them.
On the other hand, the tactical satellites more than make up for their worth. in fact I already kept a power station alive on a poorly built tactical officer(well, poorly built for the TFO) by simply keeping all 4 satellites repaired. You really cannot go wrong with the torpedo spread.
Engineers are best off not upgrading the satelites, if possible ask a tac to upgrade for you, and use threatening stance. The goal is to defend for 5 minutes in each wave anyways, I think drawing fire can get better results than having some satellites presenting a piece of cardboard in front of battle-hungry terrans and klingons.
Science officers....well the upgrade is better than the engineering one. I don't think it's as good as the tac though. Wish the two classes had better upgrades.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
I would have to agree with the sentiment of this being a lazy copy/paste job... which makes me wonder who among the relevant persons thought that would pass muster with the player base.
Issue one: hard timegates. These actually discourage player engagement, and should be rare. Soft gates (i.e. Swarm, Pahvo Dissension) are another matter because they have the opposite effect. Are the devs unaware that folks start/seek private AFK runs for Mirror Invasion for precisely this reason? The solution for this specific pair of TFOs? Take a page from BatBS - if the players manage to destroy X ships before the timer expires, that moves things directly to the next phase.
The other, perhaps less excusable issue: heal immunity. There is zero justification for this nonsense, seeing as it removes an avenue for players to contribute outside of firepower. Consider by way of contrast Counterpoint and Cure Found (and Kobayashi Maru) wherein something like the Lukari protomatter field console gets to shine... in that vein I would present the following solution for Dranuur Gauntlet and this copy-paste thereof:
a bonus marks for each satellite that remains at or above 75%;
b bonus marks for each satellite remaining at 50-74%;
c bonus marks for each satellite remaining at 25-49%
The other, perhaps less excusable issue: heal immunity. There is zero justification for this nonsense, seeing as it removes an avenue for players to contribute outside of firepower.
There is always threatening stance. In fact I think it's the best thing engineers can do in this one. Heck, holding agro can generally do far more than healing the satelites as guess who can heal themselves and others can heal them? Your ship. Although I admittedly hate the holy trinity with a burning passion(nore would it work here in it's purest form, team has to split up far to much) and make no secret about that. But a build with high defense, shield resistance, and dam resistance can easily just put threatening stance on and call it a day when it comes to defending the satellites.
I'd be more impressed if the satellite upgrades were smarter done though. As I mentioned previously the tacticals are pretty much the only good upgrade. The engineer upgrade barrier does NOT do anything to prevent damage to the power satelites and is as durable as an empty cardboard box. The science one only seems to add tractor beam and tachyon beam. Trouble is, we are dealing with large numbers of enemies, it seems to me better focus on crowd control and drawing fire away from the power stations is a smarter move.
Course crowd control through AoE firepower is and does work to. Even by itself a gravity well can prevent the enemy ships from getting in range to hit the power satellite in the first place.
I do think blowing up enemies faster should end a segment sooner though.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
I do not mind not being able to heal them. They are stationary and tough as nails. You can do a lot more to prevent damage to them than just blowing the enemy ships up faster though.
Wanna have useful support? Here:
Threatening Stance: When they shooting you and not the shield generator, shield generator takes far less damage.
Gravity well: Enemy ships stuck in place cannot get closer, so throw it on them before they get in range. Ships don't get to shoot shield generator when they to far away.
Repulsion beam: Shove enemy ships away from the station and then lock them in a gravity well. Further damage prevented by crowd control.
Debuffs that prevent them from doing as much damage.
It would be nice if wiping the waves out faster was beneficial though. Why can't we have a set amount of waves that have to be destroyed? Maybe even throw in a score system for completion time.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
To add to the comment about satellite upgrading the planetside ones should NEVER be done by an engineer.
Given how far they are from the action neither of the others will get much use but to put a shield up on a side that won't have anything close to or shooting at it is just stupidity.
For skills scramble sensors is a decent way of offsetting the terran escorts damage output as are aceton assimilators placed to the side and ahead of the sats.
The other, perhaps less excusable issue: heal immunity. There is zero justification for this nonsense, seeing as it removes an avenue for players to contribute outside of firepower. Consider by way of contrast Counterpoint and Cure Found (and Kobayashi Maru) wherein something like the Lukari protomatter field console gets to shine... in that vein I would present the following solution for Dranuur Gauntlet and this copy-paste thereof:
Every single MMORPG I have played that has an objective to prevent something from falling below X hp has it to where you either cannot heal it at all, or healing it doesn't actually change the fact it fell below that threshold.
That's not even true of STO. You can heal all protected objectives...except the generators in Dranuur/Disco Gauntlet.
If it did, then there would be zero point to said optionals because everyone would just spam heals and make it to where it was impossible to get anything but the max reward. You are basically asking to make the entire optional pointless, and challenge-less.
Games that have actual challenge don't need to artificially gimp players like that. Everyone just healing would get the team overwhelmed and wiped out. Not to mention the players would probably have to actually do something to win, instead of waiting for the enemy to get bored and leave.
May I add a third issue? No TRIBBLING kill XP. This has become a staple but I find it incredibly grating by now. I used to be able to level my ships by playing current content instead of grinding old one, however slow it was, it worked. And it's not as if we could get infinity XP from a queue, even if: scale it down, but don't let it drop to zero. Getting XP would be a (however minor) incentive to do something that matters. Especially in the second phase, those guys don't do enough damage to the satellites to matter, so there's no reason apart from "since I am here anyway) to shoot at the baddies.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
I liked Peril over Pahvo. I play Dranuur Gauntlet a lot, this one is more or less the same thing, but nice and easy. No Iconians camping on the respawn point here. I'd recommend Peril over Pahvo for players with little experience with TFOs, it's straightforward and has both interaction (satellites) and stuff to blow up. It's definitely not as much of a challenge as an Advanced Borg queue, or the original Dranuur, but it was nice entertainment.
Speaking of the engineering upgrades to the satellites - I found I had to fly around the energy shields to attack the enemy, the shields were like walls between me and the Terrans, both impossible to fly through and impossible to shoot through. That was a small nuisance, but otherwise, a nice easy TFO.
Comments
pay them 4 bad content?
Those I know that did the buy out option did so using Dilithium or with Zen Stipend. We were all very intentionally not spending cash on the buy out for that very reason.
Also a zero sum game there. In my case doing the buyout takes the place of buying the Cardassian species option for an upcoming character. If not that then the buyout is digging into my zen savings fund for new ships and other c-store releases. The buyout is a good fallback to a grind in cases of personal circumstance (ex. vacation, work, school) but to simply avoid an under-developed queue its more of a hit (since on top of the negative reaction to the TFO there's the secondary effect of not being able to buy something else which is of greater impact for long-term gameplay.) Add to that, the resulting dead-zone in the schedule for which the TFO was meant to fill. In the ideal "buyout as an emergency fallback" case that's not an issue (folks wouldn't have been able to play anyway) but for those simply avoiding a queue it's a definite hole, an otherwise unnecessary trade-off, and a missed opportunity.
Altogether the mechanics of this aren't good and if they were looking to create a community event to tide folks over until April 11th...well you guys could have done an extended series of Foundry universal endeavors and highlighted dev-favorites through blogs. As it is Cryptic's officially letting that run its course without input and putting up a minimally recycled TFO in contrast (when the Foundry itself is an extended lecture on how to re-use content well.)
So on top of the mechanics, the optics aren't good either (and in ways that compliment other hits the community's been taking.) Hopefully the roadmap update next week can help shift inertia to a more positive direction.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Please bring back AoS for a change...at least that was a great challenge than this NOT so new TFO.
Don't use antisocial media so unsure if they bother to tweet about it.
And of course its on twitch where low viewer numbers means no quality options allowing for a watchable stream and their vod system in atrocious.
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Yeah, not crazy about DSC stuff so my stipend has been piling up for awhile. So a no-brainer to get an Ultimate Upgrade and 10 skips of this Dranuur Gauntlet clone mission for no out of pocket money.
Not in the least, just giving our opinion.
That's what this board is supposed to be for afterall.
Well said!
I think the players are perfectly entitled to voice our opinions on such a shoddy piece of work for the game. We have done,and still do for many, put our cash into this game so why should we not tell them when we feel they have made zero effort with a new piece of "content".
It's not melodrama, it's the voice of many long-term players about the state of the game. Which going by this latest pathetic attempt looks to be going downhill.
After the briefing and the first wave which is required to kill, the timers are:
30 seconds talk
1 minute satellite activation (not cut short even if the team gets them up faster)
5m combat
20s talk some more
1m satellite upgrades
5m combat
That's 12 minutes and 50 seconds, minimum. Plus the briefing and however long it takes for the team to finish the first wave.
If it wasn’t for the lack of Advance/Elite I would rate it in my top 3 most fun bits of content just because it works so well with mines and explosions. Like The Swarm which for me is the no1 TFO you know where the big wave of ships are going to enter so you can setup an ambush and that is so much fun. I for one like the mechanics of play in this TFO. Its one of the more fun ones.
For the satelite upgrades for the second wave, engineers should NOT upgrade, have someone else do it. A barrier that is as fragile as a piece of cardboard is not going to do anything. I even find the engineer satelites can even be especially stupid, placing barriers behind themselves as enemies are approaching from in front of them.
On the other hand, the tactical satellites more than make up for their worth. in fact I already kept a power station alive on a poorly built tactical officer(well, poorly built for the TFO) by simply keeping all 4 satellites repaired. You really cannot go wrong with the torpedo spread.
Engineers are best off not upgrading the satelites, if possible ask a tac to upgrade for you, and use threatening stance. The goal is to defend for 5 minutes in each wave anyways, I think drawing fire can get better results than having some satellites presenting a piece of cardboard in front of battle-hungry terrans and klingons.
Science officers....well the upgrade is better than the engineering one. I don't think it's as good as the tac though. Wish the two classes had better upgrades.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
Issue one: hard timegates. These actually discourage player engagement, and should be rare. Soft gates (i.e. Swarm, Pahvo Dissension) are another matter because they have the opposite effect. Are the devs unaware that folks start/seek private AFK runs for Mirror Invasion for precisely this reason? The solution for this specific pair of TFOs? Take a page from BatBS - if the players manage to destroy X ships before the timer expires, that moves things directly to the next phase.
The other, perhaps less excusable issue: heal immunity. There is zero justification for this nonsense, seeing as it removes an avenue for players to contribute outside of firepower. Consider by way of contrast Counterpoint and Cure Found (and Kobayashi Maru) wherein something like the Lukari protomatter field console gets to shine... in that vein I would present the following solution for Dranuur Gauntlet and this copy-paste thereof:
There is always threatening stance. In fact I think it's the best thing engineers can do in this one. Heck, holding agro can generally do far more than healing the satelites as guess who can heal themselves and others can heal them? Your ship. Although I admittedly hate the holy trinity with a burning passion(nore would it work here in it's purest form, team has to split up far to much) and make no secret about that. But a build with high defense, shield resistance, and dam resistance can easily just put threatening stance on and call it a day when it comes to defending the satellites.
I'd be more impressed if the satellite upgrades were smarter done though. As I mentioned previously the tacticals are pretty much the only good upgrade. The engineer upgrade barrier does NOT do anything to prevent damage to the power satelites and is as durable as an empty cardboard box. The science one only seems to add tractor beam and tachyon beam. Trouble is, we are dealing with large numbers of enemies, it seems to me better focus on crowd control and drawing fire away from the power stations is a smarter move.
Course crowd control through AoE firepower is and does work to. Even by itself a gravity well can prevent the enemy ships from getting in range to hit the power satellite in the first place.
I do think blowing up enemies faster should end a segment sooner though.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
I do not mind not being able to heal them. They are stationary and tough as nails. You can do a lot more to prevent damage to them than just blowing the enemy ships up faster though.
Wanna have useful support? Here:
Threatening Stance: When they shooting you and not the shield generator, shield generator takes far less damage.
Gravity well: Enemy ships stuck in place cannot get closer, so throw it on them before they get in range. Ships don't get to shoot shield generator when they to far away.
Repulsion beam: Shove enemy ships away from the station and then lock them in a gravity well. Further damage prevented by crowd control.
Debuffs that prevent them from doing as much damage.
It would be nice if wiping the waves out faster was beneficial though. Why can't we have a set amount of waves that have to be destroyed? Maybe even throw in a score system for completion time.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
Given how far they are from the action neither of the others will get much use but to put a shield up on a side that won't have anything close to or shooting at it is just stupidity.
For skills scramble sensors is a decent way of offsetting the terran escorts damage output as are aceton assimilators placed to the side and ahead of the sats.
Games that have actual challenge don't need to artificially gimp players like that. Everyone just healing would get the team overwhelmed and wiped out. Not to mention the players would probably have to actually do something to win, instead of waiting for the enemy to get bored and leave.
I think BMR didn't mean this thread with "melodrama", but was saying the line quoted by postagepaid was such.
May I add a third issue? No TRIBBLING kill XP. This has become a staple but I find it incredibly grating by now. I used to be able to level my ships by playing current content instead of grinding old one, however slow it was, it worked. And it's not as if we could get infinity XP from a queue, even if: scale it down, but don't let it drop to zero. Getting XP would be a (however minor) incentive to do something that matters. Especially in the second phase, those guys don't do enough damage to the satellites to matter, so there's no reason apart from "since I am here anyway) to shoot at the baddies.
Speaking of the engineering upgrades to the satellites - I found I had to fly around the energy shields to attack the enemy, the shields were like walls between me and the Terrans, both impossible to fly through and impossible to shoot through. That was a small nuisance, but otherwise, a nice easy TFO.