My thoughts on the riposte TFO

zarasz

Having spent lots of time in the winter event, the peril over pahvo event and now doing this event mainly for the dilithium on 8 characters, Im again doing it for another load of dilithium on all chars. The satelite is just a bonus.

First stage is get past the shields of three stations. Not a problem. Except for the shooting satelites that activate after the shields are breached and people start beaming over... without shields while the next wave of klingons decloaks. Some satelites come online after the a station received the last troops. Makes little sense. It would make sense when all satelites go active when we engage each station.

Second stage. Two people obviously on speed battle over the missiles, one flies from outer left to right while my small char just got in range for a group to shoot at. He kills them while another group kills a transport on the other side that he could have saved. Also when people are fighting the missiles they cant see the groups spawning behind the transports because they are too far away. Sitting next to the transports doesnt really work, splitting up is more like everyone for him/herself. There is no coordination, no communication possible. I just try to get to one group or missile before a transport goes down. Does it even matter? Not sure. I had some runs with almost all transports lost in this stage. I hope it matters to prevent people from going afk.
Also missiles are hard to hit even when flying parallel to them and torps miss most of the time aswell. On the other hand they are sometimes easier to hit when Im at full stop. Its just odd.

Third stage. Transports die instantly. Yes, I saw transports dying before anyone could start to tow them. Its the rifts caused by some weapons. Dont know the name of them. They are dark pink and blackish. Once a transport is disabled it dies before its escort could kill it with warp core breach or gunfire.
Should be adressed asap.

And I muted the NPC voice volume for the first time. I just couldnt take the constant spam during the TFO any longer. A simple explaination before each stage should be sufficient. I dont like being treated like an imbecile who forgets what to do after towing a transport to safety for the third time.

Fourth stage. "This is Aakar!" THIS?? Who wrote this terrible line? Reminds me of the dyson sphere conversation with the romulan officer and my klingon does the US military salute... *shudders*
And we cant skip the cinematic. At least I cant because I see people in the cinematic shooting at the enemies that arrive after the cinematic starts.

TFOs like this need to have a mechanic that requires the team to coordinate slightly. Peril over pahvo was bad enough when people with no damage output made all satelites in range blue instead of letting people turn them red. Unless the whole group is science or engineer which seems rare.

Having epic geared people fight over the missiles when one would suffice and the rest trying to shoot down the groups before they kill the transports seconds after spawning... you get the idea. Personally Im pretty good at detecting pattern in such things. Its just that I started again recently and was hoping to upgrade my gear from XII to XV next week. So Im not fast with killing my targets but I manage once I got the attention of the groups away from the transports. After two days now with 16 runs I realize that players need something that gives them direction in random groups. Not let them do whatever they want. Or at least a motivation to open their chat which seems to be closed outside earth space dock and sector space.

Just my two energy credits.

arionisa

There are TFOs that actually do require the team to coordinate slightly. They only got played in private instances, now they sometimes come up during the randoms, and half the team promptly leaves when they do. Coordination in pugs just plain does not happen in this game, and to make the featured TFO that nets you a neat console and gets you points towards a free ship one that puts the player at the total mercy of the abilities of 4 other random players would for one, not be right in any way, shape or form, and two, would cause a probable tie for the most massive backlash that has ever been received, mostly because of number one.

Be thankful that it does not actually require any team coordination for anything other than possibly getting all the optionals, otherwise you could easily have to run it several times per day in the hopes that you finally get a team that will actually work together to get it done. Although I haven't seen it yet having only done it 3 times so far (one of which we managed all the optionals despite total lack of coordination between players), this appears to be yet another TFO that could be AFK'd up until the dreadnought at the end, and if so, long before it's no longer featured, the forum is going to be flooded with players complaining about other players AFKing it.

And I have to admit, although I personally wouldn't AFK it, I can understand those who do. It is fun, the first few times, but like most featured anything, ceases to be fun long before it's been run enough times to get X number of whatever is needed that time around. I myself am seriously considering buying some Zen and grabbing the buy out pack

zarasz

Now that you mention it, I did two runs in the borg ground TFO for the accolade. First run I had no clue what to do and one player who asked if we knew what to do wanted me to do something completely ignoring that I answered his question with me being there the first time. I dont know how but we finished it. Second run, none of the others had a clue and I guided them through. Even tho we lacked damage, only the one with epic gear left and we finished it after some time.

This is what an MMO is about. Interaction with others that you should rely on.

Also today being the fourth day with my eight chars in riposte I actually found a group that failed to save all stations, lost most transports and again the guy with probably epic gear left because we didnt have epic gear. Was fun actually because I tanked a dozen klingons at the end of stage three around the spawn point with my hestia and threating stance But it did feel like I was the only one damaging anything.

Also someone should add to the tutorial the concept of shooting down the small ships first instead of spending most time alone on a big ship while the small ones combined to much more damage to the group.

Also is it possible that this TFO is undertuned for MK XV and overtuned for MK XII gear?

whiteknight1x

This mission requires a little teamwork. To shoot-down the missiles first I tell the team that I will solo the missiles. I set my power levels to Full Weapons than everything else to Engines. You don't need shields for missiles. I also use this power setting for the capture of the Klingon transport. I am also using gear that helps with turn and speed. I am in the Temporal Light Cruiser. Better turn rate the other larger ships.

I would also suggest the rest of the team use a zone defense to protect the transports. Two on each end and overlap the center.

Torpedoes: The target-able kind are just too slow to takeout faster moving missiles. The faster non target-able ones would most likely work. Beam Arrays are better because of the 250 firing arc. Omni's (360 arc) (Turrets if your are using canons) are even better. A lot of the higher end players will have 2-3 of them in the rear.

I have different ship layouts design for different situations. In am not suggesting you use another ship. But, you need to be able to adapt for ship and play style when needed.