Why the same tfo's?

setadoon

There is close to 50-60 space and ground tfos in the game. How come I only see the same 10-15 while queuing for randoms?

davefenestrator

- not all TFOs are eligible for random, only the 5-person ones
- the way random works is that you are added to TFOs that already have other people queued for them. You get the extra reward because you are helping them to complete the queue of their choice

So 1 person queues specifically for Counterpoint, then the next 4 people who queue for random get placed into that queue to fill it out.

setadoon

I see. Thank you very much for the explanation.

spiritborn

Also some (mostly Borg) TFOs are in the "excluded" list, even though they're technically eligible so those won't never pop up.

As for why they're excluded you'll have to ask that from Cryptic.

phoenixc

spiritborn wrote: »

Also some (mostly Borg) TFOs are in the "excluded" list, even though they're technically eligible so those won't never pop up.

As for why they're excluded you'll have to ask that from Cryptic.

I think "Borg Disconnected" is probably one of those since a while back people were complaining that it was the one they almost always got when random queuing. Apparently comments like that led them to decide that some of the more popular TFOs don't need the help.

cerritourug

The real problems are the endeavours. You will be queue for the same TFOs due to that. Some one needs to kill terrans? Then you play terran tfos. That is why the Lukary TFOs, terran TFOs, Undine, etc are so comun.

The problem is that is making the game boring and most player after they do the Endeavour, they even leave the TFO.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

fleetcaptain5

spiritborn wrote: »

Also some (mostly Borg) TFOs are in the "excluded" list, even though they're technically eligible so those won't never pop up.

As for why they're excluded you'll have to ask that from Cryptic.

Because the community manager didn't understand it.

Let's not pretend that it's for any other reason than that.

rattler2

To be fair the old ground Borg TFOs aren't always clear in how you progress. They're probably due for a minor revamp to be more clear on what you have to do. Remember they are some of the oldest pieces of content in the game. Word is that they used to be combined with the space ones, so you had a massive TFO (or STF back in the day) with both a space and ground portion. Hell... Kitomer ground apparently used to have a story connection with the original Fed Tutorial.

fleetcaptain5

setadoon wrote: »

There is close to 50-60 space and ground tfos in the game. How come I only see the same 10-15 while queuing for randoms?

Because the system was half-baked from its inception (as indeed the fleet missions appear to have been excluded from the start as well) and has been made worse after it was released.

The intention was good, allowing players to play missions more easily, especially ones that could otherwise take a long time to start. Those who used the system, get extra rewards for not knowing what they'll be playing.


But unfortunately some missions were always excluded, and some other ones removed from it for no good reason. Meaning that it has become even harder to get those to launch (because there is now an additional option in the queue system, meaning more options and thus lower chances of players queueing for those excluded missions).
Fleet alert, Starbase incursion clearly show this, you can rarely play these missions anymore nowadays.


Basically, you'll only end up playing the missions that you would be able to start relatively quickly anyway. And those who use it, get extra rewards just for the heck of it, as anything that might be considered unpleasant content is slowly filtered out anyway.


For the queue system as a whole, the random feature is pretty much useless and even detrimental when it comes to promoting diversity regarding which content you can easily and quickly play.

fleetcaptain5

westmetals wrote: »

phoenixc#0738 wrote: »

spiritborn wrote: »

Also some (mostly Borg) TFOs are in the "excluded" list, even though they're technically eligible so those won't never pop up.

As for why they're excluded you'll have to ask that from Cryptic.

I think "Borg Disconnected" is probably one of those since a while back people were complaining that it was the one they almost always got when random queuing. Apparently comments like that led them to decide that some of the more popular TFOs don't need the help.

No, Disconnected is in the random selection.

It is mostly only the ground Borg ones that are excluded, because they are untimed and have waypoint triggers that can cause the mission to become uncompletable if you have AFK players. (Forcefields that prevent progress until all players are within sight of them, or console puzzles that require 3 active players to complete). Forcing the active players to wind up taking leaver penalties in order to get out.

I think also the ones that are faction-specific (Federation Fleet Alert, for example) are excluded to prevent wrong-faction players from being slotted in. These award fleet marks only.

It has nothing to do with the waypoints. That's just a lame excuse they might have made up.

Two players can actually complete IG and KG (yes, IG too - have player one activate a console, player two starts two seconds later, player one activates the third one right after doing the first and while the other player is completing the second one, which acts as a bridge between the first and third activation).


Now, of course it is possible that four players leave the queue (or go AFK) and only one (active) player remains. But how many of the queues would an average player be able (or willing) to complete on his own while PUGging?

That excuse could be applied to all the queues, meaning that they should all be removed from the random selection. Which might as well be done anyway, since they - for some odd reason - seem intent on making illogical decisions that go against the entire purpose of its creation.

fleetcaptain5

rattler2 wrote: »

To be fair the old ground Borg TFOs aren't always clear in how you progress. They're probably due for a minor revamp to be more clear on what you have to do. Remember they are some of the oldest pieces of content in the game. Word is that they used to be combined with the space ones, so you had a massive TFO (or STF back in the day) with both a space and ground portion. Hell... Kitomer ground apparently used to have a story connection with the original Fed Tutorial.

Perhaps they aren't. But as you said: it's some of the oldest content in the game.

How likely is it that players end up with a full team who have never seen it - and all being unable to ask for help in a fleet or channel with no one knowing what content they are talking about?



I seriously doubt they're revamping it. They've just done that with most Borg missions but they didn't change any of the things that might be unclear in those two missions (note that Cure ground is still in the random selection, a mission that is probably more confusing to a new player than infected ground).

Besides, if they wanted to make things easier to understand, one would think they'd done it already. Instead, all they did with the ground Borg missions, was adding some text, unnecessary interruptions and enemies to the most straightforward one: Into the Hive.