Some players won't make any effort to finish this TFO. They will just "protect" the NPC ship, even if its life reaches zero. That makes this one of the worst TFOs available. I don't really mind delivering all the particles myself. I believe this is one of the best TFOs since it isn't focused solely on DPS. Today was my 4th or 5th time I gather all the particles by myself. But it really hurts getting 45 marks by the end of the TFO so here is the idea. 20 marks for each delivered particle. If each player delivered 2 particles per facility that would mean 120 marks for each. But, only one person decides to actually end the TFO (like me) the player would get 600 marks. Nothing bad for carrying out 4 other players doing nothing to finish the TFO.
It's just stupidly tedious. That's it. Not enough particles, which enemy ships will steal. By the end they're always spawning deep inside the grav well, many of which are too far for anything but raiders to escape...but then get shot to hell by the gravity-immune enemy ships. And Tzenkethi ships are too durable for a never-ending stream of battleships and cruisers, literally respawning the instant they get destroyed.
It's like they took a grab bag of all the worst possible mechanics and slapped them all together in a single TFO. I don't blame people for dropping out whenever this TFO loads up. It's one of the worst ones in the game. I'd be hard pressed to think of one I dislike more.
Never had the issue of not having enough particles.
Tzenkethi ships are only durable because most people won't target their cruisers first or shoot at them from the sides or the rear.
As for camping near the Jupiter: yes, that is an issue. Especially because most people will just shoot enemies and not care about healing or actually supporting the Jupiter at all.
It may help to point out, before the mission starts, that using a Tactical team on it while you're flying back and forth to collect the particles will do a lot for its survival. That, and the occasional heal like HE, Eng team or Aux to SIF.
It's not bad that people pay attention to the objectives. In most content the people I end up with in PUGs do exactly the opposite. You just need to inform them that protecting the Jupiter doesn't require to endlessly stay around it and only shoot enemies.
A big problem with it, especially as an RTFO, is that many ship/engine/boff combinations are not suited for it at all since they cannot go deep enough into the well to get the particles without getting pulled in. And yes, I know that things like the competitive engines can do it even with ships with poor speed ratings but not everyone runs them.
People with ships not able to go after particles have little use in the scenario except for protecting the NPC ship, and many only have one ship ready to go so switching is not possible. Unfortunately with the lack of easy communication in STO since there is no functional ingame voice (no, Discord does not count because not everyone has it, plenty use no 3rd party voice apps at all, and there are several other voice apps that see limited use in the game so it is even possible that everyone in the TFO has a different voice app, especially since each of those have different channels) new people who have ships that CAN go after particles get the idea that protecting the ship is the goal instead.
In Tera, Defiance (back before it shut down), or any of the others who have actual ingame voice support the scenario would not be that big of a problem, but with STO's lack of it players have to guess what they are supposed to be doing, and they often guess wrong. In the current event the voiceover instructions by the Ancients are a help the first few times through the scenario for instance, even though they are not aware of what players are actually doing the way a player on voice would be.
Comments
Never had the issue of not having enough particles.
Tzenkethi ships are only durable because most people won't target their cruisers first or shoot at them from the sides or the rear.
It may help to point out, before the mission starts, that using a Tactical team on it while you're flying back and forth to collect the particles will do a lot for its survival. That, and the occasional heal like HE, Eng team or Aux to SIF.
It's not bad that people pay attention to the objectives. In most content the people I end up with in PUGs do exactly the opposite. You just need to inform them that protecting the Jupiter doesn't require to endlessly stay around it and only shoot enemies.
People with ships not able to go after particles have little use in the scenario except for protecting the NPC ship, and many only have one ship ready to go so switching is not possible. Unfortunately with the lack of easy communication in STO since there is no functional ingame voice (no, Discord does not count because not everyone has it, plenty use no 3rd party voice apps at all, and there are several other voice apps that see limited use in the game so it is even possible that everyone in the TFO has a different voice app, especially since each of those have different channels) new people who have ships that CAN go after particles get the idea that protecting the ship is the goal instead.
In Tera, Defiance (back before it shut down), or any of the others who have actual ingame voice support the scenario would not be that big of a problem, but with STO's lack of it players have to guess what they are supposed to be doing, and they often guess wrong. In the current event the voiceover instructions by the Ancients are a help the first few times through the scenario for instance, even though they are not aware of what players are actually doing the way a player on voice would be.