Is everyone running competitive TFOs or nobody?

zarasz

I need competitive marks and I dont like pvp. So I decided to run some TFOs because most of those arent about pvp because I dont want to run patrols all day for the very little reward. This is the third day no TFO is opening. I cant tell if Im somewhere at the end of the mile long queue or there are no nine other players in the game who want to run them. Hours of waiting, wasted...

How can this be?

naabal421

People avoid the Competitive TFOs because they are considered "PVP", and the teamwork necessary to complete the various games/puzzles is considered too out of reach of normal people. This is made worse by the fact that the Competitive TFOs were excluded from the Random TFO system, since Cryptic knew people wouldn't like being randomed into PVP scenarios.

If you want Competitive marks your best bet is to run random TFOs, and select competitive marks out of the bonus mark boxes, and/or get them out of the endeavor mark boxes.

nccmark

First, these generally need TWO teams of five, not just one team of five. That takes longer to fill.
As a result, if I have a Competitive TFO and another queued at the same time, the "other" one will likely trigger first. And then I am no longer queued for the Competitive TFO. That happens regularly, so it can take a long time to fill these up unless people are running them for Endeavors. It's self-fulfilling, these TFOs don't trigger often.

Second, I don't need Competitive marks, so there is no reason to run these. I got my Competitive marks years ago. All set.
Perhaps newer players need these, but veteran players don't.

You might gently post in zone "looking for players to queue for XYZ Competitive TFO". You might get some takers, especially bored players or people who just like to help out.

Good luck

phoenixc

On top of all that, the winter and summer events tend to drain out the TFOs in general because so many are focusing on the events so they all take longer to pop. I generally get competitive marks from the event TFOs (most have them, but winter is one of the exceptions) since they have the full list, or if I quickly need a particular type at a time when they are not available from an event, I sometimes go to the temporal agent a grab some of the mark boxes from there. Patrols also give marks, though they don't give much they can be run though quickly.

kiralyn

phoenixc#0738 wrote: »

On top of all that, the winter and summer events tend to drain out the TFOs in general because so many are focusing on the events so they all take longer to pop. I generally get competitive marks from the event TFOs (most have them, but winter is one of the exceptions)

The other option during the Winter Event is to run the Competitive Race, turn race tokens into Winter Epohhs, raise the Epohhs, and then grind them into Mark Boxes.
(ditto in the Summer event with Eggs -> Birds -> Marks)

Unknown

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annemarie30

just run patrols. yeah they only give 15 marks at a time but it's not like they take but 10 minutes to do

protoneous

Is Everyone Running Competitive TFOs Or Nobody?

Not many but some do. I've seen calls for BCE in the metals and numbers dps channels and in ESD zone chat.

As pointed out above things can be sparse with players focused on the seasonal event. Needing two teams of five and not being included in randoms really doesn't help.

Binary Circuit Elite (ground) used to be a favorite.

Getting your marks elsewhere and then converting to elite marks would be one way to go. Putting out a few calls to help fill up the queue might be something to try.

lianthelia

naabal421#0722 wrote: »

People avoid the Competitive TFOs because they are considered "PVP", and the teamwork necessary to complete the various games/puzzles is considered too out of reach of normal people. This is made worse by the fact that the Competitive TFOs were excluded from the Random TFO system, since Cryptic knew people wouldn't like being randomed into PVP scenarios.

If you want Competitive marks your best bet is to run random TFOs, and select competitive marks out of the bonus mark boxes, and/or get them out of the endeavor mark boxes.

This pretty much....just farm them when a event is ran or randoms

seaofsorrows

Competitive Marks have been an issue for some time. As others said, your best ways to farm Competitive Marks are Random TFO's and selecting them as the reward for the active event. At this time, the active event is the Winter Event, so you're out of luck there, but a new event will be starting soon. Right now, it's just do randoms and select Competitive Marks. You can also use Mark boxes from Daily Endeavors, but obviously that's not guaranteed.

I would not recommend Patrols for Competitive Marks unless you're very efficient. If you can blow through Patrols fast, then ok.. but 15 marks per go is pretty low. You'll be more efficient spending your time doing random TFO's.

The only current reliable way to get Stratagems if you're trying to run a gear project is the 100:1 daily project. Competitive Reputation is completely and totally dead, you have to use other methods to get these marks.

legendarylycan

There's also recruit rewards if one hasn't already used them up - one of them is a choice of 8 elite marks of any kind, including Assessed Stratagems and the revamped Delta/Temporal (don't remember which one had those added) rewards also give individual elite mark choice packs up to 12 in total...that ought to be MORE than enough for any one character, because aside from the engines or a mine build, what are you even buying from that rep?

And maybe they'll also add them as rewards for the KDF event once it comes around again, preferably for the story arc completion rewards, because 25 marks are just flat-out garbage for having to do all that.​​