test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
We need advanced difficulty for event missions.
fleetcaptain5
Member Posts: 5,051 Arc User
I'll start by being blunt: there is no fun in playing a mission where everything is instantly vaporised.
Forcing advanced or elite players into normal content, makes that content less interesting for everyone. Those who can only play normal content can't do much, besides watching other players shoot things - and even players who are good enough for advanced but who use any other build than a FAW one (support, drain, torpedo, you name it) will find that their presence is just not needed. I can't imagine that it's challenging or even remotely interesting either for those players who instantly vaporise everything.
My ships and +30 characters are powerful enough to play advanced content on all toons and elite content on a selection of them. Now, I don't mind playing normal difficulty content so much - I can just hold back, not activate everything all the time and so on. But some players don't do that (nor should they have to). And then the question becomes: what's the point of queuing for a mission if you don't actually get to play it? If you're going to force players to play content that can be completed by one slightly above average player, why even have four other players on the team? What are they going to do, what is their purpose there if they can't shoot anything?
And again, it's not just about powerful vs. less powerful players, but also about different types of builds. Most of them are rendered completely useless by this 'normal-only' event thing.
Just now, for example, I was in a mission with my all-energy torp L-Alita. Most of my torpedoes, torpedo consoles - and basically anything else that takes 2 seconds or more to hit or build up - were useless.
Are we all supposed to only use FAW? If so, then why are there torpedoes, drain abilities, cannons, control abilities, shockwave creating consoles and so on in this game? If we are encouraged to use all that other stuff, then why force players into content where they can't use any of it?
I just have so many questions, because none of this is making any sense.
But to get to the most important questions:
We've been asking, politely, to open up advanced content for events for months now. As far as I know - I might be wrong here - we have yet to hear a convincing reason or argument why this isn't done and/or why it would be a bad idea. We've had many events, even totally new ones that had to be designed from scratch, since these concerns were first voiced.
Have our messages regarding this wish and these concerns even gotten through? If so, then why has nothing been done with those concerns and requests?
We need advanced content for events. Or, at the very least, we need a good reason why that's not going to be an option. And then alternative solutions will still have to be found.
Cause this isn't working, events become boring for everyone and for most players there's simply no reason to even be there right now.
Forcing advanced or elite players into normal content, makes that content less interesting for everyone. Those who can only play normal content can't do much, besides watching other players shoot things - and even players who are good enough for advanced but who use any other build than a FAW one (support, drain, torpedo, you name it) will find that their presence is just not needed. I can't imagine that it's challenging or even remotely interesting either for those players who instantly vaporise everything.
My ships and +30 characters are powerful enough to play advanced content on all toons and elite content on a selection of them. Now, I don't mind playing normal difficulty content so much - I can just hold back, not activate everything all the time and so on. But some players don't do that (nor should they have to). And then the question becomes: what's the point of queuing for a mission if you don't actually get to play it? If you're going to force players to play content that can be completed by one slightly above average player, why even have four other players on the team? What are they going to do, what is their purpose there if they can't shoot anything?
And again, it's not just about powerful vs. less powerful players, but also about different types of builds. Most of them are rendered completely useless by this 'normal-only' event thing.
Just now, for example, I was in a mission with my all-energy torp L-Alita. Most of my torpedoes, torpedo consoles - and basically anything else that takes 2 seconds or more to hit or build up - were useless.
Are we all supposed to only use FAW? If so, then why are there torpedoes, drain abilities, cannons, control abilities, shockwave creating consoles and so on in this game? If we are encouraged to use all that other stuff, then why force players into content where they can't use any of it?
I just have so many questions, because none of this is making any sense.
But to get to the most important questions:
We've been asking, politely, to open up advanced content for events for months now. As far as I know - I might be wrong here - we have yet to hear a convincing reason or argument why this isn't done and/or why it would be a bad idea. We've had many events, even totally new ones that had to be designed from scratch, since these concerns were first voiced.
Have our messages regarding this wish and these concerns even gotten through? If so, then why has nothing been done with those concerns and requests?
We need advanced content for events. Or, at the very least, we need a good reason why that's not going to be an option. And then alternative solutions will still have to be found.
Cause this isn't working, events become boring for everyone and for most players there's simply no reason to even be there right now.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
They have addressed this in so many livestreams now. It's so EVERYONE has equal opportunity to get into an FTFO quickly and complete it quickly, simple because some folk complain they still "take too long, especially when I have to waste an astonishing 5 minutes every day for 20 days doing it."
There's simply no pleasing everyone.
They heard you. They answered you.
1. I wasn't aware of that.
2. Now that I'm reading it, it's not what I'd consider a very good reason. The mission usually has a set duration, as is the case for this event. Only the killing of enemies at the end of each round can cause the mission to last longer, if there is less DPS between the members of the team.
If they are so concerned with people complaining about the repetitiveness of wasting too many minutes everyday, they should address that issue somehow. Instead of making it even more boring for everyone.
Frankly, it sounds like a made-up excuse because I just don't see the link between events taking too long and forcing everyone into normal difficulty content when that hardly shortens the time spent there.
It's not a 'made-up excuse'. Folk literally complain that running a 2 minute jetpack run on Risa is a 'grind'. Facebook sees folk complain about having to run repeatedly, just once a day. This is part of the reason Cryptic put in a buyout option, because some folk didn't want to 'grind'.
Thankfully, these folk are a minority and have no idea what 'grinding' means
I double dog dare anyone reading this to say they've not done those exact things.
"Pshaw, Thunder! I've been playing Star Trek Online since 1966! I've never done either of those things!"
Next would come threads here about players not knowing what to do. Other threads about AFKers would appear. We'd also be subjected to the indignant moral outrage spouted by whales and long time players having to do PUGs with rookies.
Threads like these are why I still visit here about once a month. Just to lurk and laugh. Some days, this place is far funnier than any cat videos on YouTube.
But to play devils advocate, here is the question I have to ask. How do we keep people, not ready for that advanced or elite que from joining them? You complain about less DPS players not getting to do anything in a TFO. The flip side is higher DPS players complaining about having to carry low DPS players. It's a catch-22.
I have always thought there should be some type of "gateing" system for advanced and elite TFOs. But what would it be that wouldn't make people angry? Unfortunately, this is the best possible way to handle it. That's why they took the option away years ago.
But, what do I know? I'm still a firm believer that removing the holy trinity from this game makes it less fun at end game. Because it limits the type of content you can create.
You can't join advanced missions below level 50 or 60 or so.
No offense, but even being 65 doesn't mean you are ready for advanced or elite. It has a little to do with the synergy of your build and a lot to do with the pilot. Creating a gate would be harder than just saying levels below X can't join.
That is another one of the reasons the devs point out on the livestreams and whatnot, the fact that there is not a built-in metric for determining "gear value" and whatnot in STO and no practical way of creating one, but the people continually asking for advanced FTFOs don't want to hear it.
Even if there was a sure-fire formula for figuring out such a combat-effectiveness metric that would actually have any accuracy (and there isn't one in a wide-ranging game like STO) the devs still would not implement it because in games that have that "magic number" (accurate or not) it invariably becomes a tool for snubbing the portion of the playerbase that the 'elite' consider to be "below their standards" instead of being a useful metric for difficulty gatekeeping.
And that kind of snobbery is almost always toxic, especially towards the newcomers, roleplayers, themeplayers, etc. that are just as vital to keep STO population up and the game going as the whales are.
None taken.
I don't care about another player's level anyway, I only made that statement in reply to someone else.
Personally I don't think players joining a mission that they're not ready for would be such a big problem.
I mean, if the Devs themselves have apparently said that players just want things to be done as fast as possible, then surely low-DPS players aren't going to queue for a mission where they might get stuck and being unable to finish?
I feel like there's something of a contradiction here.
Besides that, even if it's true that improper queueing might occur if advanced were added - then how does making everyone else queue for an inappropriate difficulty improve things?
Solutions that exacerbate the thing they were - apparently - supposed to solve or prevent, aren't very good solutions.
If 1 low-DPS player is present on Advanced, it's unlikely to cause serious issues. There is hardly any content that can fail. And it's just as likely that there is 1 high-DPS player present to compensate for that low-DPS player.
Now, on the other hand, if 1 high-DPS player is present on Normal, they can wipe clean the entire map by themselves and 4 other players have little to nothing to do.
Apparently there are players who don't mind. They exist on Facebook, they're here and in streams - but usually what we heard is that those were just vocal minorities. I highly doubt that the average player is just as content with everything melting before their eyes and feeling redundant.
And, again, nothing's completed faster in timegated content by melting enemies faster. It might make a few seconds difference in the final fight, with this event. That's it. I find it hard to believe that these few seconds and some people complaining on Facebook about event lengths were found to be enough justification to remove choices and options, and force everyone into content that isn't appropriate for them.
It's probably more likely that people were complaining about the constant, end-to-end running of events and the grind of doing the same thing 20 times over in general. Those complaints are very different.
Even if they said 'I want everything to be done as fast as possible', that's still not the same as wanting content to be played by others, or being happy that they don't get to do anything and get reduced to a spectator instead of having a chance to play the game themselves.
Having played during the time that this was possible it happened, a lot. If you went back far enough in the old forums there would be pages of complaints about it.
I can't tell you how many ques I would join and it would only be me or one other actually doing the objectives. Most were just exploding over and over, spent most of the que killing one enemy, or off killing pointless respawning mobs. There were even a few event TFOs that you could sit out on the edge of the map and do nothing. That was fun
Typically I don't care. There aren't many advanced ques I can't muddle through mostly solo. But in elite that would be a huge problem. So, I can't say it would be the same today but I have no reason to think it wouldn't.
Yes, players want to go fast but they also want the better drops. They que the advanced and elite to get the higher rewards hoping to get carried. They don't expect it to take forever.
I think they made a tactical decision, it wasn't about being fair. It was that EVERYONE can do the basic so we keep events to basic and subvert everyone's expectations. But more importantly it doesn't make the DPS chasers stop playing out of frustration. Because let's be honest most people that have the top DPS are spenders and/or long time LOYAL veterans. You don't TRIBBLE off those people.
As someone who often has to continue an event to the very last day because of RL issues limiting gameplay time I see the problems that splitting the playerbase for those FTFOs would cause as the number of players still doing the event drops near the end on a regular basis.
Plain and simply put, being forced to do trivial content is not fun.
it doesn't. maybe you would have to wait a bit for an elite queue but advanced? no way. 10 minutes tops on a wait for an advanced queue, and i only say that because I've waited 3-4 minutes for the normal queue for guillotine
the tfo is over before they cross the map