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People are purposely sabotaging Elite TFOs
n0vastarone
Member Posts: 393 Arc User
This is becoming more and more frequent, someone, or some people in a team will purposely fail objectives which results in the TFO ending prematurely. Do we just report them? and half the time im not even sure which player has done it.
Join Date. Dec 2007Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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The people you are playing with might genuinely fail at the task, skill and equipment varies a lot between players.
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Elite, in my experience, is a rather steep cliff compared to Advanced. I know for a fact my Megawell Crossfield Refit isn't cut out for it, and I doubt my main's gold plated all rounder ships aren't either. I got pretty good DPS, but I doubt its Elite level DPS as I don't min/max or anything. I just synergize some things here and there.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
The ones that can (like Infected: Manus), don't have Elite versions.
Unless people are deliberately blowing themselves up in stuff like Hive Onslaught or something like that. Or just refuse to contribute anything, in which case they're probably hit with AFK penalties.
In almost all other missions, they will more likely fail because of what has been mentioned above: insufficient gear for example.
It would certainly help to know which mission you are talking about.
within 10 seconds, instantly failing. I highly doubt its someone accidently doing it. Its ground ones. The bajor one, miner instabilities too.
the only one that hasnt felt, suspect is the korfez one. that one is openly brutal.
I mostly do ground elites, as I am built for them. Im only sort of built for space ones. But I dont min/max either.
Reading is to OP for that Bajor one. It needs to be nerfed!
People can get mad at me all they want but I still maintain you have no inherent right to elites if you can't meet the minimum standards of the TFO itself. If the TFO itself requires everyone on the team do a minimum of 50k DPS as a hypothetical, and you're only doing 20k, sorry but you have no business in that TFO yet. If you have 4 people that want to carry you in a private run then that's on them. But for public randoms, no sorry you don't need to be in there nor do you have a right to be. I want people to be able to see and complete content, BUT not at the expense of the 4 other people in the team. WoW dealt with this years ago to great results with their dungeon journal, proving grounds, and gear checks, along with instituting a vote kick. SWTOR and other MMOs have other systems you can use to gear yourself and prepare as well. I kept trying to tell people something like this would happen if we didn't have systems in place to prevent people who aren't ready from joining, or outright sabotaging the TFO but no one wanted to listen.
STO is now at the crossroads where they're going to have to make a choice of what kind of crowd they want to cater to. Do they want to cater to the more casual crowd, or a more traditional MMO type of crowd. If they go with the casual crowd then you're looking at the weekend warrior types and folks who play off and on but never really do anything seriously or try to push beyond a certain level. Then there are the more traditional types that will go after various ships and are willing to actually put in more work to get to certain levels. Catering to a more traditional crowd doesn't mean you have to ignore the more casual players, it simply means they are not the main focus or vice versa. The game for too long has tried to do both and it's resulted in a state of game that's subpar on both sides of things vs where it could actually be.
I've already seen a few calls to nerf the elites in game and a few here because "they're too hard". Not specifically in this thread yet but you get the idea. If Cryptic actually listens and nerfs the elites, then it will set the precedent of "wait for the nerf" and tell people that if they complain enough Cryptic will just nerf it and hand them the win. Now I don't think things should be so hard that if you so much as blink on the wrong frame you die, but I do think content should at least require you to be conscious at your keyboard and have a basic understanding of your build and how to use it.
As I've said plenty of times now, the dungeon journal, proving grounds and checks in WoW solved the issue of who was ready and who wasn't. If you had the ability to get through the proving grounds and farm out a basic set of stuff, you had no excuse to not meet at least the basic minimum level of the content. It made it easy to tell who was trolling and who wasn't. Then if you did encounter trolls you could boot them from the group. People have been complaining about wanting more tools and better explanations for some time now. A proving grounds would give you a test map to try out various things before taking them into actual TFOs. Plus you're not having to constantly wait 30 minutes on a patrol or test on a friend in a PVP map which is going go skew the results anyways. Dungeon journal gives you basic info on the foes and individual things you will encounter allowing you to formulate your own plans. Gear checks makes sure you don't have guys who just hit 65 in the last 10 minutes and are still in quest greens ranging from mk ii up to mk xi tring to sneak into elites.
Like I'm sorry if it offends people but there are just some people that are not ready for elite yet and need to improve before they are. No person is so important that they should be allowed to ruin it for 4 other people because they don't like being told they're not ready yet. Take the time to improve and get better, then come back and stomp it. Makes you a better player and improves the experience of the team as a whole. We can lower the bar to the floor of the boiler room of Gre'thor but there would STILL be people who can't get it right, but at that point why bother. They may as well turn on the tribble test console on the main server and let us grab all the marks we want for no work. Complaining about having to meet the standards the game itself sets is like being a first day med school student and whining they won't let you perform heart surgery even though you don't know the first thing about it. Sorry you're not ready for that yet. Anyways I've said enough for the moment.
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It's been a while since I last played Miner Instabilities on elite - but as far as I can remember, that one can't be failed on purpose. It's not an easy mission either, so I'm thinking your suspicions of deliberate sabotage are unfounded in this case.
As for the Undine one: the solution is to stop queuing for it or queue with a pre-made team.
If you ended up in it through the random system, then it's simply part of the risk you're taking.
Also note that, if you ended up in it through the random system, someone else must have queued for it. If that's the player who's failing it on purpose, they're also trolling themselves. So even in this case, I'm wondering if it's really being done deliberately.
Boy, would we be having an interesting discussion then.
There's actually way too much protection against failure in this game's 'elite' content. Situational awareness, looking out and carefully approaching a corner? Nah, totally unnecessary to have and do those things. Just make sure you can press spacebar and mindlessly spam your stuff, that's all that's needed to succeed.
As it is so far, the TFO briefings are pretty much useless since they tend to be mostly fluff with only a little time spent on the actual objectives, and that is usually so poorly worded that it almost looks like it was an old-time Google translation. Very often if you look at the team (or zone, local, whatever) chat people are confused about what they are supposed to be doing (and those are just the ones who type something instead of just wander around shooting whatever is in front of them since they don't know what they should do).
Maybe once in a hundred runs someone will type out advice during the waiting period, but that is about it, they just expect people to know exactly what to do in a TFO they might never have been in before.
To make it worse, in essence the speedruns at the lower difficulty levels teach the players to ignore secondary objectives (and they may be unaware that they are not optional in elite mode) and many people either run with the chat window turned off to clear one more piece of clutter or are so focused on the combat that they never see it in the rare instances where someone points that out in team chat.
Unless someone is going over the objectives and organizing things on team chat before even pushing the button to start the TFO or something after they get the number of people they need in zone chat, they just are not bothering to make sure that the people in the team are all on the same page, and that in itself is asking for a wash.
Gear checks and "proving grounds" style tests and whatnot work in some games because of the way the game is designed and the culture that has grown around the game so some games they work and in others they fail spectacularly or simply have no bearing on how effective a particular player will be in the content those things are supposed to screen.
Saying the game should have those things is easy, designing ones that are actually meaningful isn't and tends to be very time and funds consuming, and in STO's case would probably require more people to be hired to meet the time and effort (and possibly specialized skill) part of creating those features.
True, the hints and information given can be very confusing to anyone who doesn't already know what to do. If the information given is not outright wrong, such in the case of Operation Wolf, which I mentioned above. And there are many examples of this; another one would be D'Vak warning about ships closing in on the Transformer when it's already been destroyed (and keep in mind: this was actually added in a revamp of the mission to make things clearer!). In fact, there are quite a few instances where players are simply misled by the game and sent to do precisely the thing they shouldn't be doing.
In other instances, players aren't encouraged or able to learn from observation at all. Think, for instance, Infected ground, where the assimilation process in the first room will start without the player being able to see it (no, Cryptic, for the love of Q - we don't need more obnoxious, immersion breaking floating icons - just make sure the player can see for himself what is happening).
Another clear example of this: in Brotherhood of the Sword, you need to evacuate and protect a MACO team. But usually it doesn't show up until well after all the enemies are defeated (whereas the Honor Guard team does spawn as soon as players approach). I've been in instances where everything had been cleared out and we'd still be standing there, waiting for the team for spawn. How can a player be expected to work on an optional first, if it isn't visible?
Of course first-time players will just proceed with the mission in such cases. I can hardly blame them for that, from a tactical point of view, it makes perfect sense not to bother with something that isn't there and to work on the main objective, to avoid new enemies beaming in and overwhelming your team.
Likewise, there are many optionals that simply require experience. If you need to defeat three dreadnoughts shortly after one another in Borg Disconnected, then it doesn't help that the timer for this is triggered upon defeat of the first dreadnought - i.e., when the other two might still be at full health. In some way it makes sense to have the timer behave in this way, but (similarly to what happens in BOTS) it does have the downside that, by the time the player sees what's happening, it can already be too late to learn from the situation.
And of course, you need to know that two of those dreadnoughts are going to activate feedback-pulse(like) abilities anyway, to understand that destroying those can't be an afterthought and that they're priority targets.
Anyway, whenever they release a new mission, I just tend to take a few moments to look and see what's happening, how the game is responding to what I'm doing etc (are new enemies just warping in whenever I kill them, or is something else triggered etc.) It's more useful than reading the briefings, in most cases.
I'm all for a proving ground gear check, but never a kick system, not that it will ever be an issue for me i know my limits.
(Trolling comments moderated out. - BMR)
In that instance, Leeta is yelling at you to 'get the hell out of there' after (near-)completion of the second phase of the mission. When you actually need to stay there, to fight Quinn one more time, before he gets to his shuttle.
Yet another example of the game telling the player to do precisely what he shouldn't be doing.
It's 4:30 in the morning, I'm beginning to make mistakes, I need to go to bed now.
Yeah no that's not how that works. If you are joining a public TFO system you have no control over what you get so simply "join with a pre-made" is not valid here. You have no control over what it hands you. Second, if people are deliberately failing the TFO then that is trolling behavior and those engaging in it need to be banned from the game. "Join with a premade" only goes so far and does nothing but ignore the issues of people trolling others and not being ready for the content. Again sorry but you have no inherent right to see elite content if you can't meet the minimum standards of the TFO, ESPECIALLY at the expense of 4 other people. People should not have to put up with deliberate trolling in order to utilize a publicly available tool.
It's no secret among my fleetmates and other mods that I live out in the country. Years ago there was an older guy that worked for the post office that would make a morning run each day in a mail van. He ran to the chief post office of the county at around 6:30-7:00 AM our time depending on how much mail they had that day. Now the problem wasn't that he was an older guy driving the mail van, the problem is that he would go 20 MPH from the edge of town to that post office and would back traffic up for at least a mile behind him or more, including school buses and cause kids to be late to school, people to be late for work, and so on. This wasn't just a once or twice thing, but DAILY. If you were unlucky enough to get caught behind this guy you were looking at a minimum of 30 minutes being stuck behind him as there was nowhere to pass him safely on these old country roads. most extreme instance was him delaying everyone for over an hour with some kids not arriving to school until 8:30 AM. Eventually the post office gave him an ultimatum, move on and get of everyone's way or retire. He of course retired.
Trying to say "that's the risk you take with randoms" is like trying to say "that's the risk you took by trying to drive to work or school during that time". Was dude driving 20 MPH illegal, no it wasn't. However just like he wasn't so important he got to be a pain to hundreds of people, no one person is so important they get to do that to hundreds of other people in the public TFOs. Just like that older guy shouldn't have been on the road and needed to retire, there are certain people that have no business in elite TFOs.
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Originally WoW didn't have the items I described up until Wrath when group finder was introduced. A game does not need to have them from the start for them to be effective. I know you didn't say that but I'm making the point. I will agree design of said features is important. With that in mind, the purpose of the gear checks, dungeon journal and proving grounds aren't meant to measure how good you will be overall, they're meant to see if you've reached the bare minimum level required by the game itself. It's the same concept as the drivers license test checking to see if you have reached a minimum level of knowledge and skill required to drive safely on the roads so you don't kill yourself or someone else. Can it prepare you for every conceivable scenario, of course not. The only way to do that would be if you were omniscient or had access to some type of omniscience that could prepare you for every eventuality.
I will grant one thing in this second paragraph, it's absolutely easy to say "a game should have/do (thing)" but often another to actually do it. However in this instance it's not as hard as it sounds. Every change to a game, be it a new mission or whatever requires time and effort spent, so I don't consider that a valid argument here.
Dungeon Journal: This only needs to have select things. First, a table telling you where to get the basic gear from missions, such as Polaron. Two, lists of the basic abilities that the foes in TFOs have, as well as the lists of objectives you'll run into for said TFOs. Doesn't have to outright say "Do x y z" like a strategy guide, just needs to give you the basic info.
Gear check: You only need to make sure people have reached a specific average gear level to do a specific amount of damage on paper to complete a TFO and survive certain hits. Just to conceptualize it, if we assume elite TFOs required you to do 40k minimum DPS and be able to survive hits of 50k, then you need the stats on paper to survive it. Let's assume that's a minimum of mk xii very rare gear on average just to conceptualize it.
Proving Grounds: Fortunately a map for space already exists for this, the tribble testing map. Just needs some polish and far as the space section goes it's good. So the work for that is mostly already done. For ground you don't need much, you just need a basic map where you can fight certain types of foes and complete a select few mechanics and that's it. Plenty of maps to pick from already.
Vote kick: if all else fails this gives folks immediate remedy to bounce trolls from their group.
Overall the point is to make sure you're at a basic proficiency level to contribute to the team and survive. If folks were able to clear the checks and farm the gear out to do so, they should have little to no difficulty in the actual elite content. Especially in the instance of STO where folks will have had access to normal and advanced difficulty PLUS the dungeon journals, there is little to no excuse. If someone has a legitimate issue with a particular mechanic, then you can take the time to explain it. Lastly, unless folks ever plan on touching elites, they will never encounter the gear checks, and never run into proving grounds or dungeon journal unless they choose to use them.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
"Older people shouldn't play elite TFO's because they can't drive" This is going to go over well.
I've noticed, for example, that when holding territory is advisable many players zip around chasing targets and when fighting the enemy is advisable they just sort of... linger.
It's not in every case, mind you, but there does seem to be quite a noticeable uptick in this behavior at all difficulty levels.
Issue wasn't even that dude couldn't drive, but that he was causing issues for hundreds of people because he couldn't drive any longer. Likewise people who are sabotaging TFOs or trying to join stuff they're clearly not ready for are doing so at the expense of the rest of the team and guaranteeing an automatic fail. Which should not be happening. That's my issue. If folks want to think I'm an elitist for thinking people should have to meet a bare minimum standard for elite content and to be able to drive, then I'll happily wear that badge in this instance.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
Normal difficulty PUG, Random TFO. It was Tzenkethi Front (The one where we steal bombs and kill enemy space stations).
I had destroyed 3 of the 5 stations and the other 4 players were doing nothing toward the mission goal. As such, I left the remaining 2 bases alone and just killed the spawning ships until the other players stepped up, which they did after 5-10 minutes.
I did this without communicating to them in any way.
I figure if they are new, then they might as well learn by doing (especially after I just served as an example).
If they are griefing, then what's good for the goose is good for those who would troll the goose.
I'll keep employing and refining this method and see how it all plays out, but I'll not complain at them or just sit and do nothing at all.
if not a vote kick, definitely need a gear check of some kind
Yeah well, the problem with that analogy is that you didn't sign up to drive on a public, well-policed road with clear rules. You decided to stand in line for a track fillled with wild teenagers in bumper cars. You knew in advance that things were going to get messy.
That's why some people choose to drive on a normal road where everything will go smoothly. Others, who want a different, less clear-cut experience, are going to choose the bumper cars track.
To each their own, but the bumper car fanatics obviously shouldn't be complaining that not everyone is driving in a straight line and keeping their distance, while normal road users shouldn't be surprised that few things are going to be exciting. It makes little sense to take the rules of one system and expect them to apply to the other one.
Failure is going to be a possible outcome there.
To get back to the actual topic of this thread: trolling should be punished, but I've yet to be convinced that players are deliberately failing the missions. The examples mentioned don't even really allow for that, as far as I'm aware.
And why would anyone queue for a mission they intend to fail anyway? It's not like they're not punishing themselves in the process.
I've had both Bajor and Miner Inst. recently and those went fine. It's very possible for example with of Bajor that someone (new to the TFO) just screwed up. The timing then just reflects the opportunities for a Leeroy Jenkins moment to end the match, with intent presumed after the fact from the surprise of the unlucky outcome.
Generally this stuff self corrects. We've only recently hit elite RTFOs and folks are still figuring out whether their builds are appropriate for that level (given how limited engagement was in the past). Also best practices (eg. use brain on Bajor, don't Leeroy Jenkins on Borg STFs). These cultural ideas take time to form, so you're more likely to see weird TRIBBLE happen and lower success rates as people stumble around this fresh part of the game (for them). Builds will also improve as folks hone what they have to elite difficulty, actually feeling pressure to revise and working around iterative performance gains on build tweaks.
Ie. don't project a need to correct the system (in some way) now as you're likely extrapolating a moment in STO to being a long term trend. Let the trend play out first. Then if folks are *still* butchering elite RTFOs, look at how to impose some light guidance/filters over participation (ex. certain endeavor level to quantify that someone's spent a decent amount of time with the game, and knows which way to hold their phaser).
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Keep in mind in modes other then E... just speed clicking that silly opening find the traitor stuff isn't an instant fail. Someone may not have realized that... we have had random E mode for a couple weeks.
Its also possible they were annoyed to be wasting time doing it while one player ran to each of the investigations dragging things out for 30m and just decided F this and wrong clicked one.
In the case of that specific map, blame Cryptic... the mission style investigation thing is silly in a TFO. I can for sure see someone deciding to run to the first one and fail it so they don't have to deal with a 30m warp out penalty.
With Randoms being a thing now Cryptic should either remove that one from rotation... or remove the insta fail on the investigation things. Force people to defend the temple, maybe even put out fires, or add a fail timer. If they want to get people to do the investigation part properly just add big bonus rewards for each correct interaction.
This is a stupid easy MMO though... gear is irreverent. I can do 3x the ground DPS with 3 or 4 properly choosen mk 12 ground kits, then someone spamming some mid gold 15 ground gun. Same thing in space good players can parse 300k DPS with junk and a good build... no amount of gold 15 gear is going to help you if your build is terrible and you have no idea what to click when.
Exactly that. Ground Elite TFO's are laughable at best. I don't feel a difference between them and advanced. I agree ground gear is not as important as space gear and even there you can do elites with mk xii on a torp boat or science...
Removing from the rotation would then be the best solution, if one of these must be chosen. Just slapping more rewards on stuff that ought to fail a mission, would make things too easy and remove the one thing that sets 'Elite' content apart from other difficulties in this game.
We certainly don't need fewer fail conditions. Most ground TFO's right now don't even fail when you fail them, so there should be more fail conditions IMO.