I didn't see this discussion anywhere else, so I thought I'd bring it up here:
Is anyone else encountering some bizarre or counter-intuitive circumstances while gaming with friends in a team?
While playing with my friends (who are all of different grades/ranks) we tend to group together on a team and do the missions selected by whoever happens to be the lowest rank. We are not in fleets, so it's just the four of us and our collective experiences we have to base our observations on. But, here's what seems to pop up while we play together:
- Overpowered Enemies
- Inability to Play Together
- Explore Mission Issues
The
first item, overpowered enemies, only crops up when we're doing "Defend the X Sector Block" missions or when we're doing an Explore mission set. I'll talk about the explore dilemma in the third item. Focusing on the Defend missions, when we play together, and we join an Enemy Signal Contact battle (or get sucked into one, depending), if there is even a 10-grade discrepancy in our levels, the chance that enemies in the signal contact will be of wildly varying levels seems to increase. I'm currently a Commander (grade 4), and my lowest level friend is a Lieutenant (grade 5), so we went to do a Defend the Sirius Sector Block mission. When we joined the enemy signal contact, more than
half of the enemy squadrons I could see were +15 or more
to me. They could one-or-two shot me, and certainly did the same to my lower level friends. I have not experienced this before while adventuring alone, or with same level friends. What is going on here? Changing instances or entering a different enemy signal contact would randomly bear the same level discrepancies.
The
second item, inability to play together, pertains mostly to Fleet Actions and PvP. I understand
completely that PvP should not allow Commanders to play alongside Lieutenants under normal circumstances, and if it were universally true, I would be fine with that same tier-based restriction applying to Fleet Actions. Indeed, I have
never been able to join a fleet action with a friend who was not in the same rank tier. However, I see all the time people of different tiers from me in the Fleet Actions I'm fighting in, and my friends report the same thing--Commander level people can fight in Fleet Actions with Lieutenants, but apparently not if they're on a team or are friends? I wish I could understand the mechanic at work here; if it's completely random it seems somewhat silly, and if it's bugged I wish it would be consistent in the future.
The
third item, the exploration mission issues, pertains purely to the ability to predict what level a given mission will be when we enter it. If I'm on the team when my Lieutenant Commander friends enter an "Unexplored System," it will turn out to be
my level (rather than theirs) 90% of the time, whether they click on "Unexplored System," or the "Unexplored System (Name)" options. The only way we've been able to drop that percentage is if I leave the Exploration Sector (zone out) and wait for them to choose an "Unexplored System (NO Name)," in which case it becomes roughly 50/50. Again, I would just like some predictability. If my being on the team as a Commander will always make the new system Commander level, I'm okay with that, but if it's going to allow me to adventure with my friends on their level, I would like it to predictably be that way.
Has anyone had any differing experiences or insights into these issues? The forum community and developer's insights are both solicited and welcome! Thank you
Comments
I was adventuring last night with friends in the same tier as me, and ended up unable to join them in DSEs in the Psi Valorum sector, and when they joined me (I was the highest level in the team) we were fighting +6-+11 mobs (as seen from my perspective).
Something is very wrong here...