So far I'm loving the higher difficulty levels in single player space combat... I actually had some close battles on elite (including some tough fights I *gasp* lost), rather than steamrolling D'deridex warbirds while nodding off to sleep
However, the ground combat seems to scale a bit steep. A few examples:
On veteran difficulty, I did a random exploration mission (one of those "scan the debris" types) in the B'Tran cluster. Admiral 5, mostly purple gear (at least on the captain) where some scethians or something were in the way. Send the away team in to attack, popped various cooldowns andd..... within a matter of about ten seconds my whole away team and captain are all down. Tried again while popping overwatch III and draw fire III, died in about a second. Again, this was on VET difficulty, not even Elite!
Anyone else have similar (or conflicting) observations?
Yes.
I did a Hromi cluster exploration specifically to see how the difficulty would work out.
As luck would have it I drew two ground missions that involved fighting a bunch of Skandians (mission 1) and 5 teams of Klingons (mission 3) with an 'Aid the Planet' to round it out.
I got killed about 4 times taking the 5 Skandian groups out, with the Klingons I got kiled 2 or 3 times on group one, I slaughtered group 2 with no trouble at all, group 3 killed me about 5 times before I pulled the plug and just exited the game.
I wanted to see how space combat went, but had no chance to see - so my comments are regarding ground combat only. I found the following:
My away team were dead meat, they went down like ninepins in no time flat for the most part. At Lt Cdr 5 level they are equipped with level 3 shields, weapons, polyarmour (some of these with green/blue extras). On a number of occasions they were all dead very quickly and I was simply pounded to dust by 5 or 6 enemy who simply stood round me and shot me full of holes.
Several times I died extremely quickly - I tried checking the combat log, but was a bit too busy to set the filters to check what I really needed, so this is more by way of colloquial evidence - 'I'm getting killed awful quick' I said to myself, so after a respawn I actually willed myself to watch what happendd to my captain in preference to dealing death.... I was on full shields and health, and I got shot by two Klingons in rapid succession. One wepaon was single shot, the other fired a double shot, those three hits zeroed my shield, then my health, and it was lights out. It was over in about half a second from full health so it is difficult to be completely sure, but I didn't notice any signs of being subject to exposes etc, it actually looked just like two 'normal' shots from a couple of disruptors killed me from 100%.
I also noticed that my phaser sniper rifle had remarkably little effect on Swordmasters and the various Skandian commanders etc. Common or garden grunts I could kill off - although it seemed exposed low level NPCs (Klingon Warriors etc) seldom died, once over they'd evaporate, now it'd take several shots to finish them off, but the higher level enemy seemed to be able to absorb a great deal more damage. I saw an exposed Swordmaster take a flank shot from my sniper rifle, for example, where I only took about 1/3 of his shield out! (At that point I thought "Oh **** I've had it" as that was, quite literally, my best shot).
Dunno about space, but it's as if all the enemy got titanium skins and energizer batteries for their shields, while my away team was handed super soakers and told to strap pancakes fore and aft in lieu of body armour. I'm going back to 'normal, cry like a little girl' mode, I don't neeed to subscribe just to press a respawn button and trudge over the same map section endlessly.
My problem with it is how they went about making it scale. They give the enemy unrealistic shields, hull, and weapon strength.
Why couldn't they just have scaled up the quantity of enemy instead of turning them all into super powered freaks. Nothing I have does that much damage. I'm RA5 with the best in game gear to be had but it doesn't comapare to these up-scaled enemies.
I see what you mean... on the other hand I've been kind of annoyed that what should be powerful enemies were so weak (Romulan warbirds, Negh'vars, fed mirror universe Typhoon battleships, ect).
Those ships should be an equal match for our top tier ships, not cannon fodder for Miranda or Constitution class ships. In that sense I like the scaling for space... On the other hand the scaling for ground is just too much considering that there is no way to hide from damage in this game (like taking cover behind rocks or something).
The problem here (at least on the ground, which is mostly what this thread is about) is the MMO format with no "Tank." I understand that the enemies should have more firepower at the higher difficulty level, but if there's no mechanism in the game by which players can manage that damage (such as is normally accomplished by the Tank-Healer-DPS roles), it's not going to work.
Right now in ground combat I see no way to get around this... there's generally practical real cover (or a way to duck behind cover reliably), there's no way to 'kite' due to the difficulty in controlling the away team, and there's no reliable way to manage threat. Sooooo what are we supposed to do?
Someone should come up with a system where a seperate test server is used to try out tweaks and updates before they go live......
:rolleyes:
LOL
Anyways to the OP this was brought up on Tribble a couple weeks ago, specifically for the STFs but the rest of the ground missions seemed to take a positive effect from it as well. Still not enough for some people though. From my personal experience with a lowbie character and an RA5, I had far less trouble on the advanced setting with level appropriate gear than as an RA5. Perhaps at least at the higher levels this should get another pass with a slight, and I do mean slight, adjustment downwards, rinsing and repeating until the sweetspot is found with ample challenge yet not too easy.
Anyways to the OP this was brought up on Tribble a couple weeks ago, specifically for the STFs but the rest of the ground missions seemed to take a positive effect from it as well. Still not enough for some people though. From my personal experience with a lowbie character and an RA5, I had far less trouble on the advanced setting with level appropriate gear than as an RA5. Perhaps at least at the higher levels this should get another pass with a slight, and I do mean slight, adjustment downwards, rinsing and repeating until the sweetspot is found with ample challenge yet not too easy.
i agree... it would defeat the purpose of the high difficulty to make it too easy, but the entire away team getting one shotted seems a bit steep
I'm going to go give that mission another try with consumables and pick some better ground skills for my away team. Who knows, maybe I wasn't giving it enough effort
I tend to let my BOs do their own thing in regards to their powers except when setting up an ambush. Sometimes I see that my combat engineer hasn't dropped a phaser turret and have to click the button. Maybe if I worked harder at micromanaging their abilities it might not be so rough. Making sure I do the dailies to get the best gear is a must though.
Comments
I did a Hromi cluster exploration specifically to see how the difficulty would work out.
As luck would have it I drew two ground missions that involved fighting a bunch of Skandians (mission 1) and 5 teams of Klingons (mission 3) with an 'Aid the Planet' to round it out.
I got killed about 4 times taking the 5 Skandian groups out, with the Klingons I got kiled 2 or 3 times on group one, I slaughtered group 2 with no trouble at all, group 3 killed me about 5 times before I pulled the plug and just exited the game.
I wanted to see how space combat went, but had no chance to see - so my comments are regarding ground combat only. I found the following:
My away team were dead meat, they went down like ninepins in no time flat for the most part. At Lt Cdr 5 level they are equipped with level 3 shields, weapons, polyarmour (some of these with green/blue extras). On a number of occasions they were all dead very quickly and I was simply pounded to dust by 5 or 6 enemy who simply stood round me and shot me full of holes.
Several times I died extremely quickly - I tried checking the combat log, but was a bit too busy to set the filters to check what I really needed, so this is more by way of colloquial evidence - 'I'm getting killed awful quick' I said to myself, so after a respawn I actually willed myself to watch what happendd to my captain in preference to dealing death.... I was on full shields and health, and I got shot by two Klingons in rapid succession. One wepaon was single shot, the other fired a double shot, those three hits zeroed my shield, then my health, and it was lights out. It was over in about half a second from full health so it is difficult to be completely sure, but I didn't notice any signs of being subject to exposes etc, it actually looked just like two 'normal' shots from a couple of disruptors killed me from 100%.
I also noticed that my phaser sniper rifle had remarkably little effect on Swordmasters and the various Skandian commanders etc. Common or garden grunts I could kill off - although it seemed exposed low level NPCs (Klingon Warriors etc) seldom died, once over they'd evaporate, now it'd take several shots to finish them off, but the higher level enemy seemed to be able to absorb a great deal more damage. I saw an exposed Swordmaster take a flank shot from my sniper rifle, for example, where I only took about 1/3 of his shield out! (At that point I thought "Oh **** I've had it" as that was, quite literally, my best shot).
Dunno about space, but it's as if all the enemy got titanium skins and energizer batteries for their shields, while my away team was handed super soakers and told to strap pancakes fore and aft in lieu of body armour. I'm going back to 'normal, cry like a little girl' mode, I don't neeed to subscribe just to press a respawn button and trudge over the same map section endlessly.
Why couldn't they just have scaled up the quantity of enemy instead of turning them all into super powered freaks. Nothing I have does that much damage. I'm RA5 with the best in game gear to be had but it doesn't comapare to these up-scaled enemies.
It just doesn't feel right the way they did it.
Those ships should be an equal match for our top tier ships, not cannon fodder for Miranda or Constitution class ships. In that sense I like the scaling for space... On the other hand the scaling for ground is just too much considering that there is no way to hide from damage in this game (like taking cover behind rocks or something).
The problem here (at least on the ground, which is mostly what this thread is about) is the MMO format with no "Tank." I understand that the enemies should have more firepower at the higher difficulty level, but if there's no mechanism in the game by which players can manage that damage (such as is normally accomplished by the Tank-Healer-DPS roles), it's not going to work.
Right now in ground combat I see no way to get around this... there's generally practical real cover (or a way to duck behind cover reliably), there's no way to 'kite' due to the difficulty in controlling the away team, and there's no reliable way to manage threat. Sooooo what are we supposed to do?
:rolleyes:
LOL
Anyways to the OP this was brought up on Tribble a couple weeks ago, specifically for the STFs but the rest of the ground missions seemed to take a positive effect from it as well. Still not enough for some people though. From my personal experience with a lowbie character and an RA5, I had far less trouble on the advanced setting with level appropriate gear than as an RA5. Perhaps at least at the higher levels this should get another pass with a slight, and I do mean slight, adjustment downwards, rinsing and repeating until the sweetspot is found with ample challenge yet not too easy.
i agree... it would defeat the purpose of the high difficulty to make it too easy, but the entire away team getting one shotted seems a bit steep
I'm going to go give that mission another try with consumables and pick some better ground skills for my away team. Who knows, maybe I wasn't giving it enough effort