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More Friends = More Enemies

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
Its been about a year now that we've been playing this game and I've got to tell y'all there is one thing that still really grinds my gears.

As you all know the more players you add to your group, the more enemies the game adds to the mission. This gets a little ridiculous sometimes, try doing Kelvani Belt with 4 or 5 players, the amount of ships you have to face is nuts.

There is no reward, no incentive to play with your friends, in fact i can usually do the missions quicker if I do them by myself.

Why must I be punished for playing in groups?
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  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    naphl wrote: »
    ...Why must I be punished for playing in groups?
    I think you may find the reasoning behind this in the following dev quote:
    jfinder wrote: »
    How would you propose to keep your mission have the same difficulty so that your mission is not easier if you play your mission with a team?

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    naphl wrote: »
    There is no reward, no incentive to play with your friends, in fact i can usually do the missions quicker if I do them by myself.

    I'm pretty sure you get more xp for grouping.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    I'm pretty sure you get more xp for grouping.
    Probably because there are more enemies around... ;)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    I absolutely loved doing B'Tran VA with 5 players on Elite difficulty... You must work as a team and the reward was a greater chance of Blue and Purple drops... now whether you are the one that got the drop or if it was actually useful was another story... but actually seeing purple drops in game was very inspiring.

    Development of team tactics is the greatest benefit by far and the chance outside of STF's to develop these skills made teaming both fun and beneficial. Besides.. how else can you find & fight Dreadnoughts?

    If you reject team play you have lost out on a tremendous opportunity to see the game in it's best light in my opinion.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    As for your dev quote, why does it have to be the same difficulty?

    Why can't it just be easier?


    Grouping should get you through stuff quicker not make it take longer.

    Working together as a team is great but what about when your team is made of your RL friends who aren't that great?

    This factor takes a lot of enjoyment out of the game for me. None of the other MMOs that I have played do this, just STO.


    You get more XP when you group but you could also get more xp if you got 10 missions done in the time it takes to do 3.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    If you reject team play you have lost out on a tremendous opportunity to see the game in it's best light in my opinion.

    I obviously don't reject team play if I am complaining about how team play works. How else would I know how it works if I hadn't done it.


    I love team play. Have you ever heard of working together to get a job done faster? When I want to put in a new fence I call my friends over to help me. You know what we do when we get together, we all put that fence in together, we don't all decide to put in 5 fences since we are all here.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    This post has been edited to remove content which violates the [URL=" http://forums.startrekonline.com/announcement.php?f=70&a=2"]Cryptic Studios Forum Usage Guidelines[/URL] ~InfoNinja
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    Well... I suppose we'll have to put you in the "I want it now and I want it to be easy" group... not my Cup of Tea... how easy does it have to be to satisfy you? How about this... if you do story missions the enemies don't scale numbers if i remember correctly, would that be what you want?

    Do you feel better now that you have insulted me and talked down to me?

    I know what mission replay is, I'm not new to the game, I read the webpage and the forums all day...I play for hours each day.

    I want it all and I want to earn it contrary to what you think. I have done everything that I can through solo play.

    As I have stated previously I play with 4 RL friends (we are all 51). They're not great, but I stick with them cause i've known them for decades.

    When I play with the four of them and the game generates oodles and oodles of enemies we get smoked because collectively we are not good enough.

    Therefore in my specific case it negatively affects my game play.

    Do you have some more insults that could be applicable to my situation Napoleon?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    Play differently, don't agro extra groups, pull stuff away from a non-engaged group, teach your buds to be better at healing or make sure they have a proper set up of self healing, teach them to focus fire. You say they aren't great, so make them better. Have at it and good luck
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    I believe I have attempted to give you an answer to satisfy your request and I apologize if I have offended... I think the mission replay might be the answer to your troubles... and the squad feature of getting everyone on the same level... I think you are looking to take umbrage where none was truly intended.. At least I've managed to draw you out and find a more detailed explanation of your difficulty.

    The issues of playing with lower level teammates was addressed with the squad system (maybe I have the name wrong... some called it side-kicking) and this was intended to help out your particular situation. However, using a team to gain more experience was not useful for daily missions... only Story missions as I attempted to explain before but I've obviously failed at getting my point across.

    My original remark was designed to find out what kind of player you really are. It is admirable that you care about playing with your friends and I'm trying to point you in the right direction. I apologize for subjecting you to a psycho-analytical probe to determine where you are coming from but I have tried to offer helpful suggestions that are relevant to your situation.

    For you to fixate on the beginning barb of my inquisition shows that you care about your friends and your gameplay.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    naphl wrote: »
    Its been about a year now that we've been playing this game and I've got to tell y'all there is one thing that still really grinds my gears.

    As you all know the more players you add to your group, the more enemies the game adds to the mission. This gets a little ridiculous sometimes, try doing Kelvani Belt with 4 or 5 players, the amount of ships you have to face is nuts.

    There is no reward, no incentive to play with your friends, in fact i can usually do the missions quicker if I do them by myself.

    Why must I be punished for playing in groups?

    There is reward cause the chance for more loot is there cause you have more enemies and the higher the level you play the grater the chance of rate loot
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    naphl wrote: »
    Its been about a year now that we've been playing this game and I've got to tell y'all there is one thing that still really grinds my gears.

    As you all know the more players you add to your group, the more enemies the game adds to the mission. This gets a little ridiculous sometimes, try doing Kelvani Belt with 4 or 5 players, the amount of ships you have to face is nuts.

    There is no reward, no incentive to play with your friends, in fact i can usually do the missions quicker if I do them by myself.

    Why must I be punished for playing in groups?


    From what I've read of your posts, I'd be happy to have friends.

    Really how can the ships be a pain if you are with friends?

    Sigh, this is why I suggest new players skip the forums, nothing to see here, just move along............
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    I can see where it gets frustrating.

    On the flipside, without added ships, it becomes too easy to do a mission, even on Elite.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    Because it's more fun to play with friends. With more enemies you need to use group tactics to succeed rather than just go in and play solo. On Elite difficulty, at least, the experience (not in-game XP) you get playing with a group is much different than playing solo. It's a lot of fun.

    Honestly, this is what some people seem to miss. Space combat, at least on the harder difficulties, is actually fun. It's actually enjoyable to do, regardless of the "rewards". The fun is reward in itself. That, at least to me, sets STO apart from every other MMO I've played, where the combat was just a mindless grind that was not the least bit enjoyable in itself.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    The issues of playing with lower level teammates was addressed with the squad system (maybe I have the name wrong... some called it side-kicking) and this was intended to help out your particular situation.

    The squad system actually is pretty flawed too in that if you scale yourself down, if you keep the same ship and weapons, you'll do much more damage than a similarly leveled character. So, actually the missions should still be easier for the OP and his friends if he scales down to their level but doesn't change into the proper tier ship and gear.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    Well... I thought I was being helpful... maybe next time I'll just spew venom... good grief... sometimes you can't please people no matter how hard you try...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    Well... I thought I was being helpful... maybe next time I'll just spew venom... good grief... sometimes you can't please people no matter how hard you try...


    Nah, you had no reason to post again. You didn't make much sense or give anything to help, but there was also nothing against you posts.

    You don't need the post count and there is nothing here that makes you a better player online.

    This forum seems driven by spew, so I'd work on that. Otherwise just start a ton of new posts, "Introducing", "Why ranks sucks", and if you want real attention **** off all the wanna be canonists and suggest Fed Carriers.

    Nothing riles up the experts like a soft canon VS Hard canon argument. Opinions become law.

    Even our own blessed saints of the forums will joke that the crew and designs never included bathrooms, but they accept it. Just try to tell them that a fighter has no carrier because you didn't see it.

    Canon is not only selective but also in the hands of amateurs.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    I guess I'm just kinda bored this weekend... figured I'd work on my typing skills... so much for helpful.. at least Some of us are at least amusing...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    I guess I'm just kinda bored this weekend... figured I'd work on my typing skills... so much for helpful.. at least Some of us are at least amusing...

    LOL, I'd group with you anytime. Everyone else seems so uptight.

    If I didn't disagree with my friends at times they'd be so boring.


    By the way your typing skills seem fine.:p
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    naphl wrote: »
    Its been about a year now that we've been playing this game and I've got to tell y'all there is one thing that still really grinds my gears.

    As you all know the more players you add to your group, the more enemies the game adds to the mission. This gets a little ridiculous sometimes, try doing Kelvani Belt with 4 or 5 players, the amount of ships you have to face is nuts.

    There is no reward, no incentive to play with your friends, in fact i can usually do the missions quicker if I do them by myself.

    Why must I be punished for playing in groups?

    I can honestly say I do not understand this.

    I don't consider myself a gamer, but I can basically play this game with my eyes closed most days...*except* when I'm teamed with my Fleet. All of a sudden that boring old Kelvani Belt becomes an "ohmahgawd we're gettin' our tails kicked!" And then we have to work together as a team, coordinate attacks, cover each other's back, make sure we're healing each other, pay attention to the battle, etc.

    I feel great when we pull of a mission like that against insane odds and we smoke those ships!

    I propose to you that the incentive is the necessity of coming together as a team and the reward for playing with friends is the *experience* of playing with your friends and succeeding against a challenge.

    But, yes, it can take forever and I don't do that unless I have the time for it. It's also possible that you're having some trouble with builds and specs. I honestly can't offer help like that but there are many here who can and there are some wonderful threads on builds and skills.

    Good luck and good hunting.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    Wait, so everyone here can attest to the fact that the game gets harder in geometric proportion to the number of player characters in a mission, but it's a BAD thing to not like that fact?

    People whine about the lack of team play. Well, here's a prime example of the reason WHY there's no team play, yet people attack the person who points that out. Combine that with the general lack of content AND the lack of endgame AND the lack of team play AND the lack of a Star Trek feel AND the lack of any reason to level up or get better gear to begin with and I begin to wonder how this game has a sub base at all.

    OP, I totally agree with you. I've hated, since day one, that the game punishes me for playing with my friends. Yes, you get more XP, but it doesn't increase in proportion to the level of difficulty. If two players are playing together, the game gets three times harder, but only gives 1.5 times the XP and loot. At the end of the day, it's faster, easier and more profitable to solo the game as much as possible. If that isn't punishing team play, what is?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    All the MMos I've played have missions that scale tot he number of members on a team, yet this is the first MMO where people complain about it.

    I've done plenty of missions, including Kelvani belt, on a 5 man team. It certainly doesn't scale in geometric proportion from what I've seen and isn't much harder than on Solo, sure it takes a bit of teamwork and co-ordination but is that a bad thing?

    Rewards for teamining is another issue altogether, could they be better? Sure they could, but the same mechanic pretty much applied in CoX and half the time you could get a PuG within minutes of logging in regardless of build.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    Heathen666 wrote: »
    All the MMos I've played have missions that scale tot he number of members on a team, yet this is the first MMO where people complain about it.

    Most all the MMO's I've played actually reward people for teaming. And so they should. It should be a little easier with 5 players than with 1, because people should be encourage to team up in what is supposed to be a team oriented game.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    I disagree a little here. I am fine with more rewards for teaming up. I am not really fine with it being easier, too. The game is easy enough already (yes, I know, at start people strugle a lot, I did so myself. It changes, and once it does, you will want more challenges. Being challenged when you know what you are doing is better then being challenged because you have no clue what's going on).

    So, difficulty should stay as is (or tighten up). Rewards should be better. There needs to be a motivation to go with a team (and forming a team brings its own challenges), and better rewards would do a better then just handing them out for less effort.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    I disagree a little here. I am fine with more rewards for teaming up. I am not really fine with it being easier, too. The game is easy enough already (yes, I know, at start people strugle a lot, I did so myself. It changes, and once it does, you will want more challenges. Being challenged when you know what you are doing is better then being challenged because you have no clue what's going on).

    So, difficulty should stay as is (or tighten up). Rewards should be better. There needs to be a motivation to go with a team (and forming a team brings its own challenges), and better rewards would do a better then just handing them out for less effort.

    Well, the point I was trying to make, and perhaps I wasn't being sufficiently clear (my bad), was yes, that MMO's should reward people for teaming up. If the reward is that the mission is easier, drops more loot, is shorter, whatever it is, there should be an incentive to group, while not penalising those who chose not to.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    I know if the enemies didn't scale at all using 5 people would make the missions absurdly easy. They're easy enough playing solo. But the OP has a point that if your goal is to finish your dailies then you're penalized with time and difficulty by adding other players. Maybe they just need to tweak the number of enemies so that when you run with 5 the mission takes approximately the same amount of time.

    I do all that stuff solo these days since adding even one other player makes the same daily take longer. I have 13 characters (and no I couldn't stomach doing the dailies for all of them every day) but because of that time becomes a factor.

    To a certain extent the game does penalize you for adding other players. The additional xp and loot doesn't quite scale to the multiple of the number of people.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    ... At the end of the day, it's faster, easier and more profitable to solo the game as much as possible.

    Faster...
    Easier...
    More Profitable...

    If this is your desire, perhaps this isn't the game for you?
    Or maybe I'm just too old to understand. I thought games were about challenge?
    Either way, I don't think it's the game that is the issue here.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    OzHawkeye wrote: »
    Most all the MMO's I've played actually reward people for teaming. And so they should. It should be a little easier with 5 players than with 1, because people should be encourage to team up in what is supposed to be a team oriented game.

    I cover your point in my third paragraph and no, just because you have 5 people should not automatically make it easier. Team work and co-ordination makes it easier, unfortunately that seems to be a lacking feature in this game for most of the PuGs I've been on and that won;t generally change because of a few extra shinies.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    Ithaqua wrote:
    Faster...
    Easier...
    More Profitable...

    If this is your desire, perhaps this isn't the game for you?
    Or maybe I'm just too old to understand. I thought games were about challenge?
    Either way, I don't think it's the game that is the issue here.

    So you think we SHOULD be punished for team play, by having missions become more difficult, take longer and get less loot? That's what's happening, and that's what the issue is.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    You know what? There should be *some* content that only teams can complete. There should be other content that people can solo... and there should be content that adapts to the group size.

    Right now it seems the game is heavily tilted toward solo play, because the mechanisms to encourage grouping aren't there yet. If we get a few simple tools added to the Foundry, you can bet there will be a tonne of group-only content available.
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