Did it earlier today with 3 other fleet mates and one pug on elite. Got through the whole thing, including two optionals.
First part, the Tac Cubes weren't terrible. Honestly, aside from just dealing with several at once, they're just as big, dumb, and slow as they've always been. Spheres tended to be much more annoying because they would focus a lot, or so it seemed. Even with points in Power Insulators, when several spheres hit you with tachyon beam, you're gonna lose a lot of shields.
The Cubes themselves, again, just as big and stupid as ever, no real issue. Honestly, the Houston itself tended to be a problem since it would aggro them before we were ready. The pug did too, but we were expecting that. But one at a time, no trouble.
The V'gers...are annoying. Even focusing fire on one still took awhile, mostly because they spat out Regen probes so fast. Tractor probes and normal probes are a joke and barely even worth a mention. Still managed to get through them though.
Queenie took awhile, but while annoying, her ship itself, even as quick as it was, wasn't the issue. It was all her abilities she kept firing off constantly, same rather applies for the V'gers.
We got the timed optional, and the optional on the queen, since we always kept at least one person alive. Though like others have said, the loot was gotten for only one person.
Now, I feel the main problem here (aside from bugs) is that there is just 'too much'.
There is too much spam from the V'gers, they launch probes at an incredible rate, to the point it's a bit ridiculous. The plasma balls are tolerable, used to those from Red alerts.
There are too many instant-death attacks. We had this same issue with Cure Space, and massive Isometric charges. I want the Borg to hit hard, not an issue, but having SO many 'boom, you die now' attacks isn't hard, it's annoying and un-fun, and will make people just stay away from it in the first place, mitigating the point of having a new STF in the first place.
The Borg Queen has way too many abilities she can seem to use without cooldown, or very short ones. So she was able to use her stuff over and over, again, making her extremely annoying and while tough, not really and truly difficult.
Too many ships in general all at once. Having a lot of ships is fine, it's Unimatrix 01 of all places, but spreading them out wouldn't hurt. Have it go in a much more 'wave' like function:
1. Start MUCH further back than we do now, and the starting respawn point will be here at least. The first wave will consist of all those Borg spheres. Annoying with the dozen or so, but workable, just focus fire, and bring em down.
2. Wave two, the cubes/tac cubes. Instead of that rough diamond shape they were in (which caused a lot of clipping issues btw), have them be in lack a wall, or in rows. Such as a 2 cube tall, by 3 cube wide wall of those 6. It'd look VERY intimidating against such a group, or in rows, something like that.
3. Keep both V'gers, just tone down their insta-death attacks (or at least their lances and number of probes they spawn at once).
4. Borg queen is tough, and needs nothing else, but again, her insta-death is just a bit too high to be challenging without some mild toning down.
I don't think toning the insta-death down would ruin it at all. Hardly so, but if it isn't toned down, the mission will barely be played when it hits Holodeck (past the first week or so it's released).
Also, I feel the rewards (aside from being fixed of course) should at least be double any other STF. This one is longer and much more time-consuming, and the reward should show that as such. If another elite gives 50 marks and one Borg Processor, this should give 100 marks and two Processors, plus optional bonuses on top of that.
If it's meant to be hard and challenging, it is. It's meant to be the real 'end all' of the Borg story, and I like that, but if it's nothing but masses of instant-death, people are simply going to ignore it.
So insta death spam is back again?
man and i thought they learned from the past issues... insta death =! hard, its just annoying and boring especial when you can't avoid them. The big discharges are a good way of insta death because you can counter them and you see them coming, but torp spread for 90k+ dmg -> not.
Step one - Blow something up.
Step two - Blow something up.
Step three - Blow something up.
I'd like to see something other than a dps race in space missions. A shield generator appeared! Two ships break off from the main group to upload a virus into the shield generator, while the other ships have to defend the uploading ships while scanning for weaknesses in the unimatrix. Begin final assault.
Well either you made Elite to hard, or we was doing it wrong...
We got to the Queen, she comes off her perch and we hit here with everyone, then she crawls back, and more borg come we kill them and it starts over again...
However by the 6th time we all got REALLY BORED, and bailed, yes we left even though we knew we would get a cool down penalty!!!!
There is no way I am doing that mission again like that, its pretty boring and honestly not worth the effort...
Games are meant to be fun to play, not feel like a MASSIVE CHORE...
I would rather wash up 1000 times then have to do that mission day in day out!
I will soon try the space version, I hope its better...
Many players in game PREFER space PVE, so please make more... I was hoping that we would have another season misson set, however I cannot see it anywhere...
not sure if it is a bug or not but i was waiting to respawn and with 20 seconds remaining i warped out for no reason , talk about annoying as i need the omega marks seeing as they seem harder to get compaired to rom marks
Instakills are not part of the design, and will be addressed and removed as quickly as possible.
The mission is supposed to be challenging. Instakills are not a challenge, they are a frustration.
Challenging, yeah think you hit the mark on that one. Two Unimatrixs and the Borg Queen Diamond using almost every C-Store item (Z-Store) with the exception of three. One KDF and Two Fed.
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment... because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we lived" Picard to Riker
Other than the bouncy-weapon-of-mass-team-instakills, this is my favorite space STF so far. I haven't been able to get anyone to do the elite version yet, but even the standard version is great.
All I can say, is please don't make it easy. There are zero tough space fights in the game, it would be awesome to at least have one.
Instakills are not part of the design, and will be addressed and removed as quickly as possible.
The mission is supposed to be challenging. Instakills are not a challenge, they are a frustration.
Agreed, altough it's easy to avoid here. What are you going to do? Tone down isometric charge or changing the queen's special attack? Cause if you keep isometric charge and just nerfit it will be even more easier.
Instakills are not part of the design, and will be addressed and removed as quickly as possible.
The mission is supposed to be challenging. Instakills are not a challenge, they are a frustration.
the best way to do this is to take away their plasma torp's ability to crit. not the HY torp, if you get hit by that its your own fault, but just the standard launch. as far as i could tell, because they weren't always drawn because so much was happening on screen, it was this that was 1 shoting me over and over.
A good bud and I were discussing what needs to changed...
The instakills do need to go away... but sustained damage needs to be amped up... enough to cause a tank some challenge (which means it could seem like an insta-kill to an escort).
The problem, as we saw it, is that the inst-a-kills are meant to really lay the smack down on a tank... (i've seen some really good tanks take the last jump of the iso, or drop their hull to 10%)... but in the end, it destroys all other members on the team. Thats were sustained damage comes into play. An escort under direct fire should have time to get out of dodge... repair and re-enter (if they try to stick it out... they die... and quickly). The tank should be able to draw agro and hold it (although not permanently not die).. the healer should be able to extend the tank/escort... or hasten the healing of escort so it can reenter faster.
This is how i see Onslaught shaping up... Like I said in another thread... I havent been seeing the inst-a-kills so much as tremendous incoming damage from multiple sources (i fly a Fleet Patrol Escort), and drawing the attention of multiple cubes (tac or otherwise) is not a recipe for long life for me.
After playing Elite the first time I think the Problem is actually the sheer number of possible instakills and that you can't avoid one of them.
We got the phaser lances that instakill you, but we can supposedly avoid them by getting close to the queen, this exposes us to both Vgar ships however and thus makes the other two options even worse.
The Plasma balls can be shot down, but there will be four of them at the same time, little, if any room to maneuver away and if you are particularly unlucky, regen Probes that heal them (I really think they shouldn't)
If your team is watchful this is less of a problem, however, the high def value of the bolts means that shooting them down is less a matter of reaction time and spotting them early, but more a thing of pure luck and thus a possible scource of frustration.
The Real problem are the Plasma Torpedo swarms, though. They can target your entire team, there is no chance to stop or evade them, and they will instakill every escort, sci ship and most cruisers unless you get "Brace for impact" up in time. The problem is that with two ships, you usually have two Torpedo swarms in short succession, so your "Brace for impact" is likely to be on CD when the second one hits.
There is also the problem with the cutscene where the Houston is destroyed. The Command ships begin shooting you and releasing Bolts while the scene still plays and you can't react. In my first game 4 of our Team died during or 2 seconds after the cutscene, scrapping the optional. (not that we would have gotten it to begin with ^^')
Maybe adding a script that keeps the ships from shooting during it would help there.
Aside from that the whole STF seems to be fun alone for finally requiring a well rounded Team instead of DPS teamed with more DPS. It'll likely be more of a thing for organized Teams and Fleets to tackle (At least on elite) instead of Farming it with Pugs like ISE, Kase and to a lesser extend CSE. This, however, brings us to my last point: The rewards.
It's kinda a letdown to beat the hardest content the game has and the reward is a handfull of marks that will, in a few months and only if you invest money and Dilithium into it, allow you to buy some stuff. Few will tackle it just for bragging rights alone, after all.
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so a new TRIBBLE? cool I thought finally ... and hoped for something new!
But hej, cryptyc you are so good in recycling: a little but from kerrat a little bit from the borg deep space encounter, minus probes ... new STFs?! :mad:
omg I can vomit borges meanwhile, allways the same same same same ... can't see them anymore.
Why no Undine STF por example? or any other. I do not care for any timlines whatever ... but please no more borgs. PLease!
Anyone else tried it on Friday and again more recently? It seems like the sphere and cube damage has been lowered and the cigars' abilities nerfed also.
On Friday when we completed elite it was hard but just about doable, only missed the first optional by a little time so fairly confident that would be fine with a couple more runs to get practice in. But the cigars no longer seem to use the beam ability at all, I positioned by the queen but others didn't yet no insta-deaths. Queen was the same though, easy enough provided you keep your distance and pop brace for impact when torpedos are headed your way.
A good bud and I were discussing what needs to changed...
The instakills do need to go away... but sustained damage needs to be amped up... enough to cause a tank some challenge (which means it could seem like an insta-kill to an escort).
The problem, as we saw it, is that the inst-a-kills are meant to really lay the smack down on a tank... (i've seen some really good tanks take the last jump of the iso, or drop their hull to 10%)... but in the end, it destroys all other members on the team. Thats were sustained damage comes into play. An escort under direct fire should have time to get out of dodge... repair and re-enter (if they try to stick it out... they die... and quickly). The tank should be able to draw agro and hold it (although not permanently not die).. the healer should be able to extend the tank/escort... or hasten the healing of escort so it can reenter faster.
This is how i see Onslaught shaping up... Like I said in another thread... I havent been seeing the inst-a-kills so much as tremendous incoming damage from multiple sources (i fly a Fleet Patrol Escort), and drawing the attention of multiple cubes (tac or otherwise) is not a recipe for long life for me.
Agreed.
In general, I think all elite content should be balanced like this:
1) General spawns with enough consistently high DPS, not giant spikes, to challenge a good Cruiser Tank build and keep escorts very much on their toes.
2) Boss spawns with enough consistently high DPS to seriously stress the healing reserves of one tank + one ship to support it and likely outright kill an escort.
Ultimately one shot kill spikes would be gone, as they make being a tank or healer irrelevant.
Sustained NPC DPS would be constant and high (higher than it is now in all elite STFs on holodeck), enough to stress healing reserves of a singe tank or healer.
hive onsluaght (easy) was very good, the level of difficulty seems just right though there are a few instakills and following the advice of staying near the borg queen to avoid the lances seems to work but instead you get hit by the torpedo spread and shield drains so doesnt seem to make any difference. the map itself looks great. its good to be in the unimatrix.
also enjoyed the azure nebula (easy), though it could be harder, even on the easy setting.
like the changes to the pve window though an indication of how many people are in the queue needs added.
the rep system seems a little over complicated but perhaps i will find it easier once i have got my head round it.
overall very pleased so far with the new content though i would like to see more new stfs, and am looking forward to the release.
I tried Hive Onslaught normal twice today. The first attempt was cut short when team members left and new ones did not appear to take their place... it resulted in the typical 1hr cooldown warning. The second was frustrating but we managed to finish it (sans optional) with a 4 person pug.
My concerns:
1. The level differential of the guard ships is +1. This is /normal/ difficulty and there are many guards clustered together. Please lower to 0 to make it "normal" or at least equal in level to the players.
2. Without factoring in the probes, the two unimatrix (if that's what they're called) ships seemed a bit stronger and more resilient than those in red alerts. As for the probes... I did notice that the probes of one ship helped the other, and eventually it did lead to a horde of regenerative probes... and that's nasty on its own, considering that they heal more in one go than any healing ability that I can get my hands on. Interestingly enough, in both sessions the ship on the left seemed easier to kill than the ship on the right.
3. I greatly dislike the idea of having to hug the queen while fighting the above mentioned ships. Torpedo spread fodder, anyone? Not great for the optional.
4. The lance (or whatever) attacks are laughable. I had a few come my way and they didn't do a thing (that I noticed). Actually, I think they missed every single time. I'll have to log it the next time I try this.
5. The queen... Ouch. If she's that tough on "Normal" I'd hate to see her on Elite. Fighting her was a guaranteed trip to a [ridiculously long] respawn. Her torpedo attacks were deadly when they hit. That sensor scramble or whatever became very frustrating after the second time. Most importantly (that I noticed)... Why, oh why, does she have isometric charge? It struck for 2 consecutive hits of 60k+ damage? Not fun. Her feedback pulse seemed stronger than a player's feedback pulse. One volley of DHC's took down a shield facing and took my hull to ~60%. Ouch! To sum it up: fighting her is about a 99.9% chance of having to respawn at least once, which is fine considering that there isn't a time limit or anything during that segment... but the subsequent respawns get very frustrating when you have to wait almost a minute. If she's going to be a guaranteed respawn then the respawn timer should be removed for fairness. Afterall, she can spit out power after power after power at full strength and not suffer a bit...
6. The cut scene. Please allow for exiting or something. I'd hate to sit through that every single time I did this mission.
At the beginning it's just turkey shooting, perhaps reduce the mobs but make them stronger.
The 2 borg tubes didn't fire lance at me, I didn't even know you are supposed to hide from them in the middle. Plasma bolts are cool. You have to shoot or avoid them which adds tactic. Regeneration probes were weak. Tractor probes didn't do anything as far as I can tell.
Someone said there are no triggers in this STF, so maybe we could make it that you have to kill the 2 tubes within 10sec of each other (core hounds) to add a little coordination. Otherwise you just focus one, then the other. If you don't kill the other fast enough it's regeneration probes resurrect the other tube or some other penalty until you get it right.
Queen:
The Feedback pulse should be stronger but shorter. Everybody just kept firing and got a little dot. You should be forced to seize fire or die after 5-10sec from the feedback. To add a little reaction tactic into it.
Fast moving Queen is cool. All other Borg in other STFs just sit there. It was really fun to fly besides the queen through all the structures. Epic! Not sure why she did it though, maybe someone had aggro and flew away. That gave me an idea: Have the queen follow a path through the structures in a circle patrol. And we have to follow her to shoot at her. That would make a neat different approach to bosses. On that path there could be turrets or warping in Borg that have to be defeated on the run.
5km death aura should be a dot that kills you slowly (5-10sec), so you have time to move out or heal.
And generally: There should be something to counter ships (escorts) just standing still and shooting full frontal cannons and turrets on the Borg. One idea: 360? plasma scatter volley, that spawns plasma field on impact that kill in 5-10sec unless you move out of it. This should force escorts to fly around and not just stand there.
Instakills are not part of the design, and will be addressed and removed as quickly as possible.
The mission is supposed to be challenging. Instakills are not a challenge, they are a frustration.
Please look into fixing "instakills" on other space STF maps as well... Most notably Cure (and possibly Infected). Not very fun to get hit by an invisible torpedo that does 75k+ damage, while your shields are at 100% and hull at 100%.
Instakills are not part of the design, and will be addressed and removed as quickly as possible.
The mission is supposed to be challenging. Instakills are not a challenge, they are a frustration.
You have played some of these missions, right? Instakills are rampant in STFs. From the Klingon Borg ships flinging super isometric charges around, to gate "invisible torps of doom" popping people, they are EVERYWHERE. It is frustrating and annoying. I'm not even sure how we tolerate the damn things, and even manage to succeed despite them. Onslaught is just bringing the entire issue to the front.
I know there is a method but all I see is madness.
Ran it 2x on elite. Both random PuGs. I run @ 1/2 res and other toned down effects for max response time.
1st w/PvP hit and run oriented KDF Vet ship build.
Got to the boss and people started leaving after being 1 shot too many times.
2nd time w/PvP oriented Tac-fi build.
Completed no rewards.
Things I noticed 10k Ace Beam damage, 1 million in iso charge damage, 1 million in bolt damage.
During the 2nd run it became obvious that the Tac Cubes and sphere will not all chase the same target and spheres are faster so it's easy to string them out.
There are issues knowing what's going on. For example, I heard a torp spread being fired only after my ship blew up from the said torp spread, there were no visuals. Respawn and not be able to turn for up to 60 seconds.
After being hit w/AMS, I used AMS w/in 3km of Diamond and it wasn't effected. Not sure if VM was effective or not.
3 Part KHG did seem effective as I wasn't target while this was up. But, there was 1 time I hit the phase console for Kar-fi and wasn't immune. I respawned w/the console not on cooldown. This leads me to believe there are order of operation issues I was getting at earlier regarding hearing torps after feeling them.
Until you fix the insta pop damage I think the keeping 3 ships alive isn't going to happen. But, still I finished it w/a PuG on my 2nd attempt on Elite.
[Zone] Dack@****: cowards can't take a fed 1 on 1 crinckley cowards Hahahaha you smell like flowers
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C&H Fed banter
Completed into the Hive Space on normal difficulty.
Enjoyed the mission, completed it fine with a PUG, but NO Omega Marks - Good thing it's only a test server, or I would have been very miffed
Thanks for the feedback!!!! We'll be looking at the insta-kills and the rewards.... If you all could, would you please post how long it took you to complete this STF? Remember to post if your time is for a normal run or elite.
Thanks for the feedback!!!! We'll be looking at the insta-kills. If you all could, would you please post how long it took you to complete this STF? Remember to post if your time is for a normal run or elite.
Fifteen to twenty minutes on Normal. What about the Lack of Marks glitch?
Comments
So insta death spam is back again?
man and i thought they learned from the past issues... insta death =! hard, its just annoying and boring especial when you can't avoid them. The big discharges are a good way of insta death because you can counter them and you see them coming, but torp spread for 90k+ dmg -> not.
Step two - Blow something up.
Step three - Blow something up.
I'd like to see something other than a dps race in space missions. A shield generator appeared! Two ships break off from the main group to upload a virus into the shield generator, while the other ships have to defend the uploading ships while scanning for weaknesses in the unimatrix. Begin final assault.
We got to the Queen, she comes off her perch and we hit here with everyone, then she crawls back, and more borg come we kill them and it starts over again...
However by the 6th time we all got REALLY BORED, and bailed, yes we left even though we knew we would get a cool down penalty!!!!
There is no way I am doing that mission again like that, its pretty boring and honestly not worth the effort...
Games are meant to be fun to play, not feel like a MASSIVE CHORE...
I would rather wash up 1000 times then have to do that mission day in day out!
I will soon try the space version, I hope its better...
Many players in game PREFER space PVE, so please make more... I was hoping that we would have another season misson set, however I cannot see it anywhere...
Oh well what else can I say!!
MORE DILI for us please not less...
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The mission is supposed to be challenging. Instakills are not a challenge, they are a frustration.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
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Thank you. But make sure the change sticks
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Challenging, yeah think you hit the mark on that one. Two Unimatrixs and the Borg Queen Diamond using almost every C-Store item (Z-Store) with the exception of three. One KDF and Two Fed.
"I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment... because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we lived" Picard to Riker
All I can say, is please don't make it easy. There are zero tough space fights in the game, it would be awesome to at least have one.
any ideas about the "intercept course" bug?
You can work around that one at least. Click on empty space, losing your target fixes it.
oh, didnt know that - thanks.
Good, cause this was quite "shocking" to see a return of those.
Agreed, altough it's easy to avoid here. What are you going to do? Tone down isometric charge or changing the queen's special attack? Cause if you keep isometric charge and just nerfit it will be even more easier.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
the best way to do this is to take away their plasma torp's ability to crit. not the HY torp, if you get hit by that its your own fault, but just the standard launch. as far as i could tell, because they weren't always drawn because so much was happening on screen, it was this that was 1 shoting me over and over.
The instakills do need to go away... but sustained damage needs to be amped up... enough to cause a tank some challenge (which means it could seem like an insta-kill to an escort).
The problem, as we saw it, is that the inst-a-kills are meant to really lay the smack down on a tank... (i've seen some really good tanks take the last jump of the iso, or drop their hull to 10%)... but in the end, it destroys all other members on the team. Thats were sustained damage comes into play. An escort under direct fire should have time to get out of dodge... repair and re-enter (if they try to stick it out... they die... and quickly). The tank should be able to draw agro and hold it (although not permanently not die).. the healer should be able to extend the tank/escort... or hasten the healing of escort so it can reenter faster.
This is how i see Onslaught shaping up... Like I said in another thread... I havent been seeing the inst-a-kills so much as tremendous incoming damage from multiple sources (i fly a Fleet Patrol Escort), and drawing the attention of multiple cubes (tac or otherwise) is not a recipe for long life for me.
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We got the phaser lances that instakill you, but we can supposedly avoid them by getting close to the queen, this exposes us to both Vgar ships however and thus makes the other two options even worse.
The Plasma balls can be shot down, but there will be four of them at the same time, little, if any room to maneuver away and if you are particularly unlucky, regen Probes that heal them (I really think they shouldn't)
If your team is watchful this is less of a problem, however, the high def value of the bolts means that shooting them down is less a matter of reaction time and spotting them early, but more a thing of pure luck and thus a possible scource of frustration.
The Real problem are the Plasma Torpedo swarms, though. They can target your entire team, there is no chance to stop or evade them, and they will instakill every escort, sci ship and most cruisers unless you get "Brace for impact" up in time. The problem is that with two ships, you usually have two Torpedo swarms in short succession, so your "Brace for impact" is likely to be on CD when the second one hits.
There is also the problem with the cutscene where the Houston is destroyed. The Command ships begin shooting you and releasing Bolts while the scene still plays and you can't react. In my first game 4 of our Team died during or 2 seconds after the cutscene, scrapping the optional. (not that we would have gotten it to begin with ^^')
Maybe adding a script that keeps the ships from shooting during it would help there.
Aside from that the whole STF seems to be fun alone for finally requiring a well rounded Team instead of DPS teamed with more DPS. It'll likely be more of a thing for organized Teams and Fleets to tackle (At least on elite) instead of Farming it with Pugs like ISE, Kase and to a lesser extend CSE. This, however, brings us to my last point: The rewards.
It's kinda a letdown to beat the hardest content the game has and the reward is a handfull of marks that will, in a few months and only if you invest money and Dilithium into it, allow you to buy some stuff. Few will tackle it just for bragging rights alone, after all.
Join Starfleet,
Boldly go where no man has gone before,
Meet interesting new species, and Kill them!
But hej, cryptyc you are so good in recycling: a little but from kerrat a little bit from the borg deep space encounter, minus probes ... new STFs?! :mad:
omg I can vomit borges meanwhile, allways the same same same same ... can't see them anymore.
Why no Undine STF por example? or any other. I do not care for any timlines whatever ... but please no more borgs. PLease!
On Friday when we completed elite it was hard but just about doable, only missed the first optional by a little time so fairly confident that would be fine with a couple more runs to get practice in. But the cigars no longer seem to use the beam ability at all, I positioned by the queen but others didn't yet no insta-deaths. Queen was the same though, easy enough provided you keep your distance and pop brace for impact when torpedos are headed your way.
Agreed.
In general, I think all elite content should be balanced like this:
1) General spawns with enough consistently high DPS, not giant spikes, to challenge a good Cruiser Tank build and keep escorts very much on their toes.
2) Boss spawns with enough consistently high DPS to seriously stress the healing reserves of one tank + one ship to support it and likely outright kill an escort.
Ultimately one shot kill spikes would be gone, as they make being a tank or healer irrelevant.
Sustained NPC DPS would be constant and high (higher than it is now in all elite STFs on holodeck), enough to stress healing reserves of a singe tank or healer.
also enjoyed the azure nebula (easy), though it could be harder, even on the easy setting.
like the changes to the pve window though an indication of how many people are in the queue needs added.
the rep system seems a little over complicated but perhaps i will find it easier once i have got my head round it.
overall very pleased so far with the new content though i would like to see more new stfs, and am looking forward to the release.
My concerns:
1. The level differential of the guard ships is +1. This is /normal/ difficulty and there are many guards clustered together. Please lower to 0 to make it "normal" or at least equal in level to the players.
2. Without factoring in the probes, the two unimatrix (if that's what they're called) ships seemed a bit stronger and more resilient than those in red alerts. As for the probes... I did notice that the probes of one ship helped the other, and eventually it did lead to a horde of regenerative probes... and that's nasty on its own, considering that they heal more in one go than any healing ability that I can get my hands on. Interestingly enough, in both sessions the ship on the left seemed easier to kill than the ship on the right.
3. I greatly dislike the idea of having to hug the queen while fighting the above mentioned ships. Torpedo spread fodder, anyone? Not great for the optional.
4. The lance (or whatever) attacks are laughable. I had a few come my way and they didn't do a thing (that I noticed). Actually, I think they missed every single time. I'll have to log it the next time I try this.
5. The queen... Ouch. If she's that tough on "Normal" I'd hate to see her on Elite. Fighting her was a guaranteed trip to a [ridiculously long] respawn. Her torpedo attacks were deadly when they hit. That sensor scramble or whatever became very frustrating after the second time. Most importantly (that I noticed)... Why, oh why, does she have isometric charge? It struck for 2 consecutive hits of 60k+ damage? Not fun. Her feedback pulse seemed stronger than a player's feedback pulse. One volley of DHC's took down a shield facing and took my hull to ~60%. Ouch! To sum it up: fighting her is about a 99.9% chance of having to respawn at least once, which is fine considering that there isn't a time limit or anything during that segment... but the subsequent respawns get very frustrating when you have to wait almost a minute. If she's going to be a guaranteed respawn then the respawn timer should be removed for fairness. Afterall, she can spit out power after power after power at full strength and not suffer a bit...
6. The cut scene. Please allow for exiting or something. I'd hate to sit through that every single time I did this mission.
At the beginning it's just turkey shooting, perhaps reduce the mobs but make them stronger.
The 2 borg tubes didn't fire lance at me, I didn't even know you are supposed to hide from them in the middle. Plasma bolts are cool. You have to shoot or avoid them which adds tactic. Regeneration probes were weak. Tractor probes didn't do anything as far as I can tell.
Someone said there are no triggers in this STF, so maybe we could make it that you have to kill the 2 tubes within 10sec of each other (core hounds) to add a little coordination. Otherwise you just focus one, then the other. If you don't kill the other fast enough it's regeneration probes resurrect the other tube or some other penalty until you get it right.
Queen:
The Feedback pulse should be stronger but shorter. Everybody just kept firing and got a little dot. You should be forced to seize fire or die after 5-10sec from the feedback. To add a little reaction tactic into it.
Fast moving Queen is cool. All other Borg in other STFs just sit there. It was really fun to fly besides the queen through all the structures. Epic! Not sure why she did it though, maybe someone had aggro and flew away. That gave me an idea: Have the queen follow a path through the structures in a circle patrol. And we have to follow her to shoot at her. That would make a neat different approach to bosses. On that path there could be turrets or warping in Borg that have to be defeated on the run.
5km death aura should be a dot that kills you slowly (5-10sec), so you have time to move out or heal.
And generally: There should be something to counter ships (escorts) just standing still and shooting full frontal cannons and turrets on the Borg. One idea: 360? plasma scatter volley, that spawns plasma field on impact that kill in 5-10sec unless you move out of it. This should force escorts to fly around and not just stand there.
Please look into fixing "instakills" on other space STF maps as well... Most notably Cure (and possibly Infected). Not very fun to get hit by an invisible torpedo that does 75k+ damage, while your shields are at 100% and hull at 100%.
You have played some of these missions, right? Instakills are rampant in STFs. From the Klingon Borg ships flinging super isometric charges around, to gate "invisible torps of doom" popping people, they are EVERYWHERE. It is frustrating and annoying. I'm not even sure how we tolerate the damn things, and even manage to succeed despite them. Onslaught is just bringing the entire issue to the front.
Use lots of self-sealing stem bolts!!!!!
1st w/PvP hit and run oriented KDF Vet ship build.
Got to the boss and people started leaving after being 1 shot too many times.
2nd time w/PvP oriented Tac-fi build.
Completed no rewards.
Things I noticed 10k Ace Beam damage, 1 million in iso charge damage, 1 million in bolt damage.
During the 2nd run it became obvious that the Tac Cubes and sphere will not all chase the same target and spheres are faster so it's easy to string them out.
There are issues knowing what's going on. For example, I heard a torp spread being fired only after my ship blew up from the said torp spread, there were no visuals. Respawn and not be able to turn for up to 60 seconds.
After being hit w/AMS, I used AMS w/in 3km of Diamond and it wasn't effected. Not sure if VM was effective or not.
3 Part KHG did seem effective as I wasn't target while this was up. But, there was 1 time I hit the phase console for Kar-fi and wasn't immune. I respawned w/the console not on cooldown. This leads me to believe there are order of operation issues I was getting at earlier regarding hearing torps after feeling them.
Until you fix the insta pop damage I think the keeping 3 ships alive isn't going to happen. But, still I finished it w/a PuG on my 2nd attempt on Elite.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
Enjoyed the mission, completed it fine with a PUG, but NO Omega Marks - Good thing it's only a test server, or I would have been very miffed
Fifteen to twenty minutes on Normal. What about the Lack of Marks glitch?