The constitution class refit. An iconic cruiser, yes, but it's tier 2. Not only is flying this in any stf a remarkable choice for a ship, he's got more injuries than can fit in the UI, scrolling right off the side... I know right away we're in trouble. if I'd had any idea how much, I probably would have quit right there. Off like a shot the first thing anyone does is he zooms into the cube swarm with fire at will and aggroes as many as he possibly can; overwhelmed by the sheer volume we all died many times. Finally we get some headway and kill the swarm - by this time we've already lost the first optional. My friend says he's leaving - which is when I finally notice that nobody else is in the stf still except the guy in the constitution who is STILL divebombing into the enemy with fire at will at full impulse... and me. I left the 'enterprize' to its fate.
The next one of note happened quite recently; On khitomer I tend to wind up killing probes on one side since people have an annoying tendency to ignore them. So, three tacs - one in an odyssey, we'll get back to that - go to one side, and an engineer sticks with me in a tholian recluse. Now, I'm all for ship variety, but I'm pretty sure a recluse is a carrier, and as far as I know, carriers are best used by science - but, not my place to judge. He seems to be doing a pretty good job killing the generators and such on my side, and doesn't need my help to stay alive through the cube that pops up from killing them, so while I'm a little put off by it, it's not a big deal. So, half of our side is down... suddenly, the tacs are screaming about too many probes coming through on their side and they can't stop them. The other engineer takes off and goes to help them... At the same time I notice that the three tacs haven't been able to even take down more than a single generator on their side. Hoo boy.
I'm left alone to kill one side's generators and transformer (plus cube) AND the probes. Not easy. I manage, slowly, painfully, grinding my way through the process. On my side the gate is now halfway damaged when I suddenly get tell'd by the tac on the other side in the odyssey that hey, since I'm an engineer in a cruiser, I ought to know some tips about tanking right? (RIGHT NOW? ARE YOU KIDDING?!) I ignore him as an argument in chat erupts between the tacs and other engineer because the engineer isn't tanking or even trying to, and apparently the tacs are getting blown to pieces. He's not setup for tanking, isn't in an appropriate ship... And quite honestly I wouldn't expect him to do so in a carrier. So I point out not so politely to the tacs that I'm killing a gate solo AND killing probes solo. They continue frothing at the mouth about the engineer not helping them as I finally kill my gate. I evasive maneuver over to the other gate just in time to see two probes get through the portal. I dump plasma and do everything I can to slow down the horde as I focus fire them all and slowly grind them down. *I'M THE ONLY ONE DOING THIS* - everyone else is attacking the gate, apparently convinced that I'm capable of handling it all by myself.
*shudder* We get through all of that somehow, and donatra appears. Ignoring me, the tacs immediately *flee* in the other direction and demand the engineer in the recluse tank donatra, causing another argument. Annoyed with everything that's gone on so far I deliberately start the fight and hold aggro throughout it ... while everyone else is much more concerned with getting killed by the spheres she spawns. *sigh* <sarcasm> That stf was lots of fun. </sarcasm>
The last stf of recent memory was definitely the worst of the bunch though. Elite hive again. Four tacs in escorts, one engineer in a cruiser. (me) - I start the pull trying to only get one group. Nope! All four tacs dive into the swarm darwinning themselves. We lose the first optional, but I survive by slowly circling in an S path away from them while focus firing the enemy down.
Second section - v'ger duo. tacs decide killing probes as far as humanly possible from the v'gers is a good idea, and get continually lanced and disintegrated by plasma bolts as a result despite my constant attempts at telling them not to do that. Eventually one of them helps me kill both v'gers. Another optional failed.
Third section - borg queen. Tacs decide getting point blank with the queen while moving as slowly as possible is the best tactic EVER. :eek: Queen responds by using aoe death. I warn them not to do it. I cajole them, insult them. no response. A continuous stream of players flying to their death results. I'm left soloing the queen almost entirely by myself because the respawn timer is now quite honestly *insulted* by this lemminglike behavior and is keeping them out of play for minutes now. Despite the queen's best efforts, I win this optional simply by being too hard to kill. Even STO's wacky reward system thought I'd carried that group - I was rewarded with something like 200 marks for that single run. It took almost two hours to do that stf. Never again - but at least I have a good story to tell - and I can truthfully claim that I can solo the borg queen.
Nice take on fear of the dark, although it's funny, it does point out a serious flaw with pugs, some people simply don't know how to build a ship and in other cases don't have a clue what to do.
However it does quite nicely reflect the mood. Some of their songs just lend themselves to this game so nicely.
Like "When Die With Your Boots On meets STF"
Yeah! Another player named Riker,
Who says he is the man,
Another player named Riker,
That has another wonderful plan.
Taunting us with Visions,
Afflicting us with fear,
Predicting optionals for millions,
In the hope that one appears.
(Chorus)
No point asking when it is,
No point asking who's to go,
No point asking what's the game,
No point asking who's to blame.
'cos if you're gonna pug, you're gonna fail,
'cos if you're gonna pug, you're gonna fail,
If you're gonna pug, pug with your boots on.
If you're gonna try, just stick around,
Gonna cry, just move along,
If you're gonna pug, you're gonna fail.
In 15 the optional fails,
The teammates did surmise,
Through low DPS and lack of heals,
Donatra will arise.
Terror, Death, Destruction,
Pour from the Scimitar Wings,
But the truth of all predictions,
Is that the fat lady sings.
(Repeat chorus)
They pugged with their boots on, yes they failed...
The day they pug with their boots on, we pug!
WE PUG!
WE PUG!
WE PUG!
WE PUG!
WE PUG!
Now, the moral of the story is multitude. 1, Never trust a player named Riker that can only speak in Capslock. 2, It's not going to get better if you leave the match. 3, Donatra loves beamboats as much as you do.
I have been doing ground STFs recently to get the accolades for my alts so I can contribute a ground version:
I am a man who pugs on ground
And when the timer starts to count
I hope the team is moving fast.
But then the pace begins to change
Something feels a little strange
Already three of the team down?
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a constant fear that these guys are new here
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a phobia you don't have the right gear
Have you beamed to Starbase 82
And hoped for teammates with a clue
Of how to free the personnel?
Sometimes when you check if all are well
Can't believe it, look again
This guy does not remodulate.
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a constant fear that this is your first time
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
Don't pass the trigger line, don't rush in, stay behind
Have you ever been to Vorn at night
To engage Armek in a fight
But there are turrets in the way.
And as you quicken up your pace
You see the turret's still in place
And worker drones already there.
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a constant fear that this is going wrong
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
Shoot the small turrets first or this will take too long
When you join the Khitomer Accord
He has no pulsewave but a sword,
"my guns don't work against the borg".
And when he insists to do the room
He does not know now what to do,
The others shoot the spawning drones.
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a constant fear that teamwipe's always near
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a phobia that Tosk of Borg wins here.
When players don't show common sense
Humor and patience are my friends.
EDIT: Just after writing this I wanted to do IGE one last time before logging off for today and I was with a great team. We got the optional. Thanks to the people who fought with me. It was an honour.
Are you sure your escort was built right? I've done 6 CE missions in the last couple days and took first in 4 of them. I fly a fleet escort.
Having a blast in the CE's!!!
Yep, they're built right and they're grabbing enough first places, to get them all their accolade. (Trying to get the 14 shards on 17 different characters so I've done my share of runs. ).
It's just that my all-energy escorts which have better gear, a better boff & doff setup and whose Tac-captains are skilled much better, yet require more effort, maneuvering etc... than the cruddy T-9 patrol escort I mentioned above. With the crappy torp boat I just sit at 9.0 km at a certain angle above the CE, barely take any damage, just cycle HY and CRF, only having to reverse a bit now and then and still come in first.
So my point is: Kinetic weapons currently seem to be somewhat of an I-win button...
A torp build will go a long way in that encounter. After being unsatisfied with the performance of my regular escort characters I switched one of my engineers (no projectile spec) to one. 2x rare mk. XI quantums, 2 rare torp doffs, 4 rare mk X quantum consoles, 2x CRF 1, 2x HYIII in a regular 9-console patrol escort. Placed first on CE 5 times in a row so far...
After one last "test run", I'm done with it. I'm going to TRIBBLE off, collect my shards, and call it a day.
This time, I ran in my mirror Luna-class torpedo boat and used every borderline griefer tactic available, and then some, and still failed to even place. That included dumping spreads of tricobalts and PSW/TBR into groups of shards (to run up my own DPS/kill count and deprive others of the same by knocking surviving shards out of CSV area effect), dropping HYT salvos and my bio-neural into the CE itself, ignoring the shockwave to run up my own HPS, and throwing the odd heal at every escort within range to deprive them of self-HPS score (and kill GDF). Didn't die once, and stayed in the thick of it the entire fight.
At this point, I don't know what else I can possibly do to get the damn accolade and I'm through even trying. I ran a ship and gear setup specifically to exploit the encounter mechanics to the hilt, even going so far as to respec my boffs for the run, and still couldn't outperform the escorts while going out of my way to TRIBBLE them. And, even having "griefed" others in the course of it is over the line for me. "Working as intended" it may be by nominally giving score to healers and CC'ers, but it's still heavily biased enough towards derpy DPS play to undermine any argument that it's as-intended and fair.
Somebody getting uppity about canon? No problem! Just take a deep breath, and repeat after me:
When I first started doing elite space, The Cure was the easiest of the three(now 4) Space Elites. After memorizing what to do, it became easy like 2 x 2.
But now, just on the Cure Space Elite - we lose, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
For example, I use a Mobius Temporal Destroyer with disruptor/plasma hybrid cannons, Mk. XIs, and play only on the public channel. My job is just to take out the probes. And as I start getting the first six probes at the center cube taken out, things start going to hell: First off, by the time I get those first six probes taken out, it's down to less than 9-10 minutes on the clock. Second, even before taking out all the probes, the borg ships start ganging on us. It's like PW has made the Cure now IMPOSSIBLE to get the optional. And it make things more time consuming to get all the probes out of the way. I end up helping out with protecting the Kang. And here's the kicker: we end up losing the optional because of the gang-bang, because we had to take out one of the cubes because of the clock running out. But what makes it more frustrating is that even if we don't take out a cube, we end up losing the optional anyways, because we either run out of time, or the enemy ships just show up too damn quick.
It's like I'm in a Kobayashi Maru because 1.) Perfect World decided to make the Cure the hardest to beat, and 2.) with four other players that look like they don't what the hell they're doing!
I'm sick and tired of losing The Cure Space Elite all the time. How the hell do I join the Elite STF groups instead of pub?
When I first started doing elite space, The Cure was the easiest of the three(now 4) Space Elites. After memorizing what to do, it became easy like 2 x 2.
But now, just on the Cure Space Elite - we lose, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
For example, I use a Mobius Temporal Destroyer with disruptor/plasma hybrid cannons, Mk. XIs, and play only on the public channel. My job is just to take out the probes. And as I start getting the first six probes at the center cube taken out, things start going to hell: First off, by the time I get those first six probes taken out, it's down to less than 9-10 minutes on the clock. Second, even before taking out all the probes, the borg ships start ganging on us. It's like PW has made the Cure now IMPOSSIBLE to get the optional. And it make things more time consuming to get all the probes out of the way. I end up helping out with protecting the Kang. And here's the kicker: we end up losing the optional because of the gang-bang, because we had to take out one of the cubes because of the clock running out. But what makes it more frustrating is that even if we don't take out a cube, we end up losing the optional anyways, because we either run out of time, or the enemy ships just show up too damn quick.
It's like I'm in a Kobayashi Maru because 1.) Perfect World decided to make the Cure the hardest to beat, and 2.) with four other players that look like they don't what the hell they're doing!
I'm sick and tired of losing The Cure Space Elite all the time. How the hell do I join the Elite STF groups instead of pub?
it sounds like it is more your fault than pwe's and cryptic's. if there is someone on the kang (in pugs that is unusual), than the optional is just way too easy to get (imo all optional timers should be reduced by 10 mins in cse kase and ise, hse has a different optional set, so I am not bothering that atm).
I suggest try getting a better build
I have been doing ground STFs recently to get the accolades for my alts so I can contribute a ground version:
I am a man who pugs on ground
And when the timer starts to count
I hope the team is moving fast.
But then the pace begins to change
Something feels a little strange
Already three of the team down?
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a constant fear that these guys are new here
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a phobia you don't have the right gear
Have you beamed to Starbase 82
And hoped for teammates with a clue
Of how to free the personnel?
Sometimes when you check if all are well
Can't believe it, look again
This guy does not remodulate.
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a constant fear that this is your first time
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
Don't pass the trigger line, don't rush in, stay behind
Have you ever been to Vorn at night
To engage Armek in a fight
But there are turrets in the way.
And as you quicken up your pace
You see the turret's still in place
And worker drones already there.
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a constant fear that this is going wrong
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
Shoot the small turrets first or this will take too long
When you join the Khitomer Accord
He has no pulsewave but a sword,
"my guns don't work against the borg".
And when he insists to do the room
He does not know now what to do,
The others shoot the spawning drones.
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a constant fear that teamwipe's always near
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a phobia that Tosk of Borg wins here.
When players don't show common sense
Humor and patience are my friends.
EDIT: Just after writing this I wanted to do IGE one last time before logging off for today and I was with a great team. We got the optional. Thanks to the people who fought with me. It was an honour.
When I first started doing elite space, The Cure was the easiest of the three(now 4) Space Elites. After memorizing what to do, it became easy like 2 x 2.
But now, just on the Cure Space Elite - we lose, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
For example, I use a Mobius Temporal Destroyer with disruptor/plasma hybrid cannons, Mk. XIs, and play only on the public channel. My job is just to take out the probes. And as I start getting the first six probes at the center cube taken out, things start going to hell: First off, by the time I get those first six probes taken out, it's down to less than 9-10 minutes on the clock. Second, even before taking out all the probes, the borg ships start ganging on us. It's like PW has made the Cure now IMPOSSIBLE to get the optional. And it make things more time consuming to get all the probes out of the way. I end up helping out with protecting the Kang. And here's the kicker: we end up losing the optional because of the gang-bang, because we had to take out one of the cubes because of the clock running out. But what makes it more frustrating is that even if we don't take out a cube, we end up losing the optional anyways, because we either run out of time, or the enemy ships just show up too damn quick.
It's like I'm in a Kobayashi Maru because 1.) Perfect World decided to make the Cure the hardest to beat, and 2.) with four other players that look like they don't what the hell they're doing!
I'm sick and tired of losing The Cure Space Elite all the time. How the hell do I join the Elite STF groups instead of pub?
I basically host private matches. for over a year I've drawn players from my Fleet, and when that does not happen the PublicEliteSTF chat channel. Every day it's the same business. Me and my fleetie get ready, then i post LF3M - KASE - cake (Looking for 3 mates, kithomer accord space elite. type cake for invite) and the match generally fills up within a minute as people get invited. I explain the plan, make sure everyone's ready and start the match. Don't even remember the last time a premade group failed the Opt. Pug on the other hand is a very different story, most likely because everyone thinks theyre in charge, and they have no friends to criticize their ship builds.
In fact, yesterday we cleared ISE with 9:24 left on the timer. That was one hell of a ride.
Thanks for sharing that - was an interesting read Can't say I've encountered anyone using a below-Admiral tier ship in HOSE yet, and hope I never do as HOSE is enough of a stinker without some wannabe 'hero' in their 'Enterprize' thinking they're Captain Kirk.
HOSE is polarising though - I don't play it often, as nine times out of ten the team quits. Thankfully, in contrast to the thread title we do sometimes post GOOD experiences, and played an instance of HOSE yesterday that went like a dream.
It was odd actually, as by all accounts the team that warped in looked like a 'fail team'.
There was myself, using my Tac toon in my Fleet Assault Cruiser, two Odysseys (one sci and one eng), a Defiant and a Kumari . One of the Odyssey's had various injuries, which I thought wasn't a good start, but thankfully had the sense to heal them before the clock reached zero and the mission commenced.
And I was way off with my initial thoughts - myself and the two Odyssey's tanked the heck out of the mission, with the sci Odyssesy using his abilities very nicely, the two tacs and their escorts piled on the DPS and whilst we didn't break any records, it was a total blast and probably the best PuG I've ever done.
There's an old Russian saying that translates to "Things can always get worse".
I remember a Pug where a player called RIIKER (bear with it) got mad that I outdps'd his Escort in a Voquv, and then started pushing probes into the timegate on KASE with full impulse and Repulsors II We responded by killing the gates before he could push 10 in. He was mad as hell.
With the crappy torp boat I just sit at 9.0 km at a certain angle above the CE, barely take any damage, just cycle HY and CRF, only having to reverse a bit now and then and still come in first.
So my point is: Kinetic weapons currently seem to be somewhat of an I-win button...
Ahh Ok, I've been concidering building a crappy torp boat. Just haven't had the time.
People ignoring my advice to keep a 5km distance from Donatra. Last night I had a match that lasted a good 20-30 minutes longer than expected. Very frustrating if I may say.
People ignoring my advice to keep a 5km distance from Donatra. Last night I had a match that lasted a good 20-30 minutes longer than expected. Very frustrating if I may say.
wont help you anymore. scimitairs are revamped. now they are more dangerous and unpredictable according to the patch notes. this translates to the fact that now it cloaks randomly, and pugs with their usual bad dps will take forever, as a tactical exploit is taken out
People ignoring my advice to keep a 5km distance from Donatra. Last night I had a match that lasted a good 20-30 minutes longer than expected. Very frustrating if I may say.
Donatra is just a major pain the neck at the best of times, but since the patch her cloak is more frequent, best way to beat Donatra is to flank her and attack her 6, did a khitomer run with my fleet last night, we got the optional without a problem, just Donatra made it a long and grueling fight at the end.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
No offense intended here, honestly - but that's not useful advice anymore and may be part of the reason that you were ignored.
Agreed. I find the best defence and offence is to fall in behind her. Unless something is changed in the last couple months I've found it VERY easy to stay out of range of her weapons by setting on her back side and just do all my firing from there. I also get just as close as possible. When she clokes and declokes just make a beeline right back to the backside again.
I was in a Khitomer Vortex, when it turned out there was 4 science captains, and me in escort when I'm only an engi. Oh dear.
Immediately as the we popped the first transformer, one of the sciences in a wells went to the edge of the map and AFK'd. great.
My internet plays up and I get DC'd for 30 seconds at best. I come back, and they've let SEVEN, yes, SEVEN probes through in 30 secs. How can an engi in a (at the time) badly built Mobius, USING TETRYON, be the only firepower on the team?
Luckily, it seems that the 1 hour ban from a STF when you leave wasn't being applied, so I left and joined a team who knew what they were doing.
Never again.
As cool as subsystem targeting is, as well as all the science abilities, science ships really need more firepower. And letting a vesta equip dual cannons isn't the answer cryptic...
A lot lately when doing Infected: Manus (Elite) and Khitomer in Stasis (Elite) their have been people starting the optional countdown timer when their was less then the full 5 people in the game. I am so sick of people being so stupid in Elite games. Also people entering Elite missions with a bunch of injures on their character has been happening a lot more lately as well.
Lets see my worst experience in a PVE, I would originally say an Elite Khitomer where I was using my Heavy Escourt Carrier fighting the Scimitar. I love fighting the Scimitar but one time it made short work with my HEC, was complaoning about that, but some how someone dragged the Scimitar to the respawn area where when I respawned I quickly got blown to bits.
But over the pastr few days I have to say that my worst experience is trying to do the crystalline PVE.
Every time I would load it I would always get a Server Not Responding every 5-10 seconds that would last for almost the whole pve and load it at the tail end when it was done. Or when it did finally load I would constantly get the "Server Not Responding" message or get disconnected and not be able to do anything in the pve. Try and reload it and get the same things until I was kicked to my last location like Risa.
"Richard, I'll give you one word of advice, you shouldn't anger a demigod" - Lord Archanfel, Supreme Zoalord and leader of the Chronos Organization in the series Guyver: The Bioboosted Armor series.
Recently had a failure on The Cure Applied (Elite) with 1 person having over 20 total injuries entering the mission. The team was able to make it to the second area of activating the transformers and defending them and then they all started to play like idiots unable to destroy the turrets and guard the transformers. I was defending the 1st transformer with the Physicist kit having no problems and still had people their shooting at the Borg I was easily dealing with instead of focusing on the stuff ahead and they keep failing to do what they needed to do. Eventually multiple people started to leave making it hopeless.
There is a tactic in cure where people blow up cubes early in CSE, even one at a time. Can't be done without high dps or good crowd control skills. You might not believe it, heck you might think me insane for saying it, but from my experience it's definitely a lot faster to blow one cube at a time. Really doesn't work if your team can't coordinate, hardly nothing ever work without team effort though .
RML is ofc faster. you spend less time travelling in empty space
Yesterday someone entered Infected: Manus (Elite) using a EV Suit and I knew the optional was hopeless and it was not only because he was using crappy gear but also he got to close to the rooms with the officers. We had been lucky to save a few but I knew are luck would run out and it did early in the game.
I just don't know what people are thinking using EV Suits in Elite missions. I am starting to think people are doing it to annoy other people. I have seen 3 different people doing it the last couple of weeks and all 3 of them I have seen doing it multiple times.
Ugh. Just failed the optional on elite infected the conduit because someone had apparently completely disabled chat or was completely ignoring it. On the left side the first thing they did in their galaxy dreadnaught was kill a generator. After killing the transformer (which took several minutes, sigh) I patiently explained to them why it was a bad idea. no reply.
We go to right side, and I obviously wasted my time - before the cube was even down the gal-x was lancing one of the generators. He then backed off to 40km and played around with a sphere for the rest of the match.
Today seems to be a bad day to do Crystalline Catastrophe mission because their is a lot of leeching going on in it. 1 mission failed because of multiple leechers in it in addition to multiple idiots dying so much from getting to close to the entity and getting hit by a lot of fragments. Some people started leaving when the entity was able to heal faster then damage was being done and I decided to leave as well because I felt it was hopeless.
Their was other time doing the mission that had some leechers that was able to be complete but it took much longer then it should of. I am so sick of all the leeching that has been going on especially lately that it is happening more often.
With such rewards and the downright boring nature of the mission i guess leeching was inevitable.
Contrary to last weekend i actually found several Pugs which, although not chatty on team channel, ran through the ESTF like a warm knife through butter.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Comments
First, on elite hive my science friend and I show up along with two other unremarkable players and an engineer in this thing: http://www.stowiki.org/Cruiser_(Federation)#Constitution_class_.28refit.29
The constitution class refit. An iconic cruiser, yes, but it's tier 2. Not only is flying this in any stf a remarkable choice for a ship, he's got more injuries than can fit in the UI, scrolling right off the side... I know right away we're in trouble. if I'd had any idea how much, I probably would have quit right there. Off like a shot the first thing anyone does is he zooms into the cube swarm with fire at will and aggroes as many as he possibly can; overwhelmed by the sheer volume we all died many times. Finally we get some headway and kill the swarm - by this time we've already lost the first optional. My friend says he's leaving - which is when I finally notice that nobody else is in the stf still except the guy in the constitution who is STILL divebombing into the enemy with fire at will at full impulse... and me. I left the 'enterprize' to its fate.
The next one of note happened quite recently; On khitomer I tend to wind up killing probes on one side since people have an annoying tendency to ignore them. So, three tacs - one in an odyssey, we'll get back to that - go to one side, and an engineer sticks with me in a tholian recluse. Now, I'm all for ship variety, but I'm pretty sure a recluse is a carrier, and as far as I know, carriers are best used by science - but, not my place to judge. He seems to be doing a pretty good job killing the generators and such on my side, and doesn't need my help to stay alive through the cube that pops up from killing them, so while I'm a little put off by it, it's not a big deal. So, half of our side is down... suddenly, the tacs are screaming about too many probes coming through on their side and they can't stop them. The other engineer takes off and goes to help them... At the same time I notice that the three tacs haven't been able to even take down more than a single generator on their side. Hoo boy.
I'm left alone to kill one side's generators and transformer (plus cube) AND the probes. Not easy. I manage, slowly, painfully, grinding my way through the process. On my side the gate is now halfway damaged when I suddenly get tell'd by the tac on the other side in the odyssey that hey, since I'm an engineer in a cruiser, I ought to know some tips about tanking right? (RIGHT NOW? ARE YOU KIDDING?!) I ignore him as an argument in chat erupts between the tacs and other engineer because the engineer isn't tanking or even trying to, and apparently the tacs are getting blown to pieces. He's not setup for tanking, isn't in an appropriate ship... And quite honestly I wouldn't expect him to do so in a carrier. So I point out not so politely to the tacs that I'm killing a gate solo AND killing probes solo. They continue frothing at the mouth about the engineer not helping them as I finally kill my gate. I evasive maneuver over to the other gate just in time to see two probes get through the portal. I dump plasma and do everything I can to slow down the horde as I focus fire them all and slowly grind them down. *I'M THE ONLY ONE DOING THIS* - everyone else is attacking the gate, apparently convinced that I'm capable of handling it all by myself.
*shudder* We get through all of that somehow, and donatra appears. Ignoring me, the tacs immediately *flee* in the other direction and demand the engineer in the recluse tank donatra, causing another argument. Annoyed with everything that's gone on so far I deliberately start the fight and hold aggro throughout it ... while everyone else is much more concerned with getting killed by the spheres she spawns. *sigh* <sarcasm> That stf was lots of fun. </sarcasm>
The last stf of recent memory was definitely the worst of the bunch though. Elite hive again. Four tacs in escorts, one engineer in a cruiser. (me) - I start the pull trying to only get one group. Nope! All four tacs dive into the swarm darwinning themselves. We lose the first optional, but I survive by slowly circling in an S path away from them while focus firing the enemy down.
Second section - v'ger duo. tacs decide killing probes as far as humanly possible from the v'gers is a good idea, and get continually lanced and disintegrated by plasma bolts as a result despite my constant attempts at telling them not to do that. Eventually one of them helps me kill both v'gers. Another optional failed.
Third section - borg queen. Tacs decide getting point blank with the queen while moving as slowly as possible is the best tactic EVER. :eek: Queen responds by using aoe death. I warn them not to do it. I cajole them, insult them. no response. A continuous stream of players flying to their death results. I'm left soloing the queen almost entirely by myself because the respawn timer is now quite honestly *insulted* by this lemminglike behavior and is keeping them out of play for minutes now. Despite the queen's best efforts, I win this optional simply by being too hard to kill. Even STO's wacky reward system thought I'd carried that group - I was rewarded with something like 200 marks for that single run. It took almost two hours to do that stf. Never again - but at least I have a good story to tell - and I can truthfully claim that I can solo the borg queen.
However it does quite nicely reflect the mood. Some of their songs just lend themselves to this game so nicely.
Like "When Die With Your Boots On meets STF"
Now, the moral of the story is multitude. 1, Never trust a player named Riker that can only speak in Capslock. 2, It's not going to get better if you leave the match. 3, Donatra loves beamboats as much as you do.
Very nice.
I have been doing ground STFs recently to get the accolades for my alts so I can contribute a ground version:
I am a man who pugs on ground
And when the timer starts to count
I hope the team is moving fast.
But then the pace begins to change
Something feels a little strange
Already three of the team down?
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a constant fear that these guys are new here
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a phobia you don't have the right gear
Have you beamed to Starbase 82
And hoped for teammates with a clue
Of how to free the personnel?
Sometimes when you check if all are well
Can't believe it, look again
This guy does not remodulate.
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a constant fear that this is your first time
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
Don't pass the trigger line, don't rush in, stay behind
Have you ever been to Vorn at night
To engage Armek in a fight
But there are turrets in the way.
And as you quicken up your pace
You see the turret's still in place
And worker drones already there.
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a constant fear that this is going wrong
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
Shoot the small turrets first or this will take too long
When you join the Khitomer Accord
He has no pulsewave but a sword,
"my guns don't work against the borg".
And when he insists to do the room
He does not know now what to do,
The others shoot the spawning drones.
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a constant fear that teamwipe's always near
Fear of the pug, fear of the pug
I have a phobia that Tosk of Borg wins here.
When players don't show common sense
Humor and patience are my friends.
EDIT: Just after writing this I wanted to do IGE one last time before logging off for today and I was with a great team. We got the optional. Thanks to the people who fought with me. It was an honour.
Yep, they're built right and they're grabbing enough first places, to get them all their accolade. (Trying to get the 14 shards on 17 different characters so I've done my share of runs.
It's just that my all-energy escorts which have better gear, a better boff & doff setup and whose Tac-captains are skilled much better, yet require more effort, maneuvering etc... than the cruddy T-9 patrol escort I mentioned above. With the crappy torp boat I just sit at 9.0 km at a certain angle above the CE, barely take any damage, just cycle HY and CRF, only having to reverse a bit now and then and still come in first.
So my point is: Kinetic weapons currently seem to be somewhat of an I-win button...
After one last "test run", I'm done with it. I'm going to TRIBBLE off, collect my shards, and call it a day.
This time, I ran in my mirror Luna-class torpedo boat and used every borderline griefer tactic available, and then some, and still failed to even place. That included dumping spreads of tricobalts and PSW/TBR into groups of shards (to run up my own DPS/kill count and deprive others of the same by knocking surviving shards out of CSV area effect), dropping HYT salvos and my bio-neural into the CE itself, ignoring the shockwave to run up my own HPS, and throwing the odd heal at every escort within range to deprive them of self-HPS score (and kill GDF). Didn't die once, and stayed in the thick of it the entire fight.
At this point, I don't know what else I can possibly do to get the damn accolade and I'm through even trying. I ran a ship and gear setup specifically to exploit the encounter mechanics to the hilt, even going so far as to respec my boffs for the run, and still couldn't outperform the escorts while going out of my way to TRIBBLE them. And, even having "griefed" others in the course of it is over the line for me. "Working as intended" it may be by nominally giving score to healers and CC'ers, but it's still heavily biased enough towards derpy DPS play to undermine any argument that it's as-intended and fair.
Spock's Brain.
But now, just on the Cure Space Elite - we lose, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
For example, I use a Mobius Temporal Destroyer with disruptor/plasma hybrid cannons, Mk. XIs, and play only on the public channel. My job is just to take out the probes. And as I start getting the first six probes at the center cube taken out, things start going to hell: First off, by the time I get those first six probes taken out, it's down to less than 9-10 minutes on the clock. Second, even before taking out all the probes, the borg ships start ganging on us. It's like PW has made the Cure now IMPOSSIBLE to get the optional. And it make things more time consuming to get all the probes out of the way. I end up helping out with protecting the Kang. And here's the kicker: we end up losing the optional because of the gang-bang, because we had to take out one of the cubes because of the clock running out. But what makes it more frustrating is that even if we don't take out a cube, we end up losing the optional anyways, because we either run out of time, or the enemy ships just show up too damn quick.
It's like I'm in a Kobayashi Maru because 1.) Perfect World decided to make the Cure the hardest to beat, and 2.) with four other players that look like they don't what the hell they're doing!
I'm sick and tired of losing The Cure Space Elite all the time. How the hell do I join the Elite STF groups instead of pub?
View My gallery at http://captricosakara.deviantart.com
it sounds like it is more your fault than pwe's and cryptic's. if there is someone on the kang (in pugs that is unusual), than the optional is just way too easy to get (imo all optional timers should be reduced by 10 mins in cse kase and ise, hse has a different optional set, so I am not bothering that atm).
I suggest try getting a better build
10k DPS Vesta threads: 1; 2
Smashing ^^
In fact, yesterday we cleared ISE with 9:24 left on the timer. That was one hell of a ride.
There's an old Russian saying that translates to "Things can always get worse".
I remember a Pug where a player called RIIKER (bear with it) got mad that I outdps'd his Escort in a Voquv, and then started pushing probes into the timegate on KASE with full impulse and Repulsors II We responded by killing the gates before he could push 10 in. He was mad as hell.
Ahh Ok, I've been concidering building a crappy torp boat. Just haven't had the time.
wont help you anymore. scimitairs are revamped. now they are more dangerous and unpredictable according to the patch notes. this translates to the fact that now it cloaks randomly, and pugs with their usual bad dps will take forever, as a tactical exploit is taken out
10k DPS Vesta threads: 1; 2
Donatra is just a major pain the neck at the best of times, but since the patch her cloak is more frequent, best way to beat Donatra is to flank her and attack her 6, did a khitomer run with my fleet last night, we got the optional without a problem, just Donatra made it a long and grueling fight at the end.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Agreed. I find the best defence and offence is to fall in behind her. Unless something is changed in the last couple months I've found it VERY easy to stay out of range of her weapons by setting on her back side and just do all my firing from there. I also get just as close as possible. When she clokes and declokes just make a beeline right back to the backside again.
Works for me but I haven't done a KS for a while.
Immediately as the we popped the first transformer, one of the sciences in a wells went to the edge of the map and AFK'd. great.
My internet plays up and I get DC'd for 30 seconds at best. I come back, and they've let SEVEN, yes, SEVEN probes through in 30 secs. How can an engi in a (at the time) badly built Mobius, USING TETRYON, be the only firepower on the team?
Luckily, it seems that the 1 hour ban from a STF when you leave wasn't being applied, so I left and joined a team who knew what they were doing.
Never again.
As cool as subsystem targeting is, as well as all the science abilities, science ships really need more firepower. And letting a vesta equip dual cannons isn't the answer cryptic...
CSN
I pugged in.
First cube was already dead, second cube had 4 nodes left, under 5 minutes left on the clock.
I rush in to cube 2 and start on the nodes.
Nobody is helping.
I see everyone chasing Raptors and BOPS all over the place.
I get the cube killed.
About 3 minutes left.
I rush over to cube three.
I see that ALL of the other ships are using Rainbow/Technicolor beams including an escort.
I get cube three killed with less than one minute to spare.
I had used all my speed buffs so couldn't rush to the Kang.
I type, 'SOMEBODY HAIL THE KANG!'
Two ships are setting within hail range, nothing happens. :eek:
I aim my ship towards the Kang and slowly progress in it's direction shooting warships as I go.
I hail the Kang with about 5 seconds to spare.
It was close but the optional was saved.
I'm STILL amazed by the number of people that don't realize (Or don't care) that you MUST HAIL THE KANG! :P
But over the pastr few days I have to say that my worst experience is trying to do the crystalline PVE.
Every time I would load it I would always get a Server Not Responding every 5-10 seconds that would last for almost the whole pve and load it at the tail end when it was done. Or when it did finally load I would constantly get the "Server Not Responding" message or get disconnected and not be able to do anything in the pve. Try and reload it and get the same things until I was kicked to my last location like Risa.
I inevitably have to PM someone who isn't watching Team chat and say "don't blow up the cube yet or raptors will start spawning."
I've not ONCE had a person listen. The inevitable raptor spam winds up overwhelming the team and destroying the kang.
I actually had a person try to argue with me after the match saying it was "probes, spawns, probes, spawns, cube, then move to second cube."
Ugh. Stupid people make an already precarious mission even worse. Learn the game you moronic pugs.
RML is ofc faster. you spend less time travelling in empty space
10k DPS Vesta threads: 1; 2
I just don't know what people are thinking using EV Suits in Elite missions. I am starting to think people are doing it to annoy other people. I have seen 3 different people doing it the last couple of weeks and all 3 of them I have seen doing it multiple times.
We go to right side, and I obviously wasted my time - before the cube was even down the gal-x was lancing one of the generators. He then backed off to 40km and played around with a sphere for the rest of the match.
I hate trolls.
CSN
I pug in and say 'hi' as usual.
Everyone says hi back.
I fly right and start on the nodes.
A second escort with AP cannons and Cruiser with phased polaron follow.
We destroy everything including the cube in under a minute.
We fly to cube two where another escort with AP is pounding away.
The escort with me flys on to cube three which is also under fire.
Cube two dies in seconds and I head towards the Kang and kill a raptor.
Cube three dies just as the raptor dies and someone hails the Kang.
All this in under three minutes.
The carrier dies in seconds.
If say the whole thing took less than 4 minutes and the Kang never took a shot.
Good team!
Their was other time doing the mission that had some leechers that was able to be complete but it took much longer then it should of. I am so sick of all the leeching that has been going on especially lately that it is happening more often.
Contrary to last weekend i actually found several Pugs which, although not chatty on team channel, ran through the ESTF like a warm knife through butter.