I have a lot of choice words after playing this for the first time on my romulan Character.
What I won't do is say all of them.
The quest design is seriously horrible, tedious, and ultimately not fun in the slightest bit.
The idea for the quest could be fun.
I died so many times to those horrid cones that I am here ranting. Their damage is way way way over the top. Their is way too many ships in their able to fire the cones.
The support ships do not even last long enough to give a iota of help aside from three that spent the entire fight in repair mode.
This expansion at this point should of spent another 3 to 6 months being ironed out in beta. It should have had quality control members doing their job.
When you see quests with grammatical errors because no one bothered to use a simple word processor to check them is purely a lack of care or concern for quality.
Cryptic, thank you for making the expansion. Thank you for getting it out. You are welcome Cryptic I have spent money on this expansion.
Please though, spend some time on quality control in the future.
Playing a Romulan has been a horrible mistaken and a huge waste of time - because of this quest and this particular step.
You stand no chance - your allies are either destroyed or in a constant state of repair - if you engage, you're immediately wiped out. If you try to range, the quest spawn endless frigates behind you. It cannot be completed.
There's zero chance I will open my wallet to you, Cryptic. If you're too lazy to play test, I cannot reward you with funding.
Well, off to say goodbye to a level 36 character and start a create a Federation character - hopefully the quest line there isn't quite so miserable and untested.
Playing a Romulan has been a horrible mistaken and a huge waste of time - because of this quest and this particular step.
You stand no chance - your allies are either destroyed or in a constant state of repair - if you engage, you're immediately wiped out. If you try to range, the quest spawn endless frigates behind you. It cannot be completed.
There's zero chance I will open my wallet to you, Cryptic. If you're too lazy to play test, I cannot reward you with funding.
Well, off to say goodbye to a level 36 character and start a create a Federation character - hopefully the quest line there isn't quite so miserable and untested.
Or you can skip it entirely and move on to the missions after that.
or, you could like...ask for help? I'm pretty sure there are more than a few people out there in need of getting that one done, or maybe, a friend or two with a level 50 alt that can hammer it through. It's not like the bulk of your experience comes from the ships, anymore.
You are aware that dying is not a failure condition in STO, and that in fact there's no penalty for dying and respawning aside from an increasing timer and the fact that your spawn point for this mission is so far out?
I beat it solo in about 30 or 40 minutes, flying a D'Deridex equipped only with the gear that dropped from previous missions run on Normal. It's not impossible, although some might find it a bit tedious.
You are aware that dying is not a failure condition in STO, and that in fact there's no penalty for dying and respawning aside from an increasing timer and the fact that your spawn point for this mission is so far out?
It's not that far out. The Elachi ships eventually swarm the spawn point and start shooting at you the second you respawn, and they don't go away if you wait either.
Also, no one's talking about any penalty. The only complaints I've heard about this mission is how frustrating it is to be fighting and dying for an hour, that the Elachi cone weapon is way overpowered, and that there are simply too many ships on the map (which causes lag and can cause the sound to drop out).
I'm very curious how people have their ships set up for this mission. I found it more difficult than most other mission content, but not excessively so. I beat the thing in 25 minutes with two deaths and quite enjoyed it.
I was flying a D'd with plasma beam arrays, tac team, BFaW and a nice selection of heals. Proper DoFFs to reduce cool down on my EPtW and EPtS were the only things I went out of my way to get.
My D'D had two beam arrays, a dual beam (the one with the 90-degree arc of fire - I find cannon too restrictive), and a Bioneural Warhead torp launcher forward, a beam array, plasma turret, and Hargh'peng torp launcher aft, and Tovan using his Fire At Will and Heavy Torpedo every time they came off cooldown. In fact, I think I was cycling all the powers whenever they came off cooldown. I also had all my weapons set to autofire.
Well I have been playing this game for a lil over a month and just got done this quest, and I finished forst shot:) It was a fun quest where you actually had to use tactics and really watch your positioning. I liked this one much better for the reason it wasn't exactly easy.
I'm very curious how people have their ships set up for this mission. I found it more difficult than most other mission content, but not excessively so. I beat the thing in 25 minutes with two deaths and quite enjoyed it.
I was flying a D'd with plasma beam arrays, tac team, BFaW and a nice selection of heals. Proper DoFFs to reduce cool down on my EPtW and EPtS were the only things I went out of my way to get.
I used:
ship:
beam arrays and torps, (not sure exactly which ones)
This may be slightly off topic, but as two people replied about builds, this seems a good chance to provide some advice that will help people with this and eventually ESTF missions.
1) The D'deridex has a dreadful turn rate, you can't be moving and keep narrow weapon arcs on target. You especially can't flop end to end to launch forward and aft torps. Like all cruisers, you should be running all standard beam arrays and be broadsiding. Fit maybe one torp forward (but this is more to have a weapon that doesn't drain weapon power). In general, unless you're doing something special, there is no reason to mix weapon types (ie don't run a mix of cannons, dual beams and beams - focus your attentions)
2) Don't buff the torp with any BoFF powers. You should have tac consoles that match your beam type. Use BFaW and a tac team
3) EPtW and EPtS are your go-to engineering skills. If you run even three green damage control DoFFs than you can probably get away with just one copy of each power. This leaves room for engineering team and aux to sif. Aux to batt is best to use only in a build meant for it (with technician DoFFs) IMO. Remaining slots can be warp plasma or DEM for some extra damage.
4) science should be transfer shield strength and hazard emitter (this ship doesn't have enough science slots to be trying for damage and crowd control - just tank like a boss)
You won't win this battle with huge alpha strikes, but by flying around your target and grinding them down with large sustained damage from your broadsides. Specific to this mission - I cleared all the small stuff first and worked my way up. When I got to the dreads, I picked the one that was furthest out and lured him away from the group to work on him. It does seem that the larger ships ignore you until you shoot at them or a ship bigger than them. So start small and stay at the edges.
The torp aft is actually handy against Elachi - they love to do that trick where they suddenly teleport behind you. Quite a few have fallen victim to a charged-up Hargh'peng torpedo, just when they thought they were safe...
Now that my new ship is getting into the Cardassian missions, though, I might swap it out for another beam array. They come in handy for broadsides.
I happened to read the threads on this mission after trying the atmospheric one prior to and dying too much. (shuttles were hard to see and I did not have my auto target set up right in options)
Anyway, I did patrol missions to boost to lvl 40 and then tried the mission.
Died a few times in the atmospheric mission but the one this and the other threads are about, I just died once. My fault.
Here is what I did.
First off, learn that the battle cloak is your friend.
I let the NPC allies take care of most of the enemies while I just stayed cloaked moving around the field.
Once it was clear that I was needed to take out the command ship, I moved right up on it, uncloaked, set mines, used engineering to set radiation cloud(eject warp plasma) and one other, (had 2), boarding party, hit speed boost, started shooting and moving away, turned back into enemy, got right up on and hit singularity jump.
It was an easy mission and I think I could have pulled it off at Lvl 30. Just reading the complaint threads made me hold off.
Up until a few hours ago, i would've thought it unbeatable, but it IS beatable. I had to completely rework my build on my D'd (cannons/beam banks, cloak and alpha strike hit and run tactics is required on this mission more than anything).
Basically i spent most of the time attacking the battleships, escorts and frigates and keeping out of firing range of the dreadnoughts and the command ship, eventually your NPC ships will finish it off because you'll be slowly whittling down the rest of the fleet so they're not repairing all the time.
Use singularity jump and battle cloak to get away if things get too hot and setup a lot of healing boff powers in your eng slots.
oh a don't forget to use the pirate distress signal every time its off cooldown. Took me four tries (first three times quitting from sheer frustration) to finally beat it and it took about 30 mins (level 33).
There seems to be a problem with the scaling of the ships for these missions. the save the colony with shuttles mission (can't remember which one) has tons of these minis attacking you and only you no one else despite u having a fleet of other shuttles with you. Every single kinetic attack whether you are using the abilities that increase defense or not absolutely hit. I used evasive maneuvers on every one of those walking guys attacks at me you know the multiple shrapnel missiles or whatever they are hit me 100% of the time. That's impossible.
And the torps and every single energy shot from these enemy ships did too.
Someone didn't test these things, that's for sure or they had some really lousy bug reporting going on.
Comments
Playing a Romulan has been a horrible mistaken and a huge waste of time - because of this quest and this particular step.
You stand no chance - your allies are either destroyed or in a constant state of repair - if you engage, you're immediately wiped out. If you try to range, the quest spawn endless frigates behind you. It cannot be completed.
There's zero chance I will open my wallet to you, Cryptic. If you're too lazy to play test, I cannot reward you with funding.
Well, off to say goodbye to a level 36 character and start a create a Federation character - hopefully the quest line there isn't quite so miserable and untested.
Or you can skip it entirely and move on to the missions after that.
I beat it solo in about 30 or 40 minutes, flying a D'Deridex equipped only with the gear that dropped from previous missions run on Normal. It's not impossible, although some might find it a bit tedious.
It's not that far out. The Elachi ships eventually swarm the spawn point and start shooting at you the second you respawn, and they don't go away if you wait either.
Also, no one's talking about any penalty. The only complaints I've heard about this mission is how frustrating it is to be fighting and dying for an hour, that the Elachi cone weapon is way overpowered, and that there are simply too many ships on the map (which causes lag and can cause the sound to drop out).
Did my research on how to gear ships, how to engage enemy vessels etc.
I even invested some money for the starter pack and some ZEN to get a bit more bang on my ddex.
But this mission stage is just.. frustrating. And consumers hate that. This cannot be intended.
Defense of New Romulus question
Nerf need to Defense of new romulus
Defense of New Romulus
I was flying a D'd with plasma beam arrays, tac team, BFaW and a nice selection of heals. Proper DoFFs to reduce cool down on my EPtW and EPtS were the only things I went out of my way to get.
ship:
beam arrays and torps, (not sure exactly which ones)
Tovan: HY1, FaW2
Veril: EptS1, EptW2, Aux2Batt, EWP
Arrai: EptW1, EptS2 (random Boff)
Hiven: ST1, TBR
I forget what Doffs I had...
My character Tsin'xing
1) The D'deridex has a dreadful turn rate, you can't be moving and keep narrow weapon arcs on target. You especially can't flop end to end to launch forward and aft torps. Like all cruisers, you should be running all standard beam arrays and be broadsiding. Fit maybe one torp forward (but this is more to have a weapon that doesn't drain weapon power). In general, unless you're doing something special, there is no reason to mix weapon types (ie don't run a mix of cannons, dual beams and beams - focus your attentions)
2) Don't buff the torp with any BoFF powers. You should have tac consoles that match your beam type. Use BFaW and a tac team
3) EPtW and EPtS are your go-to engineering skills. If you run even three green damage control DoFFs than you can probably get away with just one copy of each power. This leaves room for engineering team and aux to sif. Aux to batt is best to use only in a build meant for it (with technician DoFFs) IMO. Remaining slots can be warp plasma or DEM for some extra damage.
4) science should be transfer shield strength and hazard emitter (this ship doesn't have enough science slots to be trying for damage and crowd control - just tank like a boss)
You won't win this battle with huge alpha strikes, but by flying around your target and grinding them down with large sustained damage from your broadsides. Specific to this mission - I cleared all the small stuff first and worked my way up. When I got to the dreads, I picked the one that was furthest out and lured him away from the group to work on him. It does seem that the larger ships ignore you until you shoot at them or a ship bigger than them. So start small and stay at the edges.
Now that my new ship is getting into the Cardassian missions, though, I might swap it out for another beam array. They come in handy for broadsides.
Anyway, I did patrol missions to boost to lvl 40 and then tried the mission.
Died a few times in the atmospheric mission but the one this and the other threads are about, I just died once. My fault.
Here is what I did.
First off, learn that the battle cloak is your friend.
I let the NPC allies take care of most of the enemies while I just stayed cloaked moving around the field.
Once it was clear that I was needed to take out the command ship, I moved right up on it, uncloaked, set mines, used engineering to set radiation cloud(eject warp plasma) and one other, (had 2), boarding party, hit speed boost, started shooting and moving away, turned back into enemy, got right up on and hit singularity jump.
It was an easy mission and I think I could have pulled it off at Lvl 30. Just reading the complaint threads made me hold off.
I agree with this.
Up until a few hours ago, i would've thought it unbeatable, but it IS beatable. I had to completely rework my build on my D'd (cannons/beam banks, cloak and alpha strike hit and run tactics is required on this mission more than anything).
Basically i spent most of the time attacking the battleships, escorts and frigates and keeping out of firing range of the dreadnoughts and the command ship, eventually your NPC ships will finish it off because you'll be slowly whittling down the rest of the fleet so they're not repairing all the time.
Use singularity jump and battle cloak to get away if things get too hot and setup a lot of healing boff powers in your eng slots.
oh a don't forget to use the pirate distress signal every time its off cooldown. Took me four tries (first three times quitting from sheer frustration) to finally beat it and it took about 30 mins (level 33).
And the torps and every single energy shot from these enemy ships did too.
Someone didn't test these things, that's for sure or they had some really lousy bug reporting going on.