All scripted content becomes stale. The only way to keep it interesting is to treat the players as the content. PVP is the most obvious way, but you can do other things like trading, crafting, and other kinds of open-ended systems.
... and now anyone can get the once coveted "Elite" gear without even half trying.
Not that the "Elite" gear is even that great. If you are even halfway skilled you can build a ship completely from mission-reward gear and do just fine in ESTFs. Good quality [acc]x2 weapons are there, as are all the consoles, shields and etc.
Gear is really the roof of a player's house... it completes the structure but there is no need to go absolutely bonkers on it. If you have a solid foundation of skill and mechanic understanding supporting walls of a quality ship with good BoFF usage even the most basic "roofing" will get the job done.
Setting wise, it makes sense that their not that much story in the STF's. If you think about Star Trek, the times they gathered a large fleet was mainly only for a single battle against a single threat. I'd rather have short STF's like we have now and some elite solo missions that is full of stories where you can get STF level gear.
Yes I know it's an MMO, but setting wise it makes sense for the long drawn out missions to be solo rather than with a large group.
You have to do all new content solo, players never allow you the time to read the story.
I think optionals need to be changed so that all players must survive. That would make for real tactics and stop the mad DPS rush to beat the timers. Also make optional rewards much more valuable. Casual players can still run the mission, those who want a challenge can go for the optional.
So far the most epic experience I've had in a cryptic game was the Therakiel's Temple lair in Champions. Which I did for the first time last week. It took a long time because none of us on the team had ever done it, and we were a pug with no healer or controls but luckily CO makes controls even more useless than STO does so meh.
There were multiple unique mechanics that exist no where else in Champions. Not too many trash mobs, mostly it was a maneuvering puzzle. First how to chain light using mirrors and players to get past obstacles. Then how to move past zones that charged you black or yellow and if you were charged you couldn't enter the same charged field but the opposite would make you neutral again. Then overcoming both at once.
Along the way there were 4 mini-bosses including one with a damage reflection power so massive DPS characters would kill themselves and others would be like "woah what happened to him?" Which I found a rather funny change from giving the boss a 1-shot kill power.
Then the finale in a gorgeous setting. Boss had three modes, including a guaranteed kill move, but it took about 6 seconds to get you. He would zot you with eyebeams that paralyzed you and did a strong DOT. If an ally channeled light to you, using the same mechanic from earlier, you could use your mirror to reflect the beams back onto the boss for big damage and survive the otherwise guaranteed kill.
Also, it had a victory cutscene that was actually worth watching more than once.
End reward? the equivalent of enough rep marks to get 1/5 of a costume piece from a vendor. which is half what I could have gotten doing a solo mission in 20 minutes.
Unsurprisingly, no one does therakiel's temple except a few people who can farm it to get unique costume drops that only come from the end boss. It took us over an hour to find 5 people willing to try this one run and when we did it was only people who had never done it before. No vets were interested. Most tried to talk us out of it.
Generally speaking, most people don't want a challenge. Kind of sad, but there it is.
I both agree and disagree here.
Therakiel's is definitely an epic experience. A large sweeping lair with different self contained environments, each with their own boss that has different mechanics in order to beat. I'm particularly fond of the light/darkness statue area. Having to pass through certain light/dark auras in order to get through places or risk being burned was so cool.
And that Baron Cimetiere fight? THAT was a challenge. Having to know when to back off and when to press the attack because of the damage reflection dolls was awesome. Then getting hit with that attack that makes you explode but has a damage multiplier if you're around other team members, so you had to back off and get away from your team so you didn't kill them all made it even crazier. I think it took my team around 7-8 tries to beat that guy the first time we ran it.
And the area where you have to coordinate your team to get the light to reflect off of each others mirrors was really cool too. It was just a really well done lair with a bunch of unique and challenging stuff.
But...the very thing that made it epic in scope is the very thing that makes me not want to play it. It's such a large place with multiple bosses and areas that it takes way too long to do for most players. That's why you see even the old time vets not wanting to do it. The first time I ran it took me around 5 hours or so to beat it. The next two times were around 2-3 hours or so. It's just a big deal to do. So with that in mind, I would say that it isn't so much the challenge but the time scale that keeps people away from it. That's what keeps me away from it anyway. Three successful runs was more than enough for me for a lifetime.
Instead, what I would like to see is to have challenge disassociated with length of time. You can have a nice challenging dungeon/lair/whatever that only takes around 40 minutes or so. I don't see why we need difficult content that takes the better part of an afternoon to complete one run. I believe CO just did something like this with their Cybermind Alert. I haven't run it myself, but it seems that the boss does need some strategy to take down but doesn't take several hours to complete. I've been reading over there that some players are finding it to be quite the challenge. I've watched several videos of it too, it looks pretty neat.
I would be all for a bit more challenging content along those lines for STO. Just cut out the long times needed and I'm all set.
Not that the "Elite" gear is even that great. If you are even halfway skilled you can build a ship completely from mission-reward gear and do just fine in ESTFs. Good quality [acc]x2 weapons are there, as are all the consoles, shields and etc.
Gear is really the roof of a player's house... it completes the structure but there is no need to go absolutely bonkers on it. If you have a solid foundation of skill and mechanic understanding supporting walls of a quality ship with good BoFF usage even the most basic "roofing" will get the job done.
I was referring more to the ground sets and their unique costume unlocks.
Which before the rep system was a symbol of achievement.
But now not only do you not need to play Elite STF's anymore to get them, you can just easily farm ISE over and over again without having to touch the ground STF's at all.
Stat wise the Mk XII STF gear was only marginally better than the Mk XI anyway.
But regardless, the damage is done and cannot ever be undone.
The most one can hope for is for new non-rep Raids/Instances be created for the Hardcore Crowd with new rewards and kept that way.
As for Neverwinter, it's not as terrible as people make it out to be. It's true that many dungeons have way too much trash, but there are also great boss fights. The new one Castle Malbog even has a final boss with no adds at all (if you do it right). They are listening to player feedback about too much AoE fest, I think future content will be better in this respect. At least Neverwinter has bosses with unique mechanics... The game came with over a dozen right out of the gate. STO still only has only the 4 ground STFs. The space STFs have no mechanics to speak of. ALL other space events are just standard NPC trash that you could spawn in the foundry too. And that after 3 years!
But oh great Season 8 will be endgame focused! Then Gecko mentioned STFs and quickly corrected himself "Oh no STFs sorry, I meant queuable events". Great, more NPC trash to kill in waves. I think the space mechanics in this game that everyone loves so much just aren't cut out for any other type of content. The game is rotten from the core, the playerbase just holds their noses and pretend they smell roses.
But now not only do you not need to play Elite STF's anymore to get them, you can just easily farm ISE over and over again without having to touch the ground STF's at all.
Pretty sure you still need to have the achievement for beating all Elite STFs with optional before you can get ALL the skins (you can get most without though).
I'm still sad that The Hive didn't even get any accolades. Both ground and space maps are more difficult than the old ones yet nearly no one runs them. Maps need unique rewards or else players will always take the way of least resistence. Heck, I have seen players say that they exclusively run ISE to do their rep grind, because even Cure is beyond them. That is just sad.
You get all but one of the costume unlocks.
Gaining the Elite Costume and the Elite Commander variants were two seperate achievements in themselves.
The Elite costome was a trophy, proof that you had endured playing ALL the ground STF's for however long it took to get them.
The Elite Commander was proof that you had done that and completed all the optional objectives.
While the drop rates of the tech drops are a matter of debate, it did require that people actually played ALL the STF's to get it all, and not just farm the easiest one repeatedly.
One of the problems is making the ESTF's practicaly required for the rep system to both level and get gear. If they have an elite mission that is not part of the rep system but requires a team of good players and mixed class and ships that is completely optional but still gives a nice reward then they can set it up for being very difficult. As it is the elite content is more of a mid range content because it doesnt matter that you can complete them in less than 10 minutes with a team of all tacs or engi and no requirement to mix the teams for success. And they need to be mid range because they are tied into the rep system and must be fair to both casual players and elite players.
yes they need epic difficulty mission that casual players must learn to be better before acomplishing, but those need to be seperate from the rep system too.
Join Date: Nobody cares.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
And thats just it.
They converted a system that was working just fine into a rep system.
Chance for random epic loot any time > Month long grindfest(reputation)
Not only have STF's suffered, but DS9 which was alive and well with the STF vendors there is now once again a ghost town.
And when the STF store was moved to DS9, Omega Fleet became the ghosttown.
Honestly, Cryptic has a very bad habit of centralizing content at the same time trivializing it. They dumbed down the game to the point you really don't have to leave ESD.
Honestly, Cryptic has a very bad habit of centralizing content at the same time trivializing it. They dumbed down the game to the point you really don't have to leave ESD.
SFA, shorter ways between exchange/bank/mail and you have doff degrinding there too
And no zone chat spam from traders and noob fleets.
Quite frankly Omega fleet was rather pointless and boring to begin with.
Just a bunch of ships in space, nothing more.
DS9 is an iconic starbase and social hub, and the STF vendors brought life to the place.
Another problem is how everything has become a Queue.
Open instanced Fleet Actions are gone and you no longer need to travel to your destinations for Fleet actions and STF's.
Honestly, Cryptic has a very bad habit of centralizing content at the same time trivializing it. They dumbed down the game to the point you really don't have to leave ESD.
Another problem is how everything has become a Queue.
Open instanced Fleet Actions are gone and you no longer need to travel to your destinations for Fleet actions and STF's.
Choose some easy minigames from a menu and chat with your friends. That's facebook in space. Spacebook.
Having some really challenging PvE missions that do not reward gear but some (optional) titles or accolades sounds like a great idea.
Actually I've been thinking, since they have gotten into the habit of duplicating entrance points to some missions, they could bring back the old STFs via an entrance on the sector map.
Like with the Nukera missions, you can do 5-man teams (only) from the queue, or you can go to Nukera Prime and run those same missions with however many people you wish. Go to Nukera Prime and start the map by yourself, or take your fleet noobs and give a class.
Maybe the old STF entrance points in Gamma Orionis could be restored in the same sort of way.
Ugh... seriously the last thing this game needs are "premade team required" missions... The "difficulty" in STO is the grind... not buying up the latest lock box gimmick, I mean "thorough understanding core game mechanics".
STO already has an "ego mission", you can beat the no win scenerio and get a sticker that says how awesome and amazing you are. I think one mission catering to egotists is more than enough.
Elite STF's are so easy because some players are clueless when it comes to building a character and ship. I laugh when I see zone chats talking about how difficult they are and then come to the forums screaming "It's too hard, nerf it" I think all the difficulty levels should be raised on the suggestions of PvP player's testing them until they become a challenge !
Not to the point where you get one shot killed but a challenge !
Part of the problem is that there was hardcore content for hardcore players, but casual players with entitlement issues caused it to be nerfed and be made super easy.
I agree with the idea of letting the pvpers lead the remodelling of elite STFs while normals stay the same, they could adust the rewards such that the normal STFs give current elite rewards rather than the sort of "Oh, you completed the mission? I guess I'm obliged to give you something then huh? Here, have a few dozen marks and a little dilithium and be off with you." that they currently do.
Elite STFs should be challenging, they should require thought out builds because the NPCs should have abilities and an AI to match and if your build is not up to the task of countering this then you have no business complaining about the elite content being elite, you should play the normal stuff or ask for help building your ship and learning how to be better at the game as a whole.
I also like the idea of having a reason to leave ESD to go and do missions as it increases the immersion factor that STO has definitely lost.
I've been complaining about the measure of certain players for well over a year now. It's an easy fix. Obviously we are all annoyed when a seasoned vet may have to over compensate for a greenhorn with no idea how or when or where to operate on any given map.
So the fix is easy. Every PVE should have a club-style program running in the background where if upon completing the basics/requirements of any style of PVE, the player will THEN have the option of joining an elite version.
For instance, I will randomly choose Nakura missions. For the sake of sanity those options are tumultuous at best because there always seems to be 1 player consistently running out of the EV cage aflame and dying OVER and over again until they are either excluded because the other players are tired of waiting or they simply quit the round because their method of trying the same thing for different results was obviously unsuccessful. Nakura is an actual place and greenhorns should go there first to understand how to activate an EV suit.
Same thing with STF's.. You should be forced to play 25 rounds of regular STF's until you unlock elite and with that in mind, Elite should be much more comprehensive all the same. It's only childsplay because we've mindlessly defeated those hundreds of times over. Of course, there should be plenty of room to expand upon especially since Daniel Stahl has made mention of a possible focus for increased end-game content. So in this respect and with all fairness considered, we should give the guy an honoest shot to wow us on that front.
STO already has an "ego mission", you can beat the no win scenerio and get a sticker that says how awesome and amazing you are. I think one mission catering to egotists is more than enough.
And because you don't want it noone should have it?
Comments
Not that the "Elite" gear is even that great. If you are even halfway skilled you can build a ship completely from mission-reward gear and do just fine in ESTFs. Good quality [acc]x2 weapons are there, as are all the consoles, shields and etc.
Gear is really the roof of a player's house... it completes the structure but there is no need to go absolutely bonkers on it. If you have a solid foundation of skill and mechanic understanding supporting walls of a quality ship with good BoFF usage even the most basic "roofing" will get the job done.
goes both ways my friend.... I assume we can agree on that.
fwiw; I can see I struck a nerve, so I'm gonna end our volley here .... good luck.
---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----
Yes I know it's an MMO, but setting wise it makes sense for the long drawn out missions to be solo rather than with a large group.
I think optionals need to be changed so that all players must survive. That would make for real tactics and stop the mad DPS rush to beat the timers. Also make optional rewards much more valuable. Casual players can still run the mission, those who want a challenge can go for the optional.
I both agree and disagree here.
Therakiel's is definitely an epic experience. A large sweeping lair with different self contained environments, each with their own boss that has different mechanics in order to beat. I'm particularly fond of the light/darkness statue area. Having to pass through certain light/dark auras in order to get through places or risk being burned was so cool.
And that Baron Cimetiere fight? THAT was a challenge. Having to know when to back off and when to press the attack because of the damage reflection dolls was awesome. Then getting hit with that attack that makes you explode but has a damage multiplier if you're around other team members, so you had to back off and get away from your team so you didn't kill them all made it even crazier. I think it took my team around 7-8 tries to beat that guy the first time we ran it.
And the area where you have to coordinate your team to get the light to reflect off of each others mirrors was really cool too. It was just a really well done lair with a bunch of unique and challenging stuff.
But...the very thing that made it epic in scope is the very thing that makes me not want to play it. It's such a large place with multiple bosses and areas that it takes way too long to do for most players. That's why you see even the old time vets not wanting to do it. The first time I ran it took me around 5 hours or so to beat it. The next two times were around 2-3 hours or so. It's just a big deal to do. So with that in mind, I would say that it isn't so much the challenge but the time scale that keeps people away from it. That's what keeps me away from it anyway. Three successful runs was more than enough for me for a lifetime.
Instead, what I would like to see is to have challenge disassociated with length of time. You can have a nice challenging dungeon/lair/whatever that only takes around 40 minutes or so. I don't see why we need difficult content that takes the better part of an afternoon to complete one run. I believe CO just did something like this with their Cybermind Alert. I haven't run it myself, but it seems that the boss does need some strategy to take down but doesn't take several hours to complete. I've been reading over there that some players are finding it to be quite the challenge. I've watched several videos of it too, it looks pretty neat.
I would be all for a bit more challenging content along those lines for STO. Just cut out the long times needed and I'm all set.
Mine Trap Supporter
I was referring more to the ground sets and their unique costume unlocks.
Which before the rep system was a symbol of achievement.
But now not only do you not need to play Elite STF's anymore to get them, you can just easily farm ISE over and over again without having to touch the ground STF's at all.
Stat wise the Mk XII STF gear was only marginally better than the Mk XI anyway.
But regardless, the damage is done and cannot ever be undone.
The most one can hope for is for new non-rep Raids/Instances be created for the Hardcore Crowd with new rewards and kept that way.
But oh great Season 8 will be endgame focused! Then Gecko mentioned STFs and quickly corrected himself "Oh no STFs sorry, I meant queuable events". Great, more NPC trash to kill in waves. I think the space mechanics in this game that everyone loves so much just aren't cut out for any other type of content. The game is rotten from the core, the playerbase just holds their noses and pretend they smell roses.
Pretty sure you still need to have the achievement for beating all Elite STFs with optional before you can get ALL the skins (you can get most without though).
I'm still sad that The Hive didn't even get any accolades. Both ground and space maps are more difficult than the old ones yet nearly no one runs them. Maps need unique rewards or else players will always take the way of least resistence. Heck, I have seen players say that they exclusively run ISE to do their rep grind, because even Cure is beyond them. That is just sad.
Gaining the Elite Costume and the Elite Commander variants were two seperate achievements in themselves.
The Elite costome was a trophy, proof that you had endured playing ALL the ground STF's for however long it took to get them.
The Elite Commander was proof that you had done that and completed all the optional objectives.
While the drop rates of the tech drops are a matter of debate, it did require that people actually played ALL the STF's to get it all, and not just farm the easiest one repeatedly.
yes they need epic difficulty mission that casual players must learn to be better before acomplishing, but those need to be seperate from the rep system too.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
They converted a system that was working just fine into a rep system.
Chance for random epic loot any time > Month long grindfest(reputation)
Not only have STF's suffered, but DS9 which was alive and well with the STF vendors there is now once again a ghost town.
And when the STF store was moved to DS9, Omega Fleet became the ghosttown.
Honestly, Cryptic has a very bad habit of centralizing content at the same time trivializing it. They dumbed down the game to the point you really don't have to leave ESD.
SFA, shorter ways between exchange/bank/mail and you have doff degrinding there too
And no zone chat spam from traders and noob fleets.
Just a bunch of ships in space, nothing more.
DS9 is an iconic starbase and social hub, and the STF vendors brought life to the place.
Another problem is how everything has become a Queue.
Open instanced Fleet Actions are gone and you no longer need to travel to your destinations for Fleet actions and STF's.
Choose some easy minigames from a menu and chat with your friends. That's facebook in space. Spacebook.
Having some really challenging PvE missions that do not reward gear but some (optional) titles or accolades sounds like a great idea.
Like with the Nukera missions, you can do 5-man teams (only) from the queue, or you can go to Nukera Prime and run those same missions with however many people you wish. Go to Nukera Prime and start the map by yourself, or take your fleet noobs and give a class.
Maybe the old STF entrance points in Gamma Orionis could be restored in the same sort of way.
STO already has an "ego mission", you can beat the no win scenerio and get a sticker that says how awesome and amazing you are. I think one mission catering to egotists is more than enough.
Captain Ariel Trueheart Department of Temporal Investigations
U.S.S. Valkyrie - NCC 991701
=/\= ================================= =/\=
Not to the point where you get one shot killed but a challenge !
When you look at it like that, it becomes painfully obvious to see the direction the game will be taking in future...
Elite STFs should be challenging, they should require thought out builds because the NPCs should have abilities and an AI to match and if your build is not up to the task of countering this then you have no business complaining about the elite content being elite, you should play the normal stuff or ask for help building your ship and learning how to be better at the game as a whole.
I also like the idea of having a reason to leave ESD to go and do missions as it increases the immersion factor that STO has definitely lost.
So the fix is easy. Every PVE should have a club-style program running in the background where if upon completing the basics/requirements of any style of PVE, the player will THEN have the option of joining an elite version.
For instance, I will randomly choose Nakura missions. For the sake of sanity those options are tumultuous at best because there always seems to be 1 player consistently running out of the EV cage aflame and dying OVER and over again until they are either excluded because the other players are tired of waiting or they simply quit the round because their method of trying the same thing for different results was obviously unsuccessful. Nakura is an actual place and greenhorns should go there first to understand how to activate an EV suit.
Same thing with STF's.. You should be forced to play 25 rounds of regular STF's until you unlock elite and with that in mind, Elite should be much more comprehensive all the same. It's only childsplay because we've mindlessly defeated those hundreds of times over. Of course, there should be plenty of room to expand upon especially since Daniel Stahl has made mention of a possible focus for increased end-game content. So in this respect and with all fairness considered, we should give the guy an honoest shot to wow us on that front.
And because you don't want it noone should have it?