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Official Feedback thread for The Breach
coldsnapped
Member Posts: 520 Cryptic Developer
Please leave all comments, feedback, and bugs in this thread for The Breach!
The Breach:
The Breach:
- This is a new five-man, 25-30 minute event that is available from the queue at any time. It is playable by mixed Starfleet, KDF and Romulan Republic teams. The Breach is designed for teams of level 50 characters and has both Normal and Elite Difficulties.
- Captains will attack the Voth Fortress Ship, an enemy ship on a scale never before seen.
- The attacks will focus on destroying Integrity nodes located around the hull.
- Along the way, captains can destroy hull hard points to further increase the progress of the assault.
- Once enough damage has been done to the Voth Fortress Ship players will be able to blow a hole in the side of the ship allowing them to enter it.
- When the captains are inside they will face Voth ships and automated defense systems that will try to keep the captains from destroying the main power source.
- This event rewards Dyson Sphere Marks or Fleet marks with bonuses for saving captured ships and escaping the fortress ship at the end.
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However the final core destruction fight...
It needs work. I couldn't see if my weapons would not fire because of positioning, or if it only looked like they where not firing because of gfx issues.
However, overall, take a faw spam boat and the entire instance is a cakewalk.
The expected path the through ship could use some hints as where to go next after clearing the hangar bay. The entrance to the rest of the ship is a little to well hidden. Unless of course that is intended.
I assume the dread is not supposed to be solo able?
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
I also had trouble rescuing the captured ships. In one case I destroyed all the Voth ships guarding the Fed ship, yet I havent seen any option to rescue it, even though the progress bar was still active. Only sometime later while saving another ship was when I've noticed the button it's actually on the side (not selectable by pressing F), which makes it easy to miss during combat.
Also, the "final boss" fight was rather boring. Targeting bug aside, the only thing I've done was pressing fire while standing still. If you're keeping your distance then you just have to fire, as the "boss" has a lot of HP. That's basically it. The teleport was more of an annoyance than any real danger.
As for other things, I was disappointed that the Voth ship didn't explode at the end, but I guess the point was just to disable it. As some other teammate pointed out "think of all the lives we've just taken"...
Overall, it was fun and fresh. Got 48 Voth Marks after the run (with very few ships saved and escaping successfully), which seemed reasonable for the time it took. I see myself doing more often on Elite once it goes live. The other minor complaint I have is that the mission clearly favours Escorts and fast-turning ships. It wasn't very fun in my D'deridex (*cough*which totally should receive Strategic Maneuvering comm array power*cough*) to turn around all those corridors, but I guess you can't do much about it.
Oh, I played the mission on normal.
PS. Sorry, couldn't resist - http://i.imgur.com/kChfazG.jpg
Of those three runs I've done, there's generally 2 out of 5 of the team who have no idea where to go once the hanger is cleared. The obvious "exit" appears to be the large door on the right (to the back of the hanger), when it's actually lower down and to the side. Not much of an issue as there's no timer, but still.
The power core is bugged, which has already been mentioned. Per Farks instruction I managed to get at the right level to hit the thing.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
I'd just recommend being how long this mission takes for the reward to be quite a bit higher we got like 53-55 when I did it. It takes around 3 to 4 times more time than your traditional ques so a lot of people may not even attempt it if its too low for the time spent.
1) The map in general is just ****ing amazing and I wasn't even sure you could do something like that in STO. :eek: It's by far the most visually impressive encounter so far, and frankly it even overshadows the space adventure zone a bit, hah...
2) The interior was occasionally a bit hard to navigate. The group didn't really get stuck, but we occasionally hit a wrong turn and had to backtrack to get to the right door. It's only a problem the first time through really, but an HUD display or map marker or something would be nice. It's a big dang ship!
3) The optional objectives seem broken; we missed one or two of the early ones, but cleared the ships from the later ones easily only to watch the captured ships despawn. Not sure if this is a known issue or not, reporting it anyway.
4) The core fight was a little weird... even below the "equator" I had some issues hitting it. I think this is due to the fact there's certain "spots" on it you can actually fire upon that move in and out of range, and it's not always clear where they are. Not sure what can be done to fix that though. Also I wasn't sure if the core actually attacked directly or not, and whether that's intended or not, since I sort of spent the whole fight staring at the scenery... sorry! Only attacks I did notice was the swirling energy laser environment effect and an energy drain attack.
5) The escape was... rough. I'm not sure if there was a shortcut we missed or if one didn't spawn properly, since 45 seconds is totally not enough time to get back out of the ship the way you came in. :P
6) Probably need to have some sort of cinematic of the ship exploding at the end, though getting the distant view from the respawn point really drove home the scale of it.
There is a work around for that when testing. Let your team know what you are doing so they don't cuss you out and then sit back out of combat and when you are out of red alert double click them so they go in your inventory and then click/drag them back in.
Back before F2P hangar pets used to be so slow that you'd end up waiting for ever for them to catch up so that used to be the way we did it back then was make them most of the time go in and out of our inventory.
"Trench Run" - I really liked it and felt fun, it gave that SW Feel.
However, I didn't like having to put on the brakes to take out those node / turrets that were in the trench. Felt like it sucked the fun, until you defeated it and speed on again. I for one would like if you had other easily destroyable objects that you could've swept through and destroyed it.
The Outside - the visual was great, but when it came to the objectives, it was really, really bland. Especially how you was shooting up nodes like crazy just before, in the trench.
The Inside - Was interesting, but rather confusing as well. I saw ships I had to rescue, but didn't know what to do .........until I was on top of it and closing those doors. Not sure why hull damage was taking place on those ships, and not sure if you get a bonus for saving them or not. Be nice to know.
Further in - we go deeper into a giant room and there are a bunch of tractor beams that .........really don't do anything. The Dreadnought was rather easy to defeat.
SubCore - we follow the tunnels and inside the sub core and more ships to rescue for some unknown reason, but shooting at the sub scores and transporting to the other spots was interesting. And I myself got sandwitched when it closed, think might want to have some kind of "tell" that says "I'm closing, you better move!"
The Core - Not sure what was going on, people on the team said they were lagging, but I felt fine, but then I seemed to lag and video was catching up, which felt odd since I didn't seem to be lagging.
Core Goes BOOM! - 1 Minute until core explosion..........
I saw two doors, I went the way we came and the others went the other way. I'm not sure how far they got, but I managed to get to all the way to the Hanger Room. In hindsight........I went the wrong way.
Nonetheless.........even if the others went the right way........they didn't make it either.
1) Need a sign that says "This way Dumba..."
2) More time to get out of Dodge.
This is what the others were saying. So not sure if both ways were okay to get out or the door to the rear was the right way, either way we went boom.
Ah figures. :P
NOTE: BTW, there needs to be a way to block nodes through walls. Sometimes it god disorienting thinking you was on the right side to attack the nodes, but they were in fact on the other side.
Overall: I really enjoyed this. Even if people say its too much Star Wars, I don't care, this was unique and fun. We need more stuff like this in STO, though obviously we can't constantly have monster ships like this all the time. But smaller scale like tanks or shuttles for ground would be good.
And I even posted on the forum a few months ago that perhaps something like a Tactical Cube you tear down piece by piece wouldn't be bad, in a way it would be similar to this, except the "flying inside" part.
So a rare Kudos from me.
BTW, if this is going to be a 25-30 minute event, the Dyson Marks should match up to the other events. Because getting 40 marks on Elite, compared to getting more doing the CEE or the ESTFs, I'm sure you get the idea.
lol voth ship inside a voth ship i see what u did there :cool::P
apparently u can fire on the final core boss thingy at the end at 9km range with no problems at all. sssooo might wanna work with that one lol
Second after the power core is destroyed it is not clear where to go, on the first run I headed back the way we came and the rest of the team went through the other door. Of the 4 of us not one made it out. Need some directional markers and probably more time on the escape. On my second run i had a better idea where to run and did get out, but this time we had a full minute to run. On my first run we only have 30 seconds for some reason.
Finally the mark reward for this should be increased, a 48 mark cap, outside of bonus event, is pretty low for a mission that takes 20-30 minutes. Even by Nukara/Romulan standards this is very low, mine trap takes about the same and has a cap of 60 marks outside of bonus event. CCE can be done in under 5 min with a good team, maybe 10 with an average group, and awards 60 marks. Given this the marks on this event should be raised to at least 60, perhaps more given the length.
Otherwise I found it to be a very well done, and rather unique, mission. Was very enjoyable.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
My only real issue is escaping the ship, there is no help in picking the right direction and not enough time if you ask me
Head west/left on the map. Your path through the ship is basically a big loop and your exit is the locked door in the very first hangar room which opens after the core is destroyed.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I enjoyed the puzzles with the different cores in the engineering section. That made it interesting.
The outside could do with a few frigate ships protecting the hardpoints to make that more interesting.
One the final fight, I died at the very last second before the core blew, and when i re spawned i did so outside the ship, which certainly made it much easier to escape already being outside.
Did not get a commendation for plying it on normal? not sure if that was the dying and not doing the full escape or that the reward was not in yet. EDIT - ignore this. I have the commendation on the bugged dyson sphere mission so i cant get anymore and i cant call in that mission.
Cheers,
Brandon =/\=
I'd add to this: Much of the feedback on rewards we've heard so far is that the # of Marks aren't quite up to snuff with the time investment. But I'd remind everyone that, since it's not a timed event, it only takes as long as the players require. How long will this event take to complete in a month from now? Two months? Three? It won't take long to build up proficiency to the point where the payoff is worth as much, or more, than the time invested in completing it. We have to keep this in mind when designating the associated rewards.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
The end result remains the same:
Players will engage in content that gives the most rewards, for the least amount of time. Lack of rewards results in less players playing the content. Keep that in mind.
Right now, even if the Breach is fun, people will very much gravitate towards doing the Spire since it's faster.
And Dev Team keeps forgetting that people have multiple characters, they want to get the reputation done for the day and move on to the next character. And the more time they spend online and less freedom they have to enjoy, it just adds to their reasons to leave the game because "it's a job".
I understand that it can be confusing to navigate the inside of the ship. I am working on ways to solve this problem in a way that won't create tedium for experienced players or clutter the screen further.
Again I would like to point out that the only rewards given to players at the moment are for a normal run of the queue.
Thank you all for the feedback.
That explains it = thanks for letting us know.
That wont help the people who are grinding for the rep gear or those who are trying to get there 5 tokens for the week.
It is confusing on the first pass. However the same could be said about ISE for a new player and that's super easy.
Luckily the mission isn't timed so it allows players to discover the correct route at their own pace, without feeling like their letting their team down. The only real issue comes when trying to escape.
Perhaps just highlight the route on the map.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
The sheer size of that beast is incredible. Very well done. The visuals are top notch.
The initial assault was great. Flying down that trench blowing up nodes Death Star style was super sweet. Had problems targeting some nodes, but it looks like that's a known issue.
The breach itself was well done too. One of my team mates comments was "Heh, do you think they felt that?" I responded with "Maybe just a little bit" haha.
Flying inside the ship was really cool too. Although it was a bit disorienting at first. Being used to flying in open space with a few exceptions kind of threw me off. That might just be a personal issue though, so I'm not counting that towards anything.
We did have some trouble figuring out where to go after we cleared the hangar. We kept trying to go forward when we should have gone backwards to the corridor on the side. That actually took us a good few minutes to figure out. So navigation can be an issue, but it looks like that's already being worked on. Just thought I'd throw my voice into the mix on that one as well.
Escaping was very easy for me. I made it out of the ship with 20+ seconds left on the clock to spare on my first run. The rest of my team was not so fortunate. I was the only one who escaped and the rest of them blew up. So I would say that I'm the exception here and not the rule. I would not object to marking the path out if it helps others.
Got about 41 marks or so which feels alright. Maybe bump it up to 50 and I won't complain. It's a long mission so that amount of marks is fine.
Overall I'd say I really like it. Due to the length (not counting my team getting lost :P) this isn't a mission I'd run every day. Maybe every now and then to mix things up a bit. Maybe it will get faster once we play it more and people get a hang of it though. But this one was very well done. Good stuff.
Mine Trap Supporter
1) It would be cool to have a cut-scene at the start that shows the Fortress Ship in its entirety. Perhaps some sort of fly-by shot?
2) I wish the hard points had a visible object and destroying it would add a tiny explosion on the surface of the Fortress Ship
3) What's with the changes the speed of my ship while running the trenches? The transition is so fast that it feels a little unnatural. I wished the ship's speed can slowly ramp up rather than having this sudden speed change. Alternatively, I wish there's some kind of early warning. A way to tell when my ship will be speeding up or slowing down so that I would not be caught surprised and overshoot the hard points.
4) It is easy to get lost or disoriented inside the Fortress Ship.
4.1) Part of this is because the exits are not located at obvious, easily seen locations. Some exits end up behind the player, which is rather un-intuitive.
4.2) Part of it is because each room looks too.. uniform. There are no distinguishing features or landmark that I can use to tell which part of the room I'm in. With all the flying around in combat, I can easily mistake the entrance as the exit.
5) I'm confused by defenses in the Primary Core Room. It is obvious that the two big rotating shields block damage to the core. However, its hard to tell if my weapons are hitting the core. The damage floaters appear very high, close to the ceiling and out of my camera's view. Sometimes I don't even see my weapons firing and there is no obvious reason why they shouldn't be firing (weapons power at full). Is there something in the room that's preventing my weapons from firing?
There are so many parts to The Breech that in terms of tone, it feels more like I'm playing a Featured Episode where there is a story and a progression rather than a 5-man public queue event. I count 6 steps - (1) Exterior, (2) Punch a hole, (3) Close hanger bays, (4) Destroy sub power cores, (5) Destroy power core, (6) Escape fortress ship) - are required to complete The Breech. Is there another public queue event that takes so many steps? I cannot recall any. Because of the number of steps required, my sense tells me that even a really good group who have got their tactics nailed down isn't going to blow through The Breech the way they are going to blow through say, an STF. Coupled with the difficulty level of The Breech even in normal mode, I am not surprised by player comments about how long The Breech is compared to the amount of reward gained.
a) Part 1 with the hard points. Very cool running the trench. had to get used to super-speed, but it was pretty fun. Issue with some of the exterior hardpoints is that they can be targetted (but not shot at) from the interior of the trench. I spent a bit of time trying to find a couple of them, only to realize they were exterior hardpoints.
b) Hanger Bay, very cool, very challenging if you manage to draw too much agro. Managed to live, killed all the ships, and then spent all kinds of time trying to figure out how to get to the next point. Found the door on the side button, but nothing clearly marked it as "go here". Wasn't challenging, just frustrating and annoying.
c) Sub-generator room was cool, didn't see any issues here.
d) Final boss generator room. I know it's bugged, it says so in the patchnotes, so I'm cool with the "bash my head against the desk" frustration of trying to find the sweet spot.
The only other thing with this is that there are beam nodes located around that will shoot at you, but you can't target them. However, when you use Fire At Will, the beams will target them and do no damage as far as I can tell. Either make them targettable and destroyable, or don't and let FAW work just on the crystal.
Wasn't quite sure what to do after the crystal died. I know it said escape, which I tried to do by going back the way I came in. Even with full impuilse and the speed boost and perfect handling. didn't make it, just to find out there was an "out"
Otherwise very fun.
Same as others pointed out, the hardpoints on the end of the pathway, where it splits, are bugged, they can be targeted but cant be shooted. The rest wasnt much of a problem. Ohh and i died everytime on the escape part lol. IMO a hint on the escape route/exit, like an objective marker on the map, would work great and wouldnt clutter the HUD.
But overall a great mission, reminds me a bit of some boss fights from console games.
Instead of a 15 minute Infected (Elite) run.
Sometimes, if you want to bury the hatchet with a Klingon, it has to be in his skull. - Captain K'Tar of the USS Danu about J'mpok.