It's a ground mission. Or rather, it feels like one because of how it is set up. But if you don't believe me, check out any ground mission you want; Mine Trap, KAGE, or anything else.
Obviously it is in space. Even so, it's set up like a ground mission. Multiple objectives, a lot more 'running around' kind of feel. You aren't just going from one area to another in a relatively small area like a space STF, or a 'straight line' sort of thing like a lot of the old story missions.
I'm not saying that is a bad thing. I'd call it a good thing. About time a space mission was a bit more interesting. Hive Onslaught was a good first step so to speak, but it was still a space STF in a somewhat small area.
Oh yes, a lot are comparing it to the Death Star trench run. Meh, that's too obvious. Instead I compare it more to the giant mothership from Independence Day.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
I'm not saying that is a bad thing. I'd call it a good thing. About time a space mission was a bit more interesting. Hive Onslaught was a good first step so to speak, but it was still a space STF in a somewhat small area.
Agreed, the majority of space missions just have you stuck in one small area with not much to do. This is a vast improvement on that.
So, I've run Breach with most of the ship types, and I've found two spots where some attention may be needed:
-Voth Turrets-
Overall, the damage on these is pretty high, of the ship types I used for testing, the two who had the most trouble were my Carrier and my Escort.
Carrier VS Turrets: Vo'Quv Carrier
The biggest issue I had here was that I had to rely on Tactical Team and Reverse Shield Polarity here, as the carrier's turn rate is so low that I can't shift the shield facings. The carrier took the hits, but I don't know if I would have survived if I didn't have the two aforementioned skills.
Escort VS Turrets: Armitage HEC
For escorts, it's more of the opposite. The turret's damage was so high that I had to pop most of my cool-downs just to survive.
Suggestion: Perhaps a small damage reduction for Normal Difficulty.
-The Escape-
Firstly, Your chance to escape is dependent on one major item: Position. If you are too far from the corridor then you wont escape, no matter what you are flying.
Cruisers: Fleet Advanced Heavy Cruiser Retrofit
With the FAHCR, escape is a possibility. I made it once and did not make it once. as I said earlier, it comes down to position. On the other hand, slower turn cruisers like the Galaxy will have it a lot harder since their turn rate is significantly lower.
Science Vessels: Reconnaissance Vesta
Mostly positioning. Maneuverability was not an issue.
Escort: Armitage
I only did not escape once, and that was due to network latency.
Carrier: Vo'Quv
I have NEVER escaped with my carrier. It's bulk and low turn make it impossible to escape. I even set it up next to the corridor and tried to get out as soon as the core was toast, but I did not make it there either.
Suggestion: Increase the escape timer to 1:30, this will allow larger, slower ships enough time to escape.
I was, the reason I did it with multiple ship types was to show how the timer is not enough for the slower, less maneuverable ships like carriers. Personally, I don't think adding 30 seconds will hurt it too much, but I would be willing to compromise on 15 seconds, due to your inability to use full impulse during Red Alert mode.
i did the breach..it was pretty cool and all,missed a couple parts because i couldnt initially find the hangar exit,but i eventually did with the assistence of another player
also...there is no ship in the entire game that can move fast enough to exit the voth fortress ship when the boom timer starts
so from what ive seen,which was mainly the outside part and then the final boss
simply place one of those mission objective markers for the hangar exit,and all problems with that will be solved
escaping before the boom could be solved by simply saying the force of the core explosion blew another hole in the ship,and thus a relatively short exit out could be opened,you could easily re-use the existing graphical assets to do up the exit
now curiously enough,i didnt have a single problem with the final boss,at all...its power drain did nothing to my ship,its attacks hardly did anything to my shields..my weapons were easily able to hit it from any angle i chose,then again i do have a very nice assortment of seige weapons,mostly based off of the torpedo boat build
romulan hyper plasma launcher
omega torp launcher
elachi heavy crescent wave cannon (lobi store)
borg cutting beam
nukara web mine launcher
andorian phaser beam
and of course i suppose you could count my tholian mesh weavers,as im flying a tholian recluse,using maco mk 12,
overall though,very well designed just needs a couple of fixes like i outlined
also...there is no ship in the entire game that can move fast enough to exit the voth fortress ship when the boom timer starts
I know I mentioned something similar earlier in the thread, but after running the Breach a few more times this really isn't true. There's enough time to get out if you take the right path, and if you're in a zippy ship you'll probably have 15-20s to spare. The trick is that it's not immediately obvious which path is the right one (you need to head out the west exit of the core room, then head into the hangar and out the way you came in), and I imagine there might be some issues making the turns quick enough with a Galaxy or a Vo'quv or something, yeah.
I imagine some of it goes back to the map needing a little more guidance; the replays of the mission were much faster, both because I knew what was going on and where to go, and also because other people could follow my lead so they didn't get lost either.
Played it the first time last night. I brought in my RSV (Sci) Plasma Torp boat. In the beginning (there was Jack-j/k) all but one of my party rushed ahead (like the opening AN/CSE/ISE/KASE/CE charge) while I read the pop ups, and I was behind the entire mission.
The acceleration sectors were interesting, a bit annoying actually. Targeting was difficult with torpedos.
Despite being 100km behind other party members sometimes I tried to destroy hardpoints on the trench run. One torpedo would general destroy a hardpoint, I was surprised that destroying hardpoints here was easier than the Vault.
Inside the ships was confusing, more light or bigger openings indicating portals or doors would be helpful in seeing where you should go.
I got locked out of a room (the core?) and could never get in. I was in a room fighting a Dreadnought (seemed fairly weak) and other ships. I got caught on a wall and by the time I re-oriented myself the team was gone and a Vault-like portal on a wall was closed.
The closed panel/door block me. I flew around inside, transferred to the rally point, flew back in side, flew around the rooms again, explored a bit,and finally flew outside and around the Voth ship shooting hardpoints. I flew around the right side heading to the front around the front and then on the left side heading to the back. If shooting hardpoints was helpful to the team then great; if it was not then perhaps it could be a helpful alternative for players to continue to contribute but who get locked out.
The front designs of the ship are very beautiful and intricate. I loved the gloss of the front bow, especially as it broke left and right when you are at the front of the ship.
While it was very frustrating at least I was outside when the core blew up. Too bad you cannot have exterior/ interior teams/objectives as some take the core on so you can see the full beauty of the ship and play in the environment around it.
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.
No. What will happen is players will no play the content they don't find rewarding enough in their eyes; and repeat ad nauseum, the content they feel gives them a better return on time invested (in playing) regardless of whether they find it boring, etc.
ROI is something players consider when choosing content, much the same way Cryptic looks at ROI when designing items for the CStore. If the majority of players don't find the rewards up to snuff, they won't play it much (nor bother to work out strategies for it, etc.)
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
well i prefer to play this instead of the boring ISE for 15mins (5min with good team over 10k dps) i thought that avenger's V.A.T.A. is useless well its not avenger is the best suited fed ship for this stf the only reason that i dont play on trible right now is cuz i dont want to spoil the season for my self but the breach is so tempting that i cant resist and ending back on trible ^^ i want MOAR now bad cryptic bad : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQCP85FngzE
also...there is no ship in the entire game that can move fast enough to exit the voth fortress ship when the boom timer starts
That is blatantly false. You can and should be able to get out with 20+ seconds to spare easy.
Hint, you don't have to fly all the way back. There is a new exit that opened up.
Yeah I'm seeing a lot of people not realizing that a new exit opened up. Maybe once the core breaches, the entrance that we used to get to the core should close off. Have literally only one way out. I don't think it would be as much of an issue then.
Edit: Or maybe instead of just closing off, have a nice explosion followed by debris clogging up the entrance to bring attention to the fact that players can't go out that way anymore.
Things I noticed (partly to show I'm paying attention):-
It's now easier to repair friendly NPC ships, which I'm happy about.
The requirement to deactivate the forcefield will mean people will more likely notice the exit.
As mentioned in the Voth ship thread, the Voth dread is now more of a threat.
The power core is now much more of a fun fight, if only thanks to the virtue of no bugs :P
Not sure what the teleport attack is supposed to be for. It teleports me right up close and that seems to be it.
I did notice one thing that may be an issue. On my race to escape the ship, I noticed the officer dialogue box pop up telling me this wasn't the way to the power core. That could get confusing for some.
Any chance of those hangers at the bottom spawning ships?
Not sure what the teleport attack is supposed to be for. It teleports me right up close and that seems to be it.
That's all that it's for. If you're close to the Core when its beams come your way, they are far more difficult to avoid. This teleport attack keeps players mobile, and focused on their surroundings.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
That's all that it's for. If you're close to the Core when its beams come your way, they are far more difficult to avoid. This teleport attack keeps players mobile, and focused on their surroundings.
It keeps me annoyed and in place. Is it SUPPOSED to use it four times in the span of a minute? Because it did. On me.
It keeps me annoyed and in place. Is it SUPPOSED to use it four times in the span of a minute? Because it did. On me.
We're still in the process of tuning it, but it currently teleports a random target (no preferences) every 15-20 seconds. We're thinking of making it trigger more frequently, but with a much lower change of chain-targeting a single team member repeatedly.
If you want to avoid it, you can bring abilities the render you immune to teleports to this fight: Polarize Hull, Reverse Shield Polarity, AP:Omega, to name a few.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
If it is going to start disabling facing shields, is this countered by Aux2Damp? Given that it is supposed to give immunity to disable for the active time but phaser proc, Tholian weapon disable and Viral matrix all affect me despite chained Aux2Damp (using the duty officer for permanent uptime), is this by design or is the disable immunity bugged?
If it is going to start disabling facing shields, is this countered by Aux2Damp? Given that it is supposed to give immunity to disable for the active time but phaser proc, Tholian weapon disable and Viral matrix all affect me despite chained Aux2Damp (using the duty officer for permanent uptime), is this by design or is the disable immunity bugged?
That's not what that disable immunity means (although it may be unclear). It means that it lets you power through Photonic Shockwave and similar stun-like disables, not ignore disabled subsystems.
That's not what that disable immunity means (although it may be unclear). It means that it lets you power through Photonic Shockwave and similar stun-like disables, not ignore disabled subsystems.
Ok, well in that case it should be re-worded to read "Immunity to Stun" or something as it is currently misleading.
Ok, well in that case it should be re-worded to read "Immunity to Stun" or something as it is currently misleading.
There are 3 varieties of 'hard' Control in STO, which lock out either Movement (hold you in place) or Action (prevent the activation of abilities) or Both.
Root / Immobilize = Movement (can still Act)
Disable = Action (can still Move)
Hold / Stun = Both (can do nothing)
Many players don't immediately recognize the difference between a 'true' Disable and a Subsystem Offline, and we'd like to improve that. They are very different things. While knocking your Weapons Subsystem Offline may appear similar to a Disable because some of your actions are unavailable, they are resisted and cured in completely different manners.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
There are 3 varieties of 'hard' Control in STO, which lock out either Movement (hold you in place) or Action (prevent the activation of abilities) or Both.
Root / Immobilize = Movement (can still Act)
Disable = Action (can still Move)
Hold / Stun = Both (can do nothing)
Many players don't immediately recognize the difference between a 'true' Disable and a Subsystem Offline, and we'd like to improve that. They are very different things. While knocking your Weapons Subsystem Offline may appear similar to a Disable because some of your actions are unavailable, they are resisted and cured in completely different manners.
Draining the power completely off a subsystem is also another possibility. Romulans are specially susceptible to this one if they don't have power insulators and you unleash the trifecta of drains on them (ES3+TR2_Plasmonic Leech)
There are 3 varieties of 'hard' Control in STO, which lock out either Movement (hold you in place) or Action (prevent the activation of abilities) or Both.
Root / Immobilize = Movement (can still Act)
Disable = Action (can still Move)
Hold / Stun = Both (can do nothing)
Many players don't immediately recognize the difference between a 'true' Disable and a Subsystem Offline, and we'd like to improve that. They are very different things. While knocking your Weapons Subsystem Offline may appear similar to a Disable because some of your actions are unavailable, they are resisted and cured in completely different manners.
Which is about 4 methods to many.
Seriously, disables, holds, stuns etc are cheap tricks and do nothing but frustrate the player.
They remove the players input to the situation while do nothing in return, except make the player extremely vulnerable. which given todays situation can lead to pretty much instant death given all the high damage spikes in the game.
Question: Are the cannons surrounding the Integrity nodes supposed to hit you from outside of 10k?
When playing the other night I was getting hit when I was 12-15k away.
We're still in the process of tuning it, but it currently teleports a random target (no preferences) every 15-20 seconds. We're thinking of making it trigger more frequently, but with a much lower change of chain-targeting a single team member repeatedly.
If you want to avoid it, you can bring abilities the render you immune to teleports to this fight: Polarize Hull, Reverse Shield Polarity, AP:Omega, to name a few.
Teleports are totally harmless. No biggie.
Overall, I really love this mission! Especially since it's clearly a step up, visually, from anything you guys have done before. Few small things, though:
-- It should be a bit more clear what ships to save. Instructions, in general, leave you rather disoriented.
-- Escape run, at the end, feels a bit lame, and is frankly undoable unless you're fully specced for 'full impulse' speed (including Driver Coil skill, in which I have 0).
Comments
I.S.S. Defiant vs gigantic Negh'Var, anyone? :P
I love that first stage, though it feels just a bit short. After that, it just feels like another PvE queue.
Still, it's the trench run that's constantly bringing me back.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Which btw gets your rep going for two days.
Obviously it is in space. Even so, it's set up like a ground mission. Multiple objectives, a lot more 'running around' kind of feel. You aren't just going from one area to another in a relatively small area like a space STF, or a 'straight line' sort of thing like a lot of the old story missions.
I'm not saying that is a bad thing. I'd call it a good thing. About time a space mission was a bit more interesting. Hive Onslaught was a good first step so to speak, but it was still a space STF in a somewhat small area.
Oh yes, a lot are comparing it to the Death Star trench run. Meh, that's too obvious. Instead I compare it more to the giant mothership from Independence Day.
Agreed, the majority of space missions just have you stuck in one small area with not much to do. This is a vast improvement on that.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
-Voth Turrets-
Overall, the damage on these is pretty high, of the ship types I used for testing, the two who had the most trouble were my Carrier and my Escort.
Carrier VS Turrets: Vo'Quv Carrier
The biggest issue I had here was that I had to rely on Tactical Team and Reverse Shield Polarity here, as the carrier's turn rate is so low that I can't shift the shield facings. The carrier took the hits, but I don't know if I would have survived if I didn't have the two aforementioned skills.
Escort VS Turrets: Armitage HEC
For escorts, it's more of the opposite. The turret's damage was so high that I had to pop most of my cool-downs just to survive.
Suggestion: Perhaps a small damage reduction for Normal Difficulty.
-The Escape-
Firstly, Your chance to escape is dependent on one major item: Position. If you are too far from the corridor then you wont escape, no matter what you are flying.
Cruisers: Fleet Advanced Heavy Cruiser Retrofit
With the FAHCR, escape is a possibility. I made it once and did not make it once. as I said earlier, it comes down to position. On the other hand, slower turn cruisers like the Galaxy will have it a lot harder since their turn rate is significantly lower.
Science Vessels: Reconnaissance Vesta
Mostly positioning. Maneuverability was not an issue.
Escort: Armitage
I only did not escape once, and that was due to network latency.
Carrier: Vo'Quv
I have NEVER escaped with my carrier. It's bulk and low turn make it impossible to escape. I even set it up next to the corridor and tried to get out as soon as the core was toast, but I did not make it there either.
Suggestion: Increase the escape timer to 1:30, this will allow larger, slower ships enough time to escape.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
also...there is no ship in the entire game that can move fast enough to exit the voth fortress ship when the boom timer starts
so from what ive seen,which was mainly the outside part and then the final boss
simply place one of those mission objective markers for the hangar exit,and all problems with that will be solved
escaping before the boom could be solved by simply saying the force of the core explosion blew another hole in the ship,and thus a relatively short exit out could be opened,you could easily re-use the existing graphical assets to do up the exit
now curiously enough,i didnt have a single problem with the final boss,at all...its power drain did nothing to my ship,its attacks hardly did anything to my shields..my weapons were easily able to hit it from any angle i chose,then again i do have a very nice assortment of seige weapons,mostly based off of the torpedo boat build
romulan hyper plasma launcher
omega torp launcher
elachi heavy crescent wave cannon (lobi store)
borg cutting beam
nukara web mine launcher
andorian phaser beam
and of course i suppose you could count my tholian mesh weavers,as im flying a tholian recluse,using maco mk 12,
overall though,very well designed just needs a couple of fixes like i outlined
I imagine some of it goes back to the map needing a little more guidance; the replays of the mission were much faster, both because I knew what was going on and where to go, and also because other people could follow my lead so they didn't get lost either.
Played it the first time last night. I brought in my RSV (Sci) Plasma Torp boat. In the beginning (there was Jack-j/k) all but one of my party rushed ahead (like the opening AN/CSE/ISE/KASE/CE charge) while I read the pop ups, and I was behind the entire mission.
The acceleration sectors were interesting, a bit annoying actually. Targeting was difficult with torpedos.
Despite being 100km behind other party members sometimes I tried to destroy hardpoints on the trench run. One torpedo would general destroy a hardpoint, I was surprised that destroying hardpoints here was easier than the Vault.
Inside the ships was confusing, more light or bigger openings indicating portals or doors would be helpful in seeing where you should go.
I got locked out of a room (the core?) and could never get in. I was in a room fighting a Dreadnought (seemed fairly weak) and other ships. I got caught on a wall and by the time I re-oriented myself the team was gone and a Vault-like portal on a wall was closed.
The closed panel/door block me. I flew around inside, transferred to the rally point, flew back in side, flew around the rooms again, explored a bit,and finally flew outside and around the Voth ship shooting hardpoints. I flew around the right side heading to the front around the front and then on the left side heading to the back. If shooting hardpoints was helpful to the team then great; if it was not then perhaps it could be a helpful alternative for players to continue to contribute but who get locked out.
The front designs of the ship are very beautiful and intricate. I loved the gloss of the front bow, especially as it broke left and right when you are at the front of the ship.
While it was very frustrating at least I was outside when the core blew up. Too bad you cannot have exterior/ interior teams/objectives as some take the core on so you can see the full beauty of the ship and play in the environment around it.
The Team:
Odyssey
Defiant
Galor
Sovereign
Jem'Hadar Attack Ship
No. What will happen is players will no play the content they don't find rewarding enough in their eyes; and repeat ad nauseum, the content they feel gives them a better return on time invested (in playing) regardless of whether they find it boring, etc.
ROI is something players consider when choosing content, much the same way Cryptic looks at ROI when designing items for the CStore. If the majority of players don't find the rewards up to snuff, they won't play it much (nor bother to work out strategies for it, etc.)
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQCP85FngzE
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
That is blatantly false. You can and should be able to get out with 20+ seconds to spare easy.
Hint, you don't have to fly all the way back. There is a new exit that opened up.
Edit: Or maybe instead of just closing off, have a nice explosion followed by debris clogging up the entrance to bring attention to the fact that players can't go out that way anymore.
Mine Trap Supporter
Things I noticed (partly to show I'm paying attention):-
Any chance of those hangers at the bottom spawning ships?
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
That's all that it's for. If you're close to the Core when its beams come your way, they are far more difficult to avoid. This teleport attack keeps players mobile, and focused on their surroundings.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
It keeps me annoyed and in place. Is it SUPPOSED to use it four times in the span of a minute? Because it did. On me.
We're still in the process of tuning it, but it currently teleports a random target (no preferences) every 15-20 seconds. We're thinking of making it trigger more frequently, but with a much lower change of chain-targeting a single team member repeatedly.
If you want to avoid it, you can bring abilities the render you immune to teleports to this fight: Polarize Hull, Reverse Shield Polarity, AP:Omega, to name a few.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
That's not what that disable immunity means (although it may be unclear). It means that it lets you power through Photonic Shockwave and similar stun-like disables, not ignore disabled subsystems.
Ok, well in that case it should be re-worded to read "Immunity to Stun" or something as it is currently misleading.
There are 3 varieties of 'hard' Control in STO, which lock out either Movement (hold you in place) or Action (prevent the activation of abilities) or Both.
Root / Immobilize = Movement (can still Act)
Disable = Action (can still Move)
Hold / Stun = Both (can do nothing)
Many players don't immediately recognize the difference between a 'true' Disable and a Subsystem Offline, and we'd like to improve that. They are very different things. While knocking your Weapons Subsystem Offline may appear similar to a Disable because some of your actions are unavailable, they are resisted and cured in completely different manners.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Draining the power completely off a subsystem is also another possibility. Romulans are specially susceptible to this one if they don't have power insulators and you unleash the trifecta of drains on them (ES3+TR2_Plasmonic Leech)
Which is about 4 methods to many.
Seriously, disables, holds, stuns etc are cheap tricks and do nothing but frustrate the player.
They remove the players input to the situation while do nothing in return, except make the player extremely vulnerable. which given todays situation can lead to pretty much instant death given all the high damage spikes in the game.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
When playing the other night I was getting hit when I was 12-15k away.
Teleports are totally harmless. No biggie.
Overall, I really love this mission! Especially since it's clearly a step up, visually, from anything you guys have done before. Few small things, though:
-- It should be a bit more clear what ships to save. Instructions, in general, leave you rather disoriented.
-- Escape run, at the end, feels a bit lame, and is frankly undoable unless you're fully specced for 'full impulse' speed (including Driver Coil skill, in which I have 0).