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echatty
Member Posts: 5,914 Arc User
This particular mission has to be the worst thought-out mission of the game (so far as I have played it.) Yes, this is a mini-rant, but I'll try to stay respectful.
I have a friend who absolutely abhors this mission and she will skip it on her Fed toons, but still despises it for her Rom toons. She only plays it as a Rom because it's more personal to a Rom than to a Fed or even a Kling.
For one thing, there are plot holes the size of the Bajoran wormhole in it. Such as:
Okay, I can get there is a dampening field in place on the Coliseum to keep weapons (and likely sensors) from working.
However, wouldn't a ship pick up on a dampening field that big and at least guess that's where their captain is being held? Wouldn't any good crew beam down to investigate? After all, they would know she's down there somewhere.
And even if they didn't, the disabling field was shut down when they 'escaped'. The crew would have then been able to pick their captain up after that. Why did they not beam them up? Would they not have been scanning the entire planet?
And even then....wouldn't they have picked up the scorpion fighters flying in a search pattern in the desert? And wouldn't they have detected the Reman and their captain down there?
All this is before they have to spend the night in the cave and resume going to the crashed ship. Slamek could have been beamed to sickbay if he's that bad off. Speaking of that, wouldn't the ship crew have seen the weapons discharging on the surface when they were going through the canyon and assumed that 'maybe' that was their captain?
All in all, my friend says that she wants to know what the devs were smoking and can she have some of it? This whole mission makes our bridge crews look like they were replaced by incompetent nincompoops-to the point where, in her captain's story, the offending, incompetent bridge crew is severely disciplined for their, well, incompetence.
Frankly, we've been brainstorming for ways to explain our bridge crew's apparent stupidity in not finding our captain until they're about to be disintegrated by Hakeev's lackeys.
Okay, rant over. If this is the wrong place to be putting this, feel free to move it where it belongs, because I couldn't find an appropriate place to put it.
Edit: I'd like to point out that this mission starts in the Nopada system. The snaring device is very likely in orbit around the desert planet of Nopada. Then when you're on the ground the map labels say "Nopada" therefore you can infer that your crew is very likely in orbit or not far from it. And its established canon that the average ship can scan well further than a single solar system.
I have a friend who absolutely abhors this mission and she will skip it on her Fed toons, but still despises it for her Rom toons. She only plays it as a Rom because it's more personal to a Rom than to a Fed or even a Kling.
For one thing, there are plot holes the size of the Bajoran wormhole in it. Such as:
Okay, I can get there is a dampening field in place on the Coliseum to keep weapons (and likely sensors) from working.
However, wouldn't a ship pick up on a dampening field that big and at least guess that's where their captain is being held? Wouldn't any good crew beam down to investigate? After all, they would know she's down there somewhere.
And even if they didn't, the disabling field was shut down when they 'escaped'. The crew would have then been able to pick their captain up after that. Why did they not beam them up? Would they not have been scanning the entire planet?
And even then....wouldn't they have picked up the scorpion fighters flying in a search pattern in the desert? And wouldn't they have detected the Reman and their captain down there?
All this is before they have to spend the night in the cave and resume going to the crashed ship. Slamek could have been beamed to sickbay if he's that bad off. Speaking of that, wouldn't the ship crew have seen the weapons discharging on the surface when they were going through the canyon and assumed that 'maybe' that was their captain?
All in all, my friend says that she wants to know what the devs were smoking and can she have some of it? This whole mission makes our bridge crews look like they were replaced by incompetent nincompoops-to the point where, in her captain's story, the offending, incompetent bridge crew is severely disciplined for their, well, incompetence.
Frankly, we've been brainstorming for ways to explain our bridge crew's apparent stupidity in not finding our captain until they're about to be disintegrated by Hakeev's lackeys.
Okay, rant over. If this is the wrong place to be putting this, feel free to move it where it belongs, because I couldn't find an appropriate place to put it.
Edit: I'd like to point out that this mission starts in the Nopada system. The snaring device is very likely in orbit around the desert planet of Nopada. Then when you're on the ground the map labels say "Nopada" therefore you can infer that your crew is very likely in orbit or not far from it. And its established canon that the average ship can scan well further than a single solar system.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything. 
Post edited by echatty on
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Comments
sensors might not necessarily pick it up.
oh, since the captain did not have an active transponder, that is a lot of space to cover.
I looked at it as if there was a vast amount of space that had to be scanned and it was
made more difficult with the interference, that is until the captain sent a signal.
She said the devs are welcome to use it if they want. It would make the whole mission more palatable to us more discerning players who are very attached to our bridge crews and don't like them being portrayed as incompetent.
Now your plot holes have given me more reasons to loathe this mission. The one is how can a ship that has sensors and the computing power to fling itself through space at faster than light speeds have a hard time finding the only inhabited/technological thing on an otherwise uninhabited planet. Especially given that we don't know how long our character had been in custody from where our part of the story takes off.
I have long accepted the fact that my BOFFs are bumbling nimcompoops that need to be told literally where to stand. After spending a lot of time in the Dyson sphere battlezone I've noticed that half time they aren't even firing their weapon. And don't even give them stuff like power cells, they were just popping those things off like they were Starburst, even when we weren't fighting anything. But this fits in with the general Star Trek theme that everybody but our hero(s) are pretty much C- students and couldn't find their way out of a wet paper bag (re: 1st battle of Chintoka). In this case our BOFFs are the dumb dumbs who only got into Starfleet because their dad was an Admiral or a Federation councilor or something.
I just really, reeeeeaaaaaaalllllllllyyyyyy hate the huge lag map of the Desert. And the amount of space you need to run there. I mean, I don't object to a hike, I'm on Scouting so yeah. But that amount? In a game?
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So OP, I'm with you on this one. Coliseum needs a big rewrite/remapping. I'll volunteer in the Foundry if needed!
Join the Deltas today!
If you want to do something in the foundry, feel free. I'm not familiar with it at all so I wouldn't be any help.
In Ghost Ship it takes them forever to realize that "Hey, it's Devidians!"
Thank you for reminding me.
I thought of it because last time I did it, I took the Winter Bat'leth with me and used it.
But then he knew you were going to escape since he arranged that too, so why let you escape with weapons is beyond me, unless he wanted to be sure you'd survive to see his face when his lackeys killed you.
Either that or the whole installation is just cloaked. That is, there's a cloaking field around it. I'm guessing that's possible; I mean, how hard could it be.
I'm the friend Chatty was talking about. She posted what I was too lazy to, given that a few clicks of the mouse means I can drop and skip this abomination of a mission with no fuss.
In answer to the cloaking field idea around the facility, it's a good one but it wasn't mentioned in the mission. We're having to guess and invent excuses because these things are obvious and glaring issues yet aren't explained.
And... leaving us armed/armoured. I admit I did kinda overlook that one. I thought about it once, dismissed it as arrogance or psych-torture on Hakeev's part and didn't think any more about it.
And I could have sworn they had explained somewhere that the snare had damaged the player's ship.
And the one hole no one mentioned yet. You. Still. Have. Your. Communicator.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
I did forget that the snare did do a number on the ships systems. So I can forgive them not looking for me right away, but we also don't know how long we've been out before we wake up in the holding cell either. But knowing that our Boffs are utterly incompetent and couldn't figure out which end of the hyperspanner to use, maybe it makes sense then that I have to MacGyver my way off the planet. So there is a little less need for technobabble to explain this one away.
The weird thing about Coliseum is this is one of those missions that I think is actually well liked by many people. Granted it doesn't follow the traditional formula that most missions have (arrive in system, shoot bad guys. go to planet/station shoot more bad guys. beam up to ship and finish off a few more bad guys). So its got that going for it and credit where it is due it does shake up the formula reasonably well, even with the 1k run across the desert. Even though I am not a puzzle fan, I wish the puzzle was more than just basic arithmetic.
No way? Seriously? LOL.
I have the armour visuals enabled on my Fed toons so the Communicator doesn't show up. I don't think the visuals show up on my Romulan either due to my customization.
I didn't even realise that. It just puts the mission on a whole new low.
My character Tsin'xing
(Noting B'vat had one covering a whole system, then Hakeev had one at minimum cover the coliseum.)
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
My character Tsin'xing
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
It isn't the amount of space or desert. That was actually a semi-new thing when this mission was released.
I hate that there is a forced teaming dynamic embedded in it. Yeah, you can play it solo and still get the loot. BUT you won't get bonuses or accolades if you don't have a team. And the worst part? You have to have at least one of each specialty on your team. AND your BOffs can't do any of the special stuff for you, despite being trained in said specialties. Other maps have this feature (namely, Of Bajor) and it PISSES me off. Three are accolades on that planet I have yet to get because it's almost impossible to find a team with the right people AND people who actually know what they're doing and how to do the bonuses. I have the same problem in the arena -- no one wants to team, and even when they do no one wants to listen and learn how to get the extra stuff. Makes me wonder why we have to team for STFs -- the same problem is there, only MUCH more so. Forced teaming sucks and does little more than punish the players who actually care about what they're doing.
I actually liked that there was a map designed to be explored. Yeah, there's certain things that need to be found and whatnot. But the opportunity to run around and see new things was great. It's a shame there weren't any random things to find, like old weapons or skeletons of aliens that didn't make it out alive. It's all very linear, but the map itself was really a nice change of pace.
The rubber banding and lag are annoying. But the first time I did this one I had the fancy C-Store Bat'leth and I go into the arena, only to be surrounded by monsters and Kirk's classic fight music playing in the background. That moment alone made it all worthwhile.
My character Tsin'xing
Also, for non conventional gameplay, having to fight in the arena, alone, and melee combat.
Finally, it is the only mission where I had to fight for survival. I mean, we always fight, but usually it's part of some mission, but in Coliseum, you fight for your own skin. That was more personal than any other mission.
There are still a few glitch, like Slamek getting stuck and unable to assist you if you run instead of walking, etc... but otherwise it's an awesome mission.
My character Tsin'xing