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Disappointment: Undine Space Battlezone
malazancommander
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
These are the things I really dislike about the new Undine Space Battlezone:
- You get plunged into the action right away with some popup half-explaining what to do.
- I didn't understand what to do, as there was waaaaaay too much clutter on the screen (my allies of course, and my enemies). So it was impossible to understand where to get to shut off or trigger something. Kill Undine, yes I got that part easily, but the rest was a mess of becoming lost. It took me a very short while to understand the Ground Battlezone, but the Undine one? OMG, it's a total mess of "What do I do, and how?".
- I still don't understand what the heck the singularity is in the zone. My Second in Command (or maybe it was Captain Shon, didn't pay attention to that detail) kept telling me that we should do something about the singularity (I can't recall the words, but for the life of me I have no clue where that singularity was in the Romulan space in the Undine Battlezone).
- In the very end, the planet killers... what are you supposed to do when it raised its red shield? The very brief explanation doesn't help at all. I just killed Undine, and left whoever knew what they were doing (either by chance or knowledge) take care of the shield. From what the explanation said, we had to deal with a particular thing, which I could not find on the screen.
- The Undine Gravity Well (I don't know what it's called) is way too powerful. I have an Ha'feh Assault Warbird and EVEN using Evasive Manoeuvres III, I could not even get out. My ship is clearly a nimble ship and not a Cruiser, nor an Escort, nor a Dreadnought, but a nimble Warbird. Maybe not the fastest, but it's it's pretty fast imo. So why do I have trouble getting out of those Gravity Wells?
- I really did not like having the Undine shooting some sort of Gravity Well. It just makes things so messy with like 20 allied ships plus 15 enemies. Sometimes you can't avoid getting caught. But my main concern aside from it being a death trap as mentioned in the point above, is that that type of attack should not even be in the Battlezone. It makes it boring, and for me, it reduces the fun.
At this point, with all these problems I will not enter that Battlezone. It's a really boring Battlezone imo. When we speak about the explanations, it should be something you can pick up within 5 minutes. After the amount of time I played and still not understanding, it makes the Battlezone very boring.
Also, my graphics card clearly surpasses the recommended specs (so does my ram), but the game was lagging so much so because of the Battlezone. I've never had so much problems running a game since the original Neverwinter Nights on my older computer. And that was many years ago.
- You get plunged into the action right away with some popup half-explaining what to do.
- I didn't understand what to do, as there was waaaaaay too much clutter on the screen (my allies of course, and my enemies). So it was impossible to understand where to get to shut off or trigger something. Kill Undine, yes I got that part easily, but the rest was a mess of becoming lost. It took me a very short while to understand the Ground Battlezone, but the Undine one? OMG, it's a total mess of "What do I do, and how?".
- I still don't understand what the heck the singularity is in the zone. My Second in Command (or maybe it was Captain Shon, didn't pay attention to that detail) kept telling me that we should do something about the singularity (I can't recall the words, but for the life of me I have no clue where that singularity was in the Romulan space in the Undine Battlezone).
- In the very end, the planet killers... what are you supposed to do when it raised its red shield? The very brief explanation doesn't help at all. I just killed Undine, and left whoever knew what they were doing (either by chance or knowledge) take care of the shield. From what the explanation said, we had to deal with a particular thing, which I could not find on the screen.
- The Undine Gravity Well (I don't know what it's called) is way too powerful. I have an Ha'feh Assault Warbird and EVEN using Evasive Manoeuvres III, I could not even get out. My ship is clearly a nimble ship and not a Cruiser, nor an Escort, nor a Dreadnought, but a nimble Warbird. Maybe not the fastest, but it's it's pretty fast imo. So why do I have trouble getting out of those Gravity Wells?
- I really did not like having the Undine shooting some sort of Gravity Well. It just makes things so messy with like 20 allied ships plus 15 enemies. Sometimes you can't avoid getting caught. But my main concern aside from it being a death trap as mentioned in the point above, is that that type of attack should not even be in the Battlezone. It makes it boring, and for me, it reduces the fun.
At this point, with all these problems I will not enter that Battlezone. It's a really boring Battlezone imo. When we speak about the explanations, it should be something you can pick up within 5 minutes. After the amount of time I played and still not understanding, it makes the Battlezone very boring.
Also, my graphics card clearly surpasses the recommended specs (so does my ram), but the game was lagging so much so because of the Battlezone. I've never had so much problems running a game since the original Neverwinter Nights on my older computer. And that was many years ago.
Post edited by malazancommander on
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I had 10x less FPS problems than in the Undine battleground OR the STFs, even on minimum everything which I NEVER had to do in this game, and I've been playing over 2 years!
But all seamed to work fine for me on that first mission and even though it was only normal was still chalanging enough.
Just remember that the rep system has changed now and you can only have 4 traits of space and 4 of ground so conducting missions like these new ones (for REP) isn't as important as before as they use to stack.
If you dont like any of the new rep missions STO introduces from now on then do missions that you enjoy (unless you realy want one of the rep traits).
Dunno what you're doing them for, but I do rep for the gear, mostly.
I can understand the part about graphics lag in there, the planet killer battles nearly did for my gpu, as there was far to much weapon/skill effects for it to cope with, I have to remember to turn down my graphic settings the next time I go in there.
@bejaymac. No, the ground one has stuff you gotta play with. There is one type of area where you need to stop a machine three times in a row (on different sides). There are five machines, and then you gotta kill the Voth reinforcements. Another area, you gotta make this tube like object advance. So there are two things you gotta do: activate the computer (there are like 5 or so along the rails), and you gotta kill the Voths trying to deactivate it. Those Voths use the computers on the other side. If they stop the object from advancing, you gotta use one of the computers on your side.
I play as a Romulan on the Klingon side, so I haven't done much on the STF side (that character is like level 15 I think, since I never play with him. I just play with my Rom for now, which is lvl 50).
My graphics card is twice as good as the recommended. So, the fact that the speed is horrendous is too bad. I'm sure that this will drive away a lot of players in a similar situation as me. I really hope they change two things: the Gravity Wells in the Battlezone (especially those dreaded Undine ones. The biggest issue with those, aside from them being death traps, is that often you find some weird yellowish liquidy bubbles around them, so it's pretty hard to know where they are). The second thing is just the lagging of the game in the Battlezone. The devs might work with highly performing PC's, but the rest of us don't. Don't get me wrong, I have a very good graphics card and more than adequate ram, but I am sure they might have top notch cards worth a few thousand dollars.
Member since December 2009
However, Viscous Cycle has become my go to for grinding marks and injections. The STF is well suited to nimble focused damage ships (Fleet T'varo equipped for PvP actually does best). It's pretty simple, let the other players fight the ships, while I go after the maw. Sure, fluidic space is annoying, and there's the lag, but it's pretty easy to accomplish even on elite.
I used to be very patient when I was younger, but not anymore lol. So, something like lag as bad as that drives me crazy.
Not sure what they can do to limit it - it may just be the number of things going on, but it could also be the specific visual effects they use for the powers.
Another big problem for me is all t he "Talk to Loot Critter" interact prompts. They are always annoying, but I think they are even more so in this zone, because you are also looking for the interact prompts with the various singularity-destruction devices, and these extra interacts become very confusing.
When I was in the battlemap, the Zone would reset before the Voth timer was down. So I have no idea what was supposed to happen there. I figure it was a simple shoot-em-up, but it was impossible to complete.
On an off note, what's more annoying? The Voth and their ability to shut off your subsystems seemingly at will, or the Undine and their soul crushing gravity wells?
Member since early 2011
Quite possibly. The way I see it, there is just too much information being processed all at once. Unless I am mistaking, this is normally a ram problem, and not so much a graphic problem. I am not sure, as this has always confused me - lag due to to many elements (ram or graphic card?).
In either case, this reminds me of one particular level in the Original Neverwinter Nights game where there was waaaaay too much things going on in that one room, and even my modern card (a decade later) could not handle it. This led me to believe it was not the graphic card but the ram (which it should have been able to handle very easily). In any case, I am seeing the same thing here, and makes me sorta sick seeing all that camera jerking around.
I'm glad to know at least this is a common problem. Surely Cryptic will address this issue asap (or so we all hope).
Contrast that with Undine Assault, which takes forever to complete and has terrible rewards.
Maybe it's just my weakness, as I don't have any points in subsystem repair, but the Voth can really stack up the procs, most annoying when they hit my engines.
As for the Undine, it really is a nightmare. I fly a T'varo, and the only thing that breaks me from the suction is my APOIII. If that is on CD, im stuck for the 10 - 15 seconds until it expires. Worse is when you're running one of the new STFs and have to deal with the. . . waves? of the space around you. I'll admit, made me a bit queasy just looking at that mess.
Member since early 2011
The grav well thing was stupid, even popping evasive maneuvers didn't get me out of it, on my Rommy the only thing that did was the jump skill that comes with the ship. I have no idea what those yellow bubbles are meant to do other than clutter up your screen.
Though I will say people need to learn to read when they are facing off the planet killers. It tells you to attack at the "front" as it is invulnerable on the flank. Yet the number of people attacking the sides and rear of the ship was silly.
Now if the slide show didn't happen the zone itself looks fun. I enjoyed the ground zone and this is just a ship version. They do need to add missions like with the Voth ground zone to bring it in line rewards wise, other wise the capture rewards are the same. They need to boost the planet killer rewards as you can get three cybernetics per dino, yet it is one of the new ones per ship.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Polarize Hull seems to work as well.
Ah good. I like to have several hold breakers.
Has anyone visited the battlezone after the patch? Still bugged or no?
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Yes indeed, frame rate sucks
@oracion666. Maybe not? Sometimes we just focus on different things. I do remember losing a lot of hull (even though my shields were relatively intact). So, maybe the Voth made dif damage to both of us? You have a T'varo, which is WAY faster than most ships. So, that by itself says a lot about you getting sucked into the Gravity Wells. That the damn thing is too strong.
Aside from the fact that it shouldn't even exist, the notion of a Gravity Wells when you're playing against the computer is just frustrating and removes the fun from it.
@decronia, I agree! I never understood that either. On my side, we had our whole team kill it, and then rush to the second one, where it was relatively "alive". Then, most of the force drove down to the third killer. You should have seen the map. Like 30 little dots just rushing to finish off the third one XD Oh, and if you hit the killer from the side, your Second in Command would tell you outright you should go in front of it! Besides, the ingame mission clearly made it abundantly clear (via Captain Shon) that the killer is only vulnerable there (ok, for a different reason, right? But still, I think people would have understood, aim for the mouth).
@mustrumridcully0, hopefully they get the chance to look at this thread and see the problems we're having.
Also, I think it might prove to be irritating to travel repeatedly between the zones, because full impulse is the only reasonably fast option, but then we have to wait for the power levels to return.
Can't disagree with you. Although, because of the horrendous lag, I did not notice the non-impulse vs impulse movement. The irony.
Oh wow, that seems to be worst than any of us so far concerning the lag. The boxes where you get 10 marks, is because - if I am not mistaking - when another group of players captures a zone. I believe you get 35 marks if the players you're with captures a zone. Otherwise, 10 marks if you don't participate. But I could be wrong.
Never had the Voth shut down a system... I have had the Tholians shut off weapons frequently but that can be solved by a battery. The ONLY thing getting you out of that stupid sticky gravity well thing is Attack Pattern Omega or something like a Jumping ability.
The battle zone itself, if anything, is too easy. So far all the challenge has been in keeping my computer running through it. The fluidic rifts and snot balls can be annoying, but as I understand we are supposed to get increasing immunity to it as we rank up the reputation. So I'm not super worried about it. I did have one open right on top of me, hitting me with an unending series of snot balls I couldn't get out of, which was pretty irritating. I only got out because an Undine ship shot me and knocked me out of it.
The points themselves are super easy. They're just space versions of the Voth ground ones.
Fed points: Activate the device in the middle of the platform thing, then just hang around killing Undine until it finishes. Activate it once more to win. Equates to the "Capture" points.
Klingon points: Activate the big Klingon guns. Each one needs multiple activations. Equates to the "Artillery" points.
Romulan points: Push a Romulan singularity core into the rift by activating several rings. The Undine will try to activate rings to push it back. When it gets to the rift, activate it to win. Equates to the Omega sled points.
In all three, you will see beams of light indicating the objective. Blue beams means you're doing good and progressing. Red beams means no progress or negative progress. Blue good, red bad.
The method of breaking the Planet Killer shield depends on what kind of point it's at. At Fed points, activate the gadget, then just stay near it until it finishes powering up. Klingon point you power up the big gun. Romulan point you push the singularity into it. Same mechanics as the points normally have.
I will try lowering the graphics then. I don't know how you knew what to do. I sort of understood for the Romulan, but I couldn't seem to be able to do anything with the singularity. The fed one was easy enough. Hopefully toning down the graphics will help.
I played this morning. By the end we had about 20 ships. For most of it more like 15. We had to recapture most of the points. 2 months from now, trying to do it with 10 or 15 - I don't think you could finish. I think the recapture rate needs to be a little less aggressive.
I think the dil payout might be bumped 20-25%. I know this is unlikely, but it would make it more desirable for the longterm so it stays well played.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
The only thing about this is that I think (not certain) you need to participate in capturing all points to get max rewards. I like the idea of assigning myself watch duty but you can't if you have to sacrifice much of the rewards.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."