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"We have too much PvE content!"
wardcalis
Member Posts: 1,137 Arc User
http://priorityonepodcast.com/po170/
IN an interview with priority one Al Captain Geko Rivera says that we have too much in the way of PvE ques. Whats more is he went on to say that in the future many of the pve ques are going to be removed or only available for featured events.
Dunno bout the rest of you but this is extremely upsetting to me. I personally feel that STO is extremely lacking in the way of PvE ques. And that what we need are more PvE ques, specifically organized fleet ques. Something that could be like raiding in other MMOs. we need more not less.
IN an interview with priority one Al Captain Geko Rivera says that we have too much in the way of PvE ques. Whats more is he went on to say that in the future many of the pve ques are going to be removed or only available for featured events.
Dunno bout the rest of you but this is extremely upsetting to me. I personally feel that STO is extremely lacking in the way of PvE ques. And that what we need are more PvE ques, specifically organized fleet ques. Something that could be like raiding in other MMOs. we need more not less.
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Well, if there were a rotating snapshot of PvE queue missions, or something, then that wouldn't be so bad. Let's face it, it's pretty silly for everyone to be in ISE and CC all the time. I can see the point to saying that they're making all these queues that never get used for whatever reason...
...however, considering their change to the events calendar, that does give one pause. It would be less than ideal for ISE to be available as often as the Bonus Marks Event.
I should add that as a solo player I don't do the group content, so it wouldn't bother me if they removed them completely.
I have to agree with it. Pre Season 7 every STF rewards an unique Item, part of the set. On Elite KAGE you had the chance to get a MK XII or MK XI Armor Item to trade in for a Maco/Omega/Honor Guard Armor as top reward. And the MK XII weapons where useable too.
But now all needed is Zen/Dili.
Ships -> zen store, lock box
Consols -> universal, fleet
Weapons -> fleet, reputation, lock box
Shield... -> reputation (dili, marks), fleet
And on Voth Ground you can make 8k in 30mins.
The best-case scenario is that those missions get a major reworking and get turned into semi-annual events for a large reward. Though if Cryptic is going to do that, we need a general "Event" token, having something different for each event isn't going to work long-term.
I've seen a lot of posts and chat talking about how the longer queues and especially the gated ones aren't worth peoples time. For instance the mission Storming the Spire, what a joke, bad marks and it takes a gated amount of time. Azure Nebula rescue is something similar to it as well.
The waiting period at the beginning of queues is just lol as well, no one cares about what cutscenes or briefings have to say they just wanna get in kill all the stuff get the marks and loot and gtfo. The purpose it slows is to slow players progression down and to bolster ingame queue numbers.
Atmospheric Assault (Shuttle)
Azure Nebula Rescue (Space)
Breaking the Planet Fleet Action (Ground)
Colony Invasion (Ground)
Crystalline Catastrophe (Space)
Crystalline Catastrophe Elite (Space)
Defend Rh'Ihho Station (Ground)
Federation Minefield (Space)
Federation Minefield (Space)
Hive Onslaught (Space)
Hive Onslaught Elite (Space)
Infected Manus (Ground)
Infected Manus Elite (Ground)
Infected The Conduit (Space)
Infected The Conduit Elite (Space)
Into the Hive (Ground)
Into the Hive Elite (Ground)
Khitomer in Stasis (Ground)
Khitomer in Stasis Elite (Ground)
Khitomer Vortex (Space)
Khitomer Vortex Elite (Space)
Klingon Fleet Alert (Space)
Klingon Starbase Blockade (Space)
Klingon Starbase Incursion (Ground)
Mine Trap (Ground)
No Win Scenario (Space)
Nukara Prime Self Destructive Tendencies (Ground)
Nukara Prime Transdimensional Tactics (Ground)
Starbase Fleet Defense (Space)
Storming the Spire (Space)
Storming the Spire Elite (Space)
The Big Dig (Ground)
The Breach (Space)
The Breach Elite (Space)
The Cure Applied (Ground)
The Cure Applied Elite (Ground)
The Cure Found (Space)
The Cure Found Elite (Space)
The Vault Ensnared (Space)
Undine Assault (Space)
Undine Assault Elite (Space)
Undine Infiltration (Ground)
Undine Infiltration Elite (Ground)
Vault Shuttle Event (Shuttle)
Viscous Cycle (Space)
Viscous Cycle Elite (Space)
...and I can't remember how many more queues a Fed would have.
But then add in Foundry, the Ground/Space Adventure/Battle Zones, any event things - the various other things folks do...add in PvP's six queues, Ker'rat, and N'vak, etc, etc, etc.
And well, I was kind of curious why he was going with "Choice" being the issue and recommending a TED video on it. IMHO, it's not a choice issue - there just isn't the population in STO to support it all. I don't think that's something he wanted to say though, eh?
It's something they had to admit - well, they've always kind of acknowledged it - with the PvP queues.
FvF Arena (Ground)
FvK Arena (Ground)
KvK Arena (Ground)
FvF Assault (Ground)
FvK Assault (Ground)
KvK Assault (Ground)
FvF Capture and Hold (Space)
FvK Capture and Hold (Space)
KvK Capture and Hold (Space)
FvF Arena (Space)
FvK Arena (Space)
KvK Arena (Space)
RvB Smallcraft Arena (Shuttle)
Went from those 13 queues down to 6 queues with....
RvB Arena (Ground)
RvB Assault (Ground)
RvB Capture and Hold (Space)
RvB Arena (Space)
RvB Arena Solo/Duo Queue (Space)
RvB Smallcraft Arena (Shuttle)
...so maybe they need to take a look at doing something like that for the PvE Queues along the lines of Repuations.
Omega (Space) covering Infected, Khitomer, Cure, and Hive
Dyson (Space) covering Storming and Breach
Undine (Space) covering Assault and Viscous
Etc, etc, etc...looking at ways they could combine some of the queues into single queues that would go to different previous queues. Still allowing folks to private queue for a specific queue...
But yeah, it's why he said Mirror won't be a standard queue - why he wants to pull Crystalline if he can get a Nukara replacement - etc, etc, etc.
Think of any new queues that will be added with Expansion 2, S10 and beyond, eh?
He says it's about "Choice"...I think it's very telling about population.
Either way...it's bloated.
edit: Figure the reason they want to avoid the population discussion is because that gets into "is the game dying?" - which will lead to fewer folks spending money - which leads to the game dying even if it wasn't and if it was, dying that much sooner...etc, etc, etc.
But rotating mission could lead to times where non of my favorite missions are up. I would even play less than before...
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They'll cut the number of queues in half and double the amount of time they take to complete!
Why? Because they suck. There are too many bad queues with no purpose. Removing good queues doesn't make people want to play bad queues, it just makes people not want to play, period. Take, for instance, all ground STFs. These events used to be popular. People played them. Something happened, and I think we all know what, and now they're totally deserted.
Other things should simply never have been queues. The former Nuka Hard missions used to be quite popular, it wasn't difficult to get a mob together, despite the total lack of a queue, and you had to actually be there on the ground.
Today? They are dead. Turning them into a queue has killed them totally and utterly. Where it used to be an event the entire zone could participate in, now it's completely abandoned because who wants to play it with a tiny handful of people who don't even have spacesuits?
That's a reason public PvE (Borg) is nearly dead. How about requireing Starfleet Silver Star (75 STF) and MACO Team Specialist (All Optional in normal) for a fed player to access elite.
Gorn Minefield <- good and fast PvE when having Daily or wanting some MK XI consols
How about 1 or 2 PvE of the day giving doubled reward? But the main problem is, that sto went to Dili grinding. Who had done asteriod mining done for the dili reward without event? Mostly for the particle traces which get useless without the killed crafting.
Edit: Whats only played is new stuff and things with high payout (Voth Ground).
PS: I have 1.5 Mio Dili Ore still after the last Dili Event. For what reason should I do anything ingame except refining?
Geko touched upon some of the issues with some of the queues - while some may say certain things suck and that may even play into what he said, it was basically that folks are going through the path of least resistance, no? Why queue HOSE/KASE/CSE when you can queue ISE instead...then hit some other queues or do other stuff in the interim or even run it on other toons?
So perhaps they do need to do a pass over the content to check the rewards/effort for them, eh?
Less missions may offer the opportunity to give these missions something special that is worth doing because they are the only ones that grant it you.
I don't think they should remove actual content - that just seems wasteful. But reorganizing can work.
For example, there could be space and ground Queues for:
Klingon-Federation War (Gorn, Klingon and what not fleet actions)
Omega Special Task Fore (All the STFs)
Dyson Sphere Joint Project (All the Dyson ones)
Undine Counter-Taskforce (All the Undine ones)
Nukura (All the Nukura stuff, whatever that may be, if it's ground; I never saw it anyway)
Fleet (All Fleet Repeatables)
You get one of the available options (but you can't choose). Then you put in a special reward approriate to that Queue, something that's ideally worth doing even after you completed all queues. Maybe some consumable that's worth having? Needing only 1 ground and 1 space consumable per reputation should be manageable in terms of game design.
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By the way ,I don't why the ground STFs became less interesting. I never liked ground, because it's just not as fun to me, but where their specific mission changes, nerfs or bugs?
I'm curious about that as well, just from a curious standpoint - I've never run a Ground STF (Ground's definitely not my thing - 66k SP, only take Ground Traits if required, randomly chose Rep Passives, and usually forgot to upgrade gear) - think I did one Ground queue a couple of years back, know I only did Ground PvP once way back...
Let's look at season 9:
One Ground Mission.
Two Space Mission.
One Episode.
You can do all that in a day and then you got what? Nothing other then doing them over and over to work on a rep grind.
That's the real problem with STO content. It doesn't challenge, it doesn't inspire and it doesn't have progression. It's just something to do.
STO lacks any end game what so ever.
That was a terrible system. Also the Borg stfs a (together with ce) the ones that are still played regularly.
The point is that the other missions are not rewarding enough to play them regularly.
Also ppl are quiet interested in getting marks since they can be turned into dillithium.
Oh no please not. There are enough players in the elite with no clue what they are doing. Don't rob the ones who are at least willing to "practice" normals until they know what to do before qing for elite of this opportunity.
That wouldn't work. That would only mean that if you q for space stf and end up in kithomer you'll have the nice high chance of 4 leavers that wanted infected. Or if you don't even split space and ground.., if you end up on ground even more likely the ppl will leave that wanted space.
Even I would do it in that case, I'd take the leaver penalty any time over doing ground stfs with randoms.
The rewards have to be adjusted. That is all. And that does not only apply to the q-missions, that applies to... A lot.
But I personally think that the change in the rep system they did might have some positive impact on some missions.
After all, with getting the "daily" mark package ppl might at least once a day do romulan stuff.
We have to much Grind!
And that so many PvE queues are empty is Cryptics fault. They needed a Revamp long ago. Or have so many people left the game that they need to reduce the amount of missions already?
I used the Borg STF and space fleet mark queues regularly. I really enjoyed the bonus times and they were good motivators for me to use them. I even use the Breaking the Planet and Big Dig maps for fun runs-I have asked for better rewards for both of these missions.
Since bonus fleet mark hours have been removed I've been playing considerably less. As an endgame player I played the game for Fleetmarks and Reputation Defensive powers. The bonus hour system was an excellent motivator to get me in game.
The issue, for me, is not that there are too many choices and that the choices are overwhelming but given my limited time, what will I play based on my interest. The result has been Borg STF's and the occasion Fleet Alert or Defense.
I'd like to see other older missions return (DS9 & Elachi Alert) and new maps introduced and more missions added to the queue.
You don't know what you're talking about. A *LOT* of people use KSF, GM and TBD for big chunk of Dilithium and Fleet Marks their dailies give.
The problem is that there's too much choice, to the extent it becomes false choice. We shouldn't choose *which* STF we play - we should just choose to play an STF. We should be joining "playlists".
It has just been easier to collect marks and dili within less than 5min on space than in 10 to 30mins in ground pvps. A matter of minimizing time and effort.
Still i like Ground STFmore with a good premade.
If you were trying to make money designing a video game, would you do it any different?
We dont have enough pve content. Pvp is an afterthought, a sandbox feature, with no more depth then what the Diablo franchise offers. It isnt about skill, guile, or even teamwork. Its about who gets screwed over, and who is willing to use exploits, and the latest op lock box/doff pack mechanics. Or a Romulan.
Embrace the truth.
Remove Hive from the queue. As an hourly it will return with double the current rewards. Do this with nearly all the old reps that have an obviously unpopular queue mission.
Create 'ground' hour where rewards are increased on ground for that hour.
Remove the Fleet Action Daily and remove them from the queues. Instead have them come around for an hour.
They had it perfect with the old Mirror implementation but then tossed the baby out with the bath water for their precious weekend events. Even though both could have existed. Yes the old style of just giving increased 'mark' rewards wasn't working well and half the events were terribly outdated. That doesn't mean the concept of 'high reward but not highly popular' content was all of a sudden bad. Annoying.
Oh yeah and a reward balance pass just might be a good idea.
That idea just isn't going to fly. Many if not most players have builds designed for specific STFs or at least specific groups of them, which would instantly become useless with any sort of STF "randomizer" system. Also many players choose missions with specific rewards in mind, such as a specific reputation mark, which could not be guaranteed under such a system. (If I'm doing New Romulus rep, getting dropped into, say, an Omega or Dyson STF would be a massive waste of my time.) Randomly or arbitrarily drop players into STFs they're unprepared for and the whole PUG is going to suffer, assuming they don't all just leave first.
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ISE pays 960 dilithium it lasts about 10 minutes in a pug thats 100 dilithum per minute
A 30 minute mission should pay 3000 dilithium
Mark reward should be players choice and should scale to time played in the mission as dilithium in the example above
naturally there would be a time limit cap to stop abuse
simple as that
Alot of content not currently played would now have poping Q's because it would reward the player what wanted
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
I will admit that the player count in some of the queued missions is sparse or nonexistent at times but the solution is not to remove options and railroad players into fewer choices. The solution is to scale rewards appropriately to queues and, if they really want events, to hold bonus events like the CE. The CE hasn't been removed from the queue but they do hold a bonus event now and then with an extra prize to incentivize players to join up for that mission. (While on the other hand we have the Mirror Invasion; both the old and new versions have been removed. Money and dev time well spent. [/s])
THAT is the model they should adopt. Always leave the missions in the queue, and then hold rotating bonus events with bonus rewards.
Joined January 2009
Reward is scaled on the time taken to complete a mission. It's just a case that some missions are "broken" in that sense. Just because ISE can be run in 4-7 minutes by an average group, doesn't mean that ISE is not meant to be near a 15 minute run.
Notice how much of the new content is futureproofed, while things like ISE are not. Futureproofed? Yes, they have periods of time built in to them to enforce a certain amount of time or they have a certain amount of travel built in to them to try to enforce a certain amount of time.
They need to do a remaster of ISE and other such things so that they are brought in line with the other content - that the time taken for it and other such things is in line with other content - so that the rewards from it and other such things is brought in line with other content.
It's not a case that other content needs to reward more - it's that ISE needs to take longer for the rewards it offers.
Not only is ISE itself easier than in years past, but with all the powercreep it is even easier - thus faster - thus it rewards on a broken time scale.
I am surprised we haven't seen a remaster of them already - perhaps X2 or S10, eh?