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Only about 3 STFs have people in it at the moment...
realisticalty
Member Posts: 851 Arc User
I noticed that depending on the time of day, as few as 2, or as many as, say, about 8 STF's have any reasonable amount of people queued, and they tend to be the same set.
This makes it very difficult for anyone who doesn't have 5 (ok or 4, or even 3) friends ready able and willing to join them in an STF.
And in some cases (I'm looking at you, Crystalline Catastrophe), people only line up for the Elite, which is fine if I'm on my main, but my alts still die too often in the elites and I think the non-elites might be fun to take a more relaxed or a practice run.
And then there's the issue of very rare crafting materials. I -really- think Elite STF's ought to be able to give ANY very rare matt, not just one particular one for that STF, because it will be nearly impossible to run some of the "less well known" STFs. Bear in mind I haven't crafted anything high level yet, this is all just supposition from what I've read in the forums.
So what can Cryptic do to entice more people to run more than just the same basic set of STF's?
(I would have put this in one of the feedback forums but it really belongs in 3 or 4 separate forums and I didn't want to repeat myself, also I figured if I posted here someone would chime up with the perfect solution for me, call me a few embarrassing names for me not realizing the obvious or doing what I'm supposed to, and I would learn something.)
This makes it very difficult for anyone who doesn't have 5 (ok or 4, or even 3) friends ready able and willing to join them in an STF.
And in some cases (I'm looking at you, Crystalline Catastrophe), people only line up for the Elite, which is fine if I'm on my main, but my alts still die too often in the elites and I think the non-elites might be fun to take a more relaxed or a practice run.
And then there's the issue of very rare crafting materials. I -really- think Elite STF's ought to be able to give ANY very rare matt, not just one particular one for that STF, because it will be nearly impossible to run some of the "less well known" STFs. Bear in mind I haven't crafted anything high level yet, this is all just supposition from what I've read in the forums.
So what can Cryptic do to entice more people to run more than just the same basic set of STF's?
(I would have put this in one of the feedback forums but it really belongs in 3 or 4 separate forums and I didn't want to repeat myself, also I figured if I posted here someone would chime up with the perfect solution for me, call me a few embarrassing names for me not realizing the obvious or doing what I'm supposed to, and I would learn something.)
Post edited by realisticalty on
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You make so that any crafting materials can drop from any ESTF? Well then you're just going to have less people playing anything other then the Borg space STFs.
And you can do fine in an Elite with Mk. X common gear. If you're dying far more often on an alt, you just need to change your playstyle a bit then.
Equalize the ratio of reward to time investment and annoyingness. The Omega STFs and CCE are short and sweet and reward well, whereas "Storming the Spire" and "Azure Nebula Rescue" give TRIBBLE rewards, while "Undine Assault" takes forever and all the Undine space stuff is a pain in the rear because of the snotballs and random knockbacks. And the rewards are TRIBBLE.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
I completely agree.
My alt's now in Mk XI/rares and as soon as I nab him a little more rep I'll be able to slap some rep gear on him too....and I agree my own playstyle can -always- use improving.
I just thought it might be fun to have the non elites available once in awhile for practice-under-lower-pressure and for a change of pace.
So any feedback to Cryptic should contain the suggestion:
"Make the STFs that are too long, shorter, and beef up the rewards for some of them."
And I agree that no STF should be so long that you nod off doing it...the first time I did Storming the Spire, boy did I feel I needed a practice version - I got totally lost and sidetracked and became a complete waste of a player slot.)
(snowballs, oh yeah, I remember the snowballs...)
How much of that is because the CE and the Borg have been beaten flat with nerfbats over the years, while the Undine are still a fresh challenge and unadjusted in the face of feedback?
But yes, the rewards, proportionally, are meh.
1) lack of 5 man missions pre 50 that aren't locked behind fleet membership
2) confusing for new 50s to figure out which queues give which marks since everything is labeled choice of marks
3) distribution of crafting mats across the various queues is poorly thought out AND not intuitive to new 50s
4) stuff like mine trap plus elite mine trap split up the player base way too much
I bet stuff like Azure Nebula Rescue and Vault Ensnared that rarely get traffic would be a lot more popular if they had level requirements around 10-15, maybe push Atmospheric Assault to 30 or so, right now Gorn Minefield is literally the only thing you can do at low levels without being in a fleet.
The Undine aren't a challenge, is the thing. They're just spammy and annoying as frak to fight. The Voth present an actual challenge, e.g. park and shoot doesn't work when they throw up a shield so you have to actually think about your positioning and keep Science Team ready to counter the lightning thingy.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Undine space battlezone is impossible for me to play with the crazy graphics lag. It's not worth the hassle.
Viscous Tension or whatever is the best imo, obviously for the Argonite and it's so much faster than the other undine space elite. Stop wasting time with the infinitely spawning battleships and just drop the 3 planet killers asap.
The Undine Infiltration ground is fast too, I think many times people just run around not knowing what they're doing and that makes the first half take longer than it needs to.
It's nice that CEE pays out Nakura marks, but Transdimensional Ground is considerably faster for the same daily reward. People just have some kind of stigma against ground and some still forget they need EV suits.
I'm also of the opinion that games formed on the many private STF channels undermine the public queues, so the numbers and wait time aren't actually representative of usage.
I agree with this post.
If Cryptic would like moar participation in other STF queues, maybe they can consider offering Mk X-XI set pieces like the old Borg STF's did instead of a straight Dil/Mark increase for space and ground.
Mk X sets would definitely help with that push from lvl 40 to 60.
RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
I'd rather have them deal more damage or have directed shields.
Well, if you want to buy all your crafting materials on the Exchange when you finally reached Level 15 or 20...
Exactly...only ISE would be played then.
Cryptic is legendary for its epic fails!
- Judge Aaron Satie
Some stuff still needs adjusting, but the crafting mats was a huge step in the right direction.
Best solution, and has been oftentimes told to developers, but they refuse to listen. If the longer STFs paid according to the time spent, people would actually queue them without needing to find teams that want to do it. Heck, Azure Nebula Rescue is the worst one since it has a cap on rewards regardless of the points gotten.
And the Undine in space are EVIL! Spam their special Eye of Sauron Grav Well that spits out space snot... Spam HY Bioplasmic Torpedoes... knockbacks...
Getting one shot by the Planet Killers because its a glorified Beam Overload that is affected by the new Crit chance on Beam Overload... aka always.
... Have you ever actually looked up the definition of "MMORPG"?
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
i look for example at Nukara hard Ground STF : "Nukara Prime: Self Destruction" and trasndimentional tactics"
they were not originally stf's enclosed places.
despite being run by 5 players, you found often 7-10 players, even if some were not so well equipped, most of the team would punch trough the enemies. it was actually fun to see "10 idiots" (poorly equipped) to take on that, and still do that mission.
currently, you get 5 players and spend 15-25 minutes .... just to fail the mission ... over and over ...
i joined transdimensional tactics with my main, and made a substantial contribution on the effort to win the STF. i asked a guy how was it going, and he said his team had failed it before, 3 times, so, on the 4rth time, he passed the mission.
i tried a few more runs, to help some new guys on the group, and i ended up being the last one standing, i managed to hold on, alone for quite a bit, but alone, surrounded, webbed, with tolians emitting radiation and damage, and the boss attacking me all the time, along with other tolians, and radiation crystals, was more than what i could handle, and was very close of finishing the boss.
i tried a few more runs, and the result was very similar, i was among the last ones standing, but it ended up with 15-25 minutes of pure wasted time, were you can't pass it, when before, i could always win 90% of the times, now we can only do it 10% of the time ...
it's a waste of time, frustrating, aggravating ... and in the end, you get so tiered, you have to take a break from the game.
as it was before, it was fun, now ... now, it isn't.
why people only run some STF's ? because some are fun or rewarding ... others aren't ...
The Elite STFs are the only way to Get these damn things without going to the Exchange and paying through the nose, Throw us a bone on the grind and at least give us one or two VR Mats on each run.. not a pile, just ONE OR TWO. Is that too much to ask? I can't make a single mk XI or XII piece of equipment because the VR mats are a CHANCE to receive instead of getting a trickle through the grind.
I don't see it that way. Just because the public team you happen to join is inadequate or doesn't know what's going on, doesn't mean the content is wildly difficult.
People don't ever play it, or ground anything much for that matter. If you're not proficient or equipped for elite ground content, you shouldn't expect to waltz through it like nothing.
Players who are capable are left carrying the load, which is ever more difficult with significantly less HP and taking exploit damage while knockdown/stun locked by spider-man tactics.
The big difference is unlike any other STF, ground or space, you cannot respawn. You get once chance and that's it, game over man. Game over.
The rest? Pfft ... why bother?
Rom Rep? Daily Patrol and maybe some Epohh Tagging ...
Nukara? Grab the Tholian RA at the same time as the Rom Rep Patrol, and it count as one of the patrols so that Nukara maks done ...
Omega? As above, the usual 3 and done ...
Undine? One round in the Dyson Space BZ
Dyson? One round in the Voth Ground BZ
Trouble is, with the exception of the first daily run, all of them except the 3 Borg missions take ages to do, and pay absolutely TRIBBLE rewards! = Don't bother, and only the Voth Ground BZ is worth "farming" for any length of time, because of the way the loot drops work ...
Storming?Breach? Puleeze! What a farce those are and they pay TRIBBLE rewards.
It's also not very friendly for Alt-Aholics like me. If I want to, I can grab an Alt and spend several hours in the Voth Ground BZ, and come out with thousands of Dil ore, hundreds of marks, and an inventory full of vendor trash (with the occasional gem) all without time gating, without much effort ... Or I can spend the same amount of time in the Undine BZ, though the rewards aren't quite as good, and the Snot Balls are a pain (ugh, enough to drive you insane sometimes)
None of the other reps offer that freedom and ease!
ALL of the reps need freely repeatable BZ's that can pay continuous rewards if you spend time doing them, and (almost )ALL of the Queued missions need a 400% increase in the payout of marks! (all of course except the Borg ones, which are already fine)