People, I beg of you, please stop saying these new missions have become more difficult. That's a misnomer. They're just longer and tedious with the improved HP and resists of critters. The difficulty has not changed.
Deokkent, keep in mind the average player operates at approx. 3k DPS and no idea how to actually play STO, it is actually mildly difficult to them.
as mentioned in other threads, people are saying that advanced was beefed up too much.
people are even failing fleet alert.
failure, people are failing, what next, actual borg that adapt and change tactics, actual patrol missions that are actually hard. May be even a mission or two that require some thought put into how to complete it:eek:
as mentioned in other threads, people are saying that advanced was beefed up too much.
people are even failing fleet alert.
I just came out of a disconnected, completed everything no problem, with a pug. Same with the other borg STF's, pugs are dangerous because of noobs. Do it with your fleet, unless of course your fleet is made up of pure noobs as well. This is finally the buff to PvE people were asking for, increased difficulty. GG cryptic, but the dil reward nerf was dumb af.
Folks asked for more difficult missions. What we got is not more difficult. We got longer missions requiring more grinding to get better gear to fight the same boring slow ships which have more health and more damage. Difficulty would be smarter AI, like activating EPtS when shields get low, or focusing fire, or saving buffs for attack runs.
Sure, there are real crybabies, but many complaints are entirely valid.
The NPCs are scaled WAY beyond any potential increase we can get with Level 60 gear though. But yeah, it is jsut annoying to spend 30+ minutes for less dilithium.
The NPCs are scaled WAY beyond any potential increase we can get with Level 60 gear though. But yeah, it is jsut annoying to spend 30+ minutes for less dilithium.
Ah yes, I forgot about that part. It makes their decisions much clearer now. You increase the time to complete a mission full of boring healthsacks, and cut the rewards in half! Quite logical.
Deokkent, keep in mind the average player operates at approx. 3k DPS and no idea how to actually play STO, it is actually mildly difficult to them.
I think deokkent is right on here. Yes some people will find it harder, but the core issue is that a brick with more HP takes longer. That's a far cry from more challenging even if it will hurt some players.
Everyone, even the ones struggling with the scaling HP, will benifit by truly harder NPCs with reasonable HP totals.
I think deokkent is right on here. Yes some people will find it harder, but the core issue is that a brick with more HP takes longer. That's a far cry from more challenging even if it will hurt some players.
Everyone, even the ones struggling with the scaling HP, will benifit by truly harder NPCs with reasonable HP totals.
I have really mixed feeling about this. On the one hand I think the NPCs should be more skilled rather then just bags of more HPs, etc. On the other hand, I have fielded many posts on the forum over the years from people who could not handle how the Romulan ships were smarter and more difficult to defeat when they moved into that mission chain simply because they were smarter rather then just bags of HP, etc.
If you make them smarter many people will complain about how you cannot just pew-pew them and need to think about how to beat them. If you make them bags of HPs many people will complain how it just takes longer but is not more challenging. It is a no-win either way, IMO.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
I have really mixed feeling about this. On the one hand I think the NPCs should be more skilled rather then just bags of more HPs, etc. On the other hand, I have fielded many posts on the forum over the years from people who could not handle how the Romulan ships were smarter and more difficult to defeat when they moved into that mission chain simply because they were smarter rather then just bags of HP, etc.
If you make them smarter many people will complain about how you cannot just pew-pew them and need to think about how to beat them. If you make them bags of HPs many people will complain how it just takes longer but is not more challenging. It is a no-win either way, IMO.
Or they could simply allow the player to select what they want?
Advanced should be reasonable bags of HP. Currently they are not reasonable.
Elite should be more challenging.
Not that complicated. 'Choose your difficulty' is one of the best ways to expand the potential audience of any game.
While I like the difficulty increase.. im not so sure this should be that difficult... 3 of us just tried to take on a single borg probe in advanced.. it took a minute and a half to kill it.
Now while I agree that advanced is designed for level 60 ship captains. (mostly down to the fact thats what the devs said)
I cannot for the life of me see how they could be that much easier to kill at level 60. for a start MKXIII and MKXIV do not have a huge increase in dps not to mention the consoles.
While I like the fact its harder....there's something to be said about a product being "too difficult" to enjoy.
and we all have to remember this is a product after all.
if they scaled it down a bit I wouldn't have a problem.. just not to the point where its like we're playing old elite again.
clearly its a balance issue. I have yet to get to level 60 though obviously so Ill hold out judgement till ive heard more opinions from those who are playing at level 60 with the highest gear etc.
have you tried defend khi'rhho station advanced? this is just insane, the difficulty is the same. Even with amazing ground gears, the elachi are hard to kill, and now the timer is shortened.
hurry up to buy craylon gas in the exchange, the prices are going to increase :P
infected the conduit is the same, but the borgs are most difficult to destroy, and some nanite spheres are almost invinsible. don't do it without grav well
Now while I agree that advanced is designed for level 60 ship captains. (mostly down to the fact thats what the devs said)
nope, advanced stf are not for lvl60, i think that when you reach lvl60, you have access to elite stf
nope, advanced stf are not for lvl60, i think that when you reach lvl60, you have access to elite stf
Oh wow I figured advanced was the new elite my bad....well im not even going to bother with elite when I get it then.
... If advanced is this hard then wth will elite be like....
man. Okay yeah they definitely need scaling down slightly in advanced. if you went from normal to eltie in a jump that i could understand but such a leap between a set of 3 difficulty ratios? wth.
The NPCs are scaled WAY beyond any potential increase we can get with Level 60 gear though. But yeah, it is jsut annoying to spend 30+ minutes for less dilithium.
You need to take another look at pilot and operative, plus imagine combining the tier 5ship traits on a single vessel.
Right now we are like level 30 captains with only one captain power, no rep traits and only 4 of 9 captain traits saying " there's no way being level 50 will make this do able".
I've been there on a fresh 51, and I've been there with a true 60. The difference is staggering.
Think beam/cannon boats packing another 10-20% crit and 70% severity above what you see today combined with shield penetration. Or science ships having gravity wells ticking for 3k and over 80% crit chance per tick, with slows and holds that actually work. (I still haven't seen a placate or confuse work though). Plus all kinds of damage bonuses.
Level 60 really is a huge difference.
Edit: the dilithium also was supposedly "moved" to be a reward for when you fill out all the specializations. I cannot comment from experience on how well that works in practice. But that was the intent.
man. Okay yeah they definitely need scaling down slightly in advanced. if you went from normal to eltie in a jump that i could understand but such a leap between a set of 3 difficulty ratios? wth.
Not only are they that much harder, but they reduced the benefit. Doing Advanced misssions, assuming it actually gets finished, does not give one the same rewards in dilithium, etc. All of the stuff one would normally do to build a fleet base is now nearly worthless. Their entire push is merely and only to force people to buy dilithium with Zen. If you don't you won't advance if you don't your fleet won't advance.
Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. ~ Cecil Beaton
Not only are they that much harder, but they reduced the benefit. Doing Advanced misssions, assuming it actually gets finished, does not give one the same rewards in dilithium, etc. All of the stuff one would normally do to build a fleet base is now nearly worthless. Their entire push is merely and only to force people to buy dilithium with Zen. If you don't you won't advance if you don't your fleet won't advance.
On the other hand, not counting the ships fleet gear just got way, way cheaper. You only need to unlock markm10 consoles and weapons, because upgrading from 10 to 12 costs vastly less dil than buying the mark 12 from a fleet store. Plus all the savings on unneeded starbase upgrades.
Ships though, are still a serious problem, and going to get worse when fleet t6 come out.
Last, the intent was to move dil from repeating specific actions and give a reward for doing anything at all. This is the excuse given for the bonus once you max out the spec trees. I don't know how well it works, but that is the devs position on it.
I am not blowing smoke on anything. My point still stands. The Content can still be played using existing T5 ships - you simply cannot do it on Advanced unless you are marginally skilled. On Elite you need to have the best gear and ships available to you - which was made clear even in the Podcasts. But that is not stopping anyone from doing it even on Regular difficulty while they get better.
Marginally skilled, has very little to do with advanced/elite anymore.
Marginally skilled, has very little to do with advanced/elite anymore.
It is all about pure dps now, nothing more!
As the Borg would put it, skill is irrelevant.
You need the skill to know how to build a ship rather then just going with whatever is available. Once you have that skill it's all down hill. I consider that to be marginally skilled - especially when you can simply look up on the forum how to do it. YMMV
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
my two cents for what its worth, (being that I just did it). if elite mode is geared for 60's to play, than advance mode should be exactly what the old elite mode is..
I mean, think of it this way, the old elite mode (now advanced) is not there for a level 60 player, its there for those who are at that part of the game (ie, level 40-50). the new elite mode, is for level 60 players..
being that I just played it with a level 50 that I am still progressing through the original story ( not at delta yet, I jumped in to get me some marks and dil.. which didn't happen because it was next to impossible. (peeps left after a few minutes.. )
im all for a beefier version for max level min maxers and what not, it creates challenge and fun, but to make an stf, that is old, and supposed to support level 50ish play more difficult than what a normal 50 can handle, that is just silly.
Looks to me like Cryptic went overboard with even the advanced STFs.
On the other hand, the other part of the problem is people still trying to play them like they can melt a Borg cube with a blink. I've been trying ISA and the old 'just DPS through the transformers, don't bother with crowd control on the spheres or the 10% rule' trick doesn't work anymore. This is a good thing but it seems folks are slow on the uptake.
The artist formerly known as PlanetofHats.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
Not only are they that much harder, but they reduced the benefit. Doing Advanced misssions, assuming it actually gets finished, does not give one the same rewards in dilithium, etc. All of the stuff one would normally do to build a fleet base is now nearly worthless. Their entire push is merely and only to force people to buy dilithium with Zen. If you don't you won't advance if you don't your fleet won't advance.
so in other words there was no practical reason for them making it this difficult... other than giving players a new challenge...which seems to come with a ton of unessasary changes and TRIBBLE ups..
I mean to force such a thing is surely a bad idea. They must know that most people who did do that before probably wont now because they cant enjoy the game half as much.
and those who will still do that will likely be halfed.
Dont get me wrong Im not gonna jump on the STO is ruined campaign but they do need to rethink this slightly because this is just totally broken atm how are people supposed to enjoy this?
Looks to me like Cryptic went overboard with even the advanced STFs.
On the other hand, the other part of the problem is people still trying to play them like they can melt a Borg cube with a blink. I've been trying ISA and the old 'just DPS through the transformers, don't bother with crowd control on the spheres or the 10% rule' trick doesn't work anymore. This is a good thing but it seems folks are slow on the uptake.
Yeah, there is definitely a learning curve. Look at how many regular posters are confused about the new settings, now imagine all the people who do not come to the forums who have no idea what is going on with the Elites?
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Looks to me like Cryptic went overboard with even the advanced STFs.
On the other hand, the other part of the problem is people still trying to play them like they can melt a Borg cube with a blink. I've been trying ISA and the old 'just DPS through the transformers, don't bother with crowd control on the spheres or the 10% rule' trick doesn't work anymore. This is a good thing but it seems folks are slow on the uptake.
Ive been playing this game for quite sometime and in nearly every old elite i did i rarely saw people melt a cube in a blink.
the problem is vessels now take longer to die than a transwarp gateway from khitomer vortex. its unreal.
even tac captains cant even forfill their DPS role...
me personally? im an eng tank. I dont expect to do as much dps but its like im running lieutenant level phasers in advanced.
and then when i play normal its like using MKXIII against ships that are 10 levels below you lol normal wasnt even that easy before DR.
You need the skill to know how to build a ship rather then just going with whatever is available. Once you have that skill it's all down hill. I consider that to be marginally skilled - especially when you can simply look up on the forum how to do it. YMMV
The skill to build a ship is also irrelevant, it now only requires carbon copying limited dps capability builds, which eliminates any actual diversity of skill point use, and weapon choices.
So, yeah no skill, just pure carbon copied dps only using no actual diversity.
The skill to build a ship is also irrelevant, it now only requires carbon copying limited dps capability builds, which eliminates any actual diversity of skill point use, and weapon choices.
So, yeah no skill, just pure carbon copied dps only using no actual diversity.
I have to say I agree with this from what I've seen so far. My vesta for example, at level 60 may be unkillable - but it's largely that now. It won't give me any more dps except maybe some exotic? Certainly not much.
I'm not sure how much more I can contribute to a group in this ship at level 60.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
even tac captains cant even forfill their DPS role...
me personally? im an eng tank. I dont expect to do as much dps but its like im running lieutenant level phasers in advanced.
Nonsense. It just requires some brains. You're an eng tank; you use your superior survival powers to draw aggro on the node defenders. I'm a tac; I use my mad DPS to help burn down nodes. And then a sci gravity-wells the spheres so we don't blow the objective.
The issue isn't killing things; I still do just as much damage, I'm just firing at a fatter target. The issue is now you need to use strategy and know your role. From what I've experienced so far, not a lot of people are doing either.
The artist formerly known as PlanetofHats.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
I have to say I agree with this from what I've seen so far. My vesta for example, at level 60 may be unkillable - but it's largely that now. It won't give me any more dps except maybe some exotic? Certainly not much.
I'm not sure how much more I can contribute to a group in this ship at level 60.
Look more closely at pilot and operative. Stacking damage bonuses, shield penetration, etc. Multiple new sources of accuracy and damage resist debuff which boosts the whole team. And as a sci you can hold/slow so those acc buffs become crit and crit severity.
Also, if you haven't yet do start working on the science crafting 15 trait, it letsmyour exotic damage critmbased on your particle generator skill, so the skill both boosts base damage and crit at once. That trait is quite impressive.
Edit and in regard to limited options, just looking at sci (my favorite) I have seen hybrid part gen/torp builds, pure particle, and hybrid debuffer/beamers all as viable just in the one week I was on tribble. Given a month there'll be even more viable builds. What I noticed missing were pure torp builds.
Comments
Deokkent, keep in mind the average player operates at approx. 3k DPS and no idea how to actually play STO, it is actually mildly difficult to them.
failure, people are failing, what next, actual borg that adapt and change tactics, actual patrol missions that are actually hard. May be even a mission or two that require some thought put into how to complete it:eek:
I just came out of a disconnected, completed everything no problem, with a pug. Same with the other borg STF's, pugs are dangerous because of noobs. Do it with your fleet, unless of course your fleet is made up of pure noobs as well. This is finally the buff to PvE people were asking for, increased difficulty. GG cryptic, but the dil reward nerf was dumb af.
The NPCs are scaled WAY beyond any potential increase we can get with Level 60 gear though. But yeah, it is jsut annoying to spend 30+ minutes for less dilithium.
Ah yes, I forgot about that part. It makes their decisions much clearer now. You increase the time to complete a mission full of boring healthsacks, and cut the rewards in half! Quite logical.
...wait, what?
I think deokkent is right on here. Yes some people will find it harder, but the core issue is that a brick with more HP takes longer. That's a far cry from more challenging even if it will hurt some players.
Everyone, even the ones struggling with the scaling HP, will benifit by truly harder NPCs with reasonable HP totals.
If you make them smarter many people will complain about how you cannot just pew-pew them and need to think about how to beat them. If you make them bags of HPs many people will complain how it just takes longer but is not more challenging. It is a no-win either way, IMO.
Or they could simply allow the player to select what they want?
Advanced should be reasonable bags of HP. Currently they are not reasonable.
Elite should be more challenging.
Not that complicated. 'Choose your difficulty' is one of the best ways to expand the potential audience of any game.
Now while I agree that advanced is designed for level 60 ship captains. (mostly down to the fact thats what the devs said)
I cannot for the life of me see how they could be that much easier to kill at level 60. for a start MKXIII and MKXIV do not have a huge increase in dps not to mention the consoles.
While I like the fact its harder....there's something to be said about a product being "too difficult" to enjoy.
and we all have to remember this is a product after all.
if they scaled it down a bit I wouldn't have a problem.. just not to the point where its like we're playing old elite again.
clearly its a balance issue. I have yet to get to level 60 though obviously so Ill hold out judgement till ive heard more opinions from those who are playing at level 60 with the highest gear etc.
hurry up to buy craylon gas in the exchange, the prices are going to increase :P
infected the conduit is the same, but the borgs are most difficult to destroy, and some nanite spheres are almost invinsible. don't do it without grav well
nope, advanced stf are not for lvl60, i think that when you reach lvl60, you have access to elite stf
Oh wow I figured advanced was the new elite my bad....well im not even going to bother with elite when I get it then.
... If advanced is this hard then wth will elite be like....
man. Okay yeah they definitely need scaling down slightly in advanced. if you went from normal to eltie in a jump that i could understand but such a leap between a set of 3 difficulty ratios? wth.
You need to take another look at pilot and operative, plus imagine combining the tier 5ship traits on a single vessel.
Right now we are like level 30 captains with only one captain power, no rep traits and only 4 of 9 captain traits saying " there's no way being level 50 will make this do able".
I've been there on a fresh 51, and I've been there with a true 60. The difference is staggering.
Think beam/cannon boats packing another 10-20% crit and 70% severity above what you see today combined with shield penetration. Or science ships having gravity wells ticking for 3k and over 80% crit chance per tick, with slows and holds that actually work. (I still haven't seen a placate or confuse work though). Plus all kinds of damage bonuses.
Level 60 really is a huge difference.
Edit: the dilithium also was supposedly "moved" to be a reward for when you fill out all the specializations. I cannot comment from experience on how well that works in practice. But that was the intent.
Not only are they that much harder, but they reduced the benefit. Doing Advanced misssions, assuming it actually gets finished, does not give one the same rewards in dilithium, etc. All of the stuff one would normally do to build a fleet base is now nearly worthless. Their entire push is merely and only to force people to buy dilithium with Zen. If you don't you won't advance if you don't your fleet won't advance.
On the other hand, not counting the ships fleet gear just got way, way cheaper. You only need to unlock markm10 consoles and weapons, because upgrading from 10 to 12 costs vastly less dil than buying the mark 12 from a fleet store. Plus all the savings on unneeded starbase upgrades.
Ships though, are still a serious problem, and going to get worse when fleet t6 come out.
Last, the intent was to move dil from repeating specific actions and give a reward for doing anything at all. This is the excuse given for the bonus once you max out the spec trees. I don't know how well it works, but that is the devs position on it.
Marginally skilled, has very little to do with advanced/elite anymore.
It is all about pure dps now, nothing more!
As the Borg would put it, skill is irrelevant.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I mean, think of it this way, the old elite mode (now advanced) is not there for a level 60 player, its there for those who are at that part of the game (ie, level 40-50). the new elite mode, is for level 60 players..
being that I just played it with a level 50 that I am still progressing through the original story ( not at delta yet, I jumped in to get me some marks and dil.. which didn't happen because it was next to impossible. (peeps left after a few minutes.. )
im all for a beefier version for max level min maxers and what not, it creates challenge and fun, but to make an stf, that is old, and supposed to support level 50ish play more difficult than what a normal 50 can handle, that is just silly.
On the other hand, the other part of the problem is people still trying to play them like they can melt a Borg cube with a blink. I've been trying ISA and the old 'just DPS through the transformers, don't bother with crowd control on the spheres or the 10% rule' trick doesn't work anymore. This is a good thing but it seems folks are slow on the uptake.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
so in other words there was no practical reason for them making it this difficult... other than giving players a new challenge...which seems to come with a ton of unessasary changes and TRIBBLE ups..
I mean to force such a thing is surely a bad idea. They must know that most people who did do that before probably wont now because they cant enjoy the game half as much.
and those who will still do that will likely be halfed.
Dont get me wrong Im not gonna jump on the STO is ruined campaign but they do need to rethink this slightly because this is just totally broken atm how are people supposed to enjoy this?
Ive been playing this game for quite sometime and in nearly every old elite i did i rarely saw people melt a cube in a blink.
the problem is vessels now take longer to die than a transwarp gateway from khitomer vortex. its unreal.
even tac captains cant even forfill their DPS role...
me personally? im an eng tank. I dont expect to do as much dps but its like im running lieutenant level phasers in advanced.
and then when i play normal its like using MKXIII against ships that are 10 levels below you lol normal wasnt even that easy before DR.
severe balance issue if you ask me lol
The skill to build a ship is also irrelevant, it now only requires carbon copying limited dps capability builds, which eliminates any actual diversity of skill point use, and weapon choices.
So, yeah no skill, just pure carbon copied dps only using no actual diversity.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I have to say I agree with this from what I've seen so far. My vesta for example, at level 60 may be unkillable - but it's largely that now. It won't give me any more dps except maybe some exotic? Certainly not much.
I'm not sure how much more I can contribute to a group in this ship at level 60.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Nonsense. It just requires some brains. You're an eng tank; you use your superior survival powers to draw aggro on the node defenders. I'm a tac; I use my mad DPS to help burn down nodes. And then a sci gravity-wells the spheres so we don't blow the objective.
The issue isn't killing things; I still do just as much damage, I'm just firing at a fatter target. The issue is now you need to use strategy and know your role. From what I've experienced so far, not a lot of people are doing either.
Actual join date: Open beta, 2009ish.
Look more closely at pilot and operative. Stacking damage bonuses, shield penetration, etc. Multiple new sources of accuracy and damage resist debuff which boosts the whole team. And as a sci you can hold/slow so those acc buffs become crit and crit severity.
Also, if you haven't yet do start working on the science crafting 15 trait, it letsmyour exotic damage critmbased on your particle generator skill, so the skill both boosts base damage and crit at once. That trait is quite impressive.
Edit and in regard to limited options, just looking at sci (my favorite) I have seen hybrid part gen/torp builds, pure particle, and hybrid debuffer/beamers all as viable just in the one week I was on tribble. Given a month there'll be even more viable builds. What I noticed missing were pure torp builds.
I hope so.
It wasn't fun at all.
RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev