Well, I paid 400K EC each for about 85 of them last Sunday. IT IS THE FIRST DAY PEOPLE......
I actually flipped them all and made ~30 million off of people who don't think or understand all of the game... that's the problem here with most of the posts.
I'm pretty sure people generally understand the game. 34 million EC to be able to flip those is no small task for a newbie in the first place.
Besides, there are people that like to play the game differently than "Stock Traders Online". I'm happy you make so much money, but not everyone plays like that.
Annnd the superiority complex attitude is why I go way out of my way to be nice to noobs & outright tell uppity teammates where to stuff it. I was treated like TRIBBLE when I first ventured into Old Elites. Some exchanges were downright abusive & almost scared me off. Not gonna let that happen to noobs, BTDT, they need leeway until they get the hang of it. You can tell who the noobs are versus griefers.
You practice on Normal until you're super comfortable in Normal queues, then you start the Old Elites. We all know this, none of us went in them pre-existing pros, it took a little practice. It took me a while to not go boom in CCE, and man did it feel great the first time I placed 3rd.
Why people seem to think they & their top-notch out-the-door build should be the be all, end all status quo for who should jump in -- noobs need not apply -- is beyond me. If that's how you feel, that's what private queues are for, use them. The rest of the players need to flesh it out some first. That's going to be a lot more difficult now. If people come in trying, and have to put up with TRIBBLE attitudes AND a massively (at first glance) harder queue, then kiss the pool of players for it goodbye. The HP needs to be reduced by a good clip, attitudes are a whole different ball of wax for another thread. though.
Good luck to the new players attempting to get the gear to go to Advanced difficulty. Oh wait, that's right. They can't because in order to get the gear they have to play advanced.
Oh, if only your logic worked, because then that would be the intended outcome.
I pointed this out several times while this stuff was on Tribble. If they make it availible to obtain the stuff people need even from normal, albeit at a much much smaller rate - like 1 BNP and 10-15% chance of a purple mat, we wouldn't have the issues we're having now. People that are unprepared or just want to play relaxed would still be able to progress, even if it's a snail's pace.
As it is now, everyone needs to do advanced at least, since normal doesn't get the whole variety of items that are essential in the game's progression. Only the new advanced is really testing players' skill and gear, so in order to have a better chance to do it people need good gear. But in order to get good gear people must do advanced at least because there's no other way around.
See the problem here, Cryptic? Why don't you add a small chance to obtain the items obtainable from advanced to the normal queues? It will save you a world of rage and probably a few customers as well.
Frack this.. Cant even finist the fleet alert. Horrible.
My thoughts exactly!
And I even have fleet gear and a T5-U Breen Warship.
It's not that I die, it's others die, or the team as a whole doesn't do enough DPS to win.
It's appalling... does Cryptic even test this out with say, Mirror uni ships and mission gear first.
Also some of the PvE's don't even have a Advanced or Elite, yet FFA is practically impossible to finish now.
i guess leveling to 60 does not count as progression anymore
what Imadude3 said. What I meant by progression was doing the story missions and leveling up my characters to Level 60 and beyond with investing in the specialization system. You don't need to Upgrade to tier 5-U to complete the Delta Quandrant story missions at all.
The problem with that is they can't get mats (borg neural processor, ect) for decent rep gear outside of the very rare chance of getting a drop in the rep reward boxes.
Wow you don't even get the processors on normal?
WTFlek!!
Annnd the superiority complex attitude is why I go way out of my way to be nice to noobs & outright tell uppity teammates where to stuff it. I was treated like TRIBBLE when I first ventured into Old Elites. Some exchanges were downright abusive & almost scared me off. Not gonna let that happen to noobs, BTDT, they need leeway until they get the hang of it. You can tell who the noobs are versus griefers.
You practice on Normal until you're super comfortable in Normal queues, then you start the Old Elites. We all know this, none of us went in them pre-existing pros, it took a little practice. It took me a while to not go boom in CCE, and man did it feel great the first time I placed 3rd.
Why people seem to think they & their top-notch out-the-door build should be the be all, end all status quo for who should jump in -- noobs need not apply -- is beyond me. If that's how you feel, that's what private queues are for, use them. The rest of the players need to flesh it out some first. That's going to be a lot more difficult now. If people come in trying, and have to put up with TRIBBLE attitudes AND a massively (at first glance) harder queue, then kiss the pool of players for it goodbye. The HP needs to be reduced by a good clip, attitudes are a whole different ball of wax for another thread. though.
^^ What she said...; my main ship, a T5-U Fleet Nebula, still hasn't cracked 4k dps; rather, it's setup for support and exotic damage...and that's by choice...; I'm more than happy to do my part in a successful run, through healing/repairing and herding up those mobs with a super-buffed up Grav Well III/Graviton Pulse Generator combo for the pew-pewers to pick off....
You play your way and don't give me any grief about it, and I'll do the same...; plus, I'm still pleasantly surprised when someone thanks me for saving their skidplate!
do you not understand that you can craft superiors at level 15 and that you don't need to buy them? you really don't understand crafting.
And newbies are supposed to get the very rare mats needed to craft these where exactly?
Because so far that consists of...
1) pay considerable EC prices on the Exchange.
2) Pay actual money and hope you get the right one with the C-store
3) Cough up 1000 dilithium and hope you get one and its the right one from the academy
4) Grind Advanced and/or Elite ques and hope you get one.
Newsflash : You're not "going through the progression" if you don't plan on upgrading anything ... or are you talking about something spiritual here ?
So i guess engaging in the story missions and climbing my toon toward 60 doesn't count as progress ?
Weird.
And here I thought that my enjoying the game the way I choose to, was okay.
Apparently I'm not one of the "In" crowd today unless I scream to the heavens about how bad all this is.
Let's see.
1. Enjoying new episodes
2. Have had no problems finding groups (PUGS even) to run thru a few of the STF type missions on Advanced.
3. Succeeded in a higher % of said PUG STFs than we failed. Even got the optional once in ISA.
4. Ship still T5.
5. Equipment as yet unupgraded.
6. Didn't have to pay for anything yet, and enjoying the heck outta the new stuff.
Sure some things could use retuning.
But Cryptic has already been in the forums acknowledging this.
It was even Geko, the Lead Designer.
Shrug.
Guess I really just don't understand all the bellyaching this time.
Guess this means, I'm not playing the game right.
Or maybe, having ... you know ... fun while engaging with the content IS the right way to play.
If a casual player like me can be enjoying all this, DESPITE all the rage saying casual players will hate this (or some form thereof), all the whining and moaning makes no sense.
I've seen again and again , "This is the death of the casual player!" , "This is only for Uber Leetz" , "Casuals will hate this." etc etc , yadda yadda yadda.
All the fools saying that. You're wrong.
Whatever, best to avoid these forums anyway.
I never know why I come back here.
Maybe it's just to laugh at all the funny.
Say Iconians hasn't posted in awhile.
The increased difficulty and the new ships are completely separate things.
Ummm , not quite .
Example from the new lockbox ship :
The Benthan Assault Cruiser is a Tier 6 starship.
(snip)
Hull Strength: 37,500 at level 40, 43,125 at level 50 and 50,000 at level 60
^^T6 ships level with you , thus the increased difficulty and the new ships are linked , which was not he case with the ships from LOR .
I'm only at level 51 right now, being a casual player. I know some people are already 60.
I'm still 50 something .
With only 17 missions in DR , I'm taking it slooooowly .
When people claim they suck because they don't have the best ships, it's nothing more than an excuse. With the same ship, @sarcasmdetector gets 30k and I get 15k. Piloting skill makes the difference.
Piloting is a small part of it .
The rest is consoles from the Lobi store and Doffs that can cost millions of EC .
And that does not include the cost of gearing up to Mk 13-14 .
That , plus knowing how to optimize stuff helps ... -- knowledge tat comes from experimenting , which in turn = more costs .
Reducing @sarcasmdetector's knowledge to "piloting" does him a disservice .
Having said that , more then one person has noted that the reoccurring theme in his builds is EPTW & BFAW .
Maybe it's the PVP-er in me who thinks this , but them ain't skills .
The issue is that the previous difficulty coddled the player base so that weaksauce ships doing 3k DPS were fine in ISE. This is no longer the case - people need to know what they're doing, or they'll fail.
In time, this will pass. People will step up to the challenge. It just takes time for people's ego to deflate, and realize that their 5k builds were never any good, it was just the enemy that sucked.
I have some 15K builds and I even have 2.5k build (my fleet K'Tang) .
I love them each , and since I level toons for specific ships , I have a lot of toons that are in various states , and until now I was able to have fun with each in STF's .
Unlike others , I won't delete toons , and I won't consolidate .
I have only stayed as long as I've had because I enjoyed flying my ships and I loved the Borg STF's .
If I can no longer enjoy the stuff I loved , then maybe it's time to reconsider my time in STO .
After nearly 5 years , it might not be such a bad thing .
And just for the record , I did get the optional in the new Advanced ISE a couple of times with my better builds with teams from the public ESTF channel .
But I'm well aware that I have many builds that will never get there as things stand .
I think the Problem isn't in the Difficulty per se... but in the horrendously inflated HP...
Unless you're a Hardcore Guy you will even have to take your sweet time with those ******n Kazon Carriers... I sure did, I mean, I certainly not good... probably way under 10k DPS but still, never had Problems before (especially after a little optimizing) and now it takes Minutes to take down one ******n Ship, not even in an STF, when playing on Advanced or Elite (was still on Elite from before DR).
My thoughts exactly!
And I even have fleet gear and a T5-U Breen Warship.
It's not that I die, it's others die, or the team as a whole doesn't do enough DPS to win.
It's appalling... does Cryptic even test this out with say, Mirror uni ships and mission gear first.
Also some of the PvE's don't even have a Advanced or Elite, yet FFA is practically impossible to finish now.
you guys realize this was on purpose right? cryptic has said this was intended.
they want the game to be this difficult(even thought it isn not difficult at all, only boring), i find it interesting the 180 change they did from rep boxes mechanics giving MK XI/XII purp stuff to this... thing they have now.
PWE must have forced this on them(or maybe it was cryptic's own idea, who knows), in order to force new players to buy stuff, i seriously doubt they're going to change it, unless there is an ACTUAL hit to their bottom line/playerbase numbers.
you guys realize this was on purpose right? cryptic has said this was intended.
they want the game to be this difficult, i find it interesting the 180 change they did from rep boxes mechanics giving MK XI/XII purp stuff to this... thing they have now.
PWE must have forced this on them(or maybe it was cryptic's own idea, who knows), in order to force new players to buy stuff, i seriously doubt they're going to change it, unless there is an ACTUAL hit to their bottom line/playerbase numbers.
I don't mind it being hard. I just wish newer players had the option of taking an easier route to get the reputations by the way simply decreased rewards.
Unfortunately as it is now, you can't even get the gear you need for Advanced from Normal.
Plus there is a strange massive gap between advanced and normal STFs. Normal is super easy, but pointless, then all of a sudden the Advanced (which is the one that drops the useful things) is OMGWTFBBQ compared to normal.
Not to mention the progression is completely messed up looking something like this:
Easy -> Nightmare -> Only slightly worse Nightmare
New players that have money can eventually get better stuff. I only feel bad for new players that don't have money to spend on the game. Reasons:
1) Assuming you prepared (or tried) for stfs you would still only have access to a level 40 ship and whatever you could scrape together from the story missions. So the 3 piece solanae set, the borg transphasic torp (from that one episode), and whatever other weapons you could scrape together.
2) They can't earn EC to get better gear. (Really a problem for everyone since they took out drops in queues, and since before when they screwed with vendor trash prices.)
3) They can't get dilitium since the only queues they'll be able to do will reward hardly any of it. And with no money they can't buy it.
4) No materials, etc. for crafting or upgrading. Not sure if you can buy these, but point still stands since they won't be able to.
5) No BNP, etc. and very little marks means that they can't buy rep stuff.
I think that Cryptic is trying to get rid of the freeloaders.
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
It isn't my logic. It's what the Developers came up with for the new queue system in DR. I agree the reward mechanism as it stands now for queued events isn't going to work.
You are absolutely right, I'll go edit that post. It was not your logic, I made that post while not level-headed.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
1) Assuming you prepared (or tried) for stfs you would still only have access to a level 40 ship and whatever you could scrape together from the story missions. So the 3 piece solanae set, the borg transphasic torp (from that one episode), and whatever other weapons you could scrape together.
"After completion, you'll have all Very Rare (purple) "primary" gear for your ship (not including devices/consoles)
After completion, you'll have all Very Rare (purple) "primary" ground gear for your character
This guide requires no EC, dilithium, or any other currency to complete
This guide does not require any reputations to be complete"
Reputation gives better Def/Eng/Shield sets than the Solanae set, but the Solanae set has a resilient shield and Structural Integrity Leech. That's not bad. Mk XI purple AP arrays are perfectly fine weapons, and the Obelisk core is the best warp core for an AP build.
The only thing you'd be missing are consoles, and Reputation only gives three useful consoles, (Assimilated, Nukara, Zero-Point) unless I'm forgetting something.
That should be easily enough to unlock reputation tiers, and get all those passives.
Heck, just grabbing that gear, using a good build (an actual good build, not "OMG I'm a special snowflake you cookie cutters!!1!"), and knowing how to fly (which requires learning, not "I'm an awesome pilot, you hardcore elitist no-lifes!") should easily outperform the 5k guys puttering around in the old ISEs.
So, I just finished an Advanced Cure Space. Thoughts.
1. It is obvious this was in no sense balanced at all. Probably they simply increased the HP/Shields of enemies according to a formula. The reason is namely that the IKS Kang is all but immune to the enemies that spawn due to it's high Shield/HP, enemies whose damage in no way scales proportionate to the HP of the Kang.
2. The nodes (although not, seemingly, the cubes) have pre-DR HP.
3. Killing the cubes no longer completes the mission, you have to kill the BOP's as well. (or at least some of them, it seemed incredibly weird when the mission actually completed, which was often long after we've killed the cubes)
4. Apart from the DPS check (the need to kill all the cubes+some of the BOP's within 15 min.) it's not that much harder: I did not die noticeably more than pre-DR. Elites.
5. It does however, take a significantly longer time. (I'd guess it took us around 25 min? slightly less than 15 to clear out the cubes, and an equal amount of time to kill the remaining Bops/raptors/Negh'vars and the carrier)
6. The carrier is absolutely pointless: It's a huge bag of HP, but since there's no timer on it, there's no particular reason to rush DPS, and it does completely anemic damage. (no one died on the carrier whatsoever)
7. All this means that what "should" be the focus of the mission (protecting the Kang, and the final showdown with the carrier) ignoreable while the tough part becomes evading (no use taking them out) the huge HP-sponge Bops while killing the cubes. Very counter to the actual tone of the mission. (which is more of a "desperate defence" thing)
8. Rewards are absolutely anemic. Neither XP, dilithium or omega marks were anywhere near worth the time spent. I earned maybe 3000 XP on the entire thing, and 480 dilithium.
9. The real problem comes with the fact that the "rare reputation mats" (Borg Neural Processors etc.) are locked behind advanced Queues now. Now, we were a pretty damn well-equipped bunch, but that means *we already had that kind of stuff* The new people coming are going to have to do these advanced STF's in order to earn end-level gear... That is required to run Advanced STF's in the first place. (even the upgrade system works that way!) It's slightly easier for voth/undine since they have their respective battlezones, but this makes the borg reputation all but impossible to finish for new players.
10. I don't really have a problem with the difficult of the mission per se: It was fairly tense when the timer was counting down. The problem is that the difficulty is all in the wrong places. (DPS race rather than a "keep the kang alive" race) the rewards are in no way commensurate with the tipe spent. And it is just plain *boring* you spend most of the time plonking away at high-HP enemies who plonk away at you, neither of you who do very much actual damage to each other.
11. You *really* need to take a look over the STF and figure out the balance of HP, damage, the Kang, etc. Right now it was obviously just "scaled up" from the old Elites, with no consideration for how that changes the dynamics of the mission.
Comments
i guess leveling to 60 does not count as progression anymore
I'm pretty sure people generally understand the game. 34 million EC to be able to flip those is no small task for a newbie in the first place.
Besides, there are people that like to play the game differently than "Stock Traders Online". I'm happy you make so much money, but not everyone plays like that.
You practice on Normal until you're super comfortable in Normal queues, then you start the Old Elites. We all know this, none of us went in them pre-existing pros, it took a little practice. It took me a while to not go boom in CCE, and man did it feel great the first time I placed 3rd.
Why people seem to think they & their top-notch out-the-door build should be the be all, end all status quo for who should jump in -- noobs need not apply -- is beyond me. If that's how you feel, that's what private queues are for, use them. The rest of the players need to flesh it out some first. That's going to be a lot more difficult now. If people come in trying, and have to put up with TRIBBLE attitudes AND a massively (at first glance) harder queue, then kiss the pool of players for it goodbye. The HP needs to be reduced by a good clip, attitudes are a whole different ball of wax for another thread. though.
I pointed this out several times while this stuff was on Tribble. If they make it availible to obtain the stuff people need even from normal, albeit at a much much smaller rate - like 1 BNP and 10-15% chance of a purple mat, we wouldn't have the issues we're having now. People that are unprepared or just want to play relaxed would still be able to progress, even if it's a snail's pace.
As it is now, everyone needs to do advanced at least, since normal doesn't get the whole variety of items that are essential in the game's progression. Only the new advanced is really testing players' skill and gear, so in order to have a better chance to do it people need good gear. But in order to get good gear people must do advanced at least because there's no other way around.
See the problem here, Cryptic? Why don't you add a small chance to obtain the items obtainable from advanced to the normal queues? It will save you a world of rage and probably a few customers as well.
My thoughts exactly!
And I even have fleet gear and a T5-U Breen Warship.
It's not that I die, it's others die, or the team as a whole doesn't do enough DPS to win.
It's appalling... does Cryptic even test this out with say, Mirror uni ships and mission gear first.
Also some of the PvE's don't even have a Advanced or Elite, yet FFA is practically impossible to finish now.
Other post : http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=19914551
what Imadude3 said. What I meant by progression was doing the story missions and leveling up my characters to Level 60 and beyond with investing in the specialization system. You don't need to Upgrade to tier 5-U to complete the Delta Quandrant story missions at all.
Wow you don't even get the processors on normal?
WTFlek!!
^^ What she said...; my main ship, a T5-U Fleet Nebula, still hasn't cracked 4k dps; rather, it's setup for support and exotic damage...and that's by choice...; I'm more than happy to do my part in a successful run, through healing/repairing and herding up those mobs with a super-buffed up Grav Well III/Graviton Pulse Generator combo for the pew-pewers to pick off....
You play your way and don't give me any grief about it, and I'll do the same...; plus, I'm still pleasantly surprised when someone thanks me for saving their skidplate!
And newbies are supposed to get the very rare mats needed to craft these where exactly?
Because so far that consists of...
1) pay considerable EC prices on the Exchange.
2) Pay actual money and hope you get the right one with the C-store
3) Cough up 1000 dilithium and hope you get one and its the right one from the academy
4) Grind Advanced and/or Elite ques and hope you get one.
Probably fubar considering once one has mastered Advanced Elite sounds like its a cake walk.
'The weak will perish'
It's official guys, Cryptic are now all Undine.
I want that BoP!!
Especially since Cryptic killed off the BoP's end-game feasibility by making everything kill it in one hit.
Yes... with a 600K hull rating I think I'd be quite happy in a BoP.
So i guess engaging in the story missions and climbing my toon toward 60 doesn't count as progress ?
Weird.
And here I thought that my enjoying the game the way I choose to, was okay.
Apparently I'm not one of the "In" crowd today unless I scream to the heavens about how bad all this is.
Let's see.
1. Enjoying new episodes
2. Have had no problems finding groups (PUGS even) to run thru a few of the STF type missions on Advanced.
3. Succeeded in a higher % of said PUG STFs than we failed. Even got the optional once in ISA.
4. Ship still T5.
5. Equipment as yet unupgraded.
6. Didn't have to pay for anything yet, and enjoying the heck outta the new stuff.
Sure some things could use retuning.
But Cryptic has already been in the forums acknowledging this.
It was even Geko, the Lead Designer.
Shrug.
Guess I really just don't understand all the bellyaching this time.
Guess this means, I'm not playing the game right.
Or maybe, having ... you know ... fun while engaging with the content IS the right way to play.
If a casual player like me can be enjoying all this, DESPITE all the rage saying casual players will hate this (or some form thereof), all the whining and moaning makes no sense.
I've seen again and again , "This is the death of the casual player!" , "This is only for Uber Leetz" , "Casuals will hate this." etc etc , yadda yadda yadda.
All the fools saying that. You're wrong.
Whatever, best to avoid these forums anyway.
I never know why I come back here.
Maybe it's just to laugh at all the funny.
Say Iconians hasn't posted in awhile.
Ummm , not quite .
Example from the new lockbox ship :
The Benthan Assault Cruiser is a Tier 6 starship.
(snip)
Hull Strength: 37,500 at level 40, 43,125 at level 50 and 50,000 at level 60
^^T6 ships level with you , thus the increased difficulty and the new ships are linked , which was not he case with the ships from LOR .
I'm still 50 something .
With only 17 missions in DR , I'm taking it slooooowly .
Piloting is a small part of it .
The rest is consoles from the Lobi store and Doffs that can cost millions of EC .
And that does not include the cost of gearing up to Mk 13-14 .
That , plus knowing how to optimize stuff helps ... -- knowledge tat comes from experimenting , which in turn = more costs .
Reducing @sarcasmdetector's knowledge to "piloting" does him a disservice .
Having said that , more then one person has noted that the reoccurring theme in his builds is EPTW & BFAW .
Maybe it's the PVP-er in me who thinks this , but them ain't skills .
I have some 15K builds and I even have 2.5k build (my fleet K'Tang) .
I love them each , and since I level toons for specific ships , I have a lot of toons that are in various states , and until now I was able to have fun with each in STF's .
Unlike others , I won't delete toons , and I won't consolidate .
I have only stayed as long as I've had because I enjoyed flying my ships and I loved the Borg STF's .
If I can no longer enjoy the stuff I loved , then maybe it's time to reconsider my time in STO .
After nearly 5 years , it might not be such a bad thing .
And just for the record , I did get the optional in the new Advanced ISE a couple of times with my better builds with teams from the public ESTF channel .
But I'm well aware that I have many builds that will never get there as things stand .
Unless you're a Hardcore Guy you will even have to take your sweet time with those ******n Kazon Carriers... I sure did, I mean, I certainly not good... probably way under 10k DPS but still, never had Problems before (especially after a little optimizing) and now it takes Minutes to take down one ******n Ship, not even in an STF, when playing on Advanced or Elite (was still on Elite from before DR).
of course they test it....they send fools like smirk and his god code to test it for us....nothing like keep it real huh!
they want the game to be this difficult(even thought it isn not difficult at all, only boring), i find it interesting the 180 change they did from rep boxes mechanics giving MK XI/XII purp stuff to this... thing they have now.
PWE must have forced this on them(or maybe it was cryptic's own idea, who knows), in order to force new players to buy stuff, i seriously doubt they're going to change it, unless there is an ACTUAL hit to their bottom line/playerbase numbers.
Ppl adapted with tactics & choice of players with specific careers , not doubling or tripling or quadrupling their DPS through spending .
Cryptic just turned nearly 5 year old content that was pretty easy to do into a super DPS festival .
If this wasn't so sad , it'd be funny .
... and yeas , I'm one of those ppl who keeps asking for the old STF's ...
I don't mind it being hard. I just wish newer players had the option of taking an easier route to get the reputations by the way simply decreased rewards.
Unfortunately as it is now, you can't even get the gear you need for Advanced from Normal.
Plus there is a strange massive gap between advanced and normal STFs. Normal is super easy, but pointless, then all of a sudden the Advanced (which is the one that drops the useful things) is OMGWTFBBQ compared to normal.
Not to mention the progression is completely messed up looking something like this:
Easy -> Nightmare -> Only slightly worse Nightmare
Wheras it used to be:
Easy -> A bit harder but still kinda easy
There has to be some kind of happy medium? Like:
Easy -> Medium -> Nightmare
1) Assuming you prepared (or tried) for stfs you would still only have access to a level 40 ship and whatever you could scrape together from the story missions. So the 3 piece solanae set, the borg transphasic torp (from that one episode), and whatever other weapons you could scrape together.
2) They can't earn EC to get better gear. (Really a problem for everyone since they took out drops in queues, and since before when they screwed with vendor trash prices.)
3) They can't get dilitium since the only queues they'll be able to do will reward hardly any of it. And with no money they can't buy it.
4) No materials, etc. for crafting or upgrading. Not sure if you can buy these, but point still stands since they won't be able to.
5) No BNP, etc. and very little marks means that they can't buy rep stuff.
I think that Cryptic is trying to get rid of the freeloaders.
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
You are absolutely right, I'll go edit that post. It was not your logic, I made that post while not level-headed.
I get that people are upset about difficulty and rewards, but we don't need a half dozen (or more) threads talking about the same thing.
Please leave your feedback here, or better yet in the thread Geko posted here: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1253091
Thanks!
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I say this as someone who does ~26k on a regular basis and doesn't have a problem with it. The N->A->E scaling is just crazy, is all.
Getting full sets of purple gear is free. All you'd be missing are consoles.
"After completion, you'll have all Very Rare (purple) "primary" gear for your ship (not including devices/consoles)
After completion, you'll have all Very Rare (purple) "primary" ground gear for your character
This guide requires no EC, dilithium, or any other currency to complete
This guide does not require any reputations to be complete"
Reputation gives better Def/Eng/Shield sets than the Solanae set, but the Solanae set has a resilient shield and Structural Integrity Leech. That's not bad. Mk XI purple AP arrays are perfectly fine weapons, and the Obelisk core is the best warp core for an AP build.
The only thing you'd be missing are consoles, and Reputation only gives three useful consoles, (Assimilated, Nukara, Zero-Point) unless I'm forgetting something.
That should be easily enough to unlock reputation tiers, and get all those passives.
Heck, just grabbing that gear, using a good build (an actual good build, not "OMG I'm a special snowflake you cookie cutters!!1!"), and knowing how to fly (which requires learning, not "I'm an awesome pilot, you hardcore elitist no-lifes!") should easily outperform the 5k guys puttering around in the old ISEs.
1. It is obvious this was in no sense balanced at all. Probably they simply increased the HP/Shields of enemies according to a formula. The reason is namely that the IKS Kang is all but immune to the enemies that spawn due to it's high Shield/HP, enemies whose damage in no way scales proportionate to the HP of the Kang.
2. The nodes (although not, seemingly, the cubes) have pre-DR HP.
3. Killing the cubes no longer completes the mission, you have to kill the BOP's as well. (or at least some of them, it seemed incredibly weird when the mission actually completed, which was often long after we've killed the cubes)
4. Apart from the DPS check (the need to kill all the cubes+some of the BOP's within 15 min.) it's not that much harder: I did not die noticeably more than pre-DR. Elites.
5. It does however, take a significantly longer time. (I'd guess it took us around 25 min? slightly less than 15 to clear out the cubes, and an equal amount of time to kill the remaining Bops/raptors/Negh'vars and the carrier)
6. The carrier is absolutely pointless: It's a huge bag of HP, but since there's no timer on it, there's no particular reason to rush DPS, and it does completely anemic damage. (no one died on the carrier whatsoever)
7. All this means that what "should" be the focus of the mission (protecting the Kang, and the final showdown with the carrier) ignoreable while the tough part becomes evading (no use taking them out) the huge HP-sponge Bops while killing the cubes. Very counter to the actual tone of the mission. (which is more of a "desperate defence" thing)
8. Rewards are absolutely anemic. Neither XP, dilithium or omega marks were anywhere near worth the time spent. I earned maybe 3000 XP on the entire thing, and 480 dilithium.
9. The real problem comes with the fact that the "rare reputation mats" (Borg Neural Processors etc.) are locked behind advanced Queues now. Now, we were a pretty damn well-equipped bunch, but that means *we already had that kind of stuff* The new people coming are going to have to do these advanced STF's in order to earn end-level gear... That is required to run Advanced STF's in the first place. (even the upgrade system works that way!) It's slightly easier for voth/undine since they have their respective battlezones, but this makes the borg reputation all but impossible to finish for new players.
10. I don't really have a problem with the difficult of the mission per se: It was fairly tense when the timer was counting down. The problem is that the difficulty is all in the wrong places. (DPS race rather than a "keep the kang alive" race) the rewards are in no way commensurate with the tipe spent. And it is just plain *boring* you spend most of the time plonking away at high-HP enemies who plonk away at you, neither of you who do very much actual damage to each other.
11. You *really* need to take a look over the STF and figure out the balance of HP, damage, the Kang, etc. Right now it was obviously just "scaled up" from the old Elites, with no consideration for how that changes the dynamics of the mission.