Just thought I'd add my 2p to this discussion. A lot of people have hit the nail on the head, there should be a logical progression in difficulty between the different modes. Normal should be roughly the same as it was before, allowing new players to experience the end game missions and help them understand the way that they're played. Advanced should be roughly where the Elites were before, though slightly buffed but no where near the insane levels of hp NPC's have at the moment. That means the newbies grow out of the normals and can move on to the advanced without much problem and start to earn some good gear. Elite can be the hair pulling tedious experience it is now I guess, some people enjoy that sort of thing but not I.
I think the rewards table should go something like this:
Normal - 480 dilithium (I think that's what it was before right?)
Advanced - 980 dilithium plus the faction item for rep gear (BNP etc)
Elite - 1500 dilithium plus the item and perhaps a rare piece of kit.
Obviously that's just a guide to see how things could progress, and I think it's a pretty fair way to do it. You still give those guys who crave a challenge their fix while allowing casual players to enjoy them as they were before with newbies able to access the content much easier than it would be at the moment.
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There are a LOT of 'I'm awesome and you suck' replies being posted. Which only leaves one feeling that the person(s) making such comments are really not as incredible as they like to think they are.
I agree with you 100%. I just looked up that persons total playing time 9 days and change...
Yet in his mind I am the "noob" with 47 days and change of actual playing time... LOL
I agree with you 100%. I just looked up that persons total playing time 9 days and change...
Yet in his mind I am the "noob" with 47 days and change of actual playing time... LOL
Me? Are you sure you didnt look at how long I've logged in the forum?
With high end mk xii gear and the right taktik Infected Space Advanced and Cure Space Advanced where already doable even with optionals on lvl 50. It just took longer than on Elite before.
Now as i was leveling up to lvl 60 in my t5u ship, i noticed a steady easying of the difficulty of those missions, to the point that now its already not much harder than it was before DR on Elite.
This is due to the massiv increase in firepower and hitpoints of the ships and the improvment in taktiks the players made by learning the revised missions.
And i am still just flying a t5u Ship with same very rare mk xii gear from my fleet and the reputation system that i had at lvl 50.
So i got to say to all those who complain about the missions beeing to hard now. Give it some time, learn the mission taktiks anew, and see how it goes on lvl 60. Your power will grow extreamly just by mastring your ship, spending some specialization points and leveling up to 60.
Now if on top of that you upgrade your mark and quality of your gear than those advanced missions are going to be as easy as Elite was before if not easier.
I aggree tho that reducing the mission reward is inacceptable.
PS: the taktik improvent in ISA is bring some crowd control like gravitiwell to hold the nanite spheres while you deal with the transformator. Thats all it takes. Same for CSA more crowd control to deal with the spawns and you only need to kill the cube and spheres to be able to send away the kang. Do that fast and you have all the time in the world to mob up those birds, raptors and negvars, which are idle if you dont let them near the kang.
Now as i was leveling up to lvl 60 in my t5u ship, i noticed a steady easying of the difficulty of those missions, to the point that now its already not much harder than it was before DR on Elite.
This is due to the massiv increase in firepower and hitpoints of the ships and the improvment in taktiks the players made by learning the revised missions..
Why do you feel there is a massive increase in firepower as you level from 50 - 60. Where is this increase coming from precisely? If not a Tac the only thing I see is a very very minor flanking bonus with the one specialization.
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."
the thing is... these adv. pve queues were meant to be playable for average lvl50 players... not for lvl 60 captains (thats what the elite missions are for)
but right now i see practically every adv. pve mission failing because time runs out, enemies being too strong and players leaving the match because its no joy for them anymore.
The new queue revamps is a massive design failure that is destroying players fun and ruining casual gameplay for all that just want to jump into a short mission to earn some marks or dilithium.
The rewards for this new pve mission system are idiotic and have been reduced for most players in the game.
While practically everything costs much more dilithium due to all the changes since season 9.5 the dilithium rewards have been even reduced.
Its no joy when after 5 hours pve missions you only have earned like 4000 dil. Thats what many people experience on the server these days.
This is all I was trying to say in another thread, and I got attacked for "not knowing how to play the game".
Posts like this one:
Accept that and farm new gear or learn how to play.
Just because I'm upset hat NEW 50's players and/or CASUAL 50's players are having little fun with the insane difficulty/reward tweaks doesn't mean I don't now how to ply the game; it means I CARE about the "other" players, and increasing the customer base of this game.
I guess that's what get for being a loyal 4-year+ STO'er, but I digress.
I agree entirely with swatop's post.
However, do you honestly think it [or a reasonable equivalent] will ever happen?
"Join Date: Jun 2012" Says Cryptic's "new" forum system. I've been here since a week before launch, but SOME stuff just didn't carry over through multiple system changes/updates. :rolleyes:
Why do you feel there is a massive increase in firepower as you level from 50 - 60. Where is this increase coming from precisely? If not a Tac the only thing I see is a very very minor flanking bonus with the one specialization.
I am not 100% sure about it, most of it probably for ship mastery i fly an Undine Nicor, but also CD reductions, then new starship traits and specializations.
I would say its about 10-20% more damage then with lvl 50 and enough to overcome the regeneration barrier of the new and improved enemys.
I am not 100% sure about it, most of it probably for ship mastery i fly an Undine Nicor, but also CD reductions, then new starship traits and specializations.
I would say its about 10-20% more damage then with lvl 50 and enough to overcome the regeneration barrier of the new and improved enemys.
I see for my 1 tac ship the level 4 mastery will improve it nicely. But my other science and engineers - they are unkillable ships that now are more unkillable! But not particularly helpful for burning down the massive HP required.
Perhaps the traits will help but the T5U ships don't really get those. Do they get any? Maybe from a lockbox? I'm a bit unclear on the traits.
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."
I see for my 1 tac ship the level 4 mastery will improve it nicely. But my other science and engineers - they are unkillable ships that now are more unkillable! But not particularly helpful for burning down the massive HP required.
Perhaps the traits will help but the T5U ships don't really get those. Do they get any? Maybe from a lockbox? I'm a bit unclear on the traits.
Starship traits relating to tier5u & 6, comes from completing the whole ship mastery.
Accept that and farm new gear or learn how to play.
See, with comments like these, I hope you never run in PUG groups, because personally I would like to see everyone troll your sorry a**, by making the mission fail every time.
Advanced STF's are almost impossible to pug now. I did infected advanced with a 30k+ dps scimitar which could always carry horrible low dps pugs in infected elite before, and it was a struggle to finish in advanced, it might have taken half an hour, the rest of my groups combined dps barley matched mine. Given that most high dps scimitars don't pug and use private channels I would assume most of these pugs fail and give up.
I see for my 1 tac ship the level 4 mastery will improve it nicely. But my other science and engineers - they are unkillable ships that now are more unkillable! But not particularly helpful for burning down the massive HP required.
Perhaps the traits will help but the T5U ships don't really get those. Do they get any? Maybe from a lockbox? I'm a bit unclear on the traits.
Starship traits relating to tier5u & 6, comes from completing the whole ship mastery.
Each ship can offer I believe, only 1 trait each.
Mastery Levels 1-4 grant passive abilities to your T5-U or T6 ship, unlocking a different passive at each Mastery Level. These are tied to that specific ship, so when discarding that ship make sure to consider whether you plan on flying it at another time... if you do, you will start back at 0 progress in your Mastery Levels.
As far as ships, only T6 ships will unlock a Starship Trait; T5-U ships can only earn Mastery Levels 1-4, and Mastery Level 5 is what unlocks the Starship Trait. They are slotted in your captain's 4 Starship Traits slots, and apply to any ship that captain is flying... but you have to unlock them first. At present, that means C-Store, Lobi, or Lockbox to gain a ship that has one of these abilities.
The other source of Starship Traits is your Specialization progress, which unlocks a Starship Trait when you spend 15 and 30 Specialization points. That basically means that you should focus on one Specialization at a time; for example, investing 14 points in one tree and 13 points in another would net you a grand total of 0 Starship Trait unlocks.
As far as the Delta Expedition Lock Box, there aren't any Starship Traits directly included... but there is a T6-11 ship in that and another added to the Lobi Store.
Overall, yes the Mastery Levels and Starship Traits help, but only the ones that add DPS (directly or indirectly). The current paradigm still doesn't favor tanking, though crowd control can be used to buy time for lower DPS... however, the queues also have timers. Those timers mean that DPS is still vastly superior to any other characteristic of your ship, so long as you don't regularly explode.
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
So, once again Cryptic decides that harder means that everything has way more hit points and can one shot kill you. That's not more difficult it's just more frustrating.
That's been my experience with Crystalline catastrophe so far.
I'm a science guy, so I'm not bringing much dps to the table, beyond particle gens.
And my particle gens buffed as far as I know how to get em, (349+ in skill points and gear)
doesn't even crack a single snowflake on the Crystalline entity's body. I might as well be blowing soap bubbles at it.
That's a big change from the gameplay that I've known.
Lesson learned, change of tactics. -
Debuff and control it is then.
I can debuff and control and deny to my hearts content, but If the team's not focused, If healers are trying to be tacts, if the tacts aren't packing dps-wise, you're in for a hard, long ride, with half the team getting frustrated and bailing.
I've been in quite a few instances since launch that have failed, failed meaning most of the team has left out of frustration.
A few, have gone wrong, but succeeded despite of ourselves. One even with ME, the science guy in a dauntless class, doin the MOST DPS, (winning first place).......
But it's not impossible with a good team.
Definitely can be fun, but still a learning curve for a lot of us with the possibility of a whole lotta frustration.
I myself still research and try to improve what I bring to each mission. That's a big part of the fun for me. The investigation, the planning and the trying to improve my builds and such.
I myself still research and try to improve what I bring to each mission. That's a big part of the fun for me. The investigation, the planning and the trying to improve my builds and such.
Honestly, I wish more people would do that. Learn new builds, learn their limits and push them further, see what they can get out of it.
While the HP scaling is a big factor in this, the other big factor is that people don't want to work on that. They want to see how much they can Kirk it up, charge in with Phasers blazing, beat the timer and all of that.
For everyone complaining about the HP boost, it was required to have high mark gear (and I'm talking XII, not XIV) have a purpose. Things melted in seconds in the old Elite, it wasn't fun, a channel was founded partially to purposely avoid it... So higher HP is fine. Work on your builds to take things down faster, it's completely doable with mk XII gear, no upgrades required. As others said, crowd control and debuffs are much more useful than they used to be.
My only real complaint with the difficulty changes is that there is a huge spike between Normal and Advanced. This, currently, seems to be putting reputation items (borg neural processors and ancient power cells, mostly) and very rare R&D materials out of PUG teams' hands. Is that really the way you want to be going? You're making it harder for players who aren't part of an established channel/fleet to get the very things needed to make the content more manageable for them... I think maybe Advanced should be pushed down and Elite rethought a bit. While the idea of a difficulty designed to be unwinnable without teamwork is very appealing, I'm not so sure it's the most healthy thing for the game. Perhaps a fourth difficulty is in order to fill this "impossible" role or bridge the gap between Normal and Advanced? Alternatively, just have the Advanced rewards also drop in Normal, but I still think Normal to Advanced is a huge unexpected spike. Way more so than Normal to Elite used to be, which the blog claimed Advanced would be similar to.
The difficultly isn't the issue with the revamped queues. It's the ridiculous amount of hitpoints the enemies have that lead to boredom when it's the same wave after wave TRIBBLE over and over again! Clearly PWE has no clue what difficulty is if 10x hull hp is their solution.
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Looking for a new fleet? Drop by the in-game chat channel, "tenforwardforum", and say hi to the members of A Fleet Called Ten Forward (Fed) and The Orion Pirates (KDF). If you already have a fleet you are happy with, please feel free to drop by our chat channel if you are looking for a friendly bunch of helpful people to socialize with.
Mastery Levels 1-4 grant passive abilities to your T5-U or T6 ship, unlocking a different passive at each Mastery Level. These are tied to that specific ship, so when discarding that ship make sure to consider whether you plan on flying it at another time... if you do, you will start back at 0 progress in your Mastery Levels.
As far as ships, only T6 ships will unlock a Starship Trait; T5-U ships can only earn Mastery Levels 1-4, and Mastery Level 5 is what unlocks the Starship Trait. They are slotted in your captain's 4 Starship Traits slots, and apply to any ship that captain is flying... but you have to unlock them first. At present, that means C-Store, Lobi, or Lockbox to gain a ship that has one of these abilities.
The other source of Starship Traits is your Specialization progress, which unlocks a Starship Trait when you spend 15 and 30 Specialization points. That basically means that you should focus on one Specialization at a time; for example, investing 14 points in one tree and 13 points in another would net you a grand total of 0 Starship Trait unlocks.
As far as the Delta Expedition Lock Box, there aren't any Starship Traits directly included... but there is a T6-11 ship in that and another added to the Lobi Store.
Overall, yes the Mastery Levels and Starship Traits help, but only the ones that add DPS (directly or indirectly). The current paradigm still doesn't favor tanking, though crowd control can be used to buy time for lower DPS... however, the queues also have timers. Those timers mean that DPS is still vastly superior to any other characteristic of your ship, so long as you don't regularly explode.
I stand corrected and, what a lame excuse to impose tier6 ships upon us imo! :mad:
Murphy's laws:
1- Murphy’s Law tells us that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
2- And anything that does go wrong will get progressively worse.
3- And if you survive the first two laws it’s time to panic.
Seriously Cryptic what is the point of you removing content from the game. I didnt notice as I was doing story missions but checked the queue and Khitomer Accord Space no longer exists. Why did you remove it? seriously the more you withdraw content the morepeople will get fed up and leave. If you want to remove content get rid of ones nooone plays anymore as there are many Queues which nobody uses
NO TO ARC
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Is there anything I need to do to get elite queues of certain stfs to be shown? I have hive elite, nws, some nukara missions etc. But I dont have infected or cure elite... is it a bug? Do they not exist? Or do I need something beside lvl 60?
Is there anything I need to do to get elite queues of certain stfs to be shown? I have hive elite, nws, some nukara missions etc. But I dont have infected or cure elite... is it a bug? Do they not exist? Or do I need something beside lvl 60?
A little off-topic, but I don't know how to send PM's to other forum users...soooo, here goes.
What is that a picture of...in your signature?
I find it interesting, and somewhat familiar, but I don't exactly "recognize" it.
BONUS ROUND:
How DO you send PM's to other forum users?
^_^
"Join Date: Jun 2012" Says Cryptic's "new" forum system. I've been here since a week before launch, but SOME stuff just didn't carry over through multiple system changes/updates. :rolleyes:
A little off-topic, but I don't know how to send PM's to other forum users...soooo, here goes.
What is that a picture of...in your signature?
I find it interesting, and somewhat familiar, but I don't exactly "recognize" it.
That's a great start, though I suspect a big part of the scaling issues stems from the over-level progression we've gained with Delta Rising. The same character level being used for the scaling has a wide disparity in potential abilities; a level 60 character has potential differences in Primary and Secondary Specialization progress, Starship Mastery Level for the ship they are using, and their available Starship Trait pool and faction-related build options. This will result in things being too easy for a captain at full capability and too difficult for captains just getting to level 60.
If they had been more practical about the Specialization Progress and granted one Specialization Point at character levels 16-60 (enough for one Primary and one Secondary Specialization), appropriate scaling would have been easier, without removing horizontal character development at level 60+. The down side would be that most everyone already had one or more characters at level 50 when Delta Rising went live, and the devs probably wanted us to feel like we had earned new abilities through our continued play rather than just handed more power. I'd still suggest altering the Specialization points to award at level 16+ when the next Specializations come out, though, so that scaling can be made to more closely balance with character level... after we've already earned our Specializations on a character or two.
The Starship Mastery Level and Starship Trait pool are tougher to design proper scaling for, of course, though balanced offerings would help a lot here. There is a lot that could benefit from a move to account level, even if it took longer to progress. I shudder to refer to anything related to SWTOR given my distaste for its monetization methodology, but they do have an interesting mechanic to unlock account-wide bonuses based on progress with your various characters.
Several aspects of STO could be shifted to the account level to provide incentives for cross-faction play. If Starship Mastery and Starship Trait unlocks were placed at the account level, for example, a Fed-only player could roll a Klingon and continue to advance their Escort Starship Mastery Level (Raptors share the same Mastery Level unlocks, so would be part of the same Starship Mastery ship-type) while unlocking Overwhelming Force to use on their Federation main. This would give the company a means to market both the Klingon faction and a Klingon ship purchase to otherwise "True Blue" players... as well as selling Federation unlocks and purchases to otherwise Red or Green players.
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
the point that we must realize
they dont give a damn about us
they only want money from us and nothing else
in all my years of gaming this is by far the worst game that i have ever played
full of bugs
content totaly unplayable even at normal difficulty
there is no support of any kind
if you are expecting answer on any of social media dont bother
it is more likey to get bullet than answer from them
they only use this forum and other social media to advertise and nothing else
beacuse if they are actualy doing their job than they would not ignore players
they would help players
and not to go greedy way out
nerf rewards and make content unplayable to force players to spend money on zen to get dill
that is disgusting
they only see money and players are meens to an end and nothing else
and if you have a problem they simply dont give a damn
that is why there is no support and that is why they dont fix bugs only implement new ones
do you even think what are you doing before you done it cryptic
or all you care is money by any means necessary
You have been blocked from following this account at the request of the user.
so this is the way how cryptic is treating players
and by threating them with ban even permanent one
if they dont shup up
Can you elaborate on this, please? I'd think that "let's lower difficulties to be closer to what we advertised" is a form of listening to us...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Instead of whining about the difficulty, my fleet went head into the new stuff, and failed EPICALLY, at first.
We were all oriented towards FLAT DPS, to PEW PEW PEW everything.
Then my bro Ralu decided to make a "sci gank", that can do 20-25kdps as a torp boat!!!!!
Then we went and did BDE and FAILED EPICALLY, but guess what? we split up wrong.
Him and i went left, and he held aggro, and i was able to RESCUE everything, without being damaged.
The only reason we failed is we had people in our team that didnt know how to hold AGGRO on the other nodes, and BOTH people rescuing, ( 1 went down the middle, so he was alone. ) Couldnt rescue anything......
The "whiners" are going to say "we can't do it anymore because our "pew pew' dont work!!!!!
The smart guys, who KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING are going to do this....
Get three tanks, TANKS THAT CAN HOLD AGGRO , DO SOME DPS, and two HIGH DPS SHIPS that are FAST, and can FLOAT and RESCUE, BOOM.... BDE is EASY AS ALL HECK!!!!
CSA can stay the way it is, THAT TOO IS EASY AS HECK WITH A NORMAL PUG GROUP.
ISA NEEDS SCIENCE TO CROWD CONTROL. Then BOOM.
All the ground stuff is easy with a DIVERSIFIED TEAM. USE TRIBBLES FFS!!! IDIC WORKS GREAT on a diversified team for all the ground stuff.
Fleet Alert, needs DPS ,and needs to be fixed.
KORFEZ ELITE needs DPS, and CROWD CONTROL FROM AT LEAST THREE MEMBERS.
I feel strongly as a FLEET LEADER OF A CASUAL GROUP yes cryptic needs to do some tweeking. ALTHOUGH , the ELITES REQUIRE MORE TANKING AND SCIENCE, and NOT Just a group with 20k DPS each member.
BUT THE NEW ELITES REQUIRE TEAM WORK AND ARE POSSIBLE TO BEAT RIGHT NOW AS THE STATE THEY ARE IN EXCEPT HIVE ONSLOUGHT. TO MANY HIT POINTS HERE BEFORE TIMERS RUN OUT ON THE OPTIONAL.
I do remember reading somewhere, that they said OVER AND OVER AGAIN, and in pod casts the elites are something YOU CANNOT just join in a PUG GROUP.
Instead of nerfing everything, i think what Cryptic should do is MOVE THE ELITES TO the CREATE PRIVATE ONLY. So you people that DONT KNOW what to do, are FORCED to learn how to DIVERSIFY and play the game together as a team, with TANKS, and SCIENCE. Not just TACTICAL dps.
People need to STOP THINKING DPS is the ONLY way to COMPLETE EVERYTHING!!!!
It NOW REQUIRES A THING CALLED TEAMWORK
Sorry for the caps but im excited at the new content, as a casual fleet leader of a tier 5 fleet, our goal was to get back to being able to X up and grab anyone, from our alliance channel.
I dunno about you guys, but we are there already. We also set up process, and way how to teach people to do the VARIOUS ROLES these new elites require.
Not just DPS ,but TANKING AND SCIENCE as well.
This makes the game WELL ROUNDED now for EACH class, and actually offers a BIT of a challenge.
GOOD JOB I SAY CRYPTIC!!!!! Way to make people Diversify, and the OTHER ROLES in the ques require something a bit more then DPS, and require a BIT of Critical thinking
Im happy with Delta Rising, and so is my fleet!!!! Fix what needs to be fixed, but dont give into those who are WHINING BECAUSE WE CANT PUG ELITES PLEASE!!!!!!!
The game is fun and offers a bit of a challenge sure!!!!
I mean man, if yah wanna see how its dones Captainsmirk, and the devs, from an outside point of view, come talk to me, Tamujiin@tamujiin in game!!!
I think you guys nailed it, minus the regular tweaks that need to be done, because of the poor code you guys got stuck with, when yah took over running the game
Gratz cryptic, yah nailed it from our point of view!!!
easy for you to say tamujin
when you have established fleet
with lots of money ,dill and zen to spend
and you are playing for years and years
but guess what not everyone have money
not everyone have milions of dill and zen
and not everyone have good established fleet
you are the first person out of 100 000 of other that is said that you are happy with delta rising
we all are talking what about new players
this new system kills any fun to new players that are just starting
and dont have any of new stuff
a lot of them dont even have mk xii purple
I for one dont want the new elite to be easy
it should be difficult beacuse prize is good
and it should be hard to get those new items beacuse their value is high
I dont mind that at all
if you want the new stuff than grind and make your ship good and than
go and fight and get new stuff
I am talking about changes to normal and advanced difficulty
now normal fleet alert cant be completed with 20 t5 fleet ships
all ships have fleet gear and we fail every time at step 4
and before delta we all have done fleet alert with out any problems with mirror ships and white gear
and they told advanced will be old elite
that is a lie beacuse even normal is now more difficult than old elite
we just want that changes made to normal and advanced be reverted
and that normal and advanced be the same difficulty like before delta rising
and you can do what ever you want with elite
beacuse i wont play it
that is what we all are saying
make normal and advanced playable to casual players with 5-10 k dps ships
like it was
beacuse not everyone have 30 k dps ships with mk iv gold gear
not everyone have lot of time and money to play all day and night to get new items
there is a lot of casual players out there that now beacuse of you they cant even play pve on normall difficulty beacuse enemy is too strong
You have been blocked from following this account at the request of the user.
so this is the way how cryptic is treating players
and by threating them with ban even permanent one
if they dont shup up
Normal should be made available for PUGS
Advanced should be made for people who have Tier V ships
Elite should be for top gear and equipment
I havent played much of the Queues yet since release but I see most of the posts and if the Hit points are just hyped up so you fail then it is a bad move.
Me personally I welcome a bit more difficult challenge I don't have mkXIV elite equipment in fact i still use the Mk XI borg sheilds I got before the Omega rep went active but I believe Advance needs to be a bit more challenges.
Newbies should first be only allowed to do normal to learn the ropes FYI cryptic removing the dil reward from normal is a bad idea which I think you have done.
Once you have a Tier V ship and learned the ropes in Normal Then the Advanced should be available maybe after doing a certain amount of matches in Normal.
This will then be made for Teamwork which can still be done while Pugging but you will need a Tier V ship with at least MK XI equipment to complete this should also have the dil reward as before. nerfing the dil rewards but upping the difficulty is another bad idea.
Elite should be Tier 5U -Tier 6 ships and either MkXIII or mkXIV equipment and require a fleet to do and maybe double the dil rewards for Elite
I know people are thinking about new players for advanced but most people tend to want to rush the advancement but this change will mean that you have to think Am I ready for Advanced? Can my ship survive?
If the answer is no or I'm not sure then your not ready. I welcome this change just not the reward nerfs. before DR DPS was the answer, No it is more well rounded a Sci is needed and/ or engineers and a little teamwork which was lacking before
NO TO ARC
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Comments
I think the rewards table should go something like this:
Normal - 480 dilithium (I think that's what it was before right?)
Advanced - 980 dilithium plus the faction item for rep gear (BNP etc)
Elite - 1500 dilithium plus the item and perhaps a rare piece of kit.
Obviously that's just a guide to see how things could progress, and I think it's a pretty fair way to do it. You still give those guys who crave a challenge their fix while allowing casual players to enjoy them as they were before with newbies able to access the content much easier than it would be at the moment.
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Yet in his mind I am the "noob" with 47 days and change of actual playing time... LOL
Me? Are you sure you didnt look at how long I've logged in the forum?
With high end mk xii gear and the right taktik Infected Space Advanced and Cure Space Advanced where already doable even with optionals on lvl 50. It just took longer than on Elite before.
Now as i was leveling up to lvl 60 in my t5u ship, i noticed a steady easying of the difficulty of those missions, to the point that now its already not much harder than it was before DR on Elite.
This is due to the massiv increase in firepower and hitpoints of the ships and the improvment in taktiks the players made by learning the revised missions.
And i am still just flying a t5u Ship with same very rare mk xii gear from my fleet and the reputation system that i had at lvl 50.
So i got to say to all those who complain about the missions beeing to hard now. Give it some time, learn the mission taktiks anew, and see how it goes on lvl 60. Your power will grow extreamly just by mastring your ship, spending some specialization points and leveling up to 60.
Now if on top of that you upgrade your mark and quality of your gear than those advanced missions are going to be as easy as Elite was before if not easier.
I aggree tho that reducing the mission reward is inacceptable.
PS: the taktik improvent in ISA is bring some crowd control like gravitiwell to hold the nanite spheres while you deal with the transformator. Thats all it takes. Same for CSA more crowd control to deal with the spawns and you only need to kill the cube and spheres to be able to send away the kang. Do that fast and you have all the time in the world to mob up those birds, raptors and negvars, which are idle if you dont let them near the kang.
Why do you feel there is a massive increase in firepower as you level from 50 - 60. Where is this increase coming from precisely? If not a Tac the only thing I see is a very very minor flanking bonus with the one specialization.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
This is all I was trying to say in another thread, and I got attacked for "not knowing how to play the game".
Posts like this one:
Just because I'm upset hat NEW 50's players and/or CASUAL 50's players are having little fun with the insane difficulty/reward tweaks doesn't mean I don't now how to ply the game; it means I CARE about the "other" players, and increasing the customer base of this game.
I guess that's what get for being a loyal 4-year+ STO'er, but I digress.
I agree entirely with swatop's post.
However, do you honestly think it [or a reasonable equivalent] will ever happen?
I am not 100% sure about it, most of it probably for ship mastery i fly an Undine Nicor, but also CD reductions, then new starship traits and specializations.
I would say its about 10-20% more damage then with lvl 50 and enough to overcome the regeneration barrier of the new and improved enemys.
I see for my 1 tac ship the level 4 mastery will improve it nicely. But my other science and engineers - they are unkillable ships that now are more unkillable! But not particularly helpful for burning down the massive HP required.
Perhaps the traits will help but the T5U ships don't really get those. Do they get any? Maybe from a lockbox? I'm a bit unclear on the traits.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Starship traits relating to tier5u & 6, comes from completing the whole ship mastery.
Each ship can offer I believe, only 1 trait each.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
See, with comments like these, I hope you never run in PUG groups, because personally I would like to see everyone troll your sorry a**, by making the mission fail every time.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Mastery Levels 1-4 grant passive abilities to your T5-U or T6 ship, unlocking a different passive at each Mastery Level. These are tied to that specific ship, so when discarding that ship make sure to consider whether you plan on flying it at another time... if you do, you will start back at 0 progress in your Mastery Levels.
As far as ships, only T6 ships will unlock a Starship Trait; T5-U ships can only earn Mastery Levels 1-4, and Mastery Level 5 is what unlocks the Starship Trait. They are slotted in your captain's 4 Starship Traits slots, and apply to any ship that captain is flying... but you have to unlock them first. At present, that means C-Store, Lobi, or Lockbox to gain a ship that has one of these abilities.
The other source of Starship Traits is your Specialization progress, which unlocks a Starship Trait when you spend 15 and 30 Specialization points. That basically means that you should focus on one Specialization at a time; for example, investing 14 points in one tree and 13 points in another would net you a grand total of 0 Starship Trait unlocks.
As far as the Delta Expedition Lock Box, there aren't any Starship Traits directly included... but there is a T6-11 ship in that and another added to the Lobi Store.
Overall, yes the Mastery Levels and Starship Traits help, but only the ones that add DPS (directly or indirectly). The current paradigm still doesn't favor tanking, though crowd control can be used to buy time for lower DPS... however, the queues also have timers. Those timers mean that DPS is still vastly superior to any other characteristic of your ship, so long as you don't regularly explode.
That's been my experience with Crystalline catastrophe so far.
I'm a science guy, so I'm not bringing much dps to the table, beyond particle gens.
And my particle gens buffed as far as I know how to get em, (349+ in skill points and gear)
doesn't even crack a single snowflake on the Crystalline entity's body. I might as well be blowing soap bubbles at it.
That's a big change from the gameplay that I've known.
Lesson learned, change of tactics. -
Debuff and control it is then.
I can debuff and control and deny to my hearts content, but If the team's not focused, If healers are trying to be tacts, if the tacts aren't packing dps-wise, you're in for a hard, long ride, with half the team getting frustrated and bailing.
I've been in quite a few instances since launch that have failed, failed meaning most of the team has left out of frustration.
A few, have gone wrong, but succeeded despite of ourselves. One even with ME, the science guy in a dauntless class, doin the MOST DPS, (winning first place).......
But it's not impossible with a good team.
Definitely can be fun, but still a learning curve for a lot of us with the possibility of a whole lotta frustration.
I myself still research and try to improve what I bring to each mission. That's a big part of the fun for me. The investigation, the planning and the trying to improve my builds and such.
Honestly, I wish more people would do that. Learn new builds, learn their limits and push them further, see what they can get out of it.
While the HP scaling is a big factor in this, the other big factor is that people don't want to work on that. They want to see how much they can Kirk it up, charge in with Phasers blazing, beat the timer and all of that.
My only real complaint with the difficulty changes is that there is a huge spike between Normal and Advanced. This, currently, seems to be putting reputation items (borg neural processors and ancient power cells, mostly) and very rare R&D materials out of PUG teams' hands. Is that really the way you want to be going? You're making it harder for players who aren't part of an established channel/fleet to get the very things needed to make the content more manageable for them... I think maybe Advanced should be pushed down and Elite rethought a bit. While the idea of a difficulty designed to be unwinnable without teamwork is very appealing, I'm not so sure it's the most healthy thing for the game. Perhaps a fourth difficulty is in order to fill this "impossible" role or bridge the gap between Normal and Advanced? Alternatively, just have the Advanced rewards also drop in Normal, but I still think Normal to Advanced is a huge unexpected spike. Way more so than Normal to Elite used to be, which the blog claimed Advanced would be similar to.
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I stand corrected and, what a lame excuse to impose tier6 ships upon us imo! :mad:
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=19998321#post19998321
1- Murphy’s Law tells us that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
2- And anything that does go wrong will get progressively worse.
3- And if you survive the first two laws it’s time to panic.
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
A little off-topic, but I don't know how to send PM's to other forum users...soooo, here goes.
What is that a picture of...in your signature?
I find it interesting, and somewhat familiar, but I don't exactly "recognize" it.
BONUS ROUND:
How DO you send PM's to other forum users?
^_^
Click on it;)
On the forum header right is a button Private Message. But I never tried it;)
That's a great start, though I suspect a big part of the scaling issues stems from the over-level progression we've gained with Delta Rising. The same character level being used for the scaling has a wide disparity in potential abilities; a level 60 character has potential differences in Primary and Secondary Specialization progress, Starship Mastery Level for the ship they are using, and their available Starship Trait pool and faction-related build options. This will result in things being too easy for a captain at full capability and too difficult for captains just getting to level 60.
If they had been more practical about the Specialization Progress and granted one Specialization Point at character levels 16-60 (enough for one Primary and one Secondary Specialization), appropriate scaling would have been easier, without removing horizontal character development at level 60+. The down side would be that most everyone already had one or more characters at level 50 when Delta Rising went live, and the devs probably wanted us to feel like we had earned new abilities through our continued play rather than just handed more power. I'd still suggest altering the Specialization points to award at level 16+ when the next Specializations come out, though, so that scaling can be made to more closely balance with character level... after we've already earned our Specializations on a character or two.
The Starship Mastery Level and Starship Trait pool are tougher to design proper scaling for, of course, though balanced offerings would help a lot here. There is a lot that could benefit from a move to account level, even if it took longer to progress. I shudder to refer to anything related to SWTOR given my distaste for its monetization methodology, but they do have an interesting mechanic to unlock account-wide bonuses based on progress with your various characters.
Several aspects of STO could be shifted to the account level to provide incentives for cross-faction play. If Starship Mastery and Starship Trait unlocks were placed at the account level, for example, a Fed-only player could roll a Klingon and continue to advance their Escort Starship Mastery Level (Raptors share the same Mastery Level unlocks, so would be part of the same Starship Mastery ship-type) while unlocking Overwhelming Force to use on their Federation main. This would give the company a means to market both the Klingon faction and a Klingon ship purchase to otherwise "True Blue" players... as well as selling Federation unlocks and purchases to otherwise Red or Green players.
No. No, they didn't. They remain deaf as ever.
they dont give a damn about us
they only want money from us and nothing else
in all my years of gaming this is by far the worst game that i have ever played
full of bugs
content totaly unplayable even at normal difficulty
there is no support of any kind
if you are expecting answer on any of social media dont bother
it is more likey to get bullet than answer from them
they only use this forum and other social media to advertise and nothing else
beacuse if they are actualy doing their job than they would not ignore players
they would help players
and not to go greedy way out
nerf rewards and make content unplayable to force players to spend money on zen to get dill
that is disgusting
they only see money and players are meens to an end and nothing else
and if you have a problem they simply dont give a damn
that is why there is no support and that is why they dont fix bugs only implement new ones
do you even think what are you doing before you done it cryptic
or all you care is money by any means necessary
so this is the way how cryptic is treating players
and by threating them with ban even permanent one
if they dont shup up
Can you elaborate on this, please? I'd think that "let's lower difficulties to be closer to what we advertised" is a form of listening to us...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
We were all oriented towards FLAT DPS, to PEW PEW PEW everything.
Then my bro Ralu decided to make a "sci gank", that can do 20-25kdps as a torp boat!!!!!
Then we went and did BDE and FAILED EPICALLY, but guess what? we split up wrong.
Him and i went left, and he held aggro, and i was able to RESCUE everything, without being damaged.
The only reason we failed is we had people in our team that didnt know how to hold AGGRO on the other nodes, and BOTH people rescuing, ( 1 went down the middle, so he was alone. ) Couldnt rescue anything......
The "whiners" are going to say "we can't do it anymore because our "pew pew' dont work!!!!!
The smart guys, who KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING are going to do this....
Get three tanks, TANKS THAT CAN HOLD AGGRO , DO SOME DPS, and two HIGH DPS SHIPS that are FAST, and can FLOAT and RESCUE, BOOM.... BDE is EASY AS ALL HECK!!!!
CSA can stay the way it is, THAT TOO IS EASY AS HECK WITH A NORMAL PUG GROUP.
ISA NEEDS SCIENCE TO CROWD CONTROL. Then BOOM.
All the ground stuff is easy with a DIVERSIFIED TEAM. USE TRIBBLES FFS!!! IDIC WORKS GREAT on a diversified team for all the ground stuff.
Fleet Alert, needs DPS ,and needs to be fixed.
KORFEZ ELITE needs DPS, and CROWD CONTROL FROM AT LEAST THREE MEMBERS.
I feel strongly as a FLEET LEADER OF A CASUAL GROUP yes cryptic needs to do some tweeking. ALTHOUGH , the ELITES REQUIRE MORE TANKING AND SCIENCE, and NOT Just a group with 20k DPS each member.
BUT THE NEW ELITES REQUIRE TEAM WORK AND ARE POSSIBLE TO BEAT RIGHT NOW AS THE STATE THEY ARE IN EXCEPT HIVE ONSLOUGHT. TO MANY HIT POINTS HERE BEFORE TIMERS RUN OUT ON THE OPTIONAL.
I do remember reading somewhere, that they said OVER AND OVER AGAIN, and in pod casts the elites are something YOU CANNOT just join in a PUG GROUP.
Instead of nerfing everything, i think what Cryptic should do is MOVE THE ELITES TO the CREATE PRIVATE ONLY. So you people that DONT KNOW what to do, are FORCED to learn how to DIVERSIFY and play the game together as a team, with TANKS, and SCIENCE. Not just TACTICAL dps.
People need to STOP THINKING DPS is the ONLY way to COMPLETE EVERYTHING!!!!
It NOW REQUIRES A THING CALLED TEAMWORK
Sorry for the caps but im excited at the new content, as a casual fleet leader of a tier 5 fleet, our goal was to get back to being able to X up and grab anyone, from our alliance channel.
I dunno about you guys, but we are there already. We also set up process, and way how to teach people to do the VARIOUS ROLES these new elites require.
Not just DPS ,but TANKING AND SCIENCE as well.
This makes the game WELL ROUNDED now for EACH class, and actually offers a BIT of a challenge.
GOOD JOB I SAY CRYPTIC!!!!! Way to make people Diversify, and the OTHER ROLES in the ques require something a bit more then DPS, and require a BIT of Critical thinking
Im happy with Delta Rising, and so is my fleet!!!! Fix what needs to be fixed, but dont give into those who are WHINING BECAUSE WE CANT PUG ELITES PLEASE!!!!!!!
The game is fun and offers a bit of a challenge sure!!!!
I mean man, if yah wanna see how its dones Captainsmirk, and the devs, from an outside point of view, come talk to me, Tamujiin@tamujiin in game!!!
I think you guys nailed it, minus the regular tweaks that need to be done, because of the poor code you guys got stuck with, when yah took over running the game
Gratz cryptic, yah nailed it from our point of view!!!
when you have established fleet
with lots of money ,dill and zen to spend
and you are playing for years and years
but guess what not everyone have money
not everyone have milions of dill and zen
and not everyone have good established fleet
you are the first person out of 100 000 of other that is said that you are happy with delta rising
we all are talking what about new players
this new system kills any fun to new players that are just starting
and dont have any of new stuff
a lot of them dont even have mk xii purple
I for one dont want the new elite to be easy
it should be difficult beacuse prize is good
and it should be hard to get those new items beacuse their value is high
I dont mind that at all
if you want the new stuff than grind and make your ship good and than
go and fight and get new stuff
I am talking about changes to normal and advanced difficulty
now normal fleet alert cant be completed with 20 t5 fleet ships
all ships have fleet gear and we fail every time at step 4
and before delta we all have done fleet alert with out any problems with mirror ships and white gear
and they told advanced will be old elite
that is a lie beacuse even normal is now more difficult than old elite
we just want that changes made to normal and advanced be reverted
and that normal and advanced be the same difficulty like before delta rising
and you can do what ever you want with elite
beacuse i wont play it
that is what we all are saying
make normal and advanced playable to casual players with 5-10 k dps ships
like it was
beacuse not everyone have 30 k dps ships with mk iv gold gear
not everyone have lot of time and money to play all day and night to get new items
there is a lot of casual players out there that now beacuse of you they cant even play pve on normall difficulty beacuse enemy is too strong
so this is the way how cryptic is treating players
and by threating them with ban even permanent one
if they dont shup up
Advanced should be made for people who have Tier V ships
Elite should be for top gear and equipment
I havent played much of the Queues yet since release but I see most of the posts and if the Hit points are just hyped up so you fail then it is a bad move.
Me personally I welcome a bit more difficult challenge I don't have mkXIV elite equipment in fact i still use the Mk XI borg sheilds I got before the Omega rep went active but I believe Advance needs to be a bit more challenges.
Newbies should first be only allowed to do normal to learn the ropes FYI cryptic removing the dil reward from normal is a bad idea which I think you have done.
Once you have a Tier V ship and learned the ropes in Normal Then the Advanced should be available maybe after doing a certain amount of matches in Normal.
This will then be made for Teamwork which can still be done while Pugging but you will need a Tier V ship with at least MK XI equipment to complete this should also have the dil reward as before. nerfing the dil rewards but upping the difficulty is another bad idea.
Elite should be Tier 5U -Tier 6 ships and either MkXIII or mkXIV equipment and require a fleet to do and maybe double the dil rewards for Elite
I know people are thinking about new players for advanced but most people tend to want to rush the advancement but this change will mean that you have to think Am I ready for Advanced? Can my ship survive?
If the answer is no or I'm not sure then your not ready. I welcome this change just not the reward nerfs. before DR DPS was the answer, No it is more well rounded a Sci is needed and/ or engineers and a little teamwork which was lacking before
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]