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"Advanced is just like the old Elite!"
theroyalfamily
Member Posts: 300 Arc User
This is what Cryptic was telling us the entire time up until the release of DR - including the patch notes for DR release itself.
As we all know, this was not the case at all. Advanced space missions are much, much more difficult than Elite ever was.
"But it's all balanced for lvl 60 with mk xii-xiv weapons!" I hear you saying. For one, this was not the line given to us. It was said that it would be equivalent to the old (then current) Elite. I could do Elite STF's with a Varanus with mk x white weapons and be just fine. In fact, a whole STF full of folks like me could do well as long as we weren't complete incompetents (an iffy proposition in a pug, admittedly). Sure, we wouldn't run ISE in three minutes, but we could finish the optional with time to spare. While white mk x guns might not cut it at lvl 60 content, a similar build should be sufficient. Remember, we were told our current stuff wouldn't be obsolete for anything but the new Elite.
Another thing, it isn't balanced for mk xiv gear either. Let's look at the Crystaline Entity:
According to the wiki, the Entity had about 2.5M hp (2,481,069 to be specific).
Now the Advanced Entity has about 21M, and even with the upcoming nerf it will be about 15M hp. Do the mk xiv weapons and all the new abilities and passives increase a standard player's DPS by more than 400%? And remember, this isn't Elite, for those high-DPS epeen-wavers. Advanced is for the merely above average player - the one who isn't a newb, that knows what they are doing, and isn't in a complete garbage build.
Would you folks please tell me how Advanced being as it is would be a good thing?
As we all know, this was not the case at all. Advanced space missions are much, much more difficult than Elite ever was.
"But it's all balanced for lvl 60 with mk xii-xiv weapons!" I hear you saying. For one, this was not the line given to us. It was said that it would be equivalent to the old (then current) Elite. I could do Elite STF's with a Varanus with mk x white weapons and be just fine. In fact, a whole STF full of folks like me could do well as long as we weren't complete incompetents (an iffy proposition in a pug, admittedly). Sure, we wouldn't run ISE in three minutes, but we could finish the optional with time to spare. While white mk x guns might not cut it at lvl 60 content, a similar build should be sufficient. Remember, we were told our current stuff wouldn't be obsolete for anything but the new Elite.
Another thing, it isn't balanced for mk xiv gear either. Let's look at the Crystaline Entity:
According to the wiki, the Entity had about 2.5M hp (2,481,069 to be specific).
Now the Advanced Entity has about 21M, and even with the upcoming nerf it will be about 15M hp. Do the mk xiv weapons and all the new abilities and passives increase a standard player's DPS by more than 400%? And remember, this isn't Elite, for those high-DPS epeen-wavers. Advanced is for the merely above average player - the one who isn't a newb, that knows what they are doing, and isn't in a complete garbage build.
Would you folks please tell me how Advanced being as it is would be a good thing?
Post edited by theroyalfamily on
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All of the queues no longer take 2 minutes and many require planning and teamwork now for starters.
oh just quite with the hyperbole, many can't be finished below 13 minutes thanks to how they are set up, record for CE was like 2 minutes, but with not a single guy in there below 20k dps.
And HSE sub 3 minute run is with guys not below 30k dps.
99% of the people in STO wont reach this numbers not even with T6 and Mk14 gear.
Yes 2 minutes was an exaggeration but you get the point. Queues were far too easy and fast before. The last time I actually had to plan a queue before DR was years ago. Now I regularly make plans with the other players in the team so that we can actually get the reward.
Now you actually have to think not just press space bar like monkey.
what planing?
All the stfs are the same as before, only difference: they filled with hp sponges requiring a minimum amount of dps by each member of the team.
However, the changes here are just ridiculous. The new "Advanced", despite being supposedly "no different from the old elite" has no additional difficulty or challenge, only length and tedium.
You don't fail the new 'difficulties' because you could not figure out the new tactics, powers and synergies used against you. You fail because you're in a 25k DPS boat trying to whittle down millions upon millions of HP before the timer runs out, when you should've been shelling out top dollar for those mark 14s and T6/5U ships you were assured would not be required unless you wanted to hit the newest highest 'elite' level.
Exotic particle damage hasn't gone up much, hampering science. Regular T5s certainly no longer come close to handling Advanced as it is, despite assurances and guarantees that they were indeed built for it. REWARDS for all of this have been slashed atop it all, crashing the PvE Queue population as it simply is not worth it.
10%. Who guards kang. Who is bringing gravity well/tbr. Who gets anomalies. Etc.
Yes if you run with dps groups then they are just damage sponges and I do that often enough. I also run with fleet and pugs though and I can't solo protect the optionals anymore. Hence the planning.
Ding Ding we have a winner.
More enemy hp does not equal harder just means you take longer.
at 30,000 dps for the group average it takes 4 min to kill the tac cube alone. So your group was averaging about 80,000 dps each?
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
well guess thats a new record then.
current record is 66k.
sorry but with that you are looking at 7-8 minutes, or you had several 50k+ guys in your team. 5 minutes its pretty much top level right now. With the absolute top scraping close under 4 minutes.
Well maybe all the moving and shooting made it seem faster I don't know but the rest of the tems were upgraded aquatics and scimitars.
And as said a hundred times, this "Advanced difficulty adjustments." broke the reputation progression.
How can freshly level 50 (or 60s) for that matter competent in advance to earn the materials needed to get reputation gear, to actually be able to finish advance missions.
If you have new gear, hardly any VR stuff and with no T5U ship you hardly will scratch the 10k dps range, thats inadequate for the current advance. Hell and thats for people who know what they are doing.
First time players are going to score well below 10k.
It even tells you something when the absolute top dpsers need 4 times as long for the same missions as before.
except with the way they made it "harder" you still hit space bar like a monkey, just for a longer duration of time.. lol...
all they did was make it take longer to do the same thing.. (snooze).. they should have made better mechanics.. not just do the lazy buff to npc's
Or well actually it is.
This is coming from someone thats half XIV and half XIII with some gold/epic quality gear.
There is absolutely no difficulty increase. Nothing seems to hit me any harder, just fat hp pools.
The only thing thats " hard " is crystal entity advanced and thats only because if you pug it, you're running a 80% chance of getting a team full of Durrs that think ramming large shards is the most fantastic thing in the world. Even doing Vicious Cycle Advanced was easier than Crystal Entity Advanced, mainly because the hp pools weren't as ginormous.
honestly. People crusading to protect the big HP pools need to stop. Its not difficult, its just tedious. Big HP Pools are nothing but an illusion of difficulty increase. If they want " difficult " they'd get closer to that idea by upping damage and lowering hp pools by 50% of what they buffed them for. Give NPCs more abilities to use, up their CONSISTANT damage, not burst. Make them cycle tactical team alot.
They honestly did a better job of adjusting difficulty on ground. Take the borg advanced ground ques. Khitomer for example. They didn't up hp pools by massive amounts, they added a bunch more harder enemies. More elite tactical drones, like 1 - 2 EACH pull. Thats increased difficulty. Whats not increased difficulty would of been them increasing infected drone hp by 500%.
See what I'm getting at?
Inflation of HP Pools =/= Difficulty
Inflation of HP Pools = Longer, Drawn out Encounters.
Its not rocket science. Wake up.
They hit harder though. I was playing The Breach advanced, and i kept getting one-shotted by voth bastions.
I want a challenge, but this is ridiculous.
(BTW i have a T5U dyson strategic destroyer with over 59k hull.)
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's, and yours.
I dare you to do better.
Weren't people getting 1-shot in Breach regardless before expansion? Lol
TBH I don't bother with breach, not when ground battlezone is available.
For a small portion of the player base. The same portion that berates anyone fro having a build of less than 10K.
Congratulations. Welcome to the New EVE.
The HP pool is not the only problem, the resistances also increase quite a lot, sometimes in to the 70-80% range, especial noticeable on the CE.
You are absolutely right with the Ground missions, that how it should have been done, give more difficult enemies and not just inflate the hp/resits/damage.
If they keep space missions like that, they soon turn into the same ghosts towns that ground where before.
Funny enough that ground missions are now a lot more popular, none the less also thanks to the better rewards they give.
If I have to run a 15-20 minute mission, I rather do a ground mission then a space where the rewards are better and where you are not so gear dependent and where I am actually useful with my sci captain as opposed to space (even when they nerfed sci again in the past)
Also, (and I hate the DPS race, but it's true) you can pull off 20k DPS with rep/fleet gear and fleet weapons (Mk XII) on a T5U ship. Sci captains can keep up going crazy on exotic damage.
Not everyone can get with a good group all the time, plus some have to play a little here and a little there. Some may only have the chance to run one stf for the day, why punish them for having to join a pug only to fail the optional.
I was going to come and complain about this actually.
Advanced takes several times longer than the old Elite, they're harder to do because now the optionals aren't optional, and to top it off, we get kicked in the teeth at the reward screen.
No difference....
they both lied.
During my ... I dont know thousands of Borg STFs the past 2,5 years I usually found myself on 3 different kinds of teams.
1) good team: experienced and/or well geared
2) bad teams: unfamiliar with the basic rules and improper builds or gear.
3) Average teams: mix of those.
Before delta raising all of em had a good reason to heavily enjoy end game STF on elite:
1) Fast dil and cool speedrecords
2) Some STF like IGE (bossfight), CGE (reformerchain) or CSE (kang) were present mission risks but other STFs like KASE, KAGE, & especially ISE were no problems and would succeed eventually so lets keep on trying those to get better and worry about these optionals and the other STF later
3) Sure we can STF We can do all of em in fact! Perhaps we miss an optional but we can at least aim for it if we want. The rearward is guaranteed anyway and we grab that to expand our builds.
After delta rising and the conversion to the advanced mode I see the following motivation:
1) Why bother at all the rewards are a joke you can get better dil elsewhere
2) They fail anyway so why try at all. Too bad cuz where shall I get my stuff now?
3) We may either make it or not. Even if we do its hardly worth the effort.
Was always fun for me before Delta to integrate myself in all those team constellations to see how big of an influence I can make on any of em. I can assure you that it was always a big one but now, other than running and STF with some in game friends to keep good old times present, I hardly have any motivation left there and rather spend my in game time doing something else.
So from my observation they are not the same!
I really hope the adjustment Cryptic intends to make will do the trick.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
1-I outfitted my ship with all VR crafted mk-10 equipment. Now this gives me a bonus because it is equivilent to mk-12 uncommon in stats. Now also my toon just got to lvl50 so the rep system opens up. If the advanced were truly like the old elite I should do just fine.
REALITY= I got blasted into stardust! I know how to run the old elties, and know a few tricks to help out a noob if they are in my team. These didn't help one bit. So I agree with the OP that the scale is not set right.
I think the developers forgot that the player has to play to gather the items for the rep stuff. This means a new lvl 50 toon is not going to be able to start with most of the rep tiers completed. They will take about 40 days for a person to reach tier-5 in just one rep catagory. This is without help (meaning NO sponsership). Even with it that is still 21 days, and they will still need thousands of marks to get the equipment. Also this gear is only mk-12 so it is behind the curve and upgrading will be an added cost as well that I don't they thought about.
The other main problem I do not think the developers looked at is the special items for rep that only drop in advanced. Since I cannot get nerual processors now I cannot buy anything in rep , unless theya re dropping in basic and no one told me.
Increasing NPC dps isn't the right way to go about making them more difficult. And doing it for everything is even worse. You have to make them different and unique. How about increasing their damage output a little more, rather than their hit points? Give them new tactics and abilities and weapons to use. An adaptive ai that can change its attack patterns and switch between attack in and defending as the situation calls for. Hell, let them use the same boff and captain powers that we use. BSGO did this with their NPCs, and it made them a little tougher and a little more fun to face. They even have certain ones that use nukes and are extremely hard for certain ship types to kill. Why can't we get variety like that? Cruisers that can resist escort attacks better in short bursts and defend themselves as well as players, escorts that use the same alpha strike attacks as player escorts, and are capable of vaping a player in the same way. Hell, groups of ships that work in concert with each other to maximize effectiveness, with sci ships that debuff you, while the escorts hammer you down and the cruisers keep the escorts alive. Cryptic, you have all this to work with, why not use some of it? Please, enough with the new releases, enough with the HP scaling, and start working on giving us fun enemies to challenge us, rather than boring us with waves of enemies that do nothing but fly in circles and take hits.
No, not really. GW damage is capped at like 1,4k per tick, even with something like 300 particle generator. As long as exotic damage skills have such a low cap (especial with the hp sponges) they are quite useless as damage skills, even with damage boost.
Then they "upgrade" the crafting system in a similar fashion.........
Then they "upgrade" STFs the same way.............
Anyone else seeing a pattern here?