IMO the Queues are suffering because of the separation between players that have reached level 60 and the players have not reached level 60.
(
Can you really believe this?
If the people who haven't reached 60 yet haven't played enough in all this time, do you think they were filling the queues up before? No, its very much a bad excuse
It's not the level disparity, you can queue most of them at lvl 50 so that excuse is utter garbage.
@Orangeitis - it has been asked nicely, it's been requested nicely, it's been requested firmly, now people are just bored of being ignored. So meh he'll answer if he can be F*****.
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
The problem is that the game was tuned for around 5000 dps. Now it is tuned to 15000 - 20000 to have the same difficulty level and speed of completion.
From some parses I did last week I would say the average dps is around 3000 in advanced missions. I see many at 1500 and below = 1 carrier frigate. You have to imagine how frustrating these missions must be for the average player then it becomes easy to see why the queues are dead.
There is way way way way way too much focus on the 20000+ teensy tiny group of players. The expectation was that everyone would spend spend to upgrade and reach at least 15,000. This is unrealistic first because it doesn't add up. Let's say you upgrade to 14 and get the specialization. Maybe this give 30% increase dps - probably much less. wow - now you do 4000 dps. Most of the great increases you gain are to defense. Unfortunately none of them are necessary.
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."
Nothing needs to be done about the queues. Delta rising is the most successful expansion yet and the players love it. Players are 17x happier then they were before its release.
Can you really believe this?
If the people who haven't reached 60 yet haven't played enough in all this time, do you think they were filling the queues up before? No, its very much a bad excuse
Well... The Priority One guys and gals, who might be among the biggest fans of Startrek Online considering they made a podcast around it - they seem to have only one among them that already reached level 60.
Aside from that being a good example for how long the level grind really is - makes you wonder how many players still have gotten a character there, and how many of those did participate in queues before but are now busy leveling. Or did only queue players bother to get to level 60 already?
That said - you don't need to be level 60 to join most queues, IIRC. I think only Elite requires level 60.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Odd because due to all that leveling you're gonna need a break from the boredom so shouldn't the STF's be full of people taking a break???
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Aside from that being a good example for how long the level grind really is - makes you wonder how many players still have gotten a character there, and how many of those did participate in queues before but are now busy leveling. Or did only queue players bother to get to level 60 already?
Or how many are simply engaged with DQ content. Kobali prime, patrols, the odd episode. If you look at your typical pre-dr post-game playstyle and what you have to adopt now to reach 60 you'll see that while what we're doing now to level doesn't exactly fit with how we approached the game from 1-50, its not just grinding either. As opposed to focusing on reputation, dilithium, and crafting there are other things players could be doing and just on the point that they occupy some new time to complete (even if it may not be ALL of your time spent in STO) that's going to have an affect on the PVE queues. New alternative, roughly the same population, and the split causes a small but noticable drop off. It doesn't help either that there are 3 new PVE's and two of them (Disconnected and Bug Hunt) are now staple grinding zones (in part thanks to the new reputation system.)
Basically, its not unexpected given a little more considered view of PVE population mechanics. +1 item without any subtractions is likely going to cause the population to spread. In and out of the PVE's this has happened, so its a rather specious argument to make that the drop offs in the old PVE's is mainly attributable to mob dissatisfaction. That's simply projecting a personal point of view (or rather the strongest echo from the forum's chamber) onto a lager population with only a correlation (minus the all important context) to give it ANY support. Straight from the basic text of forum debate, but still not acceptable to take at face value.
Now what this basically means is that in order to address PVE population problems it would be unwise to focus exclusively on those aspects of STO that the forum's have taken to heart as being the problem (which is causing everyone to leave because we on the internet know quite well how to speak for the actions of everyone) because there's likely other things going on to influence population trends in this specific venue of STO. Unless you focus on the mechanics (not just the sociological mob response) you're likely going to retain some aspect of the problem through redundant or outdated PVE's and skewed returns on effort. Fix the bloated nature of the system, create better ways of channeling players away from the optimal grinds (or just make that a more subjective problem), or else you will be faced with dead queues at some level in spite of whatever other marvelous improvements are made.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Odd because due to all that leveling you're gonna need a break from the boredom so shouldn't the STF's be full of people taking a break???
I can only say what I do after a regular work day:
I log into the game. On 3 characters, I do an Argala run for the reputation marks and the skill points. Then I close all finished assignments and start new ones. I complete all Crafting projects and start new ones. (And sometimes I get angry with myself because I send the researchers off to an assignment and can't assign them to crafting.). Sometimes I take some time for a bit more activity, like transwarping to Earth Space Dock and Starfleet Academy to do recruitments or turn-ins of contraband.
When the next patch comes and Argala pays out better skill-point wise, I'll likely do some extra rounds, if time permits. Also trying to get my masteries done on 4 ships on the 3 characters I am currently focused on.
Then I log off, because I have also other stuff to do. Keeping up to date with my favorite TV shows mostly.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Then I log off, because I have also other stuff to do. Keeping up to date with my favorite TV shows mostly.
The dual screen setup is your friend. TV on one side, STO on the other. :P
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
If it is THE GREATEST EVER i should have no problems making a team up of friends or fleet mates,,,,,,,,,,but no no one is on line anymore, wonder why.
Or are they on line & its a graphic bug,,,,,
The dual screen setup is your friend. TV on one side, STO on the other. :P
I have a dual screen setup. But when i watch a show, I try to avoid other distractions. I know, that's a strange attitude, as if I was still some kind of caveman...
I use dual screen to be able to play STO and post on the STO forums at the same time, however.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
The PvE queue were pretty empty even before DR, now it's just miserable. Good luck trying to play anything other than the super popular stuff like Infected Space Advanced or Crystal Entity. I pretty much gave up on playing my KDF toon even before DR because there were no PvE players.
I don't actually think it's possible to play Mine Trap any more.
Yah but that was also true (from my experience at least) quite some time prior to DR...
[These sorts of queues should be made into special events, say with a 1-2 month cycle to give them some greater presence in STO than the Elachii or Mirror events. Lower scale rewards (say just bonus Xp and marks, no event project.)]
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Can you really believe this?
If the people who haven't reached 60 yet haven't played enough in all this time, do you think they were filling the queues up before? No, its very much a bad excuse
The Character that I'm working on right now is level 55 and it took me just about 3 weeks with casual play to get her there.
I'm missing out on a lot of level 60 only runs and I know that for a fact.
From my view and current experience with the Gaming Channels most players that are running STF's or other queued content prefer to run it on Elite and a player that has not reach level 60 cannot see are joined elite private or queued games.
So yes, I believe that the divide between level 60 and non level 60 characters is another major cause of dead queues.
I'm not saying the above is the only reason because there are quite a few other factors contributing to the queue problem has well, poor EXP payouts, and NPCs with near unlimited HP being at the top of that list.
Well... The Priority One guys and gals, who might be among the biggest fans of Startrek Online considering they made a podcast around it - they seem to have only one among them that already reached level 60.
Aside from that being a good example for how long the level grind really is - makes you wonder how many players still have gotten a character there, and how many of those did participate in queues before but are now busy leveling. Or did only queue players bother to get to level 60 already?
That said - you don't need to be level 60 to join most queues, IIRC. I think only Elite requires level 60.
This is pretty much the point that I was trying to make. (Thanks)
There are many players who were able to power level themselves to 60 in a day or two; however, that is not the case for all of us.
I have eleven Characters of which only 2 have reached level 60 and with the lowering of EXP that we get from missions and NPC kills, it's taking quite some time to get the current Character that I'm leveling to 60.
I'm always looking for advanced STF runs in the STF channels but they are few and far between because most players are looking for Elite runs and I can't say that I blame them.
I refuse to be pigeon held into planning only one or two of my characters that can keep up with the curve here in STO and I'm eventually going to get the rest of my Characters to 60 but it's going to take quite some time for me to get them there.
What he actually said that the display was bugged and is now fixed (not just now now, but also the "now" when the interview was taken, and probably some time before that).
I guess you can go back through the dev tracker and see if there was mention of that.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
With the new difficulty of queues the community has basically divided into two sections.
Those that can do advanced/elite content and those that can't.
Those that can do not PUG, they don't queue public and set up their own matches in channels/fleets... since it's not worth the risk failing because the PUG is not up to the task...
This means those that can't get stuck waiting in emty queues and even if they did get into a map there is large chance that they wont suceed anyway.
I wonder if the much-praised Cryptic metris that they look at splits out public queue to private queue.. i doubt it.
Although I love this game,the queues in PVE seem dead most of the time.
I know its asking alot,getting a DEV to read this,but what is cryptic/pwe going to do about this aweful bad problem? Do they even care?
How about there being an option to use Boffs in the 5 player missions?
Are alot of the cooldowns really necessary?
How about cutting prices right down to attract more players to this game?
Alot of things in this game are heavily over priced,make it more affordable to those that are less well off financially.
Stop Nerfing everything.
Bugs and server not responding are another big problem,whats being done about that.
Is it going to be addressed?
There needs to be a bug sweep more than once a week.
Players will appreciate a bug free game with alot less grind.
Make the game more fun and less grind,it will keep more players here.
They will do nothing and you WILL LOVE IT!!!!!!!!! :mad:
But didn't he also say that it was fixed already? They still look pretty empty to me.
*shrug
Either it's not fixed or somebody's fibbing.
All I saw last night were zero's in all but two queues, and even those were showing less that 50 players actually playing. So, tens of thousands of people playing STO, and the queues are showing less than 150 in actively playing PvE queued content.
Comments
Can you really believe this?
If the people who haven't reached 60 yet haven't played enough in all this time, do you think they were filling the queues up before? No, its very much a bad excuse
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@Orangeitis - it has been asked nicely, it's been requested nicely, it's been requested firmly, now people are just bored of being ignored. So meh he'll answer if he can be F*****.
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
From some parses I did last week I would say the average dps is around 3000 in advanced missions. I see many at 1500 and below = 1 carrier frigate. You have to imagine how frustrating these missions must be for the average player then it becomes easy to see why the queues are dead.
There is way way way way way too much focus on the 20000+ teensy tiny group of players. The expectation was that everyone would spend spend to upgrade and reach at least 15,000. This is unrealistic first because it doesn't add up. Let's say you upgrade to 14 and get the specialization. Maybe this give 30% increase dps - probably much less. wow - now you do 4000 dps. Most of the great increases you gain are to defense. Unfortunately none of them are necessary.
"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... The Priority One guys and gals, who might be among the biggest fans of Startrek Online considering they made a podcast around it - they seem to have only one among them that already reached level 60.
Aside from that being a good example for how long the level grind really is - makes you wonder how many players still have gotten a character there, and how many of those did participate in queues before but are now busy leveling. Or did only queue players bother to get to level 60 already?
That said - you don't need to be level 60 to join most queues, IIRC. I think only Elite requires level 60.
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Or how many are simply engaged with DQ content. Kobali prime, patrols, the odd episode. If you look at your typical pre-dr post-game playstyle and what you have to adopt now to reach 60 you'll see that while what we're doing now to level doesn't exactly fit with how we approached the game from 1-50, its not just grinding either. As opposed to focusing on reputation, dilithium, and crafting there are other things players could be doing and just on the point that they occupy some new time to complete (even if it may not be ALL of your time spent in STO) that's going to have an affect on the PVE queues. New alternative, roughly the same population, and the split causes a small but noticable drop off. It doesn't help either that there are 3 new PVE's and two of them (Disconnected and Bug Hunt) are now staple grinding zones (in part thanks to the new reputation system.)
Basically, its not unexpected given a little more considered view of PVE population mechanics. +1 item without any subtractions is likely going to cause the population to spread. In and out of the PVE's this has happened, so its a rather specious argument to make that the drop offs in the old PVE's is mainly attributable to mob dissatisfaction. That's simply projecting a personal point of view (or rather the strongest echo from the forum's chamber) onto a lager population with only a correlation (minus the all important context) to give it ANY support. Straight from the basic text of forum debate, but still not acceptable to take at face value.
Now what this basically means is that in order to address PVE population problems it would be unwise to focus exclusively on those aspects of STO that the forum's have taken to heart as being the problem (which is causing everyone to leave because we on the internet know quite well how to speak for the actions of everyone) because there's likely other things going on to influence population trends in this specific venue of STO. Unless you focus on the mechanics (not just the sociological mob response) you're likely going to retain some aspect of the problem through redundant or outdated PVE's and skewed returns on effort. Fix the bloated nature of the system, create better ways of channeling players away from the optimal grinds (or just make that a more subjective problem), or else you will be faced with dead queues at some level in spite of whatever other marvelous improvements are made.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
He is making it up. He said they were bugged. They are no longer, so that is no claim that what people see now is wrong.
I can only say what I do after a regular work day:
I log into the game. On 3 characters, I do an Argala run for the reputation marks and the skill points. Then I close all finished assignments and start new ones. I complete all Crafting projects and start new ones. (And sometimes I get angry with myself because I send the researchers off to an assignment and can't assign them to crafting.). Sometimes I take some time for a bit more activity, like transwarping to Earth Space Dock and Starfleet Academy to do recruitments or turn-ins of contraband.
When the next patch comes and Argala pays out better skill-point wise, I'll likely do some extra rounds, if time permits. Also trying to get my masteries done on 4 ships on the 3 characters I am currently focused on.
Then I log off, because I have also other stuff to do. Keeping up to date with my favorite TV shows mostly.
The dual screen setup is your friend. TV on one side, STO on the other. :P
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Or are they on line & its a graphic bug,,,,,
I have a dual screen setup. But when i watch a show, I try to avoid other distractions. I know, that's a strange attitude, as if I was still some kind of caveman...
I use dual screen to be able to play STO and post on the STO forums at the same time, however.
I've been here since beta
Yah but that was also true (from my experience at least) quite some time prior to DR...
[These sorts of queues should be made into special events, say with a 1-2 month cycle to give them some greater presence in STO than the Elachii or Mirror events. Lower scale rewards (say just bonus Xp and marks, no event project.)]
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
+1
The queues aren't dead even tho the game shows 0 players queued and 0 players in mission.
...it's a bug.
ROFL
best expansion EVER !!!
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
But didn't he also say that it was fixed already? They still look pretty empty to me.
I've been here since beta
The Character that I'm working on right now is level 55 and it took me just about 3 weeks with casual play to get her there.
I'm missing out on a lot of level 60 only runs and I know that for a fact.
From my view and current experience with the Gaming Channels most players that are running STF's or other queued content prefer to run it on Elite and a player that has not reach level 60 cannot see are joined elite private or queued games.
So yes, I believe that the divide between level 60 and non level 60 characters is another major cause of dead queues.
I'm not saying the above is the only reason because there are quite a few other factors contributing to the queue problem has well, poor EXP payouts, and NPCs with near unlimited HP being at the top of that list.
P1 Podcast, Episode 200.
This is pretty much the point that I was trying to make. (Thanks)
There are many players who were able to power level themselves to 60 in a day or two; however, that is not the case for all of us.
I have eleven Characters of which only 2 have reached level 60 and with the lowering of EXP that we get from missions and NPC kills, it's taking quite some time to get the current Character that I'm leveling to 60.
I'm always looking for advanced STF runs in the STF channels but they are few and far between because most players are looking for Elite runs and I can't say that I blame them.
I refuse to be pigeon held into planning only one or two of my characters that can keep up with the curve here in STO and I'm eventually going to get the rest of my Characters to 60 but it's going to take quite some time for me to get them there.
I guess you can go back through the dev tracker and see if there was mention of that.
Those that can do advanced/elite content and those that can't.
Those that can do not PUG, they don't queue public and set up their own matches in channels/fleets... since it's not worth the risk failing because the PUG is not up to the task...
This means those that can't get stuck waiting in emty queues and even if they did get into a map there is large chance that they wont suceed anyway.
I wonder if the much-praised Cryptic metris that they look at splits out public queue to private queue.. i doubt it.
...#LLAP...
They will do nothing and you WILL LOVE IT!!!!!!!!! :mad:
Yep, the podcast also contains "Delta Rising is the best expansion ever" or various ways of phrasing it, about 10 times.
Free Tibet!
*shrug
Either it's not fixed or somebody's fibbing.
All I saw last night were zero's in all but two queues, and even those were showing less that 50 players actually playing. So, tens of thousands of people playing STO, and the queues are showing less than 150 in actively playing PvE queued content.
Something's broken.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG