I think you're right on the money with this. It's all about knowledge - of setup, but even more so of mission. The thing is - I don't think that's ever going to change. It hasn't so far in 4 years. I think that instead of figuring out what's going wrong, say in Borg Disconnected, the average pugger will just give up after 2 or 3 "you fail, loser."
Sometimes I have tried to explain but people aren't interested. It's just too miserable of an experience to keep trying.
The question is not whether the missions are too hard for good teams etc... it's whether it's possible to successfully pug them 75% of the time or more. I personally would like to be able to do this and feel it's necessary for the game's health which, for me, is the most important thing.
In my opinion the only possible way to get people to learn the missions is to allow them to finish it. Eventually they will learn what the optionals are, and how to handle them, as many did over time with ISE.
Of course those that don't care about pugs simply don't care. So they will say suck it up and get better etc... But that's not the reality of the game. The reality is frustrated players will leave. See my signature for how I feel this will play out.
What he said up there pug matches were what I use to do not that the flakes we call devs say this is the new pugging has died well cord teams can be quiiet as they always succed 90% of the time example my fleet mates carried an afker and a low dps player through kilometer accord because they were cord inated as it took an hour thats the down side.
So, alright, the old stfs were maybe a bit too easy. Or maybe that it was the fact i was always sticking to the same ones, space Kithomer and Infected. I can't say i had really good equipment at this time, mostly rare and very rare mk XI stuff. But still, i was dying once or twice, failing too, but that was all. And getting sets was quite easier.
Now how is it? Personally i still have the same ship, a Mirror Vo'quv, this time with fleet and reputation equipement. It should've been better, shouldn't have? But apparently not. Quite more difficult stfs (and i'm talking only about advanced ones) to match with T6 ships and mk XIII / XIV equipment is one thing, and i thought that it was what elites were for. Apparently, it is not, and fleet gear is barely enough to complete optionnal assignements, when the teams i've been on were even able to complete the mission.
Talking about teams and because difficulty doesn't do everything, around half the failed stfs i've been on (around a dozen just today) have failed not only due to the difficulty, but because of dumb (to stay polite) people who can't figure out that trying to shoot at the first thing they see isn't going to do much good. There are objectives to complete, and people should read it. How hard is it to understand that in space Kithomer, a ship or two have to prevent borg ships to reach the gate? But apparently, it is too much for many people to understand that, or to say that they need help. Because there's a chat somewhere, you know? You can use it, it's not forbidden.
All that to say difficulty isn't the only problem with stf, it only makes it worse when people doesn't care to read, learn and do what's needed.
You just describe what pugging makes fun: "Difficulty" and pugs. If you want to succeed, you have to take both into account, which has certainly buffed sci-heavier ships. If you know how to use them.
But dumb players were already there before DR. And if we were to get real difficulty, e.g. pvp-level enemies, forums would have been far more lively than in the beginning of DR, as the team would be even more important, and thus dumb players would have a greater possibility to ruin a mission.
People are JUST NOW (that is, average players, obviously top ppl been at it for a while) starting to reach their level 60 potentials. DAMAGE is going through the roof again, and its even easier than at 50.
If you need to adjust something, these changes would have a much more positive effect:
1) get rid of fail conditions on advanced, OR let normal mode give the item-earning tokens for under-geared players. LOOK. The STFs are there to let people earn gear and get going. New people NEED borg processors and the other thingys for the rep gear. They cannot GET them with these auto-fail advanced queues. Something has to give.
2) Lower the damage done by the enemy. While it is "about right" for advanced players, many players simply do not understand how to handle it. We have advanced bugs doing 800 damage/hit and gang hitting a player for 10k damage in 2 seconds. We have torp spreads that can do over 100k to a player. We have FAW tholians in CC that can shred an escort in seconds. We have borg that spam shield drains that are beyond the average player's ability to handle. Specifically, torpedo damage, FAW from large groups, and excessive use of shield drain attack from large groups are probably all overpowered for the level of the content for the target audience of average players.
3) while messing with it, consider shutting up the officer pop-ups that can cause death. MULTIPLE STFs have officer "chatter" right when stuff dies that get players trapped in warp core explosions -- fatally. Example is the KHIT cube. Try being in a BOP, flanking that thing, when it blows and then your moron first officer pops up to say "blah blah blah you already know this stuff", freezing you in the breach.
4) while messing with it, consider INTENTIONAL PLAYER GRIEFING before you add mechanics that ENABLE this type of trolling. For example, making KHIT fail on probe getting to the gate, combined with a troll sporting tractor repulsors. Or, consider making ICE fail on a nanite heal, when you have a guy that can blast all 4 generator thingys with FAW and then run away to cause a mission failure on purpose. If you MUST have fail conditions, make them something that cannot be solo tripped by a jerk.
the level and diff of the advanced and elite stf's since the launch of delta is too high... I've played 15 since sunday and 13 failed... It's just getting tto tedious and playing sto just feels like a waste of time at the moment. Very unfortunate becauyse i loved the game and spend quit a bit on it...
I think elite, both missions and stf's are the answer to inevitable power creep.
12 to 18 months from now when power creep makes advanced difficulty 'too easy' people will start flocking to elite because at that point player damage has scaled upwards a lot again.
That's my theory anyway. Current elite is not efficient with best endgame has to offer, so we can safely assume future endgame content will make us a more powerful over time (power creep).
Because it is much easier to increase HP, Shields and DPS than to create a real "elite AI"?
Exactly. I forget who it was, but one of the developers said not too long ago that they tried to make smarter enemies, and referenced the Voth, and Undine. Then they said that players complained about the Voth shield, and the Undine fluid grav well.
However, what they fail to realize is that giving a NPC a new skill doesn't make them smarter. The Borg nanite-spheres, and Mirandas have better AI than the Voth and Undine. At least sometimes they will try to heal something after you have started getting its shields or hull down.
Whereas the Voth ships that use the shield spam it right off the bat. Just fly up to one side, pop off one shot, then evasive to the other side, and drop them fast.
For the Undine, I was with a group that used a good tanking cruiser to fly in ahead and use FAW to agro everything, and get the Undine to instantly pop all their FGW (fluidic gravity well) on them. Then we flew in and whipped them out. We just needed to stay away from the FGW, and the cruiser stopped firing too.
So, having an enemy that will spam a skill as soon as you show up is not a smarter AI. It just makes it look like we surprised them in the battle field, and they panic.
"Sir, they fired a single shot over our heads, what should I do?"
"Quick, spam all our heals!" or "Quick, have all ships hit just that one with our FGW!"
Leader of Elite Guardian Academy.Would you like to learn how to run a fleet? Would you like to know how to do ship builds (true budget as well as high end)?The join the Academy today!
Is anything actually happening about this? before DR I was a casual player at lev 50, Not a DPS Boat and certainly without all the top end goodies and I actually enjoyed the advanced STF's, good drops in proportion to the amount of effort going in.
Since DR the only advanced STF's I can complete are Voretx and Crystalline, Elite's would be suicidal.
I'm level 60, I've upped my DPS and Resistance and I just can't play anymore, the DIL drops are too small to support the new crafting demands, I'm halfway through some rep projects but can't get the very rare drops like cybernetic implants / power cells etc.
Don't get me wrong the content for DR was great, but the End Game mechanics for crafting and sft's went off a cliff, and the ques are dying, the players are now all huddled around the exchange instead... that's an exciting way to play.
Just restoring the advanced STF's to their previous settings will help.
I might be a silver player but I was here since day one in Europe, I might have left the game for a year while the initial bugs were being sorted haha
Is anything actually happening about this? before DR I was a casual player at lev 50, Not a DPS Boat and certainly without all the top end goodies and I actually enjoyed the advanced STF's, good drops in proportion to the amount of effort going in.
Since DR the only advanced STF's I can complete are Voretx and Crystalline, Elite's would be suicidal.
I'm level 60, I've upped my DPS and Resistance and I just can't play anymore, the DIL drops are too small to support the new crafting demands, I'm halfway through some rep projects but can't get the very rare drops like cybernetic implants / power cells etc.
Don't get me wrong the content for DR was great, but the End Game mechanics for crafting and sft's went off a cliff, and the ques are dying, the players are now all huddled around the exchange instead... that's an exciting way to play.
Just restoring the advanced STF's to their previous settings will help.
I might be a silver player but I was here since day one in Europe, I might have left the game for a year while the initial bugs were being sorted haha
Max
To answer you, I will just put the link to changes they are wanting to do on Tribble.
This will give you an answer to what they see as making the game more enjoyable.
Leader of Elite Guardian Academy.Would you like to learn how to run a fleet? Would you like to know how to do ship builds (true budget as well as high end)?The join the Academy today!
Thanks for the link, but the proposals on the first post are a total p!ss take, Cryptic for the love of god, just restore the STFS to a closer resemblance of what they were before DR.
and before someone copies and pastes the self righteous Dev statement I read yesterday about it being the "Dev's way or the highway" without us, the players, playing, buying C Store Items and purchasing Zen, you're ***** out of luck and out of a job! simple as that.
Now I'm just a Free to Play player running my mouth to the uninitiated, but I hereby give Cryptic consent to go over my Zen/C Store transactions for the past 2 - 3 Years and see if that sort of money would be missed, if casual players like myself, in volume, disappeared overnight and got ourselves girlfriends
I haven't the time to grind, therefore I purchase.
If things aren't improving by The Anniversary Event, I'll take my time and money elsewhere.
Shortly after launch of Delta Rising, I made a post asking for your input on balance for levels 51-60 balance. I wanted to take a moment and thank everyone for their input. Raising the level cap with 3 difficulty settings is a big task. The difference in skill and gear from one player to another can be very large, so getting the balance right can be a challenge.
A little over a week or so ago, we made some changes to difficulty. Based on additional feedback, as well as continuing data mining, we are in the process of making another pass. We will be noticeably reducing the HP and shields of all space critters from levels 51-60. This change will have more of an effect at level 60 than 51. This change will affect Basic and Advanced difficulty, but not affect Elite Difficulty.
Be sure to watch for additional posts from the devs on related changes. In relation to game difficulty, keep an eye out for posts on PvE queue difficulty as well as a post on changes to changes to rewards. Please focus your responses on the appropriate thread.
LLAP
Al Captain Geko Rivera
The worst things I see are the fail conitions
Instead of mission failed .....Say the borg got out a SOS to a nearby fleet.............Then 3 Tac cubes as strong as the end boss at infected show up with a Queen level Diamond
That would be a better fail condition than a warp out button
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Shortly after launch of Delta Rising, I made a post asking for your input on balance for levels 51-60 balance. I wanted to take a moment and thank everyone for their input. Raising the level cap with 3 difficulty settings is a big task. The difference in skill and gear from one player to another can be very large, so getting the balance right can be a challenge.
A little over a week or so ago, we made some changes to difficulty. Based on additional feedback, as well as continuing data mining, we are in the process of making another pass. We will be noticeably reducing the HP and shields of all space critters from levels 51-60. This change will have more of an effect at level 60 than 51. This change will affect Basic and Advanced difficulty, but not affect Elite Difficulty.
Be sure to watch for additional posts from the devs on related changes. In relation to game difficulty, keep an eye out for posts on PvE queue difficulty as well as a post on changes to changes to rewards. Please focus your responses on the appropriate thread.
Oh no -- I'm finding some missions really difficult to play as it is and I'm at Level 53. I'm not ranking up despite spending hours grinding for experience and the missions are difficult to the point I just switch off.
Flight behavior - i know this is not a pilot sim, but this is such a great tool for diversification of enemies. Currently, the most defining parameters are durability and special abilities. Different ships using different tactics is pretty good design choice in my opinion. Just saying.
I'm not sure if this is the right place, but here are my STF comments.
Forcing a CD after a fail makes no sense. Why not let the player try again or try a lower level? This is an extremely frustrating obstacle to the players.
Advanced is simply too hard, especially space. These are significantly harder than the old elites. Keep in mind the player has to play advanced to get the reputation gear. You cannot expect the players to already have great gear and map tactics.
What is the reason for the STF's in the first place? I ask because the goal seems to have shifted over time. Originally it was an end-game challenge, then it became part of the gear system. Now it appears to be a truly exclusive club for the disciples of DPS and tactics. Perhaps there should be an alternate source of BNP's. Of course this would result in even less people playing them. That speaks for itself.
Player performance in space varies widely. From what I understand, some of it is due to a broken weapon power mechanic. Of course it is a very complicated model, and gets more complicated every day. Whatever the reason, the bulge of high performing players may be skewing the game to the detriment of the majority. For example, I could routinely complete the old versions of elite in a pug, but seldom come close to completing a new advanced STF.
Admittedly my experience is somewhat limited. I have played only a few advanced STF's due to the incessant grinds, the CD, and total discouragement of the fails. I have only 1 toon that needs BNP's and I am wondering if it is worth the trouble. It may not be long until the omega ground gear becomes obsolete.
I'm not sure if this is the right place, but here are my STF comments.
Forcing a CD after a fail makes no sense. Why not let the player try again or try a lower level? This is an extremely frustrating obstacle to the players.
Agreed, the cooldown should apply the the level they played and all higher levels. Fail on Normal, all get locked out. Fail on Advanced and Normal is still available. Makes more sense.
Advanced is simply too hard, especially space. These are significantly harder than the old elites. Keep in mind the player has to play advanced to get the reputation gear. You cannot expect the players to already have great gear and map tactics.
No they aren't significantly harder. They just require a modicum of a build for a ship. 5 people with 10K DPS (easily made with Blue Mk XI gear off the exchange) can beat it ISA in 6-9 minutes without much issue. It does require some comprehension of how to build a ship though. That's the hard part for most.
There is no need for Rep gear to beat Advanced level PvE Queues at all. FYI lowest grade gear I've done it in with pulling 10K is a Green Mk X build with Polaron's and a Reman captain in a Faeht.
What is the reason for the STF's in the first place? I ask because the goal seems to have shifted over time. Originally it was an end-game challenge, then it became part of the gear system. Now it appears to be a truly exclusive club for the disciples of DPS and tactics. Perhaps there should be an alternate source of BNP's. Of course this would result in even less people playing them. That speaks for itself.
BNP's are NOT needed to progress FFS. You can get the current favoured gear set of Nukara Deflector and Shields with Romulan Engines without even setting foot in a PvE Queue. Rom you get from Epohh farming or Tau Dewa Dailies and Nukara you get from Nukara Prime. Neither require special or Rep gear. If you desperately WANT BNP's then it might be time to check out the r/stobuilds channel of reddit to get an idea of what you need.
Player performance in space varies widely. From what I understand, some of it is due to a broken weapon power mechanic. Of course it is a very complicated model, and gets more complicated every day. Whatever the reason, the bulge of high performing players may be skewing the game to the detriment of the majority. For example, I could routinely complete the old versions of elite in a pug, but seldom come close to completing a new advanced STF.
Have you considered that the old Elite wasn't very Elite? The powercreep had gone up and the difficulty hadn't that's why it changed. People could blitz the old elite, people can still do that now. It's just that there's more emphasis on knowing how to fly properly and building a ship with better focus than previously.
Admittedly my experience is somewhat limited. I have played only a few advanced STF's due to the incessant grinds, the CD, and total discouragement of the fails. I have only 1 toon that needs BNP's and I am wondering if it is worth the trouble. It may not be long until the omega ground gear becomes obsolete.
So now you admit that after having had this rant, you actually don't know what you are talking about, you are just expecting to run a skittle boat through an STF. Well news buddy, time to do some research and find out WHY you are failing. ISA isn't hard, neither are CSA or KSA. All my characters have completed the Omega Rep or are well on their way to doing so whether it's my main or my Alt's.
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."
rsoblivion you're missing several important points
new players don't know any of this
not everyone wants to run the mind numbing drudgery of epoh's
the advanced queues are harder NOT so much because of the enemies but because of the forced fail conditions.
his lack of experience in this case is more important than your experience or mine, and that's the frakking issue cryptic has...too many people saying 'it's too easy' but never realizing when new players hit this game, something cryptic should keep in mind and they don't like YOU didn't is that NONE of what you said is in game in an easily understandable format.
they see rep trees first of all, and the new skill trees, and R&D requiring items from advanced queues. you don't understand a newbies perspective at all. just like cryptic. you don't get that not everyone wants to follow your pattern...sure it can be done...but what if it isn't FUN?
the only recourse is to quit the game. that's the box cryptic created, lock needed items behind advanced and elite. BNP's and the rest matter less than the mats that can be used to craft or sell.
planned fun, something cryptic has decided is their new goal...isn't all that fun unless you're a type of person who likes everything planned out for you. follow the yellow brick road...my way or the highway...
is that anyway to run interactive entertainment? what an mmo is? to frustrate players? tell them they aren't good enough? that they must join fleets to get the best gear, they must run rep to get gear that works with the fleet gear. you must run at least advanced to get rep tokens and mats for crafting.
join a channel if you want successful advanced runs...really? why have a pug system AT ALL for advanced and elite queues since the players did cryptics job for them. can't pug those with any great hope of success otherwise.
it's broken as hell, look at it from the perspective of a newb. sto discourages alts, hostile to soloers, discourages you and a few friends from having a fleet and leveling it.
bleh. i write various things at various times about mmo's i play...i've taken to using sto as an example of what not to do to be successful. which ticks me off to no end. this game had/has potential...but gets wasted consistently through bad decisions. often wondered if someone at cryptic/pwe is actively trying to tank the game.
Dr. Patricia Tanis ~ "Bacon is for sycophants and products of incest."
Donate Brains, zombies in Washington DC are starving.
Thanks for that reply. I don't see the point in putting other players down. If being an elite player in a player-unfriendly game makes you special then more power to you. If other players voicing concerns makes you feel insecure, then maybe you should ignore the post. If you are just trying to hide a game-breaking feature for your own selfish needs, then too bad. The game suffers from all the hurdles to new players.
I have played enough advanced STF's to know it is way harder than it should be. It does not take that many tries. Just today I had 2 fails, and this with 2 experienced teammates, one of which pushes 20k. I won't bother to reply to all the false accusations and bad assumptions. Attacking the person does not addresses the issues at all.
The point is, I am a long-time player. I have played for years, and I have taken 8 toons through all the reputations. On my last toon I am having way more trouble than I expected. I seriously doubt a new player fresh off the episode trail will succeed. I challenge anyone to fly plain vanilla ship and gear in a pug at any level. That means the last free ship and whatever comes from episodes or ec vendors.
I have been through the iterations of build, rebuild, test, chat, forum crawl, etc. It is a huge time sink. Still the game mechanics are a mystery. I would rather quit than even attempt to test all the possibilities. Just keeping up with the latest patch changes would be a nightmare. By the way, the combat logger is a 3rd party application. Players should not have to install 3rd party software to play the game.
I finally got 15 BNPs for my ground set. I will definitely take a long break from STFs at this point.
Ground is still kind of fun, IF you have a trained and geared team. It took me about 20 KGA and 1 KSA (mis-queue, but got lucky - me in a samsar and all).
Strangely the space critters in KSA were not nearly as bad as CSA.
Of course the KGA fail mechanic is totally broken. You are not kicked from the map, and if you beam out you get the penalty. Funny thing is I saw many of the same players grinding KGA. I guess they figured the odds were better there than anywhere else.
Of course there were the pugs who got lost and did not help with critical objectives. It is sad that they are led to join the queue without any prior training. They probably can't even get a normal to start.
Of course the KGA fail mechanic is totally broken. You are not kicked from the map, and if you beam out you get the penalty.
It surely is Dortan, same problem in IGA which is even more annoying cuz the map tends to fail sooner because of the criteria. Doozer told me the waiting time is up to 5-10 minutes then.
What a bad game quality. I saved me the waiting and/or penalty time on another failed KAGA yesterday by simply reloging to another toon and continuing with something else (no penalty).
I play Borg STF for 3 years flat. Cant particularly say that other PvEs are bug free (lol) but the way I see it cryptic does anything they can to urge players to try out newer contend. Mission duration, rewards, no elite mode, 1 hour CD time (on others u have 30mins) and harder fails compared to many elite maps are only one side of the story.
Massive quality issues which arent being tended to for weeks is another!
Its my impression that they simply want players off those maps. The way they do it feels a bit pitiful. Designing exciting new contends players would favour gladly and not by force would have worked as well.
Also gz on ur BNP under these conditions.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Shortly after launch of Delta Rising, I made a post asking for your input on balance for levels 51-60 balance. I wanted to take a moment and thank everyone for their input. Raising the level cap with 3 difficulty settings is a big task. The difference in skill and gear from one player to another can be very large, so getting the balance right can be a challenge.
A little over a week or so ago, we made some changes to difficulty. Based on additional feedback, as well as continuing data mining, we are in the process of making another pass. We will be noticeably reducing the HP and shields of all space critters from levels 51-60. This change will have more of an effect at level 60 than 51. This change will affect Basic and Advanced difficulty, but not affect Elite Difficulty.
Be sure to watch for additional posts from the devs on related changes. In relation to game difficulty, keep an eye out for posts on PvE queue difficulty as well as a post on changes to changes to rewards. Please focus your responses on the appropriate thread.
LLAP
Al Captain Geko Rivera
hope you make some changes in the right way, you only have to see the amount of pve queue's with no one in them, because you have made them to difficult, keep going and the only people playing the game will be the elite players, because everyone else will get bored and leave the game, and once you have lost them they will not come back, so make the changes soon and make them for the better.
hope you make some changes in the right way, you only have to see the amount of pve queue's with no one in them, because you have made them to difficult, keep going and the only people playing the game will be the elite players, because everyone else will get bored and leave the game, and once you have lost them they will not come back, so make the changes soon and make them for the better.
So much this. Challenges are fun when they are optional, but without pve queues this becomes a "look for team" online where you spend hours finding enough players, and then failing because optional timers are too fast for average damage per second. Oh and you have to win thousands of times to get decent gear. Grinding down hp and xp is not content.
I didn't read 12 pages of this post just OP and this last page. I find it annoying that the stock answer to any complaint or criticism of Advanced STF is to tell you need to know how to fly your ship and you need a proper ship build. Why dose the build always end up being a total DPS and little else? Why not a Tank/DPS build or DPS/something else?
I think the point is why is the game so focused on dps now it wasn't before so why now? People say its the dpsers fault but they're not the devs or the makers of the game so how did they get the game this way? I have no answers to these questions. I do know they've taken a lot of the fun out of the game for me and my friend.
For those of you who tell others that need to raise there dps think about how you would want some one to talk to you. Would you want them to be rude or nice. Think about what if they want to play a Tank or something else and help them do it so everyone can have fun.
I didn't read 12 pages of this post just OP and this last page. I find it annoying that the stock answer to any complaint or criticism of Advanced STF is to tell you need to know how to fly your ship and you need a proper ship build. Why dose the build always end up being a total DPS and little else? Why not a Tank/DPS build or DPS/something else?
I think the point is why is the game so focused on dps now it wasn't before so why now? People say its the dpsers fault but they're not the devs or the makers of the game so how did they get the game this way? I have no answers to these questions. I do know they've taken a lot of the fun out of the game for me and my friend.
For those of you who tell others that need to raise there dps think about how you would want some one to talk to you. Would you want them to be rude or nice. Think about what if they want to play a Tank or something else and help them do it so everyone can have fun.
To be honest, the game was heading in this direction before DR came out. Look back at the ships that were put in the C-Store over the past year. They all (considering their class) offered more DPS.
The ones in charge of the game have focused so much on DPS, now it is all the ones in charge know how to sell. Even with the new command ships. They were not comparable to the Intel ships, so they got some buffs, and they even buffed Tech Beam because of them. DPS sells.
Personally, I would like for them to put content into the game that was not so DPS focused. Something that encouraged the trinity.
I am not making excuses for the DPS players that are rude, keep in mind though there are some that are nice, respectable players.
But, if they were to help someone to be a better Tank, then that means the ones doing the higher DPS will now have to work even harder to finish the mission. It is not the fault of the high DPS players that Tanks are not useful. If you need someone to tank in the PVE. or STFs, it means that the team has too low DPS, and the mission will fail, or someone else has enough DPS to carry those lacking it.
Again, it is not the fault of the high DPS players, it is the way the content was redone. And the developers are pushing the game towards this. Recently, they reduced the timers on some of these missions, because they are pushing players to do more DPS.
The developers try to push the blame on higher DPS players, but the reality of it is they don't want to fix mistakes that DR produced. If they fixed them, then it will be harder to sell DPS.
Again, this doesn't mean it is right for high DPS players to be mean, rude, or disrespectful. That is a personal decision they chose to make. But needing more DPS instead of a tank is the decision made by the developers.
Personally, I have stopped chasing the DPS a long time ago, and because of that, I only run in pre-made teams where everyone knows I am not a DPS god. If they are still willing to let me come along, then I will, just to have something to do. But, if there is no one running content within the 15 mins to few hours I log in sometimes, then I am not staying logged in.
I hate the DPS focus they developers are going with the game, since it is not fun to me. I have 13 characters that I used to play on evenly. Now, it is pointless to do so. Even having a single main is more work, with very little fun. So, I have been trying other games.
I admit that I have spent more time in other games, than in STO. But if they will fix STO, and make it fun again, I will be back spending many hours per day online, and exchanging Dil for Zen to buy things again. Till that happens, I only log in to spend time with friends, and then go play something fun.
Leader of Elite Guardian Academy.Would you like to learn how to run a fleet? Would you like to know how to do ship builds (true budget as well as high end)?The join the Academy today!
the difficulty is about right, IMHO. Let me preach on it, lol..
-- you just nerfed a lot of the dps "problems"; plasma doping and the uber torp and such. This will pull many of the high dps players down, while many casual and typical players never even bought into these things.
-- players are *still* upgrading and learning stuff. Sure, the top guys know most of it already, but your weekend warriors are just now discovering that replacing their fleet dmgx3 weapons with critd is a good idea. Ive seen a bunch of casual players asking the same questions lately about such things.
-- so what you are looking at is the majority of the player base is slowly catching up to the bell curve midpoint. ATM that seems to be 10-15K or so DPS. They are not there yet, but every day more folks get closer.
-- If every team member had 10k damage, every advanced STF is more than winnable. Maybe not beat the timed one, but its "about right".
so what should you DO?
Its extremely simple. Just a couple of things would do wonders for the game:
1) You need to make normal STF drop the rep tokens, OR, alternately, you need to do away with fail conditions in advanced.
2) you need to make stfs reward more XP, or, alternately, you need to reduce the XP needed to earn specialization points. You also should make stfs reward a reasonable amount of dil per go and possibly randomize the crafting materials rewards so that people can get all the purple materials. As it stands we have pick the stf we do based off the material it rewards, rather than do the ones we enjoy most, as there are no other good sources for these materials.
3) you need to normalize NPC damage. I get that you want fed tanks to be the only thing anyone wants to play. But some people do like smaller, less durable ships. Dropping torp spreads on players that crit for 250K total damage against an average player sitting in a bird of prey is not cool. Being hit by the planet killer for 300k is not much fun either. I can hit all my resist buttons and survival skills, it does not matter.
Ok I like a challenge as much as the next guy... but with this past update you made all advanced borg missions impossible... I realllly hope you are going to change the buff on shield drain, it is without a better word, completely overpowered. I have all abilities and captain skill set to resist it right now and instant shield to zero on all facing with full XIV Aegis set running. Please make some changes and knock that down a peg or ten. Makes all borg encounters frustrating and ship builds pointless. I loved the missions prior, and now I don't even play em.
Comments
What he said up there pug matches were what I use to do not that the flakes we call devs say this is the new pugging has died well cord teams can be quiiet as they always succed 90% of the time example my fleet mates carried an afker and a low dps player through kilometer accord because they were cord inated as it took an hour thats the down side.
Now how is it? Personally i still have the same ship, a Mirror Vo'quv, this time with fleet and reputation equipement. It should've been better, shouldn't have? But apparently not. Quite more difficult stfs (and i'm talking only about advanced ones) to match with T6 ships and mk XIII / XIV equipment is one thing, and i thought that it was what elites were for. Apparently, it is not, and fleet gear is barely enough to complete optionnal assignements, when the teams i've been on were even able to complete the mission.
Talking about teams and because difficulty doesn't do everything, around half the failed stfs i've been on (around a dozen just today) have failed not only due to the difficulty, but because of dumb (to stay polite) people who can't figure out that trying to shoot at the first thing they see isn't going to do much good. There are objectives to complete, and people should read it. How hard is it to understand that in space Kithomer, a ship or two have to prevent borg ships to reach the gate? But apparently, it is too much for many people to understand that, or to say that they need help. Because there's a chat somewhere, you know? You can use it, it's not forbidden.
All that to say difficulty isn't the only problem with stf, it only makes it worse when people doesn't care to read, learn and do what's needed.
But dumb players were already there before DR. And if we were to get real difficulty, e.g. pvp-level enemies, forums would have been far more lively than in the beginning of DR, as the team would be even more important, and thus dumb players would have a greater possibility to ruin a mission.
People are JUST NOW (that is, average players, obviously top ppl been at it for a while) starting to reach their level 60 potentials. DAMAGE is going through the roof again, and its even easier than at 50.
If you need to adjust something, these changes would have a much more positive effect:
1) get rid of fail conditions on advanced, OR let normal mode give the item-earning tokens for under-geared players. LOOK. The STFs are there to let people earn gear and get going. New people NEED borg processors and the other thingys for the rep gear. They cannot GET them with these auto-fail advanced queues. Something has to give.
2) Lower the damage done by the enemy. While it is "about right" for advanced players, many players simply do not understand how to handle it. We have advanced bugs doing 800 damage/hit and gang hitting a player for 10k damage in 2 seconds. We have torp spreads that can do over 100k to a player. We have FAW tholians in CC that can shred an escort in seconds. We have borg that spam shield drains that are beyond the average player's ability to handle. Specifically, torpedo damage, FAW from large groups, and excessive use of shield drain attack from large groups are probably all overpowered for the level of the content for the target audience of average players.
3) while messing with it, consider shutting up the officer pop-ups that can cause death. MULTIPLE STFs have officer "chatter" right when stuff dies that get players trapped in warp core explosions -- fatally. Example is the KHIT cube. Try being in a BOP, flanking that thing, when it blows and then your moron first officer pops up to say "blah blah blah you already know this stuff", freezing you in the breach.
4) while messing with it, consider INTENTIONAL PLAYER GRIEFING before you add mechanics that ENABLE this type of trolling. For example, making KHIT fail on probe getting to the gate, combined with a troll sporting tractor repulsors. Or, consider making ICE fail on a nanite heal, when you have a guy that can blast all 4 generator thingys with FAW and then run away to cause a mission failure on purpose. If you MUST have fail conditions, make them something that cannot be solo tripped by a jerk.
Because it is much easier to increase HP, Shields and DPS than to create a real "elite AI"?
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said sooo often but as you caqn see they are not listening OR they dont know what to do either
whas about strategic acting enemys on elite?
like spheres healing a cube with transfer shild str or someth
Exactly. I forget who it was, but one of the developers said not too long ago that they tried to make smarter enemies, and referenced the Voth, and Undine. Then they said that players complained about the Voth shield, and the Undine fluid grav well.
However, what they fail to realize is that giving a NPC a new skill doesn't make them smarter. The Borg nanite-spheres, and Mirandas have better AI than the Voth and Undine. At least sometimes they will try to heal something after you have started getting its shields or hull down.
Whereas the Voth ships that use the shield spam it right off the bat. Just fly up to one side, pop off one shot, then evasive to the other side, and drop them fast.
For the Undine, I was with a group that used a good tanking cruiser to fly in ahead and use FAW to agro everything, and get the Undine to instantly pop all their FGW (fluidic gravity well) on them. Then we flew in and whipped them out. We just needed to stay away from the FGW, and the cruiser stopped firing too.
So, having an enemy that will spam a skill as soon as you show up is not a smarter AI. It just makes it look like we surprised them in the battle field, and they panic.
"Sir, they fired a single shot over our heads, what should I do?"
"Quick, spam all our heals!" or "Quick, have all ships hit just that one with our FGW!"
(dead thread: do not reply in it)
I have touched on this issue many times, and made that thread a li'l bit after Delta Rising hit. I believe it's more than relevant to this topic.
Dynamic AI that fits the themes > Insane stat increases
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Since DR the only advanced STF's I can complete are Voretx and Crystalline, Elite's would be suicidal.
I'm level 60, I've upped my DPS and Resistance and I just can't play anymore, the DIL drops are too small to support the new crafting demands, I'm halfway through some rep projects but can't get the very rare drops like cybernetic implants / power cells etc.
Don't get me wrong the content for DR was great, but the End Game mechanics for crafting and sft's went off a cliff, and the ques are dying, the players are now all huddled around the exchange instead... that's an exciting way to play.
Just restoring the advanced STF's to their previous settings will help.
I might be a silver player but I was here since day one in Europe, I might have left the game for a year while the initial bugs were being sorted haha
Max
To answer you, I will just put the link to changes they are wanting to do on Tribble.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1354311
This will give you an answer to what they see as making the game more enjoyable.
Thanks for the link, but the proposals on the first post are a total p!ss take, Cryptic for the love of god, just restore the STFS to a closer resemblance of what they were before DR.
and before someone copies and pastes the self righteous Dev statement I read yesterday about it being the "Dev's way or the highway" without us, the players, playing, buying C Store Items and purchasing Zen, you're ***** out of luck and out of a job! simple as that.
Now I'm just a Free to Play player running my mouth to the uninitiated, but I hereby give Cryptic consent to go over my Zen/C Store transactions for the past 2 - 3 Years and see if that sort of money would be missed, if casual players like myself, in volume, disappeared overnight and got ourselves girlfriends
I haven't the time to grind, therefore I purchase.
If things aren't improving by The Anniversary Event, I'll take my time and money elsewhere.
Max
The worst things I see are the fail conitions
Instead of mission failed .....Say the borg got out a SOS to a nearby fleet.............Then 3 Tac cubes as strong as the end boss at infected show up with a Queen level Diamond
That would be a better fail condition than a warp out button
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
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im happy with this change
Please reset difficulty to standard.
Wing Commander 1+2
Flight behavior - i know this is not a pilot sim, but this is such a great tool for diversification of enemies. Currently, the most defining parameters are durability and special abilities. Different ships using different tactics is pretty good design choice in my opinion. Just saying.
Forcing a CD after a fail makes no sense. Why not let the player try again or try a lower level? This is an extremely frustrating obstacle to the players.
Advanced is simply too hard, especially space. These are significantly harder than the old elites. Keep in mind the player has to play advanced to get the reputation gear. You cannot expect the players to already have great gear and map tactics.
What is the reason for the STF's in the first place? I ask because the goal seems to have shifted over time. Originally it was an end-game challenge, then it became part of the gear system. Now it appears to be a truly exclusive club for the disciples of DPS and tactics. Perhaps there should be an alternate source of BNP's. Of course this would result in even less people playing them. That speaks for itself.
Player performance in space varies widely. From what I understand, some of it is due to a broken weapon power mechanic. Of course it is a very complicated model, and gets more complicated every day. Whatever the reason, the bulge of high performing players may be skewing the game to the detriment of the majority. For example, I could routinely complete the old versions of elite in a pug, but seldom come close to completing a new advanced STF.
Admittedly my experience is somewhat limited. I have played only a few advanced STF's due to the incessant grinds, the CD, and total discouragement of the fails. I have only 1 toon that needs BNP's and I am wondering if it is worth the trouble. It may not be long until the omega ground gear becomes obsolete.
No they aren't significantly harder. They just require a modicum of a build for a ship. 5 people with 10K DPS (easily made with Blue Mk XI gear off the exchange) can beat it ISA in 6-9 minutes without much issue. It does require some comprehension of how to build a ship though. That's the hard part for most.
There is no need for Rep gear to beat Advanced level PvE Queues at all. FYI lowest grade gear I've done it in with pulling 10K is a Green Mk X build with Polaron's and a Reman captain in a Faeht.
BNP's are NOT needed to progress FFS. You can get the current favoured gear set of Nukara Deflector and Shields with Romulan Engines without even setting foot in a PvE Queue. Rom you get from Epohh farming or Tau Dewa Dailies and Nukara you get from Nukara Prime. Neither require special or Rep gear. If you desperately WANT BNP's then it might be time to check out the r/stobuilds channel of reddit to get an idea of what you need.
Have you considered that the old Elite wasn't very Elite? The powercreep had gone up and the difficulty hadn't that's why it changed. People could blitz the old elite, people can still do that now. It's just that there's more emphasis on knowing how to fly properly and building a ship with better focus than previously.
So now you admit that after having had this rant, you actually don't know what you are talking about, you are just expecting to run a skittle boat through an STF. Well news buddy, time to do some research and find out WHY you are failing. ISA isn't hard, neither are CSA or KSA. All my characters have completed the Omega Rep or are well on their way to doing so whether it's my main or my Alt's.
"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."
new players don't know any of this
not everyone wants to run the mind numbing drudgery of epoh's
the advanced queues are harder NOT so much because of the enemies but because of the forced fail conditions.
his lack of experience in this case is more important than your experience or mine, and that's the frakking issue cryptic has...too many people saying 'it's too easy' but never realizing when new players hit this game, something cryptic should keep in mind and they don't like YOU didn't is that NONE of what you said is in game in an easily understandable format.
they see rep trees first of all, and the new skill trees, and R&D requiring items from advanced queues. you don't understand a newbies perspective at all. just like cryptic. you don't get that not everyone wants to follow your pattern...sure it can be done...but what if it isn't FUN?
the only recourse is to quit the game. that's the box cryptic created, lock needed items behind advanced and elite. BNP's and the rest matter less than the mats that can be used to craft or sell.
planned fun, something cryptic has decided is their new goal...isn't all that fun unless you're a type of person who likes everything planned out for you. follow the yellow brick road...my way or the highway...
is that anyway to run interactive entertainment? what an mmo is? to frustrate players? tell them they aren't good enough? that they must join fleets to get the best gear, they must run rep to get gear that works with the fleet gear. you must run at least advanced to get rep tokens and mats for crafting.
join a channel if you want successful advanced runs...really? why have a pug system AT ALL for advanced and elite queues since the players did cryptics job for them. can't pug those with any great hope of success otherwise.
it's broken as hell, look at it from the perspective of a newb. sto discourages alts, hostile to soloers, discourages you and a few friends from having a fleet and leveling it.
bleh. i write various things at various times about mmo's i play...i've taken to using sto as an example of what not to do to be successful. which ticks me off to no end. this game had/has potential...but gets wasted consistently through bad decisions. often wondered if someone at cryptic/pwe is actively trying to tank the game.
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I have played enough advanced STF's to know it is way harder than it should be. It does not take that many tries. Just today I had 2 fails, and this with 2 experienced teammates, one of which pushes 20k. I won't bother to reply to all the false accusations and bad assumptions. Attacking the person does not addresses the issues at all.
The point is, I am a long-time player. I have played for years, and I have taken 8 toons through all the reputations. On my last toon I am having way more trouble than I expected. I seriously doubt a new player fresh off the episode trail will succeed. I challenge anyone to fly plain vanilla ship and gear in a pug at any level. That means the last free ship and whatever comes from episodes or ec vendors.
I have been through the iterations of build, rebuild, test, chat, forum crawl, etc. It is a huge time sink. Still the game mechanics are a mystery. I would rather quit than even attempt to test all the possibilities. Just keeping up with the latest patch changes would be a nightmare. By the way, the combat logger is a 3rd party application. Players should not have to install 3rd party software to play the game.
I finally got 15 BNPs for my ground set. I will definitely take a long break from STFs at this point.
Ground is still kind of fun, IF you have a trained and geared team. It took me about 20 KGA and 1 KSA (mis-queue, but got lucky - me in a samsar and all).
Strangely the space critters in KSA were not nearly as bad as CSA.
Of course the KGA fail mechanic is totally broken. You are not kicked from the map, and if you beam out you get the penalty. Funny thing is I saw many of the same players grinding KGA. I guess they figured the odds were better there than anywhere else.
Of course there were the pugs who got lost and did not help with critical objectives. It is sad that they are led to join the queue without any prior training. They probably can't even get a normal to start.
It surely is Dortan, same problem in IGA which is even more annoying cuz the map tends to fail sooner because of the criteria. Doozer told me the waiting time is up to 5-10 minutes then.
What a bad game quality. I saved me the waiting and/or penalty time on another failed KAGA yesterday by simply reloging to another toon and continuing with something else (no penalty).
I play Borg STF for 3 years flat. Cant particularly say that other PvEs are bug free (lol) but the way I see it cryptic does anything they can to urge players to try out newer contend. Mission duration, rewards, no elite mode, 1 hour CD time (on others u have 30mins) and harder fails compared to many elite maps are only one side of the story.
Massive quality issues which arent being tended to for weeks is another!
Its my impression that they simply want players off those maps. The way they do it feels a bit pitiful. Designing exciting new contends players would favour gladly and not by force would have worked as well.
Also gz on ur BNP under these conditions.
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hope you make some changes in the right way, you only have to see the amount of pve queue's with no one in them, because you have made them to difficult, keep going and the only people playing the game will be the elite players, because everyone else will get bored and leave the game, and once you have lost them they will not come back, so make the changes soon and make them for the better.
So much this. Challenges are fun when they are optional, but without pve queues this becomes a "look for team" online where you spend hours finding enough players, and then failing because optional timers are too fast for average damage per second. Oh and you have to win thousands of times to get decent gear. Grinding down hp and xp is not content.
I think the point is why is the game so focused on dps now it wasn't before so why now? People say its the dpsers fault but they're not the devs or the makers of the game so how did they get the game this way? I have no answers to these questions. I do know they've taken a lot of the fun out of the game for me and my friend.
For those of you who tell others that need to raise there dps think about how you would want some one to talk to you. Would you want them to be rude or nice. Think about what if they want to play a Tank or something else and help them do it so everyone can have fun.
To be honest, the game was heading in this direction before DR came out. Look back at the ships that were put in the C-Store over the past year. They all (considering their class) offered more DPS.
The ones in charge of the game have focused so much on DPS, now it is all the ones in charge know how to sell. Even with the new command ships. They were not comparable to the Intel ships, so they got some buffs, and they even buffed Tech Beam because of them. DPS sells.
Personally, I would like for them to put content into the game that was not so DPS focused. Something that encouraged the trinity.
I am not making excuses for the DPS players that are rude, keep in mind though there are some that are nice, respectable players.
But, if they were to help someone to be a better Tank, then that means the ones doing the higher DPS will now have to work even harder to finish the mission. It is not the fault of the high DPS players that Tanks are not useful. If you need someone to tank in the PVE. or STFs, it means that the team has too low DPS, and the mission will fail, or someone else has enough DPS to carry those lacking it.
Again, it is not the fault of the high DPS players, it is the way the content was redone. And the developers are pushing the game towards this. Recently, they reduced the timers on some of these missions, because they are pushing players to do more DPS.
The developers try to push the blame on higher DPS players, but the reality of it is they don't want to fix mistakes that DR produced. If they fixed them, then it will be harder to sell DPS.
Again, this doesn't mean it is right for high DPS players to be mean, rude, or disrespectful. That is a personal decision they chose to make. But needing more DPS instead of a tank is the decision made by the developers.
Personally, I have stopped chasing the DPS a long time ago, and because of that, I only run in pre-made teams where everyone knows I am not a DPS god. If they are still willing to let me come along, then I will, just to have something to do. But, if there is no one running content within the 15 mins to few hours I log in sometimes, then I am not staying logged in.
I hate the DPS focus they developers are going with the game, since it is not fun to me. I have 13 characters that I used to play on evenly. Now, it is pointless to do so. Even having a single main is more work, with very little fun. So, I have been trying other games.
I admit that I have spent more time in other games, than in STO. But if they will fix STO, and make it fun again, I will be back spending many hours per day online, and exchanging Dil for Zen to buy things again. Till that happens, I only log in to spend time with friends, and then go play something fun.
Anyway, my 2 cents for whatever its worth...
the difficulty is about right, IMHO. Let me preach on it, lol..
-- you just nerfed a lot of the dps "problems"; plasma doping and the uber torp and such. This will pull many of the high dps players down, while many casual and typical players never even bought into these things.
-- players are *still* upgrading and learning stuff. Sure, the top guys know most of it already, but your weekend warriors are just now discovering that replacing their fleet dmgx3 weapons with critd is a good idea. Ive seen a bunch of casual players asking the same questions lately about such things.
-- so what you are looking at is the majority of the player base is slowly catching up to the bell curve midpoint. ATM that seems to be 10-15K or so DPS. They are not there yet, but every day more folks get closer.
-- If every team member had 10k damage, every advanced STF is more than winnable. Maybe not beat the timed one, but its "about right".
so what should you DO?
Its extremely simple. Just a couple of things would do wonders for the game:
1) You need to make normal STF drop the rep tokens, OR, alternately, you need to do away with fail conditions in advanced.
2) you need to make stfs reward more XP, or, alternately, you need to reduce the XP needed to earn specialization points. You also should make stfs reward a reasonable amount of dil per go and possibly randomize the crafting materials rewards so that people can get all the purple materials. As it stands we have pick the stf we do based off the material it rewards, rather than do the ones we enjoy most, as there are no other good sources for these materials.
3) you need to normalize NPC damage. I get that you want fed tanks to be the only thing anyone wants to play. But some people do like smaller, less durable ships. Dropping torp spreads on players that crit for 250K total damage against an average player sitting in a bird of prey is not cool. Being hit by the planet killer for 300k is not much fun either. I can hit all my resist buttons and survival skills, it does not matter.
-Alexi (Concerned STO gamer)