It's a beautiful cornucopia of totally absurd design decisions.
1. Abrupt change from usual mission criteria (kill everything as fast as possible while ignoring objectives)
2. Filled with enemies that kill you in one hit (on NORMAL)
3. Filled with enemies that constantly drop your targeting, teleport behind you, and generally kill you
4. When there's bad stuff on the ground (red circle/cone, etc.), you can step out of it and be several feet away from the edge and it will still hit you
5. Death is meaningless due to popping back up in the same spot 3 seconds later
6. A tac officer with stealth module can cruise past most of the mission, because they can activate devices without breaking stealth (sometimes this is needed to get past teams who don't know what to do, but bad design doesn't excuse more bad design)
This level is like Mario Party (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2015/04/08/). Success is random, skill is irrelevant, and nothing I do matters. Activate devices properly? Doesn't mean a thing if you don't have help. Good defensive items and skills? Doesn't mean a thing, because you will die. If everyone knows what to do and where to go? Great! We're done in five minutes. But when the experience is drawn out to ten or fifteen minutes, I would literally rather be working. When you've designed part of a game that feels worse than work, you have not created a level in a game. You have created a failure.
As soon as I have enough marks for T5 rep, I'm done with this mission.
I disagree.
1) I like the fact that you have to pay attention to mission optionals and goals, and that they change. Players who ran, spammed the "F" key to disable devices without looking at the mission menu to see what objectives had to be completed beforehand missed the point of the mission and cost the team many victories. Bad design was not including a mandatory blurb by those goals but the design of this mission was very good.
2) While I've never been one shotted sorry to hear that you have. I usually run with MACO armor.
3) For ground, the unlock target is a fun, and annoying, mechanic. Do you bring health/shield heals and hypos to the match? See 4 for bugs.
4) I've run into a boss bug (hiding/caught in walls) but nothing else. Bugs are annoying.
5) On Elite with death comes injury and the ability to acquire more debilitating injuries.
6) I'm not sure how it is operating now but before on Elite, and I think on Advanced for mandatory stuff, spamming the "F" key to disable devices lead to missions failures if people did not pay attention to the mission map and do mandatories before hand.
Having problems activating devices? If you did not bring enough heals or cannot heal then perhaps you can protect others when they deactivate devices. However, that takes communication, which is essential in this mission at this point since many people do not know how to run it. Communication is hard, tedious, and annoying but on the advanced levels was needed to get everyone on the same page. At the beginning of the match type out:
"For good measure, let's clear the room first, then do mandatories and optionals, then disable devices. Heal the Orion before interacting with him and take him straight to the drop off point. Any questions?"
Answer questions as needed; you have then told the team one winnable strategy. If you lose you can repeat your strategy, and if you win they then know how to run the mission and will share it with others.
Skills and items can make a difference. I find my Endothermic mod is excellent in this map as a damaging potential hold. Sonic Pulse (push) is good also. Expose and Exploit weapons are also good. They help you clear the area. The Reputation Sci module Photonic Overload can really shine in this mission.
Bug Hunt Elite is a drawn out bore of a mission (I've ground it out for two Reputations, enough already) that you need to donate 20+ minutes to run in many premade teams. Brotherhood can take much less time; and thank you to the Devs for developing a mission like this. It is quick, not too dps heavy, and engaging. Kudos!
Anytime someone has anything to say about difficult gameplay, all the "lurn2play!" trolls come out of the woodwork. They always say improve your gear, practice your skills, get this and that trait or special equipment, and the like. It's elitism, saying "Well I'm awesome and so I have no problem facerolling everything, so what's wrong with you?!".
This of course misses the point that you shouldn't have to do those things to have a fun and successful run in a NORMAL difficulty mission. Normal difficulty is supposed to be for people who are still in the process of gearing up, earning marks, testing out their builds, earning skills, and learning how to play better before they try to tackle Advanced. There is no damned excuse whatsoever for a difficulty scale so broken that a fresh 50 with blue or purple Mk 12 gear should have so much trouble with Normal. It's bad design, period.
Spare your "I can do it so if you can't you suxxors!" line of sh!te, save it for Advanced and Elite. We are talking about Normal, which shouldn't be chasing away new Admirals and making them ragequit. It's a perfect way to chase off any new players Delta Recruiting brought in by frustrating the hell out of them. Adjustments are sorely needed.
Uh, I've done normal on a L53 char with nothing but mission reward gear(including the RIN set, but you could probably use the Jem'Hadar gear just as well)... So yeah, if you get owned by the Heralds it's because you stink at ground combat.
If you know how to play ground, then no, you don't need high end gear, or lockbox traits, or anything like that.
Anytime someone has anything to say about difficult gameplay, all the "lurn2play!" trolls come out of the woodwork. They always say improve your gear, practice your skills, get this and that trait or special equipment, and the like. It's elitism, saying "Well I'm awesome and so I have no problem facerolling everything, so what's wrong with you?!".
This of course misses the point that you shouldn't have to do those things to have a fun and successful run in a NORMAL difficulty mission. Normal difficulty is supposed to be for people who are still in the process of gearing up, earning marks, testing out their builds, earning skills, and learning how to play better before they try to tackle Advanced. There is no damned excuse whatsoever for a difficulty scale so broken that a fresh 50 with blue or purple Mk 12 gear should have so much trouble with Normal. It's bad design, period.
Spare your "I can do it so if you can't you suxxors!" line of sh!te, save it for Advanced and Elite. We are talking about Normal, which shouldn't be chasing away new Admirals and making them ragequit. It's a perfect way to chase off any new players Delta Recruiting brought in by frustrating the hell out of them. Adjustments are sorely needed.
Sorry, but you are the one being a troll right now. I'm not a brilliant ground combat person by any means--nor do I have any elite gear-- and yet have never had difficulty playing Brotherhood of the Sword on Normal or seen anyone struggle with it. 95% manage to survive each session without even dying once, and the others that do die multiple times just soldier on and keep playing until each objective is completed. I have never seen anyone rage quit either, and I always see Delta Recruits playing. So you are trolling when you claim that BoTS on Normal is so difficult that it's causing "admirals to rage quit" and chasing away Delta Recruits. It's not true, not even close to being true.
Not only are you trolling with this "ragequit" nonsense, you're trolling by mischaracterizing the intent of the advice being given in this thread by players. No one in this thread ever said, "I can do it so if you can't you suxxors." What they've been saying is, "This isn't so hard; if you just follow this advice, you will do well, too/find this less frustrating." The fact that you're trying so twist around the good intentions of the people in this thread shows how little objectivity you have in regards to BotS.
My Foundry Mission--Name: Falling Star | Mission ID: HQIH36HAW | Faction: FED
What do you mean, "so what"? So that makes it a poorly-designed game.
So because YOU have difficulties with the mission and because YOU keep dieing that makes it poor game design? Sorry to tell ya bud, the game does not revolve around only YOU.
But i'm not an expert in ground combat, mostly because there a almost no guides i could find (the only one was 3 years old).
At first i went into the "normal" version of it (PUG), mostly because my gear was rather so-so.
Surely we ultimately finished the mission, but it wasn't really fun. The enemies where pretty hard to kill and the objectives wheren't easy to find.
I think the biggest problem is that there's just too much going on, even the most unimportant ability has a graphical effect, so it's pretty confusing to know what to do or even to see where the enemy is before they instant kill you, lol.
It's even worse than space combat, because it feels like 10 times as fast.
I know it's not just related to this mission but ground combat in general, but i never really had any problem in ground combat zones, like the dyson sphere zone or deferi zone. But ground STFs are just not my thing lol.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
I've been 1 shotted every now and then by that real sucker of a punch that defiler got... with that glow thing he gives off...
however no I don't generally die. All three classes have an ability to stay alive a long time on the ground. Sci have great heals, engineers can tank and tacs can beam in redshirts that... well do what they're famous for.
The trick? move, run, dodge, get on your knees and beam in redshirts, turrets or buff yourself up.
Traits and spec helps too as well. Killing them faster helps too. Tac buffs and debuffs really, really do a lot. I find that I blow through this map if I beam in distractions then buff the entire team up and use FOMM on the heavier mobs...
There are more than enough good tips in this thread(especially mine, ahem) to help get one through the mission without too much trouble. I hope whoever can't get through the mission actually bothers to take a few of the suggestions here. Who knows, it might work.
The mission is relatively easy, just as most ground ones.
Problems:
1. People stay to kill everything instead of using the consoles.
2. Too many stay idle, making pressing all 3 consoles in the same time impossible.
Tactic: press consoles, ignore spawnlings.
I say that to every team at start.
Nothing u can do about idlers tho'.
Another general problem with ground is insta-kill. And I'm talking in full MK14-purple gear.
Practically, almost every type of serious attack can instant-kill you.
What does not 1shot you, 1shots your shield. So you sometimes can survive one by using various HP/SP recovery stuff, but at the second or 3rd shot you're dead. It's almost like everyone having Borg Queen's space weapon by comparison.
That makes the ground runs a suicide-respawn-suicide type of approach.
Very valid for BotS mission. If you're shield overcharged and stimed and super-buffed the moment you open fire at the start of the mission you get instant'd. On a tac, you really can't do anything about it except hope you can object-dodge after your first shot. If you stay to fight, you're insta-killed.
The ground system needs at least x3 shields or HP compared to what it has now.
I've only done it on Normal. The "optionals" are too trollable for my tastes to mess with Advanced and I don't need Advanced to get the special marks anymore.
Mark XIII VR Romulan Imperial Navy armor and shield, mk XI R.I.N. kit, with a mk XIV lucky Romulan repeater that on its journey from mkVIII went to UR and Gold with win-the-lottery luck by mk XI (on top of it picking up a CrtD at UR making it CrtHx2 CrtDx2), on a Orion sci officer. So decently geared but not top notch.
I like this mission. Yes, it's different. No, it's not a kill-em-all. But despite what some anti-pug people claim, the pugs are learning to ignore the mobs and go for the consoles. Now if BHN would pop more often I'd be a happier ground camper.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The only [Tox] armor I have is a "free" Nukara enviro suit, pulsewaves aren't my favorite ground weapon, and I'm not looking to farm up Undine marks to farm up Delta marks. Plus I play with a controller so I'd never be able to tab target an alarm bug anyways.
Trying to parse a new ship build in old-and-familiar ISA is frustrating enough. (Basically, if a Scimitar doesn't fly up to the cubes, it's going to vape a gen right off the bat, and no one else seems to be packing grav wells.) Eating a half hour cooldown for missing a nearly identical alarm bug in a massive swarm doesn't sound fun at all.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
A few of things:
If you are fully speced in Commando, aim and crouch at ALL times. Crouching gives you a HoT and aiming will give you a HUGE boost to damage.
Get the delta alliance ground set, and level it to mark xiv. Depending on your class, fill out your gear with the counter-command 2-piece.
Spec at least ten points into commando to fill out tier 2; the bonus health is valuable.
When you're accessing a secondary node, remember to turn while channeling so as to face your attackers, removing their flanking bonus.
Keep thralls at range. When they enter a gate, they're going to quickly appear behind your current location; move, and turn to remove their flanking bonus.
The operative (probably) still needs to be healed and/or resurrected before being escorted. Pray no one activates room 3's primary node while you're escorting him. Enemies are highly attracted to him.
Don't access the primary node in room 2 until the fire team has been escorted safely, and don't access the primary node in room 3 until the operative has been escorted safely. If someone else activates the primary node in either of these rooms before the associated secondary objective is completed, assist only enough to prevent the associated secondary objective from failing. It typically takes most groups several attempts to coordinate the primary and secondary node activations, and you may be able to complete the associated secondary objective in that time.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
if the enemy gets close enough to melee you, you're not doing enough dps
Or you are activating the consoles, or tanking all enemies because several teammates have died, or you have pulled aggro from the teammate who is activating a console.
Or you are activating the consoles, or tanking all enemies because several teammates have died, or you have pulled aggro from the teammate who is activating a console.
Across 4 alts I'm completing 90% of Advanced PUGs successfully. Admittedly they're well equipped, all running Mk XIV rep gear, full Intel and most full Commando as well. But it's possible and generally the PUGs have now understood the mission - people focus on the devices and not the Heralds.
I particularly disagree with the comment that BOTS is bad because it focusses on objectives and not killing - IMO this is a good thing. There is a real role for tanks / healers in this mission to either stay alive or keep others alive while deactivating Iconian devices.
Anything which encourages players to think about tactics and teamwork rather than MOAR DPS!!!! has got to be good.
I use mk XI items for my kit and the kit are designed to buff my weapons and squad. I'm sure other kits designed to buff the buffing abilities can get a lot more. The highest I've ever gotten is 4.6k on a crit. It was sweet.
Across 4 alts I'm completing 90% of Advanced PUGs successfully. Admittedly they're well equipped, all running Mk XIV rep gear, full Intel and most full Commando as well. But it's possible and generally the PUGs have now understood the mission - people focus on the devices and not the Heralds.
I particularly disagree with the comment that BOTS is bad because it focusses on objectives and not killing - IMO this is a good thing. There is a real role for tanks / healers in this mission to either stay alive or keep others alive while deactivating Iconian devices.
Anything which encourages players to think about tactics and teamwork rather than MOAR DPS!!!! has got to be good.
I find it an excellent mission because I have several different roles I could play. I can play "covering fire", "Tank" or "stealth mode". I generally provide covering fire and spread as much chaos as possible while my team goes after the objectives.
Comments
I disagree.
1) I like the fact that you have to pay attention to mission optionals and goals, and that they change. Players who ran, spammed the "F" key to disable devices without looking at the mission menu to see what objectives had to be completed beforehand missed the point of the mission and cost the team many victories. Bad design was not including a mandatory blurb by those goals but the design of this mission was very good.
2) While I've never been one shotted sorry to hear that you have. I usually run with MACO armor.
3) For ground, the unlock target is a fun, and annoying, mechanic. Do you bring health/shield heals and hypos to the match? See 4 for bugs.
4) I've run into a boss bug (hiding/caught in walls) but nothing else. Bugs are annoying.
5) On Elite with death comes injury and the ability to acquire more debilitating injuries.
6) I'm not sure how it is operating now but before on Elite, and I think on Advanced for mandatory stuff, spamming the "F" key to disable devices lead to missions failures if people did not pay attention to the mission map and do mandatories before hand.
On advanced missions success was not random, you paid attention and completed mandatory goals or you lost, period. Therefore, what you do matters. Enemies have strategies, Mr. Rivera runs over some creature behaviors in his latest P1 interview. He even runs over some of his strategies for dealing with enemies on the ground.
Having problems activating devices? If you did not bring enough heals or cannot heal then perhaps you can protect others when they deactivate devices. However, that takes communication, which is essential in this mission at this point since many people do not know how to run it. Communication is hard, tedious, and annoying but on the advanced levels was needed to get everyone on the same page. At the beginning of the match type out:
"For good measure, let's clear the room first, then do mandatories and optionals, then disable devices. Heal the Orion before interacting with him and take him straight to the drop off point. Any questions?"
Answer questions as needed; you have then told the team one winnable strategy. If you lose you can repeat your strategy, and if you win they then know how to run the mission and will share it with others.
Skills and items can make a difference. I find my Endothermic mod is excellent in this map as a damaging potential hold. Sonic Pulse (push) is good also. Expose and Exploit weapons are also good. They help you clear the area. The Reputation Sci module Photonic Overload can really shine in this mission.
Bug Hunt Elite is a drawn out bore of a mission (I've ground it out for two Reputations, enough already) that you need to donate 20+ minutes to run in many premade teams. Brotherhood can take much less time; and thank you to the Devs for developing a mission like this. It is quick, not too dps heavy, and engaging. Kudos!
If you want to run a mission with me, just pm me.
If you know how to play ground, then no, you don't need high end gear, or lockbox traits, or anything like that.
My character Tsin'xing
Sorry, but you are the one being a troll right now. I'm not a brilliant ground combat person by any means--nor do I have any elite gear-- and yet have never had difficulty playing Brotherhood of the Sword on Normal or seen anyone struggle with it. 95% manage to survive each session without even dying once, and the others that do die multiple times just soldier on and keep playing until each objective is completed. I have never seen anyone rage quit either, and I always see Delta Recruits playing. So you are trolling when you claim that BoTS on Normal is so difficult that it's causing "admirals to rage quit" and chasing away Delta Recruits. It's not true, not even close to being true.
Not only are you trolling with this "ragequit" nonsense, you're trolling by mischaracterizing the intent of the advice being given in this thread by players. No one in this thread ever said, "I can do it so if you can't you suxxors." What they've been saying is, "This isn't so hard; if you just follow this advice, you will do well, too/find this less frustrating." The fact that you're trying so twist around the good intentions of the people in this thread shows how little objectivity you have in regards to BotS.
So because YOU have difficulties with the mission and because YOU keep dieing that makes it poor game design? Sorry to tell ya bud, the game does not revolve around only YOU.
But i'm not an expert in ground combat, mostly because there a almost no guides i could find (the only one was 3 years old).
At first i went into the "normal" version of it (PUG), mostly because my gear was rather so-so.
Surely we ultimately finished the mission, but it wasn't really fun. The enemies where pretty hard to kill and the objectives wheren't easy to find.
I think the biggest problem is that there's just too much going on, even the most unimportant ability has a graphical effect, so it's pretty confusing to know what to do or even to see where the enemy is before they instant kill you, lol.
It's even worse than space combat, because it feels like 10 times as fast.
I know it's not just related to this mission but ground combat in general, but i never really had any problem in ground combat zones, like the dyson sphere zone or deferi zone. But ground STFs are just not my thing lol.
however no I don't generally die. All three classes have an ability to stay alive a long time on the ground. Sci have great heals, engineers can tank and tacs can beam in redshirts that... well do what they're famous for.
The trick? move, run, dodge, get on your knees and beam in redshirts, turrets or buff yourself up.
Traits and spec helps too as well. Killing them faster helps too. Tac buffs and debuffs really, really do a lot. I find that I blow through this map if I beam in distractions then buff the entire team up and use FOMM on the heavier mobs...
Problems:
1. People stay to kill everything instead of using the consoles.
2. Too many stay idle, making pressing all 3 consoles in the same time impossible.
Tactic: press consoles, ignore spawnlings.
I say that to every team at start.
Nothing u can do about idlers tho'.
Another general problem with ground is insta-kill. And I'm talking in full MK14-purple gear.
Practically, almost every type of serious attack can instant-kill you.
What does not 1shot you, 1shots your shield. So you sometimes can survive one by using various HP/SP recovery stuff, but at the second or 3rd shot you're dead. It's almost like everyone having Borg Queen's space weapon by comparison.
That makes the ground runs a suicide-respawn-suicide type of approach.
Very valid for BotS mission. If you're shield overcharged and stimed and super-buffed the moment you open fire at the start of the mission you get instant'd. On a tac, you really can't do anything about it except hope you can object-dodge after your first shot. If you stay to fight, you're insta-killed.
The ground system needs at least x3 shields or HP compared to what it has now.
"Objectives", since optionals are optionals and wont result in a fail.
Whoever designed that mission must be some kind of psycho-TRIBBLE.
Mark XIII VR Romulan Imperial Navy armor and shield, mk XI R.I.N. kit, with a mk XIV lucky Romulan repeater that on its journey from mkVIII went to UR and Gold with win-the-lottery luck by mk XI (on top of it picking up a CrtD at UR making it CrtHx2 CrtDx2), on a Orion sci officer. So decently geared but not top notch.
I like this mission. Yes, it's different. No, it's not a kill-em-all. But despite what some anti-pug people claim, the pugs are learning to ignore the mobs and go for the consoles. Now if BHN would pop more often I'd be a happier ground camper.
BHE pops nearly once a minute, I would try that
oddly enough, I find BHE easier than BHA
My character Tsin'xing
I dunno, I find the spawnmother heals faster on BHA, and the pestilences kill faster too as well.
The only [Tox] armor I have is a "free" Nukara enviro suit, pulsewaves aren't my favorite ground weapon, and I'm not looking to farm up Undine marks to farm up Delta marks. Plus I play with a controller so I'd never be able to tab target an alarm bug anyways.
Trying to parse a new ship build in old-and-familiar ISA is frustrating enough. (Basically, if a Scimitar doesn't fly up to the cubes, it's going to vape a gen right off the bat, and no one else seems to be packing grav wells.) Eating a half hour cooldown for missing a nearly identical alarm bug in a massive swarm doesn't sound fun at all.
My character Tsin'xing
team of 3 heavy dpsers as in post 400 hit it with 2 pugs. we died a lot. we hit it on Elite and did not die once. It was puzzling.
same goes for DRSA and DRSE
Crouching also makes you take far more damage from melee ... http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Crouch
Do NOT crouch when enemies are using melee.
if the enemy gets close enough to melee you, you're not doing enough dps
Spec at least ten points into commando to fill out tier 2; the bonus health is valuable.
When you're accessing a secondary node, remember to turn while channeling so as to face your attackers, removing their flanking bonus.
Keep thralls at range. When they enter a gate, they're going to quickly appear behind your current location; move, and turn to remove their flanking bonus.
The operative (probably) still needs to be healed and/or resurrected before being escorted. Pray no one activates room 3's primary node while you're escorting him. Enemies are highly attracted to him.
Don't access the primary node in room 2 until the fire team has been escorted safely, and don't access the primary node in room 3 until the operative has been escorted safely. If someone else activates the primary node in either of these rooms before the associated secondary objective is completed, assist only enough to prevent the associated secondary objective from failing. It typically takes most groups several attempts to coordinate the primary and secondary node activations, and you may be able to complete the associated secondary objective in that time.
Or you are activating the consoles, or tanking all enemies because several teammates have died, or you have pulled aggro from the teammate who is activating a console.
You may want to peruse this thread http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1445481
being a little sarcastic... lol
I've actually had the entire team die around me and had to kill everything around me... t5 delta rep sure came in handy
Yeah, and I am Science so it doesn't kill the enemies, just irritates them a lot, lol.
true, the t5 delta rep can be massively boosted by tac abilities... I've actually used it to empty the bar on Nimbus in 1 shot...
For a tac using every single ability including aiming... it can go anywhere between 1600 to 2300 damage. It's a nasty piece of work.
My character Tsin'xing
Try 4-6k
Across 4 alts I'm completing 90% of Advanced PUGs successfully. Admittedly they're well equipped, all running Mk XIV rep gear, full Intel and most full Commando as well. But it's possible and generally the PUGs have now understood the mission - people focus on the devices and not the Heralds.
I particularly disagree with the comment that BOTS is bad because it focusses on objectives and not killing - IMO this is a good thing. There is a real role for tanks / healers in this mission to either stay alive or keep others alive while deactivating Iconian devices.
Anything which encourages players to think about tactics and teamwork rather than MOAR DPS!!!! has got to be good.
I use mk XI items for my kit and the kit are designed to buff my weapons and squad. I'm sure other kits designed to buff the buffing abilities can get a lot more. The highest I've ever gotten is 4.6k on a crit. It was sweet.
I find it an excellent mission because I have several different roles I could play. I can play "covering fire", "Tank" or "stealth mode". I generally provide covering fire and spread as much chaos as possible while my team goes after the objectives.