The problem is that even though you are scaled back to lvl 50, your items and damage dealing capacity is vastly improved due to traits, pecializations, upgrades etc. to surpass the threshold for which the zone was made. They don't need to fix anything really aside from adjusting mob HP to accomodate for the increased damage everyone is dealing, then the dinos would take longer to kill and maybe the classic tagging would then work with everyone contributing a third and then switching bosses.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
The V-Rexes are one problem, campers another. But both problems could be fixed through a change in the reward system. The dilithium reward should rely much more on how many capture points you were helping to conquer. I imagine something like this:
- Kill the V-Rex: 200 dilithium each
- capture of 3 points: 600 dilithium (repeatable)
- reward for clearing the battlezone: 500 dilithium
This is just a suggestion but I think better rewarding active players is the way to go.
The V-Rexes are one problem, campers another. But both problems could be fixed through a change in the reward system. The dilithium reward should rely much more on how many capture points you were helping to conquer. I imagine something like this:
- Kill the V-Rex: 200 dilithium each
- capture of 3 points: 600 dilithium (repeatable)
- reward for clearing the battlezone: 500 dilithium
This is just a suggestion but I think better rewarding active players is the way to go.
While campers were always present, they weren't a "problem" before DR. They are now because the rexes drop so fast you won't get there without camping. Pre DR it wasn't a big issue, some camped but the zone completed and people had plenty of time to tag and rotate between rexes, granting full rewards to everybody ("tagging" was a viable method and actually helped everyone - some people always complained about "taggers" when they didn't understand the principle behind it).
I think returning rewards back to pre-DR rules and just adjusting mob HP to the damage players deal on average would help a lot.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
I don't see what the big deal is. I miss the dino too sometimes when there are lots of players and sometimes I just camp if all I want are the implants. I'll give you that the big one could use a bump in hp because its hard to get there in time if you're on the other side of the map but that's about it. Anything else would only break a working system and complicate things. Its a bz so people come an go all the time, changing the rewards based on zone capture % won't work. I also can't go to the outskirts since I crash there.
Have you actually seen this in action because it seems like you don't know what you're talking about.
As Risian4 mentioned we were also only one segment away, we ran straight there, already knowing the way (because we've played it so much) and when we got there the Dino had less that 10% HP and we didn't get credit for it.
Also we didn't have Frost Boots, does that now mean these boots are mandatory for completion of the map?!
I run 10 toons through that place per day to max out dilithium. I've also been running that place since it came out and was there to test it on tribble just before release. I know that place like the back of my hand and could run it in my sleep. I've also seen one guy spawn in 20 escorts behind me just before the dino spawned in after the zone flip. When I asked him about his ground setup he was doing it legitimately. If you're not using frosted boots on a fast paced zone like the dyson battlezone then you're putting yourself at a severe disadvantage. If you decide not to use them then be prepared when you're not able to make it from dino to dino. Once you get there you need to do 1% of the damage to the dino. You can also watch the 3 gauges and get a rough idea as to where people are at. If the gauge barely moves then there are people there most likely. If the gauge is sinking faster than the Titanic then that means there are no people there most likely or the medics aren't being killed. In this instance you just had bad luck and a bunch of high ground dps folks killed it before you could get there. It's going to happen from time to time. If you can't tolerate that fact until something changes, if anything at all, then don't run the dyson bz. I don't like it anymore than you do when it happens and would not complain if something did change, but as it sits now they're not breaking any rules.
That doesn't wash as these people are camping, they haven't helped on map completion but the people who have are the ones who aren't getting the credit for it.
You really need to see how quickly these Dinos are getting burnt down now compared to how it was in the past.
First and foremost as I said above, camping is NOT against the rules in a battlezone. can it be called a jerk move, yes it can and it is. It's assumed that the battlezone is always going to have something going on. People are going in and out of battlezones all the time. Sometimes a person will grind for their dilithium, ship masteries, or marks and leave mid zone once they have them. Then sometimes a person will then come in and take his slot. Once that previous person left, they gave up any and all claims they had to that zone and are not owed it by anyone in that zone, including the new person, to let them tag the boss should they return to the zone.
As to the kill I mentioned above of the guy spawning the 20 escorts. It was only myself, him, and 1 other person. All 3 of us got credit for the dino. I did manage to time the entire fight which I clocked at 12 seconds. So yes I have seen them get killed quickly. In fact I've been in zones where 2 of them died within the first 20 seconds of the zone flipping. Again it sucks but unless you can show me how they're cheating or exploiting then it's not against the rules for them to kill the dino in less than 10 seconds if they can generate the damage. You forget that player gear globally is alot more advanced and stronger than what it was when the dyson bz first came out. back then level 50 was still the max. now you have level 60 players being reduced down to 50 but still having the level 60 gear. power creep and levels are 2 factors at play here which naturally occur within this game. I don't think you appreciate just what an impact stuff like that can have on a zone or a fight. You have to change your tactics to meet the modern challenges in the game.
Furthermore your argument is based on emotion and not fact. "I helped make those dinos spawn therefore you owe it to me to let me shoot it," when the reality is you're not owed a single thing. Your thinking is coming from entitlement mentality. Should they do something such as port everyone back to the command center once the zone flips to help discourage camping, sure why not. As it sits right now however it's just a fact of the battlezone that it happens and something you're just going to have to deal with. It doesn't matter if they camped the entire time, that's just the way the zone is setup, it progresses whether a person camps or not. This is why I said to use frosted boots, it lets you get back from the far reaches of the zone alot faster to get a tag on the dino. You are NOT owed a thing by anyone in the zone even if you capped the entire place solo. If they're there at the dino when it spawns, they have just as much right to shoot that dino as you do because that's the way it was designed. Plan everything you do there in advance, including how you plan to get to the spawn should it flip while you're out in the middle of nowhere. If you can do that it'll drastically reduce instances of that happening.
This, to me, proves you are arguing from a point of ignorance. You really don't know how fast these Dinos are being taken down. As has been mentioned people are only one segment away and are still not able to get credit for the Dino.
See my above points for the fastest dino kill I saw. Unless you can prove or show me somehow that they're exploiting or doing something they shouldn't be, then they're not breaking the rules and the kill is legitimate. If you feel you can meet that burden of proof then meet me in game and show me what you think they're doing, drop me a message on here and tell me how they're doing it, or whatever you need to do. There's not a great deal in that zone I haven't seen at some point when it comes to dino kills. As for the folks who were one segment away, sorry about their luck but it's going to happen from time to time and they need to get over it and move on.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
As far as getting screwed out of your rewards go, seems to me it's pretty simple. Don't base rewards on the T-Rex, but on capture participation. This way there is no incentive for people to afk or camp. Am I missing something? As far as the multiple and linking accounts goes that's lame. I swear someone was using a movement hack tonight as well, which I've never seen there before. It wasn't just buffed it was like Flash and his multiple linked accounts zooming across the zone way faster than game allows. But anyways it's Dyson and if lazy exploiting and trolling people bother you then so far you're out of luck.
Are you sure they weren't using motion accelerator and the frosted boots at once? I've seen that happen a few times. As I said to another person, get me some evidence, such as an unlisted video clip on youtube, or send it to me directly and i'll gladly take a look at it. I don't care to investigate stuff and claims of exploiting but there's got to be some proof of something going on.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Back when I was involved in running FPS servers, we had a serverside mod which kicked in when players camped for longer than a specified period and leeched their HP away at an alarming rate. The only way to stop the leech was to move a predetermined distance away. iirc this was set to force them at least 25% of the map away.
Perhaps introducing something such as a radiation which would target players loitering these areas and either leech HP at an inflated rate or place an effect similar to when Borg adapt to their weapons. With the latter they would then be under a timer when the Rex spawns and for the first minute or so any attack would only cause I HP of damage. The radiation could also be made lethal to summoned redshirts (keeping with Star Trek canon where the anonymous security officer always dies)
As far as getting screwed out of your rewards go, seems to me it's pretty simple. Don't base rewards on the T-Rex, but on capture participation. This way there is no incentive for people to afk or camp. Am I missing something? As far as the multiple and linking accounts goes that's lame. I swear someone was using a movement hack tonight as well, which I've never seen there before. It wasn't just buffed it was like Flash and his multiple linked accounts zooming across the zone way faster than game allows. But anyways it's Dyson and if lazy exploiting and trolling people bother you then so far you're out of luck.
Are you sure they weren't using motion accelerator and the frosted boots at once? I've seen that happen a few times. As I said to another person, get me some evidence, such as an unlisted video clip on youtube, or send it to me directly and i'll gladly take a look at it. I don't care to investigate stuff and claims of exploiting but there's got to be some proof of something going on.
They were using motion accelerator, so the fact that they were able to move very quickly doesn't seem to be an exploit. I would make a video if I could, but unfortunately I don't have the software nor the knowledge to record the game while I'm playing it.
The problem is the reward structure was not changed to match when they "fixed" dino tagging. The end reward still comes all down to how many dinos you tagged, even though 15 people tagging one before it dies is basically impossible now.
IMO, under the current rules, the end reward should be based only on how many nodes you captured, with the dino fights counting as the same as all other nodes. Then there would be no campers, because camping would always lose reward instead of gaining it. For the best reward a player should be capturing nodes instead of waiting for the bosses to spawn.
The same should be done for the other battlezones, too. Even if bosscamping isn't as much an issue in them, the reward structure is still unbalanced if the best reward depends on being in 3 places at once.
Or they could just make the bosses easy to tag again. That always worked. It's just a bit...contrived, that you should go around the map and get a shot off at each boss before fighting for real.
Eh, it seems like the law of unintended consequences at work.
They fixed tagging by implementing participation thresholds and... folks stopped tagging and simply aimed to hit the participation threshold instead. If a bunch of folks (hopefully allies, but just as likely alts or bots) can kill a V-Rex fast enough, they can ensure participating sufficiently for the reward and get en route to the next V-Rex as quickly as possible in order to participate there. It's a logical adaptation to the anti-tagging mechanics, albeit not very sporting for others.
The sad part is that it was tagging at the capture points that interfered with other players, rather than tagging the V-Rex, but the solution was applied to the whole zone rather than focusing solely on the issue at hand.
Point tagging is still a problem. Granted, it doesn't happen often, but I can tell when someone has aggro'd a point and now I'm solo fighting 5x as many bad-guys as I should have if I were doing it solo. I can see this only getting worse if they try to tie point cap rewards to vrex rewards. I do, however, think that the maximum rewards should be higher & scale more arithmetically with how many points you capped. Currently, you have to cap x points & tag x dinos to get max payout. It really should be more like another 5% dil total map-end reward based on the points you cap. Dinos can still pay out the same, but your total end-map rewards continue to rise with each point you help with.
Additionally, it would be better if 5 caps means you only need 2 tags for max payout, 10 tags means you only need 1 tag for max payout. Last but not least, more HP isn't the answer. What needs to happen is vrex health scaling with players in the zone, or at least how many players are in proximity to the vrex. Yesterday I played a map with vrex spawns & about 5-6 players total. It took FOREVER to kill off the dinos, and I actually had to run back & forth killing medics in empty spawn areas, just to prevent a map loss. To me, this says the zones don't scale properly.
And I 100% agree on killing medics. Medics/techs at vrex spawn should probably have a 50 dil reward EACH.
How about when V-Rex appears:
1) It causes all pets to de-spawn within its area. Escorts, drones, turrets, mines, and all other combat pets - poof. That takes care of that portion of the camping problem.
2) All players within a certain distance of V-Rex get teleported to a random location on the map. This distance from V-Rex will be variable to be unpredictable. Any players that are "following" other players will thus become dissociated by teleportation to different, random locations.
Perhaps a move towards making the rewards better match the participation would be better? I mean the absolute best reward you can get should in theory come from full zone participation plus getting the v-Rex at each section.
As it stands you get the most reward by camping a and killing 3 rexes in seconds, something's off there.
So if you just zone in and are in time to kill one dino you get a reward for that. If you get 3 dinos you get 3x the reward.
If you helped capture most of one section such as the park you get another reward at the end. And if you helped sufficiently in all 3 sections and with all 3 dinos you get maximum rewards, but that should be almost impossible based on the current gameplay situation as the zone is completed before you could manage that.
Then end fights should be rewArding enough to encourage players but the rest of the map should have a bigger potential profit, to encourage full participation over camping.
That's why I suggest map-end rewards that continue to scale according to points capped. Campers with 3x tags & no caps can still get whatever, but the dude with 20 points capped and 1x tag--should be getting more map-end payout. I'd say 5% extra for each point capped. It would also be nice if points had variable rewards (more than the 2 now) for how actively you participate. There should be a way to better reward someone for capping a point that other players aggro'd and then ran off.
I do see the "law of unintended consequences" thing as the reason for the current issues. Vrexes overall do seem to have an unbalanced share of rewards tied to the zone.
Silo camping def needs addressing. Basically the campers are stealing the reward off Players who capture the points to trigger the final part of the Battle zone. Someones got to be out of position to capture that last point to trigger the fight and sadly that chap more often than not gets penalised for playing the zone as it should be and thats capture the points.
just put a trigger on it. when the map segments get cleared, you have a "all players go to section TRIBBLE" message, and then it pauses until 75% of the players on the grid are there, at which point it spawns the dino. dunno, something. I like playing the zone, but the dino is almost always dead by time i reach it
LUKARI GUERILLA GARDENING MILITIA - Glowing fingers are Growing fingers!
They were using motion accelerator, so the fact that they were able to move very quickly doesn't seem to be an exploit. I would make a video if I could, but unfortunately I don't have the software nor the knowledge to record the game while I'm playing it.
When you pair motion accelerator with frosted boots you can take off faster than the Roadrunner.
Silo camping def needs addressing. Basically the campers are stealing the reward off Players who capture the points to trigger the final part of the Battle zone. Someones got to be out of position to capture that last point to trigger the fight and sadly that chap more often than not gets penalised for playing the zone as it should be and thats capture the points.
As I've said to others I'm not opposed to changes to the zone to discourage this stuff. With that in mind, they're not "stealing" anything as no one owns the zone. Are they being a jerk, sure they are, but a thief, absolutely they are not. If that person knows the routes of the zone well enough they can get back to the spawn before the dino dies in 99% of the cases. The other question you must ask if we're to extend this line of logic out to as far as it can go is this. What if someone who helped capture most of the zone drops out and is replaced by a new person just as the dinos spawn? Should that new guy be denied access to the dinos since he didn't help to create them?
Overall people need to keep in mind, it was never intended for people to be able to tag all 3 dinos to start with and intended to be a rare thing if/when it did happen.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
They were using motion accelerator, so the fact that they were able to move very quickly doesn't seem to be an exploit. I would make a video if I could, but unfortunately I don't have the software nor the knowledge to record the game while I'm playing it.
When you pair motion accelerator with frosted boots you can take off faster than the Roadrunner.
Silo camping def needs addressing. Basically the campers are stealing the reward off Players who capture the points to trigger the final part of the Battle zone. Someones got to be out of position to capture that last point to trigger the fight and sadly that chap more often than not gets penalised for playing the zone as it should be and thats capture the points.
As I've said to others I'm not opposed to changes to the zone to discourage this stuff. With that in mind, they're not "stealing" anything as no one owns the zone. Are they being a jerk, sure they are, but a thief, absolutely they are not. If that person knows the routes of the zone well enough they can get back to the spawn before the dino dies in 99% of the cases. The other question you must ask if we're to extend this line of logic out to as far as it can go is this. What if someone who helped capture most of the zone drops out and is replaced by a new person just as the dinos spawn? Should that new guy be denied access to the dinos since he didn't help to create them?
Overall people need to keep in mind, it was never intended for people to be able to tag all 3 dinos to start with and intended to be a rare thing if/when it did happen.
How would you feel if in say Infected a player went AFK whilst you and rest of the team struggled to kill both gens, guards, nanites and gate for them to then just decide to shoot the Tactical cube at the end to earn a reward ?. Not help kill it but just enough from them to avoid a afk penalty. What these guys in VBZ are doing is no different. Rather than participate through the whole mission they wait till the end and kill the boss and walk away with the biggest payout. You as an active player who captured points but couldn't get to a silo played the zone to that point but got no end reward because you were caught to far away, then it is stealing off you. You were robbed of a reward you played to earn whilst they sat idol for 15-20mins and EXPLOITED a flaw in the zones design.
I'm not against the reward structure staying as it is (Only because i'd be afraid of it being nerfed to high heaven if Cryptic did adjust it). I'm just against seeing campers waiting for the V-Rex to spawn, kill it fast and prevent an active player whose contributed to that zone not being able to get there in time. It does happen. City for example i've often found the 3 points closest to the Silo can already be captured. This pushes you further into the zone and further away from the silo to capture that zone. So it is possible to be caught of position not be fault but by requirements to pop the zone.
What should happen is once the zone pops, everyone is placed back at the command centre and have to race to whichever silo they then choose. If you go to the City and the others are killed before you can get to them, tough luck as everyone started in the same place and you should have paid attention to where the mobs were going. Thats what i want introduced. So if you want to go AFK fine, but because everyone starts the v-rex fight in the same location you no longer have an advantage for it.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,175Community Moderator
Simple version: Active players are being denied final reward by spawn campers. Just like the FPS tactic of spawn camping, its frowned upon, and is generally considered unsportsman like at the very least as the victim has 0 chance of reacting to the attack before they are dead.
The closest equivelent I can think of is something I've experienced in the old N64 game Goldeneye. If you know the map well enough, you know where the spawn points are. And depending on the weapons set you picked, you could place Proximity Mines at those points and... BOOM! Insta Kill on spawn with 0 effort. I experienced this chained a few times and it was frustrating.
These campers are hurting the battlezone by stealing the final reward from players who were actually participating. And yes, it would be considered stealing as they are benefiting from someone else's hard work by doing nothing really. However this does NOT apply to someone who arrives late to an active instance due to the Battlezone being an open instance.
So far we have seen some interesting ideas on how to counter this trend. However I do think we need someone to look into this as well, as it is affecting a large population of players. The Voth Battlezone is a fun ground area, and now it is being ruined by people abusing the hard work of said players for their own personal gain while denying said players of their earned reward. That's like doing a full day's work and not even getting paid for it outside of tips.
It would be nice to get some response either from Trendy, or the devs, and hear what they think of the issuethis is causing in the zone. Honestly i think that both the idea of having everyone ported back to the command center at the dino spawn, or that any character participating in atleast 75% of a area's capture points should get credit for that area's dino ( i would say 60-85% of the reward for actually killing/tagging the dino). Both of these reward participating in the zone, an make sure those doign the most in leading to the span get credit even if they fail to make it to the dinos for some reason which to me is fair.
Surprised to find myself in the minority about this, but I'm more than happy to surrender the Dyson battlezone to the campers and exploiters. All that running around in a maze full of dead ends really chaps my....really grinds my gears. This game could do with a GTA-style GPS function in their mini-map.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,175Community Moderator
Surprised to find myself in the minority about this, but I'm more than happy to surrender the Dyson battlezone to the campers and exploiters. All that running around in a maze full of dead ends really chaps my....really grinds my gears. This game could do with a GTA-style GPS function in their mini-map.
That sounds like you spend most of your time in the City. The Park and Outskirts are more open so more direct paths are possible.
If you're not using frosted boots on a fast paced zone like the dyson battlezone then you're putting yourself at a severe disadvantage. If you decide not to use them then be prepared when you're not able to make it from dino to dino. Once you get there you need to do 1% of the damage to the dino.
You've moved the goal post by now saying "from dino to dino" I am happy to just get one dino, if I want more than one yes I will use the boots, but they are not and should not be needed just to completely finish the zone you are in.
Also please don't try to explain how to read the bars as I already know that as I've played the zone a lot just like you. (though you didn't mentioned that sometimes the bars can be affected by lag (or something) and don't show the dinos true hp).
In this instance you just had bad luck and a bunch of high ground dps folks killed it before you could get there. It's going to happen from time to time. If you can't tolerate that fact until something changes, if anything at all, then don't run the dyson bz. I don't like it anymore than you do when it happens and would not complain if something did change, but as it sits now they're not breaking any rules.
They are being defeated a lot quicker than they used to, and out of all the times I've played it in the past I have never once failed to get the dino in the area that I was in, even when I have had to travel from a lot more segments away.
Furthermore your argument is based on emotion and not fact. "I helped make those dinos spawn therefore you owe it to me to let me shoot it," when the reality is you're not owed a single thing. Your thinking is coming from entitlement mentality.
Well done for using the latest buzzword. Lol based on emotion . I do feel I am entitled to the reward from the dino as that is what Cryptic intended. Do you think they intended only campers to get the reward, and everyone else who helped on the zone to be out of luck?
As it sits right now however it's just a fact of the battlezone that it happens and something you're just going to have to deal with. It doesn't matter if they camped the entire time, that's just the way the zone is setup, it progresses whether a person camps or not.
I know that and it is something that needs changing, just like how they implemented the AFK penalty.
You are NOT owed a thing by anyone in the zone even if you capped the entire place solo. If they're there at the dino when it spawns, they have just as much right to shoot that dino as you do because that's the way it was designed.
When did I say any player there owed me anything?! I'd like the thing to be changed by Cryptic, I don't want players waiting for me or not shooting the dino they are camping, I would just like to be able to get to the dino and get credit for killing it especially when I've spent time capping points, that is what Cryptic planned for the map, is it not? Also I don't think Cryptic planned on the dino getting wiped so fast.
I am not saying these people are breaking the rules and I agree its a jerk thing to do, I want Cryptic to change some things in the map so the people who have worked on the map can get the big reward at the end.
I've been running the zone a lot recently and I can't say I've had a huge problem getting to at least one dino and I'm not using snow boots. I agree that they do need to discourage camping, I think having swarmers (that don't award xp) target anyone who loiters at the silo and then a minute countdown when the zone flips would stop it. For the time being, you do need to pay attention to how close the zone is to flipping and plan accordingly. I believe getting all three dinos (or planet killers or Terran bases) should be the exception, not the rule if things are working normally.
My alt army: K'ymara, Orion Engineer. Caedera of Borg, Liberated Borg Tactical, Elyza Vix, Joined Trill Scientist. Christina Bellona, Augmented Human Tactical. T'Lana, Vulcan Scientist. Arbol, Martian Tactical. Ayzer Bryn, Joined Trill Engineer. Hawke, Betazoid Scientist. Karna Valkras, Klingon Engineer. Beth Parker, Human Tactical Sarel, Romulan Engineer (Federation). Yazuri, Reman Scientist (KDF)
I did a couple of runs there today, as is my charge for a couple of my alts at the moment. I've found that planning ones route around the zone really helps, ie: always capturing a point as close to the V-rex as possible towards the end and keeping that sort of movement around the map in tune with bz progression. I try to capture the far away points early on and work my way towards the silos. Also forgetting about getting the 3-rex bonus and just trying for two. Still brings in a tidy sum and much less irksome.
"If this will be our end, then I will have them make SUCH an end as to be worthy of rememberance! Out of torpedos you say?! Find me the ferengi!".
1) make each silo open one at time at random. (this would stop camping as they will now have to go to the correct silo that is being attacked at least or wait another 5 mins and lose out on the rewards.)
2) lower the time it takes for voth to steal silos. (with everyone now being focused on one silo the time it takes for voth to steal them should decrease for a challenge.
One other way is to change how the V rex works.. Since its suppose to be a boss why not try making it where 1 super V will spawn at random between the 3 sites and it has a heck of a lot more hp than the normal ones a V rex on steroids to say. Not sure if this is better but I think its best of both worlds.
How would you feel if in say Infected a player went AFK whilst you and rest of the team struggled to kill both gens, guards, nanites and gate for them to then just decide to shoot the Tactical cube at the end to earn a reward ?. Not help kill it but just enough from them to avoid a afk penalty. What these guys in VBZ are doing is no different. Rather than participate through the whole mission they wait till the end and kill the boss and walk away with the biggest payout. You as an active player who captured points but couldn't get to a silo played the zone to that point but got no end reward because you were caught to far away, then it is stealing off you. You were robbed of a reward you played to earn whilst they sat idol for 15-20mins and EXPLOITED a flaw in the zones design.
I'm not against the reward structure staying as it is (Only because i'd be afraid of it being nerfed to high heaven if Cryptic did adjust it). I'm just against seeing campers waiting for the V-Rex to spawn, kill it fast and prevent an active player whose contributed to that zone not being able to get there in time. It does happen. City for example i've often found the 3 points closest to the Silo can already be captured. This pushes you further into the zone and further away from the silo to capture that zone. So it is possible to be caught of position not be fault but by requirements to pop the zone.
What should happen is once the zone pops, everyone is placed back at the command centre and have to race to whichever silo they then choose. If you go to the City and the others are killed before you can get to them, tough luck as everyone started in the same place and you should have paid attention to where the mobs were going. Thats what i want introduced. So if you want to go AFK fine, but because everyone starts the v-rex fight in the same location you no longer have an advantage for it.
There's a big difference in a battlezone and a full on STF. To try to compare the 2 in the way you have is a strawman argument. As I've said from the start, is it a jerk move to camp, yes it is, BUT they aren't breaking any rules by doing so. People come and go in battlezones. I'm not opposed to making changes to address this, but by no means is someone owed anything in the battlezones. I also have no problem with the teleporting to the command center thing. Camping is not an exploit and to compare it to exploiting is ridiculous.
You've moved the goal post by now saying "from dino to dino" I am happy to just get one dino, if I want more than one yes I will use the boots, but they are not and should not be needed just to completely finish the zone you are in.
Also please don't try to explain how to read the bars as I already know that as I've played the zone a lot just like you. (though you didn't mentioned that sometimes the bars can be affected by lag (or something) and don't show the dinos true hp).
There is no goal post change at all. The boots can also be used to get you back from the far reaches of the battlezone to a single dino as well. Point being if you don't use them then you're at a disadvantage. That's not a goal post move, that's just a fact.
The bars don't show the dino's hp as that's not what they're for. The bars are meant to show how many omega particles are left in that particular area. I also explained the bars as there are more people posting here than the 2 of us.
They are being defeated a lot quicker than they used to, and out of all the times I've played it in the past I have never once failed to get the dino in the area that I was in, even when I have had to travel from a lot more segments away.
No one is denying they're dying faster than they used to. Show me where I ever said they weren't. They're dying faster due to a number of factors. Overall I've already gone over those factors. Level 60s coming into a level 50 zone but still having level 60 gear. That being a huge example there. Either way my point still stands about using the boots.
Well done for using the latest buzzword. Lol based on emotion . I do feel I am entitled to the reward from the dino as that is what Cryptic intended. Do you think they intended only campers to get the reward, and everyone else who helped on the zone to be out of luck?
The word entitlement has been around long than both of us have been alive. It's intended for everyone in the zone at the time to be able to kill the dino. If you miss the dino because you're out elsewhere in the zone, then that's just your bad luck. I also challenge you to show me where I said the reward was only for the campers. It's not intended for just a specific bunch, but again, the ENTIRE zone, which would also include the campers. If you can make it to the dino in time, then cool, you get to benefit. If you don't then you're just out of luck. That's the way it goes currently.
When did I say any player there owed me anything?! I'd like the thing to be changed by Cryptic, I don't want players waiting for me or not shooting the dino they are camping, I would just like to be able to get to the dino and get credit for killing it especially when I've spent time capping points, that is what Cryptic planned for the map, is it not? Also I don't think Cryptic planned on the dino getting wiped so fast.
I am not saying these people are breaking the rules and I agree its a jerk thing to do, I want Cryptic to change some things in the map so the people who have worked on the map can get the big reward at the end.
Really now, you're seriously going to sit there and ask where you said you were owed something.
I do feel I am entitled to the reward from the dino as that is what Cryptic intended.
That right there is where you say you're entitled to something. If you don't make it then you're just out of luck, that's the way it goes. The reward at the end is intended for anyone in the zone that can get to the dinos. This also includes the campers as much as we don't like it at the moment.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
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- Kill the V-Rex: 200 dilithium each
- capture of 3 points: 600 dilithium (repeatable)
- reward for clearing the battlezone: 500 dilithium
This is just a suggestion but I think better rewarding active players is the way to go.
While campers were always present, they weren't a "problem" before DR. They are now because the rexes drop so fast you won't get there without camping. Pre DR it wasn't a big issue, some camped but the zone completed and people had plenty of time to tag and rotate between rexes, granting full rewards to everybody ("tagging" was a viable method and actually helped everyone - some people always complained about "taggers" when they didn't understand the principle behind it).
I think returning rewards back to pre-DR rules and just adjusting mob HP to the damage players deal on average would help a lot.
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I run 10 toons through that place per day to max out dilithium. I've also been running that place since it came out and was there to test it on tribble just before release. I know that place like the back of my hand and could run it in my sleep. I've also seen one guy spawn in 20 escorts behind me just before the dino spawned in after the zone flip. When I asked him about his ground setup he was doing it legitimately. If you're not using frosted boots on a fast paced zone like the dyson battlezone then you're putting yourself at a severe disadvantage. If you decide not to use them then be prepared when you're not able to make it from dino to dino. Once you get there you need to do 1% of the damage to the dino. You can also watch the 3 gauges and get a rough idea as to where people are at. If the gauge barely moves then there are people there most likely. If the gauge is sinking faster than the Titanic then that means there are no people there most likely or the medics aren't being killed. In this instance you just had bad luck and a bunch of high ground dps folks killed it before you could get there. It's going to happen from time to time. If you can't tolerate that fact until something changes, if anything at all, then don't run the dyson bz. I don't like it anymore than you do when it happens and would not complain if something did change, but as it sits now they're not breaking any rules.
First and foremost as I said above, camping is NOT against the rules in a battlezone. can it be called a jerk move, yes it can and it is. It's assumed that the battlezone is always going to have something going on. People are going in and out of battlezones all the time. Sometimes a person will grind for their dilithium, ship masteries, or marks and leave mid zone once they have them. Then sometimes a person will then come in and take his slot. Once that previous person left, they gave up any and all claims they had to that zone and are not owed it by anyone in that zone, including the new person, to let them tag the boss should they return to the zone.
As to the kill I mentioned above of the guy spawning the 20 escorts. It was only myself, him, and 1 other person. All 3 of us got credit for the dino. I did manage to time the entire fight which I clocked at 12 seconds. So yes I have seen them get killed quickly. In fact I've been in zones where 2 of them died within the first 20 seconds of the zone flipping. Again it sucks but unless you can show me how they're cheating or exploiting then it's not against the rules for them to kill the dino in less than 10 seconds if they can generate the damage. You forget that player gear globally is alot more advanced and stronger than what it was when the dyson bz first came out. back then level 50 was still the max. now you have level 60 players being reduced down to 50 but still having the level 60 gear. power creep and levels are 2 factors at play here which naturally occur within this game. I don't think you appreciate just what an impact stuff like that can have on a zone or a fight. You have to change your tactics to meet the modern challenges in the game.
Furthermore your argument is based on emotion and not fact. "I helped make those dinos spawn therefore you owe it to me to let me shoot it," when the reality is you're not owed a single thing. Your thinking is coming from entitlement mentality. Should they do something such as port everyone back to the command center once the zone flips to help discourage camping, sure why not. As it sits right now however it's just a fact of the battlezone that it happens and something you're just going to have to deal with. It doesn't matter if they camped the entire time, that's just the way the zone is setup, it progresses whether a person camps or not. This is why I said to use frosted boots, it lets you get back from the far reaches of the zone alot faster to get a tag on the dino. You are NOT owed a thing by anyone in the zone even if you capped the entire place solo. If they're there at the dino when it spawns, they have just as much right to shoot that dino as you do because that's the way it was designed. Plan everything you do there in advance, including how you plan to get to the spawn should it flip while you're out in the middle of nowhere. If you can do that it'll drastically reduce instances of that happening.
See my above points for the fastest dino kill I saw. Unless you can prove or show me somehow that they're exploiting or doing something they shouldn't be, then they're not breaking the rules and the kill is legitimate. If you feel you can meet that burden of proof then meet me in game and show me what you think they're doing, drop me a message on here and tell me how they're doing it, or whatever you need to do. There's not a great deal in that zone I haven't seen at some point when it comes to dino kills. As for the folks who were one segment away, sorry about their luck but it's going to happen from time to time and they need to get over it and move on.
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Are you sure they weren't using motion accelerator and the frosted boots at once? I've seen that happen a few times. As I said to another person, get me some evidence, such as an unlisted video clip on youtube, or send it to me directly and i'll gladly take a look at it. I don't care to investigate stuff and claims of exploiting but there's got to be some proof of something going on.
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Perhaps introducing something such as a radiation which would target players loitering these areas and either leech HP at an inflated rate or place an effect similar to when Borg adapt to their weapons. With the latter they would then be under a timer when the Rex spawns and for the first minute or so any attack would only cause I HP of damage. The radiation could also be made lethal to summoned redshirts (keeping with Star Trek canon where the anonymous security officer always dies)
They were using motion accelerator, so the fact that they were able to move very quickly doesn't seem to be an exploit. I would make a video if I could, but unfortunately I don't have the software nor the knowledge to record the game while I'm playing it.
IMO, under the current rules, the end reward should be based only on how many nodes you captured, with the dino fights counting as the same as all other nodes. Then there would be no campers, because camping would always lose reward instead of gaining it. For the best reward a player should be capturing nodes instead of waiting for the bosses to spawn.
The same should be done for the other battlezones, too. Even if bosscamping isn't as much an issue in them, the reward structure is still unbalanced if the best reward depends on being in 3 places at once.
Or they could just make the bosses easy to tag again. That always worked. It's just a bit...contrived, that you should go around the map and get a shot off at each boss before fighting for real.
Point tagging is still a problem. Granted, it doesn't happen often, but I can tell when someone has aggro'd a point and now I'm solo fighting 5x as many bad-guys as I should have if I were doing it solo. I can see this only getting worse if they try to tie point cap rewards to vrex rewards. I do, however, think that the maximum rewards should be higher & scale more arithmetically with how many points you capped. Currently, you have to cap x points & tag x dinos to get max payout. It really should be more like another 5% dil total map-end reward based on the points you cap. Dinos can still pay out the same, but your total end-map rewards continue to rise with each point you help with.
Additionally, it would be better if 5 caps means you only need 2 tags for max payout, 10 tags means you only need 1 tag for max payout. Last but not least, more HP isn't the answer. What needs to happen is vrex health scaling with players in the zone, or at least how many players are in proximity to the vrex. Yesterday I played a map with vrex spawns & about 5-6 players total. It took FOREVER to kill off the dinos, and I actually had to run back & forth killing medics in empty spawn areas, just to prevent a map loss. To me, this says the zones don't scale properly.
And I 100% agree on killing medics. Medics/techs at vrex spawn should probably have a 50 dil reward EACH.
1) It causes all pets to de-spawn within its area. Escorts, drones, turrets, mines, and all other combat pets - poof. That takes care of that portion of the camping problem.
2) All players within a certain distance of V-Rex get teleported to a random location on the map. This distance from V-Rex will be variable to be unpredictable. Any players that are "following" other players will thus become dissociated by teleportation to different, random locations.
Just my two cents.
That's why I suggest map-end rewards that continue to scale according to points capped. Campers with 3x tags & no caps can still get whatever, but the dude with 20 points capped and 1x tag--should be getting more map-end payout. I'd say 5% extra for each point capped. It would also be nice if points had variable rewards (more than the 2 now) for how actively you participate. There should be a way to better reward someone for capping a point that other players aggro'd and then ran off.
Spoken like a camper, lol!
When you pair motion accelerator with frosted boots you can take off faster than the Roadrunner.
You speak as though you're owed something when you're not, which is entitlement mentality.
As I've said to others I'm not opposed to changes to the zone to discourage this stuff. With that in mind, they're not "stealing" anything as no one owns the zone. Are they being a jerk, sure they are, but a thief, absolutely they are not. If that person knows the routes of the zone well enough they can get back to the spawn before the dino dies in 99% of the cases. The other question you must ask if we're to extend this line of logic out to as far as it can go is this. What if someone who helped capture most of the zone drops out and is replaced by a new person just as the dinos spawn? Should that new guy be denied access to the dinos since he didn't help to create them?
Overall people need to keep in mind, it was never intended for people to be able to tag all 3 dinos to start with and intended to be a rare thing if/when it did happen.
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How would you feel if in say Infected a player went AFK whilst you and rest of the team struggled to kill both gens, guards, nanites and gate for them to then just decide to shoot the Tactical cube at the end to earn a reward ?. Not help kill it but just enough from them to avoid a afk penalty. What these guys in VBZ are doing is no different. Rather than participate through the whole mission they wait till the end and kill the boss and walk away with the biggest payout. You as an active player who captured points but couldn't get to a silo played the zone to that point but got no end reward because you were caught to far away, then it is stealing off you. You were robbed of a reward you played to earn whilst they sat idol for 15-20mins and EXPLOITED a flaw in the zones design.
I'm not against the reward structure staying as it is (Only because i'd be afraid of it being nerfed to high heaven if Cryptic did adjust it). I'm just against seeing campers waiting for the V-Rex to spawn, kill it fast and prevent an active player whose contributed to that zone not being able to get there in time. It does happen. City for example i've often found the 3 points closest to the Silo can already be captured. This pushes you further into the zone and further away from the silo to capture that zone. So it is possible to be caught of position not be fault but by requirements to pop the zone.
What should happen is once the zone pops, everyone is placed back at the command centre and have to race to whichever silo they then choose. If you go to the City and the others are killed before you can get to them, tough luck as everyone started in the same place and you should have paid attention to where the mobs were going. Thats what i want introduced. So if you want to go AFK fine, but because everyone starts the v-rex fight in the same location you no longer have an advantage for it.
The closest equivelent I can think of is something I've experienced in the old N64 game Goldeneye. If you know the map well enough, you know where the spawn points are. And depending on the weapons set you picked, you could place Proximity Mines at those points and... BOOM! Insta Kill on spawn with 0 effort. I experienced this chained a few times and it was frustrating.
These campers are hurting the battlezone by stealing the final reward from players who were actually participating. And yes, it would be considered stealing as they are benefiting from someone else's hard work by doing nothing really. However this does NOT apply to someone who arrives late to an active instance due to the Battlezone being an open instance.
So far we have seen some interesting ideas on how to counter this trend. However I do think we need someone to look into this as well, as it is affecting a large population of players. The Voth Battlezone is a fun ground area, and now it is being ruined by people abusing the hard work of said players for their own personal gain while denying said players of their earned reward. That's like doing a full day's work and not even getting paid for it outside of tips.
That sounds like you spend most of your time in the City. The Park and Outskirts are more open so more direct paths are possible.
You've moved the goal post by now saying "from dino to dino" I am happy to just get one dino, if I want more than one yes I will use the boots, but they are not and should not be needed just to completely finish the zone you are in.
Also please don't try to explain how to read the bars as I already know that as I've played the zone a lot just like you. (though you didn't mentioned that sometimes the bars can be affected by lag (or something) and don't show the dinos true hp).
They are being defeated a lot quicker than they used to, and out of all the times I've played it in the past I have never once failed to get the dino in the area that I was in, even when I have had to travel from a lot more segments away.
Well done for using the latest buzzword. Lol based on emotion
I know that and it is something that needs changing, just like how they implemented the AFK penalty.
When did I say any player there owed me anything?! I'd like the thing to be changed by Cryptic, I don't want players waiting for me or not shooting the dino they are camping, I would just like to be able to get to the dino and get credit for killing it especially when I've spent time capping points, that is what Cryptic planned for the map, is it not? Also I don't think Cryptic planned on the dino getting wiped so fast.
I am not saying these people are breaking the rules and I agree its a jerk thing to do, I want Cryptic to change some things in the map so the people who have worked on the map can get the big reward at the end.
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I've found that planning ones route around the zone really helps, ie: always capturing a point as close to the V-rex as possible towards the end and keeping that sort of movement around the map in tune with bz progression. I try to capture the far away points early on and work my way towards the silos.
Also forgetting about getting the 3-rex bonus and just trying for two.
Still brings in a tidy sum and much less irksome.
"If this will be our end, then I will have them make SUCH an end as to be worthy of rememberance! Out of torpedos you say?! Find me the ferengi!".
1) make each silo open one at time at random. (this would stop camping as they will now have to go to the correct silo that is being attacked at least or wait another 5 mins and lose out on the rewards.)
2) lower the time it takes for voth to steal silos. (with everyone now being focused on one silo the time it takes for voth to steal them should decrease for a challenge.
One other way is to change how the V rex works.. Since its suppose to be a boss why not try making it where 1 super V will spawn at random between the 3 sites and it has a heck of a lot more hp than the normal ones a V rex on steroids to say. Not sure if this is better but I think its best of both worlds.
There's a big difference in a battlezone and a full on STF. To try to compare the 2 in the way you have is a strawman argument. As I've said from the start, is it a jerk move to camp, yes it is, BUT they aren't breaking any rules by doing so. People come and go in battlezones. I'm not opposed to making changes to address this, but by no means is someone owed anything in the battlezones. I also have no problem with the teleporting to the command center thing. Camping is not an exploit and to compare it to exploiting is ridiculous.
There is no goal post change at all. The boots can also be used to get you back from the far reaches of the battlezone to a single dino as well. Point being if you don't use them then you're at a disadvantage. That's not a goal post move, that's just a fact.
The bars don't show the dino's hp as that's not what they're for. The bars are meant to show how many omega particles are left in that particular area. I also explained the bars as there are more people posting here than the 2 of us.
No one is denying they're dying faster than they used to. Show me where I ever said they weren't. They're dying faster due to a number of factors. Overall I've already gone over those factors. Level 60s coming into a level 50 zone but still having level 60 gear. That being a huge example there. Either way my point still stands about using the boots.
The word entitlement has been around long than both of us have been alive. It's intended for everyone in the zone at the time to be able to kill the dino. If you miss the dino because you're out elsewhere in the zone, then that's just your bad luck. I also challenge you to show me where I said the reward was only for the campers. It's not intended for just a specific bunch, but again, the ENTIRE zone, which would also include the campers. If you can make it to the dino in time, then cool, you get to benefit. If you don't then you're just out of luck. That's the way it goes currently.
I'm not disagreeing that they could do something about it. What I am saying is people are overreacting and blowing certain things out of proportion.
Really now, you're seriously going to sit there and ask where you said you were owed something.
That right there is where you say you're entitled to something. If you don't make it then you're just out of luck, that's the way it goes. The reward at the end is intended for anyone in the zone that can get to the dinos. This also includes the campers as much as we don't like it at the moment.
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