test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Options
State of PVE Queues. ( Not a post about dead queues)
tomgonjinn23
Member Posts: 204 Arc User
I had just had a Infected Conduit Advanced run that calling an unmitigated disaster doesn't do it justice. I was on my KDF Char with a T6 Negh'tev. He's not the best character ever but I'm still leveling him up. Joining me were 2 Caitian carriers and 2 patrol escorts. Nothing wrong with those ships is flown right.
We destroyed the initial group after 3 minutes or so due to only me and one other patrol escort really contributing the other had a lot of mines and the carriers i'm not really sure what they were doing but it wasn't particularly effective. After that both of the Carriers started fighting the gate. One of the escorts joined me in the standard strategy of fighting the left cube and so on. The Other escort immediately destroyed all of the transformers that lead to the other spheres leading in. Despite me and the other escort being very vocal in chat asking him not to.
The point of me writing this is to find out if other people think that there should be some sort if intro mission detailing basic strategy or something along those lines because this type of behavior is just unacceptable.
I've heard in the past about private channels for STFs if anyone can point me to one i'd be appreciative.
We destroyed the initial group after 3 minutes or so due to only me and one other patrol escort really contributing the other had a lot of mines and the carriers i'm not really sure what they were doing but it wasn't particularly effective. After that both of the Carriers started fighting the gate. One of the escorts joined me in the standard strategy of fighting the left cube and so on. The Other escort immediately destroyed all of the transformers that lead to the other spheres leading in. Despite me and the other escort being very vocal in chat asking him not to.
The point of me writing this is to find out if other people think that there should be some sort if intro mission detailing basic strategy or something along those lines because this type of behavior is just unacceptable.
I've heard in the past about private channels for STFs if anyone can point me to one i'd be appreciative.
0
Comments
To get invited you need to download the parser and upload a dps score using it. You can download the parser from http://stodps.com/sto-combat-meter/ You'll also find a user guide on that page that explains in detail how everything works. Once you upload a dps score over 10,000 dps you will be automatically invited to the DPS-10,000 channel within 48 hours. As your score improves higher channel invites will be sent.
Maybe something like Undine Assault (however it is listed) where you get a briefing of what the attack plan is. That way, people aren't completely lost, and strategy can be discussed after the intro before combat begins.
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
DPS wouldn't fix the problem the OP is describing though. I've seen people with high DPS fail ISA because they kept FAW'ing everything while flying from the left to the right side. Probably to keep damaging the gate - that will recover - and keep their DPS numbers up. Of course, next thing that happens is that a generator gets killed before the more threatening targets are even slightly damaged. Moreover, these type of players usually don't wait until the rest of the team has arrived at the right side. Instead they'll slow down the team, who are now facing nanite spheres that put them in a prolonged red alert, even more.
If someone's able to vaporise everything by himself, go ahead and do it. Problem is, they tend to overestimate themselves and are not able to solo the map. And since they're not able to kill the transformer by themselves - or can't reach the generators because there's still a cube in the way - they should wait for the team and follow strategy or at least check their fire. The latter, of course, is something most DPS channel members wouldn't even consider doing.
Even focussing on more DPS won't fix stupid actions. Strategy and knowing what you're doing will still be needed.
Edit: this profanity filter is becoming annoying... even this will get censored.
One of the reasons my friends and I opened ourselves to DPS was the wish to play “undisturbed” by such occurrences you describe. I don’t care much about my DPS league standings.
You can’t completely out-DPS what @risian4 described as kind of a situational awareness towards a mission goal and how to achieve it, he is right at that. A strong DPS build yourself however will give you the means to play an influential part on every match. It won’t replace your brain but will give you an easier time to execute your understanding of how a PvE is supposed to be concluded.
In short if I bring my 100k DPS build to ISA a flock of spheres is bound and killed fast on my own and a generator not much of an obstacle when the pugs decide to do something… else in there.
If you need aid to make strong DPS builds look up the STO league.
https://www.sto-league.com/
Use their well-presented material to sort what would work for you. I found the peeps running the league also to be immensely help- and resourceful in game. If your toons are new you easily get strong teams in the respective channels you are qualified for.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Pretty much the only way to prevent the issue you're describing is to "Fischer Price" the Mission ... such that you can't blow things up out of sequence. Anything else would be insufficiently Fool Resistant to prevent the stupid behavior that you're citing.
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
That way players "might" see you screaming at them to stop being an idiot and they "might" actually listen to advice of God forbid actually participate in strategy discussion beforehand.
Part of problem with pugs is probably because newer players don't know what they're doing and also don't have the chat open to read what the team is saying.
And then you've always got players who will just outright ignore the team or are out to grief you anyway, but you can't do anything about those fools.
I have tried that mission exactly once. We zoned in, I started reading the briefing, and, before I had gotten halfway through it, the "YOU LOSE" stuff popped up. Someone had run ahead as fast as they could and started pressing buttons, angering the wrong NPC.
Users don't read.
DPS leagues solve nothing either, it becomes less about having fun with the game and more about exploiting any advantage one can have for an epeen contest. the fun is in the challenge with a group of people and learning to overcome an enemy without the dps numbers, but again coming back to a lack of respect, no one seems to have time for each other in these queues and no one has any patience for the game.
its a very basic fact at this point, its become poison on the queue system and coming back to the bag of crud, that poson has lead to every other player to avoid the pug queues because it would be like catching a plague. does no one high up give a damn about the quality of this game any more? are they so focused on thier own world they have neglected what the original purpose of this game is about, to have some fun? why do people have to be so self fish when you ask them to challenge themselves and they decide to think it is better to play ignorant?
there are so many things wrong here and how it ties to the queue system. this queue system needs to be done away with completely frankly.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
You are thinking of Undine Infiltration, the ground map with its stupid one wrong answer to one of the 10 questions and the entire team fails rather than just punish the player that got the answer wrong. Undine Assault is a space map and cannot really be failed aside from the timer running out.
And all the tutorials in the world won't help when players ignore them just like the often ignore teamchat. It's either a smooth run in a private team or public queue and hoping you won't get a team full of wannabe Captain Kirks that really are just a bunch of redshirts. And with more and more experienced players playing in privates these days, public queue not only became less frequent but also even more of a pita.
I play queues in STO almost exclusively and I can assure you it is the only long term fun contend in this game for me.
The only problem that peeps have is that team mates one may end up with in a random group don’t meet expectations. And that both way around! The others are either too good or too bad compared to oneself resulting in frustration. Before Delta Rising the gab was small. Now it’s three times as large with expectations that can be disappointed with three times the devastation.
Reading the OP I suspect him to be strong and competed enough to do his part in ISA, however not strong enough to compensate for 4 others resulting in a disappointing run.
This game has enough networking and alternatives for him to play undisturbed and to get better. When the time comes and his required dedication towards STO was enough he can lead matches in advanced pug runs just as easily as I can. And believe me it’s challenging and fun each time! Good players, bad players and me in the middle of it. I basically love it.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I point to the Voth Battle zone in this case. Clear instruction given on what to do the 1st time you enter. Console to replay the instructions. When the V-Rex pops, Instructions given, Stop the VOTH ENGINEERS from stealing the Omega Particles. Voice and Text warnings if in that Zone that levels are low. A tool bar that indicates Silo Levels. Yet you still get the IDIOTS whether it be one guy soloing or several guys, ignoring the ENGINEERS shooting a full Health V-REX they have no chance of killing before the Omega Silo is drained and allowing the zone to fail.
Crystal Entity another example. The mission objective usually under the mini map. KILL 1 CE IN 5 MINS. Optional 1 and 2 don't lose more than 30% of your ships. warnings given to stop shooting the CE as its charging up for a AP BLAST (Tankable with certain abilities). People still get wiped out. And the most annoying thing of all is when half the map decide to not shoot the CE and engage Tholians. WHY ? no where in the mission is this required.
Khitomer Space. Again mission objective DO NOT LET ANY PROBES THROUGH THE PORTAL. Yet you still get IDIOTS who can't handle in Normal Mode soloing a Transformer take on the one closest to the Portal and ignoring the Probes, biting off more than they can chew.
Gates of Gre'thor. Mission Objective 1. Defend the shipyard and star base. So there are 5 mobs. 2 attacking the shipyard and star base the other 3 split between 2 in the asteroid belt and 1 in between the SB and SY. Yet IDIOTS race straight to the asteroid belt to attack those ships who are not attacking the SB or SY
My point is bad players are always going to be bad players regardless of how much information we spoon feed them. There's those that are willing to learn and those that won't. You idea is sound but the examples i gave are probably some of the most direct to do info given in game and people still fail to follow.
Edited Pakled changed to Idiots for MMPS1 as Pakled was to polite a term and an insult to Pakleds everywhere.
They make things go dammit!
That fun is a highly subjective term and in STO'S endgame it takes some effort to be able to have it as far as it relates to queues. There is nothing wrong with the queue system just with the attitude of the player base approaching it.
Also I only picked those parts of your post worth cementing on.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Result: lots of relatively powerful players, who are actually too good to be playing normal but who don't want to risk advanced and who don't want to carry the team there, end up playing normal anyway. Where they vaporise everything in mere seconds, same thing happens in ISN.
Of course no one is getting a chance to learn anything when they see everything being vaporised in mere seconds when they are playing a normal mission. Next thing they do is try advanced so they also get a chance to shoot at something. While not knowing the basics of the mission.
So, to summarise: there is little need for, nor a chance to learn tactics on normal when there is one above average player present. Yet this is where people are supposed to be learning about tactics.
Normal missions are a walk in the park with all the powercreep and upgraded mk xiv gear we've got now.
Then you go to advanced and suddenly you need to use tactics and careful piloting and suddenly all these newbies who think they've got it sorted find themselves up to their eyeballs in angry Borg Spheres they can't kill.
Takes some learning to adapt and I do genuinely think that advanced queues are getting better now people are developing tactics to combat the increased HPs and difficulties. Just a matter of time for newbies to learn.
Not everyone will learn or listen, some are a lost cause. But I think most will improve over time, they need some encouragement from us veterans.
We were all noobs at some point too!
Ah man, everybody clicks off those premission briefs.
One similar, very memorable example is the current, Mirror Invasion. There's something like a 30 second timer before the mission starts. You can see buttons to view the brief and instructions of what to do. Very clear as a matter of fact. Yet if you PUG that sucker, most people don't know how to do it. And this isn't something that just happens with the first few days as people try to get a feel of the mission. This happens throughout the Mirror Event and it's always most people STILL not knowing what to do.
indeed, and i have yet to play on a day that your points didn't happen.. at least a few times, during my runs. but i do try, and i am slowly getting better! sorry
even having a queue lobby may help.. if folks are being unresponsive you can bail before the run starts.. probably not totally fallible, but better than the setup we have currently. would kind of take it from being a straight pug to being a pug'd private.
It's why the only piece of gear that matters in this game is a pilot who knows what they are doing; have that, and there is almost nothing that actually requires beyond the ships and gear you acquired while levelling/mission reward - only some Elite content does.
Don't have it? You meet people like them...
This should be compulsory reading... It may be over a decade and a half old, but the quality hasn't changed.
Issue with briefings an such things is that if you can skip it, even after the first time you see it, than you make it optional an players will bypass it. I would say that It is less a need of briefings in the state of the game telling you things in a movie or voice over, and more of you getting mission update voiceovers for what you need to do at each point as you complete things. Like a voice-over telling you that a group of regen spheres are coming out of the main gate an need to be headed off (seen people just not notice a generator go down till it was too late.).
Like they did with Bug Hunt Elite? People started crying that they had to heal or otherwise prevent a NPC's death and thus do more than 'pew pew' only a few hours after they made the change. Even this week someone was still complaining about this. As if it's unreasonable to expect a certain performance in Elite missions that goes beyond 'select enemy, press spacebar' (or 1 and 2 in ground missions).
It would be a welcome change indeed, but given the example of Bug Hunt Elite and, more generally, how little attention is paid to objectives as it is, I doubt it would be a success.
Also if the devs want to have a certain amount of time spent in these stfs, than instead of over-buffing the hp or resistance of the mobs, make them more in-depth in what you need to do, more ways of accomplishing it, but also more interesting mechanics for the mobs that make them more difficult without just buffing number. Say like making the borg actually gain stacking resistance buffs to damage types that are used on them frequently, making their weapons more effective on a target they have hit with their attacks enough, if you add in that some fo the less used abilities in the careers can be used to counter these bonuses than you make the content more interesting without pushing up the barrier to entry by buffing the enemies hp/shields.
I agree escort missions are a pain in the rear. Though I would love it if we could give orders to the ship/people we are escorting, like taking cover, where to go, and such would make escort missions more interesting an fun.
Granted, Lt. Vanderveer doesn't seem to be the smartest Starfleet officer. Nothing a few medical tricorders or nanite health monitors can't fix though. The need to heal him, I mean
And of course the operative in Brotherhood of the Sword had some issues, but that one doesn't seem to be a problem anymore. I don't think it's the AI, it's probably the players who have to focus their attention on something else than the enemy. Cause even with one dedicated healer it's easily doable. And 5 tacs may still be able to kill the spawnmother before the lieutenant dies, not sure about that though.