A starting point would honestly be to ignore the "its to hard" whiners and throw back in the failure conditions for the Advanced Queues, and not have them as just mere "optionals"
I have to disagree here. Advanced is where the majority of PUG runs exist these days. And it was way too easy to troll people by purposefully failing the mission. Before they changed it to optionals in Advanced, I ran a PUG Infected where some piece of Shtako cracked a joke about looking for his spec point. We were doing the usual tactic of going left to work on that transformer, he went right, cracked another joke about his spec point being in a generator, popped it, and said that it wasn't there and didn't do anything to help us out AT ALL. We ended up in scramble mode to try and salvage the mission, but failed and ended up with nothing for our trouble all because of one jerk who wanted to TRIBBLE with players.
As it is we still have trolling problems in Infected Ground with people activating a forcefield before the team can get through and "holding them for ransom". So no. Leave the fail conditions in Elite and frickin' MAKE Elite level Borg STFs.
But as has already been noted, if we're discussing the ISA NPCs/Boss then yes, this is true.
However, if we're talking about the NPCs in 'Counterpoint' - no so much. As already noted, they do use abilites - heck, the NPC Vesta's use some of the player Vesta abilities and they're pretty darn nasty too. And GtG's Heralds are pretty nasty too.
But no-one wants to play challenging content. They want to fly into the middle into a group of Borg Spheres and spam FAW at them. And then wave their epeen about because of their ill acheived uber DPS.
I have to agree with this statement. People are too concerned about their DPS and flaunting their DPS that they look at normal players like second class citizens.
"Oh? You're only doing 9-10k DPS? GTFO mah face loser! You insult me with your presence! I could vape you with my eyes closed."
That's basically the attitude. Go into a PUG with a DPS Chaser, and they see one low DPS ship, they will either protest by not contributing anymore, rant and rave about how the low DPS player fails at life, or just straight up bail on the team. Its poor sportsmanship and shows a lack of maturity. So what if you got a low DPS ship? Give adivce, adapt to the situation... be a frickin' team player! You wanna wave your epeen around? Do it in your DPS clubs. If you're going to PUG, expect to get at least one low DPS ship and roll with it.
And a lot of the newer enemy groups have been more interesting as they use some nasty abilities. Makes for a more interesting fight.
A starting point would honestly be to ignore the "its to hard" whiners and throw back in the failure conditions for the Advanced Queues, and not have them as just mere "optionals"
I have to disagree here. Advanced is where the majority of PUG runs exist these days. And it was way too easy to troll people by purposefully failing the mission. Before they changed it to optionals in Advanced, I ran a PUG Infected where some piece of Shtako cracked a joke about looking for his spec point. We were doing the usual tactic of going left to work on that transformer, he went right, cracked another joke about his spec point being in a generator, popped it, and said that it wasn't there and didn't do anything to help us out AT ALL. We ended up in scramble mode to try and salvage the mission, but failed and ended up with nothing for our trouble all because of one jerk who wanted to TRIBBLE with players.
As it is we still have trolling problems in Infected Ground with people activating a forcefield before the team can get through and "holding them for ransom". So no. Leave the fail conditions in Elite and frickin' MAKE Elite level Borg STFs.
But as has already been noted, if we're discussing the ISA NPCs/Boss then yes, this is true.
However, if we're talking about the NPCs in 'Counterpoint' - no so much. As already noted, they do use abilites - heck, the NPC Vesta's use some of the player Vesta abilities and they're pretty darn nasty too. And GtG's Heralds are pretty nasty too.
But no-one wants to play challenging content. They want to fly into the middle into a group of Borg Spheres and spam FAW at them. And then wave their epeen about because of their ill acheived uber DPS.
I have to agree with this statement. People are too concerned about their DPS and flaunting their DPS that they look at normal players like second class citizens.
"Oh? You're only doing 9-10k DPS? GTFO mah face loser! You insult me with your presence! I could vape you with my eyes closed."
That's basically the attitude. Go into a PUG with a DPS Chaser, and they see one low DPS ship, they will either protest by not contributing anymore, rant and rave about how the low DPS player fails at life, or just straight up bail on the team. Its poor sportsmanship and shows a lack of maturity. So what if you got a low DPS ship? Give adivce, adapt to the situation... be a frickin' team player! You wanna wave your epeen around? Do it in your DPS clubs. If you're going to PUG, expect to get at least one low DPS ship and roll with it.
And a lot of the newer enemy groups have been more interesting as they use some nasty abilities. Makes for a more interesting fight.
Your problem is summed up with 1 acronym: "PUG"
Just because PUG's suck TRIBBLE does not mean everyone else should suffer for it. Nix the Advanced and Elite queues from the listing and make them available exclusively through pre-made private instances, you know, like the vast majority of MMORPG's already do.
Problem Solved.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
I have to agree with this statement. People are too concerned about their DPS and flaunting their DPS that they look at normal players like second class citizens.
"Oh? You're only doing 9-10k DPS? GTFO mah face loser! You insult me with your presence! I could vape you with my eyes closed."
That's basically the attitude. Go into a PUG with a DPS Chaser, and they see one low DPS ship, they will either protest by not contributing anymore, rant and rave about how the low DPS player fails at life, or just straight up bail on the team. Its poor sportsmanship and shows a lack of maturity.
Or they'll leave the match as soon as they die once. Have seen that happening at least three times in the last couple of days. Each time it was a Scimitar, and of course it was FAW'ing everything, not holding back for a second to heal between fights and just keep flying to the next enemy even when they're below 25% hull.
I don't even support them anymore, no matter how important they may be to the team with their DPS. I'm happy to see them leave.
Isn't the problem that the bosses ARE like players? The completely novice and incompetent players that is. Only thing the bosses have going for them is a bag of hitpoints.
I've got to agree with you on this one. I remember when Armek's orbital strikes used to one shot players, now they provide little more than a fancy light show. The only boss that takes a modicum of work to beat is Tosk. Even if the Tr-116B was removed form the game, Rebecca Simmons would still get killed in mere seconds because of the the Concussive Tachyon emission.
...people RAGE. It happened, Borg used more abilities at one point and it might have happened you needed to "chase" a Borg sphere around infected...
Got to agree here as well. Look at the rantings and ravings over the imposed optional objectives in Advanced missions. Especially when people were expecting to be carried through the missions. And still a lot of people still get carried through them even now. Need further proof look at the complaints due the reworking of the Tachyon beam. Although it was a simple problem that was solved pretty much from day 1, all it requires is people to keep their eyes open.
One thing I'm surprised that Cryptic haven't added to space combat with the Borg is the adaption to space based weapons. Similar to what they have/had with ground energy weapons.
Isn't the problem that the bosses ARE like players? The completely novice and incompetent players that is. Only thing the bosses have going for them is a bag of hitpoints.
I've got to agree with you on this one. I remember when Armek's orbital strikes used to one shot players, now they provide little more than a fancy light show. The only boss that takes a modicum of work to beat is Tosk. Even if the Tr-116B was removed form the game, Rebecca Simmons would still get killed in mere seconds because of the the Concussive Tachyon emission.
...people RAGE. It happened, Borg used more abilities at one point and it might have happened you needed to "chase" a Borg sphere around infected...
Got to agree here as well. Look at the rantings and ravings over the imposed optional objectives in Advanced missions. Especially when people were expecting to be carried through the missions. And still a lot of people still get carried through them even now. Need further proof look at the complaints due the reworking of the Tachyon beam. Although it was a simple problem that was solved pretty much from day 1, all it requires is people to keep their eyes open.
One thing I'm surprised that Cryptic haven't added to space combat with the Borg is the adaption to space based weapons. Similar to what they have/had with ground energy weapons.
I was one of the persons who complained about the Tachyon beam. Not because the Borg got a powerful ability, but because it rendered entire set bonuses and an entire skill from the skill tree obsolete. Tachyon beam is, imo, actually a bad example cause it is literally so powerful that it completely broke the mechanic, available both from set gear, bonuses and skills, that is supposed to counter it.
Just finished a KAGA... three people with TR rifles. To me, that weapon is the equivalent of space's B:FAW: select target, press 1 and 2. They killed everything with great ease, but when we got at the nodes the three of them, 1 engineer even, couldn't kill a node while I could easily destroy one on my own with mines. It proves to me that some people just get one weapon, and don't even think about the rest anymore.
I seriously wish it were removed or at least fixed, this weapon has trivialised ground combat more than anything else.
And indeed, concussive tachyon emission needs to be looked at too. Two people using it, means that you don't even have to worry about the crewmen in IGA anymore, for example.
These two things, and to a lesser extent the Zefram shotgun, have completely dumbed down ground combat. One weapon, and one ability at the right moment = guaranteed success.
Your problem is summed up with 1 acronym: "PUG"
Just because PUG's suck TRIBBLE does not mean everyone else should suffer for it. Nix the Advanced and Elite queues from the listing and make them available exclusively through pre-made private instances, you know, like the vast majority of MMORPG's already do.
Problem Solved.
No. Problem NOT solved. That's just punishing people. A PUG can be a challenge all its own as you don't know what kind of setup the rest of the team will have. Denying players, like myself who's pretty decent in Advanced STF PUG runs, doesn't fix anything. It punishes us for not running a premade.
Your problem is summed up with 1 acronym: "PUG"
Just because PUG's suck TRIBBLE does not mean everyone else should suffer for it. Nix the Advanced and Elite queues from the listing and make them available exclusively through pre-made private instances, you know, like the vast majority of MMORPG's already do.
Problem Solved.
No. Problem NOT solved. That's just punishing people. A PUG can be a challenge all its own as you don't know what kind of setup the rest of the team will have. Denying players, like myself who's pretty decent in Advanced STF PUG runs, doesn't fix anything. It punishes us for not running a premade.
Except it does allow Cryptic to greatly raise the bar on difficulties and add back and keep actual failure conditions without the risk of rampant sabotage by queue trolls.
Also chat channels and sub-communities still allow for an element of PUG'ness when putting out the call while being a source of relatively reliably players that aren't out to sabotage and are also willing to play as a team.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
But no-one wants to play challenging content. They want to fly into the middle into a group of Borg Spheres and spam FAW at them. And then wave their epeen about because of their ill acheived uber DPS.
This isn't entirely true. Nobody wants to play challenging content because you don't really get rewarded for playing challenging content. Back in the day, IGE was widely regarded as the hardest of the hard, particularly when it came to getting the optional. Did this stop anyone from playing it? No...it still popped easily. Why? Because whether or not you thought it was hard, it gave you a thing that you specifically needed, a challenge you couldn't simply dodge if you wanted the Shield and the Achievement with Costume Unlock.
Today, everything is Mark Farming. You farm a bunch of marks, and then you have to fork over minerals to BUY your "reward", and it's not really a reward anyone when it's just a filthy store purchase. You don't earn it. There's no reason to play A over B if I can get more for playing B then A, and B isn't a even an STF, so I don't have to worry about being banned from playing every time I make an attempt, succeed or fail.
I think I agree here.
What gets me confused is why peeps keep on bringing ISA or the other Borg Advanced STF as reference in the first place. The hive missions on elite do offer challenging contend both in space and on ground and that with an interesting boss fight involved.
It’s not as if we would not have challenging stuff around you know. The wide majority just seems to reject it (as you pointed out in favor of mark and currency needs) and keeps complaining that advanced contend is too easy.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
There's a hint of PvP in this request. Try challenging some players. Don't take any losses personally and then engage the players in substantive conversation about their builds. What works, what doesn't, etc. Lots of active players out there who've built some fancy ships and have a lot of knowledge.
No thanks, I have no interest in playing against all the tryhard premades using untankable vape builds.
Isn't the problem that the bosses ARE like players? The completely novice and incompetent players that is. Only thing the bosses have going for them is a bag of hitpoints.
Real bosses in a MMORPG video game from cryptic/pwi. With real loot drops from enemys and boss rewards. Have you lost your mind. Cryptic would never allow it. Next thing you'll be saying is we should have raids in this game or worse real pvp.
This playerbase on average cannot handle the idea of this happening in PVE: NPCs negating, countering, mitigating the player's actions.
If NPCs constantly cycled Tactical Team, you can kiss your precious APB goodbye.
If NPCs popped a hi-powered Feedback Pulse when they get hit hard by energy damage, that would be interesting.
If NPCs constantly cycled Emergency Power to Shields, cycled Tactical Team, ran Polarize Hull underneath, the target becomes very hard and have decent up time in said abilities. There will be gaps in coverage or someone has to... *SHOCK* strip the buffs away for the team!!!! Dun-Dun-DUNNNNNnnnn
It would be interesting if players did more things like using GW on player groups, buffed by "Psychological Warfare" trait and the DOFF to randomly shutdown Engine Power every second while GW is up. Players caught in GW/CC traps will get slammed by more attacks.
More NPCs did TBR, to include the DOFFed "pull" version.
More NPCs did repair abilities for their hull & shields.
It would be funny if NPCs used Tractor Beam on a player target, then immediately follow up with APO3+BO3+HYT3, and finish you off with TBR.
Real bosses in a MMORPG video game from cryptic/pwi. With real loot drops from enemys and boss rewards. Have you lost your mind. Cryptic would never allow it. Next thing you'll be saying is we should have raids in this game or worse real pvp.
Miracles have happened. I haven't seen one in a while, be nice to see one again soon.
Retired. I'm now in search for that perfect space anomaly.
This playerbase on average cannot handle the idea of this happening in PVE: NPCs negating, countering, mitigating the player's actions.
If NPCs constantly cycled Tactical Team, you can kiss your precious APB goodbye.
If NPCs popped a hi-powered Feedback Pulse when they get hit hard by energy damage, that would be interesting.
If NPCs constantly cycled Emergency Power to Shields, cycled Tactical Team, ran Polarize Hull underneath, the target becomes very hard and have decent up time in said abilities. There will be gaps in coverage or someone has to... *SHOCK* strip the buffs away for the team!!!! Dun-Dun-DUNNNNNnnnn
It would be interesting if players did more things like using GW on player groups, buffed by "Psychological Warfare" trait and the DOFF to randomly shutdown Engine Power every second while GW is up. Players caught in GW/CC traps will get slammed by more attacks.
More NPCs did TBR, to include the DOFFed "pull" version.
More NPCs did repair abilities for their hull & shields.
It would be funny if NPCs used Tractor Beam on a player target, then immediately follow up with APO3+BO3+HYT3, and finish you off with TBR.
Etc, etc, etc.
Sounds good. But only if they'd reduce the amount of hit points these NPC's have. Since you'd have to slot other powers to counter them and thus possibly remove some tactical abilities.
Would be nice to see NPC's that are more than hit point sacks.
And it'd be nice if our abilities had some effect too of course. Last time the Borg got an ability -tachyon beam -, it completely broke the counter - power insulators - for it.
More balanced powers for NPC's, that require players to use more different powers as well and be aware of what's happening would be nice.
This playerbase on average cannot handle the idea of this happening in PVE: NPCs negating, countering, mitigating the player's actions.
If NPCs constantly cycled Tactical Team, you can kiss your precious APB goodbye.
If NPCs popped a hi-powered Feedback Pulse when they get hit hard by energy damage, that would be interesting.
If NPCs constantly cycled Emergency Power to Shields, cycled Tactical Team, ran Polarize Hull underneath, the target becomes very hard and have decent up time in said abilities. There will be gaps in coverage or someone has to... *SHOCK* strip the buffs away for the team!!!! Dun-Dun-DUNNNNNnnnn
It would be interesting if players did more things like using GW on player groups, buffed by "Psychological Warfare" trait and the DOFF to randomly shutdown Engine Power every second while GW is up. Players caught in GW/CC traps will get slammed by more attacks.
More NPCs did TBR, to include the DOFFed "pull" version.
More NPCs did repair abilities for their hull & shields.
It would be funny if NPCs used Tractor Beam on a player target, then immediately follow up with APO3+BO3+HYT3, and finish you off with TBR.
Etc, etc, etc.
Sounds good. But only if they'd reduce the amount of hit points these NPC's have. Since you'd have to slot other powers to counter them and thus possibly remove some tactical abilities.
Would be nice to see NPC's that are more than hit point sacks.
And it'd be nice if our abilities had some effect too of course. Last time the Borg got an ability -tachyon beam -, it completely broke the counter - power insulators - for it.
More balanced powers for NPC's, that require players to use more different powers as well and be aware of what's happening would be nice.
I have no problem if NPCs got fewer HP if in compensation, they ran ability routines, sequences.
You see, for me, before Delta Rising came out, a bunch of the playerbase was already sleepwalking through advanced content. Old school Elite was easy. There were calls for harder NPCs and Cryptic said they were going to do that with Delta Rising. It didn't turn out the way I imagined it would.
Then came the Pre-DR-release video of testers doing Battle of Korfez. I keenly watched what the host player was doing and most importantly, what the "new" NPCs were doing. I was disappointed. They were big HP ships but hardly did anything, if at all. Even worse, they still didn't repair collapsed shield facings, they didn't even move to protect said facings. Players nuke a shield facing and the NPCs just slowly fly along, fat dumb, and happy, while the players pummel that facing and bare hull.
There are a lot of abilities in this game already that if used properly can severely impact player performance adversely. The hard trick I guess is getting AI to use said abilities, especially in the right time.
It happened, Borg used more abilities at one point and it might have happened you needed to "chase" a Borg sphere around infected, thus thwarting your dps numbers.
Those people are just completely unwilling to adapt. Did you know that they don't actually use their abilities until the Transformer has been destroyed, meaning if you just flew up to them and attacked them, you could blow them to bits as they plodded slowly towards the transformer before they thought to run?
I, like @alexraptorr , think STFs were best when you had to actually play them for the rewards. But people were sobbing and screaming how "unfair" it is to de dependant on random drops in a hack & slay MMO... Now everything's just window shopping and pay up. Yawn.
It also strongly decreases my motivation to bother. In the old days, I'd play a thing just to have that thing, even if I didn't actually have any clear sense of what I'd actually USE it for. I mean, I got to pewpew, and I got a prize for it. Now? Meeeeh. As far as I'm concerned, the ability to have it is good enough. Given that it's just a filthy store purchase, I see no need to actually formalize possession of the item. That would be expensive and cost me money. Especially since the storebought item is still useless until I upgrade it, which can only be performed after an eclipse by the light of the full moon, or whatever logic is used for determining when I'm next allowed to upgrade it to endgame tier.
Trouble is...those unwilling to adapt are the majority...look at when DR rolled out...it's not like the npcs were very much harder...they just did more damage and had a high amount of health...people whined and cried...and got those numbers nerfed. Simply because there was no such thing anymore of one person with decent dps carrying a whole team through elites.
Being in a group where one person didn't break 2k dps and another didn't break 4k...among other things...people just want to be carried...people don't want to try...they just flat out don't...cry like a 2 year old who doesn't get what they want when something isn't handed to them on a silver platter.
People in this game only care about their big numbers and about how easy and quick something can be done...one of multiple reasons why the game is in such bad shape...this game just has one of the laziest, whiniest, and most self entitled community I have ever seen in any game I've played.
While not quite what's being discussed here, picture this scenario: a group is running Vault Ensnared, and they've gotten to part 3... and notice that the named Tarantula (the one whose destruction is an optional objective) has some mix of Orb Weavers and Recluses as bodyguards. While this would be surprising in and of itself, what would definitely grab attention is the fact of these ships behaving totally unlike the others!
What's going on here? Those ships are being controlled by other players - an adaptation of Age of Wushu's 'Assassin' mechanic (official article; wiki entry). Completely Justifiable in-universe by having these versions of the STF explained as holodeck exercises (and distinct from their 'vanilla' siblings). Note that the 'bodyguard' players in these queues are getting to operate preconfigured stock ships (much as we've seen in a couple of storyline missions).
To sum up the specific scenario above: the 'bodyguards' win if the named Tarantula escapes, but do not remain in the AO once it does (or is destroyed).
Except it does allow Cryptic to greatly raise the bar on difficulties and add back and keep actual failure conditions without the risk of rampant sabotage by queue trolls.
Also chat channels and sub-communities still allow for an element of PUG'ness when putting out the call while being a source of relatively reliably players that aren't out to sabotage and are also willing to play as a team.
It still punishes people who don't join those chat channels for private queues.
I'd rather see them actually make the Elite Borg STFs again first before bashing a majority of players. Also... a couple times I was in a premade group with a friend... he kept getting people from the DPS club that didn't like my 10k. One of which actually bailed because we weren't up to HIS standards. Premades can be just as much a mixed bag as a PUG as you might get an elitest who sees you "underperforming" and decides to punish you by not participating or yelling at you in chat.
Trouble is...those unwilling to adapt are the majority...look at when DR rolled out...it's not like the npcs were very much harder...they just did more damage and had a high amount of health...people whined and cried...and got those numbers nerfed. Simply because there was no such thing anymore of one person with decent dps carrying a whole team through elites.
Being in a group where one person didn't break 2k dps and another didn't break 4k...among other things...people just want to be carried...people don't want to try...they just flat out don't...cry like a 2 year old who doesn't get what they want when something isn't handed to them on a silver platter.
People in this game only care about their big numbers and about how easy and quick something can be done...one of multiple reasons why the game is in such bad shape...this game just has one of the laziest, whiniest, and most self entitled community I have ever seen in any game I've played.
I enjoyed the content, but sitting there fighting a Vaadwaur Astika for an hour on normal with what used to be top of the line STF gear before DR hit? HP Sponge does not make for harder NPC.
Also I don't want to be carried. I work to improve without submitting to cookie cutter builds that don't fit my playstyle. I don't run Aux2Batt or cherry picked mod AP builds. I use what I get and roll with it. I may not be 50k+, or even 20k+, but I can still support the team. THAT is what matters to me. Being able to take part and support my teammates. The ONLY time I see my DPS is when someone else does a parse.
While I agree that the community can be a little immature at times... not everyone is like that. I actually enjoy a good duel.
Except it does allow Cryptic to greatly raise the bar on difficulties and add back and keep actual failure conditions without the risk of rampant sabotage by queue trolls.
Also chat channels and sub-communities still allow for an element of PUG'ness when putting out the call while being a source of relatively reliably players that aren't out to sabotage and are also willing to play as a team.
It still punishes people who don't join those chat channels for private queues.
I'd rather see them actually make the Elite Borg STFs again first before bashing a majority of players. Also... a couple times I was in a premade group with a friend... he kept getting people from the DPS club that didn't like my 10k. One of which actually bailed because we weren't up to HIS standards. Premades can be just as much a mixed bag as a PUG as you might get an elitest who sees you "underperforming" and decides to punish you by not participating or yelling at you in chat.
Trouble is...those unwilling to adapt are the majority...look at when DR rolled out...it's not like the npcs were very much harder...they just did more damage and had a high amount of health...people whined and cried...and got those numbers nerfed. Simply because there was no such thing anymore of one person with decent dps carrying a whole team through elites.
Being in a group where one person didn't break 2k dps and another didn't break 4k...among other things...people just want to be carried...people don't want to try...they just flat out don't...cry like a 2 year old who doesn't get what they want when something isn't handed to them on a silver platter.
People in this game only care about their big numbers and about how easy and quick something can be done...one of multiple reasons why the game is in such bad shape...this game just has one of the laziest, whiniest, and most self entitled community I have ever seen in any game I've played.
I enjoyed the content, but sitting there fighting a Vaadwaur Astika for an hour on normal with what used to be top of the line STF gear before DR hit? HP Sponge does not make for harder NPC.
Also I don't want to be carried. I work to improve without submitting to cookie cutter builds that don't fit my playstyle. I don't run Aux2Batt or cherry picked mod AP builds. I use what I get and roll with it. I may not be 50k+, or even 20k+, but I can still support the team. THAT is what matters to me. Being able to take part and support my teammates. The ONLY time I see my DPS is when someone else does a parse.
While I agree that the community can be a little immature at times... not everyone is like that. I actually enjoy a good duel.
I don't go the big numbers route either but I sure can break 2k dps...I can break 20k...I play what is fun but I also play it logically...it isn't hard to play fun but still pull into 5 digits easy enough...but a lot of people don't even care about that as long as they get their easy, carried rewards.
Not saying everyone is like that, but a lot of people are. Just look at the toxicity when they release a new ship that isn't the top of its line, they flat out say it sucks. Look at how bad people complain when the devs finally fix a broken power or item...the whine like hell like it was some crime, how dare the devs fix their broken crutch they needed to bigger numbers.
No, not everyone is like this...but a lot of people are.
That is true. I look at the rage over something that just had its stats announced and they bash it. SO WHAT! Its a ship. You don't like it? Don't get it. Others will. Get over it. It wasn't made for YOU SPECIFICALLY.
Me personally... I'm happy to be flying anything I get. Its always fun making a new ship work. Especially when your main was pretty much a Cruiser Captain and you expand into Science and Escort playstyles.
I WOULD LOVE A RAID STYLE STF 20-man Queued event that had massive rewards and difficulty. Like a Borg Dodecahedron(not sure if that's spelled right but a 20 sided ship) Transwarp Station that we have to take out like in breach but after we disable and.destroy it a borg cube a pears and melds with the debris making a Borg Fusion Cube 10Xs the size of a Tactical cube with something like 8 Million Hull points and a 2 million shield (500k each facing) and monstrous weapons and torps that require tactics like decoys (warp Shadows) and actual aggro tanks to take the hits while everyone saves immunity skills to stay alive when those measures fail.
I don't think we'll see fusion cubes. Frankly I wouldn't mind a boss fight like at the end of Korfez. I can see something like Wolf 359 as a "training simulation" for fleet integration between the Federation, Republic, and Empire. 20 man cross faction queue against a massive cube. Or maybe an extragalactic planet killer of original design, and a fleet has to intercept it. Again 20 man.
The biggest issue is not making them though! It's that Cryptic doesn't know how to give it's players an incentive. Say they make a Raid style Queue. They would reward us with a 20 man 30-45 min raid with something like 1500 dil and 4000 specialization exp and some.marks. that would make nobody play it more than 1 time. Now if the rewards are say 5000 dil 10,000 specialization exp 400 marks and a chance to get UR or Epic gear then people would play it all day CAUSE IT'S WORTH IT!
The biggest issue is not making them though! It's that Cryptic doesn't know how to give it's players an incentive. Say they make a Raid style Queue. They would reward us with a 20 man 30-45 min raid with something like 1500 dil and 4000 specialization exp and some.marks. that would make nobody play it more than 1 time. Now if the rewards are say 5000 dil 10,000 specialization exp 400 marks and a chance to get UR or Epic gear then people would play it all day CAUSE IT'S WORTH IT!
That's not really true, Cryptic knows EXACTLY how to give players an incentive. They proved this when they first reworked the STF's and actually made you truly earn your rewards, and they were very very desirable.
The problem is that Cryptic have this bad habit of knuckling under to whiners who can't accept the concept that not every single piece of content has to be about them. So they dumb it down to cater to the masses and remove any kind of unique rewards that might make the self-entitled whiners feel "excluded" because they aren't willing to put in the effort.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
I just completed Hive ground advanced, and this got me thinking:
I generally find this one of the more challenging ground borg missions - and, generally speaking, I find ground combat much more dynamic and interesting compared to space combat -. You have to constantly move, and you need to have hypos or other abilities that break holds or you'll simply die when the Queen attacks you and the lasers or floor hit you at the same time.
Perhaps another way of making space combat more challenging, is by using the environment more and randomise things a bit. Ground missions already do this. Bug hunt requires you to move (unless you're a really good tank). Brotherhood o/t sword is not entirely predictable. Assault on Terok Nor requires coordination - simply being powerful won't be enough.
Changing the enemies themselves in ISA - for example, by giving them more abilities - is one way to make it more interesting and FAW less attractive or less of an 'I win'-button, randomising the mission itself and spreading enemies over the map would be another. Maybe add a small target, like an assimilated and further inactive ship that should not be destroyed or there will be no rewards given to whoever destroys it. Give it low hit points, so that activating FAW or torp spread near it will surely fail the mission for that player.
Force people to check their fire and add some need to be aware of your environment/team. That's what needs to be done imo. Ground missions already have these things, plus they have other objectives that go beyond 'lock weapons and press spacebar'. There's plenty of examples in these missions that make team work necessary in most instances.
It doesn't necessarily make the bosses themselves more interesting, but it would force players to be a bit more careful, and to be able to do other things than just activating one ability with no further need to think about anything else.
Comments
I have to disagree here. Advanced is where the majority of PUG runs exist these days. And it was way too easy to troll people by purposefully failing the mission. Before they changed it to optionals in Advanced, I ran a PUG Infected where some piece of Shtako cracked a joke about looking for his spec point. We were doing the usual tactic of going left to work on that transformer, he went right, cracked another joke about his spec point being in a generator, popped it, and said that it wasn't there and didn't do anything to help us out AT ALL. We ended up in scramble mode to try and salvage the mission, but failed and ended up with nothing for our trouble all because of one jerk who wanted to TRIBBLE with players.
As it is we still have trolling problems in Infected Ground with people activating a forcefield before the team can get through and "holding them for ransom". So no. Leave the fail conditions in Elite and frickin' MAKE Elite level Borg STFs.
I have to agree with this statement. People are too concerned about their DPS and flaunting their DPS that they look at normal players like second class citizens.
"Oh? You're only doing 9-10k DPS? GTFO mah face loser! You insult me with your presence! I could vape you with my eyes closed."
That's basically the attitude. Go into a PUG with a DPS Chaser, and they see one low DPS ship, they will either protest by not contributing anymore, rant and rave about how the low DPS player fails at life, or just straight up bail on the team. Its poor sportsmanship and shows a lack of maturity. So what if you got a low DPS ship? Give adivce, adapt to the situation... be a frickin' team player! You wanna wave your epeen around? Do it in your DPS clubs. If you're going to PUG, expect to get at least one low DPS ship and roll with it.
And a lot of the newer enemy groups have been more interesting as they use some nasty abilities. Makes for a more interesting fight.
Her Belly Worm gets the +1 Beard, Rat'.
She's unjoined. Argument is Invalid.
Or her Mirror Duplicate is just cooler than her base self. She totally killed another Trill and stole their Belly Worm for its Awesome Beard Powers.
Your problem is summed up with 1 acronym: "PUG"
Just because PUG's suck TRIBBLE does not mean everyone else should suffer for it. Nix the Advanced and Elite queues from the listing and make them available exclusively through pre-made private instances, you know, like the vast majority of MMORPG's already do.
Problem Solved.
Or they'll leave the match as soon as they die once. Have seen that happening at least three times in the last couple of days. Each time it was a Scimitar, and of course it was FAW'ing everything, not holding back for a second to heal between fights and just keep flying to the next enemy even when they're below 25% hull.
I don't even support them anymore, no matter how important they may be to the team with their DPS. I'm happy to see them leave.
I've got to agree with you on this one. I remember when Armek's orbital strikes used to one shot players, now they provide little more than a fancy light show. The only boss that takes a modicum of work to beat is Tosk. Even if the Tr-116B was removed form the game, Rebecca Simmons would still get killed in mere seconds because of the the Concussive Tachyon emission.
Got to agree here as well. Look at the rantings and ravings over the imposed optional objectives in Advanced missions. Especially when people were expecting to be carried through the missions. And still a lot of people still get carried through them even now. Need further proof look at the complaints due the reworking of the Tachyon beam. Although it was a simple problem that was solved pretty much from day 1, all it requires is people to keep their eyes open.
One thing I'm surprised that Cryptic haven't added to space combat with the Borg is the adaption to space based weapons. Similar to what they have/had with ground energy weapons.
I was one of the persons who complained about the Tachyon beam. Not because the Borg got a powerful ability, but because it rendered entire set bonuses and an entire skill from the skill tree obsolete. Tachyon beam is, imo, actually a bad example cause it is literally so powerful that it completely broke the mechanic, available both from set gear, bonuses and skills, that is supposed to counter it.
Just finished a KAGA... three people with TR rifles. To me, that weapon is the equivalent of space's B:FAW: select target, press 1 and 2. They killed everything with great ease, but when we got at the nodes the three of them, 1 engineer even, couldn't kill a node while I could easily destroy one on my own with mines. It proves to me that some people just get one weapon, and don't even think about the rest anymore.
I seriously wish it were removed or at least fixed, this weapon has trivialised ground combat more than anything else.
And indeed, concussive tachyon emission needs to be looked at too. Two people using it, means that you don't even have to worry about the crewmen in IGA anymore, for example.
These two things, and to a lesser extent the Zefram shotgun, have completely dumbed down ground combat. One weapon, and one ability at the right moment = guaranteed success.
No. Problem NOT solved. That's just punishing people. A PUG can be a challenge all its own as you don't know what kind of setup the rest of the team will have. Denying players, like myself who's pretty decent in Advanced STF PUG runs, doesn't fix anything. It punishes us for not running a premade.
Except it does allow Cryptic to greatly raise the bar on difficulties and add back and keep actual failure conditions without the risk of rampant sabotage by queue trolls.
Also chat channels and sub-communities still allow for an element of PUG'ness when putting out the call while being a source of relatively reliably players that aren't out to sabotage and are also willing to play as a team.
I think I agree here.
What gets me confused is why peeps keep on bringing ISA or the other Borg Advanced STF as reference in the first place. The hive missions on elite do offer challenging contend both in space and on ground and that with an interesting boss fight involved.
It’s not as if we would not have challenging stuff around you know. The wide majority just seems to reject it (as you pointed out in favor of mark and currency needs) and keeps complaining that advanced contend is too easy.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
No thanks, I have no interest in playing against all the tryhard premades using untankable vape builds.
*Raises a toast*
If NPCs constantly cycled Tactical Team, you can kiss your precious APB goodbye.
If NPCs popped a hi-powered Feedback Pulse when they get hit hard by energy damage, that would be interesting.
If NPCs constantly cycled Emergency Power to Shields, cycled Tactical Team, ran Polarize Hull underneath, the target becomes very hard and have decent up time in said abilities. There will be gaps in coverage or someone has to... *SHOCK* strip the buffs away for the team!!!! Dun-Dun-DUNNNNNnnnn
It would be interesting if players did more things like using GW on player groups, buffed by "Psychological Warfare" trait and the DOFF to randomly shutdown Engine Power every second while GW is up. Players caught in GW/CC traps will get slammed by more attacks.
More NPCs did TBR, to include the DOFFed "pull" version.
More NPCs did repair abilities for their hull & shields.
It would be funny if NPCs used Tractor Beam on a player target, then immediately follow up with APO3+BO3+HYT3, and finish you off with TBR.
Etc, etc, etc.
Miracles have happened. I haven't seen one in a while, be nice to see one again soon.
Sounds good. But only if they'd reduce the amount of hit points these NPC's have. Since you'd have to slot other powers to counter them and thus possibly remove some tactical abilities.
Would be nice to see NPC's that are more than hit point sacks.
And it'd be nice if our abilities had some effect too of course. Last time the Borg got an ability -tachyon beam -, it completely broke the counter - power insulators - for it.
More balanced powers for NPC's, that require players to use more different powers as well and be aware of what's happening would be nice.
I have no problem if NPCs got fewer HP if in compensation, they ran ability routines, sequences.
You see, for me, before Delta Rising came out, a bunch of the playerbase was already sleepwalking through advanced content. Old school Elite was easy. There were calls for harder NPCs and Cryptic said they were going to do that with Delta Rising. It didn't turn out the way I imagined it would.
Then came the Pre-DR-release video of testers doing Battle of Korfez. I keenly watched what the host player was doing and most importantly, what the "new" NPCs were doing. I was disappointed. They were big HP ships but hardly did anything, if at all. Even worse, they still didn't repair collapsed shield facings, they didn't even move to protect said facings. Players nuke a shield facing and the NPCs just slowly fly along, fat dumb, and happy, while the players pummel that facing and bare hull.
There are a lot of abilities in this game already that if used properly can severely impact player performance adversely. The hard trick I guess is getting AI to use said abilities, especially in the right time.
Trouble is...those unwilling to adapt are the majority...look at when DR rolled out...it's not like the npcs were very much harder...they just did more damage and had a high amount of health...people whined and cried...and got those numbers nerfed. Simply because there was no such thing anymore of one person with decent dps carrying a whole team through elites.
Being in a group where one person didn't break 2k dps and another didn't break 4k...among other things...people just want to be carried...people don't want to try...they just flat out don't...cry like a 2 year old who doesn't get what they want when something isn't handed to them on a silver platter.
People in this game only care about their big numbers and about how easy and quick something can be done...one of multiple reasons why the game is in such bad shape...this game just has one of the laziest, whiniest, and most self entitled community I have ever seen in any game I've played.
What's going on here? Those ships are being controlled by other players - an adaptation of Age of Wushu's 'Assassin' mechanic (official article; wiki entry). Completely Justifiable in-universe by having these versions of the STF explained as holodeck exercises (and distinct from their 'vanilla' siblings). Note that the 'bodyguard' players in these queues are getting to operate preconfigured stock ships (much as we've seen in a couple of storyline missions).
To sum up the specific scenario above: the 'bodyguards' win if the named Tarantula escapes, but do not remain in the AO once it does (or is destroyed).
It still punishes people who don't join those chat channels for private queues.
I'd rather see them actually make the Elite Borg STFs again first before bashing a majority of players. Also... a couple times I was in a premade group with a friend... he kept getting people from the DPS club that didn't like my 10k. One of which actually bailed because we weren't up to HIS standards. Premades can be just as much a mixed bag as a PUG as you might get an elitest who sees you "underperforming" and decides to punish you by not participating or yelling at you in chat.
I enjoyed the content, but sitting there fighting a Vaadwaur Astika for an hour on normal with what used to be top of the line STF gear before DR hit? HP Sponge does not make for harder NPC.
Also I don't want to be carried. I work to improve without submitting to cookie cutter builds that don't fit my playstyle. I don't run Aux2Batt or cherry picked mod AP builds. I use what I get and roll with it. I may not be 50k+, or even 20k+, but I can still support the team. THAT is what matters to me. Being able to take part and support my teammates. The ONLY time I see my DPS is when someone else does a parse.
While I agree that the community can be a little immature at times... not everyone is like that. I actually enjoy a good duel.
I don't go the big numbers route either but I sure can break 2k dps...I can break 20k...I play what is fun but I also play it logically...it isn't hard to play fun but still pull into 5 digits easy enough...but a lot of people don't even care about that as long as they get their easy, carried rewards.
Not saying everyone is like that, but a lot of people are. Just look at the toxicity when they release a new ship that isn't the top of its line, they flat out say it sucks. Look at how bad people complain when the devs finally fix a broken power or item...the whine like hell like it was some crime, how dare the devs fix their broken crutch they needed to bigger numbers.
No, not everyone is like this...but a lot of people are.
Me personally... I'm happy to be flying anything I get. Its always fun making a new ship work. Especially when your main was pretty much a Cruiser Captain and you expand into Science and Escort playstyles.
Be fun to summit and challenge your fleet mates or friends and say, "try to beat this guy!".
That's not really true, Cryptic knows EXACTLY how to give players an incentive. They proved this when they first reworked the STF's and actually made you truly earn your rewards, and they were very very desirable.
The problem is that Cryptic have this bad habit of knuckling under to whiners who can't accept the concept that not every single piece of content has to be about them. So they dumb it down to cater to the masses and remove any kind of unique rewards that might make the self-entitled whiners feel "excluded" because they aren't willing to put in the effort.
I generally find this one of the more challenging ground borg missions - and, generally speaking, I find ground combat much more dynamic and interesting compared to space combat -. You have to constantly move, and you need to have hypos or other abilities that break holds or you'll simply die when the Queen attacks you and the lasers or floor hit you at the same time.
Perhaps another way of making space combat more challenging, is by using the environment more and randomise things a bit. Ground missions already do this. Bug hunt requires you to move (unless you're a really good tank). Brotherhood o/t sword is not entirely predictable. Assault on Terok Nor requires coordination - simply being powerful won't be enough.
Changing the enemies themselves in ISA - for example, by giving them more abilities - is one way to make it more interesting and FAW less attractive or less of an 'I win'-button, randomising the mission itself and spreading enemies over the map would be another. Maybe add a small target, like an assimilated and further inactive ship that should not be destroyed or there will be no rewards given to whoever destroys it. Give it low hit points, so that activating FAW or torp spread near it will surely fail the mission for that player.
Force people to check their fire and add some need to be aware of your environment/team. That's what needs to be done imo. Ground missions already have these things, plus they have other objectives that go beyond 'lock weapons and press spacebar'. There's plenty of examples in these missions that make team work necessary in most instances.
It doesn't necessarily make the bosses themselves more interesting, but it would force players to be a bit more careful, and to be able to do other things than just activating one ability with no further need to think about anything else.