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Is level-scaling somehow broken?
jaince
Member Posts: 6 Arc User
in The Academy
I'm currently level 51 and just finished the "Borg Advance" episode.
The last mission "Fluid Dynamics" is level 45. My equipment might not be the best there is but it's ok, between Mark X and XII.
Now most fights are ok. But then suddenly I get hit by something and boom. 15000 damage three times in a row, blowing away my shields and burning my hull to ash in a matter of 3 seconds. Mind you, from 90% shield, and 100% Hull to "exploded". In this case it was against that Borg Diamond at the end. I barely could scratch it's shield and hull, but when that thing turned on me, I could literally see my shield and hull melt away.
I can hit all my defensive cooldowns, all my heals, doesn't make a difference.
I'm just not sure if "Die 10 times and just go back and continue shooting it" is the tactic the devs had in mind for that fight.
This happened before on other missions too, but this was the one I just finished. During the Romulan arc, whenever I was caught by those tractor beam mines, the dot that would place on my ship killed the Hull in a few seconds too and completely seemed to ignore the shields, for example. (I was also about 5-10 levels above for those missions but not sure anymore exactly how much)
A friend of mine who's 60 and currently doing the "Cardassian Struggle" arc, is reporting similar things for her too, where ships suddenly output an insane amount of damage.
We suspect that somehow the ships get scaled up, since they're always the same level as us, but that somehow for some ships (or at least some abilities) that just goes way too far.
Has anyone else noticed something like that?
Anything that can be done there, or just "suck it up, respawn, burn another 5% of the hull before you die and repeat" ?
The last mission "Fluid Dynamics" is level 45. My equipment might not be the best there is but it's ok, between Mark X and XII.
Now most fights are ok. But then suddenly I get hit by something and boom. 15000 damage three times in a row, blowing away my shields and burning my hull to ash in a matter of 3 seconds. Mind you, from 90% shield, and 100% Hull to "exploded". In this case it was against that Borg Diamond at the end. I barely could scratch it's shield and hull, but when that thing turned on me, I could literally see my shield and hull melt away.
I can hit all my defensive cooldowns, all my heals, doesn't make a difference.
I'm just not sure if "Die 10 times and just go back and continue shooting it" is the tactic the devs had in mind for that fight.
This happened before on other missions too, but this was the one I just finished. During the Romulan arc, whenever I was caught by those tractor beam mines, the dot that would place on my ship killed the Hull in a few seconds too and completely seemed to ignore the shields, for example. (I was also about 5-10 levels above for those missions but not sure anymore exactly how much)
A friend of mine who's 60 and currently doing the "Cardassian Struggle" arc, is reporting similar things for her too, where ships suddenly output an insane amount of damage.
We suspect that somehow the ships get scaled up, since they're always the same level as us, but that somehow for some ships (or at least some abilities) that just goes way too far.
Has anyone else noticed something like that?
Anything that can be done there, or just "suck it up, respawn, burn another 5% of the hull before you die and repeat" ?
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Usually I put it down to bad luck, i.e. getting caught in a rather effective sequence of the AI buffing/debuffing me plus Crit.
In this specific case of Fluid Dynamics, specifically the Diamond at the end of the mission - that's kind of an uber-boss. You're not supposed to fight it alone. You're supposed to fight it alongside your AI allies.
Unfortunately the mission is quite bugged, the AI allies get stuck along the way and don't make it to the end fight. There's a thread about that in the bug section iirc.
I usually skip it, it doesn't have any must-have-rewards anyway.
Reminds me of an old bug where the Dominion Heavy Turrets were partially replaced with STF-grade Borg Tactical Cubes. The enemies still looked like the correct enemy, but once engaged it was clear the they were a bit more powerful than they should have been. Devs confirmed the turrets had mistakenly received the stats of a Tac Cube and fixed it fairly quickly, but it was at least a bit humorous to see the turrets moving around even if it meant invisitorp doom for a few attempts.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
So, I run those missions in normal instead of advanced and respawn as many times as needed.
For those who are just salivating at the chance to jump into the forums and tell yet another player they just have a sucky build or need to learn how to play. First, have fun with it, I am happy to help make your day. Second, these are the same toons/ships that regularly placed 1st/2nd with in CCA, staying up close and personal while "tanking" the energy discharge and the attacks from every enemy in range, and ran through Candle in a Hurricane without dying once. I am not even close to the best player in the game, far from it, but I do know enough to hold my own ........
On one particular max level captain I attempted to play the mission 4 times. In each attempt the allied starship would always get stuck near one of the "asteroid" and would not advance any further for the final battle with the various Borg ships. It took a long time, but on the 4th time I decided to just deal with the Borg by myself. It took me 30+ minutes of engaging and disengaging to finally kill of all the Borg.
If it weren't for respawns, some of us just cannot beat certain missions. On the one hand, beating a mission with about five percent health left is epic. On the other hand, that first moment when my ship blows up and I need to respawn, the cinematic fun of the mission is gone. And those missions where your only hope is to respawn (repeatedly) faster then they can heal are just tedious.
So, yeah, the level scaling is off. I love this game, but, this is one of it's drawbacks.
Prior to the release of Delta Rising back late 2014 the max level in the game was 50. DR changed max level to 60. As a result of that enemy damage output, hull and shields starts to scale up beginning at level 51. In my opinion it does not really become noticeable until 56 where things starts to really scale up.
As I mentioned in my previous post where I had difficulty at max level because the allied ships did not engage the Borg in the final battle. Was that the case for you? The Borg are supposed to be tough, but you are also supposed to have support of the task force that traveled with into fluidic space during that final battle. In Star Trek canon, the only race that did not really have any problems dealing with the Borg was Species 8472; or the Undine as they are referred to in STO.
The game is playable with the free T5 starship you get at level 40. I have a secondary STO account which is strictly free to play. So no real money spent on the game for anything. My max level KDF engineer flies the T5 Vor'cha Battlecruiser with rare / very Mk XII gear purchased from the Exchange or Doff mission rewards. Currently taking a hiatus from the story missions to participate in the Risa Summer Event to farm Lohlunat Favors and sell them on the Exchange. When it's over I'll be going back to the Cardassian Struggle story arc. But I have done a couple of missions in the Future Proof (specifically Time & Tide and Temporal Front) story arc at max level. The Na'kuhl are a bit annoying but not very difficult to defeat in space.
I suggest adding some armor to your ship. Very rare neutronium armor Mk XII should be fairly inexpensive at around 250k - 300k EC. You should also look through your space traits and select one that helps with defense like Elusive, or Bulkhead Technician; note that some traits are common to all captains, while others may be specific to a class. Captain skills can also provide defensive bonuses as well such as Hull Capacity, Shield Capacity, Hull Plating and Shield Hardness.
As a last resort, you can also farm Lohlunat Favors during the Risa Summer Event to sell on the Exchange to raise some EC to purchase gear from the Exchange. As of last night a single favor was selling for around 6k EC while a stack of 100 or more were selling for around 4.3k each so roughly 100 for 430k or 999 for roughly 4.3m EC. Depending on how little or how much you grind you can make a few million ECs per week or ten's of million of EC per week. I spent a moderate amount of time grinding about 400 or 500 Favors per day; so after 7 days of grinding I generally made about 10 - 12 million EC.
Yes the Diamond is the endboss so it's tough. It was really only the last example though.
Sometimes it's just normal ships. Weak ones actually. Hideki Class for example. I engage them, drain shields, shoot a few torpedos, boom, enemy destroyed in 5 seconds. Switch to the identical ship next to it, it does something I can't really tell what, and I'm dead.
Then the next 10 of those sorts are all normal again.
When it happens again, I'll let you know exactly what type did it.