I mean, it's not like, hard (at least not on Normal), but I think I got into more furballs, and I'm pretty sure this is the first (maybe second) time ships of specific classes with special abilities spawned (except for the Terran Prometheus, which I vaguely recall seeing before).
On the whole, it's still too easy, but it warranted a little more thought than usual. Is that just me?
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Also, I only used 2 instead of the 11-12 I previously ran.
Overall I'm rather pleased with how not burnt-out I am after turning in this event.
It could be that you just got one of those crappy runs, I forget the proper term, where everything goes to hell all at once and you spend the whole 15 minutes trying to keep from dying. Again, I haven't experienced one of those in a long time, guess I kick too much %&^ now. Lol.
Edit: Oh, yay 1000th post!
I had one of those today. Didn't even get the station fully powered. I spent all my time near one generator and just constantly killing ships all the time with multiple portals with ships spawning. We didn't even kill the last assault group in time. Actually it was pretty fun. Just the luck of the draw with event near the end. The rest of my runs during the event went pretty smooth.
I'd say the map is no harder but the desire to play it thats the difficulty. Hate it.
^That's why I only did 2 characters instead of the full roster of 13.
Looks like the consensus. I had plenty of drollfully easy runs, too, but I noticed an uptick in runs where I wasn't in danger of falling asleep waiting for the timer. Guess I had the good fortune to get more than my share of runs 'going to hell.'
Still, not too hard, I usually have time to DOff, have a snack, or post in the forums while we wait for the Dread Battle.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
For example, last night there was a lone rift somewhat far away. When I got to it ships started to come out of it which I immediately destroyed. Probably sometime during the short battle another rift appeared nearby that I was not aware of and ships came out which started to fire on me interrupting my attempt to close the 1st rift. Another quick battle and back to closing the 1st rift and... I got interrupted yet again by ships coming out of a 3rd rift that appeared some distance above me and while making short work of the ships that came out of the 3rd rift, ships started to come out of the 1st rift. I assume you kinda get the idea.
What's even more annoying is being shot by other ships from far way. While closing one of the 3 rifts I was shot by a ship from a little over 9km away from me that came out of another distant rift. When I destroyed it more ships started to come out of the 3 existing rifts around me so the cycle starts again.
I was flying a cruiser with that captain which are not as quick as science vessels when it comes to closing rifts.
My character Tsin'xing
I have had the T6 Valiant plow into swarms of Terrans swarming the station and survived, killing a large number of them.
I prefer taking in ships that can support GW. Science ships where I can slot GW III, and TBR II can kill gobs of Terrans. TBR in Pull mode can kill three Frigates in about five seconds. Cruisers, the Prometheus, and their Science Vessels can also be killed with TBR with a bit of help from Torps or the Transphasic Cluster Torpedo while held.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
1) Increased spawn of science ships + the Bord-level of drain Tachyon beam. There were runs where I've stayed basically without shields for several minutes - first one ship drains your shields, they start to come up and then the other joins and again drains your shields... Add to that like 5-7 frigates spamming FAW at you and Command cruiser engaging TBR and it becomes not pretty.
Science ships constantly use the Tachyon beam and shockwave HY torp combo, which then hits your hull after they drained your shields.
2) Increased level of aggro. It became difficult to sneak up on Terrans to close rifts - a frigate at 8-9+ km, which is out of your line of sight, can suddenly easily decide to take some pot shots at you. To the point that having someone engage the Terrans doesn't consistently work for keeping the aggro off the ship closing rifts - some of them still find you a lucrative target.
3) More abilities spam from Terrans - especially FAW spam.
I never lost one attempt. But, I gather few did here. My Chronos ships only died a handful of times. I do agree some runs "felt harder" but I may be wrong. I was amused by the dreadnought names, especially "Sato." (Nice shoutout to Enterprise.)
I had little problems with AFKs. In fact, I always felt I was the slow poke getting into the fights! It was nice to get out of "Doff-a-holic" mode for a while, but I'm glad it's over. The 50k Di is nice as well as the silly card. It did finally get me working on the Reputation paths and my crews are better kitted out with purple weapons and such. (I really need to play more and DOFF less.)
But, can we get a true SCIENCE ship at least sometime for these things??
Yes the Prometheus ships can be nasty, and they also seem to have some sort of bug whereby the separate parts of the MVAM keep shooting you even when at 0% health.
As for those CBC's and cruisers with tractor beams (of any kind), I found using the Scavenger Beam trait and Tractor Beam gave them a taste of their own medicine! See how they liked having their hull melt in seconds!
My character Tsin'xing
Just you dude! Not much to do since it it's time gated and made it actually boring. Most of the time peeps were crossing their fingers for the time to pass. I hate those automatic timers that required you to stick around no matter what.
Srsly Cryptic what were you thinking lol...
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Personally I found the afk system just not worth the effort at all to it into the stf, over merely adding a mechanic into the stf that would incentive/reward players not afking or doing well in the stf together. Such as the idea that when you get the station' defenses maxed out, as well as clearing all of the portals in the area, than it would allow you to activate the satellites (or interact with the station). Which than would act as a method of speeding up the phase shift into phase two by 30 seconds to 2 mins overall would be a nice treat, making it that afking would be the less desirable, while groups doing well would actually get thru the stf faster even if only 30 seconds faster, but to me having us wait between 2-5 mins for the phase shift because of doing well is just counter productive.