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Why did they kill the Red Alerts?
lexusk19
Member Posts: 1,407 Arc User
So why did they kill the Red Alerts in sector space? They were great for lvling, and were fun to play. Now they reward almost nothing and no bonus XP from them and you have to que for one...
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Of course maybe the numbers showed that people were getting masteries too fast or some other nonsense reasons statistics and numbers coughed up.
Well, for better or worse, this does solve the problem of being the only one in a Red Alert.
While this was most likely not a problem for many veteran players, it did pose a problem for newbies.
I don't remember if it was a Red Alert, but I do remember an instance back when the Crystalline Entity was using its old model and appearing on the map, where I entered it and didn't even get time for the warp-in cutscene to finish before I was blown up to pieces.
Because there was no forced teams, the first high-DPS player to show up got all the goodies. The rest got a little xp, 10 marks, and a 30 min cooldown,
I was that player quite often, and once I realized how this works, always felt bad about it. Esp in Borg RA, where people almost never teamed and it was possible to kill 3 spawns by yourself while the rest just finished one.
i still kill 1-2 before the others bring the rest
Of course all these changes have been made without a word from Cryptic.
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.'
But now the entire team gets the xp. At least if I understand xp mechanic correctly.
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.'
Hint for newbies: The alerts suck now, go play ISA or CCA.
Without the XP boost effect, nobody cares.
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.'
If high DPSers are playing them again, I have no idea why.
That's a completely different problem. And something I'd support.
As for whether or not there are high-DPs players queueing... It depends. In my experience, nobody's there on weekends, not even newbies, but at certain times on weekdays the odds of getting a decent team are actually quite good.
And, of course, after all the talk (not by you, but there are people) about how newbies don't belong in ISA, partly because of what it used to be, and partly because DPS leagues use it as a benchmark, good luck attracting genuine newbs to it. Although in fact it's easier than Tholian alert in many ways.
Hint for newbies: don't listen to this person. Going into ISA or CCA without any clue what to do can be a frustrating experience (also to your team in the case of ISA). "Veterans" will recommend these only because they maximize rewards per unit time, though this is contingent on first having adequate builds and the wherewithal to participate effectively. In fact though these queues both have unusual mechanics which you will have to learn in addition to gameplay mechanics at the end-game level. They are not good starting grounds.
Alerts, Solonae zones, and normal PVE queues are much better ways to ease into end-game STO.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Actually had a Borg Red Alert earlier this week that didn't have any insane DPSers in it, and it was an absolute BLAST! We ended up winning with literally one second left, and I spent all of it feeling like I was pulling out all stops to help us overcome the Borg. It was everything I remember the Borg RA being back when it was first introduced.
As to how to "fix" this... not sure you really can. It'd almost certainly require a dramatic change to high-end DPS, but doing so would absolutely risk angering long time players who have worked long and hard so they can faceroll Borg cubes like they're 8472 in a Voyager episode. Personally I'd really love to see DPS "soft-capped", overall lowering it across the board but leaving today's top ships still the top damaging ships. Awesome gear and skills will still put you above the "soft" cap, but getting higher and higher DPS gets harder and harder, with more and more incremental gains, the higher you push above it. Best damagers are still the best damagers, but with it harder to just slice through everything we'd once again have a need for a least a little emphasis on other ship builds. Science vessel debuffs and heals, Cruisers tanking shots, all of that could actually maybe serve a purpose to help win rather than becoming relegated well behind the "just kill everything faster" approach we have.
But I don't know how you'd actually introduce such a "soft cap", and it'd still run into the issue of player alienation. So guess I'll just keep being happy with my easy rewards and hoping to still find the rare RA where we actually have to work to succeed.
There is a self-adjusting factor though. Without high rewards there isn't much incentive (besides "oh, shiny red button! *click*") for high-end DPS people to enter lower-tier events. That's not a universal block but it mitigates the damage someone who can do on their own (they don't show up as frequently).
Cryptic might even take that a step further by creating a handicap difficulty setting that scales with some measure of your DPS output. Select it and your damage scales way down with a significant reward bonus to incentivize and compensate (XP boost, dilithium or EC per kill, ect.). Like what we have now with difficulty settings, but universally applicable and more relevant to those who've graduated their equipment up from random loot. It might also come with a small public icon for bragging rights' sake.
Naturally, not everyone would opt in, but the point is just to decrease the overall number of high-end DPS players entering into low-tier events to the point where it really doesn't matter. A hard block or universal rebalance would have implementation problems, but voluntary adjustments could get STO into near enough the right shape without alienating (they just have to be sufficiently incentivised so they have a population-level impact.)
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Huh... I actually really like that. Introduce the "soft cap" as an optional incentive, make the incentive nice and balanced...
Mull it over, Cryptic.
Except "queue and get some marks in five minutes" is not actually any good. Because CCA will get you more in far less time.
Alerts were just fine as long as they were open instances. Nothing in a queue will beat CCA.
Or maybe I should say alerts were just fine before the sector revamp. Everything done to them since has made them gradually worse and worse until now they're useless.
Okay, you've seen people complaining.
I've played dozens of RAs the last couple of months. In that time I've had:
Higher DPS players are absolutely queuing up for RAs and knocking them out with incredible speed and ease. It's almost exclusively been my experience with RAs recently. And while it's hard to tell what percentage of people actually playing in RAs are influencing this outcome, it's *at least* at a minimum of 20%-40% of players queuing up for em'. In reality, it's probably higher.
Shouldn't they at least make some effort to help protect it. Would they run away if it was a Command Diamond with the Queen on board?
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.'
(Argala-Farn-Borg Battlefield will get you 5 tiers of mastery in a couple of hours)
The Red Alerts are actually played quite often by many people. Now, maybe the ultra high dps people don't play them much, but who cares? I can go into a Borg RA and either clear out two groups by myself before the Unimatrix spawns or occasionally watch someone do it faster. The same goes for Tholian RAs, either way they're quick, and easy, and the choice of marks is very nice. The Tholian RA is a nice way to get a Fleet Mark daily bonus.
Perhaps they could remove the restriction that you need five players though. That's something that could be done for many queues also.