They didn't kill anything. This was a good change.
Perhaps they could remove the restriction that you need five players though. That's something that could be done for many queues also.
Requiring five players to start IS the change. So was it good, or should they remove it again?
The change was that you now need to queue and form a team. That should remain, but instead of five, make it three or something if people think the waiting times are too long.
It will still solve the problem of one player killing everything and others being unable to earn anything (which is the good part of the change) and also limit waiting times.
One issue I've run into and I see others mention it in passing here is getting to another target in time before it's vaporized. One thing I suggested earlier this year is a new Personal Space Trait that hasn't been done that actually modifies something never modified.
All Clear Due to the superior training of your crew and synergy in working together the Cooldown from Red Alert is reduced by 30% (i.e., 7 seconds).
Takes affect after EVERY Red Alert and is cancelled if another situation arises.
This could be an FE Award.
The DPSers would probably not slot it, but if you are one of those always chasing, you might just slot it for the Red Alerts.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
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.'
They didn't kill anything. This was a good change.
Perhaps they could remove the restriction that you need five players though. That's something that could be done for many queues also.
Requiring five players to start IS the change. So was it good, or should they remove it again?
The change was that you now need to queue and form a team. That should remain, but instead of five, make it three or something if people think the waiting times are too long.
It will still solve the problem of one player killing everything and others being unable to earn anything (which is the good part of the change) and also limit waiting times.
Umm...what? 90% of my RA is me killing 75+% of the enemies alone because the others are kinda useless...so really not too much change there. What has changed is that because it is now a team match, they can mooch off me. Whatever, I am there for the quick dil anyways...but really...yeah not much change.
I'm no high DPS-er, by any stretch of the imagination. Still, 9 out of 10 times when I enter a Tholian RA, I wind up doing arund 50k, whereas the rest hovers around 8k (the map is too large to be entirely accurate that way, but when most ppl center around the bosses, I say it's accurate enough). No big deal, really: whether the rest of the team is there or not, makes little difference to me.
I *do* like that you have to queue now, though. Because now you no longer enter a RA that's already nearly done, with you getting a 30 min cd penalty, regardless.
How is that fair meimei? Since you're doing more dps shouldn't you get more rewards?
Nah, don't care about that. I have untold millions of unrefined Dilithium, that I can never ever cash in on, ever. So, Dilithium rewards mean literally nothing to me now. I have long since completed all reps, so I don't need anything from that department either. I just want to kick some Tholian butt. And if I get like a Fleet Marks pack out if it or something, sweet; but I have over 7 million Fleet Credits left too, so I'm not exactly in dire need of those either. For me, it's just all about the fun, now.
Here's a thought, why not have the Tholian somewhat like the Borg RA. You must kill the five Escort groups before you can kill the Capital Ships group.
Maybe if we stop trying to rush through the Borg RA in three minutes. If you think the others are moochers try not rushing off to the next kill at Full Impulse. Let them get there and engage first. Some people would actually like to shoot at something and engage the Borg. Or since it is a Team all members must engage the same target group.
While I am not fond of what they did to the Borg Tachyon Beams (you look at them cross-eyed and your Shields are gone), what they have done to DPS and as a consequence to the Borg in general is ridiculous. One ship taking out a Cube in less than 10 seconds.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
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.'
No they don't. Do Starbase 24 or its KDF equivalent solo.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
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.'
I've been completing ship masteries for the last 2 weeks and I play CC and ISA as they become available while doing the "Japori run."
In one of the ISAs I had a group of newer players. I noticed that they were having trouble taking out the 2nd transformer so I GW the Nanite Spheres to hold them off.
I noticed one player flapping about in front of the gate, but was concentrating on the transformer's health.
I managed to take out the Spheres and the transformer popped.
While soloing the Tac Cube (I don't know what they were doing) I got a team chat saying, "Thanks for blowing up all those ships with me on top of them."
Oh LOL. I'm truly sorry, I didn't mean to do that, but it's so funny to me now.
I don't know how you can even get ship mastery anymore without the red alerts.
They need to put Ship Mastery Token in the next lockbox.
Tau Dewa (Japori and co.) is OK but not great, battlezones (if you can stand them) are surprisingly good, as long as you do complete runs of them, certain story missions...
There always were other ways to PL ship masteries,
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...
because waiting in a Queue is the best thing ever and the players Love It (check the metrics.)
As opposed to frantic instance-hopping? (and then popping into Tholian RA jusrt as it's wrapped up) Actually, yes, it's an improvement. And without instance-hopping and changing quadrants and that whole song and dance other methods weren't really all that much slower.
As opposed to frantic instance-hopping? (and then popping into Tholian RA jusrt as it's wrapped up) Actually, yes, it's an improvement. And without instance-hopping and changing quadrants and that whole song and dance other methods weren't really all that much slower.
Instance-hopping was awesome. No wonder it was the first thing they killed when they started to remove all the fun from the alerts.
And entering already finished instances was only ever a problem way back when there was that bug that made them never close. Yet another unnecessary wait is def not an improvement.
As opposed to frantic instance-hopping? (and then popping into Tholian RA jusrt as it's wrapped up) Actually, yes, it's an improvement. And without instance-hopping and changing quadrants and that whole song and dance other methods weren't really all that much slower.
Instance-hopping was awesome. No wonder it was the first thing they killed when they started to remove all the fun from the alerts.
And entering already finished instances was only ever a problem way back when there was that bug that made them never close. Yet another unnecessary wait is def not an improvement.
So. all those times when I warped into a RA only to see the unimatrix with 20% health or the last group of Tholian escorts being butchered were entirely my imagination?
As for instance-hopping... I won't argue about taste, just point out that from the server design point of view, when it's done by everybody, it kind of defeats the purpose of having instances in the first place.
They didn't kill anything. This was a good change.
Perhaps they could remove the restriction that you need five players though. That's something that could be done for many queues also.
Requiring five players to start IS the change. So was it good, or should they remove it again?
The change was that you now need to queue and form a team. That should remain, but instead of five, make it three or something if people think the waiting times are too long.
It will still solve the problem of one player killing everything and others being unable to earn anything (which is the good part of the change) and also limit waiting times.
Umm...what? 90% of my RA is me killing 75+% of the enemies alone because the others are kinda useless...so really not too much change there. What has changed is that because it is now a team match, they can mooch off me. Whatever, I am there for the quick dil anyways...but really...yeah not much change.
So? It's not one of those queues where PuGs really fail all that often. I've seen more failed CCAs than failed old RAs, and never when there was more than 3 players.
In other words, chances are, those same 4 ships without you would have completed the RA anyway, just slower.
Even if each one of them does the DPS of the aft starboard beam on the high-end BFaW build, or a single click on a serious sci ship, that's still good enough for Borg. Not so much for Tholians, but even there the issue is usually survivability, not DPS as such. A massively OP ship showing up deprived them of the opportunity to get what otherwise would have been their fair share.
I don't say there aren't horrible ships piloted in brain-dead way out there, as well as intentional leeching, but even then it's a non-issue. If anything, they make you look even better by comparison, and wasting even a second on grudging them (a non-existing now anyway) bonus XP is simply counter-productive.
I don't know how you can even get ship mastery anymore without the red alerts.
They need to put Ship Mastery Token in the next lockbox.
Go to the Delta quadrant... that is if you didn't foolishly skip over every mission when that was possible...
Runs through Argala and Farn give you more mastery points than anything in the other quadrants.
1 to 1.5 lvls per run.
"Intelligence is finite, stupidity is infinite" -- Umberto Eco
I don't know how you can even get ship mastery anymore without the red alerts.
They need to put Ship Mastery Token in the next lockbox.
Go to the Delta quadrant... that is if you didn't foolishly skip over every mission when that was possible...
Runs through Argala and Farn give you more mastery points than anything in the other quadrants.
1 to 1.5 lvls per run.
Farn?
Edit: Had to look it up. That system patrol used to experience severe lagg, but on a test run earlier that no longer seems to be the case.
Post edited by questerius on
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
As opposed to frantic instance-hopping? (and then popping into Tholian RA jusrt as it's wrapped up) Actually, yes, it's an improvement. And without instance-hopping and changing quadrants and that whole song and dance other methods weren't really all that much slower.
Instance-hopping was awesome. No wonder it was the first thing they killed when they started to remove all the fun from the alerts.
And entering already finished instances was only ever a problem way back when there was that bug that made them never close. Yet another unnecessary wait is def not an improvement.
So. all those times when I warped into a RA only to see the unimatrix with 20% health or the last group of Tholian escorts being butchered were entirely my imagination?
Maybe. More likely just the usual forum exaggeration. It used to happen once in a while, just leave and get into another (or switch instance, back when it was allowed). Big deal.
As for instance-hopping... I won't argue about taste, just point out that from the server design point of view, when it's done by everybody, it kind of defeats the purpose of having instances in the first place.
The purpose of instances is to allow more than 5 players to play it at once. How does hopping defeat that? Get real.
They didn't kill anything. This was a good change.
Perhaps they could remove the restriction that you need five players though. That's something that could be done for many queues also.
Requiring five players to start IS the change. So was it good, or should they remove it again?
The change was that you now need to queue and form a team. That should remain, but instead of five, make it three or something if people think the waiting times are too long.
It will still solve the problem of one player killing everything and others being unable to earn anything (which is the good part of the change) and also limit waiting times.
Umm...what? 90% of my RA is me killing 75+% of the enemies alone because the others are kinda useless...so really not too much change there. What has changed is that because it is now a team match, they can mooch off me. Whatever, I am there for the quick dil anyways...but really...yeah not much change.
So? It's not one of those queues where PuGs really fail all that often. I've seen more failed CCAs than failed old RAs, and never when there was more than 3 players.
In other words, chances are, those same 4 ships without you would have completed the RA anyway, just slower.
Even if each one of them does the DPS of the aft starboard beam on the high-end BFaW build, or a single click on a serious sci ship, that's still good enough for Borg. Not so much for Tholians, but even there the issue is usually survivability, not DPS as such. A massively OP ship showing up deprived them of the opportunity to get what otherwise would have been their fair share.
I don't say there aren't horrible ships piloted in brain-dead way out there, as well as intentional leeching, but even then it's a non-issue. If anything, they make you look even better by comparison, and wasting even a second on grudging them (a non-existing now anyway) bonus XP is simply counter-productive.
I wouldn't grudge them getting XP or whatever. I wouldn't care one bit if about their DPS or skills or if they're intentionally leeching. But I do hate the idea of being forced to wait for 4 people to show before I can play a mission that would be laughably easy to finish alone.
Argala is still a very fast mastery grind. Besides Argala, there's also KSF and SB24 for FEDS. I assume that N'Vak would work well for KDF but Argala is so good that I haven't even tried N'Vak yet.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
As for instance-hopping... I won't argue about taste, just point out that from the server design point of view, when it's done by everybody, it kind of defeats the purpose of having instances in the first place.
The purpose of instances is to allow more than 5 players to play it at once. How does hopping defeat that? Get real.
I meant quadrant instances, not the mission instances. Whose purpose is to balance server load by dispersing players in sector space and social maps to different nodes in the server cluster with minimum of fuss and ideally, only an occasional need to actually transfer anyone.
Getting a Ship Mastery is no big deal even now with Red Alerts not being XP Boost Zones. Two or three Borg RAs, a Tholian (XP stinks now in this, when it used to be the best), an ISA, and a CCA (never really any good as there is not many targets) and my Bulwark was done. Sure it's not 5 Levels, only 4, but we are talking about 25 or so minutes and lo and behold you know everything about how to get the most out of that class of ship.
Is it preferable to the way it was before? Perhaps not, but maybe, if you were not the one blowing the hell out of everything before anyone got there as you now get all the XP (though nerfed) as part of the Team.
Tokens in a Lockbox? All that will do is to provide another lucrative market on the Exchange for some. Specialization Points were either part of the Weekly giveaway for the first run of a Featured Episode, Cryptic general giveaways, or the 10 of 10 Reward from the Federation Admiralty Campaign. Never were those points in a Lockbox.
This now leads me to a 'problem' in the Admiralty System with the Federation Tour of Duty. As you know, when you reach 10 of 10 in a Campaign you are awarded a special reward. For the Romulan it is 4 Special Item Upgrade Tokens (for my mind it should be more than 4, or now that we've seen them, 4 of something like the Phoenix Upgrades). For the KDF it is 30k Dilithium. For the Federation it is 2 Spec Points.
All well and good, but if you have maxed out your Spec Trees, Cryptic removed the banking of Spec Points and replaced it with 2,880 Dilithium instead for each. So now while the KDF awards 30k Dilithium, the Federation awards 5,760 instead (2x 2,880) - not really balanced. Perhaps making the Reward for the Federation be a choice of 2 Spec Points OR 2 Ship Mastery Tokens may provide another method of getting those Tokens if they were to create something like that.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
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.'
Comments
Requiring five players to start IS the change. So was it good, or should they remove it again?
The change was that you now need to queue and form a team. That should remain, but instead of five, make it three or something if people think the waiting times are too long.
It will still solve the problem of one player killing everything and others being unable to earn anything (which is the good part of the change) and also limit waiting times.
All Clear
Due to the superior training of your crew and synergy in working together the Cooldown from Red Alert is reduced by 30% (i.e., 7 seconds).
Takes affect after EVERY Red Alert and is cancelled if another situation arises.
This could be an FE Award.
The DPSers would probably not slot it, but if you are one of those always chasing, you might just slot it for the Red Alerts.
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.'
I'm no high DPS-er, by any stretch of the imagination. Still, 9 out of 10 times when I enter a Tholian RA, I wind up doing arund 50k, whereas the rest hovers around 8k (the map is too large to be entirely accurate that way, but when most ppl center around the bosses, I say it's accurate enough). No big deal, really: whether the rest of the team is there or not, makes little difference to me.
I *do* like that you have to queue now, though. Because now you no longer enter a RA that's already nearly done, with you getting a 30 min cd penalty, regardless.
Nah, don't care about that.
Maybe if we stop trying to rush through the Borg RA in three minutes. If you think the others are moochers try not rushing off to the next kill at Full Impulse. Let them get there and engage first. Some people would actually like to shoot at something and engage the Borg. Or since it is a Team all members must engage the same target group.
While I am not fond of what they did to the Borg Tachyon Beams (you look at them cross-eyed and your Shields are gone), what they have done to DPS and as a consequence to the Borg in general is ridiculous. One ship taking out a Cube in less than 10 seconds.
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.'
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.'
In one of the ISAs I had a group of newer players. I noticed that they were having trouble taking out the 2nd transformer so I GW the Nanite Spheres to hold them off.
I noticed one player flapping about in front of the gate, but was concentrating on the transformer's health.
I managed to take out the Spheres and the transformer popped.
While soloing the Tac Cube (I don't know what they were doing) I got a team chat saying, "Thanks for blowing up all those ships with me on top of them."
Oh LOL. I'm truly sorry, I didn't mean to do that, but it's so funny to me now.
TL;DR nuebs are fun.
There always were other ways to PL ship masteries,
As opposed to frantic instance-hopping? (and then popping into Tholian RA jusrt as it's wrapped up) Actually, yes, it's an improvement. And without instance-hopping and changing quadrants and that whole song and dance other methods weren't really all that much slower.
And entering already finished instances was only ever a problem way back when there was that bug that made them never close. Yet another unnecessary wait is def not an improvement.
So. all those times when I warped into a RA only to see the unimatrix with 20% health or the last group of Tholian escorts being butchered were entirely my imagination?
As for instance-hopping... I won't argue about taste, just point out that from the server design point of view, when it's done by everybody, it kind of defeats the purpose of having instances in the first place.
So? It's not one of those queues where PuGs really fail all that often. I've seen more failed CCAs than failed old RAs, and never when there was more than 3 players.
In other words, chances are, those same 4 ships without you would have completed the RA anyway, just slower.
Even if each one of them does the DPS of the aft starboard beam on the high-end BFaW build, or a single click on a serious sci ship, that's still good enough for Borg. Not so much for Tholians, but even there the issue is usually survivability, not DPS as such. A massively OP ship showing up deprived them of the opportunity to get what otherwise would have been their fair share.
I don't say there aren't horrible ships piloted in brain-dead way out there, as well as intentional leeching, but even then it's a non-issue. If anything, they make you look even better by comparison, and wasting even a second on grudging them (a non-existing now anyway) bonus XP is simply counter-productive.
Go to the Delta quadrant... that is if you didn't foolishly skip over every mission when that was possible...
Runs through Argala and Farn give you more mastery points than anything in the other quadrants.
1 to 1.5 lvls per run.
Farn?
Edit: Had to look it up. That system patrol used to experience severe lagg, but on a test run earlier that no longer seems to be the case.
The purpose of instances is to allow more than 5 players to play it at once. How does hopping defeat that? Get real.
I wouldn't grudge them getting XP or whatever. I wouldn't care one bit if about their DPS or skills or if they're intentionally leeching. But I do hate the idea of being forced to wait for 4 people to show before I can play a mission that would be laughably easy to finish alone.
Is it preferable to the way it was before? Perhaps not, but maybe, if you were not the one blowing the hell out of everything before anyone got there as you now get all the XP (though nerfed) as part of the Team.
Tokens in a Lockbox? All that will do is to provide another lucrative market on the Exchange for some. Specialization Points were either part of the Weekly giveaway for the first run of a Featured Episode, Cryptic general giveaways, or the 10 of 10 Reward from the Federation Admiralty Campaign. Never were those points in a Lockbox.
This now leads me to a 'problem' in the Admiralty System with the Federation Tour of Duty. As you know, when you reach 10 of 10 in a Campaign you are awarded a special reward. For the Romulan it is 4 Special Item Upgrade Tokens (for my mind it should be more than 4, or now that we've seen them, 4 of something like the Phoenix Upgrades). For the KDF it is 30k Dilithium. For the Federation it is 2 Spec Points.
All well and good, but if you have maxed out your Spec Trees, Cryptic removed the banking of Spec Points and replaced it with 2,880 Dilithium instead for each. So now while the KDF awards 30k Dilithium, the Federation awards 5,760 instead (2x 2,880) - not really balanced. Perhaps making the Reward for the Federation be a choice of 2 Spec Points OR 2 Ship Mastery Tokens may provide another method of getting those Tokens if they were to create something like that.
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.'