Dear Cryptic... Please fix the difficulty scaling issues

b1u73ng31 · June 2018

I am playing Normal difficulty and I cannot complete Jabberwocky (the first mission I tried after release of ViL) because I get blown out of the sky by Terran frigates... HOW? My weapons seem to be utterly useless, yet when I call in Fleet Support everything dies in seconds... This really makes the game completely unplayable for new toons...

b1u73ng31 · June 2018

You can easily see how broken the difficulty scaling is by comparing data from Elite/Advanced stfs with this combat log from Fluid Dynamics episode on normal difficulty: https://imgur.com/a/rvSt0jQ This was not the case before ViL

b1u73ng31 · June 2018

The borg command diamond in Fluid Dynamics reflected my photonic shockwave with Feedback pulse for 35555% dealing a 322k hit.

r0m · June 2018

Yes, they have acknowledged the scaling issue in PVE queues in the last patch notes, so I imagine that means they are working on it:

Known Issues:
Many PvE queues have an issue where enemies are not level scaling correctly.

https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/10926453-pc-patch-notes-for-6/14/18

That said, they don't mention anything about scaling issues in missions, as far as I know.

I've been questing on Advanced to complete the last Arcs of my new Deltas and I did not notice any issues, but the issue might only occur in certain missions? I'll give Fluid Dynamics a go, to see.

b1u73ng31 · June 2018

Try the missions on new characters. I dont have problems on my 80k dps engineer either. And its not the level scaling thats the issue. They are matching level, but their stats are still through the roof, which is demonstrated by my combatlog... Player characters cannot reflect with feedback pulse for more than 100% but NPC ships can reflect for 35555% thats just ridiculous if you ask me. The only reason i am still able to complete storyline content is because I know how to use keybinds and how to sequence bridge officer abilities... Mostly it's just a game of waiting untill my fleet support is available again... All NPCs are scaled incorrectly, including friendlies. New players that don't have access to fleet support, Epic gear and the required skillset will have 0 chance of completing these missions.

euar0 · June 2018

I just finished a Khitomer run .. listed the team at 45 .. in a min-50 mission .. and man it felt like it, I'm 65 and it nerfed me to 45 then I had to fight 64th level mobs .. insane scaling issue and it seems to be across the board in pve
.. sometimes its just 64 of 65 .. sometimes its 30 of 50 etc.

dreiljj · June 2018

I know NPC escorts kill me in a single run no matter what zone/ship/setup or difficulty setting.

My KDF use to farm "Empire defense" to test setups and grind easy dilithum which I can no longer do anymore even on normal difficulty without being blown up a dozen times taking 4x as long to finish.

fred26291 · June 2018

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jshephard · June 2018

I know I've been playing it since this game came out, and I've run through the story missions many times, last couple of updates literally made me feel like I was flying a paper ship. Best instance was Boldly They Rode, last battle of DS9 and as soon as I spawned in, I got targeted and blown up in lass than 5 seconds, which repeated until Fleet Support was up and Evasive Action so I could run. I don't remember the game making want to quit so much.

where2r1 · June 2018

Is this why there is a thread in the forums about NPC's "Mega Crits"???

b1u73ng31 · June 2018

No, it's a larger issue than just the crits. As far as I can tell it happens when you try to play low level missions on a higher level toon. E.g. doing a lvl 20 mission on a lvl 40 toon will be an issue. Doing a lvl 65 mission on a lvl 65 toon is no problem. It has happened to me on fed and kdf toons, I have not tested romulans. The only faction that seems unaffected is Jem'Hadar. It happens in both space and ground although on the ground it's less noticable. Basically it just makes it feel like you're playing on elite difficulty even though your difficulty setting is on normal.

marty123 · June 2018

My ship is equipped with MK-XV epic/gold quality gear and I died in the gamma quadrant missions

anyajenkins · June 2018

Just made the begining of the mission , kill true way ships on bajor's orbit and badlands, enter the anomaly and kill the terran frigates, science vessel, cruiser and the mini boss, takes time but i'n not dead... What's your ships gear?

I used this ship... lvl 40 free ship with MK XII white gear, no rep, no starship trait, no active reputations.

fred26291 · June 2018

a friend wanted to help me with a mission, she specifically checked off match squad leaders level cause she was 60 and i am 30, despite that fact, all enemies were putting out the firepower to fight 60 level opponents which means i was toast immediately upon engaging the enemy, i went in without her and made out ok, so there is something wrong with the scaling when teaming up also.

fred26291 · June 2018

removed, duplicate, wasnt posting properly didnt know it worked till i refreshed.

psychoplatt · June 2018

Playing Episodes with White XII gear is no biggy - try with Epic XIV and the same stuff is a lot harder.

anyajenkins · June 2018

psychoplatt wrote: »

Playing Episodes with White XII gear is no biggy - try with Epic XIV and the same stuff is a lot harder.

Harder? with my D'Kora the same fight was a joke... I literally vaporized the true way ship, the terran frigates stand no more than 5 secs, the only ship that opposed me a bit of resitance was the mini boss.. C'mon the story mode opponents are no big deal

I'm running with over 100k hull, 20k shield, 28.1% crit chance and 110% crit severity

salvation4 · June 2018

The weapon scaling MKXIV and up on UR/E also has issues..There is a thread about this..From what I experienced I felt a drop off in energy and projectile weapons when I hit MKXV UR..So I would say it the weapon scaling a well as NPC scaling..Up side is I didnt get blown up..

b1u73ng31 · June 2018

@anyajenkins I can do the mission on my fully maxed out lvl 65 with mk 2 white gear and no traits aswell. The problem occurs on new toons that are not maxed out. It occurs whenever I end up being 10 or 20 levels or so higher than what is required to do the next episode. That happens a lot when you use XP boosts during XP weekends.

dreiljj · June 2018

Fresh combat logs and your ship loud out helps narrow it down a lot. Maybe it was something the developers missed those logs can catch.

I swear for example my FED with about the same gear and level breezes threw missions faster than my KDF alt but I need the evidence to support it.

sootytx · July 2018

Another returning player with the same issues with scaling NPCs up to 65. As I haven't played for several years, I don't have ANY of the reputation stuff, sets of gear etc, and trying to complete some of even the basic episodes has been unbelievably frustrating. The whole point of having a 'Normal' difficulty is that it should allow the devs to load the other two up with the full scaling, harder enemies etc. There seems to be an assumption, and a very poor one, that everyone has all these extra traits and bonuses and that is where the balancing starts from, and poorly refined scaling, especially on the older missions, is causing a lot of grief (and likely losing players that try to come back and find its not worth it).

Interestingly, the most recent missions are actually easier, I find. Most likely because the enemy power levels have been more deliberately crafted, rather than just upscaling what was a level 30 into a level 65 by brute force multipliers which is what seems to happen to the older/lower level ones. Add on faster XP gains than there used to be and even brand new players see these scaling issues as they quickly outlevel the expected start level for the episodes and run into the same problem.

Unknown · July 2018

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Dear Cryptic... Please fix the difficulty scaling issues

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