[PC] The Crystalline Entity Re-materializes

ambassadorkael · August 2018

The Crystalline Entity is returning, harder to kill than ever before, on PC for the next three weeks! Check out the details:

https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/10978353

djf021 · August 2018

Interesting. I definitely will try this, and I hope it's fun! Either way, I'm looking forward to padding some of my reputation marks.

jordan3550 · August 2018

Ooooo looks like I might have to do a antiproton build after all

iamynaught · August 2018

And just as I've been saying for years, we wouldn't see another Crystalline Catastrophe Event until the Devs revamped the encounter again.

Well, they have and here is the return of the Event. It'll be interesting to see if the new changes really change anything as far as how much time it'll take. And though I normally detest mandatory time sinks, like "briefings" at the beginning of queues, this one needs it since some matches can be over and done in 30 seconds leaving slow loaders SOL and with a penalty.

stormstryke2 · August 2018

Can something be done about the enemies after it? They can kill when time reaches 0 and force leaving with just the warp out. Went from full health to warping out animation only to load next screen being dead.

szim · August 2018

There is now a 30 second mission briefing time before the queue begins.

Why do you have to slap these annoying timers on everything?

shadowfirefly00 · August 2018

Fascinating. There are a few specific issues I'd like to add my .02cr on.

new AP weapon - I'm guessing their visuals resemble the entity's beam attacks. Spiffy. I would propose modifying this reward to make it the 'advanced' form of a new AP subfamily, and unlocking for purchase via the Nukura rep store the 'lesser' variants in all other types (much like how the hyper-refracting DBB is an advanced form of the refracting-tetryon weapons currently available in that store). This way, folks so inclined can have all their DEWs matching up. Similar logic could also be applied to other sets where the weapon visual stands out from others of its type (i.e. Quantum Phase Catalysts);
shard immunity to control effects - I think this should be 'explicitly immune to confusion, but merely resistant to other control effects'. Removing the ability to control the enemy's movements is going to annoy many players;
briefing - quite aside from providing useful information new players might not know, it would help address the issue iamynaught points out (where people can end up being penalized through no fault of their own if loading into the instance for some reason takes unusually long);
leftover Tholians - what stormstryke2 suggests is, I understand, implemented in cases where folks flub the Borg or Tholian RA; it is not an unreasonable suggestion.

I would also suggest the following for future at-bats:

'crystallized' vanity set (shield, impulse, deflector) - the result is akin to what one gets from the Assimilated Borg Technology set, along with the Assimilated Module, but with a crystalline theme;
combat shards - replicas of the entity's small shards... except these are hangar pets (3 per), using a lesser form of the entity's matter conversion beam (see Crystalline Absorption Matrix - which could be what the new weapons on offer here are) along with a kamikaze ability ala the Jem'Hadar wingmen and hangar pets;
'crystallized' regalia - an outfit for characters and boffs which has partial armor of an obviously crystalline nature.

overkilltbp · August 2018

Actually my question is •The Entity shards that it deploys are now immune to control effects, this allows the feature more room to breathe as the queue progresses.

Is that a permanent change or just during the event?

rimmarie · August 2018

szim wrote: »

There is now a 30 second mission briefing time before the queue begins.

Why do you have to slap these annoying timers on everything?

iamynaught wrote: »

...And though I normally detest mandatory time sinks, like "briefings" at the beginning of queues, this one needs it since some matches can be over and done in 30 seconds leaving slow loaders SOL and with a penalty.

This^

30 seconds isn't going to kill your fun

rattleshark · August 2018

"The Entity shards that it deploys are now immune to control effects"
Will they be immune to the damage from Gravwell or just the pull ?
Will Gravwell still trigger other buffs such as the hull pen buff from 31c temporal sci ship trait ?

kaggert27 · August 2018

shadowfirefly00 wrote: »

………..

I would also suggest the following for future at-bats:

'crystallized' vanity set (shield, impulse, deflector) - the result is akin to what one gets from the Assimilated Borg Technology set, along with the Assimilated Module, but with a crystalline theme;

combat shards - replicas of the entity's small shards... except these are hangar pets (3 per), using a lesser form of the entity's matter conversion beam (see Crystalline Absorption Matrix - which could be what the new weapons on offer here are) along with a kamikaze ability ala the Jem'Hadar wingmen and hangar pets;

'crystallized' regalia - an outfit for characters and boffs which has partial armor of an obviously crystalline nature.

I would not mind a Crystaline/Mineral set for space and ground, always felt odd the Tholian ships are more tech than organo-crystalline like say from Klingon Academy had them.... would be hilarious to find out the Tholians we have been fighting all this time have been the low tech they don't care that falls into enemy hands while the entire time they have been close to Iconian/Undine growth of ships in term of building such, only crystaline. Just so alien because non-humanoid, non-organic based lifeforms.

The Combat Shards could be like the Bio-Neural Warhead in terms of launching and damage instead of a hanger pets, unless you treat them like the scorpion fighters you get from that one mission, only not a pool of 10 uses or whatever it is for those.

galatt · August 2018

"The Entity is now entirely Immune to damage while in its Absorption Phase. We wanted this phase to be about avoiding the Energy Release and preventing the shards from buffing the attack. "
First, FINALLY!
Second, Is it wrong that I look forward to ships popping like fireworks because they didn't read?

jcsww · August 2018

Has anything been done to deal with the ever growing problem of lazy players AFK'ing these things for rewards? If not, then I will pass!

rattler2 · August 2018

I'm still taking the Takao into this. Crossfield class gonna see some crystal action!

lordhavelock · August 2018

stormstryke2 wrote: »

Can something be done about the enemies after it? They can kill when time reaches 0 and force leaving with just the warp out. Went from full health to warping out animation only to load next screen being dead.

Please don't take this as an insult, it really isn't meant to be one, but there is something that can be done about the post-CE enemies. YOU can learn to play. Seriously. There are several things you can do to avoid being killed by the Tholians (and Terrans) that appear on the map.

Stay Away from Them. Fly high above/below the CE, and you're less likely to draw aggro.
Mind Your Target. If all you care about is blowing up the CE, use single-target attacks (instead of AoE). Things like BFAW will aggro the enemy and get them shooting at you.

Using these two methods alone, I've done entire matches without being shot once by anything other than the CE and still come in placed top three (ie so it's not like I'm hiding away being useless).

Other things:

GTFO. When the CE dies, take Evasive Maneuvers, pop an Engine Battery and/or Deuterium Surplus, trigger your Competitive Engines, Auxiliary Power to Inertial Dampers, Emergency Power to Engines, etc - Get out of range and leave.
Beware of Control Effects. The Tholians love themselves some tractor beams and disables. Have skills, abilities, and gear that can overcome those. Examples: Control Expertise skill, Polarize Hull ability, Klingon Honor Guard Impulse Engines with hot restart.
Beware the Scrum. If players are using things like Gravity Well (very popular on most, but especially this map), at the end of the match the enemy ships are gonna be balled-up in the center of the map. If you've been aggroing them, they're gonna all attack, be out of range. Also, there will be Warp Core Breaches not only from the enemy, but the CE and friendly players (and while the latter won't affect you, it may cause them to blow which will affect you; ie Chain Reaction effect). So again, GTFO.
Get Some Defense. Add some resistance to Kinetic, Physical, Anitproton, and Tachyon attacks (flavors of the CE and Tholians) through consoles, traits, etc. Healing powers like Hazard Emitters and Auxiliary to Structural Integrity Field also provide resistance to all. Learn the timing of when to trigger them for best defense.
Learn to Laugh. Personally, I find it funny when my ship is twisting and exploding as the warp out animation is executing. And/or appearing on a new map and my ship explodes. It's hilarious! Clearly YMMV. But so what? There's very little to no penalty for dying in STO. Get over it. Because...
DEVS PLEASE DO NOT DEPRECIATE THE THOLIANS IN CE - Some of us (like myself) enjoy the mop-up at the end of the match. Sometimes there's not much to it, because everyone sticks around, has decent DPS, and/or the ships get caught in a giant warp core breach grav well soup at the end. But sometimes half the players warp out and it's pretty challenging/fun to try and clear the foes before the timer runs out for the handful of us that stick around. Extra XP, loot, and fun. Good times!

Anyway, some things to think about. LLAP!

ianf2 · August 2018

as a fan of carrier gameplay, or at the very least ships that have a hanger.
30 second briefing times are extremely useful for me to get pets out.
I really hope this makes it onto the normal crystalline catastrophe as well

shadowfirefly00 · August 2018

kaggert27 wrote: »

I would not mind a Crystaline/Mineral set for space and ground, always felt odd the Tholian ships are more tech than organo-crystalline like say from Klingon Academy had them.... would be hilarious to find out the Tholians we have been fighting all this time have been the low tech they don't care that falls into enemy hands while the entire time they have been close to Iconian/Undine growth of ships in term of building such, only crystaline. Just so alien because non-humanoid, non-organic based lifeforms.

I was imagining the set and outfit to be purely cosmetic in nature (see also: the DSC, Ferengi, and Tzenkethi vanity shields), your idea is interesting, and would provide an 'excuse' to revisit the Tholians (and the NSF rep track) between now and the Temporal Accords... and perhaps spawn a new family of ground weapons (radiation projectors?) with a distinctly crystalline appearance. Though this latter could also be justified if the Vorgons make more of an appearance (which in turn reminds me that the model for that one weapon you can get from 'Vorgon Conclusions' could use a bit of a touch-up).

The Combat Shards could be like the Bio-Neural Warhead in terms of launching and damage instead of a hanger pets, unless you treat them like the scorpion fighters you get from that one mission, only not a pool of 10 uses or whatever it is for those.

The latter case would be a beacon in the vein of others currently in game. This idea too has merit; I will have to ponder this further.

disqord · August 2018

I'm alright with making the entity queue last longer, but not through time gates where you can do literally no damage to the thing.

I'm hoping the energy weapons at least end up being cool. Unique event weapons have always had interesting stats, so ImI hoping this one continues the trend. Maybe with more haste pls?

rattleshark · August 2018

ianf2 wrote: »

as a fan of carrier gameplay, or at the very least ships that have a hanger.
30 second briefing times are extremely useful for me to get pets out.
I really hope this makes it onto the normal crystalline catastrophe as well

This^ Borg RA needs it too , carrier captians get the short end on these with no time to launch fighters.

sheldonlcooper · August 2018

I'm very happy to see crystal come back. Not happy about the 30 second wait. I guess I can support the 15 second immunity. We'll see what not being able to GW the shards does. I think it'll be ok. I've seen plenty of crystallines where no one has a GW and they go fine.

origcaptainquack · August 2018

why not bring back no win sinario? the crystal never went anywhere. just looks like you made a harder one. i need no win sinario

ilithyn · August 2018

szim wrote: »

There is now a 30 second mission briefing time before the queue begins.

Why do you have to slap these annoying timers on everything?

This. Seriously guys? Why? These kinds of briefings are annoying BEYOND belief. I hate them in every single queue they exist and one of the reason I ever ran CC was just that it is fast, but I can avoid this nonsense.
Seriously stop. And with the unskippable cutscenes too. They're completely unnecessary and really a drain on the fun in the game having to sit through again and again and again.
Guess I'll be doing no more CC queues from now on.

Oh and thanks for making sci ships useless in this queue. You really don't want people to play anything but tac do you?

axisomega623 · August 2018

Hi Devs,
Please could we get option for Single Cannons and Turrets as well? How can DHC's be the only type of cannons released? Many of us use singles and turrets - not just DHC and beams!

captpatrick01 · August 2018

You know what I want to eventually see in this game? An Elite version of Crystalline Catastrophe.

Plays out like the usual Advanced queue, but when it is destroyed, this bad boy shows up after a warning hail from the NPC contact:

and with all the scary abilities it used to have! Henceforth named "The Crystalline Alpha" Coordination and Teamwork expected of Elite Queue players is mandatory to defeat it. Did I mention that there's a time limit?

ilithyn · August 2018

P.S. Are we getting the normal non-artificial time gated version back after the event? Or are you determined to kill this queue off as well, so it is as dead as all the rest?

echatty · August 2018

ilithyn wrote: »

szim wrote: »

There is now a 30 second mission briefing time before the queue begins.

Why do you have to slap these annoying timers on everything?

This. Seriously guys? Why? These kinds of briefings are annoying BEYOND belief. I hate them in every single queue they exist and one of the reason I ever ran CC was just that it is fast, but I can avoid this nonsense.
Seriously stop. And with the unskippable cutscenes too. They're completely unnecessary and really a drain on the fun in the game having to sit through again and again and again.
Guess I'll be doing no more CC queues from now on.

Oh and thanks for making sci ships useless in this queue. You really don't want people to play anything but tac do you?

They explained it. It's so those who are experiencing lag will have a chance to get into the fray as well and avoid the AFK penalty.

jrq2 · August 2018

Finally, finally, finally, the devs have finally tweaked something instead of just dumping an old and used up event just to fill in empty space-time until the next event.

You would think that the devs would be more aware of the fast-growing power creep that is happening in this game and would start to adjust the missions and queues to compensate for that increase.
Hurray for the dev that actually authorized the tweak that was so desperately needed and here is hoping more tweaks to come in other parts of the game.

I was starting to think that this game only catered to the lazy player that constantly complained why they keep dying so fast in Elite queues even though they are using common mark 10 equipment that came with the ship.
And why Cryptic catered to their complaints and nerfed all the Advanced and Elite queues, instead of adjusting them to give players more of a challenge and a reward for spending so much time grinding for that high-end gear.

shadowfirefly00 · August 2018

axisomega623 wrote: »

Hi Devs,
Please could we get option for Single Cannons and Turrets as well? How can DHC's be the only type of cannons released? Many of us use singles and turrets - not just DHC and beams!

Indeed. There really is no good reason that these special weapons (and various sets) should not support build diversity (see above about 'greater' and 'lesser' versions of this new weapon, as well). Hopefully this is something that will be addressed in AoD with respect to sets...

echatty wrote: »

They explained it. It's so those who are experiencing lag will have a chance to get into the fray as well and avoid the AFK penalty.

Also, as rattleshark notes above, it permits carrier captains to get their squadrons into the black.

yakodym · August 2018

Will tachyon beam, CPB, tyken's rift and energy siphon retain their special functions against the Crystalline Entity (removing the re-crystallization buff)?

smokebailey · August 2018

galatt wrote: »

"The Entity is now entirely Immune to damage while in its Absorption Phase. We wanted this phase to be about avoiding the Energy Release and preventing the shards from buffing the attack. "
First, FINALLY!
Second, Is it wrong that I look forward to ships popping like fireworks because they didn't read?

~giggles~ No.

I like how you think. ~curtsy~

xungnguyen · August 2018

galatt wrote: »

"The Entity is now entirely Immune to damage while in its Absorption Phase. We wanted this phase to be about avoiding the Energy Release and preventing the shards from buffing the attack. "
First, FINALLY!
Second, Is it wrong that I look forward to ships popping like fireworks because they didn't read?

Galatt, I'm also looking forward to this, but I've a question. How will sci magic builds fare in this version of the CC event?

[PC] The Crystalline Entity Re-materializes

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