Why are most of pve queues empty??

shehchao · August 2018

I tried to queue up but most of them have no players..... quite frustrating. Soni have to keep playig the same few missions over and over again to gain reputation points.

peterconnorfirst · August 2018

Players can get most of the stuff they need in easier content.

tunebreaker · August 2018

Simply put - it feels like Cryptic doesn't want us playing them. Over the past few years, they've done everything possible to make the process of playing PvE queues as painful as possible.

I've known so many people who used to play them very actively (both in pugs and premades) and were very good at it, but grew so tired of Cryptic's antics that they just quit the game. First of all, there's the new Queue UI. They've streamlined it a lot and it finally works most of the time now, but when it came out, it was in a state of incredible bugginess for a long time, so that definitely pushed some ppl away.

And then they've nerfed our stuff now countless of times, and have ignored majority of very solid player feedback, again to the point where so many players have just given up and found a game where they feel they are wanted more.

And yes, some will surely come here and say that "well, there's no point in doing majority of queues because rewards are bad" or "there are so many queues that you just can't play them all". There's a degree of truth in that, but that's really mostly the sentiment of majority who are still left.

However, this game used to have (up until 2017) a really healthy amount of players who just played the PvE queues because they liked it - either making builds to counter certain maps, just enjoying hours of random pew pew or whatever. Pug queues popped pretty reliably, perhaps needed max. 10 minutes of wait time. And there were tons of chat channels where you could put a really good premade team together. But over the years, Cryptic just told (or well, showed through actions) that group of people constantly that their fun is wrong, so a lot of them got the message and moved on. Moreover, Cryptic has constantly made it more difficult and expensive for players to get to "competent enough to carry your weight"-tier, so people are seeing more dead weights in their queues and naturally feel frustrated and don't want to pug anymore.

The game is alive and doing well (presumably) because players with different mindsets are still supporting it financially. But the result is clear - you have bunch of dead queues.

So, my suggestions to you - for any mark you have trouble obtaining, currently do the Crystalline event, but when that ends, play Red Alerts. Borg and Tholian RAs should have almost no chance of failing no matter how bad your team is, and they reward a choice of every mark (besides Gamma, at least for now) in game.
Alternatively, search for active PvE players who are still left in game, and pester them to join you (hint, I'm one of those).
Or join a chat channel where premade runs are still organized. DPS channels (both numbers and metals league) or Redditchat are not in very good shape and are all seeing an all time low activity, but can be still sometimes quicker solution than just waiting hours in an empty queue.

mustrumridcully0 · August 2018

The Reward/Time ratio isn't good enough for most PvE Queues, and this is further exacerbated by the extended wait times these queues have for not being popular.

If all were equally popular, though, it might cause another problem - the population would be split up along all those queues, extending wait times for all of them.

Cryptic probably needs to establish some kind of system to "highlight" specific queues round-robin style, maybe with extra rewards that can also improve the Reward/Time ratio temporarily at least.

furyan · August 2018

PvE missions are just too easy and extremely boring. I only do them for the dil. I can't do very many because I start feeling extreme nausea, or I pass out after 30 seconds into the mission. When you see someone in a PvE mission that looks like he or she is AFK, that person is probably throwing up or snoring at the keyboard. I miss the days when an STF took an hour or two, and one actually had to develop a real strategy with his or her team members to complete it. Even then victory wasn't guaranteed.

skullblits · August 2018

Things are bad on console aswell.

We can't team up because that's bugged to hell.

All ques are mostly dead. It takes too long to get a game.

Very very few play any higher difficulties
So getting elite marks is almost impossible.

It takes soo long to get the marks u need that trading in marks for a elite mark isn't viable.

Soo yea que system is dead.

tunebreaker · August 2018

reyan01 wrote: »

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

The Reward/Time ratio isn't good enough for most PvE Queues, and this is further exacerbated by the extended wait times these queues have for not being popular.

If all were equally popular, though, it might cause another problem - the population would be split up along all those queues, extending wait times for all of them.

Cryptic probably needs to establish some kind of system to "highlight" specific queues round-robin style, maybe with extra rewards that can also improve the Reward/Time ratio temporarily at least.

That is definitely an issue. For those who play for rewards, the 'payout' f or completing some PvE queue content is absolutely dismal!

Someone in another thread recently reflected on how they completed 'Storming the Spire' on Elite difficulty recently, and how pitiful the reward was for the time and effort put into it. I seem to recall that they also completed the optional (no mean feat!) and received a whopping ONE extra mark for it.

Yep, that was me

Wouldn't say exactly that it was a recent run though, think our first completion with optional was even in 2016, but AFAIK, the reward situation hasn't changed. The video of one of my older StSE runs (without the optional, but completed nevertheless) shows that my reward was 85 marks WITH the daily. Now, I'm completely past the "I play for mark reward" phase, was already then, but for someone who isn't, that's laughably small for a queue that is arguably *the* toughest in the game.

Still, none of my usual StSE teammates cared much for the payout, we just did it for fun and to test ourselves. Yet now they are all sadly gone from the game, with no plans to ever return. And while I'm personally still in STO, I completely understand them.

ussvaliant · August 2018

What killed the queues looking at from my experience

1. Changing from special loot drops to reputation. yes most people prefer this as it guarantees playing x amount of times for the gear but it killed the once very active Borg Ground missions.
2. Once a rep is completed there's no further need to obtain marks thus play that content when dilithium can be earned in easier content such as Romulan or Delta Patrols. Heck you can earn i think 4480k between visiting the Dilithium mines at the Fleet Mine and the one the Ferengi female looks after
3. Delta Rising and its changes that removed many Elite queues and made playing the queues before they scaled it back an unpleasant experience. I.E instant fails for optionals and bloated hitpoints. Absolutely killed pugging. Plus the exodus of Players it caused.
4. Season 13's rebalance that annoyed a lot of people with the nerfs it brought and again caused Players to stop playing. The DPS Channels were quite active up until then. Now they are more a zone chat with ISA/Korfez or HSE being called for and occasionally UAA. Its often quicker to just PUG ISA than call for a group thesedays.
5. Time gating missions.
6. Poor reward to effort/time ratio.
7. New queue UI bugged to hell on launch still has bugs likely put people off using it

admrenlarreck · August 2018

My 2 ec is the ques died off back when several things happened at once,

1. The introduction of the all choice marks boxes.

Why bother playing a que when you can get one of these for a monkey, bird, or Epohh trade in and get more marks for a single trade in than you can get for running a single que? Then the choice boxes were added to the majority of the ques that are played as in the RA's.

2. Elimination of the special gear drops.

Back when the ques were active, You got a chance of a special gear drop that could be traded in for the set pieces and weapons. You wanted the Omega set? You had to go play the Borg STF's. When these were eliminated and the rewards were placed into the Reputations tab you no longer had to run a que to get the gear. I have toons that are running around in full gear sets that have NEVER run a single que simply by farming boxes at summer and winter events. This did have issues as in some players were running one and getting the drop everytime while others were running hundreds and never getting one.

3. elite marks, Dilithium trade in.

So you need an elite mark? Easy open a choice box and run the reputation project to trade a hundred marks for one of these Elite marks. No que involved, run one a day until you have what you need. Same can be done for Dil if needed.

These are just a few of the issues as to why I think the ques are dead.

lordsteve1 · August 2018

Oh there’s plenty of reasons why the queues are dead so here goes:

1) the marks/dilithium rewadds are easier to get in bigger quantities elsewhere. You have Admiralty for the pink rocks plus events like the current one. For marks just doing red alerts nets you more. Or Risa birds/monkeys.

2) universal mark boxes mean you dont even need to fight a specific enemy most times to finish a rep. This idea is utter madness and does more harm than good imo. It goes completely against the whole idea of reputation systems and enemy specific marks & gear projects.

3) the UI is a diabolical mess, which despite some improvements still manages to balls-up queue groups or whatever term is used these days. Queueing for pug runs is hit and miss and can leave you trapped in “queue limbo” if you are unlucky, unable to joint any others once the groups are formed but stuck due to constant declines.
Even making a pre-made group is only good for a single run before it boots you all out often so you need to reinvite people, making it require more work than just forming a team used to require.

4) rewards for most queues are utter TRIBBLE, and as mentioned even elite versions pay out a pitence for all the hard work you put in. Anyone playing for a reward will look elsewhere (see #1)

5) There are simply too many queues. There’s over 100 if you include all the difficulties and that’s going to spread an already thin population who are looking for easy rewards even thinner.

6) some queues are totally borked and cannot be completed often due to bugs. Others are just dull copies of other similar queues and are not very interesting or feel dated. Some of the original ones fighting the Borg are still pretty good but they are so dull that it’s only the quick rewards and using places like ISA as a benchmark that keeps them busy.

7) a lot of long term players left the game so the new ones didn’t have any e to get them into the queues. Combine dead queues with new players and you get disenchanted players who are a pointless dead game and leave as well, or go elsewhere for content (see #1).

8) although some balance issues have been required for a long time (in spite of whining), several types of build are just useless in queues and as such diversity is dropping off. Many funky science builds are utter TRIBBLE now and all the fun of theory crafting and testing for specific runs has just died off. I remember putting together a team with some posters in this thread to use mega-grav wells to try and beat Procyon 5 without using much DPS, but nobody tries that stuff anymore; nobody has the patience, resources or interest.

9) the queue system has one massive problem that never gets discussed properly. Once you complete a rep, why bother joining those queues anymore??? I don’t need to do competitive queues or Nukara ones anymore as I don’t need the marks! I have all the reps finished, I have all the gear I need/want. Those queues are no longer of any use to a person in that situation, why farm when you don’t need the rewards?!

So there is a few of the reasons why the queues are dead. There’s probably more I’ve not listed and other people will have come across all sorts of reasons amongst their own groups of friends too.

starswordc · August 2018

> @shehchao said:
> I tried to queue up but most of them have no players..... quite frustrating. Soni have to keep playig the same few missions over and over again to gain reputation points.

There's an event going on and they can get everything but the elite marks a lot quicker that way.

peterconnorfirst · August 2018

lordsteve1 wrote: »

So there is a few of the reasons why the queues are dead. There’s probably more I’ve not listed and other people will have come across all sorts of reasons amongst their own groups of friends too.

I think you covered it well.

Only on 8) I don’t entirely agree on or only on second thought at best. I think we have a rather good variety on builds by now which should fairly bring Diamond DPS and beyond (beams, torps, cannons, epg, all can do that). Of course the right items for that have to be identified and played/payed for in game. If a player, like me, does so however the time you have on your hands is highly limited so the risk to tend to stuff that does not pay off (let it be strategy, build techniques or the content you face itself) becomes too great.

peterconnorfirst · August 2018

reyan01 wrote: »

admrenlarreck wrote: »

2. Elimination of the special gear drops.

Back when the ques were active, You got a chance of a special gear drop that could be traded in for the set pieces and weapons. You wanted the Omega set? You had to go play the Borg STF's. .

Whilst there were, as you note, pros and cons to this, I have to say I do miss those days. The days where ISE was a true challenge. When we had to employ tactics such as communicating and the 10% rule to have a hope of completing the run.
Not to mention the delight at receiving a MACO/Omega piece if you were lucky.

Well it was cryptic who changed that on purpose.

- They increased the hit points of the Transformers by a lot but left the Nanites weak when DR hit. The 10% rule was not circumvented by power creep or the all mighty FAW. It was a clear design choice by cryptic to let it go. Similar stuff counts for cure space when they decided to only upscale the spawning critters while leaving the cubes and infrastructure low level or weaker. RML or MRRML or how it was called there.. .

- By not granting elite mode it was fully intentional that Infected Space is supposed to be less challenging than the alternatives we have in elite.

I think they explicitly decided for us not to have a challenge there in the hope that other, newer maps get promoted. Well that backfired and 500k worth of powercreep later we still rather play Infected Space than all the other maps.

tunebreaker · August 2018

peterconnorfirst wrote: »

lordsteve1 wrote: »

So there is a few of the reasons why the queues are dead. There’s probably more I’ve not listed and other people will have come across all sorts of reasons amongst their own groups of friends too.

I think you covered it well.

Only on 8) I don’t entirely agree on or only on second thought at best. I think we have a rather good variety on builds by now which should fairly bring Diamond DPS and beyond (beams, torps, cannons, epg, all can do that). Of course the right items for that have to be identified and played/payed for in game. If a player, like me, does so however the time you have on your hands is highly limited so the risk to tend to stuff that does not pay off (let it be strategy, build techniques or the content you face itself) becomes too great.

I think Steve is absolutely right on that part too. You just don't feel it (as much), cause you're both a very good player and a long-time veteran, with enough funds and exclusive items from past events.

Beams are seriously behind both cannons and it seems like they might be performing even worse than EPG builds these days. Pure torp builds aren't still doing really anything spectacular. Tanks are having extremely hard time coping, even with Miracle Worker specialization. Decent sci builds on ships without secondary deflector are pretty much a futile attempt these days. There's still not much love given to support builds (although yes, MW has been a great improvement).
And that's not even mentioning energy-sci builds that even you have complained about. Sure, Jay has a sorta working one, but look who we're talking about.

Sure, you are absolutely correct in saying most build types can do very good DPS, even today. But that's not considering the situation, or the cost associated. And places where we can use our different builds have either become totally barren, or undergo "fun adjustments". You were logged off that time already, but Zooey told yesterday in OCD chat how on event CCA map, her dedicated anti-CE boat now performs worse than her Andorian Escort (that uses standard CSV tactics).

I'm not saying that pre-S13 situation was ideal, because it obviously wasn't, but nevertheless, I still feel it was preferable to where we are at the moment. And we have a long way to go from where we currently are, to actually see an improvement.

nimbull · August 2018

They should remove marks from the red alerts and just up the dilithium ore a tad to not beat out PvE queues but compensate for the mark removals. They should also restrict marks to the theme of the mission you queue for so multiple marks outside of theme mark and fleet marks would be all that you get. Kinda like how gamma marks are only available from the swarm queue or fleet marks.

lordsteve1 · August 2018

Yup @tunebreaker said it pretty well there.
You can make any build work if you have the time and resources to do so and are seriously clued up on the mechanics and maths of the game. But sadly the massive majority of players do not have the time and cash to do this. Consequently they just go for the simple options like beams, cannons, epg, kinetics. And some of those are in a questionable state right now and it’s seriously off putting for players.
Why go to the trouble of upgrading and buying new gear for an awesome build idea you have when it’s cheaper to just go with another CSV escort and know that’ll work better anyway?
And if you know your cool idea will stand no chance at really being competitive then most wont bother is guess.

captainwells · August 2018

The fact that the queues are where you can get virtually any marks you need, but as everyone is pointing out .... nobody seems to be playing them is solely the fault of Cryptic. There is no way to spin that otherwise. Red Alerts don't happen as often as they should and the queues have been futilely screaming "update" for much longer than it makes sense.

Perhaps what has been clearly a back burner issue for Cryptic can soon come to the fore, but otherwise they genuinely need to introduce something different for their players to do in order to amass marks.

peterconnorfirst · August 2018

tunebreaker wrote: »

peterconnorfirst wrote: »

lordsteve1 wrote: »

So there is a few of the reasons why the queues are dead. There’s probably more I’ve not listed and other people will have come across all sorts of reasons amongst their own groups of friends too.

I think you covered it well.

Only on 8) I don’t entirely agree on or only on second thought at best. I think we have a rather good variety on builds by now which should fairly bring Diamond DPS and beyond (beams, torps, cannons, epg, all can do that). Of course the right items for that have to be identified and played/payed for in game. If a player, like me, does so however the time you have on your hands is highly limited so the risk to tend to stuff that does not pay off (let it be strategy, build techniques or the content you face itself) becomes too great.

I think Steve is absolutely right on that part too. You just don't feel it (as much), cause you're both a very good player and a long-time veteran, with enough funds and exclusive items from past events.

Beams are seriously behind both cannons and it seems like they might be performing even worse than EPG builds these days. Pure torp builds aren't still doing really anything spectacular. Tanks are having extremely hard time coping, even with Miracle Worker specialization. Decent sci builds on ships without secondary deflector are pretty much a futile attempt these days. There's still not much love given to support builds (although yes, MW has been a great improvement).
And that's not even mentioning energy-sci builds that even you have complained about. Sure, Jay has a sorta working one, but look who we're talking about.

Sure, you are absolutely correct in saying most build types can do very good DPS, even today. But that's not considering the situation, or the cost associated. And places where we can use our different builds have either become totally barren, or undergo "fun adjustments". You were logged off that time already, but Zooey told yesterday in OCD chat how on event CCA map, her dedicated anti-CE boat now performs worse than her Andorian Escort (that uses standard CSV tactics).

I'm not saying that pre-S13 situation was ideal, because it obviously wasn't, but nevertheless, I still feel it was preferable to where we are at the moment. And we have a long way to go from where we currently are, to actually see an improvement.

Perhaps my experience in CCA is a bit different. I played with cannons since… well ever and was pretty much blasted away when I took my first high EPG or full kinetic builds to that stage. Both of which work better there for me and I remain very curious how the mix I intend to do in the near future will work out there.

At least one might take comfort in the fact that there is not that much that was needed for what appears to be a total Meta shift we have experienced. I was there, in game, setting records, during each iteration with cannons and can’t even tell you what triggered the change. Withering Barrage? Long range targeting of skill revamp? Wider arc under CSV? Working crit D on DHC? Working acc overflow on cannons? All of it? Or did it just happen when more jumped on the train and began to build cannon ships and taking them to PvE that better pilots than I surfaced?

I think the main offensive options we have now are much closer together than they have been in the past. The problem is just that the ice became so incredibly thin than it is up to a dozen player by now to set trends and to have a hundred follow it as result. A single must have ship traits for torpedoes or a slight repair to acc overflow on beams could change everything again.

peterconnorfirst · August 2018

lordsteve1 wrote: »

Why go to the trouble of upgrading and buying new gear for an awesome build idea you have when it’s cheaper to just go with another CSV escort and know that’ll work better anyway?

You know Steve, coming from you, one of the most legendary critics of FAW for seasons, this is really a drastic change of concern I see here. There will likely always be a best option as on what to use (especially under consideration of the different maps we have). I’m really curious how you’ll react, when by chance I’m sure, your build happens to coincident with current meta!

peterconnorfirst · August 2018

And sorry to get back to you like that.

lordsteve1 wrote: »

Consequently they just go for the simple options like beams, cannons, epg, kinetics.

Simple options? What are complex options if I might ask? You mean mixed builds? Like plasma explosions delivered with FAW with high EPG fleedback pulses ensuring another 100k sci DPS on top of the 500k tac DPS you already have?

ucgsquawk · August 2018

On console the queues have been very quiet this week as well, although that might be because it's the week after Risa.

And the fact that so many look at the queues as work for reward as opposed to reward for having fun playing the game is probably another issue.

Personally, I'd love to see a "Join random queue" button for space and ground.
It takes all the players in that random queue and randomly assigns a queue for them to play. The rewards would all be a bit higher of course because you're going into a random queue...but I think it would be great to see what you end up playing, it would give a lot of seldom played maps a chance and could greatly speed up matchmaking on maps.
It could draw players from the random queue and even put them in with one or two who were waiting on a specific map so that everyone sees faster matchmaking. Those who are coming from the 'random' list get better rewards, those who were queued to play the map get regular rewards but get exactly what they were looking for.

postagepaid · August 2018

Once a rep daily has been obtained its pointless doing anything for it again that day because the rewards are a pittance.

Not sure how well the random queue option would work with the time/reward mentality that cryptic has nurtured. It might work but at the same time it might only work for a week until folk decide that they'd rather take the leaver debuff than run mission X.

Feeling slightly confused that anyone would feel the need to make a ship dedicated to one of the simplest queues in the game.

lordsteve1 · August 2018

Yeah I have had my mind changed to some extent in recent months @peterconnorfirst and I’ll freely admit to that.
I’ve still got issues with BFAW as I think it’s still too generic in it’s ability and it should be specific like every other weapon enhancement is.
But the fact is that despite the meta changing recently (and like you said nobody really knows why it happened) some builds still are next to useless and only a small selection really works well enough not to be a drag on a team.
My main concern that any decent game design should allow players to play how they want and still be competitive. That means anything apart from utterly ridiculous builds should be able to manage content without feeling like a wet noodle. There will be certain areas where you can do more, depending on the situation but a good game would allow a wealth of diverse builds the chance to be competitive and be a valuable part of the team in any match. These days in STO that’s just not happening. Aside from DPS being king and having builds capable of nuking a Tac cube in seconds a lot of stuff is just not even required anymore. Support builds, healers, debuffers, disable builds; they all currently are a bit pointless in most instances and that just shouldn’t be the case. Nobody should ever feel like their build is a drag on a team, or be accused of being carried when they’ve put a great deal of thought into said build. The game should be designed where all styles and tactics can be equally useful, though maybe not all equal in terms of damage.

And this is why I mentioned that some people won’t bother trying new things because firstly the builds are not competitive and secondly because to get even half way competitive costs a bloody fortune.

lexusk19 · August 2018

Rewards are terrible and most take way to long. I really like some, but its like do bleh for 15 min, gets 10 marks as reward. Oh boy!

tunebreaker · August 2018

reyan01 wrote: »

tunebreaker wrote: »

You were logged off that time already, but Zooey told yesterday in OCD chat how on event CCA map, her dedicated anti-CE boat now performs worse than her Andorian Escort (that uses standard CSV tactics).

Okay - firstly this is NOT intended to be insulting or critical - it really isn't.

But "dedicated CCA boat"?
Firstly, on map that could be completed in 30 seconds by a PuG, I fail to see how a dedicated "anti-CE boat" is necessary. Unless the idea was to reduce the run to 15 seconds I guess.

Secondly, I'm not sure I see the wisdom in dedicated builds, as they can VERY easily find themselves redundant. MMO's change and creating a build only to find that the Dev's make a change (and they always do, sooner or later) that render's the anti-whatever build obsolete is disappointing. Disappointing, but inevitable.

"to reduce the run to 15 seconds" Yeah, I think that was pretty much the idea behind it. Was it absolutely necessary to complete the mission? Well, considering how we're talking about one of the very best players in STO, certainly not. But it was just another build idea to pass time, and it's not up to anyone else to decide whether creation of that build was needed or not.
And it's not like she was whining about her build being ruined or anything, it was just a display of minor disappointment. I merely brought this up because imo, this illustrates fairly well how we're shoehorned yet again into "one build type to rule them all" gameplay.

tunebreaker · August 2018

reyan01 wrote: »

tunebreaker wrote: »

reyan01 wrote: »

tunebreaker wrote: »

You were logged off that time already, but Zooey told yesterday in OCD chat how on event CCA map, her dedicated anti-CE boat now performs worse than her Andorian Escort (that uses standard CSV tactics).

Okay - firstly this is NOT intended to be insulting or critical - it really isn't.

But "dedicated CCA boat"?
Firstly, on map that could be completed in 30 seconds by a PuG, I fail to see how a dedicated "anti-CE boat" is necessary. Unless the idea was to reduce the run to 15 seconds I guess.

Secondly, I'm not sure I see the wisdom in dedicated builds, as they can VERY easily find themselves redundant. MMO's change and creating a build only to find that the Dev's make a change (and they always do, sooner or later) that render's the anti-whatever build obsolete is disappointing. Disappointing, but inevitable.

"to reduce the run to 15 seconds" Yeah, I think that was pretty much the idea behind it. Was it absolutely necessary to complete the mission? Well, considering how we're talking about one of the very best players in STO, certainly not. But it was just another build idea to pass time, and it's not up to anyone else to decide whether creation of that build was needed or not.
And it's not like she was whining about her build being ruined or anything, it was just a display of minor disappointment. I merely brought this up because imo, this illustrates fairly well how we're shoehorned yet again into "one build type to rule them all" gameplay.

Yeah - not going to see eye-to-eye with you on this one. You are right - it's not for anyone else to decide, but there does come a point where things get silly.

"One of the very best players in STO" Vs the EASIEST piece of content in the game. A map that your average PuG can complete in 30 seconds.
That's like a ruddy tank Vs a drunk guy with a peashooter.

Zooey has accompanied me through most of the elite queues in game, as well as in that Kobayashi Maru run where we got to the stage 48. Just because she also has a silly CE-buster in her ship roster (which she doesn't even fly that often, to my knowledge) doesn't mean she's not an exceptionally good player.

Also, I don't think I've ever encountered an "average" pug that cleared CCA in 30 seconds. It can very well happen when there's 1 (or worse, more than 1) player with strong sci-torp or pure-torp boat, but to my experience, it doesn't happen too often. I don't think any of the CCAs I did with my Jem'Hadar alt (before the event started) took less time than a minute. However, yes, I don't argue with you when you say even that is ridiculously short.

lordsteve1 · August 2018

I think the speedrun was more a test of how fast could the thing be done rather than anything serious. It’s merely a case of how far into the extreme can you push the mechanics of the game and not a serious measure of the game situation.

There’s little point comparing the top 1% of DPS runs to any average player runs because they are in such extremes as to be meaningless really. They are a fun exercise but if you were looking to see the real situation with a map/build or whatever I’d look more at median times rather than mean as they’d be less skewed generally.

peterconnorfirst · August 2018

reyan01 wrote: »

tunebreaker wrote: »

reyan01 wrote: »

tunebreaker wrote: »

You were logged off that time already, but Zooey told yesterday in OCD chat how on event CCA map, her dedicated anti-CE boat now performs worse than her Andorian Escort (that uses standard CSV tactics).

Okay - firstly this is NOT intended to be insulting or critical - it really isn't.

But "dedicated CCA boat"?
Firstly, on map that could be completed in 30 seconds by a PuG, I fail to see how a dedicated "anti-CE boat" is necessary. Unless the idea was to reduce the run to 15 seconds I guess.

Secondly, I'm not sure I see the wisdom in dedicated builds, as they can VERY easily find themselves redundant. MMO's change and creating a build only to find that the Dev's make a change (and they always do, sooner or later) that render's the anti-whatever build obsolete is disappointing. Disappointing, but inevitable.

"to reduce the run to 15 seconds" Yeah, I think that was pretty much the idea behind it. Was it absolutely necessary to complete the mission? Well, considering how we're talking about one of the very best players in STO, certainly not. But it was just another build idea to pass time, and it's not up to anyone else to decide whether creation of that build was needed or not.
And it's not like she was whining about her build being ruined or anything, it was just a display of minor disappointment. I merely brought this up because imo, this illustrates fairly well how we're shoehorned yet again into "one build type to rule them all" gameplay.

Yeah - not going to see eye-to-eye with you on this one. You are right - it's not for anyone else to decide, but there does come a point where things get silly.

"One of the very best players in STO" Vs the EASIEST piece of content in the game. A map that your average PuG can complete in 30 seconds.
That's like a ruddy tank Vs a drunk guy with a peashooter.

I think some time ago @e30ernest analogized performance players tending to „easy” content a bit better by comparing it with a 100 metre dash. While walking that stretch slowly won’t get your heart pumping trying to set a record there can surely burn you out on it. I’m not familiar with Zooeys cc build but judging from the hardcore runs I made with that player recently I can assure you that she didn’t make it to bring it easy.

I can also assure you that I wasn’t particularly relaxed on my two 390K+ runs in ISA. Quite the opposite. While the map itself stopped posing obstacles ages ago teamed approaches to fabricate such numbers are a matter of high concentration and even tension. Ok perhaps not for that Italian friend of mine who piloted one of the recluses. Hehe I doubt there is anything that can disturb his calm but I’m sure you get what I try to explain:

In order to get excitement performance players set the difficulty straight for themselves because the game alone fails to do so completely.

The moment I play a map and get the feeling that it is easy I know I do something wrong and most liekly let the others of a team conclude it too much. Somthing the CLR confirms all too eften, let it be with DPS, heals or attack ins.

peterconnorfirst · August 2018

lordsteve1 wrote: »

Yeah I have had my mind changed to some extent in recent months @peterconnorfirst and I’ll freely admit to that.
I’ve still got issues with BFAW as I think it’s still too generic in it’s ability and it should be specific like every other weapon enhancement is.
But the fact is that despite the meta changing recently (and like you said nobody really knows why it happened) some builds still are next to useless and only a small selection really works well enough not to be a drag on a team.
My main concern that any decent game design should allow players to play how they want and still be competitive. That means anything apart from utterly ridiculous builds should be able to manage content without feeling like a wet noodle. There will be certain areas where you can do more, depending on the situation but a good game would allow a wealth of diverse builds the chance to be competitive and be a valuable part of the team in any match. These days in STO that’s just not happening. Aside from DPS being king and having builds capable of nuking a Tac cube in seconds a lot of stuff is just not even required anymore. Support builds, healers, debuffers, disable builds; they all currently are a bit pointless in most instances and that just shouldn’t be the case. Nobody should ever feel like their build is a drag on a team, or be accused of being carried when they’ve put a great deal of thought into said build. The game should be designed where all styles and tactics can be equally useful, though maybe not all equal in terms of damage.

And this is why I mentioned that some people won’t bother trying new things because firstly the builds are not competitive and secondly because to get even half way competitive costs a bloody fortune.

Thanks a lot for the explanation.

Well sure I totally agree most of the stuff is not required in PvE while DPS (however it is delivered) remains the ultimate factor. Sounds dull but for as long as there is a fixed number of hit points to melt and that in a fixed timeframe it won’t change. Especially as the content fails to post obstacles in light of what the players can pull.

I cannot stress enough however that even though not required some support builds especially in the area of de-buffing, crowd controlling and healing are a major asset to teams and are heavily utilized for the absurd DPS numbers we have seen in the past. They have a purpose, they do get used but are sadly underrepresented as we play a game filled with scrubs who rather bring in terms like “nannie runs” or “cookie cutter builds” instead of simply embracing team play and the transfer of knowledge.

All too many players have the urge to set themselves apart, to do things differently. This is fine for as long as they get fun out of it but the moment they realize their impact on PvE is negligible they rather ask for the game to be changed instead of simply sticking to what works. Sorry but disables, drains and single target builds simply have a smaller impact in general PvE compared to the alternatives and I doubt that can be helped without changing the content so drastic that casual players could ever catch on.

meimeitoo · August 2018

reyan01 wrote: »

Sorry - not a popular opinion here, but the sad fact is this isn't going to change. Cryptic know that ISA/CCA/Borg RA and Tholian RA (and fleet alert to a degree due to having no player level limitation) are the maps everyone queue for. They know the rewards for completing said maps are disproportionately generous. And they let that stand.

And that's pretty sad on the face of it.

If they ever want to fix the queues, create Normal, Advanced, and Elites for *every* queue (including Korfez and such), and properly pay out rewards according to difficulty (and not 1 Mark extra for Elite optionals; for shame). And, and I can't stress this enough, let every difficulty level be the SAME mission, so ppl can learn the ropes in lower versions first.

Why are most of pve queues empty??

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