Well that's Cryptics fault for designing 5 player multiplier mission where the goal is for 1 person to fly in a straight line while the others have to wait AFK. The steamline Breach is a terrible design for a multiplayer map.
Blame the players who complained that the standard version was too long, which was back in the dark days of Character Unlock rewards. Even just having 3 characters go through standard Breach burned players out.
The response was first to make this shorter version for the events, and then they started listening to the community and made the rewards Account Unlocks.
Its not the map that supports AFKers. More like player lazyness. They pretty much expect to be carried through by veteran players so... just queue up, get in, then Alt-Tab and watch Youtube.
Yea I want the reward, but I wanna earn it. Not have it handed to me on a silver platter just because I showed up and sat at the starting line.
Now if there was a way to punish those AFKers for sitting there and doing nothing... might get their attention. Maybe have the Fortress start shooting Antiproton Lances at the spawn point after... say 20 seconds to account for any lag client side. Something to encourage people to actually MOVE.
And before anyone suggests inmplimenting a Vote Kick... there are way too many DPS Egos in game that will use that if someone doesn't measure up to their percieved standards, even if they ARE participating. "Oh you're only doing 10k when my personal belief is 35k minimum for normal? VOTE KICK!"
Well that's Cryptics fault for designing 5 player multiplier mission where the goal is for 1 person to fly in a straight line while the others have to wait AFK. The steamline Breach is a terrible design for a multiplayer map.
Blame the players who complained that the standard version was too long, which was back in the dark days of Character Unlock rewards. Even just having 3 characters go through standard Breach burned players out.
The response was first to make this shorter version for the events, and then they started listening to the community and made the rewards Account Unlocks.
Its not the map that supports AFKers. More like player lazyness. They pretty much expect to be carried through by veteran players so... just queue up, get in, then Alt-Tab and watch Youtube.
Yea I want the reward, but I wanna earn it. Not have it handed to me on a silver platter just because I showed up and sat at the starting line.
Now if there was a way to punish those AFKers for sitting there and doing nothing... might get their attention. Maybe have the Fortress start shooting Antiproton Lances at the spawn point after... say 20 seconds to account for any lag client side. Something to encourage people to actually MOVE.
And before anyone suggests inmplimenting a Vote Kick... there are way too many DPS Egos in game that will use that if someone doesn't measure up to their percieved standards, even if they ARE participating. "Oh you're only doing 10k when my personal belief is 35k minimum for normal? VOTE KICK!"
My 2 ECs.
Why should players be punished for sitting AFK in the trench run when the mission is designed for 1 player to do the mission while the rest sit AFK? There is no point in the 4 other players moving so they should not get punished. I am going sit AFK for the trench run as there is zero point in doing anything else. I will go active once inside.
Now if there was a way to punish those AFKers for sitting there and doing nothing... might get their attention. Maybe have the Fortress start shooting Antiproton Lances at the spawn point after... say 20 seconds to account for any lag client side. Something to encourage people to actually MOVE.
I'm all for this one. Personally I don't find someone's decision not to race me to the finish to be all that vexing (sure, only one person has to do it if I can beat them to the finish we get done that much faster) but doom cannons slowly wiping more of the map (no single safe spot to park in) would be a fun way of annoying AFK'ers who'd rather minimize effort than fight Dinosaurs in space.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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!
Its not "designed for 1 player". That's just how people treat it. Maybe if they removed that "hey someone made it! Lets give everyone the option to teleport to the breach point" prompt people would be more inclined to actually do the first 1/3 of the queue.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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!
We’ve got a brand new feature for this run of the Breach. Once per account, you’ll be able to purchase the Event Accelerator Bundle: The Breach, for 1000 zen. This bundle, available in the C-store, will give you ten Voth Operative Transmissions, and an Ultimate Tech Upgrade. Use it to give yourself a jump start, or to finish the project if you’re running out of time! For the first weekend of this event, the Bundle will be 20% off!
By the way, on the last day of the summer event, someone mentioned in chat that they couldn't finish the ship because they were short on vouchers. A friend of mine said they could buy vouchers with Lobi. But when we checked the Risa vendor and the Lobi store, we couldn't find the pack. Was this intentionally removed, or is it a bug?
Now if there was a way to punish those AFKers for sitting there and doing nothing... might get their attention. Maybe have the Fortress start shooting Antiproton Lances at the spawn point after... say 20 seconds to account for any lag client side. Something to encourage people to actually MOVE.
I'm all for this one. Personally I don't find someone's decision not to race me to the finish to be all that vexing (sure, only one person has to do it if I can beat them to the finish we get done that much faster) but doom cannons slowly wiping more of the map (no single safe spot to park in) would be a fun way of annoying AFK'ers who'd rather minimize effort than fight Dinosaurs in space.
You don't seem to understand AFKers. They'll just die, and sit at the respawn screen until they need to do something.
Its not "designed for 1 player". That's just how people treat it. Maybe if they removed that "hey someone made it! Lets give everyone the option to teleport to the breach point" prompt people would be more inclined to actually do the first 1/3 of the queue.
They actually did nerf this a little bit last time, now you have to be at least half-way across the fortress ship before that button appears. However I'd say they should prevent it from appearing until you turn that corner at the opposite end.
By the way, on the last day of the summer event, someone mentioned in chat that they couldn't finish the ship because they were short on vouchers. A friend of mine said they could buy vouchers with Lobi. But when we checked the Risa vendor and the Lobi store, we couldn't find the pack. Was this intentionally removed, or is it a bug?
Might be a bug. ALL of the new stuff in the summer event store poofed after the event ended, so we can't even pick up baseball uniforms with any leftover favors right now. And I think normally they let the Lobi vouchers run for a week or so after the event...
You don't seem to understand AFKers. They'll just die, and sit at the respawn screen until they need to do something.
Yes, that's the idea.
I didn't say this would solve the issue. This would simply be doing something with AFK players that's of mild entertainment value (which one can still appreciate from team status icons.)
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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!
I didn't say this would solve the issue in any way. This would simply be doing something with AFK players that's of mild entertainment value (which one can still appreciate from team status icons.)
Exactly. And those of us actually participating can have an evil grin on our faces.
I love the photo in the signature. If anything though, Data should be colossus, Troi should be Jean Grey, and O'Brien should be Nightcrawler. Not really sure who Riker would be, though. Still, that is an AMAZING image.
For the actual post, I'm kind of a mixed bag on how to feel. I like having a non-consumable combat pet for EVERYONE is a great thing but having a pew-pew-asaurus seems like a weird choice. The weird thing for me, though, is the buyout. For a Star Trek game, there are so many ways to make good money off of the IP but instead, they charge too much for what most of their stuff is worth (across all three games), and now they're giving people he option to just buy their way out of doing most of the event.
I understand that people are busy, more so in today's economy, so it's a great way to earn rewards but geez... Is the content THAT bad that people just want to pay to get out of it? It's not pay to win but it's still a weird Pay over play dynamic, which i don't really like. Again, there are some great ideas on the forums as to how to monetize the game and star trek but THIS is what they give us? Why not just give those four extra tokens and let this be what it really is? A straight buyout/bypass.
I get WHY this is a thing but i really don't like THAT it's a thing or HOW the thing is done. I just feel like an IP as strong as this deserves better demonetization. If you're going to go for cheap grabs like this, you might as well let them pay to skip the whole thing.
Is the content THAT bad that people just want to pay to get out of it? .
Yes, this is an MMO. Player burnout is a serious concern for developers and the alternative of "well, if it's too much for you right now to engage with another PVE grind then don't play it" is counterproductive to the purpose of the event (ie. spurring some level of engagement with the game between mission drops.) Enter the new escape button, ensuring nominal participation for either a transaction or time spent elsewhere in the game (remember: F2P model), both of which are healthy for STO's ecosystem, while still allowing affected players to have nice things (ie. the exclusive prizes without the risk of pushing them over the edge if the psychological cost of working through the grind meets or exceeds 1,000 zen.)
It's our safety valve.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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!
You don't seem to understand AFKers. They'll just die, and sit at the respawn screen until they need to do something.
Yes, that's the idea.
I didn't say this would solve the issue. This would simply be doing something with AFK players that's of mild entertainment value (which one can still appreciate from team status icons.)
Lol, CCA hasn't even finished yet and we already get a new event announcement, to run *right* after it ends. .
Are you new? STO lives off of constant limited time events. They'd be scared to let the normal content stand alone for a week or two!
Breach... I can't wait to have to put up with the same group of AFKers again while Cryptic does nothing. At least it's BoA now so I only have to deal with them in 1 run instead of multiple runs a day.
Well that's Cryptics fault for designing 5 player multiplier mission where the goal is for 1 person to fly in a straight line while the others have to wait AFK. The steamline Breach is a terrible design for a multiplayer map.
Yeah, there's never been a map that's a race in any multiplayer game before.
This is an MMO, not a Star Trek episode simulator. That would make for a terrible game.
2 ideas on AFK...maybe make the optional required/tied to the daily event token. Sure, you could still get marks, but sitting and doing nothing would effectively reward nothing for the event.
Second, and less likely, would be to set some timer (e.g. 1 minute) after which the mission would either kick the person in question or lock out earning the token. If kicked in this way, Breach and Breach only would have no penalty in case you had an SNR or freakishly long load-in.
Fundamentally, make it either non-rewarding or incompletely rewarding to go totally AFK for any portion, sidestepping opinions about what level of contribution should be a "functional AFK", as in the 10k vs 35k cited up thread.
Lol, CCA hasn't even finished yet and we already get a new event announcement, to run *right* after it ends. .
Are you new? STO lives off of constant limited time events. They'd be scared to let the normal content stand alone for a week or two!
Breach... I can't wait to have to put up with the same group of AFKers again while Cryptic does nothing. At least it's BoA now so I only have to deal with them in 1 run instead of multiple runs a day.
Well that's Cryptics fault for designing 5 player multiplier mission where the goal is for 1 person to fly in a straight line while the others have to wait AFK. The steamline Breach is a terrible design for a multiplayer map.
Yeah, there's never been a map that's a race in any multiplayer game before.
But it its not a race if it was I wouldn't have a problem with it. Right now if you are not in a racing ship there is no point in doing anything but sitting AFK for the trench run. The person in the fastest ship fly's down a set path while the rest sit AFK. That's how the mission is designed to be run. Its effectively a single player map in a multiply mission which is why I said its a terrible map design. Also people being AFK for the trench run should not be punished as that part of the mission is designed for 4 players to do nothing. There is no reward or benefit for the 4 slower ships to do anything but sit AFK. Being AFK doesn't slow the mission down, it has zero impact until you get inside.
It's not how it's designed to be run, it's how it's most efficiently/quickly run. It seems those 2 things are being confused.
Design would be to complete the optional with all 5 people destroying the smaller nodes, with this being the only way to open the namesake breach to the inside.
You know... in all my years of running Breach... I have NEVER gotten the optional for the Trench Run portion... I think the highest I've ever seen was in the 80% range. Never 90%+
Dude... if I can run the Trench in an Assault Cruiser... its not necessary to run a "racing ship".
BEGONE EDIT MONSETER!
The point is only 1 person needs to run it and it makes sense for the fastest person to do that, but it doesn't have to be the fastest. There is zero point in the other 4 players doing anything but sitting AFK in the streamlined version. Its basically a single player map that has 5 people on it but a task for 1 person while the other 4 sit AFK.
Why punish the 4 people for being AFK when they have nothing to do. The task is not to get 5 people to the end, the mission task is to get 1 person to the end.
Its not the players fault, its the devs fault for oversimplifying and making such a bad multiplayer mission map. I can understand punishing those AFK inside. But for the trench run there is nothing wrong with being AFK.
EDIT: Another way to look at it, while its not necessary to run a racing ship if another player is in a fast ship and zooms ahead of you. There is no point in you flying anymore. So you may as well sit AFK as you are not helping or achieving anything by flying.
EDIT: Another way to look at it, while its not necessary to run a racing ship if another player is in a fast ship and zooms ahead of you. There is no point in you flying anymore.
This makes sense.
Though I have never done this mission at all... I am assuming fastest ship is toggling a switch to open up the rest of the mission for everyone else..... everyone else should be sitting in position ready to "hit it" once it opens.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Well that's Cryptics fault for designing 5 player multiplier mission where the goal is for 1 person to fly in a straight line while the others have to wait AFK. The steamline Breach is a terrible design for a multiplayer map.
True, the FIRST part of it is pointless and I don't mind AFKers on that part, but when we enter the actual breach and have to pew pew stuff, then I want them to get off their asses.
Now if there was a way to punish those AFKers for sitting there and doing nothing... might get their attention. Maybe have the Fortress start shooting Antiproton Lances at the spawn point after... say 20 seconds to account for any lag client side. Something to encourage people to actually MOVE.
AFKers will just die and sit Unconscious till the end. I've seen it done.
2 ideas on AFK...maybe make the optional required/tied to the daily event token. Sure, you could still get marks, but sitting and doing nothing would effectively reward nothing for the event. Second, and less likely, would be to set some timer (e.g. 1 minute) after which the mission would either kick the person in question or lock out earning the token. If kicked in this way, Breach and Breach only would have no penalty in case you had an SNR or freakishly long load-in. Fundamentally, make it either non-rewarding or incompletely rewarding to go totally AFK for any portion, sidestepping opinions about what level of contribution should be a "functional AFK", as in the 10k vs 35k cited up thread.
Last time, someone came up with a Queue Ignore feature also making it so you don't get grouped with an AFKer you have on Ignore. Other than alot of work for Cryptic to implement, I can't see a downside for players. There'd be no automated AFK meter like we have now that can slap you down. The AFKer would eventually annoy enough people that his time in queue will be so long as he keeps being kicked to the curb by the queue maker because someone has him on Ignore
Last Breach event, I sent PWE customer service chat screenshots of an AFKer proudly stating how he constantly AFKs & always gets away with it and as far as I know nothing ever happened to him. (Not that I expected anything to happen, more of an experiment to see if anything would w/ such blatant evidence.) So that Ignore thing sounds like a great way to stealth punish such people w/o Cryptic/PWE taking blame for actively putting the smack down on someone.
You know... in all my years of running Breach... I have NEVER gotten the optional for the Trench Run portion... I think the highest I've ever seen was in the 80% range. Never 90%+
Comments
Blame the players who complained that the standard version was too long, which was back in the dark days of Character Unlock rewards. Even just having 3 characters go through standard Breach burned players out.
The response was first to make this shorter version for the events, and then they started listening to the community and made the rewards Account Unlocks.
Its not the map that supports AFKers. More like player lazyness. They pretty much expect to be carried through by veteran players so... just queue up, get in, then Alt-Tab and watch Youtube.
Yea I want the reward, but I wanna earn it. Not have it handed to me on a silver platter just because I showed up and sat at the starting line.
Now if there was a way to punish those AFKers for sitting there and doing nothing... might get their attention. Maybe have the Fortress start shooting Antiproton Lances at the spawn point after... say 20 seconds to account for any lag client side. Something to encourage people to actually MOVE.
And before anyone suggests inmplimenting a Vote Kick... there are way too many DPS Egos in game that will use that if someone doesn't measure up to their percieved standards, even if they ARE participating. "Oh you're only doing 10k when my personal belief is 35k minimum for normal? VOTE KICK!"
My 2 ECs.
I'm all for this one. Personally I don't find someone's decision not to race me to the finish to be all that vexing (sure, only one person has to do it if I can beat them to the finish we get done that much faster) but doom cannons slowly wiping more of the map (no single safe spot to park in) would be a fun way of annoying AFK'ers who'd rather minimize effort than fight Dinosaurs in space.
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!
You answered your own question there.
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!
too bad pets in this game suck due to short duration they are up for.
By the way, on the last day of the summer event, someone mentioned in chat that they couldn't finish the ship because they were short on vouchers. A friend of mine said they could buy vouchers with Lobi. But when we checked the Risa vendor and the Lobi store, we couldn't find the pack. Was this intentionally removed, or is it a bug?
Have never done the Sompek one, neither. Come to think of it.
Really, Folks, not required to do all the events. Ya know.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
You don't seem to understand AFKers. They'll just die, and sit at the respawn screen until they need to do something.
They actually did nerf this a little bit last time, now you have to be at least half-way across the fortress ship before that button appears. However I'd say they should prevent it from appearing until you turn that corner at the opposite end.
Might be a bug. ALL of the new stuff in the summer event store poofed after the event ended, so we can't even pick up baseball uniforms with any leftover favors right now. And I think normally they let the Lobi vouchers run for a week or so after the event...
Yes, that's the idea.
I didn't say this would solve the issue. This would simply be doing something with AFK players that's of mild entertainment value (which one can still appreciate from team status icons.)
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!
Exactly. And those of us actually participating can have an evil grin on our faces.
I love the photo in the signature. If anything though, Data should be colossus, Troi should be Jean Grey, and O'Brien should be Nightcrawler. Not really sure who Riker would be, though. Still, that is an AMAZING image.
For the actual post, I'm kind of a mixed bag on how to feel. I like having a non-consumable combat pet for EVERYONE is a great thing but having a pew-pew-asaurus seems like a weird choice. The weird thing for me, though, is the buyout. For a Star Trek game, there are so many ways to make good money off of the IP but instead, they charge too much for what most of their stuff is worth (across all three games), and now they're giving people he option to just buy their way out of doing most of the event.
I understand that people are busy, more so in today's economy, so it's a great way to earn rewards but geez... Is the content THAT bad that people just want to pay to get out of it? It's not pay to win but it's still a weird Pay over play dynamic, which i don't really like. Again, there are some great ideas on the forums as to how to monetize the game and star trek but THIS is what they give us? Why not just give those four extra tokens and let this be what it really is? A straight buyout/bypass.
I get WHY this is a thing but i really don't like THAT it's a thing or HOW the thing is done. I just feel like an IP as strong as this deserves better demonetization. If you're going to go for cheap grabs like this, you might as well let them pay to skip the whole thing.
Yes, this is an MMO. Player burnout is a serious concern for developers and the alternative of "well, if it's too much for you right now to engage with another PVE grind then don't play it" is counterproductive to the purpose of the event (ie. spurring some level of engagement with the game between mission drops.) Enter the new escape button, ensuring nominal participation for either a transaction or time spent elsewhere in the game (remember: F2P model), both of which are healthy for STO's ecosystem, while still allowing affected players to have nice things (ie. the exclusive prizes without the risk of pushing them over the edge if the psychological cost of working through the grind meets or exceeds 1,000 zen.)
It's our safety valve.
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!
Fair enough
Yeah, there's never been a map that's a race in any multiplayer game before.
Second, and less likely, would be to set some timer (e.g. 1 minute) after which the mission would either kick the person in question or lock out earning the token. If kicked in this way, Breach and Breach only would have no penalty in case you had an SNR or freakishly long load-in.
Fundamentally, make it either non-rewarding or incompletely rewarding to go totally AFK for any portion, sidestepping opinions about what level of contribution should be a "functional AFK", as in the 10k vs 35k cited up thread.
BEGONE EDIT MONSETER!
Design would be to complete the optional with all 5 people destroying the smaller nodes, with this being the only way to open the namesake breach to the inside.
Why punish the 4 people for being AFK when they have nothing to do. The task is not to get 5 people to the end, the mission task is to get 1 person to the end.
Its not the players fault, its the devs fault for oversimplifying and making such a bad multiplayer mission map. I can understand punishing those AFK inside. But for the trench run there is nothing wrong with being AFK.
EDIT: Another way to look at it, while its not necessary to run a racing ship if another player is in a fast ship and zooms ahead of you. There is no point in you flying anymore. So you may as well sit AFK as you are not helping or achieving anything by flying.
This makes sense.
Though I have never done this mission at all... I am assuming fastest ship is toggling a switch to open up the rest of the mission for everyone else..... everyone else should be sitting in position ready to "hit it" once it opens.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
True, the FIRST part of it is pointless and I don't mind AFKers on that part, but when we enter the actual breach and have to pew pew stuff, then I want them to get off their asses.
AFKers will just die and sit Unconscious till the end. I've seen it done.
Last time, someone came up with a Queue Ignore feature also making it so you don't get grouped with an AFKer you have on Ignore. Other than alot of work for Cryptic to implement, I can't see a downside for players. There'd be no automated AFK meter like we have now that can slap you down. The AFKer would eventually annoy enough people that his time in queue will be so long as he keeps being kicked to the curb by the queue maker because someone has him on Ignore
Last Breach event, I sent PWE customer service chat screenshots of an AFKer proudly stating how he constantly AFKs & always gets away with it and as far as I know nothing ever happened to him. (Not that I expected anything to happen, more of an experiment to see if anything would w/ such blatant evidence.) So that Ignore thing sounds like a great way to stealth punish such people w/o Cryptic/PWE taking blame for actively putting the smack down on someone.
Maybe. But those of us who AREN'T AFKing will get a good chuckle seeing them go poof while we dive through the Trench.
I did, until they made it a speed-run.