The scaling wouldn't be too bad if the levelling pace was a tad slower so that you hit missions at the level they were intended for[...]
I think you nailed the answer. Scaling issues aside, from streamlining the leveling process to drastically cutting the price of large xp boosts to offering instant level 65 toons to having a low level queue without any cool down there is a double edged sword to a new player leveling too fast.
Players used to hit this mission at a far lower level where it's doable (might take a few tries) with stock shuttle gear, 2 or 3 uncommon consoles, shield batts, Hazard Emitters, and spamming the distribute shields button that you dragged to your tray.
The scaling wouldn't be too bad if the levelling pace was a tad slower so that you hit missions at the level they were intended for[...]
I think you nailed the answer. Scaling issues aside, from streamlining the leveling process to drastically cutting the price of large xp boosts to offering instant level 65 toons to having a low level queue without any cool down there is a double edged sword to a new player leveling too fast.
Players used to hit this mission at a far lower level where it's doable (might take a few tries) with stock shuttle gear, 2 or 3 uncommon consoles, shield batts, Hazard Emitters, and spamming the distribute shields button that you dragged to your tray.
It's still entirely doable with that at 65, I just tested it on the first page. Only default/random drop gear, nothing over mk12 green, all high-level/premium perks disabled. I didn't even use shield batteries because consumables are icky.
Missions continue to issue the same Ml XI/XII **** they've been issuing before, while the gear standards shoot up to XIV and XV. This is, obviously, not really gonna cut it.
When purple Mk XII was the best you could get, missions/queues would drop Mk XII gear too (sometimes purple too). Then Geko got greedy, and, not wanting to kill their Golden Upgrade Goose, left drops at purple Mk XII max (not counting AoY boons). That's always been a mite weird. As before, end-gear should be dropping again from endgame missions/queues. As it is now, everything that drops is just re-engineering fodder: nice for those who already have everything, and just like to fine-tune their stuff, but not so nice towards the new player.
100% true!!!
In every MMO I've been playing in the last 18 years, every time the devs raised the Char-Level they also raised the Equipment-Level from the Items dropping from those NPCs. That way the new players where always able to keep up with the veteran players and didn’t have to grind/farm longer distances, every time the Level-Cap was raised.
In my opinion it is time for the STO-Devs to do the same as soon as possible. Their *golden upgrade goose* won’t be touched by that, since players still need to upgrade stuff to be able to play end-game content like adv. STFs and so on.
Maybe you need to learn how not to control how others play. And maybe read the rest of the post.
Short version: This is a "git gud" moment, and people are trying to tell you how to git gud.
Your attempts at describing the nature of the problem indicate that you're doing things pretty much the hardest way you can with predictable results. It's very true that newbies have problems with this, it's always been that way.
#1 thing about shuttle missions: NEVER USE THE DEFAULT GARBAGE GEAR! Seriously, it's about equal to the common junk gear you get on ships. Honestly the idea that a newbie doesn't have good gear is believable... it's also true that it's part of what defines a newbie is that they don't know how to play the game well. "Git gud" is about learning to play the game. It doesn't mean becoming a top-tier player, it means becoming good enough to not get ganked by random NPCs in easy-mode.
Also that torp hit you claim is a one-shot... pretty sure it's a HY torp not a normal torp. But HY Quantums(either that or photon, not sure which the Jem'hadar NPCs use) are non-targetable. Using brace for impact as soon as you enter combat will probably cut the damage enough to keep it from doing significant damage. Purple 12 Neutronium armor also goes a long way in shuttle missions.
Maybe you need to learn how not to control how others play. And maybe read the rest of the post.
Short version: This is a "git gud" moment, and people are trying to tell you how to git gud.
Your attempts at describing the nature of the problem indicate that you're doing things pretty much the hardest way you can with predictable results. It's very true that newbies have problems with this, it's always been that way.
#1 thing about shuttle missions: NEVER USE THE DEFAULT GARBAGE GEAR! Seriously, it's about equal to the common junk gear you get on ships. Honestly the idea that a newbie doesn't have good gear is believable... it's also true that it's part of what defines a newbie is that they don't know how to play the game well. "Git gud" is about learning to play the game. It doesn't mean becoming a top-tier player, it means becoming good enough to not get ganked by random NPCs in easy-mode.
Also that torp hit you claim is a one-shot... pretty sure it's a HY torp not a normal torp. But HY Quantums(either that or photon, not sure which the Jem'hadar NPCs use) are non-targetable. Using brace for impact as soon as you enter combat will probably cut the damage enough to keep it from doing significant damage. Purple 12 Neutronium armor also goes a long way in shuttle missions.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but you can forget about the highlighted part. I’ve been trying to play other missions with NPC-Enemies hitting me with Quantum -, Photon -, Chroniton – and Polaron Torpedos. It was always the same. Even with all Defence-Skills ready and used I got blown out of the sky with one or two shots. And just in case - I am not talking about a Shuttle, but about a big Ship here!
Just take a look at those two threads on reddit – Thread 1 // Thread 2.
There a dev stated that there are problems with the damage coming from NPCs, that they are investigating it and are applying changes. Further more you’ll see that there are a lot of people complaining about the *too much damage* thing, because they all have problems playing the *NORMAL* content. Not only ONE but MANY DIFFERENT Missions, Episodes and STFs!!!
We have been looking into NPC difficulty post level 60. Our most recent patch resulted in NPCs on Normal having their critical severity reduced from 100% to 50%. These changes are going to come incrementally as we monitor the effects of each.
Please continue to leave feedback on the subject. Additionally, all extra information on your experiences is helpful.
What does that actually say about whether CulturedSoup thinks there is a current problem? (the crit scaling change only affects crits and only reduces the damage of crits by 25%)
The scaling wouldn't be too bad if the levelling pace was a tad slower so that you hit missions at the level they were intended for[...]
I think you nailed the answer. Scaling issues aside, from streamlining the leveling process to drastically cutting the price of large xp boosts to offering instant level 65 toons to having a low level queue without any cool down there is a double edged sword to a new player leveling too fast.
Players used to hit this mission at a far lower level where it's doable (might take a few tries) with stock shuttle gear, 2 or 3 uncommon consoles, shield batts, Hazard Emitters, and spamming the distribute shields button that you dragged to your tray.
It's still entirely doable with that at 65, I just tested it on the first page. Only default/random drop gear, nothing over mk12 green, all high-level/premium perks disabled. I didn't even use shield batteries because consumables are icky.
There's nothing wrong with the mission.
I was agreeing with a statement more about the possible consequences of rapid leveling and/or leveling pace rather than if you and I could do it or if there was something wrong with the mission.
We've both been playing for years and have probably done that mission multiple times. Good of you to test it, think I've completed it at least once or twice as well both at below level 50 and at 65 recently. Seemed ok to me as well. To a brand new player who may have leveled too fast as compared to our own progression back in the day I can see it being challenging, especially with everything resetting if you don't get things right.
Not discounting scaling issues as well as there have been threads with experienced players posting about taking unusual damage at times even in normal RA's.
I can think back to a couple missions that had me really gritting my teeth the first couple of tries as a new player.
The scaling wouldn't be too bad if the levelling pace was a tad slower so that you hit missions at the level they were intended for[...]
I think you nailed the answer. Scaling issues aside, from streamlining the leveling process to drastically cutting the price of large xp boosts to offering instant level 65 toons to having a low level queue without any cool down there is a double edged sword to a new player leveling too fast.
Players used to hit this mission at a far lower level where it's doable (might take a few tries) with stock shuttle gear, 2 or 3 uncommon consoles, shield batts, Hazard Emitters, and spamming the distribute shields button that you dragged to your tray.
It's still entirely doable with that at 65, I just tested it on the first page. Only default/random drop gear, nothing over mk12 green, all high-level/premium perks disabled. I didn't even use shield batteries because consumables are icky.
There's nothing wrong with the mission.
I was agreeing with a statement more about the possible consequences of rapid leveling and/or leveling pace rather than if you and I could do it or if there was something wrong with the mission.
We've both been playing for years and have probably done that mission multiple times. Good of you to test it, think I've completed it at least once or twice as well both at below level 50 and at 65 recently. Seemed ok to me as well. To a brand new player who may have leveled too fast as compared to our own progression back in the day I can see it being challenging, especially with everything resetting if you don't get things right.
Not discounting scaling issues as well as there have been threads with experienced players posting about taking unusual damage at times even in normal RA's.
I can think back to a couple missions that had me really gritting my teeth the first couple of tries as a new player.
It does require a bit more piloting than the usual STO park-n-shoot, yes. But hardly that much. Shooting the workbees that try to undo your actions first and flanking the enemies from behind where they have minimal weapons are not arcane secrets that only veteran players could figure out. And one can always ask.
As far as I'm concerned, things should be a bit challenging. Overcoming challenge is the whole point of playing a game. If everything would go perfectly the first time every time, one may as well be watching the game on youtube.
Although I don't really like level scaling as a concept, because it at least partially negates the point of having levels in the first place. Especially empty levels like 51-65. Leveling up should always be a positive, desireable action, there should be no such thing as "too fast." Except maybe hitting a cap and losing one more thing to do in the game for it.
As far as I'm concerned, things should be a bit challenging. Overcoming challenge is the whole point of playing a game. If everything would go perfectly the first time every time, one may as well be watching the game on youtube.
I'm absolutely serious. You are also wrong in every possible way. I do not have 1 single character out of 20 characters that has "everything mk xiv or xv", not one. I do not have any characters with all Epic gear, not one. I am a non-parsing player, meaning I do not measure my DPS at all, nor do I min/max. My builds are intentionally sub-optimal and off-meta. Maybe before sliging insults you should find out who your talking about.
I'm absolutely serious. You are also wrong in every possible way. I do not have 1 single character, out of 3, that doesn't have "everything at xv", not one. I do not have any characters with non-all Epic gear, not one. I am a parsing player, meaning I do measure my DPS, and try and min/max. And my builds are only unintentionally sub-optimal.
That describes all of my builds as well. When I decide on a weapon type and ship, I do try to find things that will work well with it but I also avoid things from the Lobi Store and some of the more epic grinds because they make finishing off a new build an extreme chore. I don't have any full Mk XV builds either and only a few pieces of epic items across 12 characters, all of which were fluke luck. I do have a couple of Lobi Store items back from the days where you could earn Lobi from running missions during those special events. With the exception of one of my builds, which has mostly Mk XV very rare and ultra rare stuff, the rest are Mk XII very rare and ultra rare for the most part.
The stereotype around here seems to be that if you can run anything above normal, you must be one of these hardcore elite PvP players who must have full epic builds, the best Lobi gear and lock box ships, and pretty much stick to either Phasers, Disruptors, or AntiProtons for weapons.
Pace of levelling is something that's becoming more problematic as the MMO genre has aged.
There was a time where the pace was almost glacial and people didnt mind because there was (plenty of) content to do as you levelled, with plenty of gear rewards to work with and the myth that endgame is all that matters hadn't quite taken its place as the key goal of new players.
It's that endgame is all myth which kills a lot of new games when they release and there's nothing to do at the level cap reached in a couple of days of play.
In some ways WOW can take a fair bit of the blame here because it's lasted so long and had so many expansions that they had to speed up the process. Rather amusingly they revamped the entire gameworld with the cataclysm expansion but sped up the levelling to a point where one or two intro quests to a zone and you were overlevelled for it. And content that's way under level just loses it's fun because while you are doing things you see no progression from those things.
Cryptic try to avoid the overlevelling issue by scaling but they scale based on a very simple level check so if someone happens to hit an xp weekend they get accelerated through levels and end up facing missions where they're undergeared. The higher the level bracket the more stuff enemies can fling at a player, often without warning straight after a hail resulting in a cheap death which isn't fun in anyones book.
Partly because gear tends to be clustered and repetition of the same missions isn't fun when those missions can be buggy as hell (STILL!) and partly because the rewards don't really follow a pattern of progression.
Look at the new VIL missions from a jem's perspective, the rewards were boring/weakish mk12 weapons or pointless junk like a flare with the odd glimmer of something fancier like lecks blades but those were a ground weapon. If you decided to move from the freebie ship into anything non escort then you either had to find alternative gear from alts or suck it up with the awful white gear.
When they added both the deathknight and demonhunter in wow they made sure to have enough missions and rewards during the tutorial phase to make them somewhat competitive in the main body of the game. The jem tutorial didn't have that, instead it had enemies spawning inside crates or wall and becoming impossible to kill.
Granted Jem's are a special case but it shows a lack of foresight on how it plays out. Assuming a new player has access to alts or generous fleetmates or tons of EC isn't something that should be happening.
The scaling wouldn't be too bad if the levelling pace was a tad slower so that you hit missions at the level they were intended for[...]
I think you nailed the answer. Scaling issues aside, from streamlining the leveling process to drastically cutting the price of large xp boosts to offering instant level 65 toons to having a low level queue without any cool down there is a double edged sword to a new player leveling too fast.
Players used to hit this mission at a far lower level where it's doable (might take a few tries) with stock shuttle gear, 2 or 3 uncommon consoles, shield batts, Hazard Emitters, and spamming the distribute shields button that you dragged to your tray.
It's still entirely doable with that at 65, I just tested it on the first page. Only default/random drop gear, nothing over mk12 green, all high-level/premium perks disabled. I didn't even use shield batteries because consumables are icky.
There's nothing wrong with the mission.
I was agreeing with a statement more about the possible consequences of rapid leveling and/or leveling pace rather than if you and I could do it or if there was something wrong with the mission.
We've both been playing for years and have probably done that mission multiple times. Good of you to test it, think I've completed it at least once or twice as well both at below level 50 and at 65 recently. Seemed ok to me as well. To a brand new player who may have leveled too fast as compared to our own progression back in the day I can see it being challenging, especially with everything resetting if you don't get things right.
Not discounting scaling issues as well as there have been threads with experienced players posting about taking unusual damage at times even in normal RA's.
I can think back to a couple missions that had me really gritting my teeth the first couple of tries as a new player.
It does require a bit more piloting than the usual STO park-n-shoot, yes. But hardly that much. Shooting the workbees that try to undo your actions first and flanking the enemies from behind where they have minimal weapons are not arcane secrets that only veteran players could figure out. And one can always ask.
As far as I'm concerned, things should be a bit challenging. Overcoming challenge is the whole point of playing a game. If everything would go perfectly the first time every time, one may as well be watching the game on youtube.
Although I don't really like level scaling as a concept, because it at least partially negates the point of having levels in the first place. Especially empty levels like 51-65. Leveling up should always be a positive, desireable action, there should be no such thing as "too fast." Except maybe hitting a cap and losing one more thing to do in the game for it.
I agree with you in that I like challenging content. What I disagree with though is that I've been seeing the same thing many others have including people in the reddit posts mikadzukichi shared with us here. Thing is I'm not dying except to the occasional insane damage torpedo or the rare insane damage attack a ground npc may use sometimes. And in both cases theres no actual telegraphing involved. Since it's a bug and the scaling is off that yes, leveling is entirely empty 50-65(or even trying to kill you like in ES4: Oblivion).
In the case of the 30-85k torp hits, these cannot be shot down you just have to hope you have enough shields and shield resistance to not be one shotted. If not even brace for impact won't really do much to save you as the damage is just that extreme and resistance scaling will cut it's effectiveness. Or hope the torpedo misses, having high dodging helps which is something I aim for anyways. Most of the time it's a small projectile torpedo like a regular photon or similar. And it may just be concealed amidst the far less damaging energy attacks being flung at you.
In the case of the ground attacks, not entirely sure what to do there without having had prior knowledge well in advance and gearing specifically for it and changing back to general purpose gear. But there is also a lack of telegraphing in a lot of these attacks to. And again I rarely actually get killed, except where it feels that the game is at fault.
In my most recent incidents there was literally no warning of such attacks about to occur at all. So I have to memorize ahead of time what I have to deal with which isn't really that engaging to me. I shared the first video partly because of the fact that we've got these broken attacks that don't really telegraph in any way. I've no problem with things like overcharged plasma torpedoes cause I can react to them and shoot them down. Or grenades since the game pretty much tells you where its landing a couple seconds ahead of time so you can again react to them. And I've been countering NPC grenade/AoE spam vs bridge officers with bridge officer positioning.
It's the attacks that are both especially devastating that don't telegraph in anyway whatsoever that annoy me. It breaks rule #2 of challenging gameplay(telegraph the devastating stuff). As it is cryptic tends to break rule #1 of challenging gameplay(rule consistency) enough as it is to kill the challenging feel of the game, although that can also be attributed to broken scaling and enemies not really following stats quite the same as players(yes, dark souls follows #1 to a tee and it's AI is kinda limited yet still manages to provide a challenge, love it for that).
In challenging gameplay overall the player should be able to see where they are TRIBBLE up and be able to react to that. That way dying is a learning experience. The TRIBBLE I'm seeing here and there that annoys me deeply doesn't actually do that. I'm often left feeling that there is no way I could have done better, so I respawn, destroy, then feel unsatisfied. If I die to something I know I could counter, I'm usually eager to try again immediately. Kinda like in the video, I tend to get an "Ahah" moment. Like ice-grenades killing bridge officers, or the npcs in vorgon conclusion using orbital strike and the laser trip drones I saw what was going wrong and corrected it. Then I beat it.
It's the moments that...well there is no telegraphing or the scaling lets a common normal attack like a normal torpedo to auto kill that seriously bothers me since well, it violates the rules of challenging gameplay. Thats why I call it punishing.
Post edited by drunkflux#5679 on
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
Lol, you used the Dark Souls comparison earlier... In Dark Souls memorizing enemy attack patterns is essential to not getting ganked by literally everything you fight. Enemy ships in STO don't really have body language but they have very predictable behaviors you can memorize.
Lol, you used the Dark Souls comparison earlier... In Dark Souls memorizing enemy attack patterns is essential to not getting ganked by literally everything you fight. Enemy ships in STO don't really have body language but they have very predictable behaviors you can memorize.
I don't see them actually following any specific pattern than generally launching things the first chance they get. Thing is what do you do about say, a torpedo launched thats a dice roll. It'll either hit or not, and when it does, it'll do 30-40k damage, if it crits, upwards to 80-90k(if for any reason your shield hardness is say, 20% it will still tear off over 40k hull). While most enemies can be engaged from behind or the sides, that doesn't actually resolve the issue. Enemies I enjoy fighting the most are the ones that have the nice 45-60 degree cone that displays when they are about to launch a big one, or the ones who launch the slow torps you can shoot.
Those "patterns"which you specifically speak of are not actually that visible in ship combat. Unless you know exactly where you are in relationship to the enemy ship you don't always know if they'll be able to launch a torpedo or not. Most of the time though they just kind of mindlessly attack unless they got special abilities which yes that can be predicted. But special moves are not the same as the "Cheap torp".
Honestly? If the devs are saying the npc-damage scaling is broken on reddit, then it is. End of story there stop trying to argue with me on this. If THEY feel it's broken it's broken. And I also suspect that, they don't like posting here for the same reason I'm not really liking to post here. You guys are just completely condescending at this point just like the CO forums here.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
It's the moments that...well there is no telegraphing or the scaling lets a common normal attack like a normal torpedo to auto kill that seriously bothers me since well, it violates the rules of challenging gameplay. Thats why I call it punishing.
I would be interested to know where you got these "rules of challenging gameplay" from?
As it is, crits happen. Luck often plays a part in games. STO like many games is designed around players respawning and trying again until they win. And it's nowhere near the harder end of the spectrum.
It's the moments that...well there is no telegraphing or the scaling lets a common normal attack like a normal torpedo to auto kill that seriously bothers me since well, it violates the rules of challenging gameplay. Thats why I call it punishing.
I would be interested to know where you got these "rules of challenging gameplay" from?
As it is, crits happen. Luck often plays a part in games. STO like many games is designed around players respawning and trying again until they win. And it's nowhere near the harder end of the spectrum.
Seriously? Check the post earlier where I shared the video when difficult is fun. Edit: Since you never actually read that, here is the video again.
If you can't agree with this video then you have ZERO say in difficulty as far as I am concerned. Your among those typing the hands bloody that need to stop as you are actively hurting the games you claim to support. AND part of the reason why difficult games are only rarely being made.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
Cool thing about these guys, they are the kind of game developers and designers who tend to make the popular indi games and yet also a good number actually work in the industry. Every video looks at the good games for it's examples(and sometimes the bad ones to highlight the worst problems of the industry. I rather not do nothing but share these videos here it feels like I'd be derailing the thread.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
It's the moments that...well there is no telegraphing or the scaling lets a common normal attack like a normal torpedo to auto kill that seriously bothers me since well, it violates the rules of challenging gameplay. Thats why I call it punishing.
I would be interested to know where you got these "rules of challenging gameplay" from?
As it is, crits happen. Luck often plays a part in games. STO like many games is designed around players respawning and trying again until they win. And it's nowhere near the harder end of the spectrum.
Seriously? Check the post earlier where I shared the video when difficult is fun. Edit: Since you never actually read that, here is the video again.
I don't generally have a habit of watching random, long videos someone posts into threads. But the topic was interesting so...
If you can't agree with this video then you have ZERO say in difficulty as far as I am concerned. Your among those typing the hands bloody that need to stop as you are actively hurting the games you claim to support. AND part of the reason why difficult games are only rarely being made.
...no, I don't agree with that video. It's just declaring everything one person doesn't like as "not real difficulty," just the same as uncountable others on the internet. Neither you nor some random youtuber get to decide who has a "say in difficulty."
And difficult games are made all the time. STO is just not one of them. STO is without question one of the easiest games I've ever played.
Also this video is where extra credits themselves say elitism is bad for the difficult games industry:
Whilst you make some interesting observations about game difficulty and such, I hope we're not going down the "This or that dude posted a youtube video, therefore it must be true; and if you don't agree, I can no longer take you seriously about anything you say about game difficulty." path with this.
It's the moments that...well there is no telegraphing or the scaling lets a common normal attack like a normal torpedo to auto kill that seriously bothers me since well, it violates the rules of challenging gameplay. Thats why I call it punishing.
I would be interested to know where you got these "rules of challenging gameplay" from?
As it is, crits happen. Luck often plays a part in games. STO like many games is designed around players respawning and trying again until they win. And it's nowhere near the harder end of the spectrum.
Seriously? Check the post earlier where I shared the video when difficult is fun. Edit: Since you never actually read that, here is the video again.
I don't generally have a habit of watching random, long videos someone posts into threads. But the topic was interesting so...
If you can't agree with this video then you have ZERO say in difficulty as far as I am concerned. Your among those typing the hands bloody that need to stop as you are actively hurting the games you claim to support. AND part of the reason why difficult games are only rarely being made.
...no, I don't agree with that video. It's just declaring everything one person doesn't like as "not real difficulty," just the same as uncountable others on the internet. Neither you nor some random youtuber get to decide who has a "say in difficulty."
And difficult games are made all the time. STO is just not one of them. STO is without question one of the easiest games I've ever played.
It's(STO) a game designed to be easy and your demanding it be hard, that video explains full well why it probably shouldn't be.
Sorry but all the popular games that are hard(but still popular) follow those rules that extra credits reviewed. Extra Credits are among the major heavy weights of youtube. Now this just confirms what I suspected the moment I saw the very first post I saw from you. They establish some very fine rules that from my experience and your mad that they contradict your beliefs. You must be very mad, because....
.....Dark souls franchise, cuphead, super meat boy, deus ex on realistic, most modern challenging games follow the rules that video discusses and you see them brought up everywhere else whenever good challenge is brought up. Those games do well and sell sell inspite being hard because it's clear that it's the players fault when he/she dies and they can quickly grasp as to why they are losing and improve at the game. That accessibility doesn't necessarily make them easier, but it makes them far more popular.
STO was never designed to be hard so a lot of elements that are necessary for a game to remain fun and difficult at the same time aren't really there in the game. A large chunk being the usability, but also difficulty curve still needs work in places and half of the curve messup is partly to blame on usability problems(game just not teaching anyone how to play better or how to use different things very well). Only way STO can afford to be hard is if it's fix those key problems so players playing will get better at the game as they level up to meet those challenges.
Seems to me that, you've got a serious ego problem to even be able to disagree with extra credits on this. These are people who actual game developers listen to in designing games. People who get paid to make those videos and themselves make games that sell. Only way you could disagree again, is by having an extreme fringe view of difficulty. That only the best should be enjoying the game at all and everyone else should be unable to even get into it. Your posts scream that perspective. Trouble is, no one can get into a game like that except those who've been playing it for years.
I'm not trying to hyperbole but, I wouldn't be surprised if the way STO's difficulty scaling is many new players are likely quitting without saying anything. Only about 10% of people complain or bring up problems with a product. I imagine that 90% of new players are likely quitting once they hit 60-65. So if STO is hanging by a thread like some claim it is, that'd be why. If the sheer number of posts everywhere else has any say of the situation then that'd mean at least 9 fold as many players just quit and move on to something else rather than sticking with the game.
And I wonder why no one brings it up here......
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
i remember that game too...it was called asteroids or space invaders or*insert early computer game with no save function and total restart on third death here* - you'll notice that sort of thing died out very quickly, and for good reason
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
I know it sounds kinda stupid but one of our fleet members gave up on this mission. After making some fun of him I decided to try it myself under the same circumstances. I disabled all my space and starship traits, i changed my personal space traits to the regular free ones and disabled specializations and doff system. I did use some mix between green and purple mk xii gear on a standard Shuttle.
The Jem'Hadar attacking you with dual cannons and quantum torpedoes while you shields get fast drained the quantum's shot at you don't really care if you got shields on or not. It took me (a Veteran Player) several tries to get through the first part and past the attack ship. I don't know how you guys to expect new players to get through there. The character used was a science on LVL 65.
Of course the mission has 0 challenge when i go in there with a mk xv geared toon with rep system, all the traits bells and whistles.
The reason i post that is because the our new player nearly quit this game cause he wasted half a day on this one mission and wonder if you guys could test this missions under the same circumstances to maybe adjust the Jem'Hadar Fighters.
This might also be a part of why the mission has been taken off the main rotation?
Your imagination is wildly wrong, insanely wrong, laughably wrong. The kind of wrong that Charlie Sheen brings to mind.
Besides sounding like one of the many people who Jim Sterling specifically makes fun of in "Commentocracy" in the post directly prior to this, you have to resort to gaslighting.
I feel so sorry for you now. I think i'm done arguing with you, your not worth my time.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
I'm not trying to hyperbole but, I wouldn't be surprised if the way STO's difficulty scaling is many new players are likely quitting without saying anything. Only about 10% of people complain or bring up problems with a product. I imagine that 90% of new players are likely quitting once they hit 60-65. [...] If the sheer number of posts everywhere else has any say of the situation then that'd mean at least 9 fold as many players just quit and move on to something else rather than sticking with the game.
And I wonder why no one brings it up here......
You're not wrong about this.
As a fleet owner (both factions), officer in other fleets, and member of many more whose has played regularly since 2011 some of my roles in-game have been to attract and provide help to new players as well as attempt to figure out why they have left. This would also involve a fair bit of voice chat with others in the same role and would involve smaller thru capped out fleets with a sample player size in excess of 10K.
Difficulty scaling and/or leveling at specific times in the game's history is one possible reason players leave or have left, but will leave out some other reasons to purposely be non-specific and keep on topic. There have been quite a few recent threads (some started by developers on multiple platforms) on how we can retain players among other related topics.
Why does nobody bring this up here? Well, all you do is attract some of the not exactly positive responses you've already seen.
Some other possible responses can include being asking to "show the numbers" which of course are only available to Cryptic or claiming any trend is only for the small portion of the game you see as if a person's thousands of hours in-game during all time zones over most of the life of the game combined with many others with similar experience mean nothing. Another fall back is to turn the debate into a Vulcan science academy doctoral level review of a published paper.
To sum up why no one brings certain things up here it's because it's just not worth the hassle and many people that may be in agreement with certain taboo topics have either long since left or simply don't want said hassle. People are very passionate about STO as am I. Their opinion isn't wrong, but neither is yours, or mine. LLAP.
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Players used to hit this mission at a far lower level where it's doable (might take a few tries) with stock shuttle gear, 2 or 3 uncommon consoles, shield batts, Hazard Emitters, and spamming the distribute shields button that you dragged to your tray.
There's nothing wrong with the mission.
100% true!!!
In every MMO I've been playing in the last 18 years, every time the devs raised the Char-Level they also raised the Equipment-Level from the Items dropping from those NPCs. That way the new players where always able to keep up with the veteran players and didn’t have to grind/farm longer distances, every time the Level-Cap was raised.
In my opinion it is time for the STO-Devs to do the same as soon as possible. Their *golden upgrade goose* won’t be touched by that, since players still need to upgrade stuff to be able to play end-game content like adv. STFs and so on.
Best regards
Your attempts at describing the nature of the problem indicate that you're doing things pretty much the hardest way you can with predictable results. It's very true that newbies have problems with this, it's always been that way.
#1 thing about shuttle missions: NEVER USE THE DEFAULT GARBAGE GEAR! Seriously, it's about equal to the common junk gear you get on ships. Honestly the idea that a newbie doesn't have good gear is believable... it's also true that it's part of what defines a newbie is that they don't know how to play the game well. "Git gud" is about learning to play the game. It doesn't mean becoming a top-tier player, it means becoming good enough to not get ganked by random NPCs in easy-mode.
Also that torp hit you claim is a one-shot... pretty sure it's a HY torp not a normal torp. But HY Quantums(either that or photon, not sure which the Jem'hadar NPCs use) are non-targetable. Using brace for impact as soon as you enter combat will probably cut the damage enough to keep it from doing significant damage. Purple 12 Neutronium armor also goes a long way in shuttle missions.
My character Tsin'xing
Sorry to burst your bubble, but you can forget about the highlighted part. I’ve been trying to play other missions with NPC-Enemies hitting me with Quantum -, Photon -, Chroniton – and Polaron Torpedos. It was always the same. Even with all Defence-Skills ready and used I got blown out of the sky with one or two shots. And just in case - I am not talking about a Shuttle, but about a big Ship here!
Just take a look at those two threads on reddit – Thread 1 // Thread 2.
There a dev stated that there are problems with the damage coming from NPCs, that they are investigating it and are applying changes. Further more you’ll see that there are a lot of people complaining about the *too much damage* thing, because they all have problems playing the *NORMAL* content. Not only ONE but MANY DIFFERENT Missions, Episodes and STFs!!!
Best regards
My character Tsin'xing
And again an example for *I've only read what I wanted to*
Because what about this…???
From here.
Best regards
My character Tsin'xing
We've both been playing for years and have probably done that mission multiple times. Good of you to test it, think I've completed it at least once or twice as well both at below level 50 and at 65 recently. Seemed ok to me as well. To a brand new player who may have leveled too fast as compared to our own progression back in the day I can see it being challenging, especially with everything resetting if you don't get things right.
Not discounting scaling issues as well as there have been threads with experienced players posting about taking unusual damage at times even in normal RA's.
I can think back to a couple missions that had me really gritting my teeth the first couple of tries as a new player.
As far as I'm concerned, things should be a bit challenging. Overcoming challenge is the whole point of playing a game. If everything would go perfectly the first time every time, one may as well be watching the game on youtube.
Although I don't really like level scaling as a concept, because it at least partially negates the point of having levels in the first place. Especially empty levels like 51-65. Leveling up should always be a positive, desireable action, there should be no such thing as "too fast." Except maybe hitting a cap and losing one more thing to do in the game for it.
That describes all of my builds as well. When I decide on a weapon type and ship, I do try to find things that will work well with it but I also avoid things from the Lobi Store and some of the more epic grinds because they make finishing off a new build an extreme chore. I don't have any full Mk XV builds either and only a few pieces of epic items across 12 characters, all of which were fluke luck. I do have a couple of Lobi Store items back from the days where you could earn Lobi from running missions during those special events. With the exception of one of my builds, which has mostly Mk XV very rare and ultra rare stuff, the rest are Mk XII very rare and ultra rare for the most part.
The stereotype around here seems to be that if you can run anything above normal, you must be one of these hardcore elite PvP players who must have full epic builds, the best Lobi gear and lock box ships, and pretty much stick to either Phasers, Disruptors, or AntiProtons for weapons.
There was a time where the pace was almost glacial and people didnt mind because there was (plenty of) content to do as you levelled, with plenty of gear rewards to work with and the myth that endgame is all that matters hadn't quite taken its place as the key goal of new players.
It's that endgame is all myth which kills a lot of new games when they release and there's nothing to do at the level cap reached in a couple of days of play.
In some ways WOW can take a fair bit of the blame here because it's lasted so long and had so many expansions that they had to speed up the process. Rather amusingly they revamped the entire gameworld with the cataclysm expansion but sped up the levelling to a point where one or two intro quests to a zone and you were overlevelled for it. And content that's way under level just loses it's fun because while you are doing things you see no progression from those things.
Cryptic try to avoid the overlevelling issue by scaling but they scale based on a very simple level check so if someone happens to hit an xp weekend they get accelerated through levels and end up facing missions where they're undergeared. The higher the level bracket the more stuff enemies can fling at a player, often without warning straight after a hail resulting in a cheap death which isn't fun in anyones book.
Partly because gear tends to be clustered and repetition of the same missions isn't fun when those missions can be buggy as hell (STILL!) and partly because the rewards don't really follow a pattern of progression.
Look at the new VIL missions from a jem's perspective, the rewards were boring/weakish mk12 weapons or pointless junk like a flare with the odd glimmer of something fancier like lecks blades but those were a ground weapon. If you decided to move from the freebie ship into anything non escort then you either had to find alternative gear from alts or suck it up with the awful white gear.
When they added both the deathknight and demonhunter in wow they made sure to have enough missions and rewards during the tutorial phase to make them somewhat competitive in the main body of the game. The jem tutorial didn't have that, instead it had enemies spawning inside crates or wall and becoming impossible to kill.
Granted Jem's are a special case but it shows a lack of foresight on how it plays out. Assuming a new player has access to alts or generous fleetmates or tons of EC isn't something that should be happening.
I agree with you in that I like challenging content. What I disagree with though is that I've been seeing the same thing many others have including people in the reddit posts mikadzukichi shared with us here. Thing is I'm not dying except to the occasional insane damage torpedo or the rare insane damage attack a ground npc may use sometimes. And in both cases theres no actual telegraphing involved. Since it's a bug and the scaling is off that yes, leveling is entirely empty 50-65(or even trying to kill you like in ES4: Oblivion).
In the case of the 30-85k torp hits, these cannot be shot down you just have to hope you have enough shields and shield resistance to not be one shotted. If not even brace for impact won't really do much to save you as the damage is just that extreme and resistance scaling will cut it's effectiveness. Or hope the torpedo misses, having high dodging helps which is something I aim for anyways. Most of the time it's a small projectile torpedo like a regular photon or similar. And it may just be concealed amidst the far less damaging energy attacks being flung at you.
In the case of the ground attacks, not entirely sure what to do there without having had prior knowledge well in advance and gearing specifically for it and changing back to general purpose gear. But there is also a lack of telegraphing in a lot of these attacks to. And again I rarely actually get killed, except where it feels that the game is at fault.
In my most recent incidents there was literally no warning of such attacks about to occur at all. So I have to memorize ahead of time what I have to deal with which isn't really that engaging to me. I shared the first video partly because of the fact that we've got these broken attacks that don't really telegraph in any way. I've no problem with things like overcharged plasma torpedoes cause I can react to them and shoot them down. Or grenades since the game pretty much tells you where its landing a couple seconds ahead of time so you can again react to them. And I've been countering NPC grenade/AoE spam vs bridge officers with bridge officer positioning.
It's the attacks that are both especially devastating that don't telegraph in anyway whatsoever that annoy me. It breaks rule #2 of challenging gameplay(telegraph the devastating stuff). As it is cryptic tends to break rule #1 of challenging gameplay(rule consistency) enough as it is to kill the challenging feel of the game, although that can also be attributed to broken scaling and enemies not really following stats quite the same as players(yes, dark souls follows #1 to a tee and it's AI is kinda limited yet still manages to provide a challenge, love it for that).
In challenging gameplay overall the player should be able to see where they are TRIBBLE up and be able to react to that. That way dying is a learning experience. The TRIBBLE I'm seeing here and there that annoys me deeply doesn't actually do that. I'm often left feeling that there is no way I could have done better, so I respawn, destroy, then feel unsatisfied. If I die to something I know I could counter, I'm usually eager to try again immediately. Kinda like in the video, I tend to get an "Ahah" moment. Like ice-grenades killing bridge officers, or the npcs in vorgon conclusion using orbital strike and the laser trip drones I saw what was going wrong and corrected it. Then I beat it.
It's the moments that...well there is no telegraphing or the scaling lets a common normal attack like a normal torpedo to auto kill that seriously bothers me since well, it violates the rules of challenging gameplay. Thats why I call it punishing.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
My character Tsin'xing
I don't see them actually following any specific pattern than generally launching things the first chance they get. Thing is what do you do about say, a torpedo launched thats a dice roll. It'll either hit or not, and when it does, it'll do 30-40k damage, if it crits, upwards to 80-90k(if for any reason your shield hardness is say, 20% it will still tear off over 40k hull). While most enemies can be engaged from behind or the sides, that doesn't actually resolve the issue. Enemies I enjoy fighting the most are the ones that have the nice 45-60 degree cone that displays when they are about to launch a big one, or the ones who launch the slow torps you can shoot.
Those "patterns"which you specifically speak of are not actually that visible in ship combat. Unless you know exactly where you are in relationship to the enemy ship you don't always know if they'll be able to launch a torpedo or not. Most of the time though they just kind of mindlessly attack unless they got special abilities which yes that can be predicted. But special moves are not the same as the "Cheap torp".
Honestly? If the devs are saying the npc-damage scaling is broken on reddit, then it is. End of story there stop trying to argue with me on this. If THEY feel it's broken it's broken. And I also suspect that, they don't like posting here for the same reason I'm not really liking to post here. You guys are just completely condescending at this point just like the CO forums here.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
As it is, crits happen. Luck often plays a part in games. STO like many games is designed around players respawning and trying again until they win. And it's nowhere near the harder end of the spectrum.
Seriously? Check the post earlier where I shared the video when difficult is fun. Edit: Since you never actually read that, here is the video again.
If you can't agree with this video then you have ZERO say in difficulty as far as I am concerned. Your among those typing the hands bloody that need to stop as you are actively hurting the games you claim to support. AND part of the reason why difficult games are only rarely being made.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
Cool thing about these guys, they are the kind of game developers and designers who tend to make the popular indi games and yet also a good number actually work in the industry. Every video looks at the good games for it's examples(and sometimes the bad ones to highlight the worst problems of the industry. I rather not do nothing but share these videos here it feels like I'd be derailing the thread.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
...no, I don't agree with that video. It's just declaring everything one person doesn't like as "not real difficulty," just the same as uncountable others on the internet. Neither you nor some random youtuber get to decide who has a "say in difficulty."
And difficult games are made all the time. STO is just not one of them. STO is without question one of the easiest games I've ever played.
Whilst you make some interesting observations about game difficulty and such, I hope we're not going down the "This or that dude posted a youtube video, therefore it must be true; and if you don't agree, I can no longer take you seriously about anything you say about game difficulty." path with this.
It's(STO) a game designed to be easy and your demanding it be hard, that video explains full well why it probably shouldn't be.
Sorry but all the popular games that are hard(but still popular) follow those rules that extra credits reviewed. Extra Credits are among the major heavy weights of youtube. Now this just confirms what I suspected the moment I saw the very first post I saw from you. They establish some very fine rules that from my experience and your mad that they contradict your beliefs. You must be very mad, because....
.....Dark souls franchise, cuphead, super meat boy, deus ex on realistic, most modern challenging games follow the rules that video discusses and you see them brought up everywhere else whenever good challenge is brought up. Those games do well and sell sell inspite being hard because it's clear that it's the players fault when he/she dies and they can quickly grasp as to why they are losing and improve at the game. That accessibility doesn't necessarily make them easier, but it makes them far more popular.
STO was never designed to be hard so a lot of elements that are necessary for a game to remain fun and difficult at the same time aren't really there in the game. A large chunk being the usability, but also difficulty curve still needs work in places and half of the curve messup is partly to blame on usability problems(game just not teaching anyone how to play better or how to use different things very well). Only way STO can afford to be hard is if it's fix those key problems so players playing will get better at the game as they level up to meet those challenges.
Seems to me that, you've got a serious ego problem to even be able to disagree with extra credits on this. These are people who actual game developers listen to in designing games. People who get paid to make those videos and themselves make games that sell. Only way you could disagree again, is by having an extreme fringe view of difficulty. That only the best should be enjoying the game at all and everyone else should be unable to even get into it. Your posts scream that perspective. Trouble is, no one can get into a game like that except those who've been playing it for years.
I'm not trying to hyperbole but, I wouldn't be surprised if the way STO's difficulty scaling is many new players are likely quitting without saying anything. Only about 10% of people complain or bring up problems with a product. I imagine that 90% of new players are likely quitting once they hit 60-65. So if STO is hanging by a thread like some claim it is, that'd be why. If the sheer number of posts everywhere else has any say of the situation then that'd mean at least 9 fold as many players just quit and move on to something else rather than sticking with the game.
And I wonder why no one brings it up here......
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
This might also be a part of why the mission has been taken off the main rotation?
Besides sounding like one of the many people who Jim Sterling specifically makes fun of in "Commentocracy" in the post directly prior to this, you have to resort to gaslighting.
I feel so sorry for you now. I think i'm done arguing with you, your not worth my time.
Thinking of ideas from lots of games for, dunno how long now.
As a fleet owner (both factions), officer in other fleets, and member of many more whose has played regularly since 2011 some of my roles in-game have been to attract and provide help to new players as well as attempt to figure out why they have left. This would also involve a fair bit of voice chat with others in the same role and would involve smaller thru capped out fleets with a sample player size in excess of 10K.
Difficulty scaling and/or leveling at specific times in the game's history is one possible reason players leave or have left, but will leave out some other reasons to purposely be non-specific and keep on topic. There have been quite a few recent threads (some started by developers on multiple platforms) on how we can retain players among other related topics.
Why does nobody bring this up here? Well, all you do is attract some of the not exactly positive responses you've already seen.
Some other possible responses can include being asking to "show the numbers" which of course are only available to Cryptic or claiming any trend is only for the small portion of the game you see as if a person's thousands of hours in-game during all time zones over most of the life of the game combined with many others with similar experience mean nothing. Another fall back is to turn the debate into a Vulcan science academy doctoral level review of a published paper.
To sum up why no one brings certain things up here it's because it's just not worth the hassle and many people that may be in agreement with certain taboo topics have either long since left or simply don't want said hassle. People are very passionate about STO as am I. Their opinion isn't wrong, but neither is yours, or mine. LLAP.
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