I'm gonna hop on the bandwagon that everyone else has said so far. Zones are too tough, get recapped too fast. I'm mystified why it has such different requirements from the Undine battlezone, it's very similar in terms of general config, only the specific nuts and bolts of each are what differs.
I actually don't think the zone-points are too tough at all, as most you can either destroy a minimum of enemies or no enemies an cap them petty easily. Hell the only zone-point that that really takes alot of destroying the enemy is the king of the hill points. The asteroid tug of war can be done without killing a single enemy if you just used cc an grav-wells to keep the enemy from advancing too much, and the capture point you just need to keep one of the towers in your side's control for five minutes so as a solo player just keep the enemy trying to capture the tower you have away for five mins. Having some interactions between the different zone-points like capturing one might alter another type of point in some ways could be a interesting change. Like capturing he king of the hill points might lower the capture time on the tower points by 15-30 seconds for each of the king of the hill points you have captured, where as the asteroid point might reduce the number or strength of the enemies even the increase the time between waves of them coming in on the king of the hill points.
Oh one other thing that would be nice, as having to go to the full map to see what zone-points are getting contested an might fall/recapped with the speed at which they fall is not always something players remember or want to do. Could we get a battle-zone mini-map that shows what zone-points are coming contested making it easier for us to see that an react to it. Or even just a chat announcement that lets players know a zone-point is going to be contestable soon, as it might not be something every player would use, but those players wanting/willing to defend points would find quite useful. You could put the area mini map as a toggle-able window in the layout system, and that would allow us to place it where we want on our screens like with the trays an other parts of the display
The only other thing that would be interesting to see done is instead of enemies spawn on the points to cap them, maybe have a set of ship patrols that spawn at different areas of the map, and work around the map attempting to recapture the points they reach. This would allow the players to actually intercept the patrol an kill it as they could see an deal with them, over them just spawning on the points an starting to cap them right away, but also you could tie a reward to defeating these patrols, and would make defending the points abit different from other battle-zones as you can actually intercept the patrol before they even start recapping. If you make them not actually show up on the map till you get nice an close, but have them be announced when they arrive an when they start attempting to recap a specific point it could be something really fun an interesting for players to interact with in the battle-zone.
The asteroid push and barrier point hold thing are actually pretty good, damn sight better than the generator in the badlands where some folk simply follow it about while they ignore the fact you have to actually start the thing for it to progress. If badlands ever fails to get the three stations it's either the portal generator bugging out or numpties floating about uselessly 10km away from the obvious blue ring while the timer ticks down.
Asteroid one really begs for a shuttle STF thing, suggestion I made back when the bz got dumped into the gameand fell on blind eyes presumably because shuttles don't fall under the umbrella of ships=content but thats a topic for another thread.
King of the hill points will always be bland, moreso the way STO handles them with the simple addition of more players = more ships.
The gon'cra koth points have the "fatal" flaw that players have to actually consider their targets rather than drop grav well and mindlessly pewpew since the cruisers can group up to form an impenetrable clump if they target each other.
And of course the arrogant assumption that the instance will be full so tailor the spawn rate to that, same assumption that kobali prime has and that was always going to end up a barren wasteland for players.
Besides the mechanics problems mentioned by others, there is also the problem that the Gon'cra battlezone is so poorly designed that it completely breaks immersion. When you enter the zone it looks like children's playground and plays like a very cheesy game show like "American Ninja Warrior" instead of something that feels remotely like Star Trek warfare. Even if the mechanics actually worked correctly the complete lack of background atmosphere makes it annoying and fatiguing instead of exhilarating.
And this is from a player who plays polaron builds most often and so needs Lukari marks enough to keep coming back to beat the dead horse of a battlezone to try and squeeze out a few more marks, though I am always disappointed by how few of them I get compared to the amount from same time in the Voth ground and and badlands space ones for their marks.
The zone also needs a check on how rewards are distributed.
I just went there for daily Lukari marks. I capped a zone by myself (I was the only player in the entire zone.) I capped the area, I got my marks, but I received a 'Tier II Reward.'
Tier II? I was the ONLY PLAYER. I did 100% of the work, how did I come away with a T2 reward?
I know it doesn't matter overall, but that kind of thing will also frustrate players.
> @seaofsorrows said: > The zone also needs a check on how rewards are distributed. > > I just went there for daily Lukari marks. I capped a zone by myself (I was the only player in the entire zone.) I capped the area, I got my marks, but I received a 'Tier II Reward.' > > Tier II? I was the ONLY PLAYER. I did 100% of the work, how did I come away with a T2 reward? > > I know it doesn't matter overall, but that kind of thing will also frustrate players.
This happens to me in the badlands all the time now. Figured it was how the rewards were handed out now.
The rewards seem to fall foul of the dps=activity check.
The generator one in the badlands can give you the lowest reward even if you've been the only one within the blue ring progressing that node while simply killing everything in sight regardless of locale will net you a bigger reward even though you didn't really do anything useful in terms of the objective.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,676Community Moderator
Ok... so current bulletpoint summary boils down to...
recap time/inability to prevent recap
rewards
some mechanics
And sounds like a couple issues with some of the older battlezones that are less noticable?
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
Well same thing with the Terran Counter-attack Phase in the Badlands. I participate from start to end of that 5-minute section, participate in the fight with the ISS Enterprise, destroy a bunch of ships or are part of their destruction and usually wind up with Tier 1 rewards. Having that award based on DPS is ridiculous.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I can agree there needs to be more elements that dictate rewards. Damage done is a good start as you need that to ado alot of the points, though having a cap on it that beyond that point you don't get any more points towards your reward tier would help. Adding in elements like participation in the actual points mechanics whether that be activating gens, pulling asteroids, time spent within the circle of the king of the hill points, and what not would help to make dps less of something that trumps anything else. We know that they can tie healing b0th of yourself, allies, and npcs to the reward tier via the cc stf, so adding that might be good.
Well same thing with the Terran Counter-attack Phase in the Badlands. I participate from start to end of that 5-minute section, participate in the fight with the ISS Enterprise, destroy a bunch of ships or are part of their destruction and usually wind up with Tier 1 rewards. Having that award based on DPS is ridiculous.
Yes, the Badlands final phase is horribly bugged.
It's not DPS based though, it's not really anything based. I have done that fight before in a fully epic top tier ship with high end gear and traits and still received T1-T3 rewards.
Usually in the Badlands, I do the zone and the 3 bases and then I warp out or just go park and wait for the 5 min phase to end. It's 100% random if you're going to get anything for it or not, I have done it a ton of times trying to figure out how to consistently get a reward and have not been successful. I know one thing though, it's certainly not DPS.
Only time I use the final phase is to snag the extra elite token.
And for that I fly in and park just below the plain the ships spawn on set the autofire options to numpty mode and go semi afk.
It's just a mindless kill fest and not the death or glory no win counterattack that ramps up over time that it might have been so don't really see the point in making much more of an effort. Not even that good for mastery gains either.
After almost 2 years of inactivity and hundreds of forum and reddit posts about what's wrong with it you're asking us, what's wrong with it? This is exactly the reason why nobody posts bugs anymore. Cryptic has THE WORST bug managment of any game company I've ever dealt with.
Bugs happen in every game and fixes take time. But ignoring player feedback Cryptic specifically asked for and then pretending like it never happened is inexcusable.
There, that's my little rant. It won't change anything but at least I'm feeling better now.
After almost 2 years of inactivity and hundreds of forum and reddit posts about what's wrong with it you're asking us, what's wrong with it? This is exactly the reason why nobody posts bugs anymore. Cryptic has THE WORST bug managment of any game company I've ever dealt with.
Bugs happen in every game and fixes take time. But ignoring player feedback Cryptic specifically asked for and then pretending like it never happened is inexcusable.
There, that's my little rant. It won't change anything but at least I'm feeling better now.
I have to admit.. I thought the exact same thing.
When the zone was introduced, the forum and reddit were flooded with threads on what's wrong with the zone and why players abandoned it. Bug reports were filed by the dozen, there were so many discussions that threads on the topic were merged to keep the board from being spammed.
That was all ignored and now they want to know what's wrong? I have been hoping for a long time that they would fix the TZ battle zone, I personally love Battle Zones and would really like to be able to add the TZ Zone into my rotation. Given all the feedback they have already received though and Cryptic's track record of listening to solicited feedback.. I am not holding by breath on this one.
I am posting this bug as for curiosity sake I transwarped to the TZ Battlezone. Before entering the Gon'cra system I got a fatal error from the game on an unknown .pig file. Now my main toon is locked out, no idea if the reports generated on this issue will be worked on. Cryptic is just too busy snuggling up with CBS to take care of the major bugs of past content.
I know it's been said before, but when you get new players trying out the BZ for the first time, first thing they will try to do is capture a zone and move on to the next. Which is the goal, but unachievable. Reason is the zone they just captured gets retaken before they even leave the area to the next one. Which is WAY TO FAST. The enemies needs to be slowed down just a bit to match the other BZs.
Also considering how the devs are just now asking how it should be checked on makes me wonder what was going on because ALL THIS FEEDBACK has already been given when it was put on Tribble and the devs DID NOTHING. Now that the BZ has been ignored by a lot of players, the devs are just now wondering what was going on? If the devs had actually read the feedback back when it was released, and they actually did something, they would have done so back then.
Unless the devs prove me wrong, The Tzenkethi BZ won't get changed, no matter if there is 1000 pages of feedback.
What annoyed me most about the thread was it being started with the rather flippant "hey kids"
The asteroid shoving and blockade screens can be done solo as long as noone is AFKing close enough to bump up the spawn numbers and you're mobile enough to bounce between the points. Command spec reinforcement summon can help a fair bit for the blockade as can hangar pets that actually willing to obey.
The Protomatter Containers awarded at the end are inconsistent and sometimes not at all.
^^ This should NOT be overlooked! I've been in situations where we won the Zone, and then you get no Protomatter containers at all! Not always, but, indeed, inconsistently.
I'm recollecting some feedback on this zone. What doesn't work here? Why is it considered mostly broken? Hit me up.
I appreciate you looking into this, btw. With the new Rep system incoming, it's good a primary source for Lukari Marks is being investigated.
And it really *is* broken. I'm sure a highly coordinated/DPS team can do it (and even I was in instances where we won), but -- and this is very important -- the Tzenkethi BZ is an OPEN Zone! It should be doable like the Terran Zone is doable.
As it is true that they should have all of this info already at hand,. they have been working on other things that might have either drawn their attention way an forgot to file this info correctly as the devs are human an can just make mistakes. Also it is always a good idea to ask for a refresher of things before diving into the code an features of something, as there could be other things that players might bring up an showcase that either were forgotten, or just never brought up back when info was given the first time. Yet in the end it is always a good idea to refresh information, and see what the community thinks, but sadly this might also be the only point they actually have enough spare time to use to fix the battle-zone too.
from what I have seen, as mentioned, the respawns are too fast, and compared to, say the Dyson battlezone, a LOT more ships and usually bigger ones show up. and some of the objectives are freaking LONG to get done.
What everyone said and pets die in the storms far to easily for carriers.
I don't know how this could be fixed. I'm thinking an update to the pet AI "stay out of the AoE" or a chance for them to do so.
EDIT - oops, sorry I was thinking about the Badlands. This about Gon'cra, correct?
Yes, it is Gon'cra. Pets do ok there except that they sometimes get jumped by the recapture forces before they have a chance to follow you out to the next area...
I love Battlezones, and was surely gonna check this 1 out before reading here(i been away from trek for a while)
Battle Zones need more Love-
maybe list some on the PVE page
or maybe put a daily double on marks or dil for the 1st time ran each day
or free transwarps to the zones!
I love Battlezones, and was surely gonna check this 1 out before reading here(i been away from trek for a while)
Battle Zones need more Love-
maybe list some on the PVE page
or maybe put a daily double on marks or dil for the 1st time ran each day
or free transwarps to the zones!
Those all sound like good ideas
I am just glad they are working on fixing the zone.
Comments
The only other thing that would be interesting to see done is instead of enemies spawn on the points to cap them, maybe have a set of ship patrols that spawn at different areas of the map, and work around the map attempting to recapture the points they reach. This would allow the players to actually intercept the patrol an kill it as they could see an deal with them, over them just spawning on the points an starting to cap them right away, but also you could tie a reward to defeating these patrols, and would make defending the points abit different from other battle-zones as you can actually intercept the patrol before they even start recapping. If you make them not actually show up on the map till you get nice an close, but have them be announced when they arrive an when they start attempting to recap a specific point it could be something really fun an interesting for players to interact with in the battle-zone.
Asteroid one really begs for a shuttle STF thing, suggestion I made back when the bz got dumped into the gameand fell on blind eyes presumably because shuttles don't fall under the umbrella of ships=content but thats a topic for another thread.
King of the hill points will always be bland, moreso the way STO handles them with the simple addition of more players = more ships.
The gon'cra koth points have the "fatal" flaw that players have to actually consider their targets rather than drop grav well and mindlessly pewpew since the cruisers can group up to form an impenetrable clump if they target each other.
And of course the arrogant assumption that the instance will be full so tailor the spawn rate to that, same assumption that kobali prime has and that was always going to end up a barren wasteland for players.
And this is from a player who plays polaron builds most often and so needs Lukari marks enough to keep coming back to beat the dead horse of a battlezone to try and squeeze out a few more marks, though I am always disappointed by how few of them I get compared to the amount from same time in the Voth ground and and badlands space ones for their marks.
I just went there for daily Lukari marks. I capped a zone by myself (I was the only player in the entire zone.) I capped the area, I got my marks, but I received a 'Tier II Reward.'
Tier II? I was the ONLY PLAYER. I did 100% of the work, how did I come away with a T2 reward?
I know it doesn't matter overall, but that kind of thing will also frustrate players.
> The zone also needs a check on how rewards are distributed.
>
> I just went there for daily Lukari marks. I capped a zone by myself (I was the only player in the entire zone.) I capped the area, I got my marks, but I received a 'Tier II Reward.'
>
> Tier II? I was the ONLY PLAYER. I did 100% of the work, how did I come away with a T2 reward?
>
> I know it doesn't matter overall, but that kind of thing will also frustrate players.
This happens to me in the badlands all the time now. Figured it was how the rewards were handed out now.
The generator one in the badlands can give you the lowest reward even if you've been the only one within the blue ring progressing that node while simply killing everything in sight regardless of locale will net you a bigger reward even though you didn't really do anything useful in terms of the objective.
And sounds like a couple issues with some of the older battlezones that are less noticable?
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Yes, the Badlands final phase is horribly bugged.
It's not DPS based though, it's not really anything based. I have done that fight before in a fully epic top tier ship with high end gear and traits and still received T1-T3 rewards.
Usually in the Badlands, I do the zone and the 3 bases and then I warp out or just go park and wait for the 5 min phase to end. It's 100% random if you're going to get anything for it or not, I have done it a ton of times trying to figure out how to consistently get a reward and have not been successful. I know one thing though, it's certainly not DPS.
And for that I fly in and park just below the plain the ships spawn on set the autofire options to numpty mode and go semi afk.
It's just a mindless kill fest and not the death or glory no win counterattack that ramps up over time that it might have been so don't really see the point in making much more of an effort. Not even that good for mastery gains either.
Bugs happen in every game and fixes take time. But ignoring player feedback Cryptic specifically asked for and then pretending like it never happened is inexcusable.
There, that's my little rant. It won't change anything but at least I'm feeling better now.
I have to admit.. I thought the exact same thing.
When the zone was introduced, the forum and reddit were flooded with threads on what's wrong with the zone and why players abandoned it. Bug reports were filed by the dozen, there were so many discussions that threads on the topic were merged to keep the board from being spammed.
That was all ignored and now they want to know what's wrong? I have been hoping for a long time that they would fix the TZ battle zone, I personally love Battle Zones and would really like to be able to add the TZ Zone into my rotation. Given all the feedback they have already received though and Cryptic's track record of listening to solicited feedback.. I am not holding by breath on this one.
Also considering how the devs are just now asking how it should be checked on makes me wonder what was going on because ALL THIS FEEDBACK has already been given when it was put on Tribble and the devs DID NOTHING. Now that the BZ has been ignored by a lot of players, the devs are just now wondering what was going on? If the devs had actually read the feedback back when it was released, and they actually did something, they would have done so back then.
Unless the devs prove me wrong, The Tzenkethi BZ won't get changed, no matter if there is 1000 pages of feedback.
The asteroid shoving and blockade screens can be done solo as long as noone is AFKing close enough to bump up the spawn numbers and you're mobile enough to bounce between the points. Command spec reinforcement summon can help a fair bit for the blockade as can hangar pets that actually willing to obey.
^^ This should NOT be overlooked! I've been in situations where we won the Zone, and then you get no Protomatter containers at all! Not always, but, indeed, inconsistently.
I appreciate you looking into this, btw. With the new Rep system incoming, it's good a primary source for Lukari Marks is being investigated.
And it really *is* broken. I'm sure a highly coordinated/DPS team can do it (and even I was in instances where we won), but -- and this is very important -- the Tzenkethi BZ is an OPEN Zone! It should be doable like the Terran Zone is doable.
Would have shown that they'd read the reports from way back when at least once and come across better (more professional) than the "hey kids" option.
The BZ is really cool.. it would be great if it actually worked.
Please just fix it and all is forgiven.. I would like to be able to enjoy this zone.
Thank you for looking into it.
I don't know how this could be fixed. I'm thinking an update to the pet AI "stay out of the AoE" or a chance for them to do so.
EDIT - oops, sorry I was thinking about the Badlands. This about Gon'cra, correct?
Yes, it is Gon'cra. Pets do ok there except that they sometimes get jumped by the recapture forces before they have a chance to follow you out to the next area...
I love Battlezones, and was surely gonna check this 1 out before reading here(i been away from trek for a while)
Battle Zones need more Love-
maybe list some on the PVE page
or maybe put a daily double on marks or dil for the 1st time ran each day
or free transwarps to the zones!
Those all sound like good ideas
I am just glad they are working on fixing the zone.