New players in TFOs ???

arionisa · October 2018

If I had been a brand new player giving this game a try for the very first time, I would be in the process of deleting it right now.

Brand new DSC toon, get through the tutorial, get to ESD, talk to everyone and I'm given my first mission. Join the TFO "Defense of Starbase One". No problem, big giant bubble shows me what to click, so I do and there is only TFO available, easy as pie for a brand new player. That was the only easy thing, well, other than watching my ship get blown up, repeatedly. Did anyone actually think this through before deciding to make brand new players run a TFO, a TFO that all levels of players can join, a TFO that all levels of players will join since you also added the random TFO thing ?
Did anyone ask themselves what the effect would be if a new player in thier puny T1 ship, Mark 0 gear and almost useless BoFF skills got pulled into a TFO with four high level players ?

I'll tell you what happens (or happened anyway), the TFO scaled to level 53, my brand spanking new ship and gear and weapons couldn't put a dent in any of the enemy ships and I spent the entire TFO waiting on the respawn timer to count down. I couldn't even take the chicken way out and go park away from the action because the respawn is right in the middle of where the enemy spawns. Respawn, boom, respawn, boom, respawn, boom.

I love this game, I have loved it since the first time I ever played it, but if I had been a player just trying the game for the first time ? To the recycle bin it would go. I wouldn't know that the entire game isn't going to be like that, all I would know is that my very first non tutorial mission was about the same as playing a standard FPS on insane mode while running around naked.

For the ones who do get past that experience, no where did I see any pop up etc telling me that ship now had multi damage, including three criticals, meaning my very next mission attempt would have also meant multiple booms due to weakened shields and hull, and I would have had no clue how to fix it.

This really needs to get looked at and re evaluated.

tiekosora · October 2018

Not sure why you had an issue with this mission. It played perfectly fine for me, multiple times. Did you by chance have the free starter ship, or did you buy the AoD Starter pack? The ship and weapons on the scaleable Walker-class may be overall better. Also, you can always train your bridge officers to use other skills, but I found the default selection to work fine until I could train a Lt. Commander skill on them.

arionisa · October 2018

I was flying the new ship that levels with you, I forget what it's called right now. Other than that, I played it as if I was brand new player that had never played this game before. Equipped with the best of what gear I had acquired while playing, which wasn't much. I used the BoFfs that were given to me with the skills that they came with. Yes, I could have dipped into my account bank for some EC and reskilled my BoFFs, grabbed some nice universal consoles etc, a lot of things I could have done but they would all be things a brand new players wouldn't have the funds for, and would have no clue how to do or even have the slightest hint that something like that would be needed.

You give brand new player a few missions that you could almost sleep through without getting killed and then suddenly, BAM ! ! ! You throw them into an advanced TFO where they could, like me, get teamed with four high level players, they will not survive and for someone just giving the game a trial run, it will likely cause them to give up and never try it again.

I knew what happened, because I've been playing for a day or two, as soon as I looked up and saw that the TFO was scaled to lvl 53, I knew that I was in for a pounding, and I also knew it was just the (un)luck of the draw that my poor lvl 6 toon got teamed with four high level players. I also knew that someone new to the game, if they even noticed that little level 53 notification, would have had no clue what it meant, and would think that the entire game was going to be like that.

If Cryptic insists on throwing brand new players into an advanced TFO the moment they finish the tutorial, at least scale the TFO down to something close to their level, no matter who else they get paired with, or put a level limit on the random selection so players will only get paired with other players within 10 levels or so of theirs.

And yes, I know there are some players who will claim, maybe truthfully, that they could run that TFO in a shuttle using white mark 0 gear. I'm thinking about brand new players who are getting their first experience with STO.

seaofsorrows · October 2018

I assume it puts you in a normal difficulty TFO right?

Either way, I agree with the OP, it's a horrible idea. All queues should have a level 50+ requirement, as said before.. scaling in this game can be brutal.

And for the record, he can't retrain his bridge officers either because at that point in the story you're not high enough level to promote a bridge officer past Ensign.

New players should be eased through the story line.. not thrown into a 'Kobiashi Maru' scenario 30 minutes after they started playing. I like the TFO's and all that.. but the OP is right, this is an awful idea and needs to be changed. When my AOD got to that point, I just said to myself 'they can't really expect me to do this right?' and I hit skip.

A new player won't know to do that.

arionisa · October 2018

Normal ? If only, it dumps you into an advanced que. There is a possibility the player could change it to normal, I didn't notice. Up to that point, you click where the little boxes tell you to so that's what i was doing, I followed directions, clicked on the icon for TFOs, the only thing that showed was "defense of starbase one, advanced" so I clicked it, just like 99% of new players would.

seaofsorrows · October 2018

Then it’s bad for 2 reasons..

1. A new player has no business in advanced and putting them there is only going to discourage them.

2. Everyone else that’s actually geared for Advanced runs now gets saddled with undergrared newbies that we have to carry.

A complete lose/lose scenario.

tiekosora · October 2018

You can train your bridge officers right out of the tutorial. All you need is energy credits and expertise. That said, the abilities your BO's have initially as an AoD captain work just fine. I am a Filthy Casual™ and I did this mission, witht he base gear the Walker Prototype is equipped with, and the standard bridge officer loadout. If a scrub like me says this mission was fine and easy to do...

New players in TFOs ???

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