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Wait...what? Crystalline entity update...?
nixboox
Member Posts: 875 Arc User
I just read about the update to the Crystalline entity where it no longer takes damage during its absorption phase...so why would we keep shooting at it? Part of the fun was to see if you could blow it up before it finished its first absorption phase...or the second.
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Its getting to the point where you get enough kinetic on you might as well just AFK because it isn't a fight.
I personally like the changes because it means people have to do more than just park and shoot.
The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
Totally agreed.
But I am sure some people will whine in chat about how their uber-gear doesn't result in an instawin. Not here on the forums, that never happens, of course.
Maybe the "Snowflake" can be changed to be vulnerable to fire damage? Hee, hee, hee!
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
That sounds nice ... for the foundry.
Cryptic needs to be able to create content for all players, not just the ones who can switch to any and every different gear set as needed.
Cryptic has done this once or twice, like with the doomsday machine where you flew the captured Klingon ship and use the mumble'mumble torpedo. But for most content players want to fly their own ship with their own choice of gear.
If switching to different gear sets is never required, there is no point having different gear sets at all.
This is generally indicated in newer enemies by whatever damage type the reputation weapons are.
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Only the pathetic have to hide their posts.
No, simply putting "invulnerability delay" timers on it doesn't fix the problem. As others have said, that simply makes it a longer park'n'shoot. As usual, Cryptic went for the easy option of "make things take longer without actually changing the process".
Personally I would have gone for a three-phase approach:
- One stage of Absorb, like now, even with the Invuln, where incoming damage strengthens the blast pulse.
- One stage of Shimmer, where the entity has a Feedback Pulse that reflects 50% of all incoming energy damage back
- One stage of Shatter, where all incoming kinetic/physical damage results in a spray of fast-moving shards shooting out in the direction of the incoming damage (sort of like a Cannon Spread Volley shooting back towards the incoming damage)
That would make timing relevant, make damage selection relevant, make survival and healing and resistances relevant, and would still increase the time taken without just having a predictable "no damage" delay timer.
Though, I don't min-max my ship to do 500k DPS and just smoke everything in two seconds either, so maybe i'm not so blinded by exploits that I never noticed it.
So a stage where the player strat would be "just don't shoot it at this stage and wait for the next one"
That video was a fake.
It would require a three-fold strategy, one for each stage:
1) Run out of blast radius
2) Use torps/mines/kinetic powers
3) Use energy weapons/powers
4) Repeat
Now you know there would be some joker parked at 10 km spamming torp spreads when the kinetic power is up, causing CSV type attacks to blast through the ships at close range while trying to get to him.
In many ways its like asking for more complex Boff stories and the like. People care more about their DPS then they do any BOFF's possible story, and thus hate being forced to have any BOFF on their roster(see the Tovan situation)
Working in Customer Services is a lot like a Michael Bay or J J Abrams film. The story is all over the place, its contradicts its own continuity, it can be hours of mindless entertainment or boring subplot, with lots of noise, explosions and action, and is something you don't fancy viewing for a 2nd time 🤣🙉🤭
My character Tsin'xing
Players will care about strategy if and only if it's required to do something they want to do, to get something they want to get. We could have content where waiting out timers or blindly spamming DPS would NOT advance the mission AND have that content give unique rewards players want. Then players would care.
Which was actually very interesting, as opposed to the current version the devs spoonfeed the full solution to us in an announcement. Well, not that there's much of a "solution" needed to begin with, just shoot at it until it dies, the details are an optional curiosity at best.
In some ways, I can see why Cryptic wouldn't bother making anything more complex or interesting, because that excuse "the player will just wait/avoid anything that isn't spamming weapons fire until they can win by spam".
Personally I rate player adaptability a little higher than that. Not tons higher, but higher. It also depends on the overall situation. If 90% of the game situations can be defeated effectively by Energy weapon spam, then most people will build for Energy weapon spam and not bother changing for the remaining 10% - they'll just complete that 10% less efficiently.
However, having multiple "Energy absorbing, invulnerable" phases pretty much guarantees that players will sit around doing nothing... because it's the only thing they can do.
Having a reflect phase means you can use kinetic/physical weapons, you can use Sci/Exotic, you can use your energy but also need to worry about heals/resists/pacing. Having a "shatter damage spray" for Kinetic phase is iffy, since as mentioned, one guy can spam all the torps he likes and everyone in his arc will get splattered. Now you need to worry about the situation around you, your maneuverability, your defense, etc.
Players at that point at least have a choice of responses, rather than forced inactivity/delay.
As said, if this is the only place where such adaptability is required, people won't adapt. They will simply find the easiest way around the restrictions, and if it takes too long for the reward level, they will run other content instead.
On the other hand, if you dumb everything down to "just energy spam, and wait through the various time gates that Cryptic puts in because it's easier than doing anything creative"... then eventually the 'other content' that players run will be in other games. Because STO will be mindlessly boring at that point.