It is indeed a mission tilted towards the spam eng. Then again, Engs often don't have the most fun so that's okay.
As has been said, there are reasons for the "beam to spire" being useful even if you haven't finished a line yet - help out underpowered groups, get out if everybody goes to the same line (admittedly that is something you'll notice close to the spire, so not too much time lost here), things like that. But the minor interaction should solve the issue of the accidental F.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
Yeah i have been finding using the port to spire nice as I can jump between lanes to help out if either a lane needs aid, or if I find the lane i am in is just not needing another body in it. Than I can go over to the third lane that seems to be often left alone in the 3-2 strat of splitting into two groups, and start that lane early allowing the group to finish the stf that much faster. In most runs I do that I find we can get done with the first phase in 3-4 mins (maybe faster with stronger groups).
In two weeks, many people complained about my initial post, so here's an update. I've been sick at home for over a week now so I ran the Featured Episode event on all my 9 toons daily (fleet and rep marks, and 50k dill ore being the main motivation). That means I've run it well over a hundred times.
First of all, I'm not sure when last week, but the enemies were scaled down a bit, which made it more enjoyable. There are a bit less enemies, and their overall DPS decreased a bit. As a result, in the final round, I haven't seen a single time in which we were all 5 waiting to respawn at the same time. Also, fixing the "Teleport to spire" button helped A LOT!!!
This said, back on February 22nd, somebody predicted it was going to be AFK galore in no time. And it did turned out that way. Actually, it's even AFKing brought to a whole new level. At least once every three attempts, we land up with at least one AFKer or botter. Botters are easy to recognize. They typically do one or two emotes during the briefing, then they simply rotate and only walk a step in a way every X seconds to circumvent the AFK penalty system while also shooting at anything getting in their field of view. And, of course, they instantly "Need" any loot. When you actually address those botters by their exact screename (without a typo), it apparently sends a notification on Windows, and a minute or so later the guy "Alt+Tab"s in, and replies, sometimes claiming to have connexion issues. However, if you purposely make a typo in their screen name, you'll be talking all day by yourself.
Yesterday, we had two such AFKers. We still managed to cleanse two lanes. It's still irritating to see botters and AFKers leeching on the work of players actually putting themselves into it.
Couple days ago, we even had a goof at one point that said he had every right to fool around in a TFO and that if we were not happy about it we simply had to form teams.
I tried reporting the AFKers and botters, but given there are so many of them and that I see no change at all I doubt anything at all is done against that. I don't have time nor resources to keep track on those, but given I always play at the same hours, I'm sure I might even have run couple times into the same guys.
I have only come across an afk'er a couple of times. The map is really nice, but some of the pebbles are impossible to walk over. I have found it easy to complete one zone by myself and then usually go help at least one of the other zones. If the rewards stay the same after it is no longer a feature TFO, I could see myself running it. It has also never run really long. At least in the groups I had.
I must have been really lucky then so far. Only had two AFKers in close to 100 runs. Sometimes somebody gets a late start (probably tabbing out during the introductory minute, doing stuff that lasts a little longer) but even that has been rare. Or is it a question of where you are, i. e. what audience is likely to be online with you? I usually play during European evening hours (8-10 pm, give or take an hour).
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
Well, because of the way the Forums work, it tells me there is new posts in this Thread, and I have to scroll to the end and work up. I read it and knew who the Author was before I scrolled up to see the Author in the Header. I was correct in my assumption.
'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.'
Not something about the event stf itself, but finding that even with completing the event on one of my characters before the others that I can't seem to claim the module for the event anywhere in the event store, or c-store. Also after finding that went to see if I could buy the vouchers from the lobi store to get afew of the characters abit caught up to make sure they all got it, and seems there is no option to buy the voucher on the lobi store, which i could have sworn was an option in past events like this. Anyone else finding this?
The Vouchers for this Event is availible in the C-Store, not Lobi Store. The pack comes with 10 Vouchers and 1 Ultimate Upgrade. I think it is 800 Zen.
These 21 day Featured TFOs use the same Vouchers and the Pack is in the C-Store. Winter, Summer, and Anniversary use separate Vouchers and you buy those in the Lobi Store.
'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.'
The Winter/Summer/Anniversary award T6 Ships so they want them to be as 'overpriced' as possible for an Account Unlock. These 21-day only award a Console, Weapon, or Kit Module but are also Account Unlock.
For something completely different see the rarity of getting Epic or UR Phoenix Tokens for a single Character Ship Unlock.
'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.'
Actually, once you finished a line, it often is the quickest way to get to another place and help your team. Granted, that is the only time I can think of but it's not never.
Another good use is to get out when you are trapped in the central crystals (it happened to me twice, and I have heard others have been too). Still, binding it to the 'f' key on top of all the other actions you need the 'f' for is not a great thing.
All in all though the teleport, blocking rocks, and whatever vertex problem is causing the crystal entrapment thing are just annoyances in an otherwise excellent ground scenario. The timing is good (I know some complain it is too long, but for marks you get it is about right) so it does not drag and the attack-then-defend gives everyone something to do instead of favoring either tac/science offensive strengths or engineer defense strengths and ignoring the other the way some scenarios do.
EDIT: The edit monster seems to have a new face. My comment ended up as a quote in my own post without any quote markup at all. Weird....
- Those fraking rock croppings on the map were driving me insane. More specifically that you must not simply walk / run above them. Gotta jump over rock croppings that weren't even the height of my shoe soles. And they are all over the place.
Now that 'that' is of my chest a more general observation.
I am fairly confident that the first few days I ran this queue the reinforcment spawns at the various crystal locations were a lot more dynamic. <<-- Correct me if that is a brainfart of mine.
That changed a week into the event. After that reinforcements beamed in on a fixed timer no matter what.
- Haven't killed both groups of reinforcements before the timer is up? Have some more.
- 'Accidentally' aggro a terran from a crystal further down the path? Let's start the reinforcements spawns there too. In theory you could have messed up your team really bad by going straight to the third path crystals and starting reinforcements there while your team was just starting.
I assume that was a performance change to ease server load? If pahvo ever should come back in harder difficulties I would prefer the more dynamic handling of reinforcements. Being able to stagger respawns with crowd control instead of a blunt dps race would be slightly more satisfying to me.
It will be back as a regular TFO probably after the next Featured TFO is over.
'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.'
Really enjoyed the terrain and foliage placement as maneuvering, view and positioning challenges. As mentioned above the attack - defend cycle ensures proper timing and balance of abilities and build. Challenging enough for junior toons while senior ones could go for a romp and make a difference. It was nice to be outside in the forest. Did it on several characters and had fun. Nicely done.
Not something about the event stf itself, but finding that even with completing the event on one of my characters before the others that I can't seem to claim the module for the event anywhere in the event store, or c-store. Also after finding that went to see if I could buy the vouchers from the lobi store to get afew of the characters abit caught up to make sure they all got it, and seems there is no option to buy the voucher on the lobi store, which i could have sworn was an option in past events like this. Anyone else finding this?
The kit module is in the dilithium store in the "reclaim" tab, not the event store, or c-store. It seems to be where the featured TFO stuff goes now (at least since the Battle of the Binary Stars thing anyway, the beacon from that and at least the laser lizard combat pet from a later one ended up there).
Overall I found the event and stf quite good, even with some of the afkers that come with the events after sometime, and more so with how the way this stf is built it does incentive actually playing an good performance compared to other stfs. In it you can actually get done with the stf quite quickly with a good build/player, or just good team work. I am though hoping we see some link between the new event stf's reward (a set of armor for ground) an this event stf's module, since they are both ground an co9ming some a pair of stfs that are kinda linked to a similar place.
In two weeks, many people complained about my initial post, so here's an update. I've been sick at home for over a week now so I ran the Featured Episode event on all my 9 toons daily (fleet and rep marks, and 50k dill ore being the main motivation). That means I've run it well over a hundred times.
First of all, I'm not sure when last week, but the enemies were scaled down a bit, which made it more enjoyable. There are a bit less enemies, and their overall DPS decreased a bit. As a result, in the final round, I haven't seen a single time in which we were all 5 waiting to respawn at the same time. Also, fixing the "Teleport to spire" button helped A LOT!!!
This said, back on February 22nd, somebody predicted it was going to be AFK galore in no time. And it did turned out that way. Actually, it's even AFKing brought to a whole new level. At least once every three attempts, we land up with at least one AFKer or botter. Botters are easy to recognize. They typically do one or two emotes during the briefing, then they simply rotate and only walk a step in a way every X seconds to circumvent the AFK penalty system while also shooting at anything getting in their field of view. And, of course, they instantly "Need" any loot. When you actually address those botters by their exact screename (without a typo), it apparently sends a notification on Windows, and a minute or so later the guy "Alt+Tab"s in, and replies, sometimes claiming to have connexion issues. However, if you purposely make a typo in their screen name, you'll be talking all day by yourself.
Yesterday, we had two such AFKers. We still managed to cleanse two lanes. It's still irritating to see botters and AFKers leeching on the work of players actually putting themselves into it.
Couple days ago, we even had a goof at one point that said he had every right to fool around in a TFO and that if we were not happy about it we simply had to form teams.
I tried reporting the AFKers and botters, but given there are so many of them and that I see no change at all I doubt anything at all is done against that. I don't have time nor resources to keep track on those, but given I always play at the same hours, I'm sure I might even have run couple times into the same guys.
You were terribly unlucky. I ran the thing a good 350 times, all randomly-queued and had maybe 10 AFKers. Had a few that were little late getting started or kind of gave up on the few terrible runs that I was in when it became clear that we weren't going to get the bonus on the first section, as well. This is out of more than a thousand random teammates. That makes the AFK galore predictions way overblown, from my experience. This one had less than I generally see from Mirror or Breach, though probably more than the ultra-fast Crystalline event.
Oh, and much earlier in here, I said that you wouldn't get the beam to spire thing during the end part, and that was incorrect. If you went far enough up one of the paths, it would come back, but even then, you wouldn't be transporting 5 meters, but well over 30.
It wasn't the most fun map ever, but I give it points for having ways to trim down the time through smart gameplay. Things like realizing that killing Terrans during the first phase is at best a secondary goal. Purifying crystals is your goal, and you should only kill the Terrans that might make that goal take longer, mainly the ones that might kill you. Blow up those Agonizers, place those crystals and maintain those crystals. You don't even really need to kill Terrans to maintain the crystals, as you have the advantage with them after the Agonizers are destroyed. There's effectively no delay or interruption in laying one down, so you can set them up faster than the Terrans can knock them out. If you are built well enough to survive the aggro of two Ensigns, you can solo even the third crystal in a path, as long as you can take out the Commander and Lieutenant and play smart.
This is an MMO, not a Star Trek episode simulator. That would make for a terrible game.
'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.'
Another TFO that grants little to no kill XP? Fan-bloody-tastic. You want players to participate and yet progress is almost gated when ever you play them.
Pretty much everything new since Swarm is sketchy at best where kill XP/Expertise/Ship Progress XP is concerned.
Tzen BZ - No kill XP what so ever. Waste of server space. I understand you may not want people sticking to one area to exploit something. But that should be players' choice, not yours.
Currently only half decent source of expertise are all the older STF's or repetitive romulan patrols. Which now has been mentioned, I'm sure you'll nerf them as well. Spending nearly 15 minutes for next to nothing back isn't entertainment.
Do you mean Pahvo Dissension or are you referring to the new FTFO Peril over Pahvo? Because I think you mean ship mastery, and Dissension is GTFO (and PoP doesn't award any ship mastery points as you correctly spelled out).
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
Comments
As has been said, there are reasons for the "beam to spire" being useful even if you haven't finished a line yet - help out underpowered groups, get out if everybody goes to the same line (admittedly that is something you'll notice close to the spire, so not too much time lost here), things like that. But the minor interaction should solve the issue of the accidental F.
First of all, I'm not sure when last week, but the enemies were scaled down a bit, which made it more enjoyable. There are a bit less enemies, and their overall DPS decreased a bit. As a result, in the final round, I haven't seen a single time in which we were all 5 waiting to respawn at the same time. Also, fixing the "Teleport to spire" button helped A LOT!!!
This said, back on February 22nd, somebody predicted it was going to be AFK galore in no time. And it did turned out that way. Actually, it's even AFKing brought to a whole new level. At least once every three attempts, we land up with at least one AFKer or botter. Botters are easy to recognize. They typically do one or two emotes during the briefing, then they simply rotate and only walk a step in a way every X seconds to circumvent the AFK penalty system while also shooting at anything getting in their field of view. And, of course, they instantly "Need" any loot. When you actually address those botters by their exact screename (without a typo), it apparently sends a notification on Windows, and a minute or so later the guy "Alt+Tab"s in, and replies, sometimes claiming to have connexion issues. However, if you purposely make a typo in their screen name, you'll be talking all day by yourself.
Yesterday, we had two such AFKers. We still managed to cleanse two lanes. It's still irritating to see botters and AFKers leeching on the work of players actually putting themselves into it.
Couple days ago, we even had a goof at one point that said he had every right to fool around in a TFO and that if we were not happy about it we simply had to form teams.
I tried reporting the AFKers and botters, but given there are so many of them and that I see no change at all I doubt anything at all is done against that. I don't have time nor resources to keep track on those, but given I always play at the same hours, I'm sure I might even have run couple times into the same guys.
Not bad.
Not good.
Pros:
Well done planet
Nice graphics
Cons:
Repetitive
Too long
I would have preferred less crystal purification and something else than just kill terrans.
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.'
These 21 day Featured TFOs use the same Vouchers and the Pack is in the C-Store. Winter, Summer, and Anniversary use separate Vouchers and you buy those in the Lobi Store.
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.'
For something completely different see the rarity of getting Epic or UR Phoenix Tokens for a single Character Ship Unlock.
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.'
Another good use is to get out when you are trapped in the central crystals (it happened to me twice, and I have heard others have been too). Still, binding it to the 'f' key on top of all the other actions you need the 'f' for is not a great thing.
All in all though the teleport, blocking rocks, and whatever vertex problem is causing the crystal entrapment thing are just annoyances in an otherwise excellent ground scenario. The timing is good (I know some complain it is too long, but for marks you get it is about right) so it does not drag and the attack-then-defend gives everyone something to do instead of favoring either tac/science offensive strengths or engineer defense strengths and ignoring the other the way some scenarios do.
EDIT: The edit monster seems to have a new face. My comment ended up as a quote in my own post without any quote markup at all. Weird....
- Those fraking rock croppings on the map were driving me insane. More specifically that you must not simply walk / run above them. Gotta jump over rock croppings that weren't even the height of my shoe soles. And they are all over the place.
Now that 'that' is of my chest a more general observation.
I am fairly confident that the first few days I ran this queue the reinforcment spawns at the various crystal locations were a lot more dynamic. <<-- Correct me if that is a brainfart of mine.
That changed a week into the event. After that reinforcements beamed in on a fixed timer no matter what.
- Haven't killed both groups of reinforcements before the timer is up? Have some more.
- 'Accidentally' aggro a terran from a crystal further down the path? Let's start the reinforcements spawns there too. In theory you could have messed up your team really bad by going straight to the third path crystals and starting reinforcements there while your team was just starting.
I assume that was a performance change to ease server load? If pahvo ever should come back in harder difficulties I would prefer the more dynamic handling of reinforcements. Being able to stagger respawns with crowd control instead of a blunt dps race would be slightly more satisfying to me.
Joined in March, 2011. Lifer since December, 2011.
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.'
The kit module is in the dilithium store in the "reclaim" tab, not the event store, or c-store. It seems to be where the featured TFO stuff goes now (at least since the Battle of the Binary Stars thing anyway, the beacon from that and at least the laser lizard combat pet from a later one ended up there).
You were terribly unlucky. I ran the thing a good 350 times, all randomly-queued and had maybe 10 AFKers. Had a few that were little late getting started or kind of gave up on the few terrible runs that I was in when it became clear that we weren't going to get the bonus on the first section, as well. This is out of more than a thousand random teammates. That makes the AFK galore predictions way overblown, from my experience. This one had less than I generally see from Mirror or Breach, though probably more than the ultra-fast Crystalline event.
Oh, and much earlier in here, I said that you wouldn't get the beam to spire thing during the end part, and that was incorrect. If you went far enough up one of the paths, it would come back, but even then, you wouldn't be transporting 5 meters, but well over 30.
It wasn't the most fun map ever, but I give it points for having ways to trim down the time through smart gameplay. Things like realizing that killing Terrans during the first phase is at best a secondary goal. Purifying crystals is your goal, and you should only kill the Terrans that might make that goal take longer, mainly the ones that might kill you. Blow up those Agonizers, place those crystals and maintain those crystals. You don't even really need to kill Terrans to maintain the crystals, as you have the advantage with them after the Agonizers are destroyed. There's effectively no delay or interruption in laying one down, so you can set them up faster than the Terrans can knock them out. If you are built well enough to survive the aggro of two Ensigns, you can solo even the third crystal in a path, as long as you can take out the Commander and Lieutenant and play smart.
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.'
Pretty much everything new since Swarm is sketchy at best where kill XP/Expertise/Ship Progress XP is concerned.
Tzen BZ - No kill XP what so ever. Waste of server space. I understand you may not want people sticking to one area to exploit something. But that should be players' choice, not yours.
Currently only half decent source of expertise are all the older STF's or repetitive romulan patrols. Which now has been mentioned, I'm sure you'll nerf them as well. Spending nearly 15 minutes for next to nothing back isn't entertainment.