TFOs Way Too Difficult

poseidon · July 2019

When you have the entire team quit, IT’S TOO DIFFICULT!!!
Several times I’ve Played Gravity Kills and Infected: Conduit, And I was the last one still playing. If I quit, I get penalized. If you are going to make it so difficult, you should make it so that if only one player remains, it is a automatic win.

baddmoonrizin · July 2019

Usually the last 2 players in a TFO don't get penalized for leaving.

lordgyor · July 2019

> @baddmoonrizin said:
> Usually the last 2 players in a TFO don't get penalized for leaving.

Thank you that is good to know.

rattler2 · July 2019

Gravity Kills is one that does kinda require more coordination and knowing what to focus on and what to ignore, and with the added fact you're fighting a black hole... I can see that being pretty rough in a PUG run. But Infected space? The only way for that one to go downhill is if either someone purposefully sabotaged it or you had an incredably low DPS group. Sounds like you ended up with the latter for Infected. Its rare, but it happens.

baddmoonrizin · July 2019

With Gravity Kills, for it to fail means players aren't delivering the Hawking Particles and defending the Jupiter. Many players just go in and pew pew Tzenkethi, making the additional mistakes of using gravity wells, and not doing the actual objectives.

Infected: The Conduit - I'm guessing that no one is trying to stop the probes from entering the vortex. Too many of those get through and the queue fails. At least that's the only fail condition that I'm aware of.

There are some players who will abandon a queue the second any optional objective fails. That, of course, makes finishing the queue at all more difficult.

If you're having difficulty on any TFO, though, you might want to consider that you're attempting it above your skill level. Try it on Normal first and work your way up to Advanced once you've got the mechanics down. Check out the wiki and players' guides here for advice. Good luck.

rattler2 · July 2019

baddmoonrizin wrote: »

Infected: The Conduit - I'm guessing that no one is trying to stop the probes from entering the vortex. Too many of those get through and the queue fails. At least that's the only fail condition that I'm aware of.

You're mixing Infected with Kitomer. Infected only has one gate, and nanite ships coming out to repair generators. There is no fail condition on it at all, just a DPS threshold you must hit (at least about 10k for each player for a coordinated group on Advanced), otherwise its just gonna go on forever because they can't kill the generators before the nanite ships get there. Might be able to buy more time with some well placed gravity wells, but you're just as likely to see someone drop a gravity well ON the generators because "it does damage", not thinking that it will also draw in the nanite ships.

@lordgyor there is actually an entire section of the forums with some tips for each TFO. Now... the information is being compiled by players, so you may see various tactics.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/categories/player-guides
If there is any particular element you need some advice on... feel free to ask.

davefenestrator · July 2019

Sounds like you should stop trying to play those two at Advanced level with pick up groups. Problem solved.

warpangel · July 2019

rattler2 wrote: »

baddmoonrizin wrote: »

Infected: The Conduit - I'm guessing that no one is trying to stop the probes from entering the vortex. Too many of those get through and the queue fails. At least that's the only fail condition that I'm aware of.

You're mixing Infected with Kitomer. Infected only has one gate, and nanite ships coming out to repair generators. There is no fail condition on it at all

Khitomer doesn't have a fail condition, either. Stopping the probes is entirely optional.

ussvaliant · July 2019

Anything Tzenkethi as a PUG is asking for trouble as it requires a little teamwork and co-ordination. Generally if Gravity Kills turns up i'm straight out. If Tzenkethi Front pops i'll access the strength of the team before deciding if a leavers penalty is more a efficient use of my time

Herald Sphere and Storming the Spire are immediate quits for me.

Herald Sphere due it being bugged. No command ships so the reward is for playing not worth the time

Storming the Spire takes far to long and I can get far more dil and marks running the Dyson BZ dailies in a quarter of the time.

baddmoonrizin · July 2019

@rattler2 That's right. Thanks for the correction. Yeah, lately I've seen that one mess up because: 1) Someone drops a gravity well on the generator and pulls the Nanite Spheres to it, thereby healing the generator; 2) Someone heads right when everyone else goes left.

protoneous · July 2019

They're just advanced (R)TFO's. Sounds like 'too difficult' is being confused with player leaver issues. There's a lot of TFO's that are too difficult to complete solo when the rest of the team quits. If you're familiar with the queues in question and confident of your ship's setup, to stop playing those queues with pugs at the advanced levels solves nothing.

When you have the entire team quit, IT’S TOO DIFFICULT!!!

darkbladejk · July 2019

This is a prime example of why I've wanted to see a dungeon journal of sorts added to the game similar to what WoW has. I also wish there was a proving grounds similar to what WoW has where folks can test their builds and such first. Along with other checks to prevent this kind of stuff from happening as IMO there are some people that just are not ready for advanced content yet.

In regards to Gravity Kills it is very much doable, it just requires more coordination, which can be difficult for a general group if all they want to do is pew pew the Tzenkethi. In that queue you don't even really need to do much with the Tzenkethi themselves until the end. 1-2 ships stay with the Jupiter while the other 3-4 ferry Hawking Particles to the Jupiter. Once the Jupiter is full up you bash the anchors, rinse and repeat until the stations are gone. From there you engage the dreadnought then gg. Attacking the Tzenkethi near the stations doesn't matter. All that matters is that the Jupiter survives and gets the particles. Most of the groups I've been in don't seem to understand that.

In regards to Infected Conduit Advanced, you shouldn't be having issues with that queue unless you get into a super low damage run. Unless you're running uber high end cranking 250k+ you're going to have a rough time if your team doesn't have enough damage. I've not seen your build nor do I know what your damage looks like, but it definitely sounds like you got into a super low damage run. What should happen is you nuke the first cube and the spheres then go left. From there you nuke the cube and generators. From there you focus down the transformer. If the Nanite Spheres get close, someone can toss a gravity well to slow them down until the transformer is dead. From there once the transformer dies you move to the other side ideally nuking spheres as you pass or taking a brief moment to deal with them. You rinse and repeat on the second side meeting the final tac cube and the gate in the middle of the map and roast everything. Mission complete after that. Unless someone decides to be a troll and intentionally TRIBBLE everyone over, low damage is the only thing that should be stopping you.

Both missions are doable. As long as you're with a team that have basic cohesive builds, and understand what to do, the missions aren't that hard, especially ISA. If you want me to give your build a once over to put your mind at ease I will gladly assist.

rattler2 · July 2019

warpangel wrote: »

Khitomer doesn't have a fail condition, either. Stopping the probes is entirely optional.

Used to a LOOOONG time ago.

spiritborn · July 2019

Only elite TFOs have failure conditions at all now, so most Borg queues don't have failure conditions these days since they're capped at advanced (they used to but Cryptic changed it so that normal and advanced queues have no failure conditions).

questerius · July 2019

baddmoonrizin wrote: »

Usually the last 2 players in a TFO don't get penalized for leaving.

@baddmoonrizin
Unless the other players simply switched characters.
For the remaining players it is not possible to see if the "leavers" changed characters or left with penalty and all.

phoenixc · July 2019

One thing I have noticed in zone (or even once in team) chat with the RTFOs is that if someone is running ground specialization like commando and end up in a space TFO they tend to bail right there (and visa versa, though sometimes they bail just because it is a ground TFO) and loosing a ship before it even starts does not exactly help the DPS situation any.

It happens in regular level too, and not just advanced. It also often seems like the more powerful ships are the ones that tend to leave like that the most, like they are impatient and/or do not want to bother doing a run with "lesser equipped" people.

I once spent about forty minutes in Gravity Kills on normal with just one other player as stubborn as I am. One person messaged "hell no" and left immediately, and the other two bailed during the run when it started dragging on. It was actually a nice novelty to essentially duo the thing once, but it is not something I would stand for too many times.

I really do not think the problem is difficulty itself, it is more a case of lack of interest in some scenarios and quite often confusion since the coordination features of the game are not that great. Also, a lot of people never look at guides and things outside of the game and just prefer to figure it out for themselves or via ingame sources.

firebeard · July 2019

phoenixc#0738 wrote: »

One thing I have noticed in zone (or even once in team) chat with the RTFOs is that if someone is running ground specialization like commando and end up in a space TFO they tend to bail right there (and visa versa, though sometimes they bail just because it is a ground TFO) and loosing a ship before it even starts does not exactly help the DPS situation any.

It happens in regular level too, and not just advanced. It also often seems like the more powerful ships are the ones that tend to leave like that the most, like they are impatient and/or do not want to bother doing a run with "lesser equipped" people.

I once spent about forty minutes in Gravity Kills on normal with just one other player as stubborn as I am. One person messaged "hell no" and left immediately, and the other two bailed during the run when it started dragging on. It was actually a nice novelty to essentially duo the thing once, but it is not something I would stand for too many times.

I really do not think the problem is difficulty itself, it is more a case of lack of interest in some scenarios and quite often confusion since the coordination features of the game are not that great. Also, a lot of people never look at guides and things outside of the game and just prefer to figure it out for themselves or via ingame sources.

Agree with everything in this post.

There are numerous reasons as to why the difficulty may appear spike and more often than not it's the result of Players/ Teammates. If I ever have the privilege of fighting alongside you, OP, I can promise the 'Vimy Ridge' and her crew will be there until the end ..

spiritborn · July 2019

phoenixc#0738 wrote: »

One thing I have noticed in zone (or even once in team) chat with the RTFOs is that if someone is running ground specialization like commando and end up in a space TFO they tend to bail right there (and visa versa, though sometimes they bail just because it is a ground TFO) and loosing a ship before it even starts does not exactly help the DPS situation any.

It happens in regular level too, and not just advanced. It also often seems like the more powerful ships are the ones that tend to leave like that the most, like they are impatient and/or do not want to bother doing a run with "lesser equipped" people.

I once spent about forty minutes in Gravity Kills on normal with just one other player as stubborn as I am. One person messaged "hell no" and left immediately, and the other two bailed during the run when it started dragging on. It was actually a nice novelty to essentially duo the thing once, but it is not something I would stand for too many times.

I really do not think the problem is difficulty itself, it is more a case of lack of interest in some scenarios and quite often confusion since the coordination features of the game are not that great. Also, a lot of people never look at guides and things outside of the game and just prefer to figure it out for themselves or via ingame sources.

Reading this I think I might have been that other player, I do remember one TFO I did 2 man since others rage quit, though I don't remember which one and who I did it with.

That said my personal princible has always been if I start a TFO I'll end if at all possible, one of the few reasons I'd quit a TFO midrun is if it became literally impossible to complete (for example you needed to "use" 3 things the same time and there was only 2 people in the group including me), FYI:pretty much every other reason is real life emergency where I must quit to deal with it.

wideningxgyre · July 2019

The bigger problem I've observed is that MANY players try to ride coattails of other players. They are insufficiently geared or lack knowledge of basic strategies in various queues. They simply want the ADV rewards, but can't contribute in any meaningful manner. In many queues, that's fine. But some require a modicum of strategy and coordination to complete with optionals.

If you know what you're doing, the queues on ADV are not that difficult. MK XII purple gear from mission rewards is more than sufficient to complete any queue and contribute to the team effort. However, if you're depending on dps to get through the queue and are not equipped to do so, it's a problem.

But, when you do silly things like gravity well the transformers and pull spheres in to heal it or spend all your time pew-pewing instead of working on hawking particles or recovering bombs to blow the TZ bases, it becomes a ridiculous time and effort black hole.

salazarraze · July 2019

spielman1 wrote: »

Issue is from what I have see is that you have two cultures in game causing this issue.
A the DPS machine players that build there ship to do so much DPS that the mission is pointless for one reason or another so they up the difficulty trying to challenge thee and all they do is up the DPS even more solving nothing.
B player that build there ship with what they can cause they are casual players and don't play for hours on end in a day getting every little thing and throwing money at the game to get this or that even thing to boost there DPS.
The company is trying to balance two playing styles in one mission and either players quite cause after years of having to carry others they leave or they are tired of getting a lesser reward cause they don't throw money at the game, or have the time to play for 4 days straight. There has to be a point where the company will either separate the TFo into DPS and Casual or reward all players equally for there effort and not reward DPS based players only. That's at least wat I have noticed along with other things like teams purposely don't do the secondary's at all yet still rewarded for doing those and such but that's a different subject.

Nonsense. Everyone is rewarded equally regardless of the damage that they are able to put out. High DPS players aren't getting bonus dilithium or marks for their efforts. There's also already a "casual" TFO difficulty. It's called normal. You don't need to amount to much of anything to pull your own weight in normal difficulty.

razar2380 · July 2019

I keep "Chains of Fire" in my inventory just for Gravity Kills and ISA now. When GK pops, I put that console on. Grab the Tzenkethi and do a suicide run into the black hole. Helps to clean up the mess around the stations for a while, and makes getting the particles a little easier.

In ISA, a GW is not a problem, as long as there is a way to stop the Nanite Spheres. So if someone pops a GW too soon, I use Chains of Fire, and Evasive Maneuvers to pull the Spheres as far away as I can from either gen. Depending on what ship I am flying, I get popped sometimes. But it helps a lot.

That console is also awesome in The Cure space. If you don't kill the BOPs, the cubes will not send anymore. So I pull them back to the other side of the cubes where they can't reach the Kang. As long as no one bothers them, they will usually sit there. And GW helps to deal with the others until COF comes off cooldown again.

Razar.

peterconnorfirst · July 2019

phoenixc#0738 wrote: »

It happens in regular level too, and not just advanced. It also often seems like the more powerful ships are the ones that tend to leave like that the most, like they are impatient and/or do not want to bother doing a run with "lesser equipped" people.

I once spent about forty minutes in Gravity Kills on normal with just one other player as stubborn as I am. One person messaged "hell no" and left immediately, and the other two bailed during the run when it started dragging on. It was actually a nice novelty to essentially duo the thing once, but it is not something I would stand for too many times.

Why, because you do not want to run with “lesser equipped players“? Or is it rather the difference between transporting 6 hawking particles (if everybody in team takes his share) versus 30 particles (if you have it to do all on your own)?

I bet it is the latter in your case but also bet those players you have seen leave on this map are unlikely elitists “not wanting to run with lesser equipped players” but rather only players who were all in this situation before themselves and don’t want to be in it again.

I have been there as well you know; facing the danger of becoming a leaver. I did it for about two weeks; not on Gravity Kills as interaction there matters but on the map design failures Storming the Spire and Days of Doom. There interaction does not matter and the game hardly cares if you do anything or just afk it out. Of course when I lined up for RTFO fate kept bringing me back to those maps again, again and again. Hehe, I have a few chars to compensate leaver penalties but if a game forces you to tend to this every day every week the price to pay for just an RTFO container became too high.

When I realized that I just stopped being a leaver and simply left the entire RTFO business, something I have been very enthusiastic about at the start, altogether.

So please don’t be too hard on those you see leave. I’m sure they are just very close of never to be seen again themselves.

peterconnorfirst · July 2019

spielman1 wrote: »

Issue is from what I have see is that you have two cultures in game causing this issue.
A the DPS machine players that build there ship to do so much DPS that the mission is pointless for one reason or another so they up the difficulty trying to challenge thee and all they do is up the DPS even more solving nothing.
B player that build there ship with what they can cause they are casual players and don't play for hours on end in a day getting every little thing and throwing money at the game to get this or that even thing to boost there DPS.
The company is trying to balance two playing styles in one mission and either players quite cause after years of having to carry others they leave or they are tired of getting a lesser reward cause they don't throw money at the game, or have the time to play for 4 days straight. There has to be a point where the company will either separate the TFo into DPS and Casual or reward all players equally for there effort and not reward DPS based players only. That's at least wat I have noticed along with other things like teams purposely don't do the secondary's at all yet still rewarded for doing those and such but that's a different subject.

That is why we have three difficulty settings in game!

Couldn’t we introduce just that as the most universal answer to everybody who got an AFK penalty (in advanced), was disgusted away by faw spamming Scimitards killing everything before he/she can (in advanced) or found the map too hard to complete to begin with (on advanced).

We have:

- Normal
- Advanced
- Elite

Now if anybody dares to point out that we miss elite on some maps because Cryptic deliberatly chose to promote their newer and very often design failures of PvE that way I think it’s time to summon the most notorious “I hate that players just queue up for ISA and CCA so the rest of list goes empty” members of these forums.

peterconnorfirst · July 2019

wideningxgyre wrote: »

The bigger problem I've observed is that MANY players try to ride coattails of other players. They are insufficiently geared or lack knowledge of basic strategies in various queues. They simply want the ADV rewards, but can't contribute in any meaningful manner. In many queues, that's fine. But some require a modicum of strategy and coordination to complete with optionals.

Thank you very much for pointing that out.

As a DPSer I’m reluctant to do so because the stigma of being a mean elitist always precedes me.

I think that exactly this is the very reason why cryptic cut every dog leash on power creep and engaged it at warp speed. If you go for it things like underperforming team mates completely loose relevance on the maps where your build matters.

xyquarze · July 2019

Cryptic did the right thing in naming the lowest level "normal" and making it the default level.

However, players in general seem to loathe playing on the lowest difficulty setting which is for n00bs only and I surely am no n00b, even if I am playing a game for the first time. And many games' introductory levels are tutorials only and aren't needed and are boring admittedly.

But think about "They are Billions", a recent game (if you don't include early access time) which was lambasted by many for being too difficult on the default "100%" level. Yeah, so? There's three levels below that. Start on 25%, get a feel for the game, you can switch to any other difficulty later. But no, the lowest levels are for n00b players and we have played RTS/Tower Defence/City Builders before, so we don't need it. The very fact that I am not winning at 100% doesn't mean I should play a lower difficulty setting, it means the game is too hard.

I honestly wonder whether introducing a level or two below "normal", not meant to be played (maybe ridiculous rewards) but just for the psychological effect of "I can play on the intermediate level, not on the lowest one" would have eased the issue. (Not entirely resolve, mind you, because there is still the issue of elite marks, but eased).

darkbladejk · July 2019

Every single TFO in this game is doable if folks have even just a basic knowledge of what to expect, even if it's just from reading the objectives/briefings and nothing more, and then finally a basic cohesive build. In today's game getting a basic cohesive build is easier than ever and takes virtually no time at all. When I say basic cohesive setup, I mean stuff that you can get for free from missions, and for free via reputations, as it costs nothing to level a reputation save a little time and effort. It's absolutely possible to make a basic budget build for those that don't have alot of time or resources, that they can easily get at least 20k dps with, and a ground build that will get them through content. In fact I've given out quite a few budget builds over my STO career. The key thing though, is people have to want to learn and want to improve. Being perfectly honest and blunt, I've seen quite a few people that simply do not want to get better, it's never their fault, it's always the other guy, if you do try to offer them help they call every 4 letter word in the book and even some new ones and then bounce out. Since we're being blunt I do think sometimes the game makes it too easy for folks who simply are not ready for advanced content, let alone elite level.

The one thing I will give World of Warcraft credit on is they got their training system right and as close to what I would consider perfect as can be. I've said for awhile STO is at a similar position WoW was at several years ago. On one side you had the folks who thought stuff was too hard, on the other you have folks who think it's fine where it is. Eventually the divide and animosity got to the point that Blizzard themselves made 3 critical changes that overall improved the game.

Dungeon Journal: The dungeon journal listed what key mobs you would fight in each dungeon and listed their critical abilities with special notes on if they could be interrupted or not. It would also tell you sometimes what damage type particular powers were, and some other types of mechanics. It gave you just enough information to formulate your own plans and decipher the intended method to kill the boss. The journal would also tell you what loot drops were available from said bosses.
Mandatory item level check: This one had a bit of mixed reaction at first but ultimately improved the quality of raids and dungeons by instituting a mandatory item level one had to reach before being allowed to enter certain content. This guaranteed that folks couldn't just enter more advanced content while still freshly hitting max level less than 5 minutes prior and still sitting in quest greens. Overall it improved the raids by making sure folks had a certain minimum level of gear before entering so they had a fair chance at surviving, and should also be able to contribute to the team as well. In a raid over there if someone can't carry their own weight it effects the entire team. They could still run with friends typically however they couldn't queue for randoms until they met that minimum.
Proving grounds/training grounds: In addition to the above 2 items they gave us a training grounds of sorts. There you had 3 main levels of training you could do and then an endless level. Just like it sounds endless would go until you either got tired of it and quit, or couldn't go any longer, whatever happened first. You had training programs for each role, DPS, Tank, and Healer. In each level you would face challenges and mechanics that you would encounter in each of the roles you're training for. As a tank, you might have to taunt certain foes, pop a damage reducer, or face a mob away from the training NPCs. As a DPS don't stand in fire, knowing where to stand for maximum output, knowing what mob attacks to interrupt or when to throw a stun/cc. As a healer you would have to keep training NPCs alive. Oh that DPS has a debuff lowering his/her damage, let me purge that. The tank is taking a bit more damage than normal, let me pop this heavier heal and damage reducer on them. The group as a whole is taking an aoe attack, let me hit my AoE heals. Point being it made sure you knew the basics of your class even if you weren't the top tank, top dps, or top healer in your guild or on the server. In order to queue for raids you had to clear at least the silver medal for your chosen role or you didn't go.

We can debate about what forms folks would like to see stuff like that come to STO if any, but I do personally believe there need to be more safeguards in place. If someone queues for something they're not yet ready for it effects the whole team. If a TFO requires everyone in the run to be able to do 30k dps minimum to clear it, and 4 out of the 5 are only at the 30k minimum, and the 5th guy is at 15k, then that run is going to fail unless the team is able to make up that 15k difference. Let's change it up and assume 3 guys in there are dealing 35k, the 4th guy is at that 30k threshold, and our 5th guy is still only doing 15k. There's enough extra damage there to make up for the 5th guy, however the other 4 guys shouldn't have to make up for the 5th guy. The 4 guys will get mad that they're having to compensate for a 5th guy who wasn't ready, and it's going to annoy the 5th guy when he can't kill anything and the other 4 guys get mad at him as a result. I don't think anyone here realistically expects all the randoms they group with to be able to pull 50 trillion dps or some other absurdly high number, but I would wager that most folks when joining an advanced queue, and especially elite, expect that their teammates are able to pull their own weight. If they can't then 4 other guys are effected by one guy, and that's not fair to them either. In other words I don't think folks expect their teammates to be DPS gods, but they do expect them to be able to meet the basic minimums a queue requires, and I honestly don't see that as being an unreasonable standard. If a queue requires a minimum of 30k dps to succeed, then I expect the folks it sticks me with can at least pull the 30k. If they can't then they're not yet ready for that content and don't need to be in there imo without further training and/or build refining. In fact I have a fleetmate that I won't take into a Battle of Korfez specifically for the reason he's not ready yet.

Also annoys me when folks leave for no reason at all. If folks have real life business then obviously handle your business, but the folks I'm talking about are the ones that just leave because they get a queue they don't like or so on. If you're not willing to take the chance you might get a queue you don't like, then don't press the random button as that's not fair to the others who now have to make up for that person's leaving, or have now had to eat a penalty from being unable to continue.

spielman1 wrote: »

B player that build there ship with what they can cause they are casual players and don't play for hours on end in a day getting every little thing and throwing money at the game to get this or that even thing to boost there DPS.
The company is trying to balance two playing styles in one mission and either players quite cause after years of having to carry others they leave or they are tired of getting a lesser reward cause they don't throw money at the game, or have the time to play for 4 days straight.

This is a stigma that I wish would disappear into the deepest darkest depths of a black hole somewhere, and then blast that black hole way with an omega particle enhanced torpedo never to be heard from again. You do NOT and I repeat do NOT need to spend cash or the next 20 years straight to succeed in game. I really wish I knew where this kind of stigma comes from because you simply do not need cash nor that much time to succeed in game. All of the missions in game save the handoffs and tutorials can all be repeated for rewards. As just one example a basic ground set can be picked up from Mirrors and Smoke as the Kentari Ground set is a nasty little piece of work. There's also the jem'hadar set, imperial romulan navy, and so on. Then there's all sorts of free space sets and free space weapons that can be picked up. You're looking at only a few hours at most to have a full ground set and a full starship build. Even if you can only play 1 hour a day, that's 7 hours that you can get stuff done in. That's more than enough to get a basic build put together. If you need help with missions generally you can find someone willing to help you out by asking. If not, one can ask here on the forums.

One of my fleetmates is a trucker and typically only gets one or two hours total to play during the week. When he does get on, he's still able to get some stuff done and farm out a few little bits he needs. With proper time management and such it can be done.

TFOs Way Too Difficult

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