I'm just going to list the queues where hitting the console once works. It's a long list, because almost all missions are in the style of 'defend position X' for a long time - even if it's not the sole objective of the mission, you can avoid getting hit by a penalty because you'll simply do enough damage, even if you're not really doing anything.
Here's the list:
Battle at the Binary Stars
Battle of Korfez (probably, haven't played in a long time)
Battle of Procyon (granted, you'll have to do it three times as it's a layered mission)
Best Served Cold
Borg Disconnected
Counterpoint
Cure Found
Days of Doom
Defense of SB 1
Drannuur Gauntlet
Federation Fleet Alert
Federation Starbase Blockade (ok, no one plays it anymore, but still)
Gateway to Gret'hor
Gravity Kills
Herald Sphere (same issue as Battle of Procyon, but it still works for each phase)
Hive Onslaught
Iuppiter Iratus
Khitomer Vortex
Kobayashi Maru (not sure here, since it's a failable mission)
Operation Riposte (same issue as Battle of Procyon, but it still works for each phase)
Peril over Pahvo
Romulan Minefield
Starbase Fleet Defense
Storming the Spire
Swarm
To Hell with Honour
Tzenkethi Front
Undine Assault
Vault
Now the missions where it * might * not work or not every time you play the queue:
Azure Nebula Rescue (depending on total DPS of the team - if you're not going to release the ships because you're AFK and the rest of the team is succesful, they might do a lot more damage while your location doesn't get respawns)
Crystalline Catastrophe (not without blowing up once at least, but you could theoretically still AFK it if you don't care)
Infected: the conduit (depending on the team and total mission duration)
Viscous Cycle (or it might, if you just wait until the second or third base phase begins - there should be enough hit points to kill then)
Missions where it definitely doesn't work:
Breach
Leviathan
I was off with the 95% statistic, I'll admit that. The general point made in the last two lines of my previous comment still stands though. For two missions it's a definite impossibility, for all others the 'tactic' works even though a few of them would not be perfect runs for the user every time.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
Reminder that the jelly's lightning scales off max weapon power (among other things) and that Cryptic just released a console that can massively boost that number, thus making it even more deadly fun...kind of like Devil's Snare.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
At this point in this games life... Who cares..? seriously. I can destroy entire TFO's on my own at will without help from anyone nowadays anyway.
So can I and so can a whole host of other players. The difference being we actively participate, not park, fire off one console and AFK the rest of the match.
So just do your events in a private queue and problem solved, none of those other players you hate so much. I'm sure you'll still find something to complain about of course, but its a start.
At this point in this games life... Who cares..? seriously. I can destroy entire TFO's on my own at will without help from anyone nowadays anyway.
So can I and so can a whole host of other players. The difference being we actively participate, not park, fire off one console and AFK the rest of the match.
Except that not everyone flying a Cnidarian does that ". . . park, fire off one console and AFK the rest of the match" thing you seem to think they all do. I have a captain whose main ship is the jellyfish, and I am as busy with her as with any other character, and busier than average sometimes depending on what the other players are doing. Anyone who simply parks and goes AFK is doing a really tribble job of aura tanking or is just trying to be a troll because they can.
And I see a lot of people doing the same kind of things I do when the ship is in bastion mode, like launching console and science captain attacks and if anyone is close enough and damaged, sending out ACTIVE healing powers like extend shield and whatnot to aid them. Most do not ever need it or never come close enough if they do, but keeping an eye on the team members health is refreshingly nostalgic from playing games where support roles were properly implemented in the game system and vital to the success of the teams on raids and whatnot.
Players coming to STO from games like that who like to tank and/or heal are often disappointed, and it would be nice if they can use the very, very few ships in STO that are designed for supporting roles without people crying for them to be nerfed into uselessness or "fixed" into just another DPS meta ship.
At this point in this games life... Who cares..? seriously. I can destroy entire TFO's on my own at will without help from anyone nowadays anyway.
So can I and so can a whole host of other players. The difference being we actively participate, not park, fire off one console and AFK the rest of the match.
So just do your events in a private queue and problem solved, none of those other players you hate so much. I'm sure you'll still find something to complain about of course, but its a start.
This makes no sense.
Players who actually (want to) play the game shouldn't have to queue for private missions just because there are players queueing for the public ones when they have no intention of actually playing anything.
That's the same as saying that players should just accept that there are other free riders who just want to exploit the game and get easy loot or whatever. Why even have an AFK penalty in your game then?
We know there is an intention to get people to play, since there is a penalty for AFK'ing. The fact that there is a console that allows players to circumvent getting hit with it, shows that there is an issue to be fixed here.
I could also point to fixes made in the past, that prevented people from using other exploits. Such as the Foundry one where you'd only have to shoot once at an unshielded enemy and then wait until its warp core breach destroyed every other enemy. Cryptic doesn't like exploiting, so it should be fixed when reported.
Either the AFK penalty should be removed and all sorts of exploiting be allowed, or the console that makes it possible should be corrected. Letting the AFK penalty exist while allowing it to be circumvented makes no sense at all. Personally I prefer the latter option as a fix, but I can see that there are people who'd prefer the other solution...
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
At this point in this games life... Who cares..? seriously. I can destroy entire TFO's on my own at will without help from anyone nowadays anyway.
So can I and so can a whole host of other players. The difference being we actively participate, not park, fire off one console and AFK the rest of the match.
Except that not everyone flying a Cnidarian does that ". . . park, fire off one console and AFK the rest of the match" thing you seem to think they all do. I have a captain whose main ship is the jellyfish, and I am as busy with her as with any other character, and busier than average sometimes depending on what the other players are doing. Anyone who simply parks and goes AFK is doing a really tribble job of aura tanking or is just trying to be a troll because they can.
And I see a lot of people doing the same kind of things I do when the ship is in bastion mode, like launching console and science captain attacks and if anyone is close enough and damaged, sending out ACTIVE healing powers like extend shield and whatnot to aid them. Most do not ever need it or never come close enough if they do, but keeping an eye on the team members health is refreshingly nostalgic from playing games where support roles were properly implemented in the game system and vital to the success of the teams on raids and whatnot.
Players coming to STO from games like that who like to tank and/or heal are often disappointed, and it would be nice if they can use the very, very few ships in STO that are designed for supporting roles without people crying for them to be nerfed into uselessness or "fixed" into just another DPS meta ship.
Sure, there will always be players who use the ship without solely relying on the bubble. No one is opposed to that, and no one here is taking issue with the ship itself. As with all things, some people use it, some abuse it.
Using the console and ship wouldn't suddenly become impossible if the bubble were limited to a maximum uptime of, for example, 30 seconds. You'd still be able to use it tactically, it could still be an useful addition to the ship, without enabling people to fully rely on it and spend an entire mission not doing anything else besides activating it once.
The exploitability should be fixed though, and so far I have yet to see a convincing argument why hitting a button once and then do nothing for 15 more minutes shouldn't be considered exploiting.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
My personal experience is that far more people abuse the console, than use it. So far, I've seen only one player actually use and fly the ship as a whole and do something else besides just laying still and creating a bubble. He created a bubble to heal himself at some point and because he was beginning to be overwhelmed by a group of enemies.
That is actually using a console tactically and there's nothing wrong with that, because all other abilities work like that. You time their use, you get a temporary benefit while you plan and prepare for the next engagement.
Those players aren't the problem here. The problem is the many more players who are abusing it.
Just yesterday, for example, there were two players in Swarm flying the ship. They used the console once, never moved, never did anything else for the entire duration of the mission, while covering the entire map with their bubbles.
And I just finished another mission where the player wouldn't even bother healing Jem'Hadar ships or repairing satellites. Because that would mean he'd have to change form and thus move his ship, and it would have forced him do actually shoot weapons or use some other abilities when the next wave of enemies would appear - as his console would be on cooldown.
That isn't a normal playstyle. It's exploiting by being as lazy as possible, pure and simple. And it forces other players to complete more of the tasks, which is another clear characteristic of having a free rider on the team.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
The Pink bubble or other consoles is not the cause of AFK players. AFK players have been a plague in this game and in every other MMO since the day they began. The fact that they now have a console that allows them to actually do some damage while the sit there and leech off everyone else's efforts is just the new flavor of the month.
At every event there are always players that just fly off and do nothing then entire battle, it's happening right now on console with the current event during Azure Nebula Rescue, they just fly off and sit back doing nothing, in one run there was only two of us actually freeing ships the other 3 players did nothing and they weren't even using the jellyfish. I wish we had the ability to kick the players out, but we don't, and reporting does no good as we can't prove anything unless we record the entire battle and even then what good is that going to do. These leeches will continue to leech no matter what, with or without a console it makes no difference, since the TFO's don't always last long enough for any kind of auto kick to occur, and even if there was they'd just rig a bot program to move themselves every 30 sec's or so.
So whining about a console that is often useful but is abused by some people will only result in the players that use the ship/console in the way that is intended being made to pay the price for any nerfing carried out as a result of AFK'ers just simply exploiting another means by which to go AFK. They will continue to AFK with or without the console regardless and the good players will as per usual pay the price.
I don't know if there is much point to this thread to be honest, they've already made it clear they don't care about the afk'er when they claimed it doesn't affect dilithium economy at all when people can just afk and farm
At this point in this games life... Who cares..? seriously. I can destroy entire TFO's on my own at will without help from anyone nowadays anyway.
So can I and so can a whole host of other players. The difference being we actively participate, not park, fire off one console and AFK the rest of the match.
So just do your events in a private queue and problem solved, none of those other players you hate so much. I'm sure you'll still find something to complain about of course, but its a start.
This makes no sense.
Players who actually (want to) play the game shouldn't have to queue for private missions just because there are players queueing for the public ones when they have no intention of actually playing anything.
That's the same as saying that players should just accept that there are other free riders who just want to exploit the game and get easy loot or whatever. Why even have an AFK penalty in your game then?
I could also point to fixes made in the past, that prevented people from using other exploits. Such as the Foundry one where you'd only have to shoot once at an unshielded enemy and then wait until its warp core breach destroyed every other enemy.
You talk like your new to this game and have been suddenly blind sided by AFK'ing. Its been in the game since day one and will remain in this game till it closes. And now Cryptic does the daily event grind it will not get better. It does not matter what Cryptic does, just like that last round of attempts they made to the AFK penalty, the AFKer will just find out the new minimum requirements. If you nerf the jellyfish into oblivion like you want, they will just go back to carriers so the pets do the minimum required damage or whatever other ship suits at the time.
At least this way they're unintentionally being more useful most of the time which seems to be the part that annoys you the most for some reason.
And the foundry is irrelevant, its been dead for years now, move on.
Using the console and ship wouldn't suddenly become impossible if the bubble were limited to a maximum uptime of, for example, 30 seconds. You'd still be able to use it tactically, it could still be an useful addition to the ship, without enabling people to fully rely on it and spend an entire mission not doing anything else besides activating it once.
The exploitability should be fixed though, and so far I have yet to see a convincing argument why hitting a button once and then do nothing for 15 more minutes shouldn't be considered exploiting.
Yes, that's a simple and effective solution. 30 seconds might be a bit short, but certainly not more than 1 full minute.
Using the console and ship wouldn't suddenly become impossible if the bubble were limited to a maximum uptime of, for example, 30 seconds. You'd still be able to use it tactically, it could still be an useful addition to the ship, without enabling people to fully rely on it and spend an entire mission not doing anything else besides activating it once.
The exploitability should be fixed though, and so far I have yet to see a convincing argument why hitting a button once and then do nothing for 15 more minutes shouldn't be considered exploiting.
Yes, that's a simple and effective solution. 30 minutes might be a bit short, but certainly not more than 1 full minute.
So, you are advocating effectively eliminating a legitimate active playstyle in order to punish a few AFKers who abuse it, eh? Why not take it a step further and make all carrier pets stop fighting and return to the carrier after thirty seconds and require several minutes cooldown to rearm and be ready to manually re-launch? It is the same logic applied to the same "problem".
Right now, all the complaints are not only exaggerating the AFK problem by focusing so much attention on it, it is also getting some people to try AFKing for just for kicks, and like always the incidents of it will fall off as the novelty of the ship (and the avalanche of complaints about it) and its supposed ability to allow them to sit there twiddling their thumbs wears off.
I don't see what the issue is, quite frankly. The problem with AFK players in a TFO is that they aren't contributing. Well, that pink bubble is contributing. Anything that approaches gets hurt, and if you need a quick repair you can duck into it.
I think the issue right now is that last year's Summer ship, which admittedly is a gimmick ship, is acutally useful in certain types of content. GOOD jellyfish Captains don't JUST sit there with it active. They still help anyone who gets close and actually move if necessary. The issue with that is that you also see bad jellyfish Captains who treat it as an AFK pass and don't move even when the situation calls for it. And it is far easier to focus on the bad and call for a nerf than see the good it could do.
And honestly I think the battle lines on this subject are pretty much set in stone. Both sides have made their arguments, but its just going in circles at this point. Just like the name suggests, the Defender excells at defense missions. *shrug* I don't feel nerfing it by imposing a limit on what is admittedly the Jellyfish's natural form will do anything except toss the ship off to the side like so many other event ships. Its a gimmick ship that actually has a use, unlike the Vorgon cruiser that was a 3/5 weapons layout. That one was an oddball, probably meant to be a minelayer. Don't see many of those around these days.
At this point in this games life... Who cares..? seriously. I can destroy entire TFO's on my own at will without help from anyone nowadays anyway.
So can I and so can a whole host of other players. The difference being we actively participate, not park, fire off one console and AFK the rest of the match.
So just do your events in a private queue and problem solved, none of those other players you hate so much. I'm sure you'll still find something to complain about of course, but its a start.
This makes no sense.
Players who actually (want to) play the game shouldn't have to queue for private missions just because there are players queueing for the public ones when they have no intention of actually playing anything.
That's the same as saying that players should just accept that there are other free riders who just want to exploit the game and get easy loot or whatever. Why even have an AFK penalty in your game then?
I could also point to fixes made in the past, that prevented people from using other exploits. Such as the Foundry one where you'd only have to shoot once at an unshielded enemy and then wait until its warp core breach destroyed every other enemy.
You talk like your new to this game and have been suddenly blind sided by AFK'ing. Its been in the game since day one and will remain in this game till it closes. And now Cryptic does the daily event grind it will not get better. It does not matter what Cryptic does, just like that last round of attempts they made to the AFK penalty, the AFKer will just find out the new minimum requirements. If you nerf the jellyfish into oblivion like you want, they will just go back to carriers so the pets do the minimum required damage or whatever other ship suits at the time.
At least this way they're unintentionally being more useful most of the time which seems to be the part that annoys you the most for some reason.
And the foundry is irrelevant, its been dead for years now, move on.
Ehm, it's kind of funny that you say that I'm acting like I'm new here and then proceed to claim that 'its' been in the game since day one. The Jellyfish hasn't been in the game since day one.
AFK'ing may have been, but it was always penalised, just like other types of exploiting. Until Cryptic decided to release a console that allows players to circumvent one of the penalties for that.
As for the rest: I clearly stated that I do not wish to see anything 'nerfed into oblivion' - none of the fixes I have suggested amount to that either. You're literally twisting my statements here and pretending that I wrote the exact opposite of what I actually wrote.
If you felt the need to do that, then I think it's saying something about the quality of your own arguments.
The Foundry was an example of what I wrote above: that exploiting has always been penalised. It's not irrelevant, it's to illustrate the sillyness of suddenly allowing AFK'ing (and even going out of their way to design something to make it easier), after they've gone through significant effort to do something about it in the past.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
I don't see what the issue is, quite frankly. The problem with AFK players in a TFO is that they aren't contributing. Well, that pink bubble is contributing. Anything that approaches gets hurt, and if you need a quick repair you can duck into it.
The issue is that they're not contributing most of the time when it comes to other tasks (repairing ships/activating satellites in missions like Swarm, delivering bombs in Tzenkethi front for example). Yes, they deal damage, but so does everyone else who also works on these other tasks.
Besides that: if Cryptic didn't find AFK'ing by itself an issue, why did they limit all other consoles' uptime? Or the uptime of powers like FAW? Might as well give those abilities and other consoles a 100% uptime too then, if it's not a problem that players are only hitting a button once per mission. But they didn't do that, and I think that shows that they actually didn't want to promote the behaviour that the bad Jellyfish captains are displaying.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
Using the console and ship wouldn't suddenly become impossible if the bubble were limited to a maximum uptime of, for example, 30 seconds. You'd still be able to use it tactically, it could still be an useful addition to the ship, without enabling people to fully rely on it and spend an entire mission not doing anything else besides activating it once.
The exploitability should be fixed though, and so far I have yet to see a convincing argument why hitting a button once and then do nothing for 15 more minutes shouldn't be considered exploiting.
Yes, that's a simple and effective solution. 30 minutes might be a bit short, but certainly not more than 1 full minute.
So, you are advocating effectively eliminating a legitimate active playstyle in order to punish a few AFKers who abuse it, eh? Why not take it a step further and make all carrier pets stop fighting and return to the carrier after thirty seconds and require several minutes cooldown to rearm and be ready to manually re-launch? It is the same logic applied to the same "problem".
Right now, all the complaints are not only exaggerating the AFK problem by focusing so much attention on it, it is also getting some people to try AFKing for just for kicks, and like always the incidents of it will fall off as the novelty of the ship (and the avalanche of complaints about it) and its supposed ability to allow them to sit there twiddling their thumbs wears off.
People were making the same argument about the novelty of the ship a year ago. The ship has only become older, but especially during events like Swarm I tend to see it more often than just after most players obtained it. Neither of us can predict the future, but based on what we do know, time by itself is unlikely to fix the issue.
As for exaggerating: no one - again - suggested 'effectively eliminating an active playstyle'. That's not what limiting the uptime of this console/power would do.
This claim is basically the same as suggesting that a potential active playstyle has been eliminated because we haven't been given the option of having FAW active 100% of the time, after hitting spacebar once.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
Using the console and ship wouldn't suddenly become impossible if the bubble were limited to a maximum uptime of, for example, 30 seconds. You'd still be able to use it tactically, it could still be an useful addition to the ship, without enabling people to fully rely on it and spend an entire mission not doing anything else besides activating it once.
The exploitability should be fixed though, and so far I have yet to see a convincing argument why hitting a button once and then do nothing for 15 more minutes shouldn't be considered exploiting.
Yes, that's a simple and effective solution. 30 minutes might be a bit short, but certainly not more than 1 full minute.
So, you are advocating effectively eliminating a legitimate active playstyle in order to punish a few AFKers who abuse it, eh? Why not take it a step further and make all carrier pets stop fighting and return to the carrier after thirty seconds and require several minutes cooldown to rearm and be ready to manually re-launch? It is the same logic applied to the same "problem".
Right now, all the complaints are not only exaggerating the AFK problem by focusing so much attention on it, it is also getting some people to try AFKing for just for kicks, and like always the incidents of it will fall off as the novelty of the ship (and the avalanche of complaints about it) and its supposed ability to allow them to sit there twiddling their thumbs wears off.
People were making the same argument about the novelty of the ship a year ago. The ship has only become older, but especially during events like Swarm I tend to see it more often than just after most players obtained it. Neither of us can predict the future, but based on what we do know, time by itself is unlikely to fix the issue.
As for exaggerating: no one - again - suggested 'effectively eliminating an active playstyle'. That's not what limiting the uptime of this console/power would do.
This claim is basically the same as suggesting that a potential active playstyle has been eliminated because we haven't been given the option of having FAW active 100% of the time, after hitting spacebar once.
Actually, you did suggest effectively eliminating an active playstyle, that of the bastion-type aura tank. The time limits you suggest would make it useless for its support role, especially in light of the very poor ingame communications in STO with its lack of ingame voice (and no, Discord and the others do not count since chances are almost nil that everyone on a team will have the same voice service and channel).
With that kind of digging-in aura tank the aura has to be up continuously until it is time to pull up stakes and move to the next location to dig in and open its umbrella of aid to teammates, it is not like a teammate can call out a warning that they are coming in hot and need help so the player with the jellyfish can get a short-time limited aura up while sending whatever other aid they can. And even if they could call out like that, chances are that by the time they got inside the aura it would not be up long enough to actually do the ally much good.
And in mobile mode the player with the jellyfish is probably too busy trying to maneuver and shoot things in a ship that (as an aura tank) is most likely not well rigged for conventional DPS combat to properly keep track of the other players, at least until they get dug in and the aura up again.
Using the console and ship wouldn't suddenly become impossible if the bubble were limited to a maximum uptime of, for example, 30 seconds. You'd still be able to use it tactically, it could still be an useful addition to the ship, without enabling people to fully rely on it and spend an entire mission not doing anything else besides activating it once.
The exploitability should be fixed though, and so far I have yet to see a convincing argument why hitting a button once and then do nothing for 15 more minutes shouldn't be considered exploiting.
Yes, that's a simple and effective solution. 30 minutes might be a bit short, but certainly not more than 1 full minute.
So, you are advocating effectively eliminating a legitimate active playstyle in order to punish a few AFKers who abuse it, eh? Why not take it a step further and make all carrier pets stop fighting and return to the carrier after thirty seconds and require several minutes cooldown to rearm and be ready to manually re-launch? It is the same logic applied to the same "problem".
Right now, all the complaints are not only exaggerating the AFK problem by focusing so much attention on it, it is also getting some people to try AFKing for just for kicks, and like always the incidents of it will fall off as the novelty of the ship (and the avalanche of complaints about it) and its supposed ability to allow them to sit there twiddling their thumbs wears off.
People were making the same argument about the novelty of the ship a year ago. The ship has only become older, but especially during events like Swarm I tend to see it more often than just after most players obtained it. Neither of us can predict the future, but based on what we do know, time by itself is unlikely to fix the issue.
As for exaggerating: no one - again - suggested 'effectively eliminating an active playstyle'. That's not what limiting the uptime of this console/power would do.
This claim is basically the same as suggesting that a potential active playstyle has been eliminated because we haven't been given the option of having FAW active 100% of the time, after hitting spacebar once.
Actually, you did suggest effectively eliminating an active playstyle, that of the bastion-type aura tank. The time limits you suggest would make it useless for its support role, especially in light of the very poor ingame communications in STO with its lack of ingame voice (and no, Discord and the others do not count since chances are almost nil that everyone on a team will have the same voice service and channel).
With that kind of digging-in aura tank the aura has to be up continuously until it is time to pull up stakes and move to the next location to dig in and open its umbrella of aid to teammates, it is not like a teammate can call out a warning that they are coming in hot and need help so the player with the jellyfish can get a short-time limited aura up while sending whatever other aid they can. And even if they could call out like that, chances are that by the time they got inside the aura it would not be up long enough to actually do the ally much good.
And in mobile mode the player with the jellyfish is probably too busy trying to maneuver and shoot things in a ship that (as an aura tank) is most likely not well rigged for conventional DPS combat to properly keep track of the other players, at least until they get dug in and the aura up again.
Sorry, I just don't see the problem of a max-uptime limitation. It may no longer be possible to have it active 100% of the time then, but that's precisely the idea.
It could still provide - for, say, 30 seconds each activation - significant boosts to your team. And it's not like most missions require a large AOE healing and damage effect 100% of the time. This may sound arrogant, but if other players on the team need that, they simply might need to get better.
Also, I assume it's an universal console. So there would be traits to reduce the cooldown. Even with, say, a 30 seconds active period and then 2 minutes lockout, you wouldn't necessarily have to wait 2 full minutes before you can use it again.
But that - and reactivating it - would require doing something else, which thus would effectively prevent AFK'ing.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
Comments
Here's the list:
Battle at the Binary Stars
Battle of Korfez (probably, haven't played in a long time)
Battle of Procyon (granted, you'll have to do it three times as it's a layered mission)
Best Served Cold
Borg Disconnected
Counterpoint
Cure Found
Days of Doom
Defense of SB 1
Drannuur Gauntlet
Federation Fleet Alert
Federation Starbase Blockade (ok, no one plays it anymore, but still)
Gateway to Gret'hor
Gravity Kills
Herald Sphere (same issue as Battle of Procyon, but it still works for each phase)
Hive Onslaught
Iuppiter Iratus
Khitomer Vortex
Kobayashi Maru (not sure here, since it's a failable mission)
Operation Riposte (same issue as Battle of Procyon, but it still works for each phase)
Peril over Pahvo
Romulan Minefield
Starbase Fleet Defense
Storming the Spire
Swarm
To Hell with Honour
Tzenkethi Front
Undine Assault
Vault
Now the missions where it * might * not work or not every time you play the queue:
Azure Nebula Rescue (depending on total DPS of the team - if you're not going to release the ships because you're AFK and the rest of the team is succesful, they might do a lot more damage while your location doesn't get respawns)
Crystalline Catastrophe (not without blowing up once at least, but you could theoretically still AFK it if you don't care)
Infected: the conduit (depending on the team and total mission duration)
Viscous Cycle (or it might, if you just wait until the second or third base phase begins - there should be enough hit points to kill then)
Missions where it definitely doesn't work:
Breach
Leviathan
I was off with the 95% statistic, I'll admit that. The general point made in the last two lines of my previous comment still stands though. For two missions it's a definite impossibility, for all others the 'tactic' works even though a few of them would not be perfect runs for the user every time.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
So just do your events in a private queue and problem solved, none of those other players you hate so much. I'm sure you'll still find something to complain about of course, but its a start.
Except that not everyone flying a Cnidarian does that ". . . park, fire off one console and AFK the rest of the match" thing you seem to think they all do. I have a captain whose main ship is the jellyfish, and I am as busy with her as with any other character, and busier than average sometimes depending on what the other players are doing. Anyone who simply parks and goes AFK is doing a really tribble job of aura tanking or is just trying to be a troll because they can.
And I see a lot of people doing the same kind of things I do when the ship is in bastion mode, like launching console and science captain attacks and if anyone is close enough and damaged, sending out ACTIVE healing powers like extend shield and whatnot to aid them. Most do not ever need it or never come close enough if they do, but keeping an eye on the team members health is refreshingly nostalgic from playing games where support roles were properly implemented in the game system and vital to the success of the teams on raids and whatnot.
Players coming to STO from games like that who like to tank and/or heal are often disappointed, and it would be nice if they can use the very, very few ships in STO that are designed for supporting roles without people crying for them to be nerfed into uselessness or "fixed" into just another DPS meta ship.
This makes no sense.
Players who actually (want to) play the game shouldn't have to queue for private missions just because there are players queueing for the public ones when they have no intention of actually playing anything.
That's the same as saying that players should just accept that there are other free riders who just want to exploit the game and get easy loot or whatever. Why even have an AFK penalty in your game then?
We know there is an intention to get people to play, since there is a penalty for AFK'ing. The fact that there is a console that allows players to circumvent getting hit with it, shows that there is an issue to be fixed here.
I could also point to fixes made in the past, that prevented people from using other exploits. Such as the Foundry one where you'd only have to shoot once at an unshielded enemy and then wait until its warp core breach destroyed every other enemy. Cryptic doesn't like exploiting, so it should be fixed when reported.
Either the AFK penalty should be removed and all sorts of exploiting be allowed, or the console that makes it possible should be corrected. Letting the AFK penalty exist while allowing it to be circumvented makes no sense at all. Personally I prefer the latter option as a fix, but I can see that there are people who'd prefer the other solution...
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
Sure, there will always be players who use the ship without solely relying on the bubble. No one is opposed to that, and no one here is taking issue with the ship itself. As with all things, some people use it, some abuse it.
Using the console and ship wouldn't suddenly become impossible if the bubble were limited to a maximum uptime of, for example, 30 seconds. You'd still be able to use it tactically, it could still be an useful addition to the ship, without enabling people to fully rely on it and spend an entire mission not doing anything else besides activating it once.
The exploitability should be fixed though, and so far I have yet to see a convincing argument why hitting a button once and then do nothing for 15 more minutes shouldn't be considered exploiting.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
That is actually using a console tactically and there's nothing wrong with that, because all other abilities work like that. You time their use, you get a temporary benefit while you plan and prepare for the next engagement.
Those players aren't the problem here. The problem is the many more players who are abusing it.
Just yesterday, for example, there were two players in Swarm flying the ship. They used the console once, never moved, never did anything else for the entire duration of the mission, while covering the entire map with their bubbles.
And I just finished another mission where the player wouldn't even bother healing Jem'Hadar ships or repairing satellites. Because that would mean he'd have to change form and thus move his ship, and it would have forced him do actually shoot weapons or use some other abilities when the next wave of enemies would appear - as his console would be on cooldown.
That isn't a normal playstyle. It's exploiting by being as lazy as possible, pure and simple. And it forces other players to complete more of the tasks, which is another clear characteristic of having a free rider on the team.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
At every event there are always players that just fly off and do nothing then entire battle, it's happening right now on console with the current event during Azure Nebula Rescue, they just fly off and sit back doing nothing, in one run there was only two of us actually freeing ships the other 3 players did nothing and they weren't even using the jellyfish. I wish we had the ability to kick the players out, but we don't, and reporting does no good as we can't prove anything unless we record the entire battle and even then what good is that going to do. These leeches will continue to leech no matter what, with or without a console it makes no difference, since the TFO's don't always last long enough for any kind of auto kick to occur, and even if there was they'd just rig a bot program to move themselves every 30 sec's or so.
So whining about a console that is often useful but is abused by some people will only result in the players that use the ship/console in the way that is intended being made to pay the price for any nerfing carried out as a result of AFK'ers just simply exploiting another means by which to go AFK. They will continue to AFK with or without the console regardless and the good players will as per usual pay the price.
You talk like your new to this game and have been suddenly blind sided by AFK'ing. Its been in the game since day one and will remain in this game till it closes. And now Cryptic does the daily event grind it will not get better. It does not matter what Cryptic does, just like that last round of attempts they made to the AFK penalty, the AFKer will just find out the new minimum requirements. If you nerf the jellyfish into oblivion like you want, they will just go back to carriers so the pets do the minimum required damage or whatever other ship suits at the time.
At least this way they're unintentionally being more useful most of the time which seems to be the part that annoys you the most for some reason.
And the foundry is irrelevant, its been dead for years now, move on.
Yes, that's a simple and effective solution. 30 seconds might be a bit short, but certainly not more than 1 full minute.
So, you are advocating effectively eliminating a legitimate active playstyle in order to punish a few AFKers who abuse it, eh? Why not take it a step further and make all carrier pets stop fighting and return to the carrier after thirty seconds and require several minutes cooldown to rearm and be ready to manually re-launch? It is the same logic applied to the same "problem".
Right now, all the complaints are not only exaggerating the AFK problem by focusing so much attention on it, it is also getting some people to try AFKing for just for kicks, and like always the incidents of it will fall off as the novelty of the ship (and the avalanche of complaints about it) and its supposed ability to allow them to sit there twiddling their thumbs wears off.
And honestly I think the battle lines on this subject are pretty much set in stone. Both sides have made their arguments, but its just going in circles at this point. Just like the name suggests, the Defender excells at defense missions. *shrug* I don't feel nerfing it by imposing a limit on what is admittedly the Jellyfish's natural form will do anything except toss the ship off to the side like so many other event ships. Its a gimmick ship that actually has a use, unlike the Vorgon cruiser that was a 3/5 weapons layout. That one was an oddball, probably meant to be a minelayer. Don't see many of those around these days.
Ehm, it's kind of funny that you say that I'm acting like I'm new here and then proceed to claim that 'its' been in the game since day one. The Jellyfish hasn't been in the game since day one.
AFK'ing may have been, but it was always penalised, just like other types of exploiting. Until Cryptic decided to release a console that allows players to circumvent one of the penalties for that.
As for the rest: I clearly stated that I do not wish to see anything 'nerfed into oblivion' - none of the fixes I have suggested amount to that either. You're literally twisting my statements here and pretending that I wrote the exact opposite of what I actually wrote.
If you felt the need to do that, then I think it's saying something about the quality of your own arguments.
The Foundry was an example of what I wrote above: that exploiting has always been penalised. It's not irrelevant, it's to illustrate the sillyness of suddenly allowing AFK'ing (and even going out of their way to design something to make it easier), after they've gone through significant effort to do something about it in the past.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
The issue is that they're not contributing most of the time when it comes to other tasks (repairing ships/activating satellites in missions like Swarm, delivering bombs in Tzenkethi front for example). Yes, they deal damage, but so does everyone else who also works on these other tasks.
Besides that: if Cryptic didn't find AFK'ing by itself an issue, why did they limit all other consoles' uptime? Or the uptime of powers like FAW? Might as well give those abilities and other consoles a 100% uptime too then, if it's not a problem that players are only hitting a button once per mission. But they didn't do that, and I think that shows that they actually didn't want to promote the behaviour that the bad Jellyfish captains are displaying.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
People were making the same argument about the novelty of the ship a year ago. The ship has only become older, but especially during events like Swarm I tend to see it more often than just after most players obtained it. Neither of us can predict the future, but based on what we do know, time by itself is unlikely to fix the issue.
As for exaggerating: no one - again - suggested 'effectively eliminating an active playstyle'. That's not what limiting the uptime of this console/power would do.
This claim is basically the same as suggesting that a potential active playstyle has been eliminated because we haven't been given the option of having FAW active 100% of the time, after hitting spacebar once.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
Actually, you did suggest effectively eliminating an active playstyle, that of the bastion-type aura tank. The time limits you suggest would make it useless for its support role, especially in light of the very poor ingame communications in STO with its lack of ingame voice (and no, Discord and the others do not count since chances are almost nil that everyone on a team will have the same voice service and channel).
With that kind of digging-in aura tank the aura has to be up continuously until it is time to pull up stakes and move to the next location to dig in and open its umbrella of aid to teammates, it is not like a teammate can call out a warning that they are coming in hot and need help so the player with the jellyfish can get a short-time limited aura up while sending whatever other aid they can. And even if they could call out like that, chances are that by the time they got inside the aura it would not be up long enough to actually do the ally much good.
And in mobile mode the player with the jellyfish is probably too busy trying to maneuver and shoot things in a ship that (as an aura tank) is most likely not well rigged for conventional DPS combat to properly keep track of the other players, at least until they get dug in and the aura up again.
Sorry, I just don't see the problem of a max-uptime limitation. It may no longer be possible to have it active 100% of the time then, but that's precisely the idea.
It could still provide - for, say, 30 seconds each activation - significant boosts to your team. And it's not like most missions require a large AOE healing and damage effect 100% of the time. This may sound arrogant, but if other players on the team need that, they simply might need to get better.
Also, I assume it's an universal console. So there would be traits to reduce the cooldown. Even with, say, a 30 seconds active period and then 2 minutes lockout, you wouldn't necessarily have to wait 2 full minutes before you can use it again.
But that - and reactivating it - would require doing something else, which thus would effectively prevent AFK'ing.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.