Speaking of bugs that affect all players, the recent changes to ISx have made it uncompletable a large percentage of the time. If anyone kills a transformer before it's four surrounding generators have been killed, the TFO bugs out and can't be finished. This is a problem that's greatly exacerbated by the bug causing the transformers to not regen, meaning that they're getting popped early by AOE damage even in relatively low-DPS pugs.
It sounds like what we need is a solution which respects the needs of *both* the casual majority *and* the small but important minority of DPS benchmarkers. So here is one:
Cryptic could make a copy of the "classic" ISA and ISE maps (including all the old assets) available via the Private PvE menu, under appropriately distinctive names.
That leaves Cryptic free to iterate on the "mainline" TFO to bring it into line with evolving designs and playstyles, while leaving players the option of playing "classic" maps for benchmarking purposes. And, by isolating the benchmarking maps in the Private area, the chance of new players wandering in and getting confused is minimized.
There's a *bit* of a maintenance and testing burden... but we're talking about just two maps. OTOH, we don't want those maps to become a barrier to engine and system improvements -- so there's a real engineering judgment call to be made. How much of a maintenance drag would a couple of benchmarking maps be? Only devs can even guess.
Of course, it would mean you can't PUG a classic, benchmarking map. But PUGing isn't compatible with serious benchmarking in the first place, so it should be a non-issue.
There are two questions I have to ask at this point. First up, when you did those ISA/ISE runs and you noticed the transformers weren't regenning, what builds were you and the other people running and how much DPS on average were said builds doing? Second question, were you able to clear the TFO even if the transformers didn't regenerate?
Last I had spoken to anyone about issues with the TFO it was acknowledged as a bug that transformers weren't regenning as they should. In the mean time until a fix can be issued to the regen of the transformers, the advice of focusing the generators first still stands. This means people looking to parse will have to be more aware of what they're doing and not just grav well the transformers and try to AOE everything to oblivion. With the kind of builds and numbers some of the super serious DPS crowds put out, that shouldn't be an issue and should only take maybe 5 extra seconds if that.
Are there bugs in the TFO right now, yes there are. Are they working to fix the bugs, yes they are. Would I like to see a fix have already dropped for said bugs, certainly. For that matter so would the dev team. With that said, I would rather them take their time and get it right the first time vs pushing out a shoddy patch that breaks more stuff because some people are getting impatient. I've said this a thousand times now on these forums, but it takes time to properly identify and fix issues properly. No one likes that part of bug fixing, tis simply an unfortunate reality of it.
With that said, I'm going to repeat some obligatory statements from before. ISE/ISA was created as a map for players to join together in a team to fight Borg. Although it can make an excellent DPS testing map, that is NOT why it was created, it's simply a beneficial side effect of the map. The DPS community is not entitled to keep certain maps a particular way purely for their own convenience. The DPS community is free to offer constructive feedback just as everyone else is, but the DPS community are not the only ones using that map. As I said prior and still stand by, such a minor position change in foes should NOT be making or breaking runs for people like you're saying they are. If such a minor position change is effecting your scores that much you have much bigger problems to worry about. The position change simply means you have to pay more attention to where you throw grav wells and can't use the exact same tactics anymore. All MMOs change from time to time a that's the nature of the beast. Sometimes it becomes easier to DPS and sometimes it's harder if that's something you're into. However there is more to this game than simply DPS charts.
Also it needs to be said, purely because the positions changed by a few microns of certain foes and currently there are some bugs does NOT mean the end of DPS parsing at all. People said the same thing years ago when a shield was first added to the gateway and they couldn't gate-cheese some extra numbers while switching sides. People complained about how unfair it was and how it would trash their numbers and similar but more than adapted. Aside from fixing the regen bugs and thing preventing the TFO from being completable, some foes being in a slightly different position than before is NOT the critical thing it's being made out to be. Finally if SCM and CLR are having such crippling issues, it sounds like a new parser is needed.
Ultimately stuff like this is why I've wanted to see a better version of the tribble test map added to holodeck for awhile, and an actual Cryptic parser so threads like this are rendered obsolete. Folks can parse to their hearts content without relying on 3rd party programs.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
personally, instead of working on a TFO, they need to fix episodes that are broken to the point they cannot be completed, like the v ault, since EVERY delta and temporal character needs to complete it to get the reward for completing the romulan arc
It doesn't address the core issue of mob quantity spam requiring the useage of AoE solutions, but it may be a good step towards the reduction of the overall visual spam/overload in the game.
Amen to that. Anything to reduce overall VFX spam will be welcomed.
I don't know about this particular map, but on other maps with Borg (like the current Resistance of Starbase 1 FTFO) the Assimilator-for-cube substitution has not led to any noticeable reduction in VFX spam. In fact, if anything, it seems to have increased somewhat, probably because the Spheres are so much more dangerous to approach since the change that people tend to fire off the high-VFX powers at them to AoE DoT them to death rather than close with them.
The patch on 12/10/2023 has fixed getting stuck in infected conduit by means of gateway shields not dropping as well as generator shields now consistently drops in khitomer vortex as per testing.
Comments
Its a known issue.
Cryptic could make a copy of the "classic" ISA and ISE maps (including all the old assets) available via the Private PvE menu, under appropriately distinctive names.
That leaves Cryptic free to iterate on the "mainline" TFO to bring it into line with evolving designs and playstyles, while leaving players the option of playing "classic" maps for benchmarking purposes. And, by isolating the benchmarking maps in the Private area, the chance of new players wandering in and getting confused is minimized.
There's a *bit* of a maintenance and testing burden... but we're talking about just two maps. OTOH, we don't want those maps to become a barrier to engine and system improvements -- so there's a real engineering judgment call to be made. How much of a maintenance drag would a couple of benchmarking maps be? Only devs can even guess.
Of course, it would mean you can't PUG a classic, benchmarking map. But PUGing isn't compatible with serious benchmarking in the first place, so it should be a non-issue.
Last I had spoken to anyone about issues with the TFO it was acknowledged as a bug that transformers weren't regenning as they should. In the mean time until a fix can be issued to the regen of the transformers, the advice of focusing the generators first still stands. This means people looking to parse will have to be more aware of what they're doing and not just grav well the transformers and try to AOE everything to oblivion. With the kind of builds and numbers some of the super serious DPS crowds put out, that shouldn't be an issue and should only take maybe 5 extra seconds if that.
Are there bugs in the TFO right now, yes there are. Are they working to fix the bugs, yes they are. Would I like to see a fix have already dropped for said bugs, certainly. For that matter so would the dev team. With that said, I would rather them take their time and get it right the first time vs pushing out a shoddy patch that breaks more stuff because some people are getting impatient. I've said this a thousand times now on these forums, but it takes time to properly identify and fix issues properly. No one likes that part of bug fixing, tis simply an unfortunate reality of it.
With that said, I'm going to repeat some obligatory statements from before. ISE/ISA was created as a map for players to join together in a team to fight Borg. Although it can make an excellent DPS testing map, that is NOT why it was created, it's simply a beneficial side effect of the map. The DPS community is not entitled to keep certain maps a particular way purely for their own convenience. The DPS community is free to offer constructive feedback just as everyone else is, but the DPS community are not the only ones using that map. As I said prior and still stand by, such a minor position change in foes should NOT be making or breaking runs for people like you're saying they are. If such a minor position change is effecting your scores that much you have much bigger problems to worry about. The position change simply means you have to pay more attention to where you throw grav wells and can't use the exact same tactics anymore. All MMOs change from time to time a that's the nature of the beast. Sometimes it becomes easier to DPS and sometimes it's harder if that's something you're into. However there is more to this game than simply DPS charts.
Also it needs to be said, purely because the positions changed by a few microns of certain foes and currently there are some bugs does NOT mean the end of DPS parsing at all. People said the same thing years ago when a shield was first added to the gateway and they couldn't gate-cheese some extra numbers while switching sides. People complained about how unfair it was and how it would trash their numbers and similar but more than adapted. Aside from fixing the regen bugs and thing preventing the TFO from being completable, some foes being in a slightly different position than before is NOT the critical thing it's being made out to be. Finally if SCM and CLR are having such crippling issues, it sounds like a new parser is needed.
Ultimately stuff like this is why I've wanted to see a better version of the tribble test map added to holodeck for awhile, and an actual Cryptic parser so threads like this are rendered obsolete. Folks can parse to their hearts content without relying on 3rd party programs.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
I don't know about this particular map, but on other maps with Borg (like the current Resistance of Starbase 1 FTFO) the Assimilator-for-cube substitution has not led to any noticeable reduction in VFX spam. In fact, if anything, it seems to have increased somewhat, probably because the Spheres are so much more dangerous to approach since the change that people tend to fire off the high-VFX powers at them to AoE DoT them to death rather than close with them.
Transformer regeneration remains an issue for both infected the conduit and khitomer vortex, at still an extremely high rate of encountering no regeneration as per testing stated in https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/comment/13753037.
Uploading of parses due to that issue more or less still remains dead in the water for the moment.