tbh elite tfos are not for casuals, and as someone who plays other MMOs with high end content, I would not want someone with dungeon gear in my Static in ff14. Same way I dont want someone with MKXII gear running around in elite tfos.
if not a vote kick, definitely need a gear check of some kind
This is a stupid easy MMO though... gear is irreverent. I can do 3x the ground DPS with 3 or 4 properly choosen mk 12 ground kits, then someone spamming some mid gold 15 ground gun. Same thing in space good players can parse 300k DPS with junk and a good build... no amount of gold 15 gear is going to help you if your build is terrible and you have no idea what to click when.
Ground TFOs are much much easier then some of the space ones.
Yeah well, the problem with that analogy is that you didn't sign up to drive on a public, well-policed road with clear rules. You decided to stand in line for a track fillled with wild teenagers in bumper cars. You knew in advance that things were going to get messy.
In other words: don't queue for a public elite TFO if you can't handle the possibility that things might not go exactly as you expect them to go.
Failure is going to be a possible outcome there.
To get back to the actual topic of this thread: trolling should be punished, but I've yet to be convinced that players are deliberately failing the missions. The examples mentioned don't even really allow for that, as far as I'm aware.
And why would anyone queue for a mission they intend to fail anyway? It's not like they're not punishing themselves in the process.
Again, that's not how that works. Saying "don't use the public TFOs if you can't handle trolls and don't want to carry people" is no different than saying to everyone else "don't drive at that time if you can't stand people who hold everyone up." If you're going to essentially tell everyone to suck it up and carry people and deal with the trolls because those folks have a right to be there too as the game allows it, then you may as well say dude had a right to hold everyone up on the road because there is no law against driving under the speed limit. Same difference just different medium. You say you don't sign up to use roads but actually you do. You go out at 16 (assuming the US) and get your drivers permit, then later test for your license. So yes you do sign up for it, just not in the way you think.
Now far as the game goes, when you press that button to join the random TFO queue, you are joining TEAM content not ME content. There are 4 other people in that TFO besides you. If you are joining that TFO to deliberately fail it, or completely underpowered, then you are going to ruin that run for that team. Sorry but you don't get to do that. You are not so important that you get a free pass to do whatever you want at the cost of 4 other people time after time again, be it deliberately failing it for them or expecting a carry. The fact that some people think they're entitled to do that is the epitome of arrogance and entitlement and alot of what's wrong with modern gaming today.
There's "things not going exactly as you expect" which is something no one can control and then there's the people who deliberately fail stuff or join things wholly underpowered, which they absolutely CAN control. The first one is normal and part of the experience, the second one shouldn't be happening and should be so rare it's a statistical anomaly when it does.
As to why people would deliberately fail a TFO I can think of several reasons as to why. First being that they're just a troll that gets jollies out of ruining it for other people similar to certain organized troll groups we've had before. Second is the most obvious one, they don't like the TFO they were given so they deliberately fail it so they can get out and back into the queue again for something they like or know they can beat in next to no time at all since there's no cooldown on pressing the random elite button. "Oh I got undine infiltration, this one sucks so let me get out of here and try for a faster one (insert fail here)". It's an easy way to get out of TFOs you don't like without getting an AFK penalty and having to eat a cooldown. You just auto-fail it for everyone and then leave, no one gets a penalty and none gets a cooldown. Rinse and repeat until you get the desired "fast" or "easy" TFO you want. People will almost always take the path of least resistance.
Removing from the rotation would then be the best solution, if one of these must be chosen. Just slapping more rewards on stuff that ought to fail a mission, would make things too easy and remove the one thing that sets 'Elite' content apart from other difficulties in this game.
I saved this one for last because it legitimately made me laugh at the irony. Here you are suggesting something be removed from the rotation of elite TFOs after telling me previously not to join random elite TFOs if I don't want to risk something going in a way I don't like. Do you not see the irony here?
If you don't want to risk the possibility of getting an elite TFO you don't like, don't join random elite TFOs if you can't deal with the random factor. You don't get to join random TFOs then demand it only give you the ones you like. Talk about pure hypocrisy.
"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
This is a stupid easy MMO though... gear is irreverent. I can do 3x the ground DPS with 3 or 4 properly choosen mk 12 ground kits, then someone spamming some mid gold 15 ground gun. Same thing in space good players can parse 300k DPS with junk and a good build... no amount of gold 15 gear is going to help you if your build is terrible and you have no idea what to click when.
That's not entirely true. While it's true that you need to know how to use the gear you have to make the most of it, you still need some kind of gear to take advantage of in the first place. I've seen some of those runs where someone can parse 300k+ with absolutely garbage gear, and most of that is team buffs and nannied junk that would never happen outside of their controlled environment. Cool for them that they were able to pull it off, but it's not a true representation of the playerbase at large. If you put two people of equal skill into a run but give one full mk xv epics and the other only mk ii crafted gear, the guy in mk xv epics is going to run circles around him every time. This game is about 20% setup, the other 80% is skill. While the largest part is skill, you can't ignore the smaller part of your actual setup either. You need both.
Lastly if this game is as easy as people claim, then they should have no problem farming out the gear they need to get into elites should a gear check, dungeon journal, and proving grounds style setup be implemented. If they can't then they don't need to be in elites to start with. And if they can farm it out super easy, then you've guaranteed everyone in there should be able to meet the minimum standards of the TFO itself and improved your playerbase as a whole if ever so much.
"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
i honestly didnt mean to start a debate about this, was more venting some frustration. Would like to know still if there is anything that can really be done, or should I grin and bear it?
i honestly didnt mean to start a debate about this, was more venting some frustration. Would like to know still if there is anything that can really be done, or should I grin and bear it?
It's a debate that's been needing to be had for a long time now. Big reason it hasn't is that it's been kicked down the road several times. If Cryptic is going to keep introducing things like elite randoms, then it needs to be had. Nothing will change until it is.
With that in mind, if you have evidence you can present of people trolling the TFOs and deliberately failing them, take it to CS and let them deal with it. Aside from that there's nothing that can be done unless changes are made to the game itself. Which is why I've suggested what I have. It gives people immediate recourse and tries to head off the issue in the first place so threads like this aren't necessary or are a rarity.
"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
How do you know anything is done on purpose when you don't even know who did it?
The people you are playing with might genuinely fail at the task, skill and equipment varies a lot between players.
within 10 seconds, instantly failing. I highly doubt its someone accidently doing it. Its ground ones. The bajor one, miner instabilities too.
the only one that hasnt felt, suspect is the korfez one. that one is openly brutal.
Keep in mind in modes other then E... just speed clicking that silly opening find the traitor stuff isn't an instant fail. Someone may not have realized that... we have had random E mode for a couple weeks.
Its also possible they were annoyed to be wasting time doing it while one player ran to each of the investigations dragging things out for 30m and just decided F this and wrong clicked one. who knows. You don't, so what can you do report everyone else dragged into the map with you?
In the case of that specific map, blame Cryptic... the mission style investigation thing is silly in a TFO. I can for sure see someone deciding to run to the first one and fail it so they don't have to deal with a 30m warp out penalty.
With Randoms being a thing now Cryptic should either remove that one from rotation... or remove the insta fail on the investigation things. Force people to defend the temple, maybe even put out fires, or add a fail timer. If they want to get people to do the investigation part properly just add big bonus rewards for each correct interaction.
Removing from the rotation would then be the best solution, if one of these must be chosen. Just slapping more rewards on stuff that ought to fail a mission, would make things too easy and remove the one thing that sets 'Elite' content apart from other difficulties in this game.
We certainly don't need fewer fail conditions. Most ground TFO's right now don't even fail when you fail them, so there should be more fail conditions IMO.
I didn't suggest not having fail conditions at all. I suggested that that specific one is annoying... its a bunch of mission text clicking in a TFO. Frankly if I get sucked into one of those randoming. I am tempted to just run to the first interaction and fail it to get out of there. That is terrible design, fine if its a mission that can only be run if someone chooses too... but in a random que. No thanks.
I was suggesting move the fail conditions to things people find fun... that actual fighting/defending stuff. Make the mission clicking reward bonuses for correct answers. I imagine that will still cause some people to complain about people messing up their bonus marks, but at least they won't get booted by people that just want that map over.
i honestly didnt mean to start a debate about this, was more venting some frustration. Would like to know still if there is anything that can really be done, or should I grin and bear it?
It's a debate that's been needing to be had for a long time now. Big reason it hasn't is that it's been kicked down the road several times. If Cryptic is going to keep introducing things like elite randoms, then it needs to be had. Nothing will change until it is.
With that in mind, if you have evidence you can present of people trolling the TFOs and deliberately failing them, take it to CS and let them deal with it. Aside from that there's nothing that can be done unless changes are made to the game itself. Which is why I've suggested what I have. It gives people immediate recourse and tries to head off the issue in the first place so threads like this aren't necessary or are a rarity.
I can start recording again, see if that helps catch it in the future
"Older people shouldn't play elite TFO's because they can't drive" This is going to go over well.
Issue wasn't even that dude couldn't drive, but that he was causing issues for hundreds of people because he couldn't drive any longer. Likewise people who are sabotaging TFOs or trying to join stuff they're clearly not ready for are doing so at the expense of the rest of the team and guaranteeing an automatic fail. Which should not be happening. That's my issue. If folks want to think I'm an elitist for thinking people should have to meet a bare minimum standard for elite content and to be able to drive, then I'll happily wear that badge in this instance.
Well you can happily wear your badge but it won't help you get by my motorhome. I passed my driver's test. People who live in rural areas are often all to quick to declare other drivers "n00bs" when they don't conform to some unwritten local "hillbilly" standard. I thank you for your efforts though as I find what you said both engaging and thought provoking when applied to elite content
Yeah well, the problem with that analogy is that you didn't sign up to drive on a public, well-policed road with clear rules. You decided to stand in line for a track fillled with wild teenagers in bumper cars. You knew in advance that things were going to get messy.
In other words: don't queue for a public elite TFO if you can't handle the possibility that things might not go exactly as you expect them to go.
Failure is going to be a possible outcome there.
To get back to the actual topic of this thread: trolling should be punished, but I've yet to be convinced that players are deliberately failing the missions. The examples mentioned don't even really allow for that, as far as I'm aware.
And why would anyone queue for a mission they intend to fail anyway? It's not like they're not punishing themselves in the process.
Again, that's not how that works. Saying "don't use the public TFOs if you can't handle trolls and don't want to carry people" is no different than saying to everyone else "don't drive at that time if you can't stand people who hold everyone up." If you're going to essentially tell everyone to suck it up and carry people and deal with the trolls because those folks have a right to be there too as the game allows it, then you may as well say dude had a right to hold everyone up on the road because there is no law against driving under the speed limit. Same difference just different medium. You say you don't sign up to use roads but actually you do. You go out at 16 (assuming the US) and get your drivers permit, then later test for your license. So yes you do sign up for it, just not in the way you think.
Now far as the game goes, when you press that button to join the random TFO queue, you are joining TEAM content not ME content. There are 4 other people in that TFO besides you. If you are joining that TFO to deliberately fail it, or completely underpowered, then you are going to ruin that run for that team. Sorry but you don't get to do that. You are not so important that you get a free pass to do whatever you want at the cost of 4 other people time after time again, be it deliberately failing it for them or expecting a carry. The fact that some people think they're entitled to do that is the epitome of arrogance and entitlement and alot of what's wrong with modern gaming today.
There's "things not going exactly as you expect" which is something no one can control and then there's the people who deliberately fail stuff or join things wholly underpowered, which they absolutely CAN control. The first one is normal and part of the experience, the second one shouldn't be happening and should be so rare it's a statistical anomaly when it does.
As to why people would deliberately fail a TFO I can think of several reasons as to why. First being that they're just a troll that gets jollies out of ruining it for other people similar to certain organized troll groups we've had before. Second is the most obvious one, they don't like the TFO they were given so they deliberately fail it so they can get out and back into the queue again for something they like or know they can beat in next to no time at all since there's no cooldown on pressing the random elite button. "Oh I got undine infiltration, this one sucks so let me get out of here and try for a faster one (insert fail here)". It's an easy way to get out of TFOs you don't like without getting an AFK penalty and having to eat a cooldown. You just auto-fail it for everyone and then leave, no one gets a penalty and none gets a cooldown. Rinse and repeat until you get the desired "fast" or "easy" TFO you want. People will almost always take the path of least resistance.
Removing from the rotation would then be the best solution, if one of these must be chosen. Just slapping more rewards on stuff that ought to fail a mission, would make things too easy and remove the one thing that sets 'Elite' content apart from other difficulties in this game.
I saved this one for last because it legitimately made me laugh at the irony. Here you are suggesting something be removed from the rotation of elite TFOs after telling me previously not to join random elite TFOs if I don't want to risk something going in a way I don't like. Do you not see the irony here?
If you don't want to risk the possibility of getting an elite TFO you don't like, don't join random elite TFOs if you can't deal with the random factor. You don't get to join random TFOs then demand it only give you the ones you like. Talk about pure hypocrisy.
Did you miss the 'if' in 'if one of these must be chosen'?
I actually do not believe either of these solutions is required at all. It was purely hypothetical.
I'm one of those casual players and I've been off the game since halfway through Summer Event as I wound up in hospital for two and a half weeks. I just got beck into it for the Anniversary and am almost through that.
That being said, I can likely do many of the advanced TFOs if I wanted, but I would never attempt Elite because I know I wouldn't be geared for either ground or space. I rather like just doing my own thing most of the time and only really do TFOs when they're part of an Event and I want the prizes. Then it's normal, even if the other difficulties were available.
I just like to play for funsies and not push myself, I suppose.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
Frankly if I get sucked into one of those randoming. I am tempted to just run to the first interaction and fail it to get out of there. That is terrible design, fine if its a mission that can only be run if someone chooses too... but in a random que. No thanks.
Ok I need to say something about this.
A: The Random Queue draws from the same list as manually queuing. There is no difference other than you take what you get. There is no special subset of TFOs for the Random Queues. There are not two versions of, say, Infected Ground that is determined by choosing it manually or selecting Random.
B: You pretty much declared that you are more likely to fail the whole group on purpose because you feel inconvenienced by fail conditions, thus penalizing the rest of the team because you don't like it. That is technically speaking purposefully sabotaging an Elite TFO, which is in fact the topic of this thread!
i honestly didnt mean to start a debate about this, was more venting some frustration. Would like to know still if there is anything that can really be done, or should I grin and bear it?
It's a debate that's been needing to be had for a long time now. Big reason it hasn't is that it's been kicked down the road several times. If Cryptic is going to keep introducing things like elite randoms, then it needs to be had. Nothing will change until it is.
With that in mind, if you have evidence you can present of people trolling the TFOs and deliberately failing them, take it to CS and let them deal with it. Aside from that there's nothing that can be done unless changes are made to the game itself. Which is why I've suggested what I have. It gives people immediate recourse and tries to head off the issue in the first place so threads like this aren't necessary or are a rarity.
I can start recording again, see if that helps catch it in the future
Figuring out whether someone is trolling or whatever is not as easy as it sounds, especially in a totally open group structure like STO has.
Even in a game with a little more structure to the dungeon runs (very roughly equivalent to STO's TFOs) like ESO it can be difficult finding out who is to blame for a wipe. The ESO Dungeon Finder uses formal Trinity structure where you explicitly que up as DPS, Healer, or Tank, but it can be exploited.
The problem is that most people do DPS and not enough people do Healer or Tank so it can be a long wait if you que DPS (45 minutes is not uncommon), so some people cheat and que up as one of the other two. Unfortunately, the party display does not have any indication which role each player qued up as so they can often get away with it.
I qued up my magicka dragonknight crafter as DPS (that is what she was built as) and I probably should have suspected something right then since I was the only one in visibly heavy armor (it was part of a mage set) but I didn't think anything of it since they have costumes in the game that hide whatever armor they really have under it. It wasn't until we started hitting the minor bosses that I noticed everyone was kiting around like chickens with their heads cut off that I realized that we didn't have a tank (or even a dedicated healer).
We were getting by though some people were getting impatient with the (slightly) slow progress, and we eventually ended up getting wiped and I was kicked with really rude messages about how lousy a tank I was even though I was not the tank (since it was all of them even the person who qued as tank and knew I wasn't it sent some), they just assumed that I was, probably from the race (Orc, they are commonly used as tanks but they have crafting and heavy armor experience bonuses which is the other part of why I had her in heavy armor even as a DPS), the heavy armor, and I had a lot of AoE spells that were mostly short-to-medium range so I wasn't kiting around as much as the others.
In non-trinity-based games like STO, since role means little or nothing, it is even harder to tell what someone is doing or how their character or ship is built, so anyone trolling would have to be really blatant about it to be reasonably certain that they are indeed deliberately trolling.
Did you miss the 'if' in 'if one of these must be chosen'?
I actually do not believe either of these solutions is required at all. It was purely hypothetical.
Everything in here is hypothetical until something is actually done, so that argument doesn't hold water here. I'm aware of what you said, but my point stands regardless. In fact I will reiterate something. It's hypocrisy on one hand to say "suck it up and deal because that's the risk you take in joining randoms" when it comes to undergeared people and trolls joining TFOs only to then turn around on the other hand and say "they should remove (TFO name here) from rotation".
If you're going to essentially say "that's the risk you take in joining randoms" then you getting that TFO you don't like is part of the risk of running randoms and you have no grounds to call for its removal. On the opposite side of that coin, if you're going to say they should remove a specific TFO for issues then you have no grounds to say other measures can't or shouldn't be implemented to combat issues with trolls and/or undergeared people joining stuff they're not ready for yet. What's good for the goose is good for the gander as the saying goes, and you do not get to have it both ways.
Far as solutions go, I don't like the idea of having to tell certain people they're not ready for certain content yet anymore than you do. But if they're not ready then one way or another they're going to find out at some point by the game telling them and/or teammates telling them. If it's teammates it probably won't be in as nice of ways as I would or the game might. Whether people like it or not, you need to meet certain thresholds to complete certain elites. If you don't do that and you fail, that is the game itself telling you that you didn't do good enough and to come back later. If you fail it consistently, that is the game itself telling you that you are not yet ready or good enough yet and to come back later. So tell me which one is worse, being told by teammates and the game after you've failed consistently, or being told by the game before you ever get in the door "this is what you need". No different than trying to test into an advanced class in school and missing it. Study up, come back, then ace the test. The key difference is I don't want to simply leave people in a state where they're constantly failing elites which just frustrates them and their teammates who are failing through no fault of their own. I want to see that guy be given a clear path of progression to come back and be able to clear said content, that's it. I don't care if it's by just barely beating the buzzer or if there's 40 years left on the clock.
"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
It's too bad Advanced doesn't at least have an n% chance to award the new advanced mats. I'm sure some people are queueing for Elite because they don't want to pay 25+ million EC for an advanced engineering console.
Frankly if I get sucked into one of those randoming. I am tempted to just run to the first interaction and fail it to get out of there. That is terrible design, fine if its a mission that can only be run if someone chooses too... but in a random que. No thanks.
Ok I need to say something about this.
A: The Random Queue draws from the same list as manually queuing. There is no difference other than you take what you get. There is no special subset of TFOs for the Random Queues. There are not two versions of, say, Infected Ground that is determined by choosing it manually or selecting Random.
B: You pretty much declared that you are more likely to fail the whole group on purpose because you feel inconvenienced by fail conditions, thus penalizing the rest of the team because you don't like it. That is technically speaking purposefully sabotaging an Elite TFO, which is in fact the topic of this thread!
lol I didn't say I failed anyone. I said I understand why people would do exactly that.
Also your are incorrect. Cryptic has removed maps from the random que selection previously... there are ground maps that don't show up in randoms. They have also temp removed specific maps in the past when they were bugged. We also all know its not really random... its filling ques first unless no one is actually qued for anything.
Sure maybe some people like the running around and talking, and playing a silly game of Trek Holmes... which is silly cause anyone that has played the map a few times knows all the answers anyway. Its like replaying an Episode for the 100th time.
That map stands out as a silly fail condition. I stand by that opinion completely. The DPS tests, the timed stuff... the save X number of Y or the beam up and run teams type stuff. Ok things that must be done to win, perfect for a E mode. The undine clicking is slow, and only possible to solo save if everyone else purposely sits there. I mean I can run all the teams to DS9 if no one else is helping, I can run particles solo if need be... I can run and close 5 anomalies if everyone else wants to fly in a circle. I can't do anything however if I do go and solve 9 click click missions just to have one person go and click a wrong answer.
That is what makes that map uniquely annoying. Most other E mode stuff... it might be annoying to be the only player with real deeps, or the only one collecting a non optional. That undine map is uniquely trollable. Understanding why people find it annoying and sympathizing is not condoning purpose fails. Before randoms people that ran that one in E mode did it willingly and worked together. Its not a great random map. Combo that with most players having never run it on E mode and making honest mistakes. Its going to annoy people... and clearly it has.
Hence my suggestion. I'm not asking for it to be removed from the random. I'm saying adjust the fail conditions. Make the fail conditions something that can't be trolled by one player.... or to be fair puts one player in a position of feeling like a tool for failing a mission for an entire team themselves, honestly through a mistake.
Hence my suggestion. I'm not asking for it to be removed from the random. I'm saying adjust the fail conditions. Make the fail conditions something that can't be trolled by one player.... or to be fair puts one player in a position of feeling like a tool for failing a mission for an entire team themselves, honestly through a mistake.
It could be like A Step Between Stars (the sphere solar station with Cooper) where if you get it wrong, you have to fight enemies as a penalty. And if the troll keeps doing this, the TFO treats completing the penalty as answering correctly.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,576Community Moderator
Hence my suggestion. I'm not asking for it to be removed from the random. I'm saying adjust the fail conditions. Make the fail conditions something that can't be trolled by one player.... or to be fair puts one player in a position of feeling like a tool for failing a mission for an entire team themselves, honestly through a mistake.
Honestly you made it sound like you would go out of your way to just be done with it. Hence my reaction.
And unfortunately just the existence of a fail condition is bait for trolls to sabotage. If it is a mechanic based one, they'll purposefully do it wrong. If its a time based one... they won't contribute to it, making it that much easier to fail. If its to prevent an enemy from doing something, they'll find some way help the enemy get it faster.
One example of trolling I came across back when Delta Rising first hit was a member of a certain fleet was in my group for an Infected Advanced run. He openly declared in team chat that he was "looking for his spec point." We went left as per normal operating procedure, but he went right.
"Wonder if its in here?"
Destroys a generator on the OPPOSITE side of the Gate.
"Nope. Not here."
Flies off to do god knows what, leaving US to scramble to try and contain the now unleashed nanite probes because we could NOT let a Probe heal a transformer.
Suffice to say we failed.
Its a never ending battle. No fail condition is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool. They WILL find a way to sabotage because they think its funny while everyone else gets slapped with a lockout timer.
Been following this with some amusement. Which comes from the thought there are members of this player base whom are skilled enough and experienced enough they spend all their ingame time spoiling the game for everyone else.
Why do people assume when things do not go exactly as they imagine, some other group of players with the intelligence level of Sauron is out to thwart them? Why do people assume these people interfering with someone's ideas of fun inside a not-very-good MMO are doing so purposely?
I do not think any of us is so important to this game that Joe, Frank, Bill and the rest of this vast right wing conspiracy of deplorables spend all their time down at the pub rocking pints and planning their next big fun sucking moves to ruin the lives of the rest of our tiny slice of the number of MMO players world wide.
It really is laughable, isn't it?
Someone isn't skilled enough to do an Elite TFO correctly. Someone else isn't geared correctly for whatever Elite TFO they've chosen. Someone who joined the game recently and got excited by their early successes decided to try something "a little more challenging". Some other player treats this game the same way people treat a web browser game on their phone. By not taking it as seriously as the Holy Writ some players think it ought to be treated as.
There. Right there. There is that evil cabal of players who set out every waking minute to ruin the fun of the rest of us inside STO.
"Somebody ought to DO something!"
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
This is the easiest way to solve the problem: put the advanced console choice reward in the advanced queues and remove it from the elite ones. I don't need them anymore anyway, I have all of my characters stuffed with as many as they could possibly need, plus the ones I donated to the fleet bank, and then some, and I doubt anyone who is well enough geared for elite would need them either, so remove them from the elite rewards and put them in the advanced rewards. This way, those who still need them can get them easily without hindering the game experience of those who just want to do things in a harder setting and are prepared to do so.
I've noticed something that may be another piece of the puzzle.
When queued for Normal Difficulty random TFO's I am occasionally getting dumped into Advanced or Elite Difficulty random TFO's. I can tell by the rewards for the TFO's in question, even though the difficulty indicator in the UI is reading Normal Difficulty.
Is this happening to anyone else?
Is the Random TFO system meant to "jump" difficulty levels to fill empty slots regardless of the setting selected by the player?
If it is we may have a bug on our hands that is dumping unprepared players into TFO's they are not ready for which may explain the rise in Pooch Screws.
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT making a Bug Report here. I am conferring with other players in an attempt to determine if a bug exists and how widespread it might be. Please allow us to do so unimpeded.
I've noticed something that may be another piece of the puzzle.
When queued for Normal Difficulty random TFO's I am occasionally getting dumped into Advanced or Elite Difficulty random TFO's. I can tell by the rewards for the TFO's in question, even though the difficulty indicator in the UI is reading Normal Difficulty.
Is this happening to anyone else?
Is the Random TFO system meant to "jump" difficulty levels to fill empty slots regardless of the setting selected by the player?
If it is we may have a bug on our hands that is dumping unprepared players into TFO's they are not ready for which may explain the rise in Pooch Screws.
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT making a Bug Report here. I am conferring with other players in an attempt to determine if a bug exists and how widespread it might be. Please allow us to do so unimpeded.
It has never happened to me. I will concede, though, that the UI can be a bit misleading for new players: the difficulty setting for the "Join random" button is the one you can see right beside it, whereas the difficulty setting you choose on the dropdown at the bottom is there only to filter by that chosen setting the TFO's you see in the list in which you can queue individually by ticking their respective check box.
However I don't believe that so many people can get confused by this. To be honest, I don't queue for random elites anymore because right now, with so many unprepared players expecting to get carried, it is just not worth it. I can maybe carry one on elite with my best character, but when you would have to carry two or three most of the times or fail it just becomes a frustrating thing to do with your leisure time. So, unless the issue is addressed, I will just do advanced: no way to fail there just because someone on your team should not be there to begin with.
I've noticed something that may be another piece of the puzzle.
When queued for Normal Difficulty random TFO's I am occasionally getting dumped into Advanced or Elite Difficulty random TFO's. I can tell by the rewards for the TFO's in question, even though the difficulty indicator in the UI is reading Normal Difficulty.
Is this happening to anyone else?
Is the Random TFO system meant to "jump" difficulty levels to fill empty slots regardless of the setting selected by the player?
If it is we may have a bug on our hands that is dumping unprepared players into TFO's they are not ready for which may explain the rise in Pooch Screws.
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT making a Bug Report here. I am conferring with other players in an attempt to determine if a bug exists and how widespread it might be. Please allow us to do so unimpeded.
It has never happened to me. I will concede, though, that the UI can be a bit misleading for new players: the difficulty setting for the "Join random" button is the one you can see right beside it, whereas the difficulty setting you choose on the dropdown at the bottom is there only to filter by that chosen setting the TFO's you see in the list in which you can queue individually by ticking their respective check box.
However I don't believe that so many people can get confused by this. To be honest, I don't queue for random elites anymore because right now, with so many unprepared players expecting to get carried, it is just not worth it. I can maybe carry one on elite with my best character, but when you would have to carry two or three most of the times or fail it just becomes a frustrating thing to do with your leisure time. So, unless the issue is addressed, I will just do advanced: no way to fail there just because someone on your team should not be there to begin with.
I agree, those buttons could very well be confusing for the uninitiated.
Meanwhile, since my last post it has happened to me twice more.
I'm going to keep playing at the Normal Difficulty in the hopes of determining if I'm getting thrown into higher difficulties or if I'm just getting the rewards for them at the Normal Level.
Frankly if I get sucked into one of those randoming. I am tempted to just run to the first interaction and fail it to get out of there. That is terrible design, fine if its a mission that can only be run if someone chooses too... but in a random que. No thanks.
Ok I need to say something about this.
A: The Random Queue draws from the same list as manually queuing. There is no difference other than you take what you get. There is no special subset of TFOs for the Random Queues. There are not two versions of, say, Infected Ground that is determined by choosing it manually or selecting Random.
B: You pretty much declared that you are more likely to fail the whole group on purpose because you feel inconvenienced by fail conditions, thus penalizing the rest of the team because you don't like it. That is technically speaking purposefully sabotaging an Elite TFO, which is in fact the topic of this thread!
lol I didn't say I failed anyone. I said I understand why people would do exactly that.
Also your are incorrect. Cryptic has removed maps from the random que selection previously... there are ground maps that don't show up in randoms. They have also temp removed specific maps in the past when they were bugged. We also all know its not really random... its filling ques first unless no one is actually qued for anything.
Sure maybe some people like the running around and talking, and playing a silly game of Trek Holmes... which is silly cause anyone that has played the map a few times knows all the answers anyway. Its like replaying an Episode for the 100th time.
That map stands out as a silly fail condition. I stand by that opinion completely. The DPS tests, the timed stuff... the save X number of Y or the beam up and run teams type stuff. Ok things that must be done to win, perfect for a E mode. The undine clicking is slow, and only possible to solo save if everyone else purposely sits there. I mean I can run all the teams to DS9 if no one else is helping, I can run particles solo if need be... I can run and close 5 anomalies if everyone else wants to fly in a circle. I can't do anything however if I do go and solve 9 click click missions just to have one person go and click a wrong answer.
That is what makes that map uniquely annoying. Most other E mode stuff... it might be annoying to be the only player with real deeps, or the only one collecting a non optional. That undine map is uniquely trollable. Understanding why people find it annoying and sympathizing is not condoning purpose fails. Before randoms people that ran that one in E mode did it willingly and worked together. Its not a great random map. Combo that with most players having never run it on E mode and making honest mistakes. Its going to annoy people... and clearly it has.
Hence my suggestion. I'm not asking for it to be removed from the random. I'm saying adjust the fail conditions. Make the fail conditions something that can't be trolled by one player.... or to be fair puts one player in a position of feeling like a tool for failing a mission for an entire team themselves, honestly through a mistake.
I disagree with this. Changing or removing any failing condition that isn't DPS related will make the 'elite' content of this game even easier and the game as a whole even more DPS focussed.
We need more non-DPS failing conditions (like the spiders in Defend Rhiho station were supposed to be), not fewer. Or else power creep will result in people complaining in a few months that everything is too easy and that we need uber-epic-elite difficulty to keep them on their toes.
Elite content shouldn't just be a matter of 'got enough DPS?' and 'are you able to press spacebar?'
It should be about situational awareness and responding to your environment quickly enough - being able to take cover in time, react to some enemy attack or a change in the environment like in Into the Hive.
Or else we might as well stop pretending there is any elite content in this game, if the player's reflexes and situational awareness are going to matter as much (i.e., not at all) as on normal or advanced content.
Hence my suggestion. I'm not asking for it to be removed from the random. I'm saying adjust the fail conditions. Make the fail conditions something that can't be trolled by one player.... or to be fair puts one player in a position of feeling like a tool for failing a mission for an entire team themselves, honestly through a mistake.
Honestly you made it sound like you would go out of your way to just be done with it. Hence my reaction.
And unfortunately just the existence of a fail condition is bait for trolls to sabotage. If it is a mechanic based one, they'll purposefully do it wrong. If its a time based one... they won't contribute to it, making it that much easier to fail. If its to prevent an enemy from doing something, they'll find some way help the enemy get it faster.
One example of trolling I came across back when Delta Rising first hit was a member of a certain fleet was in my group for an Infected Advanced run. He openly declared in team chat that he was "looking for his spec point." We went left as per normal operating procedure, but he went right.
"Wonder if its in here?"
Destroys a generator on the OPPOSITE side of the Gate.
"Nope. Not here."
Flies off to do god knows what, leaving US to scramble to try and contain the now unleashed nanite probes because we could NOT let a Probe heal a transformer.
Suffice to say we failed.
Its a never ending battle. No fail condition is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool. They WILL find a way to sabotage because they think its funny while everyone else gets slapped with a lockout timer.
Lets be honest though... in the 1,000+ Infected runs you have done since. You remember that one... you remember where you went, where they went. What happened when.
You got some high entertainment value there. It's just a game.
@theboxisred Yes, I have had that happen to me before. I have everything set to normal, i click random tfo and have got thrown into an advanced tfo. Right at the start i knew its not a normal tfo and the team i was on did have a hard time, and it took a while to complete. It was the newer tfo based off fugiwara (sp?) with the venture down v'ger to the compilers. So this could be happening to players that unintentionally get put into an advanced or elite tfo.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,576Community Moderator
Lets be honest though... in the 1,000+ Infected runs you have done since. You remember that one... you remember where you went, where they went. What happened when.
You got some high entertainment value there. It's just a game.
Maybe irritation factor at being purposefully failed, and having to eat a half hour lockout, which at the time I think might have been on everything for leaver penalty, for someone else's amusement. I know its just a game, but still... I don't get off on other people's frustration and misery.
Comments
Ground TFOs are much much easier then some of the space ones.
Again, that's not how that works. Saying "don't use the public TFOs if you can't handle trolls and don't want to carry people" is no different than saying to everyone else "don't drive at that time if you can't stand people who hold everyone up." If you're going to essentially tell everyone to suck it up and carry people and deal with the trolls because those folks have a right to be there too as the game allows it, then you may as well say dude had a right to hold everyone up on the road because there is no law against driving under the speed limit. Same difference just different medium. You say you don't sign up to use roads but actually you do. You go out at 16 (assuming the US) and get your drivers permit, then later test for your license. So yes you do sign up for it, just not in the way you think.
Now far as the game goes, when you press that button to join the random TFO queue, you are joining TEAM content not ME content. There are 4 other people in that TFO besides you. If you are joining that TFO to deliberately fail it, or completely underpowered, then you are going to ruin that run for that team. Sorry but you don't get to do that. You are not so important that you get a free pass to do whatever you want at the cost of 4 other people time after time again, be it deliberately failing it for them or expecting a carry. The fact that some people think they're entitled to do that is the epitome of arrogance and entitlement and alot of what's wrong with modern gaming today.
There's "things not going exactly as you expect" which is something no one can control and then there's the people who deliberately fail stuff or join things wholly underpowered, which they absolutely CAN control. The first one is normal and part of the experience, the second one shouldn't be happening and should be so rare it's a statistical anomaly when it does.
As to why people would deliberately fail a TFO I can think of several reasons as to why. First being that they're just a troll that gets jollies out of ruining it for other people similar to certain organized troll groups we've had before. Second is the most obvious one, they don't like the TFO they were given so they deliberately fail it so they can get out and back into the queue again for something they like or know they can beat in next to no time at all since there's no cooldown on pressing the random elite button. "Oh I got undine infiltration, this one sucks so let me get out of here and try for a faster one (insert fail here)". It's an easy way to get out of TFOs you don't like without getting an AFK penalty and having to eat a cooldown. You just auto-fail it for everyone and then leave, no one gets a penalty and none gets a cooldown. Rinse and repeat until you get the desired "fast" or "easy" TFO you want. People will almost always take the path of least resistance.
I saved this one for last because it legitimately made me laugh at the irony. Here you are suggesting something be removed from the rotation of elite TFOs after telling me previously not to join random elite TFOs if I don't want to risk something going in a way I don't like. Do you not see the irony here?
If you don't want to risk the possibility of getting an elite TFO you don't like, don't join random elite TFOs if you can't deal with the random factor. You don't get to join random TFOs then demand it only give you the ones you like. Talk about pure hypocrisy.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
That's not entirely true. While it's true that you need to know how to use the gear you have to make the most of it, you still need some kind of gear to take advantage of in the first place. I've seen some of those runs where someone can parse 300k+ with absolutely garbage gear, and most of that is team buffs and nannied junk that would never happen outside of their controlled environment. Cool for them that they were able to pull it off, but it's not a true representation of the playerbase at large. If you put two people of equal skill into a run but give one full mk xv epics and the other only mk ii crafted gear, the guy in mk xv epics is going to run circles around him every time. This game is about 20% setup, the other 80% is skill. While the largest part is skill, you can't ignore the smaller part of your actual setup either. You need both.
Lastly if this game is as easy as people claim, then they should have no problem farming out the gear they need to get into elites should a gear check, dungeon journal, and proving grounds style setup be implemented. If they can't then they don't need to be in elites to start with. And if they can farm it out super easy, then you've guaranteed everyone in there should be able to meet the minimum standards of the TFO itself and improved your playerbase as a whole if ever so much.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
It's a debate that's been needing to be had for a long time now. Big reason it hasn't is that it's been kicked down the road several times. If Cryptic is going to keep introducing things like elite randoms, then it needs to be had. Nothing will change until it is.
With that in mind, if you have evidence you can present of people trolling the TFOs and deliberately failing them, take it to CS and let them deal with it. Aside from that there's nothing that can be done unless changes are made to the game itself. Which is why I've suggested what I have. It gives people immediate recourse and tries to head off the issue in the first place so threads like this aren't necessary or are a rarity.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
I didn't suggest not having fail conditions at all. I suggested that that specific one is annoying... its a bunch of mission text clicking in a TFO. Frankly if I get sucked into one of those randoming. I am tempted to just run to the first interaction and fail it to get out of there. That is terrible design, fine if its a mission that can only be run if someone chooses too... but in a random que. No thanks.
I was suggesting move the fail conditions to things people find fun... that actual fighting/defending stuff. Make the mission clicking reward bonuses for correct answers. I imagine that will still cause some people to complain about people messing up their bonus marks, but at least they won't get booted by people that just want that map over.
I can start recording again, see if that helps catch it in the future
Well you can happily wear your badge but it won't help you get by my motorhome. I passed my driver's test. People who live in rural areas are often all to quick to declare other drivers "n00bs" when they don't conform to some unwritten local "hillbilly" standard. I thank you for your efforts though as I find what you said both engaging and thought provoking when applied to elite content
Did you miss the 'if' in 'if one of these must be chosen'?
I actually do not believe either of these solutions is required at all. It was purely hypothetical.
That being said, I can likely do many of the advanced TFOs if I wanted, but I would never attempt Elite because I know I wouldn't be geared for either ground or space. I rather like just doing my own thing most of the time and only really do TFOs when they're part of an Event and I want the prizes. Then it's normal, even if the other difficulties were available.
I just like to play for funsies and not push myself, I suppose.
Ok I need to say something about this.
A: The Random Queue draws from the same list as manually queuing. There is no difference other than you take what you get. There is no special subset of TFOs for the Random Queues. There are not two versions of, say, Infected Ground that is determined by choosing it manually or selecting Random.
B: You pretty much declared that you are more likely to fail the whole group on purpose because you feel inconvenienced by fail conditions, thus penalizing the rest of the team because you don't like it. That is technically speaking purposefully sabotaging an Elite TFO, which is in fact the topic of this thread!
Figuring out whether someone is trolling or whatever is not as easy as it sounds, especially in a totally open group structure like STO has.
Even in a game with a little more structure to the dungeon runs (very roughly equivalent to STO's TFOs) like ESO it can be difficult finding out who is to blame for a wipe. The ESO Dungeon Finder uses formal Trinity structure where you explicitly que up as DPS, Healer, or Tank, but it can be exploited.
The problem is that most people do DPS and not enough people do Healer or Tank so it can be a long wait if you que DPS (45 minutes is not uncommon), so some people cheat and que up as one of the other two. Unfortunately, the party display does not have any indication which role each player qued up as so they can often get away with it.
I qued up my magicka dragonknight crafter as DPS (that is what she was built as) and I probably should have suspected something right then since I was the only one in visibly heavy armor (it was part of a mage set) but I didn't think anything of it since they have costumes in the game that hide whatever armor they really have under it. It wasn't until we started hitting the minor bosses that I noticed everyone was kiting around like chickens with their heads cut off that I realized that we didn't have a tank (or even a dedicated healer).
We were getting by though some people were getting impatient with the (slightly) slow progress, and we eventually ended up getting wiped and I was kicked with really rude messages about how lousy a tank I was even though I was not the tank (since it was all of them even the person who qued as tank and knew I wasn't it sent some), they just assumed that I was, probably from the race (Orc, they are commonly used as tanks but they have crafting and heavy armor experience bonuses which is the other part of why I had her in heavy armor even as a DPS), the heavy armor, and I had a lot of AoE spells that were mostly short-to-medium range so I wasn't kiting around as much as the others.
In non-trinity-based games like STO, since role means little or nothing, it is even harder to tell what someone is doing or how their character or ship is built, so anyone trolling would have to be really blatant about it to be reasonably certain that they are indeed deliberately trolling.
Everything in here is hypothetical until something is actually done, so that argument doesn't hold water here. I'm aware of what you said, but my point stands regardless. In fact I will reiterate something. It's hypocrisy on one hand to say "suck it up and deal because that's the risk you take in joining randoms" when it comes to undergeared people and trolls joining TFOs only to then turn around on the other hand and say "they should remove (TFO name here) from rotation".
If you're going to essentially say "that's the risk you take in joining randoms" then you getting that TFO you don't like is part of the risk of running randoms and you have no grounds to call for its removal. On the opposite side of that coin, if you're going to say they should remove a specific TFO for issues then you have no grounds to say other measures can't or shouldn't be implemented to combat issues with trolls and/or undergeared people joining stuff they're not ready for yet. What's good for the goose is good for the gander as the saying goes, and you do not get to have it both ways.
Far as solutions go, I don't like the idea of having to tell certain people they're not ready for certain content yet anymore than you do. But if they're not ready then one way or another they're going to find out at some point by the game telling them and/or teammates telling them. If it's teammates it probably won't be in as nice of ways as I would or the game might. Whether people like it or not, you need to meet certain thresholds to complete certain elites. If you don't do that and you fail, that is the game itself telling you that you didn't do good enough and to come back later. If you fail it consistently, that is the game itself telling you that you are not yet ready or good enough yet and to come back later. So tell me which one is worse, being told by teammates and the game after you've failed consistently, or being told by the game before you ever get in the door "this is what you need". No different than trying to test into an advanced class in school and missing it. Study up, come back, then ace the test. The key difference is I don't want to simply leave people in a state where they're constantly failing elites which just frustrates them and their teammates who are failing through no fault of their own. I want to see that guy be given a clear path of progression to come back and be able to clear said content, that's it. I don't care if it's by just barely beating the buzzer or if there's 40 years left on the clock.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
lol I didn't say I failed anyone. I said I understand why people would do exactly that.
Also your are incorrect. Cryptic has removed maps from the random que selection previously... there are ground maps that don't show up in randoms. They have also temp removed specific maps in the past when they were bugged. We also all know its not really random... its filling ques first unless no one is actually qued for anything.
Sure maybe some people like the running around and talking, and playing a silly game of Trek Holmes... which is silly cause anyone that has played the map a few times knows all the answers anyway. Its like replaying an Episode for the 100th time.
That map stands out as a silly fail condition. I stand by that opinion completely. The DPS tests, the timed stuff... the save X number of Y or the beam up and run teams type stuff. Ok things that must be done to win, perfect for a E mode. The undine clicking is slow, and only possible to solo save if everyone else purposely sits there. I mean I can run all the teams to DS9 if no one else is helping, I can run particles solo if need be... I can run and close 5 anomalies if everyone else wants to fly in a circle. I can't do anything however if I do go and solve 9 click click missions just to have one person go and click a wrong answer.
That is what makes that map uniquely annoying. Most other E mode stuff... it might be annoying to be the only player with real deeps, or the only one collecting a non optional. That undine map is uniquely trollable. Understanding why people find it annoying and sympathizing is not condoning purpose fails. Before randoms people that ran that one in E mode did it willingly and worked together. Its not a great random map. Combo that with most players having never run it on E mode and making honest mistakes. Its going to annoy people... and clearly it has.
Hence my suggestion. I'm not asking for it to be removed from the random. I'm saying adjust the fail conditions. Make the fail conditions something that can't be trolled by one player.... or to be fair puts one player in a position of feeling like a tool for failing a mission for an entire team themselves, honestly through a mistake.
It could be like A Step Between Stars (the sphere solar station with Cooper) where if you get it wrong, you have to fight enemies as a penalty. And if the troll keeps doing this, the TFO treats completing the penalty as answering correctly.
Honestly you made it sound like you would go out of your way to just be done with it. Hence my reaction.
And unfortunately just the existence of a fail condition is bait for trolls to sabotage. If it is a mechanic based one, they'll purposefully do it wrong. If its a time based one... they won't contribute to it, making it that much easier to fail. If its to prevent an enemy from doing something, they'll find some way help the enemy get it faster.
One example of trolling I came across back when Delta Rising first hit was a member of a certain fleet was in my group for an Infected Advanced run. He openly declared in team chat that he was "looking for his spec point." We went left as per normal operating procedure, but he went right.
"Wonder if its in here?"
Destroys a generator on the OPPOSITE side of the Gate.
"Nope. Not here."
Flies off to do god knows what, leaving US to scramble to try and contain the now unleashed nanite probes because we could NOT let a Probe heal a transformer.
Suffice to say we failed.
Its a never ending battle. No fail condition is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool. They WILL find a way to sabotage because they think its funny while everyone else gets slapped with a lockout timer.
Why do people assume when things do not go exactly as they imagine, some other group of players with the intelligence level of Sauron is out to thwart them? Why do people assume these people interfering with someone's ideas of fun inside a not-very-good MMO are doing so purposely?
I do not think any of us is so important to this game that Joe, Frank, Bill and the rest of this vast right wing conspiracy of deplorables spend all their time down at the pub rocking pints and planning their next big fun sucking moves to ruin the lives of the rest of our tiny slice of the number of MMO players world wide.
It really is laughable, isn't it?
Someone isn't skilled enough to do an Elite TFO correctly. Someone else isn't geared correctly for whatever Elite TFO they've chosen. Someone who joined the game recently and got excited by their early successes decided to try something "a little more challenging". Some other player treats this game the same way people treat a web browser game on their phone. By not taking it as seriously as the Holy Writ some players think it ought to be treated as.
There. Right there. There is that evil cabal of players who set out every waking minute to ruin the fun of the rest of us inside STO.
"Somebody ought to DO something!"
When queued for Normal Difficulty random TFO's I am occasionally getting dumped into Advanced or Elite Difficulty random TFO's. I can tell by the rewards for the TFO's in question, even though the difficulty indicator in the UI is reading Normal Difficulty.
Is this happening to anyone else?
Is the Random TFO system meant to "jump" difficulty levels to fill empty slots regardless of the setting selected by the player?
If it is we may have a bug on our hands that is dumping unprepared players into TFO's they are not ready for which may explain the rise in Pooch Screws.
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT making a Bug Report here. I am conferring with other players in an attempt to determine if a bug exists and how widespread it might be. Please allow us to do so unimpeded.
It has never happened to me. I will concede, though, that the UI can be a bit misleading for new players: the difficulty setting for the "Join random" button is the one you can see right beside it, whereas the difficulty setting you choose on the dropdown at the bottom is there only to filter by that chosen setting the TFO's you see in the list in which you can queue individually by ticking their respective check box.
However I don't believe that so many people can get confused by this. To be honest, I don't queue for random elites anymore because right now, with so many unprepared players expecting to get carried, it is just not worth it. I can maybe carry one on elite with my best character, but when you would have to carry two or three most of the times or fail it just becomes a frustrating thing to do with your leisure time. So, unless the issue is addressed, I will just do advanced: no way to fail there just because someone on your team should not be there to begin with.
I agree, those buttons could very well be confusing for the uninitiated.
Meanwhile, since my last post it has happened to me twice more.
I'm going to keep playing at the Normal Difficulty in the hopes of determining if I'm getting thrown into higher difficulties or if I'm just getting the rewards for them at the Normal Level.
I disagree with this. Changing or removing any failing condition that isn't DPS related will make the 'elite' content of this game even easier and the game as a whole even more DPS focussed.
We need more non-DPS failing conditions (like the spiders in Defend Rhiho station were supposed to be), not fewer. Or else power creep will result in people complaining in a few months that everything is too easy and that we need uber-epic-elite difficulty to keep them on their toes.
Elite content shouldn't just be a matter of 'got enough DPS?' and 'are you able to press spacebar?'
It should be about situational awareness and responding to your environment quickly enough - being able to take cover in time, react to some enemy attack or a change in the environment like in Into the Hive.
Or else we might as well stop pretending there is any elite content in this game, if the player's reflexes and situational awareness are going to matter as much (i.e., not at all) as on normal or advanced content.
You and I have a different opinion regarding the player's responsibility when queuing for elite content and which system to use for that.
I don't think that's going to change, so I don't really see the point in continuing that debate. We've both made our points clear.
Lets be honest though... in the 1,000+ Infected runs you have done since. You remember that one... you remember where you went, where they went. What happened when.
You got some high entertainment value there. It's just a game.
Maybe irritation factor at being purposefully failed, and having to eat a half hour lockout, which at the time I think might have been on everything for leaver penalty, for someone else's amusement. I know its just a game, but still... I don't get off on other people's frustration and misery.