random should be random, not fill in for whatever someone queued for.
Gonna come in here to stamp out this idea (it's a "kill it with fire!" point for the game's health), and address the question of "random" from an informed perspective.
The primary point of the RTFO system was to allow more than a bare handful TFO's to be consistently playable. Way back when the only matches you could get were the alerts, CCA, and borg STFs. There was a limited window for new TFO's to be playable but that waned as their introductory seasons progressed. It was a complete wasteland and fixed at a stroke by the introduction of the hopper system in RTFOs. And they fixed the issue so so completely that folks like yourself have no appreciation for why this system is the way it is (it just hasn't been part of your recent experience with the game, with driving issues largely lost to time). But as someone who was there for the bad old days and remembers them vividly, removing the hopper aspect of RTFO's would violently murder TFOs at a stroke. It's bad enough to have the old system as a point of acclimation (it is what it is, just have to deal with it). But going there after having the fixed system would be a complete dumpster fire scenario for the game.
It's a non-starter, it will never happen, and if some future regime was fool enough to try it some day they'd be patching the system back the week after.
Random also doesn't mean "and each outcome has an equal probability." See. lootbox RNG. It only means you don't have control over the outcome and the odds of any given one is controlled by a distribution. That distribution could be flat, such that the odds. But it could also be normal, gaussian, lognormal, gamma, or any possible mathematical expression for how the odds of each outcome vary or completely irregular. And for RTFO's case: they can be set by the population distribution of queuing STO players. Random TFO's are random. The odds calculation just requires a census of all available matches at a given time of queuing. It's a dynamic system. Nothing about it needs to be changed on that basis. You're just dealing with a more complex example of random events than a D6.
And a point for the OP: while trends in player behavior can shift the odds to favor a given TFO or two (ex. if there's an endeavor for it), there's also a fundamental point that what you're not likely to see in 8 games is a reflection of the total distribution of player queuing. Ie. you can be thrown to the tail end of a probability distribution and get the same things repeatedly, just as bad luck. Don't fall for the fallacy that your experiences are representative, simply because its you having them. Statistically, they're not. Your life is a profoundly unlikely outcome in the first place and, in the context of STO, you can absolutely be the one to get hosed by the luck of the RTFO draw (I haven't had counterpoint in a long while for a case-to-case comparison. Experiences at this level vary).
There's nothing wrong with the game here. It's just stats playing out across the particulars of this self-correcting system. If bored with the same thing over and over from randoms, players are also more likely to manually queue and queue for the change of pace they're seeking. You have that luxury thanks to the RTFO hopper system. Use it when needed.
Post edited by duncanidaho11 on
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
random should be random, not fill in for whatever someone queued for.
Gonna come in here to stamp out this idea (it's a "kill it with fire!" point for the game's health), and address the question of "random" from an informed perspective.
The primary point of the RTFO system was to allow more than a bare handful TFO's to be consistently playable. Way back when the only matches you could get were the alerts, CCA, and borg STFs. There was a limited window for new TFO's to be playable but that waned as their introductory seasons progressed. It was a complete wasteland and fixed at a stroke by the introduction of the hopper system in RTFOs. And they fixed the issue so so completely that folks like yourself have no appreciation for why this system is the way it is (it just hasn't been part of your recent experience with the game, with driving issues largely lost to time). But as someone who was there for the bad old days and remembers them vividly, removing the hopper aspect of RTFO's would violently murder TFOs at a stroke. It's bad enough to have the old system as a point of acclimation (it is what it is, just have to deal with it). But going there after having the fixed system would be a complete dumpster fire scenario for the game.
It's a non-starter, it will never happen, and if some future regime was fool enough to try it some day they'd be patching the system back the week after.
Random also doesn't mean "and each outcome has an equal probability." See. lootbox RNG. It only means you don't have control over the outcome and the odds of any given one is controlled by a distribution. That distribution could be flat, such that the odds. But it could also be normal, gaussian, lognormal, gamma, or any possible mathematical expression for how the odds of each outcome vary or completely irregular. And for RTFO's case: they can be set by the population distribution of queuing STO players. Random TFO's are random. The odds calculation just requires a census of all available matches at a given time of queuing. It's a dynamic system. Nothing about it needs to be changed on that basis. You're just dealing with a more complex example of random events than a D6.
And a point for the OP: while trends in player behavior can shift the odds to favor a given TFO or two (ex. if there's an endeavor for it), there's also a fundamental point that what you're not likely to see in 8 games is a reflection of the total distribution of player queuing. Ie. you can be thrown to the tail end of a probability distribution and get the same things repeatedly, just as bad luck. Don't fall for the fallacy that your experiences are representative, simply because its you having them. Statistically, they're not. Your life is a profoundly unlikely outcome in the first place and, in the context of STO, you can absolutely be the one to get hosed by the luck of the RTFO draw (I haven't had counterpoint in a long while for a case-to-case comparison. Experiences at this level vary).
There's nothing wrong with the game here. It's just stats playing out across the particulars of this self-correcting system. If bored with the same thing over and over from randoms, players are also more likely to manually queue and queue for the change of pace they're seeking. You have that luxury thanks to the RTFO hopper system. Use it when needed.
Manually queuing for a TFO can literally take hours nowadays though, as the constant events tend to herd players towards one or two queues.
Just yesterday for example, I waited 45 minutes in the Miner Instabilities and Arena of Sompek public queues, before giving up out of pure frustration. And this is hardly an unique case.
Which is also why I think the system isn't working the way it should. Surely in those 45 minutes at least 4 players have pushed that random button and should have been added to that MI team? Or are they all being directed to other queues because there are, for example, 4 players waiting for Azure Nebula? Even when those players might have queued for it 30 minutes later than I did?
I could accept the explanation that the system isn't going to throw players into a random queue, but is mostly designed to help with filling the queues that other people are already waiting in. But I highly doubt that it's even doing that. Cause it seems unlikely that anyone should then have to wait for 45 minutes when queuing for a specific mission.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
I could accept the explanation that the system isn't going to throw players into a random queue, but is mostly designed to help with filling the queues that other people are already waiting in. But I highly doubt that it's even doing that. Cause it seems unlikely that anyone should then have to wait for 45 minutes when queuing for a specific mission.
I haven't had that experience at all lately (both advanced and elite during active US times). The question's always going to be how many people are manually queuing vs. how many people are joining RFTO's. And these populations are split between three difficulty levels now. If there's an over-abundance of people queuing for RFTOs then manual queues will be instantaneous. However, as fewer people queue for randoms at any given point in time then it'll take longer for manual TFOs to fill up. In the extreme case of barely anyone queuing for random relative to the number of manual TFOs queued, those manual matches will have to wait a long time for a full group. This timing will also change with daily, weekly, and seasonal population patterns, such that you can have a bad outcome just from having an activity window that doesn't align with population cycles for a given level of TFO (but there's nothing to do about that from a dev POV beyond make STO more popular and buffer those possible outcomes with more people).
Look at when you're queuing and what level you're queuing for, for the most obvious cause for your problem. And adjust behavior accordingly. Understand base principle of population dynamics before presuming fault in that system.
Also, Arena of Sompek does not qualify as a RTFO. The event version isn't included with the system to avoid that dominating the hoppers, and the regular endless version is wildly inappropriate for it. Miner instabilities *should* queue for it (I've had it a few times this week in elite), but I've never tried to queue for it AND an excluded TFO at the same time. Depending on how the system operates at the back end, THAT could be your problem (but still be cognizant of population cycles and whether you're doing something like queuing manually for normal, which has a lot less interest).
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
I totally understand everything that's been stated over the most recent posts. I have to agree with @fleetcaptian5 that there is something missing. I have qued for tfo's that are not events and they never pop. In years of occasionally selecting them, as an experiment, they have never popped. I think I have had a single or two instances of arena popping for a random que. "Think i have" is the key statement there though, not positive. I know that in all the years since rtfo feature has been implemented there are tfo's that have never been visited via that button. I think, possibly, there are older non event tfo's that are not part of that random buttons list. If my thinking is correct, alot of those older tfos had multiple objectives, failure situations, and needed team cooperation to complete. *Hmmmm... puts on his tin foil hat...
@duncanidaho11 I do remember the old days before the random button, and agree that wasn't working well or at all. You could que for a stf and nothing, or 45 mins later after you've forgotten you even qued for it you get the hail to start. When a new mission launched they usually would pop instantly, older ones hardly ever popped. Ya it wasn't fun.
I could accept the explanation that the system isn't going to throw players into a random queue, but is mostly designed to help with filling the queues that other people are already waiting in. But I highly doubt that it's even doing that. Cause it seems unlikely that anyone should then have to wait for 45 minutes when queuing for a specific mission.
I haven't had that experience at all lately (both advanced and elite during active US times). The question's always going to be how many people are manually queuing vs. how many people are joining RFTO's. And these populations are split between three difficulty levels now. If there's an over-abundance of people queuing for RFTOs then manual queues will be instantaneous. However, as fewer people queue for randoms at any given point in time then it'll take longer for manual TFOs to fill up. In the extreme case of barely anyone queuing for random relative to the number of manual TFOs queued, those manual matches will have to wait a long time for a full group. This timing will also change with daily, weekly, and seasonal population patterns, such that you can have a bad outcome just from having an activity window that doesn't align with population cycles for a given level of TFO (but there's nothing to do about that from a dev POV beyond make STO more popular and buffer those possible outcomes with more people).
Look at when you're queuing and what level you're queuing for, for the most obvious cause for your problem. And adjust behavior accordingly. Understand base principle of population dynamics before presuming fault in that system.
Also, Arena of Sompek does not qualify as a RTFO. The event version isn't included with the system to avoid that dominating the hoppers, and the regular endless version is wildly inappropriate for it. Miner instabilities *should* queue for it (I've had it a few times this week in elite), but I've never tried to queue for it AND an excluded TFO at the same time. Depending on how the system operates at the back end, THAT could be your problem (but still be cognizant of population cycles and whether you're doing something like queuing manually for normal, which has a lot less interest).
It doesn't really matter when I play, I can play in the afternoon, in the evening or late at night. Some queues just take forever to launch, if they launch at all.
None of us have any data beyond that, that's why I can only speculate that the RTFO system isn't filling up/completing the queues the way it should.
Side note: I do believe I've ended up in Arena of Sompek through the RTFO system at least once. Could be misremembering though.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
It probably works to fill the queues with the most players already sitting in them first - get the 'closet to launching' going.
Honestly the entire network backend of STO has always been cludgey and slow. Sometimes after clicking the accept on an RTO it's taken minutes to launch (way longer than can be accounted for by someone waiting the 59 seconds to click accept.)
And no it's not my PC or my home Fiber connection that runs at 1GB. I've done some network sniffing and it's teh server response in Boston.
^^^
(Trolling comments moderated out. - BMR)
And with Embracer's financial situation, I wouldn't expect server performance or maintenance to improve any time soon unfortunately. Hell, they may revert to the "no paper cups in the breakroom" days from way back when French Info games (aka ATARI) ran the show.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I've been seeing a lot of Starbase One recently. I hope that gets blown up soon.
That is probably because Defense of Starbase One was the universal endeavor before it changed yesterday.
Also, the 59 seconds to respond does not necessarily mean it starts immediately. It looks like if someone loses connection in the way that gets them dumped to the login page it can cause longer delays in some cases, though that is just a theory since the devs don't talk about it.
I've been seeing a lot of Starbase One recently. I hope that gets blown up soon.
That is probably because Defense of Starbase One was the universal endeavor before it changed yesterday.
Also, the 59 seconds to respond does not necessarily mean it starts immediately. It looks like if someone loses connection in the way that gets them dumped to the login page it can cause longer delays in some cases, though that is just a theory since the devs don't talk about it.
Does it count for both version of Defend Starbase One?
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
My feeling is this. If you que an RTFO and sit for 5 minutes waiting, then the waiting player should be put into the TFO alone! Don't tell me it can't be done because I clear Gamma Quadrant Skirmishes alone all the time! If the skirmishes can be done alone then why shouldn't we be able to do all of the TFOs alone?
Often times we're doing them with less than a full team anyway due to the lazy, unskilled and to dumb to follow instructions players.
I sometimes report the AFK players, other times I just do a bit of damage and then just sit back and watch the TFO fail! Which is hilarious because those lazy afk'ers are wanting other players to carry them through it, I do not carry nobody!! Players should do their own work and earn the rewards, quit expecting handouts!!
Until then, report the non participating players or just let the TFO fail. Eventually even the AFK'ers will get sick of wasting time in a TFO for no rewards at all!
My feeling is this. If you que an RTFO and sit for 5 minutes waiting, then the waiting player should be put into the TFO alone! Don't tell me it can't be done because I clear Gamma Quadrant Skirmishes alone all the time! If the skirmishes can be done alone then why shouldn't we be able to do all of the TFOs alone?
Often times we're doing them with less than a full team anyway due to the lazy, unskilled and to dumb to follow instructions players.
I sometimes report the AFK players, other times I just do a bit of damage and then just sit back and watch the TFO fail! Which is hilarious because those lazy afk'ers are wanting other players to carry them through it, I do not carry nobody!! Players should do their own work and earn the rewards, quit expecting handouts!!
Until then, report the non participating players or just let the TFO fail. Eventually even the AFK'ers will get sick of wasting time in a TFO for no rewards at all!
But many missions cannot really be played solo. Some of them can (like Khitomer Vortex) if you like stressing out / the challenge because you have to be at two places at the same time. But many can't.
I enjoy playing Tzenkethi Front, Infected Space, Cure Found or even Khitomer in Statis and so on when I'm doing them solo. But with stuff like Borg Disconnected or Drannuur Gauntlet, there's no point in trying them solo. Unless you accept in advance that half the mission will fail.
And that's not even considering all the missions that are simply impossible to play by yourself, such as Infected Ground or Brotherhood of the Sword.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
But many missions cannot really be played solo. Some of them can (like Khitomer Vortex) if you like stressing out / the challenge because you have to be at two places at the same time. But many can't.
I enjoy playing Tzenkethi Front, Infected Space, Cure Found or even Khitomer in Statis and so on when I'm doing them solo. But with stuff like Borg Disconnected or Drannuur Gauntlet, there's no point in trying them solo. Unless you accept in advance that half the mission will fail.
And that's not even considering all the missions that are simply impossible to play by yourself, such as Infected Ground or Brotherhood of the Sword.
Valid point and I agree. But those TFO's that can be successfully done alone or with minimal players participating could be made to be done alone or with less than 5 que'd. I'm not pretending to know the solution to the problem of AFK'ers or "leaching", just expressing my opinion.
As for the main topic of Randoms not being very random, I mostly see Borg TFO's pop whenever I try to do randoms. Typically 4 out of 5 RTFOs for me will be Borg.
Currently there are 40 space TFO's not counting the 2 event ones. Only 7 of them are Borg enemies by default. So we have basically a 7 in 40 chance of getting Borg and yet I get Borg 90% of the time and often times several in succession.
But many missions cannot really be played solo. Some of them can (like Khitomer Vortex) if you like stressing out / the challenge because you have to be at two places at the same time. But many can't.
I enjoy playing Tzenkethi Front, Infected Space, Cure Found or even Khitomer in Statis and so on when I'm doing them solo. But with stuff like Borg Disconnected or Drannuur Gauntlet, there's no point in trying them solo. Unless you accept in advance that half the mission will fail.
And that's not even considering all the missions that are simply impossible to play by yourself, such as Infected Ground or Brotherhood of the Sword.
Valid point and I agree. But those TFO's that can be successfully done alone or with minimal players participating could be made to be done alone or with less than 5 que'd. I'm not pretending to know the solution to the problem of AFK'ers or "leaching", just expressing my opinion.
As for the main topic of Randoms not being very random, I mostly see Borg TFO's pop whenever I try to do randoms. Typically 4 out of 5 RTFOs for me will be Borg.
Currently there are 40 space TFO's not counting the 2 event ones. Only 7 of them are Borg enemies by default. So we have basically a 7 in 40 chance of getting Borg and yet I get Borg 90% of the time and often times several in succession.
Playing with fewer than 5 players is certainly a good solution.
I'd rather be with 4 or even 3 people and having to do a bit more, than spend more time waiting in the queue than in the actual mission, just to get that 5th person. Whose presence is not even really needed in many cases.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
Playing with fewer than 5 players is certainly a good solution.
I'd rather be with 4 or even 3 people and having to do a bit more, than spend more time waiting in the queue than in the actual mission, just to get that 5th person. Whose presence is not even really needed in many cases.
But many missions cannot really be played solo. Some of them can (like Khitomer Vortex) if you like stressing out / the challenge because you have to be at two places at the same time. But many can't.
I enjoy playing Tzenkethi Front, Infected Space, Cure Found or even Khitomer in Statis and so on when I'm doing them solo. But with stuff like Borg Disconnected or Drannuur Gauntlet, there's no point in trying them solo. Unless you accept in advance that half the mission will fail.
And that's not even considering all the missions that are simply impossible to play by yourself, such as Infected Ground or Brotherhood of the Sword.
Valid point and I agree. But those TFO's that can be successfully done alone or with minimal players participating could be made to be done alone or with less than 5 que'd. I'm not pretending to know the solution to the problem of AFK'ers or "leaching", just expressing my opinion.
As for the main topic of Randoms not being very random, I mostly see Borg TFO's pop whenever I try to do randoms. Typically 4 out of 5 RTFOs for me will be Borg.
Currently there are 40 space TFO's not counting the 2 event ones. Only 7 of them are Borg enemies by default. So we have basically a 7 in 40 chance of getting Borg and yet I get Borg 90% of the time and often times several in succession.
The system isn't designed to make the game more convenient for single players; it's designed to get 5/10/20 players (IE whatever the TFO needs) into a TFO. And remember - there are plenty of casuals (who outnumber the 'at least competent' <-- Read those who stick to one energy type and shot consoles appropriately; and especially outnumber the high DPS crowd) who would struggle as a single in any TFO - even on 'Normal'.
Like it or not, STO was not designed as a single player game, and I doubt the current Dev team is going to spend time turning it into one just for your convenience.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
The system isn't designed to make the game more convenient for single players; it's designed to get 5/10/20 players (IE whatever the TFO needs) into a TFO. And remember - there are plenty of casuals (who outnumber the 'at least competent' <-- Read those who stick to one energy type and shot consoles appropriately; and especially outnumber the high DPS crowd) who would struggle as a single in any TFO - even on 'Normal'.
Like it or not, STO was not designed as a single player game, and I doubt the current Dev team is going to spend time turning it into one just for your convenience.
No one suggested that it be made a single player game. But with DPS monsters killing entire groups of enemies in Advanced TFOs and getting all or most of the kills is basically a MP game that allows one player to have all of the fun.
No we don't expect it to become a single player game, but we would like to see some of the TFOs go ahead and launch even if the team is not completely full of 5 players. And of course there can always be some exceptions.
I think we are getting off the original topic though. Apologies to the OP.
@darpink I think this is a good discussion about the topic. In regards to one of your above posts about being on a team of afker's, I have done that before also. Just sit there watching to see if anyone does anything. I haven't done it often because if there is at least one other player playing i won't let them down.
Another statement above that caught my eye was the number of tfo's available, 40. I'm gonna have to count the number of tfo's that i have actually played through the random button. I'm guessing it's somewhere around half that number, but I'm curious how many.
The Jellyfish was not designed to AFK, it is a "bastion" type tanking unit. What they are meant to do is move into position then dig in and provide shelter and support for their teammates along with some offensive capabilities to keep aggro on them, then move to the next objective area and repeat that.
Often in games that have that kind of tank they have the form of an actual tank that transforms into an area-denial turret with a shield or whatever that other units can take advantage of to get out of the rain of enemy fire and heal/repair themselves, or as channeled auras where they sacrifice most or all of their mobility to provide that (relatively) safe haven (ESO has some support/tank powers like that).
If the player fielding the Jellyfish is just sitting there while dug in then they are not doing it right, they should be using their support abilities to heal other player's ships and indirect attack abilities (like the Voth power crystal and fleet summons stuff, various science attacks that are not shut down by digging in, etc.) to help with the fight and increase the odds of keeping aggro (not easy in STO).
The thing is, a lot of STO players are not that familiar with the trinity concept and have no idea what to do with the more unusual units from that concept (and the aggro system being so broken in STO does not help either). Of course, there is also that weird segment of the playerbase others have mentioned who for some unknown reason seem to think afk'ing is somehow cool, but they do it with all sorts of ships and not just the Jellyfish.
They're not doing anything most of the time. And the way the ship was designed (100% uptime, healing + damage dealing), this allows them to do just that without getting a penalty. That's simply poor design right there.
I just finished a 'Guillotine' (hence why I'm only replying now) where the player parked his ship near the Harmony and then did nothing for the entire duration of the mission. Except laying there and creating a bubble.
Which wasn't even capable of stopping any of the Adaptors or other ships that moved towards the stitching anchors, or the fleeing assimilators (not that this is very relevant, but anyway). That player wasn't helping the team progress whatsoever during the mission, yet he probably wasn't hit with an AFK penalty.
I don't care about trinity and all that stuff. It has nothing to do with the issue at hand: that this is not a legitimate way of playing the game, simply because they're not playing at all.
Allowing this is ridiculous. What self-respecting Dev team would encourage someone to NOT play their game while trolling everyone who actually does play it? If the Devs are going to allow lazy players to AFK a whole mission and not get hit with a penalty, they might as well remove the penalty entirely. Or better: change the console so that players have to do something else, beyond just laying there with their ship. It's as simple as that.
[4:46] [Combat {self}] Your Haymaker deals 23337 (9049) Physical Damage(Critical) to Spawnmother
No, the jellyfish was a free event ship, not a lockbox ship so the company didn't make anything on them like that. And it was not designed as an "AFK ship", it was designed as an active bastion tank. If people are playing it wrong (and apparently a lot are if the comments here are anything to go by) then it is on them for being lazy.
@phoenixc#0738
Me stating incorrectly it is a LockBox ship is irrelevant to its being in the game.
Calling it an active bastion tank and claiming people are using it wrong does not change the fact it is possible to turn on the bubble, go do something else and then come back to collect the TFO rewards. The ship's abilities make it unfair to the rest of the players in any TFO or Event. I went back and watched Encounter at Farpoint right after the ship was placed ingame. Nowhere was the bubble in evidence.
I played the Event the ship comes from and won it as an Event Reward, too. If the fate of STO relied upon me using the Jellyfish or the game would sunset immediately if I did not, we'd all be playing Fortnite less than five minutes later.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
random should be random, not fill in for whatever someone queued for.
Gonna come in here to stamp out this idea (it's a "kill it with fire!" point for the game's health), and address the question of "random" from an informed perspective.
The primary point of the RTFO system was to allow more than a bare handful TFO's to be consistently playable. Way back when the only matches you could get were the alerts, CCA, and borg STFs. There was a limited window for new TFO's to be playable but that waned as their introductory seasons progressed. It was a complete wasteland and fixed at a stroke by the introduction of the hopper system in RTFOs. And they fixed the issue so so completely that folks like yourself have no appreciation for why this system is the way it is (it just hasn't been part of your recent experience with the game, with driving issues largely lost to time). But as someone who was there for the bad old days and remembers them vividly, removing the hopper aspect of RTFO's would violently murder TFOs at a stroke. It's bad enough to have the old system as a point of acclimation (it is what it is, just have to deal with it). But going there after having the fixed system would be a complete dumpster fire scenario for the game.
It's a non-starter, it will never happen, and if some future regime was fool enough to try it some day they'd be patching the system back the week after.
Random also doesn't mean "and each outcome has an equal probability." See. lootbox RNG. It only means you don't have control over the outcome and the odds of any given one is controlled by a distribution. That distribution could be flat, such that the odds. But it could also be normal, gaussian, lognormal, gamma, or any possible mathematical expression for how the odds of each outcome vary or completely irregular. And for RTFO's case: they can be set by the population distribution of queuing STO players. Random TFO's are random. The odds calculation just requires a census of all available matches at a given time of queuing. It's a dynamic system. Nothing about it needs to be changed on that basis. You're just dealing with a more complex example of random events than a D6.
And a point for the OP: while trends in player behavior can shift the odds to favor a given TFO or two (ex. if there's an endeavor for it), there's also a fundamental point that what you're not likely to see in 8 games is a reflection of the total distribution of player queuing. Ie. you can be thrown to the tail end of a probability distribution and get the same things repeatedly, just as bad luck. Don't fall for the fallacy that your experiences are representative, simply because its you having them. Statistically, they're not. Your life is a profoundly unlikely outcome in the first place and, in the context of STO, you can absolutely be the one to get hosed by the luck of the RTFO draw (I haven't had counterpoint in a long while for a case-to-case comparison. Experiences at this level vary).
There's nothing wrong with the game here. It's just stats playing out across the particulars of this self-correcting system. If bored with the same thing over and over from randoms, players are also more likely to manually queue and queue for the change of pace they're seeking. You have that luxury thanks to the RTFO hopper system. Use it when needed.
Manually queuing for a TFO can literally take hours nowadays though, as the constant events tend to herd players towards one or two queues.
Just yesterday for example, I waited 45 minutes in the Miner Instabilities and Arena of Sompek public queues, before giving up out of pure frustration. And this is hardly an unique case.
Which is also why I think the system isn't working the way it should. Surely in those 45 minutes at least 4 players have pushed that random button and should have been added to that MI team? Or are they all being directed to other queues because there are, for example, 4 players waiting for Azure Nebula? Even when those players might have queued for it 30 minutes later than I did?
I could accept the explanation that the system isn't going to throw players into a random queue, but is mostly designed to help with filling the queues that other people are already waiting in. But I highly doubt that it's even doing that. Cause it seems unlikely that anyone should then have to wait for 45 minutes when queuing for a specific mission.
There are some TFOs that are NOT included in the Random system, but they do not provide a list of which ones they are.
(For Example: I think the Crystalline Entity stuff is NOT something that you can get as a Random TFO, and I'm sure there are others. But again, Googled and couldn't find a list of which they are.)
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
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Gonna come in here to stamp out this idea (it's a "kill it with fire!" point for the game's health), and address the question of "random" from an informed perspective.
The primary point of the RTFO system was to allow more than a bare handful TFO's to be consistently playable. Way back when the only matches you could get were the alerts, CCA, and borg STFs. There was a limited window for new TFO's to be playable but that waned as their introductory seasons progressed. It was a complete wasteland and fixed at a stroke by the introduction of the hopper system in RTFOs. And they fixed the issue so so completely that folks like yourself have no appreciation for why this system is the way it is (it just hasn't been part of your recent experience with the game, with driving issues largely lost to time). But as someone who was there for the bad old days and remembers them vividly, removing the hopper aspect of RTFO's would violently murder TFOs at a stroke. It's bad enough to have the old system as a point of acclimation (it is what it is, just have to deal with it). But going there after having the fixed system would be a complete dumpster fire scenario for the game.
It's a non-starter, it will never happen, and if some future regime was fool enough to try it some day they'd be patching the system back the week after.
Random also doesn't mean "and each outcome has an equal probability." See. lootbox RNG. It only means you don't have control over the outcome and the odds of any given one is controlled by a distribution. That distribution could be flat, such that the odds. But it could also be normal, gaussian, lognormal, gamma, or any possible mathematical expression for how the odds of each outcome vary or completely irregular. And for RTFO's case: they can be set by the population distribution of queuing STO players. Random TFO's are random. The odds calculation just requires a census of all available matches at a given time of queuing. It's a dynamic system. Nothing about it needs to be changed on that basis. You're just dealing with a more complex example of random events than a D6.
And a point for the OP: while trends in player behavior can shift the odds to favor a given TFO or two (ex. if there's an endeavor for it), there's also a fundamental point that what you're not likely to see in 8 games is a reflection of the total distribution of player queuing. Ie. you can be thrown to the tail end of a probability distribution and get the same things repeatedly, just as bad luck. Don't fall for the fallacy that your experiences are representative, simply because its you having them. Statistically, they're not. Your life is a profoundly unlikely outcome in the first place and, in the context of STO, you can absolutely be the one to get hosed by the luck of the RTFO draw (I haven't had counterpoint in a long while for a case-to-case comparison. Experiences at this level vary).
There's nothing wrong with the game here. It's just stats playing out across the particulars of this self-correcting system. If bored with the same thing over and over from randoms, players are also more likely to manually queue and queue for the change of pace they're seeking. You have that luxury thanks to the RTFO hopper system. Use it when needed.
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Manually queuing for a TFO can literally take hours nowadays though, as the constant events tend to herd players towards one or two queues.
Just yesterday for example, I waited 45 minutes in the Miner Instabilities and Arena of Sompek public queues, before giving up out of pure frustration. And this is hardly an unique case.
Which is also why I think the system isn't working the way it should. Surely in those 45 minutes at least 4 players have pushed that random button and should have been added to that MI team? Or are they all being directed to other queues because there are, for example, 4 players waiting for Azure Nebula? Even when those players might have queued for it 30 minutes later than I did?
I could accept the explanation that the system isn't going to throw players into a random queue, but is mostly designed to help with filling the queues that other people are already waiting in. But I highly doubt that it's even doing that. Cause it seems unlikely that anyone should then have to wait for 45 minutes when queuing for a specific mission.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
I haven't had that experience at all lately (both advanced and elite during active US times). The question's always going to be how many people are manually queuing vs. how many people are joining RFTO's. And these populations are split between three difficulty levels now. If there's an over-abundance of people queuing for RFTOs then manual queues will be instantaneous. However, as fewer people queue for randoms at any given point in time then it'll take longer for manual TFOs to fill up. In the extreme case of barely anyone queuing for random relative to the number of manual TFOs queued, those manual matches will have to wait a long time for a full group. This timing will also change with daily, weekly, and seasonal population patterns, such that you can have a bad outcome just from having an activity window that doesn't align with population cycles for a given level of TFO (but there's nothing to do about that from a dev POV beyond make STO more popular and buffer those possible outcomes with more people).
Look at when you're queuing and what level you're queuing for, for the most obvious cause for your problem. And adjust behavior accordingly. Understand base principle of population dynamics before presuming fault in that system.
Also, Arena of Sompek does not qualify as a RTFO. The event version isn't included with the system to avoid that dominating the hoppers, and the regular endless version is wildly inappropriate for it. Miner instabilities *should* queue for it (I've had it a few times this week in elite), but I've never tried to queue for it AND an excluded TFO at the same time. Depending on how the system operates at the back end, THAT could be your problem (but still be cognizant of population cycles and whether you're doing something like queuing manually for normal, which has a lot less interest).
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Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
@duncanidaho11 I do remember the old days before the random button, and agree that wasn't working well or at all. You could que for a stf and nothing, or 45 mins later after you've forgotten you even qued for it you get the hail to start. When a new mission launched they usually would pop instantly, older ones hardly ever popped. Ya it wasn't fun.
It doesn't really matter when I play, I can play in the afternoon, in the evening or late at night. Some queues just take forever to launch, if they launch at all.
None of us have any data beyond that, that's why I can only speculate that the RTFO system isn't filling up/completing the queues the way it should.
Side note: I do believe I've ended up in Arena of Sompek through the RTFO system at least once. Could be misremembering though.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
Honestly the entire network backend of STO has always been cludgey and slow. Sometimes after clicking the accept on an RTO it's taken minutes to launch (way longer than can be accounted for by someone waiting the 59 seconds to click accept.)
And no it's not my PC or my home Fiber connection that runs at 1GB. I've done some network sniffing and it's teh server response in Boston.
^^^
(Trolling comments moderated out. - BMR)
And with Embracer's financial situation, I wouldn't expect server performance or maintenance to improve any time soon unfortunately. Hell, they may revert to the "no paper cups in the breakroom" days from way back when French Info games (aka ATARI) ran the show.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
That is probably because Defense of Starbase One was the universal endeavor before it changed yesterday.
Also, the 59 seconds to respond does not necessarily mean it starts immediately. It looks like if someone loses connection in the way that gets them dumped to the login page it can cause longer delays in some cases, though that is just a theory since the devs don't talk about it.
Does it count for both version of Defend Starbase One?
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Often times we're doing them with less than a full team anyway due to the lazy, unskilled and to dumb to follow instructions players.
I sometimes report the AFK players, other times I just do a bit of damage and then just sit back and watch the TFO fail! Which is hilarious because those lazy afk'ers are wanting other players to carry them through it, I do not carry nobody!! Players should do their own work and earn the rewards, quit expecting handouts!!
Until then, report the non participating players or just let the TFO fail. Eventually even the AFK'ers will get sick of wasting time in a TFO for no rewards at all!
But many missions cannot really be played solo. Some of them can (like Khitomer Vortex) if you like stressing out / the challenge because you have to be at two places at the same time. But many can't.
I enjoy playing Tzenkethi Front, Infected Space, Cure Found or even Khitomer in Statis and so on when I'm doing them solo. But with stuff like Borg Disconnected or Drannuur Gauntlet, there's no point in trying them solo. Unless you accept in advance that half the mission will fail.
And that's not even considering all the missions that are simply impossible to play by yourself, such as Infected Ground or Brotherhood of the Sword.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
As for the main topic of Randoms not being very random, I mostly see Borg TFO's pop whenever I try to do randoms. Typically 4 out of 5 RTFOs for me will be Borg.
Currently there are 40 space TFO's not counting the 2 event ones. Only 7 of them are Borg enemies by default. So we have basically a 7 in 40 chance of getting Borg and yet I get Borg 90% of the time and often times several in succession.
Playing with fewer than 5 players is certainly a good solution.
I'd rather be with 4 or even 3 people and having to do a bit more, than spend more time waiting in the queue than in the actual mission, just to get that 5th person. Whose presence is not even really needed in many cases.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
The system isn't designed to make the game more convenient for single players; it's designed to get 5/10/20 players (IE whatever the TFO needs) into a TFO. And remember - there are plenty of casuals (who outnumber the 'at least competent' <-- Read those who stick to one energy type and shot consoles appropriately; and especially outnumber the high DPS crowd) who would struggle as a single in any TFO - even on 'Normal'.
Like it or not, STO was not designed as a single player game, and I doubt the current Dev team is going to spend time turning it into one just for your convenience.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
No we don't expect it to become a single player game, but we would like to see some of the TFOs go ahead and launch even if the team is not completely full of 5 players. And of course there can always be some exceptions.
I think we are getting off the original topic though. Apologies to the OP.
Another statement above that caught my eye was the number of tfo's available, 40. I'm gonna have to count the number of tfo's that i have actually played through the random button. I'm guessing it's somewhere around half that number, but I'm curious how many.
They're not doing anything most of the time. And the way the ship was designed (100% uptime, healing + damage dealing), this allows them to do just that without getting a penalty. That's simply poor design right there.
I just finished a 'Guillotine' (hence why I'm only replying now) where the player parked his ship near the Harmony and then did nothing for the entire duration of the mission. Except laying there and creating a bubble.
Which wasn't even capable of stopping any of the Adaptors or other ships that moved towards the stitching anchors, or the fleeing assimilators (not that this is very relevant, but anyway). That player wasn't helping the team progress whatsoever during the mission, yet he probably wasn't hit with an AFK penalty.
I don't care about trinity and all that stuff. It has nothing to do with the issue at hand: that this is not a legitimate way of playing the game, simply because they're not playing at all.
Allowing this is ridiculous. What self-respecting Dev team would encourage someone to NOT play their game while trolling everyone who actually does play it? If the Devs are going to allow lazy players to AFK a whole mission and not get hit with a penalty, they might as well remove the penalty entirely. Or better: change the console so that players have to do something else, beyond just laying there with their ship. It's as simple as that.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
No, the jellyfish was a free event ship, not a lockbox ship so the company didn't make anything on them like that. And it was not designed as an "AFK ship", it was designed as an active bastion tank. If people are playing it wrong (and apparently a lot are if the comments here are anything to go by) then it is on them for being lazy.
Me stating incorrectly it is a LockBox ship is irrelevant to its being in the game.
Calling it an active bastion tank and claiming people are using it wrong does not change the fact it is possible to turn on the bubble, go do something else and then come back to collect the TFO rewards. The ship's abilities make it unfair to the rest of the players in any TFO or Event. I went back and watched Encounter at Farpoint right after the ship was placed ingame. Nowhere was the bubble in evidence.
I played the Event the ship comes from and won it as an Event Reward, too. If the fate of STO relied upon me using the Jellyfish or the game would sunset immediately if I did not, we'd all be playing Fortnite less than five minutes later.
There are some TFOs that are NOT included in the Random system, but they do not provide a list of which ones they are.
(For Example: I think the Crystalline Entity stuff is NOT something that you can get as a Random TFO, and I'm sure there are others. But again, Googled and couldn't find a list of which they are.)
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."