Even though the event is gone now: Actually the "consoles only show up after the first" was the reason I was always running for the first console, so people would know where to run, especially in the first and fourth sector (in the second and third I tried the optionals first: 5 marks of choice for 10 seconds of work seem like a good deal). I never really bothered about the new spawns, enemies are quite manageable (and I am using new characters who for example have no reputation tiers, so no abilities nor gear, nor any later episode gear, so quite far removed from a meta build, only thing they have is the Herald projector as a weapon). I usually also had time to run for one of the other consoles myself as well - and then stay there. I kind of expected it to fail, but now people know where to go to.
As for the introductory cutscene - for me it always was finished before the initial timer ran out. Don't know if slower connections might have a problem though. But usually everybody was already dancing in the shuttle or similar to keep themselves occupied.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
In the Brotherhood of the Sword mission it is a misconception that the initial batch has to be killed prior to activating the devices.
Especially on normal difficulty the NPC are merely a distraction. The slowest member of the team can easily clean out whatever remains from the activation phase.
I've seen a run which took less than 3 minutes.
Initial spawns don't have to be killed, no. But that only really counts for the first one and the fourth - because that MACO team for example won't get succesfully extracted as long as there are two groups of enemies shooting at them.
But even for that first and fourth initial group, it's not always a great idea to ignore them. I've been in plenty of teams where one or two players got overwhelmed because one player rushed and the rest wasn't built to deal with being attacked from three different directions at the same time.
Worst instance was the one where the rushing player didn't even provide cover fire at all, she was just hitting F once and then kept standing there while the rest had to deal with the chaos she created. To me, this is pretty arrogant behaviour.
And it's rather pointless too, because the result, very often, is that the mission only takes longer to complete. This mission requires teamwork - it's fine if you know the team can tank the damage and everyone wants to rush it, but it shouldn't be assumed that this is the case.
Especially Fused Constructs and Thrall's can hit hard with their melee attacks, even on normal difficulty and kill with one or two movements of their arms or slashes of their staff. Many players aren't really built for taking large amounts of damage anyway, as they tend to be built more offensively.
(Besides all that, I've even seen instances where players deactivate the first console without anyone else even being near any of the secondary spawn points. Which is probably the most pointless and dumbest thing to do.)
I never did brotherhood of the sword because I'm not big on ground stuff, but I ran it a few times and I see exactly what you mean...people would rush to the closest objective and just spam it before anyone was in place for the others and just took longer because of resets
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
The biggest drawback is that it was a campaign TFO which means the shortest TFO is the most likely to be repeated over and again.
Even when a groups at the start of the event take optional goals of the TFO into account instead of rushing to get it done as fast as possible, the willingness to do that after repeating a far too easy TFO for two/three weeks drops considerably.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
The biggest drawback is that it was a campaign TFO which means the shortest TFO is the most likely to be repeated over and again.
Even when a groups at the start of the event take optional goals of the TFO into account instead of rushing to get it done as fast as possible, the willingness to do that after repeating a far too easy TFO for two/three weeks drops considerably.
Eh, I find myself balancing that impulse out over time as repetition gets to me by playing suboptimal choices to keep myself sane.
Any task in STO can be simplified as time vs. reward. Any event can therefore be optimized by whichever is the shortest TFO for the prize. See. red alerts and which are most frequently played. The event campaign just means players are more likely to push themselves forward and complete the event vs. skipping if the immediate rewards don't grab them. Players on this bubble are quite liable to be those closer to burnout (valuing grinding as a bigger cost than players who're brimming with enthusiasm to log in every day) and so those players I think are more likely to occasionally vary up around *workable* TFO's for a quick run than stick to one religiously and accentuate the grind.
Ie. it balances out. One thing gets popular but the appreciation for that is subject to a countervailing tedium parameter which maintains other options at low levels. That thing may still dominate but it can still be pushing players into other TFOs for relief. Having the options beyond the quickest is therefore vital for folks not to burn their brains out with this stuff. Driving the biggest numbers is not the only way to judge something's value to an ecosystem, which is a trap for game designers (focused on big numbers) who think the only way to keep the population happy is to give it more of what it plays *most.* Keeping interactions between content in mind is vital for long term population satisfaction. Ex. pushing off beat content on occasion because for the few times it's played, its played in critical situations for player mental health.
(And if you are feeling burnout, for the love of Q don't keep trying to min-max your time with a game for the reward payout. Engage with variety for variety's sake.)
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!
One way I avoid burnout is to use different ships to do events, though lately I have been mostly using the same few captains and working though the short list of ships needed to get their main ship's traits where they need to be rather than switching between captains the way I usually do. I find it is rare that a three-option event like this has more than one that has a low enough irritation factor to switch scenarios to accomplish that burnout avoidance effectively.
I do that as a matter of course too, swapping ships and/or primary characters when I feel the burn out. Using events as a trigger though would help get ahead of the problem vs. reacting to it...
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!
The biggest drawback is that it was a campaign TFO which means the shortest TFO is the most likely to be repeated over and again.
Even when a groups at the start of the event take optional goals of the TFO into account instead of rushing to get it done as fast as possible, the willingness to do that after repeating a far too easy TFO for two/three weeks drops considerably.
This! Doubly so when the optional goals break all the time. Getting the operative or MACO team to actually move toward the evac point is a loaded dice roll..i`m not going to spend 2-3 minutes babysitting a team of AI thats so dumb it get stuck on terrain when frankly i can and have completed the entire TFO in 3 minutes with a team that can put their shoes on the correct foot. I suspect a big issue is people either not realizing they can or just not skipping the cinematic so they are sitting there not moving while half the team are already into the next arena.
I am always disappointed when people like the OPs immediate response to people not playing their way is to punish them..because that always has such a wonderful effect on people wanting to play the game.
Plus their suggestion of bug hunt being in the next event is ridiculous..you actively want to feature a TFO that has the known problem of the Pestilants getting stuck in canyon walls becoming impossible to target leading to the entire team taking a quit penalty?
Oh and if you are going rush max efficiency...just remember if you have completed the endevour ground speed perk you are fast enough to hit that first console AND make it to the furthest console that spawns no matter which one spawns and deal with that too, leaving only the nearest console to the previous area for the rest of the team to deal with, which i assume will annoy the OP even more.
I am always disappointed when people like the OPs immediate response to people not playing their way is to punish them..because that always has such a wonderful effect on people wanting to play the game.
<snip>
Oh and if you are going rush max efficiency...just remember if you have completed the endevour ground speed perk you are fast enough to hit that first console AND make it to the furthest console that spawns no matter which one spawns and deal with that too, leaving only the nearest console to the previous area for the rest of the team to deal with, which i assume will annoy the OP even more.
It sounded less like this, and more like "wah, none of the TFOs in the event are ones I can solo in 3 minutes with a million DPS ship" to me, quite honestly. They basically don't want to play the event, they want a solo instance of it where they can finish it like that and not have to deal with "multiplayer" TRIBBLE and "scrubs" who don't DPS like gods.
I am always disappointed when people like the OPs immediate response to people not playing their way is to punish them..because that always has such a wonderful effect on people wanting to play the game.
<snip>
Oh and if you are going rush max efficiency...just remember if you have completed the endevour ground speed perk you are fast enough to hit that first console AND make it to the furthest console that spawns no matter which one spawns and deal with that too, leaving only the nearest console to the previous area for the rest of the team to deal with, which i assume will annoy the OP even more.
It sounded less like this, and more like "wah, none of the TFOs in the event are ones I can solo in 3 minutes with a million DPS ship" to me, quite honestly. They basically don't want to play the event, they want a solo instance of it where they can finish it like that and not have to deal with "multiplayer" TRIBBLE and "scrubs" who don't DPS like gods.
That's completely the wrong take and the opposite to what is being said. The people who don't want to play events tend to be ones that like the current auto win events we have now. Its also tends to be the super low DPS players that don't want to play the event.
The problem is the event TFO's are deigned to be not only far to easy but also auto win. When an event is auto win it feels pointless running it with no feeling of reward or accomplishment for completing it. So many of us fall into the pattern of picking fastest auto win as there is no point sitting there for the longer auto win.
The people who do high DPS: do high DPS because they want to play the game and understand how the game works. They want a challenge and they want to do things that matter. Not sit there and get given a handout.
Its not about wanting to finish it as fast as possible. It about making is so the players actions matter. If the player actions don't matter you may as well just pick the shortest event TFO. If there was a fast auto win TFO and a longer TFO that is more fun to play we play the longer TFO. If it was more fun and playable on Elite only I would still pick the Elite longer TFO over the auto win easy fast TFO.
So please stop blaming the high DPS players. The problems are not caused by the high DPS players who are actually very rare to bump into in TFO's.
The biggest drawback is that it was a campaign TFO which means the shortest TFO is the most likely to be repeated over and again.
Even when a groups at the start of the event take optional goals of the TFO into account instead of rushing to get it done as fast as possible, the willingness to do that after repeating a far too easy TFO for two/three weeks drops considerably.
This! Doubly so when the optional goals break all the time. Getting the operative or MACO team to actually move toward the evac point is a loaded dice roll..i`m not going to spend 2-3 minutes babysitting a team of AI thats so dumb it get stuck on terrain when frankly i can and have completed the entire TFO in 3 minutes with a team that can put their shoes on the correct foot. I suspect a big issue is people either not realizing they can or just not skipping the cinematic so they are sitting there not moving while half the team are already into the next arena.
I am always disappointed when people like the OPs immediate response to people not playing their way is to punish them..because that always has such a wonderful effect on people wanting to play the game.
Plus their suggestion of bug hunt being in the next event is ridiculous..you actively want to feature a TFO that has the known problem of the Pestilants getting stuck in canyon walls becoming impossible to target leading to the entire team taking a quit penalty?
Oh and if you are going rush max efficiency...just remember if you have completed the endevour ground speed perk you are fast enough to hit that first console AND make it to the furthest console that spawns no matter which one spawns and deal with that too, leaving only the nearest console to the previous area for the rest of the team to deal with, which i assume will annoy the OP even more.
The NPC's 'AI', like that of Boffs, is horrible, yes. But let's not exaggerate here. Escorting the MACO team (when no additional NPC's are spawned due to triggering the devices too soon) would take like 20 seconds, tops. I don't get why so many people are pretending like it would suddenly take like 10 minutes or so instead of 2 if you did those optionals. That's ridiculous and just not true.
As for the punishment thing: yes, I believe there should be some consequences for deliberately ignoring like half the mission - and, most importantly, robbing others of the ability to do that. Some of us like to actually play the content.
Regarding your last paragraph: it is possible indeed, the problem is that most people triggering the first console don't actually do that. They just stand there, even turning around and providing some cover fire (which should be possible with like half the weapon types - full auto, split beam, sniper rifles etc.) seems to much to ask for in most cases.
It seems people who disagree with my post think I don't like speed runs. I do, but 'speed running' shouldn't be an excuse for ignoring large parts of a mission or just dumbly creating chaos. Speed runs can be done properly, what I've seen in BotS isn't it.
I am always disappointed when people like the OPs immediate response to people not playing their way is to punish them..because that always has such a wonderful effect on people wanting to play the game.
<snip>
Oh and if you are going rush max efficiency...just remember if you have completed the endevour ground speed perk you are fast enough to hit that first console AND make it to the furthest console that spawns no matter which one spawns and deal with that too, leaving only the nearest console to the previous area for the rest of the team to deal with, which i assume will annoy the OP even more.
It sounded less like this, and more like "wah, none of the TFOs in the event are ones I can solo in 3 minutes with a million DPS ship" to me, quite honestly. They basically don't want to play the event, they want a solo instance of it where they can finish it like that and not have to deal with "multiplayer" TRIBBLE and "scrubs" who don't DPS like gods.
That's a very weird conclusion to draw from my post. Honestly, I have no idea how you reached that.
If anything, I think I've made it sufficiently clear that I actually do want to play the content (including optionals) - if players' actions actually matter. In stuff like GtG, nothing you do matters.
I am always disappointed when people like the OPs immediate response to people not playing their way is to punish them..because that always has such a wonderful effect on people wanting to play the game.
<snip>
Oh and if you are going rush max efficiency...just remember if you have completed the endevour ground speed perk you are fast enough to hit that first console AND make it to the furthest console that spawns no matter which one spawns and deal with that too, leaving only the nearest console to the previous area for the rest of the team to deal with, which i assume will annoy the OP even more.
It sounded less like this, and more like "wah, none of the TFOs in the event are ones I can solo in 3 minutes with a million DPS ship" to me, quite honestly. They basically don't want to play the event, they want a solo instance of it where they can finish it like that and not have to deal with "multiplayer" TRIBBLE and "scrubs" who don't DPS like gods.
That's completely the wrong take and the opposite to what is being said. The people who don't want to play events tend to be ones that like the current auto win events we have now. Its also tends to be the super low DPS players that don't want to play the event.
The problem is the event TFO's are deigned to be not only far to easy but also auto win. When an event is auto win it feels pointless running it with no feeling of reward or accomplishment for completing it. So many of us fall into the pattern of picking fastest auto win as there is no point sitting there for the longer auto win.
The people who do high DPS: do high DPS because they want to play the game and understand how the game works. They want a challenge and they want to do things that matter. Not sit there and get given a handout.
Its not about wanting to finish it as fast as possible. It about making is so the players actions matter. If the player actions don't matter you may as well just pick the shortest event TFO. If there was a fast auto win TFO and a longer TFO that is more fun to play we play the longer TFO. If it was more fun and playable on Elite only I would still pick the Elite longer TFO over the auto win easy fast TFO.
So please stop blaming the high DPS players. The problems are not caused by the high DPS players who are actually very rare to bump into in TFO's.
This is an accurate assessment.
This thread was never about DPS, it's about letting us play missions where players' actions make a difference in the outcome of the mission.
Edit: and there are many more ways to have players' actions matter than just having them 'DPS through' content. Healing allied NPC's, crowd control, activating consoles or whatever - there are all sorts of ways players can make themselves useful in a well-designed mission with a variety of tasks. But whatever those who design the mission pick as objectives, completing them or not (or doing well on those tasks vs totally ignoring them) needs to make a difference.
t me, the TL;DR is people are not listening to the instructions, and there is frustration that there was one group needing to pew pew the way out, a group who did that just because they are high DPS, and a group that just wanted to slap consoles and git it done asap. it would have been interesting to have the optionals in place but the first group i classified would have cause a failure rate of about 90%
Comments
As for the introductory cutscene - for me it always was finished before the initial timer ran out. Don't know if slower connections might have a problem though. But usually everybody was already dancing in the shuttle or similar to keep themselves occupied.
I never did brotherhood of the sword because I'm not big on ground stuff, but I ran it a few times and I see exactly what you mean...people would rush to the closest objective and just spam it before anyone was in place for the others and just took longer because of resets
Even when a groups at the start of the event take optional goals of the TFO into account instead of rushing to get it done as fast as possible, the willingness to do that after repeating a far too easy TFO for two/three weeks drops considerably.
Eh, I find myself balancing that impulse out over time as repetition gets to me by playing suboptimal choices to keep myself sane.
Any task in STO can be simplified as time vs. reward. Any event can therefore be optimized by whichever is the shortest TFO for the prize. See. red alerts and which are most frequently played. The event campaign just means players are more likely to push themselves forward and complete the event vs. skipping if the immediate rewards don't grab them. Players on this bubble are quite liable to be those closer to burnout (valuing grinding as a bigger cost than players who're brimming with enthusiasm to log in every day) and so those players I think are more likely to occasionally vary up around *workable* TFO's for a quick run than stick to one religiously and accentuate the grind.
Ie. it balances out. One thing gets popular but the appreciation for that is subject to a countervailing tedium parameter which maintains other options at low levels. That thing may still dominate but it can still be pushing players into other TFOs for relief. Having the options beyond the quickest is therefore vital for folks not to burn their brains out with this stuff. Driving the biggest numbers is not the only way to judge something's value to an ecosystem, which is a trap for game designers (focused on big numbers) who think the only way to keep the population happy is to give it more of what it plays *most.* Keeping interactions between content in mind is vital for long term population satisfaction. Ex. pushing off beat content on occasion because for the few times it's played, its played in critical situations for player mental health.
(And if you are feeling burnout, for the love of Q don't keep trying to min-max your time with a game for the reward payout. Engage with variety for variety's sake.)
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!
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!
This! Doubly so when the optional goals break all the time. Getting the operative or MACO team to actually move toward the evac point is a loaded dice roll..i`m not going to spend 2-3 minutes babysitting a team of AI thats so dumb it get stuck on terrain when frankly i can and have completed the entire TFO in 3 minutes with a team that can put their shoes on the correct foot. I suspect a big issue is people either not realizing they can or just not skipping the cinematic so they are sitting there not moving while half the team are already into the next arena.
I am always disappointed when people like the OPs immediate response to people not playing their way is to punish them..because that always has such a wonderful effect on people wanting to play the game.
Plus their suggestion of bug hunt being in the next event is ridiculous..you actively want to feature a TFO that has the known problem of the Pestilants getting stuck in canyon walls becoming impossible to target leading to the entire team taking a quit penalty?
Oh and if you are going rush max efficiency...just remember if you have completed the endevour ground speed perk you are fast enough to hit that first console AND make it to the furthest console that spawns no matter which one spawns and deal with that too, leaving only the nearest console to the previous area for the rest of the team to deal with, which i assume will annoy the OP even more.
It sounded less like this, and more like "wah, none of the TFOs in the event are ones I can solo in 3 minutes with a million DPS ship" to me, quite honestly. They basically don't want to play the event, they want a solo instance of it where they can finish it like that and not have to deal with "multiplayer" TRIBBLE and "scrubs" who don't DPS like gods.
The problem is the event TFO's are deigned to be not only far to easy but also auto win. When an event is auto win it feels pointless running it with no feeling of reward or accomplishment for completing it. So many of us fall into the pattern of picking fastest auto win as there is no point sitting there for the longer auto win.
The people who do high DPS: do high DPS because they want to play the game and understand how the game works. They want a challenge and they want to do things that matter. Not sit there and get given a handout.
Its not about wanting to finish it as fast as possible. It about making is so the players actions matter. If the player actions don't matter you may as well just pick the shortest event TFO. If there was a fast auto win TFO and a longer TFO that is more fun to play we play the longer TFO. If it was more fun and playable on Elite only I would still pick the Elite longer TFO over the auto win easy fast TFO.
So please stop blaming the high DPS players. The problems are not caused by the high DPS players who are actually very rare to bump into in TFO's.
The NPC's 'AI', like that of Boffs, is horrible, yes. But let's not exaggerate here. Escorting the MACO team (when no additional NPC's are spawned due to triggering the devices too soon) would take like 20 seconds, tops. I don't get why so many people are pretending like it would suddenly take like 10 minutes or so instead of 2 if you did those optionals. That's ridiculous and just not true.
As for the punishment thing: yes, I believe there should be some consequences for deliberately ignoring like half the mission - and, most importantly, robbing others of the ability to do that. Some of us like to actually play the content.
Regarding your last paragraph: it is possible indeed, the problem is that most people triggering the first console don't actually do that. They just stand there, even turning around and providing some cover fire (which should be possible with like half the weapon types - full auto, split beam, sniper rifles etc.) seems to much to ask for in most cases.
It seems people who disagree with my post think I don't like speed runs. I do, but 'speed running' shouldn't be an excuse for ignoring large parts of a mission or just dumbly creating chaos. Speed runs can be done properly, what I've seen in BotS isn't it.
That's a very weird conclusion to draw from my post. Honestly, I have no idea how you reached that.
If anything, I think I've made it sufficiently clear that I actually do want to play the content (including optionals) - if players' actions actually matter. In stuff like GtG, nothing you do matters.
This is an accurate assessment.
This thread was never about DPS, it's about letting us play missions where players' actions make a difference in the outcome of the mission.
Edit: and there are many more ways to have players' actions matter than just having them 'DPS through' content. Healing allied NPC's, crowd control, activating consoles or whatever - there are all sorts of ways players can make themselves useful in a well-designed mission with a variety of tasks. But whatever those who design the mission pick as objectives, completing them or not (or doing well on those tasks vs totally ignoring them) needs to make a difference.