Star Trek Online Discussion Thread (now free to play!) - Page 186

intrinsical · November 15 2012, 07:49 AM

Annndddddd Cryptic's opened Pandora's Box.

Elite STF channels have started forming level 1 private SB24 swarms that cut down those klingon ships as if they were butter. 1440 dilithium in 90 seconds tops, no cooldown.

So Cryptic wanted players to have more dilithium, they've got it.

Rocketeer · November 15 2012, 12:51 PM

Scout101 wrote:

The SB24 (the new farm zone) DOES award DIL, but it's nothing but spam the spacebar for 1 minute, collect rewards. Why in the hell would you want to do that, and why's it preferable to what we were doing? Boring as all hell.

I ran SB24 several times during the double fleet marks. Can be done in 20 minutes with a bad pug, quicker if you have players that know what they're doing.

Scout101 · November 15 2012, 12:55 PM

I didn't say it took very long. I said it was boring as hell. ZERO strategy, no teamwork, just rush in, slam the spacebar for a minute or two, collect DIL.

Again, it's not that the new required farming is hard, it's that it's mind-numbingly boring. And I have no interest in playing it...

As for the New Romulus stuff? Kinda symptomatic of Cryptic's overall issue: visually, it's very nice. They've created a nice little adventure planet setting. But they didn't create any adventures to HAVE on the planet. Scan 5 of x, encourage Y number of workers to stop being lazy shits, go over there and click "f" 5 times. It's just grindy little mini-games, but no reason behind it, or much fun in it. They like to play with the systems, but have abandoned the gameplay portion, the reason to DO the things. It's just another new currency, grindfests to collect it 10 marks at a time, and then a massive sink to drop them in. Despite an obvious amount of work that went into it, I just don't see the point. Ran around for a couple hours there, and pretty much already had enough.

They did the same thing with Bajor. Created a great map, beautiful scenery. And then just put a couple tiny grind games in there and abandoned it. When was the last time you were there? They spend all this time on it, and it's wasted because they can't figure out how to make them ENGAGING. Just nice scenery or 'click f 5 times' missions.

They also can't seem to just TWEAK anything. They go in for wholesale changes to the entire system. If they weren't happy with DIL rates, could have tried adjusting things, more here, little less there, see what happens. Instead, they nuke the most popular ones (to the point where the backlash already has them reversing course), attach the big rewards to garbage missions that no one plays anymore (not because of the rewards, but because they are boring, awful missions), nuke several currencies (again), create whole new ones (screwing everyone yet again on the conversion rates), etc. Can't even make sense of half of what they changed. Even little stuff, like visual items like the PVE queue screen. Awful, muddled mess. What was wrong with that one? Or knowing roughly how many people were in the queue, whether it was worth signing up in the first place.

J. Allen · November 15 2012, 01:21 PM

Yep. So it's all about SB24, now. I queued up, was able to go in 2 seconds, and that was at 11:00 PM at night on a weeknight! Off we go. I figured I'd get in there, we'd work together and get them taken down in no time. Sure enough, I show up, everyone's already pewpewpewing, and 3 minutes later, we're all done. Ta da?

intrinsical · November 15 2012, 01:42 PM

Scout101 wrote:

As for the New Romulus stuff? Kinda symptomatic of Cryptic's overall issue: visually, it's very nice. They've created a nice little adventure planet setting. But they didn't create any adventures to HAVE on the planet. Scan 5 of x, encourage Y number of workers to stop being lazy shits, go over there and click "f" 5 times. It's just grindy little mini-games, but no reason behind it, or much fun in it. They like to play with the systems, but have abandoned the gameplay portion, the reason to DO the things. It's just another new currency, grindfests to collect it 10 marks at a time, and then a massive sink to drop them in. Despite an obvious amount of work that went into it, I just don't see the point.

Agreed. It comes down to having only one writer on the team who seem to be treated as a junior staff and does not seem to have any power or say in what goes into the game.

Strangely, Champs Online seem to have a much stronger and more cohesive storyline with actual adventures and such.

Rocketeer · November 15 2012, 03:05 PM

Well, I don't "love" SB24 either. Actually I'm still upset that they took out the ground mission. I just use it a lot to test my ship builds.

Bajor was a lost opportunity. I haven't been back since the FEs.

J. Allen · November 15 2012, 03:46 PM

SB24 is good for testing builds, that's true. Everyone I've seen enter the match tends to get their asses handed to them at least once (myself included). Part of the issue for me is that once they start releasing boarding parties, and torpedoes, and other things that add up quickly on screen so that there's a whole bunch of random garbage everywhere and the monitor is filled and my ship can't even target anything there's so much of it, my computer just says "fuck it", and I get updates every 3 seconds about what's going on, on the screen.

Timelord_Victorious · November 15 2012, 04:10 PM

Zje design flaw is that while you kill the small ships you are forced to move right into the middle of the spawn area for every Klingon battleship in the fleet.

There is almost no amount of tanking that will get you out of this alive. So you go boom, respawn and start picking them off from the rim again.

Rocketeer · November 15 2012, 04:43 PM

Yep, when too many things get onscreen it get difficult to select my intended target. Most of my characters do fine in PVE fights. Of course my engineers fight much different than my sci and tac officers. On the SB24 I look for a player that seems to know what he's doing and take up a wingman position. Most players realize that my proximaty is to their advantage and we work together without having any conversation (I can't type and fly a starship at the same time - that's why they invented Vent).

On another note - I respec'd all my VA/LG characters. Previously, most of their skills were just added willy-nilly as I earned enough points to advance them. So now my engineers are better focused tanks, plus they have 3 tiers in threat so they get a little more attention. My tac is now better focused on tactical stuff and has 1 tier in threat. My sci officers are better focused on sci/med stuff and have 0 in threat. If you think that I've made any mistakes, let me know as I have respec tokens to burn. Some characters have as many as 12 respec tokens.
.

Timelord_Victorious · November 15 2012, 11:34 PM

Just in case, any of you decide to check out Star Wars - The Old Republic, now that that is free to play as well, and want to team up for some Jedi action, you will find me on The Progenitor (RP-PVE Server Europe). If you are American and don't want to join a Euro server I have a character on the other side of the Pond as well, don`t remember the Server name right now.

Harvey · November 16 2012, 12:03 AM

I like the new salt vampire ground mission, but I wish Cryptic would tweak it a little bit so that the non-combat phases in the beginning (telling people to go into their homes; reinforcing the buildings) had much of an effect on the combat portions that follow.

Hartzilla2007 · November 16 2012, 03:11 AM

Well new Romulus was fun, finally some explorationish stuff to do.

Also I had a very good elite infected space run today, got the optional and as a result have enough omega marks to get a decent start on the reputation stuff.

J. Allen · November 16 2012, 03:54 AM

I'm getting blown the hell up an awful lot in SB24. My ship will explode with 0% hull, but full shields. Something doesn't seem right. I've posted in a thread where they're discussing something similar with the STFs over at the forum. Hopefully someone will know what's up. Also, for the record, I'm using the complete Borg set.

Rocketeer · November 16 2012, 01:16 PM

Timelord_Victorious wrote:

Just in case, any of you decide to check out Star Wars - The Old Republic, now that that is free to play as well, and want to team up for some Jedi action, you will find me on The Progenitor (RP-PVE Server Europe). If you are American and don't want to join a Euro server I have a character on the other side of the Pond as well, don`t remember the Server name right now.

Yes, I need any advice you can give. I bought the client and gamecard off Amazon and it should arrive soon.

Rocketeer · November 16 2012, 01:23 PM

J. Allen wrote:

I'm getting blown the hell up an awful lot in SB24. My ship will explode with 0% hull, but full shields. Something doesn't seem right. I've posted in a thread where they're discussing something similar with the STFs over at the forum. Hopefully someone will know what's up. Also, for the record, I'm using the complete Borg set.

They must have figured out your shield modulation frequency. :-P

I didn't notice that myself, but the two characters I've tested it with are tanks. I make it a priority to keep the hull healed, even to the extent of ignoring the shields. My philosophy is that it doesn't matter what happens to my ship as long as I have "hull" I'm still in the fight.

I did notice a sharp decrease in dilithium reward and a cool-down on the every PVE mission I tried.

November 15 2012, 07:49 AM	#2776
intrinsical Fleet Captain	Re: Star Trek Online Discussion Thread (now free to play!) Annndddddd Cryptic's opened Pandora's Box. Elite STF channels have started forming level 1 private SB24 swarms that cut down those klingon ships as if they were butter. 1440 dilithium in 90 seconds tops, no cooldown. So Cryptic wanted players to have more dilithium, they've got it. __________________ USS Sentinel, Luna Class (STO) Last edited by intrinsical; November 15 2012 at 08:24 AM.

November 15 2012, 12:55 PM	#2778
Scout101 Admiral Location: Rhode Island, USA	Re: Star Trek Online Discussion Thread (now free to play!) I didn't say it took very long. I said it was boring as hell. ZERO strategy, no teamwork, just rush in, slam the spacebar for a minute or two, collect DIL. Again, it's not that the new required farming is hard, it's that it's mind-numbingly boring. And I have no interest in playing it... As for the New Romulus stuff? Kinda symptomatic of Cryptic's overall issue: visually, it's very nice. They've created a nice little adventure planet setting. But they didn't create any adventures to HAVE on the planet. Scan 5 of x, encourage Y number of workers to stop being lazy shits, go over there and click "f" 5 times. It's just grindy little mini-games, but no reason behind it, or much fun in it. They like to play with the systems, but have abandoned the gameplay portion, the reason to DO the things. It's just another new currency, grindfests to collect it 10 marks at a time, and then a massive sink to drop them in. Despite an obvious amount of work that went into it, I just don't see the point. Ran around for a couple hours there, and pretty much already had enough. They did the same thing with Bajor. Created a great map, beautiful scenery. And then just put a couple tiny grind games in there and abandoned it. When was the last time you were there? They spend all this time on it, and it's wasted because they can't figure out how to make them ENGAGING. Just nice scenery or 'click f 5 times' missions. They also can't seem to just TWEAK anything. They go in for wholesale changes to the entire system. If they weren't happy with DIL rates, could have tried adjusting things, more here, little less there, see what happens. Instead, they nuke the most popular ones (to the point where the backlash already has them reversing course), attach the big rewards to garbage missions that no one plays anymore (not because of the rewards, but because they are boring, awful missions), nuke several currencies (again), create whole new ones (screwing everyone yet again on the conversion rates), etc. Can't even make sense of half of what they changed. Even little stuff, like visual items like the PVE queue screen. Awful, muddled mess. What was wrong with that one? Or knowing roughly how many people were in the queue, whether it was worth signing up in the first place. __________________ Perhaps, if I am very lucky, the feeble efforts of my lifetime will someday be noticed and maybe, in some small way, they will be acknowledged as the greatest works of genius ever created by man. ~Jack Handey STO: @JScout33 Last edited by Scout101; November 15 2012 at 01:05 PM.

November 15 2012, 01:21 PM	#2779
J. Allen Professional Enabler Location: A Quantum State	Re: Star Trek Online Discussion Thread (now free to play!) Yep. So it's all about SB24, now. I queued up, was able to go in 2 seconds, and that was at 11:00 PM at night on a weeknight! Off we go. I figured I'd get in there, we'd work together and get them taken down in no time. Sure enough, I show up, everyone's already pewpewpewing, and 3 minutes later, we're all done. Ta da? __________________ The most horrible suffering one can bring upon another person in dire need, is that of indifference. With love, you try to uplift their life. With hatred, you seek to end that life. With indifference, however, you seek merely to render it inconsequential.

November 15 2012, 03:05 PM	#2781
Rocketeer Captain Location: Heidelberg, Germany	Re: Star Trek Online Discussion Thread (now free to play!) Well, I don't "love" SB24 either. Actually I'm still upset that they took out the ground mission. I just use it a lot to test my ship builds. Bajor was a lost opportunity. I haven't been back since the FEs.

November 15 2012, 03:46 PM	#2782
J. Allen Professional Enabler Location: A Quantum State	Re: Star Trek Online Discussion Thread (now free to play!) SB24 is good for testing builds, that's true. Everyone I've seen enter the match tends to get their asses handed to them at least once (myself included). Part of the issue for me is that once they start releasing boarding parties, and torpedoes, and other things that add up quickly on screen so that there's a whole bunch of random garbage everywhere and the monitor is filled and my ship can't even target anything there's so much of it, my computer just says "fuck it", and I get updates every 3 seconds about what's going on, on the screen. __________________ The most horrible suffering one can bring upon another person in dire need, is that of indifference. With love, you try to uplift their life. With hatred, you seek to end that life. With indifference, however, you seek merely to render it inconsequential.

STAR TREK

CSI

ABOUT US

November 15 2012, 04:10 PM	#2783
Timelord_Victorious Rear Admiral	Re: Star Trek Online Discussion Thread (now free to play!) Zje design flaw is that while you kill the small ships you are forced to move right into the middle of the spawn area for every Klingon battleship in the fleet. There is almost no amount of tanking that will get you out of this alive. So you go boom, respawn and start picking them off from the rim again.

November 15 2012, 04:43 PM	#2784
Rocketeer Captain Location: Heidelberg, Germany	Re: Star Trek Online Discussion Thread (now free to play!) Yep, when too many things get onscreen it get difficult to select my intended target. Most of my characters do fine in PVE fights. Of course my engineers fight much different than my sci and tac officers. On the SB24 I look for a player that seems to know what he's doing and take up a wingman position. Most players realize that my proximaty is to their advantage and we work together without having any conversation (I can't type and fly a starship at the same time - that's why they invented Vent). On another note - I respec'd all my VA/LG characters. Previously, most of their skills were just added willy-nilly as I earned enough points to advance them. So now my engineers are better focused tanks, plus they have 3 tiers in threat so they get a little more attention. My tac is now better focused on tactical stuff and has 1 tier in threat. My sci officers are better focused on sci/med stuff and have 0 in threat. If you think that I've made any mistakes, let me know as I have respec tokens to burn. Some characters have as many as 12 respec tokens. .

November 15 2012, 11:34 PM	#2785
Timelord_Victorious Rear Admiral	Re: Star Trek Online Discussion Thread (now free to play!) Just in case, any of you decide to check out Star Wars - The Old Republic, now that that is free to play as well, and want to team up for some Jedi action, you will find me on The Progenitor (RP-PVE Server Europe). If you are American and don't want to join a Euro server I have a character on the other side of the Pond as well, don`t remember the Server name right now.

November 16 2012, 12:03 AM	#2786
Harvey Admiral	Re: Star Trek Online Discussion Thread (now free to play!) I like the new salt vampire ground mission, but I wish Cryptic would tweak it a little bit so that the non-combat phases in the beginning (telling people to go into their homes; reinforcing the buildings) had much of an effect on the combat portions that follow. __________________ "What do you hear, Starbuck?" "Nothing but the rain, sir." "Then grab your gun and bring in the cat."

November 16 2012, 03:11 AM	#2787
Hartzilla2007 Vice Admiral Location: Star Trekkin Across the universe.	Re: Star Trek Online Discussion Thread (now free to play!) Well new Romulus was fun, finally some explorationish stuff to do. Also I had a very good elite infected space run today, got the optional and as a result have enough omega marks to get a decent start on the reputation stuff.

November 16 2012, 03:54 AM	#2788
J. Allen Professional Enabler Location: A Quantum State	Re: Star Trek Online Discussion Thread (now free to play!) I'm getting blown the hell up an awful lot in SB24. My ship will explode with 0% hull, but full shields. Something doesn't seem right. I've posted in a thread where they're discussing something similar with the STFs over at the forum. Hopefully someone will know what's up. Also, for the record, I'm using the complete Borg set. __________________ The most horrible suffering one can bring upon another person in dire need, is that of indifference. With love, you try to uplift their life. With hatred, you seek to end that life. With indifference, however, you seek merely to render it inconsequential.