-
Posts
-
normally i play ground missions for variety and greater omega rewards.
i have found a new reason to play ground…the entertainment value. this weekend we, the 44th, did a KAGE. it was the most miserable ground mission i had ran since i started playing over a year ago. i honestly think it was bugged a little too which contributed to it being so bad.
you ask, “you call that entertainment?” the banter between the team was killing me. i broke out laughing over and over again. CodeWarrior was in the mission and he was just too damn funny.
i know for new players ground missions can be incredibly frustrating and that is why most give up and never go back. Even though ground is difficult for newbies i always encourage them to get the tunnel accolade in KAGE. i die laughing everytime. of course then you have to get them back on track to finish.
overall ground pugs have been pretty bad lately. you can still run KAGE and get the optional maybe half the time in a pug. i have not completed a pug cure or infected ground in probably 2 or 3 weeks. very aggravating and not so funny.
it would be nice if we could have a ground bootcamp to instruct new fleet members on running ground missions successfully. i don’t remember for sure, but it was either Zippy or Lat, that ran an IGE with me when i first joined and they made it look so easy. it is good to run a ground mission with those that know it well.
i would still like to finish terradome….the last of the old style STFs. but need ground help.
Sorry to James for going all out drill sgt on ya and hope the sick bay was able to fix all your ailments in short order.
Elite difficulty ain’t no joke, elite drones and heavies will bring the pain quick. A little preparation goes a long way and good gear can really help expedite. Getting used to ground combat (esp on elite difficulty) takes time. A good supply of:
large hypos (can be stored on boffs and retrieved mid-mission)
large shield charges
minor, major and even a few critical regens – if you keep minor/majors healed you don’t get criticals but just in case you forget
ground set – I understand Omega is the stuff now and just got it on a few toons but I haven’t used personally
gambling device – with omega piece dodge bonus this is probably OP and would really help keep you alive
understanding mission objectives – TS could have really helped instead of me trying to type everything out…
good distance and close range weapons – with a variety of damage types (at a time at least) – I like sniper and pulsewave, but split beams are popular
knowledge and understanding of your class and kit abilities – elite drone in your way? fire on my mark and suppressing fire and they won’t be so bothersome. enigeneer bombs/traps in the right place at the right time makes everything so much easier. sci keeping healing nanites going and the rest of the team alive keeps the damage going.don’t expect to just blow through everything if this is the first time doing ground stf’s, and learn from the painful experiences but don’t give up.
Zip and I have run hundreds of ground STFs together, going all the way back to when they first released them. We both obtained Mark XII ground sets on multiple toons back when they were random drops. I think the player skill level on ground STFs have dropped dramatically after F2P because that is when the STFs were separated into ground and space (yes, before that, they were combined. Each STF had both a space part AND a ground part. There was no ‘Infected Conduit’ or ‘Infected Manus’. It was just ‘Infected’.) Also, since the rep system was put into place, there are less people playing ground. Previously, you HAD TO run ground to get the Mark XII ground set as a random drop. Now, you just need to level the rep system. Hopefully, we are not a dying breed.
That said, there are a few simple things that will make your ground STF experience better.
1) Have consumables on hand. Large hypos in inventory or on your BOffs. Minor/Major regenerators in your bank. REMEMBER TO USE THEM. If you die, heal your injury while you are waiting to respawn. If you do this, you will never need a critical regenerator. You only get critical injuries if you get injured when you already have an injury.2) Have a remodulator equipped, and USE IT. I know it sounds too basic, but I’ve seen too many PUGs where they run around shooting and doing 1 damage the entire mission.
3) Have a variety of kits and learn how to use them. The best players know how to use different kits depending on the situation. You can buy blue IX kits from a vendor at DS9 for 10,000 EC. No reason not to have every one for your class available. At minimum: Fire team and Operative for Tacs; Fabrication and Enemy neutralization for Eng; Medic and Physicist for Sci.
4) Get on the Teamspeak. Makes things go much more smoothly
5) Have weapons of different energy types equipped. Have at least a pulsewave. After that, either sniper or split beam.
you can’t get better advice than what is above. i am sold on split beam weapons and Code makes a good point about not giving up.
i miss the old “prototype” needed to get the good stuff. i got all my ground set pieces with prototype except for the PSG. i use to do 2 miserable infecteds every single day trying to get that drop. probably 2 out of 3 times it would end the first time someone missed a jump and you would end up with nada.
i have noticed the ground game is not near as active or good as it use to be since you can gear up with the rep system rather than earn the drops. i think STO made a big mistake here.
It’s probably better that they separated ground and space, and made ground non-mandatory to be honest.
Ground just doesn’t feel like Star Trek to me, and every time I play, I kinda wish I was playing either Battlefield or CoD instead =/
There is something about ground physics laws that dont feel right. I dont know how to explain it. I know that planets dont have equal gravity but there is something weird about it.
Also dodge sometimes works sometimes doesnt it feels weird overall.
Since my brother likes them i played a couple of defera missions and big dig (good for dilithium).
And i did one KASE with fleet and it was fun, but cant say it feels the same as flying a ship.i guess different strokes for different folks. (yes i know, twss)
if you could consistely run ground and get the optional you could easily just about double your dilithium intake compared to doing space STFs.
KAGE is the easy one and i actually think it is a fun mission to run. even a halfway decent team can get the optional and a nice dilithium haul.
IGE is really not too bad. depends on your team’s ability to jump in the last room. there is a foundry mission where you can practice jumping. on the pracice run i can make the jumps perfectly everytime. however, in the actual IGE i will miss at times which is incredibly frustrating. i think it is mental….i choke.
i have probably played and failed IGE the most trying to get the shield prototype. as i mentioned before i use to run that at least twice a day for months. never got the drop.
CGE can be very easy if you have a team that knows what to do. i have ran this one before with players that never did it and still got the optional. just takes team work and dps.
on all of these it helps to know the trigger lines and ofcourse dps is very important.
i would like to see STO do something to improve the ground game so people would play more. the thing i miss the most is the old prototype drops. it was always great to get one.
Was browsing thru the pvp forum on the big board and found some interesting ground material on ground basics: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=517971 and also on some gear (skip the part about the maps, unless you really want to try ground pvp… you sicko!): http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=550201
Yes Sargon… I was in that ground mission KAGE. It was funny to me also… I only ran it twice with Lat and wound up not getting the boof and blowing up RedShirt in the process because of a noob mistake. I learned then not to do anything in the ground stuff when a submenu popped up. If it doesnt day “TAKE” then you don’t mess with it. LOL… but that one we were in was so funny. I don’t think I ever laughed so hard. CODE & LAT – great info guys… I keep learning and learning and learning.
Ground is fun to play, but it can be a pain in the arse to control on ground. They could do with a rethink for ground controls i think which would make the experience better! They need a 3rd person mode with the camera set behind the toon, like in resident evil 6, skyrim or Tombraider etc, i think that would make it more enjoyable as the way its controlled at moment isn’t very intuitive. The one i hate because of the controls is the PvE one where u have to jump over the toxic crap at the end of one of em, the one where that Rebecca borg is?
Also since they stopped the separate drop types like b4 S7 ground has become a bit neglected as u no longer need to run grounds to get ground gear drops. U can now play only space to buy ground & space gear.
I dont think ive ever played Teradome Ground? What’s it like? Saying that i only played Teradome space once. Didn’t know peeps from 44th did it?
i have been after terradome ground forever it seems. deja vu i think it is.
only got close once. it was me, Zippy, Lat, Blackout and Shaw i think. it has been awhile. i think Lat and Blackout had to leave early. the remaining 3 of us made it to the end, but could not handle all the undine.
we spent a lot of time on it not to finish. i now keep all undine related items i might need for his mission in my personal inventory at all times so i will be ready for it next time, if there is one.
Lat says it is a remnant of the old style missons. i hear the drop is crap, but for me, it is not the drop, i want the satisfaction of knowing i did it.
infected ground is where you jump over plasma.
I would like to finish that one also. PM me when you’re on. I’d love to team up to finish Terradome.
The reward is a blue mark XI armor. And no dilithium.
Wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the high risk of being bugged. The part on the station where you protect the engineers FREQUENTLY bugs, and then you have to start over. Because of this, the entire mission could take well over an hour if you have to keep restarting.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.