Starbase 24 level cap?

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I know I'm QQing, but we'll all get past it.

I finished second four out of seven times in the Starbase 24 fleet action tonight, each time with a score between 950 and 1114.

In every round, I was in my starter light escort.

First place in each round went to someone flying a T2 escort.

Is anything wrong with this picture?

I understand that escorts are DPS ships, and that's fine. But should someone in a T2 escort be able to camp in a fleet action and farm drops that they will sell for 15-25k each, while the people who will actually USE those items are relegated to second place? It just seems to me like fleet actions are a gold farmer's paradise if he just needs to grab himself a T2 ship and beat out all the lowbies for phat lootz.

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You are not the first one complaining about it. And yes, the farmers will tell you that you're QQing. And yes, this game design sucks because the 10 first levels are boring and lowbies can't even enjoy their fleet action because a handful of morons want to sell blue craps 10000000 credits on the market. Cryptic, where are you ?

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That's the main issue when it comes to Starbase 24. The class differences aren't the biggest deal, it's the fact that higher ranks/tiers are allowed to "compete" against lower ranks/tiers, and it's not even a competition. Tier/rank brackets are absolutely necessary to fix Starbase 24. Until this issue is fixed, Starbase 24 is broken.

I'm a science officer, and I always place in the top 4, so it's not like I'm complaining because I don't know how to play or because all I get are batteries. I make some Negs humble and I get some nice green drops. I've also placed first a few times, as science, and that's challenging but it's the good kind of challenge: surmountable with enough effort. I've got no problem being beat in score by three other Lieutenants who are truly skilled and earned their loot. What's not fine is to go into an instance and knowing that my only hope in the world of winning is if the cheap, unskilled LtCmdr in the T2 ship has a stroke five seconds into the battle.

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Its not just Starbase 24. Almost every fleet action I've been in has had someone score 2x 3x and even 4x higher than everyone else, because they are a rank higher and in a higher rank ship with way better weapons. Its really bad when I'm In a fleet action of my level and killing as fast as I can and some commander or higher swipes all the cool loot. Part of me wants to go back into Starbase 24 to get some loot myself, but I know how bad it feels to be stuck under someone. I guess this is STO's version of ganking.

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Couple comments:

Firstly, I agree something is broken here - not least of which being that sheer DPS still seems to be the most reliable way to score points. That aside...

A brand new LtCmdr compared to a L9 Lt really doesn't have access to much better in the way of gear from loot (yes I know they can always farm, raise credits, sell stuff, buy Mk III/IV stuff on the exchange etc...I'm talking about getting it themselves as drops). This is especially true for things like weapon systems, where you are likely to want multiples of the same item. Beyond the early stages of LtCmdr, yes, there are better places to go to get drops - which is why you usually won't see a Captain floating around SB 24. Unless...

Often, those "farmers" are also using those rewards for their own characters that CAN make good use of it. Lower level alts, especially on the klingon side, and most especially in PVP. "Twinking" is a large and virtually necessary aspect of the PVP arrangement in the game as it is now, not least because the Klingon gear progression is so horrid at the start, and their primary means of advancement is...PVP.

There are also people there testing out various combinations of weapon types, BO skills, etc. I myself was doing this earlier with my new escort. And just to clear things up on that score: escort vs Miranda is NOT "OMG teh autowin" that some seem to think that it is. Yes, when I fought hard, throughout the fight, picked my targets well, stayed actively dishing out damage, etc - I pretty much always won. But usually only by about 100 points, maybe 200, out of 2k or so. If I pulled back even a little (like while testing phasers vs disruptors on speed of taking down the battleships, I withdrew from the furball, swapped weapons, and flew back in) then I often did NOT take first place - in fact, the last 3 times I have gone there, I was beat out by Miranda pilots who were of "appropriate level" but significantly better GEARED than my escort is.


Anyway, that got a lot longer than I intended. Yes, something definitely needs to be done to balance rewards for fleet actions. No, level stratification alone will not do it. And yes, there are other reasons for people to return to "under-level" encounters than just to farm lewts and sell at ripoff prices...just keep that in mind next time you have the urge to hurl flaming quantum death at that Lt Cmdr 1/2 in his/her brand new shiny escort...

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they could just enable bind on pickup on items when you "win" them like that?
Though BOP has it's own level of suck.

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It shouldn't be level capped. That breaks the immersion. Yeah, sometimes, after investing a considerable amount of time to get to a higher level, I want to go back to my roots and have some fun acting as if I have an ultra advanced ship, or I might want to help out a friend or fleet mate.

The loot table in fleet action should not be decided solely on damage dealt. Or hell, how's this for a compromise, any tiered ship can enter a lower level fleet action, but if they're above the level intended for it, they don't get any rewards for it.

I'm perfectly fine with that. I don't go into low level fleet actions for the blue low level rewards. I do it just because it's rather fun. :)

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It shouldn't be level capped. That breaks the immersion.


Ahahah ! True, it's sooooo Startrek to farm SB24 over and over to get some blue crap, it would be a shame to break such an immersion ! Are you kidding or are you kidding ?

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I dont mind higher leveled players in fleet action at all.
And quite often they give they stuff away to lower level people.
I know that from the Crytaline Entity mostly. I gave away stuff when i was Commander in Beta there.
And i plan to do it again once i hit Commander.

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People seem to forget that even the T2 or T3 ships started off as T1. I guess they just did a bit of fleet action, and some of the missions, and progressed to T2. But in the end, everyone starts off in the same boat. If you can't swim, don't jump in.

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I recognize that new Lt Cmdrs can use a lot of the SB 24 drops as upgrades for themselves, and I have no problem with that. I DO have a problem with me busting my butt in my noob ship to score over 1000 points, only to finish second to a Lt Cmdr 8 who scored 2300. If it were close or if I had scored in the 500-600 range, I wouldn't be complaining. My only problem is that 1000 points should win 9.9 out of 10 fleet actions against Lieutenants. When someone can go in and put up more than twice that amount, it completely skews the balance of the mission.

As for farming for klingon twinks... whoever it was who complained about immersion should chime in on that. Last I heard, the Feds were at war with the Klingons. Why in the world, then, should we be able to send items back and forth between the two factions without having to pay some Ferengi smuggler a VERY hefty fee?

*edit: The character I'm using these days is a Lt 7 joined trill science officer, by the way.

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Oops ... I think I was one of those LCs that came in first in 24. Did not realize the impact my winning would have on others. Not sure if many understand. It would be nice to have something like 24 for LCs.

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I have gone there a few times now that i hit Lt Com. The blues are better than anything I have on my ship. If i win a round i tend to warp off so i dont get the reward next time.

However today. I didnt even come close to winning because its not Lt Com there getting blues you have to worry about now. Its Captains. There were at least 3 captains there farming... for captain i have to think its a 'gold' farmer. Well or maybe they are getting it for an alt but not when they stay for an hour.

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Ahahah ! True, it's sooooo Startrek to farm SB24 over and over to get some blue crap, it would be a shame to break such an immersion ! Are you kidding or are you kidding ?

Did you read anything else I said?

Don't put a level cap on it, simply exclude those higher than the item reward from actually being entered into the dps chart. That's it. Simple and effect and with this I can still go after some fun for the hell of it. :)

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Did you read anything else I said?

Don't put a level cap on it, simply exclude those higher than the item reward from actually being entered into the dps chart. That's it. Simple and effect and with this I can still go after some fun for the hell of it. :)

That's a perfect idea.

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What grinds salt into the wound is when the higher levels keep posting their blue rewards in Zone chat.

Over. And over. And over. I personally have never seen the higher level players give away the blue rewards. I have seem them stay for multiple resets and suck up all the goodies while the rest of the players are just out of luck. After a few of those I leave the fleet action and go back to doing missions.

I vote for a level cap or, as another poster suggested, having a cap on being able to earn a reward at a fleet action.

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Rather than make my own thread, ill ask here, whats the intended level bracket for S24 anyway?, Lvl 6+?

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Starbase 24 is basically a fleet thingy for beginners.

I admit to going in there a couple of days ago, but only because I needed 13 skill points to get to LC 5 and I didn't have time to do another mission. While in there, I saw two other players rolling with Galaxy class ships, who were 28 levels above me, so god only knows how many levels above everyone else.

Having said that, neither of them got a higher score than I've got in there before.

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As Streakfury said, it's supposed to be a way for beginners to ease into fleet actions. Most of the loot in there becomes obsolete very shortly after getting your Lt Cmdr ship, so I'd think the level cap (if there were one) should probably be 10. There's not enough damage output between an equivalently-equipped lvl 1 and lvl 10 to make a tremendous difference in scoring between the two, meaning that if it were capped at 10 then EVERYONE would have the opportunity to win in SOMETIMES.

The issue with it now is you have higher-level people going in there to test out their new ships in a low-stress combat environment, and when they need some easy cash. The first-place drops in there STILL sell at the exchange for 15-20k, and while that's no means a large amount these days, it's still very easy quick cash.

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Don't put a level cap on it, simply exclude those higher than the item reward from actually being entered into the dps chart. That's it. Simple and effect and with this I can still go after some fun for the hell of it. :)

Thats a great Idea

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I have stopped going in to SB24 because so many noobs get offended and think we do it for the lootz... lol.

We actually go in there to test phaser and disruptor resists, as well as some other stuff like weapon sustainability and dps..... and personally I dont even bother picking up the loot. I usually have Free For All and team up with a random noob so he can pick everything up.

I leave after a few minutes so dont get any blue items. (I think? :confused:)
If they end up in my inventory somehow they get replicated anyway... :P Havent seen any blue noob stuff though.

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I don't understand the complaining about things like LC8... at LT10 I've won with a couple people in LC 5-8 range in the instance. The real issue is with the really high ranks... like the VA1 that just came in at the last couple minutes of SB24 and took first. And I don't harbour any grudge against him, it's a fun instance to play. What I don't understand though is why this problem still exists. Last time I was really playing STO (late spring) I could have sworn there was a new implementation to have leveled instances, so that everyone could enjoy SB24 and other group missions without stepping on each others toes. It seemed a pretty elegant solution, just needing a bit of refining for different leveled teams and such. What happened to that? Why after playing live game for over 200 days is this flaw that was given so much complaint right from beta still existent? It should not be hard to come up with a solution that is both fair, and fun. Separate instances based on level ranges is one fix, not scoring once over a certain level is another possible fix, or even having seperate scoring for different level ranges... so that you don't have LC and LT in direct competition, or if you want to get really complex, use some options when going into these areas... choosing whether to be in a cross tier instance or a locked one.

What is being done to address this issue?

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The last time that happened top me was when I'd finished an Admiral-level SB24 fleet action, and I manually changed instances. It put me in an instance with some lower level players. I don't think it was intentional, and although I started off in a RA fleet action, I guess they haven't completely sorted the problem as when I changed instances it placed me in a lower-level instance.

So in short, they did do something about level banding, but I'm not sure it's a complete fix.

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Ah, well that's not so bad then... needs addressing sure, but it's not as bad as if they'd pulled the fix or something.

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Well, i was able to get my score to 1400, give or take and i was in my starting ship, i tend to play on Normal, so i have my power set to weapons, so my damage is doubled or something like that, i can get an enemy shields down in one or two beam barrages.

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Hmm I was completely oblivious to the DPS chart and and al lthat. I've only gone to SB24 once with anything ohter than a Lieutenant. Iwas in Sirius and thought i'd drop in for a few minutes I thought it would be percieved as helpful.

I agree with the proposed solution of excluding anyone above Lt10 from the dps chart, and hence the loot.

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Hmm I was completely oblivious to the DPS chart and and al lthat. I've only gone to SB24 once with anything ohter than a Lieutenant. Iwas in Sirius and thought i'd drop in for a few minutes I thought it would be percieved as helpful.

I agree with the proposed solution of excluding anyone above Lt10 from the dps chart, and hence the loot.

Well, the loot you get from that place is crap so i fail to see why you would exclude higher levels from them, except for on the station when you are on elite, the loot is better, but in my experience, the loot drop increase does NOT warrant the increase in difficulty.