Now it makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.

Well, I've been on both sides of the coin on this one:

As a VA: the most low-level group I've had included: a lv7 (Miranda, obviously), a lv26 (Excalibur), a lv48 (Luna), another VA (Defiant-X - skittles) and myself (Hermes-F).
That was in Fleet Alert - we cleared.
Tbh, I've never seen failure in Fleet Alert - I'm told it's possible, but let's be honest, that thing's easy.
So, in Alert, there's little problem allowing lowbies.

In Blockade, it's a different story. I recently had a group with 2 lowbies, we got 10 Transports. 10! That's just bad.
The event relies on everyone being able to solo a group (CC, attract attention of or kill) in decent time and there's just no way a Captain or lower player can.


As a lowbie: earlier, I tested Fleet Alert on a new alt (lv3 - Miranda).
I only exploded once (caught in the boss' Warp Core breach). I even managed to kill some of the weaker targets (those corvettes are really weak) or put some Disruptor Breaches into the bigger Ships... but honestly, I wasn't contributing much.
So, while the event is easy enough to allow lowbies, said lowbies are going to be pretty useless and probably shouldn't be there.
I know I, for one, won't do that again.

Any Competent Commander or above in a Cruiser CAN do blockade
Escorts forget it until captain plus
Scis depends on your power loads

Best way to fail blockade is to have AFK types
or someone in a shuttle

Want lowbies to play with VA's? It's an easy fix. Just make all the NPC's the same level as the lowest level player in the group.

Then having a lowbie is a benefit, rather than a hindrance. If Cryptic can't do that, they they need to level gate groups so that you have to be a minimum level to join a group of VA's.

You're kidding. I have been in several groups that have failed Fleet Alert. Every time my group had a lowbie, usually someone flying a Heavy Cruiser or a Exploration Cruiser.

I have yet to see a group failing the entire mission, not getting to the Siege group or not being fast enough on it is very possible though.
it depends on a lot of factors like if the starbase is a building site or what kind of ships you get.


One of the main problems is that they have less weapon slots and boff abilities, other than that it really depends on the mix you get.

Same here, I would draw agro for two groups while the other group tried to handle just one. I would expect help from the other group, but as soon as I got caught where all my healing abilities (gal-X) were on cool down and died the group would just go slaughter whats left of the fleet.

It's starting to get irritating. Sometimes it works, but I'm seeing a lot of lower ranks just afk for the fleet marks. One time this guy clearly targeted me and selected follow but didn't do anything. Now people are warping out if they don't like the team, meaning re-queueing. Cryptic needs to get on this, simply raising their weapons up to Mark XI doesn't do anything if all they can do is activate a power or two.

A wormhole suddenly opened up and swallowed this thread out of the "Star Trek Online Discussion" forum. It ended up here, oddly enough, in the forum where PvE feedback goes.

It's a one-way trip, though. You'll need your warp drives to go back to the other forum. Fortunately it won't take 75 years.