but let's just get back to how irritatingly difficult it is for a medium-sized fleet to defeat Brutal compared to Hard. We can do Hard in less than half the time required, but only really manage Brutal if we get free additional Valor.
The difficulty balance is just off ... Nightmare and Ultra being for the elite fleets is fine
If Nightmare would give say 1 Bilitrium at 50% destruction then that would be okay, we could just farm that for a bit to advance the Captain's Bridge (very slowly) through lvl 7 ... as it is ugh.
Now, I have no idea how many additional lvls we can get only through Brutal ... but I hope it is more than just 1. I haven't bothered to look up how fleet boss battles work, or what the Captain's Bridge rewards are ... and can be bothered to wade through 37 pages of the above style of discussion (sheesh).
I know the feeling.
With the extra bonus we can do more damage but some members moved on. So we still can't defeat Brutal either without the extra valor. I hope they add 1 Bilitrium at 75% at brutal soon.
I now managed to get to lvl 8.
I have tested this tonight and it does work. I have rolled 22% on a x2 dmg reflection effect, which sounds great. Then I've played the battle and looked at the battle log generated and sent to the server.
Here, the Nightmare boss performs its first hit, 351k dmg
Shortly after, the boss takes 22% reflected dmg
This happened for each of the 17 hits throughout that fight. I did ~40 mil damage on this fight, 1,313,182 coming from reflected damage from that huge 22% effect.
Conclusion:
- this is the worst combo effect
- damage is correctly reflected throughout the fight, regardless of active abilities
- reflected damage is calculated AFTER bridge buffs that reduce boss' dmg and combo effects that reduce boss' attack, but BEFORE active in-battle abilities, i.e. "reduce incoming hull damage" abilities.
To steer the thread a bit back on track: one change I'd like to see is the ability to see what the previous chains were and what cards unlocked the nodes. I'm thinking specifically of the last node of a chain that's unlocked. I can't be alone in running four crew to unlock nodes (that is, once I've reached the top damage reward threshold). A lot of effort goes into unlocking the hardest nodes, which tends to be the last one in a chain, and it'd just be good to go back and say "Ok, it was that card."
but let's just get back to how irritatingly difficult it is for a medium-sized fleet to defeat Brutal compared to Hard. We can do Hard in less than half the time required, but only really manage Brutal if we get free additional Valor.
The difficulty balance is just off ... Nightmare and Ultra being for the elite fleets is fine
If Nightmare would give say 1 Bilitrium at 50% destruction then that would be okay, we could just farm that for a bit to advance the Captain's Bridge (very slowly) through lvl 7 ... as it is ugh.
Now, I have no idea how many additional lvls we can get only through Brutal ... but I hope it is more than just 1. I haven't bothered to look up how fleet boss battles work, or what the Captain's Bridge rewards are ... and can be bothered to wade through 37 pages of the above style of discussion (sheesh).
The problem with Brutal is not that its difficulty but rather you're much more limited in your options. Its either spend DIL, have lots of people or everyone uses the Sphere. WRG keeps on releasing new 4* ships but they're all 3 seat ships with no interesting features.
Nightmare at least has some interesting options. My Sphere build was Zimmerman plus 3x Repair Guys (which are 2/3* Crew at least). There are more usable ships in Nightmare and the crew are better. If you don't have the best Repair crew they're easy to retrieve, you only need them at 1/5 and if you feel like developing them they're extremely good crew in general.
Nightmare is required for Bridge Levels 9 - 12. Brutal is only required for 7 and 8.
but let's just get back to how irritatingly difficult it is for a medium-sized fleet to defeat Brutal compared to Hard. We can do Hard in less than half the time required, but only really manage Brutal if we get free additional Valor.
The difficulty balance is just off ... Nightmare and Ultra being for the elite fleets is fine
If Nightmare would give say 1 Bilitrium at 50% destruction then that would be okay, we could just farm that for a bit to advance the Captain's Bridge (very slowly) through lvl 7 ... as it is ugh.
Now, I have no idea how many additional lvls we can get only through Brutal ... but I hope it is more than just 1. I haven't bothered to look up how fleet boss battles work, or what the Captain's Bridge rewards are ... and can be bothered to wade through 37 pages of the above style of discussion (sheesh).
The problem with Brutal is not that its difficulty but rather you're much more limited in your options. Its either spend DIL, have lots of people or everyone uses the Sphere. WRG keeps on releasing new 4* ships but they're all 3 seat ships with no interesting features.
Nightmare at least has some interesting options. My Sphere build was Zimmerman plus 3x Repair Guys (which are 2/3* Crew at least). There are more usable ships and the crew are better. If you don't have the best Repair crew they're easy to retrieve, you only need them at 1/5 and if you feel like developing them they're extremely good crew in general.
Nightmare is required for Bridge Levels 9 - 12. Brutal is only required for 7 and 8.
La Sirena is the "stealth" Brutal killer.
Last Slot should be Vindicta. I guess I screenshotted my Crew while Node Hunting and forgot to fix it. Wait. I think I REPLACED Arex and forgot to do an updated one.
"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
Can anyone point me to a fairly detailed cost to level chart for the Bridge. As in cost per upgrade per level. All I know is I need 23 more mag than I have to get my next one. I have a Kemosite, but not enough Mag and wanted to get an idea of how much I need to keep up.
Hard will always provide you enough Magnesite to level your Bridge if you contribute Max Damage. You'll need 1050 Magnesite and 20 Kemocite to finish Bridge 6.
Can anyone point me to a fairly detailed cost to level chart for the Bridge. As in cost per upgrade per level. All I know is I need 23 more mag than I have to get my next one. I have a Kemosite, but not enough Mag and wanted to get an idea of how much I need to keep up.
Hard will always provide you enough Magnesite to level your Bridge if you contribute Max Damage. You'll need 1050 Magnesite and 20 Kemocite to finish Bridge 6.
We finished Hard. I got my three Kemo, but not enough Mag for a single upgrade. I should be two upgrades from Seven, but I'm still at Five. No rush. We can't manage Brutal yet anyway.
W.W. CarlislePlayed since January 20, 2019Captain Level- 99 (May 9, 2022)VIP 14Crew Quarters: 485/485Most recent/Lowest- Anbo-jyutsu Kyle Riker (1/5* Lvl 30) 5/29/23Immortalized x-866 5* x184, 4* x 490, 3* x91, 2* x62, and 1* x27Most recent Immortal - Tearful Janeway 4* 5/25/23Current non-event project- Improving my Science base skill. Retrieval Project- Mestral 1/5*
The problem with Brutal is not that its difficulty but rather you're much more limited in your options. Its either spend DIL, have lots of people or everyone uses the Sphere. WRG keeps on releasing new 4* ships but they're all 3 seat ships with no interesting features.
Nightmare at least has some interesting options. My Sphere build was Zimmerman plus 3x Repair Guys (which are 2/3* Crew at least). There are more usable ships in Nightmare and the crew are better. If you don't have the best Repair crew they're easy to retrieve, you only need them at 1/5 and if you feel like developing them they're extremely good crew in general.
We unlocked nightmare with extra valor, but our experience is that we're even further from defeating nightmare than brutal. True, many of us have better options there, but not everyone, and most of all, the boss also has much more hp.
The problem with Brutal is not that its difficulty but rather you're much more limited in your options. Its either spend DIL, have lots of people or everyone uses the Sphere. WRG keeps on releasing new 4* ships but they're all 3 seat ships with no interesting features.
Nightmare at least has some interesting options. My Sphere build was Zimmerman plus 3x Repair Guys (which are 2/3* Crew at least). There are more usable ships in Nightmare and the crew are better. If you don't have the best Repair crew they're easy to retrieve, you only need them at 1/5 and if you feel like developing them they're extremely good crew in general.
We unlocked nightmare with extra valor, but our experience is that we're even further from defeating nightmare than brutal. True, many of us have better options there, but not everyone, and most of all, the boss also has much more hp.
Nightmare has a 5th combo chain which eases the difficulty a little. Generally, the HP difference is mitigated by the superior DPS of your available ships. I do suggest that people work on Laborer Kirk, Spork and Mok’Bara Crusher since they’re very good elsewhere in game. Dereth is the best repair crew but he’s only good for FBB so it’s understandable if people want to neglect him.
One thing I‘ve noticed is that some people use sub-optimal set ups because they’re used to Arena or underestimate how ship stats work. Eventually after some practice they get used to better strategies.
I should note that I haven’t done Brutal since the combo buffs.
Can anyone point me to a fairly detailed cost to level chart for the Bridge. As in cost per upgrade per level. All I know is I need 23 more mag than I have to get my next one. I have a Kemosite, but not enough Mag and wanted to get an idea of how much I need to keep up.
Hard will always provide you enough Magnesite to level your Bridge if you contribute Max Damage. You'll need 1050 Magnesite and 20 Kemocite to finish Bridge 6.
We finished Hard. I got my three Kemo, but not enough Mag for a single upgrade. I should be two upgrades from Seven, but I'm still at Five. No rush. We can't manage Brutal yet anyway.
That’s only if you meet the max damage threshold (23M). Otherwise you’ll just slowly fall behind. Admittedly making max damage on Hard is probably not easy since the boss might fall over before you get there.
TI can't be alone in running four crew to unlock nodes (that is, once I've reached the top damage reward threshold).
I know there is a strong temptation to maximize individual results but you are actually making it harder for yourself. The earlier that combo's are executed the more combo bonuses you get. As a result, you get more damage per valor. Multiply this affect across all of the active members of a fleet and this can add up to a good amount of valor.
The problem with Brutal is not that its difficulty but rather you're much more limited in your options. Its either spend DIL, have lots of people or everyone uses the Sphere. WRG keeps on releasing new 4* ships but they're all 3 seat ships with no interesting features.
Nightmare at least has some interesting options. My Sphere build was Zimmerman plus 3x Repair Guys (which are 2/3* Crew at least). There are more usable ships in Nightmare and the crew are better. If you don't have the best Repair crew they're easy to retrieve, you only need them at 1/5 and if you feel like developing them they're extremely good crew in general.
We unlocked nightmare with extra valor, but our experience is that we're even further from defeating nightmare than brutal. True, many of us have better options there, but not everyone, and most of all, the boss also has much more hp.
Some good suggestions in The Ready Room for Ships for various levels.
I use either the Dorka with four Non-Conditional Sledgehammers or The Artifact with three Healers and Taco Mayweather.
For The Artifact I usually make the whole time, or close to it, even at Level 8.
With
Reunion Spork
Dereth
Mok'Bara Crusher
Taco
Dereth and Crusher are still low level, do it does not hurt using them in the two Engineering seats and not getting their passives.
Sniped at eight seconds left just now, most Damage I have done in a while.
New Set Up, replacing Crusher with Laborer Kirk. Very consistent, so far. Last three battles were right around 10 million, and I hit 60 Million Total Damage for the first time to clear Indie Rewards.
Dorka I use
General Oh
Killy
Commandant
Taco
If you find out what Ships and Crew your Fleet has, maybe can work out good setups for everyone. Or most everyone. If you get a team together that can do Nightmare, then the ones without the great Ships can still get some individual Rewards and now the Fleet Rewards.
"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
TI can't be alone in running four crew to unlock nodes (that is, once I've reached the top damage reward threshold).
I know there is a strong temptation to maximize individual results but you are actually making it harder for yourself. The earlier that combo's are executed the more combo bonuses you get. As a result, you get more damage per valor. Multiply this affect across all of the active members of a fleet and this can add up to a good amount of valor.
The problem with that is that I'm in a VERY active, full 50 captain fleet. We are clearing Nightmare in as few as 10 hours. I have a bunch of fleetmates that enjoy node hunting and will spend dilithium to do it. Meanwhile I'm being very frugal with buying valor and I find it tedious to node hunt and maximize damage at the same time. I can get to the top threshold in Nightmare in 4-5 attacks with my A-list FBB crew and can help call out node targets along the way. For the most part, I'm enjoying what I'm doing and I think my fleet likes what I'm doing, so it's a good win-win.
Maybe I should have mentioned that we're only about 20 actively participating in FBB, of which some are newer players. We like working together on the boss, don't get me wrong, but it would be nice if we could also progress...
One last comment about FBB ... by far my favourite aspect of the new feature is puzzling through the trait combos and available crew (love me a good puzzle/mystery) ...
however ... players should not be punished for unlocking a node ...
What I mean is, now that, with the update, we get full crew lists ... when I get a node I have to go through the horrendous cryovault (and the prehistoric search function) to piece together a possible node combo ... I play on a phone and if I misclick my search can get ruined ... which can be rough for broad traits like Civilian, Brutal etc.
--> Just let me view the list without being able to contribute to getting more nodes for a specific combo.
and then ... Interfaces overlaying each other is NOT handy the way it is executed here ...
if I'm looking for trait combos on nodes and tap the crew spot ... a valid crew list slides in from the right ... covering the last column on available traits ... if I want to double check to see if any traits have been used on other crew spots I have to deselect the crew ... which can be super irritating if that crew list is very long.
Maybe I should have mentioned that we're only about 20 actively participating in FBB, of which some are newer players. We like working together on the boss, don't get me wrong, but it would be nice if we could also progress...
My fleet is in about the same situation as yours. I should finish Level 6 of my Bridge today or tomorrow. I know of a couple others are right about where I am. We're clearing Hard once every 18hrs or so. We aren't in position to tackle Brutal yet, so we'll play Hard until we all hit the wall or nearly so, then we'll start beating our heads on Brutal. I've been crunching numbers for our strategy discussions.
Is Brutal 5 chains at 10% each, so 50% from the nodes?
W.W. CarlislePlayed since January 20, 2019Captain Level- 99 (May 9, 2022)VIP 14Crew Quarters: 485/485Most recent/Lowest- Anbo-jyutsu Kyle Riker (1/5* Lvl 30) 5/29/23Immortalized x-866 5* x184, 4* x 490, 3* x91, 2* x62, and 1* x27Most recent Immortal - Tearful Janeway 4* 5/25/23Current non-event project- Improving my Science base skill. Retrieval Project- Mestral 1/5*
I keep forgetting to grab screen shots, but I'm noticing that the damage total shown on the battle summary screen is different than what shows up on the fleet leader board.
I keep forgetting to grab screen shots, but I'm noticing that the damage total shown on the battle summary screen is different than what shows up on the fleet leader board.
Yes. Every time.
"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
At all levels until Nightmare, a full 50-captain fleet mathematically can't all get max damage, even if they deliberately avoid doing chains. At Nightmare and Ultra-Nightmare, on the other hand, you have to clear chains or have some captains go further in the highest tier.
The step up between Hard and Brutal is huge, but it's actually Hard that's the anomaly relative to all the other levels around it. When looked at in terms of either the total Valor needed or the number of captains getting max damage before the boss is destroyed completely, Hard is much lower than the levels on either side of it.
I keep forgetting to grab screen shots, but I'm noticing that the damage total shown on the battle summary screen is different than what shows up on the fleet leader board.
Yes. Every time.
Yeah, I had used up all my Valor and was debating whether I needed to buy a little to make sure I got the Mag I needed, before running errands. Leaderboard said I had enough (16m+), so I figured I'd hold off and buy for the next battle. Came home, battle over and it showing I got just under what I needed point-wise (15.?m). I should have finished Level Six last night. I HATE a liar.
Since I'm now at the Level Seven wall, I no longer have a reason to buy Valor until we move on to Brutal and that will be closer to November or later. I'll make sure we keep clearing Hard, but I no longer have much incentive for reaching. I'm stockpiling. I'm happy to let other players in my fleet make the big gains. I'll clear nodes. I'll puzzle out solutions. I'll use what I earn daily. I'll tweak my battle crew. I'm not spending extra resources without cause.
W.W. CarlislePlayed since January 20, 2019Captain Level- 99 (May 9, 2022)VIP 14Crew Quarters: 485/485Most recent/Lowest- Anbo-jyutsu Kyle Riker (1/5* Lvl 30) 5/29/23Immortalized x-866 5* x184, 4* x 490, 3* x91, 2* x62, and 1* x27Most recent Immortal - Tearful Janeway 4* 5/25/23Current non-event project- Improving my Science base skill. Retrieval Project- Mestral 1/5*
The closest we have come in nightmare is 48% - we got lucky with combo chains (getting 4/5). We are a smallish fleet, with only about 10-20 active players but we're also looking at it from a view of... "An extra 1100 honour every day? Yes please".
Fleet Admiral of NCC UK Midlands."Leave any bigotry in your quarters. There's no room for it on the bridge." - J.T. Kirk, 2266
No, there isn't.
As been mentioned in this thread we hope to be able to iterate on the feature with 9.2.0 and only allow Admirals/Officers to start a battle.
Comments
I know the feeling.
With the extra bonus we can do more damage but some members moved on. So we still can't defeat Brutal either without the extra valor. I hope they add 1 Bilitrium at 75% at brutal soon.
I now managed to get to lvl 8.
Here, the Nightmare boss performs its first hit, 351k dmg
Shortly after, the boss takes 22% reflected dmg
This happened for each of the 17 hits throughout that fight. I did ~40 mil damage on this fight, 1,313,182 coming from reflected damage from that huge 22% effect.
Conclusion:
- this is the worst combo effect
- damage is correctly reflected throughout the fight, regardless of active abilities
- reflected damage is calculated AFTER bridge buffs that reduce boss' dmg and combo effects that reduce boss' attack, but BEFORE active in-battle abilities, i.e. "reduce incoming hull damage" abilities.
The problem with Brutal is not that its difficulty but rather you're much more limited in your options. Its either spend DIL, have lots of people or everyone uses the Sphere. WRG keeps on releasing new 4* ships but they're all 3 seat ships with no interesting features.
Nightmare at least has some interesting options. My Sphere build was Zimmerman plus 3x Repair Guys (which are 2/3* Crew at least). There are more usable ships in Nightmare and the crew are better. If you don't have the best Repair crew they're easy to retrieve, you only need them at 1/5 and if you feel like developing them they're extremely good crew in general.
Nightmare is required for Bridge Levels 9 - 12. Brutal is only required for 7 and 8.
La Sirena is the "stealth" Brutal killer.
Last Slot should be Vindicta. I guess I screenshotted my Crew while Node Hunting and forgot to fix it. Wait. I think I REPLACED Arex and forgot to do an updated one.
Hard will always provide you enough Magnesite to level your Bridge if you contribute Max Damage. You'll need 1050 Magnesite and 20 Kemocite to finish Bridge 6.
We finished Hard. I got my three Kemo, but not enough Mag for a single upgrade. I should be two upgrades from Seven, but I'm still at Five. No rush. We can't manage Brutal yet anyway.
I also think they should rework the rewards to remove these "caps" and just make it faster to progress at higher levels compared to the lower ones.
We unlocked nightmare with extra valor, but our experience is that we're even further from defeating nightmare than brutal. True, many of us have better options there, but not everyone, and most of all, the boss also has much more hp.
Nightmare has a 5th combo chain which eases the difficulty a little. Generally, the HP difference is mitigated by the superior DPS of your available ships. I do suggest that people work on Laborer Kirk, Spork and Mok’Bara Crusher since they’re very good elsewhere in game. Dereth is the best repair crew but he’s only good for FBB so it’s understandable if people want to neglect him.
One thing I‘ve noticed is that some people use sub-optimal set ups because they’re used to Arena or underestimate how ship stats work. Eventually after some practice they get used to better strategies.
I should note that I haven’t done Brutal since the combo buffs.
That’s only if you meet the max damage threshold (23M). Otherwise you’ll just slowly fall behind. Admittedly making max damage on Hard is probably not easy since the boss might fall over before you get there.
I know there is a strong temptation to maximize individual results but you are actually making it harder for yourself. The earlier that combo's are executed the more combo bonuses you get. As a result, you get more damage per valor. Multiply this affect across all of the active members of a fleet and this can add up to a good amount of valor.
Some good suggestions in The Ready Room for Ships for various levels.
I use either the Dorka with four Non-Conditional Sledgehammers or The Artifact with three Healers and Taco Mayweather.
For The Artifact I usually make the whole time, or close to it, even at Level 8.
With
Reunion Spork
Dereth
Mok'Bara Crusher
Taco
Dereth and Crusher are still low level, do it does not hurt using them in the two Engineering seats and not getting their passives.
Sniped at eight seconds left just now, most Damage I have done in a while.
New Set Up, replacing Crusher with Laborer Kirk. Very consistent, so far. Last three battles were right around 10 million, and I hit 60 Million Total Damage for the first time to clear Indie Rewards.
Dorka I use
General Oh
Killy
Commandant
Taco
If you find out what Ships and Crew your Fleet has, maybe can work out good setups for everyone. Or most everyone. If you get a team together that can do Nightmare, then the ones without the great Ships can still get some individual Rewards and now the Fleet Rewards.
The problem with that is that I'm in a VERY active, full 50 captain fleet. We are clearing Nightmare in as few as 10 hours. I have a bunch of fleetmates that enjoy node hunting and will spend dilithium to do it. Meanwhile I'm being very frugal with buying valor and I find it tedious to node hunt and maximize damage at the same time. I can get to the top threshold in Nightmare in 4-5 attacks with my A-list FBB crew and can help call out node targets along the way. For the most part, I'm enjoying what I'm doing and I think my fleet likes what I'm doing, so it's a good win-win.
One last comment about FBB ... by far my favourite aspect of the new feature is puzzling through the trait combos and available crew (love me a good puzzle/mystery) ...
however ... players should not be punished for unlocking a node ...
What I mean is, now that, with the update, we get full crew lists ... when I get a node I have to go through the horrendous cryovault (and the prehistoric search function) to piece together a possible node combo ... I play on a phone and if I misclick my search can get ruined ... which can be rough for broad traits like Civilian, Brutal etc.
--> Just let me view the list without being able to contribute to getting more nodes for a specific combo.
and then ... Interfaces overlaying each other is NOT handy the way it is executed here ...
if I'm looking for trait combos on nodes and tap the crew spot ... a valid crew list slides in from the right ... covering the last column on available traits ... if I want to double check to see if any traits have been used on other crew spots I have to deselect the crew ... which can be super irritating if that crew list is very long.
My fleet is in about the same situation as yours. I should finish Level 6 of my Bridge today or tomorrow. I know of a couple others are right about where I am. We're clearing Hard once every 18hrs or so. We aren't in position to tackle Brutal yet, so we'll play Hard until we all hit the wall or nearly so, then we'll start beating our heads on Brutal. I've been crunching numbers for our strategy discussions.
Is Brutal 5 chains at 10% each, so 50% from the nodes?
Yes. Every time.
At all levels until Nightmare, a full 50-captain fleet mathematically can't all get max damage, even if they deliberately avoid doing chains. At Nightmare and Ultra-Nightmare, on the other hand, you have to clear chains or have some captains go further in the highest tier.
The step up between Hard and Brutal is huge, but it's actually Hard that's the anomaly relative to all the other levels around it. When looked at in terms of either the total Valor needed or the number of captains getting max damage before the boss is destroyed completely, Hard is much lower than the levels on either side of it.
Yeah, I had used up all my Valor and was debating whether I needed to buy a little to make sure I got the Mag I needed, before running errands. Leaderboard said I had enough (16m+), so I figured I'd hold off and buy for the next battle. Came home, battle over and it showing I got just under what I needed point-wise (15.?m). I should have finished Level Six last night. I HATE a liar.
Since I'm now at the Level Seven wall, I no longer have a reason to buy Valor until we move on to Brutal and that will be closer to November or later. I'll make sure we keep clearing Hard, but I no longer have much incentive for reaching. I'm stockpiling. I'm happy to let other players in my fleet make the big gains. I'll clear nodes. I'll puzzle out solutions. I'll use what I earn daily. I'll tweak my battle crew. I'm not spending extra resources without cause.
No, there isn't.
As been mentioned in this thread we hope to be able to iterate on the feature with 9.2.0 and only allow Admirals/Officers to start a battle.
Well, if the problem of anyone randomly doing it is fixed, that addresses the issue. Only admirals and officers will be able to.