Elite/Advanced/normal. Whats the difference?

[<dUmB>Armageddon]

Wanted to ask this, because i have a vague memory of item rewards being better quality the more difficulty there is. I might be wrong...

But other than enemy helth getting ludicrous boost, is there any real differenve now besides of that?

I usually love playing Elite difficulty, but lately dropped to advance aas i got tired of huge torpedo salvos ripping me apart every now and then because apparently NPC can do critical hits here. Its a one shot kill every now and then and many missions have that start of the battle, where if npot gast, the aall have torpedo spreads active and other buffs as well.

One timee Elachi ship killed me with that big crescent when i was fighting kentari traditionalists so apparently there can be invisible enemies as well ( :D ).

Anyway. What are the benefits of playing elite? Other than getting longer battles that is.

[Vellari]

For normal episode content, no real benefit there. Unless one likes an added challenge. The increased xp reward isn't really a thing. Leveling curve is very fast regardless. Random loot is even less of a thing.

For TFO's naturally different thing. Increased mark rewards, and for the reputation crafting you HAVE to run advanced to earn the elite mark (for example Borg Neural Processor). Elite also drops ultra rare crafting material Salvaged Technology (used for tech upgrade crafting).

For patrols running advanced/elite, and also with a team, XP reward is near ridiculous. Almost at a point where you can get a T6 ship mastery in a single patrol.

[<dUmB>Armageddon]

Yep. Did Donatu and Briar patrols few times and the mastery raised pretty fast. Loot.. I have noticed that compared to year ago maybe, there is practically no loot now.

When i select aadvanced or elite on the settings menu, does it also concern TFO's?

I like the challenge though. I think i stay on advanced now because the surprise deaath occurs less there :D

Thanks for reply :)

[necaradan666]

TFOs have their own difficulty in their titles

[<dUmB>Armageddon]

Right.

Thinking also how the difficulty increase works. It seems to me that the health is increased with more difficulty quite a bit, but how about damage output of enemies?

Because the mechanic does not seem to work that well at least on normal "Solo" situations like patrols and missions. In many cases torpedoes do massive damage which often are the cause of my ships destruction.

Like just a moment ago, i was doing Briar patch patrol (Within the briars) and the first wave of Mo'kai ships kept destroying my ship on elite over and over again compared to advanced i did yesterday, where everything was manageable with using counterabilities.

But on Elite, even while i aplied reverse shield polarity and emergency power to shields plus a bit later (Couple of secpnds) When the facing shield was gone again i aplied Engineering team to heal my hull because hull was getting hit hard. Also evasive maneuvers was used with rock and roll tto escape and brace for impact for torpedo hits. and some other temporal heals .

End result was that damage log told me about multiple hits with Disruptors heavy cannons doing about 17k hit each plus couple of Torpedoes doing aabout 20k both aand finally the killing blow came from transported photon warhead that dealt critical blow of about 40k damage.


I have 60 def rating, 70k hull and 20k shield each facing so thats that. I also tested for fun that how much it takes to destroy my ship if i dont do anything and the timing was 3,5 seconds which feels pretty sad :D

I mean i like extra challenge and all, but if it works with increasing NPC damage and increasing their health to couple of millions in conjuction with them using more abiölities on Fleet admiral level. It just feels like there is too much. Maybe they meant Elite to be done in groups, dont know, but i would rather love the increase of difficulty coming from using more abilities that on easier levels while keeping the ship and weapons equal to player ships. Icreasing damage and health is cheap mechanic to implement i admit that, But how about keeping health and damge somewhat equal but making enemies use more heals, resistance buffs and weapon buffs/Debuffss and that sort of thing.

It just feels that when Bird of Prey is tougher than advanced temporal sciemve vessel, that something is wrong. Its like that Bird of prey is to me similar, than big bad Scimitar was for Enterprise and Val'dor :D

Baxk to advanced settig i guess.

[Vellari]

Originally posted by <dUmB>Armageddon:

I have 60 def rating, 70k hull and 20k shield each facing so thats that. I also tested for fun that how much it takes to destroy my ship if i dont do anything and the timing was 3,5 seconds which feels pretty sad :D

What are you various dmg resistances (percentages?)

[necaradan666]

If you have more players in an elite patrol I think the number of enemies is also increased.

There's no real point in playing higher difficulties. advanced and especially elite just take more time for basically the same reward. The only reason you want to change from normal difficulty is when you're trying to level a ship, and advanced will get you there in a few runs, elite should only be done in a group that can handle it, otherwise it's a pointless grind.

[<dUmB>Armageddon]

I prefer more difficulty, because then the enemies are not as easily destroyed but then in Advanced and normal, my ship is practically untouchable which is why, i always try to go on Elite.

Ever since the difficulty selector was introduced and implemented, i have always chosen to play on elite, but now when i came back, there are huge damage spikes which i cant handle like i used to so maybe i just stay on advanced. Getting defeated is not that a big thing, but the explosing of my ship and death of all hands on board feels absurd so it irritates me that there are places where i cant do anything to prevent death. Maybe a cruiser would be better on survivability, but i love science ships and captains. Aanyway, if only the defeat animation would be something more like defeat rather than death, like emergency warp and forced repair time there, it would be more plausible to get back in a fight.