Agreed. While it should still be open to the people who want it all, most people would most likely just stick with a few commendation categories. This would be particularly true for those who like to roleplay.
Towards this end, perhaps titles and commendations for maxing combinations of paths? Like a maxed out Marauder who also maxes out Colonial could become a Pirate Lord or a maxed out Engineer who also maxes out Espionage can become a Jeffrey's Tube Technician.
Back on page 25 I already proposed dimishing returns on comendation XP based on how far you've progressed.
I think a diminishing return based on how many Commendation categories you've maxed out is really the best of both worlds. I prevents rampant maxing of all categories while still allowing players to do as they wish. It also has the in-game logic of 'it's hard to be good at everything'.
I think the standard should be no specialization. On the flipside, I think specialization boosts should be offered that boost one category while slowing another. This allows a casual person to complete their category of choice faster while taking longer with other categories.
The default would be no specialization. The OPTION would be tradeoffs to get the one you want faster.
I think a diminishing return based on how many Commendation categories you've maxed out is really the best of both worlds. I prevents rampant maxing of all categories while still allowing players to do as they wish. It also has the in-game logic of 'it's hard to be good at everything'.
Z
and min-maxers getting every path to 10 experience less than cap before maxing them all out in a dramatic explosion of advancement!
But in all honesty I'm against diminishing returns based on the number of paths you have maxed out. For a casual player like me it is, in essence saying effort invested three months from now will be less rewarding than effort invested immediately.
and min-maxers getting every path to 10 experience less than cap before maxing them all out in a dramatic explosion of advancement!
Applying dimishing returns only at the end of the comendation categories would be indeed stupid. What a luck that neither of us is that stupid isn't it?
Well, making the progression in every next tier of the same commendadtion category require more time would already introduce a need of specialisation in order to reach some high level goals. In my opinion this is better than to enforce specialisation with technical means.
and min-maxers getting every path to 10 experience less than cap before maxing them all out in a dramatic explosion of advancement!
That's how things would work with no diminishing returns.
In order to make maxing all Commendation categories very challenging but not impose artificial caps some kind of diminishing returns system is almost a must. Whether it goes by DOff XP totals, levels achieved across all Commendation categories or something else, reducing DOff XP awards or increasing DOff XP needed (net result is the same) would be far more preferable than outright hard caps, even if it's just within Commendation categories (so level 1 is pretty easy, level 2 twice as difficult, level 3 you need to work for it, etc). IMO that's how they should have gone with the skill tree, too, in lieu of the 72700 ceiling.
But in all honesty I'm against diminishing returns based on the number of paths you have maxed out. For a casual player like me it is, in essence saying effort invested three months from now will be less rewarding than effort invested immediately.
Every level-based system is more-or-less a diminishing return (or an increasing relative cost) system. You have to work harder the higher you get. If all categories take the same time and effort to max out, Cryptic will need to account for the 4-5+ hour a day min-maxers that will powerplay the system as fast as they can, in order to prevent them from topping out in a week. That means for a casual gamer playing maybe 5-8 hours a week maxing one category will take months. Conversely, if each Commendation category level has increasing costs [x] number of categories currently at that level (or something like that), then both hardcore and casual players will make fairly quick progress initially but have their DOff advancement slowed the higher they get in multiple categories. Players may be able to achieve level 2 in all categories with casual play in a relatively short amount of time (which would keep people interested) but have to focus more on DOff-play to achieve higher levels in multiple categories.
I'd rather something like this than hard caps any day. As always, YMMV.
Diminishing returns is already built in to the existing progression schedule for commendation tiers in the form of it taking more commendation xp in a category to get from Tier 2 to Tier 3 than from Tier 1 to Tier 2.
That being said, there is a limit to how long you can expect a player to wait until they get a "ding" before they'll give up on trying to advance in the system. For example, in most MMORPGs, the first ten levels are a great string of dings where you feel like you are constantly getting rewarded. By the time you are on the last ten levels, however, it can feel like you are on a treadmill going nowhere...you know how it goes, "Great, I just spent an evening to advance two pixels on my xp count. Maybe I'll just play some <insert other game> tonight instead."
So, diminishing returns may or may not be able to solve the issue all on its own. Where it is currently set now may in fact work just fine, or it may need additional mechanisms to make the progression feel right to everybody involved, most importantly the playerbase.
"Great, I just spent an evening to advance two pixels on my xp count. Maybe I'll just play some <insert other game> tonight instead."
Sounds like someone else also played EverQuest back in the day (circa 1999 - 2003) - where the term 'pixel tease' was born (and that was where your level EXP bar looked full, and you thought for sure you'd 'Ding' on the next kill - not 20 kills later.)
That being said, there is a limit to how long you can expect a player to wait until they get a "ding" before they'll give up on trying to advance in the system.
Yup, and the length of time generally has to be seen as worth it when compared to the reward for each advancement.
This is generally what most people see as the problem with the Diplomacy system as it stands. Too long between tiers without rewards which justify that amount of time and effort.
Generally as soon as words like "grind" start rearing their heads it's a sign that either the dings need to be closer together or the rewards need to be greater so that someone can look at them on horizon and think, "Yeah! I need THAT!".
More screenshots. Showing some of the early functional filtering mechanics, reward screens, and plenty of pixels for you to pick apart for active roster skill lists and the like. :cool:
Diminishing returns is already built in to the existing progression schedule for commendation tiers in the form of it taking more commendation xp in a category to get from Tier 2 to Tier 3 than from Tier 1 to Tier 2.
That being said, there is a limit to how long you can expect a player to wait until they get a "ding" before they'll give up on trying to advance in the system. For example, in most MMORPGs, the first ten levels are a great string of dings where you feel like you are constantly getting rewarded. By the time you are on the last ten levels, however, it can feel like you are on a treadmill going nowhere...you know how it goes, "Great, I just spent an evening to advance two pixels on my xp count. Maybe I'll just play some <insert other game> tonight instead."
So, diminishing returns may or may not be able to solve the issue all on its own. Where it is currently set now may in fact work just fine, or it may need additional mechanisms to make the progression feel right to everybody involved, most importantly the playerbase.
Perhaps introduction of mission types available at higher commendation levels, which result in noticeable progress on accomplishment despite dimishing returns, but with a reasonably increased duration sufficient to slow the overall progress down could be a possible solution there. As long as there is actually not more active "grind" than at lower levels, the threadmill feeling should be less acute.
This would also provide more importance to having required types of duty officers on the reserve roster and to assign them appropriately.
More screenshots. Showing some of the early functional filtering mechanics, reward screens, and plenty of pixels for you to pick apart for active roster skill lists and the like. :cool:
More screenshots. Showing some of the early functional filtering mechanics, reward screens, and plenty of pixels for you to pick apart for active roster skill lists and the like. :cool:
More screenshots. Showing some of the early functional filtering mechanics, reward screens, and plenty of pixels for you to pick apart for active roster skill lists and the like. :cool:
Thankyou for these - I can't wait! I like the cannon turret upgrade one a lot, the idea of my crew always working to upgrade my ship
"Chance to beam down an additional security escort when using security team" - if you ever get MACO uniforms into the game, is there any chance we could get a MACO team beam down if we have a certain number of these guys slotted on our roster? Anything to do with MACOs
Is there going to be any changes to the Diplomatic XP? Since the Diplomatic XP for the Mediate Separatist Reconcialition on Lackey is set to 31. Therefore, I just need 1.5 months to get to Ambassador by doing 1 1-day diplomacy assignment each day. Also will the other commendations require the same amount of XP as Diplomatic XP?
Is there going to be any changes to the Diplomatic XP? Since the Diplomatic XP for the Mediate Separatist Reconcialition on Lackey is set to 31. Therefore, I just need 1.5 months to get to Ambassador by doing 1 1-day diplomacy assignment each day. Also will the other commendations require the same amount of XP as Diplomatic XP?
Diplomatic XP is based on the current scale; the other commendation categories will be based on a similar (revised) expected time-to-tier, but will operate on a different scale. In other words, you will get more commendation xp in non-Diplomacy commendation categories, but the amount of xp you need to get to achieve the tiers will also be higher.
This was the best compromise we could come up with since the Diplomacy numerical scale is much coarser than we needed for the assignment system generally. The major cost to Diplomacy assignments is that almost all of them will be 1d or longer, since shorter than that will break the system.
But, yes, we do expect this to make it faster to tier up in Diplomacy after this system goes live. We see this as a good thing.
The thing with Diplomatic XP up til DOFF activation is that we've had to grind it actively. With DOFF fire and forget style gameplay it's much easier for casual and hardcore players to gain tiers in it. Previously you had First Contacts and occasional exploration grinding and the one time playable Dip missions. Now that there's a way to repeat many Dip missions that's far less of a grind.
With the way this system should play I wouldn't worry about having large commendation cap goals. Though I was wondering if it would be possible to make it take longer for other commendation levels once you capped some?
For instance here's what I'm looking at on my Fed character:
Diplomacy (Federation) - Tier 3, nearly 4
Marauding (Klingon) *IGNORE THIS ONE*
Science - Tier 2
Engineering - Tier 3, nearly 4
Medical - Tier 2
Military - Tier 1
Espionage - Tier 3
Colonial - Tier 2
Trade - Tier 2
Exploration - Tier 3
Development - Tier 2
Recruiting - Tier 3 (I'd like to see any limitations on capping commendations not apply to this category btw)
If I cap Diplomacy I get a 2.5% additional XP requirement per tier added to each other category. Then I cap Engineering I get another 2.5% on the remaining categories. Basically the more categories I cap the longer it'll take to cap any one remaining category until I get to the last category available to me which by that point should drag out a fair amount of time.
Is this something even possible with the current tech?
After looking at the pics uploaded recently I have a thought.
Instead of just saying "JoeBlow is on Reserve" could we see an "active" LCAR button next to all officers in our roster that are active? Was that in the pics and I overlooked it?
More screenshots. Showing some of the early functional filtering mechanics, reward screens, and plenty of pixels for you to pick apart for active roster skill lists and the like. :cool:
Ooh, Deltans Doffs confirmed! Well, either that or we're getting impossible assignments requiring races we can't use.
Great to see more screenshots. One thing, though; can I ask why you always upload such low res pics? They're big enough to make out the text, but just barely. Rather than making us squint and hurt our eyes (especially for those of use without great eyesight), would it be possible that you could upload pics that are just a tiny bit larger? Anyway, thanks a lot, and I can't wait for this system! Hope I get into redshirt, heh.
Ooh, Deltans Doffs confirmed! Well, either that or we're getting impossible assignments requiring races we can't use.
Great to see more screenshots. One thing, though; can I ask why you always upload such low res pics? They're big enough to make out the text, but just barely. Rather than making us squint and hurt our eyes (especially for those of use without great eyesight), would it be possible that you could upload pics that are just a tiny bit larger? Anyway, thanks a lot, and I can't wait for this system! Hope I get into redshirt, heh.
Imageshack defaults to reducing pics to 800x600. You have set it to 'Do Not Resize' to get full-res pics (I found this out the hard way). Maybe Heretic doesn't realize that? So Heretic, heads up man.
In my opinion it would be interesting to have some sort of penalty missions caused by critical failures of other missions. Something like: "Dispatch a delegation to the you-name-it administartion in order to apologize for the diplomatic disaster caused by sending your targ to some previous conference."
Looks like there is a turret icon among listed rewards. The mission has a low probablilty of sucess though.
I wonder what happens on a disaster outcome? The weapon blows up in the DOff's face and lands the DOff in sickbay (since they can't be killed unless they're a white/common quality DOff)?
I wonder what happens on a disaster outcome? The weapon blows up in the DOff's face and lands the DOff in sickbay (since they can't be killed unless they're a white/common quality DOff)?
Or the DO gets sucked into another phase and you have to spend an entire week of assignments looking for a way to bring him back whilst he attempts to convince you that he's still there.
...
Actually, that would be cool. Assignments opening up other assignments. Like a mini-campaign with a chance for a big reward at its end, but cancelling the entire progression if something goes wrong. Or opening up different paths depending on what happens. Success? Next phase. Disaster? Rescue ops. Such stuff.
Comments
Towards this end, perhaps titles and commendations for maxing combinations of paths? Like a maxed out Marauder who also maxes out Colonial could become a Pirate Lord or a maxed out Engineer who also maxes out Espionage can become a Jeffrey's Tube Technician.
I think a diminishing return based on how many Commendation categories you've maxed out is really the best of both worlds. I prevents rampant maxing of all categories while still allowing players to do as they wish. It also has the in-game logic of 'it's hard to be good at everything'.
Z
The default would be no specialization. The OPTION would be tradeoffs to get the one you want faster.
and min-maxers getting every path to 10 experience less than cap before maxing them all out in a dramatic explosion of advancement!
But in all honesty I'm against diminishing returns based on the number of paths you have maxed out. For a casual player like me it is, in essence saying effort invested three months from now will be less rewarding than effort invested immediately.
Applying dimishing returns only at the end of the comendation categories would be indeed stupid. What a luck that neither of us is that stupid isn't it?
That's how things would work with no diminishing returns.
In order to make maxing all Commendation categories very challenging but not impose artificial caps some kind of diminishing returns system is almost a must. Whether it goes by DOff XP totals, levels achieved across all Commendation categories or something else, reducing DOff XP awards or increasing DOff XP needed (net result is the same) would be far more preferable than outright hard caps, even if it's just within Commendation categories (so level 1 is pretty easy, level 2 twice as difficult, level 3 you need to work for it, etc). IMO that's how they should have gone with the skill tree, too, in lieu of the 72700 ceiling.
Every level-based system is more-or-less a diminishing return (or an increasing relative cost) system. You have to work harder the higher you get. If all categories take the same time and effort to max out, Cryptic will need to account for the 4-5+ hour a day min-maxers that will powerplay the system as fast as they can, in order to prevent them from topping out in a week. That means for a casual gamer playing maybe 5-8 hours a week maxing one category will take months. Conversely, if each Commendation category level has increasing costs [x] number of categories currently at that level (or something like that), then both hardcore and casual players will make fairly quick progress initially but have their DOff advancement slowed the higher they get in multiple categories. Players may be able to achieve level 2 in all categories with casual play in a relatively short amount of time (which would keep people interested) but have to focus more on DOff-play to achieve higher levels in multiple categories.
I'd rather something like this than hard caps any day. As always, YMMV.
Z
Ditto.
/10 char
That being said, there is a limit to how long you can expect a player to wait until they get a "ding" before they'll give up on trying to advance in the system. For example, in most MMORPGs, the first ten levels are a great string of dings where you feel like you are constantly getting rewarded. By the time you are on the last ten levels, however, it can feel like you are on a treadmill going nowhere...you know how it goes, "Great, I just spent an evening to advance two pixels on my xp count. Maybe I'll just play some <insert other game> tonight instead."
So, diminishing returns may or may not be able to solve the issue all on its own. Where it is currently set now may in fact work just fine, or it may need additional mechanisms to make the progression feel right to everybody involved, most importantly the playerbase.
Sounds like someone else also played EverQuest back in the day (circa 1999 - 2003) - where the term 'pixel tease' was born (and that was where your level EXP bar looked full, and you thought for sure you'd 'Ding' on the next kill - not 20 kills later.)
Yup, and the length of time generally has to be seen as worth it when compared to the reward for each advancement.
This is generally what most people see as the problem with the Diplomacy system as it stands. Too long between tiers without rewards which justify that amount of time and effort.
Generally as soon as words like "grind" start rearing their heads it's a sign that either the dings need to be closer together or the rewards need to be greater so that someone can look at them on horizon and think, "Yeah! I need THAT!".
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150260521152078.324250.750257077&type=1¬if_t=like
Image Shack - http://imageshack.us/g/27/doff01b.jpg/
This would also provide more importance to having required types of duty officers on the reserve roster and to assign them appropriately.
But this approach is certainly not ideal as well.
Looks pretty. Looking forward to trying it out. Thanks for the screenies.
Thanks for the peek, keep 'em coming
Thankyou for these - I can't wait! I like the cannon turret upgrade one a lot, the idea of my crew always working to upgrade my ship
"Chance to beam down an additional security escort when using security team" - if you ever get MACO uniforms into the game, is there any chance we could get a MACO team beam down if we have a certain number of these guys slotted on our roster? Anything to do with MACOs
Diplomatic XP is based on the current scale; the other commendation categories will be based on a similar (revised) expected time-to-tier, but will operate on a different scale. In other words, you will get more commendation xp in non-Diplomacy commendation categories, but the amount of xp you need to get to achieve the tiers will also be higher.
This was the best compromise we could come up with since the Diplomacy numerical scale is much coarser than we needed for the assignment system generally. The major cost to Diplomacy assignments is that almost all of them will be 1d or longer, since shorter than that will break the system.
But, yes, we do expect this to make it faster to tier up in Diplomacy after this system goes live. We see this as a good thing.
With the way this system should play I wouldn't worry about having large commendation cap goals. Though I was wondering if it would be possible to make it take longer for other commendation levels once you capped some?
For instance here's what I'm looking at on my Fed character:
Diplomacy (Federation) - Tier 3, nearly 4
Marauding (Klingon) *IGNORE THIS ONE*
Science - Tier 2
Engineering - Tier 3, nearly 4
Medical - Tier 2
Military - Tier 1
Espionage - Tier 3
Colonial - Tier 2
Trade - Tier 2
Exploration - Tier 3
Development - Tier 2
Recruiting - Tier 3 (I'd like to see any limitations on capping commendations not apply to this category btw)
If I cap Diplomacy I get a 2.5% additional XP requirement per tier added to each other category. Then I cap Engineering I get another 2.5% on the remaining categories. Basically the more categories I cap the longer it'll take to cap any one remaining category until I get to the last category available to me which by that point should drag out a fair amount of time.
Is this something even possible with the current tech?
After looking at the pics uploaded recently I have a thought.
Instead of just saying "JoeBlow is on Reserve" could we see an "active" LCAR button next to all officers in our roster that are active? Was that in the pics and I overlooked it?
Ooh, Deltans Doffs confirmed! Well, either that or we're getting impossible assignments requiring races we can't use.
Great to see more screenshots. One thing, though; can I ask why you always upload such low res pics? They're big enough to make out the text, but just barely. Rather than making us squint and hurt our eyes (especially for those of use without great eyesight), would it be possible that you could upload pics that are just a tiny bit larger? Anyway, thanks a lot, and I can't wait for this system! Hope I get into redshirt, heh.
Imageshack defaults to reducing pics to 800x600. You have set it to 'Do Not Resize' to get full-res pics (I found this out the hard way). Maybe Heretic doesn't realize that? So Heretic, heads up man.
Z
I could understand that, but you can still read all the text and see all the icons and everything. It's just hard on your eyes, heh.
Hmmm is that some sort of fancy experimental weapon reward? I see?
Hope I can get my unhappily married drunkard irish Chief on the job
I wonder what happens on a disaster outcome? The weapon blows up in the DOff's face and lands the DOff in sickbay (since they can't be killed unless they're a white/common quality DOff)?
...
Actually, that would be cool. Assignments opening up other assignments. Like a mini-campaign with a chance for a big reward at its end, but cancelling the entire progression if something goes wrong. Or opening up different paths depending on what happens. Success? Next phase. Disaster? Rescue ops. Such stuff.
Also, +1 for bigger screenshots.