I logged into Tribble tonight and it's clear the DOFF system is still in need of reward balancing.
- REMOVE the captain xp, or make it a token amount (like 1-100 points per assignment). Your DOFFs are the ones doing the work, not your captain.
- INCREASE the DOFF category cxp. As it stands now, it takes way too long to achieve the tiers past tier 2, and even that is a stretch at 15,000.
First and foremost, there should never be a case where I can run one mission for 20 hours and log back in to get a free level(s). One of my old medical missions that was still in queue was altered, yet it still showed over 1,600 captain xp as one reward. That's just nuts. Players should not be auto-leveling by running the DOFF system 1-2 times a day and logging back out. We don't need STO: Free to Farm, where players only run dilithium missions and the DOFF system until they get to the level cap and start playing the other content. Right now, that's all too easy a leveling strategy. My Fed is at the level cap, has done none of the Romulan or Cardassian area missions, plus probably half of the Klingon front missions, and can't even get into the Borg stuff because it's gated based on content completed. I didn't WANT to level that fast without doing missions; it just happened because I was working so hard at DOFF stuff due to the slow advancement there.
On the other hand, Diplomacy is too easy. Marauding is just plain broken for me now, so who knows what's going on there. It seems like maybe the tier breakpoints were lowered and being above them broke the progress meter, not to mention stealing my chance to get any of the DOFF rewards I hadn't yet earned.
The alterations also apparently nerfed the cxp from the one non-Diplomacy category that actually showed something approaching progress: Medical. For both factions it was the only one I had a hope of getting to tier 2 with within reason, though even the old Medical cxp amounts would have taken ages to get me to tier 4. I can understand if Cryptic wants the DOFF system to be slow-advancing so players don't give up on it after a couple weeks, but right now it's silly. Players should feel like they're advancing at least 1-2 DOFF areas at the same rate they're leveling, or be able to more slowly advance multiple categories. What's the point of having the DOFF tokens for the tiers if natural recruiting will get you all the DOFFs you'll ever need before you get to tier 3 on any category?
Oh, and about Diplomacy and Marauding ... why no tier 4 reward? I can guess that Diplomacy had none because it was supposed to award a BOFF, but that was broken up until today. I can't tell now if it still is, because I can't go back and get a reward after passing the reward trigger. Marauding just plain had nothing, since it was apparently little more than a copy-paste of Diplomacy. Even the Marauding DOFFs in the store were unimpressive. It seemed they weren't as varied and useful as the Diplomacy ones.
Also, since the patch there seem to be way too many Marauding offers. There needs to be a better balance among offer categories so players don't get stuck without being able to find a mission or two in a category they want to actively advance.
And back to the broken unclaimable past rewards ... Cryptic, you REALLY need to fix this issue. It's been a problem since, well, pre-launch beta. If I miss a reward because it wasn't working right, then when the fix or change patch goes through, the character should receive those rewards retroactively. This should be trackable, so fix it. For instance, if Klingons are supposed to get BOFFs at certain levels (which we WERE NOT!) then when the fix comes through, we should receive all those BOFF offers. Same for ship discount tokens or any other thing that is a major advancement-based reward.
For tangible, limited-storage things like BOFFs, maybe the whole popup reward system needs to be changed. Give BOFF tokens or dilithium and direct us to a store with random officers at each rarity level for each race/sex/department. Don't show us the specific traits and skills -- randomize that part upon purchase.
Why not? So people can continue to rank up without ever taking a mission? It needs to be removed or awarded at a tiny fraction of what we're seeing now, or else you outlevel 3/4 of the game before getting through Commander.
Diplomacy really is broken, it DOESNT give enough xp. Really 2-3d for 9 dxp? LOL thats a joke, you can do diplomatic missions for 10 dxp a pop multiple times a day. This is plain grinding nonsense anyway you slice it.
In fact the whole system is broken, it needs a substantial XP increase across the board, including diplomacy and the timers lowered. Waiting 3 Real Life days is NOT Fun. At the absolute most DOFF missions should run 1 day or less.
Also Captain XP should stay, afterall by ordering lackeys around is an experience. Its also another layer of choice. If someone wants to Facebook their way to higher levels, let them. It'lll probably take a long time but who are YOU to say how people should play the game?
No on both counts. As captain you're overseeing the missions, that's a part of being a captain and what nets you the experience.
One new thing i fully intend on doing when it goes live is levelling a new toon solely on Doff XP. It adds a new challenge to the standard levelling process for me.
No on making the requirements smaller too, i don't want the commendations to last a week then never touch doffs again. I'm loving the doff system, i want it to last many months, possibly even a year or two. It's a time sink, it should work as one.
The captain skill points awarded for Doff missions needs to be toned way down. That's about all I agree with the op.
Right now I've managed to level a Fed to VA1 and I'm not even halfway through the Romulan story arc. Saturday's Child is next. I know the leveling curve is fouled up because of all the bonus skill points they're awarding on story missions to get us through faster. But when I can start a bunch of Doff assignments, go to bed and log in the next morning to discover the completed missions jumped my character from Captain 1 to Captain 4 (true story) something is off.
I'm all for the Doff system being a supplement to normal leveling, or even an alternate leveling path if that's all you want to do. But to get a character from start to VA1 doing nothing but Doff missions you should have to pretty much have to max out most commendation categories.
One of the goals of the system is to provide for different play patterns and different playstyles which is why there are some very short assignments and some very long assignments. If you want long assignments because you are only logging in a couple of weeks, we want there to be long assignments available. Conversely, if you are playing more actively, we want there to be shorter assignments that reward you appropriately for your time investment.
The intention is that the rewards should line up in terms of perceived and in terms of actual benefit depending on time and rarity. We have not, obviously, hit this balance point yet, but we still have a long way to go in this beta and will continue iterating on the system until we get it to where it needs to be.
The system is intended to allow you to level with it, but it generally should be a supplement to other activities. It can be a replacement, but the intent is that this will in fact be slower.
Marauding and Diplomacy should both be giving bridge officer and other rewards at Tier IV. There are some bugs with both of these that we are currently investigating.
Medical Relief assignments were literally bugged in the data; they were rewarding as if they were rare blue assignments, but were showing up at the same rate as uncommon green assignments.
That being said, we are continuing to iterate on the commendation tier caps and the CXP rewards, and will be lowering the caps to reach each tier by a to-be-determined amount. And, even then, it probably won't be the last time during this beta that we alter it.
Finally, Diplomacy is going to be nuked from orbit and operated on to make it work on the same scale as the other commendation categories. We were trying to avoid this given the impact it has on Content's time and the likely bugs that are going to arise from this, but the conclusion we have come to is that it simply is necessary.
This is a test server, and we are iterating very rapidly and will continue to change as fast as we are able to receive and process information from the playerbase. We deeply appreciate that players are taking their time to test these issues even knowing that it is temporary and there will inevitably - as a function of it being a test server - be many disruptions and little compensation able to be done for bugs.
Why not? So people can continue to rank up without ever taking a mission? It needs to be removed or awarded at a tiny fraction of what we're seeing now, or else you outlevel 3/4 of the game before getting through Commander.
When the DOFF system was first being announced someone at cryptic (can't remember who it was) spoke about "being able to hit VA without ever firing a weapon". This would currently mean grinding up to the level at which you unlock the DOFF system with only the non-combat diplomacy missions, but it should be possible.
I do agree that the xp rewards could be toned down a bit, but they should not be removed. If someone would really like to level all the way to VA without any combat, why not allow them to do so.
Also, the last character I leveled on Holodeck got to captain 7 by doing the episodes and patrols. After that I needed to grind at least half the xp needed for each level-up before a new story mission would be available. With the Doff system in place you can get some extra xp while you level up, without it being a grind. I'm not saying this should allow you to hit VA without ever having to grind, but it would be nice to get a few levels out of it.
ps. Cryptic, how about a reward/accolade for hitting a certain level w/o any combat.
Hopefully Cryptic will see Large XP Requirements and Real Time multiple day long mission timers are mutually exclusive. Especially when the XP payouts are so low, it makes the system impossible for all but the most hardcore gamer.
I like that the XP Requirements are going to be lowered, but hopefully they start lowering the mission timers. If they want to have long term assignments those better be the ones paying high XP. There are so many 9xp or less missions that last for days and that screams broken to me since the Time invest to reward ratio is horrible skewed there.
1-20 xp missions should be in the magnitude of less then 1 hour to 5 hours max.
Thanks Cryptic though for allowing for people to level by the DOFF system, if people want to be a Administrative Captain and not a Action Hero Captain they very well should be able.
I have no problem with people being able to level to the cap with DOFF and non-combat missions if that's what they want to do, but not inside of a week or two. It should at least take a couple months.
Who am I to dictate how others play? This is testing, and everyone should give their honest opinions. It's good to see Cryptic is at least considering things from all angles instead of holding fast to something that only looks good on paper.
Now, should players be able to skip story-driven content and quick-level to the endgame? I would hope that's not the design goal, because who will spend money on a game you can "finish" in a couple weeks to a month, barring a few featured episode series and assorted updates a few times a year? It's simple math for the financial folks, and negates the point of F2P. It also makes it too easy for professional farmers to log in, cash in their easy dailies for dilithium, set DOFFs, and move on to another character.
The numbers on Diplomacy cxp are low, in all likelihood, because the tier breakpoints are so low. This was the result of a weak system that awarded 10 or at most 20 points per mission before DOFF came into the picture. I trust an overhaul will be worth it, even if it means some growing pains on the exploration and diplomacy mission end.
The good thing about it all is Diplomacy has shown us what happens when achievement triggers and rewards are too low, while the other categories have shown us what happens when they are too high. As things work toward the middle ground, I expect more players will be satisfied overall, even if some prefer one extreme or the other.
... Diplomacy is going to be nuked from orbit and operated on to make it work on the same scale as the other commendation categories. We were trying to avoid this given the impact it has on Content's time and the likely bugs that are going to arise from this, but the conclusion we have come to is that it simply is necessary.
While you're nuking and rebuilding, the Honod System Patrol mission needs Diplomatic CXP added to it. I haven't patrolled every single sector, but this is the only one i've found that should have (according to the pre-DOff-system rules) Diplomatic XP and doesn't.
I know that's strictly not your area of expertise, but if Content is going to be digging through and scaling all the other diplomatic missions, this should fit in with their checklist.
Finally, Diplomacy is going to be nuked from orbit and operated on to make it work on the same scale as the other commendation categories. We were trying to avoid this given the impact it has on Content's time and the likely bugs that are going to arise from this, but the conclusion we have come to is that it simply is necessary.
I seriously appluad this decision, as it did need to be done so you don't have something so out of whack with the broader, more comprehensive system that it ties into. I know it's a lot of work, but it's nice to see the team doing what needs to be done prior to the F2P releaunch, rather than try to put another badaid on things.
That said, I hope we don't loose the other neat aspect of the Diplomacy missions (the various Diplomacy Story missions on Memory Alpha, Starbase 39, Vulcan, Ds9 Bajor, K-7, etc; or lose access to the "First Contact" missions (that I still wish could get some variety in teh system maps and ships youy see as you fly up, because currently, all FC missions are in the same system map with the same alien ship); but again, I applaud the decision to do what's needed to properly intigrate Diplomacy in the Doff system as it should be.
I think Diplomacy is better served as a Hyrbid system. Afterall, how many times on Star Trek did we NOT see the Captain be it Kirk, Picard, Janeway or Sisko personally involved with Diplomacy? So it does not belong as a fully integrated DOFF only system.
Keep progression how it is now where you can still do Diplo missions (and increase the dxp payout, 10 wont cut it anymore with the xp increase) in addition to doff diplomacy.
As a Klingon player, any method to gain xp besides repeating the breen series until my eyes explode is a welcome change, I enjoy the doff system very much because of the tangible impact it has on the sheer boredom of repeating the same klingon content over and over.
Heretic, when you raise/lower things, especially when you finally take it live, how are you going to handle existing values?
For example, if you raise the diplo tiers but don't give us "equivalent" dxp to match our progress, you dump us way behind. Conversely, if you lower the xp required for other things (like med) and cut our earned exp, you take away exp we earned.
Curious how you planned on handling this. My recommendation is, when going up, increase our dxp to represent a percentage of progress. So if we're 3/4 to Tier 4, then we're 3/4 to the new tier 4, how ever much that is. If you lower med xp from 50k for tier 4 to 30k and I already have 30k, then I just have tier 4 and you cap me off, cutting off the extras.
I am enjoying the Doff system, don't get me wrong.. but I have to agree that the amount of Captain & Bo XP that is in the current build needs lowering somewhat.. As for the amount of XP needed for the tier levels, I feel they are about right... It should take weeks or even months to cap them out, otherwise, as I've stated elsewhere, the doffs become redundant apart from the buffs we get from doing them...
Having said that, the (real) time taken to do a few of the assignments does need adjusting, and-or, XP raised.
My main concern is that many of the assignments have not been fully thought out.. For instance :-
Any that require multiple 'Security' officers.. As soon as you slot in the first one, all of your other 'Security' doffs cannot be used as they are 'greyed-out'....
Some assignments specify a 'Science' doff, but to achieve a 'Critical', it has to have an 'Engineering' speciality.... Whats wrong with that picture ??
There are others with similar mis-matched doff skills... Not to mention the problem that still exists of duplicate names greying out the slots...
I've just started a "Training" assignment, that had these required doffs :-
Operations (Any)... Sensor Officer (Ops).. Diagnostic (Eng)...Damage Control (Eng).. Hazard System (Eng)..
I can do this, as I have the doff's, great... But... it took almost 5 minutes to get them to go into the correct slots because the system as it stands puts them in the 'wrong slots, so I have to juggle them...
I realise this is still only in a test phase, but for me it is extremely irritating & frustrating...
Please make this a priority for the next pass through QA before you adjust the numbers... If we can't do the assignments for the reasons I've outlined, the XP required becomes irrelevant...:rolleyes:
Finally, Diplomacy is going to be nuked from orbit and operated on to make it work on the same scale as the other commendation categories. We were trying to avoid this given the impact it has on Content's time and the likely bugs that are going to arise from this, but the conclusion we have come to is that it simply is necessary.
In the current mechanic Diplomacy is an anomaly that may needs to be fixed, but then it should also be separated from the players diplomatic rank and be an independent value.
However somehow I would really miss to have at least one category more easily to be maxed out.
With the current diplo there was / is a short/midterm goal in the system to achieve, which would also give me a good impression of the benefits I could -some day- achieve in the other categories. It motivates to walk the long way to also max out the other categories.
Why take this away?
Or, why not give every player race a special "discounted" category in the doff system?
Human - Diplomacy
Andorian - Military
Ferengi - Trade
...
This way the chosen race would become more impact onto gameplay, and everyone could have at least one category in the doff system maxed without taking months.
Player & BO XP: I think there should be a daily limit on how much xp in total can be earned (with the doff system). Why not just reducing the amount of xp gained? Because its massively depending on how much doffs you have: With just the starting officers, and maybe even some of them already death, there is next to no progression due to the doff system. Lowering it even more it would become a joke to have the doff system as alternative way to level. However having a full set of (high quality) doffs - then you have some significant impact on leveling, which might be reduced a bit, e.g. by a cap.
Raise tier levels, keep them as they are, increase/decrease the xp for assignments, it's all just tinkering with the system. The real problem is no matter how you adjust it players will eventually get to the tier caps, then what? In the diplomacy system you worked your butt off to get to ambassador and then .....nothing, Nothing more to do so you never did another diplomacy mission. The question thats needs answering is where will the Doff system go for players who have reached the tier caps, have plans been made to prevent it becoming a redundant system?
The difference between the new DOFF system's viability past the point cap vs. the old Diplomacy model is obvious: it's a repeatable buff and reward system. The tiers themselves aren't the most important thing about the system as rewards go; it's the BOFFs, dilithium, gear, buffs, etc. that anyone can do long after they've maxed out the tiers in everything.
This is also why I think we could almost do away with captain XP from the system -- because there are so many other rewards built in.
I don't feel like diplo needs to be nuke per se, but the tiers do need an adjustment. Grinding out daily diplo missions wouldn't interfere with the doff diplo missions if the points required are adjusted upwards accordingly.
I absolutely disagree with OP on removing captain SP for doff missions. There's no reason why a player shouldn't be able to level to cap mostly taking on doff missions if he/she so chooses. Maybe the SP gains need to be tuned down a bit since you can take on so many missions in a relatively short period of time and there are other rewards to most every mission. Ordering your officers to successfully complete tasks raises your profile as an effective captain, so why shouldn't it give you captain SP?
The difference between the new DOFF system's viability past the point cap vs. the old Diplomacy model is obvious: it's a repeatable buff and reward system. The tiers themselves aren't the most important thing about the system as rewards go; it's the BOFFs, dilithium, gear, buffs, etc. that anyone can do long after they've maxed out the tiers in everything.
By the time you have maxed out the tiers you'll most likely be a VA, have all purple gear and all lthe Boffs you need. You'll do the dailies for a 1000 dilithium or so a time and the buffs only infrequently appear in assignments. Most people need goals and targets to aim for so they are motivated and feel they are progressing.
The very nature of MMO's is character progression, they need to put something in place to encourage players to continue using the system when they have maxed out the tiers. How about a method for turning the excess exp earned into tokens for use at a vendor for unique rewards and to buy more Doffs from Ferra? A unique Science Boff for 30000 medical exp, a new uniform for 10000 diplomacy exp etc would keep players interested and rewarded for using the system.
I love the Doff system and i don't want it to be reduced to a system of just swapping out duty officers for buffs (about as interesting as swapping out weapons and consoles) for specific missions, just because there is no more progression within the system
This is a test server, and we are iterating very rapidly and will continue to change as fast as we are able to receive and process information from the playerbase. We deeply appreciate that players are taking their time to test these issues even knowing that it is temporary and there will inevitably - as function of it being a test server - be many disruptions and little compensation able to be done for bugs.
^^^THIS QFT^^^
People need to get off the negativity and provide CONSTRUCTIVE feedback. Cripes...I have played a few MMOs in my time, and Cryptic has been among one of the better Devs that honestly want player feedback and actually act on it. Sometimes I dont agree...sometimes I do with the changes made.. .but you cant make everyone happy all the time.
People shouldnt get so hung up on what happens after you cap doffs. Its really no big deal to actively want doffs to turn from fun into a boring grind.
Alot of ideas are on the table already about extending the Doff system to working Post Admiral Promotion where you can get Captain Doffs and manage a fleet using the system.
Which im sure will come to frutation in the future, so its silly to harp on the now, and ruin a good idea because of fear of the future.
So far with the Duty Officer system, I have managed to go from LtCom2 to Commander 2 without actually doing any missions, just logging in daily and queueing up 1day+ assignments.
This rate feels a bit too fast. I do understand it slows down though going through Commander, so perhaps a change to make the xp reward based on your captain's skill level, instead of a fixed rate reward?
With mine, I see a lot of Diplomacy missions crop up. I do realize that this is partially due to my preference for the Long Day missions, however I would like to see more Long Day missions for the other categories crop up.
When claiming a cadet pack, I'd like to see what I got immediately [and only what I got]. I don't like digging through my roster trying to match up names to find out if I got anything good.
Is it just me or Trade and Egineering assignments generaly give so few cxp ? Engineering even more than Trade.
Sure, there are some assignments that give like 50-100 cxp, but these are very rare...
And if the diplomacy tier is changed to be like the others, in terms of necessary cxp for a new tier, then the assignments need to give more cxp as well, because as it stands, i think i never got a diplomacy assignment that gave me 100 cxp. The normal ammount is between 8 and 15, with a very few awarding 34 cxp. Not the mention the long period of time for each assignment (20 hours or more)
And indeed, the captain xp reward is kinda big. I leveled from Captain 1 to VA in a few days, without doing anything besides DoFF assignments. Every day i got at least 2 levels.
Now, should players be able to skip story-driven content and quick-level to the endgame?
Yes. And I will explain why.
The DOFF system can be another branch of gameplay one could deviate from if they've already been through the standard story missions. In Star Trek, you can bet your latinum that a good number of captains tried their very best to sit on their thumbs throughout the five year mission and simply issue out simple projects. It's the realistically 'boring' way officers rise up in ranks through simple paperwork or diplomatic missions. After all, not all of them could have the love of adventure like Kirk did. The DOFF system is far from boring, but that's one way a Starfleet Captain can gain experience.
I for one will roll out another toon just to see how far I can level up using the DOFF system alone. It doesn't detract from the initial gameplay, but actually enhances it. You yourself may not find it applicable to your gaming experience, but you can't say others can't as well.
And quick-leveling is a joke. I've never experienced such a slow grind waiting for missions to play out than the DOFF system. (Which is a good thing.) I can clear out the story missions in two weeks tops with no problem. The DOFF system is doing it's job already by keeping people preoccupied days on end with those long missions.
Is it just me or Trade and Egineering assignments generaly give so few cxp ? Engineering even more than Trade.
Trade is lousy, especially since it's not awarding energy credits for commodities any more, but Engineering is worse. The engineering assignments almost always require stuff I don't have, such as contraband or a fabrication engineer. (As far as I can tell, you can only get a fabrication engineer by getting commendation levels in Engineering, which isn't going to happen.) I have yet to obtain a single piece of contraband. My KDF captain has yet to earn a single Engineering experience point, and my Federation captain isn't much better off.
Engineering is easily the worst, as far as I can tell. That's not meant to take anything away from the horrible Trade XP, but at least I can gain a few points of Trade XP here and there without going broke.
Is it just me or Trade and Egineering assignments generaly give so few cxp ? Engineering even more than Trade.
Trade, Engineering, Science; I have no idea how anyone would ever cap these out. To be fair, if you pack your roster with nothing but scan missions, you can get about 10 CXP/h per slot out of science. That's not terrible, but other categories will level faster with a whole lot less work. And most of the time I don't think you could even keep all your slots filled with science missions, even if you had the crew for it. They only run 30 minutes, and I think you would be idle for at least 2h out of every roll if you were trying to do science only. And there are no long running missions at all, meaning your CXP/h goes to 0 30m after you log off.
I guess you could maybe level trade if you were doing nothing but that all the time; but you still have the same problem that you can only work on while you're logged in, and can't queue lower productivity missions for off hours. All these categories could use some mid and long duration missions in the 2 to 20h range, with some green and blue ones, similar to the other lines. I would also like if if there were sci missions that did not give samples but gave more CXP.
.Finally, Diplomacy is going to be nuked from orbit and operated on to make it work on the same scale as the other commendation categories. We were trying to avoid this given the impact it has on Content's time and the likely bugs that are going to arise from this, but the conclusion we have come to is that it simply is necessary.
I think the only concern many current players would have is that during the translation to a new scale that those tha earned a specific diplomatic rank will retain that rank upon transfer. It is fine that a person at Dipl 2 now will have to wait longer to get to Dipl 3 and above, but a person already at a level above 1 should not be bounced back to level 1 because of the new scale is well above the old scale.
I think the only concern many current players would have is that during the translation to a new scale that those tha earned a specific diplomatic rank will retain that rank upon transfer. It is fine that a person at Dipl 2 now will have to wait longer to get to Dipl 3 and above, but a person already at a level above 1 should not be bounced back to level 1 because of the new scale is well above the old scale.
I'm glad to hear the scale is being conformed, but I agree that existing captains should retain whatever current tier they have reached in the transition to the new system. I heard a rumor that existing players will automatically get credit for the reward DOFF requisitions for the tiers they have already capped as well, which I also hope is the plan.
Comments
Hell no.
In fact the whole system is broken, it needs a substantial XP increase across the board, including diplomacy and the timers lowered. Waiting 3 Real Life days is NOT Fun. At the absolute most DOFF missions should run 1 day or less.
Also Captain XP should stay, afterall by ordering lackeys around is an experience. Its also another layer of choice. If someone wants to Facebook their way to higher levels, let them. It'lll probably take a long time but who are YOU to say how people should play the game?
One new thing i fully intend on doing when it goes live is levelling a new toon solely on Doff XP. It adds a new challenge to the standard levelling process for me.
No on making the requirements smaller too, i don't want the commendations to last a week then never touch doffs again. I'm loving the doff system, i want it to last many months, possibly even a year or two. It's a time sink, it should work as one.
Right now I've managed to level a Fed to VA1 and I'm not even halfway through the Romulan story arc. Saturday's Child is next. I know the leveling curve is fouled up because of all the bonus skill points they're awarding on story missions to get us through faster. But when I can start a bunch of Doff assignments, go to bed and log in the next morning to discover the completed missions jumped my character from Captain 1 to Captain 4 (true story) something is off.
I'm all for the Doff system being a supplement to normal leveling, or even an alternate leveling path if that's all you want to do. But to get a character from start to VA1 doing nothing but Doff missions you should have to pretty much have to max out most commendation categories.
The intention is that the rewards should line up in terms of perceived and in terms of actual benefit depending on time and rarity. We have not, obviously, hit this balance point yet, but we still have a long way to go in this beta and will continue iterating on the system until we get it to where it needs to be.
The system is intended to allow you to level with it, but it generally should be a supplement to other activities. It can be a replacement, but the intent is that this will in fact be slower.
Marauding and Diplomacy should both be giving bridge officer and other rewards at Tier IV. There are some bugs with both of these that we are currently investigating.
Medical Relief assignments were literally bugged in the data; they were rewarding as if they were rare blue assignments, but were showing up at the same rate as uncommon green assignments.
That being said, we are continuing to iterate on the commendation tier caps and the CXP rewards, and will be lowering the caps to reach each tier by a to-be-determined amount. And, even then, it probably won't be the last time during this beta that we alter it.
Finally, Diplomacy is going to be nuked from orbit and operated on to make it work on the same scale as the other commendation categories. We were trying to avoid this given the impact it has on Content's time and the likely bugs that are going to arise from this, but the conclusion we have come to is that it simply is necessary.
This is a test server, and we are iterating very rapidly and will continue to change as fast as we are able to receive and process information from the playerbase. We deeply appreciate that players are taking their time to test these issues even knowing that it is temporary and there will inevitably - as a function of it being a test server - be many disruptions and little compensation able to be done for bugs.
When the DOFF system was first being announced someone at cryptic (can't remember who it was) spoke about "being able to hit VA without ever firing a weapon". This would currently mean grinding up to the level at which you unlock the DOFF system with only the non-combat diplomacy missions, but it should be possible.
I do agree that the xp rewards could be toned down a bit, but they should not be removed. If someone would really like to level all the way to VA without any combat, why not allow them to do so.
Also, the last character I leveled on Holodeck got to captain 7 by doing the episodes and patrols. After that I needed to grind at least half the xp needed for each level-up before a new story mission would be available. With the Doff system in place you can get some extra xp while you level up, without it being a grind. I'm not saying this should allow you to hit VA without ever having to grind, but it would be nice to get a few levels out of it.
ps. Cryptic, how about a reward/accolade for hitting a certain level w/o any combat.
I like that the XP Requirements are going to be lowered, but hopefully they start lowering the mission timers. If they want to have long term assignments those better be the ones paying high XP. There are so many 9xp or less missions that last for days and that screams broken to me since the Time invest to reward ratio is horrible skewed there.
1-20 xp missions should be in the magnitude of less then 1 hour to 5 hours max.
Thanks Cryptic though for allowing for people to level by the DOFF system, if people want to be a Administrative Captain and not a Action Hero Captain they very well should be able.
Who am I to dictate how others play? This is testing, and everyone should give their honest opinions. It's good to see Cryptic is at least considering things from all angles instead of holding fast to something that only looks good on paper.
Now, should players be able to skip story-driven content and quick-level to the endgame? I would hope that's not the design goal, because who will spend money on a game you can "finish" in a couple weeks to a month, barring a few featured episode series and assorted updates a few times a year? It's simple math for the financial folks, and negates the point of F2P. It also makes it too easy for professional farmers to log in, cash in their easy dailies for dilithium, set DOFFs, and move on to another character.
The numbers on Diplomacy cxp are low, in all likelihood, because the tier breakpoints are so low. This was the result of a weak system that awarded 10 or at most 20 points per mission before DOFF came into the picture. I trust an overhaul will be worth it, even if it means some growing pains on the exploration and diplomacy mission end.
The good thing about it all is Diplomacy has shown us what happens when achievement triggers and rewards are too low, while the other categories have shown us what happens when they are too high. As things work toward the middle ground, I expect more players will be satisfied overall, even if some prefer one extreme or the other.
While you're nuking and rebuilding, the Honod System Patrol mission needs Diplomatic CXP added to it. I haven't patrolled every single sector, but this is the only one i've found that should have (according to the pre-DOff-system rules) Diplomatic XP and doesn't.
I know that's strictly not your area of expertise, but if Content is going to be digging through and scaling all the other diplomatic missions, this should fit in with their checklist.
I seriously appluad this decision, as it did need to be done so you don't have something so out of whack with the broader, more comprehensive system that it ties into. I know it's a lot of work, but it's nice to see the team doing what needs to be done prior to the F2P releaunch, rather than try to put another badaid on things.
That said, I hope we don't loose the other neat aspect of the Diplomacy missions (the various Diplomacy Story missions on Memory Alpha, Starbase 39, Vulcan, Ds9 Bajor, K-7, etc; or lose access to the "First Contact" missions (that I still wish could get some variety in teh system maps and ships youy see as you fly up, because currently, all FC missions are in the same system map with the same alien ship); but again, I applaud the decision to do what's needed to properly intigrate Diplomacy in the Doff system as it should be.
Keep progression how it is now where you can still do Diplo missions (and increase the dxp payout, 10 wont cut it anymore with the xp increase) in addition to doff diplomacy.
Please don't remove the xp.
For example, if you raise the diplo tiers but don't give us "equivalent" dxp to match our progress, you dump us way behind. Conversely, if you lower the xp required for other things (like med) and cut our earned exp, you take away exp we earned.
Curious how you planned on handling this. My recommendation is, when going up, increase our dxp to represent a percentage of progress. So if we're 3/4 to Tier 4, then we're 3/4 to the new tier 4, how ever much that is. If you lower med xp from 50k for tier 4 to 30k and I already have 30k, then I just have tier 4 and you cap me off, cutting off the extras.
Having said that, the (real) time taken to do a few of the assignments does need adjusting, and-or, XP raised.
My main concern is that many of the assignments have not been fully thought out.. For instance :-
Any that require multiple 'Security' officers.. As soon as you slot in the first one, all of your other 'Security' doffs cannot be used as they are 'greyed-out'....
Some assignments specify a 'Science' doff, but to achieve a 'Critical', it has to have an 'Engineering' speciality.... Whats wrong with that picture ??
There are others with similar mis-matched doff skills... Not to mention the problem that still exists of duplicate names greying out the slots...
I've just started a "Training" assignment, that had these required doffs :-
Operations (Any)... Sensor Officer (Ops).. Diagnostic (Eng)...Damage Control (Eng).. Hazard System (Eng)..
I can do this, as I have the doff's, great... But... it took almost 5 minutes to get them to go into the correct slots because the system as it stands puts them in the 'wrong slots, so I have to juggle them...
I realise this is still only in a test phase, but for me it is extremely irritating & frustrating...
Please make this a priority for the next pass through QA before you adjust the numbers... If we can't do the assignments for the reasons I've outlined, the XP required becomes irrelevant...:rolleyes:
However somehow I would really miss to have at least one category more easily to be maxed out.
With the current diplo there was / is a short/midterm goal in the system to achieve, which would also give me a good impression of the benefits I could -some day- achieve in the other categories. It motivates to walk the long way to also max out the other categories.
Why take this away?
Or, why not give every player race a special "discounted" category in the doff system?
Human - Diplomacy
Andorian - Military
Ferengi - Trade
...
This way the chosen race would become more impact onto gameplay, and everyone could have at least one category in the doff system maxed without taking months.
Player & BO XP: I think there should be a daily limit on how much xp in total can be earned (with the doff system). Why not just reducing the amount of xp gained? Because its massively depending on how much doffs you have: With just the starting officers, and maybe even some of them already death, there is next to no progression due to the doff system. Lowering it even more it would become a joke to have the doff system as alternative way to level. However having a full set of (high quality) doffs - then you have some significant impact on leveling, which might be reduced a bit, e.g. by a cap.
This is also why I think we could almost do away with captain XP from the system -- because there are so many other rewards built in.
I absolutely disagree with OP on removing captain SP for doff missions. There's no reason why a player shouldn't be able to level to cap mostly taking on doff missions if he/she so chooses. Maybe the SP gains need to be tuned down a bit since you can take on so many missions in a relatively short period of time and there are other rewards to most every mission. Ordering your officers to successfully complete tasks raises your profile as an effective captain, so why shouldn't it give you captain SP?
By the time you have maxed out the tiers you'll most likely be a VA, have all purple gear and all lthe Boffs you need. You'll do the dailies for a 1000 dilithium or so a time and the buffs only infrequently appear in assignments. Most people need goals and targets to aim for so they are motivated and feel they are progressing.
The very nature of MMO's is character progression, they need to put something in place to encourage players to continue using the system when they have maxed out the tiers. How about a method for turning the excess exp earned into tokens for use at a vendor for unique rewards and to buy more Doffs from Ferra? A unique Science Boff for 30000 medical exp, a new uniform for 10000 diplomacy exp etc would keep players interested and rewarded for using the system.
I love the Doff system and i don't want it to be reduced to a system of just swapping out duty officers for buffs (about as interesting as swapping out weapons and consoles) for specific missions, just because there is no more progression within the system
^^^THIS QFT^^^
People need to get off the negativity and provide CONSTRUCTIVE feedback. Cripes...I have played a few MMOs in my time, and Cryptic has been among one of the better Devs that honestly want player feedback and actually act on it. Sometimes I dont agree...sometimes I do with the changes made.. .but you cant make everyone happy all the time.
Alot of ideas are on the table already about extending the Doff system to working Post Admiral Promotion where you can get Captain Doffs and manage a fleet using the system.
Which im sure will come to frutation in the future, so its silly to harp on the now, and ruin a good idea because of fear of the future.
This rate feels a bit too fast. I do understand it slows down though going through Commander, so perhaps a change to make the xp reward based on your captain's skill level, instead of a fixed rate reward?
With mine, I see a lot of Diplomacy missions crop up. I do realize that this is partially due to my preference for the Long Day missions, however I would like to see more Long Day missions for the other categories crop up.
When claiming a cadet pack, I'd like to see what I got immediately [and only what I got]. I don't like digging through my roster trying to match up names to find out if I got anything good.
Sure, there are some assignments that give like 50-100 cxp, but these are very rare...
And if the diplomacy tier is changed to be like the others, in terms of necessary cxp for a new tier, then the assignments need to give more cxp as well, because as it stands, i think i never got a diplomacy assignment that gave me 100 cxp. The normal ammount is between 8 and 15, with a very few awarding 34 cxp. Not the mention the long period of time for each assignment (20 hours or more)
And indeed, the captain xp reward is kinda big. I leveled from Captain 1 to VA in a few days, without doing anything besides DoFF assignments. Every day i got at least 2 levels.
Yes. And I will explain why.
The DOFF system can be another branch of gameplay one could deviate from if they've already been through the standard story missions. In Star Trek, you can bet your latinum that a good number of captains tried their very best to sit on their thumbs throughout the five year mission and simply issue out simple projects. It's the realistically 'boring' way officers rise up in ranks through simple paperwork or diplomatic missions. After all, not all of them could have the love of adventure like Kirk did. The DOFF system is far from boring, but that's one way a Starfleet Captain can gain experience.
I for one will roll out another toon just to see how far I can level up using the DOFF system alone. It doesn't detract from the initial gameplay, but actually enhances it. You yourself may not find it applicable to your gaming experience, but you can't say others can't as well.
And quick-leveling is a joke. I've never experienced such a slow grind waiting for missions to play out than the DOFF system. (Which is a good thing.) I can clear out the story missions in two weeks tops with no problem. The DOFF system is doing it's job already by keeping people preoccupied days on end with those long missions.
Trade is lousy, especially since it's not awarding energy credits for commodities any more, but Engineering is worse. The engineering assignments almost always require stuff I don't have, such as contraband or a fabrication engineer. (As far as I can tell, you can only get a fabrication engineer by getting commendation levels in Engineering, which isn't going to happen.) I have yet to obtain a single piece of contraband. My KDF captain has yet to earn a single Engineering experience point, and my Federation captain isn't much better off.
Engineering is easily the worst, as far as I can tell. That's not meant to take anything away from the horrible Trade XP, but at least I can gain a few points of Trade XP here and there without going broke.
I guess you could maybe level trade if you were doing nothing but that all the time; but you still have the same problem that you can only work on while you're logged in, and can't queue lower productivity missions for off hours. All these categories could use some mid and long duration missions in the 2 to 20h range, with some green and blue ones, similar to the other lines. I would also like if if there were sci missions that did not give samples but gave more CXP.
I think the only concern many current players would have is that during the translation to a new scale that those tha earned a specific diplomatic rank will retain that rank upon transfer. It is fine that a person at Dipl 2 now will have to wait longer to get to Dipl 3 and above, but a person already at a level above 1 should not be bounced back to level 1 because of the new scale is well above the old scale.