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Diminishing returns on fleet projects
captainbrady
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Ok this is just my two cents, but I want to see if anyone else sees it the same way. I founded a feet, and we just made it to tier 1. I'm actually really proud of everyone because we ranked evenly in all 3 disciplines, and did it quickly. However I really hate the tier 2 projects. Just staying with engineering will illustrate what I mean. Before tier 1, there were 2 projects in each category that yielded 1000 xp. Now there is only 1 project that offers 1000 xp and it costs a ton of doffs (engineering construction project). The other project "support local operations" now only yields 500xp, but now requires 18,000 dilthium. There are far more crass projects than that. Many of the other ones do the same but are very doff intensive or cost an obscene amount of dilithium (60,000 for one of them). This is crazy. I do understand that these projects yield doff requisitions, but seriously, what is that? I want the experience. This gives my members the feeling of diminishing returns. They are asked to spend more money to get less. This is unfair. We want more projects that offer 1000xp for a reasonable amount of dilithium. If you want to make it harder to advance to each tier, then by all means double the xp required to advance like you do with the doff commendations, but DON'T give people the feeling they are paying more for less as it feels like a rip off. What's next 120k dilithium for 250 xp? Let's get real PWE/cryptic. Pricing it this was is unethical and if it gets worse, we just won't participate anymore. I have a feeling others will do the same.
Post edited by captainbrady on
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For 1000 XP:
T0 - Baseline cost
T1 - 2x T0
T2 - 2x T1
T3 - 2x T2
T4 - 2x T3
T0 Engineering missions require 30 total White DOFFs (for example) Once you hit T1 the same project yielding the same reward now takes 60 total White DOFFs. Will the T2 version take 120 White DOFFs? T3 Version 240 white DOFFs?
Talk about making people want to quit...
To see that a T1 mission gives the same reward as a T0 mission despite the additional requirements is a little disheartening.
Take for example the mission Practice Tactical Excercises.
Tier 0 requires:
180 Fleet Marks
12 Security Duty Officers
12 Tactical Duty Officers
10,000 Expertise
150 Astrometric Probes
9 To'duj Fighter (KDF) or 27 Peregrine Fighter (FED) [not sure why there's a difference in quantities there, but that's another matter entirely...).
Tier 1 requires:
300 Fleet Marks (a 66% increase over T0)
30 Security Duty Officers (also 66%)
30 Tactical Duty Officers (66%)
20,000 Expertise (100% increase)
150 Warp Coils (more expensive that Astro probes, unsure of exact prices though)
150 Photon Torpedo Launcher Mk I (also, more expensive than the hangars).
Both missions give the same amount of XP (1,000).
So, not only does it take more XP to get from T1 to T2 (25,000) than it does getting from T0 to T1 (10,000), it also requires more work to get the XP for the T2 upgrade in the first place.
Surely it should either:
a) always take 10,000 XP to get to the next tier but the missions get progressively more resource intensive, or
b) cost more to achieve each tier (10,000XP, then 25,000XP, then 50,000XP etc), but the missions all retain a similar value of input for the 1,000XP you receive in return.
Only question I have is if you just don't bother to run the upgrade can you keep doing tier 0 projects until you max out? If so that will be the only sane way to aim for a fast T5 starbase which would be pretty sad.
Also, the reduced XP projects do have a benefit. They usually give some other reward. So for engineering, there is a project that gives 500 XP, but also gives 10 engineering provisions. You will need these provisions if you want to buy any weapons or engines from the fleet store. The 1000 XP project only gives the XP.
Come join the 44th Fleet.
startrek.44thfleet.com[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The Dev team really didn't think about small fleets when they did this, despite what they say. How can 6 people put all these resources into developing a starbase at a similar pace as a fleet with 20, 200 or 500 members?
edit: typo
How is it "unethical"?
From the numbers I see, its about a increase of 4 between getting Tier 1 and getting Tier 2. Your character, from Lt. Commander to Commander needs 2.8 times the EXP to make that jump, let alone the more expensive weaponry for your ship.
Sure it goes to just about a factor of 2 for your EXP in your charactor on the higher levels, but it is still going up exponentially.
Plus as your fleet projects progress, and you pick up new members, the individual contributions actually fall they do not increase.
If Star Bases were in game from the begining, I doubt Cryptic's 7 month completion time would be valid for any fleet, right now you have a bunch of Vice Admirals with stockpiles of Credits, Dilithium, Duty Officers and items to burn through. If that was not the case, it wouldn't have such drastic advancement of the fleets.
And lets be fair, fleet projects should be over a long term thing, something to keep us playing for the next year or 2, not something that is "now!, Now! NOW!" and to whine about when your not going to get it done in a month.
Not to brag, but I'm in a small fleet, and I tend to recruit new players, even now with the star bases, (2/3rds of our player base are not Vice Admirals yet, and 1/3rd is under level 10).
Anyways, we are done 15 Tier 0 projects to get to Tier 1 already, we also have completed the 200K dill one for the Shutters on the SB. And mostly done a special project (Gamma Quadrant), and so far we have approximately 535.7K Fleet Credits earned in total.
Excluding the blast shutter one I alone contributed 54% of this, mainly because I keep reminding the membership, donate what you can, and what your comfortable with, and do not donate everything you have, you still need to play the game itself.
Will I be broke soon? Yes, but my point is, I'm just ONE VA, and I managed to put in enough to equal out to 8 Tier 0 SB projects. And I've got enough left to finish off a 9th, plus the usual grinding of missions will keep me going. But a couple of VA's that stock piled their items, liquidated anything they really didn't need, can easily get to a complete Tier 1 on any one Divisional group, if even a small fleet of say 10 VA's put their entire stock into the Fleet as I have, a complete Tier 1 fleet isn't hard to do.
Add to that grinding a couple hours a day and you'll have noticable gains over the course of time.
Too true, first Cryptic is bad because they are not forcing fleets to limit donations, but as they get to Tier 1, now Cryptic is bad for wanting too much when everyone can chip in.
Jim
Founder and Current CO of Gamma Strike Force
Player since December 2009
That said, I should probably look for a Fleet willing to provide people with Marks and resources to hop in and out, dumping resources to aid my small fleet's projects while getting Marks to spend on their "real" fleet...
ALL HOLDINGS FINISHED! - Starbase 5-5-5-5 || Embassy 3-3-3 || Mine 3-3-3 || Spire 3-3-3
A laid back KDF fleet welcoming independent, casual, & part-time players and groups. Roms & alts welcome.
Send in-game mail to Wampaq@Jnoh, visit our recruitment thread and FB page for more info.
As for starbases, we have a group of dedicated players about 20 of us all together, and we never intend to go bigger than that. Right now the mood is sinking seeing the resource prices going up and up as we reach higher tiers. And the rewards for reaching the T1 arent' even worth bothering.
The simple solution that comes to mind: fix the fleet size and adjust resource cost accordingly. Introduce a costly upgrade projects for large fleets or make it one time action.
But right now it all looks like "we milk you while you grind" attitude which frankly annoys the player base that slowly come to realise that they are into endless grind for the next 6 - 12 months without seeing anything in return.
Seriously folks, I though star trek was supposed to be better than that.
But what about large fleets with mainly lower levels?
Jim
Actually no... I thought about that when the first facility tiered. Once you reach 10,000 you have to upgrade, or missions are not available for that branch.
Star Trek Online, Now with out the Trek....
Let me put more detail into what I was thinking:
Specify max fleet size on creation.
Create a fleet, set a fleet size of 20 max fleetis. Fleet resource cost 100 marks per project.
Fleet size of 50 fleetis gets resource cost 200 marks per project
100 fleetis 300 marks.
And so on.
If 20 ppl fleet wants to upgrade to 100 they do a special project at lets say 1000 marks. That will solve the problem of fleets starting small building sb and then going large.
There's still gonna be a problem of people jumping fleets to get stuff, but it's gonna be there EITHER WAY.
My fleet, for example, will stay at 20 max, and yes we would like to have new toys, thank you very much. But so far from what I'm hearing new weapons at tier 2 are [dmg]3 [*], and cost 25k marks + 10k dil + T1 provisioning project cost 60k dil. that makes the price of single weapon 16k dil, 25k marks and perhaps 10mil ec in other costs. PER SINGLE WEAPON. Not to mention all other upgrade costs of starbase.
To compare, [crtd]3 lolaron dhc was 5M on exchange today and you get them now. That's perfect for PVE and PVE is mostly all we play. [acc]3 is more expensive, but hey advanced t2 fleet weapons are not going to compete with acc3.
So, to quote one former soviet leader "economy must be economical". The sooner the population realise that resource costs are nowhere near what they could put out, the better. May be the major whine that ensue will force cryptic to adjust the costs. May be not. May be 60% player base will just quit, and that will force cryptic to bring some kinda of balance. I really hope for balance.
And I'm not even speaking of provisioning problems. Because resources are one hell of a problem but provisioning is two and a half.
Well, I just lied. Let's talk about provisioning.
Take a fleet of 150 ppl. Average escort build requires 7 guns, cruiser require 8 guns (say 8 guns). Total 1200 guns provisioning. Folks, THAT'S ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY DAYS to get all your fleet equipped, provided you dish out 60k dil a day. NEARLY HALF A YEAR! That's assuming you gonna run 1 weapon provisioning project each day. And some people may want shields, and others want ships. And some people may even want the ground weapons. This is not taking "diminishing returns" on fleet supply projects into account, cause I just don't know them yet.
I have to say it: this is A GAME. And space shooting game of that. Why in a space shooting game I need to be engaged into property disputes with 149 other average mmo players? Let me put it as a question: is anybody here want to be engaged in a property disputes with average mmo players?
This brings out a question of original intent: Who created this system and why?
"Why" part we know, cryptic is a business, usually business has a business model and intent to generate revenue. We all happy with that. We pay moneys to cryptic, cryptic provides us with the playground environment where we socialize and pew pew.
Now to the who part. I can only see two possibilities: said person has run out of his capacity of thinking or there was original intent. We can drop the capacity of thinking because sto is large and complex environment that takes thought and care to create. That leaves us with "intent", and the intent looks only like "WE WANT YOU TO GRIND AND SPEND A LOT OF CASH IN THE NEXT 6 MONTHS".
That, frankly, makes me sad.
Your thoughts?
Again I would love it if my fleet was 5000 players, let alone 100 players, but the majority of them would be under level 40. So why should my fleet get punished for that?
Your looking at your own fleet, and what is best for your situation, and many Elitists who believe they shouldn't have anyone lower then a level 50 in their fleet would probably agree with you. But this is a game, and helping people in the game costs nothing but a little bit of time to fill up a fleet bank, etc. So why should people who wish to be helpful get punished?
Soviet Leadership is just about the last group of people you'd want to take economic advice from.
So, with a fleet of 150 people your only talking about 400 dill a day, that is ONE STF per person per day to help everyone out over the course of those 6 months.
It might be a long journey but Cryptic does have means for it to work out in the end for all players invovled. Dill is not a C-Store purchase, and we get good Dilithium from STFs and Doff assignments. So I don't really ynderstand why you think its such a big deal?
It is a game, and if your fleet leadership, NOT just the leader, but his direct staff, cannot work it out to the benifit of everyone, then they should not be in that role.
Also note, I've played many games with similar requirements to handle clans/guilds/fleets needs, and most of the time the leadership can handle it well. I know I've handleded it well. Arguments or people fighting over what is their "fair" share only happen because clear guide lines and rules have not been established on how to fairly share the work of all the members.
If your fleet has clear alotment plans for special equipment, then there is no arguments, everyone knows there place, and everyone will not have to fight, because fighting can only happen if the Leadership plays favorites, and then we end up back to the same problem, a failure of the leadership not of the membership of the fleet.
You make the game too easy, people complain, you fix the mistake of allowing people to become Vice Admirals within a month from starting to play, to taking a decent amount of time to level up to it and yet people still complain.
Jim
this is a game for me, and I take it as a game. Quoting is the part of me being ironic.
What I'm questioning is: does it worth 120 days of commitment to get a full gear and whether or not the gear is actually worth the effort.
As for strong fleet leadership and strong fleet structure, well as much as I like miliaristic order and chain of command, I still think that this is a game and it should be fun, and most of all free.
If you like a big fleet and chain of command and grind for 120 days with 150 people, than that is your game. I like small fleet of friends where poeple have fun blowing stuff in space most efficient way possible. Not involving sorting out the resource management issues for large community.
And that is exactly why I'm saying that current system does not make sense for that kind of gameplay.
And just so you know, I AM MY FLEET LEADERSHIP
All I want is to get to eng T2, get a set of space weapons and actually go back to blowing stuff up in space, cause well... call me a space cadet.
But what we get instead is "welcome to startrek offline, we milk you while you grind. have a nice day". And this is what upsets me.
you could always consolidate into a larger fleet...a good one.
You know what? Nobody here wants your spam and propaganda for your crappy fleet. Take your propaganda to where it's appropriate, namely the fleet recruiting section of the forum. I can't speak for peterpan, but I for one would rather quit STO all together than join your crappy fleet.
DMA said exactly what I wanted to say, only backing it with math. The way DMA is proposing is exactly how I propose to remedy this problem, as opposed to the nonsense we have. Otherwise I'm just going to call it quits after a while. Honestly, I've done everything i care to do in STO. I like the game, but I'm not wiling ot empty my bank account for it. sorry PWE, you'll have to earn your money the old fashioned way. That is by offering a quality product that keeps me interested. Tricks like "put curtains in your starbase" and tholian lockboxes won't work on me.
The job of fleet leadership is to manage people so that they have fun.
Its a lousy thankless job many times, but with the right membership, and the right staff, it can be a enjoyable situation for most people in that role such as myself.
Part of playing leader, isn't just a title, it sometimes invovles some work so that others may enjoy the game more. Is it always fair? No, but then if it not being fair and you having to do some work isn't to your liking maybe you shouldn't be fleet leader and maybe some one else in your fleet would suit that role better?
Nothing wrong with that, we all have our strenghts and weaknesses. Its how we identify and over come them that makes us who we are.
Jim
Lol, Jim...
I'm serious bla-bla-bla in real life, and I got enuff of managing people (read herding cats) on my day time job, to manage them in a space pew pew game. In a space pew pew game, as you can probably guess I want to space pew pew.
I appreciate lecture on leadership, I really do, but isn't it a part of being a great leader to listen to people who you consider your subordinates, and to actually understand what they are trying to say.
And what I'm trying to say, is that the resource costs for large fleets, who consider it normal to grind starbase for 120 days to get a piece of worthless equipment (as explained in the original post), should not be the same as for the fleets who CHOOSE to be small. For various reasons explained above.
I think the project costs should be different. And I aslo think that player base should understand the issue in hand and consolidate in order to balance it out. Because right now it is not balanced.
And I'm not even mentioning the fact that cstore ship cost 2000 zen and it is account unlock, while the fleet retro chip cost same 2000 zen + large amount of resources, time and commitment and it is character unlock.
And what also amaze me that people who promote good leadership in their large fleet, and all other democrtatic ideals, actually oppose the idea of balancing the costs.
Costs are balanced, its a rewards verses time thing for you. And time is something that is free.
Jim
Let me put it this way: if you enjoy next 120 days grind for something that it's not even worth it, then by all means, I'm not here to tell you what to and what not to do.
I'm however speaking to other people who like me think that the resource cost and associated grind is not balanced for small fleets. And the final tier rewards are practically not reacheable within interest timeframe. So we are raising our voices in a hope that things may change for better.
And time is not free. Google it, if you haven't realised it yet.