and now add the fact they have lowered the fleet marks from the Nakura mission and others make even harder to get there. Cryptic, PWE fire you ever in charged of this TRIBBLE other wise the MMO WILL DIE
I never expected prices to scale based on fleet size, and don't really want them to. The provisioning system already does that, and could be made to do so harder to slow down large fleets if that was desired.
We're told there are doff down-trading assignments coming. I think this is a band-aid, it'll help us for a little while and then our ships will be entirely abandoned and we'll be almost back where we started, except without anyone to do Doff assignments with, or only the barest skeleton crew.
There are doff down trading assignments and let me tell you it's TRIBBLE. I spent 3 hours trying to down trade some green doffs so i could get, you guessed it sensor officers. I got 1 freakin sensor officer!!!! ONE. Oh but i got an abundance of worthless TRIBBLE. Bartenders, advisors, freakin counselor trois, you know stuff that costs 10,000 ec on the exchange because they're worthless as TRIBBLE on a bull for fleet missions. I'm furious at PWE. This is a shameless greedy money grab and it will be the death of this game. I think Gene Roddenberry's wife should step in and make sure any future projects attached to the Star Trek name are refused if they blatently rip off the fans. What a shameful tarnish on the Star Trek franchise this is.
This thread is exactly what the devs need to read.
To help them out (and remove an excuse for doing nothing) here's a summary of the main points of this thread. It's really late so if I missed something, my apologies.
Concerns 1. Cost: Starbase projects cost far too much, especially the Duty Officer requirements.
2. Grinding: Flat-out, starbases are too grindy. Too much repetition, too much focus on too few fleet missions. Related to #3, below.
3. Limited Resources: Fleet Marks and common Duty Officers can only be obtained in limited ways that create resource bottlenecks or player burnout due to excessive grinding.
4. Rewards: Both the long and short-term rewards for starbases are lacking. The short-term rewards (at the completion of each project) are nonexistent save for vanity projects, while long-term rewards (fleet gear/ships) are not good enough to justify the time/material investment in the starbase.
Suggested Possible Fixes 1. Cost: Reduce project costs at mid-high tiers across the board or scale project costs according to fleet size.
2. Grinding: Increase variety of missions/activities that give usable fleet materials to lessen the sense of 'oh-god-not-colony-invasion-again'. This goes hand-in-hand with #3, below.
3. Limited Resources:A) Doffs for Dil. Allow common (or even uncommon) Duty Officers to be purchased with Dilithium to help increase availability for ironically hard-to-find common Doffs. Replay Fleet Pay. Add Fleet Marks as a reward choice to all replay missions, like the lock boxes are currently.
[I was thinking that they should be leaning heavily on the Doff system for starbases. Most of the projects are similar in "feel" to Doff assignments, but starship Captains/Admirals/Generals aren't going to be out mining Dilithium personally so their starbase can be built - they'll delegate. I'm thinking there should be a new Doff category called 'Fleet' that rewards Fleet Marks, turrets, starbase-required Doffs, etc. Then we could just Doff our way to T5 (eventually), do what we're doing now, or a combination of the two. Or, at worst, add dedicated Doff recruitment assignments that can take the place of us having to sacrifice our Doffs to the starbase gods. So we can add Doffs either through contributions (faster) or Doff assignments (slower and vastly cheaper). Just a thought.]
4. Rewards:A) Make completing starbase projects have an actual effect on the starbase. Allow players to see what their hard work is accomplishing. Perhaps allow some important functional features, like Bank access or transwarp, be unlocked fairly early. Maybe allow fleets to focus on specific aspects of their starbase over others (say, interior decor over a shipyard, for instance). Variety in project choice would be huge for starbases. Make fleet items as good as, but different from, STF loot. Give players a choice (and a reason) to spend months getting their starbase to T3+. Maybe let players choose from a limited list of upgrades for fleet ships (one Lt universal Boff station, an additional X console, a better shield modifier and improved hull points, or two universal Boff stations [En & Lt] and the beefier shield and hull), etc. Make fleet items worth the grind.
5. Handle With Care: The excitement generated by the starbase system is a perishable commodity. Don't take too long deciding what to do or you'll discover that many players have stopped caring.
YES! This post should be FRAMED in the developers' office.
YES! This post should be FRAMED in the developers' office.
I couldent agree more, but its most likely never gonna happen, like EVERY other online Space MMO u have to pay to get absolutly anywere, and its never gonna change, to many people are greedy and all they want is to find more and more ways to rip off their customers, and what about us who (like me) have parents who refuse to let them buy Zen or cant afford to... oh wait we dont exist to them were essentially junk and they could honestly care less... so the search continues for us poor MMOers scouring every blessed corner of the internet hoping to find the one true person whom will actually care about his players and give them the games they want and honestly, DESERVE... but untill then the search continues... hmmph and they wonder why so many people burn out before they even reach leutenant commander...
So what do you do when you hit Tier 5 across the board?
ISE?
Nothing; which is why people shouldn't be in such a mad-rush to get there.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Nothing; which is why people shouldn't be in such a mad-rush to get there.
This is something I've thought about and I've worked out that I'm going to have a huge amount of fleet credits as tier 5 approaches with nothing much that I want to buy (unless changes are made).
This is something I've thought about and I've worked out that I'm going to have a huge amount of fleet credits as tier 5 approaches with nothing much that I want to buy (unless changes are made).
While we're talking about STFs what about some other elite events for loot drops (rather than borg salvage and EDCs etc), and less shooting hit point sink structures. The fleet events provide variety but the number that you end up in with large number of low level players is a bit unfortunate for everyone involved.
As I understand it, it takes a minimum of 7 months to complete a Fleetbase so most speedy/large Fleets won't be done with them until January. We have Season 7 coming out sometime in December. So by then everyone will be thinking about the new Zone and new Missions and not really focusing on the Fleetbases anyway - and they'll be teasing us with Season 8.
Of course Cryptic probably has other long-term plans for the Fleetbases, but it's not really something that interests me. I take a very casual approach to the Fleetbase. Heck, my Fleet of 127 is just getting close to T2. We're not rushing, as there's no real reason to rush.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
They have hinted about adding more starbase related content. I guess we'll have to wait and see on that.
One of the fleets that I'm in will be finishing tier 2 everything in the next hour or so (we only had the comms array to finish). It's on to focusing on getting a tier 3 starbase now.
As I understand it, it takes a minimum of 7 months to complete a Fleetbase so most speedy/large Fleets won't be done with them until January. We have Season 7 coming out sometime in December. So by then everyone will be thinking about the new Zone and new Missions and not really focusing on the Fleetbases anyway - and they'll be teasing us with Season 8.
Of course Cryptic probably has other long-term plans for the Fleetbases, but it's not really something that interests me. I take a very casual approach to the Fleetbase. Heck, my Fleet of 127 is just getting close to T2. We're not rushing, as there's no real reason to rush.
^ This.
Put SB construction as a 'secondary, as resources become available' type of low priority project and it becomes much more enjoyable.
I do not even bother to queue projects anymore because I want players in my fleet to pre-plan and then propose their own resource allocation ideas. Then, they can form their own "acquisition teams" to get the resources for that one project they want to do, for a continued base building experience.
Some have commented that with fleet founders building the base, newer members have absolutely nothing to do. So I'm reversing the trend. Founders teach, newbies lead the way on new construction campaigns, gain skills.
SB Construction is never about dumping 500K dilithium in and expecting to receive something glorious in return. It's not meant to be instant gratification. It doesn't mean that if someone contributed 1 million dil all of a sudden that he becomes a fleet leader automatically. Things simply do not work that way. Infact, I would deliberately put a stop to excessive contributions and especially using real money to finance bases.
Working on the projects sequentially and at a "own time, own target" basis makes for each experience level being much more rewarding. In the meantime, player development, team bonding and ESTF & PvP competency are still valuable things to strive for. With SB construction in the back-burner and provisioning at the "just enough for everyone" level, progress is more or less automatic.
The release of season 6 offered me the perfect opportunity to found and develop a fleet with a unique ethos. That is, one that sees past the hype of "fancy new toys" and focus on what matters.
Players first. We spend so limited time on the bases themselves that as far as I'm concerned I'd rather join a fleet that dares to say "F the base and keep it at Tier 0", rather than join a big one that's too busy rushing to Tier 4 to bother engaging their players in community activities (outside of marks / dil grinding).
This is the reason why I posted the "I'm taking a break" thread some weeks back. All I need is a Regent class and the stars to steer her by. And maybe a Kar'fi next month Other than fleet ground weapons (which I don't even use) I have little interest in the other perks and features from a higher tier starbase.
Oh, and fleet ships? Might as well get a proper z-store special with that price. Or a Recluse carrier via EC.
STF Flight Instructor since Early 2012. Newbies are the reason why STO lives and breathes today. Do not discriminate.
Comments
There are doff down trading assignments and let me tell you it's TRIBBLE. I spent 3 hours trying to down trade some green doffs so i could get, you guessed it sensor officers. I got 1 freakin sensor officer!!!! ONE. Oh but i got an abundance of worthless TRIBBLE. Bartenders, advisors, freakin counselor trois, you know stuff that costs 10,000 ec on the exchange because they're worthless as TRIBBLE on a bull for fleet missions. I'm furious at PWE. This is a shameless greedy money grab and it will be the death of this game. I think Gene Roddenberry's wife should step in and make sure any future projects attached to the Star Trek name are refused if they blatently rip off the fans. What a shameful tarnish on the Star Trek franchise this is.
YES! This post should be FRAMED in the developers' office.
I couldent agree more, but its most likely never gonna happen, like EVERY other online Space MMO u have to pay to get absolutly anywere, and its never gonna change, to many people are greedy and all they want is to find more and more ways to rip off their customers, and what about us who (like me) have parents who refuse to let them buy Zen or cant afford to... oh wait we dont exist to them were essentially junk and they could honestly care less... so the search continues for us poor MMOers scouring every blessed corner of the internet hoping to find the one true person whom will actually care about his players and give them the games they want and honestly, DESERVE... but untill then the search continues... hmmph and they wonder why so many people burn out before they even reach leutenant commander...
ISE?
Oh.
Ok.
This is something I've thought about and I've worked out that I'm going to have a huge amount of fleet credits as tier 5 approaches with nothing much that I want to buy (unless changes are made).
Pretty much.
End game content is still from Season 1 isn't it?
Of course Cryptic probably has other long-term plans for the Fleetbases, but it's not really something that interests me. I take a very casual approach to the Fleetbase. Heck, my Fleet of 127 is just getting close to T2. We're not rushing, as there's no real reason to rush.
One of the fleets that I'm in will be finishing tier 2 everything in the next hour or so (we only had the comms array to finish). It's on to focusing on getting a tier 3 starbase now.
^ This.
Put SB construction as a 'secondary, as resources become available' type of low priority project and it becomes much more enjoyable.
I do not even bother to queue projects anymore because I want players in my fleet to pre-plan and then propose their own resource allocation ideas. Then, they can form their own "acquisition teams" to get the resources for that one project they want to do, for a continued base building experience.
Some have commented that with fleet founders building the base, newer members have absolutely nothing to do. So I'm reversing the trend. Founders teach, newbies lead the way on new construction campaigns, gain skills.
SB Construction is never about dumping 500K dilithium in and expecting to receive something glorious in return. It's not meant to be instant gratification. It doesn't mean that if someone contributed 1 million dil all of a sudden that he becomes a fleet leader automatically. Things simply do not work that way. Infact, I would deliberately put a stop to excessive contributions and especially using real money to finance bases.
Working on the projects sequentially and at a "own time, own target" basis makes for each experience level being much more rewarding. In the meantime, player development, team bonding and ESTF & PvP competency are still valuable things to strive for. With SB construction in the back-burner and provisioning at the "just enough for everyone" level, progress is more or less automatic.
The release of season 6 offered me the perfect opportunity to found and develop a fleet with a unique ethos. That is, one that sees past the hype of "fancy new toys" and focus on what matters.
Players first. We spend so limited time on the bases themselves that as far as I'm concerned I'd rather join a fleet that dares to say "F the base and keep it at Tier 0", rather than join a big one that's too busy rushing to Tier 4 to bother engaging their players in community activities (outside of marks / dil grinding).
This is the reason why I posted the "I'm taking a break" thread some weeks back. All I need is a Regent class and the stars to steer her by. And maybe a Kar'fi next month
Oh, and fleet ships? Might as well get a proper z-store special with that price. Or a Recluse carrier via EC.
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