Much of what I have to say in response to thecosmic1 has been well expressed by others. This whole topic is becoming as much of a hamster wheel as Season 6 is.
I'll just say this: STO belongs to PWE legally, but any game company that expects to truly be sucessful in the long term will at the very least pay lipservice to the concept of the game belonging to it's playerbase. With that said, I don't take issue with PWE making changes so much as I do them being so cavalier about serious issue's with those changes being brought to thier attention.
The issue with Fleet Doffs and the Exchange is HUGE. It effects EVERY player who uses the exchange not just for Doff'ing but virtually any other item. Why? Because people's confidence in thier ability to make a fair exchange is being eroded. That is a fact in evidence and can be verified here in these forums and in in-game chat. People's game experience is being affected in a very detrimental way. People are quitting. Obviously I can't show you numbers to prove this, but then again nobody can show me numbers to prove that 10's of thousands of players ARE not participating in the Fleet Base system. I can tell you that i have witnessed a great many say they are quitting.
Bottom line: lost players = lost revenue. Lost revenue = less $$ for DEV's to play with. I don't need to tell you what less $$$ means.
Much of what I have to say in response to thecosmic1 has been well expressed by others. This whole topic is becoming as much of a hamster wheel as Season 6 is.
I'll just say this: STO belongs to PWE legally, but any game company that expects to truly be sucessful in the long term will at the very least pay lipservice to the concept of the game belonging to it's playerbase. With that said, I don't take issue with PWE making changes so much as I do them being so cavalier about serious issue's with those changes being brought to thier attention.
The issue with Fleet Doffs and the Exchange is HUGE. It effects EVERY player who uses the exchange not just for Doff'ing but virtually any other item. Why? Because people's confidence in thier ability to make a fair exchange is being eroded. That is a fact in evidence and can be verified here in these forums and in in-game chat. People's game experience is being affected in a very detrimental way. People are quitting. Obviously I can't show you numbers to prove this, but then again nobody can show me numbers to prove that 10's of thousands of players ARE not participating in the Fleet Base system. I can tell you that i have witnessed a great many say they are quitting.
Bottom line: lost players = lost revenue. Lost revenue = less $$ for DEV's to play with. I don't need to tell you what less $$$ means.
This is absolutely correct - Dan is totalley screwed up his loftly estimate of what revenue Starbases will now generate - and from zone chat - it's dropping for EVERY MINUTE this remains unfixed
Even when fixed it has put some people off for good - but hey maybe "that's working as intended"
umm it working as intended wait no we messed up and we made aboo boo no wait we think it working no wait it not working as we looking in to it no wait we lost on how to fix this and may fix it some point ............. pass
It is astonishing that they let this continue, I mean this company is losing money. Perhaps the best approach would be to contact Perfect World Shareholders and see what they think lol
Cryptic has no share holders, they are owned by PWE. PWE has no share holders, but they are owned by PW. PW does have share holders, but how many layers did we have to go to reach these share holders? If one game in PWE is loosing money but PWE is doing fine as a whole, would PW care?
The fact of the matter is this whole thing makes no sense what-so-ever. Yes, you could gain dilithium from the officers, but at a cost of fleet credits. If this was the big no-no, they could have just fixed this. But to do this action of preventing the fleet dutty officers from being used in fleet missions seems to basicly be the logic of they don't want you using what you bought with fleet credits to get fleet credits. Yet, the fleet mark booster does EXACTLY THAT. Both the mark booster and the DOFFs did not return a profit, you still had a net loss (375 credit loss on DOFFs), so I still can't see what the problem is other than lazy programming.
so I still can't see what the problem is other than lazy programming.
I think I have it figured out. You now how things are sometimes time-gated (dilithium refining) and other things are level-gated? Well, we have a new kind of gate....Fleet base progression and DOFFs have been officially dev-gated. Thats what happens when a mistake in either dev planning or execution causes a feature of the game to come to a screeching halt. We've all been dev-gated.
I think I have it figured out. You now how things are sometimes time-gated (dilithium refining) and other things are level-gated? Well, we have a new kind of gate....Fleet base progression and DOFFs have been officially dev-gated. Thats what happens when a mistake in either dev planning or execution causes a feature of the game to come to a screeching halt. We've all been dev-gated.
No kidden you finally get it. lol
The bases are designed to make Cryptic/pwe MONEY. They have been designed according to a PWE formula that they have perfected in a bunch of other F2P games. They know exactly how many currency types they need... they know what ratios they need to keep those currencies at in order to keep a population of X players feeding the max amount of Real world $ back into there system.
Yes there are fleet bought things like fleet mark boosters... these are calculated very finely to provide a % boost to a player,factoring in cost and return they have it squared away... its good for the player... but not TOO good.
Doff packs... yes we could say there is still a net loss so whats the big deal.... well to there PWE Cash formula it IS a big deal. Yes they want the doffs to remain a EC sink... they WANT people to drive the exchange market... They have a formula that reduces currencies and encourages sales. Bottom line the bases are about sales, not making you happy. They give you some shiny stuffz sure... there has to be some carrot... but the grind itself has been crafted... and the currency reduction as it is now is outside the paramaters of there math... so I wouldn't be thinking they are going to fix these in the way some people seem to hope... if anything there going to make the doffs bind on pickup and move on. If after making them bound they decide to allow them to be sent to the star base doff grinder, then you can likely expect there cost to be increased.
We all understand why the game has time and resource sinks. Why did you quote my post? My post has absolutely nothing to do with your response. Speaking of your response, I don't understand a couple of your points...
If the dev intent is to drive the exchange prices to the point where people buy zen and just purchase doff packs - epic dev fail. No one who knows what is going on is buying doffs from the exchnange at all since you can't tell which are useful and which aren't. Why try to rig the exchange with artificial inflation if, after a stupid dev decision, no one is willing to risk a purchase there anyway?
...they decide to allow them to be sent to the star base doff grinder, then you can likely expect there cost to be increased.
What starbase doff grinder are you talking about? There is a vendor, but no one there to allow me to upgrind or downgrind. If there were, then I wouldn't be as upset, since I hate the empty travel time of going back and forth between the starbase and the academy to do the grinding now.
If the dev intent is to drive the exchange prices to the point where people buy zen and just purchase doff packs - epic dev fail. No one who knows what is going on is buying doffs from the exchnange at all since you can't tell which are useful and which aren't. Why try to rig the exchange with artificial inflation if, after a stupid dev decision, no one is willing to risk a purchase there anyway?
What starbase doff grinder are you talking about? There is a vendor, but no one there to allow me to upgrind or downgrind. If there were, then I wouldn't be as upset, since I hate the empty travel time of going back and forth between the starbase and the academy to do the grinding now.
Its not a point of having people buy doff packs.... Yes they will sell a few more however... perhaps not to you but they will. More important people may spend dilithium on game items instead of just purchasing them. They need the EC to flow back and forth so as to maximize there impulse purchases on items that either directly send them $ or items more likely to do that. The point is they have a semi complex math system that works on ratios. They have 3 major currencies, and they can't allow any one of those things to build up to high accross the population or it effects the rate at the other 2 flow. Its no different then a real world market. One currency effects the next when one moves the others start moving as well.
Pushing the market as they have does 2 things. (it works the same way in every other PWE game which is why I say its 100% intentional)
1) it makes the game feel alive... the market has 1000 times more transactions since the season 6. Nothing makes a game feel dead to a new player then going to the market for the first time and seeing zero movment. Big Win for STO.
2) it removes the huge stockpiles of EC that exist in the game... PWE knows exactly how much EC people are sitting on... and I can tell you that when PWE first went over the plan with Cryptics people the first thing they did was go WOW when they saw the amount of in game currency just sitting. (most of that will be in purchasing the TRIBBLE whites the projects need... some of it is just redistro... again to use a real world example... if 90% of the wealth is in the hands of 5% of the pop things start to get unhealthy fast)
I made the post I did because you seem to understand... its about sinks. Time sinks are obvious... the SBs are Dilithium and EC sinks.... YES the PWE formula counts on the consumables having there In game Currency costs driven, this puts in game value on the purchased currency.... if the doffs where worthless in terms of in game currency then they would be even more worthless in purchased currency terms.
Yes I agree the current TRIBBLE up of allowing the star base doffs to be sold on the exchnage when they can not be used is a terrible Cryptic Style TRIBBLE up... I am simply pointing out that if they are following the PWE template. (and they are make no mistake)... well those doffs are never going to work the way some of you hope.... they will end up bind on pickup and still unusable in the SB projects... I would bet my shirt... or 400-500 mil EC.
Well, I am not sitting on that kinda cash, but I would like to take your bet. Say 10mil EC?
I think at the end of the day Crypic will allow the fleet doffs to be usable on the fleet projects again. I wouldnt be surprised if they become a good chunk 'o change more expensive, and somehow barred from listing on the exchange... but having a fleet doff vendor on the starbase selling doffs that can't be used on the starbase seems just too crazy to me.
You in for 10mil?
EDIT: I will even sweeten the pot with a little personal shame...if you win, you get the 10mil EC and I will change my signature T-shirt to read "Husanak was right and I was wrong"
If I am right, you can use your mountain of cash to buy me a nice shiny bug ship. Sound fair? haha
Honesty your solution is quite possible as well... the point is it won't go back to being as it was... they will either adjust pricing so it fits into there math... or they will just do the quick and dirty lock down.
Hey if they go with my solution I'll send you a mail full of doffs for a couple of your projects... if your right... hey I win anyway cause I can start helping Cryptic to get that EC flowing again. haha
Really there is no change they could make to the fleet doffs that would kill the market they have created.... they did really really TRIBBLE it up with this unusable none bound junk though. Lets just hope what ever they do to fix it they get on it sooner rather then later.
It is astonishing that they let this continue, I mean this company is losing money. Perhaps the best approach would be to contact Perfect World Shareholders and see what they think lol
What a way for a company to behave. They've had days and days to sort this out, now I hardly feel like logging in but I will because there are 270 pissed off people in my fleet I have to try and persuade to keep playing and try to convince them that Cryptic will put it right very soon. Now if someone would just convince me............
Are we playing the same game? Reading the same forum?
Because the change to fleet doffs on Holodeck wasn't all that long ago.
They were initially pushed to Holodeck on August 9. The Release note corresponding to the change in fleet DO's was published on August 23, less than a week ago. They've "sat" on the problem a grand total of 4 days, since the weekend doesn't count.
Yes, yes, I get that people saw the same changes on Tribble earlier and warned Cryptic there was going to be a problem.
Show of hands... how many people are actually surprised that something on Tribble went live?
Do we as a community still not get that Cryptic doesn't move that fast unless the game is really broken? Because doing a "quick fix" and possibly breaking the build would cost them a whole lot more money.
I bet we see patch notes for Tribble this week and that we will see a fix of some kind in place on or before September 6. But if the solution is way more involved, I won't be surprised if it takes even longer.
Just don't buy or sell DOFFs on the Exchange. It'll take longer to build the starbase, that's all. It's not like fleets have to race against each other to get to Tier V... everybody's in the same boat and faced with the same problem. In the meantime, mail all your spare DOFFs to yourself and keep doing the recruitment assignments like I am.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Here's what I suspect they're going to have to do...
#1 Disable buying the Fleet DOFFs altogether while they work on a permanent solution.
#2A Undo the bind so that the Fleet DOFFs already in the system can be used normally, like any other DOFF, until a permanent fix is in place.
Or, #2B Remove all of the Fleet DOFFs currently in the Exchange, preferably by forcing a timeout and mailing them back to the seller.
And/Or, #2C Put in a redemption mechanism similar to the one for the old legacy consoles, so you can turn them in for some kind of credit.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Are we playing the same game? Reading the same forum?
The Release note corresponding to the change in fleet DO's was published on August 23, less than a week ago.
Are we talking about the same game? Are we reading the same patch notes?
I'd like you to highlight the portion of either the Tribble or Holodeck patch notes you reference where it mentions the part about them not being usable for fleet projects....
Just one part of the problem that hasn't been acknowledged at all to this point.
Are we playing the same game? Reading the same forum?
Because the change to fleet doffs on Holodeck wasn't all that long ago.
They were initially pushed to Holodeck on August 9. The Release note corresponding to the change in fleet DO's was published on August 23, less than a week ago. They've "sat" on the problem a grand total of 4 days, since the weekend doesn't count.
Definitely counts. The game doesn't go down for the weekend, and dev leadership positions are highly competitive and therefore demanding. Anyone in a decision-making position in a business is tethered to their cellphone (or should be) and that is what justifies their salary and prestige.
Other MMO firms, to say nothing of other e-businesses, resolve issues over the weekend, or in real-time, all the time. Blizzard-Activision, for example, applies hotfixes all the time. If there were some sort of bug with MSN or Gmail or eBay or any other mainstream e-business, that took more than a day to fix, heads would roll. We do not even see small bugs on things that don't really matter such as banners or menus because they are managed and manned by people who are competent.
Yes, yes, I get that people saw the same changes on Tribble earlier and warned Cryptic there was going to be a problem.
Show of hands... how many people are actually surprised that something on Tribble went live?
You are trying to make practices that are the absurd and incompetent sound reasonable. The purpose of a test realm is to test and vet. If bad material is being pushed onto live and input is not being internalized then the devs are doing it wrong.
I bet we see patch notes for Tribble this week and that we will see a fix in place on or before September 6. But if the solution is way more involved, I won't be surprised if it takes even longer.
Orly? A bet? I'm down. What are the stakes? How about we bet pizzas? I'll buy you one (with your choice of toppings) if you're right, you buy me one if you're wrong. Don't want to share your address? No problem, you claim you play STO. Want to bet, say, a million EC? No?
Do we as a community still not get that Cryptic doesn't move that fast unless the game is really broken? Because doing a "quick fix" and possibly breaking the build would cost them a whole lot more money...
Just don't buy or sell DOFFs on the Exchange.
First off, almost all devs are salaried, so it doesn't "a whole lot more money" to force a fix. Never mind that your insinuation that it's somehow unreasonable to expect PWE to spend money to fix what is their mistake is absurd. The implication is that PWE is entitled to its customers money regardless of the quality of the product. Such an attitude is beyond arrogant.
In effect you are suggesting doffers should not play the game: for them the trade in doffs for them IS the game. Are you seriously arguing that telling people to just close STO and go play WoW 5.0 (I need to go try out my warlock's warbear on my paladin, btw) or GW2 (which released almost completely bug-free, by the way, except for that stupid Ragnaros clone and the "broken" AH) is more profitable for PWE than just fessing up to the problem and fixing it?
If ever there were a time to rush a fix at any cost, it's now. This is an "enemy landing on the beach" situation.
So it is difficult, from an impartial point of view (anyone who has read my remarks about GW2 and WoW know that I am not biased for or against them any more than I am STO, and I firmly believe that much good and little harm comes from withering criticisms of any and all faults in anything - I believe that to fail to adequately criticize fail invites a tyranny of low expectations that has thoroughly oppressed the MMO industry), to understand PWE and the STO dev team's thinking here. Either they are deer-in-headlights, or they don't grasp the seriousness of the problem, they lack the technical expertise or effective management to deal with it, or they are simply so out-of-touch with the community and human nature itself that they think this approach is more productive than doing a mea culpa and reassuring the playerbase directly.
It'll take longer to build the starbase, that's all. It's not like fleets have to race against each other to get to Tier V... everybody's in the same boat and faced with the same problem. In the meantime, mail all your spare DOFFs to yourself and keep doing the recruitment assignments like I am.
Actually, we do. Fleets and players who get the rewards first have a competitive advantage. Such is the nature of an MMO.
Furthermore, your contention that player patience is the only issue in question (an attempt to shift all blame to the playerbase and not the devs or admins who created the problem) is both a strawman and false. Many players have sunk substantial resources into stockpiling the fleet doffs and spending FC/FMs on them and may well be out their resources, as well as whatever ECs were lost on faulty doffs on the XC.
The Department of Temporal Investigations has established that two very similar quantum states in which the very same subject was discussed have undergone chronological stabilization, thus merging the two timelines into one quantum history.
In other news, as a member of the STO moderation team I would like to remind folks that duplicate topics running concurrently are considered a form of spamming.
I know it's a hot topic, but please try to resist opening new threads when they aren't needed.
Thanks!
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Duty Officers:
Dilithium rewards granted for dismissing any Duty Officer have been reduced.
New rewards are as follows:
White: 1
Green: 10
Blue: 25
Purple: 50
Amount of Recruitment CXP has not been altered.
All Duty Officers obtained from the Fleet Exchange can once more be contributed to Fleet Projects.
This change is retroactive, and will allow all existing versions of these items to be contributed, as well as any obtained in the future.
If you still have a mountain of creds to burn thru, I'd still take that bug ship. Just saying....
So it looks like all of this was caused because the devs thought the dilithium awards on turning in fleet doffs was being exploited?
So it looks like all of this was caused because the devs thought the dilithium awards on turning in fleet doffs was being exploited?
It is as I initially said. They are unhappy that players are hitting their dil caps and therefore not buying as much Zpoints as they'd like.
This solution is a good one. What is not good is the lack of direct communication and the implied belief they can't be honest about their monetization intentions.
It is as I initially said. They are unhappy that players are hitting their dil caps and therefore not buying as much Zpoints as they'd like.
This solution is a good one. What is not good is the lack of direct communication and the implied belief they can't be honest about their monetization intentions.
Agreed. Seems like the actual solution mentioned in last weeks patch notes would have sufficied thou - when they said fleet doffs award no xcp or dilithium. Wonder if we will get xcp now for fleet doffs and the 1 dilithium on commons?
I'd like to point out that I agree with you in that in the current situation fleet doffs are pretty much useless and that the situation is not fair to users.
But I disagree that anyone has truly lost something as of yet. Or at least, probably not a majority of players.
Those who bought them still have them. Unless they are removed from the game or no solution is ever forthcoming, I think it's reasonable to think that the fleet doffs will have value again at some point. If someone went ahead and deleted them, that's not Cryptic's fault.
Nobody is out real money, unless they bought dilithium with zen and sunk that dilithium into a project and used the fleet credits from that transaction to buy fleet doffs. Even then, it supposes that fleet doffs can never be used in projects ever again. We don't know that's the end goal. Or if it was, I suspect they are rethinking it now.
While the Devs' current temporary (I hope) fix is in place, no fleet can use them and therefore no fleet can use them to get ahead of any of the others. There goes your comment about "competitive advantage".
That said, I know with no shadow of doubt that Cryptic does not work developers over the weekend for non-critical issues. And sorry to say, this isn't one. As of right now the worst we can say about it is that it is a major inconvenience and an unfair situation for people buying them off the Exchange in good faith.
They are not going to put things back the way they were. They are not going to pull all doffs off the Exchange. They are not going to reimburse anyone for damages real or imagined.
EDIT: See? Now I almost wish I had made a real bet.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
The fix now on the Tribble server sounds pretty good to me. Fleet DOffs can be used again for starbase projects, but all DOffs are worth much less dilithium when dismissed. Well, the Exchange should be going back to normal when the patch goes live, so I'll be more inclined to sell rather than dismiss.
The Department of Temporal Investigations has established that two very similar quantum states in which the very same subject was discussed have undergone chronological stabilization, thus merging the two timelines into one quantum history.
In other news, as a member of the STO moderation team I would like to remind folks that duplicate topics running concurrently are considered a form of spamming.
I know it's a hot topic, but please try to resist opening new threads when they aren't needed.
Thanks!
Huh? Why, whatever do you mean? *blinks innocently*
The fix now on the Tribble server sounds pretty good to me. Fleet DOffs can be used again for starbase projects, but all DOffs are worth much less dilithium when dismissed. Well, the Exchange should be going back to normal when the patch goes live, so I'll be more inclined to sell rather than dismiss.
Ihaven't been around as long as others and can say in all honesty that I had never traded in DOFFs for DIL until very recently, and then only a handfull. I always new you could, I just felt that trading them up seemed a better use for me (the exceptions being those that are bound). I have never felt that the DIL amount made much of a positive difference for common DOFFs.
Thankies and meowies to all from the cummeownity who were cumplaining loud enuff so the devs couldn't overhear it anymore. Broken in the sense of intended, now fixed thanks to us all. Together we're strung! Thankies to the people playing.
"Everything about the Jham'Hadar is lethal!" - Eris
Original Join Date: January 30th, 2010
If you still have a mountain of creds to burn thru, I'd still take that bug ship. Just saying....
So it looks like all of this was caused because the devs thought the dilithium awards on turning in fleet doffs was being exploited?
Yes you do... I'll mail ya some doffs. lol
Sorry no bug ships though... really I am working on lockbox ships for all my toons... I do have 1 of everything and 2 of most... but still only 1 bug... next bug is mine still. hehe
Really though Dilithium was the main concern ? really I guess with the price of doffs someone could have spent around 3.5 - 4 Million EC a day to just trash them, for 8k a day... really that doesn't seem like a very great way to do the Dilithium Grind to me.... seeing as the bases seem designed keep EC moving and reduce stagnant stock piles of it.... ya doesn't make a ton of sense to me... but whatever its fixed in a way that should make most people happy so, there it is.
Thank you Cryptic for listening to us and restoring this mess into some sort of working order. Hopefully now people won't be dismissing DOFFs, instead they will be selling them on the exchange which will drive the prices down.
All in all a satisfactory solution and once again showing the power of our community.
My thoughts exactly. Cryptic fixed their mistake within a week -- albeit one that could have been entirely avoided if they listened to Tribble testing, or at least mitigated if ZeroniusRex actually explained the logic behind having a doff vendor on a starbase sell doffs that couldn't be used for the starbase. In the end, the change to dilithium dismissing will be a net positive for starbases in that people will have very little reason to scrap duty officers -- they'll either be consolidated or go on exchange, which drives down the prices.
When the starbase system was designed, it was basing it on common duty officers costing 15,000 EC a piece. Instead, many specializations are 10-30 times that.
Now if they could just do something about Romulan Ale and Dosi Rotgut...
Comments
I'll just say this: STO belongs to PWE legally, but any game company that expects to truly be sucessful in the long term will at the very least pay lipservice to the concept of the game belonging to it's playerbase. With that said, I don't take issue with PWE making changes so much as I do them being so cavalier about serious issue's with those changes being brought to thier attention.
The issue with Fleet Doffs and the Exchange is HUGE. It effects EVERY player who uses the exchange not just for Doff'ing but virtually any other item. Why? Because people's confidence in thier ability to make a fair exchange is being eroded. That is a fact in evidence and can be verified here in these forums and in in-game chat. People's game experience is being affected in a very detrimental way. People are quitting. Obviously I can't show you numbers to prove this, but then again nobody can show me numbers to prove that 10's of thousands of players ARE not participating in the Fleet Base system. I can tell you that i have witnessed a great many say they are quitting.
Bottom line: lost players = lost revenue. Lost revenue = less $$ for DEV's to play with. I don't need to tell you what less $$$ means.
This is patently false. Are you a plant placed by the consortium?
This is absolutely correct - Dan is totalley screwed up his loftly estimate of what revenue Starbases will now generate - and from zone chat - it's dropping for EVERY MINUTE this remains unfixed
Even when fixed it has put some people off for good - but hey maybe "that's working as intended"
umm it working as intended wait no we messed up and we made aboo boo no wait we think it working no wait it not working as we looking in to it no wait we lost on how to fix this and may fix it some point ............. pass
convinced yet??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Cryptic has no share holders, they are owned by PWE. PWE has no share holders, but they are owned by PW. PW does have share holders, but how many layers did we have to go to reach these share holders? If one game in PWE is loosing money but PWE is doing fine as a whole, would PW care?
The fact of the matter is this whole thing makes no sense what-so-ever. Yes, you could gain dilithium from the officers, but at a cost of fleet credits. If this was the big no-no, they could have just fixed this. But to do this action of preventing the fleet dutty officers from being used in fleet missions seems to basicly be the logic of they don't want you using what you bought with fleet credits to get fleet credits. Yet, the fleet mark booster does EXACTLY THAT. Both the mark booster and the DOFFs did not return a profit, you still had a net loss (375 credit loss on DOFFs), so I still can't see what the problem is other than lazy programming.
I think I have it figured out. You now how things are sometimes time-gated (dilithium refining) and other things are level-gated? Well, we have a new kind of gate....Fleet base progression and DOFFs have been officially dev-gated. Thats what happens when a mistake in either dev planning or execution causes a feature of the game to come to a screeching halt. We've all been dev-gated.
No kidden you finally get it. lol
The bases are designed to make Cryptic/pwe MONEY. They have been designed according to a PWE formula that they have perfected in a bunch of other F2P games. They know exactly how many currency types they need... they know what ratios they need to keep those currencies at in order to keep a population of X players feeding the max amount of Real world $ back into there system.
Yes there are fleet bought things like fleet mark boosters... these are calculated very finely to provide a % boost to a player,factoring in cost and return they have it squared away... its good for the player... but not TOO good.
Doff packs... yes we could say there is still a net loss so whats the big deal.... well to there PWE Cash formula it IS a big deal. Yes they want the doffs to remain a EC sink... they WANT people to drive the exchange market... They have a formula that reduces currencies and encourages sales. Bottom line the bases are about sales, not making you happy. They give you some shiny stuffz sure... there has to be some carrot... but the grind itself has been crafted... and the currency reduction as it is now is outside the paramaters of there math... so I wouldn't be thinking they are going to fix these in the way some people seem to hope... if anything there going to make the doffs bind on pickup and move on. If after making them bound they decide to allow them to be sent to the star base doff grinder, then you can likely expect there cost to be increased.
If the dev intent is to drive the exchange prices to the point where people buy zen and just purchase doff packs - epic dev fail. No one who knows what is going on is buying doffs from the exchnange at all since you can't tell which are useful and which aren't. Why try to rig the exchange with artificial inflation if, after a stupid dev decision, no one is willing to risk a purchase there anyway?
What starbase doff grinder are you talking about? There is a vendor, but no one there to allow me to upgrind or downgrind. If there were, then I wouldn't be as upset, since I hate the empty travel time of going back and forth between the starbase and the academy to do the grinding now.
Its not a point of having people buy doff packs.... Yes they will sell a few more however... perhaps not to you but they will. More important people may spend dilithium on game items instead of just purchasing them. They need the EC to flow back and forth so as to maximize there impulse purchases on items that either directly send them $ or items more likely to do that. The point is they have a semi complex math system that works on ratios. They have 3 major currencies, and they can't allow any one of those things to build up to high accross the population or it effects the rate at the other 2 flow. Its no different then a real world market. One currency effects the next when one moves the others start moving as well.
Pushing the market as they have does 2 things. (it works the same way in every other PWE game which is why I say its 100% intentional)
1) it makes the game feel alive... the market has 1000 times more transactions since the season 6. Nothing makes a game feel dead to a new player then going to the market for the first time and seeing zero movment. Big Win for STO.
2) it removes the huge stockpiles of EC that exist in the game... PWE knows exactly how much EC people are sitting on... and I can tell you that when PWE first went over the plan with Cryptics people the first thing they did was go WOW when they saw the amount of in game currency just sitting. (most of that will be in purchasing the TRIBBLE whites the projects need... some of it is just redistro... again to use a real world example... if 90% of the wealth is in the hands of 5% of the pop things start to get unhealthy fast)
I made the post I did because you seem to understand... its about sinks. Time sinks are obvious... the SBs are Dilithium and EC sinks.... YES the PWE formula counts on the consumables having there In game Currency costs driven, this puts in game value on the purchased currency.... if the doffs where worthless in terms of in game currency then they would be even more worthless in purchased currency terms.
Yes I agree the current TRIBBLE up of allowing the star base doffs to be sold on the exchnage when they can not be used is a terrible Cryptic Style TRIBBLE up... I am simply pointing out that if they are following the PWE template. (and they are make no mistake)... well those doffs are never going to work the way some of you hope.... they will end up bind on pickup and still unusable in the SB projects... I would bet my shirt... or 400-500 mil EC.
Well, I am not sitting on that kinda cash, but I would like to take your bet. Say 10mil EC?
I think at the end of the day Crypic will allow the fleet doffs to be usable on the fleet projects again. I wouldnt be surprised if they become a good chunk 'o change more expensive, and somehow barred from listing on the exchange... but having a fleet doff vendor on the starbase selling doffs that can't be used on the starbase seems just too crazy to me.
You in for 10mil?
EDIT: I will even sweeten the pot with a little personal shame...if you win, you get the 10mil EC and I will change my signature T-shirt to read "Husanak was right and I was wrong"
If I am right, you can use your mountain of cash to buy me a nice shiny bug ship. Sound fair? haha
Na I don't need no sig shame haha....
Honesty your solution is quite possible as well... the point is it won't go back to being as it was... they will either adjust pricing so it fits into there math... or they will just do the quick and dirty lock down.
Hey if they go with my solution I'll send you a mail full of doffs for a couple of your projects... if your right... hey I win anyway cause I can start helping Cryptic to get that EC flowing again.
Really there is no change they could make to the fleet doffs that would kill the market they have created.... they did really really TRIBBLE it up with this unusable none bound junk though. Lets just hope what ever they do to fix it they get on it sooner rather then later.
Are we playing the same game? Reading the same forum?
Because the change to fleet doffs on Holodeck wasn't all that long ago.
They were initially pushed to Holodeck on August 9. The Release note corresponding to the change in fleet DO's was published on August 23, less than a week ago. They've "sat" on the problem a grand total of 4 days, since the weekend doesn't count.
Yes, yes, I get that people saw the same changes on Tribble earlier and warned Cryptic there was going to be a problem.
Show of hands... how many people are actually surprised that something on Tribble went live?
Do we as a community still not get that Cryptic doesn't move that fast unless the game is really broken? Because doing a "quick fix" and possibly breaking the build would cost them a whole lot more money.
I bet we see patch notes for Tribble this week and that we will see a fix of some kind in place on or before September 6. But if the solution is way more involved, I won't be surprised if it takes even longer.
Just don't buy or sell DOFFs on the Exchange. It'll take longer to build the starbase, that's all. It's not like fleets have to race against each other to get to Tier V... everybody's in the same boat and faced with the same problem. In the meantime, mail all your spare DOFFs to yourself and keep doing the recruitment assignments like I am.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
i trade on the dill exchange on a 2 day good run i can change 1k dill into 30k and 800 zen
cost to my real world bank 0 profit to pwe bank 0 profit to game account 29k dill 800 zen
so do i get banned from trading on the dill exchange????
also not being funnie but trashing duffs for dill thats the same as trashing borg chips for dill (u get more for the chips )
but then u can spend the standard chips for ec too 5 standard buy assimilated deflector = 100k ec maths for ya 55 chips = 1.1 mill ec
#1 Disable buying the Fleet DOFFs altogether while they work on a permanent solution.
#2A Undo the bind so that the Fleet DOFFs already in the system can be used normally, like any other DOFF, until a permanent fix is in place.
Or, #2B Remove all of the Fleet DOFFs currently in the Exchange, preferably by forcing a timeout and mailing them back to the seller.
And/Or, #2C Put in a redemption mechanism similar to the one for the old legacy consoles, so you can turn them in for some kind of credit.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Are we talking about the same game? Are we reading the same patch notes?
I'd like you to highlight the portion of either the Tribble or Holodeck patch notes you reference where it mentions the part about them not being usable for fleet projects....
Just one part of the problem that hasn't been acknowledged at all to this point.
Definitely counts. The game doesn't go down for the weekend, and dev leadership positions are highly competitive and therefore demanding. Anyone in a decision-making position in a business is tethered to their cellphone (or should be) and that is what justifies their salary and prestige.
Other MMO firms, to say nothing of other e-businesses, resolve issues over the weekend, or in real-time, all the time. Blizzard-Activision, for example, applies hotfixes all the time. If there were some sort of bug with MSN or Gmail or eBay or any other mainstream e-business, that took more than a day to fix, heads would roll. We do not even see small bugs on things that don't really matter such as banners or menus because they are managed and manned by people who are competent.
You are trying to make practices that are the absurd and incompetent sound reasonable. The purpose of a test realm is to test and vet. If bad material is being pushed onto live and input is not being internalized then the devs are doing it wrong.
Orly? A bet? I'm down. What are the stakes? How about we bet pizzas? I'll buy you one (with your choice of toppings) if you're right, you buy me one if you're wrong. Don't want to share your address? No problem, you claim you play STO. Want to bet, say, a million EC? No?
Do we have a deal? Or what do you mean by "bet"?
First off, almost all devs are salaried, so it doesn't "a whole lot more money" to force a fix. Never mind that your insinuation that it's somehow unreasonable to expect PWE to spend money to fix what is their mistake is absurd. The implication is that PWE is entitled to its customers money regardless of the quality of the product. Such an attitude is beyond arrogant.
In effect you are suggesting doffers should not play the game: for them the trade in doffs for them IS the game. Are you seriously arguing that telling people to just close STO and go play WoW 5.0 (I need to go try out my warlock's warbear on my paladin, btw) or GW2 (which released almost completely bug-free, by the way, except for that stupid Ragnaros clone and the "broken" AH) is more profitable for PWE than just fessing up to the problem and fixing it?
If ever there were a time to rush a fix at any cost, it's now. This is an "enemy landing on the beach" situation.
So it is difficult, from an impartial point of view (anyone who has read my remarks about GW2 and WoW know that I am not biased for or against them any more than I am STO, and I firmly believe that much good and little harm comes from withering criticisms of any and all faults in anything - I believe that to fail to adequately criticize fail invites a tyranny of low expectations that has thoroughly oppressed the MMO industry), to understand PWE and the STO dev team's thinking here. Either they are deer-in-headlights, or they don't grasp the seriousness of the problem, they lack the technical expertise or effective management to deal with it, or they are simply so out-of-touch with the community and human nature itself that they think this approach is more productive than doing a mea culpa and reassuring the playerbase directly.
Actually, we do. Fleets and players who get the rewards first have a competitive advantage. Such is the nature of an MMO.
Furthermore, your contention that player patience is the only issue in question (an attempt to shift all blame to the playerbase and not the devs or admins who created the problem) is both a strawman and false. Many players have sunk substantial resources into stockpiling the fleet doffs and spending FC/FMs on them and may well be out their resources, as well as whatever ECs were lost on faulty doffs on the XC.
In other news, as a member of the STO moderation team I would like to remind folks that duplicate topics running concurrently are considered a form of spamming.
I know it's a hot topic, but please try to resist opening new threads when they aren't needed.
Thanks!
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
From the August 28th Tribble Patch notes...
Duty Officers:
Dilithium rewards granted for dismissing any Duty Officer have been reduced.
New rewards are as follows:
White: 1
Green: 10
Blue: 25
Purple: 50
Amount of Recruitment CXP has not been altered.
All Duty Officers obtained from the Fleet Exchange can once more be contributed to Fleet Projects.
This change is retroactive, and will allow all existing versions of these items to be contributed, as well as any obtained in the future.
If you still have a mountain of creds to burn thru, I'd still take that bug ship. Just saying....
So it looks like all of this was caused because the devs thought the dilithium awards on turning in fleet doffs was being exploited?
It is as I initially said. They are unhappy that players are hitting their dil caps and therefore not buying as much Zpoints as they'd like.
This solution is a good one. What is not good is the lack of direct communication and the implied belief they can't be honest about their monetization intentions.
Agreed. Seems like the actual solution mentioned in last weeks patch notes would have sufficied thou - when they said fleet doffs award no xcp or dilithium. Wonder if we will get xcp now for fleet doffs and the 1 dilithium on commons?
I'd like to point out that I agree with you in that in the current situation fleet doffs are pretty much useless and that the situation is not fair to users.
But I disagree that anyone has truly lost something as of yet. Or at least, probably not a majority of players.
Those who bought them still have them. Unless they are removed from the game or no solution is ever forthcoming, I think it's reasonable to think that the fleet doffs will have value again at some point. If someone went ahead and deleted them, that's not Cryptic's fault.
Nobody is out real money, unless they bought dilithium with zen and sunk that dilithium into a project and used the fleet credits from that transaction to buy fleet doffs. Even then, it supposes that fleet doffs can never be used in projects ever again. We don't know that's the end goal. Or if it was, I suspect they are rethinking it now.
While the Devs' current temporary (I hope) fix is in place, no fleet can use them and therefore no fleet can use them to get ahead of any of the others. There goes your comment about "competitive advantage".
That said, I know with no shadow of doubt that Cryptic does not work developers over the weekend for non-critical issues. And sorry to say, this isn't one. As of right now the worst we can say about it is that it is a major inconvenience and an unfair situation for people buying them off the Exchange in good faith.
They are not going to put things back the way they were. They are not going to pull all doffs off the Exchange. They are not going to reimburse anyone for damages real or imagined.
EDIT: See? Now I almost wish I had made a real bet.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Huh? Why, whatever do you mean? *blinks innocently*
Ihaven't been around as long as others and can say in all honesty that I had never traded in DOFFs for DIL until very recently, and then only a handfull. I always new you could, I just felt that trading them up seemed a better use for me (the exceptions being those that are bound). I have never felt that the DIL amount made much of a positive difference for common DOFFs.
In other words I like this solution.
Original Join Date: January 30th, 2010
Yes you do... I'll mail ya some doffs. lol
Sorry no bug ships though... really I am working on lockbox ships for all my toons... I do have 1 of everything and 2 of most... but still only 1 bug... next bug is mine still.
Really though Dilithium was the main concern ? really I guess with the price of doffs someone could have spent around 3.5 - 4 Million EC a day to just trash them, for 8k a day... really that doesn't seem like a very great way to do the Dilithium Grind to me.... seeing as the bases seem designed keep EC moving and reduce stagnant stock piles of it.... ya doesn't make a ton of sense to me... but whatever its fixed in a way that should make most people happy so, there it is.
My thoughts exactly. Cryptic fixed their mistake within a week -- albeit one that could have been entirely avoided if they listened to Tribble testing, or at least mitigated if ZeroniusRex actually explained the logic behind having a doff vendor on a starbase sell doffs that couldn't be used for the starbase. In the end, the change to dilithium dismissing will be a net positive for starbases in that people will have very little reason to scrap duty officers -- they'll either be consolidated or go on exchange, which drives down the prices.
When the starbase system was designed, it was basing it on common duty officers costing 15,000 EC a piece. Instead, many specializations are 10-30 times that.
Now if they could just do something about Romulan Ale and Dosi Rotgut...
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