First when S7 came i was bit paranoid to some stuff it was going to offer, then last night i saw i was wrong about it (not all of it). Then YOU go and take dilithium away wich is our only way of getting somewhat decent amounts of currency. DID IT EVER OCCURED to you that not all of us can weave up our hands with RL cash ?? OH thats right, i forgot you obviously have NO regard for people who are whitout RL money wich could be understandable you gotta live out of something, but WHY WHY WHY in God's name you go and change what is only income for those of us who dont have RL cash ? Second thing, you wrote that people arent getting enough dilithium somewhat 3k or less.... ARE YOU INSANE ??? Per day prior to S7 i made up to 10k+ of dilithium on my toons each day, not to mention 500k of EC !!! So where do you get your info idk prolly from some delusional ideas of yours not much sane minds. Now you are telling me and others like me, that you are shutting that down on us, but you increased dilithium sinkholes. Did it ever, ever occured to you that maybe some of us do not want to do dailies/quickies, DOFF-ign etc as for our MAIN SOURCE of currency ???? Game should be fun not to be forced to do what i dont want to do or do chores !! Also further more, tell me SINCE WHEN, WHEN are stuff like SB 24, Klink Scout Force and more others along with dailies, Fleet Actions main place for getting dilithium huh ???? STF's are the ENDGAME wich you succesfully ruined by your ignorance and obviously lack of interest for your player base community, just showing us how much you apppreciate us. To me STF's were place of fun, no matter how much i did them i enjoyed doing them every night with my friends and fleet mates, true there was times when it went bad or not so good but at least i knew that not only for good time that im haveing il be rewarded so i can use that dilithium for SB/Zen etc, but now YOU KILLED that with your ignorance and obviously nothing more then pure case of ARROGANCE !! Also what its more worse is that you say that high end gear, like the engines you specified there will cost 84k of Dilithium ????? Pls tell me more how am i suppose to buy that with you sucesffuly killing my only income ??? Oh and did you thinked at least once that some of us (90% of server prolly) already HAD HIGH END GEAR, wich you succesfully ROBBED from us !?!?!? So lets sumarize not only that now WE did get ROBBED thnx to courtesy of you, not only you are ROBBED us of dilithium income but you also added more SINKHOLES and BIGGER PRICES ?? IDk where does your sense for economy lies but obviously was written by someone who is in Elementary School. You want us to keep getting dilithium ?? Fine ! THEN GIVE US BACK WHAT YOU HAVE STOLEN !! And STOP lying to people for once stop acting like bunch of irresponsibles teenagers !! STOP with idioticism and start acctually doing something good for your community wich i seriously doubt you will, since you have shown your true face before.
To continue on, you want us to buy stuff that you create, fine that is ok, lets now go back to stuff you release before, how much BUG's are know there on wich you didnt do anything to fix them ? Like idk lets name some KAGE's Sprinting Elite Tac Drones who comes at ya like speeding train ?? Or lets see Galaxy Bridge Pack wich is till broken ?? Well then mate we got ourselfs a problem, people arent your SHEEPS that will buy broken goods on wich you dont even have decency to fix them. Also review your new GROUND STF (wich it doesnt matter anymore since nobody wont be playing them thnx to your "wisdom") for Engineers on whos Kit's cant be much of use due to electrified floor pannels ? Meh nvm that either, you will prolly give us lame response like "Working as inteded". What i wonder next what will people like me do now ? 1 day i need to gather Omega Marks, 1 for Rommies and what i will do the rest of time for fun huh ?? ? Doing Lore missions? or maybe you expect me to go back and play missions back aggain ??? No offense to anyone but this is not my cup of tea, or my plan of haveing good time.
So to summarize. S7 new changes as for some game mechanic goes are good, BUT what is not good is that you STOLEN our only way of income to this game, so better RETURN it back before you start loosing people and before you lead ST franchise to its worst collapse and disgrace in HISTORY !
Pull out together and do something for us for a change, you know it might keep us playing the game !
I'd have liked to have seen a dilithium reward added to completing any of the Featured Episode series.
My guess is that won't help them prop up their metrics the way they want to.
They want to show players playing in groups, playing for dilithium.
So they are trying to funnel all players into the easiest to access content (read: requires spacebar & a pulse) that also requires them to group.
Several devs have stated on podcasts that when they want players to do content X, they want all players to do content X - that's what the original time gating of events was all about.
Whether that was, really, Cryptic's idea or just part of PWE's model they decided to adopt is another story.
Hence, mindless zerg-fest fleet actions now award Dilithium and the only mildly challenging STFs do not.
What I really don't understand is trying to funnel folks into content (fleet actions) that:
a. are buggy
b. haven't been updated for that funnel except new rewards for old grinds. (Maybe I'm wrong, since I haven't played them today).
c. have been some of the worst content in the game.
d. have been abandoned by the players.
e. have often been abandoned or axed by the devs due to faulty designs.
f. cannot be done by fleets (maybe that is changed now?)
The most memorable fleet actions were ones that I could not complete. Are they even still around? The crystalline entity, the rounding up of space creatures, etc.
I also vaguely remember the dig site, where I killed something like 300 Cardassians, without really understanding what any of it was all about.
They can twist and turn it all they want,the bottom line is they are trying to extend the life of the content by having us play it over and over by offering minimal Dilithium rewards and increasing the Dilithium prices.That Dilithium for Zen prices may go up because of that is a nice bonus.
What I haven't heard Stahl say even once,is the word FUN. A game should be FUN.....how in the hell is being FORCED to 'play' the same content over and over,and lets not forget THEY CHOOSE WHAT CONTENT,in any language FUN!? Apparently in Chinese BEING FORCED TO WORK = HAVING FUN.
From what I read on the forums,from what I read in Zone chat,from what I hear from fleet mates.....
People are angry and are starting to revolt,and Stahl,you might not want to take it seriously.....but look at what happened in the Middle East when people didn't get heard,were pushed aside and ignored....well,the people are no longer ignored....
Don't forget....if this blows up,it blows up in your face Stahl,and you are the one they will blame for the mess.
The PWE/Cryptic sweatshop...not where the game is made,but where the game is played!
Take back your home,end the grind!
Volunteer moderators policing the forums is like a mall cop trying to solve a murder.
If you are going to make a statement about a situation and say that you gleaned the knowledge from academic work, you should cite that work. Otherwise it's meaningless. Furthermore if you don't cite it how can I read and thus expand my own knowledge?:cool:
Now engaging your points, past the point that I resent having to work for my assertions here or have my integrity called into question. This is my Marty McFly "Are you chicken?" button and I think everyone who posts here knows that.
Currently by DStahl's estimate we all need to be playing a minimum of 20 hours dilithium content orientated (not STF's) per week per character... which is completely out of whack with the research above that states the average weekly game time is a mere 22.85 hours per week. Let us also remember that due to Dilithium gating such time cannot be split over two days in a weekend and must be split over all 5 days Stahl cites as being required. If the intended aim of the changes was to get end game players to get more Dilithium over a short amount of time their model is critically flawed.
Stahl isn't talking all players. He's talking level 50 players. Few games are all endgame players and turnover happens constantly in any MMO. So general population statistics are not relevant to end game objectives here and there is no point arguing or discussing math on social metrics because Cryptic has theirs (which is as precise as they want it to be; they could probably figure out people's bladder size and whether they're a smoker, a drinker, or an illegal drug user and all kinds of stuff about the playerbase) and all we have are general guesses and principals.
So we should be engaging this from a PURE qualitative/philosophical/a priori knowledge kind of perspective. The papers you cite are useful for discussing principles but useless for describing STO specifically except in terms of broad principle, unless someone from Cryptic could come on here and confirm that those metrics match their internal observations in some way or unless you tried to replicate the work here.
I'd read the Giffiths/Cole paper before. And it's focused on friendships in MMOs, which is more of a function of chat than of gameplay. I maintain that in terms of gameplay, there is more interest in ambient and indirect interaction than in coordinated and directly competitive interaction. And that's kindof an obvious principle because the latter two are more resource taxing and largely irrelevant to socialization.
From this study we can see that your final sentence is also seemingly flawed as over 70% of respondents confirmed that they had made good friends and enjoyed interacting with them.
Which has zilch to do with PvP or coordinated play. Additionally, when people DO coordinated play with friends, yes, it's theoretically less socially taxing. But that doesn't mean they want to team with or fight people they are NOT friends with. 70% HAVING friends is not the same as 70% BEING friends. So you've got 5-10 friends that you like playing with. What does that say about anything? The more striking number is that 30% have none.
As you can see from this 2nd study the hours per week is exactly the same, perhaps they used the same dataset for that calculation, but look at the average economic demography of players, yes 50% of people playing work full time and 36% are married. This tells you if STO is typical that at least 50% are of our player base is already at peak investment in hours and time. Thus an extension to time required to achieve the end-game rewards we have the effect of turning off many of these players.
There are no doubt countless other surveys and academic work but these two were the most popular hits on google... and though they are dated (2006/2007) one assumes the demographic in western markets has not changed in their social habits in any great way.
Again, over-reliance on quantitative scholarship, subject to a number of assumptions.
A lit prof, a philosophy prof, a strategic marketing specialist, certain kinds of low math economists... These are the kinds of scholars whose viewpoints will be more relevant here than anthropological metrics.
I don't know if I must laugh or cry, I have no words for this, how could you do this, WHY. What is the point of doing STF if the only thing you do is get gear to do STF with. Only way you want to do that is to make STF easier so you can get easier your loot and dil. But if I don't do STF in don't need the borg gear to grind borg with. So there is no logical conclusion to do STF anymore.
Also the prices of the doff replacement in ridiculous high and many more things that are in the shadows off this STF mishap.
I hope you guy change it back else I am off to other things.
i have looked out for the relaese of s7,but now i'm disappointed,verry verry disapointed.
you said that with the new rep system we have 60% more change to get the elite gear.
but now you nerfed it,and you have put another nail in your deadchest...
let me place what i got in 3 weeks doing the stf's:
9 bleu salvage for weapons.
3 normal shield drops
5 normal impusle drop.
2 normal deflector drops.
around the 180 encrypted data chips (edc)
in 3 weeks,i got all of this.
and i just qeued,i didnt do all of them with my fleet members.
you say: 60&% more change for the drops?
this reputation system is gonna take months!
and what do we get?
the change to buy it!
if we got enough dillithuim,wich is for a elite weapon/shield/whatever around the 80k.
with a refine cap of 8 k a day,it is gonna take an additional 10 days to refine enough.
but we can do it in 10 days...cause you screwed the dillithuim reward also!
so a quick calculation: 4 months for repsystem,10 days for refining,20 days for dillithuim(cant say the right amount right now) ?
that make's almost 4,5 months for 1 crappy piece of the gear,cause not eevry player has 8 houre's a day to spend.
9 normal weapons.
3 normal shields
5 normal impulse
2 normal deflector
and choose for yourself what you will do with the +/- 180 edc's
thats a diffference,dont you think cryptic?and if you dont get it,go back to school and learn math.
and i know not every one have the same amount,maybe i was really lucky,but still it is not a fair rate.
2th point:
do you guys think,that the fleets will grow?
everyone is gonna do there rep system first,so no dillithuim for fleet projects.
no other contribute's cause people need there ec to buy the sh*t we need for the rep system.like major regneraotions...i even dont know where i can get them,cause i have 4 of them,as loot......
and yes people,i'm f2p,and yes i dont pay....
but does that make that i cant say what i think?
does the lifetimers and the people who pay have any benefit from it??
i know if i dont like it, that i can quit....
but after i quit,and several others...do you think they will change it?
if we wanna change it...we need to make clear how we think about it.....
... Did we not just have several weeks of testing on Tribble to provide feedback for just this sort of change? Were we not told that STFs would still grant ~950 dilithium a run?
How can you expect us to trust you, and as a result *want* to work with you to support this game, if you're as deceptive here as you have been? Frankly Cryptic suck on this one.
QFT...and I'm 10 pages behind the current discussion.
You can't ask people for feedback and then ignore it.
You know what happens?
You won't get any.
Then when people quit playing and you try to ask "why?", you won't like the answer.
I'd read the Giffiths/Cole paper before. And it's focused on friendships in MMOs, which is more of a function of chat than of gameplay. I maintain that in terms of gameplay, there is more interest in ambient and indirect interaction than in coordinated and directly competitive interaction. And that's kindof an obvious principle because the latter two are more resource taxing and largely irrelevant to socialization.
Which has zilch to do with PvP or coordinated play. Additionally, when people DO coordinated play with friends, yes, it's theoretically less socially taxing. But that doesn't mean they want to team with or fight people they are NOT friends with. 70% HAVING friends is not the same as 70% BEING friends. So you've got 5-10 friends that you like playing with. What does that say about anything? The more striking number is that 30% have none.
If we are talking personal experience as you seem to be then let me tell you how my personal experience and those I have spoken to in-game is totally out of whack with your thinking.
When I joined STO I didn't know anyone in game. I came here for Star Trek. I didn't really make any friends in the game UNTIL I started playing co-operative play. In fact I have made all my friends on STO through playing STF's. STF's brought people together for a focused effort in co-ordinated team play, through it I found out who was goo dat doing missions and began enjoying spending time with those people and becoming friends with them.
Today when I logged on the STF's channels were dead.
I think you need to re-evaluate your own qualitative experience in the light of others, because I am afraid you are wrong.
Here's something interesting: it should take four (4) hours to get 8000 Dilithium, according to this blog. Even at paying only 25 Dilithium per Z point, that gives you 320 Zen. So for four hours of work, you get $3.20 (and per the quotes below, doing things solely for dilithium and not for the fun of playing, is not a game, it is work). That's pretty far below minimum wage. Just saying.
If the devs want us to spend more time in the game, give us more stuff to do, don't artificially time gate gear.
WTF? I play this game versus specifically because it DOESN'T require hours of time investment. I like that about this game. And so does everyone I know who plays. We all have kids and jobs and don't have the time to invest. Making us work harder for things isn't going to make us play more, its going to drive us away from the game.
I really, really hate that mentality of game designers. It's a GAME, not a job.
What really boggles the mind is this:
Most players DON'T convert very much dilithium. So you're going to make it HARDER to get it? Why? How does that make any sense what so ever?
I hate conspiracy theories but those that claim this is just a scam to get us to buy Dilithium with Zen don't sound so crazy now.
I'm not even going to try to make sense of any of this nonsense. It's all lies and bull****, because they just want us to buy dilithium with zen. Everything else is just blah blah blah.
As we approached Season 7, we spent a lot of time reviewing the Dilithium economy and evaluating changes that needed to be made based on the following concerns:
Concern 1 -Active level 50 players are refining far less Dilithium than we expect them to. Prior to Season 7, the average amount of Dilithium refined by an active level 50 player was 3100 per session or 13,250 per week. That is far less than the cap of 8000 per day when you consider that most level 50 players play multiple days per week and slightly more than the average hours per session.
Concern 2 - Several missions were rewarding far more Dilithium than they should have. We have a guideline for how much Dilithium should be earned based on effort and time spent, and there were several missions that were clearly outside of our guidelines and players were using these missions to earn more Dilithium than we intended.
Concern 3 - New gear being created was not in line with other pricing
With all the new gear in the game, gear pricing needed a balance pass to ensure that the amount of Dilithium required for similar gear was consistent across the game.
So, you solved these issues by lowering dilithium availability and upping the cost of items?
Did it ever occur to you guys that people slowed their dilithium refining because STO is too much of a grind?
Did it ever occur to you guys that people slowed their dilithium refining because you guys turned STO into manual labor?
Did it ever occur to you guys that people slowed their dilithium refining because there is no overall substance to the endgame?
Did it ever occur to you guys that people slowed their dilithium refining because you guys sucked the fun out of "Star Trek" gaming?
Did it ever occur to you guys that your decisions are the problem?
I don't need a link to Nate Silvers' blog to know that.
My point is that Cryptic's data is going to be the best data and big data requires original research to the specific data at hand (heck, folks who argued for using 2004 data in the 2012 U.S. presidential election all got it wrong) and Nate Silvers-style big data requires much of it from many sources with a track record you can use to track the reliability and bias of data sources.
It's not productive as a player on the forums to argue DATA. The only leg we have to stand on as players is a mix of broad qualitative generalities and a priori philosophical assumptions.
We need to be looking at things in terms of qualitative analysis and narrative. Not statistics. Because we don't have the statistics to work with.
From a player vantage, more math shoehorned into our discussions about design philosophy makes our arguments less reliable.
The quote below about story bears repeating, especially the part where Kirkfat says: "Your team provides stupid virtual goodies and not Star Trek." That'ws why I left the game for some time - I was bored running the same stuff over and over again.
If you want to know why my lvl 50 stopped grinding dilithium... what is the point? I don't care about stupid virtual goodies. I care about Star Trek. You team provides stupid virtual goodies and not Star Trek. So, I stopped caring about your stuff and cared far more about the only place in this game that has a soul or a story.
I'm sorry if I didn't meet your MMO expectations. I don't like to mow the lawn every day as a chore. I'd rather feel immersed in the universe of Trek, when your game isn't ruining all levels of that immersion.
Like, what exactly do you want me, as a player to do in this game? You want me to rush back and forth between the same content that I played yesterday? You want me to just rinse and repeat content that uninspired to begin with? It's like you want me to circle an arcade on a daily basis with set tasks to do, which include doing things that suck and are simply not fun to do.
"Now is your time to farm anomalies.... Now is your time to play some slogfest with no story... no is your time to repair a satellite that breaks everyday..." Your dilithium is dumb. Your starbases are a reskinned doff system, and your reputation system is a repeat of that reskin.
I'm sorry. I refuse to waste my time with things that are not fun.
TRIBBLE that. None of that is fun. I'll play how I want to play, and I've officially stopped caring about how you want or expect me to play your non-content content. You stopped caring about the "meat" of your game a long time ago.
If we are talking personal experience as you seem to be then let me tell you how my personal experience and those I have spoken to in-game is totally out of whack with your thinking.
When I joined STO I didn't know anyone in game. I came here for Star Trek. I didn't really make any friends in the game UNTIL I started playing co-operative play. In fact I have made all my friends on STO through playing STF's. STF's brought people together for a focused effort in co-ordinated team play, through it I found out who was goo dat doing missions and began enjoying spending time with those people and becoming friends with them.
Today when I logged on the STF's channels were dead.
I think you need to re-evaluate your own qualitative experience in the light of others, because I am afraid you are wrong.
Overlord:
I don't think you and I are fundamentally disagreeing about the negative consequences of these changes. This is the death knell of STFs unless something changes.
My guess at this point is that Cryptic either needs to reverse the changes somewhat (because socialization is taxing and taxing play needs to be offset with reward) or they need to nerf STFs down to a point where no coordination is necessary.
Effectively, either reward people for taking the pains to make friends or allow fairly shallow friendships to avoid being taxed by challenging play.
In fact I have made all my friends on STO through playing STF's. STF's brought people together for a focused effort in co-ordinated team play, through it I found out who was goo dat doing missions and began enjoying spending time with those people and becoming friends with them.
.
That's exactly what happened to me. Started STO because of Star Trek. As a newb I found some cool guys in STF. And until yesterday we were raiding the STF's together, chatting over skype and enjoying our optional loot :-)
You should have listened to the players.... all you had to do was add Dilithium to fleet actions, lower the dilithium to something like 800-1K(on elite) STFs to fix your concerns about not enough dilithium being avaliable to more of the 'normal' player base AND prevent too big of a hike in dilithium refinement for everyone else.
I ask that you please carefully review your decisions, and make changes after careful considerations to the players concern. Not the spreadsheet of data.
Now I just will have less motivation to do much in end game content, just 1 fleet action and 1 STF a day or so depending on how I feel. Rest of the time I will just do foundry missions and make foundry missions. Thank goodness for the foundry.
---
"We are the Borg. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile."
Sincerely,
The Cube Assimilating Your Ship Right Now
Concern 1 - Active level 50 players are refining far less Dilithium than we expect them to. Prior to Season 7, the average amount of Dilithium refined by an active level 50 player was 3100 per session or 13,250 per week. That is far less than the cap of 8000 per day when you consider that most level 50 players play multiple days per week and slightly more than the average hours per session.
Seriously, while season seven was in the development cycle, players across the forums warned about the excessive grinding. It was only a matter of time when it took a toll. What did you guys think would happen?
Plus, you guys said we were in the minority. If this new information is any indication, you guys lied to the player base about our importance.
1) Taxing or risky play calls for more reward. The ideal is intrinsic value but you can't always have that.
2) In a story, characters change. This is modeled in most MMOs through powers and gear. In a Campbellian mythic cycle (and, yes, invoking Campbell is un-PC) or Jungian dream analysis model, there has to be some kind of transformation. In a book or dream, sure, the goal of this transformation is the reader... and I see this as being what Kirkfat is getting at. This isn't a book. This is an RPG. Immersion demands that the CHARACTER be transformed. This is what gear and costume pieces do.
3) Online businesses tend to rely heavily on emotional appeal, moreso than brick and mortar. That feeds the collector urge but I'll add that Kirkfat isn't wrong to say that there should be more emotional investment. And that will drive bigger and better sales.
There's a reason why people pay hundreds of dollars for WoW virtual items and it boils down to emotional investment. That's a mix of factors, surely. You've got Overlord's socializer argument. There's the minmax achiever argument of time versus money. There's Kirkfat's argument of enriching narrative. (Say what you will about WoW, they apply dramatic stakes to their content and aren't afraid to pull out emotionally manipulative stuff like a sick kid or a flirty NPC or starcrossed lovers.)
These are all valid but all dead without the emotional appeal of how you spend your time, what you can show off to your friends or do with them, and narrative emotional appeals. Which I think Cryptic is entirely too shy about getting manipulative with, although New Romulus is progress on this point. And, sheesh, its the basis for the new Acamarian stuff.
But it doesn't change the issues presented for STFs' survival and challenge based casual social play.
STFs dead ....checked.
EliteSTF channel almost dead (still good for trolling :rolleyes: ) ...checked.
What Ill never understand is why people read these blogs with Stahl.He is the person who said in a blog "most people dont pay a dime" (I know a fleet with new people (~250) who spend ALOT of money.Im sure that percent is everywhere in game) and after sometime "sto is number 1 in US for pwe".That was an example and I can say now that these blogs are like a place where to BS people.
Now I dont mind the dilithium nerfs ,I dont even mind that I have to "play" that thing called starbase 24 with 400000000000000000000000 enemies at 2 FPS on a high end PC ,but I do mind when I report bugs (like the textures and graphics one ,or the lack of dilithium in STFs ) and they BS you by saying "its something that only happens on tribble".
Im not going to stop playing STO or spend money in it ,I wont give away my s**** :P ,but I know from now on who will BS me in blogs and will ignore these blogs simply because I do not like to get large quantities of BS .
1) Taxing or risky play calls for more reward. The ideal is intrinsic value but you can't always have that.
2) In a story, characters change. This is modeled in most MMOs through powers and gear. In a Campbellian mythic cycle (and, yes, invoking Campbell is un-PC) or Jungian dream analysis model, there has to be some kind of transformation. In a book or dream, sure, the goal of this transformation is the reader... and I see this as being what Kirkfat is getting at. This isn't a book. This is an RPG. Immersion demands that the CHARACTER be transformed. This is what gear and costume pieces do.
3) Online businesses tend to rely heavily on emotional appeal, moreso than brick and mortar. That feeds the collector urge but I'll add that Kirkfat isn't wrong to say that there should be more emotional investment. And that will drive bigger and better sales.
There's a reason why people pay hundreds of dollars for WoW virtual items and it boils down to emotional investment. That's a mix of factors, surely. You've got Overlord's socializer argument. There's the minmax achiever argument of time versus money. There's Kirkfat's argument of enriching narrative. (Say what you will about WoW, they apply dramatic stakes to their content and aren't afraid to pull out emotionally manipulative stuff like a sick kid or a flirty NPC or starcrossed lovers.)
These are all valid but all dead without the emotional appeal of how you spend your time, what you can show off to your friends or do with them, and narrative emotional appeals. Which I think Cryptic is entirely too shy about getting manipulative with, although New Romulus is progress on this point. And, sheesh, its the basis for the new Acamarian stuff.
But it doesn't change the issues presented for STFs' survival and challenge based casual social play.
We probably are in agreement I'm also firmly in Kirkfats camp on the narrative enrichment, if anything it's that kind of game play that will keep Star Trek fans onboard.
I also feel kinda sorry for everyone who defended Cryptic/PWE, I knew what was coming I even joked that it should be called S7: Dilithium Apocolypse.
A ha! "STFs will still reward Dilithium and there will be an Omega Rep project that converts marks into Dilithium, so we're replacing it, not taking it away." The quote is below, for those of you who want hard evidence of being lied to. Perhaps that "and" was a mistake, and he meant to say something more like "STFs will still reward Dilithium in that there will be an Omega Rep project that converts marks into Dilithium, so we're replacing it, not taking it away."
That's great, but you are gating players into very specific and grindy content to do so. And you are taking away one source of dilithium now with the STFs which were having a pretty good dilithium output.
Why don't I as the player have the absolute choice in how to earn that dilithium? Why don't episodes and patrols award dilithium? And fleet events?
Getting dilithium rewards into the old fleet actions is a good first step.
STFs will still reward Dilithium and there will be an Omega Rep project that converts marks into Dilithium, so we're replacing it, not taking it away.
In addition, we're adding Dilithium drops to all Fleet Actions as well as some other new Events.
Honestly, It's not that big a deal in my eyes. For a few reasons.
Make Dilithium more available to all level 50 players ? not just those playing on elite ? by increasing the average amount of Dilithium earned. We want the average amount of Dilithium earned by all level 50 players to exceed 13,250 per week and will be monitoring and adjusting Dilithium rates to ensure this happens. This also means moving Dilithium rewards to missions that are more accessible to the average player (Normal Fleet Actions) and away from Elite only STFs. STFs will still reward Dilithium indirectly, but Fleet Actions now reward Dilithium each run.
So this is one thing that stands out to me. As everyone is all upset about the STF changes, look at this statement from Stahl. Now i'm a pretty savvy STF player, and know how to do them, and did them regularly. However, what about the people who weren't in the EliteSTF channel? How did they do STF's to get dilithium? We all know the challenges or just queuing up for an STF and the chances of failure were pretty high. So really unless you knew how to run the STF's you couldn't get that source of dilithium, unless you got lucky. So where do they move the dilithium to? Fleet Actions! Much easier to do and requires much less skill to complete. This opens up dilithium to people who couldn't do the STF's. Granted you can still get dilithium from STF's by trading in the items you get, so it still puts some incentive to play them even after you get your gear, and lets be honest, most of the EliteSTF runs I've done didn't take that long to complete because everyone was pretty competent.
Make Dilithium rewards balanced and consistent. No specific content should be aberrantly more efficient than others. We will be removing or adjusting reward tables anytime we find missions that are allowing players to earn Dilithium at an aberrant rate.
The only way most people would farm dilithium prior to Season 7 was STF's, one click exploit foundry missions, and B'Trans. Now think about this for a moment. You have to do the same 3 things over and over and over again, wouldn't this get boring after a while? The big change with Season 7 that I saw is that dilithium is now more spread out though the game, and not earned by just one or two major things. It expands my play and gives me things to keep my interest in. As a Foundry author I really hated those one click exploit missions because I spent so much time on my own missions, and hardly anyone played them. You would get the occasional person but everyone was using the Foundry in a way it wasn't really intended, so i'm pretty thankful for that change alone. Perhaps now the quality of missions in the Foundry will improve, and be worthy of play.
Ensure that the costs for obtaining similar types of gear from the Fleet System, Reputation Systems or Dilithium Stores are balanced and consistent within our expectations for how long it should take to obtain the best gear in the game. We will continue to monitor and adjust store prices as necessary to keep this balance as new items are added to the game.
let's rewind the clock 3 or 4 months. Remember when everyone was screaming about how they ran countless STF's and couldn't get the gear, and they would run 1200 Infected space missions and not get the MK XII shield? Ya this fixes it. You invest equal amounts of time, and you too can get whatever gear you want, and don't have to run 1200 Infected space missions unless you really want to. Dilithium gear? Who would wear that when you could have the STF gear? Thanks to some of the changes now you can have a choice for what you put on your ship or captain, and no one set is more OP than the next. Everyone ran 3 borg pieces and 1 MK XII MACO or Omega shield on their ship. Why? because it was FOTM and nothing else in the game was really worth it. Enter Season 7, where balance comes into the game. Want to run the Romulan shields that look cool and be functional? Now we can!
All in all I think all these changes help more of the players out there who are not as skilled as the Elite folks who have been around forever. It gives them an equal chance to enjoy the game as much as we do, and get all the gear and experience they need to make a difference overall. Really as Stahl mentioned it will take 10 days or so to get your MK XII gear if you put the time into it. How is that any different than running STF's for months on end to get a chance at getting the gear you wanted? At least now its guaranteed.
Anyway that's all i'm going to say about it. I doubt it will make much difference, but that's my thoughts either way. I'm still going to play STO because I like it and no amount of Rage is going to stop me!
Remember, this is a game that you, STO/PWE, want players to enjoy playing and not think about the hoops they have to jump through to get the prize (because hoops are fun). It is when you put up brick walls and expect them to treat the game as a second job that you end up the threads 25+ pages long with one common theme... "you ruined my game and lied to me." How about getting off the high horse and getting back to making a fun game, instead of a tedious game. :eek:
There's no actual CONTENT anymore outside of those and the rare newly made Feature Episode Series.
See, this is the problem. Cryptic thinks that the items they sell in the C Store count as content. Maybe they do, depending on the definition of content. But what many people want is STORY content.
I've said it before, they don't need to make every set of new episodes a Featured Episode. Just use existing assets, get some good writing going (I assume Kestrel still works at Cryptic?) and make some new episodes!
Make dilithium harder to earn for the members of the small fleet that I am in and my fleet dies, as do just about any other small fleet. Cryptic, if this is your goal, just tell me know so I can stop investing in my Fleet Starbase and I will just go sucking up to large fleets for membership.
Thank the baby Jesus for F2P. I'd be furious if I had to pay a monthly sub and be treated like this, and I'd be supremely annoyed if I was one of the unfortunate folks who just purchased the LTS promotion.
Yes, it's true that Dilithium is now easier to get than ever with it being shifted to FAs.
But what i don't get is WHY Cryptic needs the Elite STF players to dumb down their gameplay, too?
Why is it so important, everyone plays the same narrow content? Why would it hurt them if some people do it by STFs if they are capable, too and some by fleet actions if they want easy going?
Hell, I would probably alternate between the options depending on my mood and eventual
burn out on one kind of content.
Now i will do STFs at most until I finish the rep, because I just need the passives. My captain and the Boffs that matter are decked out in Mk XI/XII gear already.
Then I will stop more or less... This will happen early next year. And I suspect many peopel think alike. It will have killed of STFs and they will be back where they were before they got butch... remastered. Hardly ever played.
Meanwhile people will be sick of the Fleet Actions because they are to boring and tedious if you do them day on end instead of an occasional nice diversion.
A ha! "STFs will still reward Dilithium and there will be an Omega Rep project that converts marks into Dilithium, so we're replacing it, not taking it away." The quote is below, for those of you who want hard evidence of being lied to. Perhaps that "and" was a mistake, and he meant to say something more like "STFs will still reward Dilithium in that there will be an Omega Rep project that converts marks into Dilithium, so we're replacing it, not taking it away."
Check this out. I went back and found this:
"I'm letting the design team handle all the dilithium balancing they are doing for S7 - so I don't have an answer for you - i trust them to keep it fair across the board" - Daniel Stahl, TTS Chat, Nov. 8, 2012
"Our lead designer - Gecko (Al) is keeping a very close eye on Dilithium distribution and adjusting accordingly." - Daniel Stahl, TTS Chat, Nov. 8, 2012
It seems to me that Geko changed his mind or pushed a change through and Stahl basically said, "Eh. Whatever. I trust you, Al."
I like Al as a person but I think he tends to bogart design decisions away from the players, to get them playing how he wants. And I feel like Stahl just sort of shrugged at the change (with or without an internal debate: we'll never know) and decided to let him do it this time at the last minute without telling any of the testers.
So I retract my earlier point that it was a lie. It was a bloodless coupe by the systems team.
Comments
To continue on, you want us to buy stuff that you create, fine that is ok, lets now go back to stuff you release before, how much BUG's are know there on wich you didnt do anything to fix them ? Like idk lets name some KAGE's Sprinting Elite Tac Drones who comes at ya like speeding train ?? Or lets see Galaxy Bridge Pack wich is till broken ?? Well then mate we got ourselfs a problem, people arent your SHEEPS that will buy broken goods on wich you dont even have decency to fix them. Also review your new GROUND STF (wich it doesnt matter anymore since nobody wont be playing them thnx to your "wisdom") for Engineers on whos Kit's cant be much of use due to electrified floor pannels ? Meh nvm that either, you will prolly give us lame response like "Working as inteded". What i wonder next what will people like me do now ? 1 day i need to gather Omega Marks, 1 for Rommies and what i will do the rest of time for fun huh ?? ? Doing Lore missions? or maybe you expect me to go back and play missions back aggain ??? No offense to anyone but this is not my cup of tea, or my plan of haveing good time.
So to summarize. S7 new changes as for some game mechanic goes are good, BUT what is not good is that you STOLEN our only way of income to this game, so better RETURN it back before you start loosing people and before you lead ST franchise to its worst collapse and disgrace in HISTORY !
Pull out together and do something for us for a change, you know it might keep us playing the game !
My guess is that won't help them prop up their metrics the way they want to.
They want to show players playing in groups, playing for dilithium.
So they are trying to funnel all players into the easiest to access content (read: requires spacebar & a pulse) that also requires them to group.
Several devs have stated on podcasts that when they want players to do content X, they want all players to do content X - that's what the original time gating of events was all about.
Whether that was, really, Cryptic's idea or just part of PWE's model they decided to adopt is another story.
Hence, mindless zerg-fest fleet actions now award Dilithium and the only mildly challenging STFs do not.
a. are buggy
b. haven't been updated for that funnel except new rewards for old grinds. (Maybe I'm wrong, since I haven't played them today).
c. have been some of the worst content in the game.
d. have been abandoned by the players.
e. have often been abandoned or axed by the devs due to faulty designs.
f. cannot be done by fleets (maybe that is changed now?)
The most memorable fleet actions were ones that I could not complete. Are they even still around? The crystalline entity, the rounding up of space creatures, etc.
I also vaguely remember the dig site, where I killed something like 300 Cardassians, without really understanding what any of it was all about.
What I haven't heard Stahl say even once,is the word FUN. A game should be FUN.....how in the hell is being FORCED to 'play' the same content over and over,and lets not forget THEY CHOOSE WHAT CONTENT,in any language FUN!? Apparently in Chinese BEING FORCED TO WORK = HAVING FUN.
From what I read on the forums,from what I read in Zone chat,from what I hear from fleet mates.....
People are angry and are starting to revolt,and Stahl,you might not want to take it seriously.....but look at what happened in the Middle East when people didn't get heard,were pushed aside and ignored....well,the people are no longer ignored....
Don't forget....if this blows up,it blows up in your face Stahl,and you are the one they will blame for the mess.
Take back your home,end the grind!
Volunteer moderators policing the forums is like a mall cop trying to solve a murder.
My point was very simple.
If you are going to make a statement about a situation and say that you gleaned the knowledge from academic work, you should cite that work. Otherwise it's meaningless. Furthermore if you don't cite it how can I read and thus expand my own knowledge?:cool:
#2311#2700#2316#2500
Stahl isn't talking all players. He's talking level 50 players. Few games are all endgame players and turnover happens constantly in any MMO. So general population statistics are not relevant to end game objectives here and there is no point arguing or discussing math on social metrics because Cryptic has theirs (which is as precise as they want it to be; they could probably figure out people's bladder size and whether they're a smoker, a drinker, or an illegal drug user and all kinds of stuff about the playerbase) and all we have are general guesses and principals.
So we should be engaging this from a PURE qualitative/philosophical/a priori knowledge kind of perspective. The papers you cite are useful for discussing principles but useless for describing STO specifically except in terms of broad principle, unless someone from Cryptic could come on here and confirm that those metrics match their internal observations in some way or unless you tried to replicate the work here.
I'd read the Giffiths/Cole paper before. And it's focused on friendships in MMOs, which is more of a function of chat than of gameplay. I maintain that in terms of gameplay, there is more interest in ambient and indirect interaction than in coordinated and directly competitive interaction. And that's kindof an obvious principle because the latter two are more resource taxing and largely irrelevant to socialization.
Which has zilch to do with PvP or coordinated play. Additionally, when people DO coordinated play with friends, yes, it's theoretically less socially taxing. But that doesn't mean they want to team with or fight people they are NOT friends with. 70% HAVING friends is not the same as 70% BEING friends. So you've got 5-10 friends that you like playing with. What does that say about anything? The more striking number is that 30% have none.
Again, over-reliance on quantitative scholarship, subject to a number of assumptions.
A lit prof, a philosophy prof, a strategic marketing specialist, certain kinds of low math economists... These are the kinds of scholars whose viewpoints will be more relevant here than anthropological metrics.
The more math, the more error.
Dumb.
Yeah, that pretty much covers it.
Also the prices of the doff replacement in ridiculous high and many more things that are in the shadows off this STF mishap.
I hope you guy change it back else I am off to other things.
you said that with the new rep system we have 60% more change to get the elite gear.
but now you nerfed it,and you have put another nail in your deadchest...
let me place what i got in 3 weeks doing the stf's:
18 prototype's for weapons.
6 elite shield drops.
4 elite impulse drops.
3 elite ddeflector drops.
9 bleu salvage for weapons.
3 normal shield drops
5 normal impusle drop.
2 normal deflector drops.
around the 180 encrypted data chips (edc)
in 3 weeks,i got all of this.
and i just qeued,i didnt do all of them with my fleet members.
you say: 60&% more change for the drops?
this reputation system is gonna take months!
and what do we get?
the change to buy it!
if we got enough dillithuim,wich is for a elite weapon/shield/whatever around the 80k.
with a refine cap of 8 k a day,it is gonna take an additional 10 days to refine enough.
but we can do it in 10 days...cause you screwed the dillithuim reward also!
so a quick calculation: 4 months for repsystem,10 days for refining,20 days for dillithuim(cant say the right amount right now) ?
that make's almost 4,5 months for 1 crappy piece of the gear,cause not eevry player has 8 houre's a day to spend.
so 4,5 months = 1 piece gear
3 weeks =
18 elite weapons.
9 elite shields
4 elite impulse's
3 elite deflector.
9 normal weapons.
3 normal shields
5 normal impulse
2 normal deflector
and choose for yourself what you will do with the +/- 180 edc's
thats a diffference,dont you think cryptic?and if you dont get it,go back to school and learn math.
and i know not every one have the same amount,maybe i was really lucky,but still it is not a fair rate.
2th point:
do you guys think,that the fleets will grow?
everyone is gonna do there rep system first,so no dillithuim for fleet projects.
no other contribute's cause people need there ec to buy the sh*t we need for the rep system.like major regneraotions...i even dont know where i can get them,cause i have 4 of them,as loot......
and yes people,i'm f2p,and yes i dont pay....
but does that make that i cant say what i think?
does the lifetimers and the people who pay have any benefit from it??
i know if i dont like it, that i can quit....
but after i quit,and several others...do you think they will change it?
if we wanna change it...we need to make clear how we think about it.....
with kind regards.
@borgressistance,
QFT...and I'm 10 pages behind the current discussion.
You can't ask people for feedback and then ignore it.
You know what happens?
You won't get any.
Then when people quit playing and you try to ask "why?", you won't like the answer.
If we are talking personal experience as you seem to be then let me tell you how my personal experience and those I have spoken to in-game is totally out of whack with your thinking.
When I joined STO I didn't know anyone in game. I came here for Star Trek. I didn't really make any friends in the game UNTIL I started playing co-operative play. In fact I have made all my friends on STO through playing STF's. STF's brought people together for a focused effort in co-ordinated team play, through it I found out who was goo dat doing missions and began enjoying spending time with those people and becoming friends with them.
Today when I logged on the STF's channels were dead.
I think you need to re-evaluate your own qualitative experience in the light of others, because I am afraid you are wrong.
#2311#2700#2316#2500
If the devs want us to spend more time in the game, give us more stuff to do, don't artificially time gate gear.
Have to agree with the quotes below.
Did it ever occur to you guys that people slowed their dilithium refining because STO is too much of a grind?
Did it ever occur to you guys that people slowed their dilithium refining because you guys turned STO into manual labor?
Did it ever occur to you guys that people slowed their dilithium refining because there is no overall substance to the endgame?
Did it ever occur to you guys that people slowed their dilithium refining because you guys sucked the fun out of "Star Trek" gaming?
Did it ever occur to you guys that your decisions are the problem?
I don't need a link to Nate Silvers' blog to know that.
My point is that Cryptic's data is going to be the best data and big data requires original research to the specific data at hand (heck, folks who argued for using 2004 data in the 2012 U.S. presidential election all got it wrong) and Nate Silvers-style big data requires much of it from many sources with a track record you can use to track the reliability and bias of data sources.
It's not productive as a player on the forums to argue DATA. The only leg we have to stand on as players is a mix of broad qualitative generalities and a priori philosophical assumptions.
We need to be looking at things in terms of qualitative analysis and narrative. Not statistics. Because we don't have the statistics to work with.
From a player vantage, more math shoehorned into our discussions about design philosophy makes our arguments less reliable.
Overlord:
I don't think you and I are fundamentally disagreeing about the negative consequences of these changes. This is the death knell of STFs unless something changes.
My guess at this point is that Cryptic either needs to reverse the changes somewhat (because socialization is taxing and taxing play needs to be offset with reward) or they need to nerf STFs down to a point where no coordination is necessary.
Effectively, either reward people for taking the pains to make friends or allow fairly shallow friendships to avoid being taxed by challenging play.
That's exactly what happened to me. Started STO because of Star Trek. As a newb I found some cool guys in STF. And until yesterday we were raiding the STF's together, chatting over skype and enjoying our optional loot :-)
I ask that you please carefully review your decisions, and make changes after careful considerations to the players concern. Not the spreadsheet of data.
Now I just will have less motivation to do much in end game content, just 1 fleet action and 1 STF a day or so depending on how I feel. Rest of the time I will just do foundry missions and make foundry missions. Thank goodness for the foundry.
"We are the Borg. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile."
Sincerely,
The Cube Assimilating Your Ship Right Now
Link: Replace Homer Simpson with a Cryptic developer, and change the character's words to 'grind, grind, grind...'.
Seriously, while season seven was in the development cycle, players across the forums warned about the excessive grinding. It was only a matter of time when it took a toll. What did you guys think would happen?
Plus, you guys said we were in the minority. If this new information is any indication, you guys lied to the player base about our importance.
*cracks whip* Grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind...
I agree somewhat, personally.
But there are a few factors to look at.
1) Taxing or risky play calls for more reward. The ideal is intrinsic value but you can't always have that.
2) In a story, characters change. This is modeled in most MMOs through powers and gear. In a Campbellian mythic cycle (and, yes, invoking Campbell is un-PC) or Jungian dream analysis model, there has to be some kind of transformation. In a book or dream, sure, the goal of this transformation is the reader... and I see this as being what Kirkfat is getting at. This isn't a book. This is an RPG. Immersion demands that the CHARACTER be transformed. This is what gear and costume pieces do.
3) Online businesses tend to rely heavily on emotional appeal, moreso than brick and mortar. That feeds the collector urge but I'll add that Kirkfat isn't wrong to say that there should be more emotional investment. And that will drive bigger and better sales.
There's a reason why people pay hundreds of dollars for WoW virtual items and it boils down to emotional investment. That's a mix of factors, surely. You've got Overlord's socializer argument. There's the minmax achiever argument of time versus money. There's Kirkfat's argument of enriching narrative. (Say what you will about WoW, they apply dramatic stakes to their content and aren't afraid to pull out emotionally manipulative stuff like a sick kid or a flirty NPC or starcrossed lovers.)
These are all valid but all dead without the emotional appeal of how you spend your time, what you can show off to your friends or do with them, and narrative emotional appeals. Which I think Cryptic is entirely too shy about getting manipulative with, although New Romulus is progress on this point. And, sheesh, its the basis for the new Acamarian stuff.
But it doesn't change the issues presented for STFs' survival and challenge based casual social play.
EliteSTF channel almost dead (still good for trolling :rolleyes: ) ...checked.
What Ill never understand is why people read these blogs with Stahl.He is the person who said in a blog "most people dont pay a dime" (I know a fleet with new people (~250) who spend ALOT of money.Im sure that percent is everywhere in game) and after sometime "sto is number 1 in US for pwe".That was an example and I can say now that these blogs are like a place where to BS people.
Now I dont mind the dilithium nerfs ,I dont even mind that I have to "play" that thing called starbase 24 with 400000000000000000000000 enemies at 2 FPS on a high end PC ,but I do mind when I report bugs (like the textures and graphics one ,or the lack of dilithium in STFs ) and they BS you by saying "its something that only happens on tribble".
Im not going to stop playing STO or spend money in it ,I wont give away my s**** :P ,but I know from now on who will BS me in blogs and will ignore these blogs simply because I do not like to get large quantities of BS .
We probably are in agreement I'm also firmly in Kirkfats camp on the narrative enrichment, if anything it's that kind of game play that will keep Star Trek fans onboard.
I also feel kinda sorry for everyone who defended Cryptic/PWE, I knew what was coming I even joked that it should be called S7: Dilithium Apocolypse.
Damn shame.
#2311#2700#2316#2500
So this is one thing that stands out to me. As everyone is all upset about the STF changes, look at this statement from Stahl. Now i'm a pretty savvy STF player, and know how to do them, and did them regularly. However, what about the people who weren't in the EliteSTF channel? How did they do STF's to get dilithium? We all know the challenges or just queuing up for an STF and the chances of failure were pretty high. So really unless you knew how to run the STF's you couldn't get that source of dilithium, unless you got lucky. So where do they move the dilithium to? Fleet Actions! Much easier to do and requires much less skill to complete. This opens up dilithium to people who couldn't do the STF's. Granted you can still get dilithium from STF's by trading in the items you get, so it still puts some incentive to play them even after you get your gear, and lets be honest, most of the EliteSTF runs I've done didn't take that long to complete because everyone was pretty competent.
The only way most people would farm dilithium prior to Season 7 was STF's, one click exploit foundry missions, and B'Trans. Now think about this for a moment. You have to do the same 3 things over and over and over again, wouldn't this get boring after a while? The big change with Season 7 that I saw is that dilithium is now more spread out though the game, and not earned by just one or two major things. It expands my play and gives me things to keep my interest in. As a Foundry author I really hated those one click exploit missions because I spent so much time on my own missions, and hardly anyone played them. You would get the occasional person but everyone was using the Foundry in a way it wasn't really intended, so i'm pretty thankful for that change alone. Perhaps now the quality of missions in the Foundry will improve, and be worthy of play.
let's rewind the clock 3 or 4 months. Remember when everyone was screaming about how they ran countless STF's and couldn't get the gear, and they would run 1200 Infected space missions and not get the MK XII shield? Ya this fixes it. You invest equal amounts of time, and you too can get whatever gear you want, and don't have to run 1200 Infected space missions unless you really want to. Dilithium gear? Who would wear that when you could have the STF gear? Thanks to some of the changes now you can have a choice for what you put on your ship or captain, and no one set is more OP than the next. Everyone ran 3 borg pieces and 1 MK XII MACO or Omega shield on their ship. Why? because it was FOTM and nothing else in the game was really worth it. Enter Season 7, where balance comes into the game. Want to run the Romulan shields that look cool and be functional? Now we can!
All in all I think all these changes help more of the players out there who are not as skilled as the Elite folks who have been around forever. It gives them an equal chance to enjoy the game as much as we do, and get all the gear and experience they need to make a difference overall. Really as Stahl mentioned it will take 10 days or so to get your MK XII gear if you put the time into it. How is that any different than running STF's for months on end to get a chance at getting the gear you wanted? At least now its guaranteed.
Anyway that's all i'm going to say about it. I doubt it will make much difference, but that's my thoughts either way. I'm still going to play STO because I like it and no amount of Rage is going to stop me!
See, this is the problem. Cryptic thinks that the items they sell in the C Store count as content. Maybe they do, depending on the definition of content. But what many people want is STORY content.
I've said it before, they don't need to make every set of new episodes a Featured Episode. Just use existing assets, get some good writing going (I assume Kestrel still works at Cryptic?) and make some new episodes!
Make dilithium harder to earn for the members of the small fleet that I am in and my fleet dies, as do just about any other small fleet. Cryptic, if this is your goal, just tell me know so I can stop investing in my Fleet Starbase and I will just go sucking up to large fleets for membership.
What the heck are you thinking Cryptic?
But what i don't get is WHY Cryptic needs the Elite STF players to dumb down their gameplay, too?
Why is it so important, everyone plays the same narrow content? Why would it hurt them if some people do it by STFs if they are capable, too and some by fleet actions if they want easy going?
Hell, I would probably alternate between the options depending on my mood and eventual
burn out on one kind of content.
Now i will do STFs at most until I finish the rep, because I just need the passives. My captain and the Boffs that matter are decked out in Mk XI/XII gear already.
Then I will stop more or less... This will happen early next year. And I suspect many peopel think alike. It will have killed of STFs and they will be back where they were before they got butch... remastered. Hardly ever played.
Meanwhile people will be sick of the Fleet Actions because they are to boring and tedious if you do them day on end instead of an occasional nice diversion.
Check this out. I went back and found this:
It seems to me that Geko changed his mind or pushed a change through and Stahl basically said, "Eh. Whatever. I trust you, Al."
I like Al as a person but I think he tends to bogart design decisions away from the players, to get them playing how he wants. And I feel like Stahl just sort of shrugged at the change (with or without an internal debate: we'll never know) and decided to let him do it this time at the last minute without telling any of the testers.
So I retract my earlier point that it was a lie. It was a bloodless coupe by the systems team.