Since the projects cost too much and take too long, I feel like filling the projects to activate them, take off to play another game, and then come back after the projects are completed. Seriously, why bother playing "Star Trek: Online" for two days while waiting for a timer to expire?
Step One: Fill all of your projects to activate. Step Two: Take note of when they expire. Step Three: Go play another game for the length of the timers. Step Four: Go back to STO to repeat the process. Alternative Step Four: Do something else due to a lack of excitement and fun.
I quit Farmville after the first month due to this gaming style.
"Star Trek: Online's" fleetbases, embassy, and reputation system will destroy this game.
Thanks for reminding about Farmville. I knew this felt familiar.
I couldn't figure out why I felt disconnected. Now I know why.
"Needs"? Show me a mission other than Tour the Universe (time-gated) that gives more than a pittance of EC, and then I will agree with the necessity of bleeding EC. As it is, you get next to none from general gameplay and the way things look it's going to take millions to rank up in reputation.
The constant clicking is stupid, and I already said as much back when it was introduced for starbases. None of the things we're adding are actually limited, so it's not like something we need to spend time and effort to find. It costs EC, sure, but if they absolutely must have EC costs then make it a sum of EC and not this user-antagonistic window shuffling between vendor and replicator and clicking and sliding ad nauseum.
When a Player can drop 500 MILLION EC and not bat an eye, EC is easy to get.
If its true they are reintroducing drpos to stfs id like to see an end reward drop too for all players.
Also any purple drops given lets re introduce a high end XII purple weapon too. Rare drop a carrot to get people appitites going again.
To clarify.
Non bosses: green or lower loot.
Bosses: As proposed Green or higher.
End loot reward: green to purple xi to XII gear with the rare chance of something really useful like treble Borg neuros or even a purp XII non legendary weapon.
All this on top what we get as of this date.
At the moment I have enough rom/om marks to last me to tier 3 where i dont need anymore grinding because of the 1500 marks ive got waiting. I dont need to do any more stfs. EC im not ok with and putting loot back in will help me on that score no end. At the moment i come on every 2 days. Do projects. Dissappear. There is no reason for me to stay on any longer. Loot drops will help me change my mind.
Monkey see, Monkey do. Monkey flings Feathered Monkey poo...
The new system takes time yes, but not your time. For the entirety of the first tier you can get all the resources, marks and consumables, in under one hour.
The entirety of "grinding" up to tier 2 in both from tier 1 requires you to do 2x elite STFS and 2x romulan dailies. If you run the assignments back to back, that'll take you a week. A week to do 2 elites STFS and 2 romulan dailies. An elite STF takes 15 minutes, dailies take about 30 minutes, and clicking the reputation UI over the course of a week will probably take 5 minutes. That's 1 hr 35 mins, 30 minutes of which you'll probably be doing anyway.
That's not grinding, thats casual gaming of the most casual sort. I've got two toons running these with not one problem or even a bit of hassle.
For your benefit:-
To reach tier 1 - 2 cycles (a cycle equals a 800 xp assignment and a 2000 xp assignment)
To reach tier 2 - 4 cycles
To reach tier 3 - 6 cycles
To reach tier 4 - 10 cycles
To reach tier 5 - 14 cycles
Buy all the commodities you'll need at the beginning of a tier, stick them in your bank, then go and have fun. No having to pop off to cargo ships when you got the next assignment to fill as it's all prepared.
Amidst all the S7 hating I'm not seeing a lot of clear direction in what people actually DO want. Personally I'm enjoying the reputation system in principle... it feels like a process that will continue to enhance my character over months, rather than days. That translates into being more vested in my character.
But as for the objections, they seem to fall into:
- Timers too long
Well, if everything cleared in a minute, then everyone would be leveling up their character to tier 5 in two days. Then don't you know the forums would be full of complaints that there is nothing to do.
As for equipment and things, I think there is an interest in deferred gratification. If you want a special weapons array, you're going to have to put an order in and wait a bit until they are ready to install it. Hell, it might be cool if you actually had to go to a specific shipyard to take delivery of it!
- Dilithium costs are too high
No arguments on this one. You need it everywhere, but it's only granted in a limited number of areas. If pretty much everything in the game dropped some dilithium, even 50 to 100, then there would be some reward for playing all the content.
But objections to weapons cost seem well-grounded; if you need to grind on reputation to unlock weapons, and then use lots of different resources to make them, the dilithium costs should be proportionally reduced.
- Too much clicking; too many resources of different types
Actually this feels the most RPG to me; collecting different commodities from different sectors makes sense to me. In some ways this feels like what the crafting system should have been all along. Now THAT was an insanely dull GRIND of a system. Particle traces, blech. Remember how boring those were?
I'm not sure what people want to see in exchange for the S7 stuff. If you just look at the loudest complaints it really seems that everyone is asking for something that you can complete really quickly, and for long-term gameplay that just doesn't make a lot of sense. Are there other suggestions of how you could maintain longer-term progressions for top gear that would make people happy?
That's not the only thing in STO that makes me think "Farm/Yo/City/Etcville". Those lockboxes... I get so many lockboxes that every time I dump them it feels like I am going through a long list of Zynga game requests and rejecting them one by one. Free-to-loot-but-pay-to-open items all over every space map after a Klingon or Borg killing spree is not a good marketing strategy. It's just annoying.
A lot of pre-s7 lvl50 players would argue that we are already tier 5 why the hell do we have to go through the slog all over again.
Want the slog. Get a new toon.
Pre-season 7 we didn't have adapted khg/maco sets, MKXII versions of the original borg set, a new borg set and additional powers.
I'm sorry I really don't see the problem. STO has a lot of issues with it, but the reputation system isn't one of them. The gear we've got prior to season 7 we keep.
Amidst all the S7 hating I'm not seeing a lot of clear direction in what people actually DO want. Personally I'm enjoying the reputation system in principle... it feels like a process that will continue to enhance my character over months, rather than days. That translates into being more vested in my character.
But as for the objections, they seem to fall into:
- Timers too long
Well, if everything cleared in a minute, then everyone would be leveling up their character to tier 5 in two days. Then don't you know the forums would be full of complaints that there is nothing to do.
As for equipment and things, I think there is an interest in deferred gratification. If you want a special weapons array, you're going to have to put an order in and wait a bit until they are ready to install it. Hell, it might be cool if you actually had to go to a specific shipyard to take delivery of it!
- Dilithium costs are too high
No arguments on this one. You need it everywhere, but it's only granted in a limited number of areas. If pretty much everything in the game dropped some dilithium, even 50 to 100, then there would be some reward for playing all the content.
But objections to weapons cost seem well-grounded; if you need to grind on reputation to unlock weapons, and then use lots of different resources to make them, the dilithium costs should be proportionally reduced.
- Too much clicking; too many resources of different types
Actually this feels the most RPG to me; collecting different commodities from different sectors makes sense to me. In some ways this feels like what the crafting system should have been all along. Now THAT was an insanely dull GRIND of a system. Particle traces, blech. Remember how boring those were?
I'm not sure what people want to see in exchange for the S7 stuff. If you just look at the loudest complaints it really seems that everyone is asking for something that you can complete really quickly, and for long-term gameplay that just doesn't make a lot of sense. Are there other suggestions of how you could maintain longer-term progressions for top gear that would make people happy?
I have to agree with everything you said. Raging at the developers doesn't help them make the game better. The REP system made me play Elite STF and now when i finish one Optional or not i feel a sense of achievement, it also made me get more social with the fleet I was in as i had to ask for help on a good ship for STF.
The timers for the XP projects are okay now from the new patch from 40 - 20 I can live with 20 hours.
Its the items that need the same drop possibly only 12 hours for the items, I also feel that the DILL costs for Ship items are too much 14K I've never seen that much DILL with 14K you can get over 1000 Zen and get a new ship or something, how about only 8000Dill the max people can refine in a day, and make the items take 1 hour, so that means they can only have 1 item a day, no matter what the Mark of said item is.
I really enjoy STO, I have made may friends I am in a good fleet where the member are willing to help out god knows they've helped me out so much and most importantly IT GOT ME INTO STAR TREK.
If it wasn't for a friend telling me that it was F2P I would haven never got into star trek at all. So for this reason only i DO NOT want to see this game spoiled with stupid waiting times. If I want to wait ill go and play Chess.
I have spent $700 on this game between a lifetime sub for 200 and the the other 500 on lock boxes. I have received NOT ONE rare lockbox ship. Yet when I log on to the game I find it so ridiculously over priced to use or aquire dilithium that I'll HAVE to buy more zen just to convert to dilithium if I need dilithium. I haven't donated to my fleet in over a week, and I hardly play the game now for more than ten minutes a day. I guess I'll log on atleast once or twice a week since I wasted money on a lifetime subscription. You know Cryptic... I paid a lifetime sub for the game as is. Atleast I could buy some zen.. an outfit, or some lock box keys. NOT HAVE TO BUY ZEN TO KEEP DILITHIUM STORES UP! You should have made ONE SMALL CHANGE, then surveyed it to see if it worked. Not TRIBBLE up everything in some way and tell us to deal with it. Not when some of us have payed you for a "lifetime" and spent hundreds of dollors in six months. You know... you don't have to appease us. And sure.. you don't have to have our permission when you do things.. But I'd sure as heck make sure you aren't going to absolutely ENRAGE your players and cause them not to want to play by changing things YOU ALREADY HAD IN PLACE YOURSELVES!!
Anyway, I may be so bored and/or sick of the grind that I do not play at all in a few weeks. I just wanted to let everyone here know once and for all. BUYING ZEN IS A WASTE. I tested the odds on boxes. 500 lockboxes = NO SHIP. You'd think they'd give you a guarantee after that many boxes you'd get to pick one ship. Cryptic will not get another cent from me. And I hope you are doing the math Cryptic 700 dollars in six months... good lawd I've paid you for about 3 years worth already. I'll be sure to tell everyone I see exactly how you run this game and do my best to keep them from coming.
DOFFs - overpriced now
DOFF recruitment assignment = overpriced now
TWO reputation factions = tedious, time consuming, click click clicking
... and you must gather marks for BOTH factions
STF's = screwed up on loot now.
Starbase - now receive less from players because of the Embassy and TWO rep factions.
the list goes on...
I'm out. Atleast if I watch Star Trek TOS - Kirk won't keep asking me for handouts for shoddy work!
Amidst all the S7 hating I'm not seeing a lot of clear direction in what people actually DO want. Personally I'm enjoying the reputation system in principle... it feels like a process that will continue to enhance my character over months, rather than days. That translates into being more vested in my character.
Ideally I want to completely drop the daily rep projects. Instead let your reputation XP fill up automatically, like the way commendation xp does now. Do romulan missions, get romulan xp. Makes sense, yes? Keep the upgrade, item unlock, and store unlock projects. Add whatever costs in terms of expertise, commodities (or just be honest and make it a straight EC-bribe) to the upgrade project. If the devs feel that it absolutely HAS to be time-gated, you can time-gate the upgrades so it takes a few days or whatever to complete each one.
That would simplify the system. No more endless clicking, no more tracking down commodities and device merchants, and no real need for additional, superfluous "currencies."
- Too much clicking; too many resources of different types
Actually this feels the most RPG to me; collecting different commodities from different sectors makes sense to me. In some ways this feels like what the crafting system should have been all along. Now THAT was an insanely dull GRIND of a system. Particle traces, blech. Remember how boring those were?
I agree it sounds like most RPG's. But that doesn't make it a good system. It's mind-numbing and repetitive. If you're going to copy what other people are doing, at least look for something good/fun to steal.
It's true that there's at least some logic in sending commodities to new romulus. They are building a new settlement. However, I'm not a merchant. I'm not a freighter captain. I'm not a trader. I'm an admiral/general. Why am I schlepping around cargo? The same goes for most of the ground-based missions on new romulus. I'm supposed to be a high ranking visiting military dignitary, but I'm expected run around picking flowers, observing animals, and doing other menial labor for some dirt farmers? It lacks any kind of sense. Why can't I just give them a pile of cash and they can buy what they need off some ferengi? One of the commodities in game is "industrial replicators." Why can't I just drop pile of them on new romulus and tell them to replicate their own TRIBBLE?
I do agree with you that the system would be good for crafting. Buy some stuff, plug it it, and start the manufacturing. That makes a ton more sense than scouring the galaxy looking for random bits.
I have spent $700 on this game between a lifetime sub for 200 and the the other 500 on lock boxes. I have received NOT ONE rare lockbox ship. Yet !
500$ on Masterkeys and no ship? You are really not the brightest star in the universe :-P
That money is at least 500 Masterkeys worth. Without promotions etc.
500Masterkeys at the exchange = 650.000.000EC
With such an amount on EC you could have bought:
Jem'Hadar Attack Ship= 350.000.000EC
Galor= 80.000.000EC
Temporal Destroyer = 50.000.000EC
etc
The costs and time investmenent for both reputation systems is insignificant. At least for T1-T2.
ISE Optional for 70 Omegamarks: 10min
Tau Dewa space daily for 60 Romulanmarks: 10min
Transwarp to Sol and buying the all the stuff: 5min
Where the f*** is there the horrible grind? At least ONE char shouldn't be a problem.
Not considering the time and cost constraint, the reputation system is not gaming for me. I don't feel involved in the process. Sure, I had to do a couple of missions during the first weekend after S7 was released to get marks. Now that I have enough of those for a while, my participation to my reputation is limited to mindlessly start 4 projects every day. And then, there is nothing that came out with S6 or S7 that I play. All I do is doffing and playing STFS.
I really don't understand the people who say that they're enjoying the system.
The tier system as it is is so boring that given the choice I'd do Terradome twice per tier and per branch over this.
What annoys me is the 40 hour wait for the requistion missions, are you kidding me its bad enought waiting for the rep but we gotta wait a day and a half just to get one piece of gear its should be an hour at the most 40 hour wait for one peice of gear that cost 12k dil is just Cryptic trolling us now
500$ on Masterkeys and no ship? You are really not the brightest star in the universe :-P
That money is at least 500 Masterkeys worth. Without promotions etc.
500Masterkeys at the exchange = 650.000.000EC
With such an amount on EC you could have bought:
Jem'Hadar Attack Ship= 350.000.000EC
Galor= 80.000.000EC
Temporal Destroyer = 50.000.000EC
etc
The costs and time investmenent for both reputation systems is insignificant. At least for T1-T2.
ISE Optional for 70 Omegamarks: 10min
Tau Dewa space daily for 60 Romulanmarks: 10min
Transwarp to Sol and buying the all the stuff: 5min
Where the f*** is there the horrible grind? At least ONE char shouldn't be a problem.
Well little one, if that many keys were thrown on the market over the period of time I was talking about, they would not be worth squat. Gaining some DOFFs to exchange helped the equation until the grinder was screwed up. And your times.. let's say you got them all done in 30 minutes a day. THEN you could play and have fun is what you are saying huh? ROFLMAO, if you don't buy keys you'll run out of EC's to buy commodities that way. Also you left out the time to get decent DOFF missions. (which was a system implemented BEFORE), you are forgetting fleet marks etc etc etc. However you slice it, you have a 30min to 1 hour grind ahead of you each day PER CHARACTER before you play "for fun". Unless you do as someone I spoke to yesterday said and don't give a f***. That's the point I'm at now, and have very little need to play. So no worries. And looks like most of you could care less anyway.
Amidst all the S7 hating I'm not seeing a lot of clear direction in what people actually DO want. Personally I'm enjoying the reputation system in principle... it feels like a process that will continue to enhance my character over months, rather than days. That translates into being more vested in my character.
But as for the objections, they seem to fall into:
- Timers too long
Well, if everything cleared in a minute, then everyone would be leveling up their character to tier 5 in two days. Then don't you know the forums would be full of complaints that there is nothing to do.
Waiting on a timer isn't "doing" something. There shouldn't be any timers at all.
Other MMOs do manage to have no timers and sufficient content to keep players busy, how do they do it? Ah, yes, by making endgame content.
At this point, it's not even a case of ressources: it'd have been easier for Cryptic to simply make new (harder) endgame events with new (stronger) gear rewards than to revamp the whole system for obtaining previously availlable gear.
(yeah, yeah, there are 2 new sets and 1 new STF - that's far from enough given the time period)
But this is a cashgrab, not a MMO. Making everything cost more dilithium while simultaneously making it harder to farm increases revenue, and that's all that matters.
A "Donate All That is Possible"-button would do wonders. Better yet a "Start this Project and Donate everything and if I don't have it, replicate and donate it"-button.
Well little one, if that many keys were thrown on the market over the period of time I was talking about, they would not be worth squat.
You wouldn't say that if you had any idea how quickly keys move on the exchange. I speculated in keys just after the Cardassian and Ferengi lock boxes hit, and it seemed like hundreds of them were sold through the exchange every minute. Dumping 500 of them would hardly have put a dent in the price, considering the time it takes to separate the stacks for maximum profitability.
Granted, running a casino isn't the most ethical way to make money, but no-one is forcing you to come in and put coins in the slots machines.
The reputation system isn't a slot machine, though. The reputation system is the casino bar, where drinks are way too expensive and the bartender makes you wait 15 minutes.
Comments
Step One: Fill all of your projects to activate.
Step Two: Take note of when they expire.
Step Three: Go play another game for the length of the timers.
Step Four: Go back to STO to repeat the process.
Alternative Step Four: Do something else due to a lack of excitement and fun.
I quit Farmville after the first month due to this gaming style.
"Star Trek: Online's" fleetbases, embassy, and reputation system will destroy this game.
Thanks for reminding about Farmville. I knew this felt familiar.
I couldn't figure out why I felt disconnected. Now I know why.
Cryptic's new game mechanic is a game stopper.
When a Player can drop 500 MILLION EC and not bat an eye, EC is easy to get.
Also any purple drops given lets re introduce a high end XII purple weapon too. Rare drop a carrot to get people appitites going again.
To clarify.
Non bosses: green or lower loot.
Bosses: As proposed Green or higher.
End loot reward: green to purple xi to XII gear with the rare chance of something really useful like treble Borg neuros or even a purp XII non legendary weapon.
All this on top what we get as of this date.
At the moment I have enough rom/om marks to last me to tier 3 where i dont need anymore grinding because of the 1500 marks ive got waiting. I dont need to do any more stfs. EC im not ok with and putting loot back in will help me on that score no end. At the moment i come on every 2 days. Do projects. Dissappear. There is no reason for me to stay on any longer. Loot drops will help me change my mind.
The entirety of "grinding" up to tier 2 in both from tier 1 requires you to do 2x elite STFS and 2x romulan dailies. If you run the assignments back to back, that'll take you a week. A week to do 2 elites STFS and 2 romulan dailies. An elite STF takes 15 minutes, dailies take about 30 minutes, and clicking the reputation UI over the course of a week will probably take 5 minutes. That's 1 hr 35 mins, 30 minutes of which you'll probably be doing anyway.
That's not grinding, thats casual gaming of the most casual sort. I've got two toons running these with not one problem or even a bit of hassle.
For your benefit:-
To reach tier 1 - 2 cycles (a cycle equals a 800 xp assignment and a 2000 xp assignment)
To reach tier 2 - 4 cycles
To reach tier 3 - 6 cycles
To reach tier 4 - 10 cycles
To reach tier 5 - 14 cycles
Buy all the commodities you'll need at the beginning of a tier, stick them in your bank, then go and have fun. No having to pop off to cargo ships when you got the next assignment to fill as it's all prepared.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
But as for the objections, they seem to fall into:
- Timers too long
Well, if everything cleared in a minute, then everyone would be leveling up their character to tier 5 in two days. Then don't you know the forums would be full of complaints that there is nothing to do.
As for equipment and things, I think there is an interest in deferred gratification. If you want a special weapons array, you're going to have to put an order in and wait a bit until they are ready to install it. Hell, it might be cool if you actually had to go to a specific shipyard to take delivery of it!
- Dilithium costs are too high
No arguments on this one. You need it everywhere, but it's only granted in a limited number of areas. If pretty much everything in the game dropped some dilithium, even 50 to 100, then there would be some reward for playing all the content.
But objections to weapons cost seem well-grounded; if you need to grind on reputation to unlock weapons, and then use lots of different resources to make them, the dilithium costs should be proportionally reduced.
- Too much clicking; too many resources of different types
Actually this feels the most RPG to me; collecting different commodities from different sectors makes sense to me. In some ways this feels like what the crafting system should have been all along. Now THAT was an insanely dull GRIND of a system. Particle traces, blech. Remember how boring those were?
I'm not sure what people want to see in exchange for the S7 stuff. If you just look at the loudest complaints it really seems that everyone is asking for something that you can complete really quickly, and for long-term gameplay that just doesn't make a lot of sense. Are there other suggestions of how you could maintain longer-term progressions for top gear that would make people happy?
Want the slog. Get a new toon.
Personally I think that's more than fair, 20 hours is far more acceptable.
Pre-season 7 we didn't have adapted khg/maco sets, MKXII versions of the original borg set, a new borg set and additional powers.
I'm sorry I really don't see the problem. STO has a lot of issues with it, but the reputation system isn't one of them. The gear we've got prior to season 7 we keep.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
I have to agree with everything you said. Raging at the developers doesn't help them make the game better. The REP system made me play Elite STF and now when i finish one Optional or not i feel a sense of achievement, it also made me get more social with the fleet I was in as i had to ask for help on a good ship for STF.
The timers for the XP projects are okay now from the new patch from 40 - 20 I can live with 20 hours.
Its the items that need the same drop possibly only 12 hours for the items, I also feel that the DILL costs for Ship items are too much 14K I've never seen that much DILL with 14K you can get over 1000 Zen and get a new ship or something, how about only 8000Dill the max people can refine in a day, and make the items take 1 hour, so that means they can only have 1 item a day, no matter what the Mark of said item is.
I really enjoy STO, I have made may friends I am in a good fleet where the member are willing to help out god knows they've helped me out so much and most importantly IT GOT ME INTO STAR TREK.
If it wasn't for a friend telling me that it was F2P I would haven never got into star trek at all. So for this reason only i DO NOT want to see this game spoiled with stupid waiting times. If I want to wait ill go and play Chess.
Anyway, I may be so bored and/or sick of the grind that I do not play at all in a few weeks. I just wanted to let everyone here know once and for all. BUYING ZEN IS A WASTE. I tested the odds on boxes. 500 lockboxes = NO SHIP. You'd think they'd give you a guarantee after that many boxes you'd get to pick one ship. Cryptic will not get another cent from me. And I hope you are doing the math Cryptic 700 dollars in six months... good lawd I've paid you for about 3 years worth already. I'll be sure to tell everyone I see exactly how you run this game and do my best to keep them from coming.
DOFFs - overpriced now
DOFF recruitment assignment = overpriced now
TWO reputation factions = tedious, time consuming, click click clicking
... and you must gather marks for BOTH factions
STF's = screwed up on loot now.
Starbase - now receive less from players because of the Embassy and TWO rep factions.
the list goes on...
I'm out. Atleast if I watch Star Trek TOS - Kirk won't keep asking me for handouts for shoddy work!
Ideally I want to completely drop the daily rep projects. Instead let your reputation XP fill up automatically, like the way commendation xp does now. Do romulan missions, get romulan xp. Makes sense, yes? Keep the upgrade, item unlock, and store unlock projects. Add whatever costs in terms of expertise, commodities (or just be honest and make it a straight EC-bribe) to the upgrade project. If the devs feel that it absolutely HAS to be time-gated, you can time-gate the upgrades so it takes a few days or whatever to complete each one.
That would simplify the system. No more endless clicking, no more tracking down commodities and device merchants, and no real need for additional, superfluous "currencies."
I agree it sounds like most RPG's. But that doesn't make it a good system. It's mind-numbing and repetitive. If you're going to copy what other people are doing, at least look for something good/fun to steal.
It's true that there's at least some logic in sending commodities to new romulus. They are building a new settlement. However, I'm not a merchant. I'm not a freighter captain. I'm not a trader. I'm an admiral/general. Why am I schlepping around cargo? The same goes for most of the ground-based missions on new romulus. I'm supposed to be a high ranking visiting military dignitary, but I'm expected run around picking flowers, observing animals, and doing other menial labor for some dirt farmers? It lacks any kind of sense. Why can't I just give them a pile of cash and they can buy what they need off some ferengi? One of the commodities in game is "industrial replicators." Why can't I just drop pile of them on new romulus and tell them to replicate their own TRIBBLE?
I do agree with you that the system would be good for crafting. Buy some stuff, plug it it, and start the manufacturing. That makes a ton more sense than scouring the galaxy looking for random bits.
500$ on Masterkeys and no ship? You are really not the brightest star in the universe :-P
That money is at least 500 Masterkeys worth. Without promotions etc.
500Masterkeys at the exchange = 650.000.000EC
With such an amount on EC you could have bought:
Jem'Hadar Attack Ship= 350.000.000EC
Galor= 80.000.000EC
Temporal Destroyer = 50.000.000EC
etc
The costs and time investmenent for both reputation systems is insignificant. At least for T1-T2.
ISE Optional for 70 Omegamarks: 10min
Tau Dewa space daily for 60 Romulanmarks: 10min
Transwarp to Sol and buying the all the stuff: 5min
Where the f*** is there the horrible grind? At least ONE char shouldn't be a problem.
I really don't understand the people who say that they're enjoying the system.
The tier system as it is is so boring that given the choice I'd do Terradome twice per tier and per branch over this.
Well little one, if that many keys were thrown on the market over the period of time I was talking about, they would not be worth squat. Gaining some DOFFs to exchange helped the equation until the grinder was screwed up. And your times.. let's say you got them all done in 30 minutes a day. THEN you could play and have fun is what you are saying huh? ROFLMAO, if you don't buy keys you'll run out of EC's to buy commodities that way. Also you left out the time to get decent DOFF missions. (which was a system implemented BEFORE), you are forgetting fleet marks etc etc etc. However you slice it, you have a 30min to 1 hour grind ahead of you each day PER CHARACTER before you play "for fun". Unless you do as someone I spoke to yesterday said and don't give a f***. That's the point I'm at now, and have very little need to play. So no worries. And looks like most of you could care less anyway.
Waiting on a timer isn't "doing" something. There shouldn't be any timers at all.
Other MMOs do manage to have no timers and sufficient content to keep players busy, how do they do it? Ah, yes, by making endgame content.
At this point, it's not even a case of ressources: it'd have been easier for Cryptic to simply make new (harder) endgame events with new (stronger) gear rewards than to revamp the whole system for obtaining previously availlable gear.
(yeah, yeah, there are 2 new sets and 1 new STF - that's far from enough given the time period)
But this is a cashgrab, not a MMO. Making everything cost more dilithium while simultaneously making it harder to farm increases revenue, and that's all that matters.
Granted, running a casino isn't the most ethical way to make money, but no-one is forcing you to come in and put coins in the slots machines.
The reputation system isn't a slot machine, though. The reputation system is the casino bar, where drinks are way too expensive and the bartender makes you wait 15 minutes.