So what else do you suggest we do to stay interested in the mean time? For a lot of us, there is nothing in the game we haven't done, no area we haven't explored, no mission we haven't completed, and in many cases completed dozens of times.
So, if it's deliberate and intentional that it's going to take me until the middle of next year to buy a new ship with a tiny, incremental increase to its stats, where is the reasonable-term goal to shoot for? Certainly nothing that competes with Fleet projects for resources.
Say it with me, Cryptic: MORE GRIND IS NOT MORE CONTENT.
The concept and definition of "fairness"? Wow, that could get ugly.... :eek:
We aren't assigned to fleets. Players join fleets purely by personal choice. With the power to choose comes responsibility for the advantages and disadvantages of the choices we make. That's the "fairness" of reality.
Again, this is a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG, not a single-player game, or a shooter, or an RTS. There are certain features and expectations that go along with being an MMO.
One of those is the expectation that an MMO will, in some way, leverage the fact that it allows a large, persistent virtual society. Too many of them have become single-player games that you just happen to play alongside others.
FA is a group goal. If a player chooses to solo, or be a part of a very small group, then they should expect to take the disadvantages with the advantages of doing so in what should be a game designed with a massive population in mind.
Large fleets should have an advantage. That's actually fair.
The system is still fairly new, and I'm sure will have things added to it in the future. Just as in real life, fleets should only buy what they can afford. If that's a Tier 3 starbase, then that's it - stop there. Perhaps Cryptic will work toward each tier being a bit more expandable, with the higher tiers still offering the greatest potential.
So you're saying it's the small fleet's fault for being small and not having a large number of followers to ensure that they can reach a goal in a reasonable amount of time?
That MMOs are all about large group cooperation and that those unfortunate enough not to have a large group are to simply take the lumps? To not aspire to what the deva have placed out of their mortal grasp by dint of their being too small and unworthy to achieve it?
Please link me to the MMO Bible that has this written down as how MMOs should and must be, and thus, STO is beholden to be this way because that's how it is? Because it sounds like an Ayn Rand wet dream. Nobody needs a lecture about the type of game it is..I think we all know what an MMO is, thanks. But what I'd like to know is where your assertions about what MMOs are supposed to do is written as provable, successful development practice.
I haven't even bothered to point out that this is not reality, or a job, but a video game. You know, for recreation. With achievable, realistic goals and entertainment value. Somehow I think that'd just derail the topic and I'd get an unhelpful retort from someone about just wanting my shinies right meow.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] The Artist Formerly Known As Nikotaka ][ Join Date: Jan 2010 "Can anyone remember when we used to be explorers...?"
I am almost certain that there is something betweem instant and years.
There is.
It takes an open mind to realize it and argue for it, though. There are whiners who want their three-week shinies, and there are sneerers who think anyone who criticizes the system are slackers afraid of work.
Currently the system we have mostly polarizes people between these two camps and pushes them to argue at each other. There are still plenty of people who don't want their fleet bases to be easy, but neither do they want their bases to be nigh impossible or unfairly scaled as if they had more (or less) people than they do. Just balanced.
Whining and sneering is easier though.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] The Artist Formerly Known As Nikotaka ][ Join Date: Jan 2010 "Can anyone remember when we used to be explorers...?"
So you're saying it's the small fleet's fault for being small and not having a large number of followers to ensure that they can reach a goal in a reasonable amount of time?
That MMOs are all about large group cooperation and that those unfortunate enough not to have a large group are to simply take the lumps? To not aspire to what the deva have placed out of their mortal grasp by dint of their being too small and unworthy to achieve it?
Please link me to the MMO Bible that has this written down as how MMOs should and must be, and thus, STO is beholden to be this way because that's how it is? Because it sounds like an Ayn Rand wet dream. Nobody needs a lecture about the type of game it is..I think we all know what an MMO is, thanks. But what I'd like to know is where your assertions about what MMOs are supposed to do is written as provable, successful development practice.
I haven't even bothered to point out that this is not reality, or a job, but a video game. You know, for recreation. With achievable, realistic goals and entertainment value. Somehow I think that'd just derail the topic and I'd get an unhelpful retort from someone about just wanting my shinies right meow.
Wow, thought we were going to be big people and leave the snarky comments at the door. Guess not.
No, there's nothing inherently wrong, evil, or unfair about larger fleets being able to outproduce smaller ones. There's also nothing wrong with systems in an MMO that capitalize on that fact.
Yes, if a fleet chooses to be small, then they should live with the limitations that come with their choice.
And, what's reasonable?
As you've said yourself, systems that scale everything by fleet size would be easily abused, and run counter to the goal of a group pulling together and earning something - an unfortunately rare concept in MMO gaming these days.
Yes, it is a video game, not a job. But complaining about group-oriented content or goals in an MMO is like a guy playing a shooter, and complaining that he has to keep shooting things in it.
My fleet has about 25 members and progress has slowed, but there is a solid core of people fleet who are pitching in, and we're crawling along, about to reach tier 3... At the rate we're going, we'll have a tier five starbase in over a year. It's coming along, but I wish it could go a little more quickly.
A fleet starbase is not required to play the game.
A fleet starbase is the only way to access a significant portion of the game's content. As a paying customer I have a problem with being excluded from any content, especially based on some arbitrary elitist BS about "deserving" it. A game should not feel like a chore. If you want me playing long term, give me more to do, not more reasons to repeat the same stuff.
Wow, thought we were going to be big people and leave the snarky comments at the door. Guess not.
No, there's nothing inherently wrong, evil, or unfair about larger fleets being able to outproduce smaller ones. There's also nothing wrong with systems in an MMO that capitalize on that fact.
Yes, if a fleet chooses to be small, then they should live with their choice. And, what's reasonable?
As you've said yourself, systems that scale everything by fleet size would be easily abused, and run counter to the goal of a group pulling together and earning something - an unfortunately rare concept in MMO gaming these days.
Yes, it is a video game, not a job. But complaining about group-oriented content or goals in an MMO is like a guy playing a shooter, and complaining that he has to keep shooting things in it.
I feel we're still not on the same page. I will say you're right about the tone though, and I apologize for the slightly snarky tone in my last post. We may not agree, but you're very eloquent with your disagreement!
There've been plenty of ideas fielded to counter potential exploits of a scaling fleet advancement system. Some of the first I recall seeing were the inclusion of penalties or timers for the more obvious forms of exploit: That is, a big fleet dumping its player load to try and lessen the project cost. Projects could, hypothetically, adjust only after a certain amount of time has passed, be it a week, two weeks, a month, etc. That or sudden fleet exodus could react in a fashion of extending the time it takes for a fleet's projects to recalculate themselves. Cryptic doesn't seem to like dynamic calculations for these things (just judging by the way they handled STF loot), so an internal scale of tiers like what they did for the Season 7 STF loot conversion would probably be the way to go: Fleets with 25-40 players get the "Tier 3 Medium-High Fleet Advancement Project" load, for instance.
That way, shenanigans like constantly dumping or bloating fleet rosters would time-gate exploiter-fleets, while making Fleet Advancement on a whole more flexible for smaller fleets and giving them a goal they have some possibility of achieving. The larger fleets have a more uniquely-scaled amount of work they must do, which adjusts if they try to dump players. The smaller fleets have theirs as well, which adjusts if they add players. Both are time-gated if they try shenanigans like Roster-fixing.
There has been no effort that we've seen to make Fleet Advancement more dynamic than the flat rate it currently is because of the fear of exploiting, which has been the primary reason we've been given for why Fleet Advancement was given its 'happy medium'. Cryptic hasn't said the same as you in that they feel small fleets should live with their disadvantage; the closest they've come is stating what we all know, that larger fleets will be more advantaged than smaller fleets. Yet they (Stahl) took the added effort to assure the players that small fleets could do it. Even provided some numbers that a fleet of five could conceivably do, at the time, to assure people that even a fleet of five could advance.
It didn't quite turn out that way, which is another trait of MMOs--devs making claims that do not work out in actuality. Personally I don't even know if Cryptic's FA system is even elegant enough to handle this sort of thing. It looks like kind of just a glorified vendor-store attached to a procedurally malleable environment. I hope I'm wrong.
You'll notice I'm not talking about the larger fleets, but the smaller ones. Nobody said there was something inherently wrong with the advantage of larger fleets, but that smaller fleets are unfairly overburdened with the task of a workload of larger fleets. That is the point of this.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] The Artist Formerly Known As Nikotaka ][ Join Date: Jan 2010 "Can anyone remember when we used to be explorers...?"
Mr Stahl made a point several times saying that the avg fleet size was around 25 people and that the SB system was designed around that.
Well from what I hear from people on these forums fleets of 25 are in bad shape or are disappearing - so there is a big disconnect fro their "plan" to reality
A fleet starbase is the only way to access a significant portion of the game's content.
Exactly what content is it you're being excluded from?
A few items that have equivalents you can earn doing other stuff, and? What you can get by having a T3 or higher SB is so far from being a significant portion of content that you are clearly doing nothing but trolling by making a post like that.
Well from what I hear from people on these forums fleets of 25 are in bad shape or are disappearing - so there is a big disconnect fro their "plan" to reality
Putting any stock in what you read here is a pretty silly thing to do. You can not know how fleets of ~25 people are actually doing based on what you read on these message boards.
It looks like this has devolved into an epeen contest for elitist "large fleet" members to insure they have something to make them feel special against all the other players.
This is a game design issue, not a method to shore up your withered ego.
It looks like this has devolved into an epeen contest for elitist "large fleet" members to insure they have something to make them feel special against all the other players..
Could say quite as easily that it's an attempt by small fleets to get their ego inflated artificially and have everything handed to them on a sliver platter because they're not willing to put the effort required into getting what they want.
Assuming that people are trying to keep you down or be better then you, is a symptom of paranoia, not a debate method.
A fleet starbase is the only way to access a significant portion of the game's content. As a paying customer I have a problem with being excluded from any content, especially based on some arbitrary elitist BS about "deserving" it. A game should not feel like a chore. If you want me playing long term, give me more to do, not more reasons to repeat the same stuff.
That's part of the beauty of MMO players. What one player classifies as a "chore", is something that gives a game "meaning" to another player.
As far as I'm concerned, I don't need another 100 meaningless "kill x of y" quests in my games to give me pointless make-work to do. I'd rather have content/missions/whatever that fed into a larger, long term system, preferably one in which other players are also involved.
It always amuses me when people take the "if you don't like X then do Y" argument. "If you don't like that you can't progress in the game with a small close knit fleet then join a big one and become a number!" It's never that simple, not that anybody perpetrating that argument in this tread will have their opinion changed by that fact.
Simply put some of us like playing the game in small fleets because they tend to be friendlier and make for a better experience. At the same time we want to actually be able to progress in the fleet system without feeling that we're being punished by it. By that I mean not having to take weeks just to fill out one project with every active member on daily grinding out necessary requirements. The games meant to be fun and challenging, not a chore. Nothing is keeping Crytpic from working on the system so it scales to a fleets size, or even revamping the system so it is really small and medium fleet oriented, rather than what they say is small and medium fleet oriented. The fleet number they say they've built the system for isn't working. I've seen fleets bigger than mine break apart because they can't progress. That's a problem. The fleet system is supposed to bring a fleet together, not make the game feel like a chore and make it seem like you have to sell your soul to a large fleet to achieve anything. It certainly wasn't intended to make people take an elitist "go big or die its your own fault" position. So it needs to actually fulfill its goal, and with the way the projects are set up right now, it's not doing that.
My fleet was small to begin with. A dozen plus members, only a handful active. There's about three of us making contributions these days but I lead it by far.
The problem isn't just participation. it's that it's discouraging after awhile.
First, there's the fleet mark problem. When we had the 'Investigate Officer Report' easy missions working, we could farm fleet marks easier and with multiple alts. Now that you have to use Cryptic approved maps for the same thing, such mark grinding takes a lot longer. And trust me... it can take awhile when you're looking at 600 fleet marks a mission.
That's a problem that cryptic needs to address.
And then there's dilithium. Normally that wouldn't be so bad. Normally. Problem is that dilithium is too expensive these days. I find my fleetmates are not using their dilithium for projects but instead are using it to buy Zen. Frankly, I can't blame them. Zen is really cheap to buy with dilithium these days.
Though cryptic exasperates the problem by maintaining extremely high dilithium costs for fleet projects, duty officer exchanges and equipment, this is mostly a player problem because WE SET THE VALUE! I honestly thought that when we were allowed to cash reputation points for dil that this problem would be solved... nope! Dilithium prices still hover in the low 100's. Free market arguments aside, cryptic should know, as a game company, that players will exploit the hell out of each other every chance they get (which means they will gouge on dil prices), so it is up to them to minimize the damage on that front.
And then there was the personnel officer glitch. At least that was fixed (thank you!).
So in short... everything's too damn expensive and grinding for the required materials burns my fellow fleeties out!
We tried recruiting... we could only get limited numbers. Why? Because... they all want to be in a bigger fleet with more stuff in their starbase! Big flipping surprise!
But not everything's been bad. I'm happy that only common doffs are needed for projects so those are easy enough to get, and the amount needed has been reduced to a... I wouldn't say a reasonable level but I'd say a more manageable level. Also, selling commons makes for a good source of EC. Bravo!
Tell you what... go find 2 friends and the 3 of you progress a Starbase to Tier V and come back and tell how much fun it was for you.
I'm part of what I'd say is a typical fleet, ~25 people, and we just hit T3.
I joined that fleet in part because it seemed like a decent group of people, and in part because I believed they'd be able to get a SB up and running.
I have no desire to join a fleet of 3 people, SB or no. I want to be part of a larger fleet because that means there's more people to play with. But I also don't really care how long it takes us to hit T4 because what's offered at T4 simply isn't that big of a deal.
Nothing is keeping Crytpic from working on the system so it scales to a fleets size
Yes there is. It's the fact that such a system would be extremely exploitable. No matter what you do, it will allow large fleets to form a smaller one, burn though projects and be done way faster then is intended.
Right, so people who choose to be in smaller fleets should be punished for their choice. Got it.
If that's what you want to call it, then go ahead. I don't really care if you feel you're being punished or not. If having a persecution complex helps, then who am I to stop you?
I feel we're still not on the same page. I will say you're right about the tone though, and I apologize for the slightly snarky tone in my last post. We may not agree, but you're very eloquent with your disagreement!
There've been plenty of ideas fielded to counter potential exploits of a scaling fleet advancement system. Some of the first I recall seeing were the inclusion of penalties or timers for the more obvious forms of exploit: That is, a big fleet dumping its player load to try and lessen the project cost. Projects could, hypothetically, adjust only after a certain amount of time has passed, be it a week, two weeks, a month, etc. That or sudden fleet exodus could react in a fashion of extending the time it takes for a fleet's projects to recalculate themselves. Cryptic doesn't seem to like dynamic calculations for these things (just judging by the way they handled STF loot), so an internal scale of tiers like what they did for the Season 7 STF loot conversion would probably be the way to go: Fleets with 25-40 players get the "Tier 3 Medium-High Fleet Advancement Project" load, for instance.
That way, shenanigans like constantly dumping or bloating fleet rosters would time-gate exploiter-fleets, while making Fleet Advancement on a whole more flexible for smaller fleets and giving them a goal they have some possibility of achieving. The larger fleets have a more uniquely-scaled amount of work they must do, which adjusts if they try to dump players. The smaller fleets have theirs as well, which adjusts if they add players. Both are time-gated if they try shenanigans like Roster-fixing.
There has been no effort that we've seen to make Fleet Advancement more dynamic than the flat rate it currently is because of the fear of exploiting, which has been the primary reason we've been given for why Fleet Advancement was given its 'happy medium'. Cryptic hasn't said the same as you in that they feel small fleets should live with their disadvantage; the closest they've come is stating what we all know, that larger fleets will be more advantaged than smaller fleets. Yet they (Stahl) took the added effort to assure the players that small fleets could do it. Even provided some numbers that a fleet of five could conceivably do, at the time, to assure people that even a fleet of five could advance.
It didn't quite turn out that way, which is another trait of MMOs--devs making claims that do not work out in actuality. Personally I don't even know if Cryptic's FA system is even elegant enough to handle this sort of thing. It looks like kind of just a glorified vendor-store attached to a procedurally malleable environment. I hope I'm wrong.
You'll notice I'm not talking about the larger fleets, but the smaller ones. Nobody said there was something inherently wrong with the advantage of larger fleets, but that smaller fleets are unfairly overburdened with the task of a workload of larger fleets. That is the point of this.
I think we're understanding each other fairly well, and I apologize for any ham-handedness in my responses. I sometimes am overly blunt.
One thing I think we can agree on is that the Fleet Advancement system, and Fleet Starbases, is something that a lot of players are obviously interested in participating in, so I think they are at least on the right track. Balance, of course, is going to be a continual effort, no matter which way they go with it.
For me, some of it just boils down to fundamental design. If two groups are going to buy the exact same item with the same features, why should one group be charged more for it than the other simply because they have more resources. And, from the suggestions I'm hearing, it wouldn't be a little more, it would be a LOT more.
That seems just as unfair to me. Imagine someone that makes 10 times as much money as someone else, but as a result, being charged 10 times as much for food, gas, and everything else because he/she "can afford it." Wow, sounds like some tax codes out there....
I do agree that some adjusting can and probably should be done. We're probably never going to get to the point where everyone unanimously agrees on what's "reasonable", unfortunately.
I really do like what they've done with the system so far, though. Not all advancement in an MMO needs to be straight combat. Really like my starbase.
In a fleet of about 5 players since before S7 our development was already slow. S7 has not increased or decreased our progression at all. My Fleet is in it for the long run as a group. We contribute when we can and if a task is complete then it is. This is what we agreed to in the social contract we made as a group by virtue of making the Fleet and not actively increasing the membership.
From my point of view anybody in a small fleet could (should?) accept that the starbase will not grow at a rate that is noticable from week-to-week. If that is too long then there are really two choices available: 1) stick with it, 2) drop the group and join a bigger Fleet. It's that simple.
The OP has started asking (paraphrased), "Is the Starbase worth it?" That is a question relevant to each person, I think. They are worth it if you feel that way. Nobody has to build a base. No one.
Comments
So what else do you suggest we do to stay interested in the mean time? For a lot of us, there is nothing in the game we haven't done, no area we haven't explored, no mission we haven't completed, and in many cases completed dozens of times.
So, if it's deliberate and intentional that it's going to take me until the middle of next year to buy a new ship with a tiny, incremental increase to its stats, where is the reasonable-term goal to shoot for? Certainly nothing that competes with Fleet projects for resources.
Say it with me, Cryptic: MORE GRIND IS NOT MORE CONTENT.
So you're saying it's the small fleet's fault for being small and not having a large number of followers to ensure that they can reach a goal in a reasonable amount of time?
That MMOs are all about large group cooperation and that those unfortunate enough not to have a large group are to simply take the lumps? To not aspire to what the deva have placed out of their mortal grasp by dint of their being too small and unworthy to achieve it?
Please link me to the MMO Bible that has this written down as how MMOs should and must be, and thus, STO is beholden to be this way because that's how it is? Because it sounds like an Ayn Rand wet dream. Nobody needs a lecture about the type of game it is..I think we all know what an MMO is, thanks. But what I'd like to know is where your assertions about what MMOs are supposed to do is written as provable, successful development practice.
I haven't even bothered to point out that this is not reality, or a job, but a video game. You know, for recreation. With achievable, realistic goals and entertainment value. Somehow I think that'd just derail the topic and I'd get an unhelpful retort from someone about just wanting my shinies right meow.
The Artist Formerly Known As Nikotaka ][ Join Date: Jan 2010
"Can anyone remember when we used to be explorers...?"
There is.
It takes an open mind to realize it and argue for it, though. There are whiners who want their three-week shinies, and there are sneerers who think anyone who criticizes the system are slackers afraid of work.
Currently the system we have mostly polarizes people between these two camps and pushes them to argue at each other. There are still plenty of people who don't want their fleet bases to be easy, but neither do they want their bases to be nigh impossible or unfairly scaled as if they had more (or less) people than they do. Just balanced.
Whining and sneering is easier though.
The Artist Formerly Known As Nikotaka ][ Join Date: Jan 2010
"Can anyone remember when we used to be explorers...?"
Wow, thought we were going to be big people and leave the snarky comments at the door. Guess not.
No, there's nothing inherently wrong, evil, or unfair about larger fleets being able to outproduce smaller ones. There's also nothing wrong with systems in an MMO that capitalize on that fact.
Yes, if a fleet chooses to be small, then they should live with the limitations that come with their choice.
And, what's reasonable?
As you've said yourself, systems that scale everything by fleet size would be easily abused, and run counter to the goal of a group pulling together and earning something - an unfortunately rare concept in MMO gaming these days.
Yes, it is a video game, not a job. But complaining about group-oriented content or goals in an MMO is like a guy playing a shooter, and complaining that he has to keep shooting things in it.
Why?
A fleet starbase is not required to play the game.
A fleet starbase is the only way to access a significant portion of the game's content. As a paying customer I have a problem with being excluded from any content, especially based on some arbitrary elitist BS about "deserving" it. A game should not feel like a chore. If you want me playing long term, give me more to do, not more reasons to repeat the same stuff.
I feel we're still not on the same page. I will say you're right about the tone though, and I apologize for the slightly snarky tone in my last post. We may not agree, but you're very eloquent with your disagreement!
There've been plenty of ideas fielded to counter potential exploits of a scaling fleet advancement system. Some of the first I recall seeing were the inclusion of penalties or timers for the more obvious forms of exploit: That is, a big fleet dumping its player load to try and lessen the project cost. Projects could, hypothetically, adjust only after a certain amount of time has passed, be it a week, two weeks, a month, etc. That or sudden fleet exodus could react in a fashion of extending the time it takes for a fleet's projects to recalculate themselves. Cryptic doesn't seem to like dynamic calculations for these things (just judging by the way they handled STF loot), so an internal scale of tiers like what they did for the Season 7 STF loot conversion would probably be the way to go: Fleets with 25-40 players get the "Tier 3 Medium-High Fleet Advancement Project" load, for instance.
That way, shenanigans like constantly dumping or bloating fleet rosters would time-gate exploiter-fleets, while making Fleet Advancement on a whole more flexible for smaller fleets and giving them a goal they have some possibility of achieving. The larger fleets have a more uniquely-scaled amount of work they must do, which adjusts if they try to dump players. The smaller fleets have theirs as well, which adjusts if they add players. Both are time-gated if they try shenanigans like Roster-fixing.
There has been no effort that we've seen to make Fleet Advancement more dynamic than the flat rate it currently is because of the fear of exploiting, which has been the primary reason we've been given for why Fleet Advancement was given its 'happy medium'. Cryptic hasn't said the same as you in that they feel small fleets should live with their disadvantage; the closest they've come is stating what we all know, that larger fleets will be more advantaged than smaller fleets. Yet they (Stahl) took the added effort to assure the players that small fleets could do it. Even provided some numbers that a fleet of five could conceivably do, at the time, to assure people that even a fleet of five could advance.
It didn't quite turn out that way, which is another trait of MMOs--devs making claims that do not work out in actuality. Personally I don't even know if Cryptic's FA system is even elegant enough to handle this sort of thing.
You'll notice I'm not talking about the larger fleets, but the smaller ones. Nobody said there was something inherently wrong with the advantage of larger fleets, but that smaller fleets are unfairly overburdened with the task of a workload of larger fleets. That is the point of this.
The Artist Formerly Known As Nikotaka ][ Join Date: Jan 2010
"Can anyone remember when we used to be explorers...?"
Well from what I hear from people on these forums fleets of 25 are in bad shape or are disappearing - so there is a big disconnect fro their "plan" to reality
Exactly what content is it you're being excluded from?
A few items that have equivalents you can earn doing other stuff, and? What you can get by having a T3 or higher SB is so far from being a significant portion of content that you are clearly doing nothing but trolling by making a post like that.
Putting any stock in what you read here is a pretty silly thing to do. You can not know how fleets of ~25 people are actually doing based on what you read on these message boards.
How are they being punished exactly? Even a 5 person fleet can make it to T1 fairly quickly, and the SB is functional at T0.
So how are they being punished or being treated unfairly if they chose to remain a small fleet?
This is a game design issue, not a method to shore up your withered ego.
Could say quite as easily that it's an attempt by small fleets to get their ego inflated artificially and have everything handed to them on a sliver platter because they're not willing to put the effort required into getting what they want.
Assuming that people are trying to keep you down or be better then you, is a symptom of paranoia, not a debate method.
That's part of the beauty of MMO players. What one player classifies as a "chore", is something that gives a game "meaning" to another player.
As far as I'm concerned, I don't need another 100 meaningless "kill x of y" quests in my games to give me pointless make-work to do. I'd rather have content/missions/whatever that fed into a larger, long term system, preferably one in which other players are also involved.
Simply put some of us like playing the game in small fleets because they tend to be friendlier and make for a better experience. At the same time we want to actually be able to progress in the fleet system without feeling that we're being punished by it. By that I mean not having to take weeks just to fill out one project with every active member on daily grinding out necessary requirements. The games meant to be fun and challenging, not a chore. Nothing is keeping Crytpic from working on the system so it scales to a fleets size, or even revamping the system so it is really small and medium fleet oriented, rather than what they say is small and medium fleet oriented. The fleet number they say they've built the system for isn't working. I've seen fleets bigger than mine break apart because they can't progress. That's a problem. The fleet system is supposed to bring a fleet together, not make the game feel like a chore and make it seem like you have to sell your soul to a large fleet to achieve anything. It certainly wasn't intended to make people take an elitist "go big or die its your own fault" position. So it needs to actually fulfill its goal, and with the way the projects are set up right now, it's not doing that.
My fleet was small to begin with. A dozen plus members, only a handful active. There's about three of us making contributions these days but I lead it by far.
The problem isn't just participation. it's that it's discouraging after awhile.
First, there's the fleet mark problem. When we had the 'Investigate Officer Report' easy missions working, we could farm fleet marks easier and with multiple alts. Now that you have to use Cryptic approved maps for the same thing, such mark grinding takes a lot longer. And trust me... it can take awhile when you're looking at 600 fleet marks a mission.
That's a problem that cryptic needs to address.
And then there's dilithium. Normally that wouldn't be so bad. Normally. Problem is that dilithium is too expensive these days. I find my fleetmates are not using their dilithium for projects but instead are using it to buy Zen. Frankly, I can't blame them. Zen is really cheap to buy with dilithium these days.
Though cryptic exasperates the problem by maintaining extremely high dilithium costs for fleet projects, duty officer exchanges and equipment, this is mostly a player problem because WE SET THE VALUE! I honestly thought that when we were allowed to cash reputation points for dil that this problem would be solved... nope! Dilithium prices still hover in the low 100's. Free market arguments aside, cryptic should know, as a game company, that players will exploit the hell out of each other every chance they get (which means they will gouge on dil prices), so it is up to them to minimize the damage on that front.
And then there was the personnel officer glitch. At least that was fixed (thank you!).
So in short... everything's too damn expensive and grinding for the required materials burns my fellow fleeties out!
We tried recruiting... we could only get limited numbers. Why? Because... they all want to be in a bigger fleet with more stuff in their starbase! Big flipping surprise!
But not everything's been bad. I'm happy that only common doffs are needed for projects so those are easy enough to get, and the amount needed has been reduced to a... I wouldn't say a reasonable level but I'd say a more manageable level. Also, selling commons makes for a good source of EC. Bravo!
I'm part of what I'd say is a typical fleet, ~25 people, and we just hit T3.
I joined that fleet in part because it seemed like a decent group of people, and in part because I believed they'd be able to get a SB up and running.
I have no desire to join a fleet of 3 people, SB or no. I want to be part of a larger fleet because that means there's more people to play with. But I also don't really care how long it takes us to hit T4 because what's offered at T4 simply isn't that big of a deal.
Yes there is. It's the fact that such a system would be extremely exploitable. No matter what you do, it will allow large fleets to form a smaller one, burn though projects and be done way faster then is intended.
If that's what you want to call it, then go ahead. I don't really care if you feel you're being punished or not. If having a persecution complex helps, then who am I to stop you?
I think we're understanding each other fairly well, and I apologize for any ham-handedness in my responses. I sometimes am overly blunt.
One thing I think we can agree on is that the Fleet Advancement system, and Fleet Starbases, is something that a lot of players are obviously interested in participating in, so I think they are at least on the right track. Balance, of course, is going to be a continual effort, no matter which way they go with it.
For me, some of it just boils down to fundamental design. If two groups are going to buy the exact same item with the same features, why should one group be charged more for it than the other simply because they have more resources. And, from the suggestions I'm hearing, it wouldn't be a little more, it would be a LOT more.
That seems just as unfair to me. Imagine someone that makes 10 times as much money as someone else, but as a result, being charged 10 times as much for food, gas, and everything else because he/she "can afford it." Wow, sounds like some tax codes out there....
I do agree that some adjusting can and probably should be done. We're probably never going to get to the point where everyone unanimously agrees on what's "reasonable", unfortunately.
I really do like what they've done with the system so far, though. Not all advancement in an MMO needs to be straight combat. Really like my starbase.
He answered your question.
Why do you think you should get a discount, and pay less than a larger fleet, simply because you've chosen to be in a small fleet?
Why do you think you're entitled to pay less for the same starbase?
In a fleet of about 5 players since before S7 our development was already slow. S7 has not increased or decreased our progression at all. My Fleet is in it for the long run as a group. We contribute when we can and if a task is complete then it is. This is what we agreed to in the social contract we made as a group by virtue of making the Fleet and not actively increasing the membership.
From my point of view anybody in a small fleet could (should?) accept that the starbase will not grow at a rate that is noticable from week-to-week. If that is too long then there are really two choices available: 1) stick with it, 2) drop the group and join a bigger Fleet. It's that simple.
The OP has started asking (paraphrased), "Is the Starbase worth it?" That is a question relevant to each person, I think. They are worth it if you feel that way. Nobody has to build a base. No one.