Thing is the rep system does have some massive flaws
1: Dilithium , The markets all but dead with yet another dili grind needed , Fleets , Embassys , Now rep gear needing near a weeks dilli per item AND 20 hours.... (based on the fact to get the best you need to buy the lower part 1st as well)
To fix this they need to properly up the Rate at which dili can be converted, Why? How low will people go to pay for dili before they stop as personally I wont buy dili at its current rate.
2: EC , Not so bad but for "new" 50's its become a bit of a joke , why? Because many are rolling need on everything but the kitchen sink and theres no "basic" set that can be gotten cheap. This means actual new players struggle to gear up to an even basic level without now "farming" another random drop such as gorn minefield etc.
So let me get this right the old system was bad BUT its just been replaced with another farm on top of a farm on top of another farm
Look at the old system , you could score the borg set + mkx gear with minimal work to get you started in stfs , Now look at how much time and cost that "Starter space set" now has not excluding the massive amount of hours taken to farm gear to do more than just the "Basic" one (like infected)
The current rep systems failure is that It punishes "Old" players who possibly have all the gear and earn nothing unlocking and got a paltry box that saved maybe 4 hours of stfs at best (And even what you got in the box was screwed i got way more in my conversion box on a char with 2 chips than i did with a char that had 2 proto's 9 chips and a few rares)
I feel part of a problem here is that we're focusing on the Omega Rep mostly. People were tired of STFs, and when this Rep system came out, we still had the same stuff, but now locked behind the rep gates.
And it's also the fact that most of the stuff there, is exactly what we have already. The only new stuff in Omega rep is:
Hive (ground and space), new Adapted Omega space set, and (sorta new) Adapted MACO/Honor Guard sets, and that is pretty much it. As such, people seem to be mostly focusing on that though. Remember though, there is the Romulan rep, which IS entirely new.
It's also worth keeping in mind, that those of the playerbase who have been doing it pretty much each day every day since season 7 began, are going to start hitting tier 5 rep in one or both areas. I will be hitting it on friday personally, barring I don't miss a day.
What this means is that with no more rep projects to fill to level up with, people will focus on starting to gear themselves out with stuff, getting Mk XII sets, and so on. And when they don't need marks or BNPs, something important is gonna happen:
Dilithium conversion, and a lot of it. Sure we can do that now, but when those marks and such start building up, and people don't need em, they will convert them to dil.
Say you hit tier 5 rep in Omega. You have several thousand marks and enough BNPs. So you start filling out for a Mk XII set. Ok, you fill up the marks easily, no problem, but you're short on dil, the simplest thing would be to take those excess marks and convert em, no problem.
And once people are all geared out to their liking, that's all they will do with marks on that toon, which could help fund their other toons, or let them start being more free with dil to their SB, or something else.
To give some numbers:
1. Elite STFs are gonna be worth on average, 1,660 dil...960 from completing it, 50 marks converted is 500 more, one BNP is technically worth 200 dil, so that's the number. And this is PER elite STF btw, not including other things like bonus BNPs or marks.
2. An elder epohh from New Romulus is 400 marks, or 4,000 dil if purely converted. Now that's not every day of course, but still quite the number every once in awhile of pretty much free dil.
So pretend you do both of those, that is 5,660 dil already. Let us say you do a Fleet Action, with the appropriate daily (for this example Gorn/Fed minefield). Finishing it gets you 480 dil, and the daily nets you another 960.
All that together is a total of 7,100 dil. Now if you don't wanna include the epohh, that's still 3,100. A significant difference, but a LOT of dil already just for very little work or time put into the game.
Say you run STFs, and only 3, all elite, and no bonus BNPs or marks gotten...That is...2,880 from completion, 1,500 from mark conversion, and 600 from BNP conversion. That's still 4,980 dil already.
In short folks, all this is majorly hurting...for now. But that's the thing, it's just for now. We have time, season 8 isn't coming until May, so it's not like there's a rush to get anything. Once we start hitting tier 5 on mass and getting all the new shinies, I think people will start relaxing a bit about all this.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
Actually, no. I do all 4 and they all pop within 20-30 secs. HOE sometimes takes a couple minutes. Maybe you are only doing ISE, I personally don't care how other people earn their marks. Tons of people still do STFs for gear and dilithium. I've made 130m off mark XII weapon drops in the last 3 weeks, on top of more dilithium than I can process.
So you're fine with getting gear while doing nothing for it?
wut? I'm not sure what your talking about in regards to S7, but in S6 I could fit an alt with a full ship of XII weapons and Borg equipment in a weekend. Gear progression was meaningless. Talk about something for nothing.
Thing is the rep system does have some massive flaws
1: Dilithium , The markets all but dead with yet another dili grind needed , Fleets , Embassys , Now rep gear needing near a weeks dilli per item AND 20 hours.... (based on the fact to get the best you need to buy the lower part 1st as well)
To fix this they need to properly up the Rate at which dili can be converted, Why? How low will people go to pay for dili before they stop as personally I wont buy dili at its current rate.
It's a player controlled market, it's at the rate it's at because people are exchanging at that rate. It doesn't take 20 hours for items either, just a few minutes. They changed that a week or two ago.
2: EC , Not so bad but for "new" 50's its become a bit of a joke , why? Because many are rolling need on everything but the kitchen sink and theres no "basic" set that can be gotten cheap. This means actual new players struggle to gear up to an even basic level without now "farming" another random drop such as gorn minefield etc.
This hasn't changed in 3 years, people have always rolled need on everything. Anyone that gearing up off green and blue item drops at 50 is TRIBBLE. You get loot, sell it, and buy what you need. It's been like that forever, and it has nothing to do with reputation costs.
Look at the old system , you could score the borg set + mkx gear with minimal work to get you started in stfs , Now look at how much time and cost that "Starter space set" now has not excluding the massive amount of hours taken to farm gear to do more than just the "Basic" one (like infected)
It takes an hour or two to run the missions for the Jem'hadar set, plus the Mk XI blue weapons. Or you can buy Mk XI stuff for dirt cheap off the exchange.
The current rep systems failure is that It punishes "Old" players who possibly have all the gear and earn nothing unlocking and got a paltry box that saved maybe 4 hours of stfs at best (And even what you got in the box was screwed i got way more in my conversion box on a char with 2 chips than i did with a char that had 2 proto's 9 chips and a few rares)
I've gotten a new set of weapons & console from the Romulus rep vendor, a new torpedo launcher and cutting beam from the omega rep vendor, and a slew of new passives. If it wasn't worth it, people wouldn't be doing it. But they are, because it is.
When I play ISEs, I see usually see someone using a cutting beam, omega torpedo launcher, and/or hyper-plasma torpedo launcher. The amount of omega torpedoes I see have decreased because people are testing out the hyper-plasma torpedo launcher. Not sure which torpedo launcher I like more. It is always fun to derezz cubes, but launching 3 torpedoes at once is also fun. Its just too bad that derezzed enemies come back after a couple of seconds and has the ship explosion.
Only thing I hate is the rediculous prices for each individual item. Jeez for the love of god lump them into a set...per tier..and let me grind em that way. 1500 omega marks for MK X MACO space gear sucks TRIBBLE.
I like the new Rep systems. It lets me know the work/grinding I'm doing does count for something. It was terrible to get 5 Mark XII deflectors and never get the shield.
The new system also lets us get the ground gear with out having to deal with Ground STG Pugs. So that alone makes me lobe the new system.
Also everyone knows you get character passives for your captain while you "grind" your way to tier 5, right? So its not like the only thing you're working for is Mark XII gear while you work your way to T5.
As much as I understand OP's point of view, there's something else you need to take into account; the old STF system wasn't working at all. Some people had all the luck in the world and got the MK XII items in a few runs, it took others literally 100s of runs. I myself clocked out after and I'm not kidding about this one; 795 STF runs over 3 toons. So I can say I did my own fair share of misery on that and it did cause me to leave the game for nearly a year.
The rep system is a good idea but granted, it isn't enough and the dilithium charge for the items NEEDS to be removed as soon as possible. Furthermore, even if you complete the optionals in STFs, there's virtually no point in doing them anymore since the "loot" you get doesn't seem to improve any. My fleet runs STFs daily and as a matter of token towards our effectiveness we tend to complete the optionals every run. I myself have NEVER seen a difference between failed or gained optional loot bonuses. Even if you do get the optionals done, more often then not you get a really bad payout in loot. One of the purple tokens and a completely useless blue item or undesired purple item that you can't even put on the exchange for a reasonable price most of the time.
For that reason the STFs need to be revamped in that way, REWARD people putting the effort into the optionals with additional items or purple tokens and add random set drops etc. on elite runs. Any reward will do because most of the old hardcore STF channels seem to have died a silent death. People mostly avoid STFs nowadays because they got the omega marks they need and there's no point in running them the entire time anymore because there is no incentive for it other then the marks and purple tokens.
wut? I'm not sure what your talking about in regards to S7, but in S6 I could fit an alt with a full ship of XII weapons and Borg equipment in a weekend. Gear progression was meaningless. Talk about something for nothing.
This!
People were able to run around in full Mk.XI Ground and Space gear before hitting 50, while others were still struggling to complete one of their sets after collecting the 200-run accolades.
While it has some minor flaws, I like the new system. A sure and fast way to complete the sets when you're only going for Mk.X, but otoh, people have to do something for MkXII gear. That's how it is and should be.
Also players have a choice as to which STF they want to run. No more having to grind a bugged Donatra for that last set item, only to have her drop it in a wrong quality. Additionally, we are now able to use a limited version of the MACO/Omega costumes on our Boffs. That alone makes it worth it.
One thing I'm not too happy about is the fact, that we can't get our hands on those borg doffs anymore.
Reputation system is here to stay, expect everything to go that way in the future.
As much as I don't like it I am doing it on all my 4 characters and I am just happy they at least made the changes to it so we don't have to pay dil to level up.
Problem for me is once I am done with it I will no longer have a reason to play stf or romluan missions - in oppose to post season 7 where I continued to play with a full set.
leave the adapted set and any new sets into the omega rep.. then dump the standard stuff into the drops... .. just add the chance of the maco etc parts X, XI & XII to the final drops. then walaaa...
people who want to grind are happy
people who want a chance at random are happy
then we can all unite under "Adapted set costs too much"
1 Honor Guard MK XII space set, 1 Honor Guard MK XII ground set, 1 Honor Guard MK XI space set, 1 Honor Guard MK XI ground set, 1 Omega MK XII space set, 1 Omega MK XII ground set, 1 Omega MK XI space set, 1 Omega MK XI ground set, 2 Borg space sets, 1 Honor Guard MK XII extra shield, about 20 MK XII space weapons (for 3 ships) and about 10 MK XII extra ground wepons on THREE characters:
ZERO!
How much will that cost in the rep system?
Cost zero?
Ah, you're another one of those people like the ones in WoW who consider a crafted item "free" because instead of spending gold on the materials, they spent 50+ hours farming up the ingredients.
Here's a hint - time is a cost. The playtime you spent running all those STFs for your gear drops is what they cost. Which means that in the new system, the costs have just shifted - required playtime searching for that Lucky Random Drop is less, EC & Dil is more. It's all still a cost.
(Which means that, as people have said, the primary change is that it now takes a set cost, rather than a variable "anywhere from 1 to 100 STFs" cost.)
There's probably nothing you can do to get rid of it. I stopped at tier 3 just because it becomes a rather egregious time sink after that point. If something doesn't feel like it's worth the time to me, I just don't do it. I don't feel the need to be rid of it though, if others enjoy it great.
Agreed.
Just don't participate in it. you'll still get the Marks, but you don't have to do anything with them at all. This means you'll never get the rewards from the system though, so if you are ok with that, then more happiness to you.
Ah, you're another one of those people like the ones in WoW who consider a crafted item "free" because instead of spending gold on the materials, they spent 50+ hours farming up the ingredients.
Here's a hint - time is a cost. The playtime you spent running all those STFs for your gear drops is what they cost. Which means that in the new system, the costs have just shifted - required playtime searching for that Lucky Random Drop is less, EC & Dil is more. It's all still a cost.
(Which means that, as people have said, the primary change is that it now takes a set cost, rather than a variable "anywhere from 1 to 100 STFs" cost.)
The cost of actually... oh can I say this? Oh! Yeah! PLAYING!
Before S7, STF were not a chore for me. Even though they're all easy, they're the most challenging PVE stuff in STO. And I'd rather be a challenger than a couch potatoe spending all day eating chips on the sofa while waiting 20 hours for a click-and-forget project to complete.
I liked the old system. They could have easily fixed it by making a few tweaks.
A couple of accolades for the 500th and 1000th time you ran a particular STF episode which awarded the prototype tech for the episode.
Making unspent drops account bound.
Now, not only do we not get any more drops, but we actually have to spend energy credits to earn the right to buy what used to drop for free, then we have to spend dilithium to buy what used to drop for free, and not at much of a discounted rate either.
It is just one giant dilithium and EC sink.
I will do it on ONE character. I will never do it again though.
Before, I thought my MACO costume was something of a badge of honor. Now it is a badge of spending a lot of energy credits to get to the point where you can grind out ISE a bunch of times and buy it without ever touching an elite ground mission.
...Before, I thought my MACO costume was something of a badge of honor. Now it is a badge of spending a lot of energy credits to get to the point where you can grind out ISE a bunch of times and buy it without ever touching an elite ground mission.
The honor is so meaningless now that if you had the "bad luck" of getting your optionals after S7 launch, Cryptic depraved you of the "Honor Guard/M.A.C.O. Elite Commander" and "Omega Shadow Operative" titles.
Uh how about the ENTIRE BLOODY GAME!? From the moment you get your ship, to the final fight in fluidic space its all part of a proper storyline. It worked wonderfully. Then PWI takes over and we get these 3 grindfests, the rep system, the tholians and the new Romulus mission are all grindfests. I liked the stories, and playing other "types" doesn't change it so basicly they have endgame grindfets instead of an evolving story now. And yes, I blame PWI because when it was Cryptic, yes it was slow, but they put great effort into their storylines, making it so you enjoyed playing them, even if it wasn't for gear. I don't play to raid, I don't play to put together a set, I play because I like the story and I want to be a part of it. AS for this rep system I made it to teir one, started to unlock pistols, saw how much rep points it took and said hell with it, I have no intention of doing it. If that means I just sit around doing nothing, then fine I'll play minecraft until they come out with another story, but I'm not going to "grind" endlessly in this rep system to get things I got with the old STF quickly and easily.
Your are right! I play because I like the story and I want to be a part of it and I guess we are not alone.
What I think the worst part is now all the top-tier stuff is mainly Dilithium based. You don't get anything as a drop or reward anymore, you have to grind it out.
Of course, you could also just buy zen and exchange it for your top-tier weapons. So, you know, the option to buy the best gear for cash is there.
Why don't they just lower the marks and be reasonable about it or make everything in that tier avaible?This would certianly help a lot of new players out and those rerolling.
I would say 250 omega makrs for assimulated transwarp engines is to much since ot only to 5 edcs.The univsal consol you got from doing a mission.
When someone turns 44 the first thing they want are the engines and the rest deflector dish and shields etc.
Have Merry one to you all.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]Age StarTrek-Gamers Administrator
USS WARRIOR NCC 1720 Commanding Officer Star Trek Gamers
As much as I understand OP's point of view, there's something else you need to take into account; the old STF system wasn't working at all. Some people had all the luck in the world and got the MK XII items in a few runs, it took others literally 100s of runs. I myself clocked out after and I'm not kidding about this one; 795 STF runs over 3 toons. So I can say I did my own fair share of misery on that and it did cause me to leave the game for nearly a year.
The rep system is a good idea but granted, it isn't enough and the dilithium charge for the items NEEDS to be removed as soon as possible. Furthermore, even if you complete the optionals in STFs, there's virtually no point in doing them anymore since the "loot" you get doesn't seem to improve any. My fleet runs STFs daily and as a matter of token towards our effectiveness we tend to complete the optionals every run. I myself have NEVER seen a difference between failed or gained optional loot bonuses. Even if you do get the optionals done, more often then not you get a really bad payout in loot. One of the purple tokens and a completely useless blue item or undesired purple item that you can't even put on the exchange for a reasonable price most of the time.
For that reason the STFs need to be revamped in that way, REWARD people putting the effort into the optionals with additional items or purple tokens and add random set drops etc. on elite runs. Any reward will do because most of the old hardcore STF channels seem to have died a silent death. People mostly avoid STFs nowadays because they got the omega marks they need and there's no point in running them the entire time anymore because there is no incentive for it other then the marks and purple tokens.
Optional only Gets you 25% more Marks this was written in the Patchnotes with S7. So an Elite Infected gives you 60 Marks Basic +15 Marks for Optional+ 15 Marks for Reputation event+ xx Marks from the Final loot.
Yep! With season 7, you don't need to earn stuff. You just buy it!
A lot of people are praising Cryptic for the rep system. That's probably why we'll never see vaseline as a commodity in this game.
Ok I have to respond to this.
I do 300000000 STFs and I get a Mk XII set vrs
I do 60 STFs and I get a Mk XII set...
It takes 2 STFs to get skill at them. 60 vrs 300000000. I think ive proved my skill after 30. I think ive earned it after 30. But the new system is a definite Get. The old system is not... Now id like to bring this fact up.
Old System, I ran 1350 STFs. (to get all 4 Mk XII sets).
The new system you need to run about 1 STF a day for 3 months.
U know id rather have this bad rep system because im not Running on a chance that ill get it. I know when ill get it. Rep System has no chance. If u have a 1% chance to get something getting 100 things doesn't mean ull get 1. If lockboxes had a 99% ship Droprate, theres a chance that I could but 1000 boxes and never get a ship. Or there can be a 0.00001% chance of getting a ship in a box, I can open 5 boxes and get 5 ships. or I could open 10billion boxes and get no ship.
Old system=I can run 10000000 STFs and never get 1 Mk XII.
New System=I have to run X stfs and no more.
Old Old System=Hey STFs are fun! Lets do them for fun. They have a story, moderately difficult, and give 5 emblems each. So I can get that thing I want!
TBH and IMHO, Old Old System>New System>Old System.
Keep chance out of my grind. But keep it fun and meaningful.
Did u know I used to glitch out the old STF missions so id be able to run it an infinite amount fo times (with no reward) because I did them for fun! Yes this was back in Season 2 when they were hard. They required strategy, and teamwork. Now I don't do STFs. I did 1350 Stfs and I have more then enough Omega marks from yteh conversion.
And, 250 for an assimilated engine= 3 STFs=6 EDCs. Infact the prices are more then fair.
250 of anything sounds like a lot, but in reality might not be. 250 Cell, 250 atoms, 250 pieces of sugar. 250 drops of coffee, 250 Omega Marks. At ~100 Omega marks an STF (assuming Optional)u do 3-4 STFs for 1. Which is the equiv to the old system, And it costs less to get the MACO/KHG/OF sets.
Absolutely agree there. I loved the long versions. Maybe loved to hate is more accurate. They were a challenge, and one I didn't always beat.
I think that's something this game needs more of. The Devs need to find some way to throw some curve balls at us. There needs to be something or a group of things, that whenever they appear, everyones pants gets slightly heavier. :P
Comments
Not going to happen. People would be getting everything in three days, or at least trying to.
Though.... I do wish it was 10-15 hours rather than 20. It's hard to log in every 20 hours.
1: Dilithium , The markets all but dead with yet another dili grind needed , Fleets , Embassys , Now rep gear needing near a weeks dilli per item AND 20 hours.... (based on the fact to get the best you need to buy the lower part 1st as well)
To fix this they need to properly up the Rate at which dili can be converted, Why? How low will people go to pay for dili before they stop as personally I wont buy dili at its current rate.
2: EC , Not so bad but for "new" 50's its become a bit of a joke , why? Because many are rolling need on everything but the kitchen sink and theres no "basic" set that can be gotten cheap. This means actual new players struggle to gear up to an even basic level without now "farming" another random drop such as gorn minefield etc.
So let me get this right the old system was bad BUT its just been replaced with another farm on top of a farm on top of another farm
Look at the old system , you could score the borg set + mkx gear with minimal work to get you started in stfs , Now look at how much time and cost that "Starter space set" now has not excluding the massive amount of hours taken to farm gear to do more than just the "Basic" one (like infected)
The current rep systems failure is that It punishes "Old" players who possibly have all the gear and earn nothing unlocking and got a paltry box that saved maybe 4 hours of stfs at best (And even what you got in the box was screwed i got way more in my conversion box on a char with 2 chips than i did with a char that had 2 proto's 9 chips and a few rares)
And it's also the fact that most of the stuff there, is exactly what we have already. The only new stuff in Omega rep is:
Hive (ground and space), new Adapted Omega space set, and (sorta new) Adapted MACO/Honor Guard sets, and that is pretty much it. As such, people seem to be mostly focusing on that though. Remember though, there is the Romulan rep, which IS entirely new.
It's also worth keeping in mind, that those of the playerbase who have been doing it pretty much each day every day since season 7 began, are going to start hitting tier 5 rep in one or both areas. I will be hitting it on friday personally, barring I don't miss a day.
What this means is that with no more rep projects to fill to level up with, people will focus on starting to gear themselves out with stuff, getting Mk XII sets, and so on. And when they don't need marks or BNPs, something important is gonna happen:
Dilithium conversion, and a lot of it. Sure we can do that now, but when those marks and such start building up, and people don't need em, they will convert them to dil.
Say you hit tier 5 rep in Omega. You have several thousand marks and enough BNPs. So you start filling out for a Mk XII set. Ok, you fill up the marks easily, no problem, but you're short on dil, the simplest thing would be to take those excess marks and convert em, no problem.
And once people are all geared out to their liking, that's all they will do with marks on that toon, which could help fund their other toons, or let them start being more free with dil to their SB, or something else.
To give some numbers:
1. Elite STFs are gonna be worth on average, 1,660 dil...960 from completing it, 50 marks converted is 500 more, one BNP is technically worth 200 dil, so that's the number. And this is PER elite STF btw, not including other things like bonus BNPs or marks.
2. An elder epohh from New Romulus is 400 marks, or 4,000 dil if purely converted. Now that's not every day of course, but still quite the number every once in awhile of pretty much free dil.
So pretend you do both of those, that is 5,660 dil already. Let us say you do a Fleet Action, with the appropriate daily (for this example Gorn/Fed minefield). Finishing it gets you 480 dil, and the daily nets you another 960.
All that together is a total of 7,100 dil. Now if you don't wanna include the epohh, that's still 3,100. A significant difference, but a LOT of dil already just for very little work or time put into the game.
Say you run STFs, and only 3, all elite, and no bonus BNPs or marks gotten...That is...2,880 from completion, 1,500 from mark conversion, and 600 from BNP conversion. That's still 4,980 dil already.
In short folks, all this is majorly hurting...for now. But that's the thing, it's just for now. We have time, season 8 isn't coming until May, so it's not like there's a rush to get anything. Once we start hitting tier 5 on mass and getting all the new shinies, I think people will start relaxing a bit about all this.
Actually, no. I do all 4 and they all pop within 20-30 secs. HOE sometimes takes a couple minutes. Maybe you are only doing ISE, I personally don't care how other people earn their marks. Tons of people still do STFs for gear and dilithium. I've made 130m off mark XII weapon drops in the last 3 weeks, on top of more dilithium than I can process.
wut? I'm not sure what your talking about in regards to S7, but in S6 I could fit an alt with a full ship of XII weapons and Borg equipment in a weekend. Gear progression was meaningless. Talk about something for nothing.
This hasn't changed in 3 years, people have always rolled need on everything. Anyone that gearing up off green and blue item drops at 50 is TRIBBLE. You get loot, sell it, and buy what you need. It's been like that forever, and it has nothing to do with reputation costs.
It takes an hour or two to run the missions for the Jem'hadar set, plus the Mk XI blue weapons. Or you can buy Mk XI stuff for dirt cheap off the exchange.
I've gotten a new set of weapons & console from the Romulus rep vendor, a new torpedo launcher and cutting beam from the omega rep vendor, and a slew of new passives. If it wasn't worth it, people wouldn't be doing it. But they are, because it is.
The new system also lets us get the ground gear with out having to deal with Ground STG Pugs. So that alone makes me lobe the new system.
Also everyone knows you get character passives for your captain while you "grind" your way to tier 5, right? So its not like the only thing you're working for is Mark XII gear while you work your way to T5.
The rep system is a good idea but granted, it isn't enough and the dilithium charge for the items NEEDS to be removed as soon as possible. Furthermore, even if you complete the optionals in STFs, there's virtually no point in doing them anymore since the "loot" you get doesn't seem to improve any. My fleet runs STFs daily and as a matter of token towards our effectiveness we tend to complete the optionals every run. I myself have NEVER seen a difference between failed or gained optional loot bonuses. Even if you do get the optionals done, more often then not you get a really bad payout in loot. One of the purple tokens and a completely useless blue item or undesired purple item that you can't even put on the exchange for a reasonable price most of the time.
For that reason the STFs need to be revamped in that way, REWARD people putting the effort into the optionals with additional items or purple tokens and add random set drops etc. on elite runs. Any reward will do because most of the old hardcore STF channels seem to have died a silent death. People mostly avoid STFs nowadays because they got the omega marks they need and there's no point in running them the entire time anymore because there is no incentive for it other then the marks and purple tokens.
This!
People were able to run around in full Mk.XI Ground and Space gear before hitting 50, while others were still struggling to complete one of their sets after collecting the 200-run accolades.
While it has some minor flaws, I like the new system. A sure and fast way to complete the sets when you're only going for Mk.X, but otoh, people have to do something for MkXII gear. That's how it is and should be.
Also players have a choice as to which STF they want to run. No more having to grind a bugged Donatra for that last set item, only to have her drop it in a wrong quality. Additionally, we are now able to use a limited version of the MACO/Omega costumes on our Boffs. That alone makes it worth it.
One thing I'm not too happy about is the fact, that we can't get our hands on those borg doffs anymore.
As much as I don't like it I am doing it on all my 4 characters and I am just happy they at least made the changes to it so we don't have to pay dil to level up.
Problem for me is once I am done with it I will no longer have a reason to play stf or romluan missions - in oppose to post season 7 where I continued to play with a full set.
leave the adapted set and any new sets into the omega rep.. then dump the standard stuff into the drops... .. just add the chance of the maco etc parts X, XI & XII to the final drops. then walaaa...
people who want to grind are happy
people who want a chance at random are happy
then we can all unite under "Adapted set costs too much"
The Mk 12 space set is pretty cool, and it only costs you $10 worth of Dilithium!
Cost zero?
Ah, you're another one of those people like the ones in WoW who consider a crafted item "free" because instead of spending gold on the materials, they spent 50+ hours farming up the ingredients.
Here's a hint - time is a cost. The playtime you spent running all those STFs for your gear drops is what they cost. Which means that in the new system, the costs have just shifted - required playtime searching for that Lucky Random Drop is less, EC & Dil is more. It's all still a cost.
(Which means that, as people have said, the primary change is that it now takes a set cost, rather than a variable "anywhere from 1 to 100 STFs" cost.)
Agreed.
Just don't participate in it. you'll still get the Marks, but you don't have to do anything with them at all. This means you'll never get the rewards from the system though, so if you are ok with that, then more happiness to you.
The cost of actually... oh can I say this? Oh! Yeah! PLAYING!
Before S7, STF were not a chore for me. Even though they're all easy, they're the most challenging PVE stuff in STO. And I'd rather be a challenger than a couch potatoe spending all day eating chips on the sofa while waiting 20 hours for a click-and-forget project to complete.
^^ Lol Qft
A couple of accolades for the 500th and 1000th time you ran a particular STF episode which awarded the prototype tech for the episode.
Making unspent drops account bound.
Now, not only do we not get any more drops, but we actually have to spend energy credits to earn the right to buy what used to drop for free, then we have to spend dilithium to buy what used to drop for free, and not at much of a discounted rate either.
It is just one giant dilithium and EC sink.
I will do it on ONE character. I will never do it again though.
Before, I thought my MACO costume was something of a badge of honor. Now it is a badge of spending a lot of energy credits to get to the point where you can grind out ISE a bunch of times and buy it without ever touching an elite ground mission.
The honor is so meaningless now that if you had the "bad luck" of getting your optionals after S7 launch, Cryptic depraved you of the "Honor Guard/M.A.C.O. Elite Commander" and "Omega Shadow Operative" titles.
Allow us to get the standard default uniforms from the drops, but keep any new variants of the stf outfits restricted to the omega rep ?
Your are right! I play because I like the story and I want to be a part of it and I guess we are not alone.
Of course, you could also just buy zen and exchange it for your top-tier weapons. So, you know, the option to buy the best gear for cash is there.
I would say 250 omega makrs for assimulated transwarp engines is to much since ot only to 5 edcs.The univsal consol you got from doing a mission.
When someone turns 44 the first thing they want are the engines and the rest deflector dish and shields etc.
Have Merry one to you all.
USS WARRIOR NCC 1720 Commanding Officer
Star Trek Gamers
Optional only Gets you 25% more Marks this was written in the Patchnotes with S7. So an Elite Infected gives you 60 Marks Basic +15 Marks for Optional+ 15 Marks for Reputation event+ xx Marks from the Final loot.
^^This
The "DAMN" makes it so much epicer sounding
Then if not a grind, how would you suggest doing such things?
Ok I have to respond to this.
I do 300000000 STFs and I get a Mk XII set vrs
I do 60 STFs and I get a Mk XII set...
It takes 2 STFs to get skill at them. 60 vrs 300000000. I think ive proved my skill after 30. I think ive earned it after 30. But the new system is a definite Get. The old system is not... Now id like to bring this fact up.
Old System, I ran 1350 STFs. (to get all 4 Mk XII sets).
The new system you need to run about 1 STF a day for 3 months.
U know id rather have this bad rep system because im not Running on a chance that ill get it. I know when ill get it. Rep System has no chance. If u have a 1% chance to get something getting 100 things doesn't mean ull get 1. If lockboxes had a 99% ship Droprate, theres a chance that I could but 1000 boxes and never get a ship. Or there can be a 0.00001% chance of getting a ship in a box, I can open 5 boxes and get 5 ships. or I could open 10billion boxes and get no ship.
Old system=I can run 10000000 STFs and never get 1 Mk XII.
New System=I have to run X stfs and no more.
Old Old System=Hey STFs are fun! Lets do them for fun. They have a story, moderately difficult, and give 5 emblems each. So I can get that thing I want!
TBH and IMHO, Old Old System>New System>Old System.
Keep chance out of my grind. But keep it fun and meaningful.
Did u know I used to glitch out the old STF missions so id be able to run it an infinite amount fo times (with no reward) because I did them for fun! Yes this was back in Season 2 when they were hard. They required strategy, and teamwork. Now I don't do STFs. I did 1350 Stfs and I have more then enough Omega marks from yteh conversion.
And, 250 for an assimilated engine= 3 STFs=6 EDCs. Infact the prices are more then fair.
250 of anything sounds like a lot, but in reality might not be. 250 Cell, 250 atoms, 250 pieces of sugar. 250 drops of coffee, 250 Omega Marks. At ~100 Omega marks an STF (assuming Optional)u do 3-4 STFs for 1. Which is the equiv to the old system, And it costs less to get the MACO/KHG/OF sets.
Absolutely agree there. I loved the long versions. Maybe loved to hate is more accurate. They were a challenge, and one I didn't always beat.
I think that's something this game needs more of. The Devs need to find some way to throw some curve balls at us. There needs to be something or a group of things, that whenever they appear, everyones pants gets slightly heavier. :P