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Season 7 Feedback
foxrockssocks
Member Posts: 2,482 Arc User
So I've wallowed through the season 7 mire long enough to max out one character on the reputation system. I've done most everything in Tau Dewa/New Romulus at least once. And with the balance adjustments put in place already, presumably this is season 7 as the Devs want it. That makes it a good time to give feedback regarding all of it.
TLDR: S7 is bad, too grindy, too much inventory trash, too expensive.
For those of us that can read, lets start with the reputation system. While I think the idea of the reputation system is a good one, to avoid the situation of doing STFs forever and never getting the drop you want or need, its insanely expensive and utterly unfun.
I spent between 4-5m credits on consumables and commodities getting to tier 5, all of them bought as cheaply as possible (IE not from the market). I can say quite certainly that drops in STFs do not cover the cost. You'll get the marks far faster than the credits, leaving you needing to grind credits somewhere else.
Now before you say play the market for credits, which one can do, it is avoiding reality. The reputation system siphons out a LOT of credits. If you do not earn them somewhere else from drops or missions, etc, you are only lowering the credit supply, which causes the market to falter as people have less cash to buy things. I'm not going to go into market economics though. But for me, I'm that much poorer, and much less likely to buy things on the market because the reputation grind is so expensive.
Now, Tour the galaxy is supposedly a good credit earner, but I've yet to find time to do that since it has been implemented, and since it is on a rare cycle. So for me, I lose a lot of credits doing this system with no clear way to make them back again. This is a major stumbling block to the system for casual players like myself who don't have time to grind endlessly for credits just to grind more for reputation. But my rep grind is over, right? No.
The next point to make is the fact I have 10 characters at VA/LG. I have finished one grind, and have 9 more to go, most in various stages of tier 1/2. Do I NEED to do it? No, yet, that same mentality is what has screwed me over in season 7.
I didn't NEED to push hard to get all those characters borg/omega/etc gear before season 7. I could run a few STFs now and then and hope for the best, save up my EDCs for when I wanted to buy a piece (and pre season 5, it only took 1 STF run to get a borg set piece!).
Now season 7 comes around and I got screwed hard. Most of my characters that could have had the set parts I wanted, don't have them because I didn't push harder earlier. So now I feel the NEED to grind, because who knows what will be done to the system to make it even harder in a couple more seasons? But I have no desire to grind at all, and burnout comes fast with this system. This ends up making me play the bare minimum to get a few reputation projects going and then log off and do something fun.
Probably most frustrating is that as a gold subscriber, I get zero anything in this system. My extra characters and slots mean I suffer a lot more than F2P players who maybe have 2-3 characters total. Account based reputation doesn't make much sense, however giving gold subs a discount or partial refund on mark/commodity costs would make a lot more sense and give real value to the virtually nil value to subs these days.
Whats more, this system makes me very averse to ever starting a new character because of the impending tedious grind they will have to do to get end gear. This costs Cryptic $$. Why? Personally, I make a character to enjoy a new playstyle. Eng/cruiser, sci/escort, etc. and with all the ships out there you can get some pretty interesting combos. But if I don't want to start a new character because of the rep grind, I don't have any interest in new ships that would offer a new playstyle. This means I'm not buying zen and, it means I'm not selling my dilithium for zen, because I have nothing to buy with it. And why not just try new ships on an old character? Because then I would need to respec, out of another playstyle I liked.
This grind is just daunting, and some of the worse parts of it are the mark costs versus rewards. Elite STFs give about 3x more marks than normal STFs, despite taking maybe 30 minutes vs 20. This, for me, has completely killed the desire to do normal STFs, and because elite is frustrating with the nonsensical one shots, I always avoided them in the past. So now I have to do something I don't want to do because its just dumb to do any less.
Additionally, the projects in the reputation system have absurd costs. 500 marks for one part of the mk X borg set! The legacy set is mk XI, and you could get that with one run of a full STF, or 5 runs of a season 5 normal STF. But to run normals for that now, you're going to end up running no less than 25 STFs, and get worse gear, while you should have just saved those marks up for the mk XI set, or finish the rep grind with those marks and then work on mk XII. Considering there is no real reason to ever buy the mk X set, it should cost maybe 50 marks per part.
The mk XI set, being the legacy set, is also vastly overpriced at the old standards, especially given that you have to do more STFs to get the reputation to even begin working on getting marks for the set itself.
That said, this is actually one point the omega rep system has over the romulan system. The romulan mark grind is atrociously painful and slow compared to doing STFs for omega marks. The comparative activities for R-marks like the azure nebula rescue and mine trap give out a fraction of marks that the STFs do, and fleet marks I care nothing about. The daily is repetitive and time consuming, and the New romulus missions are no better. Epohhs can die in a fire, and don't work out to be much better for time invested. Yes they make you feel better to get one big lump sum for it, but it takes many days to get there.
This much slower, more tedious grind for R-marks is extra painful when the items and projects cost exactly the same as their omega counterparts, and are not better or more valuable.
And on the subject of tedium, the reputation grind is horrible. Log in, claim rewards, fill in the sliders, oops, wait, I need more stem bolts. Run out to Regulus, buy a few hundred of them from a freighter, and energy cells or whatever else, then go log out next to a ground consumable vendor so the next few days I don't have to do this all over again. Maybe run an STF or something to get some marks. Now consider trying to do this every day on 10 characters. I don't either, 2-3 is enough for one day.
Why not buy several thousand commodities at once? Stacking limits and inventory space. I have to keep going back and forth to various vendors to get the silly projects going because I can't possibly get enough space for it all. This is a point in itself.
Season 7 has seriously too much inventory garbage with the commodities and consumables for rep grinding and the dozen different collectibles on New Romulus for the various missions, like rock and flower and radiation analyses, epohh garbage, etc. Why? I mean why are there all these silly things to take up inventory space when they are nothing but currencies? I've never had enough inventory space in this game, and season 7 just makes it worse. Buy more? No, not with 10 characters and no account inventory option.
So lets change the subject. Dilithium. Yes its been gone over before, but I'm no more happy with it now. Firstly, I'm not in a fleet. I could not care less about fleet requirements or fleet ships. However, it is not lost on me that dilithium is far harder to get in season 7. A normal STF grants a third of what it used to give. I don't know what elite STFs used to give, but presumably that is a third of what it used to give as well. I also think that EDC vs mark/processor dilithium exchange favors the old EDC turn in by a fair margin.
Yes now I can do fleet actions for dilithium. Great! Except it takes the same time as an STF and doesn't give much else as a reward, especially considering the ridiculous amount of marks I need for the reputation system.
Changing the foundry daily is fine with me. The system isn't that good as it is now, but definitely it is more in line with what it should be. Of course it did have a major impact in the dilithium supply.
Oh but now I need dilithium for all my reputation equipment. Great. Yes the reputation project rewards are somewhat helpful, but overall, its extra cost for things that didn't used to cost dilithium at all. The costs at least seem mostly in line with other purple items, nevermind how overpriced it all is, but relatively, at least it seems fair.
Still, I'm a casual these days. I don't meet my daily refinement cap, and never have. Making it harder to get, making my time less valuable and less rewarding is not at all appreciated. I'm not hurting for dilithium either. I still have gobs from the conversion, and plenty of contraband. But I do not like the system as I see it when I consider that if I didn't have all that dilithium and all the equipment from pre dilithium days, it would be exceedingly painful to get it all again.
However, the DOFF grinder changes really tick me off. The upgrinder is now useless. It serves no purpose because the cost is exceedingly high and you still have no control over the reward you get. It means I end up swimming in white/green doffs I don't want and can't get rid of. Its why my mail is full of doffs that didn't sell on the exchange. I did want a mostly Orion DOFF crew for my Orion captain, but that is totally impossible to work towards now. I did want to build up a good purple resolve set for the console assignment, but that is impossible now.
Are there other ways to get purple doffs, resolve doffs, even get rid of white/green doffs? Yes, and none of them are reasonable in terms of time spent finding/unlocking them, availability, and rarity. Most of the gamma quadrant exchange chains I have yet to complete because I never find them when they are active. Do I have massive amounts of purples for the months and months the grinder was worth it? Not even close. I earned less purples from the doff grinder than I have fingers on one hand. That is why it was a good option for me, because I don't have that kind of time to spend on flying all over the galaxy, every. single. day, because then I can't get anything else done.
So in conclusion, season 7 seems aimed squarely at the F2P crowd who doesn't spend money and accepts grind in exchange for "FREE". For those of us with less time and want value for our time and money spent, we get less than ever. Its no surprise I spend less and less time in this game and spend my money elsewhere.
It could all be improved, though. The DOFF grinder could change to let you pick the type of DOFF you get, or put the costs back to where they were. The relative value of dilithium has changed significantly in season 7, so the old costs are still effectively more expensive than ever.
Commodities and consumables could stack to 1000 at least, or you could lower the input required, considering how many credits they eat up.
Mk X and XI reputation projects should have their mark costs slashed dramatically. They exist for no other purpose than to be a red herring and get people to waste marks and dilithium.
Normal STFs and most romulan missions should reward more marks. Of course elite STFs still need to fix the phantom one shot non-crit torpedoes.
Gold accounts should get a discount, either slash all the input requirements for reputation projects by 25% or give a refund of the same after inputting the required amount. Alternatively gold could earn 25% more credits/dilithium/marks as a standard feature, and then of course you can sell timed boosts for such in the zen store for free players.
And to close, if you didn't read all of this, I don't care about your opinion about my opinion.
TLDR: S7 is bad, too grindy, too much inventory trash, too expensive.
For those of us that can read, lets start with the reputation system. While I think the idea of the reputation system is a good one, to avoid the situation of doing STFs forever and never getting the drop you want or need, its insanely expensive and utterly unfun.
I spent between 4-5m credits on consumables and commodities getting to tier 5, all of them bought as cheaply as possible (IE not from the market). I can say quite certainly that drops in STFs do not cover the cost. You'll get the marks far faster than the credits, leaving you needing to grind credits somewhere else.
Now before you say play the market for credits, which one can do, it is avoiding reality. The reputation system siphons out a LOT of credits. If you do not earn them somewhere else from drops or missions, etc, you are only lowering the credit supply, which causes the market to falter as people have less cash to buy things. I'm not going to go into market economics though. But for me, I'm that much poorer, and much less likely to buy things on the market because the reputation grind is so expensive.
Now, Tour the galaxy is supposedly a good credit earner, but I've yet to find time to do that since it has been implemented, and since it is on a rare cycle. So for me, I lose a lot of credits doing this system with no clear way to make them back again. This is a major stumbling block to the system for casual players like myself who don't have time to grind endlessly for credits just to grind more for reputation. But my rep grind is over, right? No.
The next point to make is the fact I have 10 characters at VA/LG. I have finished one grind, and have 9 more to go, most in various stages of tier 1/2. Do I NEED to do it? No, yet, that same mentality is what has screwed me over in season 7.
I didn't NEED to push hard to get all those characters borg/omega/etc gear before season 7. I could run a few STFs now and then and hope for the best, save up my EDCs for when I wanted to buy a piece (and pre season 5, it only took 1 STF run to get a borg set piece!).
Now season 7 comes around and I got screwed hard. Most of my characters that could have had the set parts I wanted, don't have them because I didn't push harder earlier. So now I feel the NEED to grind, because who knows what will be done to the system to make it even harder in a couple more seasons? But I have no desire to grind at all, and burnout comes fast with this system. This ends up making me play the bare minimum to get a few reputation projects going and then log off and do something fun.
Probably most frustrating is that as a gold subscriber, I get zero anything in this system. My extra characters and slots mean I suffer a lot more than F2P players who maybe have 2-3 characters total. Account based reputation doesn't make much sense, however giving gold subs a discount or partial refund on mark/commodity costs would make a lot more sense and give real value to the virtually nil value to subs these days.
Whats more, this system makes me very averse to ever starting a new character because of the impending tedious grind they will have to do to get end gear. This costs Cryptic $$. Why? Personally, I make a character to enjoy a new playstyle. Eng/cruiser, sci/escort, etc. and with all the ships out there you can get some pretty interesting combos. But if I don't want to start a new character because of the rep grind, I don't have any interest in new ships that would offer a new playstyle. This means I'm not buying zen and, it means I'm not selling my dilithium for zen, because I have nothing to buy with it. And why not just try new ships on an old character? Because then I would need to respec, out of another playstyle I liked.
This grind is just daunting, and some of the worse parts of it are the mark costs versus rewards. Elite STFs give about 3x more marks than normal STFs, despite taking maybe 30 minutes vs 20. This, for me, has completely killed the desire to do normal STFs, and because elite is frustrating with the nonsensical one shots, I always avoided them in the past. So now I have to do something I don't want to do because its just dumb to do any less.
Additionally, the projects in the reputation system have absurd costs. 500 marks for one part of the mk X borg set! The legacy set is mk XI, and you could get that with one run of a full STF, or 5 runs of a season 5 normal STF. But to run normals for that now, you're going to end up running no less than 25 STFs, and get worse gear, while you should have just saved those marks up for the mk XI set, or finish the rep grind with those marks and then work on mk XII. Considering there is no real reason to ever buy the mk X set, it should cost maybe 50 marks per part.
The mk XI set, being the legacy set, is also vastly overpriced at the old standards, especially given that you have to do more STFs to get the reputation to even begin working on getting marks for the set itself.
That said, this is actually one point the omega rep system has over the romulan system. The romulan mark grind is atrociously painful and slow compared to doing STFs for omega marks. The comparative activities for R-marks like the azure nebula rescue and mine trap give out a fraction of marks that the STFs do, and fleet marks I care nothing about. The daily is repetitive and time consuming, and the New romulus missions are no better. Epohhs can die in a fire, and don't work out to be much better for time invested. Yes they make you feel better to get one big lump sum for it, but it takes many days to get there.
This much slower, more tedious grind for R-marks is extra painful when the items and projects cost exactly the same as their omega counterparts, and are not better or more valuable.
And on the subject of tedium, the reputation grind is horrible. Log in, claim rewards, fill in the sliders, oops, wait, I need more stem bolts. Run out to Regulus, buy a few hundred of them from a freighter, and energy cells or whatever else, then go log out next to a ground consumable vendor so the next few days I don't have to do this all over again. Maybe run an STF or something to get some marks. Now consider trying to do this every day on 10 characters. I don't either, 2-3 is enough for one day.
Why not buy several thousand commodities at once? Stacking limits and inventory space. I have to keep going back and forth to various vendors to get the silly projects going because I can't possibly get enough space for it all. This is a point in itself.
Season 7 has seriously too much inventory garbage with the commodities and consumables for rep grinding and the dozen different collectibles on New Romulus for the various missions, like rock and flower and radiation analyses, epohh garbage, etc. Why? I mean why are there all these silly things to take up inventory space when they are nothing but currencies? I've never had enough inventory space in this game, and season 7 just makes it worse. Buy more? No, not with 10 characters and no account inventory option.
So lets change the subject. Dilithium. Yes its been gone over before, but I'm no more happy with it now. Firstly, I'm not in a fleet. I could not care less about fleet requirements or fleet ships. However, it is not lost on me that dilithium is far harder to get in season 7. A normal STF grants a third of what it used to give. I don't know what elite STFs used to give, but presumably that is a third of what it used to give as well. I also think that EDC vs mark/processor dilithium exchange favors the old EDC turn in by a fair margin.
Yes now I can do fleet actions for dilithium. Great! Except it takes the same time as an STF and doesn't give much else as a reward, especially considering the ridiculous amount of marks I need for the reputation system.
Changing the foundry daily is fine with me. The system isn't that good as it is now, but definitely it is more in line with what it should be. Of course it did have a major impact in the dilithium supply.
Oh but now I need dilithium for all my reputation equipment. Great. Yes the reputation project rewards are somewhat helpful, but overall, its extra cost for things that didn't used to cost dilithium at all. The costs at least seem mostly in line with other purple items, nevermind how overpriced it all is, but relatively, at least it seems fair.
Still, I'm a casual these days. I don't meet my daily refinement cap, and never have. Making it harder to get, making my time less valuable and less rewarding is not at all appreciated. I'm not hurting for dilithium either. I still have gobs from the conversion, and plenty of contraband. But I do not like the system as I see it when I consider that if I didn't have all that dilithium and all the equipment from pre dilithium days, it would be exceedingly painful to get it all again.
However, the DOFF grinder changes really tick me off. The upgrinder is now useless. It serves no purpose because the cost is exceedingly high and you still have no control over the reward you get. It means I end up swimming in white/green doffs I don't want and can't get rid of. Its why my mail is full of doffs that didn't sell on the exchange. I did want a mostly Orion DOFF crew for my Orion captain, but that is totally impossible to work towards now. I did want to build up a good purple resolve set for the console assignment, but that is impossible now.
Are there other ways to get purple doffs, resolve doffs, even get rid of white/green doffs? Yes, and none of them are reasonable in terms of time spent finding/unlocking them, availability, and rarity. Most of the gamma quadrant exchange chains I have yet to complete because I never find them when they are active. Do I have massive amounts of purples for the months and months the grinder was worth it? Not even close. I earned less purples from the doff grinder than I have fingers on one hand. That is why it was a good option for me, because I don't have that kind of time to spend on flying all over the galaxy, every. single. day, because then I can't get anything else done.
So in conclusion, season 7 seems aimed squarely at the F2P crowd who doesn't spend money and accepts grind in exchange for "FREE". For those of us with less time and want value for our time and money spent, we get less than ever. Its no surprise I spend less and less time in this game and spend my money elsewhere.
It could all be improved, though. The DOFF grinder could change to let you pick the type of DOFF you get, or put the costs back to where they were. The relative value of dilithium has changed significantly in season 7, so the old costs are still effectively more expensive than ever.
Commodities and consumables could stack to 1000 at least, or you could lower the input required, considering how many credits they eat up.
Mk X and XI reputation projects should have their mark costs slashed dramatically. They exist for no other purpose than to be a red herring and get people to waste marks and dilithium.
Normal STFs and most romulan missions should reward more marks. Of course elite STFs still need to fix the phantom one shot non-crit torpedoes.
Gold accounts should get a discount, either slash all the input requirements for reputation projects by 25% or give a refund of the same after inputting the required amount. Alternatively gold could earn 25% more credits/dilithium/marks as a standard feature, and then of course you can sell timed boosts for such in the zen store for free players.
And to close, if you didn't read all of this, I don't care about your opinion about my opinion.
Post edited by foxrockssocks on
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Comments
This includes the Starbase projects and the Embassy, I fear the day when we will hit the exchange rate of 25, and we are getting closer and closer.
If Cryptic does not do something very soon we will have a major collapse in the game.
Twitter | @STOkedshow
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I also agree with the EC crunch, I got lucky on a console doff mission and sold one for 16 million, which should cover the rest of the rep grind for one or two more characters. Not sure if I'll really go beyond that. I think Cryptic did this to cut out hte EC stockpile in the game, however, I don't think they took into account that not everyone has a stockpile. A well executed sick for a resource should be placed so that it doesn't unfairly drain from those who don't have it. I would love it if they took all the EC stuff out of the rep system, and put it someplace like the starbases, maybe for defense outposts or personal quarters. Something that is cool, but not as necessary as the rep system.
And I agree with the dilithium costs on the projects. They are all inflated. Particularly the ones that don't actually give you anything, like the store unlocks. I'd be willing to live with the dilithium costs of the items, if dilithium was taken out of all projects, both rep and starbase, that didn't give an item directly. So for instance, no dilithium costs of rep store unlock projects, only for the guns in the store. And no dilithium costs for starbase and embassy leveling, only for the costs of the ships/items in the stores that they unlock. Otherwise, its basically paying twice for the same thing.
And yes, Romulan STFs please or anything that gives more than 15 romulan marks besides epohh farming.
Nouveau riche LTS member
Cryptic (supposedly) isn't selling those Zen points on the dilithium exchange.
It is other players; so the only difference is that they don't get your money; they get another persons money - in fact: they already have it.
I also agree with the OP on all points.
He's dead, Jim.
I have several characters, each with MK XII ship and ground gear from running STFs and completing MACO/Omega/KHG sets from when I played up to the early days of Season 6. And now I have to sit here and do reputation missions every 20 hours to unlock the tiers of reputation I should already have (edit: as all of my admirals/generals have been given plenty of marks to grind out that 2k rep job every day forever). All while spending additional expertise and EC (through the generation of the items needed for these).
I'd rather be able to do what I did before and play STFs for the chance at prototype tech and additional EDCs than mechanically repeat a bunch of user interface button pressing.
equal parts cynical and helpful
So...
The reputation costs at least 4.755.300,00EC. http://www.stowiki.org/Reputation_System
You say that this is to much money ... I say that is ONE good drop in a ESTF or Fleetevent. Or 8 Alien Artifact. Or 1-2 good purple doffs. OR 2 hours of Tour the Universe.
You whine that you must grind to much marks. You need 1526 marks.
That are 4!!! epohhs. Or 8-16 Winterland epohhs. OR 25x Tau Dewa Daily. Which is a 10min work. OR 40-80 Mine Trap, The Vault, Azure Nebula events.
For Omegamarks you only need to do 16-25 ESTF. Still, that is nothing. And that is for a new char. An older char has millions of EC, Dill, Doffs and Omegamarks so that the grind is even more reduced.
And you get free dill just for doing the projects. And when you get to T5, you get even more free dill and marks.
With only 1 hour per day, you can do the entire gathering for the reputation system AND still have EC; Marks AND Dillithium leftover.
Now comes the best thing. You don't need the equipement or passives.
Where's the problem?
The points where you are absolutly right is the inventory garbage, the boring filling of the projects and that Gold players should get a bonus for the rep system/marks farming.
I hope that the Zen/Dill exchanges drop to 25 so that I can change my 200.000 refined Dill. I like spending my EC and Dill on masterkeys :P
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
You exchange them for dillithium using the rep system ;-) Just stay away from the projects xD
And another thread that really shouldn't be called feedback, because again, no suggestions for improvements, just complaints.
For starters, you have 10 chars. Whose fault is that? Not S7s, not cryptics. Just yours. Secondly, you don't need to do the rep system. As you so kindly pointed out, the items apparently suck and aren't worth the grind. Solution? Don't do it. If you aren't willing to put the time and effort into doing it, then you don't deserve the rewards of having done so.
As someone pointed out in another thread, it really is pathetic how people, instead of saying: "What is the easiest way to do this?" or "What can one do to make this easier?" or "How can we do this well, is there a way to do this efficiently?", they say "Oh no, it costs too much make it cheaper!" or "It takes too long, make it shorter!" or my absolute favorite: long winded self-righteous instant gratification whiner posts like yours.
The reputation system is a commitment. It takes time. It takes resources. Is it worth it? To some yes. To others no. If you don't think the rewards are worth the cost, then don't get the rewards. If you aren't willing to sacrifice in order to get these rewards, you don't deserve them.
This game is F2P. So yes, it will be made to appeal more to F2P players. And as for this gold members should get a reduction bull-TRIBBLE? That's just astonishingly arrogant and pitiful.
Regardless of whether or not I agree with parts of your post (which I do), I am completely shut off by all the negativity and lack of constructive ANYTHING that makes up the rest of your post. So, don't take this the wrong way, but just suck it up and live with it.
The grindy-ness of the rep system is too much. Especially if you're in a fleet as well.
Then you have both of those combined. And embassy stuff.
The marks, I don't mind so much.
The dilithium costs... are obscene.
Inventory sinks... sounds funny. True tho.
I've never really felt as if I didn't have enough inventory slots. (aside from the bank)
I sure do now. Especially when I go out and try to buy 250 Photon Torpedo launcher MK I.
...:(
Really?
Then there are Radiation Reports. Epohh tags. Q pics. Rock samples. Crystal samples. plant samples.... on top of the old stuff like data samples, tribbles and food items.
Then, 2-8 STACKS of Industrial Energy Cells, Shield Generators, Large Hypos, Auxiliary Batteries, shield batteries and double the requirements on medium regenerators...
About the only thing I didn't agree with is the frustration of Elite STF's.
Frustration? No. Extreme burnout? yes.
Other than that, I think he's right.
And I loathe the changes to the doff grinder/recruiter. :mad:
I had to quote this part. It's the most telling thing...
I've been a lifer since beta. Have tons of alts. I can honestly say that I have never felt like what is described in the quote. Until recently.
For the first time in STO, I'd rather just get my projects done and log off.
I see the massive uphill trek up Mt. Grindy, and I lose all interest in playing ANY of my toons.
Also, I'm an altoholic. I'm always coming up with new concepts.
For the first time in any mmo I've played, I'm actually DELETING characters instead of creating more, lol
I guess I just feel defeated.
It's me, Chrome. [Join Date: May 2009]
"Oh, I may be captain by rank... but I never wanted to be anything else but an engineer." ~Montgomery Scott~
Op, your opinion was well written.
Now this:
Maybe you should go look up for the word "feedback" in a dictionnary and fix your intervention accordingly. I'm not english-speaking and even I know what a feedback is.
First of all, I congratulate you on knowing how to use a dictionary. But regardless of the definition of that word, this thread is nothing more than a whine fest and complaints. I see nothing constructive that would help the devs change anything.
Who believes Cryptic will release more than the obligatory handful short missions this year? - Thats the problem.
Let's talk about what real gameplay should be in a Star Trek MMO?
If you don't like grind then you really shouldn't play ANY MMO. WoW is one of the biggest MMO out there and it has a lot of marks, reps and gear grind.
True words. Having 10 chars and then complaining that it is time consuming equipping all of them xD
Here is the flip side... it may sound a little jerky... but please dismiss the jerkiness as I read and responded to a lot of these types of threads. I'm just cranky in general.. take it with stride.
The UI of the rep system is indeed annoying... it is tedious to purchase commodities and the UI is clumsy. However, I refuse to agree that obtaining EC is a problem. I agree that STFs will not award you all the necessary EC to advance the system everyday, but you do play other parts of the game right? I don't sign in to run an STF because I HAVE to and then log off... that sounds like a job. I do not play the market, though I have for kicks... I don't do it to make EC. I do enjoy running the other content, taking care of my characters 'business' (errand's etc..), testing out new gear or ideas. This is an MMO, a representation of the life of a person that is 1. fake, 2. experiences things not possible in real life and you get to be a part of it... ( I am NOT and RPer...).
That being said Starbase 24 is easy and takes less than 15mins. It's not like an STF as I could be half brain dead and still take first place. All you have to do is show up with an escort with decent weapons and spam CSV... survive.... and you take first place. Most other players are woefully under equipped in this game so it's a surprise to me to not get first place in SB24 even as I track it with a log parser on my second screen throughout the fight. Actually that can add fun as I get in a DPS race with someone... though they probably don't know it. Anyway you can easily pickup 100k EC per run and the right purples can go for around 300k to 3 million EC. I bet I have made at least 20 million EC from SB24 since season 7 dropped.
I never do tour the galaxy... waste of time and boring... Doing the foundry daily with the Battleship Royal Rumble mission generally rewards me 250k to 300K EC and takes about 10 minutes. Since I get so much EC, I just replicate the commodities instead of running around (I actually have a tuffli but it's not worth the time to switch ships).
The Tau Dewa daily does take a while, but awards 60 marks. At some point in the middle of tier 4 I had nearly 700 marks so I stopped running Romulan content and cruised through tier 5 on the reserves. I don't do the Romulan PVE queue missions because they do reward too little, I only do them for a change of pace when I want to play them. Its stupid, all that work for 20ish marks? NO.... and while New Romulus is beautiful and fun.... you have to press F5 way to much, every mission that has a percentage counter should have the amount of actions to reach 100% cut in half... just too much. So I agree with the Romulan mark grind. However I have over 2000 marks now due to the winter event Eepohs thingy and I don't know what to do with them. The gear in the Romulan side is not very attractive to me, I have my fleet weapons and the Borg Rep MKXII gear. I was more interested in the passives earned with each tier.
As far as dilithium, I NEVER meet the refinement cap and don't care to. I do donate DL to the starbase but only when I have over 300K and I feel like it. I have NEVER bought Zen with DL, see my sig. I rarely spend Dilithium on anything except major one time expenses such as moving to MK XII fleet weapons last season and getting the Omega MKXII ground set when I hit tier 5. Since I don't spend DL, I have hundreds of thousands of DL so I don't care about the costs of things. So.... say I didn't have money to spend on Zen, they haven't come out with anything really good to spend Zen on lately. I have been thinking about the regent, but I didn't jump at it like other ships. 2500 zen is a bit over the top.. Anyway, I would never spend DL to buy master keys as that would be a total waste, so I don't really understand the great Dilithium crisis especially since fleet actions reward it now and the Officer Reports has a 30 min cooldown. I just don't see what people are spending Zen (converted from DL) on, fleet modules? Fleet modules will probably be my next major expense, but that's why you tell people to get you PWE gift cards for the holidays... I got 11
I never ever used the upgrinder even prior to season 7, I donated all white and green DOffs to the starbase for fleet credits. My roster is mostly purple with a lot of blue still. All were obtained by playing the DOff game, completing the chains, exchanging officers/prisoners. Why the rush? I only have a few of the commendation categories maxed... no point... no rewards except for a purple DOff and a accolade/title... whooo hooo... When I want a doff with a slot-able ability, I buy them for 10, 20, or 30 million EC and move on. I see that you have trouble finding the missions... do you use the doff jobs and doff calls chat channels? That makes it face-rolling-ly easy...
Just a quick dig.... I fly a fleet patrol escort and rarely get one shotted in eSTFs. I'm not saying one shots don't happen, but if you are pounding the desk with a close fist and yelling "dang it, another one shot!" you are doing it wrong. I think the space ones are rather easy and I have fallen asleep during ISE... I don't see your side of the argument about running an eSTF (ok the ground ones suck) every few days for the heck of it to advance the reputation system. When you talk about them, there is a sense of dread or annoyance in your words... I run them for fun with my fleet mates.
I agree that gold accounts should get more value out of this game as well, but not sure how, I want more perks and I want the captains table to be useful again. My final conclusion is always the same, people want more for less which is perfectly fine. I just don't agree that it's as much work as people make it out to be. I was never under great pressure to advance the system, it never felt like 'work' or grind, not any more than any other game... and I am not some magically exceptional player... I suck.... That's what this is... a game. It wouldn't be a game if they just gave you everything easily.. it would be 'happy fun time in the star trek sandbox'
I'd say BF3 has more grind... you have to complete these stupid assignment like kill someone with a blow torch to get a stupid gun...
I can see where this is really going to be hard for new players to the game. So they will have to grind tons of EC in addition to the dilithium and omega marks. To top it off, they have crippled the new players from grinding EC through "Tour the Galaxy". The borg engine is vital for that. I am not even going to mention the grind they would have to do if they join a fleet.
What should have happened is link the borg set to a "required" STF tutorial. That way they get a decent space set and the knowledge to help them advance through the rep system.
Also, there are no very rare weapons available to new players. We use to get them with borg salvage. That is another EC expense they will have to incur. Why not use the borg neural processors in the same manner? Put the vendor back at DS9 or even New Romulus. If they wanted to, they could restrict the level to Mk X so it is just for the new players. That way they won't have to grind EC to get decent purple weapons off the exchange.
The rep system is an OK system. It could be better with lowering some of the costs. I have been at tier 5 on my main toon for about a week and a half. I have yet to buy one piece of gear from it, Romulan or Omega. I have a hard time grasping the concept of buying gear that we use to get awarded for basically free. Now, not only do I have to do the STFs to get the marks, I have to do the grind for EC and dilithium as well. I mean if I am going to have to spend dilithium I had just as soon spend it in my fleet store. I have already done the time grinding to get it to the level it is at now.
It's not "regardless" considering the context of your first intervention in which you said that what the Op wrote was not a feedback because it didn't offer any suggestion. Since when a suggestion is required when giving a feedback?
Going on numbers last updated in late November, this was not the case.
Diltihium levels haven't fallen since then, and as you can see quite a lot of hefty sources have even been left out of those listings. Contrary to popular zonechat rethoric, dilithium is not hard to come by, particularly for a reputation system that is designed around a minimum input of 3 hours per week.
But your biggest (and best) point is the devaluation of gold/life members.
For me that devaluation was a reason not to spent a dime more on this game, and that's not an effect PWE was aiming for, at least, I do hope they weren't aiming for that.
Last year alone I've spent close to a 1000 euros on this game, but after the ridiculous dil/fm/AA cap they've introduced with S7, the extra grinding they've put in, and the ridiculous costs for leveling fleet base/reputation, I simply refuse to give them more of my money. And somehow PWE doesn't (want??) to understand that they've gone a bit to far with their need for MOAR money
That fine line between ship or submarine
Why play?
If you are playing for the in-game pay-off, then you are probably never going to be happy no matter what changes the developers make. Now I've played MMO's for a long time (3 years EQOA, 3 years WoW, 2.5 years CoH with no overlap, plus numerous other MMO's in-between), and this is something that is true no matter what game we are talking about.
You need to actually enjoy the game itself. It doesn't make sense to place all your enjoyment in the value of dilithium rewards or gear or in-game items, because once you acquire that then what do you do? If the process of getting those said items isn't rewarding into and of itself, then you are quite simply wasting your time.
I log in, play some STFs, do a mission or two, check out the Foundry and have a great time doing that. I am not overly focused on the "finish line" or the "end result". I am focused on simply playing. I don't play with the purpose of acquiring the tokens or rewards, I acquire these items as a consequence of playing a game I enjoy. (But it took me almost 9 years of MMOing to figure that out.)
If you are feeling (as the original post suggests) the "need to grind" then that is on you. You don't have to grind. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to max out your reputations for all twenty of your characters. If you enjoy doing that then fine, but the tone here is that most of you don't....
So don't do it. It's really that simple.
I really don't envy the developers on arguments such as this. If they make progression too easy or too quick (i.e. less grindy), then people complain that there is no challenge. If they make it too challenging, then people complain that the game is too hard and they are not motivated to try. The problem is that one persone's version of adequate challenge is not the same as someone else's.
Regardless of challenge, if you are NOT enjoying what you are doing to overcome that challenge, then once again you are wasting your time.
6-12 ESTFs a day on each toon... done. Credits/Marks/Dil - easy. Now yes, if you have 10 toons... it's 5 times more effort than my 2 toons - but that math checks out.
My fleet is gradually working through the Starbase Projects, but it does get disheartening at times, especially when we've got our own gear to work on. Many may say "Don't join a fleet" or "Join a bigger fleet", but I don't see why we should have to, not joining a fleet would be another aspect of the game I'm missing out on and the projects should be scaled based on Fleet Size (unique account names).
The increase in cost of upgrading the DoFF's is insane and trying to earn EC by crafting seems pointless, unless your swimming in dilithium. I make a few kits now and then to sell and make my EC that way or through drops in STFs, Events etc but it would be nice to see an importance bought back to crafting.
In all honesty, the dilithium system has been implemented so poorly, we'd be better off without it. If Cryptic spent less time worrying about throwing out content and new over powered ships at us and more time spent on fine tuning what we have and working out the bugs etc, people would still continue to spend money because we'd be getting a better service.
I also agree on the Gold Members situation. I feel that the extra perks a gold member gets over a free player is not alot and a suggestion like getting a higher return on Marks, Dilithium with STF runs or a reduction on project costs would be nice.
A free service is still a service and you shouldn't have to accept something so poor at times and even more so for the ones like myself who have put money into this game, be it with LTS or Pay Monthly.
You'd think they read their forums, but half the time it feels that they read what people want and then give us the opposite. I hope S8 gives us alot more to cheer about.
I was away from the game for few months, left just before S7. Returned, installed, created a character. Played like 20-30 minuts and quit the game. Nothing has changed.
Quick scan through the missions: nope, nothing new. Look at PvP queues: nope, nothing new (or rather: no one, literally). Looked into inventory: yay, grind slots. Looked into C-Store: yay, new ships.
Content? Nope, no new content. Something new to PvP? Nope, nothing new to PvP (as in - there is no PvP at all, at least at start).
So my feedback on season 7 is definitely negative. S7 done nothing to make me want to return or to keep me playing. NOTHING. Repeating all the same, boring storyline I've gone through few dozen times without any hope on something new? No, thank you.
I read the description of season 7 and it's features. But it was so friggin dissapointing to see it with your own eyes.
Nonsense. I like that more things give dilithium than before. Its still not enough. As I said before season 5, they should have added it to EVERYTHING, not just end game content and dailies and the like.
However, the fact is that it currently takes more time to get the same dilithium (ignoring the foundry daily change). This means there is less dilithium available, because per time invested, you get less. Further, a lot more dilithium is needed than before, which again means less is available because it is a time limited currency.
Exactly what I have been asking myself. Why play at all? I've been here since closed beta and played this game through its dullest moments, leveling KDF characters when there was only PVP for them. I've put a lot of effort into offering feedback and pointing out ways to improve the game, wrote a few simple guides, put together the original ship database, and have published some well regarded foundry missions.
Yet I only did any of that because I wanted to play the game. I could play it and have fun. I can't do that now without the shadow of the grind looming over me, which means all the other things I could do that don't involve the grind are far less interesting to me.
It is a very strange dichotomy for sure. I could do things that don't involve grind, but I don't want to because of the very grind I would be avoiding. Perhaps that makes sense, or perhaps not, but that is how it is.
And you spend how much time in game? I am certain I don't have nearly as much time as you do. Before season 7, and even 5, I could spend the time I have in game and get more for my time, feel like I accomplished something, or TRIBBLE around and have fun and just put it off till later because its not some daunting grind that really needs to be dealt with regularly. Worse, is that because its largely time limited, if I DO have the time to really grind stuff, and want to work on a character I can only do so much at one time, like with Romulan marks.
I considered replying to your points, but the utter disrespect with which you presented them has overruled that thought.
You either did not read my entire post, or have no idea what "suggestions for improvements" actually means. I'm honestly confused because you then went on to claim one of those very suggestions ridiculous, with nothing to even support your assertion. So thank you for posting. Next time please read and comprehend what was written.
Ok. So for starters, allow me to call major BS on your claim that it takes longer to get Dil than before. Let's take your normal method of getting Dil... your average ESTF. Yes, it only gives 960 dil, but guess what, it gives 60-100+ omega marks. And guess what? You can turn those omega marks into dilithium. So your ESTF will actually have the potential to give you 1460-1960 dil, whereas the S6 ones only gave you 1100... hm... Also the difficulty and time it takes is about the same. Hm... I can really see how that's been reduced.
Next up, the dil mining daily. That's 7 minutes of your life that used to give 500 dil, a time taken that has never changed. Now it gives 1000. I can see how that's been greatly reduced. As for fleet actions? They used to give jack TRIBBLE in dil. Now they reliably give you 480-960 (plus another 960 if you are doing the fleet daily one). I can see how that's been greatly reduced as well.
I can see how dil income has been greatly reduced considering how horribly long it takes to get now. Thank you for the edification.
As for me commenting that you are just whining? Um... take a step back, get off your high horse, get your head out of your rear, and actually read your post. I gave you the benefit of the doubt, since I too am suffering from the dil sink (my zen income has dropped exponentially ever since I started the projects for the rep system... 32k for a piece of romulan/reman space gear HURTS...), but about 3 paragraphs in, I stopped taking you seriously, about halfway through your post my head hurt from the sheer amount of whining, and after I finished reading your post (yes bonehead, I actually read your whole post, and ironically enough a large amount of this entire thread too), I just couldn't understand why you could justify all that complaining.
You never asked how to make it easier to do. I know a ton of players that went through the rep system, got to tier 5, and NEVER complained. They looked around, found easy ways to get it done, and just did it. It's just frankly astonishing that you found almost NOTHING you liked about the new system.
Here's a few changes that were GOOD.
Reman mk XII purple set: now you don't have to grind the vault like a madman. You have a guaranteed (albeit rather long) method of getting that gear. You don't have to rely on your DOffs (many of which I know many of us wish we could shoot out an airlock), and you just need dil, exp, some power cells, replicators, and marks. All of which can be gotten with moderate ease (albeit the 32k dil is a little pricey, but hey, it's supposedly top end gear, so I guess it can be justified).
Omega Gear (mk XII): now guaranteed method of getting it. I can get it in the space of a few days, as opposed to weeks of running the same mission over and over and over, and being rewarded with the headache of someone else getting the proto tech and me being stuck with a few EDCs and some PoS blue drop.
That's two examples from each rep system of a change that was an improvement. And your thread is whining. Nothing more. Some players may agree with you, but there are others who like the fact that there is now a guaranteed way of getting these items. And as for the dil sink? Top of the line gear costs dil. Fleet gear, Spiral waves, other goodies. And since STF gear is considered high end and top of the line, guess what, it now costs equal to the rest of the gear in it's class.
Dilithium is surely easier to get, that must be why the market is crashing and the value is skyrocketing, right? Its not a contributing factor that everything costs dilithium now, things that did not cost dilithium before in the reputation system, nor that EDC, rare salvage, and even tech turn ins are gone did not contribute to that, neither is it relevant that marks can't be spent on dilithium if you are still chasing 4500+ marks to get through the reputation system and a single MK XII set. It can't be a contributing factor that people can't even get entry level purples any more without spending a ton of dilithium.
Dilithium is worth more now than ever before, not because its easier to get, but because it is scarce, very much so.
Now I don't know why you feel the need to get hostile because I have a different opinion and perspective than you do, but maybe you should take a step back and realize that season 7 is not fun for a lot of people, as can be seen in this thread. I've listed my issues, and offered suggestions for improvement, and all you have done is try to belittle my opinion and suggestions by claiming it is nothing but whining.
I am simply playing Devil's Advocate to your thread. You can't expect everyone to agree with you. I certainly don't on many points, but I fail to see how you can call me hostile. I am simply pointing out the failings in your posts.
The dilithium market is crashing because there are those who are buying zen by the boatloads because they are instant gratification players who want stuff now. That market is controlled by the player base, which is composed largely of instant gratification players who have no patience.
And if you really aren't having fun in Season 7, perhaps you should just stop playing for a while. Or just trudge along doing whatever.