Thats what im thinking, if the mission reward scales by length whats to stop people from making an empty room with 2 consoles, 1 to start the mission and 1 to end it with the player putting thier feet up and watching a movie for 2 hours between the 2 clicks, its stupid unless they put in a reward cap - which they probably will do
They must have known how much flack they would get over this change, if they didnt.....
Rewards are based on average play-time not an individual's time. You could stand around that 15 minute mission for two hours. You'll get a reward for playing a 15-minute mission, unless maybe there is a fleet of 100 folks just sitting around in that mission to increase its rewards.
Yet you leave out Kirksplat's post saying that he supports amosov78's idea
I did not leave out anything . I posted both kirksplat and cerberusfilms original (read : first) reactions .
If you're ashamed by something you see there go tell them that .
Of course you do, because if you didn't, it would undermine your attempts to revise history
I'll say again : no history was revised -- that was their first reaction . History begins at "A" , not at "B" or "C" .
"A" means first .
it would undermine your attempts to revise history to make it seem like Foundry authors want fleet progression nerfed.
I think that some Foundry authors are so caught up in their little world (and have so little in common with the average STO player) that indeed they do make demands that while it may make sense from their own perspective , it's short sighted and hurtful in the perspective of a larger player base .
Ppl did not complain in the main forum about Clicky's -- can you say the same about the Foundry forums ? No .
Same goes for AFK-ers , Grinders and anything that takes away from what some see as the "pure Foundry" .
I for one listened to PodcastUGC almost since it's inception and stopped only shorty after S.7 came out .
Why ? Because TerryLynn uttered the question "Why do you need Dilithium ?" (in a discussion about STF awards) .
It just accentuated to me that some ppl are playing a VERY different game then me and really ... after that question I stopped looking for common ground with them .
Next you can look up a certain closed thread by AJStoner about how the Grinders have Stolen the Foundry (no quotation marks sadly) .
And lastly , you're welcome to ready this introspective post by Kirksplat .
If this does not convince you that there are some out there who do not see anything beyond their "vision" (and the rest of the community be damned) , then I don't know what will .
But you know what , that's ok too .
I'm well aware that some can't be convinced , especially when emotions are involved . I'm guilty of that myself .
What concerns me is the distinct feeling of "ownership" this and other ppl feel toward the foundry .
They seem to advocate regulating the foundry with the same zeal SOPA supporters want to watch over the shoulder of the internets .
I find that disturbing .
I love klingon nebula, so should i be penalized for playing content i like?
No you shouldn't. But you also should not be rewarded for playing though a mission in which the bad guys don't shoot back. Yes I know that's been fixed, but it's still part of the larger point. The reward did not match the risk for most of these foundry grinder missions.
And yes I know there's not much risk in most PvE content, but difference between the grinders and normal PvE is pretty big.
I'm not happy about them removing the FM either, I played the spotlight missions and other longer missions because I enjoyed them, but getting Dil and FM's on top of that meant I could play what I wanted and still contribute to my fleet.
Now I have to make the choice, earn FM or play content I enjoy.
The big problem with how things worked however is the reward of 50 FM was way, way too high for a 15 minute mission. Everyone who posts complaining about the only good way to make marks is proof of that fact. The mistake was setting the reward that high and the requirements that low.
If they had started it with 25 marks with a 30 minute requirement you wouldn't of seen so many people playing grinders, because earning marks via the fleet events would of been faster.
You know, I really don't think this blame can be 100% squared on the shoulders of some Foundry authors. It's not likely a select few number of people can have that much influence over a particular part of this game, if that was the case then these forums should be unilaterally dictating every decision/indecision Cryptic makes which we can see on a daily basis is not the case at all.
A 'Knee-jerk' reaction is the best analogy, however it's more like the Doctor hitting your knee with that little hammer and instead of your knee jerking your arm does instead....still part of the body but totally unrelated to where the sensory input(i.e. 'problem') area is. People don't like doing Fleet Events, myself included. The rewards are not commensurate with the time/effort investment, they are old, stale, and there are too few maps/instances to maintain interest. They are not engaging. The Foundry offered a much more robust experience with many options for exploring new content with a very nice reward, and is/was repeatable so you could stay busy as long as you wanted, in theory. I was exploring more missions than I would have if the reward had not been implemented to that area of the game as I think a lot of players were, so it seems to me more Foundry authors would be HAPPY with that change, as more missions would be utilized in general. There are of course a few that we repeat many times in succession, but even that gets boring and we begin to feel the need to do something new - so we pick a new mission. I was just getting into the BOA missions too.
This is how Cryptic deals with issues - tweak something somewhere else in a meager attempt to balance something that is inherently unbalanced, rather than face the issue/problem head on and devise a real solution. This just breaks another part of the game, opens up another Pandora's box(no Master Key required) and sets forth the never ending cycle of failure-crafting that perpetuates threads like these, and feedback such as this. Will Cryptic ever learn? 3 years of experience with the above happening says 'no' IMO.
I couldnt give a rats-TRIBBLE about removing/scaling Dil from IOR. I get that from STFs/Contraband/VIP Mining Requisitions easily enough. Keep it.
The Fleet Mark change though, is BS, and will kill a lot of fleets
Remember that infographic of thousands of fleets, and millions of players? I'd sure like to be a fly on the wall at Cryptic when those numbers start to sink, after this Valentines Day Fleet Massacre...
Remember that infographic of thousands of fleets, and millions of players? I'd sure like to be a fly on the wall at Cryptic when those numbers start to sink, after this Valentines Day Fleet Massacre...
I hate to admit it but your right ...
Hopefully I'll come back from my break; this break is fun; I play intellectual games.
Wow, UGC and rewards used to entice players to experience UGC now causing dissension among the ranks? Whodathunkit? <breaks out the humongous sized bag of popcorn>
I've been playing STO since Closed Beta and still have yet to experience non-canon, fan-written fiction that is being tied into STO as "playable content" with the addition of in-game rewards tied to playing it.
I hold no grudges nor do I bear any ill-will towards Foundry authors who were given an outlet for their fan-fic writing passions. But I paid/pay Cryptic to provide me with playable STO content.
My fleet had a foundry fleet officer that led teams on foundry missions for fleet marks. I guess thats dead now.
Im kind of amused here. I opposed the elimination of the quicky daily log in bonuses and got shouted down about how it was this awful exploit. But people had a reason to log on, stick around and do fun things with friends. Well clickies were removed and all foundry missions had to be "15" minutes long to qualify for rewards. Just as I predicted, there came a new wave of afk foundry missions timed to last between 15-20 minutes while your bridge officers did the work or the player idled. These missions were the same thing as clickies really except that Cryptic saw a real need to waste their players time and force them to idle to get the rewards
I suppose if they time gate maximum rewards to over an hour or so there will be new foundry missions where players can idle for an hour to get their rewards while they play Diablo 3 in a 2nd window which is where Cryptic executives really want to see their player base.
Or I suppose that Cryptic could force players to play their horrid fleet mark missions and then watch them idle and play Diablo 3 in a 2nd window while the other 2-3 players that actually are doing something help the Diderex escape.
Id much rather see people idling in foundry missions that are out of the way than in the horrible cryptic missions that reward fleet marks that nobody likes playing more than 20-30 times.
Again, this progression is a huge blow to small fleet; which is an absolute boon to Cryptic and its desire to sell things because we know Cryptic just absolutely does not want people to get to tier 5 fleet yards, and actually have a reason to buy fleet modules and support Cryptic with financial resources.
You would think that if people got to tier 4 and 5 that they would buy dilithium to buy things from the fleet stores and buy fleet modules to buy ships. But Cryptic is against selling merchandise to its customers. No, you cannot buy things from us because you didnt earn the right to do it.
Im aghast at how these people just shoot themselves in the foot over and over and over and think the problem was that they aimed too low and they should should shoot themselves in the leg to solve the problem and get more bang for their bullet.
Sure make people idle for an hour instead of 15 minutes and gate their time. People will play as much as they always did. But they will have second windows open in Guildwars while they idle longer in foundry missions.
There are two options to solve this problem. Make a fun mission that people want to play and then pay them enough fleet marks and dilithium that they think its worth their time. Other than that expect more idling, more afk, and more griping about Cryptic stinkfest missions and chintzy rewards structures and more people having those magical multiple windows open to play games that are actually still fun.
People will still show up to contribute to a fleet, chat and hang out with friends. But I absolutely promise you that I have invites to dozens of teamspeak channels and every single one of them including has rooms where people go to play other games than STO and that wasnt true 2 years ago before all these time gates started pushing people into idling, afk play styles, and explorations of other fun venues where they could enjoy their leisure time while STO time gated their fun away into nothingness.
After returning 10 days ago from over a year and half away from STO, I came back for the simple reason that I am a Trek fan above all else. My small fleet and I started on our starbase and just recently completed Tier 1, when we found out that the fleet marks on IOR are gone. Well Cryptic, your PWE overlords have essentially killed our fleet starbase. This is a horribly adverse change to make because you're insuring the death knell of fleets just like ours.
We are now either forced to merge, disband, or continue without a starbase. Sounds like creating fun for players to me. Not.
I left over a year and a half ago because the dilithium change killed fleet crafting, and I hated the idea of dilithium and lockboxes in the first place. I felt that even if the game progressed, dark days were coming under PWE's watch, and I see I'm still justified in feeling that way now, as I was then.
It's bad enough on top of the original 300 bucks I had to spend on my lifer and my countless C-Store purchases over the years, that I've kicked in close to 100 dollars in dilithium just to get us out of tier 1. Now I get that you want EVERYONE spending money and want to make the game as oppressive a grind as possible, but couldn't you guys at least leave the fleet marks alone as some sort of relief?
Oh well, guess it's time for a fleet meeting to see if we're going to stay or not. Thanks a million, Cryptic and PWE. Way to make your players have the incentive to stick around.
~ Supreme (aka Krath/Astarsha)
Lifetime subber and former STO player from when it didn't suck.
I did not leave out anything . I posted both kirksplat and cerberusfilms original (read : first) reactions .
If you're ashamed by something you see there go tell them that .
I said that I'm glad FMs are being removed from Foundry, not that I'm happy that you guys aren't getting a different source. You should be able to earn all the FMs you want by doing fleet things, like fleet actions.
Foundry missions are mostly written as solo story content. In fact, teaming is subject to 2 year old bugs, like the dialogue boxes disappearing when another player completes it, etc.
If you need endless fleet marks so that you can have a new place to check your mail next to Drozana Station or have some shiny, go for it. Do things as a fleet or do fleet things as a fleet member.
I simply agree with the spirit of the devs' decision. It makes no sense that the highest payout of FMs comes from something other than fleet actions, STFs, or other teaming missions.
All this to appease a small minority of foundry authors who complained about there story missions not getting played enough. Good job, anger the majority to appease a small minority.
Its funny too because nobody will play their stupid missions now either. We'll just make new missions that are long to grind dil.....
Or it will be nerfed so badly that noboty will do foundry missions at all...
How dare you use facts and actually written evidence to support you position. Don't you know that is not allowed on the interwebs!!
Back on topic, this whole fiasco is just another case of the iron law of oligarchy.
How the Devs see Star Trek, apparently:
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
I simply agree with the spirit of the devs' decision. It makes no sense that the highest payout of FMs comes from something other than fleet actions, STFs, or other teaming missions.
Yes... BUT NOT COMPLETELY REMOVE THEM?!
Hopefully I'll come back from my break; this break is fun; I play intellectual games.
I've been following the debate over the Foundry rewards and it seems the latest solution is going to prove just as controversial as the previous IOR 'fixes'.
We won't know until the server comes back up what Cryptic has planned but I've been thinking about what would encourage me to play some of the longer, story-driven missions in terms of rewards and I thought I'd throw in my two cents.
Make Foundry missions reward only XP and ECs
Many players (particularly new ones) are looking for ways to make large amounts of ECs and XP - currently if you run Royal Rumble (or similar), you can make around a million ECs in an hour and I think that should be the reward for an hour-long Foundry mission.
Tour the Universe as a comparison can award slightly more than that (if you're really fast/know the tricks) but that only comes around once a day.
This won't imbalance the EC economy (any more than it is) since currently you can get the same EC rewards for the same length of play in the 'grinder' missions.
Regarding XP, the biggest XP generator in the game, the Mirror Universe event is again, daily, not always at a great time but rewards approximately 112500 XP for an hour's worth of play - a one-hour Foundry mission should do the same.
And let's face it, who really cares about XP? It's already stupid-fast to level-up to 50 so it's not going to mess anything up for Cryptic, what it will do is give new players, who are probably short on XP for the Rep system and Starbase projects an alternative source of large amounts of XP to the Mirror Event or just grinding.
No loot drops in Foundry missions
If you're getting a one million EC payout for running a one-hour Foundry mission, there's simply no need for loot drops - especially since all the loot is vendor-trash anyway.
Rewards scaled on a curve
Like the radiation-scan mini-game, perhaps these rewards should be on a curve so the longer the mission takes the bigger the reward (capping at the aforementioned 1 million EC and 112500 XP).
if the mission takes longer than an hour you don't get anything extra - I think that's a positive since (hopefully) it'll mean Foundry authors are a little more time-concious in creating their missions and break them up into 45min-to-1hour 'episodes'.
But if the mission is really short (5 mins or so) the rewards will be minimal since you're at the bottom of the curve - I think that's fair.
Spotlighted Missions
These should be on a daily wrapper and rotated weekly. Through the wrapper, extra rewards can be given - these should be a choice of Dilithium or Fleet Marks (a sensible amount - maybe 1920 Dil or 100 Fleet Marks. As an added incentive to play the spotlight mission, it should also reward 1 Lobi Crystal.
Those are my thoughts - something like this could really cut down on the 'grinder' missions but reward players a similar amount of XP/EC/Dil/FM for the time invested (which wouldn't be more than they'd spend grinding).
(posted here since my original thread got modded into a black hole in the Foundry forum).
I just don't understand why they even care if we gain a bunch of fleet marks quickly. You can't buy them for real money.
The faster you earn FM the more dilithium a fleet will need (something you can buy with real money).
The faster a fleet gets to T5 the faster people will be buying ship modules (also something you can buy for real money).
You would think they would make Fleet marks spring out of the ground as we walk.
Face the facts cryptic, you don't know how to write missions any more (2800 multiplayer... nuff said), you have no ideas for content.
Even when you introduce something to a game that writes its own story, you dont. Temporal vessels, where's the story line missions for that. Ferengi boxes introduced, no ferengi missions. Come on, really?
So what's left? Neato gear and a grind fest. At least with the foundry we got to play someone else mindnumbing brainless FM grind to add on to the 4 stale mindnumbing brainless FM grinds you gave us over 6 months ago.
At least, with FM farming, you had a way to speed up our spending of real money which we didn't realize we were doing to ourselves and you want to stop that as well. Pure Genius!
I almost wish I could go back to right when Atari was selling STO. And yes, we had no content, and true, there was no word on what was coming. But what we had was hope. Hope that when the "Great Darkness" was over we would have weekly FE's like we were promised. Hope that new story-line content would flow like Romulan Ale at a party. Hope for a newly invigorated staff happy to be owned by a company that actually wanted the STO IP.
I miss hope. What I have are lockboxes and bugs that range from relatively new (conversion type ships not converting properly or converting for no reason like Garumba and Chimera) to bugs that have been here since release (clipping issues as in untagetable ships usually borg spheres melding into other objects, Andorian Dueling system, etc) with no fix in sight.
I think the main problem here is that Cryptic and the players have radically different ideas about the intent of the fleet advancement system and how it's supposed to work.
Cryptic's goal is to force players to create large, active fleets that are capable of farming out the resources needed for upgrades on a casual basis. This is their vision, and they will take action to force everyone into that vision. the Foundry changes and the tricobalt changes are just the latest.
There's nothing wrong with the developers encouraging a specific playstyle. It is, after all, their game to modify. I only wish that they would speak more plainly to the playerbase about their goals and intentions.
Additionally, if forcing players to create large fleets is a priority, why not give them some tools to manage players more effectively. A new fleet roster UI and ability to export roster data to excel would be much appreciated features.
You should be able to earn all the FMs you want by doing fleet things, like fleet actions.
But most people don't actually do those events as a fleet. I mean mine has times set up for that but most of the time it's part of a PUG.
Although this wouldn't be quite so bad if they added some more ways to get marks in the first place. The Fleet events are fun, but only for so long.
There's really two issues here.
1) Should solo content reward fleet marks at all? I think it should, same way solo content rewards Dilithium which also needed for the SB. Rewards should never be limited to only one type of game play. That also means FM's should be added to all STF's.
2) Can people make enough FM's to advance their base with this change? Well frankly yes. It may not be as quick, but the fact is progress is never lost, so it's not like you're going actually lose ground or anything, just it will take longer to get there.
So IMO the change that needs to be made, is add FM's in again, but tie them to the same type of system that they're going to use for Dilithium, with the number of marks tied to the length of the mission.
Well, they just made Foundry Missions not worth playing at all. Why not just eliminate them.:mad:
I'll still play them because I enjoyed the ones I've played so far. Just I'll not play them nearly as often as I had been so far. Which means a net loss to the foundry authors because those missions, even the long story driven ones will be played less often now.
Worst change ever.. all the missions left that award fleet marks are super boring, repetitive, often have afk'er problems and reward way to little for the time spend.
Having fleetmark rewards at that foundry quest was also the only thing that really gave an incentive to play some missions, now the foundry rewards seem to be down to tiny rewards that can be earned in a dozen other places.
@Itsrob: We knew this was coming, Rob. People were rightly nervous when PWE acquired Cyptic, and remember most of us back then called it on the old forum that this was gonna turn into a very large grindfest in a Star Trek shell, and that any growth the game had would be undoubtedly to the simple end of generating revenue, not artistic vision by the developer.
I suspect had Cryptic itself had the means to do what they had wanted to do with the game, we would have a very different game and free to play system.
Sad, thinking of what could have been.
Lifetime subber and former STO player from when it didn't suck.
It's absolutely mind-boggling why foundry authors would crusade against the grinder missions in the first place. Like if all these people would now start playing their beloved story missions :rolleyes:
maybe this is what they meant by Star Trek Into Darkness.
LOL!!!!!
I love you now (in a purely platonic sense of course )
How the Devs see Star Trek, apparently:
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
How many "last nail" threads have there been in 3yrs...just wondering...:rolleyes:
Assimilation..does a body good...:P
"Sips her PWE Koolaide and looks at alllll the goodies in the Z store"
Badname Betty (PvP...PvE...STF...Trophy Hunter...Latnium Collector...Federation)
Commander Morgana (PvP...PvE...STF...KDF)
1000 day vet and LTS
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] STO Join date: 7 Feb 2010
Comments
Rewards are based on average play-time not an individual's time. You could stand around that 15 minute mission for two hours. You'll get a reward for playing a 15-minute mission, unless maybe there is a fleet of 100 folks just sitting around in that mission to increase its rewards.
I did not leave out anything . I posted both kirksplat and cerberusfilms original (read : first) reactions .
If you're ashamed by something you see there go tell them that .
I'll say again : no history was revised -- that was their first reaction . History begins at "A" , not at "B" or "C" .
"A" means first .
I think that some Foundry authors are so caught up in their little world (and have so little in common with the average STO player) that indeed they do make demands that while it may make sense from their own perspective , it's short sighted and hurtful in the perspective of a larger player base .
Ppl did not complain in the main forum about Clicky's -- can you say the same about the Foundry forums ? No .
Same goes for AFK-ers , Grinders and anything that takes away from what some see as the "pure Foundry" .
I for one listened to PodcastUGC almost since it's inception and stopped only shorty after S.7 came out .
Why ? Because TerryLynn uttered the question "Why do you need Dilithium ?" (in a discussion about STF awards) .
It just accentuated to me that some ppl are playing a VERY different game then me and really ... after that question I stopped looking for common ground with them .
Next you can look up a certain closed thread by AJStoner about how the Grinders have Stolen the Foundry (no quotation marks sadly) .
And lastly , you're welcome to ready this introspective post by Kirksplat .
If this does not convince you that there are some out there who do not see anything beyond their "vision" (and the rest of the community be damned) , then I don't know what will .
But you know what , that's ok too .
I'm well aware that some can't be convinced , especially when emotions are involved . I'm guilty of that myself .
What concerns me is the distinct feeling of "ownership" this and other ppl feel toward the foundry .
They seem to advocate regulating the foundry with the same zeal SOPA supporters want to watch over the shoulder of the internets .
I find that disturbing .
No you shouldn't. But you also should not be rewarded for playing though a mission in which the bad guys don't shoot back. Yes I know that's been fixed, but it's still part of the larger point. The reward did not match the risk for most of these foundry grinder missions.
And yes I know there's not much risk in most PvE content, but difference between the grinders and normal PvE is pretty big.
I'm not happy about them removing the FM either, I played the spotlight missions and other longer missions because I enjoyed them, but getting Dil and FM's on top of that meant I could play what I wanted and still contribute to my fleet.
Now I have to make the choice, earn FM or play content I enjoy.
The big problem with how things worked however is the reward of 50 FM was way, way too high for a 15 minute mission. Everyone who posts complaining about the only good way to make marks is proof of that fact. The mistake was setting the reward that high and the requirements that low.
If they had started it with 25 marks with a 30 minute requirement you wouldn't of seen so many people playing grinders, because earning marks via the fleet events would of been faster.
A 'Knee-jerk' reaction is the best analogy, however it's more like the Doctor hitting your knee with that little hammer and instead of your knee jerking your arm does instead....still part of the body but totally unrelated to where the sensory input(i.e. 'problem') area is. People don't like doing Fleet Events, myself included. The rewards are not commensurate with the time/effort investment, they are old, stale, and there are too few maps/instances to maintain interest. They are not engaging. The Foundry offered a much more robust experience with many options for exploring new content with a very nice reward, and is/was repeatable so you could stay busy as long as you wanted, in theory. I was exploring more missions than I would have if the reward had not been implemented to that area of the game as I think a lot of players were, so it seems to me more Foundry authors would be HAPPY with that change, as more missions would be utilized in general. There are of course a few that we repeat many times in succession, but even that gets boring and we begin to feel the need to do something new - so we pick a new mission. I was just getting into the BOA missions too.
This is how Cryptic deals with issues - tweak something somewhere else in a meager attempt to balance something that is inherently unbalanced, rather than face the issue/problem head on and devise a real solution. This just breaks another part of the game, opens up another Pandora's box(no Master Key required) and sets forth the never ending cycle of failure-crafting that perpetuates threads like these, and feedback such as this. Will Cryptic ever learn? 3 years of experience with the above happening says 'no' IMO.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The o3 - Killed you good
The Fleet Mark change though, is BS, and will kill a lot of fleets
Remember that infographic of thousands of fleets, and millions of players? I'd sure like to be a fly on the wall at Cryptic when those numbers start to sink, after this Valentines Day Fleet Massacre...
Ninth Fleet - 20 years, from SFC2:EAW to STO and still going strong...
I hate to admit it but your right ...
I hope STO get's better ...
I've been playing STO since Closed Beta and still have yet to experience non-canon, fan-written fiction that is being tied into STO as "playable content" with the addition of in-game rewards tied to playing it.
I hold no grudges nor do I bear any ill-will towards Foundry authors who were given an outlet for their fan-fic writing passions. But I paid/pay Cryptic to provide me with playable STO content.
Im kind of amused here. I opposed the elimination of the quicky daily log in bonuses and got shouted down about how it was this awful exploit. But people had a reason to log on, stick around and do fun things with friends. Well clickies were removed and all foundry missions had to be "15" minutes long to qualify for rewards. Just as I predicted, there came a new wave of afk foundry missions timed to last between 15-20 minutes while your bridge officers did the work or the player idled. These missions were the same thing as clickies really except that Cryptic saw a real need to waste their players time and force them to idle to get the rewards
I suppose if they time gate maximum rewards to over an hour or so there will be new foundry missions where players can idle for an hour to get their rewards while they play Diablo 3 in a 2nd window which is where Cryptic executives really want to see their player base.
Or I suppose that Cryptic could force players to play their horrid fleet mark missions and then watch them idle and play Diablo 3 in a 2nd window while the other 2-3 players that actually are doing something help the Diderex escape.
Id much rather see people idling in foundry missions that are out of the way than in the horrible cryptic missions that reward fleet marks that nobody likes playing more than 20-30 times.
Again, this progression is a huge blow to small fleet; which is an absolute boon to Cryptic and its desire to sell things because we know Cryptic just absolutely does not want people to get to tier 5 fleet yards, and actually have a reason to buy fleet modules and support Cryptic with financial resources.
You would think that if people got to tier 4 and 5 that they would buy dilithium to buy things from the fleet stores and buy fleet modules to buy ships. But Cryptic is against selling merchandise to its customers. No, you cannot buy things from us because you didnt earn the right to do it.
Im aghast at how these people just shoot themselves in the foot over and over and over and think the problem was that they aimed too low and they should should shoot themselves in the leg to solve the problem and get more bang for their bullet.
Sure make people idle for an hour instead of 15 minutes and gate their time. People will play as much as they always did. But they will have second windows open in Guildwars while they idle longer in foundry missions.
There are two options to solve this problem. Make a fun mission that people want to play and then pay them enough fleet marks and dilithium that they think its worth their time. Other than that expect more idling, more afk, and more griping about Cryptic stinkfest missions and chintzy rewards structures and more people having those magical multiple windows open to play games that are actually still fun.
People will still show up to contribute to a fleet, chat and hang out with friends. But I absolutely promise you that I have invites to dozens of teamspeak channels and every single one of them including has rooms where people go to play other games than STO and that wasnt true 2 years ago before all these time gates started pushing people into idling, afk play styles, and explorations of other fun venues where they could enjoy their leisure time while STO time gated their fun away into nothingness.
We are now either forced to merge, disband, or continue without a starbase. Sounds like creating fun for players to me. Not.
I left over a year and a half ago because the dilithium change killed fleet crafting, and I hated the idea of dilithium and lockboxes in the first place. I felt that even if the game progressed, dark days were coming under PWE's watch, and I see I'm still justified in feeling that way now, as I was then.
It's bad enough on top of the original 300 bucks I had to spend on my lifer and my countless C-Store purchases over the years, that I've kicked in close to 100 dollars in dilithium just to get us out of tier 1. Now I get that you want EVERYONE spending money and want to make the game as oppressive a grind as possible, but couldn't you guys at least leave the fleet marks alone as some sort of relief?
Oh well, guess it's time for a fleet meeting to see if we're going to stay or not. Thanks a million, Cryptic and PWE. Way to make your players have the incentive to stick around.
~ Supreme (aka Krath/Astarsha)
Fed: Astarsha, level 60 tactical officer
KDF: K'tana level 54 tactical officer
I said that I'm glad FMs are being removed from Foundry, not that I'm happy that you guys aren't getting a different source. You should be able to earn all the FMs you want by doing fleet things, like fleet actions.
Foundry missions are mostly written as solo story content. In fact, teaming is subject to 2 year old bugs, like the dialogue boxes disappearing when another player completes it, etc.
If you need endless fleet marks so that you can have a new place to check your mail next to Drozana Station or have some shiny, go for it. Do things as a fleet or do fleet things as a fleet member.
I simply agree with the spirit of the devs' decision. It makes no sense that the highest payout of FMs comes from something other than fleet actions, STFs, or other teaming missions.
Its funny too because nobody will play their stupid missions now either. We'll just make new missions that are long to grind dil.....
Or it will be nerfed so badly that noboty will do foundry missions at all...
Good job devs....
How dare you use facts and actually written evidence to support you position. Don't you know that is not allowed on the interwebs!!
Back on topic, this whole fiasco is just another case of the iron law of oligarchy.
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
Yes... BUT NOT COMPLETELY REMOVE THEM?!
I hope STO get's better ...
We won't know until the server comes back up what Cryptic has planned but I've been thinking about what would encourage me to play some of the longer, story-driven missions in terms of rewards and I thought I'd throw in my two cents.
Make Foundry missions reward only XP and ECs
Many players (particularly new ones) are looking for ways to make large amounts of ECs and XP - currently if you run Royal Rumble (or similar), you can make around a million ECs in an hour and I think that should be the reward for an hour-long Foundry mission.
Tour the Universe as a comparison can award slightly more than that (if you're really fast/know the tricks) but that only comes around once a day.
This won't imbalance the EC economy (any more than it is) since currently you can get the same EC rewards for the same length of play in the 'grinder' missions.
Regarding XP, the biggest XP generator in the game, the Mirror Universe event is again, daily, not always at a great time but rewards approximately 112500 XP for an hour's worth of play - a one-hour Foundry mission should do the same.
And let's face it, who really cares about XP? It's already stupid-fast to level-up to 50 so it's not going to mess anything up for Cryptic, what it will do is give new players, who are probably short on XP for the Rep system and Starbase projects an alternative source of large amounts of XP to the Mirror Event or just grinding.
No loot drops in Foundry missions
If you're getting a one million EC payout for running a one-hour Foundry mission, there's simply no need for loot drops - especially since all the loot is vendor-trash anyway.
Rewards scaled on a curve
Like the radiation-scan mini-game, perhaps these rewards should be on a curve so the longer the mission takes the bigger the reward (capping at the aforementioned 1 million EC and 112500 XP).
if the mission takes longer than an hour you don't get anything extra - I think that's a positive since (hopefully) it'll mean Foundry authors are a little more time-concious in creating their missions and break them up into 45min-to-1hour 'episodes'.
But if the mission is really short (5 mins or so) the rewards will be minimal since you're at the bottom of the curve - I think that's fair.
Spotlighted Missions
These should be on a daily wrapper and rotated weekly. Through the wrapper, extra rewards can be given - these should be a choice of Dilithium or Fleet Marks (a sensible amount - maybe 1920 Dil or 100 Fleet Marks. As an added incentive to play the spotlight mission, it should also reward 1 Lobi Crystal.
Those are my thoughts - something like this could really cut down on the 'grinder' missions but reward players a similar amount of XP/EC/Dil/FM for the time invested (which wouldn't be more than they'd spend grinding).
(posted here since my original thread got modded into a black hole in the Foundry forum).
The faster you earn FM the more dilithium a fleet will need (something you can buy with real money).
The faster a fleet gets to T5 the faster people will be buying ship modules (also something you can buy for real money).
You would think they would make Fleet marks spring out of the ground as we walk.
Face the facts cryptic, you don't know how to write missions any more (2800 multiplayer... nuff said), you have no ideas for content.
Even when you introduce something to a game that writes its own story, you dont. Temporal vessels, where's the story line missions for that. Ferengi boxes introduced, no ferengi missions. Come on, really?
So what's left? Neato gear and a grind fest. At least with the foundry we got to play someone else mindnumbing brainless FM grind to add on to the 4 stale mindnumbing brainless FM grinds you gave us over 6 months ago.
At least, with FM farming, you had a way to speed up our spending of real money which we didn't realize we were doing to ourselves and you want to stop that as well. Pure Genius!
I almost wish I could go back to right when Atari was selling STO. And yes, we had no content, and true, there was no word on what was coming. But what we had was hope. Hope that when the "Great Darkness" was over we would have weekly FE's like we were promised. Hope that new story-line content would flow like Romulan Ale at a party. Hope for a newly invigorated staff happy to be owned by a company that actually wanted the STO IP.
I miss hope. What I have are lockboxes and bugs that range from relatively new (conversion type ships not converting properly or converting for no reason like Garumba and Chimera) to bugs that have been here since release (clipping issues as in untagetable ships usually borg spheres melding into other objects, Andorian Dueling system, etc) with no fix in sight.
Cryptic's goal is to force players to create large, active fleets that are capable of farming out the resources needed for upgrades on a casual basis. This is their vision, and they will take action to force everyone into that vision. the Foundry changes and the tricobalt changes are just the latest.
There's nothing wrong with the developers encouraging a specific playstyle. It is, after all, their game to modify. I only wish that they would speak more plainly to the playerbase about their goals and intentions.
Additionally, if forcing players to create large fleets is a priority, why not give them some tools to manage players more effectively. A new fleet roster UI and ability to export roster data to excel would be much appreciated features.
But most people don't actually do those events as a fleet. I mean mine has times set up for that but most of the time it's part of a PUG.
Although this wouldn't be quite so bad if they added some more ways to get marks in the first place. The Fleet events are fun, but only for so long.
There's really two issues here.
1) Should solo content reward fleet marks at all? I think it should, same way solo content rewards Dilithium which also needed for the SB. Rewards should never be limited to only one type of game play. That also means FM's should be added to all STF's.
2) Can people make enough FM's to advance their base with this change? Well frankly yes. It may not be as quick, but the fact is progress is never lost, so it's not like you're going actually lose ground or anything, just it will take longer to get there.
So IMO the change that needs to be made, is add FM's in again, but tie them to the same type of system that they're going to use for Dilithium, with the number of marks tied to the length of the mission.
Well, we will have to see how the "scaling" system works. This actually may be a great boon for dil farmers.
OR, more likely you are correct, nobody will play foundry missions anymore....
some of us go , some of us do not. Why? Bug. We all press engage , and one person ques the team. But noooo ... still does not happen.
I hope STO get's better ...
I'll still play them because I enjoyed the ones I've played so far. Just I'll not play them nearly as often as I had been so far. Which means a net loss to the foundry authors because those missions, even the long story driven ones will be played less often now.
Having fleetmark rewards at that foundry quest was also the only thing that really gave an incentive to play some missions, now the foundry rewards seem to be down to tiny rewards that can be earned in a dozen other places.
I suspect had Cryptic itself had the means to do what they had wanted to do with the game, we would have a very different game and free to play system.
Sad, thinking of what could have been.
Fed: Astarsha, level 60 tactical officer
KDF: K'tana level 54 tactical officer
STO Pitch Black?
Maybe we'll all be surprised and find out Cryptics brought fun back to the game.*blinkblink, lifts head from keyboard* Oh, it was only a dream...
(( I find it scary I'm reading this thread while listening to Daft Punks End of Line from Tron Legacy. Premonition? ))
LOL!!!!!
I love you now (in a purely platonic sense of course
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
Assimilation..does a body good...:P
Badname Betty (PvP...PvE...STF...Trophy Hunter...Latnium Collector...Federation)
Commander Morgana (PvP...PvE...STF...KDF)
1000 day vet and LTS
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] STO Join date: 7 Feb 2010
Olivia, your sense of timing on the witticism is wonderful. You're equally as entertaining in ESD chat.
I agree wholeheartedly, btw.
Fed: Astarsha, level 60 tactical officer
KDF: K'tana level 54 tactical officer