Cryptic MADE this "exploit" in the first place, and now they have taken away something that was in game.
Thats what this is about, in the end. You cannot put something like this in game only to take it away later and say "We didnt want it there in the first place"
Well then... WHY THE F DID YOU PUT IT IN?!?!
[SIGPIC]InGame - @Darth_Tauri[/SIGPIC]
Joined - 9/2011
"You Best Make Peace With Your Dear & Fluffy Lord" - Malcolm Reynolds
Cryptic MADE this "exploit" in the first place, and now they have taken away something that was in game.
Thats what this is about, in the end. You cannot put something like this in game only to take it away later and say "We didnt want it there in the first place"
Well then... WHY THE F DID YOU PUT IT IN?!?!
They put the FM in during Fleet week to be nice to players.
Cryptic MADE this "exploit" in the first place, and now they have taken away something that was in game.
Thats what this is about, in the end. You cannot put something like this in game only to take it away later and say "We didnt want it there in the first place"
Well then... WHY THE F DID YOU PUT IT IN?!?!
Easy
They were looking at a way to make the Foundry more attractive and at the same time fixing the hundreds of posts about lack of FM, they just tried to kill 2 birds with one stone and ended up being a lot more popular than they liked. Much to the detriment of the players who enjoy doing the other FM content.
A lot of stuff like this is simple if you approach it rationally rather than in a blind rage.
Foundry: Updated the display name and description for the Cheer animations to more accurately describe them.
Resolved an issue that prevented music from playing in Foundry missions until combat was initiated.
The Foundry daily missions have been replaced.
The existing daily missions have been removed.
Now, all qualifying Foundry missions will automatically reward a scaling amount of Dilithium and skill points/expertise.
Dilithium will be rewarded based on the average playtime of the mission.
All spotlight missions will reward the same as a qualifying mission, with two exceptions: Once every 24 hours, the first spotlight mission completed in that time frame will get a bonus 1440 Dilithium. Once every 24 hours, the first spotlight mission completed in that time frame will get a scaling amount of Energy Credits, based on the player's level.
So just out of curiosity, who picks the spotlight mission? I mean, if I want to make the 1440 daily, I have to play a Foundry mission I probably won't like as I'm primarily a space rather than ground player.
Will there be Spotlight Foundry missions for those of us who don't really care for ground missions so we can make the daily 1440 dilithium??
Or, being only 50% of the player base we're a small minority as well...
Anything to the players benefit: Nerf. Anything to Cryptics benefit: Never gets fixed.
There will be workarounds of Foundry missions within days and people will be going AFK in record time. This has solved nothing at all except disgruntle even more of the player base.
I never really thought the foundry should have marks, but it was a good way for them to get marks to players that needed to earn them.
The S6 fleet content is so dated already, these things were designed to give us marks for tier 0 and tier 1 starbases. Now working on tier 5, the amount rewarded for a full 5 person team is so low that if you all spent a full 2 hours as an expert group during the event you'd maybe fill two of the daily missions up, but probably not, and you have 5 plus upgrades and specials to look at too. I'd imagine average players would probably not fill one up.
They would need to literally double the mark rewards, remove the artificial mark caps in the missions and raise the bottom end of marks earned by those not entirely successful.
Look at the missions
Fleet defense can earn 92 marks for a perfect score, its rare and it takes 20+ mins. With 20 people groups you are guaranteed to get a lot of bad players. The low end scores are literally 0. Bump the bottom to a minimium and raise the perfect to double.
Blockade is limited by the very slow timing of freighters coming into the system, 18 freighters is a typical max for about 54 marks in the event, sometimes you are lucky and get 21 but its very rare. A typical pug probably saves 6 from what I've seen, skilled players rarely get below 18. The reward increases with the more freighters you save so you need to get 18 for any value.. 6 gets you nearly nothing. The top end should be doubled, its on a 15 min timer, you just can't do it faster, the bottom end needs some kind of participation marks.
Fleet alert is crazy easy, it yields 20-25 marks in the event? Not even worth ones time, a pro team will take it out in 6 mins, pugs can struggle to beat it. Flat doubling it is fair, I really don't think anyone would play this bore fest if it weren't for accolades.
No win scenario is the most under performing mission ever. A typical pug is going to hit wave 4/5 and get rewarded very poorly. A pro team is going to hit wave 8 and barely get anything extra. These rewards need to scale to extreme amounts, reward extreme skill with a lot of marks.
Colony Invasion can't be failed, but its very buggy. The diplomats need a total rework because some just don't count now, and sometimes they count twice, and the bug that being shot or having them run out of range while you tag them makes them disappear and not count. Its a 6-7min mission for a good team but only rewards 25ish marks.. no accolades, not worth doing really.
Incursion is frustrating. You have artificially capped how well a team can do in round 1, it resets the saboteur count to a maximum, the best a team can do it 54 marks and its super rare. To get 5 people to cover each area in round 1 is impossible in a pug, it just won't ever happen, round 2 can be done by 2 people (even 1 really) and round 3 is a TRIBBLE shoot even with a good team. The borg and undine enemies are terribly out of character as well. Remove the cap and double the rewards, especially for rounds 2-3 since they give nearly nothing. The bugs still exist where you can make the mission unbeatable. Who would want to play this with all they have to put up with?
A better idea than a flat out reward boost is to boost the rewards with the tier of enemy you are fighting. This would of course lead to anger at constantly getting those tier 0 enemies over and over when people trying to get marks. It'd be nice if there was a group vote at the start of each mission on enemy type.
So just out of curiosity, who picks the spotlight mission? I mean, if I want to make the 1440 daily, I have to play a Foundry mission I probably won't like as I'm primarily a space rather than ground player.
Will there be Spotlight Foundry missions for those of us who don't really care for ground missions so we can make the daily 1440 dilithium??
Or, being only 50% of the player base we're a small minority as well...
Branflakes picks a spotlight mission every week, you can pick and choose which Spotlight mission to play for the daily.
They were looking at a way to make the Foundry more attractive and at the same time fixing the hundreds of posts about lack of FM, they just tried to kill 2 birds with one stone and ended up being a lot more popular than they liked. Much to the detriment of the players who enjoy doing the other FM content.
A lot of stuff like this is simple if you approach it rationally rather than in a blind rage.
No blind rage, ive stated my rather logical point of view already in previous posts, but poeple calling this an exploit are just dumb, it was an exploit because Cryptic made it one, all they had to do was kick the timer back to 24 hours and we would still be cool.
The fleet marks are the only reason I continued to do the foundry missions, now they have made it extremely hard to get them, since the PVE actions suck for mark output.
By your logic, the fleet actions are an exploit, something I can do every half hour to get marks... maybe they should nerf that too, oh wait, the output is such TRIBBLE that no one wants to play them.
[SIGPIC]InGame - @Darth_Tauri[/SIGPIC]
Joined - 9/2011
"You Best Make Peace With Your Dear & Fluffy Lord" - Malcolm Reynolds
So just out of curiosity, who picks the spotlight mission? I mean, if I want to make the 1440 daily, I have to play a Foundry mission I probably won't like as I'm primarily a space rather than ground player.
Will there be Spotlight Foundry missions for those of us who don't really care for ground missions so we can make the daily 1440 dilithium??
Or, being only 50% of the player base we're a small minority as well...
Add more fun, not more grind. There is so much I'd want to do each day I log on, but grind takes away my time.
I want to explore the quadrant and seek out new life... No, I'd better go slave away mining.
I want to discuss Star Trek or roleplay my characters... No, I'd better be doing something to benefit myself or my fleet.
I want to PvP... No, I'd better grind reputation marks so I can get competitive gear.
I want to be creative and make new characters... No, my main characters will suffer if I don't maintain their grinds.
I want my fleet to enjoy working together and try different activities... No, it isn't efficient or fun to work together anymore.
I want to do so many things, but end up needing to focus on:
The Dilithium Grind - Needed for reputation gear, fleet gear, and fleet projects.
The Reputation Grind - Needed to remain competitive.
The Duty Officer Grind - Needed to remain competitive, and also provides a decent source of Energy Credits.
The Fleet Mark Grind - Needed to advance my fleet.
As the leader of a smaller fleet, I find many members are torn between working on personal progression and fleet progression. I have watched as the number of regular contributors to fleet holdings went from almost 100% to 50% to only a select few. My fleet members have limited time to play, and end up choosing to focus their efforts on improving their own characters instead of the fleet. Want to hold a fleet social event? Good luck. Everyone is too busy grinding their Omega or Dilithium. I thought the goal of MMOs was to build a game that improves a social experience, not provide a game where advancement occurs at the expense of the social experience.
I think Fleet progress should be similar to reputation progress.
No project takes longer than twenty hours, and upgrades take even less time.
There should be at least two XP-only projects for each fleet holding subsection, and neither of them should require dilithium.
Upgrade projects should also not require dilithium.
The only projects that should require dilithium should be the projects that lead to unlocks and requisitions, just like it is with the reputation system.
There needs to be ways to earn greater amounts of Fleet Marks in shorter times.
Small fleets need goals that are readily obtainable even if they're composed of mostly casual players. Individually, the reputation system does this, but as a fleet, the fleet holdings do not. Time-gate progression if you must, but do not make it harder to obtain the necessary inputs. If anything, make it easier. Changes like removing an easier source of Fleet Marks put small fleets one step closer to growing discouraged and breaking up. Folks want their T4/T5 fleet gear, and are willing to pay for it if we'd just have an easier road access. What we don't have is more time for more grind.
Exploits were the reason Fleet Marks were removed from the IOR wrapper - - it's as simple as that.
We did it to ourselves by creating and farming this content 24/7 - which we knew was too good to last. At least I got mine while it lasted. :P
Remember to live by the credo - "exploit early, exploit often".
Now I just have to find some otherway to cheat the system while Cryptic still think it's legitimate....
Hang on a second there - Cryptic are the ones who set the boundaries/limits by which you can do the IOR mission in the FIRST place. If it's an 'exploit' to repeat it every 30 minutes because you 'can' then EVERY instance in the game, every Episode mission, every DoFF mission is also an exploit if you start something as soon as it is off cool down. Doing the 'Tour the Galaxy' mission 3 times within the hour it's available to maximize your EC then is also an exploit under that point of view.
Cryptic set those criteria, nobody else. If players are to be frowned upon for using the system as much as they were allowed to how are you not pointing your finger at Cryptic for designing such a system in the first place? That's like blaming the couch for stubbing your toe.
- Doing a spotlight mission only gives the 1440 Dil "Bonus", not the regular reward on top of it as it clearly states in the notes
- Unlocking Borg STF Doffs does nothing
- Doing a spotlight mission only gives the 1440 Dil "Bonus", not the regular reward on top of it as it clearly states in the notes
- Unlocking Borg STF Doffs does nothing
Add more fun, not more grind. There is so much I'd want to do each day I log on, but grind takes away my time.
I want to explore the quadrant and seek out new life... No, I'd better go slave away mining.
I want to discuss Star Trek or roleplay my characters... No, I'd better be doing something to benefit myself or my fleet.
I want to PvP... No, I'd better grind reputation marks so I can get competitive gear.
I want to be creative and make new characters... No, my main characters will suffer if I don't maintain their grinds.
I want my fleet to enjoy working together and try different activities... No, it isn't efficient or fun to work together anymore.
I want to do so many things, but end up needing to focus on:
The Dilithium Grind - Needed for reputation gear, fleet gear, and fleet projects.
The Reputation Grind - Needed to remain competitive.
The Duty Officer Grind - Needed to remain competitive, and also provides a decent source of Energy Credits.
The Fleet Mark Grind - Needed to advance my fleet.
{Snip}
I agree with pretty much everything you said.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
They put the FM in during Fleet week to be nice to players.
What have you learned Cryptic...Don't be nice.
Then they took it away until they made the IOR daily and it was permanent reward. Now they took it away again. Imagine if any other company you did business with kept doing this to you, say your bank or your insurance company? I'm sure you would be finding someone else to do business with.
Guess I'll be off the game for awhile until they fix the fix. I'm not going to play long foundry missions for dilithium and nobody cares about EC or XP... You can play other missions and sell your purple loot and get more EC. I played the foundry for FM and since that is gone I really have no need to play foundry missions at all. Dilithium is easily obtained through STF, PVP, and dailies that are shorter than foundry missions. I guess the story writers got what they wanted... nobody playing the foundry... I would love to know the numbers post patch of who will bother playing with the foundry solution this time. There were lots of suggestions posed in this thread that could have been some middle ground but once again Cryptic chooses the extreme until everyone rages and then dumbs it down again.
Gold Sub since March 2010
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
Hang on a second there - Cryptic are the ones who set the boundaries/limits by which you can do the IOR mission in the FIRST place. If it's an 'exploit' to repeat it every 30 minutes because you 'can' then EVERY instance in the game, every Episode mission, every DoFF mission is also an exploit if you start something as soon as it is off cool down. Doing the 'Tour the Galaxy' mission 3 times within the hour it's available to maximize your EC then is also an exploit under that point of view.
Cryptic set those criteria, nobody else. If players are to be frowned upon for using the system as much as they were allowed to how are you not pointing your finger at Cryptic for designing such a system in the first place? That's like blaming the couch for stubbing your toe.
Exactly!!!!!
Gold Sub since March 2010
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
- Doing a spotlight mission only gives the 1440 Dil "Bonus", not the regular reward on top of it as it clearly states in the notes
- Unlocking Borg STF Doffs does nothing
Add more fun, not more grind. There is so much I'd want to do each day I log on, but grind takes away my time.
I want to explore the quadrant and seek out new life... No, I'd better go slave away mining.
I want to discuss Star Trek or roleplay my characters... No, I'd better be doing something to benefit myself or my fleet.
I want to PvP... No, I'd better grind reputation marks so I can get competitive gear.
I want to be creative and make new characters... No, my main characters will suffer if I don't maintain their grinds.
I want my fleet to enjoy working together and try different activities... No, it isn't efficient or fun to work together anymore.
I want to do so many things, but end up needing to focus on:
The Dilithium Grind - Needed for reputation gear, fleet gear, and fleet projects.
The Reputation Grind - Needed to remain competitive.
The Duty Officer Grind - Needed to remain competitive, and also provides a decent source of Energy Credits.
The Fleet Mark Grind - Needed to advance my fleet.
As the leader of a smaller fleet, I find many members are torn between working on personal progression and fleet progression. I have watched as the number of regular contributors to fleet holdings went from almost 100% to 50% to only a select few. My fleet members have limited time to play, and end up choosing to focus their efforts on improving their own characters instead of the fleet. Want to hold a fleet social event? Good luck. Everyone is too busy grinding their Omega or Dilithium. I thought the goal of MMOs was to build a game that improves a social experience, not provide a game where advancement occurs at the expense of the social experience.
I think Fleet progress should be similar to reputation progress.
No project takes longer than twenty hours, and upgrades take even less time.
There should be at least two XP-only projects for each fleet holding subsection, and neither of them should require dilithium.
Upgrade projects should also not require dilithium.
The only projects that should require dilithium should be the projects that lead to unlocks and requisitions, just like it is with the reputation system.
There needs to be ways to earn greater amounts of Fleet Marks in shorter times.
Small fleets need goals that are readily obtainable even if they're composed of mostly casual players. Individually, the reputation system does this, but as a fleet, the fleet holdings do not. Time-gate progression if you must, but do not make it harder to obtain the necessary inputs. If anything, make it easier. Changes like removing an easier source of Fleet Marks put small fleets one step closer to growing discouraged and breaking up. Folks want their T4/T5 fleet gear, and are willing to pay for it if we'd just have an easier road access. What we don't have is more time for more grind.
I feel the same way. I don't grind because I want to... I grind because the game demands it in order to move your character forward. I have several empty character slots that I don't even have time to play. Let alone play any type of story content.
Gold Sub since March 2010
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
Not flaming, just want to know if you are having fun or not? Your post makes it sound like your not, so curious, why not leave like so many others have?
I'm waiting for Age of Wulin myself and currently playing TOR,DDo and trying Tera tonight.
So, why stay m8?
Straight from the mouth of one of the leaders of the CDF - "I tell you what, Haven't spent any money either - I'm a lousy freeloader" - Jonsills 17/12/2014
I never really thought the foundry should have marks, but it was a good way for them to get marks to players that needed to earn them.
The S6 fleet content is so dated already, these things were designed to give us marks for tier 0 and tier 1 starbases. Now working on tier 5, the amount rewarded for a full 5 person team is so low that if you all spent a full 2 hours as an expert group during the event you'd maybe fill two of the daily missions up, but probably not, and you have 5 plus upgrades and specials to look at too. I'd imagine average players would probably not fill one up.
They would need to literally double the mark rewards, remove the artificial mark caps in the missions and raise the bottom end of marks earned by those not entirely successful.
Look at the missions
Fleet defense can earn 92 marks for a perfect score, its rare and it takes 20+ mins. With 20 people groups you are guaranteed to get a lot of bad players. The low end scores are literally 0. Bump the bottom to a minimium and raise the perfect to double.
Blockade is limited by the very slow timing of freighters coming into the system, 18 freighters is a typical max for about 54 marks in the event, sometimes you are lucky and get 21 but its very rare. A typical pug probably saves 6 from what I've seen, skilled players rarely get below 18. The reward increases with the more freighters you save so you need to get 18 for any value.. 6 gets you nearly nothing. The top end should be doubled, its on a 15 min timer, you just can't do it faster, the bottom end needs some kind of participation marks.
Fleet alert is crazy easy, it yields 20-25 marks in the event? Not even worth ones time, a pro team will take it out in 6 mins, pugs can struggle to beat it. Flat doubling it is fair, I really don't think anyone would play this bore fest if it weren't for accolades.
No win scenario is the most under performing mission ever. A typical pug is going to hit wave 4/5 and get rewarded very poorly. A pro team is going to hit wave 8 and barely get anything extra. These rewards need to scale to extreme amounts, reward extreme skill with a lot of marks.
Colony Invasion can't be failed, but its very buggy. The diplomats need a total rework because some just don't count now, and sometimes they count twice, and the bug that being shot or having them run out of range while you tag them makes them disappear and not count. Its a 6-7min mission for a good team but only rewards 25ish marks.. no accolades, not worth doing really.
Incursion is frustrating. You have artificially capped how well a team can do in round 1, it resets the saboteur count to a maximum, the best a team can do it 54 marks and its super rare. To get 5 people to cover each area in round 1 is impossible in a pug, it just won't ever happen, round 2 can be done by 2 people (even 1 really) and round 3 is a TRIBBLE shoot even with a good team. The borg and undine enemies are terribly out of character as well. Remove the cap and double the rewards, especially for rounds 2-3 since they give nearly nothing. The bugs still exist where you can make the mission unbeatable. Who would want to play this with all they have to put up with?
A better idea than a flat out reward boost is to boost the rewards with the tier of enemy you are fighting. This would of course lead to anger at constantly getting those tier 0 enemies over and over when people trying to get marks. It'd be nice if there was a group vote at the start of each mission on enemy type.
Excellent Feedback!
This is the kind of feedback that will make a difference, IMO.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Then they took it away until they made the IOR daily and it was permanent reward. Now they took it away again. Imagine if any other company you did business with kept doing this to you, say your bank or your insurance company? I'm sure you would be finding someone else to do business with.
Guess I'll be off the game for awhile until they fix the fix. I'm not going to play long foundry missions for dilithium and nobody cares about EC or XP... You can play other missions and sell your purple loot and get more EC. I played the foundry for FM and since that is gone I really have no need to play foundry missions at all. Dilithium is easily obtained through STF, PVP, and dailies that are shorter than foundry missions. I guess the story writers got what they wanted... nobody playing the foundry... I would love to know the numbers post patch of who will bother playing with the foundry solution this time. There were lots of suggestions posed in this thread that could have been some middle ground but once again Cryptic chooses the extreme until everyone rages and then dumbs it down again.
No then they said as of Now it will stay and not that FM in foundry were ever permanent.
Hang on a second there - Cryptic are the ones who set the boundaries/limits by which you can do the IOR mission in the FIRST place. If it's an 'exploit' to repeat it every 30 minutes because you 'can' then EVERY instance in the game, every Episode mission, every DoFF mission is also an exploit if you start something as soon as it is off cool down. Doing the 'Tour the Galaxy' mission 3 times within the hour it's available to maximize your EC then is also an exploit under that point of view.
Cryptic set those criteria, nobody else. If players are to be frowned upon for using the system as much as they were allowed to how are you not pointing your finger at Cryptic for designing such a system in the first place? That's like blaming the couch for stubbing your toe.
Therefore you can not blame the grinders for suposedly exploiting a system whose critera were set by the devs in the first place.
If it was that big a deal make it a daily again, but that won't happen.
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
This is the kind of feedback that will make a difference, IMO.
A difference how?
Minority remember. Our opinions are but a drop in the ocean.
Forums make up 10%? Or was that a made up stat by Stahl?
Straight from the mouth of one of the leaders of the CDF - "I tell you what, Haven't spent any money either - I'm a lousy freeloader" - Jonsills 17/12/2014
Well I am sorry to see the foundry is now useless again. The remeval of fleet marks will cause fleets to no longer play the foundry for an alternative to same old grind for fleet marks. Our fleet over the last few months found many foundry missions that we enjoyed. A lot of the fun was from the exploration of the content contained in the foundry. To find things we all enjoyed doing together. Well I hope cryptic will add more missions that will provide fleet marks or raise the amount earned on the current missions. But I feel bad for all those who took the time create content that now will be very rarely played.
I would love to hear how other fleets feel about the loss of fleet marks from the foundry missions.
The only Foundry authors who contributed to this change in any way are those who used the Foundry to break the risk/reward curve. This change is about pure numbers.
You might want to stick to the "no division" schtick, justsayin'.
And, to be honest, thay are HEROES, not villains. They made the game playable again. Season7 was sobad I quit until Captain bobo, the royales, therumbles, the Grinder arena, and others made it palatableto log in again. I want to thank those Foundry Authors for being awesome and giving us all a good ride before the narfhammer killed the fun and thegame again.
were the cyptic fun sucker team we cant let you get fleet marks that easy. you must grind grind grind. Who in there right mind plays a game to have fun anyway. It should be a chore grind boreing head ache. thats what we specialize in now. bow down you stupid suckers and GRIND.
This might almost be forgivable if there were decent alternatives, but right now, small fleets are basically not viable if Cryptic continues on this path of cutting every means of obtaining fleet resources. The fleet mark rewards are an utter joke in most of the fleet missions, unless you happen to have a very good team and only play during the bonus hours. Of course, even during the bonus, more often than not you'll end up with at least one AFKer, or occasionally more. No amount of reporting ever seems to result in sanctions on those players, as I've even seen the same AFKing player on numerous occasions. Naturally, we can't publicly shame them here, or else WE'RE the ones who are penalized.
Comments
This is the most insightful post in this thread. You, sir, win one internets.
Of course, Vint Cerf never intended that the internets be won this way, so that loophole will be closed in the next patch.
Thats what this is about, in the end. You cannot put something like this in game only to take it away later and say "We didnt want it there in the first place"
Well then... WHY THE F DID YOU PUT IT IN?!?!
Joined - 9/2011
"You Best Make Peace With Your Dear & Fluffy Lord" - Malcolm Reynolds
They put the FM in during Fleet week to be nice to players.
What have you learned Cryptic...Don't be nice.
Easy
They were looking at a way to make the Foundry more attractive and at the same time fixing the hundreds of posts about lack of FM, they just tried to kill 2 birds with one stone and ended up being a lot more popular than they liked. Much to the detriment of the players who enjoy doing the other FM content.
A lot of stuff like this is simple if you approach it rationally rather than in a blind rage.
So just out of curiosity, who picks the spotlight mission? I mean, if I want to make the 1440 daily, I have to play a Foundry mission I probably won't like as I'm primarily a space rather than ground player.
Will there be Spotlight Foundry missions for those of us who don't really care for ground missions so we can make the daily 1440 dilithium??
Or, being only 50% of the player base we're a small minority as well...
Anything to the players benefit: Nerf. Anything to Cryptics benefit: Never gets fixed.
There will be workarounds of Foundry missions within days and people will be going AFK in record time. This has solved nothing at all except disgruntle even more of the player base.
its now working as intended.
also may i welcome you guys to dstahl online,were nothing get nerfed,but everything get dstahl't?:D
The S6 fleet content is so dated already, these things were designed to give us marks for tier 0 and tier 1 starbases. Now working on tier 5, the amount rewarded for a full 5 person team is so low that if you all spent a full 2 hours as an expert group during the event you'd maybe fill two of the daily missions up, but probably not, and you have 5 plus upgrades and specials to look at too. I'd imagine average players would probably not fill one up.
They would need to literally double the mark rewards, remove the artificial mark caps in the missions and raise the bottom end of marks earned by those not entirely successful.
Look at the missions
Fleet defense can earn 92 marks for a perfect score, its rare and it takes 20+ mins. With 20 people groups you are guaranteed to get a lot of bad players. The low end scores are literally 0. Bump the bottom to a minimium and raise the perfect to double.
Blockade is limited by the very slow timing of freighters coming into the system, 18 freighters is a typical max for about 54 marks in the event, sometimes you are lucky and get 21 but its very rare. A typical pug probably saves 6 from what I've seen, skilled players rarely get below 18. The reward increases with the more freighters you save so you need to get 18 for any value.. 6 gets you nearly nothing. The top end should be doubled, its on a 15 min timer, you just can't do it faster, the bottom end needs some kind of participation marks.
Fleet alert is crazy easy, it yields 20-25 marks in the event? Not even worth ones time, a pro team will take it out in 6 mins, pugs can struggle to beat it. Flat doubling it is fair, I really don't think anyone would play this bore fest if it weren't for accolades.
No win scenario is the most under performing mission ever. A typical pug is going to hit wave 4/5 and get rewarded very poorly. A pro team is going to hit wave 8 and barely get anything extra. These rewards need to scale to extreme amounts, reward extreme skill with a lot of marks.
Colony Invasion can't be failed, but its very buggy. The diplomats need a total rework because some just don't count now, and sometimes they count twice, and the bug that being shot or having them run out of range while you tag them makes them disappear and not count. Its a 6-7min mission for a good team but only rewards 25ish marks.. no accolades, not worth doing really.
Incursion is frustrating. You have artificially capped how well a team can do in round 1, it resets the saboteur count to a maximum, the best a team can do it 54 marks and its super rare. To get 5 people to cover each area in round 1 is impossible in a pug, it just won't ever happen, round 2 can be done by 2 people (even 1 really) and round 3 is a TRIBBLE shoot even with a good team. The borg and undine enemies are terribly out of character as well. Remove the cap and double the rewards, especially for rounds 2-3 since they give nearly nothing. The bugs still exist where you can make the mission unbeatable. Who would want to play this with all they have to put up with?
A better idea than a flat out reward boost is to boost the rewards with the tier of enemy you are fighting. This would of course lead to anger at constantly getting those tier 0 enemies over and over when people trying to get marks. It'd be nice if there was a group vote at the start of each mission on enemy type.
Completed Starbase, Embassy, Mine, Spire and No Win Scenario
Nothing to do anymore.
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Branflakes picks a spotlight mission every week, you can pick and choose which Spotlight mission to play for the daily.
No blind rage, ive stated my rather logical point of view already in previous posts, but poeple calling this an exploit are just dumb, it was an exploit because Cryptic made it one, all they had to do was kick the timer back to 24 hours and we would still be cool.
The fleet marks are the only reason I continued to do the foundry missions, now they have made it extremely hard to get them, since the PVE actions suck for mark output.
By your logic, the fleet actions are an exploit, something I can do every half hour to get marks... maybe they should nerf that too, oh wait, the output is such TRIBBLE that no one wants to play them.
Joined - 9/2011
"You Best Make Peace With Your Dear & Fluffy Lord" - Malcolm Reynolds
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=7997091&highlight=Spotlight#post7997091
I want to explore the quadrant and seek out new life... No, I'd better go slave away mining.
I want to discuss Star Trek or roleplay my characters... No, I'd better be doing something to benefit myself or my fleet.
I want to PvP... No, I'd better grind reputation marks so I can get competitive gear.
I want to be creative and make new characters... No, my main characters will suffer if I don't maintain their grinds.
I want my fleet to enjoy working together and try different activities... No, it isn't efficient or fun to work together anymore.
I want to do so many things, but end up needing to focus on:
As the leader of a smaller fleet, I find many members are torn between working on personal progression and fleet progression. I have watched as the number of regular contributors to fleet holdings went from almost 100% to 50% to only a select few. My fleet members have limited time to play, and end up choosing to focus their efforts on improving their own characters instead of the fleet. Want to hold a fleet social event? Good luck. Everyone is too busy grinding their Omega or Dilithium. I thought the goal of MMOs was to build a game that improves a social experience, not provide a game where advancement occurs at the expense of the social experience.
I think Fleet progress should be similar to reputation progress.
Small fleets need goals that are readily obtainable even if they're composed of mostly casual players. Individually, the reputation system does this, but as a fleet, the fleet holdings do not. Time-gate progression if you must, but do not make it harder to obtain the necessary inputs. If anything, make it easier. Changes like removing an easier source of Fleet Marks put small fleets one step closer to growing discouraged and breaking up. Folks want their T4/T5 fleet gear, and are willing to pay for it if we'd just have an easier road access. What we don't have is more time for more grind.
STO Resources: <Ship Comparison - All Tiers + Small Craft + Hangar Pets> <Damage Resistance>
<R&D + Upgrade Costs> <Duty Officer Finder> <Suliban Doff Reqs> <Fleet Costs> <Rep Costs>
<Keybind Tour the Galaxy> <Fleet / Armada Management> <Currency Exchange> <Other STO Links>
Hang on a second there - Cryptic are the ones who set the boundaries/limits by which you can do the IOR mission in the FIRST place. If it's an 'exploit' to repeat it every 30 minutes because you 'can' then EVERY instance in the game, every Episode mission, every DoFF mission is also an exploit if you start something as soon as it is off cool down. Doing the 'Tour the Galaxy' mission 3 times within the hour it's available to maximize your EC then is also an exploit under that point of view.
Cryptic set those criteria, nobody else. If players are to be frowned upon for using the system as much as they were allowed to how are you not pointing your finger at Cryptic for designing such a system in the first place? That's like blaming the couch for stubbing your toe.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The o3 - Killed you good
- Doing a spotlight mission only gives the 1440 Dil "Bonus", not the regular reward on top of it as it clearly states in the notes
- Unlocking Borg STF Doffs does nothing
The only thing working is the nerf as usual.
Great patch!
Ran into this as well.
I agree with pretty much everything you said.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Then they took it away until they made the IOR daily and it was permanent reward. Now they took it away again. Imagine if any other company you did business with kept doing this to you, say your bank or your insurance company? I'm sure you would be finding someone else to do business with.
Guess I'll be off the game for awhile until they fix the fix. I'm not going to play long foundry missions for dilithium and nobody cares about EC or XP... You can play other missions and sell your purple loot and get more EC. I played the foundry for FM and since that is gone I really have no need to play foundry missions at all. Dilithium is easily obtained through STF, PVP, and dailies that are shorter than foundry missions. I guess the story writers got what they wanted... nobody playing the foundry... I would love to know the numbers post patch of who will bother playing with the foundry solution this time. There were lots of suggestions posed in this thread that could have been some middle ground but once again Cryptic chooses the extreme until everyone rages and then dumbs it down again.
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
Exactly!!!!!
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
You can bet their re-wording that right now..XD
I feel the same way. I don't grind because I want to... I grind because the game demands it in order to move your character forward. I have several empty character slots that I don't even have time to play. Let alone play any type of story content.
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
I don't play. Why do you?
Not flaming, just want to know if you are having fun or not? Your post makes it sound like your not, so curious, why not leave like so many others have?
I'm waiting for Age of Wulin myself and currently playing TOR,DDo and trying Tera tonight.
So, why stay m8?
Excellent Feedback!
This is the kind of feedback that will make a difference, IMO.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
No then they said as of Now it will stay and not that FM in foundry were ever permanent.
Therefore you can not blame the grinders for suposedly exploiting a system whose critera were set by the devs in the first place.
If it was that big a deal make it a daily again, but that won't happen.
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
A difference how?
Minority remember. Our opinions are but a drop in the ocean.
Forums make up 10%? Or was that a made up stat by Stahl?
I would love to hear how other fleets feel about the loss of fleet marks from the foundry missions.
You might want to stick to the "no division" schtick, justsayin'.
And, to be honest, thay are HEROES, not villains. They made the game playable again. Season7 was sobad I quit until Captain bobo, the royales, therumbles, the Grinder arena, and others made it palatableto log in again. I want to thank those Foundry Authors for being awesome and giving us all a good ride before the narfhammer killed the fun and thegame again.