I don't deny that some people may want a free meal and it is F2P after-all but honestly I don't believe that most players voicing frustration want instant rewards.
For me I think the reason for this thread and the frustration is not about instant gratification, if it was they wouldn't being playing an MMO at all. It's about feeling like have a chance to progress at a viable rate regardless of how big or small your fleet is.
It's about the frustration about the lack of inclusion.
It's also just simply a bad idea that 70% of the end game items are locked away from a sizable chunk of the playerbase.
I honestly think with regards to mega-fleets that they are mostly inefficient and that to a certain extent Cryptic backed the wrong horse, however I am not saying there is no place for large fleets just that there seems to be a natural entropy and waste factor once you get beyond a couple of hundred players.
The truth is even if we implemented scaling whilst it would help small fleets who are based on real-life friendships or long standing virtual friendships would benefit but new fleets and non-fraternal small fleets would still encounter the crippling issue of there being little incentive to join a new T0 fleet or a reactivated T1-T3 fleet looking for players.
Most of you people claiming small fleets are at a significant disadvantage have not addressed 1 glaring issue - the first T3 solo starbase was produced in Oct under the original much harder and costlier system. That same person is now in the process of upgrading to a SOLO T4 starbase - and that is with taking 2 months off.
How can it be such a major hardship if 1 person can produce a solo T4 starbase by themselves in under a year?
Most of you people claiming small fleets are at a significant disadvantage have not addressed 1 glaring issue - the first T3 solo starbase was produced in Oct under the original much harder and costlier system. That same person is now in the process of upgrading to a SOLO T4 starbase - and that is with taking 2 months off.
How can it be such a major hardship if 1 person can produce a solo T4 starbase by themselves in under a year?
Because that singular person didn't take two months off and is a professional farmer it's all they do all day, he admitted this himself. It's not something people can emulate nor should they. In fact he himself said he did it to test the limits and no normal player has a chance of doing it.
Do you realize just how nonsensical it is to take the most extreme outlier and complain as to why everyone can't be doing the same.
That is like taking the entire worlds population of 100 metre runners and asking why they hell they don't all have gold medals.
Also it's not "you people" I don't progress my fleet anymore it's mothballed, I have no interest in soloing a fleet I lost most my fleet members in the aftermath of Season 7 and found it impossible to recruit more in the current climate so I gave up trying. I honestly doubt very many players have an interest in solo-ing a fleet base.
It's also just simply a bad idea that 70% of the end game items are locked away from a sizable chunk of the playerbase.
Wait, what?
What end game items are you talking about? The Rep system provides for ship components, Fleet components are just an alternative. Fleet weapons tend to be inferior to what's available because 3 of the mods are [Dam]. (I get more DPS from Mk XII [CrtH]x3, compared to the Mk XII [Dam]x3[Acc] I had before.)
My JHEC only has 4 items related to Fleets right now (after two weeks of tests and a lot of resources spent) - 2 Rom BOffs and 2 Science Plasma consoles. I have serious buyer's remorse over 3 complete sets of Fleet weapons that have proven to be inferior.
Besides of which, in almost every MMO the end game gear is gated like that. (I'm thinking of WoW and GW2 off the top of my head.) They tend to require coordinated groups to have a chance of getting, but here you can pretty much have anything you want without Fleet membership. The rep system sets are still better, or at least on par, with Fleet gear.
Because that singular person didn't take two months off and is a professional farmer it's all they do all day, he admitted this himself. It's not something people can emulate nor should they. In fact he himself said he did it to test the limits and no normal player has a chance of doing it.
Do you realize just how nonsensical it is to take the most extreme outlier and complain as to why everyone can't be doing the same.
That is like taking the entire worlds population of 100 metre runners and asking why they hell they don't all have gold medals.
Also it's not "you people" I don't progress my fleet anymore it's mothballed, I have no interest in soloing a fleet I lost most my fleet members in the aftermath of Season 7 and found it impossible to recruit more in the current climate so I gave up trying. I honestly doubt very many players have an interest in solo-ing a fleet base.
:rolleyes:
Well that I can agree - soloing must be very hard. In the 400 person fleet I am in the biggest challenge is being ABLE to contribute to the projects. We are working on T5 shipyard and the project is filled in the first few seconds it comes open almost every time.
Sure Levi3 is an extreme example - and yes he himself did say that it was just a crazy experiment and that no one else in their right mind should bother to attempt it, however, I just find that if there is 1 person that can take a base to T4 by themselves - small fleets of 5-10(I don't consider 1 person a "fleet") should be able to do it under the existing conditions.
In fact Levi3 himself stated how he hated the whole starbase system which gated content behind high walls. From my perspective I only see a base rapidly moving to T5 full completion and my Fleet B'rel coming in 40 days - personally other than that 1 ship there is nothing KDF side or Fed side that I think is all that great at Tier 5 - most of the decent ships/gear is at T3.
I did suggest before that once X amount of fleets complete Tier 5 - they make a General base where for an added cost anyone can buy any fleet gear. The problem is to find a good "added" cost to the gear/ships so that the people in the T5 fleets don't get pissed off.
I am starting this thread to address one issue that keeps coming up and is a part of why people are upset about losing Fleet Mark rewards for Foundry missions
This is not about the Foundry. It's not even entirely about Fleet Marks.
It's about helping Small Fleets to make progress and not get stalled out. It's about not devaluing small fleets in favor of large ones.
What can Cryptic do to help Small Fleets that aren't equipped for the Grind?
We in small fleets have a number of issues and we don't like the answer to "go join a bigger fleet".
Fleet Marks and other requirements are too high for small fleets.
There aren't sufficient ways for a small number of people to gather a sufficient amount of the resources that Fleet Holdings require.
Featured Projects cost too much for small fleets to participate in, especially when there are so many Dilithium sinks in the game that siphon off available resources.
Small fleets can't always field 5-Man teams.
Small fleets that are focused on other kinds of gameplay than the normal FM missions are out of luck.
Existing missions that grant FM's are limited. We need more kinds of content that earn fleet marks, even if they don't reward as many.
I can think of a few suggestions off the top of my head...
1. How about designing some FM and other PvE missions around 3-Man teams?
2. How about giving small fleets an alternate path of progression? Some way to build smaller holdings with fewer requirements?
3. How about developing a "Scenario Builder" that lets players put together playable team-based content with a few clicks and separate that from story-driven Foundry content? Reward those with a small amount of FM's.
4. How about making a way for Foundry authors to build missions specifically designed for team play and make Fleet Marks and other rewards scale according to number of players and how long they each played?
Please post suggestions to improve small fleet progression here.
Ok i hadnt read this entire thread and I am not going to because I am not really into this issue. However, a fleet mate said I should post this idea.
Its simple.... Alliances. Make them an official part of the fleet system. Allow small fleets to form alliances where they can share resources including a base. This will give them the benefits of a large fleet but allow them to keep there individuality. It would also be cool to be able to have an alliance for pvp purposes.
I just thought i should put it out here, if its been said than by no means do i wish to take credit, lol
ps, I am definitely not in favor of giving small fleets an EASY path of progression. I actually think the minimum membership should be increased and required to be maintained. But thats really a different topic.
I know I said I was going to stay out of this from now on but I have been reading all the posts and an idea started forming in my tiny mind.
For me personally it is not about the base as such ......I can quite get behind the idea that my small fleet would not have a big fancy smancy tier five base like a big fleet would with recourse to lots of resources.
Also I don't have any inclination to take anything away from, or devalue the achievements of the big fleets because given the resources involved in getting there that achievement is significant even for a large fleet.
For me it is all about gating content and gear in such a way that for many it will remain inaccessible.
Now I hear those of you who say that the fleet gear is 'not all that' anyway. That may be so but the issue (again for me) is about choice and accessibility. It might well not be up to the job but I should be allowed to decide that for myself when we are talking about content.
SO my idea is store fronts.
Why not allow the top tier fleets to open up a store front where they can provision stock and then sell it on to smaller fleet members at a (reasonable) premium?
Cryptic get to monetise this because they could sell you the project to have a store front for your fleet and presumably would also sell more gear/provisioning etc. as a result.
Fleets get to make a bit of profit to pump back into their fleet and offset the significant costs getting to tier 5 and maintaining the store front. Smaller fleeties get access to gear and do not feel excluded from content whilst keeping the option to maintain their social connectivity in the game.
Therefore a switch that would put them to "not contributing atm" would mitigate that problem I already proposed that if players take a break from the game they would be able to activate such a switch.
The thing is, even aside from these non-contributing members there are almost 100 barely-contributing members with very few Fleet Credits that are nonetheless occasionally chipping in.
How about anything that's not plasma based or scorpion fighters?
That's rather vague, and not a good response as you're essentially trying to make me prove a negative.
We have no hangers from Fleet starbases yet (that I know of).
Weapon-wise, I have a ton of Fleet weapons. 6 Antiprotons Arrays, 6x Disruptor Arrays, 2 Disruptor DHCs, 3 Phaser DHCs, 2 Phaser Turrets, and 3 Plasma DHCs. All [Dam]x3[Acc]. My two weeks of testing caused me to grab Mk XII [CrtH]x3s instead, for higher DPS. Fleet Advanced weapons aren't really considered the best available, really.
The Borg/MACO/KHG/Omega sets are better, if not at least on-par, with Fleet shield/engine/deflectors. Individual Fleet components are nice, but full sets are not.
I guess Fleet ships? Not particularly a big fan of spending $20 for one of those, though if you're flying a C-Store you love and want to upgrade for $5, I can see how that works out. Personally I have a C-Store Oddy that's better than any Fleet cruiser, my C-Store Vesta is better than any of the Fleet science ships, and I'm in a JHEC that I wouldn't trade in for any Fleet escort. I'd probably be interested if there was a Fleet Heavy Destroyer, though.
The Fleet equipment are supposed to be alternative end game gear, not the best. The only really unique stuff are the Rom BOffs (which compete with Leadership and Efficient), and the Science consoles (which compete with stacking Field Gens, I suppose. Plasma-based though.) Grind and get Rom Rep to T5, Omega Rep to T5, or Fleet to T5. May we'll probably have more new gear gated behind grinds.
Besides of which, in almost every MMO the end game gear is gated like that. (I'm thinking of WoW and GW2 off the top of my head.) They tend to require coordinated groups to have a chance of getting, but here you can pretty much have anything you want without Fleet membership. The rep system sets are still better, or at least on par, with Fleet gear.
That's before my time, I think. I was thinking of 10-man stuff, and you don't PUG those so you needed at least 20 players in your guild at endgame to really get some runs going.
The Fleet equipment are supposed to be alternative end game gear, not the best. The only really unique stuff are the Rom BOffs (which compete with Leadership and Efficient), and the Science consoles (which compete with stacking Field Gens, I suppose. Plasma-based though.) Grind and get Rom Rep to T5, Omega Rep to T5, or Fleet to T5. May we'll probably have more new gear gated behind grinds.
In my opinion this is wrong and has been since Season 7. There is no access to Space Weapons (apart from plasma) or even most Ground weapons (apart from plasma, Anti-Protons) at solo end-game there is no store to buy such weapons as there was Pre-Season 7. If you're lucky and get a 1 in a million drop from a PVE event, or you can buy Lockbox weapons, but in all honesty these are random drops and costs a stupid amount on the exchange. Phased Polarons being the current exception. But the fact remains if you want a store that sells MK XII Purple Weapons then there is only one option and that is the Fleet. Lets not talk about "unique stuff" Fleet Elite ground weapons have unique skins and the Odyssey uniform is only accessible from a T3 Starbase. There is a large volume of end-game rewards stuck behind Fleet access that many players will never benefit from and that is just a bad business and game model.
If you want to know what I run, I still run [Borg] Weapons from the old STF's as thats all I have access to and I would be totally screwed if I didn't have the foresight to stock up on them.
With regards to needing a big Guild for Raids, that simply isn't true in my experience, with DDO I have done 100's of 20 man raids, the Vault being one of the most enjoyable pugging every single one as I run a small guild of 12 players.
That's before my time, I think. I was thinking of 10-man stuff, and you don't PUG those so you needed at least 20 players in your guild at endgame to really get some runs going.
Not even that, you can also fill up by having another guild or two join in on the raid.
I wonder if the easiest solution is instead of aiming for 25-man fleets, they set the levels for somewhere in the 15 to 20 range and/or allow for outside contributions.
You post on how your fleet works is a classic example of why large fleets are bad in the first place, the reality is your fleet is horribly inefficient it has members that serve no use and essentially are a burden and continue to be. Which just reinforces the anthropological line of thinking that suggests such a large community in this case is not really a community at all but a collection of cliques and really the core here of your fleet is actually much smaller than the bloat of it. This is why naturally we should be favoring smaller fleet units the benefits are myriad including less negative politics, less exploitation and less cruft, a closer knit community where people actively participate and care about each other and the fleet. What is occurring in your fleet is a natural trend towards around 80 members being the upper ceiling for involved participation and contribution. I wonder if we would see similar figures from other mega fleets.
For the record, I believe this is an unfair characterization of large fleets. This is not about "efficiency" or "politics" or "cliques"; this is about being able to play the game the way you want to and get enjoyment from it, including rewards for time spent playing.
In my opinion, it's horribly unfair to demand that every fleet member is equally active or should contribute equally, or at all.
If the outcome of the Starbase and Embassy projects is sufficiently valuable to everyone, then most everyone will contribute to the best of their ability in order to reach that outcome. The fact of the matter is, many of the rewards aren't perceived as being all that valuable. We're grinding for the right to grind more to buy stuff, basically. It's perfectly okay if some people don't value that and don't want to contribute.
I believe every fleet should decide for itself how big it should be and what every member is expected to contribute, or not. I utterly oppose any discriminization toward any fleet just because of their size, big or small.
In short, EVERY fleet that is providing a benefit to its' members deserves to exist. If they're happy, they'll stay. THAT is the only measure that I care about.
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
I believe every fleet should decide for itself how big it should be and what every member is expected to contribute, or not. I utterly oppose any discriminization toward any fleet just because of their size, big or small.
In short, EVERY fleet that is providing a benefit to its' members deserves to exist. If they're happy, they'll stay. THAT is the only measure that I care about.
Except that the fleet advancement system is discriminatory by design. While every fleet may deserve to exist, apparently it's okay if some fleets are crippled for advancement.
I think that's unacceptable.
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
I wonder if the easiest solution is instead of aiming for 25-man fleets, they set the levels for somewhere in the 15 to 20 range and/or allow for outside contributions.
I believe they've lowered the cost of a SB at some point. So now it's closer to that 15-20 person range, if that's true.
Allowing others to contribute doesn't work nearly as well here, however. When you have more then one guild in a raid, it's just a question of deciding who gets the loot.
Having 2-5 fleets all share a single Starbase would require a lot more work on the part of the dev's. You'd have to work out new permissions, fair ways to deal with provisions, and so on that's not a simple thing to do.
Nothing would put me off this game faster than enabling smaller fleets to match our efforts getting to T3, for less cost.
For the record, I do not expect small fleets to advance as fast or faster than a larger one. I'm okay with it taking longer. I'm not okay with fleet advancement that completely stops, even when people are trying to contribute what they can.
If anything, I'm interested in proposals that help everybody, no matter what the size of their fleet. I'm even advocating things that would help large fleets.
But, to address this one point here...
Cryptic/PWE is the ONLY group who gets to say what's best for the game and what is not. If they decided to give small fleets a 25% boost tomorrow, anybody who thinks that somehow hurts their own enjoyment of the game... well, that's their problem. Likewise, anyone who wants to quit the game just because they aren't willing to put in the time, effort, and money that Cryptic says they should put in to get the shinys... quit, already. Players don't get to decide how the game rewards are doled out. All we can do is express our opinion. But we don't have to attack each other over it.
This whole competitive demand that the Devs should focus on the gameplay of any one group of players is very repugnant to me. I hate the whole bit. PvP VS PvE, Starfleet VS KDF, Escort VS Cruiser, Big Fleet VS Small Fleet, Players VS Devs... It's all pointless and stupid, and it has no place in this conversation in my opinion.
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
If anything, I'm interested in proposals that help everybody, no matter what the size of their fleet. I'm even advocating things that would help large fleets.
Just like myself and DarkJeff have pointed out ways to help small fleets even though I assume both of us are in larger fleets. It is however a bit disconcerting however to have people come in here and demand that they be given an advantage over other types of fleets.
So towards that end, my ideas have all been ones that provide small fleets with way to see advancement, yet doesn't benefit only a given size fleet.
In my opinion this is wrong and has been since Season 7. There is no access to Space Weapons (apart from plasma) or even most Ground weapons (apart from plasma, Anti-Protons) at solo end-game there is no store to buy such weapons as there was Pre-Season 7.
Eh, for the cost of your FCs and Dil, you can easily grab better weapons off the Exchange. The store can be more convenient, but it's not really the most cost effective.
Again, I have access to all the Fleet stuff, and my bank/mule ships are full of them. After two solid weeks of testing, I ended up not using most of it.
Except that the fleet advancement system is discriminatory by design.
The only part of the system that discriminates is the project queue which is biased against Fleets that have more resources than necessary. It otherwise does not grant an advantage to any particular group.
The "discrimination" you're likely referring to is also known as "numerical superiority" - which Cryptic isn't responsible for. The more you eat the more energy you take in. The more mass you have the greater your gravity. The more people donate, the more money you will collect. This is not something Cryptic designed, they didn't cause 100 to be greater than 10.
Just like myself and DarkJeff have pointed out ways to help small fleets even though I assume both of us are in larger fleets. It is however a bit disconcerting however to have people come in here and demand that they be given an advantage over other types of fleets.
So towards that end, my ideas have all been ones that provide small fleets with way to see advancement, yet doesn't benefit only a given size fleet.
Really, I haven't had an non-technical issue with proposals for the sliders.
I think it would be easier for Cryptic to just put in new projects with predetermined tradeoffs rather than create a slider that applies to every project. Cryptic can still control the "horizontal and the vertical" so that the cost vs time scale still works in their favor, presumably with fewer technical hurdles to create new projects.
I strongly believe that there is an issue with blocking projects that needs to be addressed. When you're stuck for resources and can't complete one, you can't queue anything up in its' place. I think Cryptic should either give us the ability to suspend projects and work on something else in place of a suspended project or give us more project slots. Either way would be fine. I know they can't totally remove the blocked project issue, but even one more queue would be a huge help.
More alternate means for obtaining resources would also help out a lot. Like fleet-themed DOFF assignments that generate things such as Mk III Photon Torpedo Launchers, or the ability to exchange one kind of mark (Fleet, Omega, Romulan) for another, or even Fleet Resource packs in the C-Store that contain a random selection of common, tradeable project requirements.
I'm half-afraid they're eventually going to do away with the Commendation Reports and the Fleet Mark boosts... that would really get me upset if that ever happened.
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
The "discrimination" you're likely referring to is also known as "numerical superiority"
Or put another way, "many hands make light work". It's a universal truism, and there really are good reasons to apply that to STO.
Really, the people who designed the Fleet Advancement system did a good job in addressing the various inequities that could have resulted. Large fleets DO have an advantage, but there's also a built-in tradeoff and it's not just small fleets that have to make adjustments for the dynamics of the system.
If it weren't for the fact that the costs get dramatically larger the higher you advance, and the existence of certain other inequities and barriers to progress, I probably wouldn't even complain about it.
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
If it weren't for the fact that the costs get dramatically larger the higher you advance.
I'm kind of curious about the math behind the scaling, really.
Each project should be equivalent to 1/3rd the amount of resources a Fleet of "minimum" size for the Tier should be able to generate in 20 hours. ("Minimum" in quotation marks, since it's a soft cap.) If we look at the three T4 Engineering provisioning projects, every 20 hours we should be generating:
2880 Fleet Marks
240,000 Expertise
152,000 Refined Dilithium
100 Engineering Department Duty Officers
100 Operations Department Duty Officers
25 Engineering or Operations Duty Officers
800 Data Samples
750 Industrial Energy Cells
650 Industrial Replicators
1,000 Water Purification Systems
6,000 Provisions
Either their "minimum" size is pretty high, they expected us to have a much higher income, or they don't want us to be able to launch projects on cooldown.
Edit: Hm, actually if you split the work among 20, and all 20 were willing to grind it, you might be able to minimize downtime. Of course, you'd need everybody to be generating 12 of the appropriate DOffs every 20 hours, which I think might be the hardest part...
I work it out as 19 people/toons required as you need that many to refine dilithium in a 24 hour cycle due to the 8000 cap. I know subs can refine more but lets imagine they're taking a well deserved break as most people are F2P.
Each of those would have to grind out ~151 fleet marks in 24 hours which isn't so bad, doffs can come from the starbase and data samples you can buy off exchange for nothing. The commodities might get pricey and you'd probably have to have all 19 runing mirror incursion every other day too. So we can probably say that it would require about 2-4hrs a day grind each depending on how you get dilithium.
So lets apply that to my fleet of 4 (as it was after S7 caused the mass exodus), we would need 5 toons each more or less and each one would need to grind 10-20 hours a day to keep up.
Interestingly enough I worked out you need about 20 million dilithium to get to Tier 5 from Tier 3 including upgrades with another 6 million from T0 to T3 on embassy.
I certainly know we all put in more effort than 75% of people in large fleets which only makes us feel like there's just no point. We decided fudge that, we'll join a bigger fleet and just do bits and pieces here and there and start enjoying not having to give every scrap to that useless space junk.
Oh and Bluegeek I heard they removed commendation reports or something.
As for ways to scale it, well why not have member thresholds. Starts out light requirements 1/5 of a 500 member fleet and then scales according to members every 100 members. To prevent people leaving then rejoining you can put a 24/48 hr timer before you can join another fleet. Should discourage bank raiders too. I know people could get kicked and end up being in a bit of a predicament but honestly would you want to rejoin a fleet that kicked you for no raisin?
I know it has flaws and might cause grief but surely it would cause less grief than what is currently happening to small fleets?
I'm one of the Leaders of a relatively small Fleet.
For background, we have a membership list of around 60 members, but over time, the number of active members has dwindled to around 5 or so.
And of those 5, the two active contributors are me and another leader.
We've been making quite nice progress so far, we've gotten all 3 Starbase fields to T3 and the Embassy Fields to T2.
But then the fun of the ride ended as soon as I looked at the individual cost of the upgrades.
I don't remember what it costs to upgrade a Starbase to T3, but I did memorize what it takes to upgrade an Embassy to T2.
10500 Fleet Marks and 1000000 Dilithium.
The first one can be done given time, but the second one, well, I have doubts we'll ever be able to collect that much Dilithium!
Now, to be clear, I like my fleet, because it feels more personal that I know everyone who is in it, instead of having a large number of people who are just names on a list.
Also, for better or worse, I commit to a Fleet, out of loyalty and responsibility to the members.
So, I'm not going to abandon it no matter what.
But now I feel like I'm being punished for my commitment to these ideals.
And I'm also painfully aware that recruitment is tougher now, because everyone wants the T5 fleets for the fleet ships and the Elite Gear.
I'm thinking the system needs to be rebalanced a heck of a lot to level the playing field, so to speak.
Basing it on members wouldn't be a good mechanic, because technically we're a fleet of 60+members.
And no, I don't kick out inactives, because that's what appeals to our members, come and go as you please, you'll always have a place with us, even if you are absent for a long time.
Basing it on active contributions would be a better method, having the system scan the contributors per month and saying, only 3 people contributed this month, so they qualify for small fleet status.
And have it scale to the number of contributors, the less there are, the cheaper the costs.
And yes, I am aware that the large fleets (and members of said fleets) are actively roadblocking this proposal.
I'm thinking they're just being egotistical, because they don't want small fleets to achieve T5.
And there's possibly a selfish angle there, they want to dissolve the small fleets so they can absorb their members.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
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Comments
Most of you people claiming small fleets are at a significant disadvantage have not addressed 1 glaring issue - the first T3 solo starbase was produced in Oct under the original much harder and costlier system. That same person is now in the process of upgrading to a SOLO T4 starbase - and that is with taking 2 months off.
How can it be such a major hardship if 1 person can produce a solo T4 starbase by themselves in under a year?
Because that singular person didn't take two months off and is a professional farmer it's all they do all day, he admitted this himself. It's not something people can emulate nor should they. In fact he himself said he did it to test the limits and no normal player has a chance of doing it.
Do you realize just how nonsensical it is to take the most extreme outlier and complain as to why everyone can't be doing the same.
That is like taking the entire worlds population of 100 metre runners and asking why they hell they don't all have gold medals.
Also it's not "you people" I don't progress my fleet anymore it's mothballed, I have no interest in soloing a fleet I lost most my fleet members in the aftermath of Season 7 and found it impossible to recruit more in the current climate so I gave up trying. I honestly doubt very many players have an interest in solo-ing a fleet base.
:rolleyes:
#2311#2700#2316#2500
What end game items are you talking about? The Rep system provides for ship components, Fleet components are just an alternative. Fleet weapons tend to be inferior to what's available because 3 of the mods are [Dam]. (I get more DPS from Mk XII [CrtH]x3, compared to the Mk XII [Dam]x3[Acc] I had before.)
My JHEC only has 4 items related to Fleets right now (after two weeks of tests and a lot of resources spent) - 2 Rom BOffs and 2 Science Plasma consoles. I have serious buyer's remorse over 3 complete sets of Fleet weapons that have proven to be inferior.
Besides of which, in almost every MMO the end game gear is gated like that. (I'm thinking of WoW and GW2 off the top of my head.) They tend to require coordinated groups to have a chance of getting, but here you can pretty much have anything you want without Fleet membership. The rep system sets are still better, or at least on par, with Fleet gear.
Well that I can agree - soloing must be very hard. In the 400 person fleet I am in the biggest challenge is being ABLE to contribute to the projects. We are working on T5 shipyard and the project is filled in the first few seconds it comes open almost every time.
Sure Levi3 is an extreme example - and yes he himself did say that it was just a crazy experiment and that no one else in their right mind should bother to attempt it, however, I just find that if there is 1 person that can take a base to T4 by themselves - small fleets of 5-10(I don't consider 1 person a "fleet") should be able to do it under the existing conditions.
In fact Levi3 himself stated how he hated the whole starbase system which gated content behind high walls. From my perspective I only see a base rapidly moving to T5 full completion and my Fleet B'rel coming in 40 days - personally other than that 1 ship there is nothing KDF side or Fed side that I think is all that great at Tier 5 - most of the decent ships/gear is at T3.
I did suggest before that once X amount of fleets complete Tier 5 - they make a General base where for an added cost anyone can buy any fleet gear. The problem is to find a good "added" cost to the gear/ships so that the people in the T5 fleets don't get pissed off.
How about anything that's not plasma based or scorpion fighters?
Ok i hadnt read this entire thread and I am not going to because I am not really into this issue. However, a fleet mate said I should post this idea.
Its simple.... Alliances. Make them an official part of the fleet system. Allow small fleets to form alliances where they can share resources including a base. This will give them the benefits of a large fleet but allow them to keep there individuality. It would also be cool to be able to have an alliance for pvp purposes.
I just thought i should put it out here, if its been said than by no means do i wish to take credit, lol
ps, I am definitely not in favor of giving small fleets an EASY path of progression. I actually think the minimum membership should be increased and required to be maintained. But thats really a different topic.
For me personally it is not about the base as such ......I can quite get behind the idea that my small fleet would not have a big fancy smancy tier five base like a big fleet would with recourse to lots of resources.
Also I don't have any inclination to take anything away from, or devalue the achievements of the big fleets because given the resources involved in getting there that achievement is significant even for a large fleet.
For me it is all about gating content and gear in such a way that for many it will remain inaccessible.
Now I hear those of you who say that the fleet gear is 'not all that' anyway. That may be so but the issue (again for me) is about choice and accessibility. It might well not be up to the job but I should be allowed to decide that for myself when we are talking about content.
SO my idea is store fronts.
Why not allow the top tier fleets to open up a store front where they can provision stock and then sell it on to smaller fleet members at a (reasonable) premium?
Cryptic get to monetise this because they could sell you the project to have a store front for your fleet and presumably would also sell more gear/provisioning etc. as a result.
Fleets get to make a bit of profit to pump back into their fleet and offset the significant costs getting to tier 5 and maintaining the store front. Smaller fleeties get access to gear and do not feel excluded from content whilst keeping the option to maintain their social connectivity in the game.
Just my thoughts.
That's rather vague, and not a good response as you're essentially trying to make me prove a negative.
We have no hangers from Fleet starbases yet (that I know of).
Weapon-wise, I have a ton of Fleet weapons. 6 Antiprotons Arrays, 6x Disruptor Arrays, 2 Disruptor DHCs, 3 Phaser DHCs, 2 Phaser Turrets, and 3 Plasma DHCs. All [Dam]x3[Acc]. My two weeks of testing caused me to grab Mk XII [CrtH]x3s instead, for higher DPS. Fleet Advanced weapons aren't really considered the best available, really.
The Borg/MACO/KHG/Omega sets are better, if not at least on-par, with Fleet shield/engine/deflectors. Individual Fleet components are nice, but full sets are not.
I guess Fleet ships? Not particularly a big fan of spending $20 for one of those, though if you're flying a C-Store you love and want to upgrade for $5, I can see how that works out. Personally I have a C-Store Oddy that's better than any Fleet cruiser, my C-Store Vesta is better than any of the Fleet science ships, and I'm in a JHEC that I wouldn't trade in for any Fleet escort. I'd probably be interested if there was a Fleet Heavy Destroyer, though.
The Fleet equipment are supposed to be alternative end game gear, not the best. The only really unique stuff are the Rom BOffs (which compete with Leadership and Efficient), and the Science consoles (which compete with stacking Field Gens, I suppose. Plasma-based though.) Grind and get Rom Rep to T5, Omega Rep to T5, or Fleet to T5. May we'll probably have more new gear gated behind grinds.
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
WoW got rid of 40 man content a long time ago.
That's before my time, I think. I was thinking of 10-man stuff, and you don't PUG those so you needed at least 20 players in your guild at endgame to really get some runs going.
In my opinion this is wrong and has been since Season 7. There is no access to Space Weapons (apart from plasma) or even most Ground weapons (apart from plasma, Anti-Protons) at solo end-game there is no store to buy such weapons as there was Pre-Season 7. If you're lucky and get a 1 in a million drop from a PVE event, or you can buy Lockbox weapons, but in all honesty these are random drops and costs a stupid amount on the exchange. Phased Polarons being the current exception. But the fact remains if you want a store that sells MK XII Purple Weapons then there is only one option and that is the Fleet. Lets not talk about "unique stuff" Fleet Elite ground weapons have unique skins and the Odyssey uniform is only accessible from a T3 Starbase. There is a large volume of end-game rewards stuck behind Fleet access that many players will never benefit from and that is just a bad business and game model.
If you want to know what I run, I still run [Borg] Weapons from the old STF's as thats all I have access to and I would be totally screwed if I didn't have the foresight to stock up on them.
With regards to needing a big Guild for Raids, that simply isn't true in my experience, with DDO I have done 100's of 20 man raids, the Vault being one of the most enjoyable pugging every single one as I run a small guild of 12 players.
#2311#2700#2316#2500
Not even that, you can also fill up by having another guild or two join in on the raid.
I wonder if the easiest solution is instead of aiming for 25-man fleets, they set the levels for somewhere in the 15 to 20 range and/or allow for outside contributions.
For the record, I believe this is an unfair characterization of large fleets. This is not about "efficiency" or "politics" or "cliques"; this is about being able to play the game the way you want to and get enjoyment from it, including rewards for time spent playing.
In my opinion, it's horribly unfair to demand that every fleet member is equally active or should contribute equally, or at all.
If the outcome of the Starbase and Embassy projects is sufficiently valuable to everyone, then most everyone will contribute to the best of their ability in order to reach that outcome. The fact of the matter is, many of the rewards aren't perceived as being all that valuable. We're grinding for the right to grind more to buy stuff, basically. It's perfectly okay if some people don't value that and don't want to contribute.
I believe every fleet should decide for itself how big it should be and what every member is expected to contribute, or not. I utterly oppose any discriminization toward any fleet just because of their size, big or small.
In short, EVERY fleet that is providing a benefit to its' members deserves to exist. If they're happy, they'll stay. THAT is the only measure that I care about.
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Except that the fleet advancement system is discriminatory by design. While every fleet may deserve to exist, apparently it's okay if some fleets are crippled for advancement.
I think that's unacceptable.
I believe they've lowered the cost of a SB at some point. So now it's closer to that 15-20 person range, if that's true.
Allowing others to contribute doesn't work nearly as well here, however. When you have more then one guild in a raid, it's just a question of deciding who gets the loot.
Having 2-5 fleets all share a single Starbase would require a lot more work on the part of the dev's. You'd have to work out new permissions, fair ways to deal with provisions, and so on that's not a simple thing to do.
For the record, I do not expect small fleets to advance as fast or faster than a larger one. I'm okay with it taking longer. I'm not okay with fleet advancement that completely stops, even when people are trying to contribute what they can.
If anything, I'm interested in proposals that help everybody, no matter what the size of their fleet. I'm even advocating things that would help large fleets.
But, to address this one point here...
Cryptic/PWE is the ONLY group who gets to say what's best for the game and what is not. If they decided to give small fleets a 25% boost tomorrow, anybody who thinks that somehow hurts their own enjoyment of the game... well, that's their problem. Likewise, anyone who wants to quit the game just because they aren't willing to put in the time, effort, and money that Cryptic says they should put in to get the shinys... quit, already. Players don't get to decide how the game rewards are doled out. All we can do is express our opinion. But we don't have to attack each other over it.
This whole competitive demand that the Devs should focus on the gameplay of any one group of players is very repugnant to me. I hate the whole bit. PvP VS PvE, Starfleet VS KDF, Escort VS Cruiser, Big Fleet VS Small Fleet, Players VS Devs... It's all pointless and stupid, and it has no place in this conversation in my opinion.
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Just like myself and DarkJeff have pointed out ways to help small fleets even though I assume both of us are in larger fleets. It is however a bit disconcerting however to have people come in here and demand that they be given an advantage over other types of fleets.
So towards that end, my ideas have all been ones that provide small fleets with way to see advancement, yet doesn't benefit only a given size fleet.
Again, I have access to all the Fleet stuff, and my bank/mule ships are full of them. After two solid weeks of testing, I ended up not using most of it.
The only part of the system that discriminates is the project queue which is biased against Fleets that have more resources than necessary. It otherwise does not grant an advantage to any particular group.
The "discrimination" you're likely referring to is also known as "numerical superiority" - which Cryptic isn't responsible for. The more you eat the more energy you take in. The more mass you have the greater your gravity. The more people donate, the more money you will collect. This is not something Cryptic designed, they didn't cause 100 to be greater than 10.
Really, I haven't had an non-technical issue with proposals for the sliders.
I think it would be easier for Cryptic to just put in new projects with predetermined tradeoffs rather than create a slider that applies to every project. Cryptic can still control the "horizontal and the vertical" so that the cost vs time scale still works in their favor, presumably with fewer technical hurdles to create new projects.
I strongly believe that there is an issue with blocking projects that needs to be addressed. When you're stuck for resources and can't complete one, you can't queue anything up in its' place. I think Cryptic should either give us the ability to suspend projects and work on something else in place of a suspended project or give us more project slots. Either way would be fine. I know they can't totally remove the blocked project issue, but even one more queue would be a huge help.
More alternate means for obtaining resources would also help out a lot. Like fleet-themed DOFF assignments that generate things such as Mk III Photon Torpedo Launchers, or the ability to exchange one kind of mark (Fleet, Omega, Romulan) for another, or even Fleet Resource packs in the C-Store that contain a random selection of common, tradeable project requirements.
I'm half-afraid they're eventually going to do away with the Commendation Reports and the Fleet Mark boosts... that would really get me upset if that ever happened.
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Or put another way, "many hands make light work". It's a universal truism, and there really are good reasons to apply that to STO.
Really, the people who designed the Fleet Advancement system did a good job in addressing the various inequities that could have resulted. Large fleets DO have an advantage, but there's also a built-in tradeoff and it's not just small fleets that have to make adjustments for the dynamics of the system.
If it weren't for the fact that the costs get dramatically larger the higher you advance, and the existence of certain other inequities and barriers to progress, I probably wouldn't even complain about it.
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Each project should be equivalent to 1/3rd the amount of resources a Fleet of "minimum" size for the Tier should be able to generate in 20 hours. ("Minimum" in quotation marks, since it's a soft cap.) If we look at the three T4 Engineering provisioning projects, every 20 hours we should be generating:
2880 Fleet Marks
240,000 Expertise
152,000 Refined Dilithium
100 Engineering Department Duty Officers
100 Operations Department Duty Officers
25 Engineering or Operations Duty Officers
800 Data Samples
750 Industrial Energy Cells
650 Industrial Replicators
1,000 Water Purification Systems
6,000 Provisions
Either their "minimum" size is pretty high, they expected us to have a much higher income, or they don't want us to be able to launch projects on cooldown.
Edit: Hm, actually if you split the work among 20, and all 20 were willing to grind it, you might be able to minimize downtime. Of course, you'd need everybody to be generating 12 of the appropriate DOffs every 20 hours, which I think might be the hardest part...
Each of those would have to grind out ~151 fleet marks in 24 hours which isn't so bad, doffs can come from the starbase and data samples you can buy off exchange for nothing. The commodities might get pricey and you'd probably have to have all 19 runing mirror incursion every other day too. So we can probably say that it would require about 2-4hrs a day grind each depending on how you get dilithium.
So lets apply that to my fleet of 4 (as it was after S7 caused the mass exodus), we would need 5 toons each more or less and each one would need to grind 10-20 hours a day to keep up.
Interestingly enough I worked out you need about 20 million dilithium to get to Tier 5 from Tier 3 including upgrades with another 6 million from T0 to T3 on embassy.
I certainly know we all put in more effort than 75% of people in large fleets which only makes us feel like there's just no point. We decided fudge that, we'll join a bigger fleet and just do bits and pieces here and there and start enjoying not having to give every scrap to that useless space junk.
Oh and Bluegeek I heard they removed commendation reports or something.
As for ways to scale it, well why not have member thresholds. Starts out light requirements 1/5 of a 500 member fleet and then scales according to members every 100 members. To prevent people leaving then rejoining you can put a 24/48 hr timer before you can join another fleet. Should discourage bank raiders too. I know people could get kicked and end up being in a bit of a predicament but honestly would you want to rejoin a fleet that kicked you for no raisin?
I know it has flaws and might cause grief but surely it would cause less grief than what is currently happening to small fleets?
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
For background, we have a membership list of around 60 members, but over time, the number of active members has dwindled to around 5 or so.
And of those 5, the two active contributors are me and another leader.
We've been making quite nice progress so far, we've gotten all 3 Starbase fields to T3 and the Embassy Fields to T2.
But then the fun of the ride ended as soon as I looked at the individual cost of the upgrades.
I don't remember what it costs to upgrade a Starbase to T3, but I did memorize what it takes to upgrade an Embassy to T2.
10500 Fleet Marks and 1000000 Dilithium.
The first one can be done given time, but the second one, well, I have doubts we'll ever be able to collect that much Dilithium!
Now, to be clear, I like my fleet, because it feels more personal that I know everyone who is in it, instead of having a large number of people who are just names on a list.
Also, for better or worse, I commit to a Fleet, out of loyalty and responsibility to the members.
So, I'm not going to abandon it no matter what.
But now I feel like I'm being punished for my commitment to these ideals.
And I'm also painfully aware that recruitment is tougher now, because everyone wants the T5 fleets for the fleet ships and the Elite Gear.
I'm thinking the system needs to be rebalanced a heck of a lot to level the playing field, so to speak.
Basing it on members wouldn't be a good mechanic, because technically we're a fleet of 60+members.
And no, I don't kick out inactives, because that's what appeals to our members, come and go as you please, you'll always have a place with us, even if you are absent for a long time.
Basing it on active contributions would be a better method, having the system scan the contributors per month and saying, only 3 people contributed this month, so they qualify for small fleet status.
And have it scale to the number of contributors, the less there are, the cheaper the costs.
And yes, I am aware that the large fleets (and members of said fleets) are actively roadblocking this proposal.
I'm thinking they're just being egotistical, because they don't want small fleets to achieve T5.
And there's possibly a selfish angle there, they want to dissolve the small fleets so they can absorb their members.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
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