1. Fleet marks for PvP and small amounts of fleet marks for completed doff assignments.
2. Conversion of rep marks to fleet marks in the manner of dil conversion.
3. Allow for the direct conversion/donation of dil above the 8k cap. I mean that once a player contributes 8k in a day they would have the option to donate another X amount of ore which would be refined and contributed directly to the the SB.
4. Allow for selective unlocks. Instead of the whole shipyard allow a single fleet ship at a time to be unlocked. The whole shipyard could be unlocked faster and for less, leaving large fleets with an advantage.
_______________ CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that? Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
Ah I am in a small fleet and I have gotten over the fact it will take awhile to grind it up... and I don't mind anymore.
What can I do? I hate fleet politics, I was in 2 other fleets before I just ended up with a small one. There always seemed to be some nonsense drama to deal with, or restrictions on what you could purchase ( even though I was #4 ranked in donations for a good 5 months.. this pushed me over the edge ).
So now, me and a couple of others are in our little fleet, and waiting for our T3 shipyard to finish, working on embassy T1 now.
I even spent the cash to get about 90% of the cosmetic upgrades
So yeah, we small fleets should just get over this, and deal with it.
OH and sorry to stick with topic, buy some FMs from people selling them! That's my alternative to small fleet progression. Dilithium is pretty plentiful for now so that is not a problem.
Can someone explain to me why there is a issue? There are sufficient ways to get marks in game as it exists today. CXP turn ins and PvE's during the 2 hour event that runs at least 3 times in a 24 hour period usually provide more than enough Fleet marks to feed your projects.
Then if you pick up a FM bonus pool from your starbase, you get even more marks
Maybe I'm just not seeing the issue, but there are plenty of ways, for small and large fleets to get the requirements
What is silly is for you to think the Devs will risk alienating most of the players who are in decent sized fleets just to satisfy the few stubborn people who want to stay in their small fleets and have a t5 starbase to themselves. Don't expect changes just to satisfy a small disgruntled minority when most players are in decent sized fleets.
"Most players are in decent sized fleets"
You work for Cryptic? If not where can I find this data you quoted?
This is a video game. Small fleets only want a chance to complete these projects before the lights go out, or we die of old age.
As I posted in another thread I started, large fleets should have the advantages; faster project completion, less required inputs per member; and I even suggested a purchasing discount on fleet starbase wares.
But faster is the key here, not the only ones.
And based on past performance, Cryptic has no issues with alienating players...
Can someone explain to me why there is a issue? There are sufficient ways to get marks in game as it exists today. CXP turn ins and PvE's during the 2 hour event that runs at least 3 times in a 24 hour period usually provide more than enough Fleet marks to feed your projects.
Then if you pick up a FM bonus pool from your starbase, you get even more marks
Maybe I'm just not seeing the issue, but there are plenty of ways, for small and large fleets to get the requirements
Great that you feel that way. Judging from the posts here, others do not feel that way.
That's why there is a forum.
As for explaining to you why this is an issue, you learn why people feel the way the feel in a thread by reading their posts.
If they're going to revamp things, then put the effort into making it better, not just put another bandaid on it.
A slider has the benefit of letting people fine tune their projects to suit their fleet. Maybe there's something they really want and everyone is willing to put in some serious grind time to get it. So you'd set the slider up higher, because you know you'll get the resources more quickly then you might otherwise.
More projects could work but would also start to clutter up the UI.
The end result would be that the Fleet could control things better, but it would still take about the same amount of total time to get to T5.
True, but a slider introduces a potential new mechanic, and let's face it Cryptic isn't exactly what you'd call a model example of bug free development. I'll take a little bit of clutter over an entirely new system that breaks the entire starbase/holding mechanic.
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?
Summary (aka tl:dr):
Fleets can make progress towards all fleet projects doing any in-game content as a team thus rewarding the fleet for acting like a fleet, not just for having a bunch of people who don't even know who else exists.
Fleets can use whatever resource is most readily available to their members to complete fleet projects. So the cost is still there and steady, but the flexibility makes it easier to contribute and participate.
Fleets can set their own project pace, and as fleets grow or shrink they can adapt to the change.
Fleets can focus on starbase or embassy projects separately. Not every fleet has the same goals.
Long Version with the numbers and logic
Personally, I think that all of the solutions proposed are tactical answers for a strategic-level problem and thus will only treat the symptoms in a limited way without resolving anything.
Here is how I view the problem from a strategic level:
* Fleets are team-based social constructs.
* All current in-game rewards are solitary, single-player based
* All current in-game rewards are linked to the content not the player(s)
Here is how I propose solving it:
* Add fleet marks as a bonus award to every activity only if you are teamed with your fleetmates.
* Re-do all costs for all fleet projects as follows:
1. Calculate the fleet credit value of each project
2. 25% of listed price for each item is mandatory (eg if it needs 100 doffs you must give a minimum of 25; 50% for dilithium (because this is needed for cryptic to monetize starbases)
2. Allow the remaining fleet credit amount to be donated in ANY category assigned to the project.
3. reduce fleet credits given for experience by 33%
*Add two projects that let you set a value to change the scale of all other projects (set value for starbase and embassy separately). Specifically changing the cost and award values but leaving the cooldown periods identical. (NOTE: this change is one I actually originally thought of for bigger fleets, but it happens to help small ones just as much)
Explanations in more depth and with examples:
Examples of earning marks:
Run the fleet mark actions in a pug get the current amount (say 40). Run them with your fleetmates and get the normal amount plus the bonus (say 40+1/minute it took to win on average).
Re-run the episode "skirmish" with a fleetmate and you both get everything it normally awards and a few fleet marks (1/5 minutes it took to complete on average). Run solo, you get the normal award.
Fleet marks are thus an award for taking actions with your fleet members. Rewards for participating with your fleet members.
Probably will need to look into a fleet alliance or league system as well.
Will ideally find a way to reward for time spent roleplaying or whatever that can't be exploited by an AFK bot application. so not simply based on time spent teamed, but I have not viable idea at this time, everything I can think of is too open to abuse or just not worthwhile (voting systems etc)
NOTE: this technology opens the door to other forms of fleet-based content, special events and awards.
Example of project cost changes:
The Tier 1 project provision personal fleet equipment from engineering 1 costs: 300 marks, 60k dil, 20k exp, 200 data, 125 energy cells.
Minimum cost would be: 75 fleet marks, 30kdil, 2.5k exp, 50 data, 32 energy cells.
The remaining cost could be paid with any combination of marks, dil, exp, data and energy cells, but you have to donate the exact same amount of fleet credits worth. So you could do it with all industrial energy cells if you happen to have a fleet member with a ton of energy credits and a tuffli. Or everyone could run a few STFs together, donate the fleet marks (because you're in a team with fleet mates so you get them), half the dil, and all the exp and make a way bigger dent than just the dil alone currently gives. Note that you can't donate for example Bridge Officers or warp coils because they're not used for this project.
Example of Scaling Projects
Again, looking at the tier 1 engineer provisions project, it gives 500 engineering exp and 10 provisions with a 20-hour cooldown. This is great for small fleets, but 10 provisions divided among 400 players isn't enough. At the higher tiers, the cost starts to hurt small fleets as much as the cooldown hurts big ones. Kill two birds with one stone:
Run a project to decrease the "scale" of all projects (except upgrades and special projects) by 1 step
Run a project to increase the "scale" of all projects (except upgrades and special projects) by 1 step
Have scales from 1 to 5, consider the current "scale" to be 3.
1. all costs reduced TO (not by) 25% and rewards reduced to 33%
2. all costs reduced to 50% and rewards reduced to 60%
3. current values
4. all costs and rewards doubled
5. all costs and rewards increased 300%
Logic: give the lower scales a higher reward than the cost reduction indicates since the cooldown becomes a much bigger factor. For example, to earn the same 1000 experience running only that single project at scale 1 you otherwise would have 2 instances of a 20 hour cooldown. Doing at at scale 2 you have 4 for a total of 80 hours spent in cooldown, and at 1 you have 8 for 160 hours in cooldown. I'm not sure if my proposed values for this are balanced, as the math starts to get ugly, and they might be a bit too high. With the bonus to reward compared to cost smaller scale projects are essentially getting a small bonus for downtime. It is only a benefit to the smallest fleets.
More important is the psychological benefit of the fleet seeing steady progress, even if it is in smaller steps. This was the biggest killer in the current system. Stuff stalled and people felt bad. So even if you're technically paying almost the same cost over a longer time, you see the progress come in more often and that is a big big help.
Add new Fleet Holdings designed for small fleets. These would also have steep tier unlock costs, but balanced around what a small fleet is capable of in a reasonable amount of time...
Small Fleet Holdings would NOT be available for large fleets.
I am in basic agreement with the idea of an alternate path of progress for small fleets.
Instead of a Starbase, give us a Depot with a Spacedock. A limited facility with Military and Engineering tracks only. You could build limited versions of the shipyard and industrial replicator there. No ground gear unlocks. To make it relevant, put it at the other end of the galaxy map.
Give us a Deep Space Station with Diplomacy and Science tracks. You could build limited versions of the communications array and transwarp conduit. No ground gear unlocks.
Instead of an Embassy, give us an Outpost on an undeveloped colony world. Recruitment track only. Put all of the ground gear unlocks here; no space gear unlocks.
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 am in basic agreement with the idea of an alternate path of progress for small fleets.
Instead of a Starbase, give us a Depot with a Spacedock. A limited facility with Military and Engineering tracks only. You could build limited versions of the shipyard and industrial replicator there. No ground gear unlocks. To make it relevant, put it at the other end of the galaxy map.
Give us a Deep Space Station with Diplomacy and Science tracks. You could build limited versions of the communications array and transwarp conduit. No ground gear unlocks.
Instead of an Embassy, give us an Outpost on an undeveloped colony world. Recruitment track only. Put all of the ground gear unlocks here; no space gear unlocks.
you would have some fleets out there exploit this so IMHO this would never work, but since I could careless about the ground gear for the starbase I would go for this as long as it was not exploited all tho I would want the space stuff from the embassy so on that part I don't like.
I am in basic agreement with the idea of an alternate path of progress for small fleets.
Instead of a Starbase, give us a Depot with a Spacedock. A limited facility with Military and Engineering tracks only. You could build limited versions of the shipyard and industrial replicator there. No ground gear unlocks. To make it relevant, put it at the other end of the galaxy map.
Give us a Deep Space Station with Diplomacy and Science tracks. You could build limited versions of the communications array and transwarp conduit. No ground gear unlocks.
Instead of an Embassy, give us an Outpost on an undeveloped colony world. Recruitment track only. Put all of the ground gear unlocks here; no space gear unlocks.
Not sure this would satisfy the people who are in small fleets.
I think the issue would become "Why am I being locked out from earnable gear just because I don't want to deal with the drama of teaming up with 100+ random players instead of the 10 players I know and like?"
What your proposal here would amount to is punishing players who don't want to join large fleets by locking them away from fleet stores. How does that address any problem? It just creates a new one.
Frankly, I am not entirely sure there is a decent solution. If Cryptic designed projects around 25 person fleets, then they should have made 25 people the smallest number of players who could form a fleet.
Nothing they do now will make everyone happy, and anything they do now may simply result in everyone being unhappy.
Frankly, I am not entirely sure there is a decent solution. If Cryptic designed projects around 25 person fleets, then they should have made 25 people the smallest number of players who could form a fleet.
Nothing they do now will make everyone happy, and anything they do now may simply result in everyone being unhappy.
Or perhaps limited the range from 15 to 40 or 50. Making a 25-man fleet still isn't enough once you look at the costs for tier 4 and 5. And the difference between what a 500-man fleet can accomplish and a 25-man is still too great.
I am in basic agreement with the idea of an alternate path of progress for small fleets.
What about chopping up the existing projects into smaller chunks?
I'm not sure how this would work for all of them, and wouldn't work for the vanity projects...
But what if you had 4-5 Tactical projects that each project unlocked 1 fleet ship. The TW gate could be chopped up the same way. Cut the amount of Starbase XP needed down, so smaller groups could advance in tiers, but larger groups could have more stuff at the same tier.
What about chopping up the existing projects into smaller chunks?
I'm not sure how this would work for all of them, and wouldn't work for the vanity projects...
But what if you had 4-5 Tactical projects that each project unlocked 1 fleet ship. The TW gate could be chopped up the same way. Cut the amount of Starbase XP needed down, so smaller groups could advance in tiers, but larger groups could have more stuff at the same tier.
Simply splitting up projects wouldn't be enough. Unless I'm grossly misreading you here, the issue of being locked out of things at higher tiers would still exist. If the current mechanics had all the functional stuff (fleet equipment, ships etc) at tiers 1-3 (or less) with tiers 4-5 being strictly vanity/cosmetic/fluff stuff, I don't think there would be anywhere near the current state of dissatisfaction, nor the want for a modulation of costs.
Not sure this would satisfy the people who are in small fleets.
I think the issue would become "Why am I being locked out from earnable gear just because I don't want to deal with the drama of teaming up with 100+ random players instead of the 10 players I know and like?"
What your proposal here would amount to is punishing players who don't want to join large fleets by locking them away from fleet stores. How does that address any problem? It just creates a new one.
That's not exactly where I was going with that idea.
I'm envisioning a path by which small fleets could get most of the same gear, with somewhat lower project costs, at the expense of having to maintain more small holdings to get it all. If they tried to match a full starbase by fully levelling all of the small holdings, it might actually cost more and they'd be better off just levelling the starbase.
What it could buy fleets of all sizes are:
- More projects to complete, therefore more sources of Fleet Credits
- More locations to use in the game (more places to get mail, do the banking, etc.)
- More targeted progression to get the kind of gear you want, at the expense of limiting what you can build at each location and having to support more holdings to get all of it.
Anyway, it's just an idea and I've thrown it out there. Thanks for the feedback.
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 Star trek online community boy cot? Don't work around their mess, don't let the small fleets die just don't buy any ZEN untill they bring back the missions. Fleet cost are out of controll, with no end coming soon why? I think it is so the makers do not have to bring in new missions or new things if you slow us players down the less time they need to spend on making the game better. I say it is time we show them this is not the way to keep their customers happy.:D
The SB is almost completely about the grind however. It is intended to be something a group of people work together over a long period of time to accomplish. Why should a group of people be given the same thing as others but not be expected to put the same amount of effort into it?
That would be great, if it was the case, but its not. Right now a fleet of 10, puts in much more effort than a fleet of 100. Per member effort, is not the same at all, the smaller fleet does much more per member than the large fleet. a fleet of 10 doing the T3 upgrades would need to have each member put in 540 marks to make it, where as a fleet of 100, does 54. Who's doing more, Per member (which is where the concentration should be, by the way, effort per member)
The only way to do anything about that is some sort of scaling system, which will be abused by everyone, no matter the size of their fleet. Also a scaling is IMO inherently unfair to large fleets, because now you're expecting them to pay more for the same thing.
I don't know about everyone, will some yes not everyone. one way to combat the abuse, is to scale the rewards. the larger the fleet the more they get. As an example the 10 man fleet gets 500 xp per project, where as the 100 man would get, 2500 So, more effort, more reward. The larger fleet will stand to gain by not abusing the system since they get more reward for their time and effort per member. I would suggest as well that an upper cap be placed as well so that we don't run into the same situation at the high end, the number I would suggest, is 150 or 175. (members)
One other way to possibly stop the abuse is no scale back. Hit a level of membership your requirements go up for the remainder of the tier. This, could possibly be problematic, as you could have those that grief others, however, this gets down to a fleet recruiting folks they know will participate and not just blind recruiting. Quality over Quantity. I would also suggest that each fleet be granted one rollback by either token or some other method. Potential here for abuse could be mitigated in several ways, Only one "level." Have it cost, etc.
Why should small fleets be treated differently then large ones? Why should they get special treatment just because they don't want to do something?
Right now, they're being treated differently, they're having to do more PER MEMBER than a large fleet. Which is problematic because it impacts them much more adversely than a large fleet. My suggestion levels the field some, gives the larger folks more reward for more effort, and reduces both for the smaller fleets, smaller effort, smaller gain, larger effort, larger gain. You can choose how much you want by your fleet size
The mute abuse problem needs to be resolved one way or the other
The abuse of the silence button has been around for years and gotten absolutely no attention. It's crazy. I mean, even I've been silenced and I really don't say much of anything in-game. I use the forums for that. But one day I made a comment in sector space and was silenced.
It's a stupid band-aid fix to gold-farm spammers that ends up doing a lot more harm than good.
But who they have on staff that can actually fix it though?
the issue of being locked out of things at higher tiers would still exist.
I know that my post wasn't excessively clear, but I'm not sure it's even that great of an idea. But to answer this question...
If they did this, they could reduce the XP needed to get to those higher tiers, so you could get to T4 or even T5 for fewer resources then you need now. But, you would also have fewer total items unlocked at the same tier.
So take the shipyard because that's easy.
Lets say the fleet is only really interested in Ship X, so you run a project to unlock ship X. Doing that and perhaps a few other missions would give you enough XP to reach T3 in tactical, but you'd only have that one ship in your fleet shipyard for sale. Larger fleets could unlock everything where small fleets would have fewer things unlocked, but be on the same tier...
Again not sure if it's a great idea but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway.
I think my idea of a slider using time to change the cost is a better all around idea.
Here's an idea that maybe could make a scaling cost work... Feel free to poke holes in it.
What if there was some sort of cost/time slider.
So the middle of the slider would be the current cost and time per project.
On the one end, the cost would go down, but the time to complete goes up. On the other the time to complete goes down but the cost goes up. To use some completely made up numbers...
So it's 10 times the cost, for a 10 times reduction in time.
This could also work Very well. Since again it rewards you for more folks and less folks. its also somewhat, exploit proof since it would take longer with less.
Currently, the primary reasoning for having a starbase at all is to gain access to special fleet-only items, like ultra rare weapons and fleet ships. These unlocks require a huge amount of resources and these resources MUST be donated by fleet members. Currently, there are few reasons to remain in a small fleet or to work towards building a large fleet base when it will take much less work to simply join a large fleet. There's no real game-play choice here. Either struggle along with a few friends an, maybe, get there, or sign up with an already-established fleet and gain access to what you want immediately.
Alternative advancements for large and small fleets are interesting, but I think the mechanisms involved are too divisive. An ideal solution would be a single, unified system that doesn't require a scaling metric and can be rewarding to fleets no matter what their size.
The fleet starbases are isolated systems. That's what needs to be addressed.
Give fleets the ability to set up basic "requisition agreements" that allow one party to temporarily access the resources of another. These "agreements" take the form of a project, just like any fleet base improvement. A small fleet may not be able to grind up to T3 fleet ships any time soon, but they should be able to afford a smaller scale project that lets them access a larger fleet's shipyards or weapon's stores for the time that it's "completing". The small fleet benefits by gaining access to wanted equipment and the larger fleet gets an infusion of resources to devote to existing projects.
The number of friendly fleets a party can arrange such agreements with can determined by their embassy tier. The agreements themselves have a timer that prevents them from being cancelled quickly and slotting another small fleet into place, say, a week or more. That should prevent a single large fleet from, effectively, becoming a fleet-ship factory for the rest of the fleets out there.
That should present each fleet with more interesting choices as well as benefiting all sorts of fleets. Smaller fleets that dont' care about numbers will have access to weapons they want. Large fleets with huge starbases can more easily afford uber-projects.
That's not exactly where I was going with that idea.
I'm envisioning a path by which small fleets could get most of the same gear, with somewhat lower project costs, at the expense of having to maintain more small holdings to get it all. If they tried to match a full starbase by fully levelling all of the small holdings, it might actually cost more and they'd be better off just levelling the starbase.
What it could buy fleets of all sizes are:
- More projects to complete, therefore more sources of Fleet Credits
- More locations to use in the game (more places to get mail, do the banking, etc.)
- More targeted progression to get the kind of gear you want, at the expense of limiting what you can build at each location and having to support more holdings to get all of it.
Anyway, it's just an idea and I've thrown it out there. Thanks for the feedback.
Wasn't trying to crush your spirit or be an a**-clown, but speaking as someone in a small fleet, I'd rather have the projects be proportional to the number of people attempting to complete them.
That way, we all have access to the same gear, at the same relative cost per player. This would also mean people wouldn't have to join large fleets if they didn't want to. That'd be a win for those of us who aren't interested in drama creeping into our limited video game time.
Also, it would counter the creation of the uber-fleets. If the project inputs were proportional to the number of fleet members, a 500 person fleet wouldn't be any better off than a 15 person fleet and a 15 person fleet wouldn't be any worse off than a 500 person fleet.
Not sure this would satisfy the people who are in small fleets.
I think the issue would become "Why am I being locked out from earnable gear just because I don't want to deal with the drama of teaming up with 100+ random players instead of the 10 players I know and like?"
What your proposal here would amount to is punishing players who don't want to join large fleets by locking them away from fleet stores. How does that address any problem? It just creates a new one.
Frankly, I am not entirely sure there is a decent solution. If Cryptic designed projects around 25 person fleets, then they should have made 25 people the smallest number of players who could form a fleet.
Nothing they do now will make everyone happy, and anything they do now may simply result in everyone being unhappy.
Scaled Fleets (= scaled inputs)
You pick the size. Locked. Upgrade for more members. Zen. Amount. Cryptic.
Overall completion time (or smaller = longer): Large fleets will have up to six months to show off and brag about their exclusive stuff. Cryptic. Produce more stuff. Repeat.
Inputs: 10% premium max for smallest fleet. Advantage larger fleets.
SB/Embassy goodies: 10% purchase preimum max for small fleet. Advantage larger fleets.
Everybody can have everything, just some will take longer to get it. Premiums... the cost of being exclusive.
No additional ingame assets required, just back end programing.
This could also work Very well. Since again it rewards you for more folks and less folks. its also somewhat, exploit proof since it would take longer with less.
Comments
2. Conversion of rep marks to fleet marks in the manner of dil conversion.
3. Allow for the direct conversion/donation of dil above the 8k cap. I mean that once a player contributes 8k in a day they would have the option to donate another X amount of ore which would be refined and contributed directly to the the SB.
4. Allow for selective unlocks. Instead of the whole shipyard allow a single fleet ship at a time to be unlocked. The whole shipyard could be unlocked faster and for less, leaving large fleets with an advantage.
CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that?
Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
What can I do? I hate fleet politics, I was in 2 other fleets before I just ended up with a small one. There always seemed to be some nonsense drama to deal with, or restrictions on what you could purchase ( even though I was #4 ranked in donations for a good 5 months.. this pushed me over the edge ).
So now, me and a couple of others are in our little fleet, and waiting for our T3 shipyard to finish, working on embassy T1 now.
I even spent the cash to get about 90% of the cosmetic upgrades
So yeah, we small fleets should just get over this, and deal with it.
OH and sorry to stick with topic, buy some FMs from people selling them! That's my alternative to small fleet progression. Dilithium is pretty plentiful for now so that is not a problem.
Then if you pick up a FM bonus pool from your starbase, you get even more marks
Maybe I'm just not seeing the issue, but there are plenty of ways, for small and large fleets to get the requirements
"Most players are in decent sized fleets"
You work for Cryptic? If not where can I find this data you quoted?
This is a video game. Small fleets only want a chance to complete these projects before the lights go out, or we die of old age.
As I posted in another thread I started, large fleets should have the advantages; faster project completion, less required inputs per member; and I even suggested a purchasing discount on fleet starbase wares.
But faster is the key here, not the only ones.
And based on past performance, Cryptic has no issues with alienating players...
Great that you feel that way. Judging from the posts here, others do not feel that way.
That's why there is a forum.
As for explaining to you why this is an issue, you learn why people feel the way the feel in a thread by reading their posts.
Thanks, and welcome to the internet.
True, but a slider introduces a potential new mechanic, and let's face it Cryptic isn't exactly what you'd call a model example of bug free development. I'll take a little bit of clutter over an entirely new system that breaks the entire starbase/holding mechanic.
Summary (aka tl:dr):
Fleets can make progress towards all fleet projects doing any in-game content as a team thus rewarding the fleet for acting like a fleet, not just for having a bunch of people who don't even know who else exists.
Fleets can use whatever resource is most readily available to their members to complete fleet projects. So the cost is still there and steady, but the flexibility makes it easier to contribute and participate.
Fleets can set their own project pace, and as fleets grow or shrink they can adapt to the change.
Fleets can focus on starbase or embassy projects separately. Not every fleet has the same goals.
Long Version with the numbers and logic
Personally, I think that all of the solutions proposed are tactical answers for a strategic-level problem and thus will only treat the symptoms in a limited way without resolving anything.
Here is how I view the problem from a strategic level:
* Fleets are team-based social constructs.
* All current in-game rewards are solitary, single-player based
* All current in-game rewards are linked to the content not the player(s)
Here is how I propose solving it:
* Add fleet marks as a bonus award to every activity only if you are teamed with your fleetmates.
* Re-do all costs for all fleet projects as follows:
1. Calculate the fleet credit value of each project
2. 25% of listed price for each item is mandatory (eg if it needs 100 doffs you must give a minimum of 25; 50% for dilithium (because this is needed for cryptic to monetize starbases)
2. Allow the remaining fleet credit amount to be donated in ANY category assigned to the project.
3. reduce fleet credits given for experience by 33%
*Add two projects that let you set a value to change the scale of all other projects (set value for starbase and embassy separately). Specifically changing the cost and award values but leaving the cooldown periods identical. (NOTE: this change is one I actually originally thought of for bigger fleets, but it happens to help small ones just as much)
Explanations in more depth and with examples:
Examples of earning marks:
Run the fleet mark actions in a pug get the current amount (say 40). Run them with your fleetmates and get the normal amount plus the bonus (say 40+1/minute it took to win on average).
Re-run the episode "skirmish" with a fleetmate and you both get everything it normally awards and a few fleet marks (1/5 minutes it took to complete on average). Run solo, you get the normal award.
Fleet marks are thus an award for taking actions with your fleet members. Rewards for participating with your fleet members.
Probably will need to look into a fleet alliance or league system as well.
Will ideally find a way to reward for time spent roleplaying or whatever that can't be exploited by an AFK bot application. so not simply based on time spent teamed, but I have not viable idea at this time, everything I can think of is too open to abuse or just not worthwhile (voting systems etc)
NOTE: this technology opens the door to other forms of fleet-based content, special events and awards.
Example of project cost changes:
The Tier 1 project provision personal fleet equipment from engineering 1 costs: 300 marks, 60k dil, 20k exp, 200 data, 125 energy cells.
Minimum cost would be: 75 fleet marks, 30kdil, 2.5k exp, 50 data, 32 energy cells.
The remaining cost could be paid with any combination of marks, dil, exp, data and energy cells, but you have to donate the exact same amount of fleet credits worth. So you could do it with all industrial energy cells if you happen to have a fleet member with a ton of energy credits and a tuffli. Or everyone could run a few STFs together, donate the fleet marks (because you're in a team with fleet mates so you get them), half the dil, and all the exp and make a way bigger dent than just the dil alone currently gives. Note that you can't donate for example Bridge Officers or warp coils because they're not used for this project.
Example of Scaling Projects
Again, looking at the tier 1 engineer provisions project, it gives 500 engineering exp and 10 provisions with a 20-hour cooldown. This is great for small fleets, but 10 provisions divided among 400 players isn't enough. At the higher tiers, the cost starts to hurt small fleets as much as the cooldown hurts big ones. Kill two birds with one stone:
Run a project to decrease the "scale" of all projects (except upgrades and special projects) by 1 step
Run a project to increase the "scale" of all projects (except upgrades and special projects) by 1 step
Have scales from 1 to 5, consider the current "scale" to be 3.
1. all costs reduced TO (not by) 25% and rewards reduced to 33%
2. all costs reduced to 50% and rewards reduced to 60%
3. current values
4. all costs and rewards doubled
5. all costs and rewards increased 300%
At all scales the cooldown time is unchanged.
So that tier 1 provision becomes:
1. 165 exp, 4 provisions
2. 300 exp, 6 provisions
3. 500 exp, 10 provisions
4. 1000 exp, 20 provisions
5. 1500 exp, 30 provisions
Logic: give the lower scales a higher reward than the cost reduction indicates since the cooldown becomes a much bigger factor. For example, to earn the same 1000 experience running only that single project at scale 1 you otherwise would have 2 instances of a 20 hour cooldown. Doing at at scale 2 you have 4 for a total of 80 hours spent in cooldown, and at 1 you have 8 for 160 hours in cooldown. I'm not sure if my proposed values for this are balanced, as the math starts to get ugly, and they might be a bit too high. With the bonus to reward compared to cost smaller scale projects are essentially getting a small bonus for downtime. It is only a benefit to the smallest fleets.
More important is the psychological benefit of the fleet seeing steady progress, even if it is in smaller steps. This was the biggest killer in the current system. Stuff stalled and people felt bad. So even if you're technically paying almost the same cost over a longer time, you see the progress come in more often and that is a big big help.
I am in basic agreement with the idea of an alternate path of progress for small fleets.
Instead of a Starbase, give us a Depot with a Spacedock. A limited facility with Military and Engineering tracks only. You could build limited versions of the shipyard and industrial replicator there. No ground gear unlocks. To make it relevant, put it at the other end of the galaxy map.
Give us a Deep Space Station with Diplomacy and Science tracks. You could build limited versions of the communications array and transwarp conduit. No ground gear unlocks.
Instead of an Embassy, give us an Outpost on an undeveloped colony world. Recruitment track only. Put all of the ground gear unlocks here; no space gear unlocks.
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Whew.
I think next time, you should lead with that.
you would have some fleets out there exploit this so IMHO this would never work, but since I could careless about the ground gear for the starbase I would go for this as long as it was not exploited all tho I would want the space stuff from the embassy so on that part I don't like.
Not sure this would satisfy the people who are in small fleets.
I think the issue would become "Why am I being locked out from earnable gear just because I don't want to deal with the drama of teaming up with 100+ random players instead of the 10 players I know and like?"
What your proposal here would amount to is punishing players who don't want to join large fleets by locking them away from fleet stores. How does that address any problem? It just creates a new one.
Frankly, I am not entirely sure there is a decent solution. If Cryptic designed projects around 25 person fleets, then they should have made 25 people the smallest number of players who could form a fleet.
Nothing they do now will make everyone happy, and anything they do now may simply result in everyone being unhappy.
Good idea, I'll move it. Thanks.
Or perhaps limited the range from 15 to 40 or 50. Making a 25-man fleet still isn't enough once you look at the costs for tier 4 and 5. And the difference between what a 500-man fleet can accomplish and a 25-man is still too great.
What about chopping up the existing projects into smaller chunks?
I'm not sure how this would work for all of them, and wouldn't work for the vanity projects...
But what if you had 4-5 Tactical projects that each project unlocked 1 fleet ship. The TW gate could be chopped up the same way. Cut the amount of Starbase XP needed down, so smaller groups could advance in tiers, but larger groups could have more stuff at the same tier.
Simply splitting up projects wouldn't be enough. Unless I'm grossly misreading you here, the issue of being locked out of things at higher tiers would still exist. If the current mechanics had all the functional stuff (fleet equipment, ships etc) at tiers 1-3 (or less) with tiers 4-5 being strictly vanity/cosmetic/fluff stuff, I don't think there would be anywhere near the current state of dissatisfaction, nor the want for a modulation of costs.
That's not exactly where I was going with that idea.
I'm envisioning a path by which small fleets could get most of the same gear, with somewhat lower project costs, at the expense of having to maintain more small holdings to get it all. If they tried to match a full starbase by fully levelling all of the small holdings, it might actually cost more and they'd be better off just levelling the starbase.
What it could buy fleets of all sizes are:
- More projects to complete, therefore more sources of Fleet Credits
- More locations to use in the game (more places to get mail, do the banking, etc.)
- More targeted progression to get the kind of gear you want, at the expense of limiting what you can build at each location and having to support more holdings to get all of it.
Anyway, it's just an idea and I've thrown it out there. Thanks for the feedback.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
less than 10 - 120 fm
10 - 50 - 100 fm
50 - 100 - 75 fm
100 - 150 - 50 fm
150 - 500 - 35 fm
I don't know about everyone, will some yes not everyone. one way to combat the abuse, is to scale the rewards. the larger the fleet the more they get. As an example the 10 man fleet gets 500 xp per project, where as the 100 man would get, 2500 So, more effort, more reward. The larger fleet will stand to gain by not abusing the system since they get more reward for their time and effort per member. I would suggest as well that an upper cap be placed as well so that we don't run into the same situation at the high end, the number I would suggest, is 150 or 175. (members)
One other way to possibly stop the abuse is no scale back. Hit a level of membership your requirements go up for the remainder of the tier. This, could possibly be problematic, as you could have those that grief others, however, this gets down to a fleet recruiting folks they know will participate and not just blind recruiting. Quality over Quantity. I would also suggest that each fleet be granted one rollback by either token or some other method. Potential here for abuse could be mitigated in several ways, Only one "level." Have it cost, etc.
Right now, they're being treated differently, they're having to do more PER MEMBER than a large fleet. Which is problematic because it impacts them much more adversely than a large fleet. My suggestion levels the field some, gives the larger folks more reward for more effort, and reduces both for the smaller fleets, smaller effort, smaller gain, larger effort, larger gain. You can choose how much you want by your fleet size
This, I think almost everyone agrees on, not enough FM events, and those are getting filled with the folks who do things detrimental to the event.
The abuse of the silence button has been around for years and gotten absolutely no attention. It's crazy. I mean, even I've been silenced and I really don't say much of anything in-game. I use the forums for that. But one day I made a comment in sector space and was silenced.
It's a stupid band-aid fix to gold-farm spammers that ends up doing a lot more harm than good.
But who they have on staff that can actually fix it though?
I know that my post wasn't excessively clear, but I'm not sure it's even that great of an idea. But to answer this question...
If they did this, they could reduce the XP needed to get to those higher tiers, so you could get to T4 or even T5 for fewer resources then you need now. But, you would also have fewer total items unlocked at the same tier.
So take the shipyard because that's easy.
Lets say the fleet is only really interested in Ship X, so you run a project to unlock ship X. Doing that and perhaps a few other missions would give you enough XP to reach T3 in tactical, but you'd only have that one ship in your fleet shipyard for sale. Larger fleets could unlock everything where small fleets would have fewer things unlocked, but be on the same tier...
Again not sure if it's a great idea but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway.
I think my idea of a slider using time to change the cost is a better all around idea.
This could also work Very well. Since again it rewards you for more folks and less folks. its also somewhat, exploit proof since it would take longer with less.
Alternative advancements for large and small fleets are interesting, but I think the mechanisms involved are too divisive. An ideal solution would be a single, unified system that doesn't require a scaling metric and can be rewarding to fleets no matter what their size.
The fleet starbases are isolated systems. That's what needs to be addressed.
Give fleets the ability to set up basic "requisition agreements" that allow one party to temporarily access the resources of another. These "agreements" take the form of a project, just like any fleet base improvement. A small fleet may not be able to grind up to T3 fleet ships any time soon, but they should be able to afford a smaller scale project that lets them access a larger fleet's shipyards or weapon's stores for the time that it's "completing". The small fleet benefits by gaining access to wanted equipment and the larger fleet gets an infusion of resources to devote to existing projects.
The number of friendly fleets a party can arrange such agreements with can determined by their embassy tier. The agreements themselves have a timer that prevents them from being cancelled quickly and slotting another small fleet into place, say, a week or more. That should prevent a single large fleet from, effectively, becoming a fleet-ship factory for the rest of the fleets out there.
That should present each fleet with more interesting choices as well as benefiting all sorts of fleets. Smaller fleets that dont' care about numbers will have access to weapons they want. Large fleets with huge starbases can more easily afford uber-projects.
Wasn't trying to crush your spirit or be an a**-clown, but speaking as someone in a small fleet, I'd rather have the projects be proportional to the number of people attempting to complete them.
That way, we all have access to the same gear, at the same relative cost per player. This would also mean people wouldn't have to join large fleets if they didn't want to. That'd be a win for those of us who aren't interested in drama creeping into our limited video game time.
Also, it would counter the creation of the uber-fleets. If the project inputs were proportional to the number of fleet members, a 500 person fleet wouldn't be any better off than a 15 person fleet and a 15 person fleet wouldn't be any worse off than a 500 person fleet.
Scaled Fleets (= scaled inputs)
You pick the size. Locked. Upgrade for more members. Zen. Amount. Cryptic.
Overall completion time (or smaller = longer): Large fleets will have up to six months to show off and brag about their exclusive stuff. Cryptic. Produce more stuff. Repeat.
Inputs: 10% premium max for smallest fleet. Advantage larger fleets.
SB/Embassy goodies: 10% purchase preimum max for small fleet. Advantage larger fleets.
Everybody can have everything, just some will take longer to get it. Premiums... the cost of being exclusive.
No additional ingame assets required, just back end programing.
And yes... nobody will be happy.
I think, discrete steps could work. And I said so here:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=8061911&postcount=39
But by itself, it's not enough.