Considering that it's been strongly implied Cryptic plans to outsource content production to the Foundry, I don't see them letting that happen.
That's unlikely to ever happen - Cryptic can't get the QA right on its own in-house missions - can you imagine the mess of them handing over 'official' content creation to Foundry authors?
I've worked on some Foundry stuff myself so I know its strengths and weaknesses and you literally have to jump through hoops to get it to do anything remotely clever - many, many of those Foundry missions do what they do because of hacks the authors have come up with.
I can't praise them enough for their ingenuity but with every change of the Foundry stuff breaks - UGC as official content is a liability in the making and irrespective of how many authors might want to see their work 'legitimised' in this fashion, it'd be a disaster for the players.
Or how about this CRAZY idea. Player generated content can be whatever a player wants as long as it adheres to all the legal mumbo-jumbo and the objective "time qualification" standard already set. Content made by players in MMOs is still in its infancy, but if game companies and players want to see it grow and used in more titles, this obsession with governing "legitimacy" as a cloak for personal preference has to be abolished.
This.^^
Anyway...Power to the People! Keep up The Good Fight!
Foundry originally had no rewards, this includes item drops. They were added because, who wants to play content with zero rewards?
People that value gameplay or a well-crafted story - exactly the kind of players the Foundry authors want.
But there weren't that many STO players that were interested in wading through the mire of unfinished, broken, illiterate 3-hour 'epics' in search of the few gems that exist in the Foundry.
The 'Spotlight' system was supposed to highlight the 'best' of the Foundry stuff but even that's proved controversial since many players have very different tastes to Brandon.
What there should be is some kind of QA that removes all the broken, uncompletable missions and sets a certain bar for quality in the Foundry but since there's no way to monetize that, Cryptic will never do it.
"The problem is more complicated than most players comprehend."
This 174 pages are the proof that Therilynn Shull is right.
Actually, this thread pretty much confirms that most players understand the problem, they just think that Cryptic's solution creates worse problems.
And the main thing I got out of that article is that Terilynn Shull shouldn't be throwing stones at Foundry authors, she's a pretty bad writer herself.
"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
Ohh and spotlight mission don't have to be biblicial in length, there a great short funny mission call 'The Corsairs' played it many times but don't count.
It seems the spotlight mission have to be long not good, why not have to players vote for their spotlight mission in the review stage.
At least this would get a spread of views rather than one persons.
Where ever you go, there you are.......
Join The Space Invaders,..... Federation and KDF fleets.
The decision was made by CRYPTIC not by the authors.
Which is what I've said since the beginning of this thread.
Foundry authors wanted a reward system to attract people to play Foundry missions - well they got that - and the players showed the Foundry authors the types of mission they were willing to play to get those rewards.
Be careful what you wish for
Cryptic needs to put these Fleet Marks back in pronto, but even more pressing than that they need to start listening to the community - all of the community.
I posted my 2 cents about this mess, and my ideas for a solution back on page 59 of this thread. I wanted to follow-up and add that I typically spend most of my free time playing STO when I sit down to play a game. This is especially true on weekends, where it is not out of the norm for me to spend many hours in game. I also buy master keys with zen and open a couple of lock boxes here and there. I do this because I want to support this game.
With that said, since the Valentine's Day Massacre brought to you by Cryptic and sponsored by the Shadowy Author Cabal, I have not spent a single cent on game purchases. Furthermore, I have barely spent any time in game. I logged in for an hour, ran a Starbase Fleet Defense, received a mere pittance in fleet marks for a reward, lost the will to keep going, and logged out. I then spent my weekend gaming budget on another game. I do not see myself spending any more money to support STO until Cryptic fixes this mess.
Thank you for the T6 Galaxy Class. - I support Tovan Khev. - Please bring back the exploration missions.
It's official folks, Terillyn believes FM removal has zero effect on starbases because the Foundry was never designed to be a mechanism to advance your starbase.
Because it's moot. The reward implementation wasn't made for fleet improvements, it was made as a way to draw the playerbase to play Foundry missions.
Ohh and spotlight mission don't have to be biblicial in length, there a great short funny mission call 'The Corsairs' played it many times but don't count.
It seems the spotlight mission have to be long not good, why not have to players vote for their spotlight mission in the review stage.
At least this would get a spread of views rather than one persons.
Loved that mission as well. Short, to the point, with an open ended story and some pew pew. My only issue with it was the mobs could have used a bit of a buff. They were pretty easy to steamroll.
How about using Tribble for what it is meant for instead of electing councils, subcommitees, etc? If instead of posting patches 1 or 2 day's in advance they would run them for...say 2 weeks, the most annoying bugs will be found by the players and feedback on any changes can be considered before going to Holodeck. The system is already in place, all it would require is for the dev's to make use of them in an effective way.
Yes. For a test server, there seems to be very little actual testing that goes on--and that's a serious problem. Less than a day is hardly enough time to gather any sort of significant data. Furthermore, when problems are caught by the testers, Cryptic takes no notice of them, and that speaks to a fundamental failure of the QA process. And finally, there's no consideration of the fact that the playerbase on Tribble may not even fully reflect the behavior of everyone on Holodeck, meaning they need to think even further about the implications of anything they do before they do it.
If Cryptic had followed real beta-testing procedures and had QA procedures in place, this (not to mention a whole lot of other bugs) would've been far less likely to happen.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
The decision was made by CRYPTIC not by the authors.
Well, that's obvious isn't it? Unless we think the Foundry authors are all PWE board members in disguise?
However, given that the rewards were nerfed and a number of Foundry authors were very vocal about getting them nerfed, it's hardly impossible that the authors' feedback influenced the decision or changed its scope.
"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
It's official folks, Terillyn believes FM removal has zero effect on starbases because the Foundry was never designed to be a mechanism to advance your starbase.
Well, she sort-of has a point - to a point. Since the IOR rewards (either the older daily or the newer repeatables) were the largest single source of FMs in the game.
Ergo, the single most important reward for Fleet builders outside of Dilithium.
Attaching them to Foundry missions was incredibly short-sighted of Cryptic.
Well, she sort-of has a point - to a point. Since the IOR rewards (either the older daily or the newer repeatables) were the largest single source of FMs in the game.
Ergo, the single most important reward for Fleet builders outside of Dilithium.
Attaching them to Foundry missions was incredibly short-sighted of Cryptic.
Withdrawing them altogether was disastrous.
Exactly. Terilynn correctly points out that the IOR rewards don't really make sense attached to the Foundry--but for them to be removed without a rebalancing elsewhere in the game to make them attainable from somewhere else was a very poor move on Cryptic's part.
And no, Terilynn is not a bad writer. You can agree or disagree with her creative choices, but I think she is quite skilled.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Well, she sort-of has a point - to a point. Since the IOR rewards (either the older daily or the newer repeatables) were the largest single source of FMs in the game.
It's dodging the issue on her part. Whether fleet marks should have been on IOR is irrelevent because they were there. Starbase progression was tied to the IOR FM payout for a not inconsiderable number of fleets. As you mentioned, pulling those rewards was a disaster.
Pretending that somehow those two issues aren't connected is incredibly shortsighted, and in my mind an excuse to not place blame on Cryptic for both poor design choices and poor planning to remove IOR without something to fill the void.
Exactly. Terilynn correctly points out that the IOR rewards don't really make sense attached to the Foundry--but for them to be removed without a rebalancing elsewhere in the game to make them attainable from somewhere else was a very poor move on Cryptic's part.
Emphasis mine: that's precisely what she refused to cover, and then pretended to be a non-issue.
As far as The Foundry goes. they need a better filter and rewards system.
If you want to do a Diplomatic mission, filter it in search, run it and you get Diplomacy and XP for running that mission
Same for dilithium, filter rewards for dilithium, run a mission and get dilithium and XP.
Fleet mission for FMs...
And so on..
The problem is setting the rewards high enough people will play them, while not low enough so they can find them elsewhere. But it needs to be a SET figure, not on a slider. With a minimum mission time. I thought 15 minutes wasn't so bad. 4 per hour if you were in grind mode.
The removal of Fleet Marks from the Foundry is not a stand-alone issue. This is irrevocably linked to every other unresolved QA issue, the complete transformation of this game into a constant grind, and any other change made against the playerbase. I for one will not let this go.
Jack Emmert: "Starfleet and Klingon. ... So two factions, full PvE content." Al Rivera hates Klingons Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert All cloaks should be canon.
I think Cryptic needs to consider which mistake is worse. Adding the FMs to the IOR in the first place, allowing the IOR to be repeatable, or removing the IOR and rewards all together.
It seems like each of those occurrences played a part in creating this issue. You cannot throw a reward like that at us without slapping an expiration date on it and not expect backlash.
This could have been easily avoided had they already had in place a way to redistribute those marks in other areas. It feels like this whole patch was just all sorts of wrong. So many bugs and so much reward removed that there have been many times the last few days where I wonder why I am even on the game. I am doing what I thought I would do though. I am finding myself just sitting in ESD and talking to people. I feel no reason to really "play" the game anymore. This is more like a really pretty chat room now.
No, I am not who you think I am. I am someone different. I am instead a banana.
And no, Terilynn is not a bad writer. You can agree or disagree with her creative choices, but I think she is quite skilled.
You're entitled to your opinion. I find it to be overblown, meandering and simile-laden.
"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
Here is a repost with additional summaries for the devs:
I am thinking we need a summary post of the top 10 community suggestions to give to cryptic. This thread is very long and we don't want a potential good idea glossed over because the devs do not read all 150 pages.
Lets stay focused offering constructive ways to fix the problem.
From what I have seen reading the thread I think the anger is not really about the marks. It's more about:
1). Gated/forced content , players wanting more options in the content to get rewards. No one likes having to do same content over and over.
2) Small fleets feeling the squeeze as more and more grinds added to game. Tier 5 is exceedingly feeling out of reach unless you are in a mega fleet.
3) General lack of content.
Some of the suggestions I have seen:
1) let players earn fleet marks in any mission they group with other fleet mates. 1-5x rewards scalable for all game content.
2) cross faction fleet mates being able to group since kdf queues are dead. I.E my kdf and fed fleets can be sister fleets so my team can still play together in fleet events.
3) only have one type of marks' to reduce currencies and allow players to do more varied content. All content gives marks.
4) increase fleet mark rewards in all missions significantly. Make missions with low play numbers have increased rewards.
5) various ideas on scalable fleet requirements such as size of fleet, number of accounts which have been in the fleet at any time, number of contributing members etc.
6) Fleet mark exchange from one type to another
7) Exchange for all types of inputs. Like bio neutrals, marks etc
8) Return all FM to IOR. Simple reinstate reward.
9) Let people choose the reward at end of all missions, dil, gear, type of mark.
10) Give marks in regular content, omega marks in assimilated, romulan marks in romulan episodes etc.
If anyone else can help summarize people's ideas I can add to this list and repost.
At the heart of the matter is the lack of fresh playable content.
Back in the great content drought, we were starved for anything new while Cryptic got it's butt moving again.
Now we have two problems: A flood of new content... that is half-TRIBBLE if even that.
The first handful of Feature Episodes had the main missions an a handful of support missions in the surrounding sector. 2800 was grind-fest designed to bring players back multiple times to get "all the gear." No secondary support missions. Well that's fine but lets look at the QUALITY of the episode. The FMV was horrific. Still is despite tweaking. And the voice-acting is so bad I turn the sound off when I re-run the episode. Lorris is the worst VO I've ever had to suffer through. This is on top of the generally lackluster gameplay throughout 2800. Running through Bajor clicking on interacts. Flying to the Delta Quad to click on interacts. The big WOW moment -- spacewalking on DS9... doesn't hold up compared to the TOS scenes in Specters or the Vault flythrough in the Romulan series... In short it felt rushed and half-assed.
Then we have the "major" grind hubs: Defera, Nukara and New Rom. These are fine and dandy but once we've used them up there is no point in going back. It actually would NOT take very long nor cost very much to release new missions or instances on these maps. The assets are already there... whip up new scripting and dialog.
Next we have the Fleet Mark Maps: We have two ground maps... both of which I can solo in the event of an AFK-team. It's happened more than once. Problem is there are only TWO of them that reward fleet marks. THIS is why we created short-run missions in the foundry: The devs want us to grind grind grind but do NOT give us the variety of missions we desire. The space missions range from absurdly easy to GPU-meltingly difficult -- and I have no desire to sit there and PUG. Another bad team just makes the grind a chore instead of fun. Again, we created missions Foundry-side that were fun to play and we had a variety of them to play.
The same thing has happened with the New Rom missions. I can only heard baby-squid so many times... stomping on poodles gets tedious... and the I can only blow up the same number of trash-mob ships on patrol so many times! The non-combat missions are a step in the right direction... but we need MORE. I've done everything in the new sector over a hundred times by now and I am still not done with my New Rom reputation.
Azure Nebula is nice... Mine Trap is a chore... and the patrols get boring after awhile. And I can only run the same missions on New Rom so many times before I get tired. Fix the same machines in Landing? Click the same scanners? Gather the same samples? Really? Where is the variety?
The same could be said for the STFs. These are the only missions that pay Omega Marks... thanks to the original loot drop system I played over 300 times across multiple toons. I'm doing it AGAIN a second time to unlock gear... that I have to overgrind again to earn. WHERE IS THE VARIETY.
Issuing me a new ship is nice. But there is nothing to do with the ship. Running Azure in my Ambassador is little different than running it in my escort or carrier.
***
The point is, Cryptic... we are willing to grind for marks. But you are FAILING TO PROVIDE A VARIETY OF ENVIRONMENTS AND MISSIONS TO DO SO. The Foundry should issue Mark rewards, period. This encourages people to grind.
You mention internal metrics. Use those metrics to monitor the Foundry. Police the content. Remove the offending missions but DO NOT punish us by removing the rewards.
What I would like to see is a mechanism similar to Spotlighting. Once a mission is Spotlighted, Viewer-Choiced or whatever we call it, it issues one of the three Marks as a reward. This encourages people to make triple-A grade foundry mission in hope of getting spotlighted, and eliminated clickies.
In summary, bring back the FM rewards, and do so in a way that doesn't result in clickies.
I am going to post my comments to this Massively story here as well so Cryptic can answer to it:
This is my first time readying your articles... nicely said. I have been with STO since March 2010 and have 2 lifetime subscribers in my household, both in a large (500 max) and small fleet (33), and we are disgusted. You've got the answer right in your article. Cryptic does have other options besides reward nerfing. The bigger problem that is like a cancer on the whole game since F2P has been AFK players. They want us to play team play missions but small fleets usually PuG more than large fleets so its a double whammy. If you get stuck with an AFK player on an STF or a fleet action it screws you for 30 minutes to hour on the rewards. If AFK was addressed the foundry issue wouldn't exist either. Cryptic needs to institute some 30 sec timer to make sure you're interacting. If you need to potty during your 15 - 20 minute mission, too bad so sad, try again in an hour.
Cryptic's cowboy style lack of listening and implementing of these changes has been the proverbial straw for most to unleash their rage. I agree with you on what an exploit is but this game has that exploit everywhere not just in the foundry. To take away awards from the majority for legitimate play without replacing it with something similar as a reward is unacceptable. This is the third such major outcry from the player base in the last few months from changes that have been implemented without any concern or seeking feedback. I for one think it's time for Dan Stahl to resign and let someone new take the lead who is going vet changes like this more thoroughly before implementing them. At the very least they need to put the reward back until they have an alternative in place. I don't care if people get a few months of extra fleet marks until then. At this point, my household and fleeties will be off to explore other new worlds to spend our money unless something changes.
Gold Sub since March 2010
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
every friday i spend 80$ and every monday i spend another 40$ on this game. since thursdays patch i havent spent 0$. So that 120$ Cryptic has lost out on. If its going to be till May untill you give us our 50 FM's back, that will be 1,440$ that Cryptic has lost out because of some foundry authors. You guys crossed the line with this BS. Im happy to give you my money as long as im happy with the game. You killed the only GOOD source of FM's that i use to contribute to the fleet. Turnabout is fair play i think. No FM's for me, no $ for you.
Comments
That's unlikely to ever happen - Cryptic can't get the QA right on its own in-house missions - can you imagine the mess of them handing over 'official' content creation to Foundry authors?
I've worked on some Foundry stuff myself so I know its strengths and weaknesses and you literally have to jump through hoops to get it to do anything remotely clever - many, many of those Foundry missions do what they do because of hacks the authors have come up with.
I can't praise them enough for their ingenuity but with every change of the Foundry stuff breaks - UGC as official content is a liability in the making and irrespective of how many authors might want to see their work 'legitimised' in this fashion, it'd be a disaster for the players.
This.^^
Anyway...Power to the People! Keep up The Good Fight!
People that value gameplay or a well-crafted story - exactly the kind of players the Foundry authors want.
But there weren't that many STO players that were interested in wading through the mire of unfinished, broken, illiterate 3-hour 'epics' in search of the few gems that exist in the Foundry.
The 'Spotlight' system was supposed to highlight the 'best' of the Foundry stuff but even that's proved controversial since many players have very different tastes to Brandon.
What there should be is some kind of QA that removes all the broken, uncompletable missions and sets a certain bar for quality in the Foundry but since there's no way to monetize that, Cryptic will never do it.
Foundary mission is complete claim your reward.
1. Dill 900 ish more if spotlight
2. Fleet Marks 50 more if spotlight.
But what ever you do do it quick because this is killing any loyalty or good will for this game.
Join The Space Invaders,..... Federation and KDF fleets.
Actually, this thread pretty much confirms that most players understand the problem, they just think that Cryptic's solution creates worse problems.
And the main thing I got out of that article is that Terilynn Shull shouldn't be throwing stones at Foundry authors, she's a pretty bad writer herself.
The decision was made by CRYPTIC not by the authors.
Cryptic is where the buck stops for this.
To point anywhere else detracts from the strength of our solidarity against this poor decision by Cryptic.
To try to negotiate, compromise, or "fix" this situation with half-way measures is just not acceptable.
Undo the Valentine's Day nerf of F-Missions.
Undo the dilithium hike on DOff Reassignments.
Make your paying customers happy.
Fleet: 1st Order of Role-Players' Guild - gaming together since 2004
It seems the spotlight mission have to be long not good, why not have to players vote for their spotlight mission in the review stage.
At least this would get a spread of views rather than one persons.
Join The Space Invaders,..... Federation and KDF fleets.
Which is what I've said since the beginning of this thread.
Foundry authors wanted a reward system to attract people to play Foundry missions - well they got that - and the players showed the Foundry authors the types of mission they were willing to play to get those rewards.
Be careful what you wish for
Cryptic needs to put these Fleet Marks back in pronto, but even more pressing than that they need to start listening to the community - all of the community.
With that said, since the Valentine's Day Massacre brought to you by Cryptic and sponsored by the Shadowy Author Cabal, I have not spent a single cent on game purchases. Furthermore, I have barely spent any time in game. I logged in for an hour, ran a Starbase Fleet Defense, received a mere pittance in fleet marks for a reward, lost the will to keep going, and logged out. I then spent my weekend gaming budget on another game. I do not see myself spending any more money to support STO until Cryptic fixes this mess.
Loved that mission as well. Short, to the point, with an open ended story and some pew pew. My only issue with it was the mobs could have used a bit of a buff. They were pretty easy to steamroll.
Yes. For a test server, there seems to be very little actual testing that goes on--and that's a serious problem. Less than a day is hardly enough time to gather any sort of significant data. Furthermore, when problems are caught by the testers, Cryptic takes no notice of them, and that speaks to a fundamental failure of the QA process. And finally, there's no consideration of the fact that the playerbase on Tribble may not even fully reflect the behavior of everyone on Holodeck, meaning they need to think even further about the implications of anything they do before they do it.
If Cryptic had followed real beta-testing procedures and had QA procedures in place, this (not to mention a whole lot of other bugs) would've been far less likely to happen.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Well, that's obvious isn't it? Unless we think the Foundry authors are all PWE board members in disguise?
However, given that the rewards were nerfed and a number of Foundry authors were very vocal about getting them nerfed, it's hardly impossible that the authors' feedback influenced the decision or changed its scope.
Well, she sort-of has a point - to a point. Since the IOR rewards (either the older daily or the newer repeatables) were the largest single source of FMs in the game.
Ergo, the single most important reward for Fleet builders outside of Dilithium.
Attaching them to Foundry missions was incredibly short-sighted of Cryptic.
Withdrawing them altogether was disastrous.
Exactly. Terilynn correctly points out that the IOR rewards don't really make sense attached to the Foundry--but for them to be removed without a rebalancing elsewhere in the game to make them attainable from somewhere else was a very poor move on Cryptic's part.
And no, Terilynn is not a bad writer. You can agree or disagree with her creative choices, but I think she is quite skilled.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
It's dodging the issue on her part. Whether fleet marks should have been on IOR is irrelevent because they were there. Starbase progression was tied to the IOR FM payout for a not inconsiderable number of fleets. As you mentioned, pulling those rewards was a disaster.
Pretending that somehow those two issues aren't connected is incredibly shortsighted, and in my mind an excuse to not place blame on Cryptic for both poor design choices and poor planning to remove IOR without something to fill the void.
Emphasis mine: that's precisely what she refused to cover, and then pretended to be a non-issue.
Didn't notice any hot threads on the French site tho...
Let's make this an international effort.
=/\= 106th Fleet =/\=
Website | Fleet Charter | Mission Statement | Forums | Join | F.A.Q.
If you want to do a Diplomatic mission, filter it in search, run it and you get Diplomacy and XP for running that mission
Same for dilithium, filter rewards for dilithium, run a mission and get dilithium and XP.
Fleet mission for FMs...
And so on..
The problem is setting the rewards high enough people will play them, while not low enough so they can find them elsewhere. But it needs to be a SET figure, not on a slider. With a minimum mission time. I thought 15 minutes wasn't so bad. 4 per hour if you were in grind mode.
Al Rivera hates Klingons
Star Trek Online: Agents of Jack Emmert
All cloaks should be canon.
It seems like each of those occurrences played a part in creating this issue. You cannot throw a reward like that at us without slapping an expiration date on it and not expect backlash.
This could have been easily avoided had they already had in place a way to redistribute those marks in other areas. It feels like this whole patch was just all sorts of wrong. So many bugs and so much reward removed that there have been many times the last few days where I wonder why I am even on the game. I am doing what I thought I would do though. I am finding myself just sitting in ESD and talking to people. I feel no reason to really "play" the game anymore. This is more like a really pretty chat room now.
too bl**dy right ill give thumbs up from the brits :P
Maybe thats why I'm bald now..:eek:
You're entitled to your opinion. I find it to be overblown, meandering and simile-laden.
Her threads picking up speed now. Check out some of the posts..XD
Let our voices be HEARD!
Take it for what is was...an opinion piece.
Regardless, with her article, she is getting more people talking about it which is keeping the fight going.
I am thinking we need a summary post of the top 10 community suggestions to give to cryptic. This thread is very long and we don't want a potential good idea glossed over because the devs do not read all 150 pages.
Lets stay focused offering constructive ways to fix the problem.
From what I have seen reading the thread I think the anger is not really about the marks. It's more about:
1). Gated/forced content , players wanting more options in the content to get rewards. No one likes having to do same content over and over.
2) Small fleets feeling the squeeze as more and more grinds added to game. Tier 5 is exceedingly feeling out of reach unless you are in a mega fleet.
3) General lack of content.
Some of the suggestions I have seen:
1) let players earn fleet marks in any mission they group with other fleet mates. 1-5x rewards scalable for all game content.
2) cross faction fleet mates being able to group since kdf queues are dead. I.E my kdf and fed fleets can be sister fleets so my team can still play together in fleet events.
3) only have one type of marks' to reduce currencies and allow players to do more varied content. All content gives marks.
4) increase fleet mark rewards in all missions significantly. Make missions with low play numbers have increased rewards.
5) various ideas on scalable fleet requirements such as size of fleet, number of accounts which have been in the fleet at any time, number of contributing members etc.
6) Fleet mark exchange from one type to another
7) Exchange for all types of inputs. Like bio neutrals, marks etc
8) Return all FM to IOR. Simple reinstate reward.
9) Let people choose the reward at end of all missions, dil, gear, type of mark.
10) Give marks in regular content, omega marks in assimilated, romulan marks in romulan episodes etc.
If anyone else can help summarize people's ideas I can add to this list and repost.
FED TIER 5 KDF TIER 4 - MAX HOLDINGS
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Join us on Teamspeak! Visit our Website!
It's hilarious really, that's got to be the most active STO thread over there in quite a long time.
Back in the great content drought, we were starved for anything new while Cryptic got it's butt moving again.
Now we have two problems: A flood of new content... that is half-TRIBBLE if even that.
The first handful of Feature Episodes had the main missions an a handful of support missions in the surrounding sector. 2800 was grind-fest designed to bring players back multiple times to get "all the gear." No secondary support missions. Well that's fine but lets look at the QUALITY of the episode. The FMV was horrific. Still is despite tweaking. And the voice-acting is so bad I turn the sound off when I re-run the episode. Lorris is the worst VO I've ever had to suffer through. This is on top of the generally lackluster gameplay throughout 2800. Running through Bajor clicking on interacts. Flying to the Delta Quad to click on interacts. The big WOW moment -- spacewalking on DS9... doesn't hold up compared to the TOS scenes in Specters or the Vault flythrough in the Romulan series... In short it felt rushed and half-assed.
Then we have the "major" grind hubs: Defera, Nukara and New Rom. These are fine and dandy but once we've used them up there is no point in going back. It actually would NOT take very long nor cost very much to release new missions or instances on these maps. The assets are already there... whip up new scripting and dialog.
Next we have the Fleet Mark Maps: We have two ground maps... both of which I can solo in the event of an AFK-team. It's happened more than once.
The same thing has happened with the New Rom missions. I can only heard baby-squid so many times... stomping on poodles gets tedious... and the I can only blow up the same number of trash-mob ships on patrol so many times! The non-combat missions are a step in the right direction... but we need MORE. I've done everything in the new sector over a hundred times by now and I am still not done with my New Rom reputation.
Azure Nebula is nice... Mine Trap is a chore... and the patrols get boring after awhile. And I can only run the same missions on New Rom so many times before I get tired. Fix the same machines in Landing? Click the same scanners? Gather the same samples? Really? Where is the variety?
The same could be said for the STFs. These are the only missions that pay Omega Marks... thanks to the original loot drop system I played over 300 times across multiple toons. I'm doing it AGAIN a second time to unlock gear... that I have to overgrind again to earn. WHERE IS THE VARIETY.
Issuing me a new ship is nice. But there is nothing to do with the ship. Running Azure in my Ambassador is little different than running it in my escort or carrier.
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The point is, Cryptic... we are willing to grind for marks. But you are FAILING TO PROVIDE A VARIETY OF ENVIRONMENTS AND MISSIONS TO DO SO. The Foundry should issue Mark rewards, period. This encourages people to grind.
You mention internal metrics. Use those metrics to monitor the Foundry. Police the content. Remove the offending missions but DO NOT punish us by removing the rewards.
What I would like to see is a mechanism similar to Spotlighting. Once a mission is Spotlighted, Viewer-Choiced or whatever we call it, it issues one of the three Marks as a reward. This encourages people to make triple-A grade foundry mission in hope of getting spotlighted, and eliminated clickies.
In summary, bring back the FM rewards, and do so in a way that doesn't result in clickies.
I am going to post my comments to this Massively story here as well so Cryptic can answer to it:
This is my first time readying your articles... nicely said. I have been with STO since March 2010 and have 2 lifetime subscribers in my household, both in a large (500 max) and small fleet (33), and we are disgusted. You've got the answer right in your article. Cryptic does have other options besides reward nerfing. The bigger problem that is like a cancer on the whole game since F2P has been AFK players. They want us to play team play missions but small fleets usually PuG more than large fleets so its a double whammy. If you get stuck with an AFK player on an STF or a fleet action it screws you for 30 minutes to hour on the rewards. If AFK was addressed the foundry issue wouldn't exist either. Cryptic needs to institute some 30 sec timer to make sure you're interacting. If you need to potty during your 15 - 20 minute mission, too bad so sad, try again in an hour.
Cryptic's cowboy style lack of listening and implementing of these changes has been the proverbial straw for most to unleash their rage. I agree with you on what an exploit is but this game has that exploit everywhere not just in the foundry. To take away awards from the majority for legitimate play without replacing it with something similar as a reward is unacceptable. This is the third such major outcry from the player base in the last few months from changes that have been implemented without any concern or seeking feedback. I for one think it's time for Dan Stahl to resign and let someone new take the lead who is going vet changes like this more thoroughly before implementing them. At the very least they need to put the reward back until they have an alternative in place. I don't care if people get a few months of extra fleet marks until then. At this point, my household and fleeties will be off to explore other new worlds to spend our money unless something changes.
Lifetime Sub since June 2010