I'm honestly wondering how you seem to think that the current situation where five dedicated people can generate literally thousands of marks during a bonus hour means that small fleets are dead.
Are they still majorly screwed by inherent design flaws in the starbase system? Absofrakkinglutely.
Are they incapable of making progress at all? Not in the least.
If you have 5 ppl who can continuously be online at the same time then you might be right .
The beauty of the wrapper mission was that you could log in at your convenience , not at the convenience of 4 more ppl .
The larger the fleet the more chance there is that someone from your fleet will be online .
Sadly the opposite is quite true as well .
If you have 5 ppl who can continuously be online at the same time then you might be right .
The beauty of the wrapper mission was that you could log in at your convenience , not at the convenience of 4 more ppl .
The larger the fleet the more chance there is that someone from your fleet will be online .
Sadly the opposite is quite true as well .
You don't need to have them on concurrently. During bonus hour, with a boost, a disciplined player is able to bring in about 1k marks, plus or minus a few hundred depending on length of matches and outcomes.
Even without the bonus hour, or boost, you're still talking several hundred marks per player for that hour of playtime.
The difference between STO and other western mmo games is the other games might have grind but STO has so little content that it feels there is nothing but grind. TBH it's shameful how little content it has. All the content here would equal 1 zone in another game. It's 3 years in and the content now should have been there at launch and increasing since then. I love the ships and space combat but I'm just grinding dil to buy ships to grind dil.:(
think you for got to add to grind tribbles
i know wot mean ive respec all 4 of my toons in the past 10 days with the dilith ive been grinding just for somthing diffrent to do
i would love to know are cryptic even looking in sorting out AFKers in team missions or are there ignoreing it.
Imagine for a moment the look on DStahl's face , after he ran all over the forums with a fire extinguisher -- when he was told that their glorious new Kumari money maker was bugged big time .
I hope someone was there to take a picture .
Even better I hope someone lost his/her job over it. Better believe if I apologized to a customer and 48 hours later the customer was dealing with another defective product caused by the same core issue (*) head would roll.
(*) in this case, lack of testing on a live production build. Again... it is possible that this was tested in-house on the ultra-smooth ultra-tuned Development Shard... and it failed on the "production" shard. The problem could be as simple as that. Somewhere along the line the two shards diverged code-wise... what works in the back office doesn't work "on the street." Even so, the ship should have hit Tribble for a few hours at least. No more excuses after this though! I expect cash-store items to work flawlessly.
Even better I hope someone lost his/her job over it. Better believe if I apologized to a customer and 48 hours later the customer was dealing with another defective product caused by the same core issue (*) head would roll.
(*) in this case, lack of testing on a live production build. Again... it is possible that this was tested in-house on the ultra-smooth ultra-tuned Development Shard... and it failed on the "production" shard. The problem could be as simple as that. Somewhere along the line the two shards diverged code-wise... what works in the back office doesn't work "on the street." Even so, the ship should have hit Tribble for a few hours at least. No more excuses after this though! I expect cash-store items to work flawlessly.
It all goes back to the "rush to market" development pattern. Tribble does allow for them to test, but not when you only give 48 hrs to test all that was in the patch and fail to heed the feedback.
I know about this first hand as my job depends on "getting it right the first time".
If anyone casues an "outage" and does not learn from that and repeats it, then they need more training in QA and customer care or given a box to load their personal items in.
There is no excuse for a lack of QA! Even it does delay something!
"If what you produce is defective, then rushing it to market will not generate the result you want unless the result you want is failure!" ~ Zeus 02/22/2013
PWE/Crytpic Why do you repeat the same mistakes?
PWE/Crytpic Why do you NOT listen to your Customers?
I'm honestly wondering how you seem to think that the current situation where five dedicated people can generate literally thousands of marks during a bonus hour means that small fleets are dead.
Are they still majorly screwed by inherent design flaws in the starbase system? Absofrakkinglutely.
Are they incapable of making progress at all? Not in the least.
Fleet Marks are not the sole issue with small fleets, here is a list of other issues:
Dilithium grind
Doff Grind
EC Grind
Lack of supply in players willing to join a T1, T2 or even T3 fleet.
I have at various times during Season 7 attempted to resurrect my fleet, which was killed off due to people leaving the game or moving to bigger fleets as a result of Season 7 changes. However I have met with no success at all in garnering interest mainly because of the final issue in the list, so no for me at the moment the change in Fleet Mark volume makes no difference to my particular predicament.
Whilst I made the point that the Season 7 changes killed a number small fleets off, I did not say that the changes made in the past few days to Fleet Marks would not benefit those small fleets that still have a core membership of 5 or more players in-tact. I merely stated that it did not benefit my fleet in any way, or any other small fleet that lost nearly all of it's players as a result of the changes in Season 7.
Maybe I should hone my wording for you "for small fleets that were killed off by the Season 7 changes"
You don't need to have them on concurrently. During bonus hour, with a boost, a disciplined player is able to bring in about 1k marks, plus or minus a few hundred depending on length of matches and outcomes.
Even without the bonus hour, or boost, you're still talking several hundred marks per player for that hour of playtime.
As a Fleet admiral of a small fleet, I have to agree with this statement. In 2 hours I did 4 Colony invasions, 2 No wins, 2 FFA's and acquired approx 500 fleet marks. There were 3 of us collecting fleet marks to start our embassy upgrade and we were able to get the fleet marks we needed that would have taken at least a few days. We normally have 5 people online every night.
I have to say that I am happy with the Fleet Mark increases. It is definitely making things easier for us.
1) Develop good code
2) Test internally on Alpha platform
3) Take Alpha test results and correct code
4) Repeat Alpha test until all errors found are corrected.
5) Release to Beta test with select testers from customer base
6) Take Beta test results and correct code
7) Repeat Beta test until all errors found are corrected
8) Release code to customers knowing you have done all that is possible to protect your customers and the Company. 9) Roll back to previous code if any more errors show up and repeat Step 2 thru 8
That is QA and the proper way to protect your customers and keep the Company profits and reputation safe!
Fleet Marks are not the sole issue with small fleets, here is a list of other issues:
Dilithium grind
Doff Grind
EC Grind
Lack of supply in players willing to join a T1, T2 or even T3 fleet.
I also agree with these to a point. The Dilithium grind works hand in hand with the lack of players portion. Obviously the less amount of player you have, the harder for the dililthium contributions will be. Dilithium, imo, is actually not that hard to get now, but its more the cap of refining that is more of the issue. My fleet and I do so many STF's together that we could easily get 20k of dil in a night each. If 5 people are online stead each night, and you could refined all 20k in a night instead of 8k, then projects could be finished faster.
Doff grind isn't that big of an issue for our fleet either. We use our fleet credits to purchase the doff from the fleet base and go from there. What ever ones we don't need, we sell on the Exchange and usually bring in some good EC.
But I think I am lucky to have dedicated players in my small fleet. Everyone hates to grind, but when you do it with your fleet mates its not so bad. Some of the other smaller fleets have people who just don't really care, or have lost that passion would could effect the outcome of the base.
I've played STO since it came out, subbing off and on; have never posted in the forums, and have been fairly content to sit back and let the developers work there magic, as they have done a good job in my eyes.
I see this group of people that just goes after the developers though, and whoever is at the helm. Thing is, I highly doubt almost any of you that verbally chastise and burn the devs have ever delivered a piece of software, or any information technology related product for that matter.
I am a Program Manager for a major corporation in the US and manage five different application development efforts; and the complexity behind developing serious software is incredible.
Someone will ask for a simple fix to an item for instance, or perhaps a change in behavior, and then wonder why something so simple takes months to complete.
Here's why:
If I have an application that displays content based on information in a database (keeping in mind I don't know the tech specs on STO, but there have to be multiple DBs plugged into it); there's four specific phases I have to go through.
1. Engineer the Solution - How do we accomplish the task? Before any code is written, you have to document what your going to do, how your going to do it, and clear that with the other stakeholders (database admins/devs, systems engineers etc)
2. Create the solution - depending on how STO's dev tempo functions (I remember reading something about them using Agile), if they use Agile they'll create a series of user stories that describe the desired function for the developers and a developer will pick up the assignment. Spikes may be assosicated with it for research or guidance from other groups - say the solution requires adding tables to an existing database; that's external work. Eventually, the code gets written.
3. Test the solution - This is accomplished both by human and computer based tests; there are automated software testing tools (junit comes to mind) that are used to test code, but then humans must do regression and functional testing. bugs are found. They must be fixed. Then you test again. So on and so forth.
Eventually you get to deploy the solution which is step 4.
And then if it doesn't work just quite right, someone who's looking to hurl abuse tells you and your entire team your an idiot and lying to them.
Take a step back. Go read up on how software is developed. And if you think you can do it better, apply to work at Cryptic or go create your own game. Be a part of the solution, not the problem.
If these guys are anything like the crew of developers that work for me, they put in many hours of unpaid OT, stay up till midnight working issues, and do it willingly because they love what they're doing.
Being beat up constantly by the consumers of the thing that they create is the fastest way to cause them to lose morale and quit.
Step 3 in your process is what is broken at PWE/Crytpic.
And yes I have produced code and tech solutions for my company which is International in scope so I do the things I post about every single day and I too work very long hours each day.
As far as PWE/Cryptic's QA/Testing process goes, they don't listen to the testers feedback that they get from the Tribble Test server. If fact getting any kind of response to their Bug reporting system is almost impossible.
So there are a lot of us that are Technical professionals here and that is why we do know how to correct the problems we find in the code they are producing.
Remember they (PWE/Cryptic) does put the code on their test server and they do ask for the feedback, but they are also the ones that ignore that feedback on bugs found and release it anyway to production.
Now step back and think where the real issue is...
Customers that are asked to help or a Company that ignores the help it asked for?
I for one will give them constructive feedback and report bugs, but if the process is broken, or ignored, then getting defective code is the only result left.
Zeus (Network/Computer Engineer with over 34 years of experience)
What everyone here is describing applies to the engineering of physical goods as well.
My field of work, if we released a buggy or defective product lives would be on the line. Entire communities could face power-outages. Delicate equipment could be destroyed.
If a unit fails for any reason you better believe we have that unit back in the shop and torn apart, and we figure out why it failed. We don't sit there and tell the customer "Yeah this is our best year ever we got GREAT buzz in all the trade rags -- now buy more product from us everything is working as intended."
I too can buy buzz. And I suspect Cryptic did just that. Because frankly with the absolutely abysmal "entry level" graphic issues and AI bugs no one in their right mind wants to slog through to the endgame.
Then once you get to the endgame... it's grind grind grind no story progression no advancement past level cap... just grind over and over and over.
I am calling for the delay of the next season. Push it back a year. Put everyone on bugfix duty. Spend money on setting up a quality system and train employees to use it. Use this time to generate simple story missions to test your quality-assurance skills. When you can successful turn around a ticket in 24 hours or less... and when you can point to an error-free entry-level experience... then AND ONLY THEN are you ready to move on to the next season.
Season Seven has exposed serious flaws in Cryptic's internal process. They clearly are not ready to expand into the "next phase" of STO's evolution. Not with the utter lack of quality assurance I am seeing!
I've played STO since it came out, subbing off and on; have never posted in the forums, and have been fairly content to sit back and let the developers work there magic, as they have done a good job in my eyes.
I see this group of people that just goes after the developers though, and whoever is at the helm. Thing is, I highly doubt almost any of you that verbally chastise and burn the devs have ever delivered a piece of software, or any information technology related product for that matter.
I am a Program Manager for a major corporation in the US and manage five different application development efforts; and the complexity behind developing serious software is incredible.
Someone will ask for a simple fix to an item for instance, or perhaps a change in behavior, and then wonder why something so simple takes months to complete.
Here's why:
If I have an application that displays content based on information in a database (keeping in mind I don't know the tech specs on STO, but there have to be multiple DBs plugged into it); there's four specific phases I have to go through.
1. Engineer the Solution - How do we accomplish the task? Before any code is written, you have to document what your going to do, how your going to do it, and clear that with the other stakeholders (database admins/devs, systems engineers etc)
2. Create the solution - depending on how STO's dev tempo functions (I remember reading something about them using Agile), if they use Agile they'll create a series of user stories that describe the desired function for the developers and a developer will pick up the assignment. Spikes may be assosicated with it for research or guidance from other groups - say the solution requires adding tables to an existing database; that's external work. Eventually, the code gets written.
3. Test the solution - This is accomplished both by human and computer based tests; there are automated software testing tools (junit comes to mind) that are used to test code, but then humans must do regression and functional testing. bugs are found. They must be fixed. Then you test again. So on and so forth.
Eventually you get to deploy the solution which is step 4.
And then if it doesn't work just quite right, someone who's looking to hurl abuse tells you and your entire team your an idiot and lying to them.
Take a step back. Go read up on how software is developed. And if you think you can do it better, apply to work at Cryptic or go create your own game. Be a part of the solution, not the problem.
If these guys are anything like the crew of developers that work for me, they put in many hours of unpaid OT, stay up till midnight working issues, and do it willingly because they love what they're doing.
Being beat up constantly by the consumers of the thing that they create is the fastest way to cause them to lose morale and quit.
Think about that.
v/r
Joseph
This is quite hilarious, coming from someone who has also worked in the industry and knowing several project managers at large companies like Logica, I can tell you for a fact that if you do work in the industry you've led a very sheltered life.
Projects often get done very badly full of bugs and not meeting spec at all due to sales management being too aggressive with promises on deadlines to clients. The NHS backbone is a good example or the perpetually in development and never finished EU version of GPS (Autobahn) which was run so badly that it actually went through several version of Fortran LOL!
Please, step back a moment for yourself and tell me do you seriously believe that developers never get things wrong and continue regardless because of the short term profit pressures?
Simply put defending the behaviour and processes of Cryptic concerning this game is a battle you won't win not because were are determined to accuse them of things but because they are doing these things. We aren't just making this up you know.
I never said bugs aren't introduced. Software is /full/ of bugs.
I am saying that hurling abuse at developers isn't the right way to address it.
Someone made a point of saying that software is on deadlines and that introduces unfixed bugs - that's aboslutely correct; sometimes you accept that there are specific bugs and move forward because the whole is better than the bug.
Cryptic is a group of developers within a larger company (PW); clearly they have internal deadlines, and since its commerical, if there's no profit, there's no money to pay people and the project folds.
I do have to say I find it hard to believe that the developers are just blowing off serious bug reports from Tribble.
I can see blowing off poorly submitted bug reports, but not serious, well documented bugs.
Perhaps I have more faith in STO's devs that everyone else, but considering the state of the game in open beta to now, its come a long way and I've been impressed with what they've accomplished given the resources they have.
Again though - to the folks hurling abuse, why not put in an application with PWE? Go help fix the problem.
I never said bugs aren't introduced. Software is /full/ of bugs.
I am saying that hurling abuse at developers isn't the right way to address it.
Someone made a point of saying that software is on deadlines and that introduces unfixed bugs - that's aboslutely correct; sometimes you accept that there are specific bugs and move forward because the whole is better than the bug.
Cryptic is a group of developers within a larger company (PW); clearly they have internal deadlines, and since its commerical, if there's no profit, there's no money to pay people and the project folds.
I do have to say I find it hard to believe that the developers are just blowing off serious bug reports from Tribble.
I can see blowing off poorly submitted bug reports, but not serious, well documented bugs.
Perhaps I have more faith in STO's devs that everyone else, but considering the state of the game in open beta to now, its come a long way and I've been impressed with what they've accomplished given the resources they have.
Again though - to the folks hurling abuse, why not put in an application with PWE? Go help fix the problem.
That is exactly what PWE/Cryptic is doing with the bug reports! The testers on Tribble have been giving this kind of bug reporting for years and PWE/Cryptic continues to ignore them by releasing the code into production time and time again.
This is just one of the many problems but it is a major one that the lack of any kind of proper QA there is causing!
As far as applying for a job there, well I like living in Texas and I like the company I work for and the retirement plan I have coming. I don't think PWE/Cryptic could match my salary or provide the above.
I am here because I love Star Trek, not because I like PWE/Cryptic!
And we are trying to help them using the vehicle they are providing (Tribble/Forums).
It is PWE/Cryptic that chooses to ignore the help they asked for!
Zeus (Network/Computer Engineer with over 34 years of experience)
I do have to say I find it hard to believe that the developers are just blowing off serious bug reports from Tribble.
I can see blowing off poorly submitted bug reports, but not serious, well documented bugs.
Perhaps I have more faith in STO's devs that everyone else, but considering the state of the game in open beta to now, its come a long way and I've been impressed with what they've accomplished given the resources they have.
Disbelieve all you want, it doesn't change the fact that Tribble is a joke at the moment. Either patches get so little testing (see the last few days) that there is no time to spot bugs, or bugs that are identified make it through to Holodeck anyway (Bioneural / TDD being borked, rebellious Boffs, 2 minute universal CD and other major problems were all caught on Tribble but went to the live server despite countless reports).
The release that was pushed to Holodeck last week failed in several critical ways. There was a failure on the part of a designer to test their work before it was checked into the game.
Similarly, there was a failure in communication with the QA team on the said check in and on top of that, no one headed the concerns on TRIBBLE.
Ultimately, this is all my responsibility as the lead on the team and I do apologize.
Thanks, this time for the honesty, most of us knew this and lets be even more honest this was the exact same issue with Season and the Reputation system it was rushed and Tribble was ignored. The result was an unbalanced system which in many ways is still too expensive but back at launch was so ridiculously unbalanced that it didn't take long for the player base to force you into changes.
This isn't a one off mistake, it's a pattern you guys have of delivering patches to Holodeck that haven't been properly tested or evaluated and the result is unbalanced systems and bug after bug.
In addition, the removal of Fleet Marks was a heavy handed change. It needed to be done because it was getting out of hand and there was an ever increasing amount of exploitation in the Foundry to maximum Fleet Mark rewards. That said, we should have had the Fleet Mark changes we are making this week ready to go last week so there wouldn't have been a week with the drop in Fleet Mark earning.
Again sorry. It doesn't make us feel any better when we make stupid mistakes.
I think you need to admit that the "exploitation" that occurred was more a natural attempt by the players to fix the lack of balance in the Fleet Mark system... I categorically state that people were not doing it for the "lulz" or to gain super gamebreaking advantages over other players, they were doing it to feed the starved supply of fleet marks.
The entire problem was created by Cryptic. In addition you are right if you felt you needed to resolve the issue of a broken Fleet Marks system the solution should have been added before you removed the community created solution to the problem. That is what it was Dan it was our solution for your broken system.
I sympathize with you when you say you don't feel good when you make mistakes. None of us who have stressful jobs do when we get things wrong. However Dan the issue here is you and the team are making the same mistakes over and over and honestly it's time you learned from your mistakes and ensure they don't happen again.
Similarly, it is disheartening when several members of the community make harsh comments towards a team that is working many hours of OT to bring new content to STO.
Honestly this is a bit of a straw man, I think very few have made overly harsh comments or anything that was worthy of a forum ban. The rest of us have only highlighted the truth, I guess one could say my words have been harsh or at any rate my criticism, but the thing is my business relies on reputation Dan, if I get things wrong consistently as you guys have I would be out of business very very quickly and people would view my work as amateurish or unprofessional, so when you guys do that, that is what I think about your work.
You might say it's harsh, I'd say it's honest and I think if you did some soul-searching and thought about this a little more your admission that the team failed to communicate both externally and internally amongst other departments is really unprofessional. Whilst I understand the team might be working really hard, if you really took the due care an attention you are meant to be taking these errors would not occur. This also serves to hint at a pattern of rushed production and half finished work and ideas.
Be frustrated with me all you want, but every member of the team is pouring their lives into making this game better. While you may not see that on any given day, when you look back at where this game has come from, every year we make big strides in moving forward. They deserve a lot of credit for that.
Dan we are not frustrated with you as a human being but the practices and poor organization that underlay the the problems that occur on Holodeck which have become a pattern of the same issues showing up; bugs, system imbalance and ignoring Tribble Testers.
We understand your team is devoting time in their lives to producing this game. However you need to understand not only do we pour many hours in our lives into playing the game we also work just as hard as you do in our own jobs and that income is what goes into your game as well. Not only do we put time into your game we also put in money into it Dan.
No doubt you can see just how much money I have put into this game and how little I have recently.
While you may not agree with all of our designs and decisions, the proof is in the success the game is having and how much the game continues to grow. While we don't share our internal information, STO is the best performing game for Perfect World Entertainment and is enjoy[ing] month after month increases in new captains.
Look Dan, we can't authenticate the information and simply taking your word on it isn't good enough in the UK we've had problems with contaminated meat because people simply took others at their word. However what I can authenticate is the genuine concerns and issues many of us have with this game and that is epitomized by this thread and the number of views and posts it has received. However perhaps in the future we as a community can do our own market research about customer satisfaction with this game that is publishable and open.
Having just celebrated our 3 year anniversary, there should be no doubt in your mind that we will be here for year 4 and beyond. We have a lot of good stuff in the works for our next May update and you'll see what we've been talking about in a little less than a months time.
So thank you for the constructive feedback. I do apologize on the behalf of the team. We appreciate your continued support and understand if we tarnished ourselves with last week's update. We will learn and move on.
Dan, whether the game is here for any period of time comes down to the players and what you do to make their experience of the game worth coming back for at the moment for a number of us that is not the case. It not so much that you tarnished yourselves with the last issue but that the issue is just part of a continued pattern of systemic failures in communication, testing and design.
Ultimately Dan our perspective is very simple, we want to have fun, I speak for a demographic that works hard and has family commitments. We come back from work and want to relax your game has to offer something to us that makes us want to log on. At the moment we don't get that. Tell me after a hard days work Dan would you come home and play a game that you felt was more like work than play?
This is the problem Dan, part of your job is communicating with us, it is of little surprise that the community has criticized you for you poor communication when it seems you don't even deem it to be part of your job.
Maybe this was just a throw-away remark at the end of your post that you didn't think about but the Freudian implications concerned me a little.
First, "many people aren't happy" is a matter of perspective. There are certainly people that aren't happy, but there are also many people that are happy. You simply can't make an MMO that pleases every single person all the time. What you can do, is work to grow the game and make tough decisions about what is good for the game right now.
No Dan, as this thread has evidenced it's not a simple matter of perspective especially when you consider your own admission to a pattern of work that adds bugs and imbalance into the game.
A holy grail of live MMO development is to improve growth, retention, and revenue. STO has managed to do all of these things thanks to the tough decisions that were made. Did it make everyone happy? No, but it did improve the game, year over year.
Your unprofessional-ism, rushed patches and resultant constant bugs and problems with systems which you yourself have admitted to would point to the fact that your are starting to lose core customers like myself. Once again though we have no proof in growth and I certainly cannot see an improvement from Season 6 to Season 7.
I can see how your decisions may have improved revenue by playing on peoples natural propensity to gamble. But consider this I started playing August, and by February I am not really playing at all, this is not unique to me but a common thread amongst quite a number of players. Our qualitative evidence has an authentic proven source at the moment we have not such authenticity for your quantitative statistical claims. However as I have already said I think it's time the community did some quantitative research of it's own.
And as far as Season 7 being "grindy" - welcome to the MMORPG genre.
No Dan, the MMORPG genre is not like that especially for adult audiences, maybe if your key demographic was kids with endless time then you could make that claim and argue that the this is the way the game should be. However your core demographic is middle ages Star Trek fans and may I add I doubt that unless there is a new Star Trek TV series which is genuinely popular you won't be getting in large volume of kids playing.
Our lives and habits do not lead us to enjoy grinding, you know this is true and it's why time and time again the Player Base has forced you to change your broken systems to remove grind. That is what happened in the weeks post Season 7.
You needed to do some proper QA and Tribble Testing over more than just 2 weeks if you ever hope to release an anywhere close to satisfactory update to Holodeck.
It just takes time. And right now, you may not see it, but the team is working extra hard. It is one thing to say that Cryptic pays our salary. But it doesn't really pay for all the late nights and weekends all the salaried employees are working right now. Why are we doing it? Because we are excited. Excited about what we are building. Excited about what we might be able to achieve this year.
It might not seem like much to you, but to us it is a big TRIBBLE deal.
If it is something you care about and take pride in why do consistently release broken patches and updates? We also work hard Dan, we also do overtime and late nights, we deserve better from a product we are looking to seek enjoyment from, not grind or a 2nd job.
In closing Dan I see that two things need to happen to take this game forwards, firstly you guys need to organize yourselves better and start listening to the Tribble testers with more seriousness, also you need to listen to the wider player base and our concerns over how enjoyable the game is, for every 1 of us that is unhappy there are another 5 that feel the same but say nothing.
The second thing that needs to happen is up to use the players and I direct my comments now to my fellow players. We need to organise and agree upon the parts of the game we feel need improvement or re-thinking and focus our efforts in a constructive way into a fruitful dialogue with the Cryptic team. My signature is a good place to start PM me so I can get us organised.
Also, post 2311 in this thread sums up a lot of our concerns about the game is is worth a read.
I posted a lot in this thread before the fleet mark patch-for-the-patch was released.
I considered it, and the sincere apology that followed, a very good start to a more fruitful relationship between the developers and the playerbase.
There has been a lot of to and fro regarding the problems faced by small fleets.
I have a suggestion that I don't think has been posted yet......but if I missed it my apologies.
There is a set of special projects designed explicitally for large fleets. These have fairly large requirements for relatively small rewards.
The thought strikes me that this set of projects could be made dynamic and linked to average fleet size.
There is obviously some new code that has been applied to foundry missions, that calculates the average time taken to complete the mission and rewards dilithium accordingly.
What if a version of that code was applied to those special projects......
Fleet X, over the last two weeks, finishes projects at the rate of one every week. Relatively slowly. Thus the requirements for those special projects drops.
Fleet Y, over the same period, finishes projects every 3 days. Relatively quickly. The requirements for their special projects increases.
This gets past the problem of lowering requitrements for small fleets, a situation obviously exploitable, by shifting the emphasis away from actual fleet size and onto the speed in which a given fleet finishes projects.
By making it dynamic (like the foundry-dil calculation) it can adjust itself in the case that a fleet either gets more active members, or indeed loses active members.
The rewards from such projects are not massive, so it is just a thumb on the scales......but it would allow for some sense of movement for small fleets, while not opening the gates to exploits.
The key would be making the time frame long enough.....say two weeks, or even four.
A big fleet would not want to go through all the rigmarole of kicking members and deliberately slowing down its projects just to get a relatively small reward........but small fleets would get a bit of a boost.
you have proof that real money was used. It could be that cryptic put it in there for they're nearly always the same price 1.3-1.4 mil.
So you think that Cryptic/PWE is taking money out of it's own pocket to plant keys in the exchange?
You ask me to somehow prove that it wasn't the far more likely scenario of someone either purchasing a bundle of keys, getting what they wanted out of a lockbox and then re-selling the leftover keys, or someone that just bought a bunch of keys and decided to sell one to raise some quick capital, but think that your little conspiracy theory somehow makes perfect sense.
Why on Earth would Cryptic be selling keys directly on the Exchange?
Of course I can not 'prove it', but you certainly can't prove your claim, either, and if a Cryptic person came along and told you that they were not directly selling keys, you would probably just claim that that was proof of a cover up.
The reason that several keys are priced in the same bracket is the same reason that any number of things are priced in the same bracket.... People see other people charging what they do and put their items up at a similar price.
If enough people come along and buy the keys, then that is apparently the 'right' price to sell them at.
This isn't really on topic, but the whole thread seems to be off the tracks to some extent.
This is from an interview with Matt Stone, I think this holds true to Star Trek as well.
The success of "South Park" is a stark lesson in the fundamentals of entertainment: if you tell stories that people want to hear, the audience will find you.
This is true no matter how fundamentally the paradigms shift, or how many platforms evolve.
"We've been doing it long enough to figure out that content will ride on top of whatever wave comes along," Mr. Stone said.
Imagine an interview where "South Park" is replaced by Star Trek Online...
And here is how it would generate for years the long term profit you want.
1) Ships, Weapons, Consoles, Bridge Officers, Duty Officers, Costumes [ship and character], etc. for the faction.
a) Available as a player levels up in that faction.
b) Special Z-Store versions
c) Ultra rare versions from your favorite money maker aka Lockboxes
d) New fun missions with drops that are worth the time spend in them as a reward.
e) STF based missions with something valuable that is only available from completing it.
f) New Fleet and Embassy bases for that faction (just don't make them into a grind)
And if you look at your "metrics" you will see this approach would work and give you a path that is unending for years to come. It opens the whole universe to your imagination!
So what factions am I talking about?
well let's start with the obvious one...
Romulan and continuing with these (not all at once but spread out over the launches);
Borg
Undine
Dominion
Cardassian
Hirogen
Orion
Ferengi (these are perfect to make into the pirates/traders of the universe)
Tholian
Reman
Well you get the picture... You never run out of something new to add for your next seson!...
Zeus
I don't think that Borg should ever be playable.
They are supposed to be an enemy. They should be hostile to every organic species. Their origins and reasons for their schemes is an unknown at this time.
Making them playable reduces them to a skin and abilities (not to mention diminishing the valuable of the playable liberated Borg).
If they introduce new factions, I would rather they do it slowly and thoroughly. If they introduce Romulans, don't just put them in the C-Store as something that can be bought to play as for either Federation or Klingons.
Make them a faction. Their own ships, their own missions, their own unique stories.
Sure, they can sell 'reformed Romulans' as a skin for whatever faction for $5*, but if they can charge $25-30* to let people actually play as a part of the Empire, then I think that that would be so much better.
And some of those people might still pay that extra $5 to play as a Romulan or Reman defector in another faction (unless it was included as an option for people that bought the faction option).
But I still think that it's not only okay, but actually better, that some factions be enemy/NPC only.
The Borg, Organians, Tholians, Undine and even more... I think that making them playable would diminish them (and I know that you didn't mention Organians. I am just trying to speak more generally here. I think that the Q would make a terrible faction, too ).
*all prices just pulled out of thin air and may or may not bear any resemblance to what the actual pricing may be
They are supposed to be an enemy. They should be hostile to every organic species. Their origins and reasons for their schemes is an unknown at this time.
Making them playable reduces them to a skin and abilities (not to mention diminishing the valuable of the playable liberated Borg).
If they introduce new factions, I would rather they do it slowly and thoroughly. If they introduce Romulans, don't just put them in the C-Store as something that can be bought to play as for either Federation or Klingons.
Make them a faction. Their own ships, their own missions, their own unique stories.
Sure, they can sell 'reformed Romulans' as a skin for whatever faction for $5*, but if they can charge $25-30* to let people actually play as a part of the Empire, then I think that that would be so much better.
And some of those people might still pay that extra $5 to play as a Romulan or Reman defector in another faction (unless it was included as an option for people that bought the faction option).
But I still think that it's not only okay, but actually better, that some factions be enemy/NPC only.
The Borg, Organians, Tholians, Undine and even more... I think that making them playable would diminish them (and I know that you didn't mention Organians. I am just trying to speak more generally here. I think that the Q would make a terrible faction, too ).
I agree with this, I would not like to see playable Borg either for the same reasons you mentioned - it would dilute their 'race' and mystique, I'd also add Iconians to that list, whenever they actually 'show up' in this game for real.
Cryptic has said before they won't charge for 'expansions' and I would consider the addition of a new race with it's own content/storyline as such, so I hope that remains to be true but certainly won't hold my breath. That's an awful lot of content to produce with real depth, I have not seen that kind of innovation in this game in a long time.
So you think that Cryptic/PWE is taking money out of it's own pocket to plant keys in the exchange?
You ask me to somehow prove that it wasn't the far more likely scenario of someone either purchasing a bundle of keys, getting what they wanted out of a lockbox and then re-selling the leftover keys, or someone that just bought a bunch of keys and decided to sell one to raise some quick capital, but think that your little conspiracy theory somehow makes perfect sense.
Why on Earth would Cryptic be selling keys directly on the Exchange?
Of course I can not 'prove it', but you certainly can't prove your claim, either, and if a Cryptic person came along and told you that they were not directly selling keys, you would probably just claim that that was proof of a cover up.
The reason that several keys are priced in the same bracket is the same reason that any number of things are priced in the same bracket.... People see other people charging what they do and put their items up at a similar price.
If enough people come along and buy the keys, then that is apparently the 'right' price to sell them at.
This isn't really on topic, but the whole thread seems to be off the tracks to some extent.
yes I believe theyu are. THey put fleet modules in there why not lock box keys
yes I believe theyu are. THey put fleet modules in there why not lock box keys
Negative. Cryptic do NOT put Fleet mods into the exchange. EC, Fleet Credits, etc. are all electronic "money" with absolutely zero real value, and you don't use Zen - which is the only currency that translates directly to money (and before anyone starts harping in on that notion, Dil is purchased by Zen; Zen is purchased by pounds, dollars, etc., so yes, Zen is the ONLY currency directly related to RL monies) - on the Exchange.
PLAYERS put keys, mods, etc. on the Exchange, and at obviously ridiculous in-game prices (last I looked a mod is like 20,000,000 EC).
The reason why the items are priced similarly has been eloquently stated in one of the above posts: because other players see the prices and set accordingly, OR try to get more so set higher, OR try to earn a quick sale by setting prices a bit lower.
So, no not a fan of Cryptic/PWE's business strategies or, especially, their "customer service," but let's stay within the realm of reality and not propose silly conspiracy theories, shall we?
Moreover, let's keep this thread on topic to the best of our ability - if you want to discuss this, perhaps move it to another thread, eh?
Fleet Commander
Caprica's Revenge (...actually active since November 2010, which may one day be important to archaeologists, but not to anyone else...)
Comments
If you have 5 ppl who can continuously be online at the same time then you might be right .
The beauty of the wrapper mission was that you could log in at your convenience , not at the convenience of 4 more ppl .
The larger the fleet the more chance there is that someone from your fleet will be online .
Sadly the opposite is quite true as well .
You don't need to have them on concurrently. During bonus hour, with a boost, a disciplined player is able to bring in about 1k marks, plus or minus a few hundred depending on length of matches and outcomes.
Even without the bonus hour, or boost, you're still talking several hundred marks per player for that hour of playtime.
think you for got to add to grind tribbles
i know wot mean ive respec all 4 of my toons in the past 10 days with the dilith ive been grinding just for somthing diffrent to do
i would love to know are cryptic even looking in sorting out AFKers in team missions or are there ignoreing it.
Even better I hope someone lost his/her job over it. Better believe if I apologized to a customer and 48 hours later the customer was dealing with another defective product caused by the same core issue (*) head would roll.
(*) in this case, lack of testing on a live production build. Again... it is possible that this was tested in-house on the ultra-smooth ultra-tuned Development Shard... and it failed on the "production" shard. The problem could be as simple as that. Somewhere along the line the two shards diverged code-wise... what works in the back office doesn't work "on the street." Even so, the ship should have hit Tribble for a few hours at least. No more excuses after this though! I expect cash-store items to work flawlessly.
Not disagreeing with the sentiment, but the Kumari is far from the only C-store (or Lobi) ship to go live with serious issues.
Vesta hangar cooldown?
Armitage unable to slot entire weapons categories?
Recluse launching stupidly bugged amounts of fighters?
And that's just off the top of my head...
It all goes back to the "rush to market" development pattern. Tribble does allow for them to test, but not when you only give 48 hrs to test all that was in the patch and fail to heed the feedback.
I know about this first hand as my job depends on "getting it right the first time".
If anyone casues an "outage" and does not learn from that and repeats it, then they need more training in QA and customer care or given a box to load their personal items in.
There is no excuse for a lack of QA! Even it does delay something!
"If what you produce is defective, then rushing it to market will not generate the result you want unless the result you want is failure!" ~ Zeus 02/22/2013
PWE/Crytpic Why do you repeat the same mistakes?
PWE/Crytpic Why do you NOT listen to your Customers?
PWE/Cryptic Stop the PUBAR, Bring back the FUN!
PUBAR = Patched Up Beyond All Recognition
Zeus
Fleet Marks are not the sole issue with small fleets, here is a list of other issues:
Dilithium grind
Doff Grind
EC Grind
Lack of supply in players willing to join a T1, T2 or even T3 fleet.
I have at various times during Season 7 attempted to resurrect my fleet, which was killed off due to people leaving the game or moving to bigger fleets as a result of Season 7 changes. However I have met with no success at all in garnering interest mainly because of the final issue in the list, so no for me at the moment the change in Fleet Mark volume makes no difference to my particular predicament.
Whilst I made the point that the Season 7 changes killed a number small fleets off, I did not say that the changes made in the past few days to Fleet Marks would not benefit those small fleets that still have a core membership of 5 or more players in-tact. I merely stated that it did not benefit my fleet in any way, or any other small fleet that lost nearly all of it's players as a result of the changes in Season 7.
Maybe I should hone my wording for you "for small fleets that were killed off by the Season 7 changes"
#2311#2700#2316#2500
As a Fleet admiral of a small fleet, I have to agree with this statement. In 2 hours I did 4 Colony invasions, 2 No wins, 2 FFA's and acquired approx 500 fleet marks. There were 3 of us collecting fleet marks to start our embassy upgrade and we were able to get the fleet marks we needed that would have taken at least a few days. We normally have 5 people online every night.
I have to say that I am happy with the Fleet Mark increases. It is definitely making things easier for us.
Follow me on Twitter: @ZEFilms_STO
1) Develop good code
2) Test internally on Alpha platform
3) Take Alpha test results and correct code
4) Repeat Alpha test until all errors found are corrected.
5) Release to Beta test with select testers from customer base
6) Take Beta test results and correct code
7) Repeat Beta test until all errors found are corrected
8) Release code to customers knowing you have done all that is possible to protect your customers and the Company.
9) Roll back to previous code if any more errors show up and repeat Step 2 thru 8
That is QA and the proper way to protect your customers and keep the Company profits and reputation safe!
Zeus
I also agree with these to a point. The Dilithium grind works hand in hand with the lack of players portion. Obviously the less amount of player you have, the harder for the dililthium contributions will be. Dilithium, imo, is actually not that hard to get now, but its more the cap of refining that is more of the issue. My fleet and I do so many STF's together that we could easily get 20k of dil in a night each. If 5 people are online stead each night, and you could refined all 20k in a night instead of 8k, then projects could be finished faster.
Doff grind isn't that big of an issue for our fleet either. We use our fleet credits to purchase the doff from the fleet base and go from there. What ever ones we don't need, we sell on the Exchange and usually bring in some good EC.
But I think I am lucky to have dedicated players in my small fleet. Everyone hates to grind, but when you do it with your fleet mates its not so bad. Some of the other smaller fleets have people who just don't really care, or have lost that passion would could effect the outcome of the base.
Follow me on Twitter: @ZEFilms_STO
I've played STO since it came out, subbing off and on; have never posted in the forums, and have been fairly content to sit back and let the developers work there magic, as they have done a good job in my eyes.
I see this group of people that just goes after the developers though, and whoever is at the helm. Thing is, I highly doubt almost any of you that verbally chastise and burn the devs have ever delivered a piece of software, or any information technology related product for that matter.
I am a Program Manager for a major corporation in the US and manage five different application development efforts; and the complexity behind developing serious software is incredible.
Someone will ask for a simple fix to an item for instance, or perhaps a change in behavior, and then wonder why something so simple takes months to complete.
Here's why:
If I have an application that displays content based on information in a database (keeping in mind I don't know the tech specs on STO, but there have to be multiple DBs plugged into it); there's four specific phases I have to go through.
1. Engineer the Solution - How do we accomplish the task? Before any code is written, you have to document what your going to do, how your going to do it, and clear that with the other stakeholders (database admins/devs, systems engineers etc)
2. Create the solution - depending on how STO's dev tempo functions (I remember reading something about them using Agile), if they use Agile they'll create a series of user stories that describe the desired function for the developers and a developer will pick up the assignment. Spikes may be assosicated with it for research or guidance from other groups - say the solution requires adding tables to an existing database; that's external work. Eventually, the code gets written.
3. Test the solution - This is accomplished both by human and computer based tests; there are automated software testing tools (junit comes to mind) that are used to test code, but then humans must do regression and functional testing. bugs are found. They must be fixed. Then you test again. So on and so forth.
Eventually you get to deploy the solution which is step 4.
And then if it doesn't work just quite right, someone who's looking to hurl abuse tells you and your entire team your an idiot and lying to them.
Take a step back. Go read up on how software is developed. And if you think you can do it better, apply to work at Cryptic or go create your own game. Be a part of the solution, not the problem.
If these guys are anything like the crew of developers that work for me, they put in many hours of unpaid OT, stay up till midnight working issues, and do it willingly because they love what they're doing.
Being beat up constantly by the consumers of the thing that they create is the fastest way to cause them to lose morale and quit.
Think about that.
v/r
Joseph
And yes I have produced code and tech solutions for my company which is International in scope so I do the things I post about every single day and I too work very long hours each day.
As far as PWE/Cryptic's QA/Testing process goes, they don't listen to the testers feedback that they get from the Tribble Test server. If fact getting any kind of response to their Bug reporting system is almost impossible.
So there are a lot of us that are Technical professionals here and that is why we do know how to correct the problems we find in the code they are producing.
Remember they (PWE/Cryptic) does put the code on their test server and they do ask for the feedback, but they are also the ones that ignore that feedback on bugs found and release it anyway to production.
Now step back and think where the real issue is...
Customers that are asked to help or a Company that ignores the help it asked for?
I for one will give them constructive feedback and report bugs, but if the process is broken, or ignored, then getting defective code is the only result left.
Zeus (Network/Computer Engineer with over 34 years of experience)
My field of work, if we released a buggy or defective product lives would be on the line. Entire communities could face power-outages. Delicate equipment could be destroyed.
If a unit fails for any reason you better believe we have that unit back in the shop and torn apart, and we figure out why it failed. We don't sit there and tell the customer "Yeah this is our best year ever we got GREAT buzz in all the trade rags -- now buy more product from us everything is working as intended."
I too can buy buzz. And I suspect Cryptic did just that. Because frankly with the absolutely abysmal "entry level" graphic issues and AI bugs no one in their right mind wants to slog through to the endgame.
Then once you get to the endgame... it's grind grind grind no story progression no advancement past level cap... just grind over and over and over.
I am calling for the delay of the next season. Push it back a year. Put everyone on bugfix duty. Spend money on setting up a quality system and train employees to use it. Use this time to generate simple story missions to test your quality-assurance skills. When you can successful turn around a ticket in 24 hours or less... and when you can point to an error-free entry-level experience... then AND ONLY THEN are you ready to move on to the next season.
Season Seven has exposed serious flaws in Cryptic's internal process. They clearly are not ready to expand into the "next phase" of STO's evolution. Not with the utter lack of quality assurance I am seeing!
This is quite hilarious, coming from someone who has also worked in the industry and knowing several project managers at large companies like Logica, I can tell you for a fact that if you do work in the industry you've led a very sheltered life.
Projects often get done very badly full of bugs and not meeting spec at all due to sales management being too aggressive with promises on deadlines to clients. The NHS backbone is a good example or the perpetually in development and never finished EU version of GPS (Autobahn) which was run so badly that it actually went through several version of Fortran LOL!
Please, step back a moment for yourself and tell me do you seriously believe that developers never get things wrong and continue regardless because of the short term profit pressures?
Simply put defending the behaviour and processes of Cryptic concerning this game is a battle you won't win not because were are determined to accuse them of things but because they are doing these things. We aren't just making this up you know.
#2311#2700#2316#2500
I am saying that hurling abuse at developers isn't the right way to address it.
Someone made a point of saying that software is on deadlines and that introduces unfixed bugs - that's aboslutely correct; sometimes you accept that there are specific bugs and move forward because the whole is better than the bug.
Cryptic is a group of developers within a larger company (PW); clearly they have internal deadlines, and since its commerical, if there's no profit, there's no money to pay people and the project folds.
I do have to say I find it hard to believe that the developers are just blowing off serious bug reports from Tribble.
I can see blowing off poorly submitted bug reports, but not serious, well documented bugs.
Perhaps I have more faith in STO's devs that everyone else, but considering the state of the game in open beta to now, its come a long way and I've been impressed with what they've accomplished given the resources they have.
Again though - to the folks hurling abuse, why not put in an application with PWE? Go help fix the problem.
You have no idea what anyone does for work/jobs on these forums at all, so please keep your conjecture to yourself.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The o3 - Killed you good
That is exactly what PWE/Cryptic is doing with the bug reports! The testers on Tribble have been giving this kind of bug reporting for years and PWE/Cryptic continues to ignore them by releasing the code into production time and time again.
This is just one of the many problems but it is a major one that the lack of any kind of proper QA there is causing!
As far as applying for a job there, well I like living in Texas and I like the company I work for and the retirement plan I have coming. I don't think PWE/Cryptic could match my salary or provide the above.
I am here because I love Star Trek, not because I like PWE/Cryptic!
And we are trying to help them using the vehicle they are providing (Tribble/Forums).
It is PWE/Cryptic that chooses to ignore the help they asked for!
Zeus (Network/Computer Engineer with over 34 years of experience)
Disbelieve all you want, it doesn't change the fact that Tribble is a joke at the moment. Either patches get so little testing (see the last few days) that there is no time to spot bugs, or bugs that are identified make it through to Holodeck anyway (Bioneural / TDD being borked, rebellious Boffs, 2 minute universal CD and other major problems were all caught on Tribble but went to the live server despite countless reports).
Someone might actually read it this time...
Thanks.
Thanks, this time for the honesty, most of us knew this and lets be even more honest this was the exact same issue with Season and the Reputation system it was rushed and Tribble was ignored. The result was an unbalanced system which in many ways is still too expensive but back at launch was so ridiculously unbalanced that it didn't take long for the player base to force you into changes.
This isn't a one off mistake, it's a pattern you guys have of delivering patches to Holodeck that haven't been properly tested or evaluated and the result is unbalanced systems and bug after bug.
I think you need to admit that the "exploitation" that occurred was more a natural attempt by the players to fix the lack of balance in the Fleet Mark system... I categorically state that people were not doing it for the "lulz" or to gain super gamebreaking advantages over other players, they were doing it to feed the starved supply of fleet marks.
The entire problem was created by Cryptic. In addition you are right if you felt you needed to resolve the issue of a broken Fleet Marks system the solution should have been added before you removed the community created solution to the problem. That is what it was Dan it was our solution for your broken system.
I sympathize with you when you say you don't feel good when you make mistakes. None of us who have stressful jobs do when we get things wrong. However Dan the issue here is you and the team are making the same mistakes over and over and honestly it's time you learned from your mistakes and ensure they don't happen again.
Honestly this is a bit of a straw man, I think very few have made overly harsh comments or anything that was worthy of a forum ban. The rest of us have only highlighted the truth, I guess one could say my words have been harsh or at any rate my criticism, but the thing is my business relies on reputation Dan, if I get things wrong consistently as you guys have I would be out of business very very quickly and people would view my work as amateurish or unprofessional, so when you guys do that, that is what I think about your work.
You might say it's harsh, I'd say it's honest and I think if you did some soul-searching and thought about this a little more your admission that the team failed to communicate both externally and internally amongst other departments is really unprofessional. Whilst I understand the team might be working really hard, if you really took the due care an attention you are meant to be taking these errors would not occur. This also serves to hint at a pattern of rushed production and half finished work and ideas.
Dan we are not frustrated with you as a human being but the practices and poor organization that underlay the the problems that occur on Holodeck which have become a pattern of the same issues showing up; bugs, system imbalance and ignoring Tribble Testers.
We understand your team is devoting time in their lives to producing this game. However you need to understand not only do we pour many hours in our lives into playing the game we also work just as hard as you do in our own jobs and that income is what goes into your game as well. Not only do we put time into your game we also put in money into it Dan.
No doubt you can see just how much money I have put into this game and how little I have recently.
Look Dan, we can't authenticate the information and simply taking your word on it isn't good enough in the UK we've had problems with contaminated meat because people simply took others at their word. However what I can authenticate is the genuine concerns and issues many of us have with this game and that is epitomized by this thread and the number of views and posts it has received. However perhaps in the future we as a community can do our own market research about customer satisfaction with this game that is publishable and open.
Dan, whether the game is here for any period of time comes down to the players and what you do to make their experience of the game worth coming back for at the moment for a number of us that is not the case. It not so much that you tarnished yourselves with the last issue but that the issue is just part of a continued pattern of systemic failures in communication, testing and design.
Ultimately Dan our perspective is very simple, we want to have fun, I speak for a demographic that works hard and has family commitments. We come back from work and want to relax your game has to offer something to us that makes us want to log on. At the moment we don't get that. Tell me after a hard days work Dan would you come home and play a game that you felt was more like work than play?
This is the problem Dan, part of your job is communicating with us, it is of little surprise that the community has criticized you for you poor communication when it seems you don't even deem it to be part of your job.
Maybe this was just a throw-away remark at the end of your post that you didn't think about but the Freudian implications concerned me a little.
No Dan, as this thread has evidenced it's not a simple matter of perspective especially when you consider your own admission to a pattern of work that adds bugs and imbalance into the game.
Your unprofessional-ism, rushed patches and resultant constant bugs and problems with systems which you yourself have admitted to would point to the fact that your are starting to lose core customers like myself. Once again though we have no proof in growth and I certainly cannot see an improvement from Season 6 to Season 7.
I can see how your decisions may have improved revenue by playing on peoples natural propensity to gamble. But consider this I started playing August, and by February I am not really playing at all, this is not unique to me but a common thread amongst quite a number of players. Our qualitative evidence has an authentic proven source at the moment we have not such authenticity for your quantitative statistical claims. However as I have already said I think it's time the community did some quantitative research of it's own.
No Dan, the MMORPG genre is not like that especially for adult audiences, maybe if your key demographic was kids with endless time then you could make that claim and argue that the this is the way the game should be. However your core demographic is middle ages Star Trek fans and may I add I doubt that unless there is a new Star Trek TV series which is genuinely popular you won't be getting in large volume of kids playing.
Our lives and habits do not lead us to enjoy grinding, you know this is true and it's why time and time again the Player Base has forced you to change your broken systems to remove grind. That is what happened in the weeks post Season 7.
You needed to do some proper QA and Tribble Testing over more than just 2 weeks if you ever hope to release an anywhere close to satisfactory update to Holodeck.
If it is something you care about and take pride in why do consistently release broken patches and updates? We also work hard Dan, we also do overtime and late nights, we deserve better from a product we are looking to seek enjoyment from, not grind or a 2nd job.
In closing Dan I see that two things need to happen to take this game forwards, firstly you guys need to organize yourselves better and start listening to the Tribble testers with more seriousness, also you need to listen to the wider player base and our concerns over how enjoyable the game is, for every 1 of us that is unhappy there are another 5 that feel the same but say nothing.
The second thing that needs to happen is up to use the players and I direct my comments now to my fellow players. We need to organise and agree upon the parts of the game we feel need improvement or re-thinking and focus our efforts in a constructive way into a fruitful dialogue with the Cryptic team. My signature is a good place to start PM me so I can get us organised.
Also, post 2311 in this thread sums up a lot of our concerns about the game is is worth a read.
#2311#2700#2316#2500
I considered it, and the sincere apology that followed, a very good start to a more fruitful relationship between the developers and the playerbase.
There has been a lot of to and fro regarding the problems faced by small fleets.
I have a suggestion that I don't think has been posted yet......but if I missed it my apologies.
There is a set of special projects designed explicitally for large fleets. These have fairly large requirements for relatively small rewards.
The thought strikes me that this set of projects could be made dynamic and linked to average fleet size.
There is obviously some new code that has been applied to foundry missions, that calculates the average time taken to complete the mission and rewards dilithium accordingly.
What if a version of that code was applied to those special projects......
Fleet X, over the last two weeks, finishes projects at the rate of one every week. Relatively slowly. Thus the requirements for those special projects drops.
Fleet Y, over the same period, finishes projects every 3 days. Relatively quickly. The requirements for their special projects increases.
This gets past the problem of lowering requitrements for small fleets, a situation obviously exploitable, by shifting the emphasis away from actual fleet size and onto the speed in which a given fleet finishes projects.
By making it dynamic (like the foundry-dil calculation) it can adjust itself in the case that a fleet either gets more active members, or indeed loses active members.
The rewards from such projects are not massive, so it is just a thumb on the scales......but it would allow for some sense of movement for small fleets, while not opening the gates to exploits.
The key would be making the time frame long enough.....say two weeks, or even four.
A big fleet would not want to go through all the rigmarole of kicking members and deliberately slowing down its projects just to get a relatively small reward........but small fleets would get a bit of a boost.
So you think that Cryptic/PWE is taking money out of it's own pocket to plant keys in the exchange?
You ask me to somehow prove that it wasn't the far more likely scenario of someone either purchasing a bundle of keys, getting what they wanted out of a lockbox and then re-selling the leftover keys, or someone that just bought a bunch of keys and decided to sell one to raise some quick capital, but think that your little conspiracy theory somehow makes perfect sense.
Why on Earth would Cryptic be selling keys directly on the Exchange?
Of course I can not 'prove it', but you certainly can't prove your claim, either, and if a Cryptic person came along and told you that they were not directly selling keys, you would probably just claim that that was proof of a cover up.
The reason that several keys are priced in the same bracket is the same reason that any number of things are priced in the same bracket.... People see other people charging what they do and put their items up at a similar price.
If enough people come along and buy the keys, then that is apparently the 'right' price to sell them at.
This isn't really on topic, but the whole thread seems to be off the tracks to some extent.
A given fleet will inevitably slow down as it increases tier, as the requirements get tougher.
However, there is a fix......essentially divide by tier.
Fleet X gets tier 1 projects done in 5 days, tier 2 in 10, tier 3 in 15 and tier 4 in 20.
If we just tied things to time taken, their special projects would be getting easier as they go.
However, if we divide by tier level, things get more sensible.
For the above fleet 5 divided by 1 is 5, 10 divided by 2 is still 5.....and so on.
Imagine an interview where "South Park" is replaced by Star Trek Online...
=/\= 106th Fleet =/\=
Website | Fleet Charter | Mission Statement | Forums | Join | F.A.Q.
I don't think that Borg should ever be playable.
They are supposed to be an enemy. They should be hostile to every organic species. Their origins and reasons for their schemes is an unknown at this time.
Making them playable reduces them to a skin and abilities (not to mention diminishing the valuable of the playable liberated Borg).
If they introduce new factions, I would rather they do it slowly and thoroughly. If they introduce Romulans, don't just put them in the C-Store as something that can be bought to play as for either Federation or Klingons.
Make them a faction. Their own ships, their own missions, their own unique stories.
Sure, they can sell 'reformed Romulans' as a skin for whatever faction for $5*, but if they can charge $25-30* to let people actually play as a part of the Empire, then I think that that would be so much better.
And some of those people might still pay that extra $5 to play as a Romulan or Reman defector in another faction (unless it was included as an option for people that bought the faction option).
But I still think that it's not only okay, but actually better, that some factions be enemy/NPC only.
The Borg, Organians, Tholians, Undine and even more... I think that making them playable would diminish them (and I know that you didn't mention Organians. I am just trying to speak more generally here. I think that the Q would make a terrible faction, too
*all prices just pulled out of thin air and may or may not bear any resemblance to what the actual pricing may be
I agree with this, I would not like to see playable Borg either for the same reasons you mentioned - it would dilute their 'race' and mystique, I'd also add Iconians to that list, whenever they actually 'show up' in this game for real.
Cryptic has said before they won't charge for 'expansions' and I would consider the addition of a new race with it's own content/storyline as such, so I hope that remains to be true but certainly won't hold my breath. That's an awful lot of content to produce with real depth, I have not seen that kind of innovation in this game in a long time.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The o3 - Killed you good
yes I believe theyu are. THey put fleet modules in there why not lock box keys
Negative. Cryptic do NOT put Fleet mods into the exchange. EC, Fleet Credits, etc. are all electronic "money" with absolutely zero real value, and you don't use Zen - which is the only currency that translates directly to money (and before anyone starts harping in on that notion, Dil is purchased by Zen; Zen is purchased by pounds, dollars, etc., so yes, Zen is the ONLY currency directly related to RL monies) - on the Exchange.
PLAYERS put keys, mods, etc. on the Exchange, and at obviously ridiculous in-game prices (last I looked a mod is like 20,000,000 EC).
The reason why the items are priced similarly has been eloquently stated in one of the above posts: because other players see the prices and set accordingly, OR try to get more so set higher, OR try to earn a quick sale by setting prices a bit lower.
So, no not a fan of Cryptic/PWE's business strategies or, especially, their "customer service," but let's stay within the realm of reality and not propose silly conspiracy theories, shall we?
Moreover, let's keep this thread on topic to the best of our ability - if you want to discuss this, perhaps move it to another thread, eh?
Fleet Commander
Caprica's Revenge
(...actually active since November 2010, which may one day be important to archaeologists, but not to anyone else...)
Dude, it would make more sense for Cryptic to purchase the keys off the exchange in order to keep them out of circulation.
Don't give them ideas...
lol (I hope)
=/\= 106th Fleet =/\=
Website | Fleet Charter | Mission Statement | Forums | Join | F.A.Q.
as I said, its too late, they've done something similar, and well given their track record, I wouldn't put this out of the realm of possibility