unified marks currency and other suggestions

xsharpex

so my friend l0c floated an idea about a unified marks currency that you can spend on projects of your choosing. instead of rom marks and omega marks and fleet marks and all the other forms of marks that will appear with subsequent reputation holdings, we should have a unified marks currency, where we earn x amount of marks per activity. the disparity among how many marks we earn will need to be re-evaluated, but we should be smart enough to decide what we would like to focus on and how we would like to spend our hard earned currency. with the increase in future reputation systems, the application of new mark currencies for a character to earn will further increase the grind that they will have to face. for older characters, it may not seem as bad, but newer characters will always be playing catch up to no end.

we are smart enough to decide for ourselves how we want to spend our time in game. we all have certain likes and dislikes. we all have a finite amount of time to spend in game. having cryptic dictate how to shuttle us around and do things that we normally wouldn't otherwise do, but are required to, to remain competitive sucks. it's bad form and leaves a lot to be desired.

the amount of marks earned will definitely have to be scaled to the activity. for example, azure nebula rescue - we should have a choice of playing for 5, 10 or 15 minutes with random spawns. the amount of points won should dictate how many marks you get. instances such as starbase incursion should reward marks based on optionals completed and saboteurs killed and captured. stfs would award marks based on how quickly you complete the instance as well as obtaining the optional. these are just a couple suggestions, but you catch my drift.

marks could also be converted to dilithium ore. not through a stupid project that's a hassle and a waste of time. but through a straight marks to ore conversion. convert x amount of marks for x amount of ore.

c'mon people. we're smart here. if presented with options that we like, we're less inclined to try to find ways to circumvent the system, all the while ensuring against future grind content. having to travel all the way across the galaxy and back again to grind several different types of content seems very counter productive. let us pick and choose what we want to do, while still remaining competitive. this would definitely help smaller fleets out, as they can devote most of their marks towards the fleet base and embassy as well as ore conversion. you keep them in the race, while doing content they enjoy.

if this system continues the way it is, imagine how tedious a grind it would be for all new players and alts alike? the current system and its respective future expansion is not future friendly. eventually, we will need to rely on an influx of new players to power this game. with such a tedious, boring and severely boring grind ahead of them, what incentive would they have to stay? they will always be playing catch up in one way or another. they will spend a lot of their time travelling from space to space grinding away at events and quests that reward very little for time invested. even if they did find one thing they truly liked to do, they wouldn't be able to.

tl;dr - make all marks one currency. let us earn it the way we see fit (through group actions) and let us spend it as we see fit. let us convert it through a straight up conversion. no stupid projects with a 15 second timer. NO ONE LIKES THAT TRIBBLE! let us just input a number and have it output our ore. you can time that if you want, where we drop off the marks and return for the ore later. enact these changes not only for yourself, but for the future players, so when they are playing the game to catch up with us, they're more likely to stay and play than take one look at the grind and quit.

starkaos

Cryptic for some strange reason wants us to play specific content to get specific rewards. So unifying marks is not a possibility, but conversion is. It doesn't make sense that helping the New Romulus colony would help Task Force Omega defeat Borg. However, transferring Borg technology that has been rendered harmless to New Romulus would help the colony.

Grind will be a part of MMOs for a long period of time. I don't know of a single MMO that has no grind or doesn't have specific endgame rewards locked behind specific content and Cryptic doesn't seem to have the initiative to try things that might not work. Grind has been proven to work and it will take a very talented and inspired dev team to create a successful MMO without grind.

xsharpex

a lot of things don't make sense with this game. i'm concerned about the overall sustainability of the game itself. i'm not asking for a no grind situation. granted, they need us to grind stuff to keep us occupied until they release more content, but forcing us to grind as we are now and even more so in the future will definitely put a serious hamper on the sustainability of this game.

furthermore, the insane lack of game balance and the damage creep epidemic will further doom this game. with the introduction of additional reputation unlocks and the passives they bring, you further increase the damage potential of players, thus resulting in enemies with higher and higher hitpoints. this in turn further skews the already great divide between pve and pvp gameplay.

older players will eventually grow tired of grinding for the same content. the system in place is not alt or new player friendly. the older players will eventually leave and with no one to take their place, the game will eventually shut down. wake up and open your eyes if you truly love playing this game. help push for reform before it's too late instead of bickering over hypothetical intangibles no one really cares about.

cptvanor

xsharpex wrote: »

the game will eventually shut down.

I'm pretty sure this game will not shut down just because of the rep grind.

WoW has many, many more rep grinds this game and that's not caused any problems for Blizzard. The rep grinds there are just as alt-unfriendly as the ones in STO are.

I can't imagine them ever letting people use Rom marks to advance Omega rep, doing so simply doesn't make sense. The fact that other things also don't make sense isn't a good reason to add even more in.

xsharpex

the reason for the shutdown isn't because of the grind. it's because the current state of the game lacks purpose and has severe balance issues. comparing wow and sto is like comparing apples and oranges. just for the sheer difference in content available and things to do.

purpose: when you finish grinding for your tier 5 omega and romulan reps, what are you left with to do? because of how the game is structured, many players are severely unequipped to participate in pvp. so what else is left?

i covered the severe balance issues in another thread. overall it comes down to this. tactical captains in escorts are fun and dandy, but with an increase in passives, equipment and ship, the damage variance produced by them will further increase. further increases in damage done will result in pointless enemies being buffed again and again. and not buffed in terms of adding in new abilities or whatnot, but in sheer hull and shield hp increases. this in turn adds further distance between true end game players (those who have everything maxed) and those who don't.

the damage creep is already very apparent in the game today. the mirror universe event is an absolute joke. a good team can clear the entire mission in 2 minutes. most space stfs can be done in 5 minutes or less. the dps race we're currently experiencing will only increase, content already here will become outdated and laughably easy, while newer more challenging content can only be done by those who have. eventually all those who have will get bored. they will move on. if you think the game is sustainable the way it is currently, i do believe you are mistaken.

starkaos

Damage creep is supposed to exist in MMOs, but new endgame content is supposed to counteract it. So MMOs are supposed to create harder content to make damage creep less noticeable. If you have the latest endgame gear, then previous content is supposed to be easier. If I am struggling with content that I did 20 levels ago and I am in the best gear possible, then there is something wrong. The main problem that I see is that endgame content takes time and Cryptic seems to lack the drive or resources to introduce regular endgame content.

xsharpex

it becomes a huge problem when that's all this game revolves around. damage, damage, damage. plus, all the content we have now anyway is scaled to our level. the pve ai is a joke. youre basically looking at several targets that do nothing but spike damage, that just sit there and youre either flying around it in a circle broadsiding or basically sitting up real close to it unloading weapons.

have all space enemies behave like the borg queen in hive onslaught, randomize the support skills they have, while giving them standard attack and defense skills and you have non predictable replay ability. then you can focus on quality opponents over quantity. give us a reason to have cruisers specced for aggro and science vessels meant for support and crowd control. change the dynamics and you might just save the game. i'm not asking for anything impossible, all of it is already in game.

causalityeffect

Cryptic already did the mark conversion previously but have went back to that stupidity by making more various currencies. It would be a lot more sensible for the marks to be a universal currency that can be slotted into any reputation rather than specific.

What happens when they start introducing more Reputation projects with different races ?
We have to end up with more and more marks for different Reputation vendors. Which is exactly what the previous system ended up with the exploration marks.

litchy74

Single mark idea I realy like, problem is the devs would nether go for it they seem to want us pegged into certain missions they chose for us rather then letting us choose.

We are only paying customers even FTP we all spent a little money most likely, what would we know on what we want to play!

kyias1

Several seasons ago, there were 6 different types of marks for the various exploration clusters around the game. The development team eliminated these marks because there were too many currency types in the game.

As a result we went down from 9 different currencies to 3: Dilithium, Energy Credits and Latinum. Since then they have reintroduced 4 new types of currencies back into the game: Omega, Romulan, and the 2 fleet currencies.

This original change of eliminating currencies was to ensure less confusion and ample means to gather the resources to obtain gear. Now that we have more currencies being reintroduced we are finding we do not have ample content in each area to obtain some of these currencies through regular play.

It is easy to notice that omega marks are FAR easier to come by than romulan marks or fleet marks. The reason is there is endgame content present to support omega marks but not any of the others.

I am all for one common mark to turn in to anyone. It will actually bring the game back in line with keeping our currencies simplified.

millimidget

kyias1 wrote: »

Now that we have more currencies being reintroduced we are finding we do not have ample content in each area to obtain some of these currencies through regular play.

As a player relatively new to this game, this is the first and only point I found I can really agree with. Certainly Romulan rep could use elite PvE queue content which rewards comparable to the borg eSTFs (I'm really not enthused at all to do the repeatable ground quests for Romulan marks, but I appreciate that they exist in the game).

I haven't had a problem with the mark system so far. While there are a variety of currencies to manage, they actually serve to guide players to content with no real confusion. The reward structure, on the other hand, could use some improvement; I certainly should be able to see exactly what a reward tier will offer, what the stats and the material/currency costs are, rather than just the item/project names (taking this further, set bonuses desperately need in-game tooltips).

I've heard a great suggestion somewhere regarding putting lobi crystals in the GPL vendors inventories. EC, Zen and dilithium are straightforward enough, and I imagine the fluctuating exchange rate interests market enthusiasts (even I'm mildly interested in this, and I had just previously reached a point where I felt exchanges/trading posts/auction halls/etc. should be removed from MMOs, or at least severely restricted).

Fleet marks and fleet credits might be a candidate for consolidation, but even then they're not terrible; marks are just one means to accumulating credits, and the only real complaint I could see with them is that the fleet starbase/embassy require so many marks that it really becomes a grind (especially given that fleet mark content, outside of the daily quests, really aren't very rewarding, though those are two of my favorite ground PvE queues).

The two improvements I would like to see made to the reputation system would be to open up rep gains account wide, and to reduce the timer on the 800 rep projects (they're less efficient/cost more, and there's really no reason to calendar gate people). But outside of those changes, the system seems fine, and I can't see it becoming more problematic in and of itself as more rep factions are introduced, except insofar as regarding the issue I quoted.

shockwave85

The problem with a unified currency is that people won't play the new content. The tendency with people in any endeavor is that you have to pry them out of their comfort zone. Otherwise they'll just keep doing the same things they always did, which they're already good at, and continue to get all the new gear. People will also zero in on whatever the most expedient/profitable things are and not do anything else. You already see this with people who only do ISE for Omega Marks or only do Epohh tagging for Romulan Marks. Then they sit around and complain about how it's such a grind and they're sick of the content (despite having not touched most of it). This behavior benefits nobody, since the player is bored and the devs wasted their time making content nobody is playing. Nonetheless, human nature is what it is, and this is exactly what people tend to do.

The trick with introducing new content in a game like this is convincing people who are already set in their routines to actually play it. Locking specific rewards to specific content is about the only possible way to do that. You encourage people to spread their play time around, experience new things, and keep the content from getting stale too fast.

It may be counterintuitive, but this is actually the way to keep things more fun.

cptvanor

shockwave85 wrote: »

Then they sit around and complain about how it's such a grind and they're sick of the content (despite having not touched most of it).

I agree, but one of the legitimate issues, is the time/reward in that content. As you point out about human nature, we will take the path of least resistance. Part of that means if I have to spend 15-20 minutes running around collecting samples, clicking on artifacts, and spraying bugs, to earn 10 marks, but can earn 400 for turning in a Epohh's which took me 5 minutes per day... Guess which one most people will do.

I did every mission on NR and thought they were well done and fitting in with the whole ST theme. But they did not reward me as well as Epohh tagging does. If the dev's want people to do the new content, they have to make the reward worth it.

Part of that means making sure there's no one method that is clearly superior for time/reward then any other. This is true of the FM's with IOR's, people were upset that the best way to earn marks was removed, because that offered the best return on time/effort.

The trick with introducing new content in a game like this is convincing people who are already set in their routines to actually play it.

True,

There are 3 reasons I'd be against some sort of unified rep mark.

1) It doesn't make sense lore/IC wise. Why would fighting Borg make me more popular with New Romulus? Or Visa Versa for Omega?
2) As you point out, the best way to make people try something new is offer them a reward for doing that. Generic marks wouldn't do that.
3) It's far better IMO to have the rewards balanced so all activities offer a similar return on time and effort. Generic marks wouldn't fix that, just make it so people could do the one best method for everythign.

verbenamage

shockwave85 wrote: »

You already see this with people who only do ISE for Omega Marks or only do Epohh tagging for Romulan Marks. Then they sit around and complain about how it's such a grind and they're sick of the content (despite having not touched most of it). This behavior benefits nobody, since the player is bored and the devs wasted their time making content nobody is playing. Nonetheless, human nature is what it is, and this is exactly what people tend to do.

The trick with introducing new content in a game like this is convincing people who are already set in their routines to actually play it. Locking specific rewards to specific content is about the only possible way to do that. You encourage people to spread their play time around, experience new things, and keep the content from getting stale too fast.

It may be counterintuitive, but this is actually the way to keep things more fun.

While you're right that people are only doing ISE and Tagging, I think your assumptions as to the reasons are wrong.

Why are people only doing ISE? Well, the rewards for normals are terrible, so most people prefer to do elites. And most people prefer to do ISE specifically because it has no failure condition. Even if you get someone who's clueless, bad, or just being a prick and do things in the wrong order, the mission as a whole is salvageable. It may take longer or be harder, but you can complete it and collect your reward.

On the other hand, you do Khitomer or Cure, and someone will pop a cube early and kang will die, or whoever was supposed to be handling probes will afk or bugger off somewhere else. Then suddenly the objective's failed, you just wasted your time, AND you have to wait for a cooldown before you try again. Why put up with that when you don't have to? That's not more fun, it's just more frustrating.

Why do people just do Epoh's? The Tholian red alert, which is actually fun, hardly ever works right and 90% of the time you see it, it's a fake. The queued romulan events are timered so they're going to take you X amount of time no matter how good/efficient you are, if you do the perfectly the rewards a slightly meager, and if you have a bad team and do them poorly the rewards are really and truly crappy. The tau patrol mission has decent rewards, but all the patrols are dull, boring, unchallenging, and repetitive.

Which brings us to the New Romulus "adventure zone." This place -sucks-. It's horrible. Not just that, it's insulting. We're supposed to be high ranking senior officers (admirals and generals), yet we're running errands for Romulan dirt farmers for minuscule rewards? Picking flowers? Collecting data recorders? Exterminating insects? It's stupid, insulting, and makes no sense.

So yeah, given the options it's obvious why people gravitate to certain choices: the alternatives are all bad or worse.

The solution isn't to construct some forced system to try and herd us into playing the terrible content. The solution is to make content that's good, fun, and engaging so that we want to and enjoy playing it.