Hi havelock, I think this concept is both correct but erroneous at its foundation... The problem is that you can't just "play the game" and play what you want to play... That's the real crux of the matter.
Yo UssU!
To be clear, I don't like the grind either. And I agree with you 100% that the implementation could be so much better!
If we all enjoyed the grind, there'd be less complaining (HA! Who am I trying to kid, this is Teh Intarwebs, afterall. :rolleyes:). If we could get all necessary input from all game content... Why that'd be just swell.
Sadly for capitalistic businesses, happy people become satisfied. Such people, content on what they have, don't buy things. It's about Creating Need. It's about keeping us running in our wheels.
They want to min/max their output/input. They want to build the least amount of New Stuff possible, but keep us playing it as long as possible, while getting as much income as possible. It's a balancing act of carrots and electric shocks. lol
Anyway, I'm getting too much into business/game-design theory, and too far from the Dil Mine Feedback. Suffice to say, I recognize it as yet another add-on to the Skinner Box, one with some extra soft lining to make it seem like they're giving us something. All any one can do is decide if they like the pellets that are dispensed when we press the button.
The best part about us being human, instead of actually being rats, is that we can always turn off the "game" and walk away...
...Or can we? Mmmm... Pellets.
:cool:
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
My concern is that this holding doesn't seem to do anything helpful in the way of fleet progression costs, and in fact is probably more harmful than helpful for both small and large fleets.
The discounts given, when you take into consideration the cost to build out the Dil Mine isn't enough to even offset that cost, so that doesn't really do anything to help small fleets.
At the same time discounts to inputs will only make it harder to earn Fleet Credits in a large fleet, at least one that isn't fully capped out.
The other perks are nice, the consoles and Warp/Singularity cores are awesome, and it looks like there might be some cool Doff and mining stuff going on once everything is implemented, but the whole discount thing needs a good rethinking.
Discounts should be individual special projects, not tied to tiers or other holding perks in any way, so you can decide which ones to advance and which ones to leave alone. Duty Officers is a choke point for a lot of fleets, but in a large fleet where other resources aren't a choke point, leaving them at full cost to help provide more fleet credits would be a meaningful choice.
I think that there might need to be more levels of discount, and/or deeper discounts as well.
Large fleets? No, because their main problem is not being able to contribute to projects since they get filled too fast for everyone to contribute.
In fact it helps them since it just opens up 2 slots for contribution, not to say T5 fleets are pretty much just getting Fleet Credits generation without having to run those 30 minutes projects.
Not all large fleets are T5, so missing out on a project means waiting another day just to get a shot at it.
The discount for small fleets has already shown to not even be enough to break even at this point with the existing holdings, so of course there is a reasonable push for deeper discounts, except the deeper the discount the worse it becomes for large fleets, and since currently you can't advance the Dil Mon holding without taking the discount, there is no reasonable way around that.
The discount might not be as harmful as it is right now on TTS to large fleets, but it certainly isn't helpful, and under the current design, the more helpful they make it for small fleets, the more harmful they make it for large fleets.
Not all large fleets are T5, so missing out on a project means waiting another day just to get a shot at it.
The discount for small fleets has already shown to not even be enough to break even at this point with the existing holdings, so of course there is a reasonable push for deeper discounts, except the deeper the discount the worse it becomes for large fleets, and since currently you can't advance the Dil Mon holding without taking the discount, there is no reasonable way around that.
The discount might not be as harmful as it is right now on TTS to large fleets, but it certainly isn't helpful, and under the current design, the more helpful they make it for small fleets, the more harmful they make it for large fleets.
I don't see it. You still have 40% more project slots than before. So if the discount were 30%, you'd be just about breaking even. Coincidentally, that's also about the break even point for project costs for small fleets.
Right now, the balance point is overwhelmingly tipped in favor of large fleets. While the small fleets get a kick in the teeth.
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
I said it before, but since now there is an official thread for this i'll say it again.
In real life if you're building a ruby, diamond, gold, etc mine do you need massive amounts of diamonds, rubies, gold, etc. to build the mine? Obviously the answer is, No. You need money, equipment, building materials, crew, and provisions. Why should building this mine be any different. Now before the flame war begins, I understand Power systems in ST use Dilithium, and there should be a single project towards the beginning where you need some Dilithium for that purpose, but only for a 1 time project.
As many others have said, Dan stated that this fleet holding was the answer to small fleets having problems progressing in the fleet base system. The astronomical Dilithium costs is the problem and this does absolutely nothing to correct that, it just adds to it. Unless all Dilithium costs are removed from building the mine and the dil discounts on the rest of the fleet system are increased this is just another waste of resources, more hurtful to smaller fleets and yet another broken promise.
The discounts given by this holding are beyond hideous Salami. With the current numbers, a fleet is going to have to build an entire T5 starbase, an full Embassy and another 3-4 holdings priced identically to an Embassy just to recoup the investment they made on the dilithium mine.
How exactly is adding something that actually worsens the starbase grind the "significant improvement" to fleet progression that Stahl has been harping on for months?
I agree with this. Why not the 10/20/30 that's been suggested? or even 8/16/24 could be acceptable. Granted I'd love it if top tier were like 50% but I know that's a very crazy dream/wishful thinking
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
For some people, FM are an issue. Others, Dil. Others yet stil, Doffs. The Dil Mine Holding has discounts on all of those inputs.
Perhaps all the discounts should be 5/10/15 or 10/20/30.
*raises hand* I'm one of those people where fleetmarks are the main issue. I don't know how to get them efficiently and it's all I can do to get ONE of my fleet mates to play once every two weeks.
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
*raises hand* I'm one of those people where fleetmarks are the main issue. I don't know how to get them efficiently and it's all I can do to get ONE of my fleet mates to play once every two weeks.
Starbase defense with 19 other people who know how to get good DPS and how to heal the starbase and facilities will get you about 130 FM per person during the bonus hours.
After that is SB Incursion. Its just 5 people, but if again, with everyone who knows what to do, you can get a large amount of marks (50+, If I recall correctly) and it only takes like 5 min (again, with everyone who knows what they're doing).
Starbase defense with 19 other people who know how to get good DPS and how to heal the starbase and facilities will get you about 130 FM per person during the bonus hours.
After that is SB Incursion. Its just 5 people, but if again, with everyone who knows what to do, you can get a large amount of marks (50+, If I recall correctly) and it only takes like 5 min (again, with everyone who knows what they're doing).
Thanks for the heads up I'll have to look into these
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
My official feedback: Probably would be a lot better if you HADN'T wiped the fleets for LoR testing so we wouldn't have to start again and could have put a lot more into this...
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] ***Disenchanted***
Real Join Date: Monday, 17 May 2010
There is a project that can be done for a discount for every Dilithium store. It is not an automatic unlock like the other discounts. So want the 9% discount for yourself, then your fleet has to do the projects 3 times.
The Good
Really looking forward to the new gears this unlocks. The discounts will be helpful I suppose.
The Bad
Any fleet that has yet to finish the embassy is now making backward progress. As they got closer to the goalpost of finishing the fleet grind the goal post has now been moved even further back, not to mention the poor sods who wish to start a new fleet.
The Ugly
You have managed to find a way to TRIBBLE over small fleets by increasing the total amount of 'stuff' needed and are giving large progressed fleets yet another advantage for recruiting (discounts on stores).
At the same time you have screwed over mega fleets with the massive fleet credit costs associated with much of the gear and progression.
Well done!
PS: A special project that requires half the resources of a standard T5 project that took one week to complete and gives out 2k experience to all three tiers of the starbase would be the best method to help out small fleets. A project that consumes a massive amount of fleet marks would be a godsend to mega fleets. A fleet exchange system where you can donate to a 'friendly' fleet for marks would be ideal.
PS: A special project that requires half the resources of a standard T5 project that took one week to complete and gives out 2k experience to all three tiers of the starbase would be the best method to help out small fleets. A project that consumes a massive amount of fleet marks would be a godsend to mega fleets. A fleet exchange system where you can donate to a 'friendly' fleet for marks would be ideal.
Awesome idea.
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
A special project that requires half the resources of a standard T5 project that took one week to complete and gives out 2k experience to all three tiers of the starbase would be the best method to help out small fleets. A project that consumes a massive amount of fleet marks would be a godsend to mega fleets.
Were exactly is your *censored* PRIVATE purchases have to do anything with the Fleet?
You want a PERSONAL 9% discount on your PERSONAL gear? You know that 9% on 48,000 is 4,320? this is a DAY!
What a silly thing to ask. Everyone should care about that. The less Dil it costs to get new shinies the more Dil is left over to contribute to the fleet.
Can any1 tell me An ETA on when the fleet dilithium mine will be launched on Holodeck?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] "This is Fleet Commander BumBle!..
Vice Admiral of the U.S.S. Prometheus!..
I order you to lower your shields and weapons or ill be forced to fire upon you!!!"
I won't go into the whole discount issue, looks like enough people are talking about it already.
What confuses me is that the main holding projects imply that there are daily missions (as in real missions) for dilithium unlocked but so far I have not been able to find them anywhere, the 2nd floor looks empty though, should there be the contacts for those missions?
Now to the thing that really really annoys me.
The daily refining increase. I mean, come on, 500 (in words: five hundred) additional refined dilithium per day? Which you have to manualy trigger with a doff assignment in the mine itself everytime... yay. At least it doesn't have a long duration which would take away assignment slots.
Still, I was expecting something more... substantial.
And it's not even a freeby, how many people will actually RUSH to their mine to refine that 500 ore after they went over their daily ore ration instead of letting is just refine the next day?
As a leader of a small fleet, I appreciate the Dilithium discounts that will come from leveling our Fleet Mines.
However, I'm not sure how this brings small fleets more in-line with large fleets. Won't large fleets still have the advantage because they can still level up their mines faster?
Small fleets will never be in-line with larger fleets, it just can't be balanced. The best thing for small fleets to do is actively recruit.
It's like when developers try to balance a game between PVP and PVE, it causes more chaos then good.
Small fleets will never be in-line with larger fleets, it just can't be balanced. The best thing for small fleets to do is actively recruit.
It's like when developers try to balance a game between PVP and PVE, it causes more chaos then good.
You're very obviously not in a small fleet or the owner of one. We can attempt to recruit literally 24/7 and other than a very few lucky ones we'll never be able to recruit enough to make a difference. There's very very little incentive for people to join smaller fleets as we just don't have enough to offer compared to the larger fleets, and this new holding will just decrease the incentive even further. Why join a smaller fleet when larger fleets already have access to higher tier fleet gear and will be able to more easily complete this new holding and gain access to even more advanced fleet gear.
As I said in my other post the only way to really help smaller fleets is to seriously hack and slash the resource requirements of all current fleet base projects across all tiers. There's always been a serious mismatch between the numbers they provided for what the fleetbase was designed around, what players were averaging for certain resources and the requirements on those resources. Despite what they say the Fleet system was designed to eliminate and/or reduce the amount of dil, ec, etc stockpiles some players had, now it's time for the tax breaks for the poor as it were.
Again nothing with this current mine system does anything to help smaller fleets, it just lessens incentive to join smaller fleets even more and therefore actually hurts smaller fleets even more, not helps.
You're very obviously not in a small fleet or the owner of one. We can attempt to recruit literally 24/7 and other than a very few lucky ones we'll never be able to recruit enough to make a difference. There's very very little incentive for people to join smaller fleets as we just don't have enough to offer compared to the larger fleets, and this new holding will just decrease the incentive even further. Why join a smaller fleet when larger fleets already have access to higher tier fleet gear and will be able to more easily complete this new holding and gain access to even more advanced fleet gear.
As a leader of a small fleet, this is exactly my experience. I've tried to recruit several times, but it's always the same issue that keeps people away: Starbase progress. I've had people send me tells asking about my fleet and they seem to like everything they hear. But the second I mention my SB progress is only T2 and that we're still working on Embassy T1, it always turns into "Oh, I was hoping you had at least X tier. Sorry." So I need more people to help build our bases but people won't join since our bases aren't far enough along. Awesome.
Small fleets will never be in-line with larger fleets, it just can't be balanced. The best thing for small fleets to do is actively recruit.
It's like when developers try to balance a game between PVP and PVE, it causes more chaos then good.
A lot of small fleets don't WANT to be large fleets. My fleet is a friends and family fleet. I don't want to recruit strangers. My fleet will never be big, and I don't want it to be big. There are A LOT of fleets like mine, and the current system basically says, "Sorry, starbase advancement isn't for you."
In all seriousness, my signature says it all. Soon, it appears I will have to add a dilithium mine reference. The idea of adding more of the problem to solve itself is sickening. Adding more grind does not ease grind, even if there is an eventual "discount." The consoles and such are nice, but why not find a currently in place system to distribute them?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] If your post is anything like, "I have a sandwich so you can't be starving" it's time to rethink posting. ~thlaylierah
So realistically, you only need to have the exact number of doffs that you need. ~leadme2kirk
As a leader of a small fleet, this is exactly my experience. I've tried to recruit several times, but it's always the same issue that keeps people away: Starbase progress. I've had people send me tells asking about my fleet and they seem to like everything they hear. But the second I mention my SB progress is only T2 and that we're still working on Embassy T1, it always turns into "Oh, I was hoping you had at least X tier. Sorry." So I need more people to help build our bases but people won't join since our bases aren't far enough along. Awesome.
Reaching tiers more easily and changing the provision system could solve the main issue. Instead we get another grind.... *sigh*
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] If your post is anything like, "I have a sandwich so you can't be starving" it's time to rethink posting. ~thlaylierah
So realistically, you only need to have the exact number of doffs that you need. ~leadme2kirk
Comments
They craked down on very rare doffs as soon as S7 was launched (personnel officer). The cost there is horrible also so no one uses it.
To be clear, I don't like the grind either. And I agree with you 100% that the implementation could be so much better!
If we all enjoyed the grind, there'd be less complaining (HA! Who am I trying to kid, this is Teh Intarwebs, afterall. :rolleyes:). If we could get all necessary input from all game content... Why that'd be just swell.
Sadly for capitalistic businesses, happy people become satisfied. Such people, content on what they have, don't buy things. It's about Creating Need. It's about keeping us running in our wheels.
They want to min/max their output/input. They want to build the least amount of New Stuff possible, but keep us playing it as long as possible, while getting as much income as possible. It's a balancing act of carrots and electric shocks. lol
Anyway, I'm getting too much into business/game-design theory, and too far from the Dil Mine Feedback. Suffice to say, I recognize it as yet another add-on to the Skinner Box, one with some extra soft lining to make it seem like they're giving us something. All any one can do is decide if they like the pellets that are dispensed when we press the button.
The best part about us being human, instead of actually being rats, is that we can always turn off the "game" and walk away...
...Or can we? Mmmm... Pellets.
:cool:
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
The discounts given, when you take into consideration the cost to build out the Dil Mine isn't enough to even offset that cost, so that doesn't really do anything to help small fleets.
At the same time discounts to inputs will only make it harder to earn Fleet Credits in a large fleet, at least one that isn't fully capped out.
The other perks are nice, the consoles and Warp/Singularity cores are awesome, and it looks like there might be some cool Doff and mining stuff going on once everything is implemented, but the whole discount thing needs a good rethinking.
Discounts should be individual special projects, not tied to tiers or other holding perks in any way, so you can decide which ones to advance and which ones to leave alone. Duty Officers is a choke point for a lot of fleets, but in a large fleet where other resources aren't a choke point, leaving them at full cost to help provide more fleet credits would be a meaningful choice.
I think that there might need to be more levels of discount, and/or deeper discounts as well.
Not all large fleets are T5, so missing out on a project means waiting another day just to get a shot at it.
The discount for small fleets has already shown to not even be enough to break even at this point with the existing holdings, so of course there is a reasonable push for deeper discounts, except the deeper the discount the worse it becomes for large fleets, and since currently you can't advance the Dil Mon holding without taking the discount, there is no reasonable way around that.
The discount might not be as harmful as it is right now on TTS to large fleets, but it certainly isn't helpful, and under the current design, the more helpful they make it for small fleets, the more harmful they make it for large fleets.
I don't see it. You still have 40% more project slots than before. So if the discount were 30%, you'd be just about breaking even. Coincidentally, that's also about the break even point for project costs for small fleets.
Right now, the balance point is overwhelmingly tipped in favor of large fleets. While the small fleets get a kick in the teeth.
In real life if you're building a ruby, diamond, gold, etc mine do you need massive amounts of diamonds, rubies, gold, etc. to build the mine? Obviously the answer is, No. You need money, equipment, building materials, crew, and provisions. Why should building this mine be any different. Now before the flame war begins, I understand Power systems in ST use Dilithium, and there should be a single project towards the beginning where you need some Dilithium for that purpose, but only for a 1 time project.
As many others have said, Dan stated that this fleet holding was the answer to small fleets having problems progressing in the fleet base system. The astronomical Dilithium costs is the problem and this does absolutely nothing to correct that, it just adds to it. Unless all Dilithium costs are removed from building the mine and the dil discounts on the rest of the fleet system are increased this is just another waste of resources, more hurtful to smaller fleets and yet another broken promise.
I agree with this. Why not the 10/20/30 that's been suggested? or even 8/16/24 could be acceptable. Granted I'd love it if top tier were like 50% but I know that's a very crazy dream/wishful thinking
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
*raises hand* I'm one of those people where fleetmarks are the main issue. I don't know how to get them efficiently and it's all I can do to get ONE of my fleet mates to play once every two weeks.
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
After that is SB Incursion. Its just 5 people, but if again, with everyone who knows what to do, you can get a large amount of marks (50+, If I recall correctly) and it only takes like 5 min (again, with everyone who knows what they're doing).
I believe everyone here complaining about the discount is assuming that it will be the last fleet holding added.
Also, doesn't this also give a discount to purchasing from any store requiring Dilithium? Or did I mis-read something?
Thanks for the heads up I'll have to look into these
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
***Disenchanted***
Real Join Date: Monday, 17 May 2010
Really looking forward to the new gears this unlocks. The discounts will be helpful I suppose.
The Bad
Any fleet that has yet to finish the embassy is now making backward progress. As they got closer to the goalpost of finishing the fleet grind the goal post has now been moved even further back, not to mention the poor sods who wish to start a new fleet.
The Ugly
You have managed to find a way to TRIBBLE over small fleets by increasing the total amount of 'stuff' needed and are giving large progressed fleets yet another advantage for recruiting (discounts on stores).
At the same time you have screwed over mega fleets with the massive fleet credit costs associated with much of the gear and progression.
Well done!
PS: A special project that requires half the resources of a standard T5 project that took one week to complete and gives out 2k experience to all three tiers of the starbase would be the best method to help out small fleets. A project that consumes a massive amount of fleet marks would be a godsend to mega fleets. A fleet exchange system where you can donate to a 'friendly' fleet for marks would be ideal.
Awesome idea.
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
What a silly thing to ask. Everyone should care about that. The less Dil it costs to get new shinies the more Dil is left over to contribute to the fleet.
"This is Fleet Commander BumBle!..
Vice Admiral of the U.S.S. Prometheus!..
I order you to lower your shields and weapons or ill be forced to fire upon you!!!"
What confuses me is that the main holding projects imply that there are daily missions (as in real missions) for dilithium unlocked but so far I have not been able to find them anywhere, the 2nd floor looks empty though, should there be the contacts for those missions?
Now to the thing that really really annoys me.
The daily refining increase. I mean, come on, 500 (in words: five hundred) additional refined dilithium per day? Which you have to manualy trigger with a doff assignment in the mine itself everytime... yay. At least it doesn't have a long duration which would take away assignment slots.
Still, I was expecting something more... substantial.
And it's not even a freeby, how many people will actually RUSH to their mine to refine that 500 ore after they went over their daily ore ration instead of letting is just refine the next day?
Small fleets will never be in-line with larger fleets, it just can't be balanced. The best thing for small fleets to do is actively recruit.
It's like when developers try to balance a game between PVP and PVE, it causes more chaos then good.
You're very obviously not in a small fleet or the owner of one. We can attempt to recruit literally 24/7 and other than a very few lucky ones we'll never be able to recruit enough to make a difference. There's very very little incentive for people to join smaller fleets as we just don't have enough to offer compared to the larger fleets, and this new holding will just decrease the incentive even further. Why join a smaller fleet when larger fleets already have access to higher tier fleet gear and will be able to more easily complete this new holding and gain access to even more advanced fleet gear.
As I said in my other post the only way to really help smaller fleets is to seriously hack and slash the resource requirements of all current fleet base projects across all tiers. There's always been a serious mismatch between the numbers they provided for what the fleetbase was designed around, what players were averaging for certain resources and the requirements on those resources. Despite what they say the Fleet system was designed to eliminate and/or reduce the amount of dil, ec, etc stockpiles some players had, now it's time for the tax breaks for the poor as it were.
Again nothing with this current mine system does anything to help smaller fleets, it just lessens incentive to join smaller fleets even more and therefore actually hurts smaller fleets even more, not helps.
As a leader of a small fleet, this is exactly my experience. I've tried to recruit several times, but it's always the same issue that keeps people away: Starbase progress. I've had people send me tells asking about my fleet and they seem to like everything they hear. But the second I mention my SB progress is only T2 and that we're still working on Embassy T1, it always turns into "Oh, I was hoping you had at least X tier. Sorry." So I need more people to help build our bases but people won't join since our bases aren't far enough along. Awesome.
Mine Trap Supporter
A lot of small fleets don't WANT to be large fleets. My fleet is a friends and family fleet. I don't want to recruit strangers. My fleet will never be big, and I don't want it to be big. There are A LOT of fleets like mine, and the current system basically says, "Sorry, starbase advancement isn't for you."
Dilithium Mines on Remus, ST Nemesis:
http://s1.directupload.net/images/130616/3fip47wp.jpg
http://s7.directupload.net/images/130616/k5j4ekgf.jpg
http://s7.directupload.net/images/130616/wfw27qfq.jpg
If your post is anything like, "I have a sandwich so you can't be starving" it's time to rethink posting. ~thlaylierah
Reaching tiers more easily and changing the provision system could solve the main issue. Instead we get another grind.... *sigh*
If your post is anything like, "I have a sandwich so you can't be starving" it's time to rethink posting. ~thlaylierah