So yeah.. Got one toon to max and then was like oh great.. Another 14 to go.. Rep system spits in the face of making new toons and my opinion is, its the worst idea PWE/Cryptic has ever had... Please do something for people who have and enjoy making alt toons.
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You don't NEED to max out all three on every toon.
I like to think that my toons are specialists in various areas. The first two mastered two branches, while the others super-specialized.
I'm only doing reps on 2 characters, not all of them. It's more tolerable but even then I skip some projects or don't run any for a while.
Do a nebula rescue for Nukara marks, then do ISE once, do a Tau Dewa sector patrol, then a nebula rescue again. It will take you less than an hour tops, and you'll bet set for all 3 for a day. Throw in a KSE, occasional epoh tagging run which is about five minutes worth of work, and a run through the Nukara exterior easies and mediums, and you're set on marks for a few days, all for maybe an hour and a half of work?
Sure, doing it on 14 toons at once would be a chore, but pick a couple priority toons, and then either max them out, or set a goal of 1 or 2 Tiers of rep. Hit the goal and move onto the next toons.
I've done it now on 4 of my guys. And I have one char slot just for running rep. I.finish rom and omega for the dil bonus at the end, turn all marks into dil to feed the fleet, delete them and start again.
The only thing I really hate about the rep system is the fricken 20 hour timer. So much hatred would be solved if they were 4 or even 10 hour projects.
If you PVP, you need to if you want to be competitive and not get lol-face-steamrolled. Those rep abilities and gear make a big difference. If you had 2 PVPers who are of equal skill and mistakes are at a minimum, then gear and any character / ship benefits start playing an increasingly larger role. If you don't have decent equipment, and you don't have reputation buffs, then you will be increasingly at a disadvantage.
Without the high end rep stuff, you are missing out on some of the game's most sought after benefits and equipment. The STF sets that are so crucial to every build. The Romulan Rep stuff like Elite Scorpions and Hyper-Plasma Torps which rock in PVE (takes alot of care to make these work in PVP), and not to mention the Plasma weapons. The Romulan Rep placate, and all the other buffs from Omega & Romulan tiers. And I haven't even counted Nukara stuff.
There will be those that have these mastered to varying degrees. Some all 3. And if you do not take care to work up those rep tiers, again, you will be at a disadvantage.
This "entry level cost" for PVP is something that has been brought up a bit. New players, new PVPers are totally left behind.
However to be honest the rep grinds are pretty easy to do and optional on a single character (or even two or three). if someone makes 10-20 characters (and at one point i did) then i dont think that is the games fault that a player is making life harder for themselves. its their choice. that player has had to grind through 50 levels twenty odd times already and unless they need to be ultra competitive in each then its not needed. do you need to pvp with all of them? do you need each to be kitted out as the best possible build?
or give different characters different specializations. have one in romulan, or one in borg. or have one that is level 2 in all. part of the process is knowing that not everyone can do everything and having to pick where to spend their time.
i had so many characters and i tried to improve them all but i found i was not playing them because i enjoyed playing them. i only played them because they were there. i deleted a bunch of them and now i have 6. it feels like less of a chore and i still have plenty to use.
Most people don't. Why?
PvP is full of haxxors, script-kiddies, exploit-riders and other cheaters. Those who don't cheat obsess over builds and cry a river when someone stomps them with a "non-standard/non-approved" build. It's impossible to have a fun match any more in "serious PvP", and besides... who wants to set up 14 alts for a niche-sport anyway.
I gave up on PvP long before the grinds. I occasionally run a casual match, you don't need max gear/minmax stats for that -- just skill, luck and a desire to have fun.
I think maybe you got stomped one too many times...
I'd have to agree. I've created loads of characters, and I don't actually bother with the reputation system for them. I only bothered with the very first character I created and got him to the top tier level of the Borg stf thingy. Just to see how much difference it makes etc.
But I don't bother leveling up the rest of my characters in the reputation system. I just get them to character level 50 and that's it.
Oh and as for pvp, I just go in with my Brel Bird Of Prey Retrofit, and just TRIBBLE off some of the characters by firing torpedoes at them all the time. LOL no matter how much leveled their ship is , whether they're "cheating" or not, they still can't catch me in my Bird of Prey Retrofit.
Even the tough romulans can't catch me. Bwahahahaahhaaa.
I never thougth I'd say that, but I honestly miss the random drop from STF. Also, the console was a free reward, and the borg space set was cheap. Everything is a grind ATM.
I can agree to this. Not to try and bring in another game into the convo, but with all its faults, SWTOR's Rep system is really nice. Reputation in that game is shared across your legacy, which all toons on the same server are part of.
I could see a system like this being much more tolerable in the long run, especially for those with multiple toons. It helps to keep the community vibrant and alive by rewarding the creating and leveling of alts. The more alts you have running the rep missions, the faster you gain rep.
The only change I would recommend to go along with this is to increase the amount of rep needed per level to balance out multiple toons sharing rep.
FA Dion - Romulan Engineer Officer
FA Zophie Delwynn - Fed Science Officer
Pick your toons that will be your PvP toon and and your STF toon and grind rep only on them. Then you can feel free to breed space critters for fun on your alts instead of profit.
I am sick and TIRED of people saying "you don't NEED to do this." Holy TRIBBLE, you realize people want to get good equipment? The best equipment in this game is in the reputation. Cryptic refuses to make it account wide due to people not logging on as much, so less money for them.
A week and counting haven't played, just so sick of Cryptics tactics and TRIBBLE now. If it doesn't change I don't plan on playing anymore.
I shouldn't have to grind reputation on a different ALT just to get better equipment on it, not to mention the fact grinding even more DIL for that single character to even get it.
Ugh so sick of this, just makes me angry now, how people accept this is beyond me.
They don't accept it. That's why they don't do it and tell you to not do it either.
I don't really want this. As much as I hate the rep grind, it is quite a good source of Dilithium. I have a few alts who just maxed the rep and never bought gear as I don't really do much with them other than PvE so it has worked out nicely.
I agree its a pain in the butt, but it has its uses.
lol way not just have one toon that can do both pvp and pve.
It seems like a no brainer to do this since Cryptic would get lots of income from people re-arming new toons with the lower tier ships and equipment. For the Rep system, it would make sense for it to be an account unlock.
You seriously go to every thread to shout about the ability not working when you didnt even understand how to use it in the first place.
Regarding the reputation systems: Yeah, it is a grind, but please dont get confused thinking that your vocal minority represents a majority.
The rep system provides post lvl cap advancement and encouragement for players to do different missions. It is a success in what it tries to do and a lot of people have fun with it.
I think the best way to not get burned out is to put some variety into your missions; try Rh'Ihho station or the Nukara Prime missions for a little bit of ground excitement, or Crystalline Catastrophe instead of the go-to Azure Nebula. Get a group of people you have fun playing with, and just do whatever projects you happen to have the marks for, dont force it.
This topic has come up many times before and I'm sure it will come up many times after.
I agree with the OP that the REP systems give me shivers when I look at my 10 Characters.
Yes I know that I don't need the Rep gear or add on's to play STO but I want them and always try to work them into the builds of the Characters that I'm working with.
Now I don't think that ALT's should get a free pass just because we maxed out the Rep Systems with one Character on the Account but what I would like to see is a system that gives the player a Rep Exp bonus and contribution requirement reduction based on how many Characters on the Account have already completed the REP in question.
I'd like to see something like a 20% increase in Rep Exp and a 20% Contribution reduction to REP projects account wide if the Player has completed the REP system with one Character on the Account and an additional 5% increase in REP EXP and a 5% Contribution reduction to REP projects for each additional Character that has completed the same REP System up to a max of 50%.
So with the numbers above a player would only need to level 6 Characters through all the REP systems to get the maximum Bonus of REP EXP and Contribution to Projects Reduction.
With the above suggestion Cryptic will still get some Grind out of long time players but the players get the benefit of shorter and less expensive grinds.
I'd see it has a nice incentive to get more players to role ALT's which many players are reluctant to do because the Grinds make it so unappealing.
People were too busy penguin clapping their hands over being allowed to buy their ground sets they ignored all the problems.
And doubly ironic the ground sets, their outfits and their accolades remain bugged to this day...
I will eventually do the reputations on all my characters but cetainly not in any hurry to move sliders.
Just like I have an alt I will probably delete because he is so far behind and just mocking me sitting there. I actually have the resources for a top ship he could fly but he is at the buttom of the reputation system.
I could keep him on as a dil converter but I hate playing on him knowing I am missing all my gear that I already unlocked over half a year ago.
The re-grinding is just torture and I'd rather spend the time building.
Why should I do a long and somewhat difficult IGE for 100marks, when I can do an easy and fast ISE for the same amount of marks ?
There is a lot of good instance in STO, but most of them award so little, and you need to grind so hard, they are barely played. Atmospheric assault is awesome, for example, but the reward is BS. I'd want to do it, but honestly, I don't have time for it. My play time is dedicated to the grind it is to have some reputation gear. Especially if you don't have a big fleet and access to fleet store, and rely entirely on reputation items for endgame gear.
I won't even mention the normal ground mission, like the ones on New Romulus. You need to bring back 10 plants that randomly spawn around the map, for an astonishing 1 mark reward. No, it's not a typo or a joke, it's really 1 mark.