:rolleyes:
So was STO an MMO before the fleet concept entered the game in S6 ?
Fleets were in before S6. fleets were in, in open beta. the inclusion of fleet holdings does not make the fleet system. how ever Solo's have become more and more of a issue now that the holding system is in game.
I was going to post this in the "Scheduled Maintenance (July 18, 2013)" thread but that closed before I was able to post... (and I apologize in advance for the long post)
I don't normally post on the forums but I wanted to share my thoughts about the changes to the mail system. I never particularly liked the idea of putting items in the mail for "storage" as it simply wasn't designed for that (not to mention it makes a horrible way of trying to organize the items anyway). In my opinion, the underlying problem isn't the mail system (and never has been), it is the lack of bank/inventory, DOFF, bridge officer, etc. storage. I will outline some of these storage challenges that I've run into below. Personally, these restrictions on the mail system should have been unnecessary as I believe most people were simply looking for solutions to their storage issues. Unfortunately, I think these changes come a little heavy handed and without providing a balance of giving players an alternative such as additional storage options beyond what is already available (such as purchasing through the Z-store or otherwise). Ultimately, I believe solving the storage issue is a better way to solving the "mail problem."
On my primary character, I have purchased all the bank, inventory, and DOFF space upgrades through the Z-store and I still find that I have to do some inventory juggling. Consider for a moment the sheer volume of unique items, DOFFs, bridge officers, etc. that are character bound. There are literally *tons* of character bound items, often unique rewards from missions, STFs, and the reputation system. I also have (and know of other players) that have a lot of different ship sets, guns, and gear for different game scenarios/ships (such as for PVP), allowing for more choices in ways to play. The majority of these items are character bound as well. A lot of times this extra gear is more than the space available on the ships in the player's shipyard. In addition, although maybe not considered as "important" as character gear, there are all the in-game pets that are character bound as well and collecting them is even encouraged by rewarding the player. From the LoR #21 Dev blog, "Sixteen (16) variants [of Khellid Companions] exist in total, ranging from White to Purple in quality and rarity. Collecting all of them will grant you an Accolade, and access to two additional Unique (Gold quality) Khellid variants." That's a whole lot of pets, not to mention the 12 different purple Risian Tropical birds (6 tufted and 6 regular) that just come out recently. Yes, these pets are optional, but I know quite a few players that like to get them. Just with what I've mentioned, this is a crazy amount of inventory/bank space that is essentially locked unless they are discarded to make room for other things. Considering there are more and more character bound items released all the time, the problem is getting worse. I'm not particularly fond of the idea of having to drop valuable/useful items I've already earned through missions or otherwise just so I can make room for other things. For players who hasn't purchased any inventory upgrades at all, I'm sure this problem can be much, much worse.
In addition, also consider the items and commodities people need for fleet holdings (and possibly even the reputation system in a related way). I do realize that fleet banks can be used to help for storage but depending on the fleet, the bank isn't necessarily accessible to everyone and/or it may be used more exclusively to distribute gear to fleet mates (rather than say used for commodity storage). Particularly for smaller fleets, the amount of commodities needed can be enormous at higher tiers (10,000+), especially with the commodity stack limited to 250. Even though these are likely just temporary inventory items, there can be quite a bit of inventory juggling involved. Also, it can be difficult to store a large amount of commodities in the inventory/bank for a long period of time. I know that I've occasionally had to use the mail system to "store" some commodities for a later date. As a possible solution though, it might help if there was a starbase "warehouse" that allowed players to contribute commodities in advance to use toward future fleet holding projects. It would also be great if the stack size on commodities and other items could be increased (in fact, there are a *ton * of in game items that would benefit from an increased stack size such as hypos or heck, even lock boxes).
I also know that the majority of my 400 DOFFs are blue and purple and I don't particularly want to discard these as they are useful in making my DOFF missions succeed. Unfortunately, what this means is I have very little room for white DOFFs which are needed for the fleet holdings. I know that a *ton* of people have used the mail system to help store white DOFFs specifically for the fleet holdings. Surely, there has to be a better way... So here are some possible solutions for this: allow more that 400 DOFFs total, have a fleet DOFF "warehouse" for contributing DOFFs in advance on a fleet project, and/or allow green, blue, and purple DOFFs to be contributed to fleet holdings (basically allow a green DOFF or higher to be worth multiple white DOFFs, i.e. 1 green DOFF = 2 white DOFFs or something like that).
I also happen to be a player that crafts items and sells them on the exchange. I have to have the inventory/bank space to create ("ingredients" take up a lot of space too!) and sell those items. Often, I'll run into the scenario where I'll run out of inventory space in the process of crafting a bunch of items (and as such can't craft anymore because my inventory is full). So, I've had to sometimes use the mail system temporarily to free up space so I can craft the rest of my items. I know that the crafting system isn't terribly popular right now and needs a lot of work but I think I should still be able to play the game as an item crafter... Unfortunately, it is much harder with the inventory issues.
Although probably not as big of a problem as inventory/DOFF space, I have also found that I have some extra bridge officer candidates beyond what can be on the candidate roster that I would like to keep (I think the limit is 10 if I remember correctly). Since bridge officers aren't "normal inventory," they are a lot more difficult to move around. Unfortunately, I've found that the only real place that I can "store" some of these extra officer candidates is in the mail system... Clearly, this isn't the solution. I would love for a better alternative to exist to allow me to put these extra bridge officer candidates somewhere (maybe as simple as allowing expansion of the candidate roster?).
I know some people might suggest using multiple characters as a solution but to be honest, I shouldn't have to resort to that. I should be able to have the items that I've earned on my main character and not have to resort to "extra trickery" such as an additional character, use of mail system, etc. just to get more inventory space. Considering I would be willing to purchase more bank, inventory, DOFF, etc. space for my main character, I don't see why that can't be a solution. I do realize that won't be an answer for everyone but Cryptic should at least provide the option. Since joining the game over a year ago, I believe the only additional storage options that have been added are the account wide bank. Unfortunately, that can only help so much as there are a ton of character bound items as I have previously mentioned. I would highly encourage Cryptic to come up with some additional storage options for players.
The recent changes in the mail system feels like a punishment and I think this impacts many people who simply were trying to solve the challenge of dealing with a limited inventory of items, DOFFs, etc. I do realize that there may be the 0.000001% of players that were abusing the mail system but I don't think this is the case with most people. In addition, I was one of the unlucky people that did not have my mail transfer over to the new system successfully and "lost items." Although I recently got my items back, there were quite a few mail messages that did not have attachments that were of sentimental value to me and were lost. This feels like an additional "punishment" for something the player had no control over and quite frankly, I'd like to ask Cryptic to apologize for that lost mail. This feels like a double whammy... I would hope in the future that Cryptic does a better job providing alternative solutions when putting restrictions on players (providing for a nice balance). If you take something away from a player, you should give them a different alternative instead. This helps mitigate the issue at hand and feels more like problem solving than "punishment." I do hope that with enough feedback, Cryptic will hear players concerns on the mail and storage issues and work to make it better.
Borg Neural Processors, Lobi Crystals and similar items should not take up valuable bank & inventory slots. They can be stored numerically like Omega Marks.
Each character should have an additional device slot for tribbles or pets.
Each ship should have an additional slot for pets.
Due to this stealth mail nerf, I cancelled my plans to buy a lifetime subscription. I will only play for free. The day I have to pay will be my last. Hope it was worth Cryptic.
Why should anyone buy additional character slots if they all have the same shared 100 mail item limit? Better to just make another free character.
Borg Neural Processors, Lobi Crystals and similar items should not take up valuable bank & inventory slots. They can be stored numerically like Omega Marks.
Each character should have an additional device slot for tribbles or pets.
Each ship should have an additional slot for pets.
Due to this stealth mail nerf, I cancelled my plans to buy a lifetime subscription. I will only play for free. The day I have to pay will be my last. Hope it was worth Cryptic.
Why should anyone buy additional character slots if they all have the same shared 100 mail item limit? Better to just make another free character.
IF this is really affecting how you play the game, then i would think about if you really enjoy the game in the first place.
It only feels like a punishment if a person was using the email feature as a storage bin instead of as its intended purpose which is to send emails.
Those players who aren't hoarders and use the email feature the way it's supposed to be used haven't been negatively impacted by the changes.
It doesn't matter what kind of justifications hoarders can come up with to explain why they need more items than they can store, they need to learn to live within the allowed limits of the game.
I'm not sure you read my whole post. I'm not a hoarder at all and I craft items to sell (which takes up a lot of space). When you have an entire inventory of character bound items, that doesn't leave a lot of space as well. All I'm asking is Cryptic provide additional solutions. I do not and have never thought the mail system was a "solution." Yes, I understand that there are hoarders out there but there are also legitimate players like myself. I just think it is sensible that when a feature gets restricted, some other solution or option becomes available. It helps players transition to changes a lot easier.
What do you have that takes up that much space, sell all the extra stuff on the exchange by undercutting the lowest price, it is a MAILBOX NOT storage. you DO NOT need that much space ever in ANY Normal MMO.
Dude, do you even recognize you're playing the role of the white knight to the point of being absolutely ridiculous?
Yes of course Cryptic/PWE is free to change their game, limit their players and do whatever they like on a whim.
But they better not cry and whine if they eventually lose players in droves by that kind of anachronistic and inappropriate business practice.
Yeah I know today's players suck up almost everything. They complain, yet do nothing. But there's a limit to everything. And of course there are also other games.
I guess Sony wasn't aware of the level of fail they were about to commit with the NGE, either..
And that's the point. It's not about whether or not the devs can do it. It's not even about why they did it.
It's about how they treat their customers.
What's wrong with providing your customers, the players of STO and Neverwinter, with good comfort and usability? What's wrong with providing a product that doesn't have odd restrictions?
Nothing!
You like to tell other players how they are supposed to play a game. In their free time.
That's so utterly oddball.
Do you like to be told how to do stuff in your free time? Yeah, maybe you don't care. But let me tell you, others don't. If push comes to shove, people will just do/play something else.
Ok, and in case Cryptic/PWE doesn't care? Fine! Let them openly state "bugger off you bunch of ungrateful freeloaders!", or something along those lines.
At least that would be up-front.
But don't come here and tell others what to think, what to like and what to do.
The customers owe nothing to PWE. It's rather the other way around. Don't try to make it look otherwise. That's silly.
-edit-
Oh and by the way - how is creating a personal fleet just for added storage space not an unintended usage of game mechanics? When a fleet is supposed to be an organisation of multiple different players? How much server load does the management of those 'storage fleets' cause? How much space in the database do they cost? Is it the next thing that's going to be restricted?
Exactly where is the player supposed to store his items?
Is Cryptic/PWE aware of the fact we have the year 2013 and some 'ancient' games had more item space?
Accusing the players and white-knighting, instead of providing a proper service is ridiculous.
It only feels like a punishment if a person was using the email feature as a storage bin instead of as its intended purpose which is to send emails.
Those players who aren't hoarders and use the email feature the way it's supposed to be used haven't been negatively impacted by the changes.
It doesn't matter what kind of justifications hoarders can come up with to explain why they need more items than they can store, they need to learn to live within the allowed limits of the game.
IF you're really convinced mailing items is an exploit then you probably wouldn't mind removal of mail terminals from planets like Defera. As soon as your inventory is full you'll have to run out to a different sector to sell them to a vendor. DS9 is only a few minutes travel time away. I think ALL mail terminals not on home planets, starbases and freighters should be removed.
I just don't get how I'm supposed to store discontinued lockboxes for the future since they don't stack very well.
Season 7 broke the ground accolades and ground outfits, I can't get those AT ALL. Waited since december for a fix.
Season 7 broke alt'ing, STF and ship weapons. Free drops now cost 5 weeks of grinding and 30 k dil.
LoR broke sector space - I can no longer do doff'ing (which is gone soon anyway though)
And this week I learn about us getting ARC and them killing carrier gameplay removing the respawn ability.
In between all that, my mail broke and now also limited mail but still broke I can't delete mails.
They are really putting a serious effort into wrecking the game. Wasting time in all the wrong places.
There are 100s of things screaming to get fixed and you sit there talking about ARC enhancing my game and try to disguise the biggest ship nerf the game ever had, are you kidding me
Sure, they got time to try to force you into buying inventory slots by limiting your mail but watch and see how long the mail will be broken on your end.
Its bad, but a lot of games are like this. As they take up server space to store it.
I don't know about other games, but it's not like these items are real attachments taking up space in a real mail server. It's only an object description linked in the database. So what if a person has a couple of thousand links to objects.... it's not that big of a deal nowadays, even for millions of accounts.
I don't know about other games, but it's not like these items are real attachments taking up space in a real mail server. It's only an object description linked in the database. So what if a person has a couple of thousand links to objects.... it's not that big of a deal nowadays, even for millions of accounts.
Actually DCUO had the same thing happen (With the same amount of people complaining if not more) and it helped with server stability at least a little bit.
I don't know about other games, but it's not like these items are real attachments taking up space in a real mail server. It's only an object description linked in the database. So what if a person has a couple of thousand links to objects.... it's not that big of a deal nowadays, even for millions of accounts.
EXACTLY.
For for many brainwashed minions slaughtering the usefulness of the mail system will bring stability to the servers.
Dude, do you even recognize you're playing the role of the white knight to the point of being absolutely ridiculous?
Yes of course Cryptic/PWE is free to change their game, limit their players and do whatever they like on a whim.
But they better not cry and whine if they eventually lose players in droves by that kind of anachronistic and inappropriate business practice.
Yeah I know today's players suck up almost everything. They complain, yet do nothing. But there's a limit to everything. And of course there are also other games.
I guess Sony wasn't aware of the level of fail they were about to commit with the NGE, either..
And that's the point. It's not about whether or not the devs can do it. It's not even about why they did it.
It's about how they treat their customers.
What's wrong with providing your customers, the players of STO and Neverwinter, with good comfort and usability? What's wrong with providing a product that doesn't have odd restrictions?
Nothing!
You like to tell other players how they are supposed to play a game. In their free time.
That's so utterly oddball.
Do you like to be told how to do stuff in your free time? Yeah, maybe you don't care. But let me tell you, others don't. If push comes to shove, people will just do/play something else.
Ok, and in case Cryptic/PWE doesn't care? Fine! Let them openly state "bugger off you bunch of ungrateful freeloaders!", or something along those lines.
At least that would be up-front.
But don't come here and tell others what to think, what to like and what to do.
The custmers owe nothing to PWE. It's rather the other way around. Don't try to make it look otherwise. That's silly.
I hate PWE a lot, do not get me wrong and i am not trying to play white knight, I also do not care how you play this game, if you want to keep everything even if you do not use it so be it. All I am saying is that there is more than enough space for most players, yeah it would be nice to add more storage/inventory space, but still. As I just said previously, DCUO had the same thing happen and a lot of people complained, but after about 1-2 weeks people stopped caring and went back to actually playing the game.
I hate PWE a lot, do not get me wrong and i am not trying to play white knight, I also do not care how you play this game, if you want to keep everything even if you do not use it so be it. All I am saying is that there is more than enough space for most players, yeah it would be nice to add more storage/inventory space, but still. As I just said previously, DCUO had the same thing happen and a lot of people complained, but after about 1-2 weeks people stopped caring and went back to actually playing the game.
Fair enough.
I just had to think about another game I used to play a lot - Eve Online, and in comparison STO comes out on the short end in about everything. Technically.
Worse graphics, fewer items, worse performance.
Speaking of which - did I mention my client performance in STO degraded a lot with LoR? Not in other games, it's not my machine, it's not the drivers and it's not the connection. Don't tell me anything else than the freaking game itself changed from one day to the other.
So basically, it can be done. There are examples.
Cryptic/PWE just don't seem to be committed to quality.
They know new content sells. It's the bread and butter of f2p. But their lack of quality focus really starts to hurt. And they seem not to notice.
Fair enough.
I just had to think about another game I used to play a lot - Eve Online, and in comparison STO comes out on the short end in about everything. Technically.
Worse graphics, fewer items, worse performance.
Speaking of which - did I mention my client performance in STO degraded a lot with LoR? Not in other games, it's not my machine, it's not the drivers and it's not the connection. Don't tell me anything else than the freaking game itself changed from one day to the other.
So basically, it can be done. There are examples.
Cryptic/PWE just don't seem to be committed to quality.
They know new content sells. It's the bread and butter of f2p. But their lack of quality focus really starts to hurt. And they seem not to notice.
I actually have had better client performance then i did, i used to crash at least once a day or so, though Cryptic has really bad servers on all their games. Think of it this way, this game is still in better condition than Neverwinter online, which while not a bad game in and of itself, has game breaking exploits that have been there since open beta started, it is so bad the economy in the game basically does not exist anymore.
Actually DCUO had the same thing happen (With the same amount of people complaining if not more) and it helped with server stability at least a little bit.
Sounds like blocking on the database. Some design changes for scalability would probably be in order. Maybe PWE only has 1NF databases. :eek:
Cryptic's problem: Players are storing items in the mail, and that is taking up space on our servers for free which is costing us money.
Cryptic's solution: Take sledgehammer and butcher's knife to the mail and exchange system and make it FUBAR to the point that it actually causes game crashes.
Cryptic's solution results: Game crashes, game lag, angered players, and still the greater problem exists. That problem ladies and gentlemen is storage.
For everything this game has to offer, you need stuff to do it.
Storage is one of the main problems that players face. Lack of adequate storage is extremely frustrating since the things we want to store are for things we don't even want to do to begin with.
Things that NEED dedicated storage slots:
Pets
White DOffs
Bridge Officers
Things that I believe should have dedicated storage slots:
Commodities
Consumables
Crafting Materials
Lockboxes
Things that I believe should be sold without limit
DOff Roster Slots
Inventory Slots
Bank Slots
Account Bank Slots
Fleet Bank Repositories
Exchange Slots
The Account Bank needs to be reworked so you can actually send DOffs across through it.
The Mail System needs to be reworked so you can actually do things in mass quantities. Also more filters would be nice. Locking mail would be nice as well. You should also be able to not receive any notifications from the exchange regarding sold items. Another feature that would be useful is to be able to withdraw all of your attachments at one time.
The Exchange System needs to be reworked so the filters that are already in place are optimized. The All filter is hit or miss. The only show usable items is also hit or miss. More often miss. It doesn't even work on bridge officers. The exchange system should label BOffs and DOffs on their abilities, similar to the way weapons show their abilities. For example if I looked at a BOff, it should show in the name "BOff Name LDR TT1 CRF1 CRF2 APB3". If I looked at a DOff, it should show in the name "DOff Name EFF RES STU CUN" That would make searches actually be more efficient. Should also be able to search all DOffs at one time instead of having to manually go through each single specialization looking for bargains when contributing to fleet projects.
TL;DR Cryptic is attacking player's solution to a problem Cryptic caused instead of implementing QOL upgrades to keep up with the content they've added.
The idea here is you are going to go out and buy inventory slots with zen instead of using your mail.
It has nothing to do with server overload or stability whatsoever.
As such I wouldn't have a problem with it, IF, they didn't do it un-announced, broke the mail box and didn't have 13,000 others things they SHOULD be working on instead.
What I mean by this is, consider the 'release' of your tribbles from the mail prison they are in now to a planet with wide open spaces and plenty of food for them, where they can roam free and wild?
It would be an easy thing to do...
Just make up a planet in the Foundry....some setting you think would be an ideal place for your tribbles (and pretend it was a planet your Capatin discovered for just such a purpose). Then populate the planet surface with the same number of tribbles as were in your mails.
Problem solved - -and you get to visit your tribbles when ever you want, instead of looking at them all crammed together in a small mailbox.
The best thing is, you can continue to 'free' tribbles to this planet as you collect more, making it an unlimited storage spot that you can go to anytime you like.
Heh, and if the planet becomes full, 'discover' another planet. :P
I actually like this idea and I didn't think of this. Will give me something creative to do to share with the community, and plus, who wouldn't want a pure Tribble mission in the Foundry?
While they are in my mailbox, I did RP them out as if they were in a cave on Risa, but this does give me ideas here.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
STO Member Since November 2010 | Tribbles are Friends NOT Food!
The idea here is you are going to go out and buy inventory slots with zen instead of using your mail.
It has nothing to do with server overload or stability whatsoever.
As such I wouldn't have a problem with it, IF, they didn't do it un-announced, broke the mail box and didn't have 13,000 others things they SHOULD be working on instead.
I already have the max number of bank and inventory slots, so I already bought all those with Zen, it's still not enoulgh to claim all thoes, so I don't know, even bought more character slots now.
In the end.... WTB More Inventory Slots!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
STO Member Since November 2010 | Tribbles are Friends NOT Food!
Cryptic's problem: Players are storing items in the mail, and that is taking up space on our servers for free which is costing us money.
Cryptic's solution: Take sledgehammer and butcher's knife to the mail and exchange system and make it FUBAR to the point that it actually causes game crashes.
Cryptic's solution results: Game crashes, game lag, angered players, and still the greater problem exists. That problem ladies and gentlemen is storage.
For everything this game has to offer, you need stuff to do it.
Storage is one of the main problems that players face. Lack of adequate storage is extremely frustrating since the things we want to store are for things we don't even want to do to begin with.
Things that NEED dedicated storage slots:
Pets
White DOffs
Bridge Officers
Things that I believe should have dedicated storage slots:
Commodities
Consumables
Crafting Materials
Lockboxes
Things that I believe should be sold without limit
DOff Roster Slots
Inventory Slots
Bank Slots
Account Bank Slots
Fleet Bank Repositories
Exchange Slots
The Account Bank needs to be reworked so you can actually send DOffs across through it.
The Mail System needs to be reworked so you can actually do things in mass quantities. Also more filters would be nice. Locking mail would be nice as well. You should also be able to not receive any notifications from the exchange regarding sold items. Another feature that would be useful is to be able to withdraw all of your attachments at one time.
The Exchange System needs to be reworked so the filters that are already in place are optimized. The All filter is hit or miss. The only show usable items is also hit or miss. More often miss. It doesn't even work on bridge officers. The exchange system should label BOffs and DOffs on their abilities, similar to the way weapons show their abilities. For example if I looked at a BOff, it should show in the name "BOff Name LDR TT1 CRF1 CRF2 APB3". If I looked at a DOff, it should show in the name "DOff Name EFF RES STU CUN" That would make searches actually be more efficient. Should also be able to search all DOffs at one time instead of having to manually go through each single specialization looking for bargains when contributing to fleet projects.
TL;DR Cryptic is attacking player's solution to a problem Cryptic caused instead of implementing QOL upgrades to keep up with the content they've added.
I have to completely agree with this! I know I have mentioned this quite a bit about the idea to make dedicated slots for certain items.
As for the pets, how about something like World of ******** has? They are in their own pets window that you can summon them from. That right there would help with pet storage, and I guess the same could be made for event items as well? (ie. fireworks, party blasters, ect). WoW also has another feature that I loved when they implemented; void storage. Storage for long term items (stuff thats not meant to be taken out often) - it add so much more extra storage for collectables. The way Blizzard has that set up is you have to pay gold (equivalent to EC) to withdraw items, but it's something that I would happily pay for if it was included in STO as well.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
STO Member Since November 2010 | Tribbles are Friends NOT Food!
I"m sorry if anyone took offense at the image I posted earlier.
As others have said, I have nothing to do with mail, or mail limits. There is nothing I can do to help you guys.
However, when I read the OP, and specifically about using mail to take 'care' of 1000's of tribbles, the image I posted popped into my mind, and I remembered seeing it before. I posted it, because I thought the metaphor was apt. I was in no way implying that anyone had a mental disorder. I appologize to the OP if it came across that way, it was not my intent.
I too collect things, and often have more than I need, so I understand that impulse. Certainly, when I start a game, and don't know what's valuable yet, I collect and hold onto everything. However, once I learn the way of things, there is generally only a small number of items that are worth hording. I also feel that collecting such massive numbers of items in a system that was never designed for it, is kind of silly. Admittedly, I'm not attempting to Solo a Starbase, and I'm not a hardcore player like some of you, but I Have never felt the need to hold onto that many in game items before. It certainly never occurred to me to use my mailbox as psuedo-storage.
In my personal opinion, it seems like an exploit. Perhaps no Dev ever said anything about it in general, or about being an exploit before, but that doesn't mean it isn't. Perhaps it wasn't a problem until recently. I honestly do not know. However, I can certainly see how it is problematic in a number of ways, and I see it's correction as equal to any necessary powers/console/ship nerf.
You do realize people can use mail as storage as long such functionally of storing items exists, this isnt a exploit, mail is used to store and transfer items.
What happened is out of the blue you, well not you but someone at your team decided to change the rules without any discussion and this was after years of mail being the way it was, also excuse me if I dont see this as a excuse to push sale of character slots to function as banks and also of inventory and bank slots ... this is what happened with the DOFF compactor were prices gone up because DOFF packs didnt sell (and still dont unless you put a JHAS in it) and apparent is still "overpriced".
You're such a cynic.
You're basically saying so long as we have the ability to send each other items through a messaging system, people have the right to store whatever they like in that system because they want to and because the architecture allows for it? I'm sorry, but I simply don't buy that. If you keep on with an attitude like that, I hope they scrap mail all together and make it so we can only trade face to face.
And no neither of us is a "bad" person.
(nor is TacoFang for posting it)
I just think the timing of it was a bit off and perhaps a bit insensitive considering the amount of uproar that has been in these forums over the last few weeks about this subject.
Given that...
I believe that TacoFangs second post, more than exemplifies a deeper understanding of the situation and should bring to an end any misconception that he was being anything more than frivolous in a light-hearted manner, toward the subject at hand.
I think I can safely say that we still love you, Oh 'Crunchy-Toothed-Procurer-Of-STO-Magic'.
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
You do realize people can use mail as storage as long such functionally of storing items exists, this isnt a exploit, mail is used to store and transfer items.
What happened is out of the blue you, well not you but someone at your team decided to change the rules without any discussion and this was after years of mail being the way it was, also excuse me if I dont see this as a excuse to push sale of character slots to function as banks and also of inventory and bank slots ... this is what happened with the DOFF compactor were prices gone up because DOFF packs didnt sell (and still dont unless you put a JHAS in it) and apparent is still "overpriced".
Everytime someone with mail opens the mailbox it sends a request to the server, and the server has to then send back all the data on all the mail and all the attachments on all those mails, and all the stats about all the things in all the attachments in all those mails.
Now imagine thousands of people with thousands of mails with thousands of attachments opening mailboxes all the time.
Hoarders cause server lag and instability. You don't need all that TRIBBLE, and you don't have a right to make the game crappy for everyone else because you won't get psychological help for your hoarding.
Comments
Fleets were in before S6. fleets were in, in open beta. the inclusion of fleet holdings does not make the fleet system. how ever Solo's have become more and more of a issue now that the holding system is in game.
I don't normally post on the forums but I wanted to share my thoughts about the changes to the mail system. I never particularly liked the idea of putting items in the mail for "storage" as it simply wasn't designed for that (not to mention it makes a horrible way of trying to organize the items anyway). In my opinion, the underlying problem isn't the mail system (and never has been), it is the lack of bank/inventory, DOFF, bridge officer, etc. storage. I will outline some of these storage challenges that I've run into below. Personally, these restrictions on the mail system should have been unnecessary as I believe most people were simply looking for solutions to their storage issues. Unfortunately, I think these changes come a little heavy handed and without providing a balance of giving players an alternative such as additional storage options beyond what is already available (such as purchasing through the Z-store or otherwise). Ultimately, I believe solving the storage issue is a better way to solving the "mail problem."
On my primary character, I have purchased all the bank, inventory, and DOFF space upgrades through the Z-store and I still find that I have to do some inventory juggling. Consider for a moment the sheer volume of unique items, DOFFs, bridge officers, etc. that are character bound. There are literally *tons* of character bound items, often unique rewards from missions, STFs, and the reputation system. I also have (and know of other players) that have a lot of different ship sets, guns, and gear for different game scenarios/ships (such as for PVP), allowing for more choices in ways to play. The majority of these items are character bound as well. A lot of times this extra gear is more than the space available on the ships in the player's shipyard. In addition, although maybe not considered as "important" as character gear, there are all the in-game pets that are character bound as well and collecting them is even encouraged by rewarding the player. From the LoR #21 Dev blog, "Sixteen (16) variants [of Khellid Companions] exist in total, ranging from White to Purple in quality and rarity. Collecting all of them will grant you an Accolade, and access to two additional Unique (Gold quality) Khellid variants." That's a whole lot of pets, not to mention the 12 different purple Risian Tropical birds (6 tufted and 6 regular) that just come out recently. Yes, these pets are optional, but I know quite a few players that like to get them. Just with what I've mentioned, this is a crazy amount of inventory/bank space that is essentially locked unless they are discarded to make room for other things. Considering there are more and more character bound items released all the time, the problem is getting worse. I'm not particularly fond of the idea of having to drop valuable/useful items I've already earned through missions or otherwise just so I can make room for other things. For players who hasn't purchased any inventory upgrades at all, I'm sure this problem can be much, much worse.
In addition, also consider the items and commodities people need for fleet holdings (and possibly even the reputation system in a related way). I do realize that fleet banks can be used to help for storage but depending on the fleet, the bank isn't necessarily accessible to everyone and/or it may be used more exclusively to distribute gear to fleet mates (rather than say used for commodity storage). Particularly for smaller fleets, the amount of commodities needed can be enormous at higher tiers (10,000+), especially with the commodity stack limited to 250. Even though these are likely just temporary inventory items, there can be quite a bit of inventory juggling involved. Also, it can be difficult to store a large amount of commodities in the inventory/bank for a long period of time. I know that I've occasionally had to use the mail system to "store" some commodities for a later date. As a possible solution though, it might help if there was a starbase "warehouse" that allowed players to contribute commodities in advance to use toward future fleet holding projects. It would also be great if the stack size on commodities and other items could be increased (in fact, there are a *ton * of in game items that would benefit from an increased stack size such as hypos or heck, even lock boxes).
I also know that the majority of my 400 DOFFs are blue and purple and I don't particularly want to discard these as they are useful in making my DOFF missions succeed. Unfortunately, what this means is I have very little room for white DOFFs which are needed for the fleet holdings. I know that a *ton* of people have used the mail system to help store white DOFFs specifically for the fleet holdings. Surely, there has to be a better way... So here are some possible solutions for this: allow more that 400 DOFFs total, have a fleet DOFF "warehouse" for contributing DOFFs in advance on a fleet project, and/or allow green, blue, and purple DOFFs to be contributed to fleet holdings (basically allow a green DOFF or higher to be worth multiple white DOFFs, i.e. 1 green DOFF = 2 white DOFFs or something like that).
I also happen to be a player that crafts items and sells them on the exchange. I have to have the inventory/bank space to create ("ingredients" take up a lot of space too!) and sell those items. Often, I'll run into the scenario where I'll run out of inventory space in the process of crafting a bunch of items (and as such can't craft anymore because my inventory is full). So, I've had to sometimes use the mail system temporarily to free up space so I can craft the rest of my items. I know that the crafting system isn't terribly popular right now and needs a lot of work but I think I should still be able to play the game as an item crafter... Unfortunately, it is much harder with the inventory issues.
Although probably not as big of a problem as inventory/DOFF space, I have also found that I have some extra bridge officer candidates beyond what can be on the candidate roster that I would like to keep (I think the limit is 10 if I remember correctly). Since bridge officers aren't "normal inventory," they are a lot more difficult to move around. Unfortunately, I've found that the only real place that I can "store" some of these extra officer candidates is in the mail system... Clearly, this isn't the solution. I would love for a better alternative to exist to allow me to put these extra bridge officer candidates somewhere (maybe as simple as allowing expansion of the candidate roster?).
I know some people might suggest using multiple characters as a solution but to be honest, I shouldn't have to resort to that. I should be able to have the items that I've earned on my main character and not have to resort to "extra trickery" such as an additional character, use of mail system, etc. just to get more inventory space. Considering I would be willing to purchase more bank, inventory, DOFF, etc. space for my main character, I don't see why that can't be a solution. I do realize that won't be an answer for everyone but Cryptic should at least provide the option. Since joining the game over a year ago, I believe the only additional storage options that have been added are the account wide bank. Unfortunately, that can only help so much as there are a ton of character bound items as I have previously mentioned. I would highly encourage Cryptic to come up with some additional storage options for players.
The recent changes in the mail system feels like a punishment and I think this impacts many people who simply were trying to solve the challenge of dealing with a limited inventory of items, DOFFs, etc. I do realize that there may be the 0.000001% of players that were abusing the mail system but I don't think this is the case with most people. In addition, I was one of the unlucky people that did not have my mail transfer over to the new system successfully and "lost items." Although I recently got my items back, there were quite a few mail messages that did not have attachments that were of sentimental value to me and were lost. This feels like an additional "punishment" for something the player had no control over and quite frankly, I'd like to ask Cryptic to apologize for that lost mail. This feels like a double whammy... I would hope in the future that Cryptic does a better job providing alternative solutions when putting restrictions on players (providing for a nice balance). If you take something away from a player, you should give them a different alternative instead. This helps mitigate the issue at hand and feels more like problem solving than "punishment." I do hope that with enough feedback, Cryptic will hear players concerns on the mail and storage issues and work to make it better.
Each character should have an additional device slot for tribbles or pets.
Each ship should have an additional slot for pets.
Due to this stealth mail nerf, I cancelled my plans to buy a lifetime subscription. I will only play for free. The day I have to pay will be my last. Hope it was worth Cryptic.
Why should anyone buy additional character slots if they all have the same shared 100 mail item limit? Better to just make another free character.
IF this is really affecting how you play the game, then i would think about if you really enjoy the game in the first place.
I'm not sure you read my whole post. I'm not a hoarder at all and I craft items to sell (which takes up a lot of space). When you have an entire inventory of character bound items, that doesn't leave a lot of space as well. All I'm asking is Cryptic provide additional solutions. I do not and have never thought the mail system was a "solution." Yes, I understand that there are hoarders out there but there are also legitimate players like myself. I just think it is sensible that when a feature gets restricted, some other solution or option becomes available. It helps players transition to changes a lot easier.
Dude, do you even recognize you're playing the role of the white knight to the point of being absolutely ridiculous?
Yes of course Cryptic/PWE is free to change their game, limit their players and do whatever they like on a whim.
But they better not cry and whine if they eventually lose players in droves by that kind of anachronistic and inappropriate business practice.
Yeah I know today's players suck up almost everything. They complain, yet do nothing. But there's a limit to everything. And of course there are also other games.
I guess Sony wasn't aware of the level of fail they were about to commit with the NGE, either..
And that's the point. It's not about whether or not the devs can do it. It's not even about why they did it.
It's about how they treat their customers.
What's wrong with providing your customers, the players of STO and Neverwinter, with good comfort and usability? What's wrong with providing a product that doesn't have odd restrictions?
Nothing!
You like to tell other players how they are supposed to play a game. In their free time.
That's so utterly oddball.
Do you like to be told how to do stuff in your free time? Yeah, maybe you don't care. But let me tell you, others don't. If push comes to shove, people will just do/play something else.
Ok, and in case Cryptic/PWE doesn't care? Fine! Let them openly state "bugger off you bunch of ungrateful freeloaders!", or something along those lines.
At least that would be up-front.
But don't come here and tell others what to think, what to like and what to do.
The customers owe nothing to PWE. It's rather the other way around. Don't try to make it look otherwise. That's silly.
-edit-
Oh and by the way - how is creating a personal fleet just for added storage space not an unintended usage of game mechanics? When a fleet is supposed to be an organisation of multiple different players? How much server load does the management of those 'storage fleets' cause? How much space in the database do they cost? Is it the next thing that's going to be restricted?
Exactly where is the player supposed to store his items?
Is Cryptic/PWE aware of the fact we have the year 2013 and some 'ancient' games had more item space?
Accusing the players and white-knighting, instead of providing a proper service is ridiculous.
IF you're really convinced mailing items is an exploit then you probably wouldn't mind removal of mail terminals from planets like Defera. As soon as your inventory is full you'll have to run out to a different sector to sell them to a vendor. DS9 is only a few minutes travel time away. I think ALL mail terminals not on home planets, starbases and freighters should be removed.
I just don't get how I'm supposed to store discontinued lockboxes for the future since they don't stack very well.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Season 7 broke the ground accolades and ground outfits, I can't get those AT ALL. Waited since december for a fix.
Season 7 broke alt'ing, STF and ship weapons. Free drops now cost 5 weeks of grinding and 30 k dil.
LoR broke sector space - I can no longer do doff'ing (which is gone soon anyway though)
And this week I learn about us getting ARC and them killing carrier gameplay removing the respawn ability.
In between all that, my mail broke and now also limited mail but still broke I can't delete mails.
They are really putting a serious effort into wrecking the game. Wasting time in all the wrong places.
There are 100s of things screaming to get fixed and you sit there talking about ARC enhancing my game and try to disguise the biggest ship nerf the game ever had, are you kidding me
Sure, they got time to try to force you into buying inventory slots by limiting your mail but watch and see how long the mail will be broken on your end.
I don't know about other games, but it's not like these items are real attachments taking up space in a real mail server. It's only an object description linked in the database. So what if a person has a couple of thousand links to objects.... it's not that big of a deal nowadays, even for millions of accounts.
Actually DCUO had the same thing happen (With the same amount of people complaining if not more) and it helped with server stability at least a little bit.
EXACTLY.
For for many brainwashed minions slaughtering the usefulness of the mail system will bring stability to the servers.
What a freekin joke.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
I hate PWE a lot, do not get me wrong and i am not trying to play white knight, I also do not care how you play this game, if you want to keep everything even if you do not use it so be it. All I am saying is that there is more than enough space for most players, yeah it would be nice to add more storage/inventory space, but still. As I just said previously, DCUO had the same thing happen and a lot of people complained, but after about 1-2 weeks people stopped caring and went back to actually playing the game.
Fair enough.
I just had to think about another game I used to play a lot - Eve Online, and in comparison STO comes out on the short end in about everything. Technically.
Worse graphics, fewer items, worse performance.
Speaking of which - did I mention my client performance in STO degraded a lot with LoR? Not in other games, it's not my machine, it's not the drivers and it's not the connection. Don't tell me anything else than the freaking game itself changed from one day to the other.
So basically, it can be done. There are examples.
Cryptic/PWE just don't seem to be committed to quality.
They know new content sells. It's the bread and butter of f2p. But their lack of quality focus really starts to hurt. And they seem not to notice.
I actually have had better client performance then i did, i used to crash at least once a day or so, though Cryptic has really bad servers on all their games. Think of it this way, this game is still in better condition than Neverwinter online, which while not a bad game in and of itself, has game breaking exploits that have been there since open beta started, it is so bad the economy in the game basically does not exist anymore.
Sounds like blocking on the database. Some design changes for scalability would probably be in order. Maybe PWE only has 1NF databases. :eek:
Cryptic's problem: Players are storing items in the mail, and that is taking up space on our servers for free which is costing us money.
Cryptic's solution: Take sledgehammer and butcher's knife to the mail and exchange system and make it FUBAR to the point that it actually causes game crashes.
Cryptic's solution results: Game crashes, game lag, angered players, and still the greater problem exists. That problem ladies and gentlemen is storage.
For everything this game has to offer, you need stuff to do it.
Storage is one of the main problems that players face. Lack of adequate storage is extremely frustrating since the things we want to store are for things we don't even want to do to begin with.
Things that NEED dedicated storage slots:
Pets
White DOffs
Bridge Officers
Things that I believe should have dedicated storage slots:
Commodities
Consumables
Crafting Materials
Lockboxes
Things that I believe should be sold without limit
DOff Roster Slots
Inventory Slots
Bank Slots
Account Bank Slots
Fleet Bank Repositories
Exchange Slots
The Account Bank needs to be reworked so you can actually send DOffs across through it.
The Mail System needs to be reworked so you can actually do things in mass quantities. Also more filters would be nice. Locking mail would be nice as well. You should also be able to not receive any notifications from the exchange regarding sold items. Another feature that would be useful is to be able to withdraw all of your attachments at one time.
The Exchange System needs to be reworked so the filters that are already in place are optimized. The All filter is hit or miss. The only show usable items is also hit or miss. More often miss. It doesn't even work on bridge officers. The exchange system should label BOffs and DOffs on their abilities, similar to the way weapons show their abilities. For example if I looked at a BOff, it should show in the name "BOff Name LDR TT1 CRF1 CRF2 APB3". If I looked at a DOff, it should show in the name "DOff Name EFF RES STU CUN" That would make searches actually be more efficient. Should also be able to search all DOffs at one time instead of having to manually go through each single specialization looking for bargains when contributing to fleet projects.
TL;DR Cryptic is attacking player's solution to a problem Cryptic caused instead of implementing QOL upgrades to keep up with the content they've added.
The idea here is you are going to go out and buy inventory slots with zen instead of using your mail.
It has nothing to do with server overload or stability whatsoever.
As such I wouldn't have a problem with it, IF, they didn't do it un-announced, broke the mail box and didn't have 13,000 others things they SHOULD be working on instead.
Hah! Yes that picture is so true
I actually like this idea and I didn't think of this. Will give me something creative to do to share with the community, and plus, who wouldn't want a pure Tribble mission in the Foundry?
While they are in my mailbox, I did RP them out as if they were in a cave on Risa, but this does give me ideas here.
STO Member Since November 2010 | Tribbles are Friends NOT Food!
I already have the max number of bank and inventory slots, so I already bought all those with Zen, it's still not enoulgh to claim all thoes, so I don't know, even bought more character slots now.
In the end.... WTB More Inventory Slots!
STO Member Since November 2010 | Tribbles are Friends NOT Food!
I have to completely agree with this! I know I have mentioned this quite a bit about the idea to make dedicated slots for certain items.
As for the pets, how about something like World of ******** has? They are in their own pets window that you can summon them from. That right there would help with pet storage, and I guess the same could be made for event items as well? (ie. fireworks, party blasters, ect). WoW also has another feature that I loved when they implemented; void storage. Storage for long term items (stuff thats not meant to be taken out often) - it add so much more extra storage for collectables. The way Blizzard has that set up is you have to pay gold (equivalent to EC) to withdraw items, but it's something that I would happily pay for if it was included in STO as well.
STO Member Since November 2010 | Tribbles are Friends NOT Food!
As others have said, I have nothing to do with mail, or mail limits. There is nothing I can do to help you guys.
However, when I read the OP, and specifically about using mail to take 'care' of 1000's of tribbles, the image I posted popped into my mind, and I remembered seeing it before. I posted it, because I thought the metaphor was apt. I was in no way implying that anyone had a mental disorder. I appologize to the OP if it came across that way, it was not my intent.
I too collect things, and often have more than I need, so I understand that impulse. Certainly, when I start a game, and don't know what's valuable yet, I collect and hold onto everything. However, once I learn the way of things, there is generally only a small number of items that are worth hording. I also feel that collecting such massive numbers of items in a system that was never designed for it, is kind of silly. Admittedly, I'm not attempting to Solo a Starbase, and I'm not a hardcore player like some of you, but I Have never felt the need to hold onto that many in game items before. It certainly never occurred to me to use my mailbox as psuedo-storage.
In my personal opinion, it seems like an exploit. Perhaps no Dev ever said anything about it in general, or about being an exploit before, but that doesn't mean it isn't. Perhaps it wasn't a problem until recently. I honestly do not know. However, I can certainly see how it is problematic in a number of ways, and I see it's correction as equal to any necessary powers/console/ship nerf.
Again, no offense meant, just how my taco works.
Well, I giggled, but maybe I'm a bad person.
S.S. Doff Lundgren
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I hate that you have to apologise for that
Kirk's Protege.
You're such a cynic.
You're basically saying so long as we have the ability to send each other items through a messaging system, people have the right to store whatever they like in that system because they want to and because the architecture allows for it? I'm sorry, but I simply don't buy that. If you keep on with an attitude like that, I hope they scrap mail all together and make it so we can only trade face to face.
Kirk's Protege.
send those tribbles to the Great Halls of QnoS, and we will take care of them in Klingon ways.
Ain't Nobody Got Time for That
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I too found it quite funny...
And no neither of us is a "bad" person.
(nor is TacoFang for posting it)
I just think the timing of it was a bit off and perhaps a bit insensitive considering the amount of uproar that has been in these forums over the last few weeks about this subject.
Given that...
I believe that TacoFangs second post, more than exemplifies a deeper understanding of the situation and should bring to an end any misconception that he was being anything more than frivolous in a light-hearted manner, toward the subject at hand.
I think I can safely say that we still love you, Oh 'Crunchy-Toothed-Procurer-Of-STO-Magic'.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Everytime someone with mail opens the mailbox it sends a request to the server, and the server has to then send back all the data on all the mail and all the attachments on all those mails, and all the stats about all the things in all the attachments in all those mails.
Now imagine thousands of people with thousands of mails with thousands of attachments opening mailboxes all the time.
Hoarders cause server lag and instability. You don't need all that TRIBBLE, and you don't have a right to make the game crappy for everyone else because you won't get psychological help for your hoarding.