I did edit that one it felt a little too harsh even though it was the truth.
Although from my experience with Cryptic whats happening is pretty simple concept. They give you item A to purchase. Once item A is no longer selling they will nerf item A down to a specific target stats and then come out with item B that is a little bit better than nerfed item A's stats. I am just assuming they think we won't notice and then take a shot in the dark to see if we forgot what was going on.
IMO opinion though with slavers it should be a reward box type system where when they do steal something its a box for you to open later of random loot table items that are something decent to get but at same time not something to be farmed. Thats only part I can agree on with them it should be supplemental but not investment. For anything in a game with all these currencies though any mark, EC, dilithium etc is a currency and anything that has potential for more is an investment which ever way you look at it.
Edit: So overall they need to fix the survival ability of these pets and pretty much of them all and then go and move on. For me I'm not calling it a conspiracy or anything I'm just saying I know what is happening and they can say whatever but it doesn't change much of the truth of the matter.
Agreed completely.
In regards to nerfing in general (specifically the Buy Item A, nerf, Sell item B part), I went ahead and took that topic somewhere else as to stay focused on Slavers here: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=856391
[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
In regards to nerfing in general (specifically the Buy Item A, nerf, Sell item B part), I went ahead and took that topic somewhere else as to stay focused on Slavers here: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=856391
Yeah that one belongs in another thread for that so this focus stays on slavers in this one.
Let us also not forget that when the slavers were released in November 2011, the dilithium grind was nowhere near as great as it now. Starbases were added in July 2012 and embassies went live in March of this year, not to mention the reputation trees. How much would you venture to say a player spends on average in terms of dilithium between the rep tree shinies, starbases (ships, ground, and space gear included) and embassies?
I need to look up the numbers myself, but let's assume that the average player will only get one rep tree mark 12 space set. That's approximately 20K X 3 (60K) assuming each piece costs around 20K dilithium. Add to that about 30,000 dilithium donated to a fleet's starbase. Add another 30,000 for dilithium donated to a fleet embassy. Add to that the cost of purchasing another tier 5 ship-120K. Add to that the cost of purchasing the advanced orion slavers-30K X 2. That's 300,000 dilithium in total and that's just a modest estimate. Add in special fleet project dilithium donations, the cost of trading in doffs, and the cost of purchasing embassy doffs, and you're talking another potential 100K-200K dilithium.
Compare those numbers to before. Prior to starbases, you'd potentially could spend around 120K for that nice tier 5 ship you wanted and a few other goodies. Let's assume that an average player wouldn't spend more than 200K prior to season 6. Post LOR and assuming players are spending somewhere between 300k-400K on average, that's an increase of 50-100% in dilithium spent over how much it was before season 6. Yes, I know. I am making a lot of assumptions, but in the absence of hard data, we have to make some estimations ourselves.
So what do you think about this? Do you think it's fair for Cryptic to take away easier ways to get dilithium when the average amount of dilithium spent most certainly has shot up since before season 6? Is it difficult for you to stomach Borticuse's internal metric explanation given that demand for dilithium has gone up?
So what do you think about this? Do you think it's fair for Cryptic to take away easier ways to get dilithium when the average amount of dilithium spent most certainly has shot up since before season 6? Is it difficult for you to stomach Borticuse's internal metric explanation given that demand for dilithium has gone up?
It was never about Dilitium or Contraband for me.... It was always that slavers TOOK things.... now they RARELY take things....
Sure i made an angry post earlier about 2 provisions.... but out of 2 STFs? REALLY not a single Energy Credit... and ONLY 2 provisions? That's insanely ridiculous and by NO means is that a "buff" to what I used to get when I kept pumping out little mosquito to annoy the Borg.
We don't want what the Feds have. We want the equivalent. We want fairer treatment. Concern, desire, greed to some extent, and passionate belief that the enough people would buy KDF items to make it worth Cryptic's while.
It was never about Dilitium or Contraband for me.... It was always that slavers TOOK things.... now they RARELY take things....
Sure i made an angry post earlier about 2 provisions.... but out of 2 STFs? REALLY not a single Energy Credit... and ONLY 2 provisions? That's insanely ridiculous and by NO means is that a "buff" to what I used to get when I kept pumping out little mosquito to annoy the Borg.
Ok, come on. You think you'd care about what it took if it didn't have to do with contraband? It never gathered enough EC for that to be a justification for purchasing them.
Ok, come on. You think you'd care about what it took if it didn't have to do with contraband? It never gathered enough EC for that to be a justification for purchasing them.
At first... yes it was about the contraband.... but then I realized that the contraband chance was minimal at best.... frankly i can make more contraband doing raiding doffs than i ever got from an STF.... Sure... it started with contraband but that was when I was naive about the competency of cryptic.... Now i just want them to actually raid stuff again.... I can make more money other ways but these slavers were a good source of commodities for Fleet holding management... until they channged
We don't want what the Feds have. We want the equivalent. We want fairer treatment. Concern, desire, greed to some extent, and passionate belief that the enough people would buy KDF items to make it worth Cryptic's while.
What irks me about this, is that you pay quite a lot of dil for them, because the stats tell you they steal this'n that, but what do they do? Nothing. They're way too busy fighting to steal anything. If I wanted merely a fighter, there would have been better choices.
"I came from a time long gone, saw many other times...
But I'm still a mere human."
Vice Admiral Chris Curtiss, Temporal Ambassador
At first... yes it was about the contraband.... but then I realized that the contraband chance was minimal at best.... frankly i can make more contraband doing raiding doffs than i ever got from an STF.... Sure... it started with contraband but that was when I was naive about the competency of cryptic.... Now i just want them to actually raid stuff again.... I can make more money other ways but these slavers were a good source of commodities for Fleet holding management... until they channged
I never actually paid attention to the other stuff they stole for me since I thought it wouldn't be worth much compared to the contraband they could steal. Of course, this was a few months before the contraband drop was changed. I remember I was getting maybe 2-4 contraband every other stf. After the contraband change, I got about 1-2 dilithium in an entire night (assuming 1 stf every 20 minutes and playing for 3 hours, that's 1-2 dilithium per 9 stf's, an abysmal drop rate by any standard).
Since you know more about the commodities, I'll let you and others speak to that.
Oh, and we want our 60,000 dilithium back Cryptic because the slavers are worthless now. Thanks.
At first... yes it was about the contraband.... but then I realized that the contraband chance was minimal at best.... frankly i can make more contraband doing raiding doffs than i ever got from an STF.... Sure... it started with contraband but that was when I was naive about the competency of cryptic.... Now i just want them to actually raid stuff again.... I can make more money other ways but these slavers were a good source of commodities for Fleet holding management... until they channged
Reminds me one of my issues with the KDF is that there aren't any special KDF missions where you actually go raiding something. The pi canis bravo sorties doesn't count for me because I got burnt out on that years ago plus now with the dps race any setup I use kills freighters/fails mission. They should basically come up with some missions for raiding that can fill the void where the fed side has all those fed only ques for gear/dilithium and set it maybe to minimum of 2 and max of 5 since the stuff we do have nobody ever wants to do it. As well they should make a specific raiding type mission to where you can have higher chance of looting.
At first... yes it was about the contraband.... but then I realized that the contraband chance was minimal at best.... frankly i can make more contraband doing raiding doffs than i ever got from an STF.... Sure... it started with contraband but that was when I was naive about the competency of cryptic.... Now i just want them to actually raid stuff again.... I can make more money other ways but these slavers were a good source of commodities for Fleet holding management... until they channged
Yeah, this is exactly what I've been having. It's not about contraband anymore, it's about pretty much anything. They just don't do a thing. They steal a funny amount of commodities once in a blue moon and that's about it. No EC at all, not that they were stealing much before, but now it's zero.
I hope that the adjustments Borticus talked about would at least fix that.
We don't want what the Feds have. We want the equivalent. We want fairer treatment. Concern, desire, greed to some extent, and passionate belief that the enough people would buy KDF items to make it worth Cryptic's while.
Let us also not forget that when the slavers were released in November 2011, the dilithium grind was nowhere near as great as it now. Starbases were added in July 2012 and embassies went live in March of this year, not to mention the reputation trees. How much would you venture to say a player spends on average in terms of dilithium between the rep tree shinies, starbases (ships, ground, and space gear included) and embassies?
I need to look up the numbers myself, but let's assume that the average player will only get one rep tree mark 12 space set. That's approximately 20K X 3 (60K) assuming each piece costs around 20K dilithium. Add to that about 30,000 dilithium donated to a fleet's starbase. Add another 30,000 for dilithium donated to a fleet embassy. Add to that the cost of purchasing another tier 5 ship-120K. Add to that the cost of purchasing the advanced orion slavers-30K X 2. That's 300,000 dilithium in total and that's just a modest estimate. Add in special fleet project dilithium donations, the cost of trading in doffs, and the cost of purchasing embassy doffs, and you're talking another potential 100K-200K dilithium.
Compare those numbers to before. Prior to starbases, you'd potentially could spend around 120K for that nice tier 5 ship you wanted and a few other goodies. Let's assume that an average player wouldn't spend more than 200K prior to season 6. Post LOR and assuming players are spending somewhere between 300k-400K on average, that's an increase of 50-100% in dilithium spent over how much it was before season 6. Yes, I know. I am making a lot of assumptions, but in the absence of hard data, we have to make some estimations ourselves.
So what do you think about this? Do you think it's fair for Cryptic to take away easier ways to get dilithium when the average amount of dilithium spent most certainly has shot up since before season 6? Is it difficult for you to stomach Borticuse's internal metric explanation given that demand for dilithium has gone up?
Ok, so dig pre-Nov. 2011. That's a start, thanks. As for those notes, it didn't really say much about the slavers and at any rate I want to see what led up to their creation since they are claiming the looting was never a factor.
And to reinforce other people points....
-It's not about the contraband as much (for us) as the overall worthlessness of the looting. It was never amazing to begin with and ANY nerf to it is not fair to those who spent BIG on the elite ones, but this level of worthlessness is just plain insulting. Items that are paid for should never be quality nerfed after the fact. Even a moderate return to previous quantities is not enough. We want what we paid for.
-Despite claims, we know this IS about Zen/dilithium/contraband (for the bean counters). Otherwise you would nerf something else. That being said, at least be honorable and #1 admit it, #2 replace the lower contraband pulls with RESPECTABLE amounts of EC, commodities, or whatever. 100 ec per pull on elite slavers??? Is that a joke?!? And I do mean respectable, say 100k per pull and we'd shut up. Yes, you are about 1000x off on this.
-Lowering the hull/performance on top of all this is just... well there aren't even words for it. I will use a comparison I have used before. It's like buying a new car that gets 55mpg, only to have the manufacturer show up at your door to "fix" it to only get 35mpg because you were getting too much for your money and it was never intended to get that kind of efficiency. Devs, would you tolerate that quietly???
[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
Ok, so dig pre-Nov. 2011. That's a start, thanks. As for those notes, it didn't really say much about the slavers and at any rate I want to see what led up to their creation since they are claiming the looting was never a factor.
And to reinforce other people points....
-It's not about the contraband as much (for us) as the overall worthlessness of the looting. It was never amazing to begin with and ANY nerf to it is not fair to those who spent BIG on the elite ones, but this level of worthlessness is just plain insulting. Items that are paid for should never be quality nerfed after the fact. Even a moderate return to previous quantities is not enough. We want what we paid for.
-Despite claims, we know this IS about Zen/dilithium/contraband (for the bean counters). Otherwise you would nerf something else. That being said, at least be honorable and #1 admit it, #2 replace the lower contraband pulls with RESPECTABLE amounts of EC, commodities, or whatever. 100 ec per pull on elite slavers??? Is that a joke?!? And I do mean respectable, say 100k per pull and we'd shut up. Yes, you are about 1000x off on this.
-Lowering the hull/performance on top of all this is just... well there aren't even words for it. I will use a comparison I have used before. It's like buying a new car that gets 55mpg, only to have the manufacturer show up at your door to "fix" it to only get 35mpg because you were getting too much for your money and it was never intended to get that kind of efficiency. Devs, would you tolerate that quietly???
do you know how long i have srcimped and saved dil to get orion slavers
do you know how long i have looked forward to using them
do you know i have just bought and scanned the forum on best way to use to find this Bullcr*p
If you not going to fix this you can take them back and refund my dill
if i bought any item from a shop or store based on the advertisement on the box and it did not do any of the things it was pacifically bought to do as advertised through fault or intention of use by the manufacturer they would e liable under trade description's act to replace with a WORKING version or refund in full
Sad to say but you should of asked around Klingon Space or Qo'nos you would have been told don't do it and to come here for the reasons. Feds are the Haters and Noobs in this game, the Klingons are the helpful players.
You see the problem is they do work as advertised.
You purchased a chicken to get eggs, the problem is you wanted 10 eggs a day and the chicken only lays 1 a week.
There is no specified rate on these things. Much like Chickens are not guaranteed to lay at a set rate.
I was once DKnight1000, apparently I had taken my own name so now I'm DKnight0001. If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why. When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
Sad to say but you should of asked around Klingon Space or Qo'nos you would have been told don't do it and to come here for the reasons. Feds are the Haters and Noobs in this game, the Klingons are the helpful players.
You see the problem is they do work as advertised.
You purchased a chicken to get eggs, the problem is you wanted 10 eggs a day and the chicken only lays 1 a week.
There is no specified rate on these things. Much like Chickens are not guaranteed to lay at a set rate.
Please don't try to justify the devs actions. The adjustment to the drop rates was quite blatantly arbitrary (citing internal metrics doesn't cut the mustard) and we still have no word on whether or not the situation will be rectified.
Also, I think you have your analogies mixed up.
A more appropriate analogy would be that we purchased cows that produce more milk but the milk is of a lower quality (less EC, less commodities despite higher chance of collecting it). If you haven't done your homework, the drop table for commodities, ec, and contraband was adjusted by Cryptic and Borticus confirmed that it was adjusted. Did you bother to read any of Boricuse's replies in this thread?
First of all, Slaver pets have always only had a Chance of successfully pulling EC/Commodities with every 15-second cooldown on their Pillage ability.
* Before LoR = 1%
* After LoR = 2.5%
* PROPOSED CHANGE = 5%
In a sample size of 30 minutes, that's 120 attempts to Pillage. The average number of successes would equal out to:
* Before LoR = 1.2
* After LoR = 3
* PROPOSED = 6
As you can already see, the average number of successful Pillages did almost triple with the changes that came out with LoR. And we're looking at doubling it again, so that Slavers will more frequently return with prizes in-hand.
The big thing that changed to offset this increase in regularity, and to normalize Contraband intake, is the reward tables themselves. I'm not going to post the complete tables here, but I'll share a few details about what the old tables looked like vs the new ones, in general terms.
We examined the odds from both the old and new reward tables, combined with the old and new Pillage success rates, in order to determine the Average EC value a player could expect per 15-second Pillage attempt. Here are our findings:
RANK 1:
Old Avg EC = 5.86 EC
New Avg EC = 12.61 EC
RANK 2:
Old Avg EC = 120.41 EC
New Avg EC = 21.17 EC
RANK 3:
Old Avg EC = 306.7 EC
New Avg EC = 96.71 EC
(For reference, standard commodities have an in-system defined value that we used for these calculations. For Contraband we used a market value of 20,000 EC, and all DS9 commodities are valued at 10,000 except Jevonite which is 25,000.)
Obviously, once we'd performed this analysis, we saw that the LoR reductions to periodic rewards were too harsh. We'd been aiming to give players a similar level of reward per Pillage, despite the Contraband reduction, and our analysis shows that we didn't hit that target. By fairly substantial margin, unfortunately.
As a result of this analysis, and in concert with the Success Rate increase mentioned above, we're looking at making changes to Slaver reward tables that will result in the following new Average EC figures:
Obviously the vast majority of those that have voiced concern in this thread, are particularly concerned with the rate at which Contraband can be gained using the Advanced and Elite versions of these pets. Although those figures are still going to be lower than they were pre-LoR, we are looking at increasing them slightly. As shown here:
RANK 1:
no chance of Contraband (same as always)
RANK 2:
Pre-LoR = 14.64% combined chance, for an average of 4
Post-LoR = 2.2% combined chance, for an average of 2
PROPOSED = 7.83% combined chance, for an average of 2
RANK 3:
Pre-LoR = 10.92% combined chance, for an average of 4
Post-LoR = 2.45% combined chance, for an average of 2
PROPOSED = 8.84% combined chance, for an average of 2
As you can see, the chances of pulling in EC/Commodities are higher under the new drop table, but the average EC pulled under the new system is lower than under the old system. I gather from this that even with a higher chance of pulling in EC per 15 second cycle, you are getting less EC on average because if you add up all of the EC you're getting now, you'd still get more under the old system. So if we were to sum up how the old system and new system compare, less is more. That's why Borticus is proposing to raise the average amount of EC collected. However, he still hasn't addressed the crappy drop rate for the contraband.
face it guys, the only way they're gonig to actually fix slavers is if we all jump onto the feddy forums and ask for a feddy version of the slavers. cryptic will then eventually come up with a romulan version of what we actually wanted, and be something like "reman raider Squadrons" and those will function exactly like the slavers. wait.... no, sorry. that's a horrible idea. romulans would then have raiders and we'd still have broken slavers even with the reman stuff working perfectly. no no no... we'll have to think of something else....
face it guys, the only way they're gonig to actually fix slavers is if we all jump onto the feddy forums and ask for a feddy version of the slavers. cryptic will then eventually come up with a romulan version of what we actually wanted, and be something like "reman raider Squadrons" and those will function exactly like the slavers. wait.... no, sorry. that's a horrible idea. romulans would then have raiders and we'd still have broken slavers even with the reman stuff working perfectly. no no no... we'll have to think of something else....
*goes back to pacing all evil mastermind like.*
Kind of like everything KDF being broken but the feds will eventually get fully working models lol. Kinda like statements being made by people still with cryptic that are still in high positions who said feds won't get battle cloak or carriers among other things but its all here now. The only thing left would be for them to get battle cloaks for defiant and galaxy-x.
Please don't try to justify the devs actions. The adjustment to the drop rates was quite blatantly arbitrary (citing internal metrics doesn't cut the mustard) and we still have no word on whether or not the situation will be rectified.
I never wanted or intended to justify the changes. My post was a direct reply to the person above me, who I believed just purchased Advanced or Elite Slavers.
The current state of the Slavers makes them the most useless Hanger craft to field.
They do low damage and they no longer make you any money or Dilithium.
Original Advanced or Elite Slavers used to be an investment, they would make you the Funds back over time. Now their low damage and low income make them a joke.
I was once DKnight1000, apparently I had taken my own name so now I'm DKnight0001. If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why. When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
for those who don't get it, including the devs...to make it simple, slavers no longer pay back your investment.
not that complicated. also more towards the devs, you guys theory craft, you don't actually play. not as a reg player would. so you don't actually know what your changes actually do to gameplay. otherwise rep system, stabase systems, crafting systems would have been revamped a loooong time ago.
it's one thing to change drop rates, make the numbers look better, another entirely to fly with those slavers in missions and find out truly how worthless they are. and yeah, i get there is and so far it seems always will be attempts to reduce how much dil a player can gain, ever since s7 the gradual reduction of in game dil has been steady and unabated.
the cash generated from zen to dil conversion was just to appealing for some, or one, whomever is wanting the changes to slavers, missions, etc. and the amount of dil or potential earned through gameplay.
it's not subtle k? with the increase and new dil costs across every system, and reductions of in game ways of gaining dil...not subtle at all. put the greed a bit by the wayside eh? you already have enough issues that need addressed with end game grind vs variety and there are plenty of ways to make cash that do not affect in game systems.
cosmetics being one. both for ship and characters...yet for some reason you barely capitalize on this, it's a staple of many other f2p mmo's, and here it's mostly ignored. mark packs in the store another option that oddly no ones thought of, you introduce the grind intensive rep system...and no way to shortcut through it.
does the person who dreams up these things have almost no real experience in mmo's? or sales? at a guess...reasonably priced packs of marks would sell....quite well. no new off duty outfits in ages, except for romulans, the reman skins, nothing new for kdf or fed for ship cosmetics. even being able to add decals through the store would probably o over well, start with some of the old wwII ones from the bombers.
you have so many options, yet prefer to nuke in game systems...though it is easier than actually creating new i guess.
Dr. Patricia Tanis ~ "Bacon is for sycophants and products of incest."
Donate Brains, zombies in Washington DC are starving.
for those who don't get it, including the devs...to make it simple, slavers no longer pay back your investment.
not that complicated. also more towards the devs, you guys theory craft, you don't actually play. not as a reg player would. so you don't actually know what your changes actually do to gameplay. otherwise rep system, stabase systems, crafting systems would have been revamped a loooong time ago.
it's one thing to change drop rates, make the numbers look better, another entirely to fly with those slavers in missions and find out truly how worthless they are. and yeah, i get there is and so far it seems always will be attempts to reduce how much dil a player can gain, ever since s7 the gradual reduction of in game dil has been steady and unabated.
the cash generated from zen to dil conversion was just to appealing for some, or one, whomever is wanting the changes to slavers, missions, etc. and the amount of dil or potential earned through gameplay.
it's not subtle k? with the increase and new dil costs across every system, and reductions of in game ways of gaining dil...not subtle at all. put the greed a bit by the wayside eh? you already have enough issues that need addressed with end game grind vs variety and there are plenty of ways to make cash that do not affect in game systems.
cosmetics being one. both for ship and characters...yet for some reason you barely capitalize on this, it's a staple of many other f2p mmo's, and here it's mostly ignored. mark packs in the store another option that oddly no ones thought of, you introduce the grind intensive rep system...and no way to shortcut through it.
does the person who dreams up these things have almost no real experience in mmo's? or sales? at a guess...reasonably priced packs of marks would sell....quite well. no new off duty outfits in ages, except for romulans, the reman skins, nothing new for kdf or fed for ship cosmetics. even being able to add decals through the store would probably o over well, start with some of the old wwII ones from the bombers.
you have so many options, yet prefer to nuke in game systems...though it is easier than actually creating new i guess.
I approve this..... Just having the ability to "purchase" reputation completion IN the reputation grind would help my other characters....
so with one character at T5 rep across the board i could actually grind IN that completion a larger project which would give me a box to give to my other toons to unlock THEIR rep to T5....
or better still.... I'd love to see, more so than the cosmetic followers some actual Reputation CLOTHES in the REP system.... not like the gear... but I mean clothes, clothes........ Say i finish the Borg Rep.... Know what? Why not let me purchase a cybernetic "eyepatch" for my Orion?
Romulan Rep done? How about my Romulan character is able to unlock all those costume pieces that are BOFF bound.... Hevan's collar.... That one chick's medical coat.... so that I can wear those things....
Also, dead sweety.... approve your sig. *high five* ^-^
We don't want what the Feds have. We want the equivalent. We want fairer treatment. Concern, desire, greed to some extent, and passionate belief that the enough people would buy KDF items to make it worth Cryptic's while.
Okay I think I've found the reason I wasn't getting any contraband.
I looked at that loot table stuff in this thread and compared to a recent experiment.
I went into a foundry combat simular which had 25 waves, each with a single powerful fed ship like a Typoon or MSVP.
On the first regular phase I fought regularly, and most of the time the ship did not survive 15 seconds, and almost none survived 30 seconds. This allows for every few attempts.
Phase 2, I did not attack the enemies ships, my Elite Slavers did so alone, which I merely used fire on my mark occasionally, launched new fighters, and drew a fair amount of the enemies fire, but didn't fire off a single weapon.
This produced results. Over roughly a half hour or so I got 4 contraband, 6 common comdodities, and around a 1000 ec, when I almost always get nothing.
So the problem is that I normally kill most things too quickly, at 15 seconds my slavers get from 0 to 1 chance to loot at best.
I almost never have 30 straight minutes of pure combat, and only rare enemies like a unimatrix last for more then 30 seconds, most don't last 15 seconds even.
This is likely helping to distort peoples results.
Honestly I'm not sure what to do about it.
Thank you Borticus this makes things clear.
If I want to boost my loot rate all I have to do is change my play style, like remove all my weapons (I'm kidding).
In all seriousness I get plenty of prisoners and contraband and commodities from maurader assignments, more then I'm using right now, so what ever my Elite Slavers capture is gravvy. But I bought my Slavers more for the flavour anyways.
Still its fun sometimes to simply let my slavers chew a enemies up like piranhas on a hunk of meat..
Perhaps destroying a ship should automatically force your slavers to loot it.
I was once DKnight1000, apparently I had taken my own name so now I'm DKnight0001. If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why. When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
It might be useful to add a "drop value" to each ship that is activated on destruction. Essentially, if you are contributing to a ship's destruction (using the current system that determines player loot/expertise drops) a set number of "loot chances" are given to the slavers you have launched.
Example:
Frigate (or probe) Destroyed - Each slaver executes 1 loot operation regardless of cooldowns. This can be up to 6 total loot chances per player.
Escort or Cruiser (sphere, nanite sphere or generator) destroyed - Each slaver executes 2 loot operations regardless or cooldowns. This would be 12 loot chances.
Battleship (Cube or Transformer) destroyed - 3 loot chances per slaver
Dreadnought (Tac Cube or Gateway) - 5 loot chances
Boss (Donatra, Assimilated Carrier, Unimatrix, Boss Tac Cube, CE) - 8 Loot chances.
The loot rate would essentially be tied to how many ships you destroy, rewarding active combat. Killing an STF boss would at maximum give 48 loot chances, which while decent is not overwhelming.
The slavers (at least my advanced) are at least stealing again... still pretty rare. I run perhaps 2-3 missions and I'll get a pop, even been getting some contraband.
If I got loot every mission (example an stf) that would be more desirable, so I think they still need to be tweaked.
The slavers (at least my advanced) are at least stealing again... still pretty rare. I run perhaps 2-3 missions and I'll get a pop, even been getting some contraband.
If I got loot every mission (example an stf) that would be more desirable, so I think they still need to be tweaked.
Agreed. It also would be quite helpful for understanding how the slavers work if there would be some detailed info about the actual chances to loot something in the info popup.
"Chance to loot commodities" is no real information.
"5% Chance to loot common commodities" would be something one could get a grip of how these things will work.
(Numbers are examples, no actual values - though based on how it feels ingame...)
"I came from a time long gone, saw many other times...
But I'm still a mere human."
Vice Admiral Chris Curtiss, Temporal Ambassador
Agreed, an actual listing of percentages would be nice;
As a test I ran a foundry mission that has a space fight against a single opponent - I launched Adv. Slavers and did nothing myself... They destroyed the target ship and never captured anything.
I'm somewhat annoyed by them hardly ever stealing; I don't know about anyone else, but my entire reason for deciding to equip one of my end-game KDF characters with the Marauder Flight-Deck from the Summer Giveaway Week was the fact that it could equip Slavers and I liked the idea of the additional commodities, contraband, etc...
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but it's not for the timid." -- Q, TNG: "Q-Who?"
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
Comments
Agreed completely.
In regards to nerfing in general (specifically the Buy Item A, nerf, Sell item B part), I went ahead and took that topic somewhere else as to stay focused on Slavers here: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=856391
If your post is anything like, "I have a sandwich so you can't be starving" it's time to rethink posting. ~thlaylierah
Yeah that one belongs in another thread for that so this focus stays on slavers in this one.
Let us also not forget that when the slavers were released in November 2011, the dilithium grind was nowhere near as great as it now. Starbases were added in July 2012 and embassies went live in March of this year, not to mention the reputation trees. How much would you venture to say a player spends on average in terms of dilithium between the rep tree shinies, starbases (ships, ground, and space gear included) and embassies?
I need to look up the numbers myself, but let's assume that the average player will only get one rep tree mark 12 space set. That's approximately 20K X 3 (60K) assuming each piece costs around 20K dilithium. Add to that about 30,000 dilithium donated to a fleet's starbase. Add another 30,000 for dilithium donated to a fleet embassy. Add to that the cost of purchasing another tier 5 ship-120K. Add to that the cost of purchasing the advanced orion slavers-30K X 2. That's 300,000 dilithium in total and that's just a modest estimate. Add in special fleet project dilithium donations, the cost of trading in doffs, and the cost of purchasing embassy doffs, and you're talking another potential 100K-200K dilithium.
Compare those numbers to before. Prior to starbases, you'd potentially could spend around 120K for that nice tier 5 ship you wanted and a few other goodies. Let's assume that an average player wouldn't spend more than 200K prior to season 6. Post LOR and assuming players are spending somewhere between 300k-400K on average, that's an increase of 50-100% in dilithium spent over how much it was before season 6. Yes, I know. I am making a lot of assumptions, but in the absence of hard data, we have to make some estimations ourselves.
So what do you think about this? Do you think it's fair for Cryptic to take away easier ways to get dilithium when the average amount of dilithium spent most certainly has shot up since before season 6? Is it difficult for you to stomach Borticuse's internal metric explanation given that demand for dilithium has gone up?
It was never about Dilitium or Contraband for me.... It was always that slavers TOOK things.... now they RARELY take things....
Sure i made an angry post earlier about 2 provisions.... but out of 2 STFs? REALLY not a single Energy Credit... and ONLY 2 provisions? That's insanely ridiculous and by NO means is that a "buff" to what I used to get when I kept pumping out little mosquito to annoy the Borg.
Ok, come on. You think you'd care about what it took if it didn't have to do with contraband? It never gathered enough EC for that to be a justification for purchasing them.
At first... yes it was about the contraband.... but then I realized that the contraband chance was minimal at best.... frankly i can make more contraband doing raiding doffs than i ever got from an STF.... Sure... it started with contraband but that was when I was naive about the competency of cryptic.... Now i just want them to actually raid stuff again.... I can make more money other ways but these slavers were a good source of commodities for Fleet holding management... until they channged
But I'm still a mere human."
Vice Admiral Chris Curtiss, Temporal Ambassador
I never actually paid attention to the other stuff they stole for me since I thought it wouldn't be worth much compared to the contraband they could steal. Of course, this was a few months before the contraband drop was changed. I remember I was getting maybe 2-4 contraband every other stf. After the contraband change, I got about 1-2 dilithium in an entire night (assuming 1 stf every 20 minutes and playing for 3 hours, that's 1-2 dilithium per 9 stf's, an abysmal drop rate by any standard).
Since you know more about the commodities, I'll let you and others speak to that.
Oh, and we want our 60,000 dilithium back Cryptic because the slavers are worthless now. Thanks.
Reminds me one of my issues with the KDF is that there aren't any special KDF missions where you actually go raiding something. The pi canis bravo sorties doesn't count for me because I got burnt out on that years ago plus now with the dps race any setup I use kills freighters/fails mission. They should basically come up with some missions for raiding that can fill the void where the fed side has all those fed only ques for gear/dilithium and set it maybe to minimum of 2 and max of 5 since the stuff we do have nobody ever wants to do it. As well they should make a specific raiding type mission to where you can have higher chance of looting.
Yeah, this is exactly what I've been having. It's not about contraband anymore, it's about pretty much anything. They just don't do a thing. They steal a funny amount of commodities once in a blue moon and that's about it. No EC at all, not that they were stealing much before, but now it's zero.
I hope that the adjustments Borticus talked about would at least fix that.
All my "This." All of it, AFTER, they make the slavers loot more.
Ok, so dig pre-Nov. 2011. That's a start, thanks. As for those notes, it didn't really say much about the slavers and at any rate I want to see what led up to their creation since they are claiming the looting was never a factor.
And to reinforce other people points....
-It's not about the contraband as much (for us) as the overall worthlessness of the looting. It was never amazing to begin with and ANY nerf to it is not fair to those who spent BIG on the elite ones, but this level of worthlessness is just plain insulting. Items that are paid for should never be quality nerfed after the fact. Even a moderate return to previous quantities is not enough. We want what we paid for.
-Despite claims, we know this IS about Zen/dilithium/contraband (for the bean counters). Otherwise you would nerf something else. That being said, at least be honorable and #1 admit it, #2 replace the lower contraband pulls with RESPECTABLE amounts of EC, commodities, or whatever. 100 ec per pull on elite slavers??? Is that a joke?!? And I do mean respectable, say 100k per pull and we'd shut up. Yes, you are about 1000x off on this.
-Lowering the hull/performance on top of all this is just... well there aren't even words for it. I will use a comparison I have used before. It's like buying a new car that gets 55mpg, only to have the manufacturer show up at your door to "fix" it to only get 35mpg because you were getting too much for your money and it was never intended to get that kind of efficiency. Devs, would you tolerate that quietly???
If your post is anything like, "I have a sandwich so you can't be starving" it's time to rethink posting. ~thlaylierah
What he said! ^
do you know how long i have srcimped and saved dil to get orion slavers
do you know how long i have looked forward to using them
do you know i have just bought and scanned the forum on best way to use to find this Bullcr*p
If you not going to fix this you can take them back and refund my dill
if i bought any item from a shop or store based on the advertisement on the box and it did not do any of the things it was pacifically bought to do as advertised through fault or intention of use by the manufacturer they would e liable under trade description's act to replace with a WORKING version or refund in full
You see the problem is they do work as advertised.
You purchased a chicken to get eggs, the problem is you wanted 10 eggs a day and the chicken only lays 1 a week.
There is no specified rate on these things. Much like Chickens are not guaranteed to lay at a set rate.
If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why.
When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
Please don't try to justify the devs actions. The adjustment to the drop rates was quite blatantly arbitrary (citing internal metrics doesn't cut the mustard) and we still have no word on whether or not the situation will be rectified.
Also, I think you have your analogies mixed up.
A more appropriate analogy would be that we purchased cows that produce more milk but the milk is of a lower quality (less EC, less commodities despite higher chance of collecting it). If you haven't done your homework, the drop table for commodities, ec, and contraband was adjusted by Cryptic and Borticus confirmed that it was adjusted. Did you bother to read any of Boricuse's replies in this thread?
As you can see, the chances of pulling in EC/Commodities are higher under the new drop table, but the average EC pulled under the new system is lower than under the old system. I gather from this that even with a higher chance of pulling in EC per 15 second cycle, you are getting less EC on average because if you add up all of the EC you're getting now, you'd still get more under the old system. So if we were to sum up how the old system and new system compare, less is more. That's why Borticus is proposing to raise the average amount of EC collected. However, he still hasn't addressed the crappy drop rate for the contraband.
*goes back to pacing all evil mastermind like.*
Kind of like everything KDF being broken but the feds will eventually get fully working models lol. Kinda like statements being made by people still with cryptic that are still in high positions who said feds won't get battle cloak or carriers among other things but its all here now. The only thing left would be for them to get battle cloaks for defiant and galaxy-x.
I never wanted or intended to justify the changes. My post was a direct reply to the person above me, who I believed just purchased Advanced or Elite Slavers.
The current state of the Slavers makes them the most useless Hanger craft to field.
They do low damage and they no longer make you any money or Dilithium.
Original Advanced or Elite Slavers used to be an investment, they would make you the Funds back over time. Now their low damage and low income make them a joke.
If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why.
When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
not that complicated. also more towards the devs, you guys theory craft, you don't actually play. not as a reg player would. so you don't actually know what your changes actually do to gameplay. otherwise rep system, stabase systems, crafting systems would have been revamped a loooong time ago.
it's one thing to change drop rates, make the numbers look better, another entirely to fly with those slavers in missions and find out truly how worthless they are. and yeah, i get there is and so far it seems always will be attempts to reduce how much dil a player can gain, ever since s7 the gradual reduction of in game dil has been steady and unabated.
the cash generated from zen to dil conversion was just to appealing for some, or one, whomever is wanting the changes to slavers, missions, etc. and the amount of dil or potential earned through gameplay.
it's not subtle k? with the increase and new dil costs across every system, and reductions of in game ways of gaining dil...not subtle at all. put the greed a bit by the wayside eh? you already have enough issues that need addressed with end game grind vs variety and there are plenty of ways to make cash that do not affect in game systems.
cosmetics being one. both for ship and characters...yet for some reason you barely capitalize on this, it's a staple of many other f2p mmo's, and here it's mostly ignored. mark packs in the store another option that oddly no ones thought of, you introduce the grind intensive rep system...and no way to shortcut through it.
does the person who dreams up these things have almost no real experience in mmo's? or sales? at a guess...reasonably priced packs of marks would sell....quite well. no new off duty outfits in ages, except for romulans, the reman skins, nothing new for kdf or fed for ship cosmetics. even being able to add decals through the store would probably o over well, start with some of the old wwII ones from the bombers.
you have so many options, yet prefer to nuke in game systems...though it is easier than actually creating new i guess.
Donate Brains, zombies in Washington DC are starving.
I approve this..... Just having the ability to "purchase" reputation completion IN the reputation grind would help my other characters....
so with one character at T5 rep across the board i could actually grind IN that completion a larger project which would give me a box to give to my other toons to unlock THEIR rep to T5....
or better still.... I'd love to see, more so than the cosmetic followers some actual Reputation CLOTHES in the REP system.... not like the gear... but I mean clothes, clothes........ Say i finish the Borg Rep.... Know what? Why not let me purchase a cybernetic "eyepatch" for my Orion?
Romulan Rep done? How about my Romulan character is able to unlock all those costume pieces that are BOFF bound.... Hevan's collar.... That one chick's medical coat.... so that I can wear those things....
Also, dead sweety.... approve your sig. *high five* ^-^
I looked at that loot table stuff in this thread and compared to a recent experiment.
I went into a foundry combat simular which had 25 waves, each with a single powerful fed ship like a Typoon or MSVP.
On the first regular phase I fought regularly, and most of the time the ship did not survive 15 seconds, and almost none survived 30 seconds. This allows for every few attempts.
Phase 2, I did not attack the enemies ships, my Elite Slavers did so alone, which I merely used fire on my mark occasionally, launched new fighters, and drew a fair amount of the enemies fire, but didn't fire off a single weapon.
This produced results. Over roughly a half hour or so I got 4 contraband, 6 common comdodities, and around a 1000 ec, when I almost always get nothing.
So the problem is that I normally kill most things too quickly, at 15 seconds my slavers get from 0 to 1 chance to loot at best.
I almost never have 30 straight minutes of pure combat, and only rare enemies like a unimatrix last for more then 30 seconds, most don't last 15 seconds even.
This is likely helping to distort peoples results.
Honestly I'm not sure what to do about it.
Thank you Borticus this makes things clear.
If I want to boost my loot rate all I have to do is change my play style, like remove all my weapons (I'm kidding).
In all seriousness I get plenty of prisoners and contraband and commodities from maurader assignments, more then I'm using right now, so what ever my Elite Slavers capture is gravvy. But I bought my Slavers more for the flavour anyways.
Still its fun sometimes to simply let my slavers chew a enemies up like piranhas on a hunk of meat..
If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why.
When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
Example:
Frigate (or probe) Destroyed - Each slaver executes 1 loot operation regardless of cooldowns. This can be up to 6 total loot chances per player.
Escort or Cruiser (sphere, nanite sphere or generator) destroyed - Each slaver executes 2 loot operations regardless or cooldowns. This would be 12 loot chances.
Battleship (Cube or Transformer) destroyed - 3 loot chances per slaver
Dreadnought (Tac Cube or Gateway) - 5 loot chances
Boss (Donatra, Assimilated Carrier, Unimatrix, Boss Tac Cube, CE) - 8 Loot chances.
The loot rate would essentially be tied to how many ships you destroy, rewarding active combat. Killing an STF boss would at maximum give 48 loot chances, which while decent is not overwhelming.
If I got loot every mission (example an stf) that would be more desirable, so I think they still need to be tweaked.
Agreed. It also would be quite helpful for understanding how the slavers work if there would be some detailed info about the actual chances to loot something in the info popup.
"Chance to loot commodities" is no real information.
"5% Chance to loot common commodities" would be something one could get a grip of how these things will work.
(Numbers are examples, no actual values - though based on how it feels ingame...)
But I'm still a mere human."
Vice Admiral Chris Curtiss, Temporal Ambassador
As a test I ran a foundry mission that has a space fight against a single opponent - I launched Adv. Slavers and did nothing myself... They destroyed the target ship and never captured anything.
I'm somewhat annoyed by them hardly ever stealing; I don't know about anyone else, but my entire reason for deciding to equip one of my end-game KDF characters with the Marauder Flight-Deck from the Summer Giveaway Week was the fact that it could equip Slavers and I liked the idea of the additional commodities, contraband, etc...
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...