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Havelock's How to Fix the Rep System
lordhavelock
Member Posts: 2,248 Arc User
As a whole, I like the Star Trek Online Reputation Systems. I look at the Rep System like leveling my character. Instead of doing activities to gain "Experience Points" until I get enough to go from level 50 to 51, I'm performing activities to gather resources to progress from T0 to T5 in a given Rep. There are even similarities to the rewards: Additional abilities, access to new gear, new missions, etc. It's basically the same thing.
There are some issues with the system. Most really are pet peeves and minor annoyances that can easily be overlooked, but here are the Top Three Problems with the Rep System and how they fortunately can be overcome:
If Cryptic could implement these changes I think Star Trek Online would improve dramatically! It would go a long way to improving the game's Fun Factor and Quality of Life.
Thanks for visiting/reading. I welcome your feedback.
Oct 18, 2013 Update:
Coming in Season 8 will be a new Reputation Sponsorship feature. It will allow a character with a T5 Rep to run a Project (costs 100 Marks) that creates a Sponsorship Token. Then, using the Account Bank, transfer that Token to an Alt. The Alt can then run a Project that uses the Token to unlock a Double-XP Bonus in that Rep. So instead of only earning 2,800xp per day, your Alt can earn 5,600xp per day, cutting the grind in half!
The Sponsoring T5 character can make as many Tokens as they like for each T5 Rep they have (come Season 8 this will work for all Reps: Omega, Romulan, Nukara, and Dyson). So you can pimp out all your Alts from one Main character.
Obviously being in test, there are details that may change, but this is really great news, and I'm really looking forward to S8 all the more!!
This is on Tribble for Testing now. Details here:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=886641
There are some issues with the system. Most really are pet peeves and minor annoyances that can easily be overlooked, but here are the Top Three Problems with the Rep System and how they fortunately can be overcome:
Problem: The Rep System is "Grindy"
I think one of the major difference between increasing your Rank/Level vs. Rep Tiers is with the former the game is set up to take you through a story as you progress from mission-to-mission, whereas for Reps the player is forced to play a relatively limited number of missions repeatedly. Over and over and over.
Solutions:
Problem: Excessive Boring Clicking!
To me the least fun aspect of the Rep "Grind" is visiting vendors, buying the same old hypos, shields, regens, commodities, etc. over and over again... It's better now that ground items let us buy in quantities of 100 (with the frustrating exception of Power Cells, still at 20). But I still have to make too many trips to a vendor, and click too many shops, slide too many sliders, etc. And then once I get the resources, I have to click too many times in the Rep window on Contribute, Sliding the Bar, etc.
Solutions:
Problem: Rep System is not Alt Friendly
Especially now that we have a third faction, the desire to create Alternate Characters (or simply "alts") has been increased. However, to "finish" each character would require re-running the Omega, Romulan Republic, and Nekura reps all over again, and this gets harder and less appealing with each Alt. This problem will only get worse as more Reps are added to the game.
Solutions:
There are a couple of ways this could be resolved. Some people have suggested making Reps an account-wide unlock (ie completing a Rep on one toon, completes it for all toons), but Cryptic has already given that the kabash, and honestly, I'm not in favor of that. There's too much benefit to having a Tier 5 Rep, that there should be some work involved. That being said, I do suggest any of these mitigating features:
I think one of the major difference between increasing your Rank/Level vs. Rep Tiers is with the former the game is set up to take you through a story as you progress from mission-to-mission, whereas for Reps the player is forced to play a relatively limited number of missions repeatedly. Over and over and over.
Solutions:
- Offer Marks to Vice Admirals from All Missions. There are more story-missions than necessary to make it to VA. This is especially true with Feds, but even KDF and Romulans can get to VA before completing their stories. My Rom Alt got to VA before even getting to Nimbus III, and is only just now fighting the Elachi. I only wish I had time to run the Story missions and still be able to Rep-Level. So! Existing content like Story-missions, PvP, Patrols, Events, Foundry, Explorations, maybe even DOffing, etc... All content available to End Game characters should award End Game resources. I get it, the goal of the Rep System is to keep players visiting every day! I think they'd be more willing to do so if they got to play whatever they wanted. Drop a Multi-Mark box at the end of any given mission and be done (20-40 Marks of any time, amount varies by mission).
- Make More Rep Missions. Not much explanation required on this one... Make more Omega STFs, Nukara Events, etc. (But really, there is more than enough content in STO. Cryptic just needs to use what they've already got! See previous bullet.)
Problem: Excessive Boring Clicking!
To me the least fun aspect of the Rep "Grind" is visiting vendors, buying the same old hypos, shields, regens, commodities, etc. over and over again... It's better now that ground items let us buy in quantities of 100 (with the frustrating exception of Power Cells, still at 20). But I still have to make too many trips to a vendor, and click too many shops, slide too many sliders, etc. And then once I get the resources, I have to click too many times in the Rep window on Contribute, Sliding the Bar, etc.
Solutions:
- Increase the Large Power Cell purchase quantity to 100 like the other items (this, at least, needs to be done ASAP).
- Use Energy Credits. Change Rep System projects to require Energy Credits instead of vendor trash. The idea that there's any Role-Playing/Immersion involved with these projects goes out the window when you realize you're running the exact same two projects over and over and over and over... It's not like DOffing where the Assignments vary enough that you could imagine this stuff happening.
- Increase storage stacks on all Rep items (commodities, ground devices, etc.) to 999.
- Increase purchase quantities of all Rep Items to 999.
- Add a Rep Auto Fill option. I start a project and if my Auto Fill is checked-on it automatically pulls necessary resources from my inventory and starts the project if it's filled. If you don't want this to be an Option, then make it a Button on the upper Rep menu. Start all projects for all reps, click one Autofill button. Assuming you have all the resources available, they get eaten, and all Rep projects start. Having to click Contribute, Slide, Ok 24 times a day for 36 days sucks.
Problem: Rep System is not Alt Friendly
Especially now that we have a third faction, the desire to create Alternate Characters (or simply "alts") has been increased. However, to "finish" each character would require re-running the Omega, Romulan Republic, and Nekura reps all over again, and this gets harder and less appealing with each Alt. This problem will only get worse as more Reps are added to the game.
Solutions:
There are a couple of ways this could be resolved. Some people have suggested making Reps an account-wide unlock (ie completing a Rep on one toon, completes it for all toons), but Cryptic has already given that the kabash, and honestly, I'm not in favor of that. There's too much benefit to having a Tier 5 Rep, that there should be some work involved. That being said, I do suggest any of these mitigating features:
- Resource Discount: For each character that reaches T5, other characters on the account get a cumulative resource discount for that Rep, perhaps 5%. For example: when our first character gets to T5 in Omega, our other characters get 5% off their Omega project costs (marks, dil, commodities, etc.), when another gets to T5 the rest get 10% off, etc. If you get four T5 Nukara Rep toons, your other alts get 20% off Nukara resources. And so on. The more toons you have, the higher discount rate you get. If necessary, put a cap, but it should be high like 50-80%. I mean to get an 80% discount means you've Rep-leveled 16 characters to T5... You deserve the break.
- XP Grant: The first time you have a toon reach T5 in a given Rep, each of your other characters get a one time 15,000-32,500 Rep XP windfall. This means if you start a new character they will already be at T2 or T3. An existing character with partial rep, just gets an automatic bump, that many XP. Maybe there's a special project with nominal inputs that could be run to unlock the boon, but it should be no more than the equivalent fees for buying a Tier.
- Make Rep Gear Account-Bound: This would allow one T5 character to purchase Special Items, Set Pieces, and Mk XII gear, and then share it with other alts on the same account. This is similar to how the Pre-F2P Emblem system worked, one Vice Admiral could gear-out others. If an Alt wants the powers, accolades, mission and costume unlocks, and other rewards of a given Rep, they will still have to complete the Rep.
If Cryptic could implement these changes I think Star Trek Online would improve dramatically! It would go a long way to improving the game's Fun Factor and Quality of Life.
Thanks for visiting/reading. I welcome your feedback.
Oct 18, 2013 Update:
Coming in Season 8 will be a new Reputation Sponsorship feature. It will allow a character with a T5 Rep to run a Project (costs 100 Marks) that creates a Sponsorship Token. Then, using the Account Bank, transfer that Token to an Alt. The Alt can then run a Project that uses the Token to unlock a Double-XP Bonus in that Rep. So instead of only earning 2,800xp per day, your Alt can earn 5,600xp per day, cutting the grind in half!
The Sponsoring T5 character can make as many Tokens as they like for each T5 Rep they have (come Season 8 this will work for all Reps: Omega, Romulan, Nukara, and Dyson). So you can pimp out all your Alts from one Main character.
Obviously being in test, there are details that may change, but this is really great news, and I'm really looking forward to S8 all the more!!
This is on Tribble for Testing now. Details here:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=886641
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
I'll add- I would really like a project in each rep system to convert one type of marks into another. Even if it's an unfavorable rate of exchange, if I could turn 100 Romulan Marks into, say, 75 Omega Marks, that'd be great.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
This wouldn't be a bad idea... If we're gonna have a zillion currencies (you know, like they said they wouldn't when they consolidated them in the past? lol), then having some sort of Mark Converter would be great (which they used to have when we had Badges, Marks, Emblems, and whatnot).
I have 14 characters. Seven of them are all done with all three Reps, three are half-done (or better), and the rest have barely begun if at all. I do Reps on 2-4 of them at a time... For various reasons. Mostly because I only have time to run 2-4 characters worth of missions every day, I'm impressed you can run 10 STFs, Nukura, and Romulan missions a day! (Yes, I know you wouldn't have to run all of them every day, and Epohhs makes Romulans easier, but still, that's a lot of missions to do every day!) But there are other reasons... Not all my toons were "ready" to run STFs or weren't fully leveled, etc. Or maybe I just didn't want to play that Alt for some reason at this time.
The idea isn't just for existing toons, but also if you make new ones. So far I've only made one Romulan (Sci), but I've intents to make 2 more (Tac/Eng). If you made a new toon (maybe not a Romulan, but say a fourth faction comes out), you'd have a discount then.
If you don't like that option you're quoting, or it wouldn't help you, I did list two others, and the last one sounds like it might be helpful for your playstyle.
Failing that, have you an alternative suggestion for how to make the Rep System more Alt Friendly?
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
I just realized the tone of my post might have been taken as angry or something but I assure you it was not
It's not like that
First I gather enough marks to finish T3 on all characters. Only then I start with the projects and in the meantime I gather the rest. One day I do grinding on a few characters the next day on a few other toons.
It's just easier for me to buy commodities needed for a certain tier at once for all the characters.
And I never had to do three reputations simultaneously :P The two latest characters do Nukara like the others but they still have to go through Omega and Romulan reputation.
I've never yet done 10 STFs in one day. Don't plan to ever do that either. Rep has been out for a while. And unless you PvP the only reason to make it a grind is because of a lack of patience. The gear's not going away. If anything better stuff might come out before you buy something and end up with buyer's remorse.
We already have people in this very thread saying "oh woe is me I already ground too much so now if they make it easier I won't benefit". Don't be that guy. #1 let some other schmo burn themselves out while you cruise along and enjoy the ride. #2 if you do rush to the end, at least have the grace to recognize what you got out of it was enjoying the reward for an extra 5 months compared to the guy who hasn't even gotten it yet.
To me, as much as the game got things off, I think Star Wars did something fascinating with Alts. Are you aware of the Legacy system for it? Each of your alts that maxes out something (character companion story arcs, hits max level, etc) unlocks passive bonuses based on giving all characters a taste of that character's abilities. Sort of like, as if getting a level 50 science officer gives all your engineers and tacs one science ability (edit: I'm not recommending this is how to implement it, as this would be severly broken, I'm just saying it as an example so you understand how the system works even if you don't know anything about that MMO's mechanics).
I would rather see this built into the rep system. Discounts are a bad idea no matter how you apply them. account bound gear is a bad idea unless it's mark 11 tops. (Edit to the edit: Champions has "heirloom gear" which is the mechanical equivalent of STOs blue levelless gear that maxed out heroes can ear and give to alts. Adding "Heirloom" projects at t4 and t5 might be a way to implement account bound gear. It's never as good as the Mark 12, but your alts could have a full romulan or reman set as soon as they can access the account bank. I could get behind this as it also gives us something to do with the omega and romulan marks that pile up once you're done building a character's stuff).
But tweak the passives, give some skills, etc. IF YOU LEVEL DIFFERENT TYPES OF ALTS. Make there be a reason to have a klingon science officer that gives all your alts something that a fed engineer wouldn't get.
THIS would be the way to do it.
Instead of trying to 'guide' us to what They want us to play.
Let me earn Marks in what ever fashion I prefer, and put it towards whichever Rep I desire.
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
My own change would be to have a single "experience" project for each tier that has the upgrade included. Set it to run for however long Cryptic feels is appropriate and then when it's done you choose your passive, slot the next one and begin working on the next tier. I'd personally stick this singular project in the upgrade section and leave the top two slots open for whatever rewards projects you're interested in running.
Still, this is a response to Havelock's initial post so...
1) Mark boxes from all missions would be nice. I like this idea and hope Cryptic will give it serious consideration in the future whether the new implementation they've promised for Season 8 works as well as they hope or not.
2) Rep Auto-Fill isn't something I'm crazy about though I do agree with you on the slider bars as they are currently implemented. Look at the first part of my post for how I would rather see them implement a solution.
3) Alt-Friendliness: I agree that in it's current state it's really not very alt-friendly but I don't think that discounts are the way to go. One of the things I've suggested to others that would be nice, and I think game appropriate, was faction wide experience where once one character of that faction reached T5 all the other characters in that same faction would be automatically advanced to 100,000 Rep XP but would still need to run the unlock projects for each teir to be able to access the rewards and stores would need to be unlocked per character as well.
3a)Account Bound Gear: Aside from the fact that KDF and Fed have different gear sets (KHG vs MACO) in the TF Omega reputation the main attraction of the different reps is the gear they have on offer. Making everything account bound instead of character kind of reduces the impetus to do the rep climb on them. On the other hand another poster suggested a "Mk XI" cutoff that makes a lot of sense - the best stuff is at the end of the rep-grind, but you can still have spillover from one character's rep progression to help another's. It also makes the Mk X and XI gear sets worth actually obtaining since you can pass them on to new alts once you're done with them.
what he said.
....less currencies they said....:)
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
My efforts/thoughts might not be perfect. Just MY ideas. I'm glad it's opening up discussion on the topic
I figured it was something like that, but >shrug< how was I to know... Maybe you don't work or have other commitments and can play 10hrs every day (Lucky! :P)
But how you talk about your latest two characters doing Nukara, and others already having Rom/Omega... I was the same way on several toons. So it sounds like you actually could get some benefit out of the discounts. And if such discounts did exist you might find it beneficial to stagger your toons more... Level-up a couple of them, fall back on others until they got the discount, etc.
As for commodities, since there's never enough storage/inventory to pre-buy everything, nor to port it around from one toon to another, I just make sure all my toons have a couple million credits on-hand each and they go buy 100-1,000 of whatever resource (be it commodities or hypos or whatever) they need at a time... I also try to stagger it so one character doesn't need the vendor today, but another does, then a third does tomorrow... So I'm not just spending an hour vendor-visiting on all my toons on one day...
I think I did something similar... I quickly leveled my main couple toons each time a Rep came out... The others I do... whenever I do them. If it takes me until next year to finish... So be it. I'm not in a rush.
(Though lately I've had a lot of spare time and actually have made a ton of progress... I probably will be done with all my toons in ~1mo, unless they release something new to do back on my main toons.)
No, I hadn't heard how SW was running their system, but I think I get the theory. I'm not really a gamer with my STO addiction being the exception. In my youth I was a comic book geek, so when I got burned out on STO (twice now: During the 2011 Content Drought (just after S4), and during S6), I gave Champions Online a go. I still occasionally go play CO, but not often (as they're in a drought too, last I checked).
I love CO's Heirloom Gear! I never bother with gear while I rank up (and I have way more alts in CO than I do here in STO), I have a full Heirloom set that gets passed around to whichever toon I'm using and when I logout they stop by the Account Bank and drop it off for the next toon. It's brilliant! Only when they reach L40 (End Game in CO), do I start working on build-specific purple gear.
Can you explain a bit more about what you think is a bad idea about Discounts and Account Bound Mk XII gear, please?
Amen, Brother, Amen!
It's pre-F2P all over again. Remember when we had dozens of different Badges and Marks and Emblems, and some were for different tiers and some for Exploration Gear and some for PvP Gear, etc. etc. It was a mess. Then with F2P they consolidated all those currencies into the Almighty Dilithium with the express idea to keep things simple. Now we have more currencies than we did before.
And before anyone goes and argues the definition/semantics of the term "currency" I'm using to mean anything I "earn" that I use to "buy" another item. I'm considering Marks, Lobi, GPL, Dilithium, etc. etc... Leave it at that.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
The day-to-day log in is most certainly in Cryptics design. They want you to log in every day. Studies show the more they get a player coming back to the game (in this case, daily) the more likely the player will spend money. It's very intentional, and that part won't change.
I do agree it sucks that buying gear/unlocking stores slows down daily progression. It's one reason I've learned I just don't bother with any gear/purchases until I get to T5. Only then do I take a look at my build and what's now available to me, and spend my resources to get it. This is especially so, since we get that nice boon of Marks/Dil when reaching T5, it goes to pay for the gear (though more mission running is usually still required). Plus, then I don't "waste" my time/resources with Mk X or XI gear, and just get Mk XII.
Agreed, 1,000,000%.
So you're basically opting for a variant of my XP Grant idea, but you're narrowing it down by faction, and wanting to give the whole 100k. I'm ok with the faction-specific, basically encouraging each player to get at least one toon to T5 in each faction "the hard way" - I like that. But I just can't get on board with auto-promoting all five tiers to every toon after the first... Letting them start at T2 or T3 seems reasonable... Maybe even T4 (which is still only ~2/3 the way through). The perks given for having Rep are worthy of some significant effort.
Agreed. If I could buy Mk XI or Mk XII gear for my Alts from my Main, I probably wouldn't Rep level all of them. I'd still do several, since I think the some of the passives are worthwhile, but it's likely I'd stop at T2 or T4 across the board.
Thanks everyone for the conversation/discussion.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
So character 1 has reached Omega T5, character 2 hasn't, you buy it and use on character 2 and get T5 omega rep with no grinding.
I like the idea of an XP grant, especially if it means starting at T2/3 on each rep and only slogging from there. Still for me the biggest gripe is how it wants you to log in every day. The more someone tries to force me to do something like that the more I will not want to.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
Yeah, I get it... Logging in every day can be a chore, but I doubt you'll ever see that change. Like I was saying above, they want ("need"?) you to log in every day. The more a player plays, the more they (are likely too) pay.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
I like the idea of offering marks as mission awards once a player reaches lvl 50. I have 40 alts myself & have never finished any of the faction story lines. Since I reach lvl 50 long before the story line ends, I stop & go STFin. I would however go back & finish the episodes if mark were rewarded. It's a good incentive imo.
I'll stand by my request for an a/c wide Rep system unlock however. One toon has to complete the entire Rep system, thereafter all Alts have immediate access to Rep gear. I'd even forego any Rep discount, pay full price, & purchase more Rep gear if I could equip my Alts immediately without having to unlock the Rep store for every Alt first.
If Cryptic is adamant about not allowing the Rep system to be an a/c wide unlock, I would suggest that the time (& costs) to complete the Rep system be reduced. If the Rep system is another sink for player's consumables/currency, & I believe it is, make it easier to purchase items. I like Rep gear, it's useful. I completed the Rep system on only one toon myself however. I refuse to complete it on any other Alts as silent protest for the time & costs it takes. The current state of the Rep system PUNISHES players with Alts and it shouldn't. It comes down to a simple economic principle - make an item easier to purchase, & more you'll sell.
However, one point I would like to make is that its not the rep system thats the issue in itself, thats merely a symptom of the real problem, the whole endgame.
Lack of variety, more is needed.
4 missions fighting Borg in space one of which is still bugged unless they've sorted Hive Onslaught lately. Another 4 ground, one of which is also bugged. I like the ground missions but they're not exactly wildly popular. Azure Nebula is tolerable, Vault Ensnared is good, Colony Invasion is fast and furious and quick and easy. Minetrap is awesome, so many ways it can go wrong but the reward is pretty decent for time invested. I also enjoy the Elachi station invasion one and Starbase Incursion but there needs to be others.
2 more ground PVE games, Breaking the Planet and the Big Dig. Does anyone ever play those anymore? Ground Nukara missions now no longer a need to go to Nukara, just queue for it instead. Plus its kind of meh anyway given that people queue for it without equipping an EV suit.
Federation get Starbase 24, KDF get diddly squat. Why not do a KDF Outpost 42 with the Federation being the attacking force. Or at the very least create a new joint Starbase mission that everyone can join, defending against the Breen or Undine or somebody.
KDF and Federation working together in Omega Force yet still can't team up for joint missions on Defera. I mean seriously sort that out its a nightmare for KDF players to get a team for a hard run sometimes.
More enemies to test our mettle against.
Theres a wealth of useful material in Trek and its not being used. DS9 and the war against the Dominion. Why can't we have some large fleet battle PVE event to simulate that period? It can all be explained by being a tactical simulation in a holodeck anyway. Klingon Civil War between Gowron and House of Duras backed Romulans. Its all there if you choose to use it.
Put the Krenim timeship in there or the Husnock warship and let a fleet of players try to bring it down. Just do something to mix it up a little. Plus make some of them seriously hard that they require tactics and class diversity to succeed. Sure some people will whine but the veteran players will thank you for it.
Factional Rep for one and all.
The issue I think was allowing people to do more than one Rep. They should have split it up given each character a choice Romulan, Omega, MACO/KHG, Nukara etc with different faction specific rewards to promote diversity and probably different end game STFs or mission requirements. At least that way you'd be more inclined to roll a new alt to see something different and try out new skills.
Too late now I guess.
Anyway sorry to go off point a bit OP but thats my issue with the game even though I like it a lot. Not enough variation and enjoyable ways to earn marks. Plus there really is no actual end goal to achieve.
Its a perpetual quest for better gear to do the same old events over and over, to get even better gear to..... Mr Spock would say that is very illogical considering you've done those events hundreds of times before with bog standard gear.
Sure its an MMO and they all have an element of grind but some things can go to far. Especially if S8 brings yet another rep system for us to jump through hoops.
Its also not just the rep system, the fleet system is equally busted, timegated and an excercise in moving sliders to the right. Don't get me started talking about PVP I would love to do that too if it had some actual balance, a ranking system for fair matches and a real purpose in actually playing it with real rewards.
Anyway said enough, sorry guys and apologies for the wall of text.
"You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon, taH pagh, taH be"
Also to avoid the alt grind which kills alt toon play and most importantly it reduces sales that STO would get from new faction/servant race releases. I have not, nor will i get Romulan ships because the rep system prevents me from being competitive on the Romulan toon.
My prediction is they will make an attempt at fixing it, now whether they take the dilithium mine approach with a token effort or give something more substantial is yet to be seen. At least with fleet holdings there are little issues with alt fleets similar to toons.
My solution to alts is a token each time you complete a Tier in a reputation system. You get a token. That Token is account bound, that token can be slotted into a rep mission on another toon and grant that same level to the second toon and completion of that accelerated tier mission grants another token. This allows a daisy chain through all the toons and while kinda tedious it is much less tedious than the current system and I don't think it would be a programing obstacle because they are creating an item that is account bound, using it as an input for another toons mission that grants a number of XP and tier access without them figuring out how to implement an faction/account wide based rep system from the ashes of a toon based rep system.
At least it seems to be a sensible and respectable work around that would not garner a lot of complaint from the rational player base.
Again, thanks for another vote of confidence.
Heh... Ok, so I don't disagree with most your comments, but they do go a bit off topic. It's true the game can use all kinds of more content, and certainly there's enough Star Trek Lore to draw upon. Cryptic is/has been adding more content pretty regularly this last year, certainly way more than they did in 2011, for example (thinks of that Great Content Drought >shudder<). I actually expect them to continue to do so. Maybe some day all those cool-sounding adventures you talk about will make it in-game.
As I mention in the OP though, being able to advance Rep (and Fleet, for that matter) via ALL existing content, including/especially existing Story Missions would be an awesome step in the right direction.
I wonder myself how many sales they loose because of the grind. Sales of additional races, costumes, character slots, and (most importantly) ships...
Personally, I had too many characters (~23) that I recently pruned back to 14... What was "too many" about it was that I didn't want to have to grind that much. I kept the ones that were already well along on the grind. There's high probability that I would have eventually purchased ships for each of those toons. Of my 14 now, I only need 2-3 more ships (if I don't decide to take something I already have). Add to that I'll likely create 1-2 more Rom toons, but that'll be it (at least until there's another faction). Meaning fewer sales, at least from me.
>shrug<
I haven't seen the numbers, but I would bet the Bean Counters have factored that in, and figure they get more sales from the hamster wheel grind of the Rep than without it...
:rolleyes:
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
Totally agree! But I think the marks granted should be specific to the mission.
I can't see Cryptic setting the discounts that high. I could see them doing something like 2% per tier, up to 10% max and getting the account-wide discount based on the highest tier any of your characters have achieved in a given Rep.
Otherwise, I like the idea.
I'd love it if they did this, but can't see them doing this. At best, nobody should get a bump that takes them past T1. Also, can't do for new characters because new characters aren't level 50 and can't participate in the Rep system. {sad}
I think some Rep Gear could be Account-Bound. Not T-5 stuff, though, and maybe not T-4.
It's important to note the cumulative nature of these suggestions if they were all implemented. Faster advancement coupled with account level access to Rep gear takes a lot of effort out of the system. Maybe too much. They need to hold something back, but I agree that they could give players with alts some kind of a break.
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We talking story missions or queues?
I think you mean like adding Romulan Marks to the Romulan-themed Story missions, Omega Marks to Borg-themed, and so on. This would be fine, too. But consider, it's easy enough to explain an "all available" option RP-wise... After my awesome victories against the Borg in the Gamma Orion missions, D'Tan feels his Republic is safer with me around and improves my Rom Rep (ie I get Rom Marks for Borg missions).
You're probably right, but I was mostly just putting an example number out there. Whether they gave a discount to alts per tier of the source character, or only for those that complete reps, either is fine, but the latter seems to make more sense to me.
It got to be enough XP to at least get to T2. T1 is nothing.
And of course it would be for new toons. There are several ways they could implement it: The XP Grant is awarded only when the new toon reaches L50. It's awarded upon creation (say through an account-accolade) in a box that can't opened until L50. Maybe it's awarded immediately, and is viewable in the Rep screen, but the Rep UI just remains greyed-out/inactive until L50 (as it is now, I believe).
A few posters have put forth that Mk XII gear should not be sharable, and that in fact would give reason to still get Mk X or XI (to share amongst alts).
I will go back and double-check my phrasing, but I really didn't intend for all of the Alt-Friendly suggestions to be used at once... They were just different options. Cryptic could pick either/or/any as they like, and I'd be satisfied...
I agree, all the Rep Rewards are too valuable to just immediately grant account-wide Rep access to all alts once a Rep is completed on one. Some work on each toon should be required. Absolutely. But if they could discount the grind, and/or start alts at T2-3, and/or let us share some of the Rep goodies (like gear) amongst our toons... Any one/combo of these solutions would help make the Rep System more Alt Friendly.
Thanks again everyone for the continued discussion!
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Should there be a way for the system to determine if you're teamed with Fleet Members in order to get the FMs? Or you just want them no matter who you're teamed with?
Generally I think if they could do the former, I'm for it, but non-Fleet Team-ups? Not so much.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
i would add a suggestion in the case of a mission that granted a box with choose mark (as suggested 20-40 , it would grant additional +10 overall for 1 extra team mate and +5 for each subsequent team mate)
yes, more people are supposed to make it easier, but the mission gets more NPC's when done by more than 1 player.
(so it would be 20+10+5+5+5 up to 40+10+5+5+5)
it would be an incentive to group missions, group fun = more people looking to play with other = more fun = more players.
the auto fill in feature made me drool
What does Cryptic have to loose if they overhaul the Rep System?
I ask this because so many threads are complaining about the rep system (for years now), yet every month another gimmick is released.
I suspect Cryptic's not going to overhaul it so that everyone won't convert Dilithium to Zen. They know that if they flat out remove the Dilithium exchange they would loose thousands of players in a week. So instead they keep coming up with ways to take Dilithium in exchange for gear/weapons/ etc.
For buying rep gear you slot the project as normal and it diverts rep XP to that project and a small amount to rep on completion.
Once T5 is achieved rep can still be earned and turned in for gear or dilithium as we do now and accumulates like marks do. BUT you can also transfer that extra rep XP to a lvl 50 alt to assist that one with rep. Transfering extra rep XP from 1 character to another would not hurt the time gate for leveling Cryptic wants because it still requires the same amount of time just not the time spent on each character.
As for making the story missions apply rep XP as suggested by the OP, also make the species you kill apply as well so if you kill a tholian on New Romulas you get a small amount of Nukara rep for killing a tholian. Kill a Tal Shiar in a foundry mission you get Romulan rep. maybe 10 kills of the lowest ranking ones makes 1 mark equivelant and 1 boss level equals 1 mark. Not a whole lot at once but over time and playing it will add up to something. Small enough amount that doing foundry farm for the XP would be a waste of time because doing a quick repeat story mission or queueing up would give far more.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
Also, implementing a marks exchange program that gives a better exchange rate with more compeleted reps on that account?????