Now with all the doubling of Mark prices across the Dyson Rep, the mood has changed.
It's gone from "Hail the conquering hero!" to "...really Cryptic? You promised a different Rep system and now you basically make it as bad, if not worse, than the others?"
Sorry, Cryptic. If you're going to offer low rewards for gear that now costs double what it used to, the rewards need to double or the prices need to come back down.
At this point, there's still no reason to trade off the STF/Task Force Omega Rep sets, even from a cost perspective. Just keep grinding STFs on old toons for some of the best equipment in the game. It's the best time-to-Marks ratio anyway, it feels. Dyson Joint Command will now seem to be the lowest (even lower than Nukara).
I don't understand Cryptic. You make a system that makes a happier playerbase. Then you go backwards......... Why are you increasing the marks if we barely get any with this rep???
If your goal is to run only the 2k XP projects, then it'll take you 50 days and 50 events to fully Tier up. If I understand correctly, anything that awards Dyson Commendations also awards Dyson marks. You'll only need 25 Dyson Sphere Marks (5 for each Tier upgrade) in total for that, and you can get all those (and then some) from the events that award the Commendations.
If your goal is to match the current pace, 2800 XP per day, you're looking at roughly 800 from the hourly projects (150 XP per run?) and 2k from the Commendation-only project. If it's 150 XP per run, that's 6 hours you'd need in order to get 900 XP. 6 project runs = 120 Dyson Marks at current prices.
You'll do 34-35 days of that cycle, so you're looking at 25% of each day for over a month and 120 Marks per day and 1 Commendation from 1 daily per day. Also don't forget the 25 Marks total needed for the Tier upgrade projects.
If I'm calculating correctly, that brings the total number of Dyson Marks needed to 4,225 (on a 35-day clock). (This doesn't take into account the 350 Marks it takes to get 5 Commendations in case of a hectic schedule where you can't do dailies but you can stick around and gain a ton of Dyson Sphere Marks on a weekend or off day.). Before today's price hike, it would have taken 2,125 Marks to complete the Rep at roughly the same pace (XP per day) of the previous Rep systems.
Under the current Rep systems, going at 2800 XP per day and 150 Marks total to upgrade, you're looking at a total of 1,676 Marks over a span of 35-36 days? Could someone double-check that please?
Honestly, this was a raw deal either way. The Dyson Joint Command reputation system, if my numbers are correct, would have taken 2,125 Dyson Sphere Marks and 35 days to complete. The old Reps would have taken 1,676 of their respective Marks and taken 1-2 days longer than the Dyson Joint Command reputation. That's a difference of over 500 Marks, with Dyson taking more Marks than the others. Now, the discrepancy is that it now takes 2,600 more Dyson Sphere Marks than any other Mark in the game to run along at roughly the same speed as previous Rep systems.
With doubling the hourly project price, the Dyson Joint Command reputation system is actually more grindy simply for its massive amount of more Marks needed to maintain the old pace of progress. The reward was supposed to be cheaper gear, but that's no longer an option.
PvP'ers will still grind this. They'll take whatever stat boosters they can get from the passives and the free activateable ability at the end. But for the casual player, I'd suggest unless you're really into having all the options available to just skip it now. More grind = less fun.
wait for it. Next rep system is going to cost you Lobi... it can ALWAYS be worse
Please don't give them ideas.
And to think, I actually leveled a new alt in anticipation for the new rep. Yeah none of the Voth gear is as good as Omega, but the easier grind and cheaper gear meant it was worth doing on my main and alt at the same time.
Now though, I am not even going to waste my time with my main, let alone the new alt.
Just going to buy the sponsorship token for the Omega rep and stick with that.
Such a shame, and the new zones looked so cool as well.
Here I was thinking - hmm they did a decent job with the reputation this time - lower mark rewards but also lower costs to get the items (not that they are worth it anyway - they suck compared to the omega/maco stf gear).
So now you increase the cost (nearly double) and yet the rewards from the missions stay exactly the same? does that make any sense? In one word - NO, it doesnt make any sense.
If you double the rewards/go back to the original cost - it will be more in line with your earlier statement that this is less grindy, because with the current changes it is actually much worse than the omega, nukara and rom reps!
Since this is a feedback thread - here is what I will say - GO BACK to the original costs or DOUBLE the rewards that give Dyson marks. Otherwise this makes ZERO sense.
To maintain the exact same pacing as the other reputations, you need 40 (2 x 20, as you need 2 x 150 = 300 XP) marks per day. I'm not sure about Storming the Spire's rewards (outside the commendation), but Breach gives more than that ON NORMAL. Also, it seems to be quite popular on Tribble to just farm the contested zone of the Dyson Sphere, as it periodically rewards 10+ marks. Much more frequently than 1 hour, I will add. So there's that. There's also the Battlezone, whose rewards I can't remember offhand, but you need to do that anyway because it's the easiest way of getting Voth cybernetic implants. It even gives a bit of dilithium in addition to the marks and implants!
Furthermore, to compensate somewhat for the increased EC consumption, you can recycle the 2 boxes you get. (Admittedly, for a lot less than the increase was, but... I'll take that over nothing if the EC drain stays the same.)
Also, if you do nothing except the daily commendation turn-in, it takes 40 commendations, and therefore 40 days. It's not like the missions take too long to do, some of them are shorter than the Risan flights! Note that you need 20 for any sponsored characters.
Edit: It's not like I like the changes any more than you do, but if this was the way it was originally implemented on Tribble, I'm fairly certain few of you would complain about it being the way it is now instead of the way it was, because you wouldn't know that they considered making it better.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
all i can say is 900 marks ???????it is now 2 times harder to collect set parts then nukara and romulan and they were few times harder to collect then omega :mad:
all i can say is 900 marks ???????it is now 2 times harder to collect set parts then nukara and romulan and they were few times harder to collect then omega :mad:
Okay, yeah, they did go a bit overboard with that. But the complaints so far seemed to be focused on the leveling instead of the equipment projects.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
I've dialed back the cost of the space set (shield, deflector, engine and warp core) a tad. The costs were reduced from 900 marks to 750 marks. This was done for a couple of reasons:
1) These are the most expensive sets in the rep.
2) The price reduction can easily be justified due to player complaints and the fact that New Romulus rep space set pieces are 750 each.
You might be wondering why mark costs were adjusted at all. In short, we plan out exactly how many marks, energy credits and dilithium players will need to spend to progress through the a given reputation. This gives us an idea of how long, and how much effort is required for a player to "finish" a reputation.
Our goals with this new take on a reputation were to solve a number of pain points and player complaints:
1) Give players the ability to earn reputation XP without ever spending a single mark. If you only do the daily Dyson rep XP project and never do a single hourly rep XP project you will progress and 89.3% of the speed you would if you completed the large and small XP projects in older reps. You also don't spend energy credits or expertise.
2) Allow players to complete a single chunk of content of their choice to ultimately earn a large amount of reputation experience. This comes in the form of earning a Dyson Joint Command Commendation once per day by completing a few missions in the Space Adventure Zone, the daily in the Ground Battle Zone or completing the Storming the Spire or Breach PvE queue. This allows players to log in for 15-30 minutes a day and make significant progress. This coupled with point 1 above gives the players a choice on how they want to progress.
3) Give players an immediate reward for fulfilling the requirements of a rep XP project. We did this by granting a Dyson Equipment Requisition box that gives a Mk XII piece of equipment from the stores that get unlocked by this reputation.
4) Grant dilithium store unlocks by achieving a tier in the reputation instead of having these stores require a separate project to unlock them. This allows players to spend Dilithium to purchase a desired console or weapon if they didn't obtain it from a Dyson Equipment Requisition box.
5) Reduce mark cost on Tier unlocks. It can be frustrating to spend your marks to progress only to earn enough reputation XP to unlock the next tier of the reputation, but then not have enough marks to actually complete the tier upgrade project! From a technical stand point, all reputation projects need an input. So, we reduced the required inputs from 10/20/30/40/50 to 5 across the board to minimize this potential frustration and unnecessary mark sink.
6) Accommodate casual, mid-core and hard core play styles. I hate to clump players into a generic play style. As any given player can fall into a different style on different days of the week depending on how much time they have dedicated to playing for a given play session. Not only that, but these terms have highly debatable definitions.
That said, we tried to make the reputation more engaging for a larger group of players. Casual players can pop on for 15 minutes and kick off their daily XP project. Hardcore players who want to progress can do so by continuing to play after they've completed their daily rep project by completing hourly projects. We also created a project intended to assist players who play in long play sessions, but only a couple of times per week.
Not only that, but we have content for all types of players. Soloers (Space Adventure Zone and to some extent the Ground Battle Zone), 5 Person groups (Queues and Ground Battle Zone), Large Coordinated Groups (Ground Battle Zone).
7) We also wanted to offer only the highest quality equipment, so we got rid of Mk X, Mk XI and blue quality gear from this reputation. This also means that there are valuable projects at each tier. Not just at Tiers 4 and 5. Point 1) above allows you to both progress and complete these projects as you progress through each tier.
After doing all of the above, we discovered that we were happy with the rate of progression through the reputation. However, we felt that the overall mark inputs for the rep were drastically lower than we had intended. So, we adjusted the costs of the hourly project and the equipment projects. Even after doing so, the Dyson Reputation still accomplishes the above 7 points. The "grind" is still less than other reps and you'll never hit a point while experiencing Season 8's content where you have nothing to do, due to queue lockout timers. You can always go to the Space Adventure Zone or Ground Battle Zone while you're waiting for Storming the Spire and the Breach to be off cooldown. The acquisition of marks outside of queued events aren't largely tied to daily missions (like the Tau Dewa Patrol). Instead, we offer both daily missions with large mark rewards AND we also have tons of repeatable content with no cooldown.
The total number of marks to reach Tier 5 in the Dyson Joint Command and obtain each set piece comes in a little over 7400 marks. New Romulus comes in a little under 6000 (to reach Tier 5, purchase 1 space set and the secondary space set), but it also doesn't include a fourth space set piece, nor does it include a ground set like the Dyson Joint Command reputation does. In short, the Dyson Joint Command reputation offers more reward options and has a pricing scheme very similar to New Romulus, but you never have to spend a single mark to progress.
Also, it's important to note that there will be a large reward bundle upon reaching Tier 5 in the reputation. This will include a large amount of Sphere Marks, Dilithium, etc. and will also include a very special unique reward that... I can't talk about...
As usual, sorry for the wall of text, but I did want to explain our goals with this reputation system change. I realize that the changes to mark costs likely come as both a surprise and a disappointment to you all. However, it was always our intention to have the baseline progression and acquisition of equipment rate to be very similar to that of New Romulus.
However, it was always our intention to have the baseline progression and acquisition of equipment rate to be very similar to that of New Romulus.
Regards,
Phil "Gorgonzola" Zeleski
Please tell us that UP FRONT next time. Like when something goes live. I can't speak for the entire playerbase, but some of us were thinking that these new lower costs were part of the whole "new rep experience" that was being bandied about.
No one came forward... that I'm aware of... and told us "oh these are just accelerated tribble testing numbers." Therein lies the problem. There was much discussion about the new lower rep costs and NO ONE officially came forward and said "hey yeah no... these are just testing numbers for now."
This is the kind of negative buzz that can slowly erode a playerbase. Cryptic has a reputation (heh) of letting these things happen... and frankly it needs to change.
My challenge to you, Mr. Gorgonzola is to find a way to make sure this kind of thing does not happen again. Work with your fellow dev-team members, Fearless Leader Stahl and the Mighty Branflakes to improve your communication to us... the customers.
I've dialed back the cost of the space set (shield, deflector, engine and warp core) a tad. The costs were reduced from 900 marks to 750 marks. This was done for a couple of reasons:
1) These are the most expensive sets in the rep.
2) The price reduction can easily be justified due to player complaints and the fact that New Romulus rep space set pieces are 750 each.
You might be wondering why mark costs were adjusted at all. In short, we plan out exactly how many marks, energy credits and dilithium players will need to spend to progress through the a given reputation. This gives us an idea of how long, and how much effort is required for a player to "finish" a reputation.
7) We also wanted to offer only the highest quality equipment, so we got rid of Mk X, Mk XI and blue quality gear from this reputation. This also means that there are valuable projects at each tier. Not just at Tiers 4 and 5. Point 1) above allows you to both progress and complete these projects as you progress through each tier.
Okay here is my 2 cents on the matter.
First the dial back seems reasonable but I have an issue with the space set and the ground is fine as is it might give the pro ground player simplistic ease of play but also gives a nice safety net to those who are in experienced in ground combat.
Now the issue with the space set is it has an all damage resist and an AP resist on the shield. The problem I have come across in testing is that the Voth weapons + the combination of the Charged Particle Bursts and the Aceton Probes its pretty much making the set itself undesirable to the point where honestly if you gave me the set for free in its current stats/usage I would never ever use it. So either the set needs increased capabilities to keep it from being completely stripped within 1 or 2 seconds or either tone back how the voth attacks clash with the set.
The only other thing is if you fully understand the systems the regen shields only really benefit the smaller type vessels or ones that have such low shield health modifiers that the regen shields out perform the resilient and covariant type shields for those given craft. So really from a players perspective shuttles, fighters, bird of preys, and the armitage (to a lesser extent defiant and multi vector) are pretty much the minority of ships being used in the game but for what the majority are using it won't benefit them all that much so I would state that you may want to create a clone set but with the exception of having a covariant or resilient or both.
So on the last one I quoted pretty much the STF space sets and even the romulan/reman and tholian ones in their current stats compared to the dyson one the only real purpose to doing this rep is getting the ground gear. I just do not see it ending well at this time if a solution to the space set isn't reached soon due to the fact you already have the problems of season 7 unsolved, and then the fact a lot of people are dismissing this before its even live on the dinosaur issue and not to mention the long term neglect of the KDF so this may seem like a small issue compared to those but every little thing that *CAN* be done to make it more palatable the better.
Its okay to use wall of text Just as long as you have the justification of the points
As usual, sorry for the wall of text, but I did want to explain our goals with this reputation system change. I realize that the changes to mark costs likely come as both a surprise and a disappointment to you all. However, it was always our intention to have the baseline progression and acquisition of equipment rate to be very similar to that of New Romulus.
Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
I appreciate the explanation Gorn (really, I do). While I still don't agree with you that payouts and costs are comparable to other rep categories, that ship has pretty clearly sailed.
I've quoted the selected portion above because I think it highlights the single most critical mistake you made through the course of testing S8: you didn't let us know what your target goal was.
If testers knew that you were trying to emulate the New Romulus reputation arc (which I personally think is the absolute worst one to aim for, but that's a thread for another time) we could have put feedback into that context, and helped you refine the system much more easily. Instead, we had to flail around in the dark based on vague statements ("less grindy", etc.) that were very, very subjectively interpreted.
The end result being an almost unanimous outcry when out of the blue costs increase any where from 100 to 300% for seemingly no reason at all.
Also, it's important to note that there will be a large reward bundle upon reaching Tier 5 in the reputation. This will include a large amount of Sphere Marks, Dilithium, etc. and will also include a very special unique reward that... I can't talk about...
Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
Is this super secret "unique Reward" the costume unlock or something else entirely?
Guess I will have to get back to the battlezone and work my character up to t5.
Is this super secret "unique Reward" the costume unlock or something else entirely?
Guess I will have to get back to the battlezone and work my character up to t5.
Its hype just pure hype LOL. Basically people will bull rush trying to grind to it after comments like that. At the same time for people who actually shell out money for this game they will throw things at them to buy to see if they will shell out money and do a massive grind. Then they will find out the hype was just hype and nothing more than a reward that will feel so empty that the forum fires begin at that time. Same thing happens before every season and then you'll notice for months ques run so slowly because of the mass exodus of players.
Most likely it'll be some pinch of dilithium which will be nothing but pennies and then some new vanity item that goes into the ever problem of storage crisis with these limited time type items that are just clutter to even further the ever growing problem of not providing enough storage from the influx of items.
This is, indeed, disheartening. As a relatively new player (5 months), I am very surprised that after the extended and detailed discussion of "reducing the grind", and the positive reaction the Devs seemed to be getting regarding the new costs, to then drop this particular tidbit on the players seems unconscionably deceptive. Add to that the stated opinions of the suboptimal space set attributes, and there's a serious problem here.
(And the general, "final prices subject to change" disclaimer is something most people accept as an exception to a newly discovered condition, not a statement that "we knew we were lying to you all along, so now this is how it REALLY is".)
Telling people you're going to make it faster and easier for weeks, and then saying, "Oh, we intended it to be about as fast as New Romulus the whole time..." That is... Wow. I feel very unhappy and deceived by this turn of events.
As an LTS, I'm not going anywhere*... but if this is not remedied somehow, I think I will find it very difficult to accept the statement, "Seriously, Trust us. We've got your back, things will work out to your benefit," in the future.
* - although other new games on different platforms and other entertainment options do have my notice, and may garner my attention in the short term...
Please reconsider ARC. Please make it optional, at the least. PLEASE.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
Telling people you're going to make it faster and easier for weeks, and then saying, "Oh, we intended it to be about as fast as New Romulus the whole time..." That is... Wow. I feel very unhappy and deceived by this turn of events.
Considering the last time they introduced a mechanic to "improve the grind" that ended up costing more than it saved, breaking even with an existing rep system is a relative win.
Yes, STOs rep systems are so ****ed up that I regard things not getting worse as a win.
In response to all the complaints:
Edit: It's not like I like the changes any more than you do, but if this was the way it was originally implemented on Tribble, I'm fairly certain few of you would complain about it being the way it is now instead of the way it was, because you wouldn't know that they considered making it better.
You may be right. If we hadn't known about it, if they hadn't repeatedly stressed the idea that 'we want to make the grind less of a grind', while failing to mention that, "Oh yeah, by the bye, we're not going to make it as much less of a grind as Tribble is currently making it seem, just so you know...' maybe there would be less outrage.
It's like when I was young and my mother used to show me a generous slice of pie, set it down right in front of me, and say, "That slice looks reeeeeeallly good, doesn't it? MMMM...." and then just as I'm going to take a bite, she cuts it in half and say, "Ok, this half is for you. You can't have the rest, because."
That is in no way bad form, right? Rrriiiight.
Please reconsider ARC. Please make it optional, at the least. PLEASE.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
Considering the last time they introduced a mechanic to "improve the grind" that ended up costing more than it saved, breaking even with an existing rep system is a relative win.
Yes, STOs rep systems are so ****ed up that I regard things not getting worse as a win.
Nooot heeelpiiiing...
Please reconsider ARC. Please make it optional, at the least. PLEASE.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
Please tell us that UP FRONT next time. Like when something goes live. I can't speak for the entire playerbase, but some of us were thinking that these new lower costs were part of the whole "new rep experience" that was being bandied about.
Reduced project cost was never part of the improved rep experience. It was something we were experimenting with on Tribble. Tribble is a test environment, not a live play shard. Everything is subject to change. Reading the patch notes on tribble is us telling you up front.
No one came forward... that I'm aware of... and told us "oh these are just accelerated tribble testing numbers." Therein lies the problem. There was much discussion about the new lower rep costs and NO ONE officially came forward and said "hey yeah no... these are just testing numbers for now."
It would be dishonest of me to tell you these were testing numbers. It's true we halved project costs as a sort of test, but we had the intention that if these values worked out, we would ship them to live. However, we found that these changes ultimately were counter to our goal I mentioned in my last post.
This is the kind of negative buzz that can slowly erode a playerbase. Cryptic has a reputation (heh) of letting these things happen... and frankly it needs to change.
My challenge to you, Mr. Gorgonzola is to find a way to make sure this kind of thing does not happen again. Work with your fellow dev-team members, Fearless Leader Stahl and the Mighty Branflakes to improve your communication to us... the customers.
Over the course of the Season 8 development I have been quite present on the forums. I post as often as I can and when I don't post it's either because I have nothing useful to say at the time, or I am too busy to post. If I posted half as much as I'd like, I wouldn't be getting anything done. Communication with our playerbase has always been something I try to improve and will continue to do so in the future. There's always room for improvement when it comes to communication both in and out of the forums.
The end result being an almost unanimous outcry when out of the blue costs increase any where from 100 to 300% for seemingly no reason at all.
The bottom line is that values will change on Tribble. They'll go up, they'll go down. Sometimes they'll do both. What's most important to remember is that you can change the game. The best way to do this is to provide objective and constructive feedback when changes are made. We're more likely to take constructive posts to heart that provide solutions to problems instead of just pointing out a problem.
Is this super secret "unique Reward" the costume unlock or something else entirely?
Guess I will have to get back to the battlezone and work my character up to t5.
The special "sooper seekrit" reward isn't currently available on Tribble. So, don't work your way up hoping to see the reward. I thought I would warn you about that ahead of time.
Most likely it'll be some pinch of dilithium which will be nothing but pennies and then some new vanity item that goes into the ever problem of storage crisis with these limited time type items that are just clutter to even further the ever growing problem of not providing enough storage from the influx of items.
Dilithium is included, but is only part of the reward package. The reward is not a vanity item. The reward does not go into your inventory bag.
You may be right. If we hadn't known about it, if they hadn't repeatedly stressed the idea that 'we want to make the grind less of a grind', while failing to mention that, "Oh yeah, by the bye, we're not going to make it as much less of a grind as Tribble is currently making it seem, just so you know...' maybe there would be less outrage.
It's like when I was young and my mother used to show me a generous slice of pie, set it down right in front of me, and say, "That slice looks reeeeeeallly good, doesn't it? MMMM...." and then just as I'm going to take a bite, she cuts it in half and say, "Ok, this half is for you. You can't have the rest, because."
That is in no way bad form, right? Rrriiiight.
Well, the fact that they DID do it the way they did is another story entirely. I'm just saying I am perfectly willing to accept the change, even though I would have preferred the original, and noted that if there was no original in the first place... :P
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Please tell us that UP FRONT next time. Like when something goes live. I can't speak for the entire playerbase, but some of us were thinking that these new lower costs were part of the whole "new rep experience" that was being bandied about.
No one came forward... that I'm aware of... and told us "oh these are just accelerated tribble testing numbers." Therein lies the problem. There was much discussion about the new lower rep costs and NO ONE officially came forward and said "hey yeah no... these are just testing numbers for now."
This is the kind of negative buzz that can slowly erode a playerbase. Cryptic has a reputation (heh) of letting these things happen... and frankly it needs to change.
My challenge to you, Mr. Gorgonzola is to find a way to make sure this kind of thing does not happen again. Work with your fellow dev-team members, Fearless Leader Stahl and the Mighty Branflakes to improve your communication to us... the customers.
I've dialed back the cost of the space set (shield, deflector, engine and warp core) a tad. The costs were reduced from 900 marks to 750 marks. This was done for a couple of reasons:
1) These are the most expensive sets in the rep.
2) The price reduction can easily be justified due to player complaints and the fact that New Romulus rep space set pieces are 750 each.
You might be wondering why mark costs were adjusted at all. In short, we plan out exactly how many marks, energy credits and dilithium players will need to spend to progress through the a given reputation. This gives us an idea of how long, and how much effort is required for a player to "finish" a reputation.
Our goals with this new take on a reputation were to solve a number of pain points and player complaints:
1) Give players the ability to earn reputation XP without ever spending a single mark. If you only do the daily Dyson rep XP project and never do a single hourly rep XP project you will progress and 89.3% of the speed you would if you completed the large and small XP projects in older reps. You also don't spend energy credits or expertise.
2) Allow players to complete a single chunk of content of their choice to ultimately earn a large amount of reputation experience. This comes in the form of earning a Dyson Joint Command Commendation once per day by completing a few missions in the Space Adventure Zone, the daily in the Ground Battle Zone or completing the Storming the Spire or Breach PvE queue. This allows players to log in for 15-30 minutes a day and make significant progress. This coupled with point 1 above gives the players a choice on how they want to progress.
3) Give players an immediate reward for fulfilling the requirements of a rep XP project. We did this by granting a Dyson Equipment Requisition box that gives a Mk XII piece of equipment from the stores that get unlocked by this reputation.
4) Grant dilithium store unlocks by achieving a tier in the reputation instead of having these stores require a separate project to unlock them. This allows players to spend Dilithium to purchase a desired console or weapon if they didn't obtain it from a Dyson Equipment Requisition box.
5) Reduce mark cost on Tier unlocks. It can be frustrating to spend your marks to progress only to earn enough reputation XP to unlock the next tier of the reputation, but then not have enough marks to actually complete the tier upgrade project! From a technical stand point, all reputation projects need an input. So, we reduced the required inputs from 10/20/30/40/50 to 5 across the board to minimize this potential frustration and unnecessary mark sink.
6) Accommodate casual, mid-core and hard core play styles. I hate to clump players into a generic play style. As any given player can fall into a different style on different days of the week depending on how much time they have dedicated to playing for a given play session. Not only that, but these terms have highly debatable definitions.
That said, we tried to make the reputation more engaging for a larger group of players. Casual players can pop on for 15 minutes and kick off their daily XP project. Hardcore players who want to progress can do so by continuing to play after they've completed their daily rep project by completing hourly projects. We also created a project intended to assist players who play in long play sessions, but only a couple of times per week.
Not only that, but we have content for all types of players. Soloers (Space Adventure Zone and to some extent the Ground Battle Zone), 5 Person groups (Queues and Ground Battle Zone), Large Coordinated Groups (Ground Battle Zone).
7) We also wanted to offer only the highest quality equipment, so we got rid of Mk X, Mk XI and blue quality gear from this reputation. This also means that there are valuable projects at each tier. Not just at Tiers 4 and 5. Point 1) above allows you to both progress and complete these projects as you progress through each tier.
After doing all of the above, we discovered that we were happy with the rate of progression through the reputation. However, we felt that the overall mark inputs for the rep were drastically lower than we had intended. So, we adjusted the costs of the hourly project and the equipment projects. Even after doing so, the Dyson Reputation still accomplishes the above 7 points. The "grind" is still less than other reps and you'll never hit a point while experiencing Season 8's content where you have nothing to do, due to queue lockout timers. You can always go to the Space Adventure Zone or Ground Battle Zone while you're waiting for Storming the Spire and the Breach to be off cooldown. The acquisition of marks outside of queued events aren't largely tied to daily missions (like the Tau Dewa Patrol). Instead, we offer both daily missions with large mark rewards AND we also have tons of repeatable content with no cooldown.
The total number of marks to reach Tier 5 in the Dyson Joint Command and obtain each set piece comes in a little over 7400 marks. New Romulus comes in a little under 6000 (to reach Tier 5, purchase 1 space set and the secondary space set), but it also doesn't include a fourth space set piece, nor does it include a ground set like the Dyson Joint Command reputation does. In short, the Dyson Joint Command reputation offers more reward options and has a pricing scheme very similar to New Romulus, but you never have to spend a single mark to progress.
Also, it's important to note that there will be a large reward bundle upon reaching Tier 5 in the reputation. This will include a large amount of Sphere Marks, Dilithium, etc. and will also include a very special unique reward that... I can't talk about...
As usual, sorry for the wall of text, but I did want to explain our goals with this reputation system change. I realize that the changes to mark costs likely come as both a surprise and a disappointment to you all. However, it was always our intention to have the baseline progression and acquisition of equipment rate to be very similar to that of New Romulus.
Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
Hi Gorngonzolla,
I'm going to leave this battle alone, but what I have to say is extremely relevant.
I know there must be people on the system's team that think players clicking through rep systems or doing PvE content that was designed on a daily basis, every day for a month or more is the best outcome.
Please, take it under advisement or speak to your marketing folks to implement a "pay for bypass" option.
Neverwinter has this in their crafting, and if you charged dilithium for players to be able to complete rep projects right nowyou would clean house on the PvP players such as myself.
I don't mind some PvE, here and there. There is a limit though, and what I want to do in your game is PvP to my heart's content.
I want to play your game, I want to PvP, but I'm constantly grinding things I don't want to do more than a few times instead of actually doing what I want to do.
This breeds resentment, when what you could get instead is profit.
I promise you many PvPers will jump at the chance to pay their way through your Rep systems. Whether you want to charge dil, or sell some kind of "Rep XP boosters" or "Rep Level Skip" tokens in the C-store, PVPers WILL BUY THESE.
I have guys in my fleet who would likely not even blink at the chance to spend 5000 zen to instant complete a Rep system on day 1 (extremely unlikely, I know, but just a bit of an example).
There is money to be made here to let players skip some of the time sink/grind for a fee, while also preserving the content you guys designed.
Find the middle ground = happier players and more profit.
Reduced project cost was never part of the improved rep experience. It was something we were experimenting with on Tribble.
There was a huge amount of speculation and belief that reduced input costs were part of the improved rep experience, yet you did absolutely nothing to discourage people from that interpretation.
It would be dishonest of me to tell you these were testing numbers. It's true we halved project costs as a sort of test, but we had the intention that if these values worked out, we would ship them to live. However, we found that these changes ultimately were counter to our goal I mentioned in my last post.
The bolded part is EXACTLY what you should have told your testers. When people know what you're targeting, they don't freak out when a change is made in furtherance of that targeting.
The bottom line is that values will change on Tribble. They'll go up, they'll go down. Sometimes they'll do both. What's most important to remember is that you can change the game. The best way to do this is to provide objective and constructive feedback when changes are made. We're more likely to take constructive posts to heart that provide solutions to problems instead of just pointing out a problem.
Gorn, I'm going to be incredibly direct here: we gave you exactly that kind of feedback, yet in return we were quite effectively lied to in regards to your intentions with S8 and the Dyson rep. That is likely not the interpretation you want of your actions, but that's what I feel happened. Judging by a lot of the reactions I've read, I'm not alone.
Why should I bother giving you my feedback, if I'm only going to continue to be mislead and misdirected? How is anything going to change if you guys on occasion after occasion go back on your word?
There still needs to be some work though on this shield survival vs the voth tho with dyson set running at around 90% shield damage resist vs their damage and they still are stripping the shields off this thing.
This is due to poor shield stripping mechanics with abilities that well strip shields.
They use a flat number for shield quantity removed or negatively healed so when you use a shield with a low capacity, like a regen shield, it will loose a higher % of it's shield than say a resilient shield.
This is due to poor shield stripping mechanics with abilities that well strip shields.
They use a flat number for shield quantity removed or negatively healed so when you use a shield with a low capacity, like a regen shield, it will loose a higher % of it's shield than say a resilient shield.
Actually that is not even close but I figured out the problem was another mechanic I didn't think of.
Since most players and npcs are negated by just a minimal amount of power insulators the voth are on another level so you want to have adequate power insulators and then set rocks LOL
Comments
It's gone from "Hail the conquering hero!" to "...really Cryptic? You promised a different Rep system and now you basically make it as bad, if not worse, than the others?"
Sorry, Cryptic. If you're going to offer low rewards for gear that now costs double what it used to, the rewards need to double or the prices need to come back down.
At this point, there's still no reason to trade off the STF/Task Force Omega Rep sets, even from a cost perspective. Just keep grinding STFs on old toons for some of the best equipment in the game. It's the best time-to-Marks ratio anyway, it feels. Dyson Joint Command will now seem to be the lowest (even lower than Nukara).
You guys just made it WORSE than Nukara, and I didn't think that was possible
wait for it. Next rep system is going to cost you Lobi... it can ALWAYS be worse
If your goal is to run only the 2k XP projects, then it'll take you 50 days and 50 events to fully Tier up. If I understand correctly, anything that awards Dyson Commendations also awards Dyson marks. You'll only need 25 Dyson Sphere Marks (5 for each Tier upgrade) in total for that, and you can get all those (and then some) from the events that award the Commendations.
If your goal is to match the current pace, 2800 XP per day, you're looking at roughly 800 from the hourly projects (150 XP per run?) and 2k from the Commendation-only project. If it's 150 XP per run, that's 6 hours you'd need in order to get 900 XP. 6 project runs = 120 Dyson Marks at current prices.
You'll do 34-35 days of that cycle, so you're looking at 25% of each day for over a month and 120 Marks per day and 1 Commendation from 1 daily per day. Also don't forget the 25 Marks total needed for the Tier upgrade projects.
If I'm calculating correctly, that brings the total number of Dyson Marks needed to 4,225 (on a 35-day clock). (This doesn't take into account the 350 Marks it takes to get 5 Commendations in case of a hectic schedule where you can't do dailies but you can stick around and gain a ton of Dyson Sphere Marks on a weekend or off day.). Before today's price hike, it would have taken 2,125 Marks to complete the Rep at roughly the same pace (XP per day) of the previous Rep systems.
Under the current Rep systems, going at 2800 XP per day and 150 Marks total to upgrade, you're looking at a total of 1,676 Marks over a span of 35-36 days? Could someone double-check that please?
Honestly, this was a raw deal either way. The Dyson Joint Command reputation system, if my numbers are correct, would have taken 2,125 Dyson Sphere Marks and 35 days to complete. The old Reps would have taken 1,676 of their respective Marks and taken 1-2 days longer than the Dyson Joint Command reputation. That's a difference of over 500 Marks, with Dyson taking more Marks than the others. Now, the discrepancy is that it now takes 2,600 more Dyson Sphere Marks than any other Mark in the game to run along at roughly the same speed as previous Rep systems.
With doubling the hourly project price, the Dyson Joint Command reputation system is actually more grindy simply for its massive amount of more Marks needed to maintain the old pace of progress. The reward was supposed to be cheaper gear, but that's no longer an option.
PvP'ers will still grind this. They'll take whatever stat boosters they can get from the passives and the free activateable ability at the end. But for the casual player, I'd suggest unless you're really into having all the options available to just skip it now. More grind = less fun.
Please don't give them ideas.
And to think, I actually leveled a new alt in anticipation for the new rep. Yeah none of the Voth gear is as good as Omega, but the easier grind and cheaper gear meant it was worth doing on my main and alt at the same time.
Now though, I am not even going to waste my time with my main, let alone the new alt.
Just going to buy the sponsorship token for the Omega rep and stick with that.
Such a shame, and the new zones looked so cool as well.
So now you increase the cost (nearly double) and yet the rewards from the missions stay exactly the same? does that make any sense? In one word - NO, it doesnt make any sense.
If you double the rewards/go back to the original cost - it will be more in line with your earlier statement that this is less grindy, because with the current changes it is actually much worse than the omega, nukara and rom reps!
Since this is a feedback thread - here is what I will say - GO BACK to the original costs or DOUBLE the rewards that give Dyson marks. Otherwise this makes ZERO sense.
To maintain the exact same pacing as the other reputations, you need 40 (2 x 20, as you need 2 x 150 = 300 XP) marks per day. I'm not sure about Storming the Spire's rewards (outside the commendation), but Breach gives more than that ON NORMAL. Also, it seems to be quite popular on Tribble to just farm the contested zone of the Dyson Sphere, as it periodically rewards 10+ marks. Much more frequently than 1 hour, I will add. So there's that. There's also the Battlezone, whose rewards I can't remember offhand, but you need to do that anyway because it's the easiest way of getting Voth cybernetic implants. It even gives a bit of dilithium in addition to the marks and implants!
Furthermore, to compensate somewhat for the increased EC consumption, you can recycle the 2 boxes you get. (Admittedly, for a lot less than the increase was, but... I'll take that over nothing if the EC drain stays the same.)
Also, if you do nothing except the daily commendation turn-in, it takes 40 commendations, and therefore 40 days. It's not like the missions take too long to do, some of them are shorter than the Risan flights! Note that you need 20 for any sponsored characters.
Edit: It's not like I like the changes any more than you do, but if this was the way it was originally implemented on Tribble, I'm fairly certain few of you would complain about it being the way it is now instead of the way it was, because you wouldn't know that they considered making it better.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Okay, yeah, they did go a bit overboard with that. But the complaints so far seemed to be focused on the leveling instead of the equipment projects.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
1) These are the most expensive sets in the rep.
2) The price reduction can easily be justified due to player complaints and the fact that New Romulus rep space set pieces are 750 each.
You might be wondering why mark costs were adjusted at all. In short, we plan out exactly how many marks, energy credits and dilithium players will need to spend to progress through the a given reputation. This gives us an idea of how long, and how much effort is required for a player to "finish" a reputation.
Our goals with this new take on a reputation were to solve a number of pain points and player complaints:
1) Give players the ability to earn reputation XP without ever spending a single mark. If you only do the daily Dyson rep XP project and never do a single hourly rep XP project you will progress and 89.3% of the speed you would if you completed the large and small XP projects in older reps. You also don't spend energy credits or expertise.
2) Allow players to complete a single chunk of content of their choice to ultimately earn a large amount of reputation experience. This comes in the form of earning a Dyson Joint Command Commendation once per day by completing a few missions in the Space Adventure Zone, the daily in the Ground Battle Zone or completing the Storming the Spire or Breach PvE queue. This allows players to log in for 15-30 minutes a day and make significant progress. This coupled with point 1 above gives the players a choice on how they want to progress.
3) Give players an immediate reward for fulfilling the requirements of a rep XP project. We did this by granting a Dyson Equipment Requisition box that gives a Mk XII piece of equipment from the stores that get unlocked by this reputation.
4) Grant dilithium store unlocks by achieving a tier in the reputation instead of having these stores require a separate project to unlock them. This allows players to spend Dilithium to purchase a desired console or weapon if they didn't obtain it from a Dyson Equipment Requisition box.
5) Reduce mark cost on Tier unlocks. It can be frustrating to spend your marks to progress only to earn enough reputation XP to unlock the next tier of the reputation, but then not have enough marks to actually complete the tier upgrade project! From a technical stand point, all reputation projects need an input. So, we reduced the required inputs from 10/20/30/40/50 to 5 across the board to minimize this potential frustration and unnecessary mark sink.
6) Accommodate casual, mid-core and hard core play styles. I hate to clump players into a generic play style. As any given player can fall into a different style on different days of the week depending on how much time they have dedicated to playing for a given play session. Not only that, but these terms have highly debatable definitions.
That said, we tried to make the reputation more engaging for a larger group of players. Casual players can pop on for 15 minutes and kick off their daily XP project. Hardcore players who want to progress can do so by continuing to play after they've completed their daily rep project by completing hourly projects. We also created a project intended to assist players who play in long play sessions, but only a couple of times per week.
Not only that, but we have content for all types of players. Soloers (Space Adventure Zone and to some extent the Ground Battle Zone), 5 Person groups (Queues and Ground Battle Zone), Large Coordinated Groups (Ground Battle Zone).
7) We also wanted to offer only the highest quality equipment, so we got rid of Mk X, Mk XI and blue quality gear from this reputation. This also means that there are valuable projects at each tier. Not just at Tiers 4 and 5. Point 1) above allows you to both progress and complete these projects as you progress through each tier.
After doing all of the above, we discovered that we were happy with the rate of progression through the reputation. However, we felt that the overall mark inputs for the rep were drastically lower than we had intended. So, we adjusted the costs of the hourly project and the equipment projects. Even after doing so, the Dyson Reputation still accomplishes the above 7 points. The "grind" is still less than other reps and you'll never hit a point while experiencing Season 8's content where you have nothing to do, due to queue lockout timers. You can always go to the Space Adventure Zone or Ground Battle Zone while you're waiting for Storming the Spire and the Breach to be off cooldown. The acquisition of marks outside of queued events aren't largely tied to daily missions (like the Tau Dewa Patrol). Instead, we offer both daily missions with large mark rewards AND we also have tons of repeatable content with no cooldown.
The total number of marks to reach Tier 5 in the Dyson Joint Command and obtain each set piece comes in a little over 7400 marks. New Romulus comes in a little under 6000 (to reach Tier 5, purchase 1 space set and the secondary space set), but it also doesn't include a fourth space set piece, nor does it include a ground set like the Dyson Joint Command reputation does. In short, the Dyson Joint Command reputation offers more reward options and has a pricing scheme very similar to New Romulus, but you never have to spend a single mark to progress.
Also, it's important to note that there will be a large reward bundle upon reaching Tier 5 in the reputation. This will include a large amount of Sphere Marks, Dilithium, etc. and will also include a very special unique reward that... I can't talk about...
As usual, sorry for the wall of text, but I did want to explain our goals with this reputation system change. I realize that the changes to mark costs likely come as both a surprise and a disappointment to you all. However, it was always our intention to have the baseline progression and acquisition of equipment rate to be very similar to that of New Romulus.
Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
Please tell us that UP FRONT next time. Like when something goes live. I can't speak for the entire playerbase, but some of us were thinking that these new lower costs were part of the whole "new rep experience" that was being bandied about.
No one came forward... that I'm aware of... and told us "oh these are just accelerated tribble testing numbers." Therein lies the problem. There was much discussion about the new lower rep costs and NO ONE officially came forward and said "hey yeah no... these are just testing numbers for now."
This is the kind of negative buzz that can slowly erode a playerbase. Cryptic has a reputation (heh) of letting these things happen... and frankly it needs to change.
My challenge to you, Mr. Gorgonzola is to find a way to make sure this kind of thing does not happen again. Work with your fellow dev-team members, Fearless Leader Stahl and the Mighty Branflakes to improve your communication to us... the customers.
Okay here is my 2 cents on the matter.
First the dial back seems reasonable but I have an issue with the space set and the ground is fine as is it might give the pro ground player simplistic ease of play but also gives a nice safety net to those who are in experienced in ground combat.
Now the issue with the space set is it has an all damage resist and an AP resist on the shield. The problem I have come across in testing is that the Voth weapons + the combination of the Charged Particle Bursts and the Aceton Probes its pretty much making the set itself undesirable to the point where honestly if you gave me the set for free in its current stats/usage I would never ever use it. So either the set needs increased capabilities to keep it from being completely stripped within 1 or 2 seconds or either tone back how the voth attacks clash with the set.
The only other thing is if you fully understand the systems the regen shields only really benefit the smaller type vessels or ones that have such low shield health modifiers that the regen shields out perform the resilient and covariant type shields for those given craft. So really from a players perspective shuttles, fighters, bird of preys, and the armitage (to a lesser extent defiant and multi vector) are pretty much the minority of ships being used in the game but for what the majority are using it won't benefit them all that much so I would state that you may want to create a clone set but with the exception of having a covariant or resilient or both.
So on the last one I quoted pretty much the STF space sets and even the romulan/reman and tholian ones in their current stats compared to the dyson one the only real purpose to doing this rep is getting the ground gear. I just do not see it ending well at this time if a solution to the space set isn't reached soon due to the fact you already have the problems of season 7 unsolved, and then the fact a lot of people are dismissing this before its even live on the dinosaur issue and not to mention the long term neglect of the KDF so this may seem like a small issue compared to those but every little thing that *CAN* be done to make it more palatable the better.
Its okay to use wall of text
I appreciate the explanation Gorn (really, I do). While I still don't agree with you that payouts and costs are comparable to other rep categories, that ship has pretty clearly sailed.
I've quoted the selected portion above because I think it highlights the single most critical mistake you made through the course of testing S8: you didn't let us know what your target goal was.
If testers knew that you were trying to emulate the New Romulus reputation arc (which I personally think is the absolute worst one to aim for, but that's a thread for another time) we could have put feedback into that context, and helped you refine the system much more easily. Instead, we had to flail around in the dark based on vague statements ("less grindy", etc.) that were very, very subjectively interpreted.
The end result being an almost unanimous outcry when out of the blue costs increase any where from 100 to 300% for seemingly no reason at all.
Division Hispana
www.divisionhispana.com
Is this super secret "unique Reward" the costume unlock or something else entirely?
Guess I will have to get back to the battlezone and work my character up to t5.
Its hype just pure hype LOL. Basically people will bull rush trying to grind to it after comments like that. At the same time for people who actually shell out money for this game they will throw things at them to buy to see if they will shell out money and do a massive grind. Then they will find out the hype was just hype and nothing more than a reward that will feel so empty that the forum fires begin at that time. Same thing happens before every season and then you'll notice for months ques run so slowly because of the mass exodus of players.
Most likely it'll be some pinch of dilithium which will be nothing but pennies and then some new vanity item that goes into the ever problem of storage crisis with these limited time type items that are just clutter to even further the ever growing problem of not providing enough storage from the influx of items.
(And the general, "final prices subject to change" disclaimer is something most people accept as an exception to a newly discovered condition, not a statement that "we knew we were lying to you all along, so now this is how it REALLY is".)
Telling people you're going to make it faster and easier for weeks, and then saying, "Oh, we intended it to be about as fast as New Romulus the whole time..." That is... Wow. I feel very unhappy and deceived by this turn of events.
As an LTS, I'm not going anywhere*... but if this is not remedied somehow, I think I will find it very difficult to accept the statement, "Seriously, Trust us. We've got your back, things will work out to your benefit," in the future.
* - although other new games on different platforms and other entertainment options do have my notice, and may garner my attention in the short term...
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
Considering the last time they introduced a mechanic to "improve the grind" that ended up costing more than it saved, breaking even with an existing rep system is a relative win.
Yes, STOs rep systems are so ****ed up that I regard things not getting worse as a win.
You may be right. If we hadn't known about it, if they hadn't repeatedly stressed the idea that 'we want to make the grind less of a grind', while failing to mention that, "Oh yeah, by the bye, we're not going to make it as much less of a grind as Tribble is currently making it seem, just so you know...' maybe there would be less outrage.
It's like when I was young and my mother used to show me a generous slice of pie, set it down right in front of me, and say, "That slice looks reeeeeeallly good, doesn't it? MMMM...." and then just as I'm going to take a bite, she cuts it in half and say, "Ok, this half is for you. You can't have the rest, because."
That is in no way bad form, right? Rrriiiight.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
Nooot heeelpiiiing...
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
Reduced project cost was never part of the improved rep experience. It was something we were experimenting with on Tribble. Tribble is a test environment, not a live play shard. Everything is subject to change. Reading the patch notes on tribble is us telling you up front.
It would be dishonest of me to tell you these were testing numbers. It's true we halved project costs as a sort of test, but we had the intention that if these values worked out, we would ship them to live. However, we found that these changes ultimately were counter to our goal I mentioned in my last post.
Over the course of the Season 8 development I have been quite present on the forums. I post as often as I can and when I don't post it's either because I have nothing useful to say at the time, or I am too busy to post. If I posted half as much as I'd like, I wouldn't be getting anything done. Communication with our playerbase has always been something I try to improve and will continue to do so in the future. There's always room for improvement when it comes to communication both in and out of the forums.
The bottom line is that values will change on Tribble. They'll go up, they'll go down. Sometimes they'll do both. What's most important to remember is that you can change the game. The best way to do this is to provide objective and constructive feedback when changes are made. We're more likely to take constructive posts to heart that provide solutions to problems instead of just pointing out a problem.
The special "sooper seekrit" reward isn't currently available on Tribble. So, don't work your way up hoping to see the reward. I thought I would warn you about that ahead of time.
Dilithium is included, but is only part of the reward package. The reward is not a vanity item. The reward does not go into your inventory bag.
Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
Well, the fact that they DID do it the way they did is another story entirely. I'm just saying I am perfectly willing to accept the change, even though I would have preferred the original, and noted that if there was no original in the first place... :P
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
This^^^
/10 char
Hi Gorngonzolla,
I'm going to leave this battle alone, but what I have to say is extremely relevant.
I know there must be people on the system's team that think players clicking through rep systems or doing PvE content that was designed on a daily basis, every day for a month or more is the best outcome.
Please, take it under advisement or speak to your marketing folks to implement a "pay for bypass" option.
Neverwinter has this in their crafting, and if you charged dilithium for players to be able to complete rep projects right now you would clean house on the PvP players such as myself.
I don't mind some PvE, here and there. There is a limit though, and what I want to do in your game is PvP to my heart's content.
I want to play your game, I want to PvP, but I'm constantly grinding things I don't want to do more than a few times instead of actually doing what I want to do.
This breeds resentment, when what you could get instead is profit.
I promise you many PvPers will jump at the chance to pay their way through your Rep systems. Whether you want to charge dil, or sell some kind of "Rep XP boosters" or "Rep Level Skip" tokens in the C-store, PVPers WILL BUY THESE.
I have guys in my fleet who would likely not even blink at the chance to spend 5000 zen to instant complete a Rep system on day 1 (extremely unlikely, I know, but just a bit of an example).
There is money to be made here to let players skip some of the time sink/grind for a fee, while also preserving the content you guys designed.
Find the middle ground = happier players and more profit.
There was a huge amount of speculation and belief that reduced input costs were part of the improved rep experience, yet you did absolutely nothing to discourage people from that interpretation.
The bolded part is EXACTLY what you should have told your testers. When people know what you're targeting, they don't freak out when a change is made in furtherance of that targeting.
Gorn, I'm going to be incredibly direct here: we gave you exactly that kind of feedback, yet in return we were quite effectively lied to in regards to your intentions with S8 and the Dyson rep. That is likely not the interpretation you want of your actions, but that's what I feel happened. Judging by a lot of the reactions I've read, I'm not alone.
Why should I bother giving you my feedback, if I'm only going to continue to be mislead and misdirected? How is anything going to change if you guys on occasion after occasion go back on your word?
This is due to poor shield stripping mechanics with abilities that well strip shields.
They use a flat number for shield quantity removed or negatively healed so when you use a shield with a low capacity, like a regen shield, it will loose a higher % of it's shield than say a resilient shield.
Actually that is not even close but I figured out the problem was another mechanic I didn't think of.
Since most players and npcs are negated by just a minimal amount of power insulators the voth are on another level so you want to have adequate power insulators and then set rocks LOL