Sounds like we will be getting some kind of "boosts" to our alts when we reach Tier 4 Rep.
That's more than enough for me. I am a die-hard alt-itis player and I like it when they're actually different. Keeps things interesting.
That is interesting but the details will determine if it is meaningful. If it is a vast majority of the rep then good, but waiting till T4 to start alts is really not helping if the bonus is less than half. Grind is part of the equation and actual number of weeks to complete it is the other, most of us assumed the devs understood that trading less grind for a significant increase in completion duration isn't a significantly better trade.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
ETA: Gorngonzolla, do you know why the need for the double-time-gate? I mean we're already gated on how many projects we can run per day. Why is there now going to also be a time-gate on acquiring the resource (Commendation) for said project? How does adding more roadblocks improve gameplay? It doesn't add challenge or any sort of fun. Where's the advantage/need/reason?
Yeah, that's the million dollar question. With the time gate on commendations gone, pretty much all of my criticisms fly out the airlock.
And the intentions behind it are less than clear...
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Yeah, that's the million dollar question. With the time gate on commendations gone, pretty much all of my criticisms fly out the airlock.
And the intentions behind it are less than clear...
It could be a fear that if they don't gate the commendations too basically everyone will stockpile, and if your not on when the majority of people stock piling are on, you'll have trouble doing any of the group content, since everyone stockpiled.
It wouldn't impact the ability to get a commendation, since you can go to the dyson and do solo content, but that could impact several of the group play aspects. then again it could not.
I could be way off base here, but thinking about it, that's the first thing that comes to mind.
It could be a fear that if they don't gate the commendations too basically everyone will stockpile, and if your not on when the majority of people stock piling are on, you'll have trouble doing any of the group content, since everyone stockpiled.
It wouldn't impact the ability to get a commendation, since you can go to the dyson and do solo content, but that could impact several of the group play aspects. then again it could not.
I could be way off base here, but thinking about it, that's the first thing that comes to mind.
I don't think there will be a problem with that in the near term, while rep is new. It will be a problem down the road after many established players get rep. New players are going to be screwed needing to earn 500k, 600k, 700k rep xp right off the bat and we are all moved on. That will suck.
If this were to be a problem then it seems the missions are too boring to be part of the game and devs failed, not the player base. The stockgate will only serve to artificially prop up the duration of "interest" in the missions if they are lame and compelling us to drag out our rep experience that is sub-neat or will eliminate reward for heavy, frequent, replay if they are interesting. Either way lose/lose for players.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
Agreed. Remove the Commendation-gate and the new system sounds great!
Sadly the rest of the redesign basically requires the Commendation gate to work. The only viable options I can see that wouldn't require scrapping the other aspects would be to allow them to be a rare drop as well like the extra BNPs in ESTFs or allowing a special project to convert a large number of marks into a Commendation (100ish).
ETA: Gorngonzolla, do you know why the need for the double-time-gate? I mean we're already gated on how many projects we can run per day. Why is there now going to also be a time-gate on acquiring the resource (Commendation) for said project? How does adding more roadblocks improve gameplay? It doesn't add challenge or any sort of fun. Where's the advantage/need/reason?
This is for future proofing the feature guys. Should we change how commendations work, or allow you to earn more than 1 commendations a day or anything that would change the reward pacing we need to have both of these timers in place to allow us the greatest amount of flexibility for changing the system if we need to.
I honestly think the tier 4 passives are too powerful, particularly the damage one. And gorngonzolla, you mentioned that the +75 resist is not affected by the DR curve? How is this possible, when the curve represents resist number against actual damage reduction percentage? Why would this +75 not be affected when the +20 from a neutronium for example is?
This is for future proofing the feature guys. Should we change how commendations work, or allow you to earn more than 1 commendations a day or anything that would change the reward pacing we need to have both of these timers in place to allow us the greatest amount of flexibility for changing the system if we need to...
I'm sorry to seem thick/obstinate, but I'm still not seeing the advantage other than an artificial control to get players logging in and spending more time in game each day. Apparently it isn't enough to log in daily for 2min maintenance, Cryptic wants us to jump through hoops for an hour each day.
I'm sorry to seem thick/obstinate, but I'm still not seeing the advantage other than an artificial control to get players logging in and spending more time in game each day. Apparently it isn't enough to log in daily for 2min maintenance, Cryptic wants us to jump through hoops for an hour each day.
I hate to be so dubious.
Like how Omega Marks or BNP are now? And we're not restricted to 1 of those per day.
Still not seeing any positive advantage for players.
As it is now we will be able to
-Exchange a commendation for 960(?) Dil and 20 Marks. That reward for a 15 minute event is far higher than anything else aside from ESTFs which have already been stated to be giving higher rewards than desired. That is in addition to whatever rewards they give in addition to that. If we could 'farm' those then that project would need to go away or be greatly reduced.
-Gear requires half the Marks they did in the past. This is because the bulk of the content reward is tied to that commendation instead of being a chunk of marks. This entire setup would not work.
Instead it would become like Azure Nebula and all the other various parts of content where the rewards are junk when compared to ESTFs. With this system the new content can be just as rewarding as an ESTF even if only once a day.
This change will work out in the end for the better.
I'm sorry to seem thick/obstinate, but I'm still not seeing the advantage other than an artificial control to get players logging in and spending more time in game each day. Apparently it isn't enough to log in daily for 2min maintenance, Cryptic wants us to jump through hoops for an hour each day.
I hate to be so dubious.
Like how Omega Marks or BNP are now? And we're not restricted to 1 of those per day.
Still not seeing any positive advantage for players.
I am in complete agreement. 1/day is far too restrictive. Maybe a limit of 7/Week would be better if you insist on the double-gate mechanic (as in for any Thu-Thu (Or whatever cut-off day you want) you can collect up to 7. Could take a couple hours on a Saturday, or spread over a weekend, or once daily, but it cuts you off at 7.)
I am in complete agreement. 1/day is far too restrictive. Maybe a limit of 7/Week would be better if you insist on the double-gate mechanic (as in for any Thu-Thu (Or whatever cut-off day you want) day period of time you can collect up to 7. Could take a couple hours on a Saturday, or spread over a weekend, or once daily, but it cuts you off at 7.)
This would be ideal but I doubt the tech exists to allow it.
This is for future proofing the feature guys. Should we change how commendations work, or allow you to earn more than 1 commendations a day or anything that would change the reward pacing we need to have both of these timers in place to allow us the greatest amount of flexibility for changing the system if we need to.
Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
If it is the case as has been suggested that the reason for the 1 a day limit on commendations is tier 5 turn in of these commendations for dilithium then fine, keep the 1 a day limit, but give us the option to use marks instead. This is the simplest solution I can think of, you can either fill 1 large XP project for a commendation or for however many dyson marks. This way those that want to play daily and use the commendations can do so, those who want to stockpile can run the marks based projects. I don't see what the downside to this proposal would be.
This would be ideal but I doubt the tech exists to allow it.
If they can limit it to 1/per day, it should be a relatively easy thing to make it 7/week. (IE tweak a few numbers.). If it requires a code change and not a data change it should still only take a handful of minutes to code. Hardest part would be sitting in the meeting discussing the pros/cons/specifics.
Afaik, the turn in of commendations for dil and marks after you hit Tier 5 is a daily project as well, so time gated as well as the xp projects. So that part's covered as well.
You basically can't spend more than 1 commendation per day (20 hours), no matter what. So I see no hole to exploit with commendations.
And sorry Gorngonzolla, either I'm dumb or your explanation doesn't make much sense (or both). Are you saying you need to implement the timer for commendation gaining? If so, how does it explain the 1 per day limit? Is 1 per day a 'random' number you're starting with to try out the system?
If so, I recommend to make it at least the proposed '7 per week' gate if you just need to have some kind of time gate on it in place (which I find is a bad idea nonetheless).
EDIT:Forgot to adress the concerns about 'queues getting empty in the future if stocking on commendations is made possible':
I may be wrong about this as I haven't been caring about getting any sort of marks recently, but aren't the missions rewarding romarks, nukara marks and STFs still fairly alive? And their respective reps do already allow for stockpiling resources. Besides, new players come and new toons are being created (if not, the game is done and any more discussion is basically irrelevant). At least some will sure want to try the reputation system.
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
...Forgot to adress the concerns about 'queues getting empty in the future if stocking on commendations is made possible':
I may be wrong about this as I haven't been caring about getting any sort of marks recently, but aren't the missions rewarding romarks, nukara marks and STFs still fairly alive? And their respective reps do already allow for stockpiling resources.
If the content is fun/engaging/exciting/what people want to spend their time on then there should be no concern about queues being empty.
I honestly think the tier 4 passives are too powerful, particularly the damage one. And gorngonzolla, you mentioned that the +75 resist is not affected by the DR curve? How is this possible, when the curve represents resist number against actual damage reduction percentage? Why would this +75 not be affected when the +20 from a neutronium for example is?
Sorry, I think I might have confused some folks when I mentioned that the resistances are not affected by the damage resistance curve. That's partially true, let me explain:
1) The +5 All Damage bonus Resistance rating found in Tier 1 and 2 passives ignores the diminishing return curves and will give you a more substantial boost to your damage resistance than +5 Damage Resistance rating would normally get you.
2) 1 Damage Resistance rating does not equal 1% Damage Resistance.
3) The Damage Resistance bonuses granting from the Tier 3 and 4 powers *IS* affected by diminishing returns and it only reaches this very high value when you're critically low on health. It's also important to note that your damage resistance hard caps at 75%.
4) We're actually changing the passives that boost your damage based on your target's health. There was a number of problems in its initial implementation. This change should be hitting Tribble soon.
That's nice and all Gorgonzolla, and that makes a lot more sense, thank you for it. But...
Not replying to all our concerns about the Commendations now is kinda worrying. I can understand if you are discussing it internally and don't have anything concrete atm or something, but saying nothing worries me even more.
I won't say anything more, since I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but it is very worrying.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
Dilithium accumulation really shouldn't be a deciding factor. You can already farm quite a bit of ore in a day, but you can still only refine 8k. Is the commendation used for anything else besides the 2500 Rep-gain project and the Dilithium exchange project? What is the duration/cool-down on the dilithium project? Is it 15s like the BNP project, or is it 20h? If its 15s, then doing doing the aforementioned 7/wk change doesn't change how much Dilithium/Wk someone is making from 1/day. It it is 20 hours, then again we run the argument of why there needs to be a time gate on both getting the mark and running the project. Surely the ones on the project will give enough control over things.
I'll be honest here. I don't have the time or inclination to log in for an hour or more every single day. I could, but I have other things I like to do too. If it goes live like it is presently implemented this then I won't see T5 for 4-5 months (Only doing projects on weekend days). I'm growing less and less excited about S8.
Adding the Voth: Great!
Extrapolating on their culture to flesh them out: Outstanding!.
Adding T(P?)-Rex and the raptors: I... uh... I'll give it a shot...
Another new reputation to take away my free time: meh.
More strict rules about gathering items needed for that reputation: even more meh.
How to get me more interested: STORY! Bi-weekly/monthly FEs. They don't even have to have gaudy/gimmicky rewards. More Roddenberry/Braga/Moore flavored Trek, less JJ Generic Space Adventure (That is character driven/story driven not lens flares). Advance the story more than just daily missions in an adventure zone.
Edit: I don't mean to imply that I think the STO's art isn't great. I'm just passionate about "Star Trek." I think that the Avenger is a magnificently designed ship, as are (nearly) all of the player ships. New Romulus is one of the most gorgeous ground zones I've seen in an MMO. I just think that we could do with a faster pace of story telling.
This is for future proofing the feature guys. Should we change how commendations work, or allow you to earn more than 1 commendations a day or anything that would change the reward pacing we need to have both of these timers in place to allow us the greatest amount of flexibility for changing the system if we need to.
Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
Could you provide the ideas you guys have so we can bracket in the discussion? We have put a lot of things out there and the only for sure shoot down was rep will not be account bound. No other feedback on what was appropriate. I feel that you could focus us toward the suggestions thus far that are appropriate and those that are not.
You are concerned about your flexibility in changing the system while our flexibility to meet the rep system as it is presently known seems to be challenged I would ask that rep passives and traits not be included in pvp play. The AI doesn't care if it is facing a T5 or a T0 but a new player in a match does. I am really concerned this will hurt new players getting into pvp and also limit our flexibility to create new characters as new races or game play systems are released.
Without any information on what you guys are talking about for rep alt help I will assume it is a % reduction in cost for rep projects, free xp, or a larger rep xp per project. But this bonus will be applied once the prime is done, or near done with a rep program. So the alt is standing by, not able to stockpile material, and can only use the help in rep once the prime character meets the standard. Then alts start, it is weeks to maybe 2 months after rep release, takes a few weeks for them to max rep and only a couple months from new rep release and starting this process again. So there is very little time the alt is playable all in the name of no account bound rep, and then the alt isn't probably going to get much play. Really if it turns out like that it just isn't solving the problem, makes it less of a problem, but still limits alt play.
Really my biggest complaint is that we have to grind pve to play pvp competitively. I expect the rep system will get a major rework once we are at 8-10 rep systems anyways as any likely account based help it will be prohibitive to have new factions or species sell well. I just don't want the pvp play to stagnate that long. I understand there is nothing you guys can release for pvp because of competing priorities, but don't let those priorities make pvp worse.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
I doubt its the deciding factor, I suspect its more that players arent logging in anymore for extended periods of time, I know I havent logged in for about a month so they are trying to handcuff us to the game with this.
Problem is the following ... they cant handcuff us and force us to waste hours upon hours of grindhell because they want to have certain metrics, in the end its our decision on if we want to do it or not and just because we run CE does not mean we are going to run this, to start CE is about 14 days and so pays 3571 dilithium per day, this will be 50 DAYS, it would have to pay 178550 at the end to even be the exact same pay as CE, now since are crunching numbers T5 rep pays 32000 (Omega pays less and Tholian only pays because we stop doing it when we found out there wasnt a reward at the end), now this means 640 per day assuming 2000 XP projects or 800 per day at 2500, it about FOUR TIMES LESS that CE event pays (and CE can be done in less that 14 days) and its LESS that the daily FA payout (1125 if not mistaken).
The very fact they had to bribe players to do Tholian Rep and most people seem to have not even bothered with the 32k Dilithium carrot at the end appears to be something they "noted" but taken the wrong conclusions or rather, this is a comedy of misunderstandings that given birth to this and I doubt any feedback is ever considered when its not in support of a already reached conclusion.
I think lots of people have done the rep and really complaining is just now starting. It will maybe get worse, but really just 3 reps, with Omega being a large part done for many of us, isn't that bad. But after over a year of rep work i want a few months break.
MMO.com has an interesting article on rep systems being unliked universally and what ever game finds a work around for this will be a trend setter.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
...Exchange a commendation for 960(?) Dil and 20 Marks... If we could 'farm' those then that project would need to go away or be greatly reduced.
I can get that much Dil Ore running an ESTF, then at least 500 more Dil Ore by turning in that ESTF's marks. The more ESTFs I run, I can turn in even more marks and BNPs to get tons of Dil Ore.
Players getting Dill Ore is not a concern for Cryptic!
There are plenty of ways to get Dil Ore. Processing Dilithium Ore into usable Refined Dilithium is already gated at 8k/day (9k if you're a long enough Vet w/proper mine access).
Having Commendation Projects isn't much different than BNP projects or Commendation DOff missions. They don't care how much Ore we've got piled up (or they shouldn't anyway). And even if that was an argument, there are already gates on Project times, they can adjust that time gate, they don't need to add one on resource gathering!
...This change will work out in the end for the better.
I don't see how.
The big problem here is that Cryptic wants to force players to log in and play for ~1hr every day. That's going to be impossible for many players, myself included. I might be able to do that on one of my characters, most days, but even then, I'm going to "fall behind" because there will be days I can't or simple don't want to.
I see this as a MAJOR NEGATIVE to the new S8 Rep System.
As it is now, it takes minimum 36 days to complete a Rep, due to project time-gating alone (which I already hate). That requires daily maintenance logins of at least a couple minutes to kick off reps, and regular game-play to acquire resources. The downside is maintenance can't always be met, and each missed day pushes the completion time back. I think most Reps have taken me ~40-50 days to finish. The upside is the resource accrual is at the player's leisure.
This new system is going to push the process out longer, taking even more real time to complete, because of the resource lock.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
I doubt its the deciding factor, I suspect its more that players arent logging in anymore for extended periods of time, I know I havent logged in for about a month so they are trying to handcuff us to the game with this.
In the last two months I have severely reduced the amount of time I spend in the game. Why? Basically I'm getting burned out on Rep and Dilithium grinds. I remember someone saying at one point that dilithium would be a reward for "playing the game." I took that to mean that everything would reward dilithium. I was more than a little disappointed when that didn't happen. Why? Because it narrows the amount of content that I play, drastically. I pick the same foundry spot lights every time I play, I do a few ESTFs, I might hit an exploration cluster, and I do some dailies. That takes 2 hours to get 8k dilithium and then I'm too tired to go back and do something "different for a change," especially if I'm trying to do the same thing on an alt. I would go back and replay the episodes more often if it rewarded me things other than green items I have no use for other than selling for EC. I would play more alts more often because I can kill 2 birds with one stone: Doing something different and still getting my dilithium/rep/etc. I would perhaps even make it back to Gamma Orionis (Haven't been there on my main for 6 months, probably, ever since they removed the double-dip reward from B'Tran exploration).
Am I just spinning my wheels here, preaching to the choir? Am I even making sense?
Alright, I said I would pop in and let you know when I had something I can share with you. Right now the reputation system successfully supports players who have time to complete ~16 minutes worth of content* every day. It is a harder on players who cannot commit to daily play, and would rather stock pile resources and spend them over the week. I just submitted a new project that should hit Tribble tomorrow that aims at alleviating this concern:
*16 minutes based on Storming the Spire completion time
Here are the patch notes associated with the checkin:
Dyson Joint Command Reputation
-Added a new project "Deliver Reports of Joint Command Victories". This project requires 350 Dyson Sphere Marks and will output 5 Dyson Joint Command Commendations. This Upgrade project is available at Tier 0, becomes unavailable at Tier 5 and has a 20 hour duration. NOTE: This project is intended to support players who tend to play in long, but in infrequent play sessions, allowing players to stockpile commendations for the rest of the week when they cannot actively play.
-Reduced the Dyson Sphere Mark cost on all Tier Upgrade projects to 5 marks.
As I mention in the patch notes, this upgrade project isn't designed for players who play daily. It is intended to allow players, who play in long but less frequent play sessions, to partially circumvent the ability to earn 1 Commendation a day (and thus 2500 rep XP a day).
I've heard a large number of you asking why have Commendations at all? And why have two limits on both when they can be earned, and when they can be spent? Commendations exist to allow players to log-in and complete a piece of content of their choice, whether it be a quick Spire run or a solo run through the Space Adventure Zone, there is a piece of content that will award a Commendation in a short amount of time, well under an hour and in many cases around 15 minutes.
I know it's hard to envision this short amount of time to earn a Commendation, as you are only playing one piece of content on Tribble and are limited to trying to queue on an unpopulated test server. But, players should have the ability to earn a Commendation in well under an hour.
Now, to address the limits on earning and spending Commendations. There are two reasons:
1) Future Proofing: As developers we try to plan ahead. We can't always predict how players will react to certain features, so we give ourselves wiggle room. What I mean by this is we want to make sure there are no loop holes that will prevent players from progressing faster than we intended. And if we want to change the system down the line, we can.
2) Probably the biggest reason for Commendations, and daily content in general is to encourage players to log-in every day. This means more people to do queued events with, more people in the Ground Battle Zone (you'll see why this is important soon!), more people to group with and a more active living world.
Our goal here is to encourage daily active play. We also realize that not everyone can log-in every day, even for 15 minutes. I certainly fall into that category most weeks. The project mentioned in the patch notes intends to address this. Sorry for the long post!
-Added a new project "Deliver Reports of Joint Command Victories". This project requires 350 Dyson Sphere Marks and will output 5 Dyson Joint Command Commendations. This Upgrade project is available at Tier 0, becomes unavailable at Tier 5 and has a 20 hour duration. NOTE: This project is intended to support players who tend to play in long, but in infrequent play sessions, allowing players to stockpile commendations for the rest of the week when they cannot actively play.
-Reduced the Dyson Sphere Mark cost on all Tier Upgrade projects to 5 marks.
...Sorry for the long post!
Let me be among the first to say thanks for listening and responding! And don't worry about long posts. It's probably better in cases like this to spell it all out.
Comments
That is interesting but the details will determine if it is meaningful. If it is a vast majority of the rep then good, but waiting till T4 to start alts is really not helping if the bonus is less than half. Grind is part of the equation and actual number of weeks to complete it is the other, most of us assumed the devs understood that trading less grind for a significant increase in completion duration isn't a significantly better trade.
Yeah, that's the million dollar question. With the time gate on commendations gone, pretty much all of my criticisms fly out the airlock.
And the intentions behind it are less than clear...
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
It could be a fear that if they don't gate the commendations too basically everyone will stockpile, and if your not on when the majority of people stock piling are on, you'll have trouble doing any of the group content, since everyone stockpiled.
It wouldn't impact the ability to get a commendation, since you can go to the dyson and do solo content, but that could impact several of the group play aspects. then again it could not.
I could be way off base here, but thinking about it, that's the first thing that comes to mind.
I don't think there will be a problem with that in the near term, while rep is new. It will be a problem down the road after many established players get rep. New players are going to be screwed needing to earn 500k, 600k, 700k rep xp right off the bat and we are all moved on. That will suck.
If this were to be a problem then it seems the missions are too boring to be part of the game and devs failed, not the player base. The stockgate will only serve to artificially prop up the duration of "interest" in the missions if they are lame and compelling us to drag out our rep experience that is sub-neat or will eliminate reward for heavy, frequent, replay if they are interesting. Either way lose/lose for players.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Sadly the rest of the redesign basically requires the Commendation gate to work. The only viable options I can see that wouldn't require scrapping the other aspects would be to allow them to be a rare drop as well like the extra BNPs in ESTFs or allowing a special project to convert a large number of marks into a Commendation (100ish).
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
This is for future proofing the feature guys. Should we change how commendations work, or allow you to earn more than 1 commendations a day or anything that would change the reward pacing we need to have both of these timers in place to allow us the greatest amount of flexibility for changing the system if we need to.
Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
Because the commendation is not just for the xp projects. It is also the primary reward mechanic even after you hit tier 5 reputation.
I hate to be so dubious.
Like how Omega Marks or BNP are now? And we're not restricted to 1 of those per day.
Still not seeing any positive advantage for players.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
As it is now we will be able to
-Exchange a commendation for 960(?) Dil and 20 Marks. That reward for a 15 minute event is far higher than anything else aside from ESTFs which have already been stated to be giving higher rewards than desired. That is in addition to whatever rewards they give in addition to that. If we could 'farm' those then that project would need to go away or be greatly reduced.
-Gear requires half the Marks they did in the past. This is because the bulk of the content reward is tied to that commendation instead of being a chunk of marks. This entire setup would not work.
Instead it would become like Azure Nebula and all the other various parts of content where the rewards are junk when compared to ESTFs. With this system the new content can be just as rewarding as an ESTF even if only once a day.
This change will work out in the end for the better.
I am in complete agreement. 1/day is far too restrictive. Maybe a limit of 7/Week would be better if you insist on the double-gate mechanic (as in for any Thu-Thu (Or whatever cut-off day you want) you can collect up to 7. Could take a couple hours on a Saturday, or spread over a weekend, or once daily, but it cuts you off at 7.)
This would be ideal but I doubt the tech exists to allow it.
If it is the case as has been suggested that the reason for the 1 a day limit on commendations is tier 5 turn in of these commendations for dilithium then fine, keep the 1 a day limit, but give us the option to use marks instead. This is the simplest solution I can think of, you can either fill 1 large XP project for a commendation or for however many dyson marks. This way those that want to play daily and use the commendations can do so, those who want to stockpile can run the marks based projects. I don't see what the downside to this proposal would be.
If they can limit it to 1/per day, it should be a relatively easy thing to make it 7/week. (IE tweak a few numbers.). If it requires a code change and not a data change it should still only take a handful of minutes to code. Hardest part would be sitting in the meeting discussing the pros/cons/specifics.
You basically can't spend more than 1 commendation per day (20 hours), no matter what. So I see no hole to exploit with commendations.
And sorry Gorngonzolla, either I'm dumb or your explanation doesn't make much sense (or both). Are you saying you need to implement the timer for commendation gaining? If so, how does it explain the 1 per day limit? Is 1 per day a 'random' number you're starting with to try out the system?
If so, I recommend to make it at least the proposed '7 per week' gate if you just need to have some kind of time gate on it in place (which I find is a bad idea nonetheless).
EDIT: Forgot to adress the concerns about 'queues getting empty in the future if stocking on commendations is made possible':
I may be wrong about this as I haven't been caring about getting any sort of marks recently, but aren't the missions rewarding romarks, nukara marks and STFs still fairly alive? And their respective reps do already allow for stockpiling resources. Besides, new players come and new toons are being created (if not, the game is done and any more discussion is basically irrelevant). At least some will sure want to try the reputation system.
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
If the content is fun/engaging/exciting/what people want to spend their time on then there should be no concern about queues being empty.
the second part would be to add an 800 rep mission on a cd of 20 hours as well.
for the rewards. I'd say keep it as is. 960 and 20 marks on a 15 minute mission seems fair to me
Sorry, I think I might have confused some folks when I mentioned that the resistances are not affected by the damage resistance curve. That's partially true, let me explain:
1) The +5 All Damage bonus Resistance rating found in Tier 1 and 2 passives ignores the diminishing return curves and will give you a more substantial boost to your damage resistance than +5 Damage Resistance rating would normally get you.
2) 1 Damage Resistance rating does not equal 1% Damage Resistance.
3) The Damage Resistance bonuses granting from the Tier 3 and 4 powers *IS* affected by diminishing returns and it only reaches this very high value when you're critically low on health. It's also important to note that your damage resistance hard caps at 75%.
4) We're actually changing the passives that boost your damage based on your target's health. There was a number of problems in its initial implementation. This change should be hitting Tribble soon.
I hope that clears things up a bit.
Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
Not replying to all our concerns about the Commendations now is kinda worrying. I can understand if you are discussing it internally and don't have anything concrete atm or something, but saying nothing worries me even more.
I won't say anything more, since I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but it is very worrying.
I'll be honest here. I don't have the time or inclination to log in for an hour or more every single day. I could, but I have other things I like to do too. If it goes live like it is presently implemented this then I won't see T5 for 4-5 months (Only doing projects on weekend days). I'm growing less and less excited about S8.
Adding the Voth: Great!
Extrapolating on their culture to flesh them out: Outstanding!.
Adding T(P?)-Rex and the raptors: I... uh... I'll give it a shot...
Another new reputation to take away my free time: meh.
More strict rules about gathering items needed for that reputation: even more meh.
How to get me more interested: STORY! Bi-weekly/monthly FEs. They don't even have to have gaudy/gimmicky rewards. More Roddenberry/Braga/Moore flavored Trek, less JJ Generic Space Adventure (That is character driven/story driven not lens flares). Advance the story more than just daily missions in an adventure zone.
Edit: I don't mean to imply that I think the STO's art isn't great. I'm just passionate about "Star Trek." I think that the Avenger is a magnificently designed ship, as are (nearly) all of the player ships. New Romulus is one of the most gorgeous ground zones I've seen in an MMO. I just think that we could do with a faster pace of story telling.
Could you provide the ideas you guys have so we can bracket in the discussion? We have put a lot of things out there and the only for sure shoot down was rep will not be account bound. No other feedback on what was appropriate. I feel that you could focus us toward the suggestions thus far that are appropriate and those that are not.
You are concerned about your flexibility in changing the system while our flexibility to meet the rep system as it is presently known seems to be challenged I would ask that rep passives and traits not be included in pvp play. The AI doesn't care if it is facing a T5 or a T0 but a new player in a match does. I am really concerned this will hurt new players getting into pvp and also limit our flexibility to create new characters as new races or game play systems are released.
Without any information on what you guys are talking about for rep alt help I will assume it is a % reduction in cost for rep projects, free xp, or a larger rep xp per project. But this bonus will be applied once the prime is done, or near done with a rep program. So the alt is standing by, not able to stockpile material, and can only use the help in rep once the prime character meets the standard. Then alts start, it is weeks to maybe 2 months after rep release, takes a few weeks for them to max rep and only a couple months from new rep release and starting this process again. So there is very little time the alt is playable all in the name of no account bound rep, and then the alt isn't probably going to get much play. Really if it turns out like that it just isn't solving the problem, makes it less of a problem, but still limits alt play.
Really my biggest complaint is that we have to grind pve to play pvp competitively. I expect the rep system will get a major rework once we are at 8-10 rep systems anyways as any likely account based help it will be prohibitive to have new factions or species sell well. I just don't want the pvp play to stagnate that long. I understand there is nothing you guys can release for pvp because of competing priorities, but don't let those priorities make pvp worse.
I think lots of people have done the rep and really complaining is just now starting. It will maybe get worse, but really just 3 reps, with Omega being a large part done for many of us, isn't that bad. But after over a year of rep work i want a few months break.
MMO.com has an interesting article on rep systems being unliked universally and what ever game finds a work around for this will be a trend setter.
Players getting Dill Ore is not a concern for Cryptic!
There are plenty of ways to get Dil Ore. Processing Dilithium Ore into usable Refined Dilithium is already gated at 8k/day (9k if you're a long enough Vet w/proper mine access).
Having Commendation Projects isn't much different than BNP projects or Commendation DOff missions. They don't care how much Ore we've got piled up (or they shouldn't anyway). And even if that was an argument, there are already gates on Project times, they can adjust that time gate, they don't need to add one on resource gathering!
I don't see how.
The big problem here is that Cryptic wants to force players to log in and play for ~1hr every day. That's going to be impossible for many players, myself included. I might be able to do that on one of my characters, most days, but even then, I'm going to "fall behind" because there will be days I can't or simple don't want to.
I see this as a MAJOR NEGATIVE to the new S8 Rep System.
As it is now, it takes minimum 36 days to complete a Rep, due to project time-gating alone (which I already hate). That requires daily maintenance logins of at least a couple minutes to kick off reps, and regular game-play to acquire resources. The downside is maintenance can't always be met, and each missed day pushes the completion time back. I think most Reps have taken me ~40-50 days to finish. The upside is the resource accrual is at the player's leisure.
This new system is going to push the process out longer, taking even more real time to complete, because of the resource lock.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
In the last two months I have severely reduced the amount of time I spend in the game. Why? Basically I'm getting burned out on Rep and Dilithium grinds. I remember someone saying at one point that dilithium would be a reward for "playing the game." I took that to mean that everything would reward dilithium. I was more than a little disappointed when that didn't happen. Why? Because it narrows the amount of content that I play, drastically. I pick the same foundry spot lights every time I play, I do a few ESTFs, I might hit an exploration cluster, and I do some dailies. That takes 2 hours to get 8k dilithium and then I'm too tired to go back and do something "different for a change," especially if I'm trying to do the same thing on an alt. I would go back and replay the episodes more often if it rewarded me things other than green items I have no use for other than selling for EC. I would play more alts more often because I can kill 2 birds with one stone: Doing something different and still getting my dilithium/rep/etc. I would perhaps even make it back to Gamma Orionis (Haven't been there on my main for 6 months, probably, ever since they removed the double-dip reward from B'Tran exploration).
Am I just spinning my wheels here, preaching to the choir? Am I even making sense?
*16 minutes based on Storming the Spire completion time
Here are the patch notes associated with the checkin:
Dyson Joint Command Reputation
-Added a new project "Deliver Reports of Joint Command Victories". This project requires 350 Dyson Sphere Marks and will output 5 Dyson Joint Command Commendations. This Upgrade project is available at Tier 0, becomes unavailable at Tier 5 and has a 20 hour duration. NOTE: This project is intended to support players who tend to play in long, but in infrequent play sessions, allowing players to stockpile commendations for the rest of the week when they cannot actively play.
-Reduced the Dyson Sphere Mark cost on all Tier Upgrade projects to 5 marks.
As I mention in the patch notes, this upgrade project isn't designed for players who play daily. It is intended to allow players, who play in long but less frequent play sessions, to partially circumvent the ability to earn 1 Commendation a day (and thus 2500 rep XP a day).
I've heard a large number of you asking why have Commendations at all? And why have two limits on both when they can be earned, and when they can be spent? Commendations exist to allow players to log-in and complete a piece of content of their choice, whether it be a quick Spire run or a solo run through the Space Adventure Zone, there is a piece of content that will award a Commendation in a short amount of time, well under an hour and in many cases around 15 minutes.
I know it's hard to envision this short amount of time to earn a Commendation, as you are only playing one piece of content on Tribble and are limited to trying to queue on an unpopulated test server. But, players should have the ability to earn a Commendation in well under an hour.
Now, to address the limits on earning and spending Commendations. There are two reasons:
1) Future Proofing: As developers we try to plan ahead. We can't always predict how players will react to certain features, so we give ourselves wiggle room. What I mean by this is we want to make sure there are no loop holes that will prevent players from progressing faster than we intended. And if we want to change the system down the line, we can.
2) Probably the biggest reason for Commendations, and daily content in general is to encourage players to log-in every day. This means more people to do queued events with, more people in the Ground Battle Zone (you'll see why this is important soon!), more people to group with and a more active living world.
Our goal here is to encourage daily active play. We also realize that not everyone can log-in every day, even for 15 minutes. I certainly fall into that category most weeks. The project mentioned in the patch notes intends to address this. Sorry for the long post!
Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
Let me be among the first to say thanks for listening and responding! And don't worry about long posts. It's probably better in cases like this to spell it all out.