I'll probably be able to play every day, but my playtime may be drastically reduced in the near future, so I'll probably try to run this new project at least once to build up a buffer. It doesn't feel like a real solution, though.
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
Being a silver player I am not egligible to be testing but I would like to comment on this (well, more ask a lot of annoying questions).
It is interesting to note that the increased resistance rating is not egligible to diminishing returns. But (and excuse me for my bad understanding of the system) could they still have a negative effect on your resistances that do have deminishing returns?
How much % does a damage resitance rating of 1 give us?
Will this vital information be available for us on the live server once the rep system goes up there allowing us to make an informed dicision?
Why do you think that people would go for more resistance instead of being able to pour out more damage? As far as I am aware the common belief is "MOAR DAMAGE" and considering how secondary/additional objectives/more rewards are most of the time dependant on timers further reinforcing that sentiment.
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:
Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
But how is this system supposed to help those with multiple characters on an account?
This supposed to be the major selling point of this new reputation system that it would help those with multiple characters, but from what I've seen, there is no change at all from the Romulan and Nukara reputation system. From what you just posted, we have to grind away 16 minutes per character to work on our reputation. And that's exactly why people hate the Reputation system, because they can't afford to work on reputation for every single character. Especially when you have to factor in the other grinds for Fleet Marks, Dilithium, and other reputation marks players yet to complete.
Then factor in that this will be going on at the same time as the Winter Event, so this is going to cause severe burnout that will definitely cause people to leave. Remember people's comments about the Nukara reputation, and people had free time due to summer vacation.
This wasn't designed to help people with tons of alts, this was designed to help weekend warriors.... He CLEARLY even says that. Jesus christ almighty, god let it rain brainpower.
I cannot believe how accomodating and communicative gorgon was with this whole thing so far, and how ungrateful, whining and plain too dumb to get it a part of the community is. This crappy community doesn't deserve a dev like gorgonzolla. If I was Cryptic I'd go back to just delivering patches with no comments and no community input during the development. You'd get the same whiners but at least you didn't get to feel like you get your head bitten off everytime you offer a helping hand.
This wasn't designed to help people with tons of alts, this was designed to help weekend warriors.... He CLEARLY even says that. Jesus christ almighty, god let it rain brainpower.
I cannot believe how accomodating and communicative gorgon was with this whole thing so far, and how ungrateful, whining and plain too dumb to get it a part of the community is. This crappy community doesn't deserve a dev like gorgonzolla. If I was Cryptic I'd go back to just delivering patches with no comments and no community input during the development. You'd get the same whiners but at least you didn't get to feel like you get your head bitten off everytime you offer a helping hand.
Not really. If anything this has been kept very civil between Gorgonzolla and us. It's probably the main reason he's kept on talking at all because we are taking the time now to voice our concerns long before it hits Holodeck. There hasn't really been much 'hell raising' so to speak from many folks in this section of the forum about it. We've brought up our concerns, and are doing our best to voice them; while Gorgonzolla is showing respect in return and continuing to talk with us on it.
You are right, that change IS for 'weekend warrior' type players. Which isn't an issue. What I mean is that will be nice for those players, and nobody is questioning that, I'm glad they added it in for folks.
What we're still concerned about is that it isn't really changing the whole 'one commendation a day' thing that is another time gate when there are already time gates in place for the stuff it can be used for. Sure it isn't needed for gear, but there are plenty who just want to gather a bunch without going the above route on their own time, so they can focus on other things. They might still play the game every day, BUT they will have taken care of their grind beforehand. I know without a doubt that is what I do already. I grind a bunch, then do other stuff, just filling projects each day.
And again, you are right in that this change isn't about people with alts. But it doesn't encourage people to have alts either. Think about if you were a brand new player, a fresh level 50 right from the get-go. And you grinded out the three current reps. That's a TON of stuff already. If I was just starting, I dunno what I'd do about it. I'd see such a huge wall of grind would burn me out.
Sure it'd all be new stuff for me. Like running around on New Romulus, finally taking the fight to the Borg, etc. But if I finished all that and realized there was nothing else to do *putting aside fleet stuff and PvP for the moment*, I doubt I'd wanna start a toon from scratch and do it again, unless it was to enjoy the other two factions unique story missions and ships, or play with a different captain type to see how they work compared to the other two as well.
The game feels very bipolar sometimes in that so much they will do for you as an account-based thing, and yet so much other stuff is character-based. They don't mind selling ships to every one on an account, but rep? Nope, sorry, gotta grind that out across each toon.
That is what worries me about this 'alt help' that has been chatted about. I'm still waiting to see exactly what it is, and test it before I develop any opinions on it, but I'm worried it won't make much of a difference.
I don't think the game is focused too much around people with a ton of alts. I think it's more around having one toon in each faction: One Fed, one KDF, one Rom. Because probably to them, that one account would then be enjoying 100% of the game's content, and getting the entire story of the game so far from all 3 POVs. (Purely guessing on that, but that is how it feels to me) Even so, it isn't fun to grind rep on alts.
I'm not saying there's a perfect solution. There never is. I mean, to expect that is just unrealistic. We're just trying to hope and work with the devs to get the most realistic solution possible.
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.
This wasn't designed to help people with tons of alts, this was designed to help weekend warriors.... He CLEARLY even says that. Jesus christ almighty, god let it rain brainpower.
I cannot believe how accomodating and communicative gorgon was with this whole thing so far, and how ungrateful, whining and plain too dumb to get it a part of the community is. This crappy community doesn't deserve a dev like gorgonzolla. If I was Cryptic I'd go back to just delivering patches with no comments and no community input during the development. You'd get the same whiners but at least you didn't get to feel like you get your head bitten off everytime you offer a helping hand.
There has been a mix of alt and commendation stockpile discussion in the very recent history of this thread. I think the guy you were speaking of was expecting both to be resolved in the same post.
Most of the "whining" came from very unrealistic expectation of the rep system and our ability to submit to a regular "attendence mission" on top of logging in on all characters to start 20 hour missions.
Really there is a lot of frustration to the rep system just being a brainless addon to each season that will snowball into this insurmountable perpetual grind just to get 100k reputation every 6 months and completely gut several aspects of the game because of a desire to obtain top level gear and abilities for whatever our game play style is.
Really I would prefer not to have any more for a year or so to get back to other aspects of the game. Partly want to take a petition to stop reputation for a year.
Another way to look at this is I am reminded what my buddy said when i made NCO and was dealing with upset troops myself for the first time. If they are telling you how unhappy they are, but being respectful, then its good. Do your best to take care of them, but don't worry till they get real quiet.
You can't make people completely happy when they care about something, as we do STO, but you do your best to improve it and definitely don't make it worse. There are lots of people that just left and will never post on the forums, they don't care enough, just quit. Even in some ways the "i quit" forum posts are just pleas for change based out of caring for the game, just not mature pleas.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
First: Thanks Gorngonzolla, that project definitely helps. It now is possible to stocpile. A priori, I'm now fine with this reputation.
Second: What is now debatable is the price of the project. 70 marks for a commendation. But since I have no clue how many marks we can get for the new missions, I sadly lack arguments here.
There's also an inconvenience remaining in the form of (so far) invisible timer on getting the commendations and the whole convoluted system of time gates. But that's not really an issue for me, just a bit of feedback for you, Gorngonzolla. It may have gotten a bit too complicated.
Third: I'm still curious about the 'alt-problem' solution. What you've told us this far wasn't it right?
Fourth: Can we silvers finally get to test some of that stuff on Tribble now? We'll behave.
And as an aside: I kinda agree with mimey that your current incentive to play daily (the commendation) feels more like forcing us to play daily. Which, as you can imagine, will have quite the opposite effect. That's why having the possibility to stockpile is welcome even if I actually had the time to play daily.
Why does it feel like forcing us to play? Because if we don't, we fall behind, we basically don't move with the reputation. But the goal is to have the rep finished as soon as possible for freeing our hands and play how we want and what we want.
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.
Gorngonzolla, thank you very much for listening and responding. It is really appreciated.
Secondly, thank you for the new project allowing for stockpiling! It at first seemed like an dd, roundabout way of fixing the problem, but as long as 350 marks in this Rep are achievable in one day, I have absolutely no problem with this Rep so far.
I look forward to finding out what the alt-balancing will be.:)
Fourth: Can we silvers finally get to test some of that stuff on Tribble now? We'll behave.
I really like the ability to grind the rep faster than I could before ,if I participate. I also like the fact that this also will contribute to more of a steady supply of players in the cues. Just view it as the event grinds {every day to get the perks},there is just no time limit. Yes this will make grinding the rep on alts more of a time investment than before, {to go as fast as the other rep systems}, for those with limited time for the game. For a player like me I am excited because now I don't have to wait for the cool downs to roll over so my rep will level faster ! Besides I would like to point out that tier 5 Rep and all the goodies are supposed to be the end all be all gear the stuff that makes other players jealous if you have it and they don't . The over all sense of entitlement around here makes me sick if you want the best gear, WORK for it! Your not entitled to it just because you play this game for an hour a day or whatever. You can still enjoy this game and be competitive without the tier five rep gear.If you PVP and want to whine that "BOO HOO" the other player has a bunch of rep passives "BOO HOO" then all I have to say is "THATS RIGHT! I worked for it if you want that advantage you put in the time and go work for it "! Its not a pay to win aspect of this game it is a PLAY to win aspect. It makes me LAUGH when peoples sense of self worth is so hurt when they go "POP"!As if no one could possibly be better than them at anything. LOL So all in all I really like the new aspects of this rep system. Also I got 30 some marks for the ELITE STS mission and the 200 rep credit project only costs 10 marks. So hit it on the marks event and you have all the marks you need to match the amount of rep credit as the other reputations.That means 1 mission run on the marks event and you have the same as the other rep systems ,thats pretty good
I really like the ability to grind the rep faster than I could before ,if I participate. I also like the fact that this also will contribute to more of a steady supply of players in the cues. Just view it as the event grinds {every day to get the perks},there is just no time limit. Yes this will make grinding the rep on alts more of a time investment than before, {to go as fast as the other rep systems}, for those with limited time for the game. For a player like me I am excited because now I don't have to wait for the cool downs to roll over so my rep will level faster ! Besides I would like to point out that tier 5 Rep and all the goodies are supposed to be the end all be all gear the stuff that makes other players jealous if you have it and they don't . The over all sense of entitlement around here makes me sick if you want the best gear, WORK for it! Your not entitled to it just because you play this game for an hour a day or whatever. You can still enjoy this game and be competitive without the tier five rep gear.If you PVP and want to whine that "BOO HOO" the other player has a bunch of rep passives "BOO HOO" then all I have to say is "THATS RIGHT! I worked for it if you want that advantage you put in the time and go work for it "! Its not a pay to win aspect of this game it is a PLAY to win aspect. It makes me LAUGH when peoples sense of self worth is so hurt when they go "POP"!As if no one could possibly be better than them at anything. LOL So all in all I really like the new aspects of this rep system. Also I got 30 some marks for the ELITE STS mission and the 200 rep credit project only costs 10 marks. So hit it on the marks event and you have all the marks you need to match the amount of rep credit as the other reputations.
The "deal with it" works in life, this is a game though. I have no problem working for it, i just don't have the time and it is not a boohoo argument. This is a sustainability issue, if reps pile up and continue it will hurt pvp involvement. I have to work, i have to get the kids to school, i have to maintain a house, I deal with that. If this game is too much of a hassle I will leave. I don't need it to be a life suck.
I am not that great at pvp, probably 40th percentile is kind, but the rep system makes it harder. I just want to have fun, but dying without a chance is not fun. And my concerns are playing this forward into the future. with only 3-4 reps this is not really an issue. At the current interval though there will be 2 reps per year and in a couple years there could be a dozen more passives. The difference from none to all those passives I would expect to be high, unless they do like the trait system and you can only have so many active at a time.
Really if the passives were not applied to pvp then that would solve a lot of problems, specifically forcing people that enjoy pvp near exclusively to play pve. Why not offer the same rewards for completing pvp missions or number of missions? I don't have an entitlement issue it is a REALITY issue. I don't want the passives in pvp unless pvp can be used to earn them.
EIther way "deal with it" mentality in devs and the acceptance of it in community will decrease community interest among pockets, and is contrary to inclusiveness. If you enjoy pvp then consider the deal with it to the expected aspect of no more pvp commjunity growth as new players can't break into the mode and old players leave for other things. A game's focus is enjoyment, which is contrary to the 'deal with it' spirit of the rep system.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
they addressed the stockpile issue, which granted it will take a few hours to get all the marks, but doable in a day easy, in fact you could likely stock up for a second in one day easy enough.
but I'm curious, when did 15 mins become a grind, because if 15 mins a day is a grind, you have obviously never seen a real grind game.
As for alts, the easy and speed of the system already helps them, it just doesn't provide free rep for them, they have also mentioned here and there possibly doing something along the lines of a discount. But I think what people want is not a discount, but their toys now, not a month and a half from now.
I'll be honest the whole hit 50, have to grind omega rep for a month and a half to get what I was getting prior to rep, with a few bonus items, annoyed me to no end. and doing it over on alts has been, tedious, since I hate doing things twice. but this system, I could do all 5 of my chars in, oh, 1 hour 15 mins, hour and a half tops, and I can swallow that pill, in fact that's easy compared to omega, nakura, or rommy currently.
I think the question here for some is if it's the time investment, or if its the "I have my toys over here, why cant I have them here now, and not later" Sort of a I want to have my cake, on my main, but eat it on my alt too.
mimey: I understand where you are coming from, and in your reply to gorgon you at least made it clear that you also understand that the fix was for weekend warriors and nothing else. Some other people, I can't see that distinction.
He already stated that something for alts was being planned. (Many pages back, it seems to unvolve unlockable account wide discounts, I'm sure you know what I'm refering to). Now, it's very possible that solution will still not be enough for some people. I understand. But, if he offers soluation for the other big problem (that of weekend warriors), and let's be honest here, that one would also affect way more players than the alt situation, then people should accept that and give him the benefit of the doubt to bring the alt topic back at his own time. And THEN we can discuss the merits of the solution to that.
If he offers a solution to a problem, and people stomp with their feet on the ground complaining that it doesn't fix THEIR problem, that is what I call whining. Disrespectful and ungrateful. He is working one issue at a time, and I think since Legacy of Romulus Cryptic has been way more involved with the community in terms of discussing upcoming changes. No they don't always do what the people on the forum want (there is no way to know if that would always or even often represent the majority of the playerbase), but it's clear they do read all the feedback and they'll have reasons for listening to some of it but not all of it. Having a mature discussion also sometimes means taking no for an answer. This is what I feel lacking on these forums.
It wears me down when I log into the forum to stay up to date on the upcoming content and all I see is "I'll quit the game if ship X isn't buffed", "I quit the game if there are dinosaurs", "I quit the game if I can't level all my alts at once", "I quit the game if the next fleet holding costs any dilithium" etc etc.
I'm sorry if my responses after that have been overbearingly hostile recently.
they addressed the stockpile issue, which granted it will take a few hours to get all the marks, but doable in a day easy, in fact you could likely stock up for a second in one day easy enough.
but I'm curious, when did 15 mins become a grind, because if 15 mins a day is a grind, you have obviously never seen a real grind game.
As for alts, the easy and speed of the system already helps them, it just doesn't provide free rep for them, they have also mentioned here and there possibly doing something along the lines of a discount. But I think what people want is not a discount, but their toys now, not a month and a half from now.
I'll be honest the whole hit 50, have to grind omega rep for a month and a half to get what I was getting prior to rep, with a few bonus items, annoyed me to no end. and doing it over on alts has been, tedious, since I hate doing things twice. but this system, I could do all 5 of my chars in, oh, 1 hour 15 mins, hour and a half tops, and I can swallow that pill, in fact that's easy compared to omega, nakura, or rommy currently.
I think the question here for some is if it's the time investment, or if its the "I have my toys over here, why cant I have them here now, and not later" Sort of a I want to have my cake, on my main, but eat it on my alt too.
I don't know a lot of people that need the gear for pvp. Fleet stuff does fine. The KCB is a standard on many. But there is a growing advocacy to have passives not work in pvp, then a lot of the issue goes away. Pvp can stick to pvp and only work on rep if it suits them.
Do you see the irony that someone that pvps exclusively has to pve to be more effective in pvp from a skill perspective? Gear is gear, and there are alternative ways to get good stuff, there is no alternative to rep passives.
edit: further on the irony, the passives might shave off seconds in kills for pve, but are substantial to pvp and cumulative. THe impact is greater in a pvp environment without a pvp input system. Its not about entitlement, I would prefer it not to be a factor.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
Just wanted to say thanks a great job Gorn, this rep will be my favorite and you have addressed every single major issue.
As for alts, if you have too many that gearing them is an issue (rep grind is part of gearing) perhaps you should reduce that number a bit. You already get a tremendous benefit out of having lots of alts part of the cost to that benefit is the increased grind.
I hate to be that guy, but seriously this is getting to the point of silly whining.
Thank you very much, this is really nice that we can stockpile and everything, it will help alot ppl like myself who can play more during weekends and not soo much during the week.
About the "alt whiners", i doubt they are sily or stupid, but actually smart. My guess is that some of them just want to trick the devs to give them an exploit to break the 8k dil refine cap thru alts, by getting the commendations easy and fast on good geared toons, then transfering them to mule alts to be transformed into dil (if the commendations will be made account transferable as it seems they will). Sure something similar can be done even now with doffing and the contraband to dil doff mission, but since greed has no cap, why not to sell the contraband and get another way to get 8k dil on their alts army.
I belive thats why the double cd duration was put in here in the first place. Maybe a failsafe could be implemented, like after u finish the rep and the dil mission is unlocked, to not be able to transfer anything to that char. You would still help your alts to get the passive powers...
Thank you very much, this is really nice that we can stockpile and everything, it will help alot ppl like myself who can play more during weekends and not soo much during the week.
About the "alt whiners", i doubt they are sily or stupid, but actually smart. My guess is that some of them just want to trick the devs to give them an exploit to break the 8k dil refine cap thru alts, by getting the commendations easy and fast on good geared toons, then transfering them to mule alts to be transformed into dil (if the commendations will be made account transferable as it seems they will). Sure something similar can be done even now with doffing and the contraband to dil doff mission, but since greed has no cap, why not to sell the contraband and get another way to get 8k dil on their alts army.
I belive thats why the double cd duration was put in here in the first place. Maybe a failsafe could be implemented, like after u finish the rep and the dil mission is unlocked, to not be able to transfer anything to that char. You would still help your alts to get the passive powers...
That is a little ridiculous, if alt dilithium were a serious concern then the CE would not be open all your alts. The CE event is precisely how they released the rep system. Do the math of what 20 alts and CE normal runs of less than 15 minutes. Calculate the 50k plus the reward dilithium. How much you suppose that is. Now theya re looking at a similiar system everyday with lesser dilithium releases and concerned about alts? There are easier ways to dilithium. But then again if that is the hold up then have an account based dilithium refinement too. That seems fair, especially since refinded dilithium can be transfered account wide.
I dont want an exploit, i just don't want to be so far behind the curve in pvp because pve content is required in mind numbing repetitiveness and forced to be drug out over weeks and months. Not even random spawn generation or any kind of dynamic play element. This is why i asked for rep traits to be withheld from pvp, let the gear in fine, Fleet gear is competitive. There are alternatives to earning gear. Not passives though.
I hate repeating myself, but it is obvious from some of these posts that either previous things are not being read or just disregarded for the sake of the argument against alts.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
Thank you very much, this is really nice that we can stockpile and everything, it will help alot ppl like myself who can play more during weekends and not soo much during the week.
About the "alt whiners", i doubt they are sily or stupid, but actually smart. My guess is that some of them just want to trick the devs to give them an exploit to break the 8k dil refine cap thru alts, by getting the commendations easy and fast on good geared toons, then transfering them to mule alts to be transformed into dil (if the commendations will be made account transferable as it seems they will). Sure something similar can be done even now with doffing and the contraband to dil doff mission, but since greed has no cap, why not to sell the contraband and get another way to get 8k dil on their alts army.
I belive thats why the double cd duration was put in here in the first place. Maybe a failsafe could be implemented, like after u finish the rep and the dil mission is unlocked, to not be able to transfer anything to that char. You would still help your alts to get the passive powers...
A double cooldown would not affect alts in any way, as each alt would have the same cooldowns, but activated separately. The question of balancing Rep for alts has not been answered yet: the new ability to stockpile Commendations isn't about alts, it's Gorngonzolla's much appreciated effort to respond to the feedback about not being able to stockpile Commendations earlier in this thread.
Are the solo missions available to test yet? Not really interested in doing the spire event, as I want to save it for holodeck...
Not sure if I am at liberty at talking about the release schedule for testing, pretty sure I am not... So, to avoid getting whacked with the production hammer I will say "SOON(tm)"
Not sure if I am at liberty at talking about the release schedule for testing, pretty sure I am not... So, to avoid getting whacked with the production hammer I will say "SOON(tm)"
I don't know a lot of people that need the gear for pvp. Fleet stuff does fine. The KCB is a standard on many. But there is a growing advocacy to have passives not work in pvp, then a lot of the issue goes away. Pvp can stick to pvp and only work on rep if it suits them.
Do you see the irony that someone that pvps exclusively has to pve to be more effective in pvp from a skill perspective? Gear is gear, and there are alternative ways to get good stuff, there is no alternative to rep passives.
edit: further on the irony, the passives might shave off seconds in kills for pve, but are substantial to pvp and cumulative. THe impact is greater in a pvp environment without a pvp input system. Its not about entitlement, I would prefer it not to be a factor.
I'm not sure why you brought pvp into what I said, I never lump pvp and pve together, why because they inevitably foul each other up. Either pve gets hammered because of pvp, see wow and how they are always nerfing things over arena, or the reverse happens and pvp gets hammed because of pve.
But I didn't bring that up, I brought up grinds, pvp used to be a grind, long ago, for more pvp orientated gear. Today, its, well, the power creep is most evident there, and if your not on the bleeding edge of doffs, powers, consoles, passives, your at a disadvantage.
My point remains, when did 15 mins on a char once a day become a grind, when did people lower it to that level. I'm trying to wrap my brain around that, and I come up dry.
And as far as pvp goes, right now its broken, between power creep, from passives, consoles, ships, and the "Dps is all that matters in the end" leaning, plus how badly skewed def is, well it needs to go under a whole different hammer, one that is not what season 8 is shaping up to be.
I'm not sure why you brought pvp into what I said, I never lump pvp and pve together, why because they inevitably foul each other up. Either pve gets hammered because of pvp, see wow and how they are always nerfing things over arena, or the reverse happens and pvp gets hammed because of pve.
Thats why i want the pve passives not active in pvp. I don't want them lumped together and you can appreciate how the rep system does that lumping. Imagine what the passives could be if pvp balance were not an issue.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
My point remains, when did 15 mins on a char once a day become a grind, when did people lower it to that level. I'm trying to wrap my brain around that, and I come up dry.
.
Its not that simple, not like it is 15 minutes of your favorite, or even most interesting game play you can find. The 15 minutes was originally everyday, and nearly to the hour with 20 hour cool downs. I try to stay away from the word grind because I do not think it is quite the correct word. The rep system requires numerous repeats of the exactly same mission with exactly the same flow, over and over and over and over again. Not even random spawning, even NWS is scripted, but at least it is hard. The rep missions are easy, so you don't feel like you accomplished anything except you hung in there which isnt exactly exciting game play.
The "whining" is first because it doesnt have to be run like a kindergarten class. Make the rewards less important for people to earn outside of the track of game play in which they prefer.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
Its not that simple, not like it is 15 minutes of your favorite, or even most interesting game play you can find. The 15 minutes was originally everyday, and nearly to the hour with 20 hour cool downs. I try to stay away from the word grind because I do not think it is quite the correct word. The rep system requires numerous repeats of the exactly same mission with exactly the same flow, over and over and over and over again. Not even random spawning, even NWS is scripted, but at least it is hard. The rep missions are easy, so you don't feel like you accomplished anything except you hung in there which isnt exactly exciting game play.
This arguement always amuses me because Cryptic has provided tons of different content for us to do for each of the reputation systems, but people only seem to ever do the same 3 things, then complain that they hate the repetition.
If you want more excitement, stop taking the path of least resistance.
I really like the look of the new passives and rep gear from the Dyson rep that I have seen and used so far on tribble. I think they should stay as they are. I can't wait to get that armour.
As for PVP, I strongly agree it needs and deserves an overhaul in many ways, and leave suggestions for improving it to the PVPers. Seperating PVE and (creating!) pvp rep sounds cool.
Its not that simple, not like it is 15 minutes of your favorite, or even most interesting game play you can find. The 15 minutes was originally everyday, and nearly to the hour with 20 hour cool downs. I try to stay away from the word grind because I do not think it is quite the correct word. The rep system requires numerous repeats of the exactly same mission with exactly the same flow, over and over and over and over again. Not even random spawning, even NWS is scripted, but at least it is hard. The rep missions are easy, so you don't feel like you accomplished anything except you hung in there which isnt exactly exciting game play.
The "whining" is first because it doesnt have to be run like a kindergarten class. Make the rewards less important for people to earn outside of the track of game play in which they prefer.
You know I think this kinda gets to the heart of the matter. STO gameplay at end game has hit this point of ultimate boring for the most part. Most of the missions and STFs are simple, repetitive, easy, and have no consequences. Now, sure a game can have some of these traits, and still be a fun game. Take a look at the old arcade games, most of them were simple and repetitive, but most were also either hard, or had some consequence, at the very least your quarter was on the line. But all of these at once, its not fun at least for me. I don't like doing things on autopilot.
Case in point, I think that the Tholian ground boss encounters are fun, mostly because if the team wipes out, you're done. There is a consequence. Yeah, it?s not that much fun if you do wipe out, but up until that point, the mission does get your blood pumping.
What about the following, what if on the elite STFs and similar, instead of amping up the damage and HP of the bad guys, all the spawns were random. For instance, what if in ISE all of the spawns were totally random. So you could end up facing three probes in the front, or three tac cubes. Instead of regen spheres when you kill the generators, you could get probes, or cubes. Or both. Now that could be fun.
What if on the new rep missions you have a point where one of the players has to do some sort of puzzle while being protected from fire by the others. Something like the dilithium mining mini-game.
Unless Cryptic does that, or something else to change at least one of those traits every rep is just another mindless grind.
This arguement always amuses me because Cryptic has provided tons of different content for us to do for each of the reputation systems, but people only seem to ever do the same 3 things, then complain that they hate the repetition.
If you want more excitement, stop taking the path of least resistance.
SNIP
Personally, I did take the hard path. It was called the pre-F2P STFs when they were hour long runs and if you messed up once, you were done. Those were fun, when you beat them you felt like you had accomplished something.
And yes Cryptic has put out a fair amount of stuff, but none of it changes. Every single end game mission is go here, shoot this, go there, shoot that and most of them are exactly the same every time. All of the Borg STFs are always the same with the same NPCs in the same places, acting the same way, and you do the same thing to win. The fleet missions are little better, the only thing that changes are which NPCs are used. Romulan mark missions, pretty much the same as the Borg STFs, same NPCs, same places. Same with Tholian. That is why most people play the same thing over and over to get the marks or dilithium they want. Its all going to be boring sooner or later, so might as well chose the quickest path to get the reward.
Again, I kinda hope for this space adventure zone thing is something more dynamic, even if its simply a change to what you find, even if there are only five things to find, its still better than playing storming the spire for the Nth plus 1 time.
-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.
Gorngonzolla, thank you for listening to our concerns!
I believe this project should resolve my primary issue with the new S8 Rep system.
I am curious though... 350 Marks seems like a high number, but I admit that I don't really have an understanding yet on what it takes to get X number of Marks. You commented it should take about 16mins daily to get a Commendation. Will it take about 80mins worth of playing (16x5) to get 350 Marks? Or maybe 90mins or 120mins worth of play to account for the opportunity cost of stockpiling? I'm ok with that, but just wondering about the metric used to come up with 350.
...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...
Again, thanks for taking time to explain things. I guess I can appreciate/understand this. I just wish Cryptic had a way to encourage such regular play without making it seem so coerced.
If you want more excitement, stop taking the path of least resistance.
.
Scripted PvE is not excitement, i chose the path of least boredom and only ask to be able to separate it. I would not touch rep unless there was a good piece of gear, which would probably play to a specific character. But there is only one way to get passives, rep and there is only one way to get the rep, pve missions which vary in length of play, but not excitement.
I don't like knowing exactly what distance to put myself from an object and where to go next, how to set up my cooldowns on boffs. Rep requires missions that run like rehearsed plays, not dynamic combat or exploration.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
Got to T2 today, queued up the Deflector project (Didn't have enough Dil to buy it outright; Wish the Dil exchange was turned on so I could transfer dil between characters). This allowed me to view the types of the other equipment.
The Shield is a Regen Shield, and the Engine is a Combat Engine. Both of these are the worst types in their category. Regen shields largely aren't needed, especially at endgame, because it's too easy to heal your shields. Only massive spike or really High Sustained DPS causes for worry, and Regen shields won't make a difference in the Sustained DPS case. As for the engines, at End Game, it's very easy to get your engine power in the 40+ range, and easy to get into the 60+ range, in both cases, not sacrificing other power levels. At those power levels, Regular Impulse and Hyper Impulse out perform Combat Engines.
My recommendation: Make the Shield Resilient/Covariant (The former is considered the best choice for PvE and the latter for PvP), or even a Normal. Just not a regen. Make the Engine Normal/Hyper; I doubt anybody has low enough power levels to make Combat an optimal choice.
Comments
Being a silver player I am not egligible to be testing but I would like to comment on this (well, more ask a lot of annoying questions).
It is interesting to note that the increased resistance rating is not egligible to diminishing returns. But (and excuse me for my bad understanding of the system) could they still have a negative effect on your resistances that do have deminishing returns?
How much % does a damage resitance rating of 1 give us?
Will this vital information be available for us on the live server once the rep system goes up there allowing us to make an informed dicision?
Why do you think that people would go for more resistance instead of being able to pour out more damage? As far as I am aware the common belief is "MOAR DAMAGE" and considering how secondary/additional objectives/more rewards are most of the time dependant on timers further reinforcing that sentiment.
But how is this system supposed to help those with multiple characters on an account?
This supposed to be the major selling point of this new reputation system that it would help those with multiple characters, but from what I've seen, there is no change at all from the Romulan and Nukara reputation system. From what you just posted, we have to grind away 16 minutes per character to work on our reputation. And that's exactly why people hate the Reputation system, because they can't afford to work on reputation for every single character. Especially when you have to factor in the other grinds for Fleet Marks, Dilithium, and other reputation marks players yet to complete.
Then factor in that this will be going on at the same time as the Winter Event, so this is going to cause severe burnout that will definitely cause people to leave. Remember people's comments about the Nukara reputation, and people had free time due to summer vacation.
I cannot believe how accomodating and communicative gorgon was with this whole thing so far, and how ungrateful, whining and plain too dumb to get it a part of the community is. This crappy community doesn't deserve a dev like gorgonzolla. If I was Cryptic I'd go back to just delivering patches with no comments and no community input during the development. You'd get the same whiners but at least you didn't get to feel like you get your head bitten off everytime you offer a helping hand.
Not really. If anything this has been kept very civil between Gorgonzolla and us. It's probably the main reason he's kept on talking at all because we are taking the time now to voice our concerns long before it hits Holodeck. There hasn't really been much 'hell raising' so to speak from many folks in this section of the forum about it. We've brought up our concerns, and are doing our best to voice them; while Gorgonzolla is showing respect in return and continuing to talk with us on it.
You are right, that change IS for 'weekend warrior' type players. Which isn't an issue. What I mean is that will be nice for those players, and nobody is questioning that, I'm glad they added it in for folks.
What we're still concerned about is that it isn't really changing the whole 'one commendation a day' thing that is another time gate when there are already time gates in place for the stuff it can be used for. Sure it isn't needed for gear, but there are plenty who just want to gather a bunch without going the above route on their own time, so they can focus on other things. They might still play the game every day, BUT they will have taken care of their grind beforehand. I know without a doubt that is what I do already. I grind a bunch, then do other stuff, just filling projects each day.
And again, you are right in that this change isn't about people with alts. But it doesn't encourage people to have alts either. Think about if you were a brand new player, a fresh level 50 right from the get-go. And you grinded out the three current reps. That's a TON of stuff already. If I was just starting, I dunno what I'd do about it. I'd see such a huge wall of grind would burn me out.
Sure it'd all be new stuff for me. Like running around on New Romulus, finally taking the fight to the Borg, etc. But if I finished all that and realized there was nothing else to do *putting aside fleet stuff and PvP for the moment*, I doubt I'd wanna start a toon from scratch and do it again, unless it was to enjoy the other two factions unique story missions and ships, or play with a different captain type to see how they work compared to the other two as well.
The game feels very bipolar sometimes in that so much they will do for you as an account-based thing, and yet so much other stuff is character-based. They don't mind selling ships to every one on an account, but rep? Nope, sorry, gotta grind that out across each toon.
That is what worries me about this 'alt help' that has been chatted about. I'm still waiting to see exactly what it is, and test it before I develop any opinions on it, but I'm worried it won't make much of a difference.
I don't think the game is focused too much around people with a ton of alts. I think it's more around having one toon in each faction: One Fed, one KDF, one Rom. Because probably to them, that one account would then be enjoying 100% of the game's content, and getting the entire story of the game so far from all 3 POVs. (Purely guessing on that, but that is how it feels to me) Even so, it isn't fun to grind rep on alts.
I'm not saying there's a perfect solution. There never is. I mean, to expect that is just unrealistic. We're just trying to hope and work with the devs to get the most realistic solution possible.
There has been a mix of alt and commendation stockpile discussion in the very recent history of this thread. I think the guy you were speaking of was expecting both to be resolved in the same post.
Most of the "whining" came from very unrealistic expectation of the rep system and our ability to submit to a regular "attendence mission" on top of logging in on all characters to start 20 hour missions.
Really there is a lot of frustration to the rep system just being a brainless addon to each season that will snowball into this insurmountable perpetual grind just to get 100k reputation every 6 months and completely gut several aspects of the game because of a desire to obtain top level gear and abilities for whatever our game play style is.
Really I would prefer not to have any more for a year or so to get back to other aspects of the game. Partly want to take a petition to stop reputation for a year.
Another way to look at this is I am reminded what my buddy said when i made NCO and was dealing with upset troops myself for the first time. If they are telling you how unhappy they are, but being respectful, then its good. Do your best to take care of them, but don't worry till they get real quiet.
You can't make people completely happy when they care about something, as we do STO, but you do your best to improve it and definitely don't make it worse. There are lots of people that just left and will never post on the forums, they don't care enough, just quit. Even in some ways the "i quit" forum posts are just pleas for change based out of caring for the game, just not mature pleas.
Second: What is now debatable is the price of the project. 70 marks for a commendation. But since I have no clue how many marks we can get for the new missions, I sadly lack arguments here.
There's also an inconvenience remaining in the form of (so far) invisible timer on getting the commendations and the whole convoluted system of time gates. But that's not really an issue for me, just a bit of feedback for you, Gorngonzolla. It may have gotten a bit too complicated.
Third: I'm still curious about the 'alt-problem' solution. What you've told us this far wasn't it right?
Fourth: Can we silvers finally get to test some of that stuff on Tribble now? We'll behave.
And as an aside: I kinda agree with mimey that your current incentive to play daily (the commendation) feels more like forcing us to play daily. Which, as you can imagine, will have quite the opposite effect. That's why having the possibility to stockpile is welcome even if I actually had the time to play daily.
Why does it feel like forcing us to play? Because if we don't, we fall behind, we basically don't move with the reputation. But the goal is to have the rep finished as soon as possible for freeing our hands and play how we want and what we want.
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!
Secondly, thank you for the new project allowing for stockpiling! It at first seemed like an dd, roundabout way of fixing the problem, but as long as 350 marks in this Rep are achievable in one day, I have absolutely no problem with this Rep so far.
I look forward to finding out what the alt-balancing will be.:)
This, please!:P
The "deal with it" works in life, this is a game though. I have no problem working for it, i just don't have the time and it is not a boohoo argument. This is a sustainability issue, if reps pile up and continue it will hurt pvp involvement. I have to work, i have to get the kids to school, i have to maintain a house, I deal with that. If this game is too much of a hassle I will leave. I don't need it to be a life suck.
I am not that great at pvp, probably 40th percentile is kind, but the rep system makes it harder. I just want to have fun, but dying without a chance is not fun. And my concerns are playing this forward into the future. with only 3-4 reps this is not really an issue. At the current interval though there will be 2 reps per year and in a couple years there could be a dozen more passives. The difference from none to all those passives I would expect to be high, unless they do like the trait system and you can only have so many active at a time.
Really if the passives were not applied to pvp then that would solve a lot of problems, specifically forcing people that enjoy pvp near exclusively to play pve. Why not offer the same rewards for completing pvp missions or number of missions? I don't have an entitlement issue it is a REALITY issue. I don't want the passives in pvp unless pvp can be used to earn them.
EIther way "deal with it" mentality in devs and the acceptance of it in community will decrease community interest among pockets, and is contrary to inclusiveness. If you enjoy pvp then consider the deal with it to the expected aspect of no more pvp commjunity growth as new players can't break into the mode and old players leave for other things. A game's focus is enjoyment, which is contrary to the 'deal with it' spirit of the rep system.
but I'm curious, when did 15 mins become a grind, because if 15 mins a day is a grind, you have obviously never seen a real grind game.
As for alts, the easy and speed of the system already helps them, it just doesn't provide free rep for them, they have also mentioned here and there possibly doing something along the lines of a discount. But I think what people want is not a discount, but their toys now, not a month and a half from now.
I'll be honest the whole hit 50, have to grind omega rep for a month and a half to get what I was getting prior to rep, with a few bonus items, annoyed me to no end. and doing it over on alts has been, tedious, since I hate doing things twice. but this system, I could do all 5 of my chars in, oh, 1 hour 15 mins, hour and a half tops, and I can swallow that pill, in fact that's easy compared to omega, nakura, or rommy currently.
I think the question here for some is if it's the time investment, or if its the "I have my toys over here, why cant I have them here now, and not later" Sort of a I want to have my cake, on my main, but eat it on my alt too.
He already stated that something for alts was being planned. (Many pages back, it seems to unvolve unlockable account wide discounts, I'm sure you know what I'm refering to). Now, it's very possible that solution will still not be enough for some people. I understand. But, if he offers soluation for the other big problem (that of weekend warriors), and let's be honest here, that one would also affect way more players than the alt situation, then people should accept that and give him the benefit of the doubt to bring the alt topic back at his own time. And THEN we can discuss the merits of the solution to that.
If he offers a solution to a problem, and people stomp with their feet on the ground complaining that it doesn't fix THEIR problem, that is what I call whining. Disrespectful and ungrateful. He is working one issue at a time, and I think since Legacy of Romulus Cryptic has been way more involved with the community in terms of discussing upcoming changes. No they don't always do what the people on the forum want (there is no way to know if that would always or even often represent the majority of the playerbase), but it's clear they do read all the feedback and they'll have reasons for listening to some of it but not all of it. Having a mature discussion also sometimes means taking no for an answer. This is what I feel lacking on these forums.
It wears me down when I log into the forum to stay up to date on the upcoming content and all I see is "I'll quit the game if ship X isn't buffed", "I quit the game if there are dinosaurs", "I quit the game if I can't level all my alts at once", "I quit the game if the next fleet holding costs any dilithium" etc etc.
I'm sorry if my responses after that have been overbearingly hostile recently.
I don't know a lot of people that need the gear for pvp. Fleet stuff does fine. The KCB is a standard on many. But there is a growing advocacy to have passives not work in pvp, then a lot of the issue goes away. Pvp can stick to pvp and only work on rep if it suits them.
Do you see the irony that someone that pvps exclusively has to pve to be more effective in pvp from a skill perspective? Gear is gear, and there are alternative ways to get good stuff, there is no alternative to rep passives.
edit: further on the irony, the passives might shave off seconds in kills for pve, but are substantial to pvp and cumulative. THe impact is greater in a pvp environment without a pvp input system. Its not about entitlement, I would prefer it not to be a factor.
As for alts, if you have too many that gearing them is an issue (rep grind is part of gearing) perhaps you should reduce that number a bit. You already get a tremendous benefit out of having lots of alts part of the cost to that benefit is the increased grind.
I hate to be that guy, but seriously this is getting to the point of silly whining.
About the "alt whiners", i doubt they are sily or stupid, but actually smart. My guess is that some of them just want to trick the devs to give them an exploit to break the 8k dil refine cap thru alts, by getting the commendations easy and fast on good geared toons, then transfering them to mule alts to be transformed into dil (if the commendations will be made account transferable as it seems they will). Sure something similar can be done even now with doffing and the contraband to dil doff mission, but since greed has no cap, why not to sell the contraband and get another way to get 8k dil on their alts army.
I belive thats why the double cd duration was put in here in the first place. Maybe a failsafe could be implemented, like after u finish the rep and the dil mission is unlocked, to not be able to transfer anything to that char. You would still help your alts to get the passive powers...
That is a little ridiculous, if alt dilithium were a serious concern then the CE would not be open all your alts. The CE event is precisely how they released the rep system. Do the math of what 20 alts and CE normal runs of less than 15 minutes. Calculate the 50k plus the reward dilithium. How much you suppose that is. Now theya re looking at a similiar system everyday with lesser dilithium releases and concerned about alts? There are easier ways to dilithium. But then again if that is the hold up then have an account based dilithium refinement too. That seems fair, especially since refinded dilithium can be transfered account wide.
I dont want an exploit, i just don't want to be so far behind the curve in pvp because pve content is required in mind numbing repetitiveness and forced to be drug out over weeks and months. Not even random spawn generation or any kind of dynamic play element. This is why i asked for rep traits to be withheld from pvp, let the gear in fine, Fleet gear is competitive. There are alternatives to earning gear. Not passives though.
I hate repeating myself, but it is obvious from some of these posts that either previous things are not being read or just disregarded for the sake of the argument against alts.
A double cooldown would not affect alts in any way, as each alt would have the same cooldowns, but activated separately. The question of balancing Rep for alts has not been answered yet: the new ability to stockpile Commendations isn't about alts, it's Gorngonzolla's much appreciated effort to respond to the feedback about not being able to stockpile Commendations earlier in this thread.
Hope that helps!:)
Not sure if I am at liberty at talking about the release schedule for testing, pretty sure I am not... So, to avoid getting whacked with the production hammer I will say "SOON(tm)"
Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
As in the "when will then, be now?" soon?
But "we're at now, now"
We haven't announced that yet, but I can say that our plans extend beyond this rep and affect all others as well.
Regards,
Phil "Gorngonzolla" Zeleski
I'm not sure why you brought pvp into what I said, I never lump pvp and pve together, why because they inevitably foul each other up. Either pve gets hammered because of pvp, see wow and how they are always nerfing things over arena, or the reverse happens and pvp gets hammed because of pve.
But I didn't bring that up, I brought up grinds, pvp used to be a grind, long ago, for more pvp orientated gear. Today, its, well, the power creep is most evident there, and if your not on the bleeding edge of doffs, powers, consoles, passives, your at a disadvantage.
My point remains, when did 15 mins on a char once a day become a grind, when did people lower it to that level. I'm trying to wrap my brain around that, and I come up dry.
And as far as pvp goes, right now its broken, between power creep, from passives, consoles, ships, and the "Dps is all that matters in the end" leaning, plus how badly skewed def is, well it needs to go under a whole different hammer, one that is not what season 8 is shaping up to be.
Thats why i want the pve passives not active in pvp. I don't want them lumped together and you can appreciate how the rep system does that lumping. Imagine what the passives could be if pvp balance were not an issue.
Its not that simple, not like it is 15 minutes of your favorite, or even most interesting game play you can find. The 15 minutes was originally everyday, and nearly to the hour with 20 hour cool downs. I try to stay away from the word grind because I do not think it is quite the correct word. The rep system requires numerous repeats of the exactly same mission with exactly the same flow, over and over and over and over again. Not even random spawning, even NWS is scripted, but at least it is hard. The rep missions are easy, so you don't feel like you accomplished anything except you hung in there which isnt exactly exciting game play.
The "whining" is first because it doesnt have to be run like a kindergarten class. Make the rewards less important for people to earn outside of the track of game play in which they prefer.
This arguement always amuses me because Cryptic has provided tons of different content for us to do for each of the reputation systems, but people only seem to ever do the same 3 things, then complain that they hate the repetition.
If you want more excitement, stop taking the path of least resistance.
I really like the look of the new passives and rep gear from the Dyson rep that I have seen and used so far on tribble. I think they should stay as they are. I can't wait to get that armour.
As for PVP, I strongly agree it needs and deserves an overhaul in many ways, and leave suggestions for improving it to the PVPers. Seperating PVE and (creating!) pvp rep sounds cool.
You know I think this kinda gets to the heart of the matter. STO gameplay at end game has hit this point of ultimate boring for the most part. Most of the missions and STFs are simple, repetitive, easy, and have no consequences. Now, sure a game can have some of these traits, and still be a fun game. Take a look at the old arcade games, most of them were simple and repetitive, but most were also either hard, or had some consequence, at the very least your quarter was on the line. But all of these at once, its not fun at least for me. I don't like doing things on autopilot.
Case in point, I think that the Tholian ground boss encounters are fun, mostly because if the team wipes out, you're done. There is a consequence. Yeah, it?s not that much fun if you do wipe out, but up until that point, the mission does get your blood pumping.
What about the following, what if on the elite STFs and similar, instead of amping up the damage and HP of the bad guys, all the spawns were random. For instance, what if in ISE all of the spawns were totally random. So you could end up facing three probes in the front, or three tac cubes. Instead of regen spheres when you kill the generators, you could get probes, or cubes. Or both. Now that could be fun.
What if on the new rep missions you have a point where one of the players has to do some sort of puzzle while being protected from fire by the others. Something like the dilithium mining mini-game.
Unless Cryptic does that, or something else to change at least one of those traits every rep is just another mindless grind.
EDIT: since I take so long typing.
Personally, I did take the hard path. It was called the pre-F2P STFs when they were hour long runs and if you messed up once, you were done. Those were fun, when you beat them you felt like you had accomplished something.
And yes Cryptic has put out a fair amount of stuff, but none of it changes. Every single end game mission is go here, shoot this, go there, shoot that and most of them are exactly the same every time. All of the Borg STFs are always the same with the same NPCs in the same places, acting the same way, and you do the same thing to win. The fleet missions are little better, the only thing that changes are which NPCs are used. Romulan mark missions, pretty much the same as the Borg STFs, same NPCs, same places. Same with Tholian. That is why most people play the same thing over and over to get the marks or dilithium they want. Its all going to be boring sooner or later, so might as well chose the quickest path to get the reward.
Again, I kinda hope for this space adventure zone thing is something more dynamic, even if its simply a change to what you find, even if there are only five things to find, its still better than playing storming the spire for the Nth plus 1 time.
Nouveau riche LTS member
I believe this project should resolve my primary issue with the new S8 Rep system.
I am curious though... 350 Marks seems like a high number, but I admit that I don't really have an understanding yet on what it takes to get X number of Marks. You commented it should take about 16mins daily to get a Commendation. Will it take about 80mins worth of playing (16x5) to get 350 Marks? Or maybe 90mins or 120mins worth of play to account for the opportunity cost of stockpiling? I'm ok with that, but just wondering about the metric used to come up with 350.
Again, thanks for taking time to explain things. I guess I can appreciate/understand this. I just wish Cryptic had a way to encourage such regular play without making it seem so coerced.
Never be sorry for this! There's few things I like better than a long, detailed Dev Post.
As someone with 14 regular Alts (and who wants to make more to buy/try more ships) I'm really looking forward to this.
In fact, dunno what I'm looking forward to more: Alt-Friendly Rep updates, or Dinos with friggin' Lay-Zors!
:cool:
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Scripted PvE is not excitement, i chose the path of least boredom and only ask to be able to separate it. I would not touch rep unless there was a good piece of gear, which would probably play to a specific character. But there is only one way to get passives, rep and there is only one way to get the rep, pve missions which vary in length of play, but not excitement.
I don't like knowing exactly what distance to put myself from an object and where to go next, how to set up my cooldowns on boffs. Rep requires missions that run like rehearsed plays, not dynamic combat or exploration.
The Shield is a Regen Shield, and the Engine is a Combat Engine. Both of these are the worst types in their category. Regen shields largely aren't needed, especially at endgame, because it's too easy to heal your shields. Only massive spike or really High Sustained DPS causes for worry, and Regen shields won't make a difference in the Sustained DPS case. As for the engines, at End Game, it's very easy to get your engine power in the 40+ range, and easy to get into the 60+ range, in both cases, not sacrificing other power levels. At those power levels, Regular Impulse and Hyper Impulse out perform Combat Engines.
My recommendation: Make the Shield Resilient/Covariant (The former is considered the best choice for PvE and the latter for PvP), or even a Normal. Just not a regen. Make the Engine Normal/Hyper; I doubt anybody has low enough power levels to make Combat an optimal choice.