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re-provisioning
hondo1946
Member Posts: 6 Arc User
It's a mystery to me why STO chooses to cause so much frustration to it's members/customers by denying upgrades of equipment at fleet starbases due to the idiotic "store requires re-provisioning" garbage. Instead of increasing the pleasures of playing STO, this stupid annoyance only makes me want to get off the site and do something else.
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Apart from that, the economics of this system are literaly ****ed up though.
Imagine:
- you pay to build a starbase that can produce that items
- then you pay to get those items built (aka stock the store with them/provisions)
- and then you pay again to buy them out of the store
I mean............wtf? You are either the paying producer (production cost) and seller of the product OR the paying customer (cost includes everything) but not both!!!
Typical Cryptic Grind-Galore
I've always been really disturbed about this.
Getting charged dilithium for upgrades to have access to gear.
Then more dilithium for provisions.
Then MORE dilithium to actually purchase each item.
I get that the fleet system was meant as a huge EC and Dilithium sink... but I've always felt they've taken it too far.
The dilithium costs are... well, you know...
It's me, Chrome. [Join Date: May 2009]
"Oh, I may be captain by rank... but I never wanted to be anything else but an engineer." ~Montgomery Scott~
Yup, true, but hey, what`s new when you`re trying to commit your customers to the game. Didn`t you know cryptic has ferengi at their board? They took over in the 21st century without anyone noticing...Bizar huh? Not even the NSA noticed that..It`s seems to be all legal to rip ppl of their goods and then expect em to thank you afterwards....First contact had some serious impact on the economy at earth in the 21st century.
...
We focused major on the provisions first in our fleet, build about 50-100 personal ones first and then stepped ahead for a new upgrade. So far it seems to work well, because in the end, most of our fleeties weren`t so commited to the game after all..Wonder how that comes..But, a little stock is Always nice to have in the background.
The cost of the unlock project and the cost of purchase are all that's needed. Having to slot a project for provisions is an unnecessary step.
I won't go as far as blaming anyone. But I'd add that the developers may have over-estimated their playerbase will of contributing, and over-estimated the same playerbase level of intelligence regarding how to aquire resources cheaply, aquiring EC through trading, and investing greater parts (even only half) of their dilithium income to more rapidly reap benefits from the different building projects.
Even after a year, too many do not realise that by buying doffs through starbase, cost relatively little fleetcreds, -then use these doffs in other fleetprojects, and actually get a nice sum fleetcreds in return.
All the different doff missions paying out expensive industrial replicators for instance...
Throw them into a project, instead of buying them all. And for the love of Q. IF buying them. Go to the cheap vendor. Do not use the replicator.
Easy.
Fleetmarks and dilithium otoh. Takes forever. -and people 'refuse' to donate... Because it is to 'expensive'. :rolleyes:
This access is given because other fleets are not that far or have no chance of reaching that point because they are to small. It is not given because you simply don't want to do anything at all. Such behavior is called leeching at the cost of people who invest significant time and resources to reach that point. While I am aware that this cannot be prevented completely I hope this attitude does not spread too far.
Uhmm..our fleet exists now since 2011 and we`ve seen that only a small percentage of our fleeties (<5%) is willing to donate DI on a regular basis. So a stop-gap like this is very very welcome for a lot of players and small fleets. It`s not leeching, it`s common sense. Small (and medium) fleets still have to run the provisions, projects which costs DI as well.
Are we talking about a design flaw in this game when it comes to provisions and the way it`s being handled in this game? IMO: YES.
Any chance it will change in the near future? NO. Scarcety is still the rule in this game, so ppl get creative to obtain what they want/wish.
You said "It is not given because you simply don't want to do anything at all."
No one have ever been told that they can't have an invite because the fleet they are in can unlock the tiers themselves. Actually no one is ever told that they can't have an invite. Funny how you seem to have some kind of inside authority to the Public service channels rules and can say that there are stipulations on who gets access and who does not.
The fleets that put this together realize that PWE and their never ending greed has created a flawed system (one the OP is complaining about) and are offering a repreve from it. The goal of these channels is to make these items available to all and to stick it to the fleets that charge millions of EC and want to get rich off of other players. They want to end the system of the haves and the have nots. Funny how I offer a simple solution to the OP and the person above just dismisses it as leaching. Seem like the only thing that would appease Him/Her is for Cryptic to remove the need to provisions fleet store's. Well thats not going to happen so what I suggested is a "real world" solution to obtaining the items you want without having to spend large amounts of resources leveling up a starbase with a fleet that is having problems filling projects in a timely manner.
What I meant is that I would have issues if people would stop building their fleet alltogether. I know that some fleets will never reach the high tiers and that's fine. But I'd like to see them doing something, no matter how little. What would bother me is if they stopped completely and would do nothing but slot provisioning projects. Even worse if they sold those provisions to others who would then go on to use them on another base with free access.
understood...But look at all the threads about how unhappy players are with the current structure and cost of leveling up 3 holdings and a Starbase and grinding 4 reputation tracts. It is overwhelming at best.
PWE/Cryptic came up with this system to generate revenue. They created a system that only allows Large fleets to be able to complete these projects in even a reasonable amount of time.
But Members of large fleets then have a shortage of members with Fleet marks to even purchase items from these stores. You can read threads about people setting their alarm clocks in the middle of the night to be able to get in game and contribute to new projects the second they appear, just so they can earn a few marks, only to see them fill within seconds. Then you have players like myself in small fleet that are sitting on over 50 mil Fleet marks but only Tier 1 and Tier 2 holdings.
The Fleets that started these channels see that things need to change. Complaining in a forum to cryptic does nothing unless you are a PVP'r and QQing about something that made you go boom.
So if this spreads and really catches on Cryptic will see that most small to medium fleet progression has stopped. Large fleets that horde their provisions and treat thier members like TRIBBLE, not letting them have access to their own store without jumping through hoops or kissing the leaders butt will see un-happy members leaving in mass. And they will loose revenue.
Having a "free access to top gear for all" system will break the current system Cryptic created. Thus making them revisit they way it's setup. It will force them to look into the suggestions offered by the players on how to create a system that is scaled to the size of the fleet.
Or to have "Advisor" memberships available to people in larger fleets that allows them to contribute to smaller fleets projects without having to leave their original fleet. Thus they can earn Fleet marks and still help out smaller fleets. There have been many suggestion made to Cryptic and none have even got a single responce from a Dev.
So if we the players refuse to play it their way things might change. So yeah..stop leveling up your tier 2 and 3 bases. Stop struggling to get a tier 3 Dil mine and only run provisions projects and Dil discount projects and use the Public serivce channels. When PWE askes Cryptic why Zen purchase's are down then we might get a solution. But as long as people in small fleets keep converting thousands of Zen a day to Dil to try to level up a holding, nothing will get done.
It's a system where it's presumed everyone is donating every resource in a roughly equal amount.
When the reality is often times the opposite. Usually people will donate things that don't 'hurt' them. Like FMs, or Expertise. That doesn't cost them, so they have no problems filling it out. But stuff like dil is needed for a TON of stuff, and even if it wasn't, people still see it as something they've had to earn.
I have three different proposals to help make provisioning less of a pain in the TRIBBLE:
1. Majorly reduce the cost of the provisioning missions, and also the XP gained, but not the amount of provisions gained, while also making their CD an hour long. This will help out smaller end fleets by making it cheaper and faster to get provisions, while giving larger fleets more chances to provision everything and greater over all amounts of FCs for their fleet members.
2. Removing the dil cost for any provision mission. They are essentially double or even triple-dipping players by making them not only pay dil for many the provisions, dil for the items (usually), but also the upgrades to get to the items.
3. Change all fleet items to only need FC costs. And don't increase the FC costs of items. This stuff is pricy enough already.
Heck, was probably gonna make a thread soon about how expensive it really is.
Slot provisions projects, if people complain re-direct them to the projects....
I slot 1 mission of 1200 points and a provision project, Spire building goes slower but when our fleet get to tier 3 we will have over 100 provisions (we have a smal fleet).
With the upgrade of a tier switch to the other and do the same.
You get like this only 1400 points every 20 hours and not 1700 but at the end you will have provisions and thats why you level-up it or not ?
That explains all the DVD-Rom disks.
I always slot a provision project when the tier(s) has reach its end, where the 'minor' projects aren't slottable anymore, because a special project upgrade must be done, to continue on the next tier stage. Ample time to fill a provision project, before the special project is filled up with the needed fleetmarks.
It works well, but i fear tier 5. Tier 4 is brutal already.