A daily event cycle would strike a good balance between the needs of the farmers and the needs of the casual players. Weekends could be two day events.
I believe so; last night most of my fleet ( Jupiter Force) were in ts playing other games,i myself re-subbed back to Tor just for something to do.
Its pointless to log into Sto now for a handful of marks when thousands are needed for fleet bases and all the shinies that we want from them.
This is not a rant,more of an observation.
I'm in game as i type this and every channel bar one is dead apart from the conversation i just started on this very subject .
So by removing the hourlies less people are logging on as there is no incentive,weren't they put ingame to get people together in the first place ?
Surely less people is worse for cryptic ? We had no weekend event this weekend just gone and i logged in for 35 mins the whole weekend just to refine dil.
I think this is really sad, that the only thing you get from playing the game if how much you can gain in whatever points you are after.
whats so wrong with just playing the game for the fun of it?
and so what if you play a particular thing for say fleet marks, so what you only got single fleet marks instead of 50 or 100 per cent extra, so you stamp your feet and say no point in playing, now you never even got the single marks.
if you were that desperate for the marks single marks is better then no marks at all so where is the logic in that?
when I play all I care about is having fun, if I play and earn some stuff for the fleet or my rep that's great, if I get bonus marks even better, but that's just secondary the main part is im having fun, if im not having fun then I would not care how many gazillion extra marks im earning there would be no point in playing at all.
I don't think it is a bad thing. For me personally i found it far more frustrating to find out that "fun" event were scheduled in the middle of the night or when i had to work.
The weekend roster and turning hourlies into dailies gives me the chance to do those events which i previously never got around to.
One thing though is that when PWE goes weekend event then they should have an event EVERY weekend and not just once in a blue moon.
I too found the weekend event much better but what about the people who just cant play on a sat&sun so to be fair they extended the weekend to cover 4 days so even if you cant play sat&sun you can play thurs&fri night.
but now if they make it every weekend we will have more time when we are earning bonus then not, good for us sure not so good for the longevity of the game.
fair compromise is to make it every other week end, makes sense to me.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Bad idea, queues are taking a long time to fill, population seems to be declining, yesterday I never saw more than 500 people in ESD instances and about 200 people in Sol instances, that's well under 1000 people throughout the day. You want to run Mine trap? Put something on the TV whilst you wait, same for SBFD, and you can forget about running almost anything on the KDF side.
They removed mirror with nothing to replace the missing XP so people can't be bothered to level new toons any more, they removed the Dil from the Dyson space so there are never enough peeps to finish a contested zone run, they removed hourly events and replaced them with bi-weekend events when a lot of people are busy with family activities and can only get on a few hours. People in our fleet are playing other games when on TS, asking them why they are not on STO the answer is there's nothing to do except grind and the rewards are so miserable I'd sooner play something else.
Don't want to be a doom sayer, I've never been one for that, but I frankly don't see a single thing they have done to encourage people into the game more since S8.5, in fact quite the opposite. Still, I'm saving lots of money not buying Zen, so it's not all bad. :rolleyes:
This is why I thought the hourly events should have changed to feature more particular stuff.
Instead of generally "reputation marks" particulary "9mine event" or "nukara ground event" or "new Romulus event".
as a freelancer in STO, this hourly event effects me in no way what so ever. holding steady around 30k-40k unrefined dil day to day, dyson and omega marks are very easy to get, romulan and nakura marks are a bit more harder to run across, however i always manage to find the required amount each day for the rep grinds. not being a fleet means i dont have an overriding objective to collect thousands and thousands of fleet marks, however judging by what i have seen, i dont think it is that hard to get a reasonable amount a day. some people are also starting to realize their expertise points are dropping quickly, but the above covers all that.
so far, its been solid and unspectacular, however thus far it hasnt effected me loosing the hourly dailies. the key is learning to adapt, making something from nothing which is something i have always been able to do.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Bad idea, queues are taking a long time to fill, population seems to be declining, yesterday I never saw more than 500 people in ESD instances and about 200 people in Sol instances, that's well under 1000 people throughout the day. You want to run Mine trap? Put something on the TV whilst you wait, same for SBFD, and you can forget about running almost anything on the KDF side.
They removed mirror with nothing to replace the missing XP so people can't be bothered to level new toons any more, they removed the Dil from the Dyson space so there are never enough peeps to finish a contested zone run, they removed hourly events and replaced them with bi-weekend events when a lot of people are busy with family activities and can only get on a few hours. People in our fleet are playing other games when on TS, asking them why they are not on STO the answer is there's nothing to do except grind and the rewards are so miserable I'd sooner play something else.
Don't want to be a doom sayer, I've never been one for that, but I frankly don't see a single thing they have done to encourage people into the game more since S8.5, in fact quite the opposite. Still, I'm saving lots of money not buying Zen, so it's not all bad. :rolleyes:
I wanted to type a longer response explaining the reasons for my position on this, but I stumbled upon mattjohnsonva's reply here and it pretty much explains how I feel about it.
So I'm just going to say that yes OP, it was a bad thing. It was also a type of nerf.
I believe so; last night most of my fleet ( Jupiter Force) were in ts playing other games,i myself re-subbed back to Tor just for something to do.
Its pointless to log into Sto now for a handful of marks when thousands are needed for fleet bases and all the shinies that we want from them.
This is not a rant,more of an observation.
I'm interested as to what others may think.
My observation is people who are in favor of the decision. Have little or no consideration for the people who prefer hourly events.
The bi-weekly event is helpful but there are people who like to maximize as much dilithium and reputation marks as possible. Additionally there are a lot of fleets that could use the boost during the week not only twice or once a month during some weekends. It's a stupid move. The move definitely edged me to getting a Eve Online subscription again.
My observation is people who are in favor of the decision. Have little or no consideration for the people who prefer hourly events.
You know that argument goes both ways right?
As for me, i finally get to play these previously hourly events. With the removal of the hourly events, these events became available for everyone and not just a small group.
All hail to the dailies.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Removal of hourly bonus events in a game that focuses on 10-15min mission grind was a terrible mistake. I hope the folks running things figure this out sooner rather than later.
You state that the argument goes both ways then make a statement denying your own premise! It is not available for everyone, not everyone has the entire weekend to play games. It was easier to find some time during an entire week than time on every other weekend.
The weekend is just a bonus and still the time and place where the majority of players are not bound by work/school.
The most played hourly events have been replaced by dailies and as such are more readily available.
The only things which used to be hourlies and are currently not available is mirror invasion and that is due to an overhaul.
So it is only fair to say that it is beneficial to all that the hourly events have been replaced.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
As for me, i finally get to play these previously hourly events. With the removal of the hourly events, these events became available for everyone and not just a small group.
All hail to the dailies.
Are you aware how many of those hourly events didn't make it into dailies?
Oh and yeah, thanks for making the 'Tour the Universe' daily, but now enhanced with a 15 minute restriction!
No matter how you try to turn it, it's still a nerf.
As for me, i finally get to play these previously hourly events. With the removal of the hourly events, these events became available for everyone and not just a small group.
Wow. That's a big assumption. Honestly, the hourly event was better for me. I tend to work during the weekends.
Are you aware how many of those hourly events didn't make it into dailies?
Oh and yeah, thanks for making the 'Tour the Universe' daily, but now enhanced with a 15 minute restriction!
No matter how you try to turn it, it's still a nerf.
It's definitely a nerf to all but the weekend warriors that play heavily on weekends but hardly touch the stuff on weekdays. It seems like Cryptic is slowly but surely systematically nerfing the rate at which players earn rewards and currency over the long haul to keep them playing longer, or to make buying zen with cash more appealing. It's annoying, but so long as Cryptic leaves the golden goose alone I won't complain.
Bad. Queues are rather hard to fill for many events. Some events that were popular during bonus mark hours but dead the rest of the time are particularly difficult to fill. Hourly bonuses gave a time wherein people who wanted to play it could gather and concentrate.
This is most noticeable for the bonus marks event. While I do not notice declining population like a couple of the posters, I've noticed it's a bit more of a pain to get into several of the less popular queues, which is disappointing. This was a good way to more thoroughly utilize things that weren't space STFs and the Crystaline Entity. I hope they come up with more incentives for interested parties to pool at the same time (more to the point, something similar to hourly events).
Additionally I saw the "useless" events as causing no problems, e.g. Time To Craft. There are still a few people who crafted (even though many dislike the crafting system), and they all did it turning Time To Craft. Now without that discount I'll bet Memory Alpha really IS dead (haven't crafted in quite a while myself). And I don't see a problem with having particle hunter events, or the dil mining event which made the dil zones a lot more populated at any one time.
I agree with the previous poster who questioned why it had to be one or the other - it doesn't have to be, and I recall at least a few promotional events where it in fact wasn't one or the other. We've had a few bonus mark weekends while the hourlies kept chugging right along.
Some of the STF channels seem kind of dead, if I was a PVE only player I am not sure I would log in now without any hourly events. I am not staying logged in as much as I used to. Bring back the hourly events.
This, of course, ignores people who work service jobs and kids who have part-time work (the last seemingly only a U.S. phenomena) where weekends are "Work Days" and their leisure time is actually looser on week-days.
I think Cryptic's making a lot of miscalculation with this, but I doubt they're ever going to reverse the decisions they're making regarding it-remember, these guys think chasing mini-Q is fun and think that the Q-shell-game is rewarding gameplay.
Should availability of events be focused on the majority or on the minority of players.
Despite the moaning of many in here, the majority of people works or goes to school during the week and has free time during the weekend. These "weekend warriors" as some denigrating call them are the majority.
The new system favors the weekend (and thus the majority) while still keeping previously hourly events available through dailies. So it truly is the best of both worlds.
So those complaining should try to be a little less selfish.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
All they had to do was remove the useless hourly events. STF queues take forever now if you want to do a ground mission, mine trap takes forever, there's no more academy event where I'd make over 7k dilithium, and no more investigate officer reports that made me check out foundry missions I'd otherwise have zero interest in.
If they took out vault shuttle, time to craft and the extra datachip from midterm the good hourly events would be a lot more common and available at all times of day, and PvE queues would pop.
I find that I am spending less time ingame, that shiny hourly event coming up is no longer there to keep me logged on. Granted only half of them were worth it. Good for me, bad for PWE.
Frankly I'm glad they're gone, half were useless. As for the other half, I prefer not to be told what I ought to be doing all the time. Of course it is optional, but then it's harder to enjoy the game if you work to the schedule, for me at least though I know others agree.
These weekend events are better by miles, and leaves the rest of the time to just do what you enjoy doing. Also, if you really wanted to you could just farm marks for the next dil event to trade in.
Also, you guys need to remember why Cryptic are doing this in the first place. Their numbers said very few people were taking advantage of the hourly events in the grand scheme of things, another is the test weekend with the Dyson was super popular. It's not hard to see why they made the decision.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head. - Euripides
I no longer do any Bug Hunting work for Cryptic. I may resume if a serious attempt to fix the game is made.
When this new weekend thing came in and the event calendar vanished... i have basically all but stopped playing the game. I've also spent 0 cash on the game as well.
Sorry, but if Cryptic are so short sighted that they only see every second weekend in the calendar as "right" for their numbers, then my playing time, and wallet, have moved on to other games which don't shaft their long time players.
I don't mind the grind, but i do mind having the rug pulled out from under me so the grind takes even longer.
"You know when that shark bites, with its teeth dear... scarlet billows start to spread..."
I've read some Cryptic apologist's comments before but your's takes the proverbial biscuit. Are you so naive as to believe Cryptic would do anything that didn't benefit their long term goal of making profit? The points you make are unproven and certainly do not match my experience, however I am old enough and hopefully wise enough to not presume my opinion to be fact for all as you continually imply yours to be.
Resorting to ya boo name calling of those that dare to disagree with your heavily researched opinion (that's sarcasm) will not win your argument. We are not selfish because we wish everyone to have a bite of the cherry, those are the actions of the selfless, in fact it is you who by continually flogging your opinion backed up with ethereal data is acting in a selfish manner.
The question "was removal of the hourlies a bad thing?" requires your opinion of course, it does not require your denigration of any individual who promotes a different opinion.
Yet, that denigration was already taking place long before i made my remark by those looking down on "weekend warriors".
I'm not naive, but making profit means having content available for the majority of people.
This system does exactly that.
A lack of comprehension of unwillingness to see clear facts on the part of those who complain does not negate my previously made statements. Branding me as a Cryptic fan boy is just a sad attempt to discredit me.
This system benefits the majority of players and as a side effect it is good business for PWE.
Those complaining need to understand that providing for their small corner of the game while hurting the majority in the process is bad business and ultimately hurts the game.
If you want to preach economics, first learn the basics.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Yet, that denigration was already taking place long before i made my remark by those looking down on "weekend warriors".
I'm not naive, but making profit means having content available for the majority of people.
This system does exactly that.
A lack of comprehension of unwillingness to see clear facts on the part of those who complain does not negate my previously made statements. Branding me as a Cryptic fan boy is just a sad attempt to discredit me.
This system benefits the majority of players and as a side effect it is good business for PWE.
Those complaining need to understand that providing for their small corner of the game while hurting the majority in the process is bad business and ultimately hurts the game.
If you want to preach economics, first learn the basics.
Few fun facts:
1. Clear facts here having the meaning - "Cryptic says so". :rolleyes:
2. You have no idea wheather this mythic 'majority' you speak of exists.
3. It was a nerf made on purpose to slow down SB and Rep. progression.
4. Many of the hourly events didn't make it into dailies.
5. 'Tour the universe' was nerfed.
6. I'm not being selfish when I say that I prefered the old system.
7. If you playtime revolves around the weekends, you had the hourly events during your playtime as well.
8. I can't stop laughing at all the drones talking about how relieved they are to be able to do what they enjoy doing. LOL Wasn't aware the hourly events were holding people hostage.
This change has been the last in a line of obvious examples of Cryptic's elementary lack of understanding of how gaming works. I play games to have fun.
With this last change Cryptic made it clear that not only they want to tell us how to play and what to play, but now even when to play, behaving like an adult supervisor of what we do with our time in the game. Doesn't sound much fun to me and is probably the reason I'm witholding any further financing of their product.
Comments
I mean, if they can do it in Neverwinter...
I think this is really sad, that the only thing you get from playing the game if how much you can gain in whatever points you are after.
whats so wrong with just playing the game for the fun of it?
and so what if you play a particular thing for say fleet marks, so what you only got single fleet marks instead of 50 or 100 per cent extra, so you stamp your feet and say no point in playing, now you never even got the single marks.
if you were that desperate for the marks single marks is better then no marks at all so where is the logic in that?
when I play all I care about is having fun, if I play and earn some stuff for the fleet or my rep that's great, if I get bonus marks even better, but that's just secondary the main part is im having fun, if im not having fun then I would not care how many gazillion extra marks im earning there would be no point in playing at all.
I too found the weekend event much better but what about the people who just cant play on a sat&sun so to be fair they extended the weekend to cover 4 days so even if you cant play sat&sun you can play thurs&fri night.
but now if they make it every weekend we will have more time when we are earning bonus then not, good for us sure not so good for the longevity of the game.
fair compromise is to make it every other week end, makes sense to me.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
This is why I thought the hourly events should have changed to feature more particular stuff.
Instead of generally "reputation marks" particulary "9mine event" or "nukara ground event" or "new Romulus event".
Only thing we do togetter is defera hards...
so far, its been solid and unspectacular, however thus far it hasnt effected me loosing the hourly dailies. the key is learning to adapt, making something from nothing which is something i have always been able to do.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I wanted to type a longer response explaining the reasons for my position on this, but I stumbled upon mattjohnsonva's reply here and it pretty much explains how I feel about it.
So I'm just going to say that yes OP, it was a bad thing. It was also a type of nerf.
My observation is people who are in favor of the decision. Have little or no consideration for the people who prefer hourly events.
The bi-weekly event is helpful but there are people who like to maximize as much dilithium and reputation marks as possible. Additionally there are a lot of fleets that could use the boost during the week not only twice or once a month during some weekends. It's a stupid move. The move definitely edged me to getting a Eve Online subscription again.
You know that argument goes both ways right?
As for me, i finally get to play these previously hourly events. With the removal of the hourly events, these events became available for everyone and not just a small group.
All hail to the dailies.
The weekend is just a bonus and still the time and place where the majority of players are not bound by work/school.
The most played hourly events have been replaced by dailies and as such are more readily available.
The only things which used to be hourlies and are currently not available is mirror invasion and that is due to an overhaul.
So it is only fair to say that it is beneficial to all that the hourly events have been replaced.
Are you aware how many of those hourly events didn't make it into dailies?
Oh and yeah, thanks for making the 'Tour the Universe' daily, but now enhanced with a 15 minute restriction!
No matter how you try to turn it, it's still a nerf.
Wow. That's a big assumption. Honestly, the hourly event was better for me. I tend to work during the weekends.
It's definitely a nerf to all but the weekend warriors that play heavily on weekends but hardly touch the stuff on weekdays. It seems like Cryptic is slowly but surely systematically nerfing the rate at which players earn rewards and currency over the long haul to keep them playing longer, or to make buying zen with cash more appealing. It's annoying, but so long as Cryptic leaves the golden goose alone I won't complain.
This is most noticeable for the bonus marks event. While I do not notice declining population like a couple of the posters, I've noticed it's a bit more of a pain to get into several of the less popular queues, which is disappointing. This was a good way to more thoroughly utilize things that weren't space STFs and the Crystaline Entity. I hope they come up with more incentives for interested parties to pool at the same time (more to the point, something similar to hourly events).
Additionally I saw the "useless" events as causing no problems, e.g. Time To Craft. There are still a few people who crafted (even though many dislike the crafting system), and they all did it turning Time To Craft. Now without that discount I'll bet Memory Alpha really IS dead (haven't crafted in quite a while myself). And I don't see a problem with having particle hunter events, or the dil mining event which made the dil zones a lot more populated at any one time.
I agree with the previous poster who questioned why it had to be one or the other - it doesn't have to be, and I recall at least a few promotional events where it in fact wasn't one or the other. We've had a few bonus mark weekends while the hourlies kept chugging right along.
Should availability of events be focused on the majority or on the minority of players.
Despite the moaning of many in here, the majority of people works or goes to school during the week and has free time during the weekend. These "weekend warriors" as some denigrating call them are the majority.
The new system favors the weekend (and thus the majority) while still keeping previously hourly events available through dailies. So it truly is the best of both worlds.
So those complaining should try to be a little less selfish.
If they took out vault shuttle, time to craft and the extra datachip from midterm the good hourly events would be a lot more common and available at all times of day, and PvE queues would pop.
These weekend events are better by miles, and leaves the rest of the time to just do what you enjoy doing. Also, if you really wanted to you could just farm marks for the next dil event to trade in.
Also, you guys need to remember why Cryptic are doing this in the first place. Their numbers said very few people were taking advantage of the hourly events in the grand scheme of things, another is the test weekend with the Dyson was super popular. It's not hard to see why they made the decision.
Sorry, but if Cryptic are so short sighted that they only see every second weekend in the calendar as "right" for their numbers, then my playing time, and wallet, have moved on to other games which don't shaft their long time players.
I don't mind the grind, but i do mind having the rug pulled out from under me so the grind takes even longer.
Yet, that denigration was already taking place long before i made my remark by those looking down on "weekend warriors".
I'm not naive, but making profit means having content available for the majority of people.
This system does exactly that.
A lack of comprehension of unwillingness to see clear facts on the part of those who complain does not negate my previously made statements. Branding me as a Cryptic fan boy is just a sad attempt to discredit me.
This system benefits the majority of players and as a side effect it is good business for PWE.
Those complaining need to understand that providing for their small corner of the game while hurting the majority in the process is bad business and ultimately hurts the game.
If you want to preach economics, first learn the basics.
Few fun facts:
1. Clear facts here having the meaning - "Cryptic says so". :rolleyes:
2. You have no idea wheather this mythic 'majority' you speak of exists.
3. It was a nerf made on purpose to slow down SB and Rep. progression.
4. Many of the hourly events didn't make it into dailies.
5. 'Tour the universe' was nerfed.
6. I'm not being selfish when I say that I prefered the old system.
7. If you playtime revolves around the weekends, you had the hourly events during your playtime as well.
8. I can't stop laughing at all the drones talking about how relieved they are to be able to do what they enjoy doing. LOL
This change has been the last in a line of obvious examples of Cryptic's elementary lack of understanding of how gaming works. I play games to have fun.
With this last change Cryptic made it clear that not only they want to tell us how to play and what to play, but now even when to play, behaving like an adult supervisor of what we do with our time in the game. Doesn't sound much fun to me and is probably the reason I'm witholding any further financing of their product.