I somehow doubt, though, if these people wouldn't have stopped logging in regularly anyway, either with a different reason or without a specific one.
Reading the comments, it seems many people stopped enjoying the game's content on its own merits anyway; in the long term there's no amount of trickery that can keep people in a game they no longer enjoy. I've definitely noticed a lot less people being online frequently in my fleet, but I know that wasn't caused by the change to event structures - it might've speeded up the process, but it's certainly not the main cause...
*shrug*
I suspect the changes in design philosophy in the past seasons are catching up with the older regulars, causing them to lose interest. I also think new people have been drawn to the game to compensate - I'm not saying the game is doomed at all. I just think we'll start seeing some different population dynamics; as far as Cryptic's concerned this is probably not a major problem, as the vets have already spent their money, while new people don't have everything yet.
Well I don't.
Because if multiple people unrelated to each other state the same thing I do not jump to the conclusion "They are all lying".
Part of the problem is cryptics poor handling of grind content (not that this shouldn't be there, after all, ppl need stuff to do), its just far to repetitive and the time invested in certain things is to little rewarded.
I think the hourly events made people at least thing "yeah at least NOW I get a little more out of it". And removing those discouraged them.
Paycheck ?? Is Cryptic supposed to pay me, to sit at my personal computer playing video games?
So, as there is no benefit to FEs and mission replays, I take it no one has the full 3 piece set from the Dyson mission.. after all, no point playing it over and over for the deflector, engines and shield.
You're talking rubbish, this is a game not a job, if you no longer see it as a way to relax and have fun, you need to stop playing and go do something else.
Ok, it is rewarding top grind ONE of the at least 100 missions 3 times. That fixes everything :rolleyes:
Well it doesn't disprove the parts that aren't associated it, but Vault had dismal rewards for completion.
However, it was played regularly when the Reman set was procured via the same content.
Same thing. Mission Replays can be ultimalty fixed in just one way: A reward coming out of repaying them, all of them. A reward worth the time. Not tied to ONE mission, tied to every mission.
Be it Marks (which would be the by far best option) or anything else.
Just having us grind ONE (or two missions) over over and over again makes us hate this one mission and still not playing any of the others.
Interesting question - when the hourly bonus system was in full swing, did those of you who believe in "take the greatest 'pay' available" do the "task of the hour"?
IE, during crafting hour, were you off crafting? Searching nebulas and exploring during metaphasic events to use during crafting hour? Hitting up the foundry during officer reports?
For some strange reason, I have the belief that this wasn't the case. Otherwise, the hourly system would never have been removed in the first place, since Cryptic admitted that certain events (see above) did not draw the metrics, while other events, specifically mark hour, mirror invasion, and possibly mining hour, drew practically the entire playerbase...
Or were you complaining that the hourly task of your "playtime" was one of these "not useful in game type" tasks and "essentially" demanding nothing but a rotation of "Mark, Mirror, Mining" so that at least one of these "essential" hours was up during "your" playtime?
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
No. I said some events. Doesn't need to be the same events (even more than one in the same day) that were hourly events. In fact, it probably shouldn't be. The weekend events are fine by me the way they are. It would just be nice to have something to make the game a bit more dynamic during the day.
the game is dynamic enough for me even without the bonuses, that's the saddest part of this whole thread, nobody seems to know how to have fun with this game unless their getting bonuses.
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.
Part of the problem is cryptics poor handling of grind content (not that this shouldn't be there, after all, ppl need stuff to do), its just far to repetitive and the time invested in certain things is to little rewarded.
Now this is spot on, a lot of the missions can be summed up as either;
A) Go scan 5 things* Go collect 5 things*
C) Go shoot 5 lots of "baddies"*
* Some missions replace 5 with 3 instances of 5 or 6 (I.E. Empire Defense for the KDF is 3 times kill 6 lots of "baddies") or they replace with multiples of 5 (Good day to Die - die 25 times).
So, as there is no benefit to FEs and mission replays, I take it no one has the full 3 piece set from the Dyson mission..
For some pesky reason, Cryptic has not included the ability to equip more than one such item. As such, I need only ONE deflector, ONE shield, and ONE engine. In nearly all cases, this does not include those.
You're talking rubbish, this is a game not a job, if you no longer see it as a way to relax and have fun, you need to stop playing and go do something else.
I don't see why you're so endlessly fixated on nonsense like "relax" and "fun". Relaxing is unhealthy and frankly rather gruesome. Why do you think it's the favored activity of dead people?
Because there's nothing new. You can only run so many missions so many times until it's just plain boring. Even the Featured Episodes have to be re ran to get all the stuff. The game is stale, and long time players are bored.
well I see you have been playing 4 months longer then me, guess that makes you an old timer and me a newbie?
I guess I will be loosing interest in the game in about 4 months time then, darn and I thought I would be playing for years to come how wrong can I be?
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.
Now this is spot on, a lot of the missions can be summed up as either;
A) Go scan 5 things* Go collect 5 things*
C) Go shoot 5 lots of "baddies"*
* Some missions replace 5 with 3 instances of 5 or 6 (I.E. Empire Defense for the KDF is 3 times kill 6 lots of "baddies") or they replace with multiples of 5 (Good day to Die - die 25 times).
My issue is: There is a lot of interesting content in the game. The foundry alone offers a lifetime of content.
But instead we have the choice between "fun content" and "Content that offers progress".
If there wasn't anything to do but the Rep mark rewarding missions it would be understandably to handle it the way it is, but there IS enough to do.
I don't see why you're so endlessly fixated on nonsense like "relax" and "fun". Relaxing is unhealthy and frankly rather gruesome. Why do you think it's the favored activity of dead people?
You know what, I'm having a really bad day - and this is the first thing today to make me chuckle, so thank you, I needed that.
Oh you do not want to get me started on this topic.
I have no problems with the foundry, I think it is great fans can make and play out stories in the realm of Star Trek.
However, it is not Star Trek Online "content" - it is 3D fan fiction. I did not sign up a life time sub in open beta for fan fiction, I did not keep spending in the C-Store for fan fiction, I did not ask for fan fiction to replace what Cryptic should be doing. I do not buy fan fiction books, comics or follow any fan fiction youtube remake of TOS. I signed up for a professional writer to take my imagination around the galaxy.
Even a monkey does not fall for this one. Equal pay for equal work, or the monkeys go on strike. Surely you are not implying that a monkey is smarter than you, here.
I see no reason why I should do the same work for inferior pay if I can just wait for it.
My issue is: There is a lot of interesting content in the game. The foundry alone offers a lifetime of content.
But instead we have the choice between "fun content" and "Content that offers progress".
funnily enough I seem to get both all the time.
I have yet to find anything in the game that is not fun and whatever I play gives me progress in one way or another with or without bonuses.
guess I must be unique, or maybe just easy to please.
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.
Most of my fleet's game time was played on weekdays during the bonus mark events now the most any of us login for is to get the daily qmendations done during the anniversary event then log off. most of the fleet either have work and real life/family commitments on weekends. while certain weekdays they have their time to game so they are playing other games that have events going on at those times. At least with the couple hour block for bonus marks it was just mention it was bonus mark time and they would be right over to STO. Now none of us feel that incentive to play STO when they can be getting the bonuses else where.
They need to bring something out for weekdays that is on par with the weekend events to inspire play. as someone else pointed out they do the weekend plus hourly events on NW why not here?
I have real issues with the Weekend events... I work thursday to monday, and thus find myself in a cramped timeframe to play or no time at all to even enjoy them. Since the Weekend event came out I have dropped to near dead last on my fleets leaderboard (from a solidly upper mid point), and to top it all off, the first 2 they did were parts of the game I don't enjoy, and would skip as hourly events... this is poorly thought out, and is an reason for people not to play.
However I have noticed one thing, it does seem easier to get people to que for the 20 man Fleet Defense, cause if we are going to wait in que for a while, might as well be for something worth our time in fleet marks.
A lot of my various characters have now ground to a halt waiting for a replacement to the Mirror Universe event.
Until such time as a replacement comes along, I see no reason to log in.
I get my fun from the reputation system. Without ways to earn large amounts of Expertise I am forced between massive grinding or logging off to spend time offline.
Oh you do not want to get me started on this topic.
I have no problems with the foundry, I think it is great fans can make and play out stories in the realm of Star Trek.
However, it is not Star Trek Online "content" - it is 3D fan fiction. I did not sign up a life time sub in open beta for fan fiction, I did not keep spending in the C-Store for fan fiction, I did not ask for fan fiction to replace what Cryptic should be doing. I do not buy fan fiction books, comics or follow any fan fiction youtube remake of TOS. I signed up for a professional writer to take my imagination around the galaxy.
So because YOU don't want to use that part of the STO content no one else should?
I'm not asking for removing anything else or not adding anything else, I ask for mission Replay, foundry mission, exploration mission and even PVP to become part of the actual content circle = being rewarded appropriately.
funnily enough I seem to get both all the time.
I have yet to find anything in the game that is not fun and whatever I play gives me progress in one way or another with or without bonuses.
guess I must be unique, or maybe just easy to please.
Then we are playing different games.
Because replaying any Story missions right now do not offer me anything i could use and couldn't earn much faster WHILE earning Marks.
Cryptic wants us to grind for marks Rep and Fleet, this is the way the game is designed right now. And a major parts of this games content do not have those and do not add anything to the progression.
Tau Dewa or new romulus may be fun now and then, so are the STFs, so are the Dyson zones. But all of that gets repetitive very fast, and then... well its not fun. At least not for me. And obviously a lot of people share that feeling.
I have real issues with the Weekend events... I work thursday to monday, and thus find myself in a cramped timeframe to play or no time at all to even enjoy them. Since the Weekend event came out I have dropped to near dead last on my fleets leaderboard (from a solidly upper mid point), and to top it all off, the first 2 they did were parts of the game I don't enjoy, and would skip as hourly events... this is poorly thought out, and is an reason for people not to play.
However I have noticed one thing, it does seem easier to get people to que for the 20 man Fleet Defense, cause if we are going to wait in que for a while, might as well be for something worth our time in fleet marks.
so you work 24hrs a day from Thursday to Monday wow!
I start my first day of a 8 day long shift tomorrow 12hrs a day, 5 days 3 nights, 96 hours total time, I have 1 day or 24hrs off then do another 5 days 3 nights 12hr shifts.
sure I need the overtime, families are expensive you know.
if I can find time to play anyone can.
still after that I go back to my normal shift pattern of 3 days 3 nights 12hr shifts then 3 off.
till the next lot of overtime comes up that is.
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.
I do miss the hourly events. At least you could work on dilithium or EC's in the same weekend.What if they split the difference and had hourly events last 2 or 3 hours?
They're not really gone, as long as we remember them
To me it was a good thing. As I made great on the Dil weekend. I earned more than I could during the hourly event. I didn't like the hourly that much cause I rarely hit the event I wanted. So most of the time I didn't even do them. The weekend one is better since it last all weekend so I can do it. And the rewards is lot greater.
However for the weekdays only group. I really hope they make it during the week as well for those. So both groups can get a chance to enjoy the event.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
some valid points in here,for and against.
what i've noticed is that my friends list ( a big one since being here from the beginning) is now more often than not empty,how many players are seeing the same thing ?
surely this is a bad thing for cryptic ? i don't understand how less players is better for them,maybe some money crunching person up high told them this is the way to go for maximum profit.
Hourlies and not dailies. We have no idea how it will work out until we have gone through a few of them. Until then it is an exaggeration to either call it a resounding success or an abject failure. Even calling it a weekend event is a misnomer as it starts on Thurs and ends on Monday, pretty much 5 days.
As I said earlier I think they missed out on the opportunity to turn some of the "lesser" hourlies into dailies and even create a few new ones.
Colour me suspicious but I see this as either an attempt to prolong the grind or just a half baked idea that's had no proper thought put into it.
I could get used to the idea of weekend special events, however this is actually BI-WEEKLY. So, for instance, you want a reputation mark event (such as this weekend) you have to wait for it.
Say what you like about the daily events but at least you stood a good chance of running your favorite at least once a day.
So why not run both Cryptic?
I know they are increasing the amount of "bonus" you get during the weekend events however its still placed firmly behind a form of time gate.
So my personal view, I preferred the dailies however switch the weekend events to EVERY weekend and I'd be happier.
So because YOU don't want to use that part of the STO content no one else should?
I'm not asking for removing anything else or not adding anything else, I ask for mission Replay, foundry mission, exploration mission and even PVP to become part of the actual content circle = being rewarded appropriately.
Hold your horses there, I never said I didn't use any part of STO, I never said no one else should use any part of STO.
What I said was, I did not want "Fan Fiction" to replace actual real professional content in the game.
And by asking for "Fan Fiction" to give the same rewards as professional content, Cryptic won't have to bother making real content anymore as you provide them with excuse of - You get paid the same for foundry missions, so why do we have make missions.
I'd rather the professionals not sit around making shiny virtual trinkets for the store and finish off the story arcs they started - not leave us to finish ourselves off (and yes, I know that sound rude :P )
So before accusing me of saying something - you should check first what I ACTUALLY SAID.
Professional content does, and should, pay more than fan made content.
What I said was, I did not want "Fan Fiction" to replace actual real professional content in the game.
Oh, I think we're waaaaaaaaaay past that already, in terms of story content. Some of that 'Fan Fiction' work is far far better than the official content, even with the limited resources the authors have at their disposal.
We used to have these bonus weekends AS WELL AS our daily/hourlies
Cryptic need to stop pretending this is some brand new idea that works out better for the playerbase, just admit you wanted to put the bonus mark % in lockbox consumables instead !
Also every 2nd week isnt a weekly anyway you cut it.
Oh, I think we're waaaaaaaaaay past that already, in terms of story content. Some of that 'Fan Fiction' work is far far better than the official content, even with the limited resources the authors have at their disposal.
Oh, I do not doubt that some of the fan made missions are really good.
But when I hand money over to PWE/Cryptic, I expect that money to be used to fund the games development, add new content and continue the existing storylines (Fed / KDF war, Dyson Sphere and Voth, the diplomatic situation with the Romulans (a full faction would be nice) things like this).
Playing fan fiction, is it's own reward. Taking part in PvP is it's own reward (braggin rights, etc)
The foundry is not Star Trek Online "content", just like the fan made TOS series on YouTube is not "canon TOS".
Asking for them to be rewarded equally is an insult and a laugh, I don't pay to be entertained and rewarded by "amerture hour" - if I wanted that, I'd go watch X-Factor or Britain's got Talent.
Then we are playing different games.
Because replaying any Story missions right now do not offer me anything i could use and couldn't earn much faster WHILE earning Marks.
Cryptic wants us to grind for marks Rep and Fleet, this is the way the game is designed right now. And a major parts of this games content do not have those and do not add anything to the progression.
Tau Dewa or new romulus may be fun now and then, so are the STFs, so are the Dyson zones. But all of that gets repetitive very fast, and then... well its not fun. At least not for me. And obviously a lot of people share that feeling.
i stand by what i said i have not found anything in the game that is not fun, if it was not fun i certainly would not play it.
i also stand by what i say that whatever i do gives me progress in one way or another.
even replaying story missions, dont you get xp every time you take out an enemy on ground or in space, dont you bother to pick up any drops that even if not useful can be recycled for ec, dont you get rewards and more xp and items that can be recycled on completing the mission.
i get all these things and they are all things that even if its only a small amount still all adds to progress.
you want more faster, as long as i have fun i dont care if its little but often fun is much more important to me.
the other thing is i dont play the same thing again and again until it becomes repedative.
i play a bit of this, a bit of that and so on and so on, veriety is the spice of life and there is plenty of veriety in sto if you bother looking for it.
this is half the problem that people have they get a new rep with new stuff like dyson then they play it solidly excluding all else till they are sick of the sight of it.
all i do is play a little here and a little there then go do somthing else so i am always happy to play any of the stuff even long after my rep is complete.
lets face it if you had chicken for every meal you would soon get sick of it but as part of a ballanced menu every now and then its always good to eat.
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.
Addressing thread title:
Yes, I think losing the hourly events was a bad idea. They afforded certain boosts to rewards which encouraged me to play certain activities. It made me log on the game and stay around certain points because I felt it was worth it - especially to ease whatever grind I'd be working on.
And we'd get other weekend events on top of that.
Now, today, we get just the later, and I'm very unenthused about it. Getting Dyson marks, for one, takes a long while and it an especially tedious grind in comparison to the Borg rep stuff.
I do think the hourly events needed some pruning/consolidating. But removing them altogether is, in my opinion, a rather monumental misstep.
It was a bad idea. I agree. But mostly because cryptic is not doing what they said. Weekly events.
We already had a dilithium one almost 1 month ago, and nothing since then. Because i refuse to think the anniversary event is replacing the ongoing weekly one. Its stupid. Maybe because cryptic is so bad skilled that they cant even make the event banner to show 2 of em at the same time.. who knows LOL.
So, people that normally will log-in only a couple of hours at day (not in the weekend) to make some events and not waste time, now they wont (honestly i will do the same, i dont have enough time to wast after work and i need more important things, and now that i even dont have hourly events, why should i login to waste 2 hours doing almost nothing useful? lol. ), so in the end, only a few players are playing from monday to thursday.
Almost that is what i think (and that makes sense...).
But if cryptic keeps not doing weekly events as they promised, lol, well, i dont care anymore, but i think a lot of people will really upset. For some players, to gather some dilithium now in a couple of hours its just almost impossible. 2 months ago you could just do the academy event and gain 4000-5000 dilithium just for 1 hour of your time. Or the dilithium mine event. But now.. meh xd.
Having the weekend events is, in general, a bad thing.
It used to be that you logged in to STO, looked at the calendar, saw which event was happening and maybe did something to benefit from it (bonus marks for 3 hrs, run some STFs). Then stay on for another hour and do the Mirror event. And, oh look, the hour after is Time To Craft, maybe I can finally get the last console I need for my build at 50% of dil store price, I'll stay logged in. This sort of thing worked even with lots of characters.
Now that the long weekend events are on, this is what happens: Log in straight after patch to find out what the event is. Do something to benefit from the event. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Oh look, it's Monday morning, the event's over, and all I've done this weekend is grind dilithium/rep marks/tribbles, I haven't actually done anything to improve my ship, my character, or my playing experience.
Doubtless there are proponents and opponents of each method of offering players the chance to earn extra currency of various types, but I think they all would agree that grind is bad, variety is good.
A good solution would be to have a mixture. Does Tour The Galaxy really need an hour all to itself? No, keep it as a daily (but for Bob's sake, increase the time limit to something reasonable so you don't have to have the latest super-ship and extra-speed-gear to get it done in the time available). Does The Vault need an hourly event? Not since they started the Romulan Rep, so make it a daily for bonus marks, or just leave it so it gets included in a Bonus Rep event. And run those Bonus Rep/Dilithium/Fleet marks events every day, for four or five hours at a time. Cycle these bonus sessions with the other hourly events between them, so that everyone has a reasonable chance of getting a couple of hours of Bonus-time and a couple of hourly events in each play session, and regularly change the order of the hourlies so people can experience different ones. Then at weekends you can have Bonus Rep/Dilithium/Marks running all the time so those four-hour bonus sessions don't have have any effect, but people can still do other stuff usefully. They can choose to continue to grind Rep, or they can choose to take advantage of the hourly boost to XP from the Mirror event.
Comments
Well I don't.
Because if multiple people unrelated to each other state the same thing I do not jump to the conclusion "They are all lying".
Part of the problem is cryptics poor handling of grind content (not that this shouldn't be there, after all, ppl need stuff to do), its just far to repetitive and the time invested in certain things is to little rewarded.
I think the hourly events made people at least thing "yeah at least NOW I get a little more out of it". And removing those discouraged them.
Ok, it is rewarding top grind ONE of the at least 100 missions 3 times. That fixes everything :rolleyes:
Same thing. Mission Replays can be ultimalty fixed in just one way: A reward coming out of repaying them, all of them. A reward worth the time. Not tied to ONE mission, tied to every mission.
Be it Marks (which would be the by far best option) or anything else.
Just having us grind ONE (or two missions) over over and over again makes us hate this one mission and still not playing any of the others.
IE, during crafting hour, were you off crafting? Searching nebulas and exploring during metaphasic events to use during crafting hour? Hitting up the foundry during officer reports?
For some strange reason, I have the belief that this wasn't the case. Otherwise, the hourly system would never have been removed in the first place, since Cryptic admitted that certain events (see above) did not draw the metrics, while other events, specifically mark hour, mirror invasion, and possibly mining hour, drew practically the entire playerbase...
Or were you complaining that the hourly task of your "playtime" was one of these "not useful in game type" tasks and "essentially" demanding nothing but a rotation of "Mark, Mirror, Mining" so that at least one of these "essential" hours was up during "your" playtime?
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
the game is dynamic enough for me even without the bonuses, that's the saddest part of this whole thread, nobody seems to know how to have fun with this game unless their getting bonuses.
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.
Now this is spot on, a lot of the missions can be summed up as either;
A) Go scan 5 things*
C) Go shoot 5 lots of "baddies"*
* Some missions replace 5 with 3 instances of 5 or 6 (I.E. Empire Defense for the KDF is 3 times kill 6 lots of "baddies") or they replace with multiples of 5 (Good day to Die - die 25 times).
Not unless you happen to be lacking a deflector, engine, and shield.
No Lobi awarded for completion. I can impulsively rush the matter for reduced pay, or I can wait...if I even want those sets: They're not very good.
I don't see why you're so endlessly fixated on nonsense like "relax" and "fun". Relaxing is unhealthy and frankly rather gruesome. Why do you think it's the favored activity of dead people?
well I see you have been playing 4 months longer then me, guess that makes you an old timer and me a newbie?
I guess I will be loosing interest in the game in about 4 months time then, darn and I thought I would be playing for years to come how wrong can I be?
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.
My issue is: There is a lot of interesting content in the game. The foundry alone offers a lifetime of content.
But instead we have the choice between "fun content" and "Content that offers progress".
If there wasn't anything to do but the Rep mark rewarding missions it would be understandably to handle it the way it is, but there IS enough to do.
You know what, I'm having a really bad day - and this is the first thing today to make me chuckle, so thank you, I needed that.
Oh you do not want to get me started on this topic.
I have no problems with the foundry, I think it is great fans can make and play out stories in the realm of Star Trek.
However, it is not Star Trek Online "content" - it is 3D fan fiction. I did not sign up a life time sub in open beta for fan fiction, I did not keep spending in the C-Store for fan fiction, I did not ask for fan fiction to replace what Cryptic should be doing. I do not buy fan fiction books, comics or follow any fan fiction youtube remake of TOS. I signed up for a professional writer to take my imagination around the galaxy.
Notice something ?
funnily enough I seem to get both all the time.
I have yet to find anything in the game that is not fun and whatever I play gives me progress in one way or another with or without bonuses.
guess I must be unique, or maybe just easy to please.
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.
They need to bring something out for weekdays that is on par with the weekend events to inspire play. as someone else pointed out they do the weekend plus hourly events on NW why not here?
However I have noticed one thing, it does seem easier to get people to que for the 20 man Fleet Defense, cause if we are going to wait in que for a while, might as well be for something worth our time in fleet marks.
Until such time as a replacement comes along, I see no reason to log in.
I get my fun from the reputation system. Without ways to earn large amounts of Expertise I am forced between massive grinding or logging off to spend time offline.
So because YOU don't want to use that part of the STO content no one else should?
I'm not asking for removing anything else or not adding anything else, I ask for mission Replay, foundry mission, exploration mission and even PVP to become part of the actual content circle = being rewarded appropriately.
Then we are playing different games.
Because replaying any Story missions right now do not offer me anything i could use and couldn't earn much faster WHILE earning Marks.
Cryptic wants us to grind for marks Rep and Fleet, this is the way the game is designed right now. And a major parts of this games content do not have those and do not add anything to the progression.
Tau Dewa or new romulus may be fun now and then, so are the STFs, so are the Dyson zones. But all of that gets repetitive very fast, and then... well its not fun. At least not for me. And obviously a lot of people share that feeling.
so you work 24hrs a day from Thursday to Monday wow!
I start my first day of a 8 day long shift tomorrow 12hrs a day, 5 days 3 nights, 96 hours total time, I have 1 day or 24hrs off then do another 5 days 3 nights 12hr shifts.
sure I need the overtime, families are expensive you know.
if I can find time to play anyone can.
still after that I go back to my normal shift pattern of 3 days 3 nights 12hr shifts then 3 off.
till the next lot of overtime comes up that is.
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.
Rayzee
excellentawesome#4589
torgaddon101
raeat
However for the weekdays only group. I really hope they make it during the week as well for those. So both groups can get a chance to enjoy the event.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
what i've noticed is that my friends list ( a big one since being here from the beginning) is now more often than not empty,how many players are seeing the same thing ?
surely this is a bad thing for cryptic ? i don't understand how less players is better for them,maybe some money crunching person up high told them this is the way to go for maximum profit.
me ? i don't get it.
As I said earlier I think they missed out on the opportunity to turn some of the "lesser" hourlies into dailies and even create a few new ones.
I could get used to the idea of weekend special events, however this is actually BI-WEEKLY. So, for instance, you want a reputation mark event (such as this weekend) you have to wait for it.
Say what you like about the daily events but at least you stood a good chance of running your favorite at least once a day.
So why not run both Cryptic?
I know they are increasing the amount of "bonus" you get during the weekend events however its still placed firmly behind a form of time gate.
So my personal view, I preferred the dailies however switch the weekend events to EVERY weekend and I'd be happier.
Hold your horses there, I never said I didn't use any part of STO, I never said no one else should use any part of STO.
What I said was, I did not want "Fan Fiction" to replace actual real professional content in the game.
And by asking for "Fan Fiction" to give the same rewards as professional content, Cryptic won't have to bother making real content anymore as you provide them with excuse of - You get paid the same for foundry missions, so why do we have make missions.
I'd rather the professionals not sit around making shiny virtual trinkets for the store and finish off the story arcs they started - not leave us to finish ourselves off (and yes, I know that sound rude :P )
So before accusing me of saying something - you should check first what I ACTUALLY SAID.
Professional content does, and should, pay more than fan made content.
Oh, I think we're waaaaaaaaaay past that already, in terms of story content. Some of that 'Fan Fiction' work is far far better than the official content, even with the limited resources the authors have at their disposal.
Cryptic need to stop pretending this is some brand new idea that works out better for the playerbase, just admit you wanted to put the bonus mark % in lockbox consumables instead !
Also every 2nd week isnt a weekly anyway you cut it.
Oh, I do not doubt that some of the fan made missions are really good.
But when I hand money over to PWE/Cryptic, I expect that money to be used to fund the games development, add new content and continue the existing storylines (Fed / KDF war, Dyson Sphere and Voth, the diplomatic situation with the Romulans (a full faction would be nice) things like this).
Playing fan fiction, is it's own reward. Taking part in PvP is it's own reward (braggin rights, etc)
The foundry is not Star Trek Online "content", just like the fan made TOS series on YouTube is not "canon TOS".
Asking for them to be rewarded equally is an insult and a laugh, I don't pay to be entertained and rewarded by "amerture hour" - if I wanted that, I'd go watch X-Factor or Britain's got Talent.
i stand by what i said i have not found anything in the game that is not fun, if it was not fun i certainly would not play it.
i also stand by what i say that whatever i do gives me progress in one way or another.
even replaying story missions, dont you get xp every time you take out an enemy on ground or in space, dont you bother to pick up any drops that even if not useful can be recycled for ec, dont you get rewards and more xp and items that can be recycled on completing the mission.
i get all these things and they are all things that even if its only a small amount still all adds to progress.
you want more faster, as long as i have fun i dont care if its little but often fun is much more important to me.
the other thing is i dont play the same thing again and again until it becomes repedative.
i play a bit of this, a bit of that and so on and so on, veriety is the spice of life and there is plenty of veriety in sto if you bother looking for it.
this is half the problem that people have they get a new rep with new stuff like dyson then they play it solidly excluding all else till they are sick of the sight of it.
all i do is play a little here and a little there then go do somthing else so i am always happy to play any of the stuff even long after my rep is complete.
lets face it if you had chicken for every meal you would soon get sick of it but as part of a ballanced menu every now and then its always good to eat.
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.
Yes, I think losing the hourly events was a bad idea. They afforded certain boosts to rewards which encouraged me to play certain activities. It made me log on the game and stay around certain points because I felt it was worth it - especially to ease whatever grind I'd be working on.
And we'd get other weekend events on top of that.
Now, today, we get just the later, and I'm very unenthused about it. Getting Dyson marks, for one, takes a long while and it an especially tedious grind in comparison to the Borg rep stuff.
I do think the hourly events needed some pruning/consolidating. But removing them altogether is, in my opinion, a rather monumental misstep.
We already had a dilithium one almost 1 month ago, and nothing since then. Because i refuse to think the anniversary event is replacing the ongoing weekly one. Its stupid. Maybe because cryptic is so bad skilled that they cant even make the event banner to show 2 of em at the same time.. who knows LOL.
So, people that normally will log-in only a couple of hours at day (not in the weekend) to make some events and not waste time, now they wont (honestly i will do the same, i dont have enough time to wast after work and i need more important things, and now that i even dont have hourly events, why should i login to waste 2 hours doing almost nothing useful? lol. ), so in the end, only a few players are playing from monday to thursday.
Almost that is what i think (and that makes sense...).
But if cryptic keeps not doing weekly events as they promised, lol, well, i dont care anymore, but i think a lot of people will really upset. For some players, to gather some dilithium now in a couple of hours its just almost impossible. 2 months ago you could just do the academy event and gain 4000-5000 dilithium just for 1 hour of your time. Or the dilithium mine event. But now.. meh xd.
It used to be that you logged in to STO, looked at the calendar, saw which event was happening and maybe did something to benefit from it (bonus marks for 3 hrs, run some STFs). Then stay on for another hour and do the Mirror event. And, oh look, the hour after is Time To Craft, maybe I can finally get the last console I need for my build at 50% of dil store price, I'll stay logged in. This sort of thing worked even with lots of characters.
Now that the long weekend events are on, this is what happens: Log in straight after patch to find out what the event is. Do something to benefit from the event. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Oh look, it's Monday morning, the event's over, and all I've done this weekend is grind dilithium/rep marks/tribbles, I haven't actually done anything to improve my ship, my character, or my playing experience.
Doubtless there are proponents and opponents of each method of offering players the chance to earn extra currency of various types, but I think they all would agree that grind is bad, variety is good.
A good solution would be to have a mixture. Does Tour The Galaxy really need an hour all to itself? No, keep it as a daily (but for Bob's sake, increase the time limit to something reasonable so you don't have to have the latest super-ship and extra-speed-gear to get it done in the time available). Does The Vault need an hourly event? Not since they started the Romulan Rep, so make it a daily for bonus marks, or just leave it so it gets included in a Bonus Rep event. And run those Bonus Rep/Dilithium/Fleet marks events every day, for four or five hours at a time. Cycle these bonus sessions with the other hourly events between them, so that everyone has a reasonable chance of getting a couple of hours of Bonus-time and a couple of hourly events in each play session, and regularly change the order of the hourlies so people can experience different ones. Then at weekends you can have Bonus Rep/Dilithium/Marks running all the time so those four-hour bonus sessions don't have have any effect, but people can still do other stuff usefully. They can choose to continue to grind Rep, or they can choose to take advantage of the hourly boost to XP from the Mirror event.