Seems like I've been playing non-stop since December. With the Winter event I was able to get almost 60,000 marks across 13 characters. Almost every character is now T5 in something, sometimes multiple somethings, except for the one who wasn't 50 yet during the event. Personally I don't consider something a "grind" if it is fun and/or easy, and I found the Fast and Flurrious race quite fun. Did plenty of other winter event stuff as well.
Since then I've been playing missions to get expertise for some of my newer alts, running STFs for neuroprocessors, running the Dyson Battlezone for Voth rep and playing Foundry missions for review on my podcast. I've also started a new Foundry mission, a historical account of the Romulan War. I'm now working on getting three anniversary ships, one for each faction, and considering doing the event on more characters and saving the Qmendations for next year (on a hunch that they may do a similar event). Doesn't feel like a grind cause its easy as heck.
AND on Saturday I got a Hirogen ship out of a lockbox, so I decided to create a new character, a KDF-Rom Alien made up to look like a Hirogen, with a crew full of similar Hirogen. Over the past two days I've gotten him from 0 to 31.
There's a lot to do in this game and a lot of fun to be had. You just gotten get out there and do it.
I like your style, you seem like someone who knows how to have fun in the game and that's what its all about.
the only thing I would say is as you have lots of characters don't get too the stage that I have often seen where players find the prospect of doing a certain thing too overwhelming over so many characters.
so pick 3 or 4 as favourites and if something comes up that you want to do but is time consuming and must be completed quickly, like the winter/summer events, just do it on your favourites.
if I had 1zen for every time I have read - this is too much to do on my ** amount of characters - often followed by a long list or reasons why the game is only out to get your money, I would be a rich man.
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.
Skill? I ran Mirror Universe a few times. There was no skill involved. Show up, zoom en-mass to the first bunch of enemies, <Boom!> Second, third, fourth, <Boom!> End 'boss' shows up, <BOOM!> Quit, queue, repeat. The only skill involved, was how fast you could hit the queue button.
Its strange though how people whine and moan about repetitive content and grind, but moan when it goes away...
No-one ever whined that mirror universe was repetitive, if anything people loved MU for it's short cut to mushrooms relieving the boredom of levelling via missions we've played 5 times. The skill of it wasn't doing the mission but how fast you did it, good group can do it in 2 mins if that, rinse and repeat, hell you could get 10+ levels in an hour if you had some friends levelling at the same time.
Skill? I ran Mirror Universe a few times. There was no skill involved. Show up, zoom en-mass to the first bunch of enemies, <Boom!> Second, third, fourth, <Boom!> End 'boss' shows up, <BOOM!> Quit, queue, repeat. The only skill involved, was how fast you could hit the queue button.
Its strange though how people whine and moan about repetitive content and grind, but moan when it goes away...
If you go in it with a bad build you will get blown up. So the challenge is creating a build that can handle it.
No-one ever whined that mirror universe was repetitive, if anything people loved MU for it's short cut to mushrooms relieving the boredom of levelling via missions we've played 5 times.
No, people didn't complain, because it provided shiny things, but no matter how you cut it, doing the same thing 20 times an hour is still repetitive and a grind. The only difference between it, and the content people do moan about, is that you got an excessive amount of shinies at the end.
The grindaversary doesn't encourage more than just popping on and chasing miniQ's for anything up to ten minutes, depending on whether you can find an empty enough server and there aren't too many griefers around.
Cryptics continuing policy of non-engagement with any position critical of the recent changes rankles a lot. It's as if they're saying, "we didn't care what you thought about the changes much beforehand, why would we care what you think now?"
The utter lack of sense of player appreciation from this 'anniversary' is palpable.
All in all, a very sad anniversary. Not at all welcoming.
I'm playing more. 8.5 has alot to do with it as I usually take a break after getting bored. New releases usually always bring me back for a bit and I leave again.
This is a little different, I've decided that I'm going to max out a toon on each faction rep wise and keep em around this time. Once that is done, hopefully there will be alot of new stuff to play around with, preferably without another rep system tied to it.
The loss of hourly events is a big turn off for me though, they should at least be a daily event.
No, people didn't complain, because it provided shiny things, but no matter how you cut it, doing the same thing 20 times an hour is still repetitive and a grind. The only difference between it, and the content people do moan about, is that you got an excessive amount of shinies at the end.
Again though this is exactly what vivenneanthony said, he could grind MU and get better rewards than what someone doing deferi.
As for this grind thing, you were the one who mentioned it, everyone else was happy to grind MU for justifiable rewards.
I'm playing plenty of battlezone with occasional ISE runs (since you can always get ISE to pop). Oh and those other things... uhh, missions, yeah.
I do agree with what other people were saying about the loss of hourly events making things harder to arrange in other places - the bonus marks event really focused people into Nukara, Defera, etc so if you could play during that time you were just about guaranteed that things would be hopping. It has nothing to do with the 20% bonus, per se, I just don't play the game to sit around trying to put a team together or waiting for a non-ISE queue to pop.
Once I've got all the Borg stuff I care to and the battlezone rewards get nerfed (you know it's coming) I'll probably scale down. There's stuff from the Steam holiday sales mewling plaintively like a box of kittens to be played with after all...
Not playing the mini-Q event. I enjoyed repeating the winter race (it reminded me of old times on the ice in City of Heroes) but there are limits to my willingness to grind silly things. The line must be drawn here!
PLaying more. But only because I am trying to do the FE and Anniversary event on 4 characters.
I have been only playing one character. Been working on that one tunes reps. Once done with that one, then moving on to the next one till all 4 characters are done. Then I will make new ones.
The hourly events never influenced my play or playstyle. But the gaining of free ships normally do.
Although the Winter event frustrated me so much that I quit playing till the Winter event was over. This last winter event I just could not do, either because I lack the skill or something, it matters not. I just couldn't do it and so just didn't turn it on. THis was the first event that I did this too. All previous events I participated as much as my time permitted and had fun. WHich is why I don't think it was my personal skill.
Once the FE and Qmendations are done, I will be back down to one character for a maybe a couple hours a week. The grind for reps and stuff is just off putting enough to me that I have lowered my STO diet so as not to get frustrated.
The rommie expansion was a major boost to the game and got so many people playing again/new blood : everything past that has been downhill
Cryptic/pwe have made it pretty apparent that they no longer listen to the community and have their own set-in-stone ideas for 'bringing the game forward' (i.e rampant monetization)
Especially the anniversary : 'normal' for this sort of thing had been to complete a single fun mission and get free ship with option of buying the cstore upgrade down the line OR the boring-daily-grind but get a 10 slot 'endgame' ship method for the summer/winter events
Cryptics revised version : boring-daily-grind for the 9 slot version, 3 pack in store too and oh yeah, you will want both for the set bonus lol
(worst part is what they deem acceptable as a grind for daily missions, catching mini q's? a shell game? : WTF , its embarrassing that this is Star Trek )
Although the Winter event frustrated me so much that I quit playing till the Winter event was over. This last winter event I just could not do, either because I lack the skill or something, it matters not. I just couldn't do it and so just didn't turn it on. THis was the first event that I did this too. All previous events I participated as much as my time permitted and had fun. WHich is why I don't think it was my personal skill.
The winter races were really super easy. I usually continued to chat with fleet mates while running it. It's a pity that your fleetmates didn't offer you any tips to make it easier.
So it sounds to me that most people are playing less, some are playing about the same and a few are playing more.
The people playing more are mostly involved in the FE and Q stuff or are playing things unrelated to any grinds like leveling a new toon, foundry, or doffing.
The people playing the same are doing what they did before and after the release.
The people playing less are mostly playing less because they have hit their limit on grinding fatigue, lack of the hourly calendar events, being drawn to other games, bugs, new ships aren't worth it, or nothing left to do that levels their toons.
PvE Queues
I was surprised by the numbers of people playing less but then again I wasn't so surprised. As you look at the PvE queues and its taking sometimes 10+ minutes to queue events that were busy during the hourly events on the FED side. If we look at queues on KDF you might as well forget about the queues. The hourly events were a good way to channel masses into the queues to pop missions faster but now everyone is spread out or not doing them at all. My KDF toons are the worst to play for anything queue related to the point that I have quit with doing much with any of them..
Mirror Universe
The Mirror Universe event as was hotly debated was my source of XP as it awarded 14k per run through which could take 5 to 7 minutes will say. The dilithium was nominal at 480 per run through and you might get a decent drop for EC. Most other missions in game usually reward 4k on average for a replay and some stuff like Defera and Nukara can get you 7k and then a cooldown.
XP
While Defera dailies may give 17k XP for 30 minutes of play it takes roughly 45k XP/day to complete the three reps that require XP. You can only do Defera dailies once a day. This doesn't account for the marks that must be earned for each of those three reps either. Defera isn't viable solution unless you want to find similar rewards and spend 1 1/2 hours day jsut getting XP and then add time to get your marks as well. This is just for one toon so it is worse for those with more toons.
I personally have decided to hold off on any additional reps except for Dyson because of the XP needs. It's my choice as I don't want to spend hours a day just for XP. I'll probably just do the Q stuff for now and BZ for Dyson and dilithium.
Gold Sub since March 2010
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
Welcome to the fourth anniversary of STO where, in our zeal to make you sit at your computer more often and for longer, we are creating conditions where the opposite is happening.
Welcome to the fourth anniversary of STO where, in our zeal to make you sit at your computer more often and for longer, we are creating conditions where the opposite is happening.
Happy anniversary!
LOL
That, is the first laugh over this "event" I've had - Thank you
Way less. The game just got harder for FM's. There is no reason for me to stick around doing a FM grind. No biggie though. Save me some money and now i play BF4 all day long:cool:
Welcome to the fourth anniversary of STO where, in our zeal to make you sit at your computer more often and for longer, we are creating conditions where the opposite is happening.
Everyone complains about the grind. The grind itself, while tedious, doesn't bother me that much. For example, I know if I put in the time I'll eventually get to Tier V Omega. What irks me is being forced into doing things at specific times or missing out.
If I decide to take a break from my Omega rep and focus on Nukara, or just play STFs, or another game entirely, I can still come back and pick up the Omega rep whenever I want.
Can't take a break from the anniversary event or you'll miss out on items that you'll never be able to claim again. Other special items are offered periodically, like the episode reruns. Even then you have several weeks to get your shards and what not and it only takes one play through, so you can schedule it any time in that period.
Having to wait two weeks for the next bonus mark weekend because it can't be done daily anymore sucks too. I can't imagine playing enough in one weekend to make up the marks one would have collected playing three hours a day for two weeks.
I just find it a major turn off feeling like I have to play according to some other person's schedule or I'll be penalized.
Of course, one is never forced to participate, but I personally find that feeling hanging over the game distasteful. Am I playing less because of it? Not yet. Ask me again in a couple weeks.
Everyone complains about the grind. The grind itself, while tedious, doesn't bother me that much. For example, I know if I put in the time I'll eventually get to Tier V Omega. What irks me is being forced into doing things at specific times or missing out.
If I decide to take a break from my Omega rep and focus on Nukara, or just play STFs, or another game entirely, I can still come back and pick up the Omega rep whenever I want.
Can't take a break from the anniversary event or you'll miss out on items that you'll never be able to claim again. Other special items are offered periodically, like the episode reruns. Even then you have several weeks to get your shards and what not and it only takes one play through, so you can schedule it any time in that period.
Having to wait two weeks for the next bonus mark weekend because it can't be done daily anymore sucks too. I can't imagine playing enough in one weekend to make up the marks one would have collected playing three hours a day for two weeks.
I just find it a major turn off feeling like I have to play according to some other person's schedule or I'll be penalized.
Of course, one is never forced to participate, but I personally find that feeling hanging over the game distasteful. Am I playing less because of it? Not yet. Ask me again in a couple weeks.
I think you've hit an important point.
Grind is an inevitability in some form or other.
However, it is the time gated nature of this particular event that is causing most of the issues some people are having.
In a thread that died a quick, no response, death, I suggested that while cryptic had a right and a duty to try to create events that cause us to spend more time at our machines, they didnt always need to control the frequency so much.
The winter and summer events, with their time gated grinds for a ten console, no cstore version ship is acceptable.
A time gated grind for a nine console ship that will have a cstore equivilant very shortly is not. Especially as, in order to obtain the warp core for the four piece set bonus, you need that 9 console version.
There are so many other things they could have done here.
Make Qmarks account rather than character bound.
Lose the MiniQ game and, instead, require more runs of the FE
Give qmarks out for some activity that isn't an actual grind. Perhaps a seasonal addition to the rewards from things like Azure Nebula.
So many other options they could have chosen.
Instead, they go with this one which seems tailor made to irritate those with multiple toons or can only play at weekends. Plus a mini game that requires a whole bunch of player invented work arounds in order to make it even tolerable.
Mirror Universe could have gotten that in 4 minutes. Also, as cake could of made 8k in that time. Roughly, 8k dilithum, 64k+ XP, 300k+ plus economy.
This is what players mean Cryptic is dangling the new ship, space set, and grind like a carrot stick. While they strip the real goodies.
so you didn't say you had fun and that's the most important part, its actually more important then all that stuff.
I would rather spend 30 minutes having fun and get a nice reward then earn all that stuff in 2 seconds, cos if you aint havin fun all that stuff aint worth a hill of beans.
and no matter what I do in sto I always have fun, even with the q mini games though they are a bit lame, they are quick and easy and a bit of a giggle for the few minutes it takes to do them.
the big problem with the hourly event calendar is more often or not the thing you want to do is out of your play time so much so that it gets to the stage that you don't even bother looking anymore.
at least with the bonus weekends that run for 5 days from Thursday to Monday people will benefit from them for the whole period of the event most often or not probably without even realising it, and you wont have to bother that it isn't there for the hours you are playing as its running for every hour of the day so you cant miss it.
at the end of the day though I don't really care about earning dilithium, EC, XP, fleet marks or a partridge in a pear tree.
all I care about is having fun and let the chips fall where they will, but I seem to do ok on it and have no problems keeping up with and often outdoing other players in my fleet who seem to worry about that stuff all the time.
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'm playing the same as before and since I first started. With 3 main characters to work on and 2 sub characters. I got plenty to play with on the game.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
so you didn't say you had fun and that's the most important part, its actually more important then all that stuff.
I would rather spend 30 minutes having fun and get a nice reward then earn all that stuff in 2 seconds, cos if you aint havin fun all that stuff aint worth a hill of beans.
and no matter what I do in sto I always have fun, even with the q mini games though they are a bit lame, they are quick and easy and a bit of a giggle for the few minutes it takes to do them.
I did not have fun. I loved the anniversary mission because of the variety, and space combat in the sphere. It was the first time the space fight was realistic meaning no clear up, down, left and right. The mini challenges was great to. It felt Star Trek. I love New Romulus.
Now the rest of Star Trek seems repetitive and Cryptic is doing nothing to fix that but encouraging it shown by the anniversary grinding. I was able to complete missions the same exact way.
Now if they added ability for vice admirals to vote alliances, captains the have the ability to have human bridge officers, ability to transport into ships, concurrent play. It would be q game changer.
but it requires a new mechanics. Which I don't think Cryptic have the talent or ability to do?
I usually login a lot after new content is put out. But in this case, saying that the "1" mission they put out is deeply flawed, in that I cannot even complete it due to the screen going black (only shadows of large objects appear if swinging camera angel to focus on light from sun), I have no desire to play it.
Less. Even with doing the New FE and Q event. The removal of the event calender killing a lot of draw to play the game. I would check and wait for certain times to play...mostly the Bonus Mark event. Even if I wasn't planning on earning marks and I saw the event was on I ended up at least playing a PVE just to earn something.
I thought it was a pain to queue for anything before on KDF but this just made it way worse. At least when the event time hits more players gather to actually do missions at the same time. 5 days out of a whole month is just...........I can't use the words I want to on here but it is insane.
Mirror Universe was a way for me to gain expertise on many chars after I've reached lvl 50. I didn't play it to level up or get dilithium because there are plenty of other ways to do those. If they would just make all the reps like the Dyson one then it wouldn't be a big deal. It is silly you even have to spend expertise to buy anything in the 3 other reps.
I usually login a lot after new content is put out. But in this case, saying that the "1" mission they put out is deeply flawed, in that I cannot even complete it due to the screen going black (only shadows of large objects appear if swinging camera angel to focus on light from sun), I have no desire to play it.
I don't know if you tried the temp fix of turning on underwater view in your video advanced options or not... This is supposed to allow you to see things instead of all black.
Gold Sub since March 2010
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
The new FE was fun, but after that, well my interest was already petering out. I am doing party patrol on two Characters, for the DSDs, but not alot else. Maybe I'll try that new KDF foundry spotlight mission.
I think I just need a break for awhile, I love the game still, but I want more time for other stuff.
Plus I hate time gated grind, so this will be the last time I do this, unless there are more Orion ships or a Trill ship, otherwise its not worth it.
Less. Even with doing the New FE and Q event. The removal of the event calender killing a lot of draw to play the game. I would check and wait for certain times to play...mostly the Bonus Mark event. Even if I wasn't planning on earning marks and I saw the event was on I ended up at least playing a PVE just to earn something.
I find that a lot of the missions just don't draw a lot of people without the bonus events. I've had trouble doing, say, Colony Invasion, which during bonus hours pops at least once per minute.
Without the mark events (and other events) the desire to procrastinate kicks in heavily. While the metrics may say that the Dyson Event was a success, this does not mean that the regular hourly events were therefore a failure, particularly since the hourly events were still running at the time.
I fear their metrics will continue to show "success" with the weekend events. However, this will be somewhat false, because 1) weekend-type events would be big draws no matter what, and 2) people who WOULD play a lot during the hourly events may hyper-concentrate on those days.
Honestly, the lack of hourly events makes me kind of cringe. That and some of the word of some game mechanic changes coming down the pike are sapping a LOT of my will to play.
I find that a lot of the missions just don't draw a lot of people without the bonus events. I've had trouble doing, say, Colony Invasion, which during bonus hours pops at least once per minute.
Without the mark events (and other events) the desire to procrastinate kicks in heavily. While the metrics may say that the Dyson Event was a success, this does not mean that the regular hourly events were therefore a failure, particularly since the hourly events were still running at the time.
I fear their metrics will continue to show "success" with the weekend events. However, this will be somewhat false, because 1) weekend-type events would be big draws no matter what, and 2) people who WOULD play a lot during the hourly events may hyper-concentrate on those days.
Honestly, the lack of hourly events makes me kind of cringe. That and some of the word of some game mechanic changes coming down the pike are sapping a LOT of my will to play.
I have to agree that I hate hearing some of the speculation from devs. The recent kit revamp sounds awful when it comes to devices and for people who worked their butts off to get kits from fleet holdings. It can be discouraging when you hear things that seem to make the work you've already done worth less. I like ideas of kit customization but not nerfing unrelated items such as devices.
Gold Sub since March 2010
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
Comments
I like your style, you seem like someone who knows how to have fun in the game and that's what its all about.
the only thing I would say is as you have lots of characters don't get too the stage that I have often seen where players find the prospect of doing a certain thing too overwhelming over so many characters.
so pick 3 or 4 as favourites and if something comes up that you want to do but is time consuming and must be completed quickly, like the winter/summer events, just do it on your favourites.
if I had 1zen for every time I have read - this is too much to do on my ** amount of characters - often followed by a long list or reasons why the game is only out to get your money, I would be a rich man.
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.
No-one ever whined that mirror universe was repetitive, if anything people loved MU for it's short cut to mushrooms relieving the boredom of levelling via missions we've played 5 times. The skill of it wasn't doing the mission but how fast you did it, good group can do it in 2 mins if that, rinse and repeat, hell you could get 10+ levels in an hour if you had some friends levelling at the same time.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
If you go in it with a bad build you will get blown up. So the challenge is creating a build that can handle it.
No, people didn't complain, because it provided shiny things, but no matter how you cut it, doing the same thing 20 times an hour is still repetitive and a grind. The only difference between it, and the content people do moan about, is that you got an excessive amount of shinies at the end.
The grindaversary doesn't encourage more than just popping on and chasing miniQ's for anything up to ten minutes, depending on whether you can find an empty enough server and there aren't too many griefers around.
Cryptics continuing policy of non-engagement with any position critical of the recent changes rankles a lot. It's as if they're saying, "we didn't care what you thought about the changes much beforehand, why would we care what you think now?"
The utter lack of sense of player appreciation from this 'anniversary' is palpable.
All in all, a very sad anniversary. Not at all welcoming.
This is a little different, I've decided that I'm going to max out a toon on each faction rep wise and keep em around this time. Once that is done, hopefully there will be alot of new stuff to play around with, preferably without another rep system tied to it.
The loss of hourly events is a big turn off for me though, they should at least be a daily event.
Again though this is exactly what vivenneanthony said, he could grind MU and get better rewards than what someone doing deferi.
As for this grind thing, you were the one who mentioned it, everyone else was happy to grind MU for justifiable rewards.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
I do agree with what other people were saying about the loss of hourly events making things harder to arrange in other places - the bonus marks event really focused people into Nukara, Defera, etc so if you could play during that time you were just about guaranteed that things would be hopping. It has nothing to do with the 20% bonus, per se, I just don't play the game to sit around trying to put a team together or waiting for a non-ISE queue to pop.
Once I've got all the Borg stuff I care to and the battlezone rewards get nerfed (you know it's coming) I'll probably scale down. There's stuff from the Steam holiday sales mewling plaintively like a box of kittens to be played with after all...
Not playing the mini-Q event. I enjoyed repeating the winter race (it reminded me of old times on the ice in City of Heroes) but there are limits to my willingness to grind silly things. The line must be drawn here!
I have been only playing one character. Been working on that one tunes reps. Once done with that one, then moving on to the next one till all 4 characters are done. Then I will make new ones.
The hourly events never influenced my play or playstyle. But the gaining of free ships normally do.
Although the Winter event frustrated me so much that I quit playing till the Winter event was over. This last winter event I just could not do, either because I lack the skill or something, it matters not. I just couldn't do it and so just didn't turn it on. THis was the first event that I did this too. All previous events I participated as much as my time permitted and had fun. WHich is why I don't think it was my personal skill.
Once the FE and Qmendations are done, I will be back down to one character for a maybe a couple hours a week. The grind for reps and stuff is just off putting enough to me that I have lowered my STO diet so as not to get frustrated.
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The rommie expansion was a major boost to the game and got so many people playing again/new blood : everything past that has been downhill
Cryptic/pwe have made it pretty apparent that they no longer listen to the community and have their own set-in-stone ideas for 'bringing the game forward' (i.e rampant monetization)
Especially the anniversary : 'normal' for this sort of thing had been to complete a single fun mission and get free ship with option of buying the cstore upgrade down the line OR the boring-daily-grind but get a 10 slot 'endgame' ship method for the summer/winter events
Cryptics revised version : boring-daily-grind for the 9 slot version, 3 pack in store too and oh yeah, you will want both for the set bonus lol
(worst part is what they deem acceptable as a grind for daily missions, catching mini q's? a shell game? : WTF , its embarrassing that this is Star Trek )
The winter races were really super easy. I usually continued to chat with fleet mates while running it. It's a pity that your fleetmates didn't offer you any tips to make it easier.
The people playing more are mostly involved in the FE and Q stuff or are playing things unrelated to any grinds like leveling a new toon, foundry, or doffing.
The people playing the same are doing what they did before and after the release.
The people playing less are mostly playing less because they have hit their limit on grinding fatigue, lack of the hourly calendar events, being drawn to other games, bugs, new ships aren't worth it, or nothing left to do that levels their toons.
PvE Queues
I was surprised by the numbers of people playing less but then again I wasn't so surprised. As you look at the PvE queues and its taking sometimes 10+ minutes to queue events that were busy during the hourly events on the FED side. If we look at queues on KDF you might as well forget about the queues. The hourly events were a good way to channel masses into the queues to pop missions faster but now everyone is spread out or not doing them at all. My KDF toons are the worst to play for anything queue related to the point that I have quit with doing much with any of them..
Mirror Universe
The Mirror Universe event as was hotly debated was my source of XP as it awarded 14k per run through which could take 5 to 7 minutes will say. The dilithium was nominal at 480 per run through and you might get a decent drop for EC. Most other missions in game usually reward 4k on average for a replay and some stuff like Defera and Nukara can get you 7k and then a cooldown.
XP
While Defera dailies may give 17k XP for 30 minutes of play it takes roughly 45k XP/day to complete the three reps that require XP. You can only do Defera dailies once a day. This doesn't account for the marks that must be earned for each of those three reps either. Defera isn't viable solution unless you want to find similar rewards and spend 1 1/2 hours day jsut getting XP and then add time to get your marks as well. This is just for one toon so it is worse for those with more toons.
I personally have decided to hold off on any additional reps except for Dyson because of the XP needs. It's my choice as I don't want to spend hours a day just for XP. I'll probably just do the Q stuff for now and BZ for Dyson and dilithium.
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
Happy anniversary!
LOL
That, is the first laugh over this "event" I've had - Thank you
But...but...teh almitey metrics supportz it!!!1!!
teh almitey METRICS is a false gawd!
Bow b4 ZUUULLLLL
If I decide to take a break from my Omega rep and focus on Nukara, or just play STFs, or another game entirely, I can still come back and pick up the Omega rep whenever I want.
Can't take a break from the anniversary event or you'll miss out on items that you'll never be able to claim again. Other special items are offered periodically, like the episode reruns. Even then you have several weeks to get your shards and what not and it only takes one play through, so you can schedule it any time in that period.
Having to wait two weeks for the next bonus mark weekend because it can't be done daily anymore sucks too. I can't imagine playing enough in one weekend to make up the marks one would have collected playing three hours a day for two weeks.
I just find it a major turn off feeling like I have to play according to some other person's schedule or I'll be penalized.
Of course, one is never forced to participate, but I personally find that feeling hanging over the game distasteful. Am I playing less because of it? Not yet. Ask me again in a couple weeks.
I think you've hit an important point.
Grind is an inevitability in some form or other.
However, it is the time gated nature of this particular event that is causing most of the issues some people are having.
In a thread that died a quick, no response, death, I suggested that while cryptic had a right and a duty to try to create events that cause us to spend more time at our machines, they didnt always need to control the frequency so much.
The winter and summer events, with their time gated grinds for a ten console, no cstore version ship is acceptable.
A time gated grind for a nine console ship that will have a cstore equivilant very shortly is not. Especially as, in order to obtain the warp core for the four piece set bonus, you need that 9 console version.
There are so many other things they could have done here.
Make Qmarks account rather than character bound.
Lose the MiniQ game and, instead, require more runs of the FE
Give qmarks out for some activity that isn't an actual grind. Perhaps a seasonal addition to the rewards from things like Azure Nebula.
So many other options they could have chosen.
Instead, they go with this one which seems tailor made to irritate those with multiple toons or can only play at weekends. Plus a mini game that requires a whole bunch of player invented work arounds in order to make it even tolerable.
Appalling design, happy anniversary.
That Science Destroyer isn't gonna min/max itself.
Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler
Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
so you didn't say you had fun and that's the most important part, its actually more important then all that stuff.
I would rather spend 30 minutes having fun and get a nice reward then earn all that stuff in 2 seconds, cos if you aint havin fun all that stuff aint worth a hill of beans.
and no matter what I do in sto I always have fun, even with the q mini games though they are a bit lame, they are quick and easy and a bit of a giggle for the few minutes it takes to do them.
the big problem with the hourly event calendar is more often or not the thing you want to do is out of your play time so much so that it gets to the stage that you don't even bother looking anymore.
at least with the bonus weekends that run for 5 days from Thursday to Monday people will benefit from them for the whole period of the event most often or not probably without even realising it, and you wont have to bother that it isn't there for the hours you are playing as its running for every hour of the day so you cant miss it.
at the end of the day though I don't really care about earning dilithium, EC, XP, fleet marks or a partridge in a pear tree.
all I care about is having fun and let the chips fall where they will, but I seem to do ok on it and have no problems keeping up with and often outdoing other players in my fleet who seem to worry about that stuff all the time.
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.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I did not have fun. I loved the anniversary mission because of the variety, and space combat in the sphere. It was the first time the space fight was realistic meaning no clear up, down, left and right. The mini challenges was great to. It felt Star Trek. I love New Romulus.
Now the rest of Star Trek seems repetitive and Cryptic is doing nothing to fix that but encouraging it shown by the anniversary grinding. I was able to complete missions the same exact way.
Now if they added ability for vice admirals to vote alliances, captains the have the ability to have human bridge officers, ability to transport into ships, concurrent play. It would be q game changer.
but it requires a new mechanics. Which I don't think Cryptic have the talent or ability to do?
I usually login a lot after new content is put out. But in this case, saying that the "1" mission they put out is deeply flawed, in that I cannot even complete it due to the screen going black (only shadows of large objects appear if swinging camera angel to focus on light from sun), I have no desire to play it.
I thought it was a pain to queue for anything before on KDF but this just made it way worse. At least when the event time hits more players gather to actually do missions at the same time. 5 days out of a whole month is just...........I can't use the words I want to on here but it is insane.
Mirror Universe was a way for me to gain expertise on many chars after I've reached lvl 50. I didn't play it to level up or get dilithium because there are plenty of other ways to do those. If they would just make all the reps like the Dyson one then it wouldn't be a big deal. It is silly you even have to spend expertise to buy anything in the 3 other reps.
I don't know if you tried the temp fix of turning on underwater view in your video advanced options or not... This is supposed to allow you to see things instead of all black.
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
I think I just need a break for awhile, I love the game still, but I want more time for other stuff.
Plus I hate time gated grind, so this will be the last time I do this, unless there are more Orion ships or a Trill ship, otherwise its not worth it.
I find that a lot of the missions just don't draw a lot of people without the bonus events. I've had trouble doing, say, Colony Invasion, which during bonus hours pops at least once per minute.
Without the mark events (and other events) the desire to procrastinate kicks in heavily. While the metrics may say that the Dyson Event was a success, this does not mean that the regular hourly events were therefore a failure, particularly since the hourly events were still running at the time.
I fear their metrics will continue to show "success" with the weekend events. However, this will be somewhat false, because 1) weekend-type events would be big draws no matter what, and 2) people who WOULD play a lot during the hourly events may hyper-concentrate on those days.
Honestly, the lack of hourly events makes me kind of cringe. That and some of the word of some game mechanic changes coming down the pike are sapping a LOT of my will to play.
I have to agree that I hate hearing some of the speculation from devs. The recent kit revamp sounds awful when it comes to devices and for people who worked their butts off to get kits from fleet holdings. It can be discouraging when you hear things that seem to make the work you've already done worth less. I like ideas of kit customization but not nerfing unrelated items such as devices.
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
Geez... does repeating the FE 18 times and grinding the stupid Qmendations count as playing? :rolleyes: If so, then yes.