As the title says too much fleet credits are needed to keep up with power creep. For PVPers keeping up is a must, so getting all the new stuff at the spire holding, 5 tac consoles at 50k FC each, 6th active doff slot at 150k fc, and a spire core we are looking at 465k fc per character, less on characters that don't use 5 tac console ships, but still a lot. In big fleets like my FED and KDF fleets its almost impossible to earn this in a reasonable amount of time.
Main problem is Fleet marks are not able to be contributed easily, none of the projects out now take enough fleet marks. I think these projects were balanced with the amount of credits you needed at the start of the fleet holding system over a year and a half ago, but much more is needed now. We need a project primarily designed for big fleets that is much more FM intensive, it doesn't really need to give much in return, just a few xp points or something like the other special projects.
Also another problem is that contributing stuff like commodities, devices, and doffs don't give a reasonable amount of FC for the amount of ec or time it takes to gather this stuff compared to marks. The FC earned from this stuff should be increased to encourage people to contribute this and not leave it all for the last person.
Lastly dilithium is needed so much for the gear and we have so little due to refining limit . Nobody wants to contribute it so its often left for last too, maybe dil requirements for projects and for buying fleet gear should be lowered slightly and mark for projects and credits needed to buy gear increased.
You need to PVE more, and PVP less to get what you want. Somtimes choices must be made.
Not really. Once mine, spire and embassy are finished there are, as far as I know, no projects left. That makes only 3 starbase projects.
And having those finished isn't a rare thing in big fleets.
After the holdings are completed, you have the 3 holdings that can have provisioning runs done on them non-stop for excess credit creation.
Then there's the regular starbase's 3, and those "special missions" that take DOffs, rare commodities, etc. to gun through...
Yeah, I agree, marks should be the "lower end" credit creators (1:1 or 1:2) and Dil should be on like a 1:5 ratio (since Dil is useful for just about everything in game and FM are only used in the fleet projects...
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]
You need to PVE more, and PVP less to get what you want. Somtimes choices must be made.
Having marks, dil, and commodities is not the problem, I have way too much of all even though I mostly pvp. The thread was about not enough ways to turn this stuff into credits. There is a lack of projects available and like others said grinding the same provision projects isn't very efficient and is wasteful, we have thousands of extra provisions we will never use, and its still not enough. Right now you can only rely on workarounds by joining other fleets, but this isn't always available and wouldn't work if more have to resort to this. The best solution is adding more mark intensive fleet projects, this wouldn't affect any of the current ones
Definitely need more options, but realistic enough to know none of them will be FM only projects like the Dil dumps. FMs are too easy to get if you really push it, the whole reason the bonus hours was replaced bonus mark weekend.
i doubt it. for most of HoBs grind to t5 i have been the primary dil/doff/commodity contributor. all up i am at nearly 50 million fc on the leaderboard. i think that its pretty common.
Heck I run my own solo fleet meaning I am the only contributor, and with my sb and mine almost at tier 2 each I am sitting at only just over a million contributed.
Even if I combined all 3 of my toons together what they contributed, it might be somewhere in the neighborhood of about 3 million.
I can sum the problem up in one PICTURE. Look familiar?
In my fleet, you have at most 2 seconds to contribute Fleet Marks. And I am not exaggerating. If you happen to be around when a new project drops (which I rarely am), you better be in the zone. Every click must be precise. Every movement exact and quick as a flash. Even then, there is no guarantee of the *prize* going to you. My question is, why? Why was it determined that Fleet Marks would be THE way to earn Fleet Credits and everything else would be table scraps?
As I said, the FMs were filled in less than 2 seconds (I was too slow, again ). I snapped the screenshot 20 minutes later. That's not to say the other contributions were not filled. We have top tier everything and all projects eventually are completed. But they are certainly not filled with the enthusiasm that FMs are. Why is that?
Let's break down this little project, shall we?
To the person who's ninja reflexes won the day goes 17,900 Fleet Credits, earned by playing the game for maybe an hour. Congratulations.
If one person fills the Dilithium, congrats to you sir or madam. You move into first with 21,250 Fleet Credits. That's 3350 more FCs and all it took was 3 days of refining, plus whatever it took to earn the ore. (or 166 zen, based on the market as of 2/23/2014. The *preferred" method, no doubt)
If one person fills the Duty officer contributions. Rare in our circle, but just for fun... Now, I will be the first to admit I don't know every trick when it comes to farming, stuff. So I will just say for me, coming up with 52 Doffs, let alone 52 of any one kind of Doff tends to be extremely tedious and time consuming or extremely expensive or all of the above. BUT if you did fill in all 52 Doffs, assuming 300 FCs per, then 15,600 Fleet Credits are yours. Well done. You have my admiration and my sympathy.
The commodities, Seismic Stabilizers. Best possible price, 750 EC. So, 255,000 ECs earn you 3,400 Creds. All in all, meh.
Large Hypo- 95,360 ECs for 596 FCs. Ahem...
And finally, "X Holding" Provisions. Seriously? What a kick in the crotch for those trying to scrape up leftover FCs.
A quick recap/TLDR:
Play the game for a short while, have fun with friends = 17,900 FCs
Earn 21,250 Dilithium Ore. Refine over 3 days/Pay real world money = 21,250 FCs
Obtaining 52 of the required Doffs. One man's vision of hell, YMMV = 15,600
Burn some EC for a handful of Credits.
And then give a chunk back while cupping the family jewels.
Again, in our fleet, getting donations is not really an issue. However, if the rewards for contributions where brought more in line with their TRUE value, not only would there be more Fleet Credits for players, but it would also alleviate the problem many fleets have in which they can't get contributions for the more valuable or time consuming items.
I run into this problem sometimes on my fleet, but I've discovered the secret formula to lots of fleet marks: doffs. Snap up all sorts of doffs, all the time... whenever I hit 2 mil, I dump 1 mil in the bank, and use the other mil to just grab engineering and science doffs. If I'm actually going for something (IE, Spire Tac consoles), then I'll go cash in my credits for more doffs. It's mind-numbingly boring, and requires a TON of clicking, but it's pretty foolproof.
I'm not going to get into a full on explanation of why this is a bad way to spend EC, but you're throwing away EC for something you can readily get a heck of a lot of for free.
Heck I run my own solo fleet meaning I am the only contributor, and with my sb and mine almost at tier 2 each I am sitting at only just over a million contributed.
Even if I combined all 3 of my toons together what they contributed, it might be somewhere in the neighborhood of about 3 million.
This serves to highlight the difference between getting to almost tier 2, and almost tier 4, plus tier 2 KDF. Yes, I was adding all my alts together when I gave that 30 million figure. I don't buy fleet credit bonus boosts, seemed silly to me.
If you keep going solo to higher tiers, you too will have tens of millions (:
I have received around 2k fleet marks donations this past week. One was in need of a mine provision in trade, the other was just free. I like free. If I payed for all the fleet marks I needed I'd be broke and would have to become an EC farmer. I prefer being a fleet mark farmer. Playing for vendor drops bores me far more than fleet mark events.
I'm able to pay for all the commodities and torpedo launchers myself and still show a slight increase in EC for the week without actively seeking EC. Paying 3k per mark would ruin that whole balance for me.
Nobody has contacted me from forum posting, I just replied to in-game chat.
Since my fleet -CoDS- is essentially a charitable organization, it kinda makes sense for me to accept donations. I'm like Doctors Without Borders in space. I fly salvaged ships and freighters mostly. My Cardassian was a rich kid and came with his own galor, and my ferengi managed to acquire his own D'kora prior to joining. The rest of us are in salvaged breen vessels or moth-balled fed ships we bought for cheap.
So, if you'd like to help a good cause... I still need lots of marks @john_peterson
I've seen too much fleets strangling their players by forbidding them from leaving.
Question: How do you keep someone from leaving a Fleet? the Quit button isn't Fleet Leader controlled.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Question: How do you keep someone from leaving a Fleet? the Quit button isn't Fleet Leader controlled.
I think what he means is that the fleet forbids the earning of credits via extracurricular activity, so one cannot temporarily leave to take care of important personal business and then return, not that angry men with lead pipes will break your kneecaps if you quit.
Naturally, all those fleets suck, and he should quit. My fleet not only allows, but actively encourages, the use of extracurricular activity for personal profit, and I have set the permissions specifically to facilitate smooth entry and exit.
One could argue that Fleet Marks are just a pointless item, why are they in the game? All they are is an exchange item, a stepping stone if you will, to Fleet Credits, so get rid of them completely. Take out the worthless middle step and have Fleet Credits as the primary Fleet Currency.
However, it will never happen, because their actual value is to PWE, not the player, their only purpose is to put a stumbling block, an extra irritating step, in the process of acquiring Fleet Credits ...
"Want to speed up the process of earning Fleet Credits ... Well just step over here, we can help ... That's right, just buy some Zen, then convert it to Dilithium, and then exchange that for Fleet Credits ... Wasn't that so much easier than all the Fleet Mark Grinding?"
...
As this stage, the best solution is finding a Fleet that needs Marks and Resources for upgrades, there are always smaller Fleets looking for donations ... IF your Fleet doesn't allow you to leave and come back without penalty, then I say ... you are in the wrong Fleet!
My own Fleet has several "allies" and Friends, and they are more than happy to have you help them out, and those smaller Fleets are always very happy to have donations ... I always make sure someone with Authority is on, and I simply ask or announce my intention before hand, a good Fleet executive will answer and be more than happy to let you "dump Marks" and return with no loss of Rank or Privileges.
If anybody needs access to a small fleet currently grinding our holdings to Tier 2, feel free to hit me up in-game @landshark666 anytime in order to convert your fleet marks, dil, etc. to credit. We always have all our project slots full and ready to contribute to, no restrictions or limitations!
Comments
You need to PVE more, and PVP less to get what you want. Somtimes choices must be made.
After the holdings are completed, you have the 3 holdings that can have provisioning runs done on them non-stop for excess credit creation.
Then there's the regular starbase's 3, and those "special missions" that take DOffs, rare commodities, etc. to gun through...
Yeah, I agree, marks should be the "lower end" credit creators (1:1 or 1:2) and Dil should be on like a 1:5 ratio (since Dil is useful for just about everything in game and FM are only used in the fleet projects...
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]
Having marks, dil, and commodities is not the problem, I have way too much of all even though I mostly pvp. The thread was about not enough ways to turn this stuff into credits. There is a lack of projects available and like others said grinding the same provision projects isn't very efficient and is wasteful, we have thousands of extra provisions we will never use, and its still not enough. Right now you can only rely on workarounds by joining other fleets, but this isn't always available and wouldn't work if more have to resort to this. The best solution is adding more mark intensive fleet projects, this wouldn't affect any of the current ones
Heck I run my own solo fleet meaning I am the only contributor, and with my sb and mine almost at tier 2 each I am sitting at only just over a million contributed.
Even if I combined all 3 of my toons together what they contributed, it might be somewhere in the neighborhood of about 3 million.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
In my fleet, you have at most 2 seconds to contribute Fleet Marks. And I am not exaggerating. If you happen to be around when a new project drops (which I rarely am), you better be in the zone. Every click must be precise. Every movement exact and quick as a flash. Even then, there is no guarantee of the *prize* going to you. My question is, why? Why was it determined that Fleet Marks would be THE way to earn Fleet Credits and everything else would be table scraps?
As I said, the FMs were filled in less than 2 seconds (I was too slow, again
Let's break down this little project, shall we?
To the person who's ninja reflexes won the day goes 17,900 Fleet Credits, earned by playing the game for maybe an hour. Congratulations.
If one person fills the Dilithium, congrats to you sir or madam. You move into first with 21,250 Fleet Credits. That's 3350 more FCs and all it took was 3 days of refining, plus whatever it took to earn the ore. (or 166 zen, based on the market as of 2/23/2014. The *preferred" method, no doubt)
If one person fills the Duty officer contributions. Rare in our circle, but just for fun...
The commodities, Seismic Stabilizers. Best possible price, 750 EC. So, 255,000 ECs earn you 3,400 Creds. All in all, meh.
Large Hypo- 95,360 ECs for 596 FCs. Ahem...
And finally, "X Holding" Provisions. Seriously? What a kick in the crotch for those trying to scrape up leftover FCs.
A quick recap/TLDR:
Play the game for a short while, have fun with friends = 17,900 FCs
Earn 21,250 Dilithium Ore. Refine over 3 days/Pay real world money = 21,250 FCs
Obtaining 52 of the required Doffs. One man's vision of hell, YMMV = 15,600
Burn some EC for a handful of Credits.
And then give a chunk back while cupping the family jewels.
Again, in our fleet, getting donations is not really an issue. However, if the rewards for contributions where brought more in line with their TRUE value, not only would there be more Fleet Credits for players, but it would also alleviate the problem many fleets have in which they can't get contributions for the more valuable or time consuming items.
I'm not going to get into a full on explanation of why this is a bad way to spend EC, but you're throwing away EC for something you can readily get a heck of a lot of for free.
This serves to highlight the difference between getting to almost tier 2, and almost tier 4, plus tier 2 KDF. Yes, I was adding all my alts together when I gave that 30 million figure. I don't buy fleet credit bonus boosts, seemed silly to me.
If you keep going solo to higher tiers, you too will have tens of millions (:
I have received around 2k fleet marks donations this past week. One was in need of a mine provision in trade, the other was just free. I like free. If I payed for all the fleet marks I needed I'd be broke and would have to become an EC farmer. I prefer being a fleet mark farmer. Playing for vendor drops bores me far more than fleet mark events.
I'm able to pay for all the commodities and torpedo launchers myself and still show a slight increase in EC for the week without actively seeking EC. Paying 3k per mark would ruin that whole balance for me.
Nobody has contacted me from forum posting, I just replied to in-game chat.
Since my fleet -CoDS- is essentially a charitable organization, it kinda makes sense for me to accept donations. I'm like Doctors Without Borders in space. I fly salvaged ships and freighters mostly. My Cardassian was a rich kid and came with his own galor, and my ferengi managed to acquire his own D'kora prior to joining. The rest of us are in salvaged breen vessels or moth-balled fed ships we bought for cheap.
So, if you'd like to help a good cause... I still need lots of marks @john_peterson
Question: How do you keep someone from leaving a Fleet? the Quit button isn't Fleet Leader controlled.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Naturally, all those fleets suck, and he should quit. My fleet not only allows, but actively encourages, the use of extracurricular activity for personal profit, and I have set the permissions specifically to facilitate smooth entry and exit.
However, it will never happen, because their actual value is to PWE, not the player, their only purpose is to put a stumbling block, an extra irritating step, in the process of acquiring Fleet Credits ...
"Want to speed up the process of earning Fleet Credits ... Well just step over here, we can help ... That's right, just buy some Zen, then convert it to Dilithium, and then exchange that for Fleet Credits ... Wasn't that so much easier than all the Fleet Mark Grinding?"
...
As this stage, the best solution is finding a Fleet that needs Marks and Resources for upgrades, there are always smaller Fleets looking for donations ... IF your Fleet doesn't allow you to leave and come back without penalty, then I say ... you are in the wrong Fleet!
My own Fleet has several "allies" and Friends, and they are more than happy to have you help them out, and those smaller Fleets are always very happy to have donations ... I always make sure someone with Authority is on, and I simply ask or announce my intention before hand, a good Fleet executive will answer and be more than happy to let you "dump Marks" and return with no loss of Rank or Privileges.
Cheers.