Short sightedness most certainly killed a good thing, but the true petty patheticness of it is trying to pretend the players aren't to blame, that the shortsightedness isn't theirs because Cryptic didn't manage to stop every avenue of abusively exploiting it BEFORE players could abusively exploit it! *LMAO* Cryptic have to out-crowdthink a couple hundred thousand people and if they don't, it's THEIR FAULT.
This is hilarious. This is literally the argument that you are in no way responsible for your own behaviour. It is entirely the fault of someone else that they did not stop you from finding a loophole in the rules and using it to break the rules, before you found it and abused it. Find that completely legal minutiae that lets you murder a guy, and you're not to blame for using it to murder a guy.
FACT = Cryptic made the game.
FACT = Cryptic should have a devbase of interactions regarding the game and any changes made to backtrack and see any interactions that goes on. I used to work for Activision and Interplay, back in the 90's this sort of thing was FOUNDATION 101 game design.
FACT = Cryptic are either lazy and didn't check, incompetent and don't have a clear devbase, or don't have a clue whats going on in their own game. They have turned into a reactionary dev company, playing whack-a-mole with the problems coming up within the game. NO game company which takes on a reactionary role lasts long, i give Cryptic to possibly 2016, maybe 2017 and it will be gone.
FACT = I would back off a bit if i was you, your nose is getting a little brown lordkhorak
"You know when that shark bites, with its teeth dear... scarlet billows start to spread..."
I have to say I was running patrols for xp just to bridge the ridiculous xp gap between story missions. I have to say I'm at lvl 56 atm and not many missions have had a good helping of story. in fact several just made me think. expansion? seriously? i've played better foundry missions.
with running patrol missions for xp as a necessity. this 'expansion' has so far not delivered compared to LOR in terms of enjoyment for me.
The reward was 2880 dil. Not the massive 54k you heard.
Thanks for the info. I thought I read somewhere, concerning the foundry missions, Cryptic wanted a 480 dil to 15 min time invested. So they thought it would take 1.5 hrs to earn 54k xp regardless of what their testers told them.
Not sure why they removed it though. They got the amount wrong. By now they should have a good sense how long it will take to hit the 54k. Why not adjust rather than delete?
Thanks for the info. I thought I read somewhere, concerning the foundry missions, Cryptic wanted a 480 dil to 15 min time invested. So they thought it would take 1.5 hrs to earn 54k xp regardless of what their testers told them.
Not sure why they removed it though. They got the amount wrong. By now they should have a good sense how long it will take to hit the 54k. Why not adjust rather than delete?
Because a bean counter hit the red alert when they saw the potential loss of revenue. This has all the earmarks of bureaucratic panic.
if they had made new mission give good XP dont think anyone would have been in Tau Dewa i do not like replaying the same mission 100 times to fell in the grap of XP that was between missions more so if its new content with an actual story..................
you could always apply to work there. Several STO players ended up working at least as CMs and others ended up working for Cryptic/PWE directly (borticus, suricata, etc.)
Part of the problem here is that players of STO are used to a metric of leveling in the game. When you turn that metric COMPLETELY ON ITS HEAD and then have the nerve to look surprised when people push back against it...calling them names and blaming them for your lack of foresight (I mean you ARE in charge of this system after all...NOT the players) I think some humility and an apology would not be out of order here.
It's your game in the end, YOU take some responsibility for what is YOURS. People will respect that, they don't respect people who are in ultimate control of a situation who blame everyone else when something doesn't go according to "plan"....
So from the patch notes, it looks like it was both dilithium and exp too fast but not the drops of upgrade kits. No doubt related to the ships spawning below squad leader level but I'd think that would have hurt xp.
On the other hand, they reduced exp needed for ship mastery and even are giving mastery buffs for exp already earned. So clearly is was the captain exp that they thought was too fast.
upgrade kits are in all loot tables. You only saw them a lot because 1. elite mobs drop them more often (elite mob loot table) 2. you are spawning a lot of mobs in a single map so ithey will have more chances at dropping (random number generator) 3. you are running the map continuously so you are seeing more drops just because you are pewing hundreds of mobs per hour.
There is no real way to nerf just the upgrade kits from TD alone, without changing the global elite loot table drop percentage for level 50 space maps.
The real bug here is that the ships which were spawning below squad leader level were giving too much XP back to the now-overpowered player ships.
you could always apply to work there. Several STO players ended up working at least as CMs and others ended up working for Cryptic/PWE directly (borticus, suricata, etc.)
I'm not sure enough of my commitment to this game to apply. I've worked for other gaming companies in the past and it's a lot of fun, but I have to believe in the source material first.
I can't see what difference there is with any of they changes they making you can still choose to match levels in your group so they are still going to spawn at level 50 if the lowest member in your group is level 50 which is what people were doing before.
I can't see what difference there is with any of they changes they making you can still choose to match levels in your group so they are still going to spawn at level 50 if the lowest member in your group is level 50 which is what people were doing before.
The reason they changed it was because after you maxxed out your ship specialization slots any extra levels you received in it were rewarded with dilithium. (Is that terminology correct?)
And people were grinding that hard in Tau Delta. So they turned into Madagascar and shut. Everything. Down.
The patrols in Tau Delta probably won't be changed. They'll still be grindable, they're just taking out the dilithium reward for the "exploit".
I still don't understand how getting a bunch of Dilithium ORE is a problem.
One can only process 8K a day.
There are lot of folks that have a krap-load of ORE sitting in their accounts.
That hasn't fouled up the Exchange at all.
The only way to get more refined Dilithium is to BUY ZEN, which is exactly what They want us to do anyway.
:cool:
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
I can't see what difference there is with any of they changes they making you can still choose to match levels in your group so they are still going to spawn at level 50 if the lowest member in your group is level 50 which is what people were doing before.
The changes they made will help the leveling go faster so you'll be able to play the story with less interruption.
I still don't understand how getting a bunch of Dilithium ORE is a problem.
One can only process 8K a day.
There are lot of folks that have a krap-load of ORE sitting in their accounts.
That hasn't fouled up the Exchange at all.
The only way to get more refined Dilithium is to BUY ZEN, which is exactly what They want us to do anyway.
:cool:
Not sure if I said it here or elsewhere, but this was a panic move by the bean counters. Refined or unrefined doesn't matter, all that matters is it's dilithium, a commodity they want people to spend real money on. Even the exchange is only meant to top off what you may have already bought.
It is possibly one of the silliest panics I've seen in a game in a long time.
I'm not sure enough of my commitment to this game to apply. I've worked for other gaming companies in the past and it's a lot of fun, but I have to believe in the source material first.
Gawd, how pretentious does that sound?!
To me it doesn't sound the least bit pretentious. It sounds honest. There is no way I could possibly go to work for cryptic given the way I see things being done from this side of the connection. I would feel more and more soulless with every passing day.
To me it doesn't sound the least bit pretentious. It sounds honest. There is no way I could possibly go to work for cryptic given the way I see things being done from this side of the connection. I would feel more and more soulless with every passing day.
I will say this, these forums are (NO sarcasm) amazing. The community at large is well spoken and there is a distinct lack of incoherent all caps and symbols posts. The forum mods are either doing a fantastic job or the community itself should be lauded. Yeah, people vent, but for the most part I'm seeing just that; venting.
Even the trolls are subtle and well done.
However the nuts and bolts customer service aspect...yikes. Dell could take lessons on how to TRIBBLE off your customer base from them.
FACT = Cryptic should have a devbase of interactions regarding the game and any changes made to backtrack and see any interactions that goes on. I used to work for Activision and Interplay, back in the 90's this sort of thing was FOUNDATION 101 game design.
FACT = Cryptic are either lazy and didn't check, incompetent and don't have a clear devbase, or don't have a clue whats going on in their own game. They have turned into a reactionary dev company, playing whack-a-mole with the problems coming up within the game. NO game company which takes on a reactionary role lasts long, i give Cryptic to possibly 2016, maybe 2017 and it will be gone.
FACT = I would back off a bit if i was you, your nose is getting a little brown lordkhorak
FACT - Cryptic decided the situation was not okay and fixed it.
Also - we know from many, many Tribble Test releases that bugs that get reported there do not always get fixed when the stuff is released, but we know plenty bugs that have been reported there and gone to Holodeck have been fixed eventually.
Also, the impact of a bug is not always visible from the start. In the past, people's habit was actually not running the Tau Dewa Patrols in Teams at Elite difficulty. So while the bug was known, it would normally have little impact. What they didn't anticipate correctly is that people would change their behaviour considerably to use this exploit.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Also, the impact of a bug is not always visible from the start. In the past, people's habit was actually not running the Tau Dewa Patrols in Teams at Elite difficulty. So while the bug was known, it would normally have little impact. What they didn't anticipate correctly is that people would change their behaviour considerably to use this exploit.
And that's where most people have the issue.
This is a grinding game.
They designed it that way. Deliberately.
They put in a grindy bit and then got all shocked when people were grinding. Then they went all thumbs trying to fix it. Shutting down an entire sector? lulz
Yes, I get the Law of Unintended Consequences, but, this is one they should absolutely have anticipated considering how they have designed the game to be played.
The only way to get more refined Dilithium is to BUY ZEN, which is exactly what They want us to do anyway.
:cool:
There is another way to look at it.
Yes so long as someone pays for the Zen they get their cash, but I reckon in an ideal world they would prefer that everyone buys Zen direct instead of using huge stockpiles of Dil and enough patience to save up.
I suppose it's also possible that a player with that huge stockpile won't be playing much of the game at all. They'd either log in, refine the limit and log out again or perhaps fly the odd STF if they are in the mood. Something quick and easy, which from what I've seen here is not what DR offers.
It's in Cryptic's best interest that players log in to play, so they can woo you with their shiny products among other things.
Yes so long as someone pays for the Zen they get their cash, but I reckon in an ideal world they would prefer that everyone buys Zen direct instead of using huge stockpiles of Dil and enough patience to save up.
I suppose it's also possible that a player with that huge stockpile won't be playing much of the game at all. They'd either log in, refine the limit and log out again or perhaps fly the odd STF if they are in the mood. Something quick and easy, which from what I've seen here is not what DR offers.
It's in Cryptic's best interest that players log in to play, so they can woo you with their shiny products among other things.
People who do the log in, refine, log out to refine another day are the exception, not the rule. Most people are willing to fork out $20-$100 bucks to get the dil they need RIGHT NOW. Instant gratification.
Once they spend on the ships, the upgrades, the dil increase, the ec increase, the boff and doff and ship limit increase, any little fun bits they might want like costumes, etc, that's a good chunk of change, even if someone plays for a couple of months, maxes out one toon, and then never plays again.
I've said it before in other threads about this, but the dil issue is a red herring.
There are plenty of other ways to get far more dil than what people were getting from max specialisation grinding. Even if you have lots of chars. They have even made it easier for you to get max dil from multiple chars by allowing the rich mining claims to be account bound rather than char bound. Also, if you are f2p, just go to dyson and grind there with your multiple chars. You make loads of dil, but you're still bound to 8k (9k vet) per day.
I bet you tau dewa xp from elite team patrols will give you less SP since this patch, no matter how they word it. Yes on solo play you will receive approx a 12.5% boost in SP and it should make levelling to 60 easier. But the idea is to timegate the players, especially with the spec points after 60.
They can't have people skipping the grind. It's the only thing that keeps your mind off the actual content (or lack thereof) .
People are starting to report that a load of their spec points have been rolled back.
Yeah, it was clearly the dil issue....
So PWE is removing spec points from everyone just cuz? Even I don't think they've devolved that far. I think it's a bug, probably caused by their attempted "exploit" fix, but not a deliberate vindictive or corrective move on their part.
Sounds more like a variation of the skills bug that resulted in the server being shut down recently.
There has been no official word on the reason for the Tau Dawa take down, anything else is purely speculation.
Umm, the patch note CONFIRM the reason for the Tau Dewa take down... They explicitly mention the removal of dil rewards for post 110 which would only be as a result of running Dewa patrols in it's previous state owing to a bg with the patrols Cryptic have fixed.. Or rather they deemed what a small number of players were doing an exploit.
As for your bit about the skills.. yes, deffo a similar bug, possibly caused by changing things after realizing the problem...
Comments
Not that they would listen to us anyway. *sigh*
/WTB SOW
FACT = Cryptic made the game.
FACT = Cryptic should have a devbase of interactions regarding the game and any changes made to backtrack and see any interactions that goes on. I used to work for Activision and Interplay, back in the 90's this sort of thing was FOUNDATION 101 game design.
FACT = Cryptic are either lazy and didn't check, incompetent and don't have a clear devbase, or don't have a clue whats going on in their own game. They have turned into a reactionary dev company, playing whack-a-mole with the problems coming up within the game. NO game company which takes on a reactionary role lasts long, i give Cryptic to possibly 2016, maybe 2017 and it will be gone.
FACT = I would back off a bit if i was you, your nose is getting a little brown lordkhorak
with running patrol missions for xp as a necessity. this 'expansion' has so far not delivered compared to LOR in terms of enjoyment for me.
Thanks for the info. I thought I read somewhere, concerning the foundry missions, Cryptic wanted a 480 dil to 15 min time invested. So they thought it would take 1.5 hrs to earn 54k xp regardless of what their testers told them.
Not sure why they removed it though. They got the amount wrong. By now they should have a good sense how long it will take to hit the 54k. Why not adjust rather than delete?
Because a bean counter hit the red alert when they saw the potential loss of revenue. This has all the earmarks of bureaucratic panic.
system Lord Baal is dead
you could always apply to work there. Several STO players ended up working at least as CMs and others ended up working for Cryptic/PWE directly (borticus, suricata, etc.)
It's your game in the end, YOU take some responsibility for what is YOURS. People will respect that, they don't respect people who are in ultimate control of a situation who blame everyone else when something doesn't go according to "plan"....
Lulz. Loading...please wait.
Sarah Knightly - Co-leader; Frontier Explorers - U.S.S. Witchblade
Rias Gremory - Leader; Frontier Marauders - I.K.S. B'ullwinkle
upgrade kits are in all loot tables. You only saw them a lot because 1. elite mobs drop them more often (elite mob loot table) 2. you are spawning a lot of mobs in a single map so ithey will have more chances at dropping (random number generator) 3. you are running the map continuously so you are seeing more drops just because you are pewing hundreds of mobs per hour.
There is no real way to nerf just the upgrade kits from TD alone, without changing the global elite loot table drop percentage for level 50 space maps.
The real bug here is that the ships which were spawning below squad leader level were giving too much XP back to the now-overpowered player ships.
I'm not sure enough of my commitment to this game to apply. I've worked for other gaming companies in the past and it's a lot of fun, but I have to believe in the source material first.
Gawd, how pretentious does that sound?!
The reason they changed it was because after you maxxed out your ship specialization slots any extra levels you received in it were rewarded with dilithium. (Is that terminology correct?)
And people were grinding that hard in Tau Delta. So they turned into Madagascar and shut. Everything. Down.
The patrols in Tau Delta probably won't be changed. They'll still be grindable, they're just taking out the dilithium reward for the "exploit".
One can only process 8K a day.
There are lot of folks that have a krap-load of ORE sitting in their accounts.
That hasn't fouled up the Exchange at all.
The only way to get more refined Dilithium is to BUY ZEN, which is exactly what They want us to do anyway.
:cool:
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
The changes they made will help the leveling go faster so you'll be able to play the story with less interruption.
As. Stated the change was to reduce dilithium.
Not sure if I said it here or elsewhere, but this was a panic move by the bean counters. Refined or unrefined doesn't matter, all that matters is it's dilithium, a commodity they want people to spend real money on. Even the exchange is only meant to top off what you may have already bought.
It is possibly one of the silliest panics I've seen in a game in a long time.
To me it doesn't sound the least bit pretentious. It sounds honest. There is no way I could possibly go to work for cryptic given the way I see things being done from this side of the connection. I would feel more and more soulless with every passing day.
I will say this, these forums are (NO sarcasm) amazing. The community at large is well spoken and there is a distinct lack of incoherent all caps and symbols posts. The forum mods are either doing a fantastic job or the community itself should be lauded. Yeah, people vent, but for the most part I'm seeing just that; venting.
Even the trolls are subtle and well done.
However the nuts and bolts customer service aspect...yikes. Dell could take lessons on how to TRIBBLE off your customer base from them.
FACT - Cryptic decided the situation was not okay and fixed it.
Also - we know from many, many Tribble Test releases that bugs that get reported there do not always get fixed when the stuff is released, but we know plenty bugs that have been reported there and gone to Holodeck have been fixed eventually.
Also, the impact of a bug is not always visible from the start. In the past, people's habit was actually not running the Tau Dewa Patrols in Teams at Elite difficulty. So while the bug was known, it would normally have little impact. What they didn't anticipate correctly is that people would change their behaviour considerably to use this exploit.
And that's where most people have the issue.
This is a grinding game.
They designed it that way. Deliberately.
They put in a grindy bit and then got all shocked when people were grinding. Then they went all thumbs trying to fix it. Shutting down an entire sector? lulz
Yes, I get the Law of Unintended Consequences, but, this is one they should absolutely have anticipated considering how they have designed the game to be played.
And then how they handled it is just laughable.
There is another way to look at it.
Yes so long as someone pays for the Zen they get their cash, but I reckon in an ideal world they would prefer that everyone buys Zen direct instead of using huge stockpiles of Dil and enough patience to save up.
I suppose it's also possible that a player with that huge stockpile won't be playing much of the game at all. They'd either log in, refine the limit and log out again or perhaps fly the odd STF if they are in the mood. Something quick and easy, which from what I've seen here is not what DR offers.
It's in Cryptic's best interest that players log in to play, so they can woo you with their shiny products among other things.
People who do the log in, refine, log out to refine another day are the exception, not the rule. Most people are willing to fork out $20-$100 bucks to get the dil they need RIGHT NOW. Instant gratification.
Once they spend on the ships, the upgrades, the dil increase, the ec increase, the boff and doff and ship limit increase, any little fun bits they might want like costumes, etc, that's a good chunk of change, even if someone plays for a couple of months, maxes out one toon, and then never plays again.
There are plenty of other ways to get far more dil than what people were getting from max specialisation grinding. Even if you have lots of chars. They have even made it easier for you to get max dil from multiple chars by allowing the rich mining claims to be account bound rather than char bound. Also, if you are f2p, just go to dyson and grind there with your multiple chars. You make loads of dil, but you're still bound to 8k (9k vet) per day.
I bet you tau dewa xp from elite team patrols will give you less SP since this patch, no matter how they word it. Yes on solo play you will receive approx a 12.5% boost in SP and it should make levelling to 60 easier. But the idea is to timegate the players, especially with the spec points after 60.
They can't have people skipping the grind. It's the only thing that keeps your mind off the actual content (or lack thereof)
Cheers!
People are starting to report that a load of their spec points have been rolled back.
Yeah, it was clearly the dil issue....
Going that there appears to be a difference in how many, locations of players etc, this seems like a bug more than by design...
Still not a good situation but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that their knee jerk broke something causing unintended consequences
So PWE is removing spec points from everyone just cuz? Even I don't think they've devolved that far. I think it's a bug, probably caused by their attempted "exploit" fix, but not a deliberate vindictive or corrective move on their part.
There has been no official word on the reason for the Tau Dawa take down, anything else is purely speculation.
Umm, the patch note CONFIRM the reason for the Tau Dewa take down... They explicitly mention the removal of dil rewards for post 110 which would only be as a result of running Dewa patrols in it's previous state owing to a bg with the patrols Cryptic have fixed.. Or rather they deemed what a small number of players were doing an exploit.
As for your bit about the skills.. yes, deffo a similar bug, possibly caused by changing things after realizing the problem...
We'll find out soon enough though if it is intentional or not.
Cheers!