I'll be honest I went in and did japori. Some have posted that I should have been obvious that it was an exploit and that the people that were doing this are somehow cheaters. We should have just known based on how much xp we were getting that it was an exploit. I can't speak for others that were doing these patrol missions, but I honestly had no clue. I wasn't exactly looking at the numbers, and it still was taking me quite a few runs through the patrols to get a level. So from my view I was just grinding along and making progress that I could view. It wasn't exactly fast, but it was a moving along. Everyone was forming groups for it so it was, in my view, just the most efficient way to level up.
Why did I do it? Well I was doing the DR content, but because there wasn't enough of it and we had to find other ways to level so I started doing patrol missions to fill in the gaps. Which the game told me to do btw. Once I finished the DR content I continued doing the patrols to level up my starship mastery and such.
I'm glad that the EP took the time to post and let us know what was going on, but I don't entirely agree with the tone and I don't believe the explanation given. Labeling a bunch of people cheaters for doing patrol missions that have been in the game for a long time is basically a way for them to deflect blame for all this onto the player base... or sorry the cheating exploiting players.
Now xp is so hard to come by it feels like my character isn't progressing at all... it's just about as dull as space combat on elite.
I did Japori too, and Beta Thoridar and to those who would now wish to label me cheater or exploiter, well TBH I had no idea it was an exploit especially after the double XP fortnight the previous two weeks. Funny enough I had done the first mission with a mate who then didn't reach level 51 after all the patrols and stuff at the beginning. He got the ****s and left, saying that this grind would only get worse and made the game utterly pointless.
He was right it does. The game progresses so slowly now that a Glacier would beat it in a 10,000m race.
I then heard that Patrols were giving better XP when grouped together. So off I went and had a go at the Patrols in Tau Dewa. Not because I didn't want to do the patrols in the DQ, but more that I knew the TD ones from previous play. The whole issue of an exploit then got totally lost on me, mainly because the game suddenly started being a lot of fun, I teamed up with people I didn't know and we did some Patrols, sometimes the levels were easier to reach than others, but in the end even with an all 60 group it wasn't too bad. Drops were reasonable, the fights in a lvl 50-59 zone weren't off the charts impossible and the biggest part was it was fun to play.
That really hit a high for me, as most of this game had been a bit flat in comparison to the World Boss events in Guild Wars 2 or the Random Zone events in Rift for instance, however this gave me that feeling of enjoyment of working together to succeed and get rewards that were meaningful.
I comprehend pacing and design schema, but when the playerbase are enjoying an exploit 100x more than the design schema you were working to, isn't there something a little off in your calculations Cryptic? Oddly enough I think that if the upgrade system cost 200 dil per Superior upgrade instead of 2000, you'd find people would be using it left right and centre. People would be trying different combinations and working on making different builds for their ships they paid for (in a lot of cases). Most players have given up getting Mk14 UR or Epic on anything other than their main, if that. The others become unused dil farmers. Some are even just deleting them as the grind is that boring.
Seriously Cryptic, these people want to be your friends, the people who support you, but with the current attitude and inflexibility more explosions like DR's release are all I can see in the future.
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Seriously Cryptic, these people want to be your friends, the people who support you, but with the current attitude and inflexibility more explosions like DR's release are all I can see in the future.
Seriously there are thousands of supporters of the game. Being friends doesn't mean that everything you or a friend does is not wrong or a mistake. Here is what a supporter would do who got caught in this situation.
He would read the post and realize that despite the labels or whatever they didnt intend of the game to be played that way. They would say okay I did this I am sorry I didnt realize. Then they would accept it and then just go play the game because cryptic did not make the decision on behalf of any individual they made the decision for the health and fairness of the game. They tried to do something in the best interest of everyone including those who did this.
In past times they probably would have banned the accounts and those doing such things would have completely lost those characters and years and years of experience (and any money they put into them). However times have changed and things have softened up so instead of doing this they decided to be lenient and let this group keep some of the points and all their gear and charactesr to boot and fix the broken bits of the game that were responsible.
So really people need to realize that they did something that they felt was fair for everyone including those who were involved.
Still haven't received any word on why I got points docked, since I didn't even step foot in Japori. All my time was spent on Kobali getting Delta marks, since I was already bored to tears running Borg Disconnect and Bug Hunt. The other issue was, once you had completed those two PvE Queues and they were on Cooldown, you still had a 15-20 wait before one became available to play again. In pretty much every other release we've always had at least 3 different Queues where we could earn the new marks. Now there's only two, since one is locked behind the Elite section at the moment. Meaning that I had to find other ways to earn marks. But then again, I'm just a dirty exploiter so what do I know. Nothing to do with the fact Cryptic royally f**ked up this release with their short sighted £££ grabbing greed as per usual.
In days past, I've always defended STO to my friends saying how it had a rough start because of Atari and how Cryptic had been fighting to include new content and improve the game. Given recent events I can't honestly do that anymore, the game is just so dead at the moment. Queues are deserted, missions give pathetic XP and everything else is locked behind timegates or paywalls (or a mixture of both!).
Just feels like there's nothing to do except log in and set my rep and r&d missions.
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Still haven't received any word on why I got points docked, since I didn't even step foot in Japori. All my time was spent on Kobali getting Delta marks, since I was already bored to tears running Borg Disconnect and Bug Hunt. The other issue was, once you had completed those two PvE Queues and they were on Cooldown, you still had a 15-20 wait before one became available to play again. In pretty much every other release we've always had at least 3 different Queues where we could earn the new marks. Now there's only two, since one is locked behind the Elite section at the moment. Meaning that I had to find other ways to earn marks. But then again, I'm just a dirty exploiter so what do I know. Nothing to do with the fact Cryptic royally f**ked up this release with their short sighted £££ grabbing greed as per usual.
In days past, I've always defended STO to my friends saying how it had a rough start because of Atari and how Cryptic had been fighting to include new content and improve the game. Given recent events I can't honestly do that anymore, the game is just so dead at the moment. Queues are deserted, missions give pathetic XP and everything else is locked behind timegates or paywalls (or a mixture of both!).
Just feels like there's nothing to do except log in and set my rep and r&d missions.
it's very simple: EVERYONE that does too much damage levels faster than the average players. The developers don't understand this concept, they don't realise some of us do 5-20x as much damage than the average player. They saw everyone that levelled faster than average an exploiter, and docked their points.
The investigation uncovered several different bugs in the game that were combining to allow players to level at approximately 17x the rate that players were leveling anywhere else in the game. This was definitely not intended behavior. Fixes for the various bugs went live with the update on Thursday morning, and we opened up the blocked maps.
anyone who got more than 10 points on those maps had the excess points removed from their characters
Not that there was a glitch or a x17 speed, this is what it came down to.
But yeah as with everything else cryptic releases the implementation of stealing people's skillpoints is bugged too
I know this because I made it my special mission in life to level exclusively in japori.
And in my case it was 18 points so I fit their cheater/hacker criteria but they didn't steal from me.
So hard to believe they stole from people who didn't aimbot, wall-hack and macro, not at all.
But again people were in japori because the expansion is misarable.
Whatever you do or don't do to people's skillpoints doesn't change nothing
Poorly disguised attempt to attribute blame to players, while sounding superior...
Is there an ignore button on these forums for people who can't make coherent arguments for their points?
Do you seriously believe what you wrote?
Go re-read D'Angelo's post. It's got more plot holes than a lump of Swiss Cheese. First he claims 17x the expected XP gain rate, then doesn't give a comparative baseline or an upper limit to the XP gained thereby reducing the comment to just conjecture which is usually coupled with exaggeration. I may be assuming here, and assumptions are the mother of all F'ups but seeing as this was such a big F'ing deal for the dev's that the players were enjoying themselves more by ignoring the DQ content and playing content that actually gave some reward for invested time, then details are due. A lot of people paid good money for the DQ expansion, some of us pay monthly for subs, others paid for lifetime subs. Some don't pay a cent. All are entitled to fair treatment and a product that meets or exceeds their expectations, not this poor excuse for grinding away at boring content.
The Reduction of XP gain after the patch then doesn't match up with the prior XP gain as well as the Patch notes. These state a divisor reduction from 5.0x to 2.0x for Elite. Fair enough, ingame we are indeed seeing a 2x increase in XP for Elite over Normal. However the XP gain isn't being balanced against time or the astronomic HP values (which are set to get an increase in Elite :eek: ).
Basic maths highlights the utter BS that D'Angelo's post is full of, unless they truly are clueless how to balance a game this complex/large.
In the end DQ is like a really tasty Apple Pie that's just been put in the oven. You however are allowed to sit and watch it, while the oven is locked. If you try to open it you get told you are an exploiter and a cheater. So you just sit and watch as the Pie slowly burns to ashes in front of you, all the while you are thinking, that looks and smells so good, but you never really get to taste it.
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Why can't you taste the pie? I'm cruising along enjoying each bite. Will finish it and be full and happy in a week or 2.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Cryptic have been testing the expansion to StarTrek online for several months.
One problem was the XP being gained whilst a person was playing on the most difficult settings. it was set high so as allow people to level faster on the test server...
The company were aware of this, as they programmed it, However they sent the information to their live server. Players noticed this and word quickly spread. Players started power levelling using the elite settings as most were unaware that the figures were wrong. The development team then started wondering why their new maps were not being played and decided to make a rare appearance in game and started asking questions. It came to light that the system was "being abused" by a select few who were reaping rewards in the form of in game currency that you can buy with real money... There in lies the problem.
Rather than fix the problem and own up to what happened, they accused the players of exploiting the game. Then altered the player experience to reflect what they believed it should be.
This is very damaging to the trust of the player base. As a result they have pitted players against each other using the divide and conquer tactics and hoping that by burying their heads in the sand they can let the players shout it out between them whilst practising the norm of ignoring the customer base.
This is a process called deferred blame. Person A does something bad or wrong and person b blames person C with the knowledge it was A.
Despite the accusations Cryptic have offered no proof. I know of several individuals who lost out and never abused the system yet got penalised. There are so many rattles on the floor that it is impossible to see how they all fitted in the one pram.
This company have stolen time and respect from the people who pay them...
What they should have done.....
Closed the loop holes and said sorry then moved on with the game.
But No... alienate the player base whilst allowing others to run in an area renowned for currency exploits..
Good move..... I have a lifetime membership of this game and have purchased many in game items, probably spent more than I should have.This stops now.....
I haven't done anything wrong and in the same vein so haven't a lot of other people, but we are all tarred with the Exploiters brush....
The real exploit here is of the players....
I am sure that when the game developers go shopping and receive back to much change they pocket it. It is usual policy when a company makes a mathematical error that the customer is not touched and is protected, procedures are then put in place to prevent further instances from happening....
Give the players back their experience and suck it up...
Your Software house made a boo-boo correct it and move on... but do not steal time from your player base
^^ That was a very lucid and well-writen post! Kudos for wording it all so well!
Seriously there are thousands of supporters of the game. Being friends doesn't mean that everything you or a friend does is not wrong or a mistake. Here is what a supporter would do who got caught in this situation.
He would read the post and realize that despite the labels or whatever they didnt intend of the game to be played that way. They would say okay I did this I am sorry I didnt realize. Then they would accept it and then just go play the game because cryptic did not make the decision on behalf of any individual they made the decision for the health and fairness of the game. They tried to do something in the best interest of everyone including those who did this.
In past times they probably would have banned the accounts and those doing such things would have completely lost those characters and years and years of experience (and any money they put into them). However times have changed and things have softened up so instead of doing this they decided to be lenient and let this group keep some of the points and all their gear and charactesr to boot and fix the broken bits of the game that were responsible.
So really people need to realize that they did something that they felt was fair for everyone including those who were involved.
Please read all my comments on this topic in this thread, because you have not. Else you would not write what you just wrote. There is nothing fair or right in calling people exploiters or tamper with their accounts/toons.
Why can't you taste the pie? I'm cruising along enjoying each bite. Will finish it and be full and happy in a week or 2.
I never did comprehend the mind of a TRIBBLE...
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
I recall reading in the introductory materials to the Delta Expansion that leveling was meant to take much longer from 50 to 60 than from 0 to 50.
Given that it's a couple days to 2 weeks for 0 to 50, I think 3 or 4 weeks to get to 60 is perfectly fine and enjoyable. Additionally I don't see the need to be level 60 immediately. What boon does it grant you?
I would add that it took me a full 12 months to level to cap in Lotro, logging in every day and playing almost every day.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Please read all my comments on this topic in this thread, because you have not. Else you would not write what you just wrote. There is nothing fair or right in calling people exploiters or tamper with their accounts/toons.
I read the opening statement and part of the 60+ of out of proportion rage and in some cases totally irrational arguments like "we want to be your friends that is why you should not do this"
Fact = they uncovered an exploit which a few players reported and did not take part in
Fact = others took part
Fact = the devs struggled to make a decision and made one they felt was fair FOR EVERYONE
Fact = people got angry because they did not like the decision even though they have done a lot of rationalizing to try to talk their way through the same issue remains. The fact that devs were tweeted and players verbalized the fact that something was not right to which people could either head the warnings or just ignore them
From where I sit some people assumed the devs would ignore the issue I guess because one thing is quite clear after it all came out in the wash and painfully clear there are actually players who saw the issue and tweeted devs as it was happening and who even tried to tell others this is not right and those others (the angry ones now it seems in many cases) ignored what was said and did it anyways.
It was wrong to partake in and you had a choice you could have done what many players did and stay away and what some players did which was to bug report it and tweet devs OR you could make the other choice and not report it and tell others and go play the content and even convince some friends to do the same.
There were only two choices some made a bad choice and others didnt. MOST people made the correct choice and stayed away till it was fixed or closed down the MINORITY took a chance and lost the gamble but not as badly as could have happened in the past.
Anyhow I know there is no sense to try to talk logic to people but I forget myself and sometimes try.
Fact = they uncovered what they called an exploit which a few players reported and did not take part in which consisted of playing existing content that had not been changed since its introduction over a year ago.
Fact = others took part as they had no reasonable reason to believe this was an exploit, given that it is quite normal in nearly every MMO for there to be areas of better XP compared to others.
Fact = the devs struggled to make a decision and made one they felt was fair FOR EVERYONE, but given that their decision basically targeted only those with excessively good DPS, it was not particularly fair in the end.
Fact = people got angry because they did not like the decision even though they have done a lot of rationalizing to try to talk their way through the same issue remains back by fact that devs were tweeted and players verbalized the fact that something was not right to which people could either head the warnings or just ignore them Just because some people want to try and cry exploit at any opportunity does not make the relevant activity an exploit. Witness how many other things were being posted about that were obviously not exploits, but which could be considered to be so given D'Angelo's unacceptably vague "too good to be...intended" language.
Emphasized mine.
Your "facts" are not so unassailable as you might like to believe.
I read the opening statement and part of the 60+ of out of proportion rage and in some cases totally irrational arguments like "we want to be your friends that is why you should not do this"
Fact = they uncovered an exploit which a few players reported and did not take part in
Fact = others took part
Fact = the devs struggled to make a decision and made one they felt was fair FOR EVERYONE
Fact = people got angry because they did not like the decision even though they have done a lot of rationalizing to try to talk their way through the same issue remains. The fact that devs were tweeted and players verbalized the fact that something was not right to which people could either head the warnings or just ignore them
From where I sit some people assumed the devs would ignore the issue I guess because one thing is quite clear after it all came out in the wash and painfully clear there are actually players who saw the issue and tweeted devs as it was happening and who even tried to tell others this is not right and those others (the angry ones now it seems in many cases) ignored what was said and did it anyways.
It was wrong to partake in and you had a choice you could have done what many players did and stay away and what some players did which was to bug report it and tweet devs OR you could make the other choice and not report it and tell others and go play the content and even convince some friends to do the same.
There were only two choices some made a bad choice and others didnt. MOST people made the correct choice and stayed away till it was fixed or closed down the MINORITY took a chance and lost the gamble but not as badly as could have happened in the past.
Anyhow I know there is no sense to try to talk logic to people but I forget myself and sometimes try.
Now the cryptic employees spam the forums (of course incognito) to change players perception. Deleting many topics with feedback and critisism did not work.
Your "facts" are not so unassailable as you might like to believe.
really go back and read the thread every bit of info was taken from players who either posted in this thread or another one on this forum. Including the people who reported the stuff as it was happening to the devs and the posts about the issues being reported on tribble server. And the logic that "well they didnt fix it on tribble therefore we will do it on live" every word is on this forum somewhere.
Add to that the noises made ingame of people recruiting for those instances and explaining to people in zone chat how to achieve these things and some of the arguments that also occured out in the open ingame as it was occuring over the issue. Nothing is hidden and everyone got to watch it in "real time" too lol blow by blow.
Some of us stood back and watched it unfold knowing what the ultimate outcome would be and even in some cases tried to get people to not do it. Others ran away (i ran away lol i got as far away from those instances as I could better safe then sorry)
it was so blatantely obvious it was like being hit in the head with a 2x4.
PS:Why does firefox spell checker think monetization isn't a real word???
Looks like people do not read whats behind that link. But it shows clearly the path taken and explains why they did what they did, it's all about monetization.
I read the opening statement and part of the 60+ of out of proportion rage and in some cases totally irrational arguments like "we want to be your friends that is why you should not do this"
Fact = they uncovered an exploit which a few players reported and did not take part in
Fact = others took part
Fact = the devs struggled to make a decision and made one they felt was fair FOR EVERYONE
Fact = people got angry because they did not like the decision even though they have done a lot of rationalizing to try to talk their way through the same issue remains. The fact that devs were tweeted and players verbalized the fact that something was not right to which people could either head the warnings or just ignore them
From where I sit some people assumed the devs would ignore the issue I guess because one thing is quite clear after it all came out in the wash and painfully clear there are actually players who saw the issue and tweeted devs as it was happening and who even tried to tell others this is not right and those others (the angry ones now it seems in many cases) ignored what was said and did it anyways.
It was wrong to partake in and you had a choice you could have done what many players did and stay away and what some players did which was to bug report it and tweet devs OR you could make the other choice and not report it and tell others and go play the content and even convince some friends to do the same.
There were only two choices some made a bad choice and others didnt. MOST people made the correct choice and stayed away till it was fixed or closed down the MINORITY took a chance and lost the gamble but not as badly as could have happened in the past.
Anyhow I know there is no sense to try to talk logic to people but I forget myself and sometimes try.
Yeah i have to disagree with you there.
I legitimately had NO idea that there was any form of bug in place here. Japori was a fairly standard grinding spot for me before, simply because it was close to the dyson sphere, and romulan marks were a stable source of dilithium for me. I never thought it was unusual to be getting 5X the exp from enemies that were 5X the difficulty.
That said, i am not one of the players who has lost anything, but that doesn't mean i agree with the action. THEY created a story where you can only progress by grinding for an hour between each story mission. THEY chose not to clarify that this was a bug during tribble testing, THEY chose not to fix it before it went live despite knowing about it, and THEY chose to brand the players as cheaters and remove their points rather than admit their own mistake and simply fix it and move on.
But as was said in an episode of TNG i cannot fully remember :"The problem with giving people a choice, is that you have to accept that sometimes they will make the wrong choice"
Real Temporal Operative: Purchased the Special Temporal Agent pack before it was even officially announced!
really go back and read the thread every bit of info was taken from players who either posted in this thread or another one on this forum. Including the people who reported the stuff as it was happening to the devs and the posts about the issues being reported on tribble server. And the logic that "well they didnt fix it on tribble therefore we will do it on live" every word is on this forum somewhere.
Add to that the noises made ingame of people recruiting for those instances and explaining to people in zone chat how to achieve these things and some of the arguments that also occured out in the open ingame as it was occuring over the issue. Nothing is hidden and everyone got to watch it in "real time" too lol blow by blow.
Some of us stood back and watched it unfold knowing what the ultimate outcome would be and even in some cases tried to get people to not do it. Others ran away (i ran away lol i got as far away from those instances as I could better safe then sorry)
it was so blatantely obvious it was like being hit in the head with a 2x4.
Still with a 2K DPS ship no one would level 17x faster even if grouped with 5x 2K ships. Because the ammount of Hitpoints required to kill ships especialy on Elite level is much and much higher (so logicaly the reward in XP too).
Actualy the people who spend on upgrading ships and perfecting them (sometimes invested much money to achieve this) now got punished for leveling faster because they build powerful ships and kill stuff fast.
That said, i am not one of the players who has lost anything, but that doesn't mean i agree with the action. THEY created a story where you can only progress by grinding for an hour between each story mission. THEY chose not to clarify that this was a bug during tribble testing, THEY chose not to fix it before it went live despite knowing about it, and THEY chose to brand the players as cheaters and remove their points rather than admit their own mistake and simply fix it and move on.
okay so you played the game normally and didnt loose anything.
Dont believe everyone says when it comes to trying to win over a community to some cause. Devs have data lots and lots of data they can see all quite literallly you cannot hide anything from them its their game on their servers.
They are busy balancing a game with some bugs as new content is always going to have issues its impossible to debug everything before releasing it to the masses. They obviously thought the issues reported could wait and didnt think it was going to become so heavily used that they had to push it to the top of the "todo" pile that was their mistake. The players mistake was taking advantage of the situation. They did a lot of rationalizing over it all but still there are rules and they are in the tos and eula.
The definition of an exploit is pretty standard but he posted it again. If you see a bug that gives you an unfair advantage over other players the rules say your not supposed to use the bug and find ways to allow the game to let you use the bug your supposed to avoid the bug because its not normal gameplay. If you use a bug that does this then yes its an exploit. "if its too good to be true it is"
Everyone admits they found the bug an were aware of them on tribble. They knew it was wrong. They chose to exploit the bug to gain an advantage over other players. In some cases they pulled their friends in with them as well and convinced them it was okay. (these are not friends i would have lol trust me on that one i am picky hehe). They got burned and now they are angry, but wait the devs let people keep some of the progress (which was actually very kind of them) they could have taken it all away or worse, but they decided to find a happy medium. I personally think that was very good of cryptic to do that. They levelled the playing field without over penalizing the participants.
Comments
Why did I do it? Well I was doing the DR content, but because there wasn't enough of it and we had to find other ways to level so I started doing patrol missions to fill in the gaps. Which the game told me to do btw. Once I finished the DR content I continued doing the patrols to level up my starship mastery and such.
I'm glad that the EP took the time to post and let us know what was going on, but I don't entirely agree with the tone and I don't believe the explanation given. Labeling a bunch of people cheaters for doing patrol missions that have been in the game for a long time is basically a way for them to deflect blame for all this onto the player base... or sorry the cheating exploiting players.
Now xp is so hard to come by it feels like my character isn't progressing at all... it's just about as dull as space combat on elite.
He was right it does. The game progresses so slowly now that a Glacier would beat it in a 10,000m race.
I then heard that Patrols were giving better XP when grouped together. So off I went and had a go at the Patrols in Tau Dewa. Not because I didn't want to do the patrols in the DQ, but more that I knew the TD ones from previous play. The whole issue of an exploit then got totally lost on me, mainly because the game suddenly started being a lot of fun, I teamed up with people I didn't know and we did some Patrols, sometimes the levels were easier to reach than others, but in the end even with an all 60 group it wasn't too bad. Drops were reasonable, the fights in a lvl 50-59 zone weren't off the charts impossible and the biggest part was it was fun to play.
That really hit a high for me, as most of this game had been a bit flat in comparison to the World Boss events in Guild Wars 2 or the Random Zone events in Rift for instance, however this gave me that feeling of enjoyment of working together to succeed and get rewards that were meaningful.
I comprehend pacing and design schema, but when the playerbase are enjoying an exploit 100x more than the design schema you were working to, isn't there something a little off in your calculations Cryptic? Oddly enough I think that if the upgrade system cost 200 dil per Superior upgrade instead of 2000, you'd find people would be using it left right and centre. People would be trying different combinations and working on making different builds for their ships they paid for (in a lot of cases). Most players have given up getting Mk14 UR or Epic on anything other than their main, if that. The others become unused dil farmers. Some are even just deleting them as the grind is that boring.
Seriously Cryptic, these people want to be your friends, the people who support you, but with the current attitude and inflexibility more explosions like DR's release are all I can see in the future.
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Seriously there are thousands of supporters of the game. Being friends doesn't mean that everything you or a friend does is not wrong or a mistake. Here is what a supporter would do who got caught in this situation.
He would read the post and realize that despite the labels or whatever they didnt intend of the game to be played that way. They would say okay I did this I am sorry I didnt realize. Then they would accept it and then just go play the game because cryptic did not make the decision on behalf of any individual they made the decision for the health and fairness of the game. They tried to do something in the best interest of everyone including those who did this.
In past times they probably would have banned the accounts and those doing such things would have completely lost those characters and years and years of experience (and any money they put into them). However times have changed and things have softened up so instead of doing this they decided to be lenient and let this group keep some of the points and all their gear and charactesr to boot and fix the broken bits of the game that were responsible.
So really people need to realize that they did something that they felt was fair for everyone including those who were involved.
Yup lets go with this idea right here ^^^
While listening to this
In days past, I've always defended STO to my friends saying how it had a rough start because of Atari and how Cryptic had been fighting to include new content and improve the game. Given recent events I can't honestly do that anymore, the game is just so dead at the moment. Queues are deserted, missions give pathetic XP and everything else is locked behind timegates or paywalls (or a mixture of both!).
Just feels like there's nothing to do except log in and set my rep and r&d missions.
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it's very simple: EVERYONE that does too much damage levels faster than the average players. The developers don't understand this concept, they don't realise some of us do 5-20x as much damage than the average player. They saw everyone that levelled faster than average an exploiter, and docked their points.
sig
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It is a peculiar phenomenon that we can imagine events that defy the laws of the universe.
Not that there was a glitch or a x17 speed, this is what it came down to.
But yeah as with everything else cryptic releases the implementation of stealing people's skillpoints is bugged too
I know this because I made it my special mission in life to level exclusively in japori.
And in my case it was 18 points so I fit their cheater/hacker criteria but they didn't steal from me.
So hard to believe they stole from people who didn't aimbot, wall-hack and macro, not at all.
But again people were in japori because the expansion is misarable.
Whatever you do or don't do to people's skillpoints doesn't change nothing
Is there an ignore button on these forums for people who can't make coherent arguments for their points?
Do you seriously believe what you wrote?
Go re-read D'Angelo's post. It's got more plot holes than a lump of Swiss Cheese. First he claims 17x the expected XP gain rate, then doesn't give a comparative baseline or an upper limit to the XP gained thereby reducing the comment to just conjecture which is usually coupled with exaggeration. I may be assuming here, and assumptions are the mother of all F'ups but seeing as this was such a big F'ing deal for the dev's that the players were enjoying themselves more by ignoring the DQ content and playing content that actually gave some reward for invested time, then details are due. A lot of people paid good money for the DQ expansion, some of us pay monthly for subs, others paid for lifetime subs. Some don't pay a cent. All are entitled to fair treatment and a product that meets or exceeds their expectations, not this poor excuse for grinding away at boring content.
The Reduction of XP gain after the patch then doesn't match up with the prior XP gain as well as the Patch notes. These state a divisor reduction from 5.0x to 2.0x for Elite. Fair enough, ingame we are indeed seeing a 2x increase in XP for Elite over Normal. However the XP gain isn't being balanced against time or the astronomic HP values (which are set to get an increase in Elite :eek: ).
Basic maths highlights the utter BS that D'Angelo's post is full of, unless they truly are clueless how to balance a game this complex/large.
In the end DQ is like a really tasty Apple Pie that's just been put in the oven. You however are allowed to sit and watch it, while the oven is locked. If you try to open it you get told you are an exploiter and a cheater. So you just sit and watch as the Pie slowly burns to ashes in front of you, all the while you are thinking, that looks and smells so good, but you never really get to taste it.
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
^^ That was a very lucid and well-writen post! Kudos for wording it all so well!
Please read all my comments on this topic in this thread, because you have not. Else you would not write what you just wrote. There is nothing fair or right in calling people exploiters or tamper with their accounts/toons.
i got a better idea lets use the new cats as torpedoes :P
system Lord Baal is dead
Only a small group of people leveled 17x faster according to Cryptic.
Even my litte brother says thats logical because those people do 17x more DPS.
I never did comprehend the mind of a TRIBBLE...
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
I have - still not at the "Hundreds of thousands", my ninja...
I recall reading in the introductory materials to the Delta Expansion that leveling was meant to take much longer from 50 to 60 than from 0 to 50.
Given that it's a couple days to 2 weeks for 0 to 50, I think 3 or 4 weeks to get to 60 is perfectly fine and enjoyable. Additionally I don't see the need to be level 60 immediately. What boon does it grant you?
I would add that it took me a full 12 months to level to cap in Lotro, logging in every day and playing almost every day.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I read the opening statement and part of the 60+ of out of proportion rage and in some cases totally irrational arguments like "we want to be your friends that is why you should not do this"
Fact = they uncovered an exploit which a few players reported and did not take part in
Fact = others took part
Fact = the devs struggled to make a decision and made one they felt was fair FOR EVERYONE
Fact = people got angry because they did not like the decision even though they have done a lot of rationalizing to try to talk their way through the same issue remains. The fact that devs were tweeted and players verbalized the fact that something was not right to which people could either head the warnings or just ignore them
From where I sit some people assumed the devs would ignore the issue I guess because one thing is quite clear after it all came out in the wash and painfully clear there are actually players who saw the issue and tweeted devs as it was happening and who even tried to tell others this is not right and those others (the angry ones now it seems in many cases) ignored what was said and did it anyways.
It was wrong to partake in and you had a choice you could have done what many players did and stay away and what some players did which was to bug report it and tweet devs OR you could make the other choice and not report it and tell others and go play the content and even convince some friends to do the same.
There were only two choices some made a bad choice and others didnt. MOST people made the correct choice and stayed away till it was fixed or closed down the MINORITY took a chance and lost the gamble but not as badly as could have happened in the past.
Anyhow I know there is no sense to try to talk logic to people but I forget myself and sometimes try.
Emphasized mine.
Your "facts" are not so unassailable as you might like to believe.
Now the cryptic employees spam the forums (of course incognito) to change players perception. Deleting many topics with feedback and critisism did not work.
really go back and read the thread every bit of info was taken from players who either posted in this thread or another one on this forum. Including the people who reported the stuff as it was happening to the devs and the posts about the issues being reported on tribble server. And the logic that "well they didnt fix it on tribble therefore we will do it on live" every word is on this forum somewhere.
Add to that the noises made ingame of people recruiting for those instances and explaining to people in zone chat how to achieve these things and some of the arguments that also occured out in the open ingame as it was occuring over the issue. Nothing is hidden and everyone got to watch it in "real time" too lol blow by blow.
Some of us stood back and watched it unfold knowing what the ultimate outcome would be and even in some cases tried to get people to not do it. Others ran away (i ran away lol i got as far away from those instances as I could better safe then sorry)
it was so blatantely obvious it was like being hit in the head with a 2x4.
Looks like people do not read whats behind that link. But it shows clearly the path taken and explains why they did what they did, it's all about monetization.
Yeah i have to disagree with you there.
I legitimately had NO idea that there was any form of bug in place here. Japori was a fairly standard grinding spot for me before, simply because it was close to the dyson sphere, and romulan marks were a stable source of dilithium for me. I never thought it was unusual to be getting 5X the exp from enemies that were 5X the difficulty.
That said, i am not one of the players who has lost anything, but that doesn't mean i agree with the action. THEY created a story where you can only progress by grinding for an hour between each story mission. THEY chose not to clarify that this was a bug during tribble testing, THEY chose not to fix it before it went live despite knowing about it, and THEY chose to brand the players as cheaters and remove their points rather than admit their own mistake and simply fix it and move on.
But as was said in an episode of TNG i cannot fully remember :"The problem with giving people a choice, is that you have to accept that sometimes they will make the wrong choice"
Still with a 2K DPS ship no one would level 17x faster even if grouped with 5x 2K ships. Because the ammount of Hitpoints required to kill ships especialy on Elite level is much and much higher (so logicaly the reward in XP too).
Actualy the people who spend on upgrading ships and perfecting them (sometimes invested much money to achieve this) now got punished for leveling faster because they build powerful ships and kill stuff fast.
It's amazing how detatched from reality some of you people are.
Can you prove the opposite then? If not, you are equaly detached.
okay so you played the game normally and didnt loose anything.
Dont believe everyone says when it comes to trying to win over a community to some cause. Devs have data lots and lots of data they can see all quite literallly you cannot hide anything from them its their game on their servers.
They are busy balancing a game with some bugs as new content is always going to have issues its impossible to debug everything before releasing it to the masses. They obviously thought the issues reported could wait and didnt think it was going to become so heavily used that they had to push it to the top of the "todo" pile that was their mistake. The players mistake was taking advantage of the situation. They did a lot of rationalizing over it all but still there are rules and they are in the tos and eula.
The definition of an exploit is pretty standard but he posted it again. If you see a bug that gives you an unfair advantage over other players the rules say your not supposed to use the bug and find ways to allow the game to let you use the bug your supposed to avoid the bug because its not normal gameplay. If you use a bug that does this then yes its an exploit. "if its too good to be true it is"
Everyone admits they found the bug an were aware of them on tribble. They knew it was wrong. They chose to exploit the bug to gain an advantage over other players. In some cases they pulled their friends in with them as well and convinced them it was okay. (these are not friends i would have lol trust me on that one i am picky hehe). They got burned and now they are angry, but wait the devs let people keep some of the progress (which was actually very kind of them) they could have taken it all away or worse, but they decided to find a happy medium. I personally think that was very good of cryptic to do that. They levelled the playing field without over penalizing the participants.