Aggressive doffing will give 1/5 of a level a day. That includes a good 12 hour mission like shore leave or the delta one and a good amount of crits.
It's more than that.
On my klink i do nothing than doff atm and i gain a spec point roughly every 2-3 days.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
I'm not going to lie ans say i read all 17 pages. but what i did read is
wahhhhh I can't max my character in 4 days.
and these are the same people who 4 months ago were
wahhhhh there isn't any content! it's to EASY
so what the hell do you want?
Feeling rewarded for the time invested, and not like crawling along with snail speed?
And i would really like to see / feel it again, that Alts are a viable & fun alternate way to explore and play the game.
I am not against long term goals, and i totally get why they did it, but i think we have enough stuff to strive for already. It has to be achievable (and i dont speak about the Specialization Points exclusively) until the next big thing hits the game. We are at a point where even the Hardcore players have trouble keeping up. Not to mention new players, or the previous option of playing Alts.
Now, i dont speak about the content / storys they did. Thats all great, but from a leveling, resource, player and psychological perspective, the game was much more fun before DR. And again, i get the why. Cryptic needed new long term goals and new sources of income. PWE's guideline was the focus on player attachment. Thats the actual reason for all the increases. If that was necessary, ok. The implementation is just bad for us players in it's current state.
When players start to leave, that's bad for all of us! So please dont wave around the "You all whine, cause you want it all now!" banner.
Same here. When I heard what people were doing I thought "why are they doing that? Just play the game normally and have fun"
That worked out well for me...
That's now I'm playing it now. I've given up on doing the Storyline content ike it was from 50-60. I'll play he game as before and when I hit a leveling point. I may or may no go the story missions.
And I think Cryptic really screwed the pooch, with the levling curve they implemented for 50-60. They has a very nice leveling progression from level 1-50 (although one can agree it is a bit fast), and then they inverted the experience 180 degrees to be god awful sow between level. Having to grind a few patrol missions between levels I could tolerate, but no what they have now.
And personally, I think that Speciliations is the boogie man which drove them to the steep curve. They didn't want to give them out too fast. But they missed a great marketing opportunity. "The first taste is free, then it will cost ya".
Cryptic should have kept a smooth leveling curve and given out the first 10 spec points for "free". Let player experience what Specializations can do. That would be perfect enticement for grinding out the rest even at the extraogent levling costs of 58+.
Cryptic also would have had ample opportunities to curtaip Spec points if they want to limit them before eve 60. Give out one every other ever from 50-60. Or lockout Tier 2 Specializations from 51-60.
As another poster pointed out Cryptic ruined a good experience with the game with DR. I'm oine that is prone to altitis. I was pondering trying out a Talaxian Captain. But DR leveing has killed that through with extreme prejudice.
But to not stray totaly off topic. The increases in the Patrol rewards is a step in the right direction. But I strongly encourage Cryptic to keep going in that direction. Divorce Specialization Points and rewards from the leveling curve. Make it stand alone so your can tweak it without ruining the leveling play experience.
I'm not going to lie ans say i read all 17 pages. but what i did read is
wahhhhh I can't max my character in 4 days.
and these are the same people who 4 months ago were
wahhhhh there isn't any content! it's to EASY
so what the hell do you want?
I don't mind having months of content. However, it's a problem to me to grind the same patrol for months.
Technically, that's something I could have done before DR.
That's now I'm playing it now. I've given up on doing the Storyline content ike it was from 50-60. I'll play he game as before and when I hit a leveling point. I may or may no go the story missions.
And I think Cryptic really screwed the pooch, with the levling curve they implemented for 50-60. They has a very nice leveling progression from level 1-50 (although one can agree it is a bit fast), and then they inverted the experience 180 degrees to be god awful sow between level. Having to grind a few patrol missions between levels I could tolerate, but no what they have now.
And personally, I think that Speciliations is the boogie man which drove them to the steep curve. They didn't want to give them out too fast. But they missed a great marketing opportunity. "The first taste is free, then it will cost ya".
Cryptic should have kept a smooth leveling curve and given out the first 10 spec points for "free". Let player experience what Specializations can do. That would be perfect enticement for grinding out the rest even at the extraogent levling costs of 58+.
.
I kinda thing so, too, but I believe they also wanted to stretch out the story content - normally when they release a bunch of missions, people blow through them quickly. Now they can't - if they want to see them, they have to earn their skill points first and do other stuff.
We'll see if this "experiment" will be successful or not - of course, anyone on the forums may say it wasn't, but the forums are always full of negativity. And very... single-minded.
AFAIR, they did not change anything about the upgrade system for example. People were up in arms about that system and how costly it would be to upgrade gear. And now everyone focues on skill points. Did the problem solve itself somehow? Is the skill point issue really bigger?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
normally when they release a bunch of missions, people blow through them quickly
Sorry imho, that's utter nonsense ... whoever came up with it should be shot ... I "blew" through DR Mission way faster ... I just had to repeat them 800 times ...
... I'd rather have 50 Missions like during LoR to "blow through", than 8 ...
I know what you're trying to say but DR hasn't "fixed" it at all ... the only solution for people not "blowing through" content, is to release more content (certainly not less, with some ridiculos LvL restriction -> it's not gonna magically duplicate itself) ... if this is supposed to be some kind of solution, I could've repeated LoR's Content 800 times as well, nobody there to stop me ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
I kinda thing so, too, but I believe they also wanted to stretch out the story content - normally when they release a bunch of missions, people blow through them quickly. Now they can't - if they want to see them, they have to earn their skill points first and do other stuff.
What's worth doing is playing some of those earlier missions to see how fast they do go through. As a regular Foundry player, some player-written missions are truly long - at least an hour. Multiple maps, puzzles and real difficulty. Some of the early "official" missions are literally five minute jobs.
If Cryptic spent half as much time designing (ie. writing) stories as they do post-release nerfing to make up for the lack of stories, then both they and the players would be far better off. To spell it out: We'd have great stories that took time to play and were worth every moment, and they'd have player engagement.
Sorry imho, that's utter nonsense ... whoever came up with it should be shot ... I "blew" through DR Mission way faster ... I just had to repeat them 800 times ...
... I'd rather have 50 Missions like during LoR to "blow through", than 8 ...
I know what you're trying to say but DR hasn't "fixed" it at all ... the only solution for people not "blowing through" content, is to release more content (certainly not less, with some ridiculos LvL restriction -> it's not gonna magically duplicate itself) ... if this is supposed to be some kind of solution, I could've repeated LoR's Content 800 times as well, nobody there to stop me ...
No, it's not utter nonsense. You don't get what I am saying.
The individual missions don't take any longer and don't become more. But to be able to play them, you need to do other stuff to fulfill the level requirements. Without the level requirements, you could play through them one mission after another (not doing anything else but those missions), and then you could log out and not come back before the next mission is released. There was no real reason for a story-minded player to keep playing STO at that point, because he already saw all the stories. Now he has to play through other stuff to get to the missions. And so he keeps playing longer.
(And one could even go so far: And if a rare player doesn't play longer and says good bye to the game, Cryptic might simply not care - because people that don't actively play the game tend not to spend money anyway, and they also don't contribute otherwise to the game's longevity and success, since they don't interact with players. )
What's worth doing is playing some of those earlier missions to see how fast they do go through. As a regular Foundry player, some player-written missions are truly long - at least an hour. Multiple maps, puzzles and real difficulty. Some of the early "official" missions are literally five minute jobs.
If Cryptic spent half as much time designing (ie. writing) stories as they do post-release nerfing to make up for the lack of stories, then both they and the players would be far better off. To spell it out: We'd have great stories that took time to play and were worth every moment, and they'd have player engagement.
None of the missions in Delta Rising were 5 minute affairs, I think.
But there are certainly examples of that in earlier missions. (One just has to think of something like Spin the Wheel that many people used to get their Lobi on those free Lobi weekends.)
It's not rocket science.
Writing isn't rocket science, but it's actually not something that everyone can do well, or something that is easy. I even strongly suspect that most rocket scientists don't write story missions. Or stories.
Anyway - even a 1 hour mission is not that long. 12 1 hour mission can still be done in a weekend. And you can ask those 1-hour Foundry mission designers how long they took to make their mission...
Getting all the required levels from 50 to 60 will take most people longer than those missions.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
No, it's not utter nonsense. You don't get what I am saying.
The individual missions don't take any longer and don't become more. But to be able to play them, you need to do other stuff to fulfill the level requirements. Without the level requirements, you could play through them one mission after another (not doing anything else but those missions)
Ehm sorry I do get what you're saying ... but what else is there to do within DR, then repeat those Missions (yes I'm including Patrols like Argala, because they're even part of the Story Progression) ... doing other stuff I "blew through" several years ago, I guess ... which defeats the whole point ...
The whole concept doesn't make any sense ... you make it sound like people complained that Story Content was so horrible and they wanted something else to do in between, which they already did the last 4 years (i.E. "horrible" Story Content) ...
... the only reasonale thing left here, is some twisted urge for people to stay, because they're not 60/"110" yet ... "blowing through (Story) Content" has nothing to with it ... "blowing through to 60" maybe ...
(And one could even go so far: And if a rare player doesn't play longer and says good bye to the game, Cryptic might simply not care - because people that don't actively play the game tend not to spend money anyway, and they also don't contribute otherwise to the game's longevity and success, since they don't interact with players. )
That might be true (to some degree), but those are usually the kind of people that DON'T blow through content anyway ... so what's the point ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
I'm leveling things beyond 60 by doff missions. Seriously I don't feel like sitting on one toon for hours on end grinding out patrol missions. Especially when I have alts that need leveled to 60.
Fun fact, I've level 3 toons to 60 already and have 3 more in waiting. While leveling the first three the other three are around level 55 now just from doff assignments. So they have a nice head start on the mission content and don't have any extreem grinds to see through between missions. Two of those three don't have all the previous episodes done so there's extra XP from that stuff too.
Two things bug me most about Delta Rising. No T6 science ship for my Fed/Romulan science captain and the exessive grinds between story missions. Thankfully I've solved the story mission wait problem somewhat. The other is waiting on PWE to put out T6 science ships for someone other then Federation players. That is fine though, I've already spent money I ear marked for T6 ships on Steam for other games since I'm not getting my science satisfaction Romulan side.
PS. The zombie dogs in 7 Days to Die are nasty. o.O
The problem is that if you do the missions in order skipping the TRIBBLE patrols and skipping the need to play 500 other missions to get to the end, then they are actually quite palatable. They aren't the best pieces of writing or innovative mission designs ever, but they certainly aren't as bad as some of the earlier stuff in STO. Comparing outside of STO is kinda unfair as the standards for this are generally lower than those for games similar to this.
The issue of R&D hasn't blown over, there's still many threads started on it each day. They usually get jumped on by the white knights at some point, alaric has been particularly vocal of late with single posts of uselessness, but for the most part it's agreed the R&D system is just TRIBBLE. The Upgrade system which seems based on R&D is just worse, the grind is awful though, and for most people the biggest barrier to playing the game in it's current incarnation.
A rebalance of the AI ships to reduce hull/shield sponges and increase deadliness for Advanced/Elite would be a welcome change instead of the current borefest. Increase the need for ship/captain diversity, rebalance the different classes to suit a better split of abilities for the different captain classes...
Remove the ridiculous Dil/EC costs for upgrading....
All simple to do, all would result in better reviews and players wouldn't feel so victimised by a computer game meant to be played for fun...
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."
Ehm sorry I do get what you're saying ... but what else is there to do within DR, then repeat those Missions (yes I'm including Patrols like Argala, because they're even part of the Story Progression) ... doing other stuff I "blew through" several years ago, I guess ... which defeats the whole point ...
The whole concept doesn't make any sense ... you make it sound like people complained that Story Content was so horrible and they wanted something else to do in between, which they already did the last 4 years ... guess I've missed that part ...
That might be true (to some degree), but those are usually the kind of people that DON'T blow through content anyway ... so what's the point ...
I take it is an attempt to make it difficult to breeze through story missions. It is not about making story missions longer or make more of them, because they can't do that - they don't have the (wo)manpower for that (no company has, because creation takes much more time than consumption.), and it costs money to make these missions, and they must sure they see a return on that investment.
What they want is that players that are mostly in for the story have something still waiting for them - at the "cost" for those players to grind skill points. It is not necessarily something that the players want. The players want more and/or longer missions. But Cryptic wants people to play this game - not just one every few months when a new mission comes out, but every week or even day. Because that ensures that queues are active, people socialize, people trade, and people buy Zen.
They don't put any pay walls up like other games do. You can get to the missions free of charge. But you can no longer get them free of time, so to speak. And the time you spend in the game, they know, works in their favour.
The negative side to all of this is that you may have to grind to get to your stories. If that model fails, Cryptic may change things again, I think. But it also means that missions release frequency will stay as is.
The positive side may be - it means they effectively found a way to improve their business by making missions. And if that works, making missions might actually become more financially attractive to Cryptic, since they will be a reason for players to play the game not just for the mission itself, but for the prerequisites to get to the mission. So maybe there will be more focus on missions in the future.
But this is mere speculation. I can't read Cryptic's mind. But it would make sense to me. It's a general thing for a F2P game (or any game or business) - make more of what generates you more profit, and make less of what makes you less profits.
Which is also probably why some F2P games struggle - the thing that generates the most revenue and everyone wants may not be profitable (Wasn't that the lesson of Age of Empires Online?). You need to evaluate your business model carefully.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
"People who spend more time in this game will spend more money" is extremely simplistic and only applies if you give people FUN things to do.
It's like saying "people spend more money in a casino if they are in there for longer periods of time" - generally speaking, that may be true but I don't think people would spend more money in the casino if they had to do data entry work for an hour between each hand of blackjack.
Writing isn't rocket science, but it's actually not something that everyone can do well, or something that is easy. I even strongly suspect that most rocket scientists don't write story missions. Or stories. Anyway - even a 1 hour mission is not that long. 12 1 hour mission can still be done in a weekend. And you can ask those 1-hour Foundry mission designers how long they took to make their mission... Getting all the required levels from 50 to 60 will take most people longer than those missions.
I would expect Cryptic to hire professional story writers for their missions, and if a Foundry writer can make something engaging and interesting, so can Cryptic. My other point was that it's a bit much if Cryptic complains about players "breezing through" content of earlier missions, because the problem was their writing made that content very quick to do, too thin to stick around for, and not worth repeating. Delta Rising stories continue with this trend, hidden behind 1 million HP hulls. If story is written to take some time to do through it being engaging and immersive, it also encourages repeat play. A shred of storyline broken up by mind-numbing battles isn't a viable alternative, as Cryptic has now discovered.
because they can't do that - they don't have the (wo)manpower for that (no company has, because creation takes much more time than consumption.), and it costs money to make these missions, and they must sure they see a return on that investment.
They can, that's the problem ... they did before ... LoR for example ... unless they lost 4/5 of their staff ... but if they did, lacing their stuff doesn't work, I'm already hooked on the "good stuff" ...
What they want is that players that are mostly in for the story have something still waiting for them - at the "cost" for those players to grind skill points. It is not necessarily something that the players want. The players want more and/or longer missions. But Cryptic wants people to play this game - not just one every few months when a new mission comes out, but every week or even day. Because that ensures that queues are active, people socialize, people trade, and people buy Zen.
It's just artificial busy-work & repetition ... the thing "waiting" for MMO Players is the next content Update anyway / not the stuff you might not achieve until the next content Update, if it's not achievable within that timeframe it's pointless ...
... if you only play a few hours a day, you'll probably give up / forget about the next Mission ... you said it yourself Casual-Joe is just gonna stop playing ...
... the "other guy" let's call him Mr. Zen will just "blow through" the content anyway ... maybe not within 1 day but 1 week ... there isn't really any difference ... the only thing you achieved is alienate "Casual-Joe" & TRIBBLE off Mr. Zen ... Mr. Zen will probably still spend Zen, but he would've anyway ... he might not spend Zen for his Alts, because he's pissed ...
Besides that only "works" for the Story Content (till LvL 59) ... after that we're back to the same problem, people will just stop and wait for the next Episodes, because "Spec Points" are "Long-Term-Goals" anyway, aren't they ?
Crazy Idea : How about reintroducing FE Series ... that would give people a real reason to log in every week ...
They don't put any pay walls up like other games do. You can get to the missions free of charge. But you can no longer get them free of time, so to speak. And the time you spend in the game, they know, works in their favour.
Yeah I guess MechWarrior Whatitsname & Whatsthissupposedtobe from Neverheardofentertainment ...
"People who spend more time in this game will spend more money" is extremely simplistic and only applies if you give people FUN things to do.
It's like saying "people spend more money in a casino if they are in there for longer periods of time" - generally speaking, that may be true but I don't think people would spend more money in the casino if they had to do data entry work for an hour between each hand of blackjack.
It's the old "Correlation is not causation" problem: it's a logical fallacy and thus a mistake to just see two things happening together and presume one 'causes' the other. A typical example: If I set an alarm clock to go off at 6:00am and the sun rises at 6:00am, there is a correlation between sunrise and alarm sound, but no causation. The sun is not rising because of the alarm, nor is the alarm sounding because of the sunrise. Fallacious thinking however would see someone changing the alarm time, on the basis that the sun will rise earlier or later.
Players who enjoy a game will both spend more time, AND spend more money. But it's enjoyment that's the factor here, not the time spent. Changing the time spent in-game will not cause a rise in cashflow. Lower the enjoyment factor, and people will spend both less time, and less money. Or potentially, more time and less money!
"People who spend more time in this game will spend more money" is extremely simplistic and only applies if you give people FUN things to do.
It's like saying "people spend more money in a casino if they are in there for longer periods of time" - generally speaking, that may be true but I don't think people would spend more money in the casino if they had to do data entry work for an hour between each hand of blackjack.
It turns out that people can be motivated to do even mind-numbing things like data entry work if there is something that they perceive as a reward at the end. The casino is a superb example - those slot machines are extremely dumb, but people use them and spend lots of money on them, all in hopes for a win that may never come. At least the story mission is guaranteed.
(The whole "skinner box" concept is the dark side of MMOs, I suppose.)
And maybe my mind is already very numb, but I kinda like blowing up space ships, probably more than I would like data entry work. Maybe Cryptic is even so bold and thinks that their gameplay is fun, and that people like to fly around in spaceships and shoot at things. I think that would be the strongest proof that they don't read the forums.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
They can, that's the problem ... they did before ... LoR for example ... unless they lost 4/5 of their staff ... but if they did, lacing their stuff doesn't work, I'm already hooked on the "good stuff" ...
Is Delta Rising actually less story content then Legacy of Romulus? I think the mnission count is lower, but I felt that many missions were surprisingly long. And LOR had some relatively short missions, like, say, the one with the Suliban space station. Or the Romulan space station.
Probably the best mission for the LOR arc may be the Indoctrination mission aboard Hakeev's ship - and it's basically all one map.
It seems all the DR missions were more involved.
Think of something like the Turei mission. You begin investigating a missing ship, save Seven of Nine, encounter some Voth, encounter a whole Voth Fleet that suddenly flies away, you follow the distress signal they're responding too, you encounter the first Vaaduvar ship, then you go down to the planet, fix the defense shield and then fight off Vaaduvar.
I kinda felt some of the LOR missions were better written, however. It was kinda telling a more.. personal story then DR, I think. You were fighting for your own life and freedom, and with people you had build up connections.
Delta Rising was more epic and had the Star Trek alumni factor. In LOR, you had a connection to the people you met as a character (even if it was just for one mission - people that have been in your situation but took a different course of action, but also long-term antagonists), in LOR because you had seen Voyager and seen the episodes where the species appeared.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Is Delta Rising actually less story content then Legacy of Romulus? I think the mnission count is lower, but I felt that many missions were surprisingly long. And LOR had some relatively short missions, like, say, the one with the Suliban space station. Or the Romulan space station.
Probably the best mission for the LOR arc may be the Indoctrination mission aboard Hakeev's ship - and it's basically all one map.
It seems all the DR missions were more involved.
I think the question is how do you play (do you read all the dialog etc) ... in general I'd say there is no difference in length ... especially since DR has "short" Missions as well "Alliances" i.E. / "Escalation" (more like an Intro)
Just finished my second play-through, without grinding stuff in between, and not reading all the dialog-options ... and there isn't one that took me more than 30min ... the ones within Vaud'waar Bases (Dragon's Deceipt + Revolution) ~10min ... also "basically all one map"
Even if they would take twice as long it's still 8 vs. 50 ... sure you can count Patrols, then it's not "THAT bad" ... but I don't :P (Apples & Oranges)
PS : That's probably the reason why so many people came up with "Hey don't worry, that's not all of DR ... the DEV's said so in Interview XY" and it probably isn't, but I wouldn't count on more than ~2 Missions within the next 6 months, the same amount LoR had after Launch ... wouldn't count on the "second half of DR" ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
I kinda thing so, too, but I believe they also wanted to stretch out the story content - normally when they release a bunch of missions, people blow through them quickly. Now they can't - if they want to see them, they have to earn their skill points first and do other stuff.
We'll see if this "experiment" will be successful or not - of course, anyone on the forums may say it wasn't, but the forums are always full of negativity. And very... single-minded.
AFAIR, they did not change anything about the upgrade system for example. People were up in arms about that system and how costly it would be to upgrade gear. And now everyone focues on skill points. Did the problem solve itself somehow? Is the skill point issue really bigger?
Yes. You could blow though it all quick with 1 character. But STo has up to DR been alt friendy. I have 19 characters, so is giving a generous 10 hours of playtime for the story content. that' 190 hours of play time. And since, I quicky get bored with doing the same thing over and over again, the 190 hours woud be paced out over a few months.
Yead I know it's arguable about he pay time. But I'm using m y own pacing. and I realy mean it about not liking repeatative story content. I still have a lot of characters that are that haven't done Nimbus to this very day. And good for those characters. That's about a level of XP in the mid level 50 range.
Yes. You could blow though it all quick with 1 character. But STo has up to DR been alt friendy. I have 19 characters, so is giving a generous 10 hours of playtime for the story content. that' 190 hours of play time. And since, I quicky get bored with doing the same thing over and over again, the 190 hours woud be paced out over a few months.
I listend to the Priority Podcast with Jesse Heinig. (If I remember the name correctly). The podcast wasn't about skill points (it probably predated most of the controversy), but about the upgrade system. But there Jesse specifically mentioned that they were thinking about how the upgrade systems affected alts, and how the additional dilithium expenditures could make things more difficult - and how they could improve the situation for alts. (ANd not just for builds - also about the "equipment" lock in - e.g. once you upgraded everything, you have little motivation to alter your build due to the cost.)
And there is precedent for that - the Dyson Reputation introduced sponsorship tokens, and now all reputations have those. And they did make the Summer and Winter event "grinds" easier for alts - once one character unlocks the event ship, the rest can get it for basically for an extremely low price.
So it may simply be a matter of time until we see some improvements. They likely won't change majorly how it is for your first character and for your first set of items - but it may change for your alts and for your second set of items.
Of course players always want to have things immediately ready in perfect state - but that is not how the devs can work. Most people will probably still be busy with a "primary" character while they figure this out.
(Of course, Jesse also was explicit that there could be no promises until it was released. But it was obvious they did recognize the problem and wanted to find a solution for it. He also didn't really expect anything to make it online before next year, due to the Holiday Season.)
From all of that I conclude that they will likely also think about this for specializations. But if the upgrade system thinking was already in progress is not ready before next year, I wouldn't expect a specialization solution (if any) coming much sooner.
And of course, we can't know if the solutions they find are "good enough". But I'd say the event ship and reputation solutions were pretty good. So maybe they are not as clueless as some people think.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I'm taking a screenshot of my daily DOff results tomorrow... today's result was 18k specialization points, and that's typical.
Yes, I have between 300-400 very rare DOffs, but if you do as well like you claim, and you're not at least breaking 10k daily, you're doing it wrong
I'm talking about setting up 20 and then collecting the rewards the next day, not adding another as soon as one finishes, remember we are talking about Casual Joe here.
I gave what you said a try (only collecting DOFF assignment rewards once in a day, so mostly selecting 20 hour missions)
And just because I know people on here are whiny and don't believe screenshots like that (I can imagine someone claiming I padded it somehow), I took pics of the system logs for more "evidence": http://imgur.com/fjCQ0KH http://imgur.com/ZuzBWqj
So, 26k spec points for a 24 hour DOFF run... I still am of the opinion the average player can break 10k easily enough...
And just because I know people on here are whiny and don't believe screenshots like that (I can imagine someone claiming I padded it somehow), I took pics of the system logs for more "evidence": http://imgur.com/fjCQ0KH http://imgur.com/ZuzBWqj
So, 26k spec points for a 24 hour DOFF run... I still am of the opinion the average player can break 10k easily enough...
Yes, that's about right. Each mini bar is about 16000. Logging in 2 or 3 times it's possible to get 2 minibars or 32,000. There are several good missions and if you crit one of these it makes it easier. This is 5 days for 1 spec point = 300 days to max out. Enjoy!
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."
Comments
It's more than that.
On my klink i do nothing than doff atm and i gain a spec point roughly every 2-3 days.
And i would really like to see / feel it again, that Alts are a viable & fun alternate way to explore and play the game.
I am not against long term goals, and i totally get why they did it, but i think we have enough stuff to strive for already. It has to be achievable (and i dont speak about the Specialization Points exclusively) until the next big thing hits the game. We are at a point where even the Hardcore players have trouble keeping up. Not to mention new players, or the previous option of playing Alts.
Now, i dont speak about the content / storys they did. Thats all great, but from a leveling, resource, player and psychological perspective, the game was much more fun before DR. And again, i get the why. Cryptic needed new long term goals and new sources of income. PWE's guideline was the focus on player attachment. Thats the actual reason for all the increases. If that was necessary, ok. The implementation is just bad for us players in it's current state.
When players start to leave, that's bad for all of us! So please dont wave around the "You all whine, cause you want it all now!" banner.
That's now I'm playing it now. I've given up on doing the Storyline content ike it was from 50-60. I'll play he game as before and when I hit a leveling point. I may or may no go the story missions.
And I think Cryptic really screwed the pooch, with the levling curve they implemented for 50-60. They has a very nice leveling progression from level 1-50 (although one can agree it is a bit fast), and then they inverted the experience 180 degrees to be god awful sow between level. Having to grind a few patrol missions between levels I could tolerate, but no what they have now.
And personally, I think that Speciliations is the boogie man which drove them to the steep curve. They didn't want to give them out too fast. But they missed a great marketing opportunity. "The first taste is free, then it will cost ya".
Cryptic should have kept a smooth leveling curve and given out the first 10 spec points for "free". Let player experience what Specializations can do. That would be perfect enticement for grinding out the rest even at the extraogent levling costs of 58+.
Cryptic also would have had ample opportunities to curtaip Spec points if they want to limit them before eve 60. Give out one every other ever from 50-60. Or lockout Tier 2 Specializations from 51-60.
As another poster pointed out Cryptic ruined a good experience with the game with DR. I'm oine that is prone to altitis. I was pondering trying out a Talaxian Captain. But DR leveing has killed that through with extreme prejudice.
But to not stray totaly off topic. The increases in the Patrol rewards is a step in the right direction. But I strongly encourage Cryptic to keep going in that direction. Divorce Specialization Points and rewards from the leveling curve. Make it stand alone so your can tweak it without ruining the leveling play experience.
Technically, that's something I could have done before DR.
We'll see if this "experiment" will be successful or not - of course, anyone on the forums may say it wasn't, but the forums are always full of negativity. And very... single-minded.
AFAIR, they did not change anything about the upgrade system for example. People were up in arms about that system and how costly it would be to upgrade gear. And now everyone focues on skill points. Did the problem solve itself somehow? Is the skill point issue really bigger?
Sorry imho, that's utter nonsense ... whoever came up with it should be shot ... I "blew" through DR Mission way faster ... I just had to repeat them 800 times ...
... I'd rather have 50 Missions like during LoR to "blow through", than 8 ...
I know what you're trying to say but DR hasn't "fixed" it at all ... the only solution for people not "blowing through" content, is to release more content (certainly not less, with some ridiculos LvL restriction -> it's not gonna magically duplicate itself) ... if this is supposed to be some kind of solution, I could've repeated LoR's Content 800 times as well, nobody there to stop me ...
What's worth doing is playing some of those earlier missions to see how fast they do go through. As a regular Foundry player, some player-written missions are truly long - at least an hour. Multiple maps, puzzles and real difficulty. Some of the early "official" missions are literally five minute jobs.
If Cryptic spent half as much time designing (ie. writing) stories as they do post-release nerfing to make up for the lack of stories, then both they and the players would be far better off. To spell it out: We'd have great stories that took time to play and were worth every moment, and they'd have player engagement.
It's not rocket science.
I want you to read all 17 pages, then come back and try again.
The individual missions don't take any longer and don't become more. But to be able to play them, you need to do other stuff to fulfill the level requirements. Without the level requirements, you could play through them one mission after another (not doing anything else but those missions), and then you could log out and not come back before the next mission is released. There was no real reason for a story-minded player to keep playing STO at that point, because he already saw all the stories. Now he has to play through other stuff to get to the missions. And so he keeps playing longer.
(And one could even go so far: And if a rare player doesn't play longer and says good bye to the game, Cryptic might simply not care - because people that don't actively play the game tend not to spend money anyway, and they also don't contribute otherwise to the game's longevity and success, since they don't interact with players. )
None of the missions in Delta Rising were 5 minute affairs, I think.
But there are certainly examples of that in earlier missions. (One just has to think of something like Spin the Wheel that many people used to get their Lobi on those free Lobi weekends.)
Writing isn't rocket science, but it's actually not something that everyone can do well, or something that is easy. I even strongly suspect that most rocket scientists don't write story missions. Or stories.
Anyway - even a 1 hour mission is not that long. 12 1 hour mission can still be done in a weekend. And you can ask those 1-hour Foundry mission designers how long they took to make their mission...
Getting all the required levels from 50 to 60 will take most people longer than those missions.
Ehm sorry I do get what you're saying ... but what else is there to do within DR, then repeat those Missions (yes I'm including Patrols like Argala, because they're even part of the Story Progression) ... doing other stuff I "blew through" several years ago, I guess ... which defeats the whole point ...
The whole concept doesn't make any sense ... you make it sound like people complained that Story Content was so horrible and they wanted something else to do in between, which they already did the last 4 years (i.E. "horrible" Story Content) ...
... the only reasonale thing left here, is some twisted urge for people to stay, because they're not 60/"110" yet ... "blowing through (Story) Content" has nothing to with it ... "blowing through to 60" maybe ...
That might be true (to some degree), but those are usually the kind of people that DON'T blow through content anyway ... so what's the point ...
Fun fact, I've level 3 toons to 60 already and have 3 more in waiting. While leveling the first three the other three are around level 55 now just from doff assignments. So they have a nice head start on the mission content and don't have any extreem grinds to see through between missions. Two of those three don't have all the previous episodes done so there's extra XP from that stuff too.
Two things bug me most about Delta Rising. No T6 science ship for my Fed/Romulan science captain and the exessive grinds between story missions. Thankfully I've solved the story mission wait problem somewhat. The other is waiting on PWE to put out T6 science ships for someone other then Federation players. That is fine though, I've already spent money I ear marked for T6 ships on Steam for other games since I'm not getting my science satisfaction Romulan side.
PS. The zombie dogs in 7 Days to Die are nasty. o.O
The issue of R&D hasn't blown over, there's still many threads started on it each day. They usually get jumped on by the white knights at some point, alaric has been particularly vocal of late with single posts of uselessness, but for the most part it's agreed the R&D system is just TRIBBLE. The Upgrade system which seems based on R&D is just worse, the grind is awful though, and for most people the biggest barrier to playing the game in it's current incarnation.
A rebalance of the AI ships to reduce hull/shield sponges and increase deadliness for Advanced/Elite would be a welcome change instead of the current borefest. Increase the need for ship/captain diversity, rebalance the different classes to suit a better split of abilities for the different captain classes...
Remove the ridiculous Dil/EC costs for upgrading....
All simple to do, all would result in better reviews and players wouldn't feel so victimised by a computer game meant to be played for fun...
"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 take it is an attempt to make it difficult to breeze through story missions. It is not about making story missions longer or make more of them, because they can't do that - they don't have the (wo)manpower for that (no company has, because creation takes much more time than consumption.), and it costs money to make these missions, and they must sure they see a return on that investment.
What they want is that players that are mostly in for the story have something still waiting for them - at the "cost" for those players to grind skill points. It is not necessarily something that the players want. The players want more and/or longer missions. But Cryptic wants people to play this game - not just one every few months when a new mission comes out, but every week or even day. Because that ensures that queues are active, people socialize, people trade, and people buy Zen.
They don't put any pay walls up like other games do. You can get to the missions free of charge. But you can no longer get them free of time, so to speak. And the time you spend in the game, they know, works in their favour.
The negative side to all of this is that you may have to grind to get to your stories. If that model fails, Cryptic may change things again, I think. But it also means that missions release frequency will stay as is.
The positive side may be - it means they effectively found a way to improve their business by making missions. And if that works, making missions might actually become more financially attractive to Cryptic, since they will be a reason for players to play the game not just for the mission itself, but for the prerequisites to get to the mission. So maybe there will be more focus on missions in the future.
But this is mere speculation. I can't read Cryptic's mind. But it would make sense to me. It's a general thing for a F2P game (or any game or business) - make more of what generates you more profit, and make less of what makes you less profits.
Which is also probably why some F2P games struggle - the thing that generates the most revenue and everyone wants may not be profitable (Wasn't that the lesson of Age of Empires Online?). You need to evaluate your business model carefully.
"People who spend more time in this game will spend more money" is extremely simplistic and only applies if you give people FUN things to do.
It's like saying "people spend more money in a casino if they are in there for longer periods of time" - generally speaking, that may be true but I don't think people would spend more money in the casino if they had to do data entry work for an hour between each hand of blackjack.
Free Tibet!
I would expect Cryptic to hire professional story writers for their missions, and if a Foundry writer can make something engaging and interesting, so can Cryptic. My other point was that it's a bit much if Cryptic complains about players "breezing through" content of earlier missions, because the problem was their writing made that content very quick to do, too thin to stick around for, and not worth repeating. Delta Rising stories continue with this trend, hidden behind 1 million HP hulls. If story is written to take some time to do through it being engaging and immersive, it also encourages repeat play. A shred of storyline broken up by mind-numbing battles isn't a viable alternative, as Cryptic has now discovered.
They can, that's the problem ... they did before ... LoR for example ... unless they lost 4/5 of their staff ... but if they did, lacing their stuff doesn't work, I'm already hooked on the "good stuff" ...
It's just artificial busy-work & repetition ... the thing "waiting" for MMO Players is the next content Update anyway / not the stuff you might not achieve until the next content Update, if it's not achievable within that timeframe it's pointless ...
... if you only play a few hours a day, you'll probably give up / forget about the next Mission ... you said it yourself Casual-Joe is just gonna stop playing ...
... the "other guy" let's call him Mr. Zen will just "blow through" the content anyway ... maybe not within 1 day but 1 week ... there isn't really any difference ... the only thing you achieved is alienate "Casual-Joe" & TRIBBLE off Mr. Zen ... Mr. Zen will probably still spend Zen, but he would've anyway ... he might not spend Zen for his Alts, because he's pissed ...
Besides that only "works" for the Story Content (till LvL 59) ... after that we're back to the same problem, people will just stop and wait for the next Episodes, because "Spec Points" are "Long-Term-Goals" anyway, aren't they ?
Crazy Idea : How about reintroducing FE Series ... that would give people a real reason to log in every week ...
Yeah I guess MechWarrior Whatitsname & Whatsthissupposedtobe from Neverheardofentertainment ...
Yeah I don't think it is, numbers speak for themselves ...
It's the old "Correlation is not causation" problem: it's a logical fallacy and thus a mistake to just see two things happening together and presume one 'causes' the other. A typical example: If I set an alarm clock to go off at 6:00am and the sun rises at 6:00am, there is a correlation between sunrise and alarm sound, but no causation. The sun is not rising because of the alarm, nor is the alarm sounding because of the sunrise. Fallacious thinking however would see someone changing the alarm time, on the basis that the sun will rise earlier or later.
Players who enjoy a game will both spend more time, AND spend more money. But it's enjoyment that's the factor here, not the time spent. Changing the time spent in-game will not cause a rise in cashflow. Lower the enjoyment factor, and people will spend both less time, and less money. Or potentially, more time and less money!
It turns out that people can be motivated to do even mind-numbing things like data entry work if there is something that they perceive as a reward at the end. The casino is a superb example - those slot machines are extremely dumb, but people use them and spend lots of money on them, all in hopes for a win that may never come. At least the story mission is guaranteed.
(The whole "skinner box" concept is the dark side of MMOs, I suppose.)
And maybe my mind is already very numb, but I kinda like blowing up space ships, probably more than I would like data entry work. Maybe Cryptic is even so bold and thinks that their gameplay is fun, and that people like to fly around in spaceships and shoot at things. I think that would be the strongest proof that they don't read the forums.
Probably the best mission for the LOR arc may be the Indoctrination mission aboard Hakeev's ship - and it's basically all one map.
It seems all the DR missions were more involved.
Think of something like the Turei mission. You begin investigating a missing ship, save Seven of Nine, encounter some Voth, encounter a whole Voth Fleet that suddenly flies away, you follow the distress signal they're responding too, you encounter the first Vaaduvar ship, then you go down to the planet, fix the defense shield and then fight off Vaaduvar.
I kinda felt some of the LOR missions were better written, however. It was kinda telling a more.. personal story then DR, I think. You were fighting for your own life and freedom, and with people you had build up connections.
Delta Rising was more epic and had the Star Trek alumni factor. In LOR, you had a connection to the people you met as a character (even if it was just for one mission - people that have been in your situation but took a different course of action, but also long-term antagonists), in LOR because you had seen Voyager and seen the episodes where the species appeared.
I think the question is how do you play (do you read all the dialog etc) ... in general I'd say there is no difference in length ... especially since DR has "short" Missions as well "Alliances" i.E. / "Escalation" (more like an Intro)
Just finished my second play-through, without grinding stuff in between, and not reading all the dialog-options ... and there isn't one that took me more than 30min ... the ones within Vaud'waar Bases (Dragon's Deceipt + Revolution) ~10min ... also "basically all one map"
Even if they would take twice as long it's still 8 vs. 50 ... sure you can count Patrols, then it's not "THAT bad" ... but I don't :P (Apples & Oranges)
PS : That's probably the reason why so many people came up with "Hey don't worry, that's not all of DR ... the DEV's said so in Interview XY" and it probably isn't, but I wouldn't count on more than ~2 Missions within the next 6 months, the same amount LoR had after Launch ... wouldn't count on the "second half of DR" ...
Yes. You could blow though it all quick with 1 character. But STo has up to DR been alt friendy. I have 19 characters, so is giving a generous 10 hours of playtime for the story content. that' 190 hours of play time. And since, I quicky get bored with doing the same thing over and over again, the 190 hours woud be paced out over a few months.
Yead I know it's arguable about he pay time. But I'm using m y own pacing. and I realy mean it about not liking repeatative story content. I still have a lot of characters that are that haven't done Nimbus to this very day. And good for those characters. That's about a level of XP in the mid level 50 range.
O..M...G!!! :eek: thats got to be the most glorious great wall of text EVER you sir win the interwebz
And there is precedent for that - the Dyson Reputation introduced sponsorship tokens, and now all reputations have those. And they did make the Summer and Winter event "grinds" easier for alts - once one character unlocks the event ship, the rest can get it for basically for an extremely low price.
So it may simply be a matter of time until we see some improvements. They likely won't change majorly how it is for your first character and for your first set of items - but it may change for your alts and for your second set of items.
Of course players always want to have things immediately ready in perfect state - but that is not how the devs can work. Most people will probably still be busy with a "primary" character while they figure this out.
(Of course, Jesse also was explicit that there could be no promises until it was released. But it was obvious they did recognize the problem and wanted to find a solution for it. He also didn't really expect anything to make it online before next year, due to the Holiday Season.)
From all of that I conclude that they will likely also think about this for specializations. But if the upgrade system thinking was already in progress is not ready before next year, I wouldn't expect a specialization solution (if any) coming much sooner.
And of course, we can't know if the solutions they find are "good enough". But I'd say the event ship and reputation solutions were pretty good. So maybe they are not as clueless as some people think.
I gave what you said a try (only collecting DOFF assignment rewards once in a day, so mostly selecting 20 hour missions)
http://imgur.com/CYz9a1c
And just because I know people on here are whiny and don't believe screenshots like that (I can imagine someone claiming I padded it somehow), I took pics of the system logs for more "evidence":
http://imgur.com/fjCQ0KH
http://imgur.com/ZuzBWqj
So, 26k spec points for a 24 hour DOFF run... I still am of the opinion the average player can break 10k easily enough...
Yes, that's about right. Each mini bar is about 16000. Logging in 2 or 3 times it's possible to get 2 minibars or 32,000. There are several good missions and if you crit one of these it makes it easier. This is 5 days for 1 spec point = 300 days to max out. Enjoy!
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."