(It may seem like a good idea to jump on a complaint-band-wagon but the Winter event grind is identical to the grinds we had in 2013 and 2012, as well as analogous to the 2014 and 2013 summer events grinds. Actually that's not qutie the case, its similar to the 2014 summer grind only because of course this winter we have the discount for additional characters beyond the first the ship is earned for. Its kind of odd to be poking at the "problem" when the population is demonstrably OK with the idea.)
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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The Winter Wonderland has been a grind since at least 2012 from my own experience, and much longer if I can rely on reports of years before that.
They eases the ship grind for alts. Although the system is not yet working properly, a 1 day run to get a ship one other character already has is really, really generous.
The Winter Ornaments are a lot of fun to grind in my idea. I don't consider it grinding, I call that fun. WOuld I not call it fun, I would not do it, like everything else in this game.
The only thing they messed up the run ToI 5-10 times on each char to unlock teh bound-on-pickup things for that alt. That really hurt me.
I don't view a 2 minute race as a grind. I wasn't around for last 2 years grinds. So I got 3 toons going after each ship. And only reason Im doing that is the race is so fast to complete. Figured why not. Even though it's useless in the end. Doubt Ill see myself running the Console set. And I don't have any desire for the other 2 Breen ships. Just want the Carrier on my Klink and Frigate pets, plus all options..."Just In Case".
The race adds 3 minutes to my normal doffing for those 3 toons...so. Don't see it as a grind. Not going after all the Clothes and accessories, Only getting the core on that One Klink "Just in Case"
It's a grind for a free T6 ship. Don't want the ship?..don't grind. Every MMO I've ever played had a grind. but, I can't remember a single one of them giving out Prizes like Cash Shop Value Ships for free.
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."
It's about the same as last year. While I like the idea of a random event at x:45, I don't like the execution. Running to a location with less than a minutes warning isn't fun.
The Borg invasion's fun, but having Borg show up randomly at the second barrier sometimes is weird. Is this failable?
it is boring but 10 min, 2 chars, and its done for the day. Not bad for a ship. I am only doing it for my rom sci to get carrier & pets ... I do not like any of the ships for any other character well enough to fool with it. Mirror universe grind (which got me 1 t6 ship in DIL) was much, much, much, much more work over more alts and significantly more time / day.
So far 1 race done to the Breen carrier on my Romulan. Since she don't have a good carrier to use other than the Obelisk Carrier. And I already almost have enough items to get my jacket as well. I'm after the hat after that. So I can keep doing the race in style.
I'm not sure about the new engines for the ships. I may try to get those, but those are not high on my list. As I got the Cruiser on my KDF already so that would be 2 engines to buy.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I like to be in a STO enviroment that is redicilous, because it's supposed to be... Not because it's mistakenly made so while a certain dev thought he was clever.
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
Grind? A less-than 2 minute race... is a grind? Even if you have 50 toons, and wanted the ship on them all, that's still not a grind, as it only takes 1 toon to get the first thousand pictures, after which it only takes one race per additional toon.
As for the "shinies"... Do the doff projects if you want the baubles to fall on you. Last year, all I did was doff, mainly, across 28 toons. I was able to buy a gun, ice boots, jacket, and scarf for all of them; I even soloed the base Christmas project, because I could. I still have a few thousand of the baubles left over.
I think everyone has a winter tribble, and only a few are missing eppohs, but that tags aren't that hard to get. 3 races, even in last place, and you can make one.
I only have to do the Mandatory Prerequisite for obtaining the new 2014 stuff one more time...
But I woke up with a miserable head cold this morning and I just don't have the oomph to even bother.
Not that I was all that thrilled by the aspect to begin with.
:rolleyes:
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
but grinding for the new Warpcore and its requirements for playing certain content a number of times is bull
And We Have a Winner!
100% Agreed
Running for the Ship is one thing but having to grind out a ton of holiday items for the cores on top of having to run the Snow Borg event 10x each character that you want the cores on is asking a bit much.
And just to clarify:
Previous Winter Events have never had any such requirement to purchase items from the Holiday vendor.
But.. I have a lot of rubber banding, I am now reinstalling STO, in the hope that will fix it.
My internet speed is +/- 120 MB download, and +/- 10 MB upload.
I only having Chrome and Arc running, no Skype or anything. What could be the issue?
Probably the Cryptic Server Farm in Boston.
That seems to be the problem for most folks whenever they do a PING.
:cool:
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
That seems to be the problem for most folks whenever they do a PING.
:cool:
It would seem that way then, yes. I am from The Netherlands.
Too bad you can't play your daily race in offline mode then. hehe
Changing graphics settings doesn't change anything at all. Besides, an 8350FX 4.5Ghz and 16GB 2000MHz CL9 T-1 with and a 760 GTX should run the game smoothly.
I hope everyone is enjoying the Winter Grindfest! I've checked it out, but not sure if I will actually Mega-Grind myself for the T-6 ship.
Actually.. surprisingly.. the T6 Ship doesn't take much grind at all.
You log in everyday, you run a race that takes literally less then 3 min. Now, the catch is.. you have to do it for like 25 days.. but it really does take less then 5 min.
Once done, you can complete the rep project and claim your ship.
Once you have completed the project, you can take your alts there, run the race 1 time only.. and claim additional ships for them.
The 25 days part is kinda.. meh.. but otherwise it's not bad. Everything else I skip because it's mindless grinding and honestly not very fun. The ship is remarkably easy to obtain though.
I haven't even logged in to see it, and I can already say I'm disappointed. The only item/gear/reward that even remotely interests me is the Cryoplasma Warp Core (just to complete the Breen Set), and from what I've seen here in the forums, I'm not going to get it, not because I can't, but because the reward simply isn't worth the amount of grinding that will be necessary to attain it.
This is something that Cryptic/PWE will be running up against more and more as they continue down the path they've been following, so let me just throw this out there for posterity:
A Single Mk XII VR Item isn't worth several days worth of effort, not when you consider that upgrading it (at all, just to Mk XIII, with no rarity improvement) is also gated behind several days of grinding.
In a recent Podcast, someone at Cryptic was interviewed (can't remember who) and basically laid out that they envision that players will work a little bit every day and get a little closer every day towards their goal. The problem is, it seems from the grinding and Dilithium gates and everything they've done to configure the game for that playstyle, they think that adding a few points to an upgrade requisite or moving a bar slightly further counts as daily progress.
But from the player perspective, seeing that tiny bit of progress and calculating it out and seeing it's going to take a weeks worth of further work to do one thing for one item, isn't progress, that's discouraging grind because they're not thinking "what can I do today", they're thinking "how long is this going to take total?"
Devs are never going to be able to change what or how players think and what they expect, and they should stop trying. Instead, they should be trying to make the game match what players expect.
Admittedly, the playerbase isn't homogeneous, and there will always be outliers that think the game's progression is too fast or too slow, but the constant forum whining is indicative of a wide range of players. Casual players post here, hardcore players post here, Pve'ers post here, PvP'ers post here.. This is the ballot box, the opinion polls, and the feedback pool, and the consensus seems pretty cut and dry: more grind isn't what the players want.
As for what I want, and this is just my sole opinion here, I think one days worth of playtime, say, four hours on a good day, should equal a single piece of gear, or a single notable bit of progression. It shouldn't take a week to upgrade one mark, it should take one day. It should certainly take a week to upgrade it to an Epic Mk XV from a common Mk I, but each day should see a noticible improvement without having to dig into a the metrics of a progress bar, ou should be able to see it. As in, "I started today with a Mk XII VR, and ended it with a Mk XIII VR or a Mk XII UR."
Anyway, back on the main subject: I'm going to log in and check out the Winter Event, but only to see if anything is actually FUN, but I don't expect to walk away with anything of value, because I don't think anything they're offering is worth the soul-sucking-mind-numbing time waste of a grind they're going to require of me to earn anything.
Original Join Date: January 2010. Ragequit Date: January 7th 2012. Return Date: October 23rd 2014.
If that Warp Core buffed Flow capacitors even more, it'd be worth it for me, or make the effects of the Breen Energy Dissapator more devastating or last longer, go for it buddy
I like to be in a STO enviroment that is redicilous, because it's supposed to be... Not because it's mistakenly made so while a certain dev thought he was clever.
Comments
(It may seem like a good idea to jump on a complaint-band-wagon but the Winter event grind is identical to the grinds we had in 2013 and 2012, as well as analogous to the 2014 and 2013 summer events grinds. Actually that's not qutie the case, its similar to the 2014 summer grind only because of course this winter we have the discount for additional characters beyond the first the ship is earned for. Its kind of odd to be poking at the "problem" when the population is demonstrably OK with the idea.)
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
They eases the ship grind for alts. Although the system is not yet working properly, a 1 day run to get a ship one other character already has is really, really generous.
The Winter Ornaments are a lot of fun to grind in my idea. I don't consider it grinding, I call that fun. WOuld I not call it fun, I would not do it, like everything else in this game.
The only thing they messed up the run ToI 5-10 times on each char to unlock teh bound-on-pickup things for that alt. That really hurt me.
Join the Deltas today!
but grinding for the new Warpcore and its requirements for playing certain content a number of times is bull
The race adds 3 minutes to my normal doffing for those 3 toons...so. Don't see it as a grind. Not going after all the Clothes and accessories, Only getting the core on that One Klink "Just in Case"
It's a grind for a free T6 ship. Don't want the ship?..don't grind. Every MMO I've ever played had a grind. but, I can't remember a single one of them giving out Prizes like Cash Shop Value Ships for free.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
The Borg invasion's fun, but having Borg show up randomly at the second barrier sometimes is weird. Is this failable?
Too many other things to do/grind for... and, I have little desire to shoot snowmen.
So far 1 race done to the Breen carrier on my Romulan. Since she don't have a good carrier to use other than the Obelisk Carrier. And I already almost have enough items to get my jacket as well. I'm after the hat after that. So I can keep doing the race in style.
I'm not sure about the new engines for the ships. I may try to get those, but those are not high on my list. As I got the Cruiser on my KDF already so that would be 2 engines to buy.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
As for the "shinies"... Do the doff projects if you want the baubles to fall on you. Last year, all I did was doff, mainly, across 28 toons. I was able to buy a gun, ice boots, jacket, and scarf for all of them; I even soloed the base Christmas project, because I could. I still have a few thousand of the baubles left over.
I think everyone has a winter tribble, and only a few are missing eppohs, but that tags aren't that hard to get. 3 races, even in last place, and you can make one.
It isn't a grind unless you want it to be.
But I woke up with a miserable head cold this morning and I just don't have the oomph to even bother.
Not that I was all that thrilled by the aspect to begin with.
:rolleyes:
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
And We Have a Winner!
100% Agreed
Running for the Ship is one thing but having to grind out a ton of holiday items for the cores on top of having to run the Snow Borg event 10x each character that you want the cores on is asking a bit much.
And just to clarify:
Previous Winter Events have never had any such requirement to purchase items from the Holiday vendor.
But.. I have a lot of rubber banding, I am now reinstalling STO, in the hope that will fix it.
My internet speed is +/- 120 MB download, and +/- 10 MB upload.
I only having Chrome and Arc running, no Skype or anything. What could be the issue?
Probably the Cryptic Server Farm in Boston.
That seems to be the problem for most folks whenever they do a PING.
:cool:
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
It would seem that way then, yes. I am from The Netherlands.
Too bad you can't play your daily race in offline mode then. hehe
Changing graphics settings doesn't change anything at all. Besides, an 8350FX 4.5Ghz and 16GB 2000MHz CL9 T-1 with and a 760 GTX should run the game smoothly.
Actually.. surprisingly.. the T6 Ship doesn't take much grind at all.
You log in everyday, you run a race that takes literally less then 3 min. Now, the catch is.. you have to do it for like 25 days.. but it really does take less then 5 min.
Once done, you can complete the rep project and claim your ship.
Once you have completed the project, you can take your alts there, run the race 1 time only.. and claim additional ships for them.
The 25 days part is kinda.. meh.. but otherwise it's not bad. Everything else I skip because it's mindless grinding and honestly not very fun. The ship is remarkably easy to obtain though.
This is something that Cryptic/PWE will be running up against more and more as they continue down the path they've been following, so let me just throw this out there for posterity:
A Single Mk XII VR Item isn't worth several days worth of effort, not when you consider that upgrading it (at all, just to Mk XIII, with no rarity improvement) is also gated behind several days of grinding.
In a recent Podcast, someone at Cryptic was interviewed (can't remember who) and basically laid out that they envision that players will work a little bit every day and get a little closer every day towards their goal. The problem is, it seems from the grinding and Dilithium gates and everything they've done to configure the game for that playstyle, they think that adding a few points to an upgrade requisite or moving a bar slightly further counts as daily progress.
But from the player perspective, seeing that tiny bit of progress and calculating it out and seeing it's going to take a weeks worth of further work to do one thing for one item, isn't progress, that's discouraging grind because they're not thinking "what can I do today", they're thinking "how long is this going to take total?"
Devs are never going to be able to change what or how players think and what they expect, and they should stop trying. Instead, they should be trying to make the game match what players expect.
Admittedly, the playerbase isn't homogeneous, and there will always be outliers that think the game's progression is too fast or too slow, but the constant forum whining is indicative of a wide range of players. Casual players post here, hardcore players post here, Pve'ers post here, PvP'ers post here.. This is the ballot box, the opinion polls, and the feedback pool, and the consensus seems pretty cut and dry: more grind isn't what the players want.
As for what I want, and this is just my sole opinion here, I think one days worth of playtime, say, four hours on a good day, should equal a single piece of gear, or a single notable bit of progression. It shouldn't take a week to upgrade one mark, it should take one day. It should certainly take a week to upgrade it to an Epic Mk XV from a common Mk I, but each day should see a noticible improvement without having to dig into a the metrics of a progress bar, ou should be able to see it. As in, "I started today with a Mk XII VR, and ended it with a Mk XIII VR or a Mk XII UR."
Anyway, back on the main subject: I'm going to log in and check out the Winter Event, but only to see if anything is actually FUN, but I don't expect to walk away with anything of value, because I don't think anything they're offering is worth the soul-sucking-mind-numbing time waste of a grind they're going to require of me to earn anything.
Almost called it.
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Luckily i don't want a sub-par warp core or a winter hat.
Free Tibet!
+1000
Leave it to PWE/cryptic to suck the joy out of Christmas.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
But cold warp plasma...ehhhhh
Quote of the day
Winter event is both