I think they should probably have phased out the extra Dil on Mark conversion. Drop it by 10% each weekend till the bonus vanished. It was fairly blatant given the community here that this would be the reaction, and to drop it with no prior warning was just asking for trouble.
I really can't blame them for dropping the bonus on reaching T5 Rep (As much as I want to - I've got a few Rep's being completed over the next couple of days), as it was a pretty big exploit.
No what they should have done it allow us to turn marks in for bonus Dil this time and make it absolutely clear before the event, during it and after it that this would be the last time. Then the next time the event comes around the community is aware and pre-warned.
Letting us find out ourselves as the event happened whilst there is an official announcement stating otherwise is very poor form....
Responce: I'm not hoarding marks for Dil weekend, I'm hording makrs cause it's barly worth my time to play slide bar hero 50 marks at a time even with Dil weekend
By not offering a bonus on these projects, we are making mark conversion projects valid and valuable all the time, not only during the few Dilithium Weekends we run every year."
Wow. This type of spin is worthy of a White House press secretary. I convert a lot of these marks during the event. But I also convert them other times when I'm in need of some quick dilithium.
During this anniversary event, I spend a great deal of time not playing, like you are so concerned about, and going all over the map on my alts collecting omega things. By the time I'm done, im burned out and don't even feel like playing. So yeah, nice to know Cryptic is actually concerned with playing.
By not offering a bonus on these projects, we are making mark conversion projects valid and valuable all the time, not only during the few Dilithium Weekends we run every year.
While I applaud that there is at least a somewhat more timely response, the logic used to explain away the removal of the bonuses seems spurious at best. This seems not unlike a retail chain noticing that sales of a certain item are rather poor except when it is discounted. Rather than either reducing the price overall or seeking some other solution, they just declare that it will never be discounted, stating that it is thus more worthwhile to buy all the time.
The blog has always said for playing content. Converting marks is not content per se. I'm far from a white knight but they want to reward you for playing, not hoarding. That logic is sound. They want mark conversion to always be rewarding, not just three weekends a year. That logic is sound.
I was a bit disappointed to not get 50% on my hoard pile but I can agree with what the man says.
As the event had been run over the last couple of years, we noticed a trend that fell out of line with the goal of players getting bonus Dilithium on anything theyve earned through play over that weekend.
In other words, "We want the dilithium bonus weekends to pad our metrics and you people aren't cooperating."
actually, many players make alts and farm rep just to do the rep projects, wait for dil weekend, cash in, delete alts and repeat
That is simply the worst way to earn dilithium, even with the bonuses.
The extra is 10K per rep? 60 K total? That's less than 5 dildays* of play time. I can think of easier ways - voth battlezone for one - where I can earn 2-3x that with less effort and time.
DilDays® is a registered trademark of Star Trek Online: Dilithium Redaction. All Rights reserved. Reprinting of the wordmark costs 1000 dil per usage.
The blog has always said for playing content. Converting marks is not content per se. I'm far from a white knight but they want to reward you for playing, not hoarding. That logic is sound. They want mark conversion to always be rewarding, not just three weekends a year. That logic is sound.
I was a bit disappointed to not get 50% on my hoard pile but I can agree with what the man says.
The problem with this is that the existence of dil weekends does not automatically make mark conversion somehow less rewarding during the rest of the year. It is just as rewarding at any given time, but more rewarding during those weekends. If someone knows that they have those weekends to anticipate, it may encourage them to play more during all the rest of the year so that they will have more reason to look forward to the weekend. Of course, now we're starting to go back to the whole issue of being told how, what, and when to play that caused so much uproar during the great skill point fiasco.
By not offering a bonus on these projects, we are making mark conversion projects valid and valuable all the time, not only during the few Dilithium Weekends we run every year. We are committed to making sure that Dilithium is more available in game, and to that end we are currently working to introduce Dilithium rewards to episode and patrol play by the end of this month.
Sorry but, this a complete load of TRIBBLE!
We are making mark conversion projects valid and valuable all the time!
D-uh, they were always valuable at 500 per 50, now they are the same value all year long, yippee! :rolleyes:
We are committed to making sure that Dilithium is more available in game, and to that end we are currently working to introduce Dilithium rewards to episode and patrol play by the end of this month!
That so called extra Dilithium being added, will never make up one weekends worth of bonus Dilithium from marks, it just won't!
And, this doesn't actually add Dilithium in comparison to what you just nerfed so, nope sorry all you did was accomplish draining more from the game economy, by driving off more player's, killing all bonus dilithium produced thru mark and bnp(etc.) conversions, all while pissing off a good majority of your player base and, than expect them to make purchases during some ridiculous sale?
Get bent is what I would say!
2 months worth of grind, right down the drain, that's half a million dilithium, that won't be making its way into game circulation and, that's from just 1 player, now imagine how much in all you just eliminated!
Is, your new idea going bring back all of that lost by your player base, within such a short span of time?
Wow. This type of spin is worthy of a White House press secretary. I convert a lot of these marks during the event. But I also convert them other times when I'm in need of some quick dilithium.
During this anniversary event, I spend a great deal of time not playing, like you are so concerned about, and going all over the map on my alts collecting omega things. By the time I'm done, im burned out and don't even feel like playing. So yeah, nice to know Cryptic is actually concerned with playing.
If you look at it how some people do when you convert on a non-event weekend you take a 66% penalty.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Bit of a mess up on their end but at least they addressed it fast and offered a form of make up with impressive speed. It is, alas, just another way to reduce dil gain since they know just how much of the damn stuff is needed in this game now to get absolutely anything done. So more bullying to force people to open their wallets.
The problem with this is that the existence of dil weekends does not automatically make mark conversion somehow less rewarding during the rest of the year. It is just as rewarding at any given time, but more rewarding during those weekends. If someone knows that they have those weekends to anticipate, it may encourage them to play more during all the rest of the year so that they will have more reason to look forward to the weekend. Of course, now we're starting to go back to the whole issue of being told how, what, and when to play that caused so much uproar during the great skill point fiasco.
I was disappointed with it. I just understand what he told us. It being changed after the fact was bad balm but they probably didn't notice it until someone complained. I'm not apologizing for them. I'm just saying I get what he says. I wouldn't have a hoard pile if I had cashed them in as I got them and had the normal dilithium reward from it weeks ago. So yeah, finding out after the fact is kinda meh.
That is simply the worst way to earn dilithium, even with the bonuses.
The extra is 10K per rep? 60 K total? That's less than 5 dildays* of play time. I can think of easier ways - voth battlezone for one - where I can earn 2-3x that with less effort and time.
DilDays® is a registered trademark of Star Trek Online: Dilithium Redaction. All Rights reserved. Reprinting of the wordmark costs 1000 dil per usage.
True ... and I don't think someone actually does it ... but there are lots of people, who have lots & lots of Alts anyway (without deleting them) :
So that's :
~20 Toons x 15k Extra x ~5 assuming you want to turn in 5 Reps = 1,5 Million
Conclusion : With DR I turned all of my Alts into Dilithium - Mules, for obvious reasons ... and now they just look pretty, sitting on their asses ... won't bother doing any Reputations with them ever again ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
I'll give our new EP some points for coming in here to explain their position.
Also - some recompense (turning it into dil week) is generally a good move in my opinion, especially in light of the fact that it isn't very often we see that.
Still is an unadvertised nerf, and I disagree with the reasoning.
Dilithium in episodes and patrols sounds good - but by the end of this month means up and running within 3 weeks. I'll believe it when it's live. We were supposed to be earning dilithium post-spec tree completion too - and that got removed, and not put back when the leveling "bugs" were fixed.
Her's my problem with this change. With quotes like:
'...The earn rate for Dilithium that was collected using the mark conversion projects during the event skyrocketed.'
and
'The vast majority of people were only using mark conversion projects during the event.'
an overt admission is being made that this was simply the way everyone behaved in the game - everyone. I was certainly looking forward to converting the excess marks I had accumulated through normal play to get dil and crafting mats.
It's not hard to understand that people are going to maximize benefit to themselves, especially in regards to sought-after currency and goods. That one can accumulate marks and one can convert them to dil during an event for 50% more is hardly rocket science. It's the first dil maximizing tactic I noted in the game! Obvious!
That an obvious game mechanic led to obvious player behavior should not be a surprise and should not have required metrics to find in the game. How could this not be the designed, intended behavior? You can't possibly come to me now, after all this time, and say it isn't!
So, you've decided that players should behave differently than you've led us by the nose to behave up 'til now. Ok, fine - change happens in MMOs all the time. What you don't do is stealthily alter this in what is a surprise attack on -=ALL=- of your customers. You could have done this so much better.
1) Announce at the END of a dil event that the next one's rules are changing. And I mean announce it, put out a blog article, post on the forums in multiple areas, have ARC focus on it. Everyone plays like this - you've admitted it - so make certain everyone knows well in advance!
2) Better yet, announce it at the beginning of an unchanged dil event, so people have one last chance to behave like we always have.
3) Change the damned game mechanics to disallow accumulation of marks. Give out auto dil conversions unless you have an active rep project, or some such system. It would be ebtter than the click-fest of converting marks to dil now.
This was a really bad misstep, and extending a now hobbled dilithium event is not compensation. Reverse the event mark conversion rate, and make a big deal out of announcing that NEXT TIME it applies.
How you communicate to your customers counts.
I intend to sit out this dil event until something more is done to rectify this. If the event is now a week, I guess I'll be sitting out a week.
This just makes me so mad. :mad::mad::mad:No mad is not the right set of words. No I am feeling psychopathic! This is just outrageous!
I understand these weekends were add because of the "weekend warrior" but the rest of us who play every day like me also should be about to get rewards for playing NOT JUST on the weekend!
This just makes me so mad. :mad::mad::mad:No mad is not the right set of words. No I am feeling psychopathic! This is just outrageous!
I understand these weekends were add because of the "weekend warrior" but the rest of us who play every day like me also should be about to get rewards for playing NOT JUST on the weekend!
Give us back the hours bonuses back play!
I look forward to seeing you in game and earning bonus Dilithium for an entire week.
Kudos to Mr. Ricossa for the first fire-fighting effort under his watch!! The Dilithium Weekend extension is a welcome gesture to restore some measure of affinity for the players; it's unfortunate that recent events have soured some players to dismiss this concession so quickly.
By all means, please continue to address the many other imbalances & bugs that are driving players to distraction. You have an opportunity to reverse some of the disaffection created since DR (and even earlier); please don't let that opportunity go to waste... :cool:
Expendables Fleet: Andrew - Bajoran Fed Engineer Ken'taura - Rom/Fed Scientist Gwyllim - Human Fed Delta Tac Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
Standard response to try and calm people down by making up TRIBBLE.
This has NOTHING to do with gameplay, it has everything to do with increasing cryptic's metrics, and forcing people to use real money.
I have no problem spending real money, but removing features, for the sole purpose to sell more dil is just sad. This game has gone completely down the toilet since DR, and you keep pooping turds overtop of it like this.
sadly poor communication is something we are used to now. since the likes of stahl and branflakes the communication with the community took a nose dive, crashed and burned.
I hope things will improve. thank you for responding within a day :cool:
Well, I'm not liking it nor am I in much agreement with this. However....
....4 days on the job and already topped D'Angelo! Starting to like Ricossa's style. I will accept this apology and the offered compensation for the mess the missinformation on the blog caused, seems fair.
One piece of advice from me to Mr.Ricossa who is hopefully reading this - please take the reigns of the CM team (no hard feeligns guys), they seem to be losing their plot. This blog is far from being the first time something wrong, unchecked, unedited and unprofessional made it to the main wabe page in the past year. It's very bad PR for the game and company both.
....4 days on the job and already topped D'Angelo! Starting to like Ricossa's style. I will accept this apology and the offered compensation for the mess the missinformation on the blog caused, seems fair.
Yep +1 the apology even sounded like someone apologizing
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
The comment that mark conversion "skyrockets" is predicated on a false assumption that it takes place in a vacuum: During this time, these items hold NO value to the player and are doing NOTHING. If players would have known the rug was going to be pulled out for them, they could have taken advantage of the "value all year" instead.
It's another situation where it's "Playing as intended." And I'm sick of feeling punished for having the temerity to be efficient with my gameplay and payouts.
This is quite akin to just outright taking out the delayed gratification option out of the marshmallow experiment because the subjects are all becoming wise to the benefits.
First off, bad move. You choke us for dilithium with the upgrade system, nerf our STFs, then take away our bonuses? You're bleeding us dry.
Second off, if this is a decision that must be made, shouldn't it have been announced right after the last dil Weekend? People have been saving their dilithium since the last event, only to have the rug pulled out under them. Moving the goal posts forces players to operate under false pretenses, and that's not right.
Very crummy. More shabby treatment by Cryptic. I don't know how much more people will take. You really owe us if you want to make this thing work.
Comments
No what they should have done it allow us to turn marks in for bonus Dil this time and make it absolutely clear before the event, during it and after it that this would be the last time. Then the next time the event comes around the community is aware and pre-warned.
Letting us find out ourselves as the event happened whilst there is an official announcement stating otherwise is very poor form....
...#LLAP...
During this anniversary event, I spend a great deal of time not playing, like you are so concerned about, and going all over the map on my alts collecting omega things. By the time I'm done, im burned out and don't even feel like playing. So yeah, nice to know Cryptic is actually concerned with playing.
What you just said... :rolleyes:
This. Now if only they'd not do the ninja edit.
In other words, "We want the dilithium bonus weekends to pad our metrics and you people aren't cooperating."
I do get that feeling again, along the lines of "we aren't playing the way they want us to play"....
That is simply the worst way to earn dilithium, even with the bonuses.
The extra is 10K per rep? 60 K total? That's less than 5 dildays* of play time. I can think of easier ways - voth battlezone for one - where I can earn 2-3x that with less effort and time.
DilDays® is a registered trademark of Star Trek Online: Dilithium Redaction. All Rights reserved. Reprinting of the wordmark costs 1000 dil per usage.
The problem with this is that the existence of dil weekends does not automatically make mark conversion somehow less rewarding during the rest of the year. It is just as rewarding at any given time, but more rewarding during those weekends. If someone knows that they have those weekends to anticipate, it may encourage them to play more during all the rest of the year so that they will have more reason to look forward to the weekend. Of course, now we're starting to go back to the whole issue of being told how, what, and when to play that caused so much uproar during the great skill point fiasco.
Sorry but, this a complete load of TRIBBLE!
We are making mark conversion projects valid and valuable all the time!
D-uh, they were always valuable at 500 per 50, now they are the same value all year long, yippee! :rolleyes:
We are committed to making sure that Dilithium is more available in game, and to that end we are currently working to introduce Dilithium rewards to episode and patrol play by the end of this month!
That so called extra Dilithium being added, will never make up one weekends worth of bonus Dilithium from marks, it just won't!
And, this doesn't actually add Dilithium in comparison to what you just nerfed so, nope sorry all you did was accomplish draining more from the game economy, by driving off more player's, killing all bonus dilithium produced thru mark and bnp(etc.) conversions, all while pissing off a good majority of your player base and, than expect them to make purchases during some ridiculous sale?
Get bent is what I would say!
2 months worth of grind, right down the drain, that's half a million dilithium, that won't be making its way into game circulation and, that's from just 1 player, now imagine how much in all you just eliminated!
Is, your new idea going bring back all of that lost by your player base, within such a short span of time?
I seriously doubt it!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
If you look at it how some people do when you convert on a non-event weekend you take a 66% penalty.
Doesn't resolve the feeling I was stabbed in the back, but at least I know why.
Oh well, back to grinding.
Credit for the communication though.
And it gives me a week to use up my Dilithium Mining VIP Claims! Woot!
I was disappointed with it. I just understand what he told us. It being changed after the fact was bad balm but they probably didn't notice it until someone complained. I'm not apologizing for them. I'm just saying I get what he says. I wouldn't have a hoard pile if I had cashed them in as I got them and had the normal dilithium reward from it weeks ago. So yeah, finding out after the fact is kinda meh.
True ... and I don't think someone actually does it ... but there are lots of people, who have lots & lots of Alts anyway (without deleting them) :
So that's :
~20 Toons x 15k Extra x ~5 assuming you want to turn in 5 Reps = 1,5 Million
Conclusion : With DR I turned all of my Alts into Dilithium - Mules, for obvious reasons ... and now they just look pretty, sitting on their asses ... won't bother doing any Reputations with them ever again ...
Also - some recompense (turning it into dil week) is generally a good move in my opinion, especially in light of the fact that it isn't very often we see that.
Still is an unadvertised nerf, and I disagree with the reasoning.
Dilithium in episodes and patrols sounds good - but by the end of this month means up and running within 3 weeks. I'll believe it when it's live. We were supposed to be earning dilithium post-spec tree completion too - and that got removed, and not put back when the leveling "bugs" were fixed.
'...The earn rate for Dilithium that was collected using the mark conversion projects during the event skyrocketed.'
and
'The vast majority of people were only using mark conversion projects during the event.'
an overt admission is being made that this was simply the way everyone behaved in the game - everyone. I was certainly looking forward to converting the excess marks I had accumulated through normal play to get dil and crafting mats.
It's not hard to understand that people are going to maximize benefit to themselves, especially in regards to sought-after currency and goods. That one can accumulate marks and one can convert them to dil during an event for 50% more is hardly rocket science. It's the first dil maximizing tactic I noted in the game! Obvious!
That an obvious game mechanic led to obvious player behavior should not be a surprise and should not have required metrics to find in the game. How could this not be the designed, intended behavior? You can't possibly come to me now, after all this time, and say it isn't!
So, you've decided that players should behave differently than you've led us by the nose to behave up 'til now. Ok, fine - change happens in MMOs all the time. What you don't do is stealthily alter this in what is a surprise attack on -=ALL=- of your customers. You could have done this so much better.
1) Announce at the END of a dil event that the next one's rules are changing. And I mean announce it, put out a blog article, post on the forums in multiple areas, have ARC focus on it. Everyone plays like this - you've admitted it - so make certain everyone knows well in advance!
2) Better yet, announce it at the beginning of an unchanged dil event, so people have one last chance to behave like we always have.
3) Change the damned game mechanics to disallow accumulation of marks. Give out auto dil conversions unless you have an active rep project, or some such system. It would be ebtter than the click-fest of converting marks to dil now.
This was a really bad misstep, and extending a now hobbled dilithium event is not compensation. Reverse the event mark conversion rate, and make a big deal out of announcing that NEXT TIME it applies.
How you communicate to your customers counts.
I intend to sit out this dil event until something more is done to rectify this. If the event is now a week, I guess I'll be sitting out a week.
I understand these weekends were add because of the "weekend warrior" but the rest of us who play every day like me also should be about to get rewards for playing NOT JUST on the weekend!
Give us back the hours bonuses back play!
I don't understand your comment...
By all means, please continue to address the many other imbalances & bugs that are driving players to distraction. You have an opportunity to reverse some of the disaffection created since DR (and even earlier); please don't let that opportunity go to waste... :cool:
Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci
Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac
Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
This has NOTHING to do with gameplay, it has everything to do with increasing cryptic's metrics, and forcing people to use real money.
I have no problem spending real money, but removing features, for the sole purpose to sell more dil is just sad. This game has gone completely down the toilet since DR, and you keep pooping turds overtop of it like this.
I hope things will improve. thank you for responding within a day :cool:
....4 days on the job and already topped D'Angelo!
One piece of advice from me to Mr.Ricossa who is hopefully reading this - please take the reigns of the CM team (no hard feeligns guys), they seem to be losing their plot. This blog is far from being the first time something wrong, unchecked, unedited and unprofessional made it to the main wabe page in the past year. It's very bad PR for the game and company both.
Yep +1 the apology even sounded like someone apologizing
It's another situation where it's "Playing as intended." And I'm sick of feeling punished for having the temerity to be efficient with my gameplay and payouts.
Second off, if this is a decision that must be made, shouldn't it have been announced right after the last dil Weekend? People have been saving their dilithium since the last event, only to have the rug pulled out under them. Moving the goal posts forces players to operate under false pretenses, and that's not right.
Very crummy. More shabby treatment by Cryptic. I don't know how much more people will take. You really owe us if you want to make this thing work.