I'd like to respond to the op's point about the anniversary event, not DR generally. DR hit and my fleet was fine, but then again it's a fleet that's probably bigger than the 500 person limit. We have a 1-toon-per-account limit and people who don't log in regularly get cleared out every month to make room for new people (there are 2 fed alt fleets associated with the main fleet too, the second alt fleet does seem deader now but I have no numbers to back up that feeling because my fed alts are all in the first alt fleet). So if there are fewer people who want in to the main fleet I probably wouldn't notice, but our fleet(s) isn't/aren't typical.
But the anniversary event has seen me log in less. It's the lag and ui lag and rubberbanding and disconnects. It's just really hard to play when the game is so unstable. I do log in to change out doff assignments and maybe play a little, but a lot less than before the event. Usually until I get DCed for the first time but I just don't come back.
Maybe things will get better when the event is over. I noticed there was a blog post linked to from the launcher with the title "Fifth Year Anniversary Event Almost Over!" that sounded like they assume we'd be happy about that, like it's a giveaway to end this event. I know I'll be happy if it was the event causing all the problems and not something else on the same patch that will persist afterwards.
(And I write all this with the understanding that the devs put a lot of work into this event and I want to acknowledge that. It had a free ship that people seem to like - not really my style - plus a new episode and an addictive little minigame... from what I hear because I couldn't play it due to the lag. The Romulan story arc is really nice now, too.)
There is a LOT I still like about STO, but it's slowly becoming more difficult to see what I do like through the things I don't.
Sound about right.
As far as alts are concerned I hope you guys get them back to active duty one day. I still find to have alts at endgame highly beneficial especially as far as Dilithium & Fleetprogression is concerned. My 8 toons currently have some 32-45 specialisation points. 90% came out of the doff system so for as long as cryptic leaves it intact I can progress.
Currently best use of my toons is to hop after each activity to get as many different mark daily rewards on as many alts as I can. Since they dont need the actual marks anymore for gear the turned in Dil flows faster than evern B4 DR where I only used to Play Borg STF.
I think that cryptic will deal with the doff system next as well as the subject of daily mark rewards so Im sure Im dead in the water sooner or later.
Nevertheless I will have a formidable gang of toons with different and filled spec tree constellations by then.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
There is a LOT I still like about STO, but it's slowly becoming more difficult to see what I do like through the things I don't.
Well put! Had a kinda poetry to it.
On alts, I only had a single one that I had fully trained up, and decked out. That's expensive as it is: Lobi consoles, Zemoks, Damage Control Engineers, A2B Technicians, lockboxes, you name it. Then one day Geko made her obsolete overnight. Unless he thought I was really going to pour thousands of bucks into upgrading everything for her too!? And I'm not exaggerating: upgrading my stuffz has been overall extremely costly. So, apart from doffing, the alt is de facto dead.
I'm in a wonderful Fleet, that is still doing very well, thank gawd! But I feel for those who saw that aspect of the game being taken away from them too.
Two of the fleets i'm in the Caitian Star Pride and the Ferasen Shadow Force have quitened down a little but are still seeing new members join up, however a third fleet I have taken over from another player is stone dead!
The flert is tier 0 in everything except the starbase which is tier 1, so very young and as such doesn't yet have the facilities open to introduce any of the discounts. At the moment I am concentrating on getting the dill mine open and working.
It is a very small fleet with about thirty registered members but apart from myself logging in each day and one other player that logged in at the end of January no one else has logged in since the beginning of last December. It was the last of a steady decline that started three months earlier in October, I would love to be able to play eight hours a day and recruit more players but I can't and at the end of the day I have too much time and effort invested in the fleet to just close it down so I have had to take the decision to take the extreamly long view and try to get the holdings up to a point where it's all open for use and therefore more attractive for new people to come into the fleet. The biggest hold up for me is a mixture of massive dilitium costs and access to sufficient doffs to fill the holdings.
Perhaps I'm being an idiot to myself, I don't know !
Perhaps I'm being an idiot to myself, I don't know !
No, you dont and keep it.
If you aim to get all facilities to tier one you can generate your own provisions and use the larger fleet you are in to invite your members for best gear if they like to have it.
Focus on Dil mine entirely then. For as long as you have fleetcredits you can get the doffs needed at the base itself.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
The game client crashes has killed off what little interest I had left in the game. Between that and the reward reductions, while increasing stf difficulty, it's hard to justify playing a game that has an obvious desire for self destruction.
I know if they nerf doffing I am as good as gone. IMHO, the constant TRIBBLE with XP is really poor taste and the number one sign your game mechanics are fubar and maybe you shouldn't rely on metrics for everything.
Our KDF fleet has a full roster and all holdings are complete. Two months ago the fleet owners got fed up with the ever increasing grind, the obvious monetization, and the increase in failure rates on STFs which seem to drive the push to play more and spend more to get gear to compensate. They said they were taking a break but haven't been seen since. The two top ranking senior officers, one of them myself, have been left in charge. We do well enough, but no matter how much we help and try to encourage players, the participation is falling away and quickly. We have some language and time zone issues as well as problems with the new security system angering members from outside the US when their zen transactions are blocked.
Now my fellow senior officer has just told me she is so angry with all this she is cutting her play time and will not spend on the game. I agree with her. But I am sticking around for the fleet.
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
Frustration Level is directly proportional to player exit rate, people didn't want to leave STO, they wouldn't leave STO if they enjoyed it. I had a big wall of text explaining my reasons for this frustration and also offering my solutions, which are no doubt echoed by many others, but then I realised it can all be summed up very succinctly with the phrase, STO is a whole load of no fun. FUN is missing in this game now and the devs have to work out ways of putting the FUN back in the game whilst still generating sufficient revenue.
Honestly there are enough ideas from people on this forum, they've been said by many ever since the game started to loose people, however for some unfathomable reason the devs never heed their customers advice and concerns and instead introduce new layers of complexity that was not asked for and not needed whilst leaving serious flaws scattered throughout the game like cracks in a wind shield. We are now reaching the point I believe where those cracks are beginning to join together and we all know what happens next.
I hope the new EP can breath FUN back into STO, it will mean a lot of fixes, a lot of reward un-nerfing, a lot of new content, a lot of price slashing and much eating of humble pie for one particular Dev, but if they leave it as it is then the writing is on the wall for certain, and none of us want that.
Here's how he can breathe fun back into the game:
1. Every mission, Patrol, STF gets standardized XP of 5k, 10k, and 15k based on difficulty setting. Only Lock Outs on STFs.
2. Get rid of the fail optionals on Advanced Queues.
3. Cut the XP required per level after 60 in half.
4. Cut the Dil Cost for upgrades in half.
5. Add a weekly bonus xp/dil for completing a story Arc or 3-5 different STFs
All those would help and be welcome but I can't help thinking they would be like slamming the stable door after the horse has bolted, what they need is something to persuade said pony to come back and stay.
STO needs a total overhaul of it's monetisation system, they need to address all the crazy p2w TRIBBLE, they need to give the players what they want, if thousands of people want a T6 Galaxy then so what, give it them.
If people want better ground combat mechanics then do it.
If players strangely enough want to EXPLORE the galaxy in this game then let them, give them places to go and things to do.
Give them a way to keep in touch with their crew when they are away from the game
Give captains a reason to visit their bridges, allow travel between locations whilst on the bridge even if they can't do actual flying through space animations they could certainly reload the player's location in the background whilst showing a warping star field on the screen with an appropriate delay before arrival.
I guess I mean they need to make it more like Star Trek and less like grind trek.
And on top of everything else sort out their crappy ISP connections, game breaking UI lag, and all the other issues that people have been reporting, in some cases for years.
In other words they need to take their game seriously and stop relying on the goodwill of the IP because if this game didn't have Star Trek in it, it would have bit the dust years ago IMHO.
No kidding, see SOE/LA's handling of SWG. Not once but twice in the same year. They have converted this game into why I left SW TOR, it was too much of a time sink, not to mrention the linear progession and lack of sandboxiness. Theis HAD some of that but they took exploration out into the pasture and shot it in the head.
I hear from a lot of fleets which are dying or empty friend lists. I can observe this on my own fleet.
Or fleet exists scince STO launches. We were never be a super big fleet. But 5-10 members from maybe 50 were online around the clock. We are just working on the T3 upgrade project of our mine and on the T4 upgrade project of our base.
But the fleet is dying. Now iam very often alone online our maybe one or two with me. There is only few interaction in our fleet. The fun is out. Doffing and grinding, thats all. STO becomes more and more like work. Its not a game i like to play after a long day on work. So for me i find the fun in a other game. I jumped back to RIFT and there i have fun and all that i cant find in STO anymore. RIFT is F2P like STO, but after two days back in RIFT i became a paying customer again. Because i like that game. But iam missing Star Trek and the Sciene Fiction setting.
So, there is still hope for me, that Cryptic implements the fun again. In the meantime i log in STO, play a mission, doffing, spending on fleet projects and log me out - just work.
And for my fleet? I dont know, if others would come back.
We had a lot of fun with the hourly events in STO. Building teams and grind fleet marks or playing STFs. We had fun with our fleet meetings in different locations if STO. On our fleet starbase, on Risa... All that is gone.
Comments
But the anniversary event has seen me log in less. It's the lag and ui lag and rubberbanding and disconnects. It's just really hard to play when the game is so unstable. I do log in to change out doff assignments and maybe play a little, but a lot less than before the event. Usually until I get DCed for the first time but I just don't come back.
Maybe things will get better when the event is over. I noticed there was a blog post linked to from the launcher with the title "Fifth Year Anniversary Event Almost Over!" that sounded like they assume we'd be happy about that, like it's a giveaway to end this event. I know I'll be happy if it was the event causing all the problems and not something else on the same patch that will persist afterwards.
(And I write all this with the understanding that the devs put a lot of work into this event and I want to acknowledge that. It had a free ship that people seem to like - not really my style - plus a new episode and an addictive little minigame... from what I hear because I couldn't play it due to the lag. The Romulan story arc is really nice now, too.)
Its a reporting bug , everything is awesome
I keep telling this to myself each time I log but no matter how often I repeat it seems to work less and less after every patch note.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
That's because fun is nerfed now, and comes with diminishing returns. :P
Hehe, then the remaining bit should at least stack a bit. Lets pretend there is hope then.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Sound about right.
As far as alts are concerned I hope you guys get them back to active duty one day. I still find to have alts at endgame highly beneficial especially as far as Dilithium & Fleetprogression is concerned. My 8 toons currently have some 32-45 specialisation points. 90% came out of the doff system so for as long as cryptic leaves it intact I can progress.
Currently best use of my toons is to hop after each activity to get as many different mark daily rewards on as many alts as I can. Since they dont need the actual marks anymore for gear the turned in Dil flows faster than evern B4 DR where I only used to Play Borg STF.
I think that cryptic will deal with the doff system next as well as the subject of daily mark rewards so Im sure Im dead in the water sooner or later.
Nevertheless I will have a formidable gang of toons with different and filled spec tree constellations by then.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Well put! Had a kinda poetry to it.
On alts, I only had a single one that I had fully trained up, and decked out. That's expensive as it is: Lobi consoles, Zemoks, Damage Control Engineers, A2B Technicians, lockboxes, you name it. Then one day Geko made her obsolete overnight. Unless he thought I was really going to pour thousands of bucks into upgrading everything for her too!? And I'm not exaggerating: upgrading my stuffz has been overall extremely costly. So, apart from doffing, the alt is de facto dead.
I'm in a wonderful Fleet, that is still doing very well, thank gawd! But I feel for those who saw that aspect of the game being taken away from them too.
The flert is tier 0 in everything except the starbase which is tier 1, so very young and as such doesn't yet have the facilities open to introduce any of the discounts. At the moment I am concentrating on getting the dill mine open and working.
It is a very small fleet with about thirty registered members but apart from myself logging in each day and one other player that logged in at the end of January no one else has logged in since the beginning of last December. It was the last of a steady decline that started three months earlier in October, I would love to be able to play eight hours a day and recruit more players but I can't and at the end of the day I have too much time and effort invested in the fleet to just close it down so I have had to take the decision to take the extreamly long view and try to get the holdings up to a point where it's all open for use and therefore more attractive for new people to come into the fleet. The biggest hold up for me is a mixture of massive dilitium costs and access to sufficient doffs to fill the holdings.
Perhaps I'm being an idiot to myself, I don't know !
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No, you dont and keep it.
If you aim to get all facilities to tier one you can generate your own provisions and use the larger fleet you are in to invite your members for best gear if they like to have it.
Focus on Dil mine entirely then. For as long as you have fleetcredits you can get the doffs needed at the base itself.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Now my fellow senior officer has just told me she is so angry with all this she is cutting her play time and will not spend on the game. I agree with her. But I am sticking around for the fleet.
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
Expatriot Might Characters in EXILE
Here's how he can breathe fun back into the game:
1. Every mission, Patrol, STF gets standardized XP of 5k, 10k, and 15k based on difficulty setting. Only Lock Outs on STFs.
2. Get rid of the fail optionals on Advanced Queues.
3. Cut the XP required per level after 60 in half.
4. Cut the Dil Cost for upgrades in half.
5. Add a weekly bonus xp/dil for completing a story Arc or 3-5 different STFs
Or fleet exists scince STO launches. We were never be a super big fleet. But 5-10 members from maybe 50 were online around the clock. We are just working on the T3 upgrade project of our mine and on the T4 upgrade project of our base.
But the fleet is dying. Now iam very often alone online our maybe one or two with me. There is only few interaction in our fleet. The fun is out. Doffing and grinding, thats all. STO becomes more and more like work. Its not a game i like to play after a long day on work. So for me i find the fun in a other game. I jumped back to RIFT and there i have fun and all that i cant find in STO anymore. RIFT is F2P like STO, but after two days back in RIFT i became a paying customer again. Because i like that game. But iam missing Star Trek and the Sciene Fiction setting.
So, there is still hope for me, that Cryptic implements the fun again. In the meantime i log in STO, play a mission, doffing, spending on fleet projects and log me out - just work.
And for my fleet? I dont know, if others would come back.
We had a lot of fun with the hourly events in STO. Building teams and grind fleet marks or playing STFs. We had fun with our fleet meetings in different locations if STO. On our fleet starbase, on Risa... All that is gone.