The issue of XP/SP is what stops me from using my alts. Even if I start a completely new character during the Delta Recruit event I'm going to stop using him at level 50, because I'll know that there is a crazy change in leveling speed past that point.
personally I still play all of my characters the same, I get the same amount of dil each day as I did before and the same amount of EC they are the only things I worry about, I let the marks take care of themselves they will come as and when slow or fast is unimportant, as it happens they seem to mount up plenty fast for my liking, without grinding argala.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
The thing killing alts is the darned upgrade shtick they pulled through the R&D system. :mad: People (or at least I) played alts to try out new perspectives, new department/ship combos, different builds or fulfill some fan RP perspectives (like a Nausicaan with a Guramba for ex.). Before DR, it was even very easy to have multiple different sets of top notch end-game gear on a single character to experiment with or just swap builds by preference. Getting there was not an issue.
After this wretched "upgrade system", I can barely keep up upgrading one build on one character for one ship to MK XIV UR or epic. And as an added bonus, it's based on RNG! YAY? I can't even properly build an equal set as before without dumb luck.
The costs in recources and time both asociated with the upgrade system just make keeping and maintaning top notch alts not worthwhile anymore. At least for me. I cringe whenever I think what would be needed to completely gear up an alt these days and when that carrot is so far, boring and random to obtain - it kinda kills the motivation to even bother.
I think the greatest overall reason the game is alt-unfriendly is that there is simply no reason to play an alt. Roll a tactical captain, and with the skill spec you can play almost any setup you want to its full effectiveness. The lion's share of your game experience is determined by your ship, boffs, doffs, and equipment setup. Your captain really only alters a handful of abilities, and tactical captains quite clearly have the best of those.
If you want to experience a "different" type of game experience, you can quite easily change any of the above around on a single character and do anything you'd like to do without bothering with any of the "alt unfriendly" designs present in the game..
Good point. For the endgame you could easily just have 1 fed tac captain and be done with it. Or 3 tac captains if you want to fly every kind of ship available.
For leveling up, the game is 100% alt friendly since you don't need to care about any of the endgame stuff.
So: the game is "not alt friendly" if you think you need 20 alts, all instantly fully set up for endgame play
After this wretched "upgrade system", I can barely keep up upgrading one build on one character for one ship to MK XIV UR or epic. And as an added bonus, it's based on RNG! YAY? I can't even properly build an equal set as before without dumb luck.
But now crafted items are account bound, which is very alt-friendly. Unlike fleet and rep gear I can share crafted consoles, weapons, armor, personal shields between my alts.
If one is doing ground stuff, I can transfer the TR-116 rifle and epic personal shield to them, and other goodies for the boffs. When they're done with ground missions I can pass them to a different alt.
I might just be doing this alt thing all wrong. I made a Rommie ENG and played the heck out of him until I got bored with being green. Didn't touch any of my other chars. Next I switched over to my Lethean SCI because I wanted to find out for myself if SCI was really all that on the Ground. Whenever I just want something where reflexes dominate I play either of my TACs.
I have never been able to switch chars on a whim or try to make sure they all have the same stuff. I tend to focus very tightly on whichever char I am playing at the time and play him/her until I get bored or come to a pause point which makes sense to me. My chars are all over the place in level and gear due to this. I've never been able to successfully keep them all at around the same strength. If one has the Samsar and the rest do not, I don't spend a lot of time agonizing over this.
Is this wrong? And no, I'm not being a smartass about this topic. I'd really like to know how to enjoy playing multiple chars more than I do now.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
I might just be doing this alt thing all wrong. I made a Rommie ENG and played the heck out of him until I got bored with being green. Didn't touch any of my other chars. Next I switched over to my Lethean SCI because I wanted to find out for myself if SCI was really all that on the Ground. Whenever I just want something where reflexes dominate I play either of my TACs.
I have never been able to switch chars on a whim or try to make sure they all have the same stuff. I tend to focus very tightly on whichever char I am playing at the time and play him/her until I get bored or come to a pause point which makes sense to me. My chars are all over the place in level and gear due to this. I've never been able to successfully keep them all at around the same strength. If one has the Samsar and the rest do not, I don't spend a lot of time agonizing over this.
Is this wrong? And no, I'm not being a smartass about this topic. I'd really like to know how to enjoy playing multiple chars more than I do now.
if it right for you and its the way you enjoy to play then its not wrong.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
I've never been able to successfully keep them all at around the same strength. If one has the Samsar and the rest do not, I don't spend a lot of time agonizing over this.
That's a healthy way to play. Why do people think every alt needs to be maxed out, instantly, once one of them is?
For me, "it's the journey not the destination" -- I try to do things that I enjoy in the game to level up, not do something I hate over and over so someday I can maybe have some fun. To me that is doing it wrong. Do things you still enjoy, and eventually the spec points will take care of themselves.
That's a healthy way to play. Why do people think every alt needs to be maxed out, instantly, once one of them is?
For me, "it's the journey not the destination" -- I try to do things that I enjoy in the game to level up, not do something I hate over and over so someday I can maybe have some fun. To me that is doing it wrong. Do things you still enjoy, and eventually the spec points will take care of themselves.
This is a natural thing with people. Some people want the best. Here, people want the best ships, the best gear, the best BOFFs, DOFFs, and the like. That's why people flip their **** over getting Epic Mk XIV [CrtD]x4 AP Beam Arrays, get angry when they find out their ship is no longer "the best of the best" even if it was the "best of the best" five seconds ago, want to know why they aren't instantly getting specialization points right this very second, etc.
Also, people are stingy. They want the best for less.
all the game needs is the marks you get in game to be increased significantly then there is no need to make these things alt friendly they will be all characters friendly.
It's not just the marks. The XP requirements/level. The low XPs you actually get ingame from standard play. The game tapping more and more into your dilithium stocks. That's just the stuff off the top of my head but I'm sure I'm missing more.
If you play 1 character, you'd feel none of the discomfort. But if you have alts, you're going to feel all of it.
Ive always thought alts are just that alts...they dont have to have uber epic mk14 gear...i dont even do that on my main! (Sci/vesta torp boat, ave 15k ise, max 22k, very rare mk 13 on average).
There is something to be said about alts inheriting the mains progression (there needs to be more of that)
But truth is if you play this game like what it is, an mmo, you dont need top epic 14s to have fun, just good competent friends (at a fleet/dps/pestf channel near you!)
Im content with my alts rocking generic rare mk xii-mk xiii, pullin their weight.
That's a healthy way to play. Why do people think every alt needs to be maxed out, instantly, once one of them is?
For me, "it's the journey not the destination" -- I try to do things that I enjoy in the game to level up, not do something I hate over and over so someday I can maybe have some fun. To me that is doing it wrong. Do things you still enjoy, and eventually the spec points will take care of themselves.
Unfortunately, considering the level gaps past lvl 50, the journey is not that fun anymore. And I'm not mentioning the patrols being "story" mission, only twice as short, without ground content, and with much less story.
As for the spec point, well, you need HUNDREDS of stf to complete a single tree. The large majority of people complaining about the spec are not complaining because they want them now, but because it's not humanly feasible for the average player, unless you know how to grind for them, and have to will to do so. So much for something you are supposed to unlock by doing what you always did.
Many MMOs (and by that, I mean pretty much all of them) have alternate advancement. And you can earn those by doing what you always do. And they increase at a proper pace. Also, they have an alt friendliness STO doesn't have.
For example, ESO released their spec equivalent a few weeks ago. The points are account wide (but not the spec, even if you are free to do the same spec for all your char). Every day you have a LARGE xp boost (I mean really large). And in case that wasn't enough, it's rather fast, I did 2 points in about 2h. I've spent hours in STO without a single point.
There are two main things that really killed my alts. The upgrade system, and the continuous nerfs to xp after the release of DR.
The costs in dilithium to upgrade even one set of gear on one toon are astronomical forget multiple sets. I upgraded the gear on one toon and gave up halfway on a second. I'm not bothering with it anymore.
Then we have the painful xp gain. I leveled I believe three toons to 60, but gave up after that. I decided to leave my other alts behind and forget about all the fancy specialization points. It's not fun and just feels like work so I'm not doing it.
What i ended up doing is designating 2 Mains as Space and about a dozen alts as ground, i respec all the grounds and only upgraded ground gear on them to epic. My 2 Mains a Rom Tac and Rom Eng i upgraded space and ground gear to epic.
Pretty much all of my characters but 2 Mains will never again get any new lockbox or lobi ships and other goodies ever again. Wallet is closed for them.
This has the benefit if i want to do ground stfs i just play on the characters set up for that allready, no need to switch traits,specialization ect... Just log on and go. I hear some people actually deleted characters lol, why just make some ground only and some space only.
I was in tau dau patrols before the nerf bat so, they are all level 60 with most skill trees filled.
It's not fun and just feels like work so I'm not doing it.
indeed; same thing for the campaign. i don't care about he specialization points, i just want to be able to do level 58/59/60 missions. But now it takes me too much time to earn 1 level
DR killed alts for me. I have 4 Feds, 1 Fromulan and a KDF (yeah, orion...). I've never been much of an alt player, instead using them for dil farming. However, DR made me drop my Fromulan, who was my primary alt that was actually at STF specs pre-DR. Now, she has been reduced to being just another farming alt.
Cheers from Antonio Valerio Cortez III, Half-Celestial Archduke of the Free Marches Confederacy.
Not sure why, so many people are complaining about having to upgrade gear, making their alts not preferred?
I still rock mk xi & mk xii everything pretty much and, I don't find it alt unfriendly at all.
There is no actual forcing you to upgrade or, even gain specializations just to play.
Get it, when you can get it, don't feel forced to or, you will of course feel that alts are not worth the effort.
Besides, people should have been well aware that ever more added content, will always add more grind to each and every character.
The game has almost no end so, people thinking rocking 30+ alts and, never having to grind them are sorely mistaken by taking on the burden of so many to begin with.
Okay, so we have a fourth system now that is alt unfriendly in the upgrade system. I admit it is rather resource intensive which is why I haven't ventured into actually spending any of my dilithium on upgrades.
So, I would like to point out that I am not happy about the state of how long it takes to level. However, I do not fret too much on the leveling as I have decided from the day Delta Rising launched that I would change my gaming habits that much. Sure it takes longer to get skill points now from everything, but I still intend to play how I want and reap the rewards that come in (whether it be dilithium, marks or spec points) and have fun doing it.
Let's keep up the discussion. I am happy that we have had a civil discussion and not have it degenerate into a hate filled thread like I see it sometimes.
Not sure why, so many people are complaining about having to upgrade gear, making their alts not preferred?
I still rock mk xi & mk xii everything pretty much and, I don't find it alt unfriendly at all.
There is no actual forcing you to upgrade or, even gain specializations just to play.
Get it, when you can get it, don't feel forced to or, you will of course feel that alts are not worth the effort.
Besides, people should have been well aware that ever more added content, will always add more grind to each and every character.
The game has almost no end so, people thinking rocking 30+ alts and, never having to grind them are sorely mistaken by taking on the burden of so many to begin with.
shadowwraith, perfectly said.
I never feel forced to get anything. Though my new Delta Recruit character will not have the breen ships (until winter event), the Kobali cruiser or uniform, there will be more opportunities for other things to get. Plus when I get bored of playing the game, I take some time off and focus in on the Foundry until I'm ready to get back into the game again.
Not sure why, so many people are complaining about having to upgrade gear, making their alts not preferred?
I still rock mk xi & mk xii everything pretty much and, I don't find it alt unfriendly at all.
There is no actual forcing you to upgrade or, even gain specializations just to play.
Get it, when you can get it, don't feel forced to or, you will of course feel that alts are not worth the effort.
Besides, people should have been well aware that ever more added content, will always add more grind to each and every character.
The game has almost no end so, people thinking rocking 30+ alts and, never having to grind them are sorely mistaken by taking on the burden of so many to begin with.
Think about what you said and think about how stupid that is. It's pretty much a basic premise to improve your character one way or another. Settling for mediocrity isn't a "goal."
By your own standards, you should be flying a T4 ship still at Lv60 :rolleyes:
Before DR I had 14 toons each had its own lockbox or fleet ship , They were all races and all types
They were fun to play each one different yet all of them could do a good job in the content
Now
I have 2 space characters..I will not grind them all up to DR standards too much UNFUN grinding to do it..so no new lockbox ships or new fleet ships for them no new traits...nothing..zip there not worth leveling up
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
i really don't see what the problem is with upgrading gear for alts, you don't need to upgrade every bit of gear you have just as much or little as you want to.
personally I have so far upgraded all of the stuff on one ship and one ground set to mk14 on each of my characters, I have also upgraded a few mk10 & mk11 special sets to mk12 and I have gradually been replacing most other stuff below mk12 with mk12 gear from in game rep and doff mission rewards, I plan to eventually upgrade the gear on 1 more ship on each character to mk14, all my gear will eventually be at least mk12 and rare quality or better.
there is a hourly rep missions for 15 marks that often pay out mk12 gear and also pays out a good bit of dil to help with upgrading costs and there are a few different doff missions that often pay out mk12 ground and ship gear, anything you get that is below mk12 rare or excess to requirements can always be recycled for EC.
all my characters have paid for their own upgrades with EC & dil earned in game by themselves without spending any real money whatsoever, you just need to be patient and temperate and set yourself an end goal to aim for.
sure it would be cool to be able to upgrade every bit of gear you have to mk14 but you really don't need to.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Well I agree on your OP for the most part. Alts do take time, effort and recourses to do nowadays, more than ever before.
The way I come to see it Cryptic is simply a bit in a struggle with alts because of the benefits they provide for the players and simply want us to hinder us a bit. Thats the way I come to see it with my 8 endgame toons:
- 8 sepc points / week without a single second of grind? I can only get those with my alts.
- 8 times as many daily reputation mark bonuses after all reputes are maxed out? Its free 500 Dil more for every single PvE I do.
- Turn in of 840 contraband in one week for half a million Dil? Would have only been a fraction of that with my main.
- 30000-40000 Fleetmarks (not credits) during one weekend without firing a single shot? 1 toon would probably need a year for that!
- Refine up to 68000 Dil/day? I dont care about a refining limit!
No, cryptic made it harder to do alts thats right but this game is half as alt un-friendly peeps would like to think and they have to bring it a lot harder on us before it gets.
If players would run CC with their MK12 gear with 5 alts which takes 30 minutes to one hour to do each day for the duration of half a moth one toon should come out of it with all MK14 gear easily.
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Good, I see a paradox here. Some players want to develop their character, character progress that never has to stop, because it gives them a goal. There also many players that want to play with a 'finished' a complete character. A character at level cap, top end gear etc. Getting at level cap is also their goal, because then they feel ready to play the game.
Both concepts cannot be joined together. I prefer the second system. My character should at some point be ready, finished, so I can play and concentrate on other things, like story, strategy and tactics, how do I win this battle, not what do I have to do before.
Think for a while at continuous and endless character progression. The more you have, the less it means. We have 4 four specializations, but can only have 2 active. A character with 2 specializations is as strong as one with 4, because you can only use two.
However, suppose all your specializations can be used, are active. A 4 spec character rules a 2 spec one. When we have 20 specializations, a 20 spec character is better than a 10 spec one, but not as much as the 4 spec to the 2 spec. The number of specializations does weigh, but each specialization more adds less. It is the effect of diminishing return.
The game maker can address the issue of diminishing return on character progress by making the character stronger and stronger in a steep way. WoW does it (when I played it a couple of years ago). I find it an ugly and mediocre system. You get the same game with bigger numbers.
Okay, so we have a fourth system now that is alt unfriendly in the upgrade system. I admit it is rather resource intensive which is why I haven't ventured into actually spending any of my dilithium on upgrades. .
Actually compare the cost of upgrading a VR phaser console to XII versus having to buy one from the exchange (before spire consoles were an option.) Upgrades have made higher level gear immensely more accessible to alternative characters (as in before DR the most I'd ever spring for on an alt is VR XI, whereas now they're all rolling in VR or UR XIV) especially considering that dilithium now is one of the most accessible resources in STO (whereas with old EC you have to work the market quite intensively if you want to go anywhere quickly.)
There is however still an element of trade-offs (sure, I'll go for XIV consoles for everyone, but I've only upgraded the weapons from XII on my main) but even still the outcome is favorable (because even where there's an analogous cut-off point between alt and main gear between pre and post DR systems, the current system is at least more flexible and capable of being invested in incrementally.)
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
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i have about 16 alts and one main.
my main has all reps done, most accolades complete, all gear upgraded to epic14, all crafting scools 15+, and pilot, commando, and intel finished. it was no small effort to get all of that done.
my alts generally have rep finished, but have mk12 fleet non-upgraded gear and are stuck at level 50. i got them to that point prior to DR, and it was always my intent to have them as viable toons rather than farmers or mules. i did hit one alt pretty hard during the recent xp bonus and managed to get her up to level 56, but outside of that i dont put any effort into them any more. pretty much all i use them for these days is contra and omega crafting.
im not sure why i find them so unappealing to play anymore, but if i had to guess id have to say its down to
1. the slow rate of meaningful progression. 50-60 takes forever and required patrol grinds and whatnot.
2. pilot and commando spec trees seem to be not merely out of reach, but completely unattainable.
3. prohibitive cost of upgrading loadouts to a level that makes them viable in even advanced queues.
4. unwillingness to buy t5u tokens for the varying ships they all fly.
i know, i dont need upgraded gear and t5u ships. nobody is forcing me to, theres no gun to my head, etc :rolleyes: but the point is that i feel i need to be something better than a liability to teammates, and should in fact be able to carry them to ensure we do not fail. this feeling is only galvanised by the fact 95% of my toons are kdf.
unless 3/4 of the above issues are resolved, i dont think i will ever bother putting any effort into those alts ever again.
The problem with alts right now is that you need to be top level, top gear and top-rep in order to participate responsibly in the toughest group play content - because if you don't have that, queuing up for such content just means you make the experience less fun for your team mates, because they will have to compensate for your character's lack of combat power.
But how much does ONE exclusive elite PVE factor in as a required component of the alt playstyle? When you increase how far you can take a single character (ie. by adding most systems to develop them with) there needs to be content added to the game that justifies that effort. IE. some especially difficult elite content. However that elite content IS BY NO MEANS incorporated as a mandatory checkpoint for players to develop ANY given character, even mains. You can easily get by without effective access to it.
If you add a handicap factor to elite content you will immediately undermine what those PVE's are trying to do, create content that isn't accessible to all characters in STO. Its fair and reasonable to let some things sit beyond the reach of your typical, under developed alt and let them play content which is appropriately balanced for them and like players (ie. normal and advanced.)
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
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Good, I see a paradox here. Some players want to develop their character, character progress that never has to stop, because it gives them a goal. There also many players that want to play with a 'finished' a complete character. A character at level cap, top end gear etc. Getting at level cap is also their goal, because then they feel ready to play the game.
Both concepts cannot be joined together. I prefer the second system. My character should at some point be ready, finished, so I can play and concentrate on other things, like story, strategy and tactics, how do I win this battle, not what do I have to do before.
Think for a while at continuous and endless character progression. The more you have, the less it means. We have 4 four specializations, but can only have 2 active. A character with 2 specializations is as strong as one with 4, because you can only use two.
However, suppose all your specializations can be used, are active. A 4 spec character rules a 2 spec one. When we have 20 specializations, a 20 spec character is better than a 10 spec one, but not as much as the 4 spec to the 2 spec. The number of specializations does weigh, but each specialization more adds less. It is the effect of diminishing return.
The game maker can address the issue of diminishing return on character progress by making the character stronger and stronger in a steep way. WoW does it (when I played it a couple of years ago). I find it an ugly and mediocre system. You get the same game with bigger numbers.
That's um, not quite right. There is strength found in versatility and options. The character with 4 specializations (2 Primary and 2 Secondary) has more options than the character with 2 specializations (1 Primary and 1 Secondary).
Say you've got somebody that's Intelligence/Pilot...Pilot's not doing them any good on Ground. While somebody with 3 specializations (1 Primary, 2 Secondary) can switch from Pilot to Commando for Ground. Likewise, somebody with both Intelligence and Command can switch between those based on which would be better suited for what they're doing.
That's not diminishing returns...that's increased versatility, better adaptability, and increased efficiency.
It's along the lines of what the Reputations add...they allow one to tailor the build to situations.
Hell, it's along the lines of somebody having [Acc] weapons for PvP and [CrtD] weapons for PvE. Somebody with both isn't facing diminishing returns...
The problem with alts right now is that you need to be top level, top gear and top-rep in order to participate responsibly in the toughest group play content - because if you don't have that, queuing up for such content just means you make the experience less fun for your team mates, because they will have to compensate for your character's lack of combat power.
The solution would be to allow people to play that content, but not take away potential from the team. So if you bring only half as much power, you only count as half a player, and another "half player" comes with you into the mission to compensate for the lack of firepower.
Voila, suddenly, alts are fun again.
In a game where a T5 9 console boat with mission reward and random loot gear is overkill for Advanced content?
Comments
Free Tibet!
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
After this wretched "upgrade system", I can barely keep up upgrading one build on one character for one ship to MK XIV UR or epic. And as an added bonus, it's based on RNG! YAY?
The costs in recources and time both asociated with the upgrade system just make keeping and maintaning top notch alts not worthwhile anymore. At least for me. I cringe whenever I think what would be needed to completely gear up an alt these days and when that carrot is so far, boring and random to obtain - it kinda kills the motivation to even bother.
Good point. For the endgame you could easily just have 1 fed tac captain and be done with it. Or 3 tac captains if you want to fly every kind of ship available.
For leveling up, the game is 100% alt friendly since you don't need to care about any of the endgame stuff.
So: the game is "not alt friendly" if you think you need 20 alts, all instantly fully set up for endgame play
But now crafted items are account bound, which is very alt-friendly. Unlike fleet and rep gear I can share crafted consoles, weapons, armor, personal shields between my alts.
If one is doing ground stuff, I can transfer the TR-116 rifle and epic personal shield to them, and other goodies for the boffs. When they're done with ground missions I can pass them to a different alt.
I have never been able to switch chars on a whim or try to make sure they all have the same stuff. I tend to focus very tightly on whichever char I am playing at the time and play him/her until I get bored or come to a pause point which makes sense to me. My chars are all over the place in level and gear due to this. I've never been able to successfully keep them all at around the same strength. If one has the Samsar and the rest do not, I don't spend a lot of time agonizing over this.
Is this wrong? And no, I'm not being a smartass about this topic. I'd really like to know how to enjoy playing multiple chars more than I do now.
if it right for you and its the way you enjoy to play then its not wrong.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
That's a healthy way to play. Why do people think every alt needs to be maxed out, instantly, once one of them is?
For me, "it's the journey not the destination" -- I try to do things that I enjoy in the game to level up, not do something I hate over and over so someday I can maybe have some fun. To me that is doing it wrong. Do things you still enjoy, and eventually the spec points will take care of themselves.
This is a natural thing with people. Some people want the best. Here, people want the best ships, the best gear, the best BOFFs, DOFFs, and the like. That's why people flip their **** over getting Epic Mk XIV [CrtD]x4 AP Beam Arrays, get angry when they find out their ship is no longer "the best of the best" even if it was the "best of the best" five seconds ago, want to know why they aren't instantly getting specialization points right this very second, etc.
Also, people are stingy. They want the best for less.
It's not just the marks. The XP requirements/level. The low XPs you actually get ingame from standard play. The game tapping more and more into your dilithium stocks. That's just the stuff off the top of my head but I'm sure I'm missing more.
If you play 1 character, you'd feel none of the discomfort. But if you have alts, you're going to feel all of it.
There is something to be said about alts inheriting the mains progression (there needs to be more of that)
But truth is if you play this game like what it is, an mmo, you dont need top epic 14s to have fun, just good competent friends (at a fleet/dps/pestf channel near you!)
Im content with my alts rocking generic rare mk xii-mk xiii, pullin their weight.
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As for the spec point, well, you need HUNDREDS of stf to complete a single tree. The large majority of people complaining about the spec are not complaining because they want them now, but because it's not humanly feasible for the average player, unless you know how to grind for them, and have to will to do so. So much for something you are supposed to unlock by doing what you always did.
Many MMOs (and by that, I mean pretty much all of them) have alternate advancement. And you can earn those by doing what you always do. And they increase at a proper pace. Also, they have an alt friendliness STO doesn't have.
For example, ESO released their spec equivalent a few weeks ago. The points are account wide (but not the spec, even if you are free to do the same spec for all your char). Every day you have a LARGE xp boost (I mean really large). And in case that wasn't enough, it's rather fast, I did 2 points in about 2h. I've spent hours in STO without a single point.
The costs in dilithium to upgrade even one set of gear on one toon are astronomical forget multiple sets. I upgraded the gear on one toon and gave up halfway on a second. I'm not bothering with it anymore.
Then we have the painful xp gain. I leveled I believe three toons to 60, but gave up after that. I decided to leave my other alts behind and forget about all the fancy specialization points. It's not fun and just feels like work so I'm not doing it.
Pretty much all of my characters but 2 Mains will never again get any new lockbox or lobi ships and other goodies ever again. Wallet is closed for them.
This has the benefit if i want to do ground stfs i just play on the characters set up for that allready, no need to switch traits,specialization ect... Just log on and go. I hear some people actually deleted characters lol, why just make some ground only and some space only.
I was in tau dau patrols before the nerf bat so, they are all level 60 with most skill trees filled.
indeed; same thing for the campaign. i don't care about he specialization points, i just want to be able to do level 58/59/60 missions. But now it takes me too much time to earn 1 level
I still rock mk xi & mk xii everything pretty much and, I don't find it alt unfriendly at all.
There is no actual forcing you to upgrade or, even gain specializations just to play.
Get it, when you can get it, don't feel forced to or, you will of course feel that alts are not worth the effort.
Besides, people should have been well aware that ever more added content, will always add more grind to each and every character.
The game has almost no end so, people thinking rocking 30+ alts and, never having to grind them are sorely mistaken by taking on the burden of so many to begin with.
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So, I would like to point out that I am not happy about the state of how long it takes to level. However, I do not fret too much on the leveling as I have decided from the day Delta Rising launched that I would change my gaming habits that much. Sure it takes longer to get skill points now from everything, but I still intend to play how I want and reap the rewards that come in (whether it be dilithium, marks or spec points) and have fun doing it.
Let's keep up the discussion. I am happy that we have had a civil discussion and not have it degenerate into a hate filled thread like I see it sometimes.
shadowwraith, perfectly said.
I never feel forced to get anything. Though my new Delta Recruit character will not have the breen ships (until winter event), the Kobali cruiser or uniform, there will be more opportunities for other things to get. Plus when I get bored of playing the game, I take some time off and focus in on the Foundry until I'm ready to get back into the game again.
Think about what you said and think about how stupid that is. It's pretty much a basic premise to improve your character one way or another. Settling for mediocrity isn't a "goal."
By your own standards, you should be flying a T4 ship still at Lv60 :rolleyes:
Before DR I had 14 toons each had its own lockbox or fleet ship , They were all races and all types
They were fun to play each one different yet all of them could do a good job in the content
Now
I have 2 space characters..I will not grind them all up to DR standards too much UNFUN grinding to do it..so no new lockbox ships or new fleet ships for them no new traits...nothing..zip there not worth leveling up
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
It's called Paragon. Used to be for each character then they made it account wide but could only be leveled by a max level character.
That could work very well in STO. Sure they would have to fiddle with the numbers in order to compensate but hey, account wide Specs baby!
I also think ships should be account wide as well. This would REALLY improve sales on keys and r&d promos.
personally I have so far upgraded all of the stuff on one ship and one ground set to mk14 on each of my characters, I have also upgraded a few mk10 & mk11 special sets to mk12 and I have gradually been replacing most other stuff below mk12 with mk12 gear from in game rep and doff mission rewards, I plan to eventually upgrade the gear on 1 more ship on each character to mk14, all my gear will eventually be at least mk12 and rare quality or better.
there is a hourly rep missions for 15 marks that often pay out mk12 gear and also pays out a good bit of dil to help with upgrading costs and there are a few different doff missions that often pay out mk12 ground and ship gear, anything you get that is below mk12 rare or excess to requirements can always be recycled for EC.
all my characters have paid for their own upgrades with EC & dil earned in game by themselves without spending any real money whatsoever, you just need to be patient and temperate and set yourself an end goal to aim for.
sure it would be cool to be able to upgrade every bit of gear you have to mk14 but you really don't need to.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
The way I come to see it Cryptic is simply a bit in a struggle with alts because of the benefits they provide for the players and simply want us to hinder us a bit. Thats the way I come to see it with my 8 endgame toons:
- 8 sepc points / week without a single second of grind? I can only get those with my alts.
- 8 times as many daily reputation mark bonuses after all reputes are maxed out? Its free 500 Dil more for every single PvE I do.
- Turn in of 840 contraband in one week for half a million Dil? Would have only been a fraction of that with my main.
- 30000-40000 Fleetmarks (not credits) during one weekend without firing a single shot? 1 toon would probably need a year for that!
- Refine up to 68000 Dil/day? I dont care about a refining limit!
No, cryptic made it harder to do alts thats right but this game is half as alt un-friendly peeps would like to think and they have to bring it a lot harder on us before it gets.
If players would run CC with their MK12 gear with 5 alts which takes 30 minutes to one hour to do each day for the duration of half a moth one toon should come out of it with all MK14 gear easily.
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Both concepts cannot be joined together. I prefer the second system. My character should at some point be ready, finished, so I can play and concentrate on other things, like story, strategy and tactics, how do I win this battle, not what do I have to do before.
Think for a while at continuous and endless character progression. The more you have, the less it means. We have 4 four specializations, but can only have 2 active. A character with 2 specializations is as strong as one with 4, because you can only use two.
However, suppose all your specializations can be used, are active. A 4 spec character rules a 2 spec one. When we have 20 specializations, a 20 spec character is better than a 10 spec one, but not as much as the 4 spec to the 2 spec. The number of specializations does weigh, but each specialization more adds less. It is the effect of diminishing return.
The game maker can address the issue of diminishing return on character progress by making the character stronger and stronger in a steep way. WoW does it (when I played it a couple of years ago). I find it an ugly and mediocre system. You get the same game with bigger numbers.
Actually compare the cost of upgrading a VR phaser console to XII versus having to buy one from the exchange (before spire consoles were an option.) Upgrades have made higher level gear immensely more accessible to alternative characters (as in before DR the most I'd ever spring for on an alt is VR XI, whereas now they're all rolling in VR or UR XIV) especially considering that dilithium now is one of the most accessible resources in STO (whereas with old EC you have to work the market quite intensively if you want to go anywhere quickly.)
There is however still an element of trade-offs (sure, I'll go for XIV consoles for everyone, but I've only upgraded the weapons from XII on my main) but even still the outcome is favorable (because even where there's an analogous cut-off point between alt and main gear between pre and post DR systems, the current system is at least more flexible and capable of being invested in incrementally.)
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my main has all reps done, most accolades complete, all gear upgraded to epic14, all crafting scools 15+, and pilot, commando, and intel finished. it was no small effort to get all of that done.
my alts generally have rep finished, but have mk12 fleet non-upgraded gear and are stuck at level 50. i got them to that point prior to DR, and it was always my intent to have them as viable toons rather than farmers or mules. i did hit one alt pretty hard during the recent xp bonus and managed to get her up to level 56, but outside of that i dont put any effort into them any more. pretty much all i use them for these days is contra and omega crafting.
im not sure why i find them so unappealing to play anymore, but if i had to guess id have to say its down to
1. the slow rate of meaningful progression. 50-60 takes forever and required patrol grinds and whatnot.
2. pilot and commando spec trees seem to be not merely out of reach, but completely unattainable.
3. prohibitive cost of upgrading loadouts to a level that makes them viable in even advanced queues.
4. unwillingness to buy t5u tokens for the varying ships they all fly.
i know, i dont need upgraded gear and t5u ships. nobody is forcing me to, theres no gun to my head, etc :rolleyes: but the point is that i feel i need to be something better than a liability to teammates, and should in fact be able to carry them to ensure we do not fail. this feeling is only galvanised by the fact 95% of my toons are kdf.
unless 3/4 of the above issues are resolved, i dont think i will ever bother putting any effort into those alts ever again.
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But how much does ONE exclusive elite PVE factor in as a required component of the alt playstyle? When you increase how far you can take a single character (ie. by adding most systems to develop them with) there needs to be content added to the game that justifies that effort. IE. some especially difficult elite content. However that elite content IS BY NO MEANS incorporated as a mandatory checkpoint for players to develop ANY given character, even mains. You can easily get by without effective access to it.
If you add a handicap factor to elite content you will immediately undermine what those PVE's are trying to do, create content that isn't accessible to all characters in STO. Its fair and reasonable to let some things sit beyond the reach of your typical, under developed alt and let them play content which is appropriately balanced for them and like players (ie. normal and advanced.)
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That's um, not quite right. There is strength found in versatility and options. The character with 4 specializations (2 Primary and 2 Secondary) has more options than the character with 2 specializations (1 Primary and 1 Secondary).
Say you've got somebody that's Intelligence/Pilot...Pilot's not doing them any good on Ground. While somebody with 3 specializations (1 Primary, 2 Secondary) can switch from Pilot to Commando for Ground. Likewise, somebody with both Intelligence and Command can switch between those based on which would be better suited for what they're doing.
That's not diminishing returns...that's increased versatility, better adaptability, and increased efficiency.
It's along the lines of what the Reputations add...they allow one to tailor the build to situations.
Hell, it's along the lines of somebody having [Acc] weapons for PvP and [CrtD] weapons for PvE. Somebody with both isn't facing diminishing returns...
In a game where a T5 9 console boat with mission reward and random loot gear is overkill for Advanced content?