...The XP is being tweaked (nothing is being removed) so these assignments don't scale massively compared to others. Why introduce anything else if there's only one obvious source of XP in the DQ?
I'm suggesting they were introduced to induce traffic to the delta quadrant. Now traffic is no longer wanted there so they are being normalized.
I expect a 4x nerfing. If it's only a 2x then they are still worthwhile, but 4x means they may as well be removed entirely.
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."
Upper management need to start listening to the playerbase because they clearly aren't. Remember its the players that generate the income that pays your wages. Alienate the players and the game will fail. Its not enough to rely on churn. What happens when STO and cryptics reputation for nerfing and ignoring the players starts to drive new players away?
They already have started to drive people away, they have been since Delta Rising. At this point, the game feels like a never ending cycle of abusing the player and totally ignoring them. I've never known a game that is so utterly out of touch with its (diminishing) audience. If they think this stuff is going to keep people in the game, they are wrong.
I suspect this will drive less and less people to play and less people playing means less chance for revenue generation. Not to mention damage the image of this game. To any new players looking at this game, I wonder if they'd bother - this game is punishing and its name is nearly mud in MMO circles.
I suspect this will drive less and less people to play and less people playing means less chance for revenue generation. Not to mention damage the image of this game. To any new players looking at this game, I wonder if they'd bother - this game is punishing and its name is nearly mud in MMO circles.
The Timing is actually pretty funny ... wasn't Delta Recruits supposed to draw in new people ... so why not hit them with the Nerfbat three weeks later ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
I'm suggesting they were introduced to induce traffic to the delta quadrant. Now traffic is no longer wanted there so they are being normalized.
Then why only the 12 hours assignments? Its reasonable to suppose incentives (see. DQ patrol payouts) but take the logic forward a setp. Why only tweak one particular class of doff assignment when there's many, many more opportunities to "incentivize" DQ traffic? If there's the motivation you'd expect it to be consistently expressed, not relegated to only a small category (which is more likely to be overlooked) with absolutely no special significance or function (apart from their inflated XP payouts).
There's no clear intention here besides "some 12 hour assignments were wacked (obvious in comparing their rewards versus others, patricularly the longer ones), here's a fix." We may not like the fix because its removing something we took advantage of, but it is from a mechanical point of view a system fix.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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!
Then why only the 12 hours assignments? Its reasonable to suppose incentives but take the logic forward a setp. Why only tweak one particular class of doff assignment when there's many, many more opportunities to "incentivize" DQ traffic.
Because other Assigments don't reward squat !? 50 XP for some 5h Assignment in the DQ ... yeah no thanks, I'd rather sit on my TRIBBLE in the Beta & Alpha Quadrant for the exact same thing !!
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
The Timing is actually pretty funny ... wasn't Delta Recruits supposed to draw in new people ... so why not hit them with the Nerfbat three weeks later ...
I know lol Don't really see the point of trying to bring in new players if no sooner are they in the door, you throw frustrating progression obstacles at them. At least we're used to it. Wasn't the whole point of Delta Recruitment to get new people onboard and try to improve the game so they'll stay?
Then why only the 12 hours assignments? Its reasonable to suppose incentives but take the logic forward a setp. Why only tweak one particular class of doff assignment when there's many, many more opportunities to "incentivize" DQ traffic.
There's no clear intention here besides "12 hour assignments were wacked, here's a fix." We may not like the fix because its removing something we took advantage of, but it is from a mechanical point of view a system fix.
They have also nerfed the patrols (for me anyway) into oblivion. The patrols and the 12 hour doff missions were the incentives to visit the DQ. Now we are meant to be doing pilot ships and the iconian war.
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."
Because other Assigments don't reward squat !? 50 XP for some 5h Assignment in the DQ ... yeah no thanks I'd rather sit on my TRIBBLE in the Beta & Alpha Quadrant !!
If you're just going to sit wherever the XP/Time ratio is best then why are you complaining in the first place? One source is equivalent to any other. Gameplay, content, story, setting. No, none of that matters. Its just the XP payout. That's the end all of content design. You'll eat up whatever has the highest and compromise all other considerations in the process.
And here's a fun fact: there's still other XP payouts. High ones too, and they're still attached to the doffing system. They may not be as efficient, but they're functionally identical. You'll move onto them without any thought/care and in a weeks time nothing will have meaningfully changed for you.
Just one grinding state to another. No real change. So where's the angst, besides that which you choose to heap on the game?
They have also nerfed the patrols (for me anyway) into oblivion. The patrols and the 12 hour doff missions were the incentives to visit the DQ. Now we are meant to be doing pilot ships and the iconian war.
The mixed playstyle works just fine. Do some of this, some of that. You'll earn enough XP where specializations are still earned short of geologic time and you won't find yourself in too many explicit grinds (including anything new).
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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!
If you're just going to sit wherever the XP/Time ratio is best then why are you complaining in the first place? One source is equivalent to any other. Gameplay, content, fun, story. No, none of that matters. Its just the XP payout. That's the end all.
Sorry you got it all wrong ... the incentive for visiting places like the DQ, Sphere, Eta Eridani, Beta Ursae etc etc was looking for the "good stuff" (like others have said ... it was basically a "Treasure Hunt") ... if all Assignments are normalized there is no reason to travel anymore ...
Before Nerf : Traveling & looking for "good" Assignments
After Nerf : Who cares ... all of them are "normalized" ... sitting on your TRIBBLE will suffice ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
Long time ago in some other long gone version of the game we had to some extent playable pvp and casual and fun pve where even the 20 men events would pop up.
Then it all got a balance check, pve got awesome fail conditions and pvp became a time/money black hole.
Now everything is awesome and the queues are popping up for everyone doing everything they want and Smirk is not here, but still everything is awesome.:P
Sorry you got it all wrong ... the incentive for visiting places like the DQ, Sphere, Eta Eridani etc etc was for looking for the "good stuff" (like others have said it was basically a "Treasure Hunt") ... if all Assignments are normalized there is no reason to travel anymore ...
Before Nerf : Traveling & looking for "good" Assignments
After Nerf : Who cares ... all of them are "normalized" ... sitting on your TRIBBLE will suffice ...
...The reason to travel to places like the DQ, BQ, AQ, and spheres is the content those places contain. If maxing out doff XP dictates your playstyle AGAIN you have absolutely nothing to complain about. An equilibrium point is changing. That's it. You won't do this class of best doffing assignment but you'll still have the next best class to obsess over.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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!
WOW. Now that is a nerfing. Maybe the architect of this can give seminars for other game developers?
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."
If maxing out doff XP dictates your playstyle AGAIN you have absolutely nothing to complain about. An equilibrium point is changing. That's it. You won't this class of best doffing assignment but you'll still have the next best class to obsess over.
Oh the irony ... you're basically telling other people in a Thread about Doffing, that Doffing isn't important .... while wasting your time doing it .... if nodody would "care about it" this Thread wouldn't even exist ...
PS : Which "Class" ... it's a 90% Nerf ... you're telling Sportscar Enthusiasts to be excited about Wheelchairs ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
I feel like they'd get a lot less flak if they updates the negatives along with the positives. I think its fantastic they got dil into story missions for example, but that came a long long time after the dil nerfing they did.
Also, spec points take far, far too long as it is, especially across multiple characters and multiple specs, the game is going to be long gone before I fill on tree on my main at the pace it goes. Personally, I'd prefer it like Marvel Heroes' Omega system, where you have a shared pool of points earned, and then each character chooses how they want to spend those earned points. (Say you've earned 300 or so points, each character can spend 300 points differently in their large array of traits). Sorry that's a bit off topic, ties in with XP right?
Oh the irony ... you're basically telling other people in a Thread about Doffing, that Doffing isn't important .... while wasting your time doing it ....
No, I'm telling you that because you decide to doff strictly based on Xp payout then any changes to Xp payouts will NOT have any other effect than to reduce your XP/Time ratio. You don't select where to go or what to do based on content (ex. what each assignment actually says.) From your expressed point of view there may as well only be a "press to start 12 hour XP countdown" button. No, you go where the numbers tell you to go. So now the numbers are changing. However after this update you'll still go where they tell you to. You'll hit these points rather than those points and earn just a bit less for doing so. But that's not changing gameplay (ie. how you approach the game), only the entirely incidental pattern you apply to it (which you're not attached to except as much as its the best Xp source ATM).
Ergo: no issue what-so-ever (except the attitude you're projecting onto this argument).
Whereas when there's only one or two assignments that are worth doing for the massively inflated XP payouts, someone from my POV (who does appreciate things like writing and story) has to force themselves to ignore a horrendously blatent "best choice" in order to do the things they think are more appropriate for their character. With this XP nerf, that's less of a problem. There's not as much Xp to go around but because Xp is less a factor (down from "monumentally overpowering to almost any other consideration", these assignments were MASSIVELY inflated) other motivations (such as "you know what I think recovering borg drones is important" or "voth troop movements are worth finding out...") have a better shot at finding expression (and thereby make STO something more than a glorified electronic time sink.)
I'm sure you will have absolutely no ability to comprehend that, but other might and its worth stating for their benefit (since there is another approach you can take to video games besides "my pants have the highest numbers in all the land, bow before them!")
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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!
Sorry you got it all wrong ... the incentive for visiting places like the DQ, Sphere, Eta Eridani, Beta Ursae etc etc was looking for the "good stuff" (like others have said ... it was basically a "Treasure Hunt") ... if all Assignments are normalized there is no reason to travel anymore ...
Before Nerf : Traveling & looking for "good" Assignments
After Nerf : Who cares ... all of them are "normalized" ... sitting on your TRIBBLE will suffice ...
They've already talked about scaling up the rewards from rare and very rare assignments to make them preferable, so we know when they say 'normalize' they don't mean making every assignment exactly the same.
In addition to that we will still have assignments that reward different things. Some assignments will still reward contraband, but others will not. Some assignments will still reward Doffs, but others will not. Some assignments will still reward Boffs, but others won't. This creates enough diversity to give people a reason to explore around.
This is all information available right now, so calm down. Right now all you're doing is giving people examples for the next time they want to complain about how STO players panic and jump to stupid conclusions.
Yeah sure ... right after "Poker Minigame" & "Weekly FE's" ... if you haven't noticed "Nerfing now, to buff when hell freezes over" is kind of their Motto ...
Whereas when there's only one or two assignments that are worth doing for the massively inflated XP payouts, someone from my POV (who does appreciate things like writing and story)
You appreciate DOFF Assignments for "Writing & Story" ... ?!?
After S10 there are ~10 Assignments in each Sector (~15-20 before S10) ... no need to "focus" ...
Okay, since you seem to be repeatedly missing the point in favor of gleefully bleating about how anyone who doffs should memorize the details of every single assignment that exists, gloves are off. Let me break this down into terms you might understand.
Some players have some types of missions that they like or don't like more than others. I know, it's hard to come to terms with different people being different, but you'll manage.
Some players spend more time in one area of space than others. Also shocking.
Different players develop different routes through the game that they frequent.
Those players will see some missions more than others, and may not see certain ones at all. I'll take a moment so that you can absorb this.
It is absolutely beyond contest that the missions being changed here have rewards that are way out of proportion to the rest of the missions.
If a player does not run these missions, but already finds doffing rewarding, they are not going to see a change to bring these missions as a nerf. They are going to correctly see it as a fix to bring these missions in line with the rest of the system.
The only people who are going to feel a nerf from this are people who have gotten used to exploiting the broken rewards from these missions. Sorry-not-sorry that your gravy train is over.
I mostly kept the above to one or two syllables and avoided compound sentences where possible. But if it's still too complicated to understand, perhaps I can supply crayons and pictures.
Fleet Admiral L'Yern - Screenshot and doffing addict
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
Okay, since you seem to be repeatedly missing the point in favor of gleefully bleating about how anyone who doffs should memorize the details of every single assignment that exists, gloves are off. Let me break this down into terms you might understand.
Some players have some types of missions that they like or don't like more than others. I know, it's hard to come to terms with different people being different, but you'll manage.
Some players spend more time in one area of space than others. Also shocking.
Different players develop different routes through the game that they frequent.
Those players will see some missions more than others, and may not see certain ones at all. I'll take a moment so that you can absorb this.
It is absolutely beyond contest that the missions being changed here have rewards that are way out of proportion to the rest of the missions.
If a player does not run these missions, but already finds doffing rewarding, they are not going to see a change to bring these missions as a nerf. They are going to correctly see it as a fix to bring these missions in line with the rest of the system.
The only people who are going to feel a nerf from this are people who have gotten used to exploiting the broken rewards from these missions. Sorry-not-sorry that your gravy train is over.
I mostly kept the above to one or two syllables and avoided compound sentences where possible. But if it's still too complicated to understand, perhaps I can supply crayons and pictures.
Or you could just swallow your pride & realize that you probably missed a lot during the ~2 months you're playing this game ... believe me, if you're doffing for 1+ years you've seen it all, no matter what Sector, Route etc you prefer ...
... sorry hard to take you seriously if you're telling others that the "Gravy Train" is "over" after 3+ YEARS .... especially if you haven't even seen the "Gravy Train", yet ...
PS : I know, you're actually an LTS, and this is just your 2nd Account ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
I mostly kept the above to one or two syllables and avoided compound sentences where possible. But if it's still too complicated to understand, perhaps I can supply crayons and pictures.
Meh don't bother. I think he just gets a thrill in still acting as though he has a leg to stand on despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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!
Different missions give different rewards. Some give a thousand dilithium ore on completion. Some COST dilithium ore. Some give you doffs, some give you boffs. Some give no spec xp. Others give a lot.
Do you think all missions should be equally good over time for getting dilithium? Every mission should be equally good for getting bridge officers, duty officers, EC, or XP?
Or, do you think that some missions should be better at giving things than others?
If you refuse to answer the questions I have posed, I will happily accept your concession.
My bread and butter are the good 2 to 8 hour missions. But when I feel up to a little journey I go visit the sphere and the delta quad every few days. It really did feel like a treasure hunt. I still say its appropriate for some missions to outperform. That's the fun.
I doff probably more than all other activities combined. I doff for exp, dilithium, and role playing. This really seems like a punitive nerfing, however. I mean at 10x nerfing the missions now pay way less than most others - maybe in line with a few of the very worst 20+ hour missions.
I think these 12 hour missions must have pissed someone up there off.
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."
I think he just gets a thrill in still acting as though he has a leg to stand on despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Don't confuse overwhelming number of posts with overwhelming evidence .
Any normal place would have had a +/- plan in place, and that would be what they would announce .
But Cryptic is not a normal place, and their version of a +/- plan is implementing the - first while giving vague assurances that the + is just around the corner .
... if you intentionally want to display your own stupidity by excepting and even promoting such TRIBBLE poor pretence at "serious planning" from a gaming company that excels at gaming their own customers, be my guest ...
Ok I'll put this a simply as I can from my perspective on doffing, First off I use it both gather certain items of value and to supplement my XP gains and such it takes up a fair percentage of my game time. I think I spend around and hour or so per cycle doffing. Secondly every time Cryptic have messed with the doffing system since the original designer/creator left they've screwed it up more times than I can count, now hopefully they've learnt enough about the system to stop this from happening when these unnecessary changes get railroaded through to Holodeck.
But lets take a trip down memory lane of the doffing system going back over say the last 12 months.
So step 1 Cryptic decide that the Doff UI needs a complete over haul, they produce something that someone referred to as something Fisher price would make for toddlers. After numerous complaints they finally introduce a "minimised" version of the new UI. But that's after they break the system so a number (and I don't know the exact figure) cant gather in any completed missions, for almost a month. They finally fix this issue.
Step 2 : Cryptic decide to pull the Exploration clusters from the game altogether because they don't meet they're current standards. Fair enough, many we're bugged to begin with. But in doing so any number of doff missions disappear along with it, months later despite numerous people posting on the forums and submitting bug reports, we finally get a response from a Dev asking which missions are no longer spawning, and some of them were still missing up to the release of S10.
At the time of Dof UI revamp, something else has happened, because many missions that used to show up on a regular basis started appearing less and less frequently, but it's simply dismissed by other forum users as nonsense. Marauding missions that award contraband take well over a day to respawn. And by going by older doffing patterns once every three days I would hit a dry patch for these, now I'm lucky to get one good run in every few days.
Haggle missions for Gamma Quadrant commodities, used to show up multiple times per day, now I'm lucky to see a full rotation per day, that's was until S10 launched and now I've seen one, being haggle for Incense since the S10 launch. We've yet to have any feed back or even an acknowledgement from the Dev team that this is even an issue in their eyes. But they've seemingly found time to go through multiple missions and highlight certain ones that are apparently "broken". And I say apparently because considering how many times they've broke a system that they themselves designed from the ground up, makes me question whether or not they actually know what they're looking for.
But I digress, my main objectives when doffing are as follows :
1/ Marauding missions that award contraband - which is either converted to dil or stockpiled then sold on the exchange.
2/ Haggles for Gamma Quadrant commodities - these have various uses for myself, whether it being used in other doff missions or sold via the exchange
3/ Prisoner transfer/exchange missions.
4/ Particle traces
5/ Assignment chains where applicable
If and only if I'm struggling to find the above missions will I look for those that grant XP above all else.
Now from my perspective and I'm doffing every 4 hours, 3 - 4 times per day without fail, with the exception of server patch days. I've seen a marked decrease in objectives 1 & 2. 3 are still missing certain missions namely the ones that require 3 prisoners these were found exclusively in the exploration clusters, the 5 man ones are still found dotted around through various sector blocks in the now Beta quadrant, but again not as frequently as they used to.
Objective 4, too many to shake a stick at and Objective 5 only recently were some of these fixed.
Comments
I'm suggesting they were introduced to induce traffic to the delta quadrant. Now traffic is no longer wanted there so they are being normalized.
I expect a 4x nerfing. If it's only a 2x then they are still worthwhile, but 4x means they may as well be removed entirely.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
They already have started to drive people away, they have been since Delta Rising. At this point, the game feels like a never ending cycle of abusing the player and totally ignoring them. I've never known a game that is so utterly out of touch with its (diminishing) audience. If they think this stuff is going to keep people in the game, they are wrong.
I suspect this will drive less and less people to play and less people playing means less chance for revenue generation. Not to mention damage the image of this game. To any new players looking at this game, I wonder if they'd bother - this game is punishing and its name is nearly mud in MMO circles.
The Timing is actually pretty funny ... wasn't Delta Recruits supposed to draw in new people ... so why not hit them with the Nerfbat three weeks later ...
Then why only the 12 hours assignments? Its reasonable to suppose incentives (see. DQ patrol payouts) but take the logic forward a setp. Why only tweak one particular class of doff assignment when there's many, many more opportunities to "incentivize" DQ traffic? If there's the motivation you'd expect it to be consistently expressed, not relegated to only a small category (which is more likely to be overlooked) with absolutely no special significance or function (apart from their inflated XP payouts).
There's no clear intention here besides "some 12 hour assignments were wacked (obvious in comparing their rewards versus others, patricularly the longer ones), here's a fix." We may not like the fix because its removing something we took advantage of, but it is from a mechanical point of view a system fix.
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!
Because other Assigments don't reward squat !? 50 XP for some 5h Assignment in the DQ ... yeah no thanks, I'd rather sit on my TRIBBLE in the Beta & Alpha Quadrant for the exact same thing !!
I know lol Don't really see the point of trying to bring in new players if no sooner are they in the door, you throw frustrating progression obstacles at them. At least we're used to it. Wasn't the whole point of Delta Recruitment to get new people onboard and try to improve the game so they'll stay?
They have also nerfed the patrols (for me anyway) into oblivion. The patrols and the 12 hour doff missions were the incentives to visit the DQ. Now we are meant to be doing pilot ships and the iconian war.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
If you're just going to sit wherever the XP/Time ratio is best then why are you complaining in the first place? One source is equivalent to any other. Gameplay, content, story, setting. No, none of that matters. Its just the XP payout. That's the end all of content design. You'll eat up whatever has the highest and compromise all other considerations in the process.
And here's a fun fact: there's still other XP payouts. High ones too, and they're still attached to the doffing system. They may not be as efficient, but they're functionally identical. You'll move onto them without any thought/care and in a weeks time nothing will have meaningfully changed for you.
Just one grinding state to another. No real change. So where's the angst, besides that which you choose to heap on the game?
The mixed playstyle works just fine. Do some of this, some of that. You'll earn enough XP where specializations are still earned short of geologic time and you won't find yourself in too many explicit grinds (including anything new).
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!
Sorry you got it all wrong ... the incentive for visiting places like the DQ, Sphere, Eta Eridani, Beta Ursae etc etc was looking for the "good stuff" (like others have said ... it was basically a "Treasure Hunt") ... if all Assignments are normalized there is no reason to travel anymore ...
Before Nerf : Traveling & looking for "good" Assignments
After Nerf : Who cares ... all of them are "normalized" ... sitting on your TRIBBLE will suffice ...
Then it all got a balance check, pve got awesome fail conditions and pvp became a time/money black hole.
Now everything is awesome and the queues are popping up for everyone doing everything they want and Smirk is not here, but still everything is awesome.:P
It's a 90% nerf.
They now only give 10% of the original xp.
...The reason to travel to places like the DQ, BQ, AQ, and spheres is the content those places contain. If maxing out doff XP dictates your playstyle AGAIN you have absolutely nothing to complain about. An equilibrium point is changing. That's it. You won't do this class of best doffing assignment but you'll still have the next best class to obsess over.
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!
WOW. Now that is a nerfing. Maybe the architect of this can give seminars for other game developers?
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
So DOFFING isn't Content ?
Oh the irony ... you're basically telling other people in a Thread about Doffing, that Doffing isn't important .... while wasting your time doing it .... if nodody would "care about it" this Thread wouldn't even exist ...
PS : Which "Class" ... it's a 90% Nerf ... you're telling Sportscar Enthusiasts to be excited about Wheelchairs ...
In other news, not everyone focuses on the same types of assignments. Shocking, I know.
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
the only point of getting higher quality doffs was so that you could have a high chance of critting the good missions
without good missions ... I can't really see myself going after high quality doffs
either buying them from the personnel officer or off the exchange
After S10 there are ~10 Assignments in each Sector (~15-20 before S10) ... no need to "focus" ...
Also, spec points take far, far too long as it is, especially across multiple characters and multiple specs, the game is going to be long gone before I fill on tree on my main at the pace it goes. Personally, I'd prefer it like Marvel Heroes' Omega system, where you have a shared pool of points earned, and then each character chooses how they want to spend those earned points. (Say you've earned 300 or so points, each character can spend 300 points differently in their large array of traits). Sorry that's a bit off topic, ties in with XP right?
No, I'm telling you that because you decide to doff strictly based on Xp payout then any changes to Xp payouts will NOT have any other effect than to reduce your XP/Time ratio. You don't select where to go or what to do based on content (ex. what each assignment actually says.) From your expressed point of view there may as well only be a "press to start 12 hour XP countdown" button. No, you go where the numbers tell you to go. So now the numbers are changing. However after this update you'll still go where they tell you to. You'll hit these points rather than those points and earn just a bit less for doing so. But that's not changing gameplay (ie. how you approach the game), only the entirely incidental pattern you apply to it (which you're not attached to except as much as its the best Xp source ATM).
Ergo: no issue what-so-ever (except the attitude you're projecting onto this argument).
Whereas when there's only one or two assignments that are worth doing for the massively inflated XP payouts, someone from my POV (who does appreciate things like writing and story) has to force themselves to ignore a horrendously blatent "best choice" in order to do the things they think are more appropriate for their character. With this XP nerf, that's less of a problem. There's not as much Xp to go around but because Xp is less a factor (down from "monumentally overpowering to almost any other consideration", these assignments were MASSIVELY inflated) other motivations (such as "you know what I think recovering borg drones is important" or "voth troop movements are worth finding out...") have a better shot at finding expression (and thereby make STO something more than a glorified electronic time sink.)
I'm sure you will have absolutely no ability to comprehend that, but other might and its worth stating for their benefit (since there is another approach you can take to video games besides "my pants have the highest numbers in all the land, bow before them!")
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've already talked about scaling up the rewards from rare and very rare assignments to make them preferable, so we know when they say 'normalize' they don't mean making every assignment exactly the same.
In addition to that we will still have assignments that reward different things. Some assignments will still reward contraband, but others will not. Some assignments will still reward Doffs, but others will not. Some assignments will still reward Boffs, but others won't. This creates enough diversity to give people a reason to explore around.
This is all information available right now, so calm down. Right now all you're doing is giving people examples for the next time they want to complain about how STO players panic and jump to stupid conclusions.
Yeah sure ... right after "Poker Minigame" & "Weekly FE's" ... if you haven't noticed "Nerfing now, to buff when hell freezes over" is kind of their Motto ...
You appreciate DOFF Assignments for "Writing & Story" ... ?!?
=>
Indeed ....
Some players have some types of missions that they like or don't like more than others. I know, it's hard to come to terms with different people being different, but you'll manage.
Some players spend more time in one area of space than others. Also shocking.
Different players develop different routes through the game that they frequent.
Those players will see some missions more than others, and may not see certain ones at all. I'll take a moment so that you can absorb this.
It is absolutely beyond contest that the missions being changed here have rewards that are way out of proportion to the rest of the missions.
If a player does not run these missions, but already finds doffing rewarding, they are not going to see a change to bring these missions as a nerf. They are going to correctly see it as a fix to bring these missions in line with the rest of the system.
The only people who are going to feel a nerf from this are people who have gotten used to exploiting the broken rewards from these missions. Sorry-not-sorry that your gravy train is over.
I mostly kept the above to one or two syllables and avoided compound sentences where possible. But if it's still too complicated to understand, perhaps I can supply crayons and pictures.
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
Or you could just swallow your pride & realize that you probably missed a lot during the ~2 months you're playing this game ... believe me, if you're doffing for 1+ years you've seen it all, no matter what Sector, Route etc you prefer ...
... sorry hard to take you seriously if you're telling others that the "Gravy Train" is "over" after 3+ YEARS .... especially if you haven't even seen the "Gravy Train", yet ...
PS : I know, you're actually an LTS, and this is just your 2nd Account ...
Meh don't bother. I think he just gets a thrill in still acting as though he has a leg to stand on despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
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!
Different missions give different rewards. Some give a thousand dilithium ore on completion. Some COST dilithium ore. Some give you doffs, some give you boffs. Some give no spec xp. Others give a lot.
Do you think all missions should be equally good over time for getting dilithium? Every mission should be equally good for getting bridge officers, duty officers, EC, or XP?
Or, do you think that some missions should be better at giving things than others?
If you refuse to answer the questions I have posed, I will happily accept your concession.
I doff probably more than all other activities combined. I doff for exp, dilithium, and role playing. This really seems like a punitive nerfing, however. I mean at 10x nerfing the missions now pay way less than most others - maybe in line with a few of the very worst 20+ hour missions.
I think these 12 hour missions must have pissed someone up there off.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Don't confuse overwhelming number of posts with overwhelming evidence .
Any normal place would have had a +/- plan in place, and that would be what they would announce .
But Cryptic is not a normal place, and their version of a +/- plan is implementing the - first while giving vague assurances that the + is just around the corner .
... if you intentionally want to display your own stupidity by excepting and even promoting such TRIBBLE poor pretence at "serious planning" from a gaming company that excels at gaming their own customers, be my guest ...
But lets take a trip down memory lane of the doffing system going back over say the last 12 months.
So step 1 Cryptic decide that the Doff UI needs a complete over haul, they produce something that someone referred to as something Fisher price would make for toddlers. After numerous complaints they finally introduce a "minimised" version of the new UI. But that's after they break the system so a number (and I don't know the exact figure) cant gather in any completed missions, for almost a month. They finally fix this issue.
Step 2 : Cryptic decide to pull the Exploration clusters from the game altogether because they don't meet they're current standards. Fair enough, many we're bugged to begin with. But in doing so any number of doff missions disappear along with it, months later despite numerous people posting on the forums and submitting bug reports, we finally get a response from a Dev asking which missions are no longer spawning, and some of them were still missing up to the release of S10.
At the time of Dof UI revamp, something else has happened, because many missions that used to show up on a regular basis started appearing less and less frequently, but it's simply dismissed by other forum users as nonsense. Marauding missions that award contraband take well over a day to respawn. And by going by older doffing patterns once every three days I would hit a dry patch for these, now I'm lucky to get one good run in every few days.
Haggle missions for Gamma Quadrant commodities, used to show up multiple times per day, now I'm lucky to see a full rotation per day, that's was until S10 launched and now I've seen one, being haggle for Incense since the S10 launch. We've yet to have any feed back or even an acknowledgement from the Dev team that this is even an issue in their eyes. But they've seemingly found time to go through multiple missions and highlight certain ones that are apparently "broken". And I say apparently because considering how many times they've broke a system that they themselves designed from the ground up, makes me question whether or not they actually know what they're looking for.
But I digress, my main objectives when doffing are as follows :
1/ Marauding missions that award contraband - which is either converted to dil or stockpiled then sold on the exchange.
2/ Haggles for Gamma Quadrant commodities - these have various uses for myself, whether it being used in other doff missions or sold via the exchange
3/ Prisoner transfer/exchange missions.
4/ Particle traces
5/ Assignment chains where applicable
If and only if I'm struggling to find the above missions will I look for those that grant XP above all else.
Now from my perspective and I'm doffing every 4 hours, 3 - 4 times per day without fail, with the exception of server patch days. I've seen a marked decrease in objectives 1 & 2. 3 are still missing certain missions namely the ones that require 3 prisoners these were found exclusively in the exploration clusters, the 5 man ones are still found dotted around through various sector blocks in the now Beta quadrant, but again not as frequently as they used to.
Objective 4, too many to shake a stick at and Objective 5 only recently were some of these fixed.
You forgot to add that they've added a deluge of unnecessary assignments to clutter up the UI .
... unless you think that it's actually beneficial to have 6 missions to craft turrets of each type of weapon available ...
</sarcasm>