So a month ago I started (what I thought was) an innocent thread here.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1425471
Days after it the development team, who apparently had never tried to use the doffing function they worked on, suddenly got interested in rewards. I naively assumed that because it had worked this way since doffing launch that it was working correctly. What harm could it do posting rewards?
Doffing was the main reason I logged in the past 2 years. I can't tell you why exactly but I kind of enjoyed it. Now it's been rendered pretty much moot and certain makes levelling my alts and upping their gear a bit of a waste of time. I guess on the upside I have more time for other games as I now only need login twice a day for 2 minutes to turn in contraband and refine dil (it'll take a year to burn through the piles) in the hopes that they one day refix the game.
Although I had almost no respect for the QA/QC done by cryptic I now see I had somehow still given them too much credit.
Again players, I'm sorry.
Comments
Then, the unneeded "revamped" UI on an UI that was already good, and turned DOFFING into playing with a Vtech "computer". Sure, we gained new nice features, which could have been easily added on the old UI. As of today, I still find the new DOFF UI absolutely terrible, and extremely tedious to read. While I never ahd any issue with the old one.
And finally, they nerf what's left of it.
Quite frankly, I don't see a point in doffing except for contraband/dil, and the DOFF buffs for the rest of the game.
I don't know if it's your fault or anything. Geko is out for nerfing any xp we might earn, and destroy his wonderful grind park he created. Because you know, grind is fun, you are not allowed to have fun another way. It was only a matter of time until the God Metrics told them about it.
I loved the way he put it on twitter, like it was a fix (is there any nerf that's not a fix ?), and how it was necessary, when the game is so full of bugs and imbalance on the other hand. As a player, I can clearly see more urgent fix to do, like the random ground BOFF ability switch, the lag, the 50-60xp progression, the imbalance in game skill/power/weapons....
Some of those issues makes the game barely playable. But DOFFing rewarding too much ? Top priority !
I mean, dual cannons are useless since YEARS (forever perhaps), and nobody at Cryptic is doing anything. DHC have gone the same way, thanks to the almighty BFAW, and they BUFF the R&D beam trait...
And I think if the reason you play a video game is suspiciously high number of points awarded to only ONE type of non-gameplay assignment its time to move on in any case.
This is like quitting Halo because 343 removed a rocket spawn from a couple maps or if Bethesda removed a few potion drops from dead wizards. If it truly means the world to you, you have strayed so far away from a balanced perspective on video games that the best thing you can do is try something else and hope against hope you don't reach the same depths of utter madness.
Doffing is still here. Doffing is still profitable. Doffing as a system has not been touched. Excessive Xp unjustifiably tied to 12 hour assignments has. That's not the pivot around which the game operates. If its "the reason" why you're leaving, its an excuse for a more systemic fatigue/irritation which you don't have the ability to articulate (which we all go through at some point in our gaming careers, though using it to grandstand is another matter) or the product of an absolutely unhinged mind (which is unlikely to be finding its way here to make a complaint of some kind).
Take your pick but my money is on the former.
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I know what you mean..
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Duncan you obviously have no idea what has actually been impacted in this nerf. It's not 12 hour missions it's almost all missions you can see a 90% reduction in some here: http://i.imgur.com/1rFH90i.png (from linksword). This is not like a change in potion drops this is like cutting all magic damage by 90% one day.
For creating this thread? If you don't do it again, you won't have to say sorry next time.
don't be a prick..!
Too many times, Devs use the information here to determine the targets of their next massively over bearing nerfs. When people ask the best way to do something, I usually don't reply because if certain devs see something that players are using to succeed, they will nerf it into the ground.
It's not the OP's fault.. it's just how it is. You have to be very careful what information you give out here because they're always looking for the next massive nerf. The biggest downside of STO in my opinion is the staggering way they're always reducing rewards compared to very few increases.
I really wish they would stop it.
For you, I guess.
It still works fine for me, but I never was hardcore enough to warp around and seek out the best farming missions every day.
Like many of Cryptic's "nerfs" this is reducing rewards for hardcore farmers in ways that don't really affect the normal more casual players.
In my opinion they've been pretty clever at going after the small minority of farmers while making things better for the rest of us by adding or increasing dil in missions and alerts, having events like Delta Recruiting, etc.
I'm a causal doffer even though I play daily. I've seen my gameplay rewards go up not down.
OP bragged about exploiting a bug. OP has the ego to think their post was the cause of the bug finally being fixed. Mocking the OP should be expected...no? And lol, seriously, with the OP also posting info that was debunked in the countless other threads that already exist on the subject? Yeah, there's all sorts of "I really shouldn't reply to this, should just report it...but it's just so funny, I need to reply to the OP."
That photo doesn't show anything but the reduction in xp for 12 hour missions.
I doff 7 chars daily for dil, xp and general profit both fed and Klingon. The 12 hours were hit, still plenty on other missions.
It is all entitlement and self pity.
not to mention staying quiet about potential exploits instead of reporting them is exactly what leads devs to extreme actions in the first place.......shhhhh, this is giving way more exp than it should, make sure you keep it to yourselves
In this particular case, however, they were 'supposed to,' at least for the kdf. I would also say they were 'supposed to' in the sphere and the delta quad to incentivize play there. Now we are no longer meant to visit those areas so we see incentives to play Iconian queues.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
What? Did you say FaW, and ONLY FaW allows the Embassy Console's Plasma Explosions to crit?
Shhh... keep it a secret!
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Except there is no proof of that. There is nothing explicitly stating that the 12 hour assignments were supposed to be doing that. Somebody said it. Somebody parroted it. Suddenly it's what was said but nothing that Heretic said says that...and even when somebody quotes all that Heretic said there, folks just ignore that - cause their delusions are more comforting than the reality. It's all been covered in the two main threads on the subject.
It is very clear that the doff system was designed to be quirky. It was an art not a science. The rewards are all over the place. But don't worry, dear. You can rejoice when all is normalized soon.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
what have you got to say sorry for? this stuff has happened and i saw the writing on the wall years ago, why has has it taken you and others like yourself so long to see cryptic and pwe for what it is... but since you are learning to actually see for once, that is actually a good thing. i dont see how you feel you are responsible for an apology.
this is why i never really doffed since it first came out, because its just another game mechanic and with people praising cryptic for it, its like feeling a troll. eventually cryptic brought out more grindathon systems and here we are after people decide to praise cryptic for some really bad systems they brought in.
but each to their own.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Asking why something was not fixed in a timely manner does not mean it was not broken.
As I said, it was done in both of the other threads.
Heretic's thread...
Duty Officers 101
Some folks have tried just to go with this part...
...only they've added in all sorts of things that were not said there, even as they quote it.
They might even quote this from his third post in that thread...
...while completely ignoring this from that same third post...
...and how the 12 hour rewards stood out like a sore thumb compared to the 8 hour and 20 hour rewards.
And then there's the kicker from Heretic in another thread...
...where he points out just how little DOFFing should provide compared to gameplay otherwise and makes note that certain rewards will need to be reined in because of bugs and balance issues.
Why did it go over 3 years after that last post? That post itself wasn't made until over four months after he did the 101 thread. He was gone within eight months of having made that last post quoted up there. He wasn't the only one gone at that point. And that wasn't the only shift in staffing that took place during that time.
* * * * *
Some may say the following is only coincidence, but...
April 23rd, 2015: http://priorityonepodcast.com/po219/
May 1st, 2015: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1448801
May 1st was the Tribble release notes first mentioning they had resolved an issue with the 12-15.9 hour DOFF assignments.
April 23rd? Priority One? Huh? That's when the podcast was recorded where where Geko said he had been looking at the Duty Officer system and talked vaguely about some of the changes he wants to make. Voila, eh? Geko actually looked at the system...saw the issue...told the guys to fix it? Cause well, it's not exactly a case that for three-plus years folks were bug reporting what the 12 hour assignments were doing, eh? But yeah, Geko in having looked at it followed shortly by them resolving the issue...coincidence or causation?
Course, I still think folks should be far more upset about the changes he talked for the Duty Officer system in that podcast than the adjustments made to the 12 hour assignments. Cause that's some damn /facepalm stuff he talks about with making it more like a combination of Magic the Gathering and Farmville there...special DOFFs (cards) and building barns (assignment chains) to get stuff done.
I'd be all sorts of ranting and raving asking about that stuff instead of complaining about the 12 hour changes...cause folks will probably forget all about the 12 hour stuff whenever those barnyard changes come about.
There is and has never been a exploit in this game
The developers put in the content to be played
The players play it
If anyone has been exploited its the players of STO
If you crack there files and take advantage of it ...That's a exploit
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Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
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Do you think every bug that is around for 3 years is put in by the developers intentionally? So the "Boff-Unslot"bug, that was always supposed to be there?
No one checked it out specifically. Maybe someone actually noticed "oh, look, these missions tend to give a lot of skill points, I guess I should put some here because that's a nice-to-have" without realizing that the mission was just out of whack with other type of missions.
Also, even if the develoeprs put something totally intentionally in the game doesn't mean that they need to keep it that way. They can change things. Before F2P even, they realized that they thought science consoles gave too much of a buff, so they lowered the bonus in half, except for science consoles you already had. They later decided that this was a dumb idea and changed that.
There was a time the devs said "No, there will be no saucer seperation or multi-vector assault mode, it's too difficult"... And then they suddenly added it!
For a while, they thought every character should spend the same effort on grinding reputations, but then they decided to add sponsorship tokens so that at least alts would be able to do it faster.4
Entitlement 101.
Cryptic really needs to look at the various assignments. How a 8 hour assignment can reward more XP than a 48 hour assignment is beyond my understanding. I can understand how shorter assigments have better XP/min rewards, but longer assignments should always reward more XP unless there is some other cost involved like Contraband.
but hey alteast the game is free to play now so we can always hang in there kitten. or just come back to check out new content like most people do nowdays.
Yeah, there are some long assignments that are just trippy /facepalms.
That Rare 40-hour Trade assignment always comes to mind.
Sure, there's this bit...
...so it would be possible to have shorter duration assignments that reward better than longer duration assignments if enough things come into play to do that; but some of them - there's nothing that stands out. They just look like they've got faulty rewards going for them.
Then Hell, there's this trio of assignments...
http://i.imgur.com/1adbWtW.png
Create Map?
Research Lab Scientist
Critical Success: Efficient, Eidetic Memory, Honorable
Success: Research Lab Scientist
Failure: Stubborn
Disaster: Cunning, Unscrupulous
Research Lab Scientist
Critical Success: Efficient, Eidetic Memory, Honorable
Success: Research Lab Scientist
Failure: Stubborn
Disaster: Cunning, Unscrupulous
Science
Critical Success: Efficient, Eidetic Memory, Honorable
Success: Research Lab Scientist
Failure: Stubborn
Disaster: Cunning, Unscrupulous
Science
Critical Success: Efficient, Eidetic Memory, Honorable
Success: Research Lab Scientist
Failure: Stubborn
Disaster: Cunning, Unscrupulous
Casualty Risk: None
Depict?
Research Lab Scientist
Critical Success: Efficient, Eidetic Memory, Honorable
Success: Research Lab Scientist
Failure: Stubborn
Disaster: Cunning, Unscrupulous
Science
Critical Success: Efficient, Eidetic Memory, Honorable
Success: Research Lab Scientist
Failure: Stubborn
Disaster: Cunning, Unscrupulous
Science
Critical Success: Efficient, Eidetic Memory, Honorable
Success: Research Lab Scientist
Failure: Stubborn
Disaster: Cunning, Unscrupulous
Casualty Risk: None
Describe?
Research Lab Scientist
Critical Success: Efficient, Eidetic Memory, Founders of the Federation
Success: Research Lab Scientist
Failure: Stubborn
Disaster: Cunning, Unscrupulous
Research Lab Scientist
Critical Success: Efficient, Eidetic Memory, Founders of the Federation
Success: Research Lab Scientist
Failure: Stubborn
Disaster: Cunning, Unscrupulous
Science
Critical Success: Efficient, Eidetic Memory, Founders of the Federation
Success: Research Lab Scientist
Failure: Stubborn
Disaster: Cunning, Unscrupulous
Science
Critical Success: Efficient, Eidetic Memory, Founders of the Federation
Success: Research Lab Scientist
Failure: Stubborn
Disaster: Cunning, Unscrupulous
Casualty Risk: None
* * * * *
Now this is on a KDF toon. So the assignment with the FotF trait for a Critical Success, that requires an additional DOFF, and is Rare compared to Uncommon...is rewarding less than the Depict? And the FotF instead of Honorable (Fed vs. KDF) on a KDF has the Create rewarding more than the Describe?
Lolwut...?