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Which marks are the hardest/most annoying to obtain?
jeffsteelman
Member Posts: 9 Arc User
Hello everyone! I've started a new delta recruit recently (Rom-Fed-Eng), and have yet to claim any of the free marks from finding the Iconian stuff. I figured I'd choose marks that are difficult or otherwise aggravating to farm, grind, or otherwise obtain. I've never really messed with the reputation system, and I'm more of a casual player, so I don't really know anything about rep gear or whatever the high end stuff beyond "click this to start project" is. Any advice would be appreciated. 
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"There... are... four... lights!" ~Jean Luc Picard
My opinion if you just do a single daily mark pack, from easiest to hardest:
New Romulus (Nequencia - no combat, takes 2 minutes if you know the trades)
Nukara (Scientific Sabotage or Indentured Dismissal - very little ground combat, if enough players are in the area you might not shoot anything at all, pick up Thinning the Hive if it's available but don't stress completing it)
Delta (Argala - standard Delta grind mission)
Borg (Higher Ground - pretty quick to complete, only shooting 1 unshielded Borg Tac drone at a time, turrets can be a bit glitchy)
Dyson (Voth Adventure Zone , can get the Voth Tech or whatever they're called from the Omega Silo portion)
Undine (Undine Space Battle Zone, can get the Isomorphic Injectors from the Planet Destroyer portion)
Iconian (Kobali Adventure Zone, specifically At The Gates and whichever one comes after it, also awards the Data Spheres)
Getting them in large quantities somewhat depends on if you have a stable fleet or group of friends to run content, at which point it comes down to how comfortable you are with the Normal and Advanced queues. New Romulus, Delta, Dyson, and Undine (in that order) probably have the best soloable content for large-scale farming if you can't get a good team/don't like pugging, followed by Nukara, Borg, and Iconian.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
All of them, as a delta recruit, the amount of marks you get for finding the iconian artifacts is substantial, you can easily stick several hundred into each rep if you want.
All reps are potentially useful, not just for the fancy sets, but because each tier in each rep unlocks ground or space traits that can provide a significant boost to your toon, omega 2 for example unlocks kinetic shearing, 40% thu shield damage, iconian 2 unlocks a % heal based on your outgoing damage, shoot to heal, and so on.
See if you are affected b y the dyson ground zone crash bug, if you are dump free marks into that, if not, marks there are easy to get, so stick them in other reps instead, delta/iconian marks can be had on Kobali Prime easily enough, maybe stick them into omega(borg), undine, new romulus.
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life...</b></size></center>
Since there isn't much to be had from the Rep, I'd let this one slide until you can commit to said tediousness.
I'd use the Delta's choice of marks for the Delta Rep only because the Iconian marks aren't a choice.
While grinding for Undine Marks in the BZ, you'll get the added bonus of lvling your Ship Trait in the process.
Running the Borg STF's and spending some time on Defera is pretty painless.
Nukara is nice, too bad there's basically nothing I want from the Rep.
Dyson Marks/Implants shouldn't be a problem at all.
They rain from the heavens in the Voth BZ.
Of course, after this post rewards there will be stealth-nerfed again.
RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
9 Romulan system patrols, 10 marks each, each taking about 10-15 minutes. If one of those is the daily bonus marks, then 145 marks for the run.
By the time you complete the first run through, the cool downs have reset and the run is ready to repeat. Not as many, as quickly as getting marks in something like a Borg STF, but fast enough to keep the rep going and have enough marks to buy some stuff once levels are unlocked.
"There... are... four... lights!" ~Jean Luc Picard
And even those last two... My kdfs have yet to set foot in the Delta Quadrant or enter a Delta queue and they've complete their Delta reputations thanks to winter/summer/crystalline entity/mirror invasion event choice boxes. In fact I'm waiting on the next choice box event before even starting any Iconian reputation.
For my Delta recruit, I just spread out the reward equally (Iconian isn't a choice yet
That's what I said...tedious.
RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
Omega Rep - Defera Ground; Borg Red Alerts
- I wish the Borg Deep Space Encounters rewarded Omega Rep
Nukara Rep - Tholian Red Alert
A bit rarer than Borg Red Alerts but it does pop. However, I recommend at least the Daily "Crystalline Catastrophe Advanced" run. It is hard to **** up CCA.
Romulan Rep - New Romulus Ground; Tau Dewa Patrols; Raising Epohhs
Dyson Rep - Voth Ground BZ; The 2 Solanae Sphere Adventure Zones for ships
8472 Rep - Undine BZ
Delta Rep - Delta Quadrant Patrols, Kobali BZ
Iconian Rep - Kobali BZ, at least on the last parts but the marks amount is terrible
Without doing queues, you'll typically net around 10 marks, whether it's a Red Alert or Battlezone mission. But you'll also have the Daily Bonus Marks Package for each rep. If you're working on all the reps, I'd do a rotation to hit each of the reps once with something. Just so you get the Daily Marks Package and very slowly at least accumulate Marks while still filling the Daily Rep Project. But if you want higher mark gains, then you need to hit the queues. Not to mention some tokens like Datacores can only be attained from very specific content.
Data Cores and Ancient Power Cells are both obtainable on Kobali...
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life...</b></size></center>
Iconains being new have limited mark opportunities, and are also quite vicious.
Easiest, probably depends on how you like to play. Nakura/Dyson ground zones aren't too great if you detest ground combat, but if you like it you can roll in marks quickly. While easy, I've always found Romulas ground content too spread out for my taste (and the Rom mark space quests aren't labled for me anymore
If you are just starting out I'd go for the daily marks package, T1 rep will get you warp points to swap zones quicker since the queues are long dead. Better than trying to grind one by one.
Most Annoying - Dyson, mainly because Voth ships like Gravity Well, Tykon's Rift and other AoE attacks that give my fighter-carriers much headaches...
Most marks are easy to get, just time-consuming - if you know where. Me, I like Defera Invasion Zone for Omega, Nukara Prime for Nukara, the former 'Tau Dewa Sector Block' for Romulan (especially Japori and Nequencia), Allied Space for Dyson (and a certain Tribble...), Undine Battlezone for Undine and Delta Quadrant system patrols for Delta...
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
That wasn't the question, was it? Not "if" they're hard to get but which ones are "hardest." Unless they're all of exactly equal difficulty to acquire (hint: they're not) then there must be some relative scaling of difficulty among them, even if the difference isn't particularly pronounced. And as many have already said, certain Reputations are more annoying to get Marks for than others, with a fairly strong consensus saying that Iconian is at the top of that list.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
are you trolling or what?
Well, Romulan is the most frustrating. It's the hardest to get a sufficient amount of romulan marks, but the hardest to get? They're all easy to get a box.
Romulan: do anything on New Romulus zone
Iconian: No battlezone really, so this is probably the hardest one to get... but the missions are pretty easy... so...
Omega: This is stupidly easy if you know what to do. If you don't, just head to Defera. Couple hundred marks within an hour, and fleet marks are included!
Dyson: Head to the dyson battleground, either space or ground. Pretty easy to get some on the ground.
Undine: Space battleground, real easy. Can get 70 without the daily just hitting the battlezone.
Nukera: Ohh, head to Nukera, marks are STUPIDLY easy to get there with an enviro suit... or just hit CCA.
Delta: Hit the zombie homeworld. It's probably the hardest battleground but you can still rack up the marks.
- If you play normal difficulty, all the missions are way too easy ...
- If you play advanced difficulty, missions are hard, maybe too hard (cause there are always a lot of noobs that don't know what "teamplay" means and make the missions fail cause the optional objective fail - why he hell is it called OPTIONAL btw ?)
- If you play elite, well ... I don't even think it is supposed to be completable asd (yeah, there are the top end players with their shining stuff, but no challenge would be a challenge to them ... the bad part is that cryptic gives trouble to us - mid players - to make them happy
Are there guides on this somewhere?
It's the xp that people go for.
Undine marks are the most irritating if you don't go to the battle-zone. The queued events are just horrible, especially that one with the giant planet killer that has millions of HP. Takes way too long to kill. But if you go to the battlezone you'll get enough undine marks.
You should try running the Hard missions. While the payout is only 10 Omega marks per Hard mission, they also reward a Borg Neural Processor per Hard mission now, as well as 60 Fleet marks per Hard mission. A good team can run through all four Hards in under 1/2 an hour.
So, in a very short period, you can pick up 40 Omega marks (+ daily bonus, if you haven't already earned it), 4 Borg Neural Processors, and 240 Fleet marks.
We fight them too. Entire armies spilling out of Volkswagens.
We do our best to fight them off, but they keep sending them in.
Iconian is cake!!! Breaking the Wall and With Our Last Breath get you two a day. Bug Hunt is easy enough. Even easier if you have the Undine Armor - not toxins can slow you down.
"The higher the fewer."
I don't argue that the missions you specified are easy. I run the first two every day for the Spheres and daily mark pack. But I feel the other missions I listed are more approachable or are more easily accessed. Of the ones I listed, only the Dyson, Undine and Iconian missions are semi-time gated, the others I can simply go and do in 5 minutes or less. Of the remaining 3, Dyson and Undine have multiple objective areas, and there's almost always at least one available that can be accessed quickly. The missions on Kobali Prime seem to be on a timer rotation, and while it's pretty quick if I have bad timing I may be sitting around waiting for them to start, making them the most annoying of the single-player options.
Edit: there's also the fact that if you're avoiding queues, your ONLY source for Iconian marks are the 2 missions on Kobali Prime, which are more heavily time-gated than any of the other options. Dyson and Undine are near continuous, Nukara has multiple missions that can keep you perpetually busy, Romulan rep marks have a variety of sources both in space and on the ground, Defera is similar to Nukara, Delta has a lot of patrols you can pursue.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
This is all you need. I avoid STF's and Battle Zones like the plague, yet have enough Marks of each type to have completed all Reps on all 7 of my characters.
Certain tribbles are your friends, too.