Armada Fleet Bonus "balancing"

dareau

In my perusals of the armada system, one guy summed up the "primary" issue best. To paraphrase him:

The XP bonus is given to the player, the dilithium bonus (via discount) is given to the fleet

Now, as a "fleet leader" myself - little L13 "family fleet" operation - I'm gonna "sink or swim" with the fleet, so I'll "live" with the comparatively lesser XP bonus in order to ensure my fleet gets the full dilithium benefits of being a gamma fleet.

However, let's take my son. What reason does he have to stay in the family's fleet - other than having the fleet tag and access to fleet chat - if he gets invited to the Alpha fleet and can donate away (at fully discounted rates) to the family fleet and get the "full" XP bonus from being in said Alpha fleet?

Therefore, I was thinking. If one bonus goes to player, shouldn't the other? And, if the overall goal is to "increase the project completion rate" via having further effects to the dilithium donation rate/track, how can we get Dil into a player's hands that would be "stuck" in the fleet system?

Answer? The "Fleet Dilithium Voucher" system. How's about we take the Armada Dilithium "discount" and turn it, instead, into a "bonus FDV award"? Player gets X% of their dil "earnings" as "bonus" FDVs based on their fleet's appropriate percentage.

To wit: If the bonus for an Alpha is 1%, and the bonus for the gamma is 5%, an alpha player earns 10 FDVs for every 1k dil they rake in, while the gamma player gets 50.

For someone who's sinking "most/all" of their daily dil earnings into a fleet? Well, if it takes 10 days of dil refining to fill a discounted gamma project bar, and it takes 10 days worth of dil refining + gamma FDV bonus, isn't the effect the same?

For someone who's sinking dil from a "top end" fleet into a gamma, well, that's a different story. However, considering the "value" of dil across the board, realistically how many are going to donate dil with that frequency from an alpha to a gamma? With their FDV earnings, they can either support their fleet's provisions, new holding growth, etc., or dump it into a beta/gamma that needs a slider slid.

And now, all players are given a "choice". Stay / move to a Gamma for better FDV (and therefore Fleet Credit) earnings, stick in the alpha (for XP gain), or slide into a Beta to get some of each... (oh, BTW, I agree that the Beta fleets need their bonuses "boosted" so they get 1.25% per armada tier like the alphas and gammas do, but split 50/50 instead of 100/25 - 25/100...

stumpfgobs

The current iteration of the armada system has some really big balancing issues. Your take on one of the biggest ones is actually pretty interesting.

woodwhity

Thats a well thought idea.

sirmayday

I also like this idea. As an F2P player in a beta fleet, I spend almost all my dil on Zen, and would love to get FDV to make use of the dil bonus from my Armada. It'd also help fleets keep growing, while my (admittedly limited) observation is that they still stagnate from dil requirements.

dareau

sirmayday wrote: »

I also like this idea. As an F2P player in a beta fleet, I spend almost all my dil on Zen, and would love to get FDV to make use of the dil bonus from my Armada. It'd also help fleets keep growing, while my (admittedly limited) observation is that they still stagnate from dil requirements.

To clarify:

Giving FDVs to players replaces the discount given to fleet project dilithium...

Essentially, the player's higher FDV earnings "offsets" what is a fleet-only "dilithium track reduction". Chosen to do so in order to "help retain" players in Gamma fleets.​​

sirmayday

dareau wrote: »

Giving FDVs to players replaces the discount given to fleet project dilithium...

Essentially, the player's higher FDV earnings "offsets" what is a fleet-only "dilithium track reduction". Chosen to do so in order to "help retain" players in Gamma fleets.​​

Oh, I understood, I just didn't express myself well. Right now, the dilithium bonus accomplishes nothing for me, personally. If it took the form of DFVs--instead of a discount--I'd be able (one might even say compelled!) to advance fleet projects at least a little each day, which is more than I do for them now.

supergirl1611

I know its new and all but i laugh at the 3% XP bonus for Alpha 1.5% for Beta. Personally that boost is so small it doesn't make a whole lot of difference to XP grind

sirmayday

supergirl1611 wrote: »

I know its new and all but i laugh at the 3% XP bonus for Alpha 1.5% for Beta. Personally that boost is so small it doesn't make a whole lot of difference to XP grind

Aye, but it varies by Armada level. I'm getting 4.5%, and my Armada's alpha gets 9%.

peterconnorfirst

You are right OP with pointing out this discrepancy in the new armada system. When first notes came through I was totally perplexed and first thought the XP was also related to base progression.

I’m very proud to have 2 extremely developed gamma fleets in our Armada. For the fleetleaders who have been playing with us for years the deal is cool. Why? Because they are the ones who “pay” the Dil for their holdings but grind it easy and in a fun way with us in PvE. The 7% boost we have there for our gammas is a good start but I’m afraid there will come a time when those members will speak up seeing the better benefits of being alphas or betas themselves.

I think cryptic designed it on purpose that way. Those magic 20% max armada percentage is something to strive for but its hardly going to happen anywhere because peeps will only look at what they don’t have and crypic counts on that.

A fair system would have left an 20% Dil percentage for alpha fleets in constant need of generating provisions while gammas would have gotten 20% more fleet holdings XP out of all run projects. So less projects in sum and less resources to pull in sum. In any case personal benefits would not interfere with fleet benefits.

But hey we are dealing with Cryptic and PWE here so keeps expectations low is the best way to avoid disappointment.

dareau

peterconnorfirst wrote: »

You are right OP with pointing out this discrepancy in the new armada system. When first notes came through I was totally perplexed and first thought the XP was also related to base progression.

I’m very proud to have 2 extremely developed gamma fleets in our Armada. For the fleetleaders who have been playing with us for years the deal is cool. Why? Because they are the ones who “pay” the Dil for their holdings but grind it easy and in a fun way with us in PvE. The 7% boost we have there for our gammas is a good start but I’m afraid there will come a time when those members will speak up seeing the better benefits of being alphas or betas themselves.

I think cryptic designed it on purpose that way. Those magic 20% max armada percentage is something to strive for but its hardly going to happen anywhere because peeps will only look at what they don’t have and crypic counts on that.

A fair system would have left an 20% Dil percentage for alpha fleets in constant need of generating provisions while gammas would have gotten 20% more fleet holdings XP out of all run projects. So less projects in sum and less resources to pull in sum. In any case personal benefits would not interfere with fleet benefits.

But hey we are dealing with Cryptic and PWE here so keeps expectations low is the best way to avoid disappointment.

You're confusing fleet movement with personnel movement.

I used my son in the earlier example, but to put names to the effects I speak of, I'll use me. Dareau, Commander (and creator) of Jello Echelon fleet.

The Jello Echelon, as a weak L13 fleet, desires membership in an armada as a Gamma fleet to get those big juicy reductions to her dilithium slider needs.
Dareau, the player, desires membership in an Alpha grade fleet because he's going to get bonus XP to fill specialization bars quicker.

If Dareau, the player, gets into his armada's alpha fleet, then he's getting "the best of both worlds" - the extra XP and cause he's gonna focus on "his" fleet more, the cheapened dilithium sliders on Jello Echelon from the gamma membership.

And, when the time comes, I just log onto my "abandon-an-alt" and withdraw the Echelon from the Armada (and myself from that fleet) so we can become an Beta or even Alpha fleet of our own...

But, as a smaller fleet, I'd practically never have need to do so. Membership in my fleet right now is my son, daughter, and myself (2 friends as well but both have seemingly abandoned the game). If it's just "abandon-an-alts" down there, then the Echelon can stay as a gamma forever - transforming itself from a tiny family operation to just a bunch of junk in the database being used to artificially inflate some other operation's bonuses...

Hence why I said that both bonuses needed to be handed directly to a player...​​

dareau

Double post... <forum facepalm>​​