rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,588Community Moderator
Nobody is even considering that a lot of the big contributors to fleet projects... are already Max tier everything. Many of the bigtime fleets have nothing but provisioning projects, and I believe that requires Dilithium. No one like to part with Dilithium just to contribute to a global bonus the next week. Especially with an 8k cap on refining per character per day.
Multiply that times whoever many people play the game and it adds up. Remember: This is the SAME company that does seemingly gratuitous nerds and rollbacks to Dil and XP for dubious reasons.
I only recall one rollback and that was not a dubious reason. You may not like it, and it surely could have been handled better and more quickly, but when there is a clearly broken mission (giving out WAY more rewards for WAY less work due to scaling issues) and people grind the hell out of it, it is reasonable in the sense that there is a sound reason for it. Whether that reason should have been enough is a different question, but it wasn't like nothing had happened which was unwanted in game and they just rolled back because the weather forecast was "cloudy".
And about "gratuitous nerfs": welcome to MMORPGs. Happens all the time in all of them.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
Oh, and count me in on the "doff only once a day" crew. Sure, if the heads are blinking, I'll quick click some stuff, but I'm not really going to search for the worthwhile missions twice a day because of extremely decreasing returns to scale. And since people do not live spread out evenly across the planet, much less so players of STO, none of these sliders is ever going to move smoothly and steadily.
Yep, I am generally on a once a day DOFF cycle too. When I get into the game this evening I'll be turning in 92 DOFF assignments one right after the other (assuming I didn't have any 48-hour ones in there), so for me that would be a marked "surge" as well.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
So anyone who disagrees with your conspiracy theory becomes a "white knight" is that it? Well, you just lost all credibility to me.
I've seen individuals like this before here. Unless you agree with their standpoint 100%, you are against them and will be ignored even if you have a good argument to counter what was said. Been a victim of an extreme case of that in the past myself. "Oh you don't agree with my viewpoints? You must be an Apologist, the worst kind of scum on the forums." Really made me angry when all I did was poke holes in their Conspiracy Theory based on available evidence that anyone could have found.
I know that you can't jump to a conclusion from a single event, but the meter SKYROCKETED yesterday in the early hours and also, the last time that doff mission completion was used as an input. This time? It "magically" has been crawling from 95% to 98%.
I am now of the opinion that it can and is being slowed down as they sees fit, either as an artificial chicane to certain goals, or as to maintain interest.thoughts?
EDIT: Let me go one step further - I don't believe round 1 was even meant to succeed. Aside from reports of certain fleet inputs not registering (myself being one of them) I am thinking that Cryptic knows what rewards they are goign to allow and handle it accordingly. Shenanigans, indeed!
I'm going to reserve judgement on the first part of the Global event, because lets face it most of the decently sized and active fleets have either finished or are close to finishing the last of the projects for the new holding. But as for the duty officer inputs that is currently running I'm in full agreement with you on it. Like you said it progressed rapidly yesterday, until it hit around the 95% mark and then it just starting crawling along. I'd surmise that the numbers are being tweaked behind the scenes, but that's just my opinion. Others from my fleet have commented on the same issue. I'd willing to entertain the idea that with it being Friday night, a lot of people are off doing other things.
That is possible about Friday nights. Attendance in my fleet's Teamspeak has a tendency to be low around this time.
EDIT: Tier I is now completed.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
I don't believe round 1 was even meant to succeed.
But it did succeed. As long as either of these reach Tier 1, they've succeeded and we get some sort of bonus. I mean, what would be the point of doing any of these things if they always reached maximum bonus. Might as well not even run them and just give us a week with the full bonus.
As for the "Shenanigans" part. Yeah. Not going to touch that one.
I'm not a tin hat type but I'm willing to bet that the dev team can control progression. Consider how it would be perceived by the player base if we didn't compete tier1 and didn't get any reward? It would seem like the players didn't care about the event or that there isn't enough people playing to reach the goal.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,588Community Moderator
Comon let's face it we all know what's going on. Cryptic doesn't wanna give us our bonus exp that would give people a massive headstart to whatever they have planned on the 27th. Remember Tau Dewa?
Post edited by semalda226 on
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,588Community Moderator
Except that its possible that the new content will be lv 60 already. So a "Head Start" means nothing.
Comon let's face it we all know what's going on. Cryptic doesn't wanna give us our bonus exp that would give people a massive headstart to whatever they have planned on the 27th. Remember Tau Dewa?
First I've heard about a level cap raise in season 11, you'd think they'd save it for the next expansion.
The lack of any transparency and not knowing what goes on under the hood means the progress bar might as well be fake.
If we knew how much our contributions added to the total, and if we knew what that total was, and we can observe both contributions and the target number in real-time, then there wouldn't be any doubt. We can't see either of those things. Therefore, doubt.
It might be completely legit. But without transparency, it might as well be fake. And I'm definitely in the 'it's a faaaaake' camp. Last weekend the progress bar barely moved at all despite weekends being peak activity for this game. Then we got to T2 in the last 12 hours before Thursday maintenance, because it's bad for business if Cryptic's own event fails. We skyrocketed the doff target and nearly hit T1 after maintenance before somehow the bar slowed to a crawl. So yeah, put the target number in the bar and tell us how much my contribution added to it, then I'll call it real. Otherwise it's not.
Considering last event I (well my fleet, I'm the guy who is designated to fill up the dramada with millions of ecs worth of embassy commodities) must've contributed 500 to 600k worth of fc at least in one lump and the bar didn't even move a percent in an hour (to account for slow aknowledgement), I have to suspect the bar is pre-set to fill to whatever tier they want us to succeed at over time
Its why I've been expecting we'll finish just shy of t3 (so it looks plausible) for the xp event bar as 150% xp on top of our usual xp is far, far too generous for a week long reward
Again: of course Cryptic knows what they want us to (be able to) get and what not. So yes, this event is somewhat rigged.
Then again: almost everything that seems suspicious to some could easily be avoided in using a waaay simpler method of just making some progress bar do some progress thingy over the weeks than actually counting stuff in and especially have paid people watch the bar and adjust. So if it were manipulated (beyond the setting of the requirements, which isn't a manipulation) I would doubt they'd do it in an overly complicated way like this.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
It's weekend. Nothing happens in STO at weekends and nobody sits there adjusting stuff. All devs are at home.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
As has been said: most people will probably doff daily but only once a day normally, at least for the large missions that are on a 20h timer that means even on a weekend they will be handed in around a certain time of the day. So the progress bar is never going to move at a somewhat constant pace and - depending on where you live - there won't be that many afternoon/evening hours in well frequented areas. And I guess (but don't know) that the majority of contributions does stem from more "casual" gamers still. What they lack in individual input they would make up for in sheer numbers.
But I don't know. Anyway, you can make your assumptions, but please don't treat them as fact as long as you do not have proof. Not trusting Cryptic in this (or anybody else in similar things) and voicing that opinion is okay, but flat out stating "shady people are manipulating" crosses the line to a factual statement, and that needs more backup than anecdotal observations. (This is more of a general observation than really contributing to the issue at hand)
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
OK Let me tell you how the event bar works. It doesnt calculate on your logging in and clicking finish. It is based off the timer when the mission finished as soon as it completes we get progress from it.
Is there any cite for this? Because I get the feeling that the system doesn't even check on my missions while I am not logged in, otherwise the delay that sometimes happens would probably (but not certainly) affect different missions differently, based on when they were finished.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
It's obvious that the bar was moved up in week 1 when we had not progressed enough. And it has been slowed here in week 2 when we were progressing too quickly. They slowed it too much so they will speed it up again probably on Tuesday. The idea is for it to be close to tier 3 at the end and perhaps making it perhaps not.
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."
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I only recall one rollback and that was not a dubious reason. You may not like it, and it surely could have been handled better and more quickly, but when there is a clearly broken mission (giving out WAY more rewards for WAY less work due to scaling issues) and people grind the hell out of it, it is reasonable in the sense that there is a sound reason for it. Whether that reason should have been enough is a different question, but it wasn't like nothing had happened which was unwanted in game and they just rolled back because the weather forecast was "cloudy".
And about "gratuitous nerfs": welcome to MMORPGs. Happens all the time in all of them.
Yep, I am generally on a once a day DOFF cycle too. When I get into the game this evening I'll be turning in 92 DOFF assignments one right after the other (assuming I didn't have any 48-hour ones in there), so for me that would be a marked "surge" as well.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
I've seen individuals like this before here. Unless you agree with their standpoint 100%, you are against them and will be ignored even if you have a good argument to counter what was said. Been a victim of an extreme case of that in the past myself. "Oh you don't agree with my viewpoints? You must be an Apologist, the worst kind of scum on the forums." Really made me angry when all I did was poke holes in their Conspiracy Theory based on available evidence that anyone could have found.
I'm going to reserve judgement on the first part of the Global event, because lets face it most of the decently sized and active fleets have either finished or are close to finishing the last of the projects for the new holding. But as for the duty officer inputs that is currently running I'm in full agreement with you on it. Like you said it progressed rapidly yesterday, until it hit around the 95% mark and then it just starting crawling along. I'd surmise that the numbers are being tweaked behind the scenes, but that's just my opinion. Others from my fleet have commented on the same issue. I'd willing to entertain the idea that with it being Friday night, a lot of people are off doing other things.
EDIT: Tier I is now completed.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
As for the "Shenanigans" part. Yeah. Not going to touch that one.
I couldn't resist.
First I've heard about a level cap raise in season 11, you'd think they'd save it for the next expansion.
If we knew how much our contributions added to the total, and if we knew what that total was, and we can observe both contributions and the target number in real-time, then there wouldn't be any doubt. We can't see either of those things. Therefore, doubt.
It might be completely legit. But without transparency, it might as well be fake. And I'm definitely in the 'it's a faaaaake' camp. Last weekend the progress bar barely moved at all despite weekends being peak activity for this game. Then we got to T2 in the last 12 hours before Thursday maintenance, because it's bad for business if Cryptic's own event fails. We skyrocketed the doff target and nearly hit T1 after maintenance before somehow the bar slowed to a crawl. So yeah, put the target number in the bar and tell us how much my contribution added to it, then I'll call it real. Otherwise it's not.
Its why I've been expecting we'll finish just shy of t3 (so it looks plausible) for the xp event bar as 150% xp on top of our usual xp is far, far too generous for a week long reward
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Then again: almost everything that seems suspicious to some could easily be avoided in using a waaay simpler method of just making some progress bar do some progress thingy over the weeks than actually counting stuff in and especially have paid people watch the bar and adjust. So if it were manipulated (beyond the setting of the requirements, which isn't a manipulation) I would doubt they'd do it in an overly complicated way like this.
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But I don't know. Anyway, you can make your assumptions, but please don't treat them as fact as long as you do not have proof. Not trusting Cryptic in this (or anybody else in similar things) and voicing that opinion is okay, but flat out stating "shady people are manipulating" crosses the line to a factual statement, and that needs more backup than anecdotal observations. (This is more of a general observation than really contributing to the issue at hand)
Is there any cite for this? Because I get the feeling that the system doesn't even check on my missions while I am not logged in, otherwise the delay that sometimes happens would probably (but not certainly) affect different missions differently, based on when they were finished.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."