I agree. In this case the mistake was big. At the rate we were going the first day we would have completed T3 already. They should have been more careful at least with the change.
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."
the way you say it almost seems like the progress bar means nothing and some UI editor at cryptic is simply willy nilly changing it to whatever he/she is directed to do. conspiracy?
Cryptic, do you acept these charges of shenanigans against you?
OK this made me LOL!
Ok since about 12 hours after I made this thread (which, btw magically jumped 2 percentage points to put us to level 2 after crawling all day....), the meter has only moved 7 percentage points. 7!!!!! As of typing this, the global meter is at 7 %, and unless level 2 has a larger requirement ( is that stated anywhere?), it would seem that even during peak weekend playtime and with 8/20 hour missions popping, its still been artificially TRIBBLE to a crawl. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I am pretty sure there's some chicanery going on in the background.
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.
This part I can verify: I saw the "flash" on the progress bar immediately on login to a toon with DOFF assignments I needed to clear, as opposed to when I actually started hitting "clear."
As far as the slowdown...I was not in game for the part where progress was happening quickly but if there is tinkering with it against the player for what they know the player needs most, I do not consider that appropriate customer communication or handling of a contest. Similarly if something was bugged, communication would be good to explain exactly what happened and discussion with the playerbase on an equitable solution would be my recommendation.
In contrast, a charity contest was held at my job where the top two winners would receive a prize. The contest did not get enough participation so the two of us in the top positions were approached by the contest organizers, openly told what the situation was, and that the organizers wanted to extend it for another day. Both of us agreed to surrender our claims on our prizes pending the second day's results, realizing that either or both of us could lose our top spots if someone did better than us on the second day. In my case, why did I agree to go along with this plan? Because what was advertised was that all entrants compete for two prizes. No was not going to have people on the second day compete under odds worse than what was advertised. So you see there, a change can be made if there is *transparency* and *honesty* behind it and if I lose out whenever the second day of the contest happens I won't resent it because while it wasn't ideal, I was dealt with fairly and straightforwardly *about* the non-ideal situation.
I would recommend as others suggested that Cryptic be open and straightforward about the contest criteria and transparent regarding any alterations. As you can see above, I deal just fine with it when I am approached in a forthright manner. IF something is going on--which again, I cannot personally vouch for since I missed the period of faster progress--communication would be good.
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.
Shenanigans??? Not on you're nelly!! Get the tin-foils off guys. The doff assignments auto-register whilst you are online, you don't need to click finish for it to register, as as soon as it has flashed up on your screen, it's already counted on the meter. As for altering the requirements on the fly, nah, I don't believe it. There's no point in it for Cryptic to alter them, especially as XP doesn't affect their cashflow. The surge on Thursday was just as a result of everyone logging in after maintenance, and nothing more, and we will get to Tier 3 easy. All this happened just the same the last time it happened with Delta Recruits with people claiming 'Shenanigans' and we still got T3 done on most weeks. Cryptic can't rob you of something you've never had!!
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
Adding to my previous post: I just saw in another thread the possibility that something went wrong with the counter that the devs did not anticipate/do on purpose, and Borticus is going to take a look on Monday. (Someone tweeted him to ask, apparently.) So just an FYI that one of the possibilities I raised--a bug as opposed to intentional action--may be in play, if something is wrong here.
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'm not one for conspiracy theories, but the "black box" nature of the global reward meter certainly does succeed in making itself as suspicious (and unhelpful) as possible.
Would it really be that hard to make it clickable, to open a window with the exact numbers involved? Points needed for each tier, current global points earned, the player's own contribution... Maybe even leaderboards for the top contributors. A little competition would increase participation.
I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but the "black box" nature of the global reward meter certainly does succeed in making itself as suspicious (and unhelpful) as possible.
Would it really be that hard to make it clickable, to open a window with the exact numbers involved? Points needed for each tier, current global points earned, the player's own contribution... Maybe even leaderboards for the top contributors. A little competition would increase participation.
This would be very helpful indeed! Even if a very difficult goal is set, it might drive player participation to see openly exactly what kind of mountain we have to climb. Crazy as this might sound, I'd be willing to bet we as a player base could accomplish tougher goals if we were *told* what they were, because people would put in a greater effort for something they could see.
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.
A global "this is your contribution ranking" would be something I'd like although in case of doff assignments it would mostly be a "these are some lucky ones who got the crits on the right missions on the right time". It would open up the black box a little. It probably won't happen though, since you could infer a lot about the size of the active player base from it.
I disagree about the Japori thing though. It may be different in the US, but over here rules are that if somebody screws up (Cryptic with the wrongly scaled XP and enemies) to your advantage, you have to limit the damage as much as possible if it is reasonable to assume that it was a mistake by the other side. E. g. if there is a vending machine which gives the coins you put in back after purchase and you buy all the stuff, happily getting your own dollar back, the damage done is your liability and you would lose either the merchandise or have to pay for it. (In practice probably neither since it would be too minor an issue, just to illustrate the point). And since this is private law, a mere "more than 50%" chance of it being a mistake applies, so "but I thought it could be" isn't a good enough excuse.
Of course, since this is a completely different thing, actual law would be out of the question (also we agreed that all virtual goodies we have could be taken away or changed without notice or reason anyway), but the general mindset "let's abuse the hell out of this" should in my opinion be frowned upon.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
As of typing this, it is at 9%. After 3 hours, thats a percentage move of 2%. At this point, all of the missions have cycled from CD and the turn-ins should be back to normal so the spurious nature of the high submittal post-maintanence isn't at play anymore.
This Event is another stab at providing a mish-mash of different rewards because they don't want to run long Bonus XP Events like they used to before Seasons and Expansions. Those would make it easier for numbers of characters on your account to level up Spec points.
Bonus Marks Events- eh, all the 'big dogs' for the bonuses were removed as eligible for said bonus (and this is after their News Blogs said it was OK to get Bonuses for them - encouraged them even).
Dilitium Events - OK, but there too, many of the 'big dogs' were removed as above in contravention to what had been espoused all along on the News Blogs. VIP Mining Claims, Contraband turn-ins, PvE Rewards, Officer Reports/Foundry are still the go to for larger returns.
Bonus XP Events - too short normally. With the lead up for the Bonus in this Event and with manipulation of the parameters make it OK (if we can make it to Level II) but not the be-all end-all.
Fleet Projects for the Bonus Marks - many are already done except for provisioning or those terribly implemented Fleet Mark dump projects (people asked to dump Fleet Marks not all the other stuff with it). With the cool downs on many of the other projects, the focus would seem to have been to bleed excess Dilithium out of the economy after recent 'give-aways.
Doff Assignment turn-ins for Bonus XP - long cool downs between completion unless you are going to be sucking up loads of short duration ones and constantly re-logging. It is generally a steady pace and not a race so with the manipulation of the Tier II parameters after achieving Tier I quickly, it would seem they are loathe to give out that much Bonus XP.
Also I could not find result News Blogs or Updates like - 'Captains you achieved Level xx for Bonus Marks so you will be getting a nn% Bonus for Week Two'. May have missed it but did not see any News Blog updates, Twitter stuff, Reddit, etc. Maybe my inner Sherlock is lacking.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
You dont need to crit....you dont need to do the 20 hour assignments. For this event Completing duty officer assignments will unlock reward of 50%, 100%, 150% bonus XP and skill points. Simply put find the shortest assignments you can and Queu them.
Ah, okay, then I misunderstood how this works, thanks for clearing it up.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
Wasn't my point about the Reward Levels, I saw the original News Blog and the Reward per Tier. I also knew pretty much where we ended up too. What I said was there was no results info news which is why I phrased it as I did.
We have gotten that type of feedback in the past. We are getting less lately. I will bite my lip about the focus of community management these days.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Wasn't my point about the Reward Levels, I saw the original News Blog and the Reward per Tier. I also knew pretty much where we ended up too. What I said was there was no results info news which is why I phrased it as I did.
We have gotten that type of feedback in the past. We are getting less lately. I will bite my lip about the focus of community management these days.
The result of the previous week's event should be visible in the game itself. Reward bonus multipliers in general should be more clearly displayed in the game, maybe then we wouldn't get so many "I don't feel like I'm getting the bonus, is it on?" -threads here.
Wasn't my point about the Reward Levels, I saw the original News Blog and the Reward per Tier. I also knew pretty much where we ended up too. What I said was there was no results info news which is why I phrased it as I did.
We have gotten that type of feedback in the past. We are getting less lately. I will bite my lip about the focus of community management these days.
The result of the previous week's event should be visible in the game itself. Reward bonus multipliers in general should be more clearly displayed in the game, maybe then we wouldn't get so many "I don't feel like I'm getting the bonus, is it on?" -threads here.
I can at least confirm we are getting bonus marks. What I got for a Brotherhood of the Sword Normal was markedly improved over what I typically yet. (Yeah, I know, I could do better if I went to Advanced, but my navigation skills are so bad on that map that I will not endanger a higher-level team because of it.)
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.
We magically got to tier II last week on the first bonus global reward. It doesnt look like tier II or tier III is possible based on the broken global ticker. However, in answer to your post:
Jesus Christ. There is no conspiracy. Last week, we hit tier I (on track for tier II) at some point on the weekend. The counter got zeroed during the 12 hour maintenance. I saw it zeroed out when I logged in. At some point before Patch Thursday, it had been adjusted back up to tier I. This isn't a guess. This is from direct observation. The only thing I can't personally vouch for is the exact timing of the adjustment.
Anyone else noticed that the bar doesn't show totals, only percentages? As long as they don't show the totals, then they can say what they want about how much people actually completed. I have a feeling that they only want the bar to go as fast or slow as they want despite what the players do. Which is why I am just going to ignore that specific "Event" and just play the game like i normally do. Besides, completing a bar for the next weeks reward is not really an event. It's just something to try and keep players in game. Nothing more.
Anyone else noticed that the bar doesn't show totals, only percentages? As long as they don't show the totals, then they can say what they want about how much people actually completed.
Conspiracy fantasies aside, you're almost right. Yes, the bar shows percentages. It means you can expect the bar to slow down when you hit a tier if the next benchmark requires more participation to complete than the previous one did.
Hypothetical event with a global bar.
Tier 1 might require 100 global units = 100% of tier 1.
Tier 2 might require 400 global units = 100% of tier 2.
Tier 3 might require 1000 global units = 100% of tier 3.
If we, as a community, are producing 100 global units per day, it would take 1 day to reach tier I, 5 days to reach tier II, and 15 days to reach tier III.
I don't know what the thresholds are for this one, but I'd very much guesstimate a 1:3 ratio for tier I and tier II thresholds based on what I'm seeing.
The dang thing is broke. I guess you haven't been in game today......
You guess wrong. Again.
When you posted, I checked. It was at 11%. I logged off, had supper, watched Doctor Who. Came back on. It's now at 12%. It's not a conspiracy. It's not broken. The threshold is higher than you're happy with.
The dang thing is broke. I guess you haven't been in game today......
You guess wrong. Again.
When you posted, I checked. It was at 11%. I logged off, had supper, watched Doctor Who. Came back on. It's now at 12%. It's not a conspiracy. It's not broken. The threshold is higher than you're happy with.
Personally, I'm beginning to think it only updates if you exit the game and re-open it. It might actually be easier and less cumbersome having the UI element update with the launcher rather than having it track global activity in real time, especially given the old issues that the Command powers once had on a team level. I was off and on for hours yesterday (doffing in the background between actual gameplay with my various characters) and it never moved from 3%... exactly 3%... over the course of hours. I didn't actually exit the game, though, I just swapped characters or left them standing around on a non-combat map as needed. When I did finally exit for awhile and come back, it had indeed made some progress... not a heck of a lot, but some.
As to the thresholds... did you somehow find a way of seeing what they are, or are you making the same type of assumption as the conspiracy theorists? Some folks are going to see a bit of progress, get excited, and start doffing so they can contribute; others will see a bit of progress, get disheartened, and write it off. Tinfoil hats and dismissals aside, we'll get whatever bonus we get, and care about it to the extent that we can see our efforts having an impact.
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
Comments
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Rayzee
excellentawesome#4589
torgaddon101
raeat
OK this made me LOL!
Ok since about 12 hours after I made this thread (which, btw magically jumped 2 percentage points to put us to level 2 after crawling all day....), the meter has only moved 7 percentage points. 7!!!!! As of typing this, the global meter is at 7 %, and unless level 2 has a larger requirement ( is that stated anywhere?), it would seem that even during peak weekend playtime and with 8/20 hour missions popping, its still been artificially TRIBBLE to a crawl. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I am pretty sure there's some chicanery going on in the background.
This part I can verify: I saw the "flash" on the progress bar immediately on login to a toon with DOFF assignments I needed to clear, as opposed to when I actually started hitting "clear."
As far as the slowdown...I was not in game for the part where progress was happening quickly but if there is tinkering with it against the player for what they know the player needs most, I do not consider that appropriate customer communication or handling of a contest. Similarly if something was bugged, communication would be good to explain exactly what happened and discussion with the playerbase on an equitable solution would be my recommendation.
In contrast, a charity contest was held at my job where the top two winners would receive a prize. The contest did not get enough participation so the two of us in the top positions were approached by the contest organizers, openly told what the situation was, and that the organizers wanted to extend it for another day. Both of us agreed to surrender our claims on our prizes pending the second day's results, realizing that either or both of us could lose our top spots if someone did better than us on the second day. In my case, why did I agree to go along with this plan? Because what was advertised was that all entrants compete for two prizes. No was not going to have people on the second day compete under odds worse than what was advertised. So you see there, a change can be made if there is *transparency* and *honesty* behind it and if I lose out whenever the second day of the contest happens I won't resent it because while it wasn't ideal, I was dealt with fairly and straightforwardly *about* the non-ideal situation.
I would recommend as others suggested that Cryptic be open and straightforward about the contest criteria and transparent regarding any alterations. As you can see above, I deal just fine with it when I am approached in a forthright manner. IF something is going on--which again, I cannot personally vouch for since I missed the period of faster progress--communication would be good.
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.
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.
Would it really be that hard to make it clickable, to open a window with the exact numbers involved? Points needed for each tier, current global points earned, the player's own contribution... Maybe even leaderboards for the top contributors. A little competition would increase participation.
This would be very helpful indeed! Even if a very difficult goal is set, it might drive player participation to see openly exactly what kind of mountain we have to climb. Crazy as this might sound, I'd be willing to bet we as a player base could accomplish tougher goals if we were *told* what they were, because people would put in a greater effort for something they could see.
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 disagree about the Japori thing though. It may be different in the US, but over here rules are that if somebody screws up (Cryptic with the wrongly scaled XP and enemies) to your advantage, you have to limit the damage as much as possible if it is reasonable to assume that it was a mistake by the other side. E. g. if there is a vending machine which gives the coins you put in back after purchase and you buy all the stuff, happily getting your own dollar back, the damage done is your liability and you would lose either the merchandise or have to pay for it. (In practice probably neither since it would be too minor an issue, just to illustrate the point). And since this is private law, a mere "more than 50%" chance of it being a mistake applies, so "but I thought it could be" isn't a good enough excuse.
Of course, since this is a completely different thing, actual law would be out of the question (also we agreed that all virtual goodies we have could be taken away or changed without notice or reason anyway), but the general mindset "let's abuse the hell out of this" should in my opinion be frowned upon.
This is absurd.
Bonus Marks Events- eh, all the 'big dogs' for the bonuses were removed as eligible for said bonus (and this is after their News Blogs said it was OK to get Bonuses for them - encouraged them even).
Dilitium Events - OK, but there too, many of the 'big dogs' were removed as above in contravention to what had been espoused all along on the News Blogs. VIP Mining Claims, Contraband turn-ins, PvE Rewards, Officer Reports/Foundry are still the go to for larger returns.
Bonus XP Events - too short normally. With the lead up for the Bonus in this Event and with manipulation of the parameters make it OK (if we can make it to Level II) but not the be-all end-all.
Fleet Projects for the Bonus Marks - many are already done except for provisioning or those terribly implemented Fleet Mark dump projects (people asked to dump Fleet Marks not all the other stuff with it). With the cool downs on many of the other projects, the focus would seem to have been to bleed excess Dilithium out of the economy after recent 'give-aways.
Doff Assignment turn-ins for Bonus XP - long cool downs between completion unless you are going to be sucking up loads of short duration ones and constantly re-logging. It is generally a steady pace and not a race so with the manipulation of the Tier II parameters after achieving Tier I quickly, it would seem they are loathe to give out that much Bonus XP.
Also I could not find result News Blogs or Updates like - 'Captains you achieved Level xx for Bonus Marks so you will be getting a nn% Bonus for Week Two'. May have missed it but did not see any News Blog updates, Twitter stuff, Reddit, etc. Maybe my inner Sherlock is lacking.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Ah, okay, then I misunderstood how this works, thanks for clearing it up.
We have gotten that type of feedback in the past. We are getting less lately. I will bite my lip about the focus of community management these days.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
The result of the previous week's event should be visible in the game itself. Reward bonus multipliers in general should be more clearly displayed in the game, maybe then we wouldn't get so many "I don't feel like I'm getting the bonus, is it on?" -threads here.
I can at least confirm we are getting bonus marks. What I got for a Brotherhood of the Sword Normal was markedly improved over what I typically yet. (Yeah, I know, I could do better if I went to Advanced, but my navigation skills are so bad on that map that I will not endanger a higher-level team because of it.)
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.
Jesus Christ. There is no conspiracy. Last week, we hit tier I (on track for tier II) at some point on the weekend. The counter got zeroed during the 12 hour maintenance. I saw it zeroed out when I logged in. At some point before Patch Thursday, it had been adjusted back up to tier I. This isn't a guess. This is from direct observation. The only thing I can't personally vouch for is the exact timing of the adjustment.
Conspiracy fantasies aside, you're almost right. Yes, the bar shows percentages. It means you can expect the bar to slow down when you hit a tier if the next benchmark requires more participation to complete than the previous one did.
Hypothetical event with a global bar.
Tier 1 might require 100 global units = 100% of tier 1.
Tier 2 might require 400 global units = 100% of tier 2.
Tier 3 might require 1000 global units = 100% of tier 3.
If we, as a community, are producing 100 global units per day, it would take 1 day to reach tier I, 5 days to reach tier II, and 15 days to reach tier III.
I don't know what the thresholds are for this one, but I'd very much guesstimate a 1:3 ratio for tier I and tier II thresholds based on what I'm seeing.
You guess wrong. Again.
When you posted, I checked. It was at 11%. I logged off, had supper, watched Doctor Who. Came back on. It's now at 12%. It's not a conspiracy. It's not broken. The threshold is higher than you're happy with.
Personally, I'm beginning to think it only updates if you exit the game and re-open it. It might actually be easier and less cumbersome having the UI element update with the launcher rather than having it track global activity in real time, especially given the old issues that the Command powers once had on a team level. I was off and on for hours yesterday (doffing in the background between actual gameplay with my various characters) and it never moved from 3%... exactly 3%... over the course of hours. I didn't actually exit the game, though, I just swapped characters or left them standing around on a non-combat map as needed. When I did finally exit for awhile and come back, it had indeed made some progress... not a heck of a lot, but some.
As to the thresholds... did you somehow find a way of seeing what they are, or are you making the same type of assumption as the conspiracy theorists? Some folks are going to see a bit of progress, get excited, and start doffing so they can contribute; others will see a bit of progress, get disheartened, and write it off. Tinfoil hats and dismissals aside, we'll get whatever bonus we get, and care about it to the extent that we can see our efforts having an impact.