Adjusting Season 11 Terran Mark Rewards

pwgroverclvlnd

With the recent release of Star Trek Online: New Dawn, we introduced a lot of new content related to the new Terran Taskforce reputation including two new queues (Counterpoint and Assault on Terok Nor) as well as a new space battle zone (The Badlands). Unfortunately, there have been some concerns raised by the player base as to the drop rate of Terran Mark rewards for these new pieces of content, and the fact that the numbers being experienced in game are lower than the expectations set by similar, existing parts of the game.

We take these concerns very seriously and have investigated the claims with all due diligence. Where appropriate, we have made changes that will be rolled out to the live servers over the next several days as we can test them and make sure they are doing everything we expect and want them to do. To that end, what follows is a list of the updates you can expect and the approximate timeframe at which you can expect them:


Live Today:

Badlands Battle Zone

All Battle Zones make use of technology to make sure that we are rewarding participants in a given gameplay area adequately for the level of contribution they have made towards completing the area’s objectives. The intent behind this implementation is not that you need to do the majority of the work in a gameplay area in order to achieve the maximum rewards, but rather that the maximum rewards are given to anyone and everyone who has actively helped the group towards achieving victory for the majority of the gameplay time. Unfortunately, the participation requirements for the new Badlands Battle Zone were set up to require too high of a level of participation, and so most players were only seeing a fraction of the rewards they were intended to get.

As of today, October 29th 2015, the level of participation required to earn each tier of reward in a given gameplay area of the Badlands Battle Zone has been significantly reduced in order to fall in line with our expectations that most players who are playing for most of the mission are getting the maximum rewards possible.


Coming Next Week:

Counterpoint

Like many of our new queues, Counterpoint has introduced some new mechanics to STO which can be completed to varying degrees of success resulting in different amounts of rewards earned from playing this queue. Unfortunately, the time it takes to learn some of these new mechanics was not taken into account when developing the reward schedule for this queue. As such, initial plays with lower levels of completion of the optional objectives result in a lower total payout than was ever intended.

We are currently testing a new reward schedule for this queue that will double the base rewards earned for completing the queue before the completion of any optional objectives is evaluated, from 10 marks to 20 marks. Additionally, we are increasing the reward multipliers for the tracked events that make up some optional objectives in order to incentivize players learning the new mechanics.

Assault on Terok Nor

Similar to Counterpoint, there were some bad assumptions on our part regarding where we expected player performance to be when first playing this new queue and learning its novel mechanics. We are taking similar steps to address the issues.

The base rewards for only completing the queue without completing any of the optional objectives have also been doubled, from 10 marks to 20 marks. Again, all of the optional objectives have all received an increase, with the largest increases in rewards coming to the tiers of rewards achievable for protecting the Override Specialists so they don’t have to take a knee, and completing the lock puzzle in a minimal amount of time.


As will all major rewards updates, we will continue to monitor the situation and make sure that everything has improved in the expected manner and magnitude before we consider the issues resolved.


Charles Gray
Lead Content Designer
Star Trek Online

burstdragon323

Thanks for the reply. I'll test the updates if/when they hit TRIBBLE.

donburrito

Thank you so much for the quick update. It really means a lot that you all are listening to our concerns and coming up with solutions in a timely manner. I just wish that the majority of the complaints about the low rewards had been expressed more politely.

gulberat

Good to know. I am a fan of the Undine BZ and when I heard about the low rewards in the Badlands I was very reluctant to try it. Now knowing I'm likely to see about the same that I get over on the other BZ, I may go give the Badlands one a whirl tonight to see how I like it.

Also: I want to thank you not just for acting, but for being straightforward in your explanation and not placing blame on the players for what was happening.

aaaict

This is really impressive. Thank you for communicating with the community so openly and quickly. Please continue to do so in the future. We ALL APPRECIATE it.

kelettes

I was wondering what was going on in the Badlands Thank you for clearing that up

Looking forward to seeing how the changes turn out in the BZ, as well as the PVE missions

ashstorm1

Thank you very much for dealing with that issue. Much appreciated.

ddesjardins

Thank you for the update

antonine3258

Thank you for such a quick response.

sernonserculion

It seemed well worth the time there today, wondered what was up! :-)

theraven2378

Thank you for clearing up that problem

sheldonlcooper

I did a battlezone today after maintenance and the rewards now seem fine - probably identical to undine zone. Thanks for fixing this quickly. Also I enjoy this battlezone more than the undine. There is less lag even in very crowded areas (virtually none for me. I always have lag in crowded undine zones. The mechanisms are also more interesting to me. Attacking a station is neat.

sunfrancks

As long as I can get my daily reward box for completing one zone within the new battlezone, everything else is extra.

That wasn't happening yesterday. I had to complete all the zones in the badlands before the daily box was rewarded....

trillbuffet

Funny part about all this is that I went into the ground queue and most of the time when a new season comes out its just a shoot with 1 button till yer done. Surprised me when I had lobs of grenades being thrown down from above I was like oh npc learn new tricks rofl.

Only thing that really would have made me like this better is if we had a T6 bop launched with this other than that I'm fine with what has come out with S11.

lan451

Ran the Badlands BZ earlier and got comparable rewards to the Undine BZ. No more complaints on my end as far as that goes. Thanks.

dragonsbrethren

@pwgroverclvlnd, I think the final slaughterfest against the Terrans in the Badlands still needs to be looked into. I played it today and participated as much as was possible, but I still only got Tier 1 rewards. I'm guessing this is because, as much as I tried, I just couldn't kill many enemies before other players did. This was on my best character, so I can foresee getting credit here being an issue for many players.

-edit-

The bases, too. I took one of my alts in, and while he's very well geared for an alt (lockbox weapons, reputation space set, fleet consoles, good ability build and a competent (I hope) pilot), I wasn't able to get more than a Tier 1 reward off the Klingon or Terran bases. The Terran base, I arrived late, Tier 1 was fine, but I participated for the entire Klingon base and still got hardly anything to show for it. Oddly, I got Tier 4 for Terok Nor despite getting to it late and not contributing as much as I did at the Klingon base.

The rewards for each base, even at Tier 4, feel really low, too. It's like 680 dilithium for a V-Rex kill in the Voth battlezone now, but these bases only seem to reward as much as any random point in the battlezone. I realize there's a bigger payout after they all get taken down, but that too is larger in the Voth BZ.

strathkin

aaaict wrote: »

This is really impressive. Thank you for communicating with the community so openly and quickly. Please continue to do so in the future. We ALL APPRECIATE it.

The players appreciate the prompt communication, and appears corrected for some players as Sheldon L Cooper identified, yet they are continuing to monitor over the coming days / weeks. I suspect it will still require some tweaking as they adjust the mechanics of the new system, sometimes their is just no simulation substitute for what can happen in real life--something we learned with Nog when the timeship found Romulus assimilated

duncanidaho11

pwgroverclvlnd wrote: »

As of today, October 29th 2015, the level of participation required to earn each tier of reward in a given gameplay area of the Badlands Battle Zone has been significantly reduced in order to fall in line with our expectations that most players who are playing for most of the mission are getting the maximum rewards possible.

This still needs to be adjusted. Today I was the first in to the Terok Nor base, made progress on the first objective before anyone else arrived, actively participated on all objectives (and I'll say more than other players in the area) and dealt out quite a lot of pain to the mirror forces. All I got for my effort at that base was a tiny amount of experience points. That's not right at all.

And as a note: I was not using Kemocite. Others were.

architect13

Just remember to make sure you have nothing in your overflow or you will not get your Terran marks . . . at least that is what happened to me in Counterpoint.

shevet

Hmm. I tried the Borderlands battlezone after maintenance yesterday, and wound up stuck there for an hour, and still receiving paltry rewards. I managed to get Tier IV rewards packages at two points - and, in both cases, they were places where I interacted with something in a non-combat way (starting off a capture point, and powering down a satellite at one of the boss bases). Which leads me to the depressing conclusion that my actual combat contribution was, well, negligible.

Now, I don't set myself up as any sort of expert. I think of myself as a casual player. But I've been around long enough to have some clue what I'm doing, and to have accumulated some pretty good gear. And I certainly wasn't AFKing while everyone else was shooting.... So, well, if the damage output of a Recluse Carrier with a full set of Mk XIV Rom plasma weapons and sundry other goodies is negligible, I might as well stay at home, really.

I used the phrase "stuck there for an hour" advisedly. It wasn't fun. I suppose I could rebuild my ship and my skills, and optimize them for DPS, but you know what? Spending ages fiddling with numbers and optimizing my output in terms of the prevailing performance metrics... that's not my idea of fun, either. (Besides, I suspect it wouldn't help much. I'm a gentleman of mature years, and I'm only on an average sort of computer and connection, so whatever happens I'm liable to be out-DPSed by the young folks with faster reflexes and better gaming rigs, and I just have to live with that.)

antzudan

Ace cheers! Just out of interest is there any sort of canon order to play the new queues and the badlands in? I jumped straight in to Terok Nor the other day and wasn't really sure what was going on.

gulberat

Having now actually tried the new BZ, one thing I am not sure it is doing properly is scaling the Terran threat response appropriately to the number of player ships trying to take control. In the Undine BZ, it is possible in my experience for a player to solo Fed and Klingon control points, as you are given an appropriate number of ships to deal with. Bring more players in, and the number of Undine and proportion of stronger opponents scales up accordingly. In contrast I found that in the Terran BZ, the plasma station zones were completely beyond anything a single ship could do, and that with the other zones the most I could practically do was hold my own with progress so slow that if alone it would become a complete slog. (Note: I am not talking about the three bases at the end in this. Those I never expected in any way to scale down to a single player's level.)

The reason this is important is that if you come into a lightly populated instance, you're potentially in for a slog (the normal player, not the DPS club faceroller). Right now my impression is that the Undine BZ is just right, and this one isn't scaling the threat level in the same way. Are you guys seeing the mobs scaling in power according to the number of players or do I have the right impression that it is not happening as effectively as it does in the Undine BZ?

mustrumridcully0

I didn't have the impression that any of the regular control points coudn't be soloed. I pretty much soloed them all today (of course not all in a row).

I think the one with the 3 satellite can be the hardest, since it actually resets if you fight too long. But that should probably not happen with a decent build. Unless I overestimate the quality of my build (many are cannon-based or science).

supergirl1611

Can some at Cryptic please tell me why does Counterpoint on Normal with all optionals only reward 30 marks when i can go do the old Borg Space STF's on normal and be rewarded 60 marks for Cure/Infected and Hive and 54 for Khitomer. Basically double the rewards for running old content compared to the new content.

The Iconian Stf's on normal Sphere, Gre'thor and Brotherhood also pay less than half the Borg Stfs. Shouldn't the rewards from those queues THE BORG ones be the benchmark ?

Why after completing the rep and getting any gear i want from them would i want to replay the Terran/Iconian queues when those queues don't reward as well as the Borg ones as repeatable content. (And no i DO NOT want the Borg stf rewards reduced to match the poorer payout of these queues as it would force me to play those queues less)

allyoftheforce

supergirl1611 wrote: »

Can some at Cryptic please tell me why does Counterpoint on Normal with all optionals only reward 30 marks when i can go do the old Borg Space STF's on normal and be rewarded 60 marks for Cure/Infected and Hive and 54 for Khitomer. Basically double the rewards for running old content compared to the new content.

The Iconian Stf's on normal Sphere, Gre'thor and Brotherhood also pay less than half the Borg Stfs. Shouldn't the rewards from those queues THE BORG ones be the benchmark ?

Why after completing the rep and getting any gear i want from them would i want to replay the Terran/Iconian queues when those queues don't reward as well as the Borg ones as repeatable content. (And no i DO NOT want the Borg stf rewards reduced to match the poorer payout of these queues as it would force me to play those queues less)

It's called throttling.

gulberat

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

I didn't have the impression that any of the regular control points coudn't be soloed. I pretty much soloed them all today (of course not all in a row).

I think the one with the 3 satellite can be the hardest, since it actually resets if you fight too long. But that should probably not happen with a decent build. Unless I overestimate the quality of my build (many are cannon-based or science).

Thanks for giving me a benchmark. Based on that, I inspected my build, and I noticed some of my passive space traits had completely unslotted themselves. We'll see if that makes any difference now that I have that fixed.

gradii

gulberat wrote: »

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

I didn't have the impression that any of the regular control points coudn't be soloed. I pretty much soloed them all today (of course not all in a row).

I think the one with the 3 satellite can be the hardest, since it actually resets if you fight too long. But that should probably not happen with a decent build. Unless I overestimate the quality of my build (many are cannon-based or science).

Thanks for giving me a benchmark. Based on that, I inspected my build, and I noticed some of my passive space traits had completely unslotted themselves. We'll see if that makes any difference now that I have that fixed.

That happens to me all the time... then I wonder why my ship suddenly sucks so much more than it usually does.

gulberat

gradii wrote: »

gulberat wrote: »

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

I didn't have the impression that any of the regular control points coudn't be soloed. I pretty much soloed them all today (of course not all in a row).

I think the one with the 3 satellite can be the hardest, since it actually resets if you fight too long. But that should probably not happen with a decent build. Unless I overestimate the quality of my build (many are cannon-based or science).

Thanks for giving me a benchmark. Based on that, I inspected my build, and I noticed some of my passive space traits had completely unslotted themselves. We'll see if that makes any difference now that I have that fixed.

That happens to me all the time... then I wonder why my ship suddenly sucks so much more than it usually does.

I've also decided to address my active space DOFFs too. They weren't that bad but they could stand to be better. We'll see how that goes.

EDIT: This is an example of why I did NOT rage when something went wrong but rather tried to see if last night's experience was normal. It's not a good idea to go in with all guns blazing, especially if something should indeed turn out to be wrong on one's own end. Now, it may yet be that this BZ has significant differences but I'm hoping my performance will be a little better with these adjustments.

gulberat

@pwgroverclvlnd: Is your intent that someone who participates in half of a base takedown should get zero credit? Not even half credit? That's what happened to me this time around. Now, I should also note we had at least one individual with kemocite in the group, suggesting that one or more of the DPS brigade were in there sucking up "participation percentage" from normal players. But the way I felt after that, I almost felt like I would have been better to just AFK it after taking down my first base, until the free-for-all at the end. I hope that's not the strategy being aimed for?

kasraken

gulberat wrote: »

..But the way I felt after that, I almost felt like I would have been better to just AFK it after taking down my first base, until the free-for-all at the end. I hope that's not the strategy being aimed for?

I did notice that while I was in the Badlands the more interactions I made the better rewards I got (except at the end where it was heavy on dps while fighting Leeta after taking 3 bases). So I often rush to all the structures you can interact with and try to be the one to trigger them.

Maybe that information will help with understanding why this system is not working for everyone "if" its judging participation primarily on interacts.

gulberat

kasraken wrote: »

gulberat wrote: »

..But the way I felt after that, I almost felt like I would have been better to just AFK it after taking down my first base, until the free-for-all at the end. I hope that's not the strategy being aimed for?

I did notice that while I was in the Badlands the more interactions I made the better rewards I got (except at the end where it was heavy on dps while fighting Leeta after taking 3 bases). So I often rush to all the structures you can interact with and try to be the one to trigger them.

Maybe that information will help with understanding why this system is not working for everyone "if" its judging participation primarily on interacts.

Which doesn't make it right, since often to do the interacts successfully, you are benefiting from someone who is drawing the aggro of the mobs so you can slip in unnoticed. That role is just as important and useful. Similarly, a sci who immobilizes the enemy so they can't get at you even if they aren't a kemocite DPS hog is making a contribution (no matter how much some of them would claim no one else but they are useful or good players). ALL contributions should be recognized IMO or I will consider the strategy of fully participating in one base and then parking AFK to wait for the final free for all, if I realistically only have a shot at one base's rewards. I don't LIKE that being the case but if the pattern from my last two tours in the BZ holds for a while longer, that may be what I do to save myself the unnecessary aggravation. (Or if I get sufficiently frustrated, do one control point enough to get the daily marks package and then warp out.)

Maybe things can get fixed and I would like to hope so because I generally don't like the idea of AFKing, as I play to PLAY, not to sit and wait.

BTW, there is a report in another thread of someone who was there for 3/4 of a base assault, blew up enemies and did interacts, and got a goose egg last night, so it's not just me. I flagged it for pwgroverclvlnd's attention.