But what happens once someone has all the shiny toys on offer? They go and stop playing those queues so eventually you end up in the same situation as we are now.
To expect a correlation between reward and effort, rather than praying for the RNG god to take pity on you once in awhile, is NOT being a "self-entitled whiner" expecting anything to be "served up on a silver platter."
If the effort is guaranteed, the reward should be guaranteed as well. There's nothing unreasonable about that whatsoever.
I don't see why they can't add one or two space and ground sets as random drops to the queues. So long as there's not many of them, and super low drop rate, it would be a nice change.
I don't see random drops as a great fix.
First of all, we already get 'junk' drops just from killing ships.
Better gear than you can get from the usual random drop is easily available now by replaying certain missions, buying from a Rep/Fleet store, or leveraging the R&D system. 'Junk' drops just fill up inventory space until you can sell it off for a pittance.
On the other hand, if they are randomly dropping VR, UR, and Epic gear they're cutting into R&D and mucking up the game's EC/Dilithium economy. Maybe on Elite that would spice things up without causing too many issues, but it doesn't work for other lesser queues where the Devs aren't going to want to give out anything better than blues or (unlikely) purples.
Then we come back to the reason why the Devs went away from random queue rewards in the first place. People were dashing their brains out against the grind wall and getting nothing to show for it. They can't randomly bestow anything too good, too necessary, or too unique or we're back to the situation where effort + no reward = discouraged and not playing.
STO isn't the only MMO with public queue issues, many others have the same problem.
The issue is that more and more gamers are becoming "casual" gamers, by the time they have dealt with RL they might only have an hour or two to log in and have some fun.
So ask yourself what would you rather do with that hour of game time ?
1) Play solo content
2) Play private queues with friends or fleet mates
3) Play a pug, knowing you run the risk of being grouped with the usual assortment of bots, d***heads or trolls
Don't know about you but I know which one I wouldn't be choosing.
Suggested solution to problem #1: Give us R&D unlocks for rep weapons at T5 rep and as lockbox prizes for the weapons that drop from their lockbox OR give us the ability to loot mods from R&D-crafted items to imbue onto rep or lockbox gear
Agreed with OP on the solution to problem #2
Agreed with OP on the solution to problem #3
Comment for the solution to problem #4: Good idea, but as long as new players aren't required to queue up with vet players, it might work. Requirements of that nature being applied to newbies is a recipe for newbies leaving the game prematurely.
Suggested solution to problem #5: I think that we should focus on the fact that almost every queue out there provides Fleet Marks. More options is good, but the raw amount of Fleet Marks provided by actual fleet queues should be a lot higher than the offerings of other queues to compensate. I'm talking in the 400-500 marks range.
Suggested solution to problem #1: Give us R&D unlocks for rep weapons at T5 rep and as lockbox prizes for the weapons that drop from their lockbox OR give us the ability to loot mods from R&D-crafted items to imbue onto rep or lockbox gear
Agreed with OP on the solution to problem #2
Agreed with OP on the solution to problem #3
Comment for the solution to problem #4: Good idea, but as long as new players aren't required to queue up with vet players, it might work. Requirements of that nature being applied to newbies is a recipe for newbies leaving the game prematurely.
Suggested solution to problem #5: I think that we should focus on the fact that almost every queue out there provides Fleet Marks. More options is good, but the raw amount of Fleet Marks provided by actual fleet queues should be a lot higher than the offerings of other queues to compensate. I'm talking in the 400-500 marks range.
Well, R&D mats ARE in there already. But aside from Salvaged tech they're somewhat easier to get through admiralty now. Maybe if numbers were boosted?
Not many on those queues...wow it is so boring in STO. I hope the half a## season version could bring in some more excitement next week here. It's urgently needed
Nobody wants to be poor.
Nobody wants to be left behind in progress.
Nobody wants others to laugh at how bad their ship or gear is.
Nobody wants to have to run a million dungeons to get the gear they want.
Nobody wants to pay $30 for every ship they want.
Either Cryptic don't make money, or people have to grind.
It would be nice to have more story content and less grind for end-game gear and dilithium. At least you can get dilithium from doing episodes but you can only repeat them so many times before you start to hate them.
None of the rewards in this game are based on skill and instead are guaranteed over time or through cash.
Currently people can earn 30,000 dilithium per character every time they reach Tour of Duty 10 KDF admiralty, so people don't need to do ISA 10 times per day any more to get enough currency for their character to not be TRIBBLE.
Not many on those queues...wow it is so boring in STO. I hope the half a## season version could bring in some more excitement next week here. It's urgently needed
Things have been awfully quiet indeed. Fleet/Armada and even elite channels seem to have much less activity than usual. Zone chat was entirely empty on ESD a few days ago. Yesterday, I was logged in for over an hour, could play no more than one borg ground mission
I'm hoping it's just because people are playing a bit less so that they can afford to spend some more time in-game when the new half-season launches.
Not many on those queues...wow it is so boring in STO. I hope the half a## season version could bring in some more excitement next week here. It's urgently needed
Things have been awfully quiet indeed. Fleet/Armada and even elite channels seem to have much less activity than usual. Zone chat was entirely empty on ESD a few days ago. Yesterday, I was logged in for over an hour, could play no more than one borg ground mission
I'm hoping it's just because people are playing a bit less so that they can afford to spend some more time in-game when the new half-season launches.
Well, the new half-season doesn't have a whole lot to offer in that category. One mission and one Nakhul red alert, most likely simular to how they made the Tholian one. The skill revamp, the Romulan admiralty or the strategist specialization are all nice to have, but irrelevant from a long-term motivation point of view.
Not many on those queues...wow it is so boring in STO. I hope the half a## season version could bring in some more excitement next week here. It's urgently needed
Things have been awfully quiet indeed. Fleet/Armada and even elite channels seem to have much less activity than usual. Zone chat was entirely empty on ESD a few days ago. Yesterday, I was logged in for over an hour, could play no more than one borg ground mission
I'm hoping it's just because people are playing a bit less so that they can afford to spend some more time in-game when the new half-season launches.
Well, the new half-season doesn't have a whole lot to offer in that category. One mission and one Nakhul red alert, most likely simular to how they made the Tholian one. The skill revamp, the Romulan admiralty or the strategist specialization are all nice to have, but irrelevant from a long-term motivation point of view.
Hm not so sure about that. I'm eager to fly my newly specialised ships once the skill revamp goes life I might retrain one of my characters into a Sci-drainer.
Not many on those queues...wow it is so boring in STO. I hope the half a## season version could bring in some more excitement next week here. It's urgently needed
Things have been awfully quiet indeed. Fleet/Armada and even elite channels seem to have much less activity than usual. Zone chat was entirely empty on ESD a few days ago. Yesterday, I was logged in for over an hour, could play no more than one borg ground mission
I'm hoping it's just because people are playing a bit less so that they can afford to spend some more time in-game when the new half-season launches.
Well, the new half-season doesn't have a whole lot to offer in that category. One mission and one Nakhul red alert, most likely simular to how they made the Tholian one. The skill revamp, the Romulan admiralty or the strategist specialization are all nice to have, but irrelevant from a long-term motivation point of view.
I know it seems very limited in what they have to offer but at this point of time I would take any crumbs. It is so boring....even to levels that I have not noticed for the past 6 years in STO...usually Spring and Fall are the worst time for STO but you can feel a pin drop at ESD with no many peeps around. The queues are basically at "0" most times and that is even with the freebies they threw last week for the first contact giveaways.
I think the game is just suffering from a lack of end game material now, so a lot of people are just not bothering to log in for long if at all.
I mean I used to log in daily and do my scheduled run of stfs to earn my daily refine limit, set doffs and admiralty and maybe go to a battlezone for a bit. Now I'll maybe log in to refine dilithium and set up some admiralty if I can be bothered. There's just nothing else to do. I'm tired of the same old stfs, even the newer ones are either hard to get popping or are a bore after a few dozen runs. There's not been any new content since the last FE and that was way back in the end of January I think and was a single episode! The breach "event" was barely that, just more grinding for a rare toy. Talk about a content drought! No wonder there's nobody in ESD chat - something that in itself should be worrying as that's the bussiest area in the game!
I think a lot of big things are on the horizon. For about the past 6 months I've not been playing much myself. I log on, do the admiralty and doff for each character, then that's about it. Today I changed out of winter uniforms to regular uniforms as well. I have all the resource I will ever need so I am looking to the queues for fun alone. So a few times a week I pick a couple missions and that's good. But the days of grinding them are over for me.
That could change with a new great challenge or mega grind that was also fun (like delta recruit).
The number one thing I would like to see in STO is housing. Still waiting for my ski lodge on Andoria.
Basically, hang in there. Things will pick up soon. Everyone will want to test the new skills. Then that May excitement looms.
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."
I dunno, I envy all of you. I'm working on my alts' reps now (which I neglected carelessly, saying for marauding you don't need nukara t5 rep) and I would need a solid 2 month playtime to properly finish them. Problem is nerf hammer will swing next week and I'm nowhere near finished...
And paying 500zen per toon per respec..... sweet aliens in the celestial temple... may Cryptic have mercy on their souls when they are thrown out of Tower of Commerce...
All I'm doing now its (at most) logging for 5 mins to check on admiralty, Doffs and fleet stuff. I have no desire whatsoever to do any PVEs since the ones I "used" to like are beyond dead and the one or two running are as boring as heck.
Not sure if an FE would bring people back to this game as a PVE would. FEs are very "short lived" while PVEs do last longer. However, it takes more effort to create a PVE design than an FE. PVEs do tend to keep players coming back for a long term grind while FEs seem more like a one time participation.
I do hope there is some future planning to "revamp" PvEs instead of just the skill revamp. It's good they look at what the minority asked for (at least what they said in revamping the skill set for a 3rd time in less than 2 years). However, revamping the PvE queues IMO is much more CRITICAL than other stuff and have been widely documented in forums through years and years of players input to create a more permanent solution.
Not many on those queues...wow it is so boring in STO. I hope the half a## season version could bring in some more excitement next week here. It's urgently needed
Things have been awfully quiet indeed. Fleet/Armada and even elite channels seem to have much less activity than usual. Zone chat was entirely empty on ESD a few days ago. Yesterday, I was logged in for over an hour, could play no more than one borg ground mission
I'm hoping it's just because people are playing a bit less so that they can afford to spend some more time in-game when the new half-season launches.
not only that but spring semesters are in full swing and they like me have been busy fending off the dreaded homework monster with naught but a pencil and a simple calculator
Also something else I think would be cool, given how people enjoy vanity pets, is to add mini pet versions of bosses from all the queues that can only be obtained from Advanced/Elite queues, as a symbol of prestige. Like having a Mini-Armek tailing you around at ESD shouting "Resistance is Futile!" Or a mini-Borg Queen ship flying after you in space.
Not a bad idea. I would add making miniature packs (one space, one ground) of certain ship types available as rewards for the 'headhunter' accolades. For example, destroying all the named Tarantulas nets you the pair of miniature versions. Note, however, that logic would... strongly suggest the addition of a non-combat pet tab in the vein of the R&D materials one.
And I still wonder what became of the vanity drones from the NSF rep track...
Are you cereal?! You want to make an already wickedly costly Upgrade system even moar expensive, by removing mats drop boxes, just so people will somehow magically run more queues?!
why rely on queues? just get a bunch of fleet mates together and form your own team.
That requires too much effort for some.
Hehe, I never minded the effort to assamble teams and when I force the issue have up to 13 PvE oriented chats at my disposal (even though a few are bit redundant like DPS leagues). Still, under current conditions, this amount is not enough to get every map I want to run started at any given time.
Don’t get me wrong, I see your point and share it. The laziness of some peeps to social network is really remarkable.
But even if one tries one still relies on pugs a lot if one wants to get every match going that comes to mind.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Or they prefer everything not to be entirely predictable.
Not quite sure I agree. 99.999% of all public queues I'm in go exactly as they should. There are no surprises. If anything, pre-made teams running private queues are better an experimentation on strategy and such, so trying out new things is better in private queues IMO.
Maybe, I don't really play with pre-made teams that often. The only times I do this is when I want an easy ISA, and when I'm part of a 30k DPS team things are ridiculously easy.
Maybe you're right and there may be more room for experimentation, although can it really be called experimentation if, whenever something unexpected happens, you'll always be good enough to deal with the consequences? I mean, only so many things can happen in the average mission. If you know in advance what everyone's capable of, there's not really a surprise element. If you PUG, you never know who's on your team and you're going to have to make things work with the teammates you get.
Whatever it is, I don't think people prefer to PUG because it's too much effort to create a pre-made, or for being lazy. It's more likely the surprise-element, at least that's what makes it interesting for me.
Comments
Well said.
Also well said.
I don't see random drops as a great fix.
First of all, we already get 'junk' drops just from killing ships.
Better gear than you can get from the usual random drop is easily available now by replaying certain missions, buying from a Rep/Fleet store, or leveraging the R&D system. 'Junk' drops just fill up inventory space until you can sell it off for a pittance.
On the other hand, if they are randomly dropping VR, UR, and Epic gear they're cutting into R&D and mucking up the game's EC/Dilithium economy. Maybe on Elite that would spice things up without causing too many issues, but it doesn't work for other lesser queues where the Devs aren't going to want to give out anything better than blues or (unlikely) purples.
Then we come back to the reason why the Devs went away from random queue rewards in the first place. People were dashing their brains out against the grind wall and getting nothing to show for it. They can't randomly bestow anything too good, too necessary, or too unique or we're back to the situation where effort + no reward = discouraged and not playing.
The issue is that more and more gamers are becoming "casual" gamers, by the time they have dealt with RL they might only have an hour or two to log in and have some fun.
So ask yourself what would you rather do with that hour of game time ?
1) Play solo content
2) Play private queues with friends or fleet mates
3) Play a pug, knowing you run the risk of being grouped with the usual assortment of bots, d***heads or trolls
Don't know about you but I know which one I wouldn't be choosing.
Suggested solution to problem #1: Give us R&D unlocks for rep weapons at T5 rep and as lockbox prizes for the weapons that drop from their lockbox OR give us the ability to loot mods from R&D-crafted items to imbue onto rep or lockbox gear
Agreed with OP on the solution to problem #2
Agreed with OP on the solution to problem #3
Comment for the solution to problem #4: Good idea, but as long as new players aren't required to queue up with vet players, it might work. Requirements of that nature being applied to newbies is a recipe for newbies leaving the game prematurely.
Suggested solution to problem #5: I think that we should focus on the fact that almost every queue out there provides Fleet Marks. More options is good, but the raw amount of Fleet Marks provided by actual fleet queues should be a lot higher than the offerings of other queues to compensate. I'm talking in the 400-500 marks range.
Helpful Tools: Dictionary.com - Logical fallacies - Random generator - Word generator - Color tool - Extra Credits - List of common English language errors - New T6 Big booty tutorial
But yeah, rep weapon crafting... WANT!
My character Tsin'xing
Nobody wants to be left behind in progress.
Nobody wants others to laugh at how bad their ship or gear is.
Nobody wants to have to run a million dungeons to get the gear they want.
Nobody wants to pay $30 for every ship they want.
Either Cryptic don't make money, or people have to grind.
It would be nice to have more story content and less grind for end-game gear and dilithium. At least you can get dilithium from doing episodes but you can only repeat them so many times before you start to hate them.
None of the rewards in this game are based on skill and instead are guaranteed over time or through cash.
Currently people can earn 30,000 dilithium per character every time they reach Tour of Duty 10 KDF admiralty, so people don't need to do ISA 10 times per day any more to get enough currency for their character to not be TRIBBLE.
Things have been awfully quiet indeed. Fleet/Armada and even elite channels seem to have much less activity than usual. Zone chat was entirely empty on ESD a few days ago. Yesterday, I was logged in for over an hour, could play no more than one borg ground mission
I'm hoping it's just because people are playing a bit less so that they can afford to spend some more time in-game when the new half-season launches.
Lockbox weapon crafting... WANT MORE.
Well, the new half-season doesn't have a whole lot to offer in that category. One mission and one Nakhul red alert, most likely simular to how they made the Tholian one. The skill revamp, the Romulan admiralty or the strategist specialization are all nice to have, but irrelevant from a long-term motivation point of view.
Hm not so sure about that. I'm eager to fly my newly specialised ships once the skill revamp goes life
I know it seems very limited in what they have to offer but at this point of time I would take any crumbs. It is so boring....even to levels that I have not noticed for the past 6 years in STO...usually Spring and Fall are the worst time for STO but you can feel a pin drop at ESD with no many peeps around. The queues are basically at "0" most times and that is even with the freebies they threw last week for the first contact giveaways.
I mean I used to log in daily and do my scheduled run of stfs to earn my daily refine limit, set doffs and admiralty and maybe go to a battlezone for a bit. Now I'll maybe log in to refine dilithium and set up some admiralty if I can be bothered. There's just nothing else to do. I'm tired of the same old stfs, even the newer ones are either hard to get popping or are a bore after a few dozen runs.
There's not been any new content since the last FE and that was way back in the end of January I think and was a single episode! The breach "event" was barely that, just more grinding for a rare toy. Talk about a content drought! No wonder there's nobody in ESD chat - something that in itself should be worrying as that's the bussiest area in the game!
That could change with a new great challenge or mega grind that was also fun (like delta recruit).
The number one thing I would like to see in STO is housing. Still waiting for my ski lodge on Andoria.
Basically, hang in there. Things will pick up soon. Everyone will want to test the new skills. Then that May excitement looms.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
And paying 500zen per toon per respec..... sweet aliens in the celestial temple... may Cryptic have mercy on their souls when they are thrown out of Tower of Commerce...
Not sure if an FE would bring people back to this game as a PVE would. FEs are very "short lived" while PVEs do last longer. However, it takes more effort to create a PVE design than an FE. PVEs do tend to keep players coming back for a long term grind while FEs seem more like a one time participation.
I do hope there is some future planning to "revamp" PvEs instead of just the skill revamp. It's good they look at what the minority asked for (at least what they said in revamping the skill set for a 3rd time in less than 2 years). However, revamping the PvE queues IMO is much more CRITICAL than other stuff and have been widely documented in forums through years and years of players input to create a more permanent solution.
The solution, but unfortunately something that Cryptic have yet to get better at doing (if anything its got worse since reps happened).
And I still wonder what became of the vanity drones from the NSF rep track...
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
This. Yes, I think the OP is a little high.
Or they prefer everything not to be entirely predictable.
Hehe, I never minded the effort to assamble teams and when I force the issue have up to 13 PvE oriented chats at my disposal (even though a few are bit redundant like DPS leagues). Still, under current conditions, this amount is not enough to get every map I want to run started at any given time.
Don’t get me wrong, I see your point and share it. The laziness of some peeps to social network is really remarkable.
But even if one tries one still relies on pugs a lot if one wants to get every match going that comes to mind.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Maybe, I don't really play with pre-made teams that often. The only times I do this is when I want an easy ISA, and when I'm part of a 30k DPS team things are ridiculously easy.
Maybe you're right and there may be more room for experimentation, although can it really be called experimentation if, whenever something unexpected happens, you'll always be good enough to deal with the consequences? I mean, only so many things can happen in the average mission. If you know in advance what everyone's capable of, there's not really a surprise element. If you PUG, you never know who's on your team and you're going to have to make things work with the teammates you get.
Whatever it is, I don't think people prefer to PUG because it's too much effort to create a pre-made, or for being lazy. It's more likely the surprise-element, at least that's what makes it interesting for me.