All cryptic needs to do to fix their queues is take a look at STO's predecessor, which has healthy queues despite having a mere fraction of STO's population.
Meet Champions Online.
CO's queues usually pop in less than a minute, and you really only have something of a wait during the late hours. There's a daily quest for completing 3 simple queues, which rotate in fairly often, and another daily quest for completing a more elaborate queued event which rotates once per week.
A daily incentive would be nice, but since STO's queues don't rotate like COs (nor should they) you'd just have more people in ISA, CC, and then one other easy/quick queue to get the daily quota in.
So!
Why not also take a page out of WoW's playbook and add a "random queue" option--one for normal and one for advanced? The daily quest should require the player to run 3 queues selected via the random option. To further incentivize the use of random over ISA cheese, completing random queues shouldn't put the STF in question on cooldown and should award a choice-of-marks package and possibly a bonus crafting mats package in addition to the standard rewards.
Thus, if I'm after Iconian marks, I could chain-queue randoms and, no matter which ones I ended up in, I could get what I needed.
To summarize:
Standard queuing:
- Dilithium
- Queue-specific marks or fleet marks
- R&D materials package
- 30-minute cooldown between specific runs (what we have now)
Random queuing:
- All of the above rewards
- Choice-of-marks package
- R&D materials bonus package
- No cooldown invoked
- Existing cooldown ignored if applicable
- Credit toward daily STF quest
* The daily reward package would normally contain something basic, like a choice-of-marks package, extra dilithium, random blue or purple gear (most likely vendor trash), etc. However, to feed the gambling addicts, it should also have a very small chance of containing better things: purple tech upgrades, 1-2 lobi, rich dilithium claim, or perhaps something completely unique to this reward package--special bridge officer, special duty officer(s), basic T1-T4 ship requisition for filling out admiralty, etc.
Just my thoughts, anyway.
and good thoughts they are too, as a package proposal its bang on!!
I do like some of the suggestions that have been made here, especially those that are something different than 'more rewards' for other queues.
- More balance between careers and thus rewarding different roles for doing different things would be a good thing to start with.
- Rethinking difficulties.
- Rewarding pugging by removing cooldowns. (There is the danger that everyone will still be pugging only ISA and CCA but it's worth a try imo)
- Randomisation.
- An event that will reward the entire playerbase, with the reward depending on how many different queues have been played.
Some other things that might help, and which wouldn't require huge changes to current queues:
- Adding Armada events (and by extension, Armada e-mail). This could make it much easier to play 20-man queues.
- Maybe queues that can start with less than 5 people. Though I agree that solo-content is not a solution to problems with multiplayer content.
__________
Personally, I think that randomising things would be one of the best solutions to make things more attractive. In the end, repeating things cannot be avoided but at least the missions could show some variation to make things less predictable. They did this with Korfez Elite.
The same is true for Fleet alert, another more active queue. Starbase incursion also has a random element in it. These fleet missions can still be finished rather quickly, but the fact that there's different enemies in different locations makes it more interesting to do multiple times imo.
I think the choice ultimately would be to either making the other queues, or all queues in general more attractive, or making ISA and CCA less attractive. Since the latter would probably kill the game and set the Forums on fire, we may need something to make the other missions more interesting, without simply adding rewards everywhere cause most rewards are already fairly easy to obtain.
Actually the solution to this problem is to have the missions in Soloable Ques as well.
The point all MMOs miss is that most people play games to get away from their worldly problems. These problems all come from having to compete and share with other people.
Why would anyone want to do that in a game? Especially if you are paying for it?
God no if you want to get away from other players than there is always the story missions, ground/space battle-zones to do, as well as actual single player games. MMOs are more about the interaction between players in the content an setting, not a purely single player game. Why would you play a Massively multi player game if you want to play by yourself in a single player experience? I mean that is what mmo stands for, it is okay to have some single player aspects an content in the game, but the majority of the game content an aspects should be around the multi-player content.
As I have said I would get rid of the idea of having elite marks gotten for finishing missions, but as the reward for how many optionals you complete (so you could get a minimum of three in most of them) at the end/ Also adding items you can get from the older reps would be nice to keep incentives in them for people to run them, while I would also say have some of the projects need mats that come from specific stfs to create them. Though i will also say that either going with a rotating list of ques would be good to funnel players into different ques. Yet also have maybe a system that registers which que/s are the least played an then gives them a massive boost to rewards during the fallowing week to incentive players to play these by having them gain increased payout.
All cryptic needs to do to fix their queues is take a look at STO's predecessor, which has healthy queues despite having a mere fraction of STO's population.
Meet Champions Online.
CO's queues usually pop in less than a minute, and you really only have something of a wait during the late hours. There's a daily quest for completing 3 simple queues, which rotate in fairly often, and another daily quest for completing a more elaborate queued event which rotates once per week.
Simple? bwwhahaaahaaa!!!! Okay some of them are. But you go fight Gravitar and then tell me you'd expect random PUGs to live....
Actually part of why queues are still active in CO is the way the rewards work. Some of them reward marks, but the real prizes are often random drops. For example, Gravitar's costume parts.... But also they often reward the equivalent of EC.
I like the queues. I used to enjoy playing them. But these days it's impossible to get anything to Pop that isn't an event, Crystalline, or ISA. I use the DPS channels with some success. But even the DPS channels are 99% ISA and whatever event is going on. Here's a list of things that I believe have killed the queues and possible solutions to those problems.
PROBLEM 1:We're coming up on 2 years since the R&D revamp. A glorious system that vastly improved the game. However (like many things since then) the revamp had a negative effect on the queues being filled. Before the R&D revamp, [Pen] didn't exist. Because of this, rep weapons were on par with lockbox weapons and drops. However, since the R&D revamp, crafted weapons have the clear advantage over lockbox and rep weapons. So players aren't being told to "grind their rep" for those weapons, but this is only a minor issue. At the same time, cryptic added R&D drops to the queues. This should have helped keep the queues full right? People want to build those sweet craftable weapons. Except that these mats are easily acquired from admiralty/doffing and the damage is still being felt from the fixed delta recruit exploit. Today we have a system in which the best energy weapons are acquired without ever entering a single queue.
SOLUTION 1: Remove Rare and Very Rare crafting mats and salvaged tech from anything that isn't a queue. Including all future delta recruits type rewards. Also, maybe some crafting mats sinks should have their requirements increased for a period of time, to drain out the excess form the DR exploit. These sinks are things like doff missions, fleet projects, actual crafting etc.
PROBLEM 2:Ok so the "best" energy weapons don't require you to enter the queues right? What about torpedoes, shields, deflector, impulse engines? If you want the Neutronic Torp, Romulan Hyper-Plasma Torp, Undine Rep Torp, Borg Rep Torps, you still have to do some queues right? Wrong. All torps/shields/deflectors/impulse/warp cores etc. etc. etc. don't require any queues to be played. We have today the battlezones and the patrols. Any and all marks plus ELITE marks can be had by not entering a single queue. You want that sweet Iconian shield? Just go to Kobali Prime and do the 2 missions for easy marks including ELITE marks. Lots of players do this to avoid playing the queues. Don't get me wrong, I love the battlezones. They're REALLY fun but they are also part of the problem with the queues.
SOLUTION 2: Revamp Elite marks. First, nerf elite marks rewards in battlezones by limiting ALL Elite marks earned from battlezones to say 1 or 2 per day. Meaning if you earned your 2 Iconian Elite marks from Kobali Prime, you can't earn any Voth Elite marks from the Dyson Battlezone. I would also like to remove regular marks from patrols but most players would be in an uproar over this. So maybe they should just remove the daily reward from patrols? Also make normal queues reward 1 Elite mark to compensate for the battlezone nerf. Make Advanced queues reward 2 Elite marks. Make ground Elite reward 2 Elite marks and Space elite reward 3 Elite Marks. Some Space Advanced queues and Ground Elite queues are easy right? So double the Elite Mark cost for Rep Items. All Rep Shields/Deflector/Impulse should now cost 10. Modules that cost 2 should now cost 4 etc.
PROBLEM 3: Events, like the current "The Breach" event are really fun. But I've been against them rewarding "any marks" for a long time now. I don't know about you, but lots of my characters need Terran Marks. Ok so let's check the regular Terran queues. Oh no, they're have ZERO players on standby. Ok let's go to the battlezone. Really? There's just ONE instance with ONLY 10 people in it. This is dreadfully slow. Oh well let's play "The Breach." Without including a daily reward, any and all toons get 140 Terran marks on normal difficulty. What? Really? Why on Earth would I ever play any queue or battlezone for my alts knowing that these events come around? I imagine that most players just put their alts into dry dock and wait for Crystalline/Mirror/The Breach to come around. Bonus marks weekend isn't really a problem or a solution since people just play the things that are already being played more.
SOLUTION 3: You aren't going to like it, but "any marks" have to stop being awarded for events. Only Fleet Marks, whatever marks make sense for the rep, and maybe, just maybe, the current marks should be rewarded for completing event queues.
PROBLEM 4 Let's say that I've finished all of my reps. 100% maxed out with all rep gear unlocked. So here I am with all of my sweet gear. What's the point of me playing these reps again? This isn't a new problem that I'm bringing up. We've all talked about this for years. The Borg STF's have (had actually) a solution for this. There is an accolade for completing all of the space queues 100 times. There is also the accolade for completing all of the queues on Elite difficulty with all optionals. Back when we had "No Win Scenario," there were accolades for completing various waves. Lots of people are happy that we don't have to play STF's 6,000 times to get lucky drops to get gear anymore. But perhaps there should be more incentives like the aforementioned accolades to keep people interested?
SOLUTION 4: Like I said above, add some accolades for completing queues. Perhaps there could be accolades for completing each one 100 times plus more accolades for completing optionals. Also, to borrow some terminology we could have a REAL REP SPONSOR SYSTEM. Right now we have the system in which we can "sponsor" our alts so that they don't have to grind as much rep. This system should stay in place since it encourages us to play with our alts. But perhaps, newer players and poorly outfitted alts, need "sponsors" to play queues with them? If there were a system in place in which a maxed rep player could team up with and sponsor a non-maxed player, it would encourage more players to play queues. The maxed player would need some kind of incentive like say... an accolade that unlocks a special visual for their rep gear. Or something like that.
PROBLEM 5: This is more of a fix for generic fleet queues. In the old days, old school fleet queues like "Colony Invasion" would pop fairly quickly. Now it's 100% dead every day. How do we give some love to these queues to keep people interested? The R&D boxes don't help since people only want advanced and elite R&D boxes. These queues already have dilithium rewards so it can't be that. I think that the answer is closer to the above problem than buffing any rewards. Perhaps a slight change in marks rewards would help though.
SOLUTION 5: Say you play "Colony Invasion" and your enemy is Klingons. Your reward should be fleet marks. Say the enemy is Undine. Your rewards should be a choice between Fleet Marks and Undine marks. Say your enemy is Jem'Hadar. There are no Dominion Marks (yet) so perhaps fleet marks and a few commodities like Unrefined ketracel should be included? Ok, also, like fleet alert (which pops very quickly, possibly due to what I'm about to suggest) you should add accolade rewards. Say one accolade for beating Klingons/Jem'Hadar/Hirogen in Colony Invasion 50 times. Perhaps there should be named bosses in queues like Colony Invasion that are tied to accolades like the named ships in Fleet Alert. Really, I think we might be on to something here with these accolades. Also let's say that some of these accolades are more than just a title. Perhaps they could unlock trophies for your ship interior or unlock special costume pieces like the Borg Elite accolade. Or maybe the accolades should be REPEATABLE (like beating Colony Invasion 100 times) and unlock a reward like dilithium or spec points or whatever. Really, I'm trying to get ideas for bringing the Glory Days of the queues back.
Well there you have it. Feel free to agree with me or crucify me. Or add your own ideas. Personally, I miss the days in which I could just run any queue, because the vast majority of them would pop within 2-3 minutes.
Tis a manifesto of utter rubbish
0
Options
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,167Community Moderator
Personally, I think that randomising things would be one of the best solutions to make things more attractive. In the end, repeating things cannot be avoided but at least the missions could show some variation to make things less predictable. They did this with Korfez Elite.
The same is true for Fleet alert, another more active queue. Starbase incursion also has a random element in it. These fleet missions can still be finished rather quickly, but the fact that there's different enemies in different locations makes it more interesting to do multiple times imo.
Colony Invasion has randomized enemies too, but these days it hardly gets any attention.
Personally, I think that randomising things would be one of the best solutions to make things more attractive. In the end, repeating things cannot be avoided but at least the missions could show some variation to make things less predictable. They did this with Korfez Elite.
The same is true for Fleet alert, another more active queue. Starbase incursion also has a random element in it. These fleet missions can still be finished rather quickly, but the fact that there's different enemies in different locations makes it more interesting to do multiple times imo.
Colony Invasion has randomized enemies too, but these days it hardly gets any attention.
Hm yeah good point. I can't really explain it to be fair. The rewards are pretty good for an easy mission and it does have the random component in it.
Personally, I think that randomising things would be one of the best solutions to make things more attractive. In the end, repeating things cannot be avoided but at least the missions could show some variation to make things less predictable. They did this with Korfez Elite.
The same is true for Fleet alert, another more active queue. Starbase incursion also has a random element in it. These fleet missions can still be finished rather quickly, but the fact that there's different enemies in different locations makes it more interesting to do multiple times imo.
Colony Invasion has randomized enemies too, but these days it hardly gets any attention.
Theres so many other ways to get fleet marks and so many things which give more. I wouldn't mind a revamp and rewards pass of that queue. Make it harder but drastically increase the amount of fleet marks a good run awards.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
People keep harping on about more marks, dilithium and R&D mats, but its all RUBBISH!
Its just more of the same.
What queues need is "unique" rewards that set them apart from eachother, something which pretty much every major MMO developer knows well. Even if its just something simple like a vanity item like a pet or a costume or hull material unlock.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
the only way cryptic will ever be able to balance time/reward for group instances, is using wave timers, it is the only mechanic they have in game that cares not for the dps race they have created. not a fan of that idea though, i cant help but think that, wave timers and instance clocks, firmly belong in the realm of player created content, not developers, who should be able to balance end game content with their end game players.
there was a suggestion that the games becomes easy and 'far more rewarding' after completing all your upgrades and skill progressions.. i'm not sure i quite follow that. my idea of rewarding isn't having the ability to blast through content like it isn't there.. although there are surely those who do, but is that really rewarding? mission reruns are fun, but to be fair, they don't really require anything end game to enjoy. (sorry if i have misunderstood your meaning)
I could see it being nice having some ques have random enemies that use different gear, weapon types, abilities, and tactics. I would love to see the enemies updated like giving borg the ability gain stacks of shield-hardness an weapon-penetration against the main target's shield type. or highest damage energy weapons being used on them, while also giving each career one or two methods of getting rid of this buff/debuff on certain abilities they have. Many times the enemies just don't feel much different than afew little tweaks other than the voth largely.
What's funny is your not wrong! Die to the constant SNR/Disconnects I was getting that made it impossible to even try to play I went back to FF14 and just lurk on these forums now. Here's the cool part: the lowest dungeons get played by the highest level people very frequently because they reward them for it! Some dungeons drop certain pieces of gear that others do not and the gear is all locked behind dungeon drops or Tomestones (their version of marks gained from dungeons) with most of the dungeons rewarding the same amount no.matter which you run and to make it better they added a Roulette System that randomly selects your dungeon for you and you get double rewards! That's how you do it!
the only way cryptic will ever be able to balance time/reward for group instances, is using wave timers, it is the only mechanic they have in game that cares not for the dps race they have created. not a fan of that idea though, i cant help but think that, wave timers and instance clocks, firmly belong in the realm of player created content, not developers, who should be able to balance end game content with their end game players.
there was a suggestion that the games becomes easy and 'far more rewarding' after completing all your upgrades and skill progressions.. i'm not sure i quite follow that. my idea of rewarding isn't having the ability to blast through content like it isn't there.. although there are surely those who do, but is that really rewarding? mission reruns are fun, but to be fair, they don't really require anything end game to enjoy. (sorry if i have misunderstood your meaning)
What I meant was that missions get more rewarding in the sense that a fully decked out player with filled spec trees, upgraded gear etc. will find it easier to play missions and collect materials, dilithium, EC etc. for a given amount of time and effort. Which they can then spend on new ships, gear etc. once they have one set of fully upgraded gear.
It may not be rewarding in the sense that it's satisfying or enjoyable, agreed with that.
Basically what I meant was that those who left right after DR because they found the game to be in a state where they couldn't complete most of the content they had played for years *, would likely be happy to return if they saw how much easier things have become to get that spec tree filled and to get one set of upgraded gear.
* In my fleet, we used to play mission together a lot. Then we suddenly found out that most content couldn't be completed anymore. Unless we'd play normal missions, but who teams up for normal missions?
We've lost some of our most active players back then, same with a lot of people in my personal friend list. I think that if they came back to the game and saw how things have changed that they might find it easier to get those rewards, that it would be easier for them to get the stuff they need to be able to play the game on advanced difficulty again.
People keep harping on about more marks, dilithium and R&D mats, but its all RUBBISH!
Its just more of the same.
What queues need is "unique" rewards that set them apart from eachother, something which pretty much every major MMO developer knows well. Even if its just something simple like a vanity item like a pet or a costume or hull material unlock.
This is more along the lines of one of the suggestions that I posted. Unique rewards can really help. I remember making several attempts to get the special armor visuals for the omega ground set. And another poster says he doesn't care about Accolades that are just titles, but many other players do care. But if Cryptic says accolades are "dead" well then that's fine. Accolades can't take that much effort add into the game. FWIW I like the "random queue" idea and think that it might work especially if it's broken up in to "Random Normal Queue" and "Random Advanced Queue." Also, any "random queue" idea should be withheld from doing private runs IMO.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
People keep harping on about more marks, dilithium and R&D mats, but its all RUBBISH!
Its just more of the same.
What queues need is "unique" rewards that set them apart from eachother, something which pretty much every major MMO developer knows well. Even if its just something simple like a vanity item like a pet or a costume or hull material unlock.
This is more along the lines of one of the suggestions that I posted. Unique rewards can really help. I remember making several attempts to get the special armor visuals for the omega ground set. And another poster says he doesn't care about Accolades that are just titles, but many other players do care. But if Cryptic says accolades are "dead" well then that's fine. Accolades can't take that much effort add into the game. FWIW I like the "random queue" idea and think that it might work especially if it's broken up in to "Random Normal Queue" and "Random Advanced Queue." Also, any "random queue" idea should be withheld from doing private runs IMO.
I earned my Elite Honor Guard costume the hard way.
And the feeling I felt when I finally got the final drop for the set was nothing but pure euphoria.
The feeling I get from maxing a reputation and purchasing the last piece of gear? MEH!
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
the only way cryptic will ever be able to balance time/reward for group instances, is using wave timers, it is the only mechanic they have in game that cares not for the dps race they have created. not a fan of that idea though, i cant help but think that, wave timers and instance clocks, firmly belong in the realm of player created content, not developers, who should be able to balance end game content with their end game players.
there was a suggestion that the games becomes easy and 'far more rewarding' after completing all your upgrades and skill progressions.. i'm not sure i quite follow that. my idea of rewarding isn't having the ability to blast through content like it isn't there.. although there are surely those who do, but is that really rewarding? mission reruns are fun, but to be fair, they don't really require anything end game to enjoy. (sorry if i have misunderstood your meaning)
What I meant was that missions get more rewarding in the sense that a fully decked out player with filled spec trees, upgraded gear etc. will find it easier to play missions and collect materials, dilithium, EC etc. for a given amount of time and effort. Which they can then spend on new ships, gear etc. once they have one set of fully upgraded gear.
It may not be rewarding in the sense that it's satisfying or enjoyable, agreed with that.
Basically what I meant was that those who left right after DR because they found the game to be in a state where they couldn't complete most of the content they had played for years *, would likely be happy to return if they saw how much easier things have become to get that spec tree filled and to get one set of upgraded gear.
* In my fleet, we used to play mission together a lot. Then we suddenly found out that most content couldn't be completed anymore. Unless we'd play normal missions, but who teams up for normal missions?
We've lost some of our most active players back then, same with a lot of people in my personal friend list. I think that if they came back to the game and saw how things have changed that they might find it easier to get those rewards, that it would be easier for them to get the stuff they need to be able to play the game on advanced difficulty again.
That was likely due primarily to the shock of attempting a mission balanced for a Level 60 player as a 50. I know I did it and yikes.... that was scary. My first taste of new advanced was mirror invasion. clearing ONE rift was a difficult task if it was guarded by a typhoon.
i'm not even sure it was the actual difficulty that was the issue.. that was merely a symptom of the situation created by cryptic. had they taken steps to remedy the problem, hell, had they even accepted that there was a problem, instead of burying their heads in the sand and declaring it the best expansion ever, the exodus would not have happened to the extent it did.
someone posted a comment earlier about companies looking at customers like addicts needing satisfied.. and if they can't scratch that itch in the usual place, it wont take them long till they are off looking to find a better tree.
in the DR situation i think the 1st wave of players to leave were those assumed addicts.. less tolerance for change when all they want to do is pewpewrewardrepeat. the longer term players, those with more time and resources invested in the game, spent a little longer in 'hope' of something changing, and when that didn't happen, many of them left for good.
they will always find new short term addicts, but new dedicated players in an ever evolving market place, that is a much taller order. personally, i feel they have shown their hand, and it is the short term addicts that they are counting on. the kind of players who are singularly focused, and can be distracted long enough to part with a little money, before noticing the holes in the game and moving on to something else.
it is a sad state of affairs, and i can't help but think, they want gamblers, not gamers.
Yeah, I still think you're over exaggerating how many players actually quit. Not everyone played advanced queues all day long before DR. Those players who didn't bother with the old elite STFs never noticed a change since it didn't effect them at all.
Yeah, I still think you're over exaggerating how many players actually quit. Not everyone played advanced queues all day long before DR. Those players who didn't bother with the old elite STFs never noticed a change since it didn't effect them at all.
Advanced or no, prior to DR people were all at end-level once they reached lv 50. And they had cool rep gear. Then Geko single-handedly destroyed that, and overnight made everyone worthless, unless they were willing to pay thru their noses to Upgrade everything they already had. Many ppl said 'F that!' and just stopped playing (I had to abandon my beloved Rom alt for the same reason). The ensuing panic at Cryptic was great, and, at first, they frantically tried to deny everything, and had Dev after Dev come out and say the queue numbers were obviously in error; but they weren't, were they?! (This was also at the time Smirk valiently stated all queues popped for him immediately).
Then the issue got compounded, because peeps, noticing the empty queues, went to private channels. And the queues for which no private interest was shown, simply remained horrible empty, like the infamous 20-person Starbase Fleet Defense: sometimes you see someone queue for it, but they eventually give up on it, and leave the queue again when they realize not enough people are interested.
I have another solution. Introduce new unique epic quality space and ground sets that have a very small probability to drop from a certain set of queues. For example:
epic mk xiv deflector
-> 0,1% chance to drop from any normal Borg space queue
-> 1% chance to drop from any advanced Borg space queue
-> 1,5% chance to drop from any elite Borg space queue
epic mk xiv impulse engine
-> Undine space queues (same chances for normal/advanced/elite as above)
epic mk xiv warp/singularity core
-> Vaadwaur space queues (same chances for normal/advanced/elite as above)
epic mk xiv shield
-> Terran space queues (same chances for normal/advanced/elite as above)
The same could be applied to ground queues. I guarantee you. With a random drop reward system like this the queues would be full again.
I agree. Make it like the old STFs pre-rep, adapted to the new situation.
Rep gear at mk xii space and ground is available the current way. Mk XIII or Mk XIV elite or "veteran" gear with buffed up stats should be available from playing the queues only, and each one of them. Veteran Omega ground gear available from Borg ground, weapon, armour and shield, same for space. Veteran dyson gear (would need a ground queue), Iconian and so on.
And yes, you may not get it running hundreds of those, some get it at their third run - that's a game. RNG, item drops. Deal with it. It's fun to try to get it and if it isn't the game isn't fun to you, take a break.
TRIBBLE that. That original system was total garbage and when Cryptic did away with it, I was happy. There was literally nothing good with that old drop system.
0
Options
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,167Community Moderator
TRIBBLE that. That original system was total garbage and when Cryptic did away with it, I was happy. There was literally nothing good with that old drop system.
I semi agree with you. It was down to pure luck if you got the tech drop. You could run 50 in a row and NOT get one, while the guy next to you is on his 12th consecutive drop and counting. The only advantage the tech drops gave was getting people into different queues.
What has killed the ques is dead-easy, target rich environment runs like ISA and CCA, and how they produce lovely fat numbers in parse logs with the day's FAW meta, and the generous alt-friendly environment that STO provides users.
ISE, CCA, Log into Alt.
Repeat until CD on ISA and CCA is over on first character.
This is STO today.
And The Players Love It™
I have 9 alts and doing stuff you propose would end me up being mad after a rather short time. Sure, as a hobby DPSer, I love ISA very much and may play it 2,3,4 times a day but can quiet assure you that one needs at least half a dozen maps in a cycle in order not to get bored or annoyed soonish.
Looking at the queue list and beginning to hate ISA and CCA because that’s the only maps with a halfway healthy participation is somewhat short sighted.
How about we extend that view to the thousands of peeps in battle zones, stories, and red alerts/patrols?
Why not force everybody into the queue list by removing each and every splinter of Dil one can get elsewhere, hm?
There were times where we had close to such a surrounding in STO and the queues were full and healthy.
Still I think its the wrong way!
One does not nerf and discourage, one should do the opposite.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
TRIBBLE that. That original system was total garbage and when Cryptic did away with it, I was happy. There was literally nothing good with that old drop system.
I semi agree with you. It was down to pure luck if you got the tech drop. You could run 50 in a row and NOT get one, while the guy next to you is on his 12th consecutive drop and counting. The only advantage the tech drops gave was getting people into different queues.
Part of what makes the system in Champs different is tradability. If you get a costume box as a random reward, you can trade it.
The queues were never "full and healthy". They've been dying since they were added. Seriously.... there are many people whose entire motive for doing any queued content is rep marks so that they can get progress in a rep. Once they decide they no longer need Borg marks they have no reason to do Borg Queues.
I loved doing all the borg stfs, but all of them are empty now, I used to queue for Big Dig and some of the other low level queue's cause they were alot of fun.
I didn't really like the two Terran queue's. They're too quick and I hated doing them, but now that I'm maxed in the Terran rep, I don't have to bother with it anymore.
With all these new updates and such, The Borg just seem to be in the way now rather than being one of the major players in the game like they used to be. I enjoyed the Defera Battlezone when it was still a thing much like the rest of the Borg stuff.
Game went downhill imo when the Romulans became a playable faction. New Romulus is somewhat busy still, but not like it used to be and the Fleet STFs came and went too.
I just want to play the older stfs again, but either the playerbase has shrunk, or no one just wants to do them anymore unless it's part of an event, or it's both.
Well one of the reasons that has is that older content and reps are not really gone over again, just left to degrade as time passes. In all honesty it would be better to expand on the older reps an story-line by adding to them, furthering the story, and also update the rewards with upgraded rewards as well as new ones. I will agree that it would be nice to get unique rewards from different ques, yet using a random drop kind of set up might not be a good idea either, and so I think making a new mark type that is specific to the different ques would be good that is used to make unique que based gear. Like normal projects only need dil/marks/elite marks that are gotten from any que, but this special project might need a specific mark type that are gotten from completing Infected space or infected space cure.
"The Queues killed the Queues", Quoted Quark. The Quotas from the Quorum were Quenched, so Quit Queuing for Queue's, or Quiet your Quips. Quaint Queries and Questions will Quantify no Quarter...
TRIBBLE that. That original system was total garbage and when Cryptic did away with it, I was happy. There was literally nothing good with that old drop system.
I semi agree with you. It was down to pure luck if you got the tech drop. You could run 50 in a row and NOT get one, while the guy next to you is on his 12th consecutive drop and counting. The only advantage the tech drops gave was getting people into different queues.
(quoting both of you)
But that's the point of a hack&slay MMO! Play the content in search for the rare drop. Thr process of doing so should be fun and compelling, having a good time with other players in the team. For that very reason I started a new Diablo II character two days ago. RNG and luck are integral parts of playing a game.
Ranting about "time wasted" because one didn't get a drop while playing a video game is pointless. You are playing a game. You don't get benefit of "investing" time in it other than having fun. And to me at least grinding currency and buying my items in a store is not fun, that's what I do for a living.
^ 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
@angrytarg I'm with you. I kind of miss the old tech drop system. I enjoyed it much more then the slide bar rep system we have now, but I can see its appeal. Still just like the old drop system better.
Comments
and good thoughts they are too, as a package proposal its bang on!!
- More balance between careers and thus rewarding different roles for doing different things would be a good thing to start with.
- Rethinking difficulties.
- Rewarding pugging by removing cooldowns. (There is the danger that everyone will still be pugging only ISA and CCA but it's worth a try imo)
- Randomisation.
- An event that will reward the entire playerbase, with the reward depending on how many different queues have been played.
Some other things that might help, and which wouldn't require huge changes to current queues:
- Adding Armada events (and by extension, Armada e-mail). This could make it much easier to play 20-man queues.
- Maybe queues that can start with less than 5 people. Though I agree that solo-content is not a solution to problems with multiplayer content.
__________
Personally, I think that randomising things would be one of the best solutions to make things more attractive. In the end, repeating things cannot be avoided but at least the missions could show some variation to make things less predictable. They did this with Korfez Elite.
The same is true for Fleet alert, another more active queue. Starbase incursion also has a random element in it. These fleet missions can still be finished rather quickly, but the fact that there's different enemies in different locations makes it more interesting to do multiple times imo.
I think the choice ultimately would be to either making the other queues, or all queues in general more attractive, or making ISA and CCA less attractive. Since the latter would probably kill the game and set the Forums on fire, we may need something to make the other missions more interesting, without simply adding rewards everywhere cause most rewards are already fairly easy to obtain.
God no if you want to get away from other players than there is always the story missions, ground/space battle-zones to do, as well as actual single player games. MMOs are more about the interaction between players in the content an setting, not a purely single player game. Why would you play a Massively multi player game if you want to play by yourself in a single player experience? I mean that is what mmo stands for, it is okay to have some single player aspects an content in the game, but the majority of the game content an aspects should be around the multi-player content.
As I have said I would get rid of the idea of having elite marks gotten for finishing missions, but as the reward for how many optionals you complete (so you could get a minimum of three in most of them) at the end/ Also adding items you can get from the older reps would be nice to keep incentives in them for people to run them, while I would also say have some of the projects need mats that come from specific stfs to create them. Though i will also say that either going with a rotating list of ques would be good to funnel players into different ques. Yet also have maybe a system that registers which que/s are the least played an then gives them a massive boost to rewards during the fallowing week to incentive players to play these by having them gain increased payout.
Actually part of why queues are still active in CO is the way the rewards work. Some of them reward marks, but the real prizes are often random drops. For example, Gravitar's costume parts.... But also they often reward the equivalent of EC.
My character Tsin'xing
Tis a manifesto of utter rubbish
Colony Invasion has randomized enemies too, but these days it hardly gets any attention.
Hm yeah good point. I can't really explain it to be fair. The rewards are pretty good for an easy mission and it does have the random component in it.
Theres so many other ways to get fleet marks and so many things which give more. I wouldn't mind a revamp and rewards pass of that queue. Make it harder but drastically increase the amount of fleet marks a good run awards.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Its just more of the same.
What queues need is "unique" rewards that set them apart from eachother, something which pretty much every major MMO developer knows well. Even if its just something simple like a vanity item like a pet or a costume or hull material unlock.
there was a suggestion that the games becomes easy and 'far more rewarding' after completing all your upgrades and skill progressions.. i'm not sure i quite follow that. my idea of rewarding isn't having the ability to blast through content like it isn't there.. although there are surely those who do, but is that really rewarding? mission reruns are fun, but to be fair, they don't really require anything end game to enjoy. (sorry if i have misunderstood your meaning)
What I meant was that missions get more rewarding in the sense that a fully decked out player with filled spec trees, upgraded gear etc. will find it easier to play missions and collect materials, dilithium, EC etc. for a given amount of time and effort. Which they can then spend on new ships, gear etc. once they have one set of fully upgraded gear.
It may not be rewarding in the sense that it's satisfying or enjoyable, agreed with that.
Basically what I meant was that those who left right after DR because they found the game to be in a state where they couldn't complete most of the content they had played for years *, would likely be happy to return if they saw how much easier things have become to get that spec tree filled and to get one set of upgraded gear.
* In my fleet, we used to play mission together a lot. Then we suddenly found out that most content couldn't be completed anymore. Unless we'd play normal missions, but who teams up for normal missions?
We've lost some of our most active players back then, same with a lot of people in my personal friend list. I think that if they came back to the game and saw how things have changed that they might find it easier to get those rewards, that it would be easier for them to get the stuff they need to be able to play the game on advanced difficulty again.
I earned my Elite Honor Guard costume the hard way.
And the feeling I felt when I finally got the final drop for the set was nothing but pure euphoria.
The feeling I get from maxing a reputation and purchasing the last piece of gear? MEH!
My character Tsin'xing
someone posted a comment earlier about companies looking at customers like addicts needing satisfied.. and if they can't scratch that itch in the usual place, it wont take them long till they are off looking to find a better tree.
in the DR situation i think the 1st wave of players to leave were those assumed addicts.. less tolerance for change when all they want to do is pewpewrewardrepeat. the longer term players, those with more time and resources invested in the game, spent a little longer in 'hope' of something changing, and when that didn't happen, many of them left for good.
they will always find new short term addicts, but new dedicated players in an ever evolving market place, that is a much taller order. personally, i feel they have shown their hand, and it is the short term addicts that they are counting on. the kind of players who are singularly focused, and can be distracted long enough to part with a little money, before noticing the holes in the game and moving on to something else.
it is a sad state of affairs, and i can't help but think, they want gamblers, not gamers.
My character Tsin'xing
Advanced or no, prior to DR people were all at end-level once they reached lv 50. And they had cool rep gear. Then Geko single-handedly destroyed that, and overnight made everyone worthless, unless they were willing to pay thru their noses to Upgrade everything they already had. Many ppl said 'F that!' and just stopped playing (I had to abandon my beloved Rom alt for the same reason). The ensuing panic at Cryptic was great, and, at first, they frantically tried to deny everything, and had Dev after Dev come out and say the queue numbers were obviously in error; but they weren't, were they?! (This was also at the time Smirk valiently stated all queues popped for him immediately).
Then the issue got compounded, because peeps, noticing the empty queues, went to private channels. And the queues for which no private interest was shown, simply remained horrible empty, like the infamous 20-person Starbase Fleet Defense: sometimes you see someone queue for it, but they eventually give up on it, and leave the queue again when they realize not enough people are interested.
TRIBBLE that. That original system was total garbage and when Cryptic did away with it, I was happy. There was literally nothing good with that old drop system.
I semi agree with you. It was down to pure luck if you got the tech drop. You could run 50 in a row and NOT get one, while the guy next to you is on his 12th consecutive drop and counting. The only advantage the tech drops gave was getting people into different queues.
I have 9 alts and doing stuff you propose would end me up being mad after a rather short time. Sure, as a hobby DPSer, I love ISA very much and may play it 2,3,4 times a day but can quiet assure you that one needs at least half a dozen maps in a cycle in order not to get bored or annoyed soonish.
Looking at the queue list and beginning to hate ISA and CCA because that’s the only maps with a halfway healthy participation is somewhat short sighted.
How about we extend that view to the thousands of peeps in battle zones, stories, and red alerts/patrols?
Why not force everybody into the queue list by removing each and every splinter of Dil one can get elsewhere, hm?
There were times where we had close to such a surrounding in STO and the queues were full and healthy.
Still I think its the wrong way!
One does not nerf and discourage, one should do the opposite.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
The queues were never "full and healthy". They've been dying since they were added. Seriously.... there are many people whose entire motive for doing any queued content is rep marks so that they can get progress in a rep. Once they decide they no longer need Borg marks they have no reason to do Borg Queues.
My character Tsin'xing
I didn't really like the two Terran queue's. They're too quick and I hated doing them, but now that I'm maxed in the Terran rep, I don't have to bother with it anymore.
With all these new updates and such, The Borg just seem to be in the way now rather than being one of the major players in the game like they used to be. I enjoyed the Defera Battlezone when it was still a thing much like the rest of the Borg stuff.
Game went downhill imo when the Romulans became a playable faction. New Romulus is somewhat busy still, but not like it used to be and the Fleet STFs came and went too.
I just want to play the older stfs again, but either the playerbase has shrunk, or no one just wants to do them anymore unless it's part of an event, or it's both.
(quoting both of you)
But that's the point of a hack&slay MMO! Play the content in search for the rare drop. Thr process of doing so should be fun and compelling, having a good time with other players in the team. For that very reason I started a new Diablo II character two days ago. RNG and luck are integral parts of playing a game.
Ranting about "time wasted" because one didn't get a drop while playing a video game is pointless. You are playing a game. You don't get benefit of "investing" time in it other than having fun. And to me at least grinding currency and buying my items in a store is not fun, that's what I do for a living.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!