Fleets that simply disappear on a whim ...........

captainwells

I've had a really bad run of experiences with KDF fleets on console. One of my earliest toons was a Klingon. I contributed a boatload of credits into an early fleet on Xbox One whose name now escapes me and leveled up within it only to later on have the fleet leaders reboot their requirements and demote everyone. I bailed out over that and then joined another nascent fleet, but in fairly short order bickering or infighting between that fleets leaders soured things.

This week a KDF fleet that I've been on for well over a year suddenly vanished, shutdown by the leader with no notice (other than to a few within a sister fleet in our armada). That means that hundreds of us who helped max out that fleets holdings are now left high and dry, and for me this is another case of "yet again."

This is beyond frustrating and frankly I do NOT like having to start out at the bottom of another fleet. "Hey lets give a new set of strangers all of our resources once more, so that they can soon pirate it all, and then drop us like a hot potato."

Does Cryptic not have any interest in brokering matters at such times? Why are we left at the mercy of juvenile attitudes? I mean basically your only option is to beg others to help you launch a brand new fleet and begin the long, long slog right back to where you were to begin with?

aboundedorc0

I feel your pain on this one! I'm pretty sure that I was part of that same fleet. No advance word, nada, zilch ...... gone with the proverbial galactic wind. Thanks sucker, go try again elsewhere. Yeesh!

where2r1

The same topic got closed over the weekend...you will likely get the same answer as the OP of this thread here:

https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1243167/my-fleet-vanished-xb1

Sorry, you had this experience, hope you find a better fleet, soon.

captainwells

where2r1 wrote: »

The same topic got closed over the weekend....

Thank you for linking that to me, as it is probably the same fleet that I was in. If in fact the mods closed that topic, rather than address it here all that they are doing is condoning these practices. The same person who apparently shuttered that fleet and close its club has his toons as members of another armada fleet. To me that suggests that something underhanded was possibly going on? Cryptic should look into that to protect their damned customers if nothing else, but we have no means to force the issue with them; if they move to close forum threads about it that quickly?

arionisa

Fleets are run strictly by players. Cryptic doesn't get involved with Fleets at all other than a violation of the TOU and kicking players and then hiding the Fleet from a search is not a violation of the TOU. The only "addressing" they can really do is what Star did when he closed the other post " I suggest you head down to the Fleet Recruitment subforum and ask around for a reputable Xbox fleet."

It sucks, it really does. I had basically the same thing happen to me in a PC Fleet. Thing is, I kept the 500K+ of Fleet credits I had earned, didn't miss any of the gear I had donated to their Fleet bank (Heck, I gave it away, I could care less what happened to it after that anyway). I learned from it, checked around the forums, found a Fleet that had a good reputation and joined it. Getting shafted by the old Fleet was actually one of the best things that ever happened to me in this game because I'm now a very happy member of the oldest and best Fleets in STO.

usskentucky

If you follow the link that Where2r1 posted you will find a link in the thread that I posted. If you were in the same fleet that the OP of that post was, then you will see they did the same thing to me and a group of other players, and that they have been doing it regularly for at least a year. They set minimum donation requirements to get access to the stores, get a batch of new members to fill their stores and complete their projects, and then kick them out. Rinse and repeat with lots of players like yourself left scratching their heads. It’s despicable behavior. We can’t say their name, but call them out in game to save other people the trouble.

usskentucky

Can we start a fleet called “[Name of Fleet That Does This] Cheats Players” and actively recruit in the recruitment thread? I’m sure we’ve got more than five who’ve been fleeced to get it started and make it legit.

garaks31

join https://www.priorityonearmada.com/ they will be around

spiritborn

While it sucks to get kicked from fleet/guild seemingly on a whim, there's a very good reason why Cryptic or any other company won't get involved in such things. In 99% of the cases it's one player's word against another which no further evidence to clarify who was at fault there, so the game runners prefer to not open that can of worms as doing so would likely be more harmful to them on the long run then doing nothing.

captainwells

You may all be right about Cryptic's stance on the matter, but as the company which created the interface and chose to make starting a fleet a five person requirement. I don't know if in the grand scheme anything that they might do would help; but taking a hands off position which allows certain rogue gamers to repeat this cycle over and again under their watch is somewhat appalling to me.

Remember game or not, we are also customers or they would simply stop creating all of that ongoing "shiny" content meant to entice us to use the C-Store and other methods to get those perks. Taking a "get out of jail free card" position as one set of customers after another gets shafted by those few cheaters that take advantage of said company posture is sort of bull, actually!

foxman00

captainwells wrote: »

You may all be right about Cryptic's stance on the matter, but as the company which created the interface and chose to make starting a fleet a five person requirement. I don't know if in the grand scheme anything that they might do would help; but taking a hands off position which allows certain rogue gamers to repeat this cycle over and again under their watch is somewhat appalling to me.

Remember game or not, we are also customers or they would simply stop creating all of that ongoing "shiny" content meant to entice us to use the C-Store and other methods to get those perks. Taking a "get out of jail free card" position as one set of customers after another gets shafted by those few cheaters that take advantage of said company posture is sort of bull, actually!

Unless the player/s in question break the ToS, nothing Cryptic can do. Internal & Inter-fleet politics, by definition "Is an internal matter of the Empire"

Honesty, just let it go. You are not exactly doing yourself any favors regarding this getting all worked up. It sucks, yes. However. even with changing of fleet names, eventually word will get around with these players handles that are doing this.

Also, doesn't matter if we are paying customers. Cryptic trying to get involved in this sort of thing would not work out at all. We are all supposed to be adults, and work through these things as a community. Because if Cryptic even tired once to get involved, it would open the floodgates to all sorts of disputes players would want cryptic to "deal" with. Additionally, as one previous person posted. Cryptic really doesn't have any good way to know who's telling the truth.

seaofsorrows

Have you seen the Fleet Recruitment Thread? You can probably find an established fleet there looking for people, these fleets won't just disappear on you overnight.

If you don't find anything there that fits you, you can also post there and ask for a fleet, these troll fleets that just vanish overnight don't usually recruit on the forum.

I would happily invite you to my fleet if you were on PC, but I am sure you can find a good fleet for XB1. Good luck in your search Captain!

captainwells

foxman00 wrote: »

captainwells wrote: »

Honesty, just let it go. You are not exactly doing yourself any favors regarding this getting all worked up. It sucks, yes. However. even with changing of fleet names, eventually word will get around with these players handles that are doing this.

seaofsorrows wrote: »

Have you seen the Fleet Recruitment Thread?

I do regret referring to disappearing fleets in my thread title, as it was a misnomer. And I have let it go, and have only continued commenting to try and coalesce my thoughts on the matter. Thank you all for weighing in! Collectively if we all just continue to "let it go" we empower the trolls who do things like this, to continue the practice in another guise. I've reported the person to Xbox Live for them to take action or NOT, and that is the best that I can do.

At this point, I'm going to take my small contingent of KDF toons the solo route (leaving behind the armada fleet that also accepted the troll who did this), unless at some point I can gather a few others to form a new Klingon fleet?

spiritborn

foxman00 wrote: »

captainwells wrote: »

You may all be right about Cryptic's stance on the matter, but as the company which created the interface and chose to make starting a fleet a five person requirement. I don't know if in the grand scheme anything that they might do would help; but taking a hands off position which allows certain rogue gamers to repeat this cycle over and again under their watch is somewhat appalling to me.

Remember game or not, we are also customers or they would simply stop creating all of that ongoing "shiny" content meant to entice us to use the C-Store and other methods to get those perks. Taking a "get out of jail free card" position as one set of customers after another gets shafted by those few cheaters that take advantage of said company posture is sort of bull, actually!

Unless the player/s in question break the ToS, nothing Cryptic can do. Internal & Inter-fleet politics, by definition "Is an internal matter of the Empire"

Honesty, just let it go. You are not exactly doing yourself any favors regarding this getting all worked up. It sucks, yes. However. even with changing of fleet names, eventually word will get around with these players handles that are doing this.

Also, doesn't matter if we are paying customers. Cryptic trying to get involved in this sort of thing would not work out at all. We are all supposed to be adults, and work through these things as a community. Because if Cryptic even tired once to get involved, it would open the floodgates to all sorts of disputes players would want cryptic to "deal" with. Additionally, as one previous person posted. Cryptic really doesn't have any good way to know who's telling the truth.

I would also want to point out that Cryptic is hardly alone in this policy, Activision-Blizzard does so as well and as far as I know so do most other MMO runners.

There's a very good reason why it's an industry wide standard, it's battle the developers cannot win, either way they make their judgement on the matter it would enable to trolls to exploit the system, thus the only logical course of action is to make no judgements what so ever and no company in the world has the resources to check each and every case of this nature individually.

darpink

With all of the Fleet Holdings there are now, I don't know why anyone would want to start a brand new fleet. It would take years to finish upgrading all of the holdings. That is, unless you have a lot of ACTIVE players that contribute very large amounts of Dilithium.
My advice to anyone that wants to be part of a fleet is this. Join an established fleet that has been around for 2-3 or more years. If a fleet has been around long enough to get the majority of the holdings to T3 (max level for all except the Starbase and Colony World) and the Starbase at max level then chances are good that the leaders are active and have good intentions and are truly trying to grow their fleet.
I'm leader of a fleet that was formed in 2012. Around 2 years ago the "Founders" of the fleet decided that they didn't want to play anymore. One of them promoted me to the top fleet rank. Not long after that I began demoting the inactives by 1 fleet rank. And then one day I noticed a message and button somewhere in the fleet Overview, maybe the roster tab that said "assume command of fleet". Which I did. Myself and 1 other player are now the leaders of that fleet and we are looking for ACTIVE members.
Our Starbase and Holdings are at max level with the only exception being the Colony World Holdings, but we're working on it.
So, do your research and don't join a brand new fleet, chances are good that the Founders of a new fleet do not realize just how much grinding Dilithium or spending real money to buy Zen and convert to Dilithium it will take to upgrade all of the holdings and will soon get frustrated and disband the fleet.

captainwells

darpink wrote: »

......... don't join a brand new fleet.

I'm with you there. PM me with your fleet name and depending upon your makeup (Fed or KDF), I've probably got a character or two that I would like to nominate?

crimsonlightning

I agree with the position that new fleets just aren't the way to go -- you're much better off joining an existing, established fleet. New players come into the game and haven't the slightest clue of the astronomical amounts of time & resources it takes to build up a fleet, all they want is their own name on a fleet and to be the boss. Then when they realize that the prognosis of their new fleet is looking like 2 years or so until it's fully operational, and that squeezing dilithium out of the noob members they've managed to talk into their pipe dream is akin to blood from a stone, they bail on the endeavour and eat a big piece of I-told-you-so pie as they uninstall the game. I've personally tried to talk a guy out of this once -- he liked the idea of having his own fleet so that he didn't have to meet any requirement in order to buy fleet ships, so he left our fleet to start his own... lol yeah, build an entire mountain to avoid stepping over a curb. I mean this is the dumb people's thinking that goes on.

Also, you know it takes a lot of time and effort to run a fleet; aside from playing your own game, you have to put enormous amounts of energy into the entity that is your fleet. Being the head of the fleet is more of a burden than anything, and most people who attempt it find that out the hard way. I have a lot of respect for those that persist and keep their fleets running long-term.

So yeah, I won't plug the Klingon fleet I'm in because I'm not sure if it's cool to do that in here or not, but I will say that there are good, established Klingon fleets on XBO and PS4 that ask little of you and rely on your own personal hunger to advance your character rather than imposing quotas and such to get your contribution. Good luck.

trillbuffet

This is why I like my dead fleets because no one ever disagrees with me or rants like I do because I'm the only one around that I have to do what I order myself to do and if I don't like it I have to like it because it came from me. One of the other problems though is the interaction with players and the game itself even for anti social ppl like me is even lacking and its just an area of the game that has never made it out of crisis modes for deadlines over the years. The LFG tool is an ancient language no one has never even been able to understand. Plus also the fleet system never really took off as a working together on missions or what not it just became collaboration of throwing resources at the wall and watching the wall move from day to day.

Anyways just one of my things since it feels like this game kinda separated itself as a multiplayer game since for example a battlezone could have some ppl on your zone chat talking but then most of the time its players that are not even on your map or doing what you are doing.

casualsto

This should be a Support issue. For inactive fleets, one of the remaining active users should become leader and have the fleet trusted to him if the leader is no longer online for 30 days and the leader should be unable to dissolve it.

Some people did this in the past under the pretense of "I stop playing, so I'm gonna hoard this fleet, kick all of you without any compensation and use this fleet just for me and a bunch of my random fat friends.".

Before moderating this... Don't. This is a serious community issue.