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A Little Starbase /Fleet Management Rage
scotty8863
Member Posts: 34 Arc User
I would like to recommend that Cryptic take back control of all Starbases (SB) effectively becoming the Space Landlord.
I have had my fill of incompetent and corrupt fleet management and their perceived ownership of the FLEET’s SB.
Had Cryptic told me back in 2012 that being a Fleet Leader entitled me to SB ownership and that the Fleet SB would be my “personal property” I would have started a dozen of them!
It is totally unacceptable that Fleet SB'es are being sold and long-time fleet members kicked on the wimp of one of two dishonest individuals.
To those who say “just change fleets” that doesn’t address the root cause or is fair to the kicked players.
It is true that player’s Fleet Credits stay with them, however your past Fleet Resource Contributions mean zero to your new fleet. Fleet Rank and attaining rights in your new fleet are directly dependent on your resource contributions to that Fleet and SB. What you contributed in your past fleet means nothing. Are you really going to start all over again and donate 5, 15, 20 or 30 Million worth of Commodity Items, Doffs, Dilithium and Fleet Marks?
Cryptic, please take back control of the SBs. They are owned by every player that contributed to building them, not by one or two dishonest individuals who came to a fleet leadership position by happenstance.
I have had my fill of incompetent and corrupt fleet management and their perceived ownership of the FLEET’s SB.
Had Cryptic told me back in 2012 that being a Fleet Leader entitled me to SB ownership and that the Fleet SB would be my “personal property” I would have started a dozen of them!
It is totally unacceptable that Fleet SB'es are being sold and long-time fleet members kicked on the wimp of one of two dishonest individuals.
To those who say “just change fleets” that doesn’t address the root cause or is fair to the kicked players.
It is true that player’s Fleet Credits stay with them, however your past Fleet Resource Contributions mean zero to your new fleet. Fleet Rank and attaining rights in your new fleet are directly dependent on your resource contributions to that Fleet and SB. What you contributed in your past fleet means nothing. Are you really going to start all over again and donate 5, 15, 20 or 30 Million worth of Commodity Items, Doffs, Dilithium and Fleet Marks?
Cryptic, please take back control of the SBs. They are owned by every player that contributed to building them, not by one or two dishonest individuals who came to a fleet leadership position by happenstance.
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I'm sorry you've had an unsavioury experience, but it's up to the individuals who run the fleet to say what rights you do and don't have, not Cryptic I'm afraid.
I've been in bad fleets before, which is why I created my own fleet with a few of my friends, where I am the only person at highest rank, so there's no-one able to kick but me. Saying that, my rules are extremely lax and people play their own way and don't get kicked for inactivity, because I understand the casual player. If people want a higher rank in my fleet, their contributions determine that, but again, requirements are low.
Having alot of leaders spoils the broth in my opinion, and often I do see comments like yours appear, but they aren't going to go away, and Cryptic will not interfere in Personal Fleet Affairs.
Don't get hung up on this, and yes, do find another fleet, but have a chat with the leaders before you join. Don't let the minority ruin the experience for you.
They did it partly from necessity, since it would be very expensive to maintain a staff of arbitrators (aka Judge Judys) to resolve the endless petty disputes between players, usually presented without any evidence.
If Cryptic had to hold our hands and regulate fleets for us, they would just shut down the fleet system instead.
It works in both directions by the way. I have long forgotten how many countless times as leader or co-leader I filled projects, progressed the XP of my fleet veins so others who play with perhaps 1% of my enthusiasm easily get the toys they want for almost free. I never got a thank you from anybody. The second i miss to tend to one single pontless needs of my fleeties they leave and leech some place else. Thats life. No need to complaint to cryptic for my poor taste in poeple.
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I dont care anymore. Part of the reason why I have my own fleet and good positions in the others.
My intention was to eplain to the OP that there are 2 sides of a coin. He just highlights one side in his post. If he would define better what he thinks he has contributed I might understand him better.
In my opinion he should simply make his own fleet as well and do stuff as he likes without any regrets. After pushing a colony holding or two to T5 on his own I doubt he will ever care what happend to him in his old fleet ever again.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
You make it sound like an either or thingy which makes me fleel like you put words in my mouth. It is not. Of course fleets is about socializing and having fun. Unfortunately holdings dont complete via socializing and when it comes to contributing a single penny more than for the selfish needs things have a habbit of getting rather dis-social for like 99% of the players I know.
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I treat fleets as I would any other investment - don't invest time/resources that you cannot afford to lose, and (if possible) do not join a fleet your going to invest alot into, unless you know the 'owner' very well.
Yea you could also make a comment about my expectations being to high or my motivation to presurize anybody for contributions to my fleets for being too low. You could also make a comment about the magnitude of the sinks fleet(leader)s need overcome gamesided if they wish thier holdings to have their full potential for their players.
Then again you could also wait with that until one of my fleet members makes a complaint thread in STO forums when they disagree with any of my dessinsion making.
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That it may be but regardless it's the not core issue with the OP's suggestion that is to say that in 99% of such cases there's little to no evidence of misconduct and instead it's a matter of "he said/she said" and Cryptic(or any other company for that matter) has no intrest on becoming the judge on who is "right" in personal feuds nor do they got resources to investigate issues like this.
Sure it sucks and I wish it wasn't so but my wishes don't change the facts.
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As someone who is a fleet leader and has been a member of fleets I'm going to be blunt and level with you on this one.
First, unless there is a legitimate reason for Cryptic to be involved such as leader's account gets TRIBBLE, a bug, or something along those lines, they don't involve themselves in the daily affairs of fleets or so on. If they did then we would never get new content because that's all they would ever deal with. They're not going to come in and just start dictating to fleets as that's a player matter.
Leaders are free to set whatever restrictions/permissions they wish in their fleets, as at the end of the day, they're the leaders and it's their fleet. They are also free to remove members of their fleets at their discretion. You are not entitled to membership in any specific fleet. You are also not entitled to anything from said fleet simply because you join a fleet or because you want it. I could just as easily ask, why should someone who just joined a fleet be allowed to benefit from provisions and/or holdings they never contributed to constructing and generating?
In my fleet we have restrictions in place regarding store access for a reason. If you want fleet gear and access to the stores, you're going to earn it because those provisions take a fair amount of resources to generate. In our case we had a problem with leechers several years back. It used to be that we required only 150k in contributions to get to a rank 5 and only 75k roughly to get to rank 3 which was store access level. The problem we ran into was folks would donate just enough to hit rank 5 and then stop. It eventually got to the point that it was myself, the other 2 leaders, and 2 members carrying the fleet in terms of projects. It was to the point that for a time we didn't see benefit from the provisions we generated as they were cleaned out by those certain members before we could benefit from them, which was completely unfair to us. To combat this issue we changed our requirements so that now it takes 325k in contributions to hit rank 4 that gives store access, 550k to get to rank 5, and 1m contributions before i will even consider someone for an officer position in my fleet. At 325k that's about the amount of credits you would earn had you ran a provisioning project solo plus or minus a little bit, and at that level you can kit out most ships in game with an entire set of gear, including consoles. If they stick around that's cool. If not then they've donated enough that it covers the cost of those provisions. At the same time, several in my fleet are active/retired military and police officers, with the rest of us being family/friends of folks in that profession and generally like minded people. As such we tend to be a bit more militaristic in our structure and how we do things, but it works for us. With that said what works for us isn't going to work for everyone else and isn't going to be their cup of tea. That's for each individual fleet to decide.
As much as you may not like it, you really only have 3 options. 1: go without a fleet, 2: find a fleet better suited to your liking, 3: start your own fleet and build it up. You are not entitled to dictate to the leaders of a fleet simply because you want something.
With that said being in a fleet is a give and take thing. As you contribute that should absolutely be recognized in some form or fashion. On occasion I have cooked up weapon sets and given them to higher contributing members or cooked up a max level Aegis set for them, or something as a sort of thanks. This may also come with higher promotions and rights/privileges within the fleet as well. No 2 fleets are the same and your only options are the ones I listed above if you are having issues with your current fleets.
At the end of the day as a fleet leader I have to do what is best for the entire fleet and not just one or two people in the fleet. I will help those in my fleet to learn and that need help, but I'm not always going to be around when it comes to that sort of thing.
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Cryptic shouldn't have to moderate fleets as they're built up by players. Yes, there are bad fleet leaders, but there are just as many good fleet leaders.
My friend and I co-opted a fleet that had been abandoned by everyone else. It's a small fleet and we added in some toons from my family's accounts. She and I are mostly who contribute, so we're growing slowly. The mine only has one mining mission, to illustrate.
We don't always start projects, but when we do, we do it because we can contribute to it fairly quickly. No, we don't do much of anything except use it to get away from everyone else and have our own fun in a place where there are no griefers.
So far, none of the original members have come back, so we're pretty sure they've moved on.
Also as mentioned above, there are good fleets and bad fleets. Some are so strict they absolutely DEMAND you do X, you donate Y, and so on otherwise you get dumped. Others are more lenient, allowing for the more casual player to feel comfortable without feeling pressured into things.
Won't happen.
The amount of contributions you have made just so fleet members can have the things they want is immeasurable. Anyone saying you're looking for a 'pat on the back' or not encouraging socialization in the fleet has absolutely no idea what they're talking about and frankly should shut up.
Agreed. As a Fleet leader myself, the sheer amount some of my members contribute I cannot keep stating to them how much i appreciate it. Especially since alot of these members do it so everyone else can have someone nice.
OP, as many others have stated, there are good and bad fleets. But I will say, it is not so black & white where us leaders are. We have multiple considerations every day in managing our respective fleets, the sheer amount I cannot even begin to describe.
We definitely (well most of us) value everything everyone puts in. However, we manage sometimes hundreds, we need to consider what is good for the fleet as a whole, and not just you and you alone. Also, new fleets should not need to consider "oh, i put in 15 million fleet credits in the last fleet i was in". To us, you are a new member, and while we may give you access to fleet holdings, some of us wont cause you need to prove to us you arent just joining to deplete our resources, which take sometime to get a good stockpile of.
Again, there are good and bad fleets. Make sure you communicate with the respective leaders. At the end of the day, you still have those fleet credits and you will evantually find a good group/team.
Just dont expect everything handed to you on a silver plate.
It is IMO unfortunate that Cryptic has retained this archaic 90's MMO guild hierarchy for managing an investment system it's obviously ill-suited for. I do believe the players who paid to build the holdings should have a property interest in them. But they don't, so it is what it is.
Here is an outline of what I propose a Starbase/Fleet Leadership should be. Not perfect, but it gets us moving in the right direction.
Your post is well written and thoughtful, but it fails at the first point; Cryptic does not have the time/resources (and I doubt the inclination) to act as an arbiter for the very many fleets in the game (even with multiple levels of automation/voting - conflict is going to occur and require attention).
I personally think that people need to take responsibility for themselves - if you take EVE online as an example, the fleets are essentially self policing, due to the massive resources (and some times real world money) involved. New members are not promoted until they have proven trustworthy, and the fleet leaders are kept under constant scrutiny (in order to 'keep them honest').
In the cases where fleets are 'sold off' under the feet of the fleet members, the devs of EVE do not intervene, as players are supposed to remain vigilant, handholding is kept to a minimum (or none existent).
If you join a fleet and pour lots of time/resources into it, without getting to know the people involved in running it and getting to know them before you commit; well I don't see how that is Cryptics problem, and I certainly don't want them committing time and resources over something (I view) as quite trivial. I'm sure many people will disagree, but that's just me
There are so many ways this can get abused.
Fleet Leaders are in fact the owners of the fleet and responsible for what happens to it and in it. Strong good leaders can make or break a fleet. Fleet leaders can eject members as they wish and for any reason. Fleet membership in any specific fleet is a privilege, not a right. None of those changes are going to see the light of day as Cryptic doesn't get involved in fleet politics and has made clear on multiple occasions that how fleets are ran is up to the individual fleet and its leaders. They're not going to get involved in fleet politics as that would then seem like the company is picking favorites and they won't do that.
See my point above, this won't happen as that would be them getting involved in fleet politics. You are not entitled to anything within a fleet simply because you want it. You also are not entitled to dictate to fleets how they must conduct their affairs.
I'm going to address several of these at once. As I explained previously, what works for one fleet may not work for another. If someone is not going to help generate provisions in the slightest, they have no right to them in my book. Why should someone benefit from something they have not helped to generate? Generating provisions isn't free and takes a fair amount of in game resources to generate. I don't know of many fleets that are going to just automatically grant access to something without requiring something in return. If someone is donating to a fleet, then in virtually every fleet I've seen or been part of, that won't go unnoticed and you won't need to worry about having automatic rank ups. As a fleet leader, I am free to set whatever requirements I wish for promotion within my fleet. Folks are free to ask that I reduce those numbers and I am free to either reduce the numbers or leave them be, or even raise them. The members are free to either stay or leave. Why should someone who does nothing in a fleet be able to benefit from the work of the other fleet members and have access to provisions? That's not fair to the members who put in the grind to get the fleet to where it is.
In regards to criteria for advancement, who is going to set those criteria and who is going to decide what that criteria is? I certainly don't trust you to make that decision based off what I've read here just as I'm sure you don't trust me either. So that leaves Cryptic as the only folks who would be able to do it. They've already said they won't get involved in fleet affairs. Assuming they did however for a moment, what if Cryptic sets those standards higher than you would like?
Not every group of people thinks the same, plays the same, or so on. What works for one fleet will not necessarily work for others. In my fleet we are more militaristic in our command structure and how we run things. This is because most of us think that way due to having family and/or friends that are active or retired military/police officers. In fact several members of my fleet are active military/police officers with a couple being retired. I can still count on one hand in the 5 years I've been running my fleet how many times I've had to pull the Fleet Admiral card. When things need to get done it gets done. If someone is not pulling their weight, they're not going to be rewarded the same as someone who is. I don't even consider someone for a rank 6 officer position if they haven't donated at least 1m worth of contributions to the fleet. If they're not going to donate to the fleet and help it grow in some form or fashion, why should they have more than basic opinion input on how it's ran?
ABSOLUTELY NOT on this one. If someone has earned up to rank 6 in a different fleet that's cool, but under no circumstances are they automatically coming into my fleet as a rank 6 just because they had it in another fleet. They never contributed to my fleet, they never donated, weren't there for the upgrades, weren't there for any of it, yet want to come in as a rank 6 ahead of people who have been there for years, ABSOLUTELY NOT. Why should someone get to come in as a rank 6 when they've never done anything for the fleet?
In regards to fleet members having a voice, most of us are adults here. if a member comes to me with an issue or concern then I will listen to them and if there is an issue it will be settled like adults. If someone disagrees with a decision I have made they are free to tell me as such. At the same time however as the fleet leader my word is law in my fleet once a decision has been made.
I don't mean this next bit as an attack by any means, but it's the only way to ask the question that comes to mind.
Who are you or anyone else to think you should have any right to dictate to me how I run my fleet or anyone else? What makes you think you're entitled to provisions and items etc you have not earned? Why should you benefit from something you have not helped to generate or maintain? Fleet membership is a privilege and not a right.
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