... Seriously people... can we stop looking for any excuse to complain? How about we wait and see just how this is going to work before we start pulling out the pitchforks. ...
... Better to give actual feedback when we have something more to work off of rather than jump straight to demanding blood just because they changed something.
Perception is a funny thing. I'm seeing some very well articulated concerns (some that mirror my own), not pitchforks or blood. Being in agreement with Cryptic is not mandatory, but it certainly can seem that way at times.
People are always going to be passionate about a game they like.
If I may, the problem is not even that it seems like we need to be in agreement with Cryptic.
The problem is that they don't give us enough information to process things correctly.
This changes are supposed to go live with Awakening, iirc, which is, what... less than 2 weeks away?
At this point, they should be able (and willing) to give us way more information than this.
What's gonna happen with the tokens we've stockpiled?
What's gonna happen with the older events projects that some - many - still have slotted but not completed?
What's gonna happen with this "bonus" that's gonna come after we complete an event?
Why did they felt the need to, apparently, curb our ability of gaining more resources by running the events on multiple characters until completion?
This are not unreasonable questions, I should think, and while some are being more "passionate" than others in posing this questions, they should be able to answer them as soon as they're made.
Better yet, they should give us this information with the news post itself.
All valid points and concerns. My post was more in response to an appeal for calm while at the same time using key words that have the potential to incite the opposite. One could very well achieve more by acknowledging other posters concerns as valid and showing some empathy. As for the other part, let's just say the biggest hive mind isn't necessarily in-game but sometimes seems to live right here
>Ohh hey! We are getting rid of having to deal with all those menus/sliders you hate so much!
The people complaining about those being removed are not the same people who complained about the menus/sliders in the first place. I always liked those menus sliders and never complained about them. Though I have complained about this new streamlined approach which I find less fun to use and oddly often requires extra clicking. Many of the revamped/streamlined systems even after using them for months or years I find worse then the systems they replaced. Not all of them the mines revamp was amazing good and the Peril Over Pahvo revamp TFO was great. But many of the UI style revamps like the rep store, mission queue, mission journal, the stupid splash screen and now this I have not been happy with. For me the UI and icons are in worse state now then many years ago.
“>And we are making it so you can play any character you want while doing it and it still contributes!”
For me that has zero impact and is not a positive. Its not a negative its just well has no impact either way.
“>And we are making the dil bonuses you get after you complete an event increase the more you play!”
again for me that has zero impact and is not a positive. It’s not a negative it just has no impact either way.
From what I can see I am gaining very little positives from the new system while losing a lot of great positives from the old system making quality of life worse.
The way I see it they are adding some fluff benefits I do not care for while removing benefits I really care for and use and I don't like the way it sounds like event rewards are going take weeks longer to unlock yet they are selling the new system as faster.
My post was more in response to an appeal for calm while at the same time using key words that have the potential to incite the opposite. One could very well achieve more by acknowledging other posters concerns as valid and showing some empathy. As for the other part, let's just say the biggest hive mind isn't necessarily in-game but sometimes seems to live right here
Agreed. We've all fell into the "rage trap" once or twice - none of us is a saint, after all, and patience might be a very precious commodity, sometimes - but there's no need to fuel the fire. Just listen and try to de-escalate instead of poking the bear.
Not agreeing with someone doesn't give you the right to be an TRIBBLE.
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Considering that the federation is on earth and based mainly in what used to be America. We should have a Halloween event.
halloween is well know in europe; the children are disguising themselves etc, it is just less developed. An halloween event would be cool, if we are allowed to wear disguises
All hallows eve was adopted (& adapted) by the early christian church from the celtic festival of samhain long before america was close to existing in its current form.
One of many such adaptations which is why the easter bunny "exists"
Just because the devs haven't released the information yet, doesn't mean they haven't figured it out yet. Consider that, as a business, they have a marketing schedule for release of information. The unnecessary accusations and rhetoric needs to stop.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Nowhere has it been said "the devs don't know their stuff", on the contrary, we question the schedule, the timing and the decisions we were informed about. As customers, we're allowed to do that in a constructive way, and yes, even in a cynical but still polite way.
If you don't want "unnecessary rhetoric", don't post a blog missing data customers deem important, especially when it's only 2 weeks before we get the changes and we have no idea what is potentially gonna happen to items (the commendations) you can buy for real money (including potential bad "RL money-usefulness" ratio).
Back when this was announced, the Sompek event was (and is still) running and some people may need to buy commendations to complete it for various reasons. If they don't know how they can complete the requirements for the rewards later in any way, that's a problem.
Currently, their options are:
-buy the commendations to finish it right now just to be sure
-wait and hope for something good to happen
Either way, you're allowing players to buy something that will no longer be used for what they bought it for in the first place with nothing said about compensation for making the item obsolete.
eg If I invested 1000 zen into 10 commendations, it was not to see them converted into 10x1/4th of a spec point bar or a few emotes.
It isn't "change" or modifications to the game with which I have an issue.
As other people have noted, many of the events occur at times that make it difficult to participate. After missing out on an event reward when I first began playing, I have since opted to stockpile event items in case it ever happened again. I continued to dutifully participate in events well beyond the minimum necessary to obtain the specific reward, but always stockpiled vouchers for the particular event as a safety for the future.
Then we had a significant change that made all of those stockpiled items worthless. It would have been nice to have a warning that such a change was coming - I had hundreds of vouchers from many events. I accepted it and moved on. They switched it to the FTFO vouchers and I started all over again - no hint that this was going to be temporary. Frankly, given that it had just changed, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that the FTFO vouchers would be around for a while.
It's not the changes to the game, but the lack of any hints or warning that I might be wasting my time. Now, one could argue that you play the game for fun, not items or rewards or what have you. I accept that, but would counter that the game is substantially more fun when a player has access to resources and equipment - freedom to make interesting builds. In order to obtain those resources, we grind.
We all prioritize elements of the game to maximize our play time and enjoyment. I don't think it's too much to ask that we get a clear enough roadmap or warning when key elements of the game are going to change that might impact how we choose to spend our play time.
Obviously, they knew BEFORE the start of Sompek that they were changing the event system and eliminating the FTFO vouchers. Would it have been so terrible to let folks know that a change was coming, so that we could make informed decisions about how to spend our game time?
What adds a bad taste in my mouth is that NOT informing players of these types of changes actually improves game performance metrics - for example, participation rates on the event, amount of time players spend in-game, and such. I can't help but wonder whether such lack of transparency is done on purpose to improve such metrics.
Nowhere has it been said "the devs don't know their stuff", on the contrary, we question the schedule, the timing and the decisions we were informed about. As customers, we're allowed to do that in a constructive way, and yes, even in a cynical but still polite way.
If you don't want "unnecessary rhetoric", don't post a blog missing data customers deem important, especially when it's only 2 weeks before we get the changes and we have no idea what is potentially gonna happen to items (the commendations) you can buy for real money (including potential bad "RL money-usefulness" ratio).
Back when this was announced, the Sompek event was (and is still) running and some people may need to buy commendations to complete it for various reasons. If they don't know how they can complete the requirements for the rewards later in any way, that's a problem.
Currently, their options are:
-buy the commendations to finish it right now just to be sure
-wait and hope for something good to happen
Either way, you're allowing players to buy something that will no longer be used for what they bought it for in the first place with nothing said about compensation for making the item obsolete.
eg If I invested 1000 zen into 10 commendations, it was not to see them converted into 10x1/4th of a spec point bar or a few emotes.
Well - and politely! - said.
Also, when you answer questions with "I'm not sure if we're ready to announce it just yet" and "hold on until we're ready to announce that" it does not exactly inspire confidence.
Mostly, because it's pretty vague.
Should we interpret those answers as "the new system(s) are not fully implemented in our test enviroment, so we can't say yet if they're gonna work or not" or as "the new system(s) is ready to go, we just need to find a coherent way of putting it into words that make sense"? Because those are two completely different things.
If this is, indeed, a scheduling decision based on marketing, then it was not a very well thought one.
Again, this changes are supposed to go live in less than 2 weeks. So, while it's unreasonable to go in guns a-blazing, asking these questions in a polite way is not. And those that posed this questions are neither going for "unnecessary accusations" nor using "unnecessary rethoric". We're simply asking questions about information that should've already been provided in the news post.
Not agreeing with someone doesn't give you the right to be an TRIBBLE.
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
I don't buy that they're simply not ready to announce it considering this goes live in two weeks. Sounds more like they don't know how to handle it and am hoping they get whatever half assed plan they have done in time.
My thoughts exactly. My 2¢ are that they expect some MAJOR backlash from the players just like last time, but they want said backlash to happen AFTER the release, to make sure the Gaming Press doesn't get to publish it in the same article as the new release.
So... What will happen to current FTFO tokens and partially completed TFO events? Lost and completed? Lost and lost?
They refuse to twell us for some reason. Either because they have no clue or plan, or because they know it'll TRIBBLE us all off and they want to postpone bad pr as long as possible. Because there's no good reasonn to be this secretive about stuff otherwise. We're going to see the changes in less than two weeks anyway, if they know what they're doing with it that is,so as the person above I suspect they're trying to keep bad pr out of the gaming press as much as possible. Either way, if this goes live the way described where the only way to get an item if you can't play the full amount if by paying money I'm completely done with the game and will do what I can to talk the friends I talked into playing out od it again, they deserve better than such a TRIBBLE move by Cryptic. And there are better and newer mmos, including soace ones, out there.
Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it.
Yogi Berra said it best: 'It’s deja vu all over again.'.
Again, sell people something and then a few weeks later throw out vague statements that make it look like they are going to do away with something they had recently settled on. They pulled the same thing with the Zefram Cochran Memorial Statue Holograms. There it was two months between sale and decision to eliminate.
It seems this will be handled in the manner of the Weekend Vouchers where you can get something for the Tokens rather than the Crystal Shards, et.al., where they were unceremoniously destroyed. Also what hasn't happened is the Community turning on each other between the people with stuff that may go away and those that accuse them of being hoarders.
He really is worse than Geko. At least Geko with his 'super fantastic changes to the universe' quote was trolling about possible stuff next year where things may still be in flux. This is something coming up in two weeks and to throw stink bombs out with 'we'll deodorize later' is just poorly thought out. Don't say anything if you can't say what it is you are going to do.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Just because the devs haven't released the information yet, doesn't mean they haven't figured it out yet. Consider that, as a business, they have a marketing schedule for release of information. The unnecessary accusations and rhetoric needs to stop.
That's uncalled for, unless something like that was in the posts moderated. Then it's a "response to moderated content" which should be moderated, too.
But then again, I've given up on getting past, slotted (anniversary) event ships, and I probably won't get any future event ships, either. Maybe I'm wrong, and their "marketing schedule" was made by beings a Scotty-quote would fit to describe. But I won't quote Scotty, as that would probably get this post moderated away...
Raysah@sharmutashlikha#2072 stands attentively for Captain Nog.
[Emotes] Raysah@sharmutashlikha#2072: Qapla', Captain Nog!
Raysah@sharmutashlikha#2072 salutes Captain Nog with respect.
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R'Miia@sharmutashlikha#2072 salutes Captain Nog.
She'Roars@sharmutashlikha#2072 stands attentively for Captain Nog.
[Emotes] She'Roars@sharmutashlikha#2072: Qapla', Captain Nog!
She'Roars@sharmutashlikha#2072 salutes Captain Nog with respect.
Yozit'yaza@sharmutashlikha#2072 stands attentively for Nog.
Yozit'yaza@sharmutashlikha#2072 salutes Nog.
The only downside to this is that it "punishes player performance".
The users (including me) who have farmed TFO commendations in order to balance their efforts both financially as well as in gameplay time are getting robbed out of their effort and their TIME. Now removing the dilithium rewards as we've completed the gameplay challenge via the intended means is something really sketchy. Playing a prolonged event for 24 times more as a future-time investment is a smart and community-friendly move.
I support this game (morally and modestly financially, at least monthly) and the game design decisions of the new production team and/or developers. But this type of punishment-for-performance is a bad practice in game design and it signals a down-slide.
I expect this problem to be handled gracefully, since I haven't been really disappointed by the new design decisions so far, so a vote of confidence/trust is warranted, even in front of such a currency/effort error. (I refuse to take this as an intentional denial of efforts)
Just because the devs haven't released the information yet, doesn't mean they haven't figured it out yet. Consider that, as a business, they have a marketing schedule for release of information. The unnecessary accusations and rhetoric needs to stop.
Nothing "needs" to stop. It would be civilized and justified to wait for the final decision of the stakeholders before flaming. But nothing "needs to". It feels quite weird when such a civilized mod suddenly tells others what they "need" to do. It is not smart nor justified, but if your clients wanna vent on the forum, as much as that would make them a laughing stock, they should be allowed to vent.
Also, don't charge at the mods either. They're not direct employees of Cryptic. They're volunteer members. So you're basically pot-shotting at a guy/girl/attack chopper who just likes this game and does some effort towards it and its community.
I hope this was taken out of context and we're all civil and sharp. Cheers!
My post was more in response to an appeal for calm while at the same time using key words that have the potential to incite the opposite. One could very well achieve more by acknowledging other posters concerns as valid and showing some empathy. As for the other part, let's just say the biggest hive mind isn't necessarily in-game but sometimes seems to live right here
Agreed. We've all fell into the "rage trap" once or twice - none of us is a saint, after all, and patience might be a very precious commodity, sometimes - but there's no need to fuel the fire. Just listen and try to de-escalate instead of poking the bear.
Good advice, something that I 'generally' try hard to abide by myself. I'm actually 'fine' and OK with the Event's being moved to a Account-Wide format. While I admit, on occasion everyone had run events in the past on several character's to earn the DIL rewards; lately I've really focused on one or two character's.
Still there are quite a few who have character's with more 'limited' Unrefined Dilithium reward's; so it would be nice if the account-wide rewards, gives Unrefined DIL bonus to each character to help out.
Still I think it will be nicer having it's own dedicated UI interface; rather than using the REPUTATION, so I'm still taking a wait and see approach myself.
"Also, don't charge at the mods either. They're not direct employees of Cryptic. They're volunteer members. So you're basically pot-shotting at a guy/girl/attack chopper who just likes this game and does some effort towards it and its community."
While true, is it truly the role of a mod to defend cryptic, the devs, or their business practices, either?
Moderate comments and make sure the discussion is civil - absolutely. Provide additional insight or information based on long-term participation in both the game and the discussion boards - again, absolutely. Provide additional information arising from more in-depth or detailed access to direct employees of cryptic - sure.
However, I'm not as certain that a mod should attempt to defend, justify, or excuse whatever decisions they're making - if any defense of justification is required, that is. In the end, they can make whatever changes they want to the game in whatever fashion they choose and are not required to justify or explain anything to anyone.
My post was more in response to an appeal for calm while at the same time using key words that have the potential to incite the opposite. One could very well achieve more by acknowledging other posters concerns as valid and showing some empathy. As for the other part, let's just say the biggest hive mind isn't necessarily in-game but sometimes seems to live right here
Agreed. We've all fell into the "rage trap" once or twice - none of us is a saint, after all, and patience might be a very precious commodity, sometimes - but there's no need to fuel the fire. Just listen and try to de-escalate instead of poking the bear.
Good advice, something that I 'generally' try hard to abide by myself. I'm actually 'fine' and OK with the Event's being moved to a Account-Wide format. While I admit, on occasion everyone had run events in the past on several character's to earn the DIL rewards; lately I've really focused on one or two character's.
Still there are quite a few who have character's with more 'limited' Unrefined Dilithium reward's; so it would be nice if the account-wide rewards, gives Unrefined DIL bonus to each character to help out.
Still I think it will be nicer having it's own dedicated UI interface; rather than using the REPUTATION, so I'm still taking a wait and see approach myself.
I myself have just run the Sompek Arena with 11 character. A fleetmate of mine did it with 20. Many others fleetmates have run it with at least 3. Why? Two simple reasons:
We're fast approaching the last, big project that will allow us to finally complete the Colony Holding, and that alone will require a lot of Dilithium, so we're trying to prepare in any way we can, while also going forward with the same holding in our KDF fleet, not to mention the "normal" day-to-day projects (or as "day-to-day" as they can be, since some weeks are harder than others, holdings-wise);
We'd like to keep some of the dilithium for ourselves. That's not a crime, as far as I know.
Both these things tie in with the stockpiling of the tokens. Running every event with these many characters is a chore and takes pretty much all the fun out of the game, not to mention the time it requires to do it - which, for some, is pretty much all the time they can spend in-game.
So, stockpiling give us breathing room while, at the same time, allowing us to prepare for what's to come and still continue to contribute to our fleet by helping with the "normal" day-to-day projects (and saving some dilithium for our personal use).
It stands to reason, then, that having a bonus dilithium that "increase the more we play", unless it's per-character as you yourself suggested, is not gonna help all that much. As I said before, it's not the same having 30k of unrefined dilithium on one character than having 10k of the same on 3 different ones.
I agree that moving the Event to it's own UI interface is nice, though.
Not agreeing with someone doesn't give you the right to be an TRIBBLE.
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
Just because the devs haven't released the information yet, doesn't mean they haven't figured it out yet. Consider that, as a business, they have a marketing schedule for release of information. The unnecessary accusations and rhetoric needs to stop.
What they've done is a mistake, because the huge lack of information has caused serious concern for the investors/players/customers/whatever you call us. This news should at a minimum have been accompanied with information like "Use your leftover tokens now because they will be going away!" Or "hold on to them because we assure you they will be worth more when we implement this," because of the timing of it all. The future status of unfinished projects should also have been fully answered in this news post.
Beyond the most immediate issue of the tokens that are going to disappear one way or another with no remaining time to spend them, a post on a new system shouldn't be telling us about the vague concept of how it will work, it should be specific and to the point, describing it in full. What is the point of fluffing this new system with so little information offered that people don't even know what to make of it? This thread is testament to why you don't leave so much to speculation.
If I were running things, the release would have stated something like "Hey guys, your tokens are going away in a couple weeks because of a new system we are implementing for it. We are going to be compensating tokens at a rate of 3k dil, 75 fleet marks, and a box of 50 any marks per token. All projects will be auto completed and you will get the rewards for them. More details on how the new system will function coming soon." Whatever the real details are, it lets people use that info and make some decisions while they still can. Right now no one knows what is going on or what to do with the left over tokens. That is not good communication.
Then you make another post next week, this week, next year, whatever, detailing how the system functions. Its not hard, you just have to communicate important details with people, especially if there is a quickly closing window on actions people can take regarding it.
Comments
“>And we are making it so you can play any character you want while doing it and it still contributes!”
For me that has zero impact and is not a positive. Its not a negative its just well has no impact either way.
“>And we are making the dil bonuses you get after you complete an event increase the more you play!”
again for me that has zero impact and is not a positive. It’s not a negative it just has no impact either way.
From what I can see I am gaining very little positives from the new system while losing a lot of great positives from the old system making quality of life worse.
The way I see it they are adding some fluff benefits I do not care for while removing benefits I really care for and use and I don't like the way it sounds like event rewards are going take weeks longer to unlock yet they are selling the new system as faster.
Agreed. We've all fell into the "rage trap" once or twice - none of us is a saint, after all, and patience might be a very precious commodity, sometimes - but there's no need to fuel the fire. Just listen and try to de-escalate instead of poking the bear.
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
I thought there was special mission-event on Haloween called "Hearts and Minds" or something like that…
Oh and it is also on every Friday the 13-th...
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
halloween is well know in europe; the children are disguising themselves etc, it is just less developed. An halloween event would be cool, if we are allowed to wear disguises
One of many such adaptations which is why the easter bunny "exists"
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If you don't want "unnecessary rhetoric", don't post a blog missing data customers deem important, especially when it's only 2 weeks before we get the changes and we have no idea what is potentially gonna happen to items (the commendations) you can buy for real money (including potential bad "RL money-usefulness" ratio).
Back when this was announced, the Sompek event was (and is still) running and some people may need to buy commendations to complete it for various reasons. If they don't know how they can complete the requirements for the rewards later in any way, that's a problem.
Currently, their options are:
-buy the commendations to finish it right now just to be sure
-wait and hope for something good to happen
Either way, you're allowing players to buy something that will no longer be used for what they bought it for in the first place with nothing said about compensation for making the item obsolete.
eg If I invested 1000 zen into 10 commendations, it was not to see them converted into 10x1/4th of a spec point bar or a few emotes.
As other people have noted, many of the events occur at times that make it difficult to participate. After missing out on an event reward when I first began playing, I have since opted to stockpile event items in case it ever happened again. I continued to dutifully participate in events well beyond the minimum necessary to obtain the specific reward, but always stockpiled vouchers for the particular event as a safety for the future.
Then we had a significant change that made all of those stockpiled items worthless. It would have been nice to have a warning that such a change was coming - I had hundreds of vouchers from many events. I accepted it and moved on. They switched it to the FTFO vouchers and I started all over again - no hint that this was going to be temporary. Frankly, given that it had just changed, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that the FTFO vouchers would be around for a while.
It's not the changes to the game, but the lack of any hints or warning that I might be wasting my time. Now, one could argue that you play the game for fun, not items or rewards or what have you. I accept that, but would counter that the game is substantially more fun when a player has access to resources and equipment - freedom to make interesting builds. In order to obtain those resources, we grind.
We all prioritize elements of the game to maximize our play time and enjoyment. I don't think it's too much to ask that we get a clear enough roadmap or warning when key elements of the game are going to change that might impact how we choose to spend our play time.
Obviously, they knew BEFORE the start of Sompek that they were changing the event system and eliminating the FTFO vouchers. Would it have been so terrible to let folks know that a change was coming, so that we could make informed decisions about how to spend our game time?
What adds a bad taste in my mouth is that NOT informing players of these types of changes actually improves game performance metrics - for example, participation rates on the event, amount of time players spend in-game, and such. I can't help but wonder whether such lack of transparency is done on purpose to improve such metrics.
At the moment we can turn them in for 2k Dili and 35Marks. But we should keep them for a new announce. (Turn in for Phoenix Boxes or removal?)
With the removal of the old tokens 6 toons lost about 30 tokens each.
Now I'm at 15 * 21 token and no open projects.
For the avoidance of doubt, the announcement will not be, we will just remove the tokens?
Well - and politely! - said.
Also, when you answer questions with "I'm not sure if we're ready to announce it just yet" and "hold on until we're ready to announce that" it does not exactly inspire confidence.
Mostly, because it's pretty vague.
Should we interpret those answers as "the new system(s) are not fully implemented in our test enviroment, so we can't say yet if they're gonna work or not" or as "the new system(s) is ready to go, we just need to find a coherent way of putting it into words that make sense"? Because those are two completely different things.
If this is, indeed, a scheduling decision based on marketing, then it was not a very well thought one.
Again, this changes are supposed to go live in less than 2 weeks. So, while it's unreasonable to go in guns a-blazing, asking these questions in a polite way is not. And those that posed this questions are neither going for "unnecessary accusations" nor using "unnecessary rethoric". We're simply asking questions about information that should've already been provided in the news post.
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
They refuse to twell us for some reason. Either because they have no clue or plan, or because they know it'll TRIBBLE us all off and they want to postpone bad pr as long as possible. Because there's no good reasonn to be this secretive about stuff otherwise. We're going to see the changes in less than two weeks anyway, if they know what they're doing with it that is,so as the person above I suspect they're trying to keep bad pr out of the gaming press as much as possible. Either way, if this goes live the way described where the only way to get an item if you can't play the full amount if by paying money I'm completely done with the game and will do what I can to talk the friends I talked into playing out od it again, they deserve better than such a TRIBBLE move by Cryptic. And there are better and newer mmos, including soace ones, out there.
'It’s deja vu all over again.'.
Again, sell people something and then a few weeks later throw out vague statements that make it look like they are going to do away with something they had recently settled on. They pulled the same thing with the Zefram Cochran Memorial Statue Holograms. There it was two months between sale and decision to eliminate.
It seems this will be handled in the manner of the Weekend Vouchers where you can get something for the Tokens rather than the Crystal Shards, et.al., where they were unceremoniously destroyed. Also what hasn't happened is the Community turning on each other between the people with stuff that may go away and those that accuse them of being hoarders.
He really is worse than Geko. At least Geko with his 'super fantastic changes to the universe' quote was trolling about possible stuff next year where things may still be in flux. This is something coming up in two weeks and to throw stink bombs out with 'we'll deodorize later' is just poorly thought out. Don't say anything if you can't say what it is you are going to do.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
But then again, I've given up on getting past, slotted (anniversary) event ships, and I probably won't get any future event ships, either. Maybe I'm wrong, and their "marketing schedule" was made by beings a Scotty-quote would fit to describe. But I won't quote Scotty, as that would probably get this post moderated away...
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The users (including me) who have farmed TFO commendations in order to balance their efforts both financially as well as in gameplay time are getting robbed out of their effort and their TIME. Now removing the dilithium rewards as we've completed the gameplay challenge via the intended means is something really sketchy. Playing a prolonged event for 24 times more as a future-time investment is a smart and community-friendly move.
I support this game (morally and modestly financially, at least monthly) and the game design decisions of the new production team and/or developers. But this type of punishment-for-performance is a bad practice in game design and it signals a down-slide.
I expect this problem to be handled gracefully, since I haven't been really disappointed by the new design decisions so far, so a vote of confidence/trust is warranted, even in front of such a currency/effort error. (I refuse to take this as an intentional denial of efforts)
Nothing "needs" to stop. It would be civilized and justified to wait for the final decision of the stakeholders before flaming. But nothing "needs to". It feels quite weird when such a civilized mod suddenly tells others what they "need" to do. It is not smart nor justified, but if your clients wanna vent on the forum, as much as that would make them a laughing stock, they should be allowed to vent.
Also, don't charge at the mods either. They're not direct employees of Cryptic. They're volunteer members. So you're basically pot-shotting at a guy/girl/attack chopper who just likes this game and does some effort towards it and its community.
I hope this was taken out of context and we're all civil and sharp. Cheers!
Good advice, something that I 'generally' try hard to abide by myself. I'm actually 'fine' and OK with the Event's being moved to a Account-Wide format. While I admit, on occasion everyone had run events in the past on several character's to earn the DIL rewards; lately I've really focused on one or two character's.
Still there are quite a few who have character's with more 'limited' Unrefined Dilithium reward's; so it would be nice if the account-wide rewards, gives Unrefined DIL bonus to each character to help out.
Still I think it will be nicer having it's own dedicated UI interface; rather than using the REPUTATION, so I'm still taking a wait and see approach myself.
Don't @ me. I'm not interested in any apologetics at this point.
While true, is it truly the role of a mod to defend cryptic, the devs, or their business practices, either?
Moderate comments and make sure the discussion is civil - absolutely. Provide additional insight or information based on long-term participation in both the game and the discussion boards - again, absolutely. Provide additional information arising from more in-depth or detailed access to direct employees of cryptic - sure.
However, I'm not as certain that a mod should attempt to defend, justify, or excuse whatever decisions they're making - if any defense of justification is required, that is. In the end, they can make whatever changes they want to the game in whatever fashion they choose and are not required to justify or explain anything to anyone.
I myself have just run the Sompek Arena with 11 character. A fleetmate of mine did it with 20. Many others fleetmates have run it with at least 3. Why? Two simple reasons:
Both these things tie in with the stockpiling of the tokens. Running every event with these many characters is a chore and takes pretty much all the fun out of the game, not to mention the time it requires to do it - which, for some, is pretty much all the time they can spend in-game.
So, stockpiling give us breathing room while, at the same time, allowing us to prepare for what's to come and still continue to contribute to our fleet by helping with the "normal" day-to-day projects (and saving some dilithium for our personal use).
It stands to reason, then, that having a bonus dilithium that "increase the more we play", unless it's per-character as you yourself suggested, is not gonna help all that much. As I said before, it's not the same having 30k of unrefined dilithium on one character than having 10k of the same on 3 different ones.
I agree that moving the Event to it's own UI interface is nice, though.
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
What they've done is a mistake, because the huge lack of information has caused serious concern for the investors/players/customers/whatever you call us. This news should at a minimum have been accompanied with information like "Use your leftover tokens now because they will be going away!" Or "hold on to them because we assure you they will be worth more when we implement this," because of the timing of it all. The future status of unfinished projects should also have been fully answered in this news post.
Beyond the most immediate issue of the tokens that are going to disappear one way or another with no remaining time to spend them, a post on a new system shouldn't be telling us about the vague concept of how it will work, it should be specific and to the point, describing it in full. What is the point of fluffing this new system with so little information offered that people don't even know what to make of it? This thread is testament to why you don't leave so much to speculation.
If I were running things, the release would have stated something like "Hey guys, your tokens are going away in a couple weeks because of a new system we are implementing for it. We are going to be compensating tokens at a rate of 3k dil, 75 fleet marks, and a box of 50 any marks per token. All projects will be auto completed and you will get the rewards for them. More details on how the new system will function coming soon." Whatever the real details are, it lets people use that info and make some decisions while they still can. Right now no one knows what is going on or what to do with the left over tokens. That is not good communication.
Then you make another post next week, this week, next year, whatever, detailing how the system functions. Its not hard, you just have to communicate important details with people, especially if there is a quickly closing window on actions people can take regarding it.