I have to say, I'm excited about the new content and the stfs are fun thus far, but recently I purchased several character slots with zen on the basis of infrastructural investment for dilithium dailies. About a week later, S7 is announced and I find that the dailies are being killed which made my purchases worthless, so in addition to having wasted dil with no reasonable warning ahead of time, my available ways to generate it in a timely fashion have been cut as well.
My foundry usage is low overall, but there are a couple of accolade missions i enjoy for the loot potential. My primary use of Foundry was for one-clicks, so in my case, your changes will not promote usage of the foundry unless whatever criteria you set forth for missions to qualify for dil are not-at-all time intensive. To get all 3 in under 10 minutes would be workable, but more than that would be discouraging.
I like dil to trade for zen for ships and character enhancements like bank slots, doff slots etc. I could really care less about borg gear, but having to choose what to run based on the currency it provides is ludicrous. I have zero reason to play a single stf that doesnt reward dil, so much of this content is useless to my style of play.
I had considered buying some via credit card but have decided since I already pay monthly, due to these changes specifically designed to "encourage" me to buy zen with RL $, I will no longer purchase Zen, nor will I continue to subscribe monthly, until some compensation is made in game for Dilithium generation.
To spend the required time in stf's and other methods to acquire as much Dil as will be required going forward, is not a pleasure many people have. I don't feel individually slighted here, but feel the player base as a whole has been deal a poor hand, not to mention the hand is now short a couple cards.
Every player is different, no doubt, but a sad trend in failing and failed MMO's seems to be taking place here
Bottom line is: your company set an expectation. You took things away without giving the same or more in return. In response, however small it may be, I will not pay any more real-world currency to play STO or use it to purchase in game currency of any form. The changes may have more of this kind of impact than you thought, but then again, it may have just the desired effect you were looking for.
On that note, great job on the romulan content, new space sector and such, and I'm looking forward to more...regarding the changes to dilithium...well, to say I'm disappointed would be a mild way to express my thoughts on that topic. I have found myself browsing sites to read reviews on other MMO's tonight for the first time since I started STO. ...which is what led me to share my thoughts on the matter.
If you want to know why my lvl 50 stopped grinding dilithium... what is the point? I don't care about stupid virtual goodies. I care about Star Trek. You team provides stupid virtual goodies and not Star Trek. So, I stopped caring about your stuff and cared far more about the only place in this game that has a soul or a story.
I'm sorry if I didn't meet your MMO expectations. I don't like to mow the lawn every day as a chore. I'd rather feel immersed in the universe of Trek, when your game isn't ruining all levels of that immersion.
Like, what exactly do you want me, as a player to do in this game? You want me to rush back and forth between the same content that I played yesterday? You want me to just rinse and repeat content that uninspired to begin with? It's like you want me to circle an arcade on a daily basis with set tasks to do, which include doing things that suck and are simply not fun to do.
"Now is your time to farm anomalies.... Now is your time to play some slogfest with no story... no is your time to repair a satellite that breaks everyday..." Your dilithium is dumb. Your starbases are a reskinned doff system, and your reputation system is a repeat of that reskin.
I'm sorry. I refuse to waste my time with things that are not fun.
TRIBBLE that. None of that is fun. I'll play how I want to play, and I've officially stopped caring about how you want or expect me to play your non-content content. You stopped caring about the "meat" of your game a long time ago.
"People are not refining Dilithium in the amounts we were expecting, so we must make Dilithium more accessible."
"Lets take them away from the missions most people run then!"
"Brilliant!"
i know im lost for words.
1000 bucks that once they realise that everyone is farming contraband and only loggin in every 5 hrs to get their 2k they are going to nurf that too.
this change has nothing to do with player not hitting dilth cap or wanting players to reach the cap its nothing more than MONEY pay for dil pay for doff packs and open the bloody boxes that what this game is all bout now. WTF is the point in playing stfs anymore.
i swear these guys are going out of their way to get me to stop playing and stop buying zens.
I do my damnedest with every update to see things from as many points of view as possible, so I have a firm grasp on why changes are being made. And almost universally, I wind up seeing the logic behind these choices, and I roll with them. I play nice. I do my best to defend the Devs from the boneheaded forum-goers. I state my case in a calm manner when something I disagree with happens. And by God I will continue to do so. Hell, I enjoy literally every other aspect of S7 and think you guys did an amazing job on it.
But so help me, this Dilithium change has me as close to outright nerd-splosion as I can stand.
Totally removing dilithium as a direct reward from STF's is stupid. There is nice way to say it. This is a terrible, terrible idea, and the pittance you offer in exchange with the ability to turn in marks and Processors is simply insufficient. Normally I laugh off people who claim this or that will kill small fleets, but by cutting off Dil income from the sources that matter at the waist, this could very well do it.
Now, this is me we're talking about here. I'm not a hard man to please. I think the Processor redemption is, in concept, a fantastic alternative.
Neural Processors, simply put, need to be converted at at least a 2:1000 ratio, not 10:1000. Even with the slightly extra potential income from the marks conversion, the processor conversion is laughably insufficient.
This situation desperately needs to be reevaluated. You're getting nearly universal negative feedback. People who have generally been content with the changes are railing against this. You need to change this.
Better design, bad rollout of better design. You shouldn't re-design something because the old design is bad. You should work with your game more the way your community plays it, not continually yanking it back to the way you want it played.
They don't care. They outright lied to us.
First Elite STFs were to be 480 dil.
Then, after massive rage against it, it was to be 960.
And then, total silence as they removed it completely with no intent of ever adding it back.
They want to incentivize their old, terrible content like Sb24? Completely lopsided in it's favoring of Tac/Escort above all? SB24 is worse in this regard than STFs are.
And now, you get 2 purples for 1st place!
Or is it that their metrics told them that the STFs were too hard for the mentally inept so they decided to take those mission rewards away from everyone?
SB24, The Big Dig, Klingon Scout Force - this is the content you want people playing? Really?
My advice to anyone upset with the changes is that you literally, do not log into the game at all to play it.
They can lie to us and say their metrics see more players playing than we were 2 weeks ago, but they'd be total fools to lie and say the same thing to themselves.
I'm usually very reluctant to ccept the idea that Cryptic is lying to us. I think things often change internally at the drop of a hat, out of people's control.
But this time, I do think Cryptic lied. And I think they did it intentionally because they knew people wouldn't agree with the new design.
You know what? You should really be letting your players dictate design if you catch yourself doing things you know will annoy them.
Your designers are really out of control if they think they should have more say than the players when it comes to design of a social game and are withholding or falsifying information rather than facing honest player feedback on a test server.
What I want is honesty, openness, and a chance at influencing things. Please. Explain why you deserve one red cent from gaming customers who you don't provide those things to.
"People are refining a lot less Dillthium than we expected... Let's remove it directly from STF's, make it take a lot longer to get via Foundry, and remove the extra 1440 from B'tran. Now they'll refine a lot more!"
Agreed. What they SHOULD have done is INCREASE the Dilithium reward from STFs. I was doing a lot of STFs and couldn't refine all my Dilithium due to the cap limit.
[06/16 11:51] [Combat (Self)] Your Advanced Dual Heavy Radiant Antiproton Cannons - Hypercharge deals 237970 (113626) Antiproton Damage(Critical) to Tactical Cube.
AHAHAHA! Eat it Borg!
[09/15 11:01] [Combat (Self)] You lose 12187085 Cold Damage from Death.
Death is OP, please nerf. I BLAME KURLAND FOR THIS!
I think some of you miss the point. Max level players aren't refining enough dilithium, so Cryptic is trying to *force* you to refine it to keep playing content they enjoy. That's what the "missions and systems that the STO team has designated" comment means.
They must have dilithium tied to some internal goal or objective, probably set by PWE. Dan does mention that dilithium is how they measure time invested in the game:
In our game design, Dilithium represents time invested in playing a variety of select missions in STO.
Maybe PWE required them to meet a certain level of player commitment to trigger a budget increase for their next fiscal year so this is how they will do it.
It could also be dilithium measures the success of their development projects, which may help them justify why their development effort was good for the game and has gotten. It would also explain why dilithium involvement has become steadily heavier as newer content is created.
Kobayashi Maru
Join Date: Sept 2008
"Holographic tissue paper for the holographic runny nose. Don't give them to patients." - The Doctor
Nice work wrecking the dilithium income of many many many players, Cryptic.
STF's is about the ONLY thing I feel like doing anymore. There's no actual CONTENT anymore outside of those and the rare newly made Feature Episode Series. Why would I want to do fleet actions with 20 people when I could do an STF with 5 people from my fleet?
In short you've taken my Dilithium Income, ripped it out of my hands, thrown it on the floor, stomped on it, and set it on fire. Just by removing Dilithium rewards from STFs. And undervaluing the time spent in Elites. 5 BNPs for 1k dilithium ore? That means each Elite STF is only worth 200 ore. That's ridiculous. Absurd. weaksauce even.
You devs had said the Dilithium would be spread aorund across the game, yet you remove it from STFs. Put it back if you would please be so kind. 480 for Normals, 960 for Elites.
I would like to comment on Daniel Stahl's concern with Dilithium availability:
Concern 1 - Active level 50 players are refining far less Dilithium than we expect them to.
Prior to Season 7, the average amount of Dilithium refined by an active level 50 player was 3100 per session or 13,250 per week. That is far less than the cap of 8000 per day when you consider that most level 50 players play multiple days per week and slightly more than the average hours per session.
And the intended action to resolve this concern:
Make Dilithium more available to all level 50 players - not just those playing on elite - by increasing the average amount of Dilithium earned. We want the average amount of Dilithium earned by all level 50 players to exceed 13,250 per week and will be monitoring and adjusting Dilithium rates to ensure this happens.
If players are refining less Dilithium than expected, then one would logically expect that more Dilithium be rewarded across all content in order to bring the average player in line with expectations. Removing Dilithium from any activity seems directly counter to this concern.
Your statement that you would like to see Dilithium rewards increase to exceed 13,250 per week does not seem in-line with the actions taken. This instead seems to be an action intended to move the player-base from playing STF content and migrate them to the fleet action content. I understand that fleet actions are underplayed. There is a reason for this: Fleet actions are not fun to play. Even the updated Romulan Temple fleet action is decidedly not fun to experience.
I suggest that in order to reach your goal increasing Dilithium being refined by level 50 players, that Dilithium be awarded based on a calculation that takes into account player level, mission difficulty, the number of players completing a mission, and the average length of time to complete a mission. This should then be rewarded for every mission content in the game, starting with Stranded in Space. This would benefit all players from level 2 up through 50 and provide a consistent way for players to play what they find fun.
But this time, I do think Cryptic lied. And I think they did it intentionally because they knew people wouldn't agree with the new design.
You know what? You should really be letting your players dictate design if you catch yourself doing things you know will annoy them.
Exactly.
They knew it would make players upset, but they have their infinite wisdom and what we want or feel is irrelevant. This is a company that has no concept of customer satisfaction.
Your designers are really out of control if they think they should have more say than the players when it comes to design of a social game and are withholding or falsifying information rather than facing honest player feedback on a test server.
You devs had said the Dilithium would be spread aorund across the game, yet you remove it from STFs. Put it back if you would please be so kind. 480 for Normals, 960 for Elites.
With SB24 granting 1440, 960 for a CSE or Hive Space Elite is a joke.
We don't need to have that debate, since the reward for the latter 2 = 0 dilithium.
I said this in as many words in the B'Tran dilithium remove thread. I am not going to change the way I play the game. I will not be dictated to on how to play the game. The drop in my earned Dilihtium income is solely do your actions not mine.
And I'm at the point where I DO NOT CARE. All of my old character already are fully stocked with the gear and equipment they need. I did care about the Mk XI and MK XII ground sets for the costume. But now I DO NOT CARE.
So, we played STF's for years and received Dillithium when we didn't need it for gear.
Now you charge Dillithium for STF gear but take away the Dillithium we normally received for doing them.
You say Dillithium is for fleet actions but not for an STF that is designed for what- five people?
In what world does this make sense?
Do you have anybody at Cryptic that has any concept at all of social engineering?
You have proven again to be exactly that your customers have come to expect...
I don't get ticked usually, but this is one of those times where I think some anger is necessary to get across just how EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED AND ANGERED the playerbase is.
1) You tell us you want players to refine more Dilithium per day. So I'm thinking "Good, so STFs rewarding no Dilithium was a mistake and will be fixed soon."
Then I read there's zero STF dilithium!
After this, I know what I'll do...I won't be playing STFs until I need Omega Marks and BNPs. That means so far, I get to take a 3-day breather from STFs between leveling, right?
I'm telling you, I'd have run the heck out of the Elite STFs with 960 Dilithium mixed in each run. You were going to heavily reduce them (240/480, last I remember), then you added some back after feedback (480/960)...but now you went back on your word to give us Dilithium rewards because YOU felt it was too much?
YOU CANNOT MAKE LYING TO US A HABIT AND EXPECT GOOD RESULTS!!!
As I said, I just won't run nearly as many STFs as I did...which sucks for you, because you have 2 new STFs that I won't touch now that I might have with Dilithium mixed in. I want to guarantee optional objectives and guarantee I get through the missions if not. That means I'm sticking to Cure Space Elite, Khitomer Accord Space Elite, and Infected Space Elite. Yes, you killed my reason to play on the ground, but with Dilithium rewarded I would have played them if my timers were still on cooldown from space.
You killed my love of STFs, one of the few end-game contents that, even if I needed to grind them, didn't feel like a grind. (Note that, btw, in your feedback: Any missions that need to be done to progress in a system must not feel like they're a chore to do. Chores = no fun.)
2) Then "Investigate Officer Reports [Daily]" requires an hour to do.
That now kills "Investigate Officer Reports" or 1 of the 3 hours a week your own guys have said a casual player plays. Let me also remind you that the amount amount of play you said a casual player playing the Reputation System would take is 2-3 months to get through the Reputation System. My assumption on that metric (2-3 months on 1 hour a day for 3 days) was that the hour was only spent running STFs.
3) You took out "Chart the B'Tran Cluster [Daily]" Dilithium rewards because it doubled up on Dilithium for a similar mission [namely, "Explore the B'Tran Cluster [Daily]" mixed with "Explore Strange New Worlds"].
Let me tell you that this is actually the primary reason I got Mk XI MACO ground gear and would have gone for Mk XII in the Reputation System. I wanted the instant remodulator and MACO Rifle in order to have a slight advantage against the Borg ground troops I might have had to face. So now my time is wasted?
You could have just taken out "Explore the B'Tran Cluster [Daily]" and that would have ended your double-dip issue while still keeping a way to get more Dilithium.
4) You increased the amount of Dilithium earned in the Dilithium Mining event...which I hear had pitiful Dilithium rewards pre-S7. What does this put the average rewards up to now? Without hard numbers, I'm hard pressed to find a reason to run it.
So to summarize what the playerbase would probably feel be an acceptable solution:
1a) Return Dilithium to STFs. 480 for Normal, 960 for Elite.
1b) Keep the BNP and Omega Mark turn-ins as they are: 5 BNP = 1000 Dilithium, and 50 Omega Marks = 500 Dilithium.
2) Nothing on "Investigate Officer Reports [Daily]". The daily *was* exploited. But re-calculate how long it'll take a casual player playing 3 hours a week to get through the reputation system if you want them to play Foundry content as well or lower the average mission time that makes a Foundry mission count.
3) Remove "Explore the B'Tran Cluster [Daily]" and return Dilithium rewards to "Chart the B'Tran Cluster [Daily]." This only fixes the doubling up of 2 dailies but it gives us another Dilithium earning mission. Especially do this if you won't put Dilithium back into STFs.
4) Unless 20 minutes is the equivalent of nearly 480 Dilithium, bump up the percent increase on the Mining daily rewards.
And to summarize why I'm angry about this: I see nothing that helps players gather and refine *more* Dilithium. I see far fewer ways to earn it, which means far less Dilithium entering the system, which means at least or less than 3k per day being refined.
I feel you've shot yourselves in the foot by making comments that are seemingly contradictory with your actions. When/if you're proven wrong, feel free to put in more ways of getting Dilithium. The players will be happy to have it back.
I do my damnedest with every update to see things from as many points of view as possible, so I have a firm grasp on why changes are being made. And almost universally, I wind up seeing the logic behind these choices, and I roll with them. I play nice. I do my best to defend the Devs from the boneheaded forum-goers. I state my case in a calm manner when something I disagree with happens. And by God I will continue to do so. Hell, I enjoy literally every other aspect of S7 and think you guys did an amazing job on it.
But so help me, this Dilithium change has me as close to outright nerd-splosion as I can stand.
Totally removing dilithium as a direct reward from STF's is stupid. There is nice way to say it. This is a terrible, terrible idea, and the pittance you offer in exchange with the ability to turn in marks and Processors is simply insufficient. Normally I laugh off people who claim this or that will kill small fleets, but by cutting off Dil income from the sources that matter at the waist, this could very well do it.
Now, this is me we're talking about here. I'm not a hard man to please. I think the Processor redemption is, in concept, a fantastic alternative.
Neural Processors, simply put, need to be converted at at least a 2:1000 ratio, not 10:1000. Even with the slightly extra potential income from the marks conversion, the processor conversion is laughably insufficient.
This situation desperately needs to be reevaluated. You're getting nearly universal negative feedback. People who have generally been content with the changes are railing against this. You need to change this.
All I can say is welcome into the light brother - good to have you here. I do ask 1 tiny favor of you now - Please continue to BITE HARD into this issue - it will be good for your soul.
And yet another example of why I hate f2p games, instead of making a good product and enjoyable experience for your players, it's about scraping every possible dime from your customers wallet. The 4 hrs a day 5 days a week is TRIBBLE and you know it. It's all about getting people who don't want to grind for a month just to get a purple engine to pay cash and convert zen to dilithium. The fact that you do this to your lifetime subs and monthly subs is just ridiculous. But putting that fact aside you use these grindfest to cover for a deeply flawed and unimaginative game design. It's telling that some of the best game play can be found in the foundry in missions created BY players. Do I play them for rewards? No I play them because I enjoy the creativity and the actual effort put forth by a player to provide the kind of content he or she would expect to enjoy.
This game had so much potential and with a better company with more vision then this grab the most cash monstrosity it could have been great. Thanx cryptic for yet another reminder why I use this game as a change of pace game to avoid mmo burn out from better and more intelligently thought out games. This game is not a better game then it was before with the addition of the dilithium economy. The fact that my bank is full of drop boxes that seem to rain down more frequently then actual usable loot is telling. I have almost 100 boxes that each require a lovely key that can be purchased from the cstore. Not very subtle about where your true priorities are. Just sayin...
I apologize to the actual players for this rant but it had to be said. I've just had enough of this garbage.
I have to say i am most unpleased i have loved the game for a long time grinded lots of characters but i felt you done such a bad move on this season 7.
some are good with the Romulan part which me and a few others in the guild was looking forward on but taking away dilithium away in STF is really majorly unfair it seems you just greedy you really have got the lobes
you make SWG look like amateurs i was going to go lifetime me thinks i hold on to that and spend it elsewhere (hint not on the game till this clears up)
I'll also add this is why I got a Gold subscription when I did.
If I weren't paying on a regular basis for this game, I feel I'd have no right to complain. If I'm playing the game for free, I play what Cryptic/PWE want me to play.
But as a paying customer on a regular basis, I feel I have a voice. And that voice says things need to change or you'll risk losing players.
As an additional note to what I posted a few minutes ago:
STFs are seen as completely different animals in the Queue/Mark mission lineup. STFs take a lot of strategy to routinely pull off optionals and get done quickly. I think it's fair to say a lot of other content doesn't do this: you can keep them active and take 3-4 days to complete, or the queue is so easy (basically blow everything up, for example) it's laughable, or increased skill only nets increased rewards (meaning you still get some reward for failed attempts).
STFs aren't like that. If you fail, you fail. You're done. Go home, lick your wounds, and study up on strategy.
They deserve Dilithium. They do take time and effort to get done and get them done right with optional objectives being met.
From what I am seeing, I can interpret the changes like this: there is not enough Dilithium being farmed to "grow" the Zen market. Dilithium farmers have the upper hand currently, and the goal was to make Dilithium farming easier. That's an educated guess from looking at the Zen market, and my initial predictions (even worse Zen-Dilithium exchange) panning out.
Here's a revelation; It's FAR easier, and less time consuming, to get Dilithium. I can run three (very easy) space Fleet Actions an hour, and get up to the "bare minimum" Dilithium that "most" level 50 players were doing, pre-S7.
There's half my Dilithium farming done. Add in three more Dilithium missions, or two missions and a couple of Red Alerts, and I'm near cap. All in about 2 hours; with nothing but time to spend. As opposed to 2.5-4 hours (depending on various factors) before.
So, I run some space STF's for rep, a patrol for rep, and then I've got plenty of time to do whatever else I want to do. Maybe take a shot at some elite STF's with my fleet.
An average player shouldn't have too much of a problem. In fact, we're looking at a good increase in how quickly the Dilithium cap can be reached. The big change is for those who were happy doing specific tasks that rewarded the Dilithium in gameplay they enjoyed. As of right now, that gameplay has been gated to a certain extent; reward tiers, removal of content previously available, etc. Not to mention certain (arguable) cases of potential exploits of the previous Dilithium system being mitigated.
The issue, in short, is that there are players who have had specific reward paths removed. The changes were not properly communicated to the community. In a few days, will this blow over? Possibly; there are a lot more options to get Dilithium now, and I for one welcome the change. It's possible that the initial shock will wear off, and new avenues of quick Dilithium will change some minds. I'm sure I'm not alone, but I do see where people are coming from.
In the meantime, there's the whole Dilithium Exchange issue; will things swing to favor Zen sellers? Time will tell.
Concern 1 ? Active level 50 players are refining far less Dilithium than we expect them to.
Prior to Season 7, the average amount of Dilithium refined by an active level 50 player was 3100 per session or 13,250 per week. That is far less than the cap of 8000 per day when you consider that most level 50 players play multiple days per week and slightly more than the average hours per session.
In S6 players were not converting enough Dilithium and that was a concern. Understood.
Concern 2 ? Several missions were rewarding far more Dilithium than they should have.
We have a guideline for how much Dilithium should be earned based on effort and time spent, and there were several missions that were clearly outside of our guidelines and players were using these missions to earn more Dilithium than we intended.
I understand that there are guidelines, however, I do not understand the actions that have been taken. Taking away Dilithium from several missions in S7 is a complete counter to the first pre-S7 concern that was mentioned. Dilithium was taken away and an equivalent or more was not added elsewhere. ~3k (not including STF loot drops) from STF Elites was taken away. What gets added? A reputation project at any tier that requires five (from what I'm seeing in game) Elite STF's for 1k Dilithium was added. Another project, which seemed reasonable until having mentioned that it requires tier 5, was added and requires 50 marks for 500 Dilithium.
How exactly is it expected for players to refine more Dilithium when the source of the Dilithium has dried considerably? All of this seems a bit inconsistent. First it's mentioned that players aren't converting enough Dilithium. Then, some methods of Dilithium earning are taken away and replaced with more inferior methods, save one which happens to take weeks (if not months) to reach. If I truly wanted players to use more Dilithium, I would give them more and loosen the mission cooldown times while allowing for the same rewards.
I really wish STO would stop beating around the bush, making these peculiar statements, and just admit that it wants its player base to spend more real world currency on the game.
At some points everything in the game was supposed to reward dillithium, so players could enjoy the content they like. That was a good idea, everyone could have fun the way they wanted it and still earn an appropriate amount of dillithium (appropriate for the time spent and maybe the challenge involved).
Then all sorts of special currencies (omega, romulan and fleet marks) popped up, while content that provides those doesn't reward dillithium in general. Which "forces" players to divide their time between all those different missions, some of which they might actually hate, to take advantage of various game systems (fleet bases, reputation etc.).
That seems rather counterproductive, especially if people are meant to refine more dillithium. I'm not getting more hours to play in a day just because I need to do more stuff to get to the same results.
I'm very worried that one of these days they might actually succeed in leeching all the fun out of this game. And games are meant to be fun, not a punishment or a job.
Comments
My foundry usage is low overall, but there are a couple of accolade missions i enjoy for the loot potential. My primary use of Foundry was for one-clicks, so in my case, your changes will not promote usage of the foundry unless whatever criteria you set forth for missions to qualify for dil are not-at-all time intensive. To get all 3 in under 10 minutes would be workable, but more than that would be discouraging.
I like dil to trade for zen for ships and character enhancements like bank slots, doff slots etc. I could really care less about borg gear, but having to choose what to run based on the currency it provides is ludicrous. I have zero reason to play a single stf that doesnt reward dil, so much of this content is useless to my style of play.
I had considered buying some via credit card but have decided since I already pay monthly, due to these changes specifically designed to "encourage" me to buy zen with RL $, I will no longer purchase Zen, nor will I continue to subscribe monthly, until some compensation is made in game for Dilithium generation.
To spend the required time in stf's and other methods to acquire as much Dil as will be required going forward, is not a pleasure many people have. I don't feel individually slighted here, but feel the player base as a whole has been deal a poor hand, not to mention the hand is now short a couple cards.
Every player is different, no doubt, but a sad trend in failing and failed MMO's seems to be taking place here
Bottom line is: your company set an expectation. You took things away without giving the same or more in return. In response, however small it may be, I will not pay any more real-world currency to play STO or use it to purchase in game currency of any form. The changes may have more of this kind of impact than you thought, but then again, it may have just the desired effect you were looking for.
On that note, great job on the romulan content, new space sector and such, and I'm looking forward to more...regarding the changes to dilithium...well, to say I'm disappointed would be a mild way to express my thoughts on that topic. I have found myself browsing sites to read reviews on other MMO's tonight for the first time since I started STO.
I'm sorry if I didn't meet your MMO expectations. I don't like to mow the lawn every day as a chore. I'd rather feel immersed in the universe of Trek, when your game isn't ruining all levels of that immersion.
Like, what exactly do you want me, as a player to do in this game? You want me to rush back and forth between the same content that I played yesterday? You want me to just rinse and repeat content that uninspired to begin with? It's like you want me to circle an arcade on a daily basis with set tasks to do, which include doing things that suck and are simply not fun to do.
"Now is your time to farm anomalies.... Now is your time to play some slogfest with no story... no is your time to repair a satellite that breaks everyday..." Your dilithium is dumb. Your starbases are a reskinned doff system, and your reputation system is a repeat of that reskin.
I'm sorry. I refuse to waste my time with things that are not fun.
TRIBBLE that. None of that is fun. I'll play how I want to play, and I've officially stopped caring about how you want or expect me to play your non-content content. You stopped caring about the "meat" of your game a long time ago.
i know im lost for words.
1000 bucks that once they realise that everyone is farming contraband and only loggin in every 5 hrs to get their 2k they are going to nurf that too.
this change has nothing to do with player not hitting dilth cap or wanting players to reach the cap its nothing more than MONEY pay for dil pay for doff packs and open the bloody boxes that what this game is all bout now. WTF is the point in playing stfs anymore.
i swear these guys are going out of their way to get me to stop playing and stop buying zens.
I do my damnedest with every update to see things from as many points of view as possible, so I have a firm grasp on why changes are being made. And almost universally, I wind up seeing the logic behind these choices, and I roll with them. I play nice. I do my best to defend the Devs from the boneheaded forum-goers. I state my case in a calm manner when something I disagree with happens. And by God I will continue to do so. Hell, I enjoy literally every other aspect of S7 and think you guys did an amazing job on it.
But so help me, this Dilithium change has me as close to outright nerd-splosion as I can stand.
Totally removing dilithium as a direct reward from STF's is stupid. There is nice way to say it. This is a terrible, terrible idea, and the pittance you offer in exchange with the ability to turn in marks and Processors is simply insufficient. Normally I laugh off people who claim this or that will kill small fleets, but by cutting off Dil income from the sources that matter at the waist, this could very well do it.
Now, this is me we're talking about here. I'm not a hard man to please. I think the Processor redemption is, in concept, a fantastic alternative.
Neural Processors, simply put, need to be converted at at least a 2:1000 ratio, not 10:1000. Even with the slightly extra potential income from the marks conversion, the processor conversion is laughably insufficient.
This situation desperately needs to be reevaluated. You're getting nearly universal negative feedback. People who have generally been content with the changes are railing against this. You need to change this.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
They don't care. They outright lied to us.
First Elite STFs were to be 480 dil.
Then, after massive rage against it, it was to be 960.
And then, total silence as they removed it completely with no intent of ever adding it back.
They want to incentivize their old, terrible content like Sb24? Completely lopsided in it's favoring of Tac/Escort above all? SB24 is worse in this regard than STFs are.
And now, you get 2 purples for 1st place!
Or is it that their metrics told them that the STFs were too hard for the mentally inept so they decided to take those mission rewards away from everyone?
SB24, The Big Dig, Klingon Scout Force - this is the content you want people playing? Really?
My advice to anyone upset with the changes is that you literally, do not log into the game at all to play it.
They can lie to us and say their metrics see more players playing than we were 2 weeks ago, but they'd be total fools to lie and say the same thing to themselves.
Quoted for truth.
But this time, I do think Cryptic lied. And I think they did it intentionally because they knew people wouldn't agree with the new design.
You know what? You should really be letting your players dictate design if you catch yourself doing things you know will annoy them.
Your designers are really out of control if they think they should have more say than the players when it comes to design of a social game and are withholding or falsifying information rather than facing honest player feedback on a test server.
What I want is honesty, openness, and a chance at influencing things. Please. Explain why you deserve one red cent from gaming customers who you don't provide those things to.
Agreed. What they SHOULD have done is INCREASE the Dilithium reward from STFs. I was doing a lot of STFs and couldn't refine all my Dilithium due to the cap limit.
[06/16 11:51] [Combat (Self)] Your Advanced Dual Heavy Radiant Antiproton Cannons - Hypercharge deals 237970 (113626) Antiproton Damage(Critical) to Tactical Cube.
AHAHAHA! Eat it Borg!
[09/15 11:01] [Combat (Self)] You lose 12187085 Cold Damage from Death.
Death is OP, please nerf. I BLAME KURLAND FOR THIS!
which was adjusted up from 240 and 480 dilthium orginally
Wow now Dilthium has been removed all together
http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?p=747851
There is also a YouTube video explaining to Players what you get:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UDnTJcjPhY
(it was a vid posted many times in the past and I copyed the link - love it!!)
They must have dilithium tied to some internal goal or objective, probably set by PWE. Dan does mention that dilithium is how they measure time invested in the game:
Maybe PWE required them to meet a certain level of player commitment to trigger a budget increase for their next fiscal year so this is how they will do it.
It could also be dilithium measures the success of their development projects, which may help them justify why their development effort was good for the game and has gotten. It would also explain why dilithium involvement has become steadily heavier as newer content is created.
Join Date: Sept 2008
"Holographic tissue paper for the holographic runny nose. Don't give them to patients." - The Doctor
lmao... awesomely epic
STF's is about the ONLY thing I feel like doing anymore. There's no actual CONTENT anymore outside of those and the rare newly made Feature Episode Series. Why would I want to do fleet actions with 20 people when I could do an STF with 5 people from my fleet?
In short you've taken my Dilithium Income, ripped it out of my hands, thrown it on the floor, stomped on it, and set it on fire. Just by removing Dilithium rewards from STFs. And undervaluing the time spent in Elites. 5 BNPs for 1k dilithium ore? That means each Elite STF is only worth 200 ore. That's ridiculous. Absurd. weaksauce even.
You devs had said the Dilithium would be spread aorund across the game, yet you remove it from STFs. Put it back if you would please be so kind. 480 for Normals, 960 for Elites.
That video sums it up SO beautifully!! Classic!!:eek::eek::eek:
This.tencharacters
And the intended action to resolve this concern:
If players are refining less Dilithium than expected, then one would logically expect that more Dilithium be rewarded across all content in order to bring the average player in line with expectations. Removing Dilithium from any activity seems directly counter to this concern.
Your statement that you would like to see Dilithium rewards increase to exceed 13,250 per week does not seem in-line with the actions taken. This instead seems to be an action intended to move the player-base from playing STF content and migrate them to the fleet action content. I understand that fleet actions are underplayed. There is a reason for this: Fleet actions are not fun to play. Even the updated Romulan Temple fleet action is decidedly not fun to experience.
I suggest that in order to reach your goal increasing Dilithium being refined by level 50 players, that Dilithium be awarded based on a calculation that takes into account player level, mission difficulty, the number of players completing a mission, and the average length of time to complete a mission. This should then be rewarded for every mission content in the game, starting with Stranded in Space. This would benefit all players from level 2 up through 50 and provide a consistent way for players to play what they find fun.
Exactly.
They knew it would make players upset, but they have their infinite wisdom and what we want or feel is irrelevant. This is a company that has no concept of customer satisfaction.
Your designers are really out of control if they think they should have more say than the players when it comes to design of a social game and are withholding or falsifying information rather than facing honest player feedback on a test server.
There will never be an honest answer to that.
With SB24 granting 1440, 960 for a CSE or Hive Space Elite is a joke.
We don't need to have that debate, since the reward for the latter 2 = 0 dilithium.
A SrslySirius video? Would you happen to be a poker player bychance?
You'll be running for your life when you see Seiborg!
Kirk's Protege.
And I'm at the point where I DO NOT CARE. All of my old character already are fully stocked with the gear and equipment they need. I did care about the Mk XI and MK XII ground sets for the costume. But now I DO NOT CARE.
See you in the game.
Now you charge Dillithium for STF gear but take away the Dillithium we normally received for doing them.
You say Dillithium is for fleet actions but not for an STF that is designed for what- five people?
In what world does this make sense?
Do you have anybody at Cryptic that has any concept at all of social engineering?
You have proven again to be exactly that your customers have come to expect...
... thanks for everything!
1) You tell us you want players to refine more Dilithium per day. So I'm thinking "Good, so STFs rewarding no Dilithium was a mistake and will be fixed soon."
Then I read there's zero STF dilithium!
After this, I know what I'll do...I won't be playing STFs until I need Omega Marks and BNPs. That means so far, I get to take a 3-day breather from STFs between leveling, right?
I'm telling you, I'd have run the heck out of the Elite STFs with 960 Dilithium mixed in each run. You were going to heavily reduce them (240/480, last I remember), then you added some back after feedback (480/960)...but now you went back on your word to give us Dilithium rewards because YOU felt it was too much?
YOU CANNOT MAKE LYING TO US A HABIT AND EXPECT GOOD RESULTS!!!
As I said, I just won't run nearly as many STFs as I did...which sucks for you, because you have 2 new STFs that I won't touch now that I might have with Dilithium mixed in. I want to guarantee optional objectives and guarantee I get through the missions if not. That means I'm sticking to Cure Space Elite, Khitomer Accord Space Elite, and Infected Space Elite. Yes, you killed my reason to play on the ground, but with Dilithium rewarded I would have played them if my timers were still on cooldown from space.
You killed my love of STFs, one of the few end-game contents that, even if I needed to grind them, didn't feel like a grind. (Note that, btw, in your feedback: Any missions that need to be done to progress in a system must not feel like they're a chore to do. Chores = no fun.)
2) Then "Investigate Officer Reports [Daily]" requires an hour to do.
That now kills "Investigate Officer Reports" or 1 of the 3 hours a week your own guys have said a casual player plays. Let me also remind you that the amount amount of play you said a casual player playing the Reputation System would take is 2-3 months to get through the Reputation System. My assumption on that metric (2-3 months on 1 hour a day for 3 days) was that the hour was only spent running STFs.
3) You took out "Chart the B'Tran Cluster [Daily]" Dilithium rewards because it doubled up on Dilithium for a similar mission [namely, "Explore the B'Tran Cluster [Daily]" mixed with "Explore Strange New Worlds"].
Let me tell you that this is actually the primary reason I got Mk XI MACO ground gear and would have gone for Mk XII in the Reputation System. I wanted the instant remodulator and MACO Rifle in order to have a slight advantage against the Borg ground troops I might have had to face. So now my time is wasted?
You could have just taken out "Explore the B'Tran Cluster [Daily]" and that would have ended your double-dip issue while still keeping a way to get more Dilithium.
4) You increased the amount of Dilithium earned in the Dilithium Mining event...which I hear had pitiful Dilithium rewards pre-S7. What does this put the average rewards up to now? Without hard numbers, I'm hard pressed to find a reason to run it.
So to summarize what the playerbase would probably feel be an acceptable solution:
1a) Return Dilithium to STFs. 480 for Normal, 960 for Elite.
1b) Keep the BNP and Omega Mark turn-ins as they are: 5 BNP = 1000 Dilithium, and 50 Omega Marks = 500 Dilithium.
2) Nothing on "Investigate Officer Reports [Daily]". The daily *was* exploited. But re-calculate how long it'll take a casual player playing 3 hours a week to get through the reputation system if you want them to play Foundry content as well or lower the average mission time that makes a Foundry mission count.
3) Remove "Explore the B'Tran Cluster [Daily]" and return Dilithium rewards to "Chart the B'Tran Cluster [Daily]." This only fixes the doubling up of 2 dailies but it gives us another Dilithium earning mission. Especially do this if you won't put Dilithium back into STFs.
4) Unless 20 minutes is the equivalent of nearly 480 Dilithium, bump up the percent increase on the Mining daily rewards.
And to summarize why I'm angry about this: I see nothing that helps players gather and refine *more* Dilithium. I see far fewer ways to earn it, which means far less Dilithium entering the system, which means at least or less than 3k per day being refined.
I feel you've shot yourselves in the foot by making comments that are seemingly contradictory with your actions. When/if you're proven wrong, feel free to put in more ways of getting Dilithium. The players will be happy to have it back.
All I can say is welcome into the light brother - good to have you here. I do ask 1 tiny favor of you now - Please continue to BITE HARD into this issue - it will be good for your soul.
Peace:P
This game had so much potential and with a better company with more vision then this grab the most cash monstrosity it could have been great. Thanx cryptic for yet another reminder why I use this game as a change of pace game to avoid mmo burn out from better and more intelligently thought out games. This game is not a better game then it was before with the addition of the dilithium economy. The fact that my bank is full of drop boxes that seem to rain down more frequently then actual usable loot is telling. I have almost 100 boxes that each require a lovely key that can be purchased from the cstore. Not very subtle about where your true priorities are. Just sayin...
I apologize to the actual players for this rant but it had to be said. I've just had enough of this garbage.
some are good with the Romulan part which me and a few others in the guild was looking forward on but taking away dilithium away in STF is really majorly unfair it seems you just greedy you really have got the lobes
you make SWG look like amateurs i was going to go lifetime me thinks i hold on to that and spend it elsewhere (hint not on the game till this clears up)
If I weren't paying on a regular basis for this game, I feel I'd have no right to complain. If I'm playing the game for free, I play what Cryptic/PWE want me to play.
But as a paying customer on a regular basis, I feel I have a voice. And that voice says things need to change or you'll risk losing players.
As an additional note to what I posted a few minutes ago:
STFs are seen as completely different animals in the Queue/Mark mission lineup. STFs take a lot of strategy to routinely pull off optionals and get done quickly. I think it's fair to say a lot of other content doesn't do this: you can keep them active and take 3-4 days to complete, or the queue is so easy (basically blow everything up, for example) it's laughable, or increased skill only nets increased rewards (meaning you still get some reward for failed attempts).
STFs aren't like that. If you fail, you fail. You're done. Go home, lick your wounds, and study up on strategy.
They deserve Dilithium. They do take time and effort to get done and get them done right with optional objectives being met.
Here's a revelation; It's FAR easier, and less time consuming, to get Dilithium. I can run three (very easy) space Fleet Actions an hour, and get up to the "bare minimum" Dilithium that "most" level 50 players were doing, pre-S7.
There's half my Dilithium farming done. Add in three more Dilithium missions, or two missions and a couple of Red Alerts, and I'm near cap. All in about 2 hours; with nothing but time to spend. As opposed to 2.5-4 hours (depending on various factors) before.
So, I run some space STF's for rep, a patrol for rep, and then I've got plenty of time to do whatever else I want to do. Maybe take a shot at some elite STF's with my fleet.
An average player shouldn't have too much of a problem. In fact, we're looking at a good increase in how quickly the Dilithium cap can be reached. The big change is for those who were happy doing specific tasks that rewarded the Dilithium in gameplay they enjoyed. As of right now, that gameplay has been gated to a certain extent; reward tiers, removal of content previously available, etc. Not to mention certain (arguable) cases of potential exploits of the previous Dilithium system being mitigated.
The issue, in short, is that there are players who have had specific reward paths removed. The changes were not properly communicated to the community. In a few days, will this blow over? Possibly; there are a lot more options to get Dilithium now, and I for one welcome the change. It's possible that the initial shock will wear off, and new avenues of quick Dilithium will change some minds. I'm sure I'm not alone, but I do see where people are coming from.
In the meantime, there's the whole Dilithium Exchange issue; will things swing to favor Zen sellers? Time will tell.
In S6 players were not converting enough Dilithium and that was a concern. Understood.
I understand that there are guidelines, however, I do not understand the actions that have been taken. Taking away Dilithium from several missions in S7 is a complete counter to the first pre-S7 concern that was mentioned. Dilithium was taken away and an equivalent or more was not added elsewhere. ~3k (not including STF loot drops) from STF Elites was taken away. What gets added? A reputation project at any tier that requires five (from what I'm seeing in game) Elite STF's for 1k Dilithium was added. Another project, which seemed reasonable until having mentioned that it requires tier 5, was added and requires 50 marks for 500 Dilithium.
How exactly is it expected for players to refine more Dilithium when the source of the Dilithium has dried considerably? All of this seems a bit inconsistent. First it's mentioned that players aren't converting enough Dilithium. Then, some methods of Dilithium earning are taken away and replaced with more inferior methods, save one which happens to take weeks (if not months) to reach. If I truly wanted players to use more Dilithium, I would give them more and loosen the mission cooldown times while allowing for the same rewards.
I really wish STO would stop beating around the bush, making these peculiar statements, and just admit that it wants its player base to spend more real world currency on the game.
Then all sorts of special currencies (omega, romulan and fleet marks) popped up, while content that provides those doesn't reward dillithium in general. Which "forces" players to divide their time between all those different missions, some of which they might actually hate, to take advantage of various game systems (fleet bases, reputation etc.).
That seems rather counterproductive, especially if people are meant to refine more dillithium. I'm not getting more hours to play in a day just because I need to do more stuff to get to the same results.
I'm very worried that one of these days they might actually succeed in leeching all the fun out of this game. And games are meant to be fun, not a punishment or a job.