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Operational Assets and Buff Provisions
mimey2
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
(This is a rather long post, so there's a 'tl;dr' below)
I feel like those are some of the most over-costing items in the game. Not DOFFs, not ships, not gear, these.
Honestly, we need SPECIFIC DOFFs to get them, plus the other normal requirements for a provision mission. Remember the days of million-dollar DOFFs back when SBs were first out?
Yet we gain so few of them, and they are consumable items. They used to cost a LOT more than they do now to buy, so that's at least better since they are cheaper.
But it doesn't get rid of the main issue: They're expensive to get, and usable only once, then they are gone.
Here's some solutions I have, some are simpler, some are more complex, I'll split em up accordingly:
Simpler solutions:
1. Just increase the number we gain per mission completed. At least enough to equal half the DOFF requirement, so if it needed 120 specific DOFFs, you'd get 60 provisions out of it.
These things are meant to help in Fleet missions, but we get so few, what's the problem about giving us more? It's not like they'd break anything. PvP wouldn't be hurt, most PvE wouldn't be touched, and the fleet missions are they only thing they are used on, which they are meant to help anyways in the first place.
Plus it helps out large fleets, and does not hurt in any means small fleets. In fact...
Small fleets: Few people means few people to give the DOFFs, but each of those people has a much greater usage of them since they can all buy them more freely.
Medium fleets: Don't have the overcrowding of large fleets, but don't have their resources either. Again, can still have more usage though.
Large fleets: Have the needed people and such to fill the DOFF requirements, without as much trouble, while being able to let more people use them, even if the overall usage isn't as high.
2. The opposite of above, reduce the specific DOFF requirements needed to only double the amount of provisions gained. I don't like this, but again, it helps out all fleets at least.
Complex solutions:
1. Alter a lot of starbase missions. Make the other stuff harder to get in general, while making operational assets VERY easy to fill up. Make it a large EC sink, like heaps of commodities, without requiring any DOFFs at all.
(Actually, that's the only more complex idea I had)
So, moving onto Buff Provisions. The first and most important thing to mention about them is......
THEY'RE BUGGED
I'm going to say that again, so there's no question of a doubt.
THEY'RE BUGGED!
I've sent in tickets and even made a post on the bugs forum awhile back, to no avail. I know I shouldn't put bug related things on here, but I thought it would be good, even if no Dev sees this, to straight out say-so on this part of the forum, so that other fleets can possibly know of this and spread the word.
(As an FYI, especially to the devs, the bug is that the game in fact uses Engineering Operational Asset provisions, as the method of letting you buy the Buffs and engineering assets. So if you have no engineering assets, you cannot buy the buffs beyond the +1's.
How my fleet found out, is that we were buying the skill buffs, and using them without really any fuss. But we kept running low on engineering operational assets and yet nobody was using them, or using very few. So, one day, we had about 5 left, with no slotted mission to get more yet, and then as we were looking, the number dropped down to 2, and a guy in our TS, talked about how he loved the skill buffs, to which one of us went to the SB, and bought an engineering op-asset, seeing the number drop to 1, then a skill buff, and the number dropped to 0, and we were unable to buy any of either of those item groups)
That aside, the buff provisions are on the opposite end of the spectrum in that they are really easy to get, often requiring smaller amounts of DOFFs, Dil, etc. However, they are still consumable, one-use items, and only gained in small amounts. Yes, they do last for four hours of game-time, and affect things outside of fleet related stuff, but you still gain very few of them at a time.
I feel like in this case, you just need to really ramp up the amount of them, and not alter the missions in any way, because they're still pretty useful, and even a smaller fleet will burn through these really fast once the bug is fixed. (hopefully) However these would need to be multiplied like 10 times over in how many you get, because I'm sure most people are going to buy one of each to add to all their skills, or buy a whole bunch of one category, or buy a lot of all 3 areas.
TL;DR:
1. Op assets and Buff provisions give very little provisions for the missions completed.
2. Op assets are extremely expensive for such a small amount gained.
3. Buff provisions are bugged, and use engineering op-assets instead.
4. Both of these need to reward a lot more provisions to be much more worthwhile.
I feel like those are some of the most over-costing items in the game. Not DOFFs, not ships, not gear, these.
Honestly, we need SPECIFIC DOFFs to get them, plus the other normal requirements for a provision mission. Remember the days of million-dollar DOFFs back when SBs were first out?
Yet we gain so few of them, and they are consumable items. They used to cost a LOT more than they do now to buy, so that's at least better since they are cheaper.
But it doesn't get rid of the main issue: They're expensive to get, and usable only once, then they are gone.
Here's some solutions I have, some are simpler, some are more complex, I'll split em up accordingly:
Simpler solutions:
1. Just increase the number we gain per mission completed. At least enough to equal half the DOFF requirement, so if it needed 120 specific DOFFs, you'd get 60 provisions out of it.
These things are meant to help in Fleet missions, but we get so few, what's the problem about giving us more? It's not like they'd break anything. PvP wouldn't be hurt, most PvE wouldn't be touched, and the fleet missions are they only thing they are used on, which they are meant to help anyways in the first place.
Plus it helps out large fleets, and does not hurt in any means small fleets. In fact...
Small fleets: Few people means few people to give the DOFFs, but each of those people has a much greater usage of them since they can all buy them more freely.
Medium fleets: Don't have the overcrowding of large fleets, but don't have their resources either. Again, can still have more usage though.
Large fleets: Have the needed people and such to fill the DOFF requirements, without as much trouble, while being able to let more people use them, even if the overall usage isn't as high.
2. The opposite of above, reduce the specific DOFF requirements needed to only double the amount of provisions gained. I don't like this, but again, it helps out all fleets at least.
Complex solutions:
1. Alter a lot of starbase missions. Make the other stuff harder to get in general, while making operational assets VERY easy to fill up. Make it a large EC sink, like heaps of commodities, without requiring any DOFFs at all.
(Actually, that's the only more complex idea I had)
So, moving onto Buff Provisions. The first and most important thing to mention about them is......
THEY'RE BUGGED
I'm going to say that again, so there's no question of a doubt.
THEY'RE BUGGED!
I've sent in tickets and even made a post on the bugs forum awhile back, to no avail. I know I shouldn't put bug related things on here, but I thought it would be good, even if no Dev sees this, to straight out say-so on this part of the forum, so that other fleets can possibly know of this and spread the word.
(As an FYI, especially to the devs, the bug is that the game in fact uses Engineering Operational Asset provisions, as the method of letting you buy the Buffs and engineering assets. So if you have no engineering assets, you cannot buy the buffs beyond the +1's.
How my fleet found out, is that we were buying the skill buffs, and using them without really any fuss. But we kept running low on engineering operational assets and yet nobody was using them, or using very few. So, one day, we had about 5 left, with no slotted mission to get more yet, and then as we were looking, the number dropped down to 2, and a guy in our TS, talked about how he loved the skill buffs, to which one of us went to the SB, and bought an engineering op-asset, seeing the number drop to 1, then a skill buff, and the number dropped to 0, and we were unable to buy any of either of those item groups)
That aside, the buff provisions are on the opposite end of the spectrum in that they are really easy to get, often requiring smaller amounts of DOFFs, Dil, etc. However, they are still consumable, one-use items, and only gained in small amounts. Yes, they do last for four hours of game-time, and affect things outside of fleet related stuff, but you still gain very few of them at a time.
I feel like in this case, you just need to really ramp up the amount of them, and not alter the missions in any way, because they're still pretty useful, and even a smaller fleet will burn through these really fast once the bug is fixed. (hopefully) However these would need to be multiplied like 10 times over in how many you get, because I'm sure most people are going to buy one of each to add to all their skills, or buy a whole bunch of one category, or buy a lot of all 3 areas.
TL;DR:
1. Op assets and Buff provisions give very little provisions for the missions completed.
2. Op assets are extremely expensive for such a small amount gained.
3. Buff provisions are bugged, and use engineering op-assets instead.
4. Both of these need to reward a lot more provisions to be much more worthwhile.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.pwlaughingtrendy wrote:I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
Post edited by mimey2 on
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Comments
Well, this thread will probably get closed due to being necroed, but this all does still need to be fixedd.
As for your other concerns, I'm open to adjusting the provisioning requirements and will discuss that with the rest of the team.
Thank you Archon, it's really great to have a dev comment here. This thread was made way back at the end of September, so it's been awhile of course.
That said, I hope that is the case, and that it will be implemented very soon.
To alter my original post from then, here's more of an updated version of my thoughts:
1. The biggest gripe I had was the specific DOFFs, thankfully with season 7, those are gone now. Not needing the specific ones helps considerably.
2. Op assets and buff provision missions still give very few despite their costs to get. Buff provisions I can understand, since they are good for any content, while op assets are still only usable in a few missions.
Even so, a lowering of their cost (again, mostly op assets) or letting us have more per mission would be hugely appreciated and useful. Either is ok in my opinion, though giving us more per mission would probably be more of a preference, at least to me.
No need for them in the 5 player maps (so easy you can beat em without) and the 20 Player mission always fails so hard for my fleet that we don't even see what we are doing wrong.
PPS: Consumable Items suck, i won't buy them, PERIOD. Make it a device with a cooldown that costs a lot of dilithium, fine with me, but consumables? *meh*
Could there potentially be trade in DOFF assignments?
Talk to a Doff in engineer to reassign more engineers to your ship in exchange for security or science personnel, etc?
Have White, Green versions for each. Could still make it random as to if it gives ops or Eng but at least it'd be possible but not a sure thing.
There are quite a few flaws with these provisions... The first one is that being you need large numbers for these doffs to donate and the changes have made it where people don't want to touch their doffs and on top of that the low numbers of provisions per project people will not spend those provisions in the problematic issue where there are too few to go around for everyone to have atleast 1 provision to use.
So the design pretty much between provisions, projects, and the relations to doffs is that players are at a stand still being its a damned if you do and damned if you don't because you won't get anywhere. Just like I keep most of tactical and securities as green for my contraband/prisoner farming because they get too bottle necked with my toons i use to do this it would cost me well over 500-750 dollars in real money to expand doff slots just to get better doffs without losing what is working atm. The doff capacity on how its marketed needs to be relooked at too because its pretty much around like 30-50 dollars depending on currency of player per character to get them to 400 which is kinda outrageous.
I normally don't necro my own threads like this, but is there any update whatsoever about all this, Archon?