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Season 7 Update! More Changes Inbound! Posted Nov 20, 2012
dastahl
Member Posts: 185 Arc User
Time for a STO Season 7 Update
Greetings!
First off, Happy Holidays from the STO Team! It has been pretty hectic around here and we can't believe it has already been a week since the launch of Season 7! Before we go into the Holiday Weekend, the team and I would like to give you a status update.
Season 7 is doing great. Lots of new players are logging in. Plenty of returning players are coming back to check out the new update. Concurrency is up across the board and generally speaking the team is very proud of the work that went into this Season and we are thrilled by all of the wonderful comments about New Romulus and the new Events. You can expect more large zones like this in future Seasons.
Not everything is sunshine and roses, though. As we mentioned in previous posts, we continue to monitor the Dilithium economy reaction to the changes in Season 7 and as previously stated, we will be making some additional adjustments which we feel will address issues that have been discussed. Some of those changes are going to happen in an update tomorrow (Wednesday Nov 21) and some of them are going to happen in the following week's update on Nov 29. If we feel more changes are necessary after that, we will certainly make them because our goal is to keep the game balanced while ensuring that players are having fun. Even though we've managed to get more Dilithium into more players hands, we agree that STF runs and Dilithium have been a challenging change that needs to be addressed and we are going to continue to do so.
First up, we expect to turn Foundry play back on with tomorrow's update. This is great news for Foundry fans and anyone looking to run the Foundry Dilithium Daily mission. We expect to have Foundry editing online in the following week after we've finalized all of our mission regression testing. So far everything looks good and we are in much better shape than we were after Season 6.
Private Queues are going to remain off for another week so that we can get the cool down timers for the missions to be in synch with the cool down timers in the public queues. Once that is confirmed, we'll turn the private queues back on.
The Reputation System, including the STFs are getting some major changes over the next two weeks. Here is a rundown of what is going to happen over the next several Holodeck updates.
We expect all of the above changes to be live before December. A few will be live by tomorrow, with the rest live around Nov 29th.
Thank you for your patience. We realize that players have been asking for many of these changes since Season 7 first started appearing on Tribble. We feel much better about making these changes now that we have a week's worth of data on a full Shard (there were only a hundred or so players on Tribble) and are able to see how a full server load of players are interacting with the new Reputation system. We're confident that the above approach will still achieve our balance goals, while putting more of the fun back in the economy. Our end goal has always been to put more Dilithium into the hands of the average player. The above changes should help get us there and put more Dilithium back into STFs.
Season 7 is just getting started and we hope that you'll enjoy all the updates that will come with this Season. Tomorrow we are releasing the next Duty Officer pack which has been specifically tuned to help with Starbase and Embassy construction. Shortly after the Winter Event will begin around December 6th. Last year's Winter Wonderland has been updated to include new missions, a new track, new rewards, a new ship, and plenty of fun that will run through the new year.
We will also be running a full month of Feature Episode Replay where all the limited time rewards from all four series will be available all month long. So if you've got some new characters that need these special items, December is going to be your chance to catch up.
In January we'll be releasing an Andorian Ship on the Federation side to be quickly followed by the STO 3 Year Anniversary Event. This special celebration will be released with a new one-off Feature Episode. If you were at the Star Trek convention in San Francisco this last weekend, Denise Crosby would have you believe that this episode is going to be all about Tasha Yar and Sela. We'll see... anything can happen.
The anniversary event will also offer a new special free ship for both Fed and Kdf players much like we gave away the Odyssey during last year's event.
Moving into February and March we expect to have some more events to talk about and we will begin to start teasing the next Season.
So there is plenty to look forward to in Season 7 and we thank you for continuing to share your feedback and comments with us. Thank you for the both the kudos and the criticism (although some of you need to learn some manners). We get better with every season and we have you to thank for that. We do listen, and while we don't always immediately react, we do deliberate and make changes based on ideas and feedback you submit. The QA team is still crunching through all of your bug reports and we expect to have major issues ironed out soon.
MMOs are wonderful because everything can change and there is almost always a way to improve things. We will continue to grow and evolve.
Keep an eye on the patch notes for when the above changes will hit Holodeck and thank you for making STO awesome.
See you online and Happy Holidays!
Daniel Stahl
Executive Producer
Star Trek Online
Greetings!
First off, Happy Holidays from the STO Team! It has been pretty hectic around here and we can't believe it has already been a week since the launch of Season 7! Before we go into the Holiday Weekend, the team and I would like to give you a status update.
Season 7 is doing great. Lots of new players are logging in. Plenty of returning players are coming back to check out the new update. Concurrency is up across the board and generally speaking the team is very proud of the work that went into this Season and we are thrilled by all of the wonderful comments about New Romulus and the new Events. You can expect more large zones like this in future Seasons.
Not everything is sunshine and roses, though. As we mentioned in previous posts, we continue to monitor the Dilithium economy reaction to the changes in Season 7 and as previously stated, we will be making some additional adjustments which we feel will address issues that have been discussed. Some of those changes are going to happen in an update tomorrow (Wednesday Nov 21) and some of them are going to happen in the following week's update on Nov 29. If we feel more changes are necessary after that, we will certainly make them because our goal is to keep the game balanced while ensuring that players are having fun. Even though we've managed to get more Dilithium into more players hands, we agree that STF runs and Dilithium have been a challenging change that needs to be addressed and we are going to continue to do so.
First up, we expect to turn Foundry play back on with tomorrow's update. This is great news for Foundry fans and anyone looking to run the Foundry Dilithium Daily mission. We expect to have Foundry editing online in the following week after we've finalized all of our mission regression testing. So far everything looks good and we are in much better shape than we were after Season 6.
Private Queues are going to remain off for another week so that we can get the cool down timers for the missions to be in synch with the cool down timers in the public queues. Once that is confirmed, we'll turn the private queues back on.
The Reputation System, including the STFs are getting some major changes over the next two weeks. Here is a rundown of what is going to happen over the next several Holodeck updates.
- Omega Conversion Crates can be opened immediately. You will no longer need to achieve T3 in Omega Fleet to open these.
- Reputation XP Project timers are dropping from 40 hours to 20 hours across all Tiers. If you have a project in progress, it will not change, but any new projects after the update will be adjusted. We are also looking into adding the ability to drop a project.
- All XP Reputation Projects (projects that reward progress towards your next Tier) will now grant 240 Dilithium (on average) upon completion. If you complete 4 XP Rep Projects a day, you should earn about 960 Dilithium per day from it. These are in addition to the Marks to Dilithium conversion Projects. Once you've completed a Reputation System, these XP Projects will go away, but the Marks to Dilithium conversion projects will remain.
- Reputation Projects that convert Marks to Dilithium are being moved from unlocking at T5 to being available immediately. This allows you to convert Omega Marks and Romulan Marks to Dilithium similar to how you could trade STF items for Dilithium previously.
- Loot drops are getting added to STF mobs as well as to bosses.
- End of STF Loot Rolls are returning. There will once again be a chance to earn special rewards at the end of STFs or Romulan Mark events. These special rewards will be Bonus marks, Borg Neural Processors, or other items needed for Reputation rewards.
- Reputation Advancement Projects (the ones that unlock each tier) are having their timers reduced from 1 hour to 15 mins. and we are removing Dilithium inputs from these Tier Up projects.
- The amount of commodities needed for Romulan Reputation projects is being reduced due to the lack of drops on New Romulus. We will be adding more drops to New Romulus in the future either through enemy kills or daily missions.
- All Reputation Projects are being changed so that you need to claim the reward upon completion. This puts it in line with how Duty Officer assignments work so you can see the rewards you are getting from each project.
We expect all of the above changes to be live before December. A few will be live by tomorrow, with the rest live around Nov 29th.
Thank you for your patience. We realize that players have been asking for many of these changes since Season 7 first started appearing on Tribble. We feel much better about making these changes now that we have a week's worth of data on a full Shard (there were only a hundred or so players on Tribble) and are able to see how a full server load of players are interacting with the new Reputation system. We're confident that the above approach will still achieve our balance goals, while putting more of the fun back in the economy. Our end goal has always been to put more Dilithium into the hands of the average player. The above changes should help get us there and put more Dilithium back into STFs.
Season 7 is just getting started and we hope that you'll enjoy all the updates that will come with this Season. Tomorrow we are releasing the next Duty Officer pack which has been specifically tuned to help with Starbase and Embassy construction. Shortly after the Winter Event will begin around December 6th. Last year's Winter Wonderland has been updated to include new missions, a new track, new rewards, a new ship, and plenty of fun that will run through the new year.
We will also be running a full month of Feature Episode Replay where all the limited time rewards from all four series will be available all month long. So if you've got some new characters that need these special items, December is going to be your chance to catch up.
In January we'll be releasing an Andorian Ship on the Federation side to be quickly followed by the STO 3 Year Anniversary Event. This special celebration will be released with a new one-off Feature Episode. If you were at the Star Trek convention in San Francisco this last weekend, Denise Crosby would have you believe that this episode is going to be all about Tasha Yar and Sela. We'll see... anything can happen.
The anniversary event will also offer a new special free ship for both Fed and Kdf players much like we gave away the Odyssey during last year's event.
Moving into February and March we expect to have some more events to talk about and we will begin to start teasing the next Season.
So there is plenty to look forward to in Season 7 and we thank you for continuing to share your feedback and comments with us. Thank you for the both the kudos and the criticism (although some of you need to learn some manners). We get better with every season and we have you to thank for that. We do listen, and while we don't always immediately react, we do deliberate and make changes based on ideas and feedback you submit. The QA team is still crunching through all of your bug reports and we expect to have major issues ironed out soon.
MMOs are wonderful because everything can change and there is almost always a way to improve things. We will continue to grow and evolve.
Keep an eye on the patch notes for when the above changes will hit Holodeck and thank you for making STO awesome.
See you online and Happy Holidays!
Daniel Stahl
Executive Producer
Star Trek Online
Post edited by dastahl on
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Comments
very glad to see these changes coming up. thank you for letting us know that our feedback and constructive criticism is appreciated and finally, thank you all for listening.
What about the feedback you have gotten regarding length of time vs reward for the foundry daily? You guys have made it so that a mission has a take a minimum of 20 minutes to quality for the daily, so that means a minimum of 1 hour(and very likely more) for a measly 1440 dilithium. Thats the same amount you get from an exploration daily you can finish in 20 minutes total. Are you going to be reducing the number of missions required or increasing the reward?
:eek: Whot, Santa Claus will not pass this year with me
Other Qs: Is this JUST the Borg misisons or is this the PvE missions in general?
My character Tsin'xing
www.fleet7.com
Could you please clarify your previous dev blog that said that Tier 4 and 5 starbase projects were getting their dilithium cut by 10% and 20%, respectively, since this change is not on Holodeck or Tribble?
My STOwiki page | Reachable in-game @PhyrexianHero
Fed Armada: Section 31 (level 730, 2700+ members)
KDF Armada: Klingon Intelligence (level 699, 2100+ members)
The number of players that were earning 1440 dilithium on all of their ALTs by running simple Foundry missions (ie - click one thing on Earth Space Dock) and then selling that Dilithium to the exchange, then buying it back on their main forced us to make this change.
If you want the 1440 Dilithium from the Foundry daily - you must play a Foundry mission that "qualifies" - meaning it has to be at least 15 minutes of gameplay.
We've held off on making this change in the hopes that players would police the simple missions and have them removed - but it just didn't happen.
If we had a better solution for the Foundry daily, we would go with it - but for now - Sorry you have to play at least a 15 minute long mission.
We will look into increasing the reward if the average length of Foundry missions that players are playing is greater than 15 minutes - but we're waiting to see if players will stop using these missions as an "easy" way to get Dilithium.
Another winter ship?! This better not be something like the attack bug...
Andorian Bird-of-Prey inbound.
Tis the season for Klingon tears, I'd reckon. XD
"Last Engage! Magical Girl Origami-san" is in print! Now with three times more rainbows.
Support the "Armored Unicorn" vehicle initiative today!
Thanks for Harajuku. Now let's get a real "Magical Girl" costume!
Yaaaaaay.....
Thank You Sir for all the in-coming adjustments...
This particular player is very grateful that You and Your Team are willing to take a step back and understand how we perceive things from this side of the internetz.
Happy Turkey Day to all of You and Yours.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
I honestly can't believe it!
Cryptic devs listening to the playerbase and implimenting pretty much all of their constructive criticism? I am EXTREMELY impressed. Well done, this could be the start of something magical.
All I can say, is that this has turned Season 7 from mediocre to without doubt the best season release so far.
KUDOS!
(EDIT: Gave the credit to Cryptic as opposed to PWE, as a user rightly pointed out!)
Kirk's Protege.
I agree the exploits needed to be fixed, so kudos on that. However by still requiring people to complete 3 missions after instituting your new 15 minute requirement, that is a minimum(key word) of 45 minutes for 1440 dilithium. Again, that is the same amount of dilithium you get for 20 minutes doing the exploration daily.
So you either need to reduce the amount of missions required to complete the daily(15 x 2 = 30 mins would be much more reasonable) or double the dilithium reward to make up for how much time is required to complete three full length foundry missions.
You will never encourage people to play the foundry if it takes a long time to get a little reward. The reward has to be proportionate to the time invested or else they will invest that time doing other things. And thanks for your reply.
One solution I can see is to look at making the basic rewards something character bound but equally valuable.
Or having the dilithium being an accountwide claim similar to how accountwide Foundry slots are purchased from a single character's dilithium.
happy Turkey day
I'm more wiling to give credit to the Cryptic Dev's for these changes...
(rather than PWE/I)
I highly doubt that things would have gone this way if the Upper Big-Wigs had insisted on what we first got, without Dstahl going to battle for us with whatever Data acquired from the first few days of Season 7..
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Sorry, you are absolutely right. Good point, well made! I will edit my post accordingly
Kirk's Protege.
Has any consideration been given to exactly why players were using this method to get 1440 Dilithium?
More Dilithium activities or even a small amount of Dilithium on all missions (including Featured Episodes). Maybe a Dilithium event where for a week all story content gives 240 Dilithium per mission?
Any chance of adding a Dilithium Crate (similar to Champions Questonite boxes) to the drop pool for Captains/Battleships/Dreadnoughts? Varying amounts of Dilithium ore in the box of course.
Would there also be a chance to trade in Fleet Credits for Dilithium in the future? Perhaps a Dilithium Mine on an asteroid as a fleet holding with Doff/mark/Commodities inputs that upgrades the Holding and allows for more Dilithium to be mined or some such thing?
About foundry daily is it possible to have it for 1- mission lasting 15-20+ minutes as opposed to 3 missions?
We might get to explore more of the great foundry missions created that way, and my 19 characters thank u for the consideration.
Happy holidays to all
I can tell you right now, because it was a button to get 1440 dilithium in 5 seconds for doing nothing but abusing a bug. It had nothing to do with it being hard to get dilithium, but simply because this was the most time efficient way of doing it. I fully support the closing of this loophole!
Kirk's Protege.
OK - I understand your point now. I'll bring this up with the appropriate designer and we'll see if we can bring these in line so that they are balanced.
The loss of our 50 Marks from Investigate missions has taken a serious toll. Fleet leaders are now paying high ransoms for people to temporarily join their fleets to donate mass amounts.
Marks are, of course, just one of the ways you reward us for our time... but the number of ways you do this efficiently and effectively are severely limited.
Please consider some new paths for us to gain marks. My suggestions include the addition of a Fleet Mark reward box as an option on mission replay, a new mark reward mission similar to the dilithium mining map (but in an EVA suit on the surface of our starbase repairing/building something), and the addition of a choice of Fleet Marks to any grouping mission that currently only offers dilithium (again, choosing marks over dilithium) - particularly Fleet Alerts!
But predominantly, give me the *option* of choosing my reward for my time, give me the option to choose Fleet Marks for doing the things I have fun to do, I like to do, not just the 2-4 same queues!
ALL HOLDINGS FINISHED! - Starbase 5-5-5-5 || Embassy 3-3-3 || Mine 3-3-3 || Spire 3-3-3
A laid back KDF fleet welcoming independent, casual, & part-time players and groups. Roms & alts welcome.
Send in-game mail to Wampaq@Jnoh, visit our recruitment thread and FB page for more info.
Going to the C-store now , well done.
That should be in the patch notes, but forgot to mention that we are changing the Fleet Action daily to reward 50 Fleet Marks instead of Dilithium now that we're added Dilithium for completing every Reputation Project.
We will continue to add ways to earn Fleet Marks where needed as we continue to monitor the overall economy.
Vice-Admiral Methos Corinthian
methos71
Brilliant! Cheers
My character Tsin'xing
Thank you for helping to minimizing the conflict between personal and fleet goals.
I have just completed my last work day this week and am looking forward to spending some quality time stuffing my face, kissing my fiance & son and watching Borg Cubes EXPLODE
Happy Holidays and peace to all