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Discuss: Alternatives to improve Small Fleet Progression
bluegeek
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
I am starting this thread to address one issue that keeps coming up and is a part of why people are upset about losing Fleet Mark rewards for Foundry missions
This is not about the Foundry. It's not even entirely about Fleet Marks.
It's about helping Small Fleets to make progress and not get stalled out. It's about not devaluing small fleets in favor of large ones.
What can Cryptic do to help Small Fleets that aren't equipped for the Grind?
We in small fleets have a number of issues and we don't like the answer to "go join a bigger fleet".
I can think of a few suggestions off the top of my head...
1. How about designing some FM and other PvE missions around 3-Man teams?
2. How about giving small fleets an alternate path of progression? Some way to build smaller holdings with fewer requirements?
3. How about developing a "Scenario Builder" that lets players put together playable team-based content with a few clicks and separate that from story-driven Foundry content? Reward those with a small amount of FM's.
4. How about making a way for Foundry authors to build missions specifically designed for team play and make Fleet Marks and other rewards scale according to number of players and how long they each played?
Please post suggestions to improve small fleet progression here.
This is not about the Foundry. It's not even entirely about Fleet Marks.
It's about helping Small Fleets to make progress and not get stalled out. It's about not devaluing small fleets in favor of large ones.
What can Cryptic do to help Small Fleets that aren't equipped for the Grind?
We in small fleets have a number of issues and we don't like the answer to "go join a bigger fleet".
- Fleet Marks and other requirements are too high for small fleets.
- There aren't sufficient ways for a small number of people to gather a sufficient amount of the resources that Fleet Holdings require.
- Featured Projects cost too much for small fleets to participate in, especially when there are so many Dilithium sinks in the game that siphon off available resources.
- Small fleets can't always field 5-Man teams.
- Small fleets that are focused on other kinds of gameplay than the normal FM missions are out of luck.
- Existing missions that grant FM's are limited. We need more kinds of content that earn fleet marks, even if they don't reward as many.
I can think of a few suggestions off the top of my head...
1. How about designing some FM and other PvE missions around 3-Man teams?
2. How about giving small fleets an alternate path of progression? Some way to build smaller holdings with fewer requirements?
3. How about developing a "Scenario Builder" that lets players put together playable team-based content with a few clicks and separate that from story-driven Foundry content? Reward those with a small amount of FM's.
4. How about making a way for Foundry authors to build missions specifically designed for team play and make Fleet Marks and other rewards scale according to number of players and how long they each played?
Please post suggestions to improve small fleet progression here.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Post edited by bluegeek on
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Comments
Desynch fleet gear lockouts from starbase progression.
To wit: Put all fleet gear (Ships, weapons, everything) on their own public vendors (possibly in ESD/Qo'Nos). Each item would be purchased individually with provisions, fleet marks and dilith. Fleet projects would award provisions to every fleet member, instead of a singular pool that everyone in the fleet draws from.
Higher tiers of a starbase would allow for projects that awarded more provisions, therefore allowing higher tiered fleets to give their members faster access to things, but without arbitrarily locking out players from items. Players then have the choice to save up for more expensive fleet items, or splurging on cheaper, less powerful ones.
Bigger fleets still come out on top with faster and better gear acquisition, but smaller fleets arent 100% ****ed.
How can we effectively recruit new players when posting such messages in zone chat is just about guaranteed to result in being silenced?
The mute abuse problem needs to be resolved one way or the other, but an alternate mechanism for recruiting new fleet members might kill two birds with one stone by reducing the number of such messages in zone chat and helping fleets to grow.
One possibility might be a special Recruitment channel.
Another possibility might be a way to alert Fleets that a given individual is looking for a fleet. Maybe allow players to set an "LFF" flag that's visible in sector space and/or social zones and to set a special message to tell prospective fleets about what kind of fleet they're interested in.
Or some other way, whatever will be fair to the majority.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
And place all new players into that channel by default, but let them opt out of it, with that opt out being a checkbox in the settings so that it persists through all new characters.
The SB is almost completely about the grind however. It is intended to be something a group of people work together over a long period of time to accomplish. Why should a group of people be given the same thing as others but not be expected to put the same amount of effort into it?
Frankly if a fleet, no matter the size isn't willing to deal with the grind, then they shouldn't be trying to build a SB.
The only way to do anything about that is some sort of scaling system, which will be abused by everyone, no matter the size of their fleet. Also a scaling is IMO inherently unfair to large fleets, because now you're expecting them to pay more for the same thing.
Why should small fleets be treated differently then large ones? Why should they get special treatment just because they don't want to do something? Should solo players be rewarded the same amount of Omega marks for solo missions as you get from STFs?
This is the thing that needs to be fixed. There needs to be more ways to earn FM's in the game. The 4 fleet events just aren't enough, and that's true no mater how large your fleet is.
Most of those seem reasonable.
There's a vast difference between being unwilling to deal with a grind, and being unwilling to deal with an insurmountable grind.
As opposed to smaller fleets which at the moment, on a per-member basis, are paying more for the same thing?
It takes the same amount of 'man hours' to go from T1 to T2 to T3 for everyone. The fact that a smaller fleet has fewer people doesn't mean it costs them more, only that it takes them longer.
Arbitrary numbers for the sake of discussion:
T1 to T2 takes 500k FM, 500k Dilith, 1k doffs, 500k commodities.
For a 10 man fleet that equates to 50k FM, 50k dilith, 100 doffs, 50k commodities per person
For a 100 man fleet that equates to 5k FM, 5k dilith, 10 doffs, 5k commodities per person.
How exactly are those two sets of numbers identical?
This is not true though. If a fleet can't field full pre-made teams, they will acquire whatever widgets they need to advance more slowly, as they are at the mercy of PuGs. In some cases this is a many-fold increase in the number of man-hours needed to progress.
But if they do that, the only fair way is to provide a refund or credit of the resources already spent.
For example:
If your fleet has 400+ members all project requirements stay as they currently are.
If your fleet has 300 - 399 members your project requirements are 90% of the maximum.
If your fleet has between 200 - 299 members your project requirements are 80% of the maximum.
If your fleet has between 100 - 199 members your project requirements are 70% of the maximum.
If your fleet has between 51 - 99 members your project requirements are 60% of the maximum.
If your fleet has between 26 - 50 members your project requirements are 55% of the maximum.
If your fleet has less than 25 members your project requirements are 50% of the maximum.
For the record I'm in one of those Tier 4 mega-fleets where the membership tends to flux between about 475 - 490. The biggest fleets are doing fine. It's the little guys who need the help.
My only suggestion would be a way to convert something to FM. Heck, 1 million EC for 10 FM (or 100,000 EC for 1 FM) is ludicrously easy. But something like that ...
100 Lobi for 1 FM (would force me to actually WANT the Lockboxes more, which mean sI would need to play more content),
Put a FM Booster in the C-Store (you want $ for Zen, you got it).
FM "pack" of ... 1-10 as a rare drop during content play.
I dunno ... something more. I don;t need huge numbers, just more avenues.
I can see why crytic is unwilling to scale the resource requirement based on the fleet size as the system would be rife with abuse, still, the end remains the same, small fleets were the victims of collateral damage. Today's change effects mostly the mid sized fleets, the large, and mega fleets aint even mad:cool:... well, maybe a little:P
***have the fleet sized LOCKED ON CREATION*** meaning it can NEVER grow or shrink beyond the creation size.
Mini fleet - max size 12-15
Small fleet - 16-40
Medium fleet - 50-99
Large fleet - 100-250
Super Fleet - 250-500
Change the size ranges to suit. Maybe provide different visuals/access to special featured projects based on the size of the fleet.
The SB project requirements could be on some sort of curve with the sweet spot being the small to medium sized fleets (25-50 currently).
I don't really, but it would be the fair thing to do. If they reduce costs they should do something to make it up for all those who have already spent a fair amount of time and money to get where they are.
If they reduced the cost I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't, but there's nothing wrong with asking...
I think the one thing we can all agree on is that there needs to be more ways in the game to earn fleet marks. This includes ways that can be done solo.
I just don't expect to see a way of earning 50 marks in 15 minutes again.
What if there was some sort of cost/time slider.
So the middle of the slider would be the current cost and time per project.
On the one end, the cost would go down, but the time to complete goes up. On the other the time to complete goes down but the cost goes up. To use some completely made up numbers...
25 Fleet Marks, 500 Dilithium, 10 doffs, 8 days.
250 Fleet Marks, 5,000 Dilithium, 50 Doffs, 19h 10m.
So it's 10 times the cost, for a 10 times reduction in time.
I remember that, and there were plenty of howls of anguish over that change. Most of the people who farmed for that were Very upset at it being reduced like that. Not sure how exactly anyone would expect a refund on a badge. But I do remember them asking for a new badge or something else for their effort.
That...might actually work. It wouldn't even need a slider mechanic, just some new starbase/holding missions with different costs/time to completion.
What is silly is for you to think the Devs will risk alienating most of the players who are in decent sized fleets just to satisfy the few stubborn people who want to stay in their small fleets and have a t5 starbase to themselves. Don't expect changes just to satisfy a small disgruntled minority when most players are in decent sized fleets.
Do you have any actual proof to confirm your claim that most people are in decent sized fleets? How do you even define "decent size?"
I can throw around unsubstantiated claims all day, too, but that doesn't address the topic of what this thread is about.
I believe Stahl said the projects were designed around 25-person fleets. If this is the case, couldn't someone argue (not me - just some hypothetical someone) that the mega-fleets are unfairly gaming the system? If so, wouldn't an input scale that adjusts projects based on fleet population return everyone to a level field?
True, but there's my line of thinking.
If they're going to revamp things, then put the effort into making it better, not just put another bandaid on it.
A slider has the benefit of letting people fine tune their projects to suit their fleet. Maybe there's something they really want and everyone is willing to put in some serious grind time to get it. So you'd set the slider up higher, because you know you'll get the resources more quickly then you might otherwise.
More projects could work but would also start to clutter up the UI.
The end result would be that the Fleet could control things better, but it would still take about the same amount of total time to get to T5.