I feel like I was handed the keys to a Ferrari (the ultimate joy ride), then forced to watch it be repossessed, then given the keys to a Pinto (the ultimate chore ride).
I'll expound on that. The IOR with the fleet marks on the 30 minute cooldown was a fun and exciting way to earn fleet marks. I was able to quickly earn fleet marks while having a wonderful time playing missions from outstanding authors. It was like having new Featured Episodes every day (The Ferrari).
I log in after Valentine's Day festivities have concluded to find that the greatest source of entertainment in STO since the 2800 has been rendered effectively pointless. My fleet mates and I were left with the ultra boring PvE Queue missions to earn our fleet marks with ( The Pinto, aka the Chore Machine).
The answer isn't simply increasing the FM output. It's developing FM missions that are actually enjoyable and don't feel like a chore. Removing the enjoyable method of earning fleet marks without something equally enjoyable to replace it with was a horrible decision. I'm not looking forward to logging in after work. It just feels like more work, only I'm not compensated enough.
Formerly known as Khannnnn "Spock, this 'child' is about to wipe out every living thing on Earth. Now, what do you suggest we do? Spank it?" -Commander Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D.
It was absolutely our poor decision to put Fleet Marks on the Foundry mission in the first place. That is our mistake and we let it go on for too long.
To say that we punished everyone is very subjective because at the same time that we removed Fleet Marks, we greatly increased the amount of Dilithium that Foundry missions can reward. Dilithium is in far more demand by Fleets than Fleet Marks, and this entirely designed to aid. Dilithium is much safer to reward in Foundry (which tends to see a large amount of exploiting) because of the refinement cap.
So, as one upset customer wrote in "now I have to actually play the game in order to make Fleet Marks?" Yes. You must actively participate in order to gain Fleet Marks. You cannot go AFK in a Foundry mission and then alt-tab back over once the mission completes.
On a programming side, we are working on better ways to detect this so that we can be clearer about "qualifying missions" but in the meantime the changes are done in the best interest of the game.
This would be one of those times I would agree with you because the missions we got in season 6 never let me hit the engage button until fleet marks were removed from the foundry. Really there are only a few little improvements to the game that are reasonable that pretty much make me satisfied with the game to the point where I couldn't complain but it is like if you play fed side of the game mostly you are listened too about 25% of the time and then KDF its only when you want something like a vote or help promoting community events that we are even listened to or given anything. Then like a week or two later they are made useless. Its a lot of bait and switch tactics instead of accountability if you guys at Cryptic want to show some accountability I believe the first step is going back to your basics of ships you originally sold that are broken and being left out of this new mold and creating products for or out of them to also keep going. I'm just really annoyed with how the federation mold keeps getting expanded but limitation keeps putting onto the KDF and one of our most iconic ships the B'rel is so out countered I just let it collect dust.
It was absolutely our poor decision to put Fleet Marks on the Foundry mission in the first place. That is our mistake and we let it go on for too long.
To say that we punished everyone is very subjective because at the same time that we removed Fleet Marks, we greatly increased the amount of Dilithium that Foundry missions can reward. Dilithium is in far more demand by Fleets than Fleet Marks, and this entirely designed to aid. Dilithium is much safer to reward in Foundry (which tends to see a large amount of exploiting) because of the refinement cap.
So, as one upset customer wrote in "now I have to actually play the game in order to make Fleet Marks?" Yes. You must actively participate in order to gain Fleet Marks. You cannot go AFK in a Foundry mission and then alt-tab back over once the mission completes.
On a programming side, we are working on better ways to detect this so that we can be clearer about "qualifying missions" but in the meantime the changes are done in the best interest of the game.
So my question is, why not offer up an "Event Style" spotlight where players can submit their "Event Style" missions and those offer Fleet Marks?
I think people understand the change was made for the health of the game and to remove an exploit, but what people really have an issue with are two things:
1) The decision was not communicated to players in advance and it almost literally hit at the 11th hour before being pushed live.
2) There was no replacement for the loss.
Effectively communicating changes that impact players is simply not being done proactively anymore. Everything has become reactive and although the changes promote the health of the game (the metrics), it is not promoting the health of the community.
You have said there will be balancing to be done, but let's step back to some sweeping and quite heavy handed changes (to use your words) made to the DOFF system that have just been left to fester. In general, the playerbase should be concerned that the "balancing" may or may not take place at some undetermined time in the future. Past experiences support that concern.
Now, we have seen the need (or greed) for something had created a response by some people creating "grinder" foundry missions (I personally opted for short stories). This action was players trying to take control of filling a void where something was obviously needed. Yes, some took it to the extreme (the AFK missions) and some were more tempered. Hopefully the void is obvious now, the lack of "heavily repeatable" missions for end-game currency. People can only do the same missions so many times, before they become bored (leave the game) or it just does not become fun (feels like a grind). You cannot simply put in a system designed to take months to accomplish and support it with a handful of missions. Well, you can but then we end up where we are today.
Fill the void somehow, whether you guys crank out a few new of these "heavily repeatable" missions a month or offer a different Foundry spotlight. I think the rumblings would calm down either way. Lastly, you need to do a better job of hiding the "grind".
I think people understand the change was made for the health of the game and to remove an exploit...
It didn't remove the exploit - that still exists and rewards dilithium for it; instead it removed FM from all the f-missions and hereby punishing all the customers who were playing in a legitimate manner.
They could and should have removed those particular f-missions (or all rewards for them; just as they did when they removed all rewards from missions 15 minutes or shorter - of which my own non-exploitive mission which is over 15 minutes is still not registering any rewards and is still red flagged).
Good post btw.
There are Four Lights... say no to ARCFleet: 1st Order of Role-Players' Guild - gaming together since 2004
5 man fleet team playing Battleship Royale on elite mode is a nice way to train in cross healing and focus firing. we got the dilithium bonus, some fleet marks and we did it as a team of fleet members... we were about to go as far as to begin a fleet challenge to see who could last the longest without being blown to bits. The foundry is now a waste of time and we will go back to raiding Ker'rat for fed kills.
5 man fleet team playing Battleship Royale on elite mode is a nice way to train in cross healing and focus firing. we got the dilithium bonus, some fleet marks and we did it as a team of fleet members... we were about to go as far as to begin a fleet challenge to see who could last the longest without being blown to bits. The foundry is now a waste of time and we will go back to raiding Ker'rat for fed kills.
Indeed, BRR 5 man was a blast, we did it normal but still, it was a blast as a five person "fleet" fight.
But alas, BRR was an "exploit" according to the "story" authors.
We have a proposal on the table for the May update which is intended to address the discrepency for KDF queues and mark earning. Along with overall fleet size issues, we do also recognize that the KDF is at a disadvantage due to the smaller number of players. The solution we have on the table will seek to resolve this.
Wow, a proposal is on the table. I'm sorry Dan but do you really expect those of us who play KDF to believe this proposal will come to fruition? We've heard you make these promises before. "We have plans on making the KDF a full fledged faction, we have some ideas about how to bring the KDF up to par with the Federation, we are looking at ways to have more equality between the factions." For over 3 years we've heard these types of promises and we haven't seen anything even close to making the KDF what the federation is. The last C-store KDF ship was the useless Bortas cruiser which turns as slow as a carrier but without the up-side of pets.
So now we have a nerf that hurts the KDF far more than it does the Feds. So you'll up marks in fleet missions, but not truely help give back what you took away from the KDF. It takes some times as long as 30 minutes to get some of these queues to pop. and we're told yet again to wait. I'm sorry but given your track record with these promises I don't believe you. We shouldn't have to wait and suffer.
Really, I guess I must be a person, I'm at it, hell I have a back log. I can hit the refinement limit every day, if I wanted to.
Now AS far as that statement goes, My question for them, is that, accounts, or captains? if its accounts, then I wonder what the hell people are doing, given I can hit the limit in short order. If its captain, then its wildly inaccurate since I don't grind each and every one of my toons to max everyday, I'm not that interested in being a hampster on a wheel.
For the record, I average, 3-5 dil per day on one character, just, from my doffs.
I have 12 of my 21 toons hitting cap per day. The best way to do it is the designed way which is through KDF doffing. I love to play the KDF side but you can easily setup a method of just using KDF toons to doff and get the amount of dilithium each day. So easily if you have 1 toon you hit cap on a day and then get around 12 like I have its a little over 100k dilithium per day which amounts to around 1200 zen per day at its current rate. In the end though dilithium system is one where if you have a short amount of time to play its best to just pay for what you need but if you have a lot of time on your hands like I do you can just use the doff system to periodically do it once every other day for an hour or so.
What if the fleet marks were tied into the exploration dailies, like the Admiral Marks were? At least then we'd have some missions that felt new and less grindy. Perhaps change the daily aspect of it to a 30 minute cooldown, complete 3 missions for credit, and group with at least one other person.
Formerly known as Khannnnn "Spock, this 'child' is about to wipe out every living thing on Earth. Now, what do you suggest we do? Spank it?" -Commander Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D.
What if the fleet marks were tied into the exploration dailies, like the Admiral Marks were? At least then we'd have some missions that felt new and less grindy. Perhaps change the daily aspect of it to a 30 minute cooldown, complete 3 missions for credit, and group with at least one other person.
That system is so horrible at the moment I wouldn't even do it if they had 8k dilithium and 50k fleet marks for doing them. I took a screen shot of how the borg ones load for the KDF like some 100+ meters on some super tall building that they can't even be shot from. Not to mention all the KDF ones where you have to kill flora and scan function is broke on those maps.
My question for them, is that, accounts, or captains? if its accounts, then I wonder what the hell people are doing, given I can hit the limit in short order. If its captain, then its wildly inaccurate since I don't grind each and every one of my toons to max everyday, I'm not that interested in being a hampster on a wheel.
I've been grinding it out on one character lately (it's not so bad between eSTFs and the various larger dilithium rewards, such as one of the daily deferi missions, the random queue daily or the dilithium mining event). The eSTFs especially are practically a dilithium spigot, between the stock reward and converting marks or processors.
But there have been plenty of days in my month+ of playing where I didn't max out my dilithium. I did at first, and I'll probably continue because there are efficient ways to acquire it for refining, but it feels hardly mandatory.
I'm more concerned about EC; by my estimate I'll need ~250m to max eight consoles.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
I can hit the cap, on any of my Fed toons, with ease. Thats not the problem, at all. the problem is, they say not many are.
What I want to know, is that, accounts, or captains?
You have 21 characters, and only hit it on 12. Do they see 1 account hitting max? Or do they see 9 characters not? It makes a HUGE difference.
Same here, however, I have 8 others that don't hit max, so, like I said, am I 1 account at max, or 8 Characters, not?
Another consideration, of the characters not hitting max, how many are level 50 and or theoretically able to do enough in game, in a "reasonable" time to max? If you are a LCDR, you can't do the dailies, making it, more difficult to hit the max, whereas if you are a VA you have options out the wazoo.
Same here, however, I have 8 others that don't hit max, so, like I said, am I 1 account at max, or 8 Characters, not?
Another consideration, of the characters not hitting max, how many are level 50 and or theoretically able to do enough in game, in a "reasonable" time to max? If you are a LCDR, you can't do the dailies, making it, more difficult to hit the max, whereas if you are a VA you have options out the wazoo.
If you're under 50 - The Fleet Actions (Starbase 24, etc.); and the Foundry give a pretty good return. The Mirror Universe calader event is good for farming Dill on lower level characters also.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
If you're under 50 - The Fleet Actions (Starbase 24, etc.); and the Foundry give a pretty good return. The Mirror Universe calader event is good for farming Dill on lower level characters also.
If you're playing a toon under 50, chances are you've still got plenty of main story mission content to go through and possibly, you're playing that instead of dailies/repeatables for Dilithium (heck even some of my lvl 50 alts still haven't finished the Romulan arc). Main story mission content doesn't offer Dilithium. So unless you're skipping the main story missions and playing dailies/repeatables instead, you're not earning Dilithium.
If you're under 50 - The Fleet Actions (Starbase 24, etc.); and the Foundry give a pretty good return. The Mirror Universe calader event is good for farming Dill on lower level characters also.
While this may be true, it still doesn't answer the question.
am I 9 captains, or 1 account. This, is the question that will solve the whole "not many hitting the cap" I'm more than willing to bet, its the former, not the later.
We do plan to continue updating the Fleet Mark economies as the game progresses and as stated in posts several days ago, we will be reclassifying what are Events and what are Fleet Actions with a goal of making Fleet Marks the reward for "Group" gameplay.
Add a small amount of Fleet marks for playing STFs please
I can hit the cap, on any of my Fed toons, with ease. Thats not the problem, at all. the problem is, they say not many are.
What I want to know, is that, accounts, or captains?
You have 21 characters, and only hit it on 12. Do they see 1 account hitting max? Or do they see 9 characters not? It makes a HUGE difference.
Its kinda hard to tell but all evidence that I can see points to account. I highly doubt they have someone skilled enough to dissect by character to account basis.
I've been posting since I first subscribed. Hell I think STO forums is one of the biggest forums I've used in my lifetime. even during the past nazism of the forums I stood and put in my opinion. I remember I made a thread back before season 4 about combadges and being able to use them on any uniform. that was implemented in season 4
Add a small amount of Fleet marks for playing STFs please
It does seem that the amount of time given like for instance you get 17 for a fleet alert and you get around 6-9 for romulan ones. Then like in the KDF its like hardly ever you get a good team for NWS, blockade or the 20 person one so there needs to be something done. Although I somewhat agree with them being added to STFs but then again then no one would bother doing those Season 6 missions for fleet marks.
So, as one upset customer wrote in "now I have to actually play the game in order to make Fleet Marks?" Yes. You must actively participate in order to gain Fleet Marks. You cannot go AFK in a Foundry mission and then alt-tab back over once the mission completes.
As opposed to people blatantly going afk the whole time in the Fleet missions.
Why don't they just remove the exploit missions and revoke Foundry access for those who repeatedly provide exploit missions? Why punish the players?
Formerly known as Khannnnn "Spock, this 'child' is about to wipe out every living thing on Earth. Now, what do you suggest we do? Spank it?" -Commander Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D.
Ah, but the Foundry isn't a F2P feature. You have to spend money to unlock it by upgrading your account. If that's been changed, then I'm clearly mistaken.
Formerly known as Khannnnn "Spock, this 'child' is about to wipe out every living thing on Earth. Now, what do you suggest we do? Spank it?" -Commander Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D.
Far as I can tell it just costs dil for slots, though I subscribed a month in the past and my account may be grandfathered in.
EDIT: Also, as to the main issue. I can't really see any way to comprehensively handle this problem without human oversight. Any automated system is going to be exploited.
Cryptic is a kindly bespectacled shopkeep, okay? And the shopkeep, he loses x amount of profit every month due to shoplifting. Now he can post signs, he can install cameras, but no matter what he does he is still going to lose some money. Good business is he swallows the loss, because it's just life. Bad business is he shoves around customers he suspects of stealing. He does that, business dries up. He loses more money than he ever would have to theft.
So I don't run with a fleet and I don't care about marks so I can't really comment on this choice specifically, but what I can say is this: punishing the bulk of players for transgressions they may or may not have committed will in the long run impact profit more severely than exploiting ever would.
Ah, but the Foundry isn't a F2P feature. You have to spend money to unlock it by upgrading your account. If that's been changed, then I'm clearly mistaken.
They talked about doing th Foundry that way for F3P, but never did. You just need to buy Foundry 'slots' if you're Silver and they just cost Dilithium (not Zen) the cost is 7,000 Diligthium for two slots, or 10,000 for four.
It's really not that hard or expensive to gain editing access.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Because people AREN'T hitting that refinement cap.
One of the big draws to STO (for me at least) is that it isn't like classic MMOs that demand that you spend hours upon hours, with one thing that you complete leading to another thing that you must complete, to another thing, etc.
.
You mean like the current rep system in STO?
How the Devs see Star Trek, apparently:
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
7k dil for 2 slots. Less work than creating the Foundry mission.
Wow. That should be changed then. People will be more likely to abide by the rules if money is at stake. Some people don't care about wasting money, but the majority of us do. The Foundry is an excellent aspect of this game and we, as players, should be able to browse through actual missions to play. We shouldn't have to wade through a bunch of exploitation to find real missions.
The Foundry should be Gold/lifetime access only.
Formerly known as Khannnnn "Spock, this 'child' is about to wipe out every living thing on Earth. Now, what do you suggest we do? Spank it?" -Commander Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D.
Wow. That should be changed then. People will be more likely to abide by the rules if money is at stake. Some people don't care about wasting money, but the majority of us do. The Foundry is an excellent aspect of this game and we, as players, should be able to browse through actual missions to play. We shouldn't have to wade through a bunch of exploitation to find real missions.
The Foundry should be Gold/lifetime access only.
That causes way more problems than it solves. Their core philosophy on the Foundry is, you don't want a great mission to not get made because the person with the idea was locked behind a pay wall. People are giving you their time and mental effort to make your game better; you don't charge them for the privilege.
Better would be the Neverwinter fix; make you level up to some non-trivial point before you can use it, and let you pay to reduce THAT point. That way it's not a paywall, it's just Pay for Convenience.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
Comments
I'll expound on that. The IOR with the fleet marks on the 30 minute cooldown was a fun and exciting way to earn fleet marks. I was able to quickly earn fleet marks while having a wonderful time playing missions from outstanding authors. It was like having new Featured Episodes every day (The Ferrari).
I log in after Valentine's Day festivities have concluded to find that the greatest source of entertainment in STO since the 2800 has been rendered effectively pointless. My fleet mates and I were left with the ultra boring PvE Queue missions to earn our fleet marks with ( The Pinto, aka the Chore Machine).
The answer isn't simply increasing the FM output. It's developing FM missions that are actually enjoyable and don't feel like a chore. Removing the enjoyable method of earning fleet marks without something equally enjoyable to replace it with was a horrible decision. I'm not looking forward to logging in after work. It just feels like more work, only I'm not compensated enough.
"Spock, this 'child' is about to wipe out every living thing on Earth. Now, what do you suggest we do? Spank it?" -Commander Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D.
This would be one of those times I would agree with you because the missions we got in season 6 never let me hit the engage button until fleet marks were removed from the foundry. Really there are only a few little improvements to the game that are reasonable that pretty much make me satisfied with the game to the point where I couldn't complain but it is like if you play fed side of the game mostly you are listened too about 25% of the time and then KDF its only when you want something like a vote or help promoting community events that we are even listened to or given anything. Then like a week or two later they are made useless. Its a lot of bait and switch tactics instead of accountability if you guys at Cryptic want to show some accountability I believe the first step is going back to your basics of ships you originally sold that are broken and being left out of this new mold and creating products for or out of them to also keep going. I'm just really annoyed with how the federation mold keeps getting expanded but limitation keeps putting onto the KDF and one of our most iconic ships the B'rel is so out countered I just let it collect dust.
So my question is, why not offer up an "Event Style" spotlight where players can submit their "Event Style" missions and those offer Fleet Marks?
I think people understand the change was made for the health of the game and to remove an exploit, but what people really have an issue with are two things:
1) The decision was not communicated to players in advance and it almost literally hit at the 11th hour before being pushed live.
2) There was no replacement for the loss.
Effectively communicating changes that impact players is simply not being done proactively anymore. Everything has become reactive and although the changes promote the health of the game (the metrics), it is not promoting the health of the community.
You have said there will be balancing to be done, but let's step back to some sweeping and quite heavy handed changes (to use your words) made to the DOFF system that have just been left to fester. In general, the playerbase should be concerned that the "balancing" may or may not take place at some undetermined time in the future. Past experiences support that concern.
Now, we have seen the need (or greed) for something had created a response by some people creating "grinder" foundry missions (I personally opted for short stories). This action was players trying to take control of filling a void where something was obviously needed. Yes, some took it to the extreme (the AFK missions) and some were more tempered. Hopefully the void is obvious now, the lack of "heavily repeatable" missions for end-game currency. People can only do the same missions so many times, before they become bored (leave the game) or it just does not become fun (feels like a grind). You cannot simply put in a system designed to take months to accomplish and support it with a handful of missions. Well, you can but then we end up where we are today.
Fill the void somehow, whether you guys crank out a few new of these "heavily repeatable" missions a month or offer a different Foundry spotlight. I think the rumblings would calm down either way. Lastly, you need to do a better job of hiding the "grind".
It didn't remove the exploit - that still exists and rewards dilithium for it; instead it removed FM from all the f-missions and hereby punishing all the customers who were playing in a legitimate manner.
They could and should have removed those particular f-missions (or all rewards for them; just as they did when they removed all rewards from missions 15 minutes or shorter - of which my own non-exploitive mission which is over 15 minutes is still not registering any rewards and is still red flagged).
Good post btw.
Fleet: 1st Order of Role-Players' Guild - gaming together since 2004
Indeed, BRR 5 man was a blast, we did it normal but still, it was a blast as a five person "fleet" fight.
But alas, BRR was an "exploit" according to the "story" authors.
Wow, a proposal is on the table. I'm sorry Dan but do you really expect those of us who play KDF to believe this proposal will come to fruition? We've heard you make these promises before. "We have plans on making the KDF a full fledged faction, we have some ideas about how to bring the KDF up to par with the Federation, we are looking at ways to have more equality between the factions." For over 3 years we've heard these types of promises and we haven't seen anything even close to making the KDF what the federation is. The last C-store KDF ship was the useless Bortas cruiser which turns as slow as a carrier but without the up-side of pets.
So now we have a nerf that hurts the KDF far more than it does the Feds. So you'll up marks in fleet missions, but not truely help give back what you took away from the KDF. It takes some times as long as 30 minutes to get some of these queues to pop. and we're told yet again to wait. I'm sorry but given your track record with these promises I don't believe you. We shouldn't have to wait and suffer.
I have 12 of my 21 toons hitting cap per day. The best way to do it is the designed way which is through KDF doffing. I love to play the KDF side but you can easily setup a method of just using KDF toons to doff and get the amount of dilithium each day. So easily if you have 1 toon you hit cap on a day and then get around 12 like I have its a little over 100k dilithium per day which amounts to around 1200 zen per day at its current rate. In the end though dilithium system is one where if you have a short amount of time to play its best to just pay for what you need but if you have a lot of time on your hands like I do you can just use the doff system to periodically do it once every other day for an hour or so.
"Spock, this 'child' is about to wipe out every living thing on Earth. Now, what do you suggest we do? Spank it?" -Commander Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D.
That system is so horrible at the moment I wouldn't even do it if they had 8k dilithium and 50k fleet marks for doing them. I took a screen shot of how the borg ones load for the KDF like some 100+ meters on some super tall building that they can't even be shot from. Not to mention all the KDF ones where you have to kill flora and scan function is broke on those maps.
But there have been plenty of days in my month+ of playing where I didn't max out my dilithium. I did at first, and I'll probably continue because there are efficient ways to acquire it for refining, but it feels hardly mandatory.
I'm more concerned about EC; by my estimate I'll need ~250m to max eight consoles.
What I want to know, is that, accounts, or captains?
You have 21 characters, and only hit it on 12. Do they see 1 account hitting max? Or do they see 9 characters not? It makes a HUGE difference.
Another consideration, of the characters not hitting max, how many are level 50 and or theoretically able to do enough in game, in a "reasonable" time to max? If you are a LCDR, you can't do the dailies, making it, more difficult to hit the max, whereas if you are a VA you have options out the wazoo.
If you're under 50 - The Fleet Actions (Starbase 24, etc.); and the Foundry give a pretty good return. The Mirror Universe calader event is good for farming Dill on lower level characters also.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
If you're playing a toon under 50, chances are you've still got plenty of main story mission content to go through and possibly, you're playing that instead of dailies/repeatables for Dilithium (heck even some of my lvl 50 alts still haven't finished the Romulan arc). Main story mission content doesn't offer Dilithium. So unless you're skipping the main story missions and playing dailies/repeatables instead, you're not earning Dilithium.
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While this may be true, it still doesn't answer the question.
am I 9 captains, or 1 account. This, is the question that will solve the whole "not many hitting the cap" I'm more than willing to bet, its the former, not the later.
Its kinda hard to tell but all evidence that I can see points to account. I highly doubt they have someone skilled enough to dissect by character to account basis.
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It does seem that the amount of time given like for instance you get 17 for a fleet alert and you get around 6-9 for romulan ones. Then like in the KDF its like hardly ever you get a good team for NWS, blockade or the 20 person one so there needs to be something done. Although I somewhat agree with them being added to STFs but then again then no one would bother doing those Season 6 missions for fleet marks.
As opposed to people blatantly going afk the whole time in the Fleet missions.
"Spock, this 'child' is about to wipe out every living thing on Earth. Now, what do you suggest we do? Spank it?" -Commander Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D.
Because you can easily create a new account and recreate them. Since there's no costs involved, there's no way to make a ban meaningfully permanent.
"Spock, this 'child' is about to wipe out every living thing on Earth. Now, what do you suggest we do? Spank it?" -Commander Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D.
EDIT: Also, as to the main issue. I can't really see any way to comprehensively handle this problem without human oversight. Any automated system is going to be exploited.
Cryptic is a kindly bespectacled shopkeep, okay? And the shopkeep, he loses x amount of profit every month due to shoplifting. Now he can post signs, he can install cameras, but no matter what he does he is still going to lose some money. Good business is he swallows the loss, because it's just life. Bad business is he shoves around customers he suspects of stealing. He does that, business dries up. He loses more money than he ever would have to theft.
So I don't run with a fleet and I don't care about marks so I can't really comment on this choice specifically, but what I can say is this: punishing the bulk of players for transgressions they may or may not have committed will in the long run impact profit more severely than exploiting ever would.
They talked about doing th Foundry that way for F3P, but never did. You just need to buy Foundry 'slots' if you're Silver and they just cost Dilithium (not Zen) the cost is 7,000 Diligthium for two slots, or 10,000 for four.
It's really not that hard or expensive to gain editing access.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
7k dil for 2 slots. Less work than creating the Foundry mission.
You mean like the current rep system in STO?
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
Wow. That should be changed then. People will be more likely to abide by the rules if money is at stake. Some people don't care about wasting money, but the majority of us do. The Foundry is an excellent aspect of this game and we, as players, should be able to browse through actual missions to play. We shouldn't have to wade through a bunch of exploitation to find real missions.
The Foundry should be Gold/lifetime access only.
"Spock, this 'child' is about to wipe out every living thing on Earth. Now, what do you suggest we do? Spank it?" -Commander Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D.
That causes way more problems than it solves. Their core philosophy on the Foundry is, you don't want a great mission to not get made because the person with the idea was locked behind a pay wall. People are giving you their time and mental effort to make your game better; you don't charge them for the privilege.
Better would be the Neverwinter fix; make you level up to some non-trivial point before you can use it, and let you pay to reduce THAT point. That way it's not a paywall, it's just Pay for Convenience.