Of course I can only talk for myself, and maybe some fleetmates.
We are happy to see a "sorry" about all this- but this time it was
too much.
It's the old game: You change something, we rage, you pull back
and apologize.
This time it needs some more action to open our wallets again.
We are mad!
First, "many people aren't happy" is a matter of perspective. There are certainly people that aren't happy, but there are also many people that are happy. You simply can't make an MMO that pleases every single person all the time. What you can do, is work to grow the game and make tough decisions about what is good for the game right now.
You have to start addressing issues immediately and ensure that every major decision is going to move the needle forward towards survival and growth.
And as far as Season 7 being "grindy" - welcome to the MMORPG genre. While it isn't the perfect solution, it is where we are at now. We want to make it better, but it takes time. We will increase the level cap. We will add more reps. We will add more feature episodes. We will add more adventure zones. We will add more ships. We will add more rewards. We will add more of everything that STO needs.
"matter of perspective" ?
260+ pages of complaints is more than "many people aren't happy".
The people you say that are happy are called CDF, "Cryptic Defence Force", and they are biased to say the least.
I want to enjoy this game, but it's frustrating as hell.
Your strategy should be simple.
1 Fix major bugs like sector alerts.
2 Thoroughly test anything you change before introducing it to stop new bugs appearing.
3 Listen to the customer.
While I am not averse to working for what I get in the game, the lack of variation in ways to get it makes me think of playing as more like work than fun.
Until that changes Dan, there will be no more Zen purchased by me.
But Dan there is overkill in a grind. Especially when you put in multiple grinds. I never expe4cted there not to be a grind but I didn't think there be an insane amount of it. For me personally I have 4 grinds to deal with; Dilithium, Fleet, Omega, and Romulan. May I suggest you trying playing this game from a F2P small fleet POV for a bit. And you might see what we're talking about in clearer detail.
Knowledge about the game mechanics also makes the "grind" aspect a lot shorter. The dil cap can be reached in less than 1h. You only need to play one STF a day to fill your rep projetcs. You don't even need to play a single romulan mission to feed rommie rep ones. Doffs can be bought at the starbase, and it's easy in small fleets because you have a lot of extra fleet credits. The only issue was fleetmarks and it's going to be super easy now. A fleet of 10 people playing 2-3h a day will be able to progress almost as quickly as a 500 players one, except on massive upgrade projects.
I consider that this game is already very light on grind, except on fleet stuff. Now that it's adressed, there's no more grind at all actually. Just play the game the way you want to and get rewards.
I'm sure you don't want a game where you log in, grab rewards, log out. This isn't funny if it's not a challenge. But it's also the only step i see to make "grind" easier because it's already extremely achievable.
Sometimes, systems aren't the problem, but the lack of knowledge about systems is.
On a side note, do you read popups in every mission you get in (even stfs, mind trap and so on)? If the answer is not then you know where the issue is, you don't want to know how to play this game because players are babysitted everywhere.
I do feel rather like a jerk not being satisfied by that long, well written, and heartfelt apology, especially when combined with the changes coming out on Tribble. But the thing is, there's still so much more to be done before most of us can really enjoy the game again. Bug fixes would definitely be good, but a big part of the problem is simply that there's so much grinding in the game. That's not to say that I don't expect there to be grind, I mainly just expect that it shouldn't take more than say 45 minutes playing specified content to achieve decent progress through the grind, so that even casual players will have time left over to play any content they enjoy. I'm also very concerned by your statement that you know that many players of the game are happy with its current direction. Very few of the people who have posted here are of that opinion, far more have held the opposite one, so I just don't know where you're getting that, unless you're basing it on the degree to which players play through the stuff you're steering them into, which is as much an indication that they feel they have to as it is that they actually like it. And yes, as has been mentioned many times, QA has a lot of room for improvement, and that really needs to happen. I will close with something a lot of other people have been saying, which is that we want to help make this game better, we want to help you find and fix the bugs, we want to help you gauge the satisfaction and activities of your players, please let us. This game really does have a phenomenal community, let's use that to the advantage of the whole game and all its players.
Go back and read my post again. Seems like you only read what you wanted to read.
No, I read your post. Mine was not an attack on you. Nor was it a disagreement with you. I was merely saying that any apologies or concessions I saw were at best half-formed and coated with "but really this was the player's fault". I am sorry if you misunderstood what I was trying to say there.
Went back and read my post and it did sound like I was directing it at you. I was not intending it that way. I might have been a bit hot under the collar at the moment.
An apology is due, and while I've admitted fault in previous posts about this , I'll do so again in this one.
The release that was pushed to Holodeck last week failed in several critical ways. There was a failure on the part of a designer to test their work before it was checked into the game.
Similarly, there was a failure in communication with the QA team on the said check in and on top of that, no one headed the concerns on TRIBBLE.
Ultimately, this is all my responsibility as the lead on the team and I do apologize.
There has been corrective action on our end to address this issue and it is our intention that the build going out to Holodeck tomorrow will resolve problems introduced last week.
This doesn't mean that all bugs on Holodeck are magically gone, it means that we are looking into the processes that cause these bugs and taking action to correct them.
In addition, the removal of Fleet Marks was a heavy handed change. It needed to be done because it was getting out of hand and there was an ever increasing amount of exploitation in the Foundry to maximum Fleet Mark rewards. That said, we should have had the Fleet Mark changes we are making this week ready to go last week so there wouldn't have been a week with the drop in Fleet Mark earning.
Again sorry. It doesn't make us feel any better when we make stupid mistakes.
Similarly, it is disheartening when several members of the community make harsh comments towards a team that is working many hours of OT to bring new content to STO.
Be frustrated with me all you want, but every member of the team is pouring their lives into making this game better. While you may not see that on any given day, when you look back at where this game has come from, every year we make big strides in moving forward. They deserve a lot of credit for that.
While you may not agree with all of our designs and decisions, the proof is in the success the game is having and how much the game continues to grow. While we don't share our internal information, STO is the best performing game for Perfect World Entertainment and is enjoy month after month increases in new captains.
Having just celebrated our 3 year anniversary, there should be no doubt in your mind that we will be here for year 4 and beyond. We have a lot of good stuff in the works for our next May update and you'll see what we've been talking about in a little less than a months time.
So thank you for the constructive feedback. I do apologize on the behalf of the team. We appreciate your continued support and understand if we tarnished ourselves with last week's update. We will learn and move on.
And now... back to work.
Thank you for this. It makes us feel like we are perceived as people again and reminds us that you and your team are real people as well.
while im glad to see the changes in patch notes. its not enough its a drop in the ocean although its a step in the right dircetion.
take the grind out pls, games should be fun not a bloody chore. grinding for so long and bearly seeing any progress is heart breaking. an entire weekend of grind should have much more of an impact.
its even got the point where its like blah have to log on and grind some more.
it should be i want to log on play sto with my mates.
It just takes time. And right now, you may not see it, but the team is working extra hard. It is one thing to say that Cryptic pays our salary. But it doesn't really pay for all the late nights and weekends all the salaried employees are working right now. Why are we doing it? Because we are excited. Excited about what we are building. Excited about what we might be able to achieve this year.
It might not seem like much to you, but to us it is a big TRIBBLE deal.
This is so good to hear. It is a big deal to us too. I hated the idea, as was suggested by a player somewhere in this thread, that your team was laboring unhappily under the owners. How can that be? This is Trek stuff! Inherently awesome! So to hear that is not the case and that you are all excited about the game and what is coming rekindles my own excitement about it. Again, thank you for hopping on the thread.
I don't understand why you took the grind feeling out by adding FM's and Dil to Foundry and more people played Foundry because of it. Now, if you had a favorite mission, did it more than once, you are still grinding but, had the option of doing other missions, instead of playing a map you know every move and trigger.
They are simply steering gamers toward the content they want you to play. After the patch people will be able to get the same amount of FM's (prob a lot more than before) in less than or equal to some Foundry missions....the same way they got them before.
:rolleyes:
It think that was the original intent to combine two aspects of the game into something everyone can enjoy. The issue was that there were many players taking full advantage of missions created to gain rewards for little to no effort at all, which is considered an exploit in the MMO world.
It seems they were not aware of the exploit until it was being abused. Fixing the ability to create these exploits would have removed key tools that are necessary to create various Foundry missions in the first place, so the decision was made to remove the FM from the Foundry altogether, since it was the addition of them that prompted creation of the exploit missions.
The alternative in the new patch is a fix I guess to balance it out.
P.S. - Before I get flamed or labeled CDF, or whatever, I'm just responding to the above post with an explanation of something already in the first post. Nothing more.
Quoted for truth. And we've all heard the same promises from Mr Stahl, over and over, repeatedly. Has anything come of those promises as of yet? Nope...
I guess you missed the part where I said "happy about this change."
Nowhere did I say all is forgiven. Do some of you even read what I am writing or do you just pick and chose words from my posts?
Emily, I think the most guys only look at your avatar when they "read" your posts. *giggles* By the way, I gladly accept the hugs for everyone, as I gave you one free hug already before Dan Stahl made his apology. =D
Yeah, not everything is fixed by the fleet mark patch, butt at least it's a step into the right direction, even when it's a week late. But what is a week compared to three years and more of play time? Not so much. Yeah, some people still pay monthly for the game and maybe for them, a week is paid money they couldn't get enough fleet marks. Butt overall I can say it's not too much damage that has been done just from the fleet mark point of view.
As for the entire rest being discussed in here, yes, it's still pending and we're waiting for the next changes and of course for the big May update (Season 8) with the Romulan faction and hopefully a lot of fixes for the old bugs.
~ Meowz
"Everything about the Jham'Hadar is lethal!" - Eris
Original Join Date: January 30th, 2010
I agree. Exploits and Exploiters should be dealt with accordingly.
But how was THIS an exploit, when Cryptic basically created it in the first place?
Cryptic did not create an exploit. What Cryptic did is they gave the players the complete liberty in creating foundry content. Awesome tool to create own content without restrictions.
Why would someone endeavor in playing a game by logging in and going AFK for half an hour instead of actually playing some content is way beyond my comprehension.
[SNAP]
Why are we doing it? Because we are excited. Excited about what we are building. Excited about what we might be able to achieve this year.
It might not seem like much to you, but to us it is a big TRIBBLE deal.
Mr.Stahl, I'm glad to hear that you and the team are excited about your work. That could only benefit STO. When people are happy and excited about what they're doing it usually means that the work will be done in a good way.
For the sake of the game I love, I'm really happy to hear that the people working on it are excited and motivated.
Knowledge about the game mechanics also makes the "grind" aspect a lot shorter. The dil cap can be reached in less than 1h. You only need to play one STF a day to fill your rep projetcs. You don't even need to play a single romulan mission to feed rommie rep ones. Doffs can be bought at the starbase, and it's easy in small fleets because you have a lot of extra fleet credits. The only issue was fleetmarks and it's going to be super easy now. A fleet of 10 people playing 2-3h a day will be able to progress almost as quickly as a 500 players one, except on massive upgrade projects.
I consider that this game is already very light on grind, except on fleet stuff. Now that it's adressed, there's no more grind at all actually. Just play the game the way you want to and get rewards.
I'm sure you don't want a game where you log in, grab rewards, log out. This isn't funny if it's not a challenge. But it's also the only step i see to make "grind" easier because it's already extremely achievable.
Sometimes, systems aren't the problem, but the lack of knowledge about systems is.
On a side note, do you read popups in every mission you get in (even stfs, mind trap and so on)? If the answer is not then you know where the issue is, you don't want to know how to play this game because players are babysitted everywhere.
Euh, correction, for your reputation system you require not only the marks, experience, but also the required resources/EC's. Let alone, there is also the factor that you require dilithium to unlock the item that you might want, plus again the resources that are coming with it like again marks, dilitium, EC's, experience and such.
Let's follow your reasoning, and say that we have only the time to play one STF or Romulan Event and you are getting extremely unlucky, like the last STF that I have ran (loot result : 4 batteries over the whole STF worth not a 1000 EC's), how would I be able to manage to go through the reputation system if I would be low in my own resources, on a daily basis ?
Mr Stahl promised us, at start of Season 7, that each of us (frequent and casual player), would be able to obtain the desired parts in the reputation systems within 2 months. We are 4 months after that date, and most of us are still struggling to get through that reputation system, due to the lack of rewards, marks, dilithium and so on and the cost of these parts.
Frankly, yes, it's frustrating that your efforts, how little your time online might be aren't rewarded accordingly or correctly. STO should be an entertainment, an escape from reality, not become reality and frustrating job.
OK, if I have to stay here for a while, your cieling ... looks idious.:D
Knowledge about the game mechanics also makes the "grind" aspect a lot shorter. The dil cap can be reached in less than 1h. You only need to play one STF a day to fill your rep projetcs. You don't even need to play a single romulan mission to feed rommie rep ones.
That would depend on how you define grind. Most here define it as doing the same tedious thing over and over and over again. In that respect this game is grind heavy. If I have to spend 45 min to an hour just getting to the dilithium cap because I can't afford to get/contribute to anything in this game then this game has become a rather predictable 9 to 5esqe job. Sure, I only need to play one STF a day to fill out my rep, but after I've unlocked T5? More grind to buy anything from the rep store. Romulan rep, you might as will play the missions since the prices are so high you will need the surplus. Is this Star Trek Online or Tiffany's Online?
This is the only game I've player where you need alts not to enjoy other aspects of the game but to transfer dilithium to you main character just so you can afford to stuff. My Klingon toon just sit in Pi Conis doing raids via DOFFS. That's it. This game has basically become a resource management game. I play RTSs for that. I play MMOs to interact with others who share my interests in gaming. Right now I don't interact much since I spend most of my time grinding/transferring dilithium and contraband.
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
...talking to players is like being a mall Santa. Everyone immediately wants to tell you all of the things they want, and you are absolutely powerless to deliver 99% of them.
A fleet of 10 people playing 2-3h a day will be able to progress almost as quickly as a 500 players one, except on massive upgrade projects.
What normal person with a job, life and family can spend 3 hours every day on this game. Please try consider us because when we log on to play we don't want to have spend 3 hours grinding just to be able to go and play the parts of the game we actually enjoy (which at the moment is No-win-scenario and STF's in the main for a lot of people)
Tell me when you've worked an 8 hour day which is relatively stressful would you feel like logging on only to do more work for 45 minutes - 3hours? No, no you wouldn't.
I consider that this game is already very light on grind, except on fleet stuff. Now that it's adressed, there's no more grind at all actually. Just play the game the way you want to and get rewards.
Your opinion is shared by very few here if anyone.
I'm sure you don't want a game where you log in, grab rewards, log out. This isn't funny if it's not a challenge. But it's also the only step i see to make "grind" easier because it's already extremely achievable.
For me I want to able to log on and have FUN, that means grouping with friends and doing No-Win and STF, the former if which is quite a challenge, however if you think that grinding in this game is an enjoyable challenge then you really are in the minority. The best MMO's challenge you without you feeling like it's a tedious grind and more like work than play. STO categorically fails at this.
Sometimes, systems aren't the problem, but the lack of knowledge about systems is.
For sure but not in STO, I think that is self evident, if not then please refer to post 2311. All the systems here as Dan has hinted at don't get much in the way of test time or Q&A and are nearly always unbalanced and broken when reaching the live server, just look at how broken Omega Rep was and the Fleet Rep has been broken for very long time this is why people fixed fleet rep by using the Foundry. It wasn't an exploit but a fix for a broken system... something now even Cryptic have admitted to.
It has nothing to do with lack of knowledge, unless you mean lack of knowledge about other parts of the system that can be exploited so to speak.
Mr Stahl promised us, at start of Season 7, that each of us (frequent and casual player), would be able to obtain the desired parts in the reputation systems within 2 months. We are 4 months after that date, and most of us are still struggling to get through that reputation system, due to the lack of rewards, marks, dilithium and so on and the cost of these parts.
You cannot be serious about this? "Most of us" are not struggling to get through the reputation system, "most of us" had it polished off within a month. I'll admit, I was spending more time in-game to get it finished, but it was still at most a couple of hours a day and I found it incredibly easy.
Running a single Tau Dewa sector patrol would net you enough EC for a day's projects! I'd say the vast majority finished both grinds within a month if they were attempting to get it done. It was incredibly easy once dilithium was removed (and now grinding is a SOURCE of Dilithium) so I really don't understand what your problem is here.
...Seriously, though, do you not see anything wrong with having that attitude?
By writing off someone else's opinion as irrelevant, you're giving free reign for others to do the same to yours.
You are twisting his words and you know it. There is a difference between defending a game because you like certain aspects and being a rampant fanboy who believes that a game developer can do no wrong.
The CDF falls into that latter category. Cryptic could reduce the the dilithium payout to one 20hr cool down that rewards 100 ore and jack up prices 100% and the CDF would adamantly defend the decision.
You cannot be serious about this? "Most of us" are not struggling to get through the reputation system, "most of us" had it polished off within a month. I'll admit, I was spending more time in-game to get it finished, but it was still at most a couple of hours a day and I found it incredibly easy.
Running a single Tau Dewa sector patrol would net you enough EC for a day's projects! I'd say the vast majority finished both grinds within a month if they were attempting to get it done. It was incredibly easy once dilithium was removed (and now grinding is a SOURCE of Dilithium) so I really don't understand what your problem is here.
The problem is it is incredibly boring. It is the same thing over andover again. The same missions over and over again. So e are have problems staying motivated enough to last through both rep systems while at the same time contributing to the fleet. Then their is the "grind the tiers so you can unlock the ability to grind some more" aspect and people are ready to throw their computers out the windows.
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
First, "many people aren't happy" is a matter of perspective. There are certainly people that aren't happy, but there are also many people that are happy. You simply can't make an MMO that pleases every single person all the time. What you can do, is work to grow the game and make tough decisions about what is good for the game right now.
The impression a great deal of players have right now is that you seem to think that "what's good for the game" is a never ending stream of lockboxes and cash shop items with the occasional piece of repetitive grind content thrown in every now and then. Is that what you truly believe STO needs?
A holy grail of live MMO development is to improve growth, retention, and revenue. STO has managed to do all of these things thanks to the tough decisions that were made. Did it make everyone happy? No, but it did improve the game, year over year.
Again, how does bleeding your playerbase dry with cash sinks that appear to be contributing next to nothing in terms of creating new enjoyable content add to player retention? The only messages you seem to be giving out are "grind some more", "join a bigger group and grind together", "small fleets need to stop whining and grind even more" and "we'll add new stuff in a few months". Saying "we're working on new fun non-grindy stuff" doesn't cut it when your actions appear to show the exact opposite.
And as far as Season 7 being "grindy" - welcome to the MMORPG genre. While it isn't the perfect solution, it is where we are at now. We want to make it better, but it takes time. We will increase the level cap. We will add more reps. We will add more feature episodes. We will add more adventure zones. We will add more ships. We will add more rewards. We will add more of everything that STO needs.
The "other people are doing it" doesn't really work in any context Dan. And frankly, your notion that adding more reputation grinds and currencies will somehow make things less grindy makes absolutely no sense to me. Players are already annoyed by having to go after five different currencies that cannot (for the most part) be gained concurrently to make progress right now (Omega/Rommie/Fleet marks, EC, BNPs). How is having to go after ten currencies going to make that better?
So when we get to the year 4 anniversary and we look back at 2013, I certainly hope that we'll be in better shape just like we are every year and that at least the majority of us will be happy with where the game is going.
I share that hope. People are as upset as they are because they want STO to be a better game, a game that succeeds and is actually fun to play in the long term. But I'm going to be completely honest, the first impressions of year three are not good.
You are twisting his words and you know it. There is a difference between defending a game because you like certain aspects and being a rampant fanboy who believes that a game developer can do no wrong.
The CDF falls into that latter category. Cryptic could reduce the the dilithium payout to one 20hr cool down that rewards 100 ore and jack up prices 100% and the CDF would adamantly defend the decision.
The problem is it is incredibly boring. It is the same thing over andover again. The same missions over and over again. So e are have problems staying motivated enough to last through both rep systems while at the same time contributing to the fleet. Then their is the "grind the tiers so you can unlock the ability to grind some more" aspect and people are ready to throw their computers out the windows.
Here's a clue, though:
Nobody is actually in any kind of "Cryptic Defense Force."
Nobody is 100% uncritical of Cryptic.
Generally speaking, what you have are players who actually prefer things balanced/imbalanced in a different direction than you do, and so they praise Cryptic... Or they have some other area they think Cryptic is lacking in, they're competing for attention, and that's why they insist your problem doesn't exist.
As a for instance: combadge clipping. I will flat out tell you I think Cryptic hasn't done anything wrong there and shouldn't fix it. Why? Because the bust slider all the way up looks annoying and silly to me and I like that the clipping might discourage people from doing it. So I'll challenge whether that's a bug that character art time needs to spend on rather than making more C-Store costumes, which I think they're way behind on, and in-game costume unlocks and Foundry authors getting costumes flagged for use.
Generally, when it sounds like somebody is pro-Cryptic, they aren't dismissing your issue because they're blindly loyal to Cryptic. They're dismissing your issue because it doesn't match their priorities as a player and because they have other ways they want Cryptic's resources used.
Similarly, it is disheartening when several members of the community make harsh comments towards a team that is working many hours of OT to bring new content to STO.
I'm sorry, but time put in on a project tends to be entirely moot when that project comes out defective. Look at the 787 debacle Boeing is going through right now. Do you really think the CEO of Boeing coming out and asking for more time because his people are working hard is going to mitigate anything?
While we don't share our internal information, STO is the best performing game for Perfect World Entertainment and is enjoy month after month increases in new captains.
This is the crux of the communication problem: you give us some piece of information with absolutely nothing to back it up. When one gives out information that appears to contradict the impressions and observations of the people you're reporting on, they're going to be understandably skeptical. Want to ameliorate that? Show your work. It's that simple.
Instead of telling us there are "2 million Captains" without explaining whether those are accounts, active characters, total created characters, or completely imaginary miniature giant space tribbles, give us those figures. You don't get to throw a number at us, then turn around and say "we don't give out internal information".
Having just celebrated our 3 year anniversary, there should be no doubt in your mind that we will be here for year 4 and beyond. We have a lot of good stuff in the works for our next May update and you'll see what we've been talking about in a little less than a months time.
Again...effective communication. Players want to be talked to, not at. By repeating the mantra of "we can't talk about that" every time you trumpet the "good stuff in the works" you're perpetuating the impression that you don't actually want us to know what you're doing.
Dan, you saw how this whole situation arose out of a compounded failure of communication. You've done a fairly reasonable job of trying to speak to the problem here. Don't continue to sustain that failure by clamming up again.
I've thought about it a bit and wasn't sure how I felt on the mark issue.
The good thing is that marks shouldn't be so ridiculous to grind, we are still going to have to go out and earn them, even with modest goals. A large fleet will probably have crazy excess of marks though.
I do feel there are too many one time bonuses to the marks, and not enough earned marks, PUGing these will be full of AFKers because you don't have to do well, you just have to do a little.
For small fleets the limitations are going to be mostly dilithium. 54 or 60k dilithium for the 500xp missions is so high that they just can't be done regularly, if you run two per day that means you need 50 active players giving up 25% of their dilithium. Medium fleets will have large problems as well.
The only remaining issue is the horribly uneven Doff distrubition and requirements.
Here are the issues I see with them:
Tactical packs give you 2 tactical for every 1 security class, there is nothing you can do with the tactical doffs in such excess quantity.
The tactical operational assets is using tactical and operations officers.. engineering officers on a tactical project? Sure it relieves the security issue but getting ops officers is a big problem.
Engineering construction is fairly balanced, though if you were to take 70 engineers and 60 ops instead of 60 eng and 70 ops it would work out better.
The science projects are a major concern, even for a large fleet. We get nearly 3 sci doffs for every 1 medical doff. The 100 of each needed for t4 projects means you usually end up with 35-40 medical doffs and a full science category. Medical doffs on the exchange are crazy priced.
A large fleet can have members afford to buy exchange doffs a couple a day to make up the difference, there is no way small fleets can spend about 4m EC daily to do this.
It is probably easier to just adjust the inputs of the projects to the approximately correct ratios instead of the endless manual labour to fix Doff categories. Small fleets will have to work smarter to overcome the dilithium needs, but it can be done.
Nobody is actually in any kind of "Cryptic Defense Force."
Nobody is 100% uncritical of Cryptic.
Generally speaking, what you have are players who actually prefer things balanced/imbalanced in a different direction than you do, and so they praise Cryptic... Or they have some other area they think Cryptic is lacking in, they're competing for attention, and that's why they insist your problem doesn't exist...
...Generally, when it sounds like somebody is pro-Cryptic, they aren't dismissing your issue because they're blindly loyal to Cryptic. They're dismissing your issue because it doesn't match their priorities as a player and because they have other ways they want Cryptic's resources used.
Sorry, I must disagree. There are plenty of posts on this forum (hell even in this thread) by those who have the attitude that you must be quiet and go with the flow, that there is nothing wrong, that mediocrity is ok, that grind is the only way to go and we should all just conform etc, that we should give the devs a break (even though they've basically been getting passes for the past 3 years).
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
An apology is due, and while I've admitted fault in previous posts about this , I'll do so again in this one.
The release that was pushed to Holodeck last week failed in several critical ways. There was a failure on the part of a designer to test their work before it was checked into the game.
Similarly, there was a failure in communication with the QA team on the said check in and on top of that, no one headed the concerns on TRIBBLE.
Ultimately, this is all my responsibility as the lead on the team and I do apologize.
Thank you for this. A public mea culpa, especially in this particular thread, for me at least, goes a fair way.
The release that was pushed to Holodeck last week failed in several critical ways. There was a failure on the part of a designer to test their work before it was checked into the game.
Similarly, there was a failure in communication with the QA team on the said check in and on top of that, no one headed the concerns on TRIBBLE.
Ultimately, this is all my responsibility as the lead on the team and I do apologize.
Thanks, this time for the honesty, most of us knew this and lets be even more honest this was the exact same issue with Season and the Reputation system it was rushed and Tribble was ignored. The result was an unbalanced system which in many ways is still too expensive but back at launch was so ridiculously unbalanced that it didn't take long for the player base to force you into changes.
This isn't a one off mistake, it's a pattern you guys have of delivering patches to Holodeck that haven't been properly tested or evaluated and the result is unbalanced systems and bug after bug.
In addition, the removal of Fleet Marks was a heavy handed change. It needed to be done because it was getting out of hand and there was an ever increasing amount of exploitation in the Foundry to maximum Fleet Mark rewards. That said, we should have had the Fleet Mark changes we are making this week ready to go last week so there wouldn't have been a week with the drop in Fleet Mark earning.
Again sorry. It doesn't make us feel any better when we make stupid mistakes.
I think you need to admit that the "exploitation" that occurred was more a natural attempt by the players to fix the lack of balance in the Fleet Mark system... I categorically state that people were not doing it for the "lulz" or to gain super gamebreaking advantages over other players, they were doing it to feed the starved supply of fleet marks.
The entire problem was created by Cryptic. In addition you are right if you felt you needed to resolve the issue of a broken Fleet Marks system the solution should have been added before you removed the community created solution to the problem. That is what it was Dan it was our solution for your broken system.
I sympathize with you when you say you don't feel good when you make mistakes. None of us stressful jobs do when we get things wrong. However Dan the issue here is you and the team are making the same mistakes over and over and honestly it's time you learned from your mistakes and ensure they don't happen again.
Similarly, it is disheartening when several members of the community make harsh comments towards a team that is working many hours of OT to bring new content to STO.
Honestly this is a bit of a straw man, I think very few have made overly harsh comments or anything that was worthy of a forum ban. The rest of us have only highlighted the truth, I guess one could say my words have been harsh or at any rate my criticism, but the thing is my business relies on reputation Dan, if I get things wrong consistently as you guys have I would be out of business very very quickly and people would view my work as amateurish or unprofessional, so when you guys do that, that is what I think about your work.
You might say it's harsh, I'd say it's honest and I think if you did some soul-searching and thought about this a little more your admission that the team failed to communicate both externally and internally amongst other departments is really unprofessional. Whilst I understand the team might be working really hard, if you really took the due care an attention you are meant to be taking these errors would not occur. This also serves to hint at a pattern of rushed production and half finished work and ideas.
Be frustrated with me all you want, but every member of the team is pouring their lives into making this game better. While you may not see that on any given day, when you look back at where this game has come from, every year we make big strides in moving forward. They deserve a lot of credit for that.
Dan we are not frustrated with you as a human being but the practices and poor organization that underlay the the problems that occur on Holodeck which have become a pattern of the same issues showing up; bugs, system imbalance and ignoring Tribble Testers.
We understand your team is devoting time in their lives to producing this game. However you need to understand not only do we pour many hours in our lives into playing the game we also work just as hard as you do in our own jobs and that income is what goes into your game as well. Not only do we put time into your game we also put in money into it Dan.
No doubt you can see just how much money I have put into this game and how little I have recently.
While you may not agree with all of our designs and decisions, the proof is in the success the game is having and how much the game continues to grow. While we don't share our internal information, STO is the best performing game for Perfect World Entertainment and is enjoy[ing] month after month increases in new captains.
Look Dan, we can't authenticate the information and simply taking your word on it isn't good enough in the UK we've had problems with contaminated meat because people simply took others at their word. However what I can authenticate is the genuine concerns and issues many of us have with this game and that is epitomized by this thread and the number of views and posts it has received. However perhaps in the future we as a community can do our own market research about customer satisfaction with this game that is publishable and open.
Having just celebrated our 3 year anniversary, there should be no doubt in your mind that we will be here for year 4 and beyond. We have a lot of good stuff in the works for our next May update and you'll see what we've been talking about in a little less than a months time.
So thank you for the constructive feedback. I do apologize on the behalf of the team. We appreciate your continued support and understand if we tarnished ourselves with last week's update. We will learn and move on.
Dan, whether the game is here for any period of time comes down to the players and what you do to make their experience of the game worth coming back for at the moment for a number of us that is not the case. It not so much that you tarnished yourselves with the last issue but that the issue is just part of a continued pattern of systemic failures in communication, testing and design.
Ultimately Dan our perspective is very simple, we want to have fun, I speak for a demographic that works hard and has family commitments. We come back from work and want to relax your game has to offer something to us that makes us want to log on. At the moment we don't get that. Tell me after a hard days work Dan would you come home and play a game that you felt was more like work than play?
This is the problem Dan, part of your job is communicating with us, it is of little surprise that the community has criticized you for you poor communication when it seems you don't even deem it to be part of your job.
Maybe this was just a throw-away remark at the end of your post that you didn't think about but the Freudian implications concerned me a little.
First, "many people aren't happy" is a matter of perspective. There are certainly people that aren't happy, but there are also many people that are happy. You simply can't make an MMO that pleases every single person all the time. What you can do, is work to grow the game and make tough decisions about what is good for the game right now.
No Dan, as this thread has evidenced it's not a simple matter of perspective especially when you consider your own admission to a pattern of work that adds bugs and imbalance into the game.
A holy grail of live MMO development is to improve growth, retention, and revenue. STO has managed to do all of these things thanks to the tough decisions that were made. Did it make everyone happy? No, but it did improve the game, year over year.
Your unprofessional-ism, rushed patches and resultant constant bugs and problems with systems which you yourself have admitted to would point to the fact that your are starting to lose core customers like myself. Once again though we have no proof in growth and I certainly cannot see an improvement from Season 6 to Season 7.
I can see how your decisions may have improved revenue by playing on peoples natural propensity to gamble. But consider this I started playing August, and by February I am not really playing at all, this is not unique to me but a common thread amongst quite a number of players. Our qualitative evidence has an authentic proven source at the moment we have not such authenticity for your quantitative statistical claims. However as I have already said I think it's time the community did some quantitative research of it's own.
And as far as Season 7 being "grindy" - welcome to the MMORPG genre.
No Dan, the MMORPG genre is not like that especially for adult audiences, maybe if your key demographic was kids with endless time then you could make that claim and argue that the this is the way the game should be. However your core demographic is middle ages Star Trek fans and may I add I doubt that unless there is a new Star Trek TV series which is genuinely popular you won't be getting in large volume of kids playing.
Our lives and habits do not lead us to enjoy grinding, you know this is true and it's why time and time again the Player Base has forced you to change your broken systems to remove grind. That is what happened in the weeks post Season 7.
You needed to do some proper QA and Tribble Testing over more than just 2 weeks if you ever hope to release an anywhere close to satisfactory update to Holodeck.
It just takes time. And right now, you may not see it, but the team is working extra hard. It is one thing to say that Cryptic pays our salary. But it doesn't really pay for all the late nights and weekends all the salaried employees are working right now. Why are we doing it? Because we are excited. Excited about what we are building. Excited about what we might be able to achieve this year.
It might not seem like much to you, but to us it is a big TRIBBLE deal.
If it is something you care about and take pride in why do consistently release broken patches and updates? We also work hard Dan, we also do overtime and late nights, we deserve better from a product we are looking to seek enjoyment from, not grind or a 2nd job.
In closing Dan I see that two things need to happen to take this game forwards, firstly you guys need to organize yourselves better and start listening to the Tribble testers with more seriousness, also you need to listen to the wider player base and our concerns over how enjoyable the game is, for every 1 of us that is unhappy there are another 5 that feel the same but say nothing.
The second thing that needs to happen is up to use the players and I direct my comments now to my fellow players. We need to organise and agree upon the parts of the game we feel need improvement or re-thinking and focus our efforts in a constructive way into a fruitful dialogue with the Cryptic team. My signature is a good place to start PM me so I can get us organised.
Also, post 2311 in this thread sums up a lot of our concerns about the game is is worth a read.
For small fleets the limitations are going to be mostly dilithium. 54 or 60k dilithium for the 500xp missions is so high that they just can't be done regularly, if you run two per day that means you need 50 active players giving up 25% of their dilithium. Medium fleets will have large problems as well.
I fully agree. Our fleet has about 25 members in total, but since series 7 there are onle 6 active players left.
Somehow we managed to get close to the T3 shipyard.
Somehow we always managed to get the fleetmarks and all the other stuff.
The dilithium breaks our necks. All projects are stalled because of dilithium.
I know what the projects will cost, once T3 ist finished and we just won't do that anymore.
Same with the embassy. T1 ok, T2 no way. Thats annoying.
With my klingon alt im in a 500 ppl superfleet - much progress - but I'm just a contributing number. Only reason to be in that fleet: Fast progress. BOOOOORing as Homer would state.
I prefer a small fleet with ppl I like and our fleet is like a family, even when we do not knew each other in rl before. We just like it.
So we are busted.
Comments
We are happy to see a "sorry" about all this- but this time it was
too much.
It's the old game: You change something, we rage, you pull back
and apologize.
This time it needs some more action to open our wallets again.
We are mad!
"matter of perspective" ?
260+ pages of complaints is more than "many people aren't happy".
The people you say that are happy are called CDF, "Cryptic Defence Force", and they are biased to say the least.
I want to enjoy this game, but it's frustrating as hell.
Your strategy should be simple.
1 Fix major bugs like sector alerts.
2 Thoroughly test anything you change before introducing it to stop new bugs appearing.
3 Listen to the customer.
While I am not averse to working for what I get in the game, the lack of variation in ways to get it makes me think of playing as more like work than fun.
Until that changes Dan, there will be no more Zen purchased by me.
Thank you at least for replying.
Knowledge about the game mechanics also makes the "grind" aspect a lot shorter. The dil cap can be reached in less than 1h. You only need to play one STF a day to fill your rep projetcs. You don't even need to play a single romulan mission to feed rommie rep ones. Doffs can be bought at the starbase, and it's easy in small fleets because you have a lot of extra fleet credits. The only issue was fleetmarks and it's going to be super easy now. A fleet of 10 people playing 2-3h a day will be able to progress almost as quickly as a 500 players one, except on massive upgrade projects.
I consider that this game is already very light on grind, except on fleet stuff. Now that it's adressed, there's no more grind at all actually. Just play the game the way you want to and get rewards.
I'm sure you don't want a game where you log in, grab rewards, log out. This isn't funny if it's not a challenge. But it's also the only step i see to make "grind" easier because it's already extremely achievable.
Sometimes, systems aren't the problem, but the lack of knowledge about systems is.
On a side note, do you read popups in every mission you get in (even stfs, mind trap and so on)? If the answer is not then you know where the issue is, you don't want to know how to play this game because players are babysitted everywhere.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
No, I read your post. Mine was not an attack on you. Nor was it a disagreement with you. I was merely saying that any apologies or concessions I saw were at best half-formed and coated with "but really this was the player's fault". I am sorry if you misunderstood what I was trying to say there.
Went back and read my post and it did sound like I was directing it at you. I was not intending it that way. I might have been a bit hot under the collar at the moment.
Then they have successfully achieved what their step ONE should have been. Everything else becomes negotiable and we are off on the right foot.
plz add fleet marks to any pvp missions, not just the dailies.
Thank you for this. It makes us feel like we are perceived as people again and reminds us that you and your team are real people as well.
take the grind out pls, games should be fun not a bloody chore. grinding for so long and bearly seeing any progress is heart breaking. an entire weekend of grind should have much more of an impact.
its even got the point where its like blah have to log on and grind some more.
it should be i want to log on play sto with my mates.
This is so good to hear. It is a big deal to us too. I hated the idea, as was suggested by a player somewhere in this thread, that your team was laboring unhappily under the owners. How can that be? This is Trek stuff! Inherently awesome! So to hear that is not the case and that you are all excited about the game and what is coming rekindles my own excitement about it. Again, thank you for hopping on the thread.
It think that was the original intent to combine two aspects of the game into something everyone can enjoy. The issue was that there were many players taking full advantage of missions created to gain rewards for little to no effort at all, which is considered an exploit in the MMO world.
It seems they were not aware of the exploit until it was being abused. Fixing the ability to create these exploits would have removed key tools that are necessary to create various Foundry missions in the first place, so the decision was made to remove the FM from the Foundry altogether, since it was the addition of them that prompted creation of the exploit missions.
The alternative in the new patch is a fix I guess to balance it out.
P.S. - Before I get flamed or labeled CDF, or whatever, I'm just responding to the above post with an explanation of something already in the first post. Nothing more.
by @Skydawn - member of Starbase UGC
STO NEEDS KDF Content
Quoted for truth. And we've all heard the same promises from Mr Stahl, over and over, repeatedly. Has anything come of those promises as of yet? Nope...
Emily, I think the most guys only look at your avatar when they "read" your posts. *giggles* By the way, I gladly accept the hugs for everyone, as I gave you one free hug already before Dan Stahl made his apology. =D
Yeah, not everything is fixed by the fleet mark patch, butt at least it's a step into the right direction, even when it's a week late. But what is a week compared to three years and more of play time? Not so much. Yeah, some people still pay monthly for the game and maybe for them, a week is paid money they couldn't get enough fleet marks. Butt overall I can say it's not too much damage that has been done just from the fleet mark point of view.
As for the entire rest being discussed in here, yes, it's still pending and we're waiting for the next changes and of course for the big May update (Season 8) with the Romulan faction and hopefully a lot of fixes for the old bugs.
~ Meowz
Original Join Date: January 30th, 2010
Cryptic did not create an exploit. What Cryptic did is they gave the players the complete liberty in creating foundry content. Awesome tool to create own content without restrictions.
Why would someone endeavor in playing a game by logging in and going AFK for half an hour instead of actually playing some content is way beyond my comprehension.
Mr.Stahl, I'm glad to hear that you and the team are excited about your work. That could only benefit STO. When people are happy and excited about what they're doing it usually means that the work will be done in a good way.
For the sake of the game I love, I'm really happy to hear that the people working on it are excited and motivated.
Euh, correction, for your reputation system you require not only the marks, experience, but also the required resources/EC's. Let alone, there is also the factor that you require dilithium to unlock the item that you might want, plus again the resources that are coming with it like again marks, dilitium, EC's, experience and such.
Let's follow your reasoning, and say that we have only the time to play one STF or Romulan Event and you are getting extremely unlucky, like the last STF that I have ran (loot result : 4 batteries over the whole STF worth not a 1000 EC's), how would I be able to manage to go through the reputation system if I would be low in my own resources, on a daily basis ?
Mr Stahl promised us, at start of Season 7, that each of us (frequent and casual player), would be able to obtain the desired parts in the reputation systems within 2 months. We are 4 months after that date, and most of us are still struggling to get through that reputation system, due to the lack of rewards, marks, dilithium and so on and the cost of these parts.
Frankly, yes, it's frustrating that your efforts, how little your time online might be aren't rewarded accordingly or correctly. STO should be an entertainment, an escape from reality, not become reality and frustrating job.
That would depend on how you define grind. Most here define it as doing the same tedious thing over and over and over again. In that respect this game is grind heavy. If I have to spend 45 min to an hour just getting to the dilithium cap because I can't afford to get/contribute to anything in this game then this game has become a rather predictable 9 to 5esqe job. Sure, I only need to play one STF a day to fill out my rep, but after I've unlocked T5? More grind to buy anything from the rep store. Romulan rep, you might as will play the missions since the prices are so high you will need the surplus. Is this Star Trek Online or Tiffany's Online?
This is the only game I've player where you need alts not to enjoy other aspects of the game but to transfer dilithium to you main character just so you can afford to stuff. My Klingon toon just sit in Pi Conis doing raids via DOFFS. That's it. This game has basically become a resource management game. I play RTSs for that. I play MMOs to interact with others who share my interests in gaming. Right now I don't interact much since I spend most of my time grinding/transferring dilithium and contraband.
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
...Seriously, though, do you not see anything wrong with having that attitude?
By writing off someone else's opinion as irrelevant, you're giving free reign for others to do the same to yours.
What normal person with a job, life and family can spend 3 hours every day on this game. Please try consider us because when we log on to play we don't want to have spend 3 hours grinding just to be able to go and play the parts of the game we actually enjoy (which at the moment is No-win-scenario and STF's in the main for a lot of people)
Tell me when you've worked an 8 hour day which is relatively stressful would you feel like logging on only to do more work for 45 minutes - 3hours? No, no you wouldn't.
Your opinion is shared by very few here if anyone.
For me I want to able to log on and have FUN, that means grouping with friends and doing No-Win and STF, the former if which is quite a challenge, however if you think that grinding in this game is an enjoyable challenge then you really are in the minority. The best MMO's challenge you without you feeling like it's a tedious grind and more like work than play. STO categorically fails at this.
For sure but not in STO, I think that is self evident, if not then please refer to post 2311. All the systems here as Dan has hinted at don't get much in the way of test time or Q&A and are nearly always unbalanced and broken when reaching the live server, just look at how broken Omega Rep was and the Fleet Rep has been broken for very long time this is why people fixed fleet rep by using the Foundry. It wasn't an exploit but a fix for a broken system... something now even Cryptic have admitted to.
It has nothing to do with lack of knowledge, unless you mean lack of knowledge about other parts of the system that can be exploited so to speak.
#2311#2700#2316#2500
You cannot be serious about this? "Most of us" are not struggling to get through the reputation system, "most of us" had it polished off within a month. I'll admit, I was spending more time in-game to get it finished, but it was still at most a couple of hours a day and I found it incredibly easy.
Running a single Tau Dewa sector patrol would net you enough EC for a day's projects! I'd say the vast majority finished both grinds within a month if they were attempting to get it done. It was incredibly easy once dilithium was removed (and now grinding is a SOURCE of Dilithium) so I really don't understand what your problem is here.
Kirk's Protege.
You are twisting his words and you know it. There is a difference between defending a game because you like certain aspects and being a rampant fanboy who believes that a game developer can do no wrong.
The CDF falls into that latter category. Cryptic could reduce the the dilithium payout to one 20hr cool down that rewards 100 ore and jack up prices 100% and the CDF would adamantly defend the decision.
The problem is it is incredibly boring. It is the same thing over andover again. The same missions over and over again. So e are have problems staying motivated enough to last through both rep systems while at the same time contributing to the fleet. Then their is the "grind the tiers so you can unlock the ability to grind some more" aspect and people are ready to throw their computers out the windows.
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
The impression a great deal of players have right now is that you seem to think that "what's good for the game" is a never ending stream of lockboxes and cash shop items with the occasional piece of repetitive grind content thrown in every now and then. Is that what you truly believe STO needs?
Again, how does bleeding your playerbase dry with cash sinks that appear to be contributing next to nothing in terms of creating new enjoyable content add to player retention? The only messages you seem to be giving out are "grind some more", "join a bigger group and grind together", "small fleets need to stop whining and grind even more" and "we'll add new stuff in a few months". Saying "we're working on new fun non-grindy stuff" doesn't cut it when your actions appear to show the exact opposite.
The "other people are doing it" doesn't really work in any context Dan. And frankly, your notion that adding more reputation grinds and currencies will somehow make things less grindy makes absolutely no sense to me. Players are already annoyed by having to go after five different currencies that cannot (for the most part) be gained concurrently to make progress right now (Omega/Rommie/Fleet marks, EC, BNPs). How is having to go after ten currencies going to make that better?
I share that hope. People are as upset as they are because they want STO to be a better game, a game that succeeds and is actually fun to play in the long term. But I'm going to be completely honest, the first impressions of year three are not good.
Here's a clue, though:
Nobody is actually in any kind of "Cryptic Defense Force."
Nobody is 100% uncritical of Cryptic.
Generally speaking, what you have are players who actually prefer things balanced/imbalanced in a different direction than you do, and so they praise Cryptic... Or they have some other area they think Cryptic is lacking in, they're competing for attention, and that's why they insist your problem doesn't exist.
As a for instance: combadge clipping. I will flat out tell you I think Cryptic hasn't done anything wrong there and shouldn't fix it. Why? Because the bust slider all the way up looks annoying and silly to me and I like that the clipping might discourage people from doing it. So I'll challenge whether that's a bug that character art time needs to spend on rather than making more C-Store costumes, which I think they're way behind on, and in-game costume unlocks and Foundry authors getting costumes flagged for use.
Generally, when it sounds like somebody is pro-Cryptic, they aren't dismissing your issue because they're blindly loyal to Cryptic. They're dismissing your issue because it doesn't match their priorities as a player and because they have other ways they want Cryptic's resources used.
I'm sorry, but time put in on a project tends to be entirely moot when that project comes out defective. Look at the 787 debacle Boeing is going through right now. Do you really think the CEO of Boeing coming out and asking for more time because his people are working hard is going to mitigate anything?
This is the crux of the communication problem: you give us some piece of information with absolutely nothing to back it up. When one gives out information that appears to contradict the impressions and observations of the people you're reporting on, they're going to be understandably skeptical. Want to ameliorate that? Show your work. It's that simple.
Instead of telling us there are "2 million Captains" without explaining whether those are accounts, active characters, total created characters, or completely imaginary miniature giant space tribbles, give us those figures. You don't get to throw a number at us, then turn around and say "we don't give out internal information".
Again...effective communication. Players want to be talked to, not at. By repeating the mantra of "we can't talk about that" every time you trumpet the "good stuff in the works" you're perpetuating the impression that you don't actually want us to know what you're doing.
Dan, you saw how this whole situation arose out of a compounded failure of communication. You've done a fairly reasonable job of trying to speak to the problem here. Don't continue to sustain that failure by clamming up again.
The good thing is that marks shouldn't be so ridiculous to grind, we are still going to have to go out and earn them, even with modest goals. A large fleet will probably have crazy excess of marks though.
I do feel there are too many one time bonuses to the marks, and not enough earned marks, PUGing these will be full of AFKers because you don't have to do well, you just have to do a little.
For small fleets the limitations are going to be mostly dilithium. 54 or 60k dilithium for the 500xp missions is so high that they just can't be done regularly, if you run two per day that means you need 50 active players giving up 25% of their dilithium. Medium fleets will have large problems as well.
The only remaining issue is the horribly uneven Doff distrubition and requirements.
Here are the issues I see with them:
Tactical packs give you 2 tactical for every 1 security class, there is nothing you can do with the tactical doffs in such excess quantity.
The tactical operational assets is using tactical and operations officers.. engineering officers on a tactical project? Sure it relieves the security issue but getting ops officers is a big problem.
Engineering construction is fairly balanced, though if you were to take 70 engineers and 60 ops instead of 60 eng and 70 ops it would work out better.
The science projects are a major concern, even for a large fleet. We get nearly 3 sci doffs for every 1 medical doff. The 100 of each needed for t4 projects means you usually end up with 35-40 medical doffs and a full science category. Medical doffs on the exchange are crazy priced.
A large fleet can have members afford to buy exchange doffs a couple a day to make up the difference, there is no way small fleets can spend about 4m EC daily to do this.
It is probably easier to just adjust the inputs of the projects to the approximately correct ratios instead of the endless manual labour to fix Doff categories. Small fleets will have to work smarter to overcome the dilithium needs, but it can be done.
Completed Starbase, Embassy, Mine, Spire and No Win Scenario
Nothing to do anymore.
http://dtfleet.com/
Visit our Youtube channel
Sorry, I must disagree. There are plenty of posts on this forum (hell even in this thread) by those who have the attitude that you must be quiet and go with the flow, that there is nothing wrong, that mediocrity is ok, that grind is the only way to go and we should all just conform etc, that we should give the devs a break (even though they've basically been getting passes for the past 3 years).
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
Thank you for this. A public mea culpa, especially in this particular thread, for me at least, goes a fair way.
Thanks.
Thanks, this time for the honesty, most of us knew this and lets be even more honest this was the exact same issue with Season and the Reputation system it was rushed and Tribble was ignored. The result was an unbalanced system which in many ways is still too expensive but back at launch was so ridiculously unbalanced that it didn't take long for the player base to force you into changes.
This isn't a one off mistake, it's a pattern you guys have of delivering patches to Holodeck that haven't been properly tested or evaluated and the result is unbalanced systems and bug after bug.
I think you need to admit that the "exploitation" that occurred was more a natural attempt by the players to fix the lack of balance in the Fleet Mark system... I categorically state that people were not doing it for the "lulz" or to gain super gamebreaking advantages over other players, they were doing it to feed the starved supply of fleet marks.
The entire problem was created by Cryptic. In addition you are right if you felt you needed to resolve the issue of a broken Fleet Marks system the solution should have been added before you removed the community created solution to the problem. That is what it was Dan it was our solution for your broken system.
I sympathize with you when you say you don't feel good when you make mistakes. None of us stressful jobs do when we get things wrong. However Dan the issue here is you and the team are making the same mistakes over and over and honestly it's time you learned from your mistakes and ensure they don't happen again.
Honestly this is a bit of a straw man, I think very few have made overly harsh comments or anything that was worthy of a forum ban. The rest of us have only highlighted the truth, I guess one could say my words have been harsh or at any rate my criticism, but the thing is my business relies on reputation Dan, if I get things wrong consistently as you guys have I would be out of business very very quickly and people would view my work as amateurish or unprofessional, so when you guys do that, that is what I think about your work.
You might say it's harsh, I'd say it's honest and I think if you did some soul-searching and thought about this a little more your admission that the team failed to communicate both externally and internally amongst other departments is really unprofessional. Whilst I understand the team might be working really hard, if you really took the due care an attention you are meant to be taking these errors would not occur. This also serves to hint at a pattern of rushed production and half finished work and ideas.
Dan we are not frustrated with you as a human being but the practices and poor organization that underlay the the problems that occur on Holodeck which have become a pattern of the same issues showing up; bugs, system imbalance and ignoring Tribble Testers.
We understand your team is devoting time in their lives to producing this game. However you need to understand not only do we pour many hours in our lives into playing the game we also work just as hard as you do in our own jobs and that income is what goes into your game as well. Not only do we put time into your game we also put in money into it Dan.
No doubt you can see just how much money I have put into this game and how little I have recently.
Look Dan, we can't authenticate the information and simply taking your word on it isn't good enough in the UK we've had problems with contaminated meat because people simply took others at their word. However what I can authenticate is the genuine concerns and issues many of us have with this game and that is epitomized by this thread and the number of views and posts it has received. However perhaps in the future we as a community can do our own market research about customer satisfaction with this game that is publishable and open.
Dan, whether the game is here for any period of time comes down to the players and what you do to make their experience of the game worth coming back for at the moment for a number of us that is not the case. It not so much that you tarnished yourselves with the last issue but that the issue is just part of a continued pattern of systemic failures in communication, testing and design.
Ultimately Dan our perspective is very simple, we want to have fun, I speak for a demographic that works hard and has family commitments. We come back from work and want to relax your game has to offer something to us that makes us want to log on. At the moment we don't get that. Tell me after a hard days work Dan would you come home and play a game that you felt was more like work than play?
This is the problem Dan, part of your job is communicating with us, it is of little surprise that the community has criticized you for you poor communication when it seems you don't even deem it to be part of your job.
Maybe this was just a throw-away remark at the end of your post that you didn't think about but the Freudian implications concerned me a little.
No Dan, as this thread has evidenced it's not a simple matter of perspective especially when you consider your own admission to a pattern of work that adds bugs and imbalance into the game.
Your unprofessional-ism, rushed patches and resultant constant bugs and problems with systems which you yourself have admitted to would point to the fact that your are starting to lose core customers like myself. Once again though we have no proof in growth and I certainly cannot see an improvement from Season 6 to Season 7.
I can see how your decisions may have improved revenue by playing on peoples natural propensity to gamble. But consider this I started playing August, and by February I am not really playing at all, this is not unique to me but a common thread amongst quite a number of players. Our qualitative evidence has an authentic proven source at the moment we have not such authenticity for your quantitative statistical claims. However as I have already said I think it's time the community did some quantitative research of it's own.
No Dan, the MMORPG genre is not like that especially for adult audiences, maybe if your key demographic was kids with endless time then you could make that claim and argue that the this is the way the game should be. However your core demographic is middle ages Star Trek fans and may I add I doubt that unless there is a new Star Trek TV series which is genuinely popular you won't be getting in large volume of kids playing.
Our lives and habits do not lead us to enjoy grinding, you know this is true and it's why time and time again the Player Base has forced you to change your broken systems to remove grind. That is what happened in the weeks post Season 7.
You needed to do some proper QA and Tribble Testing over more than just 2 weeks if you ever hope to release an anywhere close to satisfactory update to Holodeck.
If it is something you care about and take pride in why do consistently release broken patches and updates? We also work hard Dan, we also do overtime and late nights, we deserve better from a product we are looking to seek enjoyment from, not grind or a 2nd job.
In closing Dan I see that two things need to happen to take this game forwards, firstly you guys need to organize yourselves better and start listening to the Tribble testers with more seriousness, also you need to listen to the wider player base and our concerns over how enjoyable the game is, for every 1 of us that is unhappy there are another 5 that feel the same but say nothing.
The second thing that needs to happen is up to use the players and I direct my comments now to my fellow players. We need to organise and agree upon the parts of the game we feel need improvement or re-thinking and focus our efforts in a constructive way into a fruitful dialogue with the Cryptic team. My signature is a good place to start PM me so I can get us organised.
Also, post 2311 in this thread sums up a lot of our concerns about the game is is worth a read.
#2311#2700#2316#2500
I fully agree. Our fleet has about 25 members in total, but since series 7 there are onle 6 active players left.
Somehow we managed to get close to the T3 shipyard.
Somehow we always managed to get the fleetmarks and all the other stuff.
The dilithium breaks our necks. All projects are stalled because of dilithium.
I know what the projects will cost, once T3 ist finished and we just won't do that anymore.
Same with the embassy. T1 ok, T2 no way. Thats annoying.
With my klingon alt im in a 500 ppl superfleet - much progress - but I'm just a contributing number. Only reason to be in that fleet: Fast progress. BOOOOORing as Homer would state.
I prefer a small fleet with ppl I like and our fleet is like a family, even when we do not knew each other in rl before. We just like it.
So we are busted.
Watch out for my Starship Comparator app at
http://ssc.levega.de or http://www.stoshipcompare.tk