The thread on the mail changes was prematurely closed before we had an acknowledgement by the developers and they may overlook some of the beneficial discussion that was going on. The first thread can be found here:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=695071
This thread is about addressing solutions to the problems that this dramatic unannounced change has caused many players. The biggest areas affected are the starbase construction and doffing system that presents a storage problem that cannot be adequately solved via existing game mechanisms. There is additional storage issues given the ever expanding items granted yet the static storage options in your bank and account bank.
Some solutions stated in the previous thread if you don't want to go digging are as follows:
1. Unlock doff slots, bank slots, account bank slots so unlimited numbers can be purchased if desired.
2. Allow for the purchase of additional mail attachments.
3. Allow doffs be converted in a currency for use on starbase projects so that they will no longer take up slots.
4. Allow a starbase bank for stored doffs that the base owners/designates can used on a project
5. Lower (or eliminate) the dilithium rates for the doff reassignment missions for whits to green at personel officers allowing the cost effective conversion of doffs for storage/conversion to more useful types.
6. Allow for the purchase of a special doff storage (like an account bank) for doffs that can directly utilize the doffs across all characters for starbase construction and no other missions.
I am sure there were others but there are solutions here to a problem many players have with the 100 attachment change. Please let this discussion continue so we can try and craft a solution that doesn't involve starbase construction and doffing in general and make sure the developers are aware of our concerns and potential solutions.
Comments
I've got almost 800 hrs, my doubled bank size (That is part of my ?8 a month, though) and inventory are plenty enough space, along with my fleet bank where i often share blue XII or XI with other people. Useless blue or purples (Sensor probes ect) i normally discard or sell on the exchange.
Where are people getting so many things!?
If you contribute DOFFs to fleet holdings, you find yourself going through hundreds of the silly things. And DOFFs can't be stored in any other way,
I refuse to be content https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwI0u9L4R8U
Because that's what I got my mailbox filled with, temporary items such as winter clothing, lock boxes etc.
- you can't store them in inventory(how big it might be)
- you can't store them in bank (how many slots you bought)
- no fleet bank otion either afaik
- no account bank (most annoying : you have to use mail for sending from one toon to another anyway)
- they need 1 slot per doff
You only have your doff slots. max 400 (and quite expensive) of those you would want at least 200 for the doffs you actually use on missions which leaves not a lot of storage place left.
If you want to fill starbase slots and you get huge numbers of doffs. Grounding down 10 greens giving you 30 shots. Of those you might get 3-4 you can use emediantly, 10 more, you could expect to use on one of the rarer projects and the rest will have to wait for Cardi area exchange missions, a pricechange in the "making greens" conversion or the next really big project that takes any doff.
If you do that each day (and that means still very slow fleet progress), in no way your storage will be enough.
Oh, and the mail is account wide. So with 10 toons, it's only around 10 slots per toon. Which can be a problem, if you are trading a lot on the exchange.
E.G. i planned to sell my 30 keys from legacy on echange. which means, i should have 30 more attachments free or risk loosing keays for 1.5 millions each. I am not doing it now, until mail is fixed. (and no, i don't buy promises, that things will be safe somewhere in limbo, when mail is obviously bugged as hell and no one knows, where and why)
in the ONE post on twitter he said that items over 100 dont get deleted, they get queued until you remove some..
so if the items are still being stored in the system.. they arent taking any less space..
so why the change?
[12:44] Vessel One of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 1019527 (1157678) Kinetic Damage to you with Plasma Energy Bolt Explosion.
Good point, although i normally discard/sell them for ec/dilth.
What's the reason for storing white quality ones anyway? Surely they are of no use competitively
People, myself included, keep them because we know at some point we will need them for our starbases. This is very important when you consider that in some cases you may need hundreds of them just to fill one project. Those hundreds, spread over dozens and dozens of projects amounts to a massive number of DOFF's needed.
Once you begin to factor in fleets with both KDF and FED bases, and smaller fleets with less members, you should begin to realise how woefully inadequate and unfit for purpose the current system actually is. No-one minds paying for the extra storage, but the ridiculous part is that Cryptic have decided to limit the amount you can buy.
Sig by my better half.
Don't quote me on this but I think it is more a grace period thing because it would delete things from the exchange if people are over the limit. However once at the limit you won't be able to send yourself more mail with attachments.
On the matter at hand. Personally I think there should be some sort of fleet DOFF repository where the DOFFs can be stored until needed for the projects. I would make it unlimited but with the restriction of once a DOFF is put in it can't be taken out only added to projects.
Far more likely, this explanation is all a huge load of TRIBBLE and this nerf is a heavy-handed attempt to get you to buy extra doff slots. Or else just a petty reaction to us using the system in a manner they disapprove of, and so another (equally heavy-handed) attempted to make us play the way they want.
Their solution, to just sell the doffs more cheaply, is ludicrous. We're storing them for starbase projects, which require huge amounts of doffs as inputs. Why on earth would I generate white doffs, via opening packs and/or grinding down higher quality doffs, to fund my fleet's projects, then sell the excess of types I don't need, knowing in a few days I will need those types, and will have to rebuy them (likely for more than I paid) in order to fill a new starbase project?
The thing is, the real solution is obvious:
More accounts. Each account allows 1 fed, 1 klingon, 1 romulan. Each gets 100 doffs slots free. Each now will have 100 cap on their mail. That's 400 doff stored per account. Or, roughly one day's worth of fleet project requirements.
Simply make as many accounts as necessary to store your excess. It will be more of a pain to set up, but you can dual log and send them to yourself as needed.
If the reason is actually that the database can't handle the number of doffs, their solution accomplishes nothing because everyone needing to store them will now just use multiple accounts for the exact same purpose, and they'll still be just as many doffs cluttering up the database. If by some extraordinary chance, cryptic is telling us the truth about the problem, this will NOT fix it. They'll have to actually get off their butts and design a real solution instead of this heavy-handed TRIBBLE their trying now.
I don't wan't to have to have a file with a list of all the generated accounts and trying to keep things straight with what account has what items. I want to actually play the game from time to time instead of having to constantly switch characters. There is a solution here allowing us to keep the accounts and characters to a minimum. I just hope the developers decide to look as these potential remedies.
-- Smoov
They just can't 'fix' anything without breaking it worse.
Every purple from using a white on asylums can make a profit. If not from the doff itself, then from converting it to 3 below it. On the fed side, refugees are incredibly easy to get so there is no cost (other than time) into that input so any money you make over the average cost of a refugee is a profit no matter the doff outcome when you get a purple
if they could allow us to store doffs and boffs in bank space, that would go a long way to solving the problem Cryptic themselves created.
Or, they can do the easiest thing, and just remove specific doff requirement from projects or allow use to buy specific doffs from our starbases....
And if this makes Cryptic unhappy that they can't make us jump through their special hoops for each project, I'm entirely unmoved.
We are not stupid enough to buy extra slots that are not account wide, like the extra costume slots.
So either make extra bank and inventory slots account wide or remove the limit you put on mail attachments.
Also make BO's & Doff's of the same classes and types stackable, and while your at it, make everything stackable and the stack limit being 999 instead of 1's (every item in game just about), 10's, 20, and 250's. There is no reason for 2 of the exact same item should not be stackable.
As an added bonus, most of these suggestions would generate income for the developers so I don't know why they aren't jumping at it (besides looking like greedy TRIBBLE#@ but that has never stopped them before).
Essentially this would be a Fleet DOFF Bank where Fleet Members could donate DOFFS that will eventually be used for the next project. So when a project opens up, a Fleet Officer could transfer DOFFS from the repository, to the project. And those who donated to the repository will still earn Fleet Credits as if you donated to the project directly.
This also potentially eliminates any controversy or in-fighting over players wanting to contribute to projects.
And to prevent possible abuse Fleet Officers could Limit Donated DOFFs per person, so not a single individual can dump 100s of DOFFS, preventing others in the fleet to get any Fleet credits. (Or if they choose, Officers could set as unlimited and anything goes til you hit the cap).
Another feature that potentially could be used for the Repository is a type of transfer system that could exchange X DOFFs for Y DOFFs, like taking your surplus of Science DOFFs and convert them into Medical DOFFS.
Of course, knowing Cryptic there would need to be somekind of trade, so perhaps 5 Science for every 1 Medical DOFF?
Or donating an Uncommon Science to get a common Medical?
Donating 1 Rare to get 7 Medical DOFFs.
I am kind of...mystified by this....my self
The entire I need to have trillions of duty officers.....Its like players don't know you can trade 4 of the prior color to trade to the next rank or something.
I highly doubt people would have tons of purple duty officers....this sounds a lot like hoarding to me.....and not just hoarding but hoarding on a stupidity factor level of 1000+
Just how many low level duty officers do you need to keep?
I admit I have about 200+ green or higher duty officers on one character.....as I get more I tend to convert them to higher ranks....and its not like you cant buy more for dilithium or off the market...heck you can aquire more as you like. As there are officers who give you duty officer missions to get more.
And then there are the banks and fleet banks and personal character banks...I too wonder exactly why people need to keep so much junk on themselves......or in this case in the mail system.
This sounds more and more like some one was keeping a lot of in game credits hidden by keeping it in the mail system and had it deleted.
Power without Perception is Spiritually useless and therefore of no true value.
=^_^=
Or what someone else suggested (I forget who had this suggestion) make a starbase doff compactor. Donate the officers to a starbase assignment office, you turn them in, they turn to tokens, so 1 white gets 1 credit, a green gets 2, a blue gets 4, and a purple gets 8 (or something like that). The amount of tokens generated would be like a currency so there is no storage issue and then you turn in the credits for the area when the assignment comes up. Simple, straightforward, and allows using up of all types of doffs in all areas to help regulate doff costs.
It requires some programing and doesn't generate incomes so it isn't as attractive. However it would be a solution. All I am looking for is a in game method so that I can continue to support fleet growth. Restriction on doff storage space in the mail creates a problem for many players that only can be solved through inefficient and potentially explotiative measures such as creating many account only for doff storage.
We used to use the doff compactor (as many called it) but when they adjusted the dil prices in season 6, that became unaffordable. Compacting hundreds of white tactical and science officers takes a ton of dil for little gain since greens are so inexpesive. Your basically flushing dil down the toilet for a tiny bit of EC. It is even worse at higher levels so that most doffing individuals moved away from the reassignment method except for getting rid of excess locked purples from exploration clusters (1 free locked purple into 3 regular blues to sell or use can be very profitable).
The reason your moving through hundreds of whites is the screwed up ratios of officers given in the Tactical/Security area and the Science/Medical area. You get a ton of tactical and science doffs when trying to gather the necessary security and medical doffs. You can't store these now with the restrictions on mail. You don't have enough sales slots in the exchange to get rid of them fast enough even at fire sale prices. Airlocking them nets only 75 recruitment xp and 5 unrefined dil which is a poor investment for 700FC. This change is requiring starbase contributors to kill massive quantities of whites for no gain (which I can tell you is asking a lot given it is already a thankless task).
I refuse to be content https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwI0u9L4R8U
I have 10+ characters does each character I paid for a slot get 100mail attachment slot no it would appear not every time I paid for an extra character under the new implemented system my mail box limit per character decreased it effectively means any one of my paid for toons can only recieve 10 mails with attachments before I have maxed out my mailbox
Considering I am a life time subscriber I buy every bank and Doff expansion going how in any realistic way can I run an alt with a 10 mail limit imposed on each alt by having an account wide 100 item limit
If the limit was per character I could understand 1 character =100 item mailbox.
10 characters = 1000 itemmail box not 10 items per character
I paid for my character slots why are my extra characters treated like second class characters
HOW IS SPENDING MONEY ON NEW TOONS = TO REDUCED MAIL SERVICE