test content
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc

Need for storage solutions for the 100 attachment environment

daedalus27daedalus27 Member Posts: 83 Arc User
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.
Post edited by daedalus27 on
«1345

Comments

  • latiasracerlatiasracer Member Posts: 680 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    This outcry has confused me slightly. I mean who really has this many things?


    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!?
    warp plasma can't melt neutronium beams
  • elessymelessym Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    This outcry has confused me slightly. I mean who really has this many things?


    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,
    "Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
  • dova25dova25 Member Posts: 475
    edited June 2013
    Another issue with this 100 limit is that I can't send any mail with attachments any more.Since I cannot delete old mail I can't mail anything between my chars .
    "There already is a Borg faction, its called the Federation. They assimilate everyone else's technology and remove any biological or technical distinctiveness and add it to their own."
    I refuse to be content https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwI0u9L4R8U
  • crazygunnerrrcrazygunnerrr Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Another idea would be to allow bigger stacks, so many items only stack to 20, while there is no logical reason for this, I get understand for things like batteries etc, but there are plenty of items, like lock boxes, which could just stack up to an unlimited amount, if they don't want massive stacks on the exchange, they could always make it that you can still post only stacks of 20.

    Because that's what I got my mailbox filled with, temporary items such as winter clothing, lock boxes etc.
  • satinaviansatinavian Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    It is basically doffs
    - 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)
  • aarons9aarons9 Member Posts: 961
    edited June 2013
    here is what i dont understand..
    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?
    [12:35] Vessel Two of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 225232 (271723) Plasma Damage to you with Plasma Lance.
    [12:44] Vessel One of Two Unimatrix 01 deals 1019527 (1157678) Kinetic Damage to you with Plasma Energy Bolt Explosion.
  • latiasracerlatiasracer Member Posts: 680 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    elessym wrote: »
    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,

    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
    warp plasma can't melt neutronium beams
  • donutsmasherdonutsmasher Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    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.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Sig by my better half.
  • decroniadecronia Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    aarons9 wrote: »
    here is what i dont understand..
    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?

    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.
  • edited June 2013
    This content has been removed.
  • verbenamageverbenamage Member Posts: 92 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    The mail system is simply a database, which means it's just text. Each doff will be some alphanumeric entry in a database. I freely admit that cryptic's programmers seem incompetent, but I have a LOT of trouble believing they're THAT incompetent. Databases are made to store huge amounts of data, and if theirs can't then they're far more incompetent than I ever believed.

    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.
  • daedalus27daedalus27 Member Posts: 83 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    The mail system is simply a database, which means it's just text. Each doff will be some alphanumeric entry in a database. I freely admit that cryptic's programmers seem incompetent, but I have a LOT of trouble believing they're THAT incompetent. Databases are made to store huge amounts of data, and if theirs can't then they're far more incompetent than I ever believed.

    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.
  • edited June 2013
    This content has been removed.
  • smoovioussmoovious Member Posts: 264 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Perhaps just to transfer DOFFs to the starbase as part of the base's crew (without being able to transfer them back) so when you have a new upgrade to do, it would use however many of them are already credited to the starbase automatically? Then you don't have to hold onto them waiting until the next upgrade, you can just transfer them over as you need to for future use? The starbase wouldn't even need to keep track of every DOFF at that point, just keep a count of how many of each type it already has. That alone, would be light on resource usage of the server.

    -- Smoov
  • reginamala78reginamala78 Member Posts: 4,593 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Even better, it appears that ones currently there in storage seem to be getting randomly deleted. (I had 7 just vanish on me, including a pair of Marion Frances Dulmur. Guess MY current mood.)

    They just can't 'fix' anything without breaking it worse.
  • lucho80lucho80 Member Posts: 6,600 Bug Hunter
    edited June 2013
    From what I've read here a fleet doff repository with classifications (TAC, SEC, MED, etc) would be the most sensible solution. It would also facilitate sharing doffs with the fleet like what we do now with other things in the fleet bank.
  • lucho80lucho80 Member Posts: 6,600 Bug Hunter
    edited June 2013
    For the people complaining about the doff imbalance, the fix you all propose screws you over at the same time. I for one would hate to get crits on Asylum doff missions and get useless (as in I barely make a profit and serve no purpose to me) purple med doffs 20% of the time.
  • daedalus27daedalus27 Member Posts: 83 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    lucho80 wrote: »
    For the people complaining about the doff imbalance, the fix you all propose screws you over at the same time. I for one would hate to get crits on Asylum doff missions and get useless (as in I barely make a profit and serve no purpose to me) purple med doffs 20% of the time.

    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
  • sunfranckssunfrancks Member Posts: 3,925 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Anyone who donates doffs to a starbase, is really feeling the pinch. Myself included.

    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....
    Fed: Eng Lib Borg (Five) Tac Andorian (Shen) Sci Alien/Klingon (Maelrock) KDF:Tac Romulan KDF (Sasha) Tac Klingon (K'dopis)
    Founder, member and former leader to Pride Of The Federation Fleet.
    What I feel after I hear about every decision made since Andre "Mobile Games Generalisimo" Emerson arrived...
    3oz8xC9gn8Fh4DK9Q4.gif





  • elessymelessym Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Honestly, the best solution that requires little work on Cryptic's part is to make all the DOFF requirements for starbases undifferentiated. If any white DOFF can be used for any project, then the storage problem is solved.

    And if this makes Cryptic unhappy that they can't make us jump through their special hoops for each project, I'm entirely unmoved.
    "Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
  • alexrichardsalexrichards Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    That might also solve the inflated common price on the exchange as well since they'll all be of equal value.
    Admiral Alex 'Grumpy Cat' Richards
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    "What you looking @ Admiral?"
  • teknicterrorteknicterror Member Posts: 21 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies . ~syberghost

    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.
  • edited June 2013
    This content has been removed.
  • daedalus27daedalus27 Member Posts: 83 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    An account doff bank would be an excellent solution and appropriate amends for the devs wrongdoing with the severe, un-announced nerf and all the problems it caused with the mail.


    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).
  • azurianstarazurianstar Member Posts: 6,985 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Cryptic should've done this Day 1 when they made Fleet Starbases - Make a DOFF Repository.


    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.
  • psychickittypsychickitty Member Posts: 167 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    This outcry has confused me slightly. I mean who really has this many things?


    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!?

    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.

    =^_^=


  • daedalus27daedalus27 Member Posts: 83 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Cryptic should've done this Day 1 when they made Fleet Starbases - Make a DOFF Repository.


    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.

    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.
  • daedalus27daedalus27 Member Posts: 83 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    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.

    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).
  • dova25dova25 Member Posts: 475
    edited June 2013
    I suggest that the 100 limit should be removed at least 2-3 months until all we can clean up our mail's then it could be again put it back hopefully together with an alternative Doff storage system.
    "There already is a Borg faction, its called the Federation. They assimilate everyone else's technology and remove any biological or technical distinctiveness and add it to their own."
    I refuse to be content https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwI0u9L4R8U
  • getabigdogupyougetabigdogupyou Member Posts: 36 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Re posting posted in wrong channel

    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
Sign In or Register to comment.