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My Opinion
gatsie7
Member Posts: 141 Arc User
This has to do with the Fleet base. First we should not be allowed to sell access to fleet items to none fleet members this includes letting them join just so they can get what they paid for and then leave. in my opinion this hurts those fleets that try to get members to join and help build the base ( after all why build when you can buy what you need ). Second the interior of the fleet base is completely unlocked and never gets any bigger when the exterior gets larger with the tier increase. makes no sense ( the new fleet base should have only the ops level and then expand from there) Third Why is it the we can see the shuttle bay but can not go to the shuttle bay? (seems that we spent the time to unlock the ability to use the shuttle transport to and from embassy just to get a little popup that allows this to be possible)
I know these all seems trivial but as I said it is my opinion and in my opinion all fleet items should be fleet bound therefore if you want a tier 5 ship then stay with that fleet or lose you fleet item ( and yes I left my fleet and bought a ship from another and yes I would be fine with losing it for I did not earn the right to use it I bought it)
The Fleets that are at tier 5 and are selling access to fleet bases are hindering smaller fleets from recruiting after all why go through all the trouble and time when we can buy our way to the top.
I am not posting this in anger it is only my opinion and what I have noticed also I can afford to buy what ever I want in game but choose not to on principle as I said earlier I have a tier 3 fleet ship that I bought from another fleet but no longer use it.
To P.W.E. I will say this , if Their was an exploit that caused you negative income you would fix it instantly so why would you not fix nor care about this? So again in my opinion as long as it does not affect your bottom line than you do not care if it affects us in game. NOT A VERY GOOD WAY TO KEEP PLAYERS AROUND!
I know these all seems trivial but as I said it is my opinion and in my opinion all fleet items should be fleet bound therefore if you want a tier 5 ship then stay with that fleet or lose you fleet item ( and yes I left my fleet and bought a ship from another and yes I would be fine with losing it for I did not earn the right to use it I bought it)
The Fleets that are at tier 5 and are selling access to fleet bases are hindering smaller fleets from recruiting after all why go through all the trouble and time when we can buy our way to the top.
I am not posting this in anger it is only my opinion and what I have noticed also I can afford to buy what ever I want in game but choose not to on principle as I said earlier I have a tier 3 fleet ship that I bought from another fleet but no longer use it.
To P.W.E. I will say this , if Their was an exploit that caused you negative income you would fix it instantly so why would you not fix nor care about this? So again in my opinion as long as it does not affect your bottom line than you do not care if it affects us in game. NOT A VERY GOOD WAY TO KEEP PLAYERS AROUND!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by gatsie7 on
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Comments
Thing is, many fleet items can be purchased (though indirectly) for real money. Under your small-fleet boosting proposal, a fleet leader who was angry at another fleet member could expel someone from the fleet and deny that ex-fleetie weapons, shields, consoles, and ships - which could knock out $50.00 from someone. Or a fleetie may leave his big fleet to join with a family/friends fleet. So no, I think this is a terrible idea.
As for large fleets crowding out small fleet recruitment: I don't think this is really happening. There is a cap on fleet size (500 toons), and I know my fleet has hit it as of LOR. But consider: a fleet with 400+ active members and a Tier 4/5 starbase is going to give you a bigger pool of possible new friends within the fleet; and tell a potential player the fleet is unlikely to die.
Is a large fleet for everyone? No. Hence why I support lowering fleet costs and fixing the doff issues so that dedicated small fleets (even of those who play casually) can reasonably complete a Tier 5 base. However, there are perquisites, and I think your proposed solutions (including limiting base access and access to T5 shops) would not help small fleet recruitment.
Now what good would that do for your fleet, you would have just lost a member and all the resources he could potentially provide for your projects. On the other hand as it is now I could find a tier 5 fleet selling access, buy access to the ship and weapons I want, and then come back to your tier 2 fleet. Sure maybe I am not quite so motivated to farm fleet marks now, but even if I only contribute 50% of what i would have if I didn't already have the items I wanted that's better than the nothing you would be left with if I had left your fleet, isn't it?
As more and more of the larger fleets reach Tier 5 the only chance smaller fleets have of surviving is if the larger fleets sell access to there members. There are very few full tier 5 fleets at the moment but that will change, and there are many that have tier 5 in 1 or 2 categories, and even more that have full tier 4. If the option of purchasing access to higher end fleets is taken away tier 1, 2, and even tier 3 fleets will die out as all but there most loyal members leave them for higher end fleets.
Well, Fleets are supposed to be a social construct. All things considered, STO plays very much like a single-person game. Even when you're teamed in an STF, there's so little communication that you might as well be on a team of bots. The best way to amend this is to encourage people to stick together.
However, if people keep going around making one-man fleets, that's not going to happen. So, the best way to discourage 1-man fleets is to a) make it hard to form one (a 1-man fleet, that is), and b) make it nearly impossible to maintain/upgrade.
Now, where's the love for small fleets, then? Well, from my (very limited) experience, I feel as though I can say that of an entire fleet, only 5-10% of it will be active at a time. So if you're in a small, 10-man fleet? Well, unless you know for a fact that a lot of those other folks play at the same time, good luck hanging out with your fleet-mates. It kind of contradicts the entire notion of being in a fleet if you're still soloing and pugging half the time.
And if that happens too much to too many people, they may be resigned to believe that there's no community in this supposedly "massive" online game, and leave. Of course, if people get disgruntled at the fact that the only way to advance is to be another faceless dil grinder in a 500-man group, they'll probably leave just as readily, so Cryptic DOES need to try an balance things out a little better. However, catering to one-to-10 man fleets by slashing costs probably isn't the answer.
Right now if, for example, someone wanted to buy Elite hangars for a character in the alt fleet, all they need is an invite onto the main fleet's base. Which every one of our members can provide.
With your insane proposal, those people would have to be actually leave the second fleet, join the main fleet (maybe wait for an officer to find an inactive to kick), get promoted a grade just to shop, then transferred back to the alt fleet with their manually-copied officer note replaced. None of this can be automated, all of it creates a heavy workload for our officers who are themselves just trying to play a game.
And it won't stop sellers, it'll just make them inconvenience buyers even more by forcing fleet transfers for equipment. It's bad enough everyone has to do this **** for ships.
no no no no no, a million times no
I'm a fleet leader and I say no to this or anything like this. It gives way too much power to fleet leaders.
Right now if your fleet leader is bad, you out grow your fleet, or change your play style; you can just leave, no consequences for you but more than likely that fleet loses you as an asset.
You proposal would just create mega fleets that are all basically clones of each other.
We already lost a lot of variety because of starbases and now its just starting to return
Good observation here. I don't begrudge the size of, or progress made by larger fleets in any capacity. The broader issue is that they've inverted the appeal of fleets. No one wants to work for something that someone else has already. As the leader of a very small fleet, and making myself insane trying to recruit, work on starbase projects, and level characters... this has sucked the fun out of the game to an unreasonable level. As it stands, the only way my fleet is going to grow, or more specifically prosper on starbase levels, is if I panhandle for members for six hours a day and hope that I get enough members that are willing to work for the starbase projects. I've spent millions of credits on requirements for projects, grinding wherever I can (as two others have done in my fleet. Yes... two.) only to make it to Military 1, and halfway through science and engineering 1. I love the game, and I like the community for the most part... but I'm extremely disappointed in consistently seeing game mechanics that go against the grain to favor max level groups and players. The average gamer doesn't have a way to facilitate progression without spending tons of money to stack the deck in their favor.
I don't mind spending money on the game here and there... but I've MORE than purchased my share of an equivalent lifetime membership piece by piece. Just because I make smaller purchases per incident, doesn't mean I should have to climb a steeper grade to get to the plateau. My opinion (My two cents, not looking for a roasting on the flame train) is that there needs to be some sort of scaling or equalizing for smaller fleets to at least have a fighting chance. Offering a membership to a small fleet has become the equivalent of selling burlap sacks in lieu of the leather jacket you get with a large fleet.
If "Fleet" <> 200 Then "Cost" = 50% Else "Fleet" < 200
If "Fleet" < 200 Then "Cost" = 25% Else "Fleet" > 200
A simple scale based on Fleet size will do perfectly.
400-500 is equal to 100% cost
200-399 is equal to 75% cost
90-199 is equal to 50% cost
10-89 is equal to 25% cost
Or something along those lines, messing around with the numbers of course.
A full 500 person fleet should have no really problems getting a Tier 5 starbase, but a 40 person fleet will struggle to get past Tier 3 unless there is a change in the scales
any scaling can be easily exploited or requires extremely complex prevention that can likely be circumvented
An idea for helping smaller fleets, is the use of the embassy. Small fleets can request help for building their starbase. This will be an upgrade project which costs some EC and Dili. When filled, a special console in the embassy (somewhat like the exchange) will display the "need for help" which fleetleaders / ambassadors can accept. It will then show-up in the own project cue from the starbase from the helping fleet. In return for helping, the large fleet will earn bonus credits. These can be used for interior decorations of the starbase/embassy. (not fishtanks
In the end.... we`re all Ferengi!
And let me mention another possibility - the fleet merge option.
One easy way it could work would be: Dump 70% of already spend dilithium and fm of the absorbed fleet into a holding tank, the rest will vanish (transfer tax). The absorbing fleet can use the accumulated dili and fm for new projects (no fc when the holding tank is used) - that way no unfair benefit regarding faster progress is achieved.
So at least not all spent items of the absorbed fleet would be lost - members of the absorbed fleet still would have achieved something (makes the decision to abandon fleet a lot easier).
There are solutions for the issues small fleets are having, but something has to happen.
As for allowing fleet products to be sold: I think that should actually be stimulated. If a fleet is strong and organised enough to be the first to offer some new items, let them be able to get some return on their investments by selling of their new products. Good for non- and small fleet people, and good for the guys putting in tons of time and resources. Competition will keep prices in check.
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Want to learn more about any of the above? Let me know!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I personally don't care for the practice of selling fleet gear, and prefer to work for it (and not in that fun spanky kind of way). However, I do realize that not everyone wants to invest the time in doing so... that means there is a market for people that will buy (and pay extraordinary prices for) fleet gear. Nothing wrong with that... and nothing wrong with the fleets, who worked hard to get to T5, selling their gear/provisions, if that is what they choose to do.
Now, how the proceeds are distributed, thats another matter... a previous poster commented that HE made 100,000,000 credits selling access to fleet gear... that kind of bothers me on its face value, if there are 100 people in the fleet, that contributed to building that base... shouldn't they all get a cut of that 100 Mil?
Star Trek Online, Now with out the Trek....
This is the only real reasonable solution to the fleet projects scale. Right now we are all scaled at 500 members even if you have 10. The whole fleet system should scale with the size of the fleet, period.
Yes there is a chance of an exploit happening such as kick members fill the project, and re-recruit members but that can be preventable with a simple lock on creating new projects if there was a large scale member reduction. Say 72 hours if enough members were kicked or left to drop the fleet to a lower level with a 10 member buffer because members will come and go.
Then projects that are not completed will scale to the fleet size if the fleet gets enough new members to go up to the next bracket. It will not scale down though.
As for selling fleet items by recruiting them so they can buy? Nothing wrong with that. You might like the fleet you are on but want fleet weapons, so you swap fleets, buy them and then swap back. That is all that does is make people swap fleets temporarily and if they leave permanently chances are you didnt want them in your fleet anyway.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
The roster size may say 500, but lots of those people are fine to just play solo and contribute when they can or just occaisonally play a day here and there, nothing wrong with that as long as they can contribute some, no reason to keep those people out of our fleet.
What baffles me is why many small fleets want to intentionally stay small and not recruit. Not everyone in the fleet has to be your friend, you can have your core of your fleet that is friends and still have room for all the casual and less social people, they still contribute even if they don't do much with the fleet. Small fleets not recuiting these people is how we manage to get all of them and grow faster.