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The single biggest issue with the Reputation system
aexrael
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
It is the usage of different currencies.
It "makes sense" that each separate reputation requires a different currency because it is in someway tied to the enemy faced during the content/missions associated with the Reputation line, it "makes sense" from a lore/fluff ideology. And in that way it doesn't make sense that a group or company associated with Tholians Threats would reward you for combating Borgs.
But it could have been handled differently, and it should.
1 currency could have been the baseline for the entire reputation system, with each mission rewarding "Reputation Currency" serving under a model based on variety and risk vs reward structure.
The more (perceived/planned) difficult a mission is, the more rewarding, and thus more time consuming it also tends to be. Different missions would offer different variety to ease the monotony, but at the core they would all be "balanced" against each other in terms of Time invested + Difficulty = Reward.
There could be fewer overall but ultimately more entertaining and involving missions than the current shoot five NPCs and press a button missions littering the queue.
The central organization or "interest group" could be structured similar to how the Omega group game together. A joint venture to combat present threats. However the Omega group is too narrow in scope, as it only deals with one part of the galactic threatscape.
With one central organization to handle all present threats throughout the quadrants, you'd have a logical explanation for rewarding one currency, regardless of which aspects of the Threatscape players choose to combat.
If Cryptic continues implementing new reputations, with new enemies and new currencies, we'll be right back to the state of the game prior to Season 5. IMHO we are already there and it isn't fun.
Ultimately it makes STO feel like a random pot stew of pasta, potatoes and bits of meat thrown in together with no overall plan or direction.
It's not too late to reverse course and consolidate/reboot the reputation currencies.
It "makes sense" that each separate reputation requires a different currency because it is in someway tied to the enemy faced during the content/missions associated with the Reputation line, it "makes sense" from a lore/fluff ideology. And in that way it doesn't make sense that a group or company associated with Tholians Threats would reward you for combating Borgs.
But it could have been handled differently, and it should.
1 currency could have been the baseline for the entire reputation system, with each mission rewarding "Reputation Currency" serving under a model based on variety and risk vs reward structure.
The more (perceived/planned) difficult a mission is, the more rewarding, and thus more time consuming it also tends to be. Different missions would offer different variety to ease the monotony, but at the core they would all be "balanced" against each other in terms of Time invested + Difficulty = Reward.
There could be fewer overall but ultimately more entertaining and involving missions than the current shoot five NPCs and press a button missions littering the queue.
The central organization or "interest group" could be structured similar to how the Omega group game together. A joint venture to combat present threats. However the Omega group is too narrow in scope, as it only deals with one part of the galactic threatscape.
With one central organization to handle all present threats throughout the quadrants, you'd have a logical explanation for rewarding one currency, regardless of which aspects of the Threatscape players choose to combat.
If Cryptic continues implementing new reputations, with new enemies and new currencies, we'll be right back to the state of the game prior to Season 5. IMHO we are already there and it isn't fun.
Ultimately it makes STO feel like a random pot stew of pasta, potatoes and bits of meat thrown in together with no overall plan or direction.
It's not too late to reverse course and consolidate/reboot the reputation currencies.
Post edited by aexrael on
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9 Episodes = 30+ episodes...?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
It's pronounced "S.T.O." "Stow" sounds idiotic! lol
They do that to prolong the content, as I know some people that would max it out in a week. While I necessary agree the 20 hour is a bit much, I think people should be able to progress at their own pace whether fast or slow. Another thing Cryptic has done to force you to play the game how they want, rather than giving the player a choice, as I mentioned in my earlier post.
Most people roll more than one character anyway, so I don't see a problem decreasing the time to something more reasonable, plus such missions as the Defera Hards, Romulan patrol etc have a 20 hour cooldown so it would make people really grind if they want to take the fast route. I myself would rather spend 20 minutes doing the missions that reward more than grind a 20 minute mission for 5 marks.
Another option is as they bring more and more rep systems in, the older ones should have their large timegates removed to allow players to get through them quicker. I'd hate to be developing a character from scratch today, a reason my Romulan/Reman will never do anything more than play the unique Romulan missions, there is really no point as it's too much work for it to be enjoyable. Like in the next season or two, have Omega and Romulan timegate lowered to like 2 hours or 15 minutes per project while keeping Nukara and the next one at the 20 hour limit.
I am actively developing 2 characters (KDF Tactical and Engineer) and running a 3rd (also KDF) through Omega as he gets the marks from doing the FM run at Defera anyway so he may as well use it to get gear to make the run easier. I do have 1 Fed that has both Romulan and Omega, though I don't play Fed anymore. But I really don't see the point of running more characters (aka grinding the marks) through the rep system when each season is just going to add another. Seriously I have like 10 free character slots and I wonder why Cryptic even offers them as veteran rewards when they are becoming more a liability than an asset in the game today. Since season 7 I think I have delete more characters than I actually have now, all due to the fact that I could never work on them all, being as the rep is only character and not account and needed to focus on only a few to be able to get anywhere on them.
I wish people stopped comparing Marks to the currencies before dilithium was introduced. There is absolutely no similarity. Most of them were completely pointless and people out levelled them before they could use them. There is not much difference between Marks of Exploration level I and Marks of Exploration level II. However there is an enormous difference between Romulan Marks and Fleet Marks.
Reputation killed alt'ing - they'd have to add borg cubes to it or something before I'd go through that torture again.
Just like I am not playing nukara at all on any character, I'd rather just create a romulan dil grinder and use exchange gear meh.
Too bad too, I used to create new characters with the real STF where you couldn't buy your way in.
Artificially prolonging the gameplay plan worked the exact opposite.
That is one of the main points here, the content is repetitive and becomes boring very quick. Doesn't matter if you do New Romulus, Romulan Patrols, Defera or STF's the outcome is the same. Playing the same thing over and over and over again.
I seriously don't know why they don't offer rep marks for other missions like simple campaign missions, dilithium dailies, Empire Defense etc. Who really cares if you get Omega marks fighting Cardassians etc, it would make the game more interesting and bring some new life to campaign missions encouraging players to go back and re-play them and may actually give Cryptic more reason to being new missions to the Romulans and Klingons that are new and unique, rather the cut and paste Federation missions.
Maybe I haven't followed their replies and explanations well enough but I don't see the harm in account reputations...
Is the idea that the player will spend a lot of time grinding reputation on all characters and then spend dilithium on buying items?
And so their view is they lose that gated time it would take, the 5 weeks or so, per character?
Where I am coming from is I'd buy gear on alts through the reputation if I didn't have to unlock everything again.
But, being locked out means I am not make alts and I am not buying gear either.
So they lose business and time there. (did make a romulan but not doing reputation).
Either which way you'd still have to use dilithium to buy the gear, I really don't see where that could be so harmful...
In addition to that I actually don't have a lot left in the game to grind for, whereas if I could buy the reputation gear through account unlock I'd actually be out farming on several alts.
And as before season 7 I actually be making alts too. Now it comes down to just building 1 character and the rest are dilithium grinders for the 1 - so the game is exactly shorter like this since you building less and buying less and playing less.
Of course far be it from me to question their charts and I can only speak for how I play, it'd just be interesting to know why think it's such a great idea..
Season 7 killed atls for me too. In fact since S7 I have deleted more alts that I actually have now because of the reputation grind. I have also not taken nor will I take and RRF characters through the reputation. I only made them to check out the new missions and that has been it, I haven't even gotten them to level 50. That last point is a loss of profit as I was looking at some of the C-store Romulan ships then realised, the Reputation grind and so decided to stick with my KDF characters. Even my Feds who have lock box ships are now not in use for anything other than getting Dilithium for me.
To be honest I too support account reputation, I think there are a number of ways they could do it where it would be acceptable by players:
Instead of fixing the drop system that was the previous issue (which should have taken little to no effort given how the content appeared to be mechanically) they passed the buck off onto the consumer and said "suck it."
A rewarding reputation system would REWARD you for accomplishing things, not put you in a position where your options are "TRIBBLE Cryptic" and "now I have to buy TRIBBLE or all my time was for nothing."
Even the "enhancements" are just derivatives of we get from accolades (if you didn't know - many accolades grant permanent buffs, just check your passive section on the character sheet).
In short, the biggest problem with the reputation system is that it isn't a reputation system - it's just TRIBBLE.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I've found that when I do actual reputation content it's always Romulan, because it's so much easier to amass reputation marks for Romulan and now Nukara. The problem with Omega is you don't have as many options for gaining marks and the marks they pay out in the STFs are miniscule for the absolute s**t teams you have to put up with. I really have no desire to play STFs at all anymore because they are just full of idiots and trolls who want to see how fast they can blow the optional for everyone else.
Really? You find it hard to gain large amounts of marks for Omega? The Defera Hards don't offer a lot this is true, but enough to level through the tiers. Doing Elite STF's award you 60 Omega marks per run, an addition 15 if you meet the optional and a total of 90 during the mark event. Sometimes you're even lucky to get 115 if you don't get a BNP.
If anything Omega is the easiest to the Rep systems to do. I am leveling two characters through Omega just doing the Defera Hards for the Fleet Marks. I got the marks, may as well use them. I wouldn't grind them on one of the characters if I didn't get them for free.
I find Romulan to be harder to achieve, a 20hr cool down on the Romulan patrols. Nukara I am not doing as Tetryons don't interest me even though they have some neat traits. But the Nukara nerf of FM still bugs me, no pun intended.
Plus there are several channels where you can join pre-made teams to do Elite STF's who actually discuss what each player will do. I've never failed an optional in a space STF using the PublicEliteSTF channel. I haven't done a PuG since joining the channel. I suggest joining and giving it a shot, don't bother with the Normal STF's they aren't worth the time and the Elite's aren't that hard with a decent team. Plus it gives the best rewards out of all the Rep systems imo.
I have only had one person do something like that, it was today on Defera where they asked to do Probe first rather than Temple. The team did the Temple first, it's the standard run anyway. As soon as Temple was over they took off and as soon as we completed Probe they left the team and refused to join. We waited for them and they never came back. Let's just say they awarded themselves a nice place on my ignore list. Not good for a Romulan allied with the KDF where KDF teams are hard to come buy. The downside of LoR is this type of behavior that previously was unheard of at least on the KDF. I guess all ups have their downs.
It however has been over 8 months since I had a AFKer in a STF, I think I must just be lucky as I hear a lot of it is going around. The last time I had one the entire team decided to leave, we all accepted the the penalty and the guy got no free loot or dilithium from us.
Omega marks is by far the most common of any of the three reputation marks. Elite Borg STFGs reward so many marks when you compare time investment vs reward in comparison to the other two reputation marks.
Lord no. Romulan marks with Epohh tagging are ridiculously easy. All I have done (except at the very beginning when exploring New Romulus) is epohh tagging for Romulan marks. It takes about 3 minutes a day to get the group, tag the epohhs, and set up 2 doff missions. Once a day, every day, and you get 400 marks every 5 days. That's far more than you need per day on the rep projects. So by the end of tier 5 you have a nice surplus of marks to dump into gear, immediately.
Again, that's about 3-5 minutes per day. Now, granted you don't get the dilithium with this that you get in STFs, but even the most elite team of STFers would be hard pressed to get 400 Omega marks in 25 minutes.
::WARNING:: This game is not intended for use as a source of self-esteem.