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Eliminate Fleet Provisions
fletch246xxx
Member Posts: 40 Arc User
Hey all,
I would like to try and make the case for eliminating Fleet Provisioning and allowing Fleet Credits and Dilithium be the only cost of acquiring Fleet ships and equipment.
The main reason for this (listen up Cryptic!) is the adverse effect it is having on 'casual' players.
Here is the reasoning: While Fleet Credits can be earned independently and eventually spent on Fleet equipment, Provisions stay in the hands of the Fleet 'leaders'. What this means (and I have just seen this happen in my own long-time fleet) is that Provisions can be controlled/doled out however Fleet leaders want to do so. This leaves room for abuse. Furthermore, it penalizes casual players who can easily earn enough FCs and Dilithium to purchase Fleet ships and items, but may not be able to meet contribution 'quotas' needed to acquire access to Provisions (which are about 'rank')
My argument is that if a player has enough FC and Dil to purchase a Fleet item, then the item should be accessible. Period. Provisioning will ultimately lead to less casual players, mark my words. And that is not good for the game (pay attention again, Cryptic).
Thanks for reading.
I would like to try and make the case for eliminating Fleet Provisioning and allowing Fleet Credits and Dilithium be the only cost of acquiring Fleet ships and equipment.
The main reason for this (listen up Cryptic!) is the adverse effect it is having on 'casual' players.
Here is the reasoning: While Fleet Credits can be earned independently and eventually spent on Fleet equipment, Provisions stay in the hands of the Fleet 'leaders'. What this means (and I have just seen this happen in my own long-time fleet) is that Provisions can be controlled/doled out however Fleet leaders want to do so. This leaves room for abuse. Furthermore, it penalizes casual players who can easily earn enough FCs and Dilithium to purchase Fleet ships and items, but may not be able to meet contribution 'quotas' needed to acquire access to Provisions (which are about 'rank')
My argument is that if a player has enough FC and Dil to purchase a Fleet item, then the item should be accessible. Period. Provisioning will ultimately lead to less casual players, mark my words. And that is not good for the game (pay attention again, Cryptic).
Thanks for reading.
Post edited by fletch246xxx on
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Comments
I did not say that
I believe my fleet is doing the best they can with a flawed system. It will not be better in another fleet. Provisions are finite and must be controlled. This should not be the case. Players should not have to have that power over other players enjoyment. While I believe my Fleet leaders are doing the best they can, all Fleets may not be.
Star Trek Online, Now with out the Trek....
but your right without Fleet Provisions it whould be better
Subscribed For: 4 years 5 months 20 days at 26.10.2014
+1
If you made contributions to your fleet and you don't have access (+/- 50/75 k), find a better fleet.
You can make as much provisions as you want (i do), progress will be bit slower but whats a starbase good for without provisions ??
Bone1970 don't believe in a no-win senario, Kirk's protege. Fed Tac.
Bone Trader don't belief in a no-win senario, Kirk's protege. Fed Tac.
Bone2 don't believe in a no-win senario, Kirk's protege. KDF Eng.
Warning: Not a native English-speaker, sorry if my English sucks.
I as a fleet leader of a large fleet couldnt agree more with what he is proposing.
Currently we use a contributions based system to access fleet provisions.
20k in total contributions and you can be promoted to buy goods temporarily. This can temp promotion can be granted by anyone holding the "Agent" rank within the fleet.
300k in donations gets you Agent rank.
Since these ranks work solely on contributions it does eliminate any sort of favoritism and essentially acts as a self policed situation.
In my our fleet we have MANY agents, this eliminates the facade of leadership controlling starbase assets. In our fleet this system seems to work. We are on the verge of a t5 starbase, a complete embassy and a upgrading to t2 as we speak dil mine.
Why its utter BS...
Cryptics value on certain items is an absolute joke. Fleet Marks worth more than dilithium is nuts, the value put on dil has rightfully made people less likely to contribute it.
Doffs, 150 marks each? Considering the cost of them on the exchange or the effort of having to use the dulltastic doff grinder.
Clearly if the current system is here to stay some values need tweaking...
If we didnt have teh burden of paying for provisions then paying again to use the provision that youve contributed to is nuts, this cost and the finite amount of resources is FORCING this situation upon its users.
Free provisions, or rather A SINGLE PRICED provision would enable us leader to check "has fleet store access" to all ranks without a care in the world!
Cubeageddon - You are the last hope. Find it in the Foundry!
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See that is why i think Provisions are important. What is the incentive to the members of smaller fleets to remain there, why not all leave for the large fleet that already has T5 and you dont even have to contribute to the provisioning projects.
The provisioning project were the equalizer... yes the large fleet gets there faster, but then has to run a bagizzilion provisioning projects to satisfy the needs of their member base.
Star Trek Online, Now with out the Trek....
The incentive is the growth of the starbase, the support a good fleet can offer and of course players you get along with.
Apart from the new engi consoles and cores, our fleet has quite a large buildup of provisions. Although i have no doubt when we hit t3 mines soon the demand will increase for consoles, the demand for cores has been virtually non existent.
Fleets have a member cap also remember no one fleet can go beyond 500 members before technically they have to start over for members 501 to 1001.
And finally, the various channels used for trading in game not to mention main hubs pretty much always has a member from the various uber fleets advertising provisions for a price. If a member of our fleet decides to leave to buy gear from a different fleet they are more than welcome to rejoin once their purchase is complete.
Cubeageddon - You are the last hope. Find it in the Foundry!
The Space Race - An alternate to PVP - In Foundry Now!
As the mechanism works, once you've got access to Fleet stores, you can buy as much as you like until the provisions or your credits run out.
Really, all the current mechanisms do is allow fleet leaders to (slightly) check the loyalty of players before giving them access.
Does make me start to think, why bother donating anymore?
This, pretty much.
I'd also add that you're not considering the bigger picture for provisions - that they're a big, necessary resource sink for high-level fleets and players.
As more fleets hit T5 on their holdings, Provision projects become the only way to throttle down on resource-rich players buying up all the game's best gear, as well as gobbling up the extra money/dil/marks needed to buy up commodities, common doffs, and the stuff needed to generate provisions. Cryptic/PWE can't afford to rapidly generate new content (such as holdings and the "cosmetic" featured projects) that dedicated players will burn through quickly, so the provisions system gives them something to keep doing even when they've fully leveled up their fleets.
It also boosts the coveted "daily participation" rate, as Fleet leaders periodically need to check back into the game to start new provision projects to keep generating the necessary provisions for the lower-end players to get what they need.
It's not perfect, or even very much fun, but it's a necessary evil to sustain this free game. If anything, I'd like more project slots or a faster processing time on the current provision project rates. My home fleet tends to prioritize one type of provision over another so some folks aren't getting what they need because all the project slots are taken up.
As for the issue of resource management and "gating" access, that's really more of a leadership question than a systems question. A good fleet with a decent amount of actual contributing members needs to properly manage its membership/store access promotion to make sure no one gets locked out or shortchanged. A few EVE Corp management veterans could have a field day biz-devving a large fleet here.
We don't restrict provisions based on contributions, because numbers like 100k are so irrelevant to the overall progress of a base in the long term. We want people in the fleet to try, to make the step to learn something and improve, most just ask for promotions and are denied. If we tell them what they need to do to be promoted, most don't do it.
People want fleet gear and want to make no effort at all to even learn how to use it to 10% of it's ability. Our philosophy is don't waste fleet resources when you can't be bothered to make an effort for anything else. With our t5 shipyard counting down we might need to alter some policies, the dil mine provisions are certainly causing a lot of issues.
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I'd be inclined to agree that eliminating the Provisions system would save a lot of fleet management headaches and ultimately a lot of time, particularly for the largest fleets, but knowing that the system is intended as a resource sink to keep the economy balanced, I can't help but ask anyone who wants to eliminate provisions the following question:
In exchange for eliminating Fleet Provisions, would you accept a significant increase in the price of Fleet Gear, or additional layers of cost for Fleet Gear?
Of course, the common answer would be "that depends on the increase", so let's say 50% more than the current price. Alternatively, requisitioning fleet gear could demand a lot of "extra" items like Common Doffs or Commodities, like a Reputation System Requisition project.
Yeah, that's a buttload of dil and Fleet Credit, but there's got to be something to cost-balance the loss of resource investment consumed by having to run multiple provision projects. KEEP IN MIND, I'm not saying that the CURRENT prices and resources demanded by projects and fleet gear is FAIR.
That's a different discussion entirely. What I'm doing is acknowledging that costs and resources sinks are necessary to keep STO's economy functioning, and they can't simply be cut away without consequences. In this case, these costs will have to be passed from the fleet at large (where anyone can contribute extra resources to a project to push it to completion) to the individual player.
Complete 50 different Foundry Missions recieve "X" amount of marks. And for the Foundry Authors they recieve a mark for every person that completes thier mission. That way it generates a form of payment for being a Foundry contributor. Of course there would need to be a review panel to oversee which missions are eligible to give marks. That way we don't have a beam to the planet kill five mobs mission complete scenario.
It doesn't make sense to work so hard to gain so many provisions, then have to give them up for a fleet (that may not have active members that contribute). Then once a certain tier is reach the fleet roaches come out and go crazy on all the spoils of your hard work.
The doff store on a developed Starbase only requires an invite to that base. the doffs can be sold for EC. the cash will allow you to get what you want. no provisions required
So, the people in Fleet X that worked for that stuff, get screwed because any old fleet member can just use them up as they please, even that newly joined person that you might not know at all.....
So yeah, get rid of provisions control, hope your fleet gets nailed first, as a lesson on being able to secure your assets for personal (in this case, actual true fleet members) use. Oh, and don't forget to leave the bank unsecured as well, might as wll hand over everything to them too. (And leave the keys in your car, in real life, make it easy for those types of thieves too, while you're at it)
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
only maybe because he spend to mutch for projekts and no one has room to get Fleet Credtis because all projekts are very fast full and starting
and best whoud be for the game take out dillithium for the game and get rid of free to play
make it again pay to can play at all
Subscribed For: 4 years 5 months 20 days at 26.10.2014
Actually what is being suggested is that you the individual build up personal provision marks that can be exchanged. That way if you contribute and have millions of fleet credits some goober with 40K doesn't siphon off the provisions because he is in tight with the fleet leader. This way what you contribute remains yours and stops fleet hopping.
an item that drops or be rewarded in pvp.
and players can contribute them to the fleet
or save them to buy stuff..
either way win / win.
Furthermore, my fleet is not slotting provisioning projects for the dilithium mine until we hit tier 3. The Mk X and Mk XI stuff is outclassed by the Mk XII, and we'll get to Tier 3 relatively soon (next two months? Gods, time goes by fast in this game). Provisioning can wait until we're done. I like this setup, as it encourages fleeties who want the goodies in the dilithium mine to contribute more time to fleet mark gathering.
Now, whether or not a game that requires you to spend a significant chunk of your time as a space fundraiser is what I want to do is a different story entirely. But when you're busy...
Let's say, you fleet has unlocked Advanced T1 ground gear a while back and use provisions to buy the stuff.
Now you reach T3 and unlock the Elite gear and use the provisions for the higher level stuff but the Advanced gear becomes available without provisions.
If your fleet leadership are doing their jobs, provisioning should take precedence over raw XP projects when they're choosing what goes into the queue. If your fleet leadership are being tight-fisted with the provisions, leave.
I think the whole problem can be solved by making the provisioning a personal matter.
Let's say, add an extra personal project slot in the fleet UI that get unlocked when your rank has access to the stores. You can then slot the type of provision project you want to buy just like in a Reputation project. Fill that project, get the provision then buy your stuff. Problem solved.
But i doubt will see anything like this since Cryptic is not interested in making things that don't bring $$ easily.
there needs to be better dispersant controls built in to the system
what is needed is that provisions arent a whole shared , but a personal resource that is earned by the player donating to a project . so as it completes you earned the provisions that you can spend in the stores .
As an aside, if no one tells their leadership, that they want some fleet equip, but the provisions are lacking, that's hardly leaderships' problem. After all, If I was lead, and no one tells me they're desirous of something, I'm going to assume no one wants it, and thus push for the xp projects primarily (or unlocks projects). Now, if the leaders are being told, and still refuse to slot a prov project every now and again, at least, then yes, you have a problem.
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
I both agree & disagree with this, as there are plenty of real life scenarios to toss in, on both sides of this particular proposal.
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
As for replacing provision projects to earn FC after the fleet is T5 and finished there could be repair and maintanence projects as well as supply projects that are simply an FC generator. These should only become available once all holdings are completed.
This would remove provision projects during the fleet leveling so those resources could be put to leveling the fleet holdings. Provisions would be each individuals so if they do not contribute enough to the fleet they cannot earn a provision wich gets more people contributing. More contribute the easier it is for everyone.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek: