I would be happy if they eliminated the marks and made those XP that is applied to the rep as you level and not have any projects for leveling rep. Have the amount of rep that can be gained daily limited to what we can do now so there is still a time gate, but overflow goes to the next days rep automaticaly. Once a tier is reached have the player do a special mission that unlocks the next level. Romulan rep already has the special missions that can be used. No clicky clicky boring projects that get annoying by t2 and makes you want to puke when you are 4k rep from t5.
For buying rep gear you slot the project as normal and it diverts rep XP to that project and a small amount to rep on completion.
Once T5 is achieved rep can still be earned and turned in for gear or dilithium as we do now and accumulates like marks do. BUT you can also transfer that extra rep XP to a lvl 50 alt to assist that one with rep. Transfering extra rep XP from 1 character to another would not hurt the time gate for leveling Cryptic wants because it still requires the same amount of time just not the time spent on each character.
As for making the story missions apply rep XP as suggested by the OP, also make the species you kill apply as well so if you kill a tholian on New Romulas you get a small amount of Nukara rep for killing a tholian. Kill a Tal Shiar in a foundry mission you get Romulan rep. maybe 10 kills of the lowest ranking ones makes 1 mark equivelant and 1 boss level equals 1 mark. Not a whole lot at once but over time and playing it will add up to something. Small enough amount that doing foundry farm for the XP would be a waste of time because doing a quick repeat story mission or queueing up would give far more.
I like those ideas.
One day Cryptic will be free from their Perfect World overlord. Until that day comes, they will continue to pamper the whales of this game, and ignore everyone that isn't a whale.
This is so needed for the STO game. It is great to have stuff to do, but it becomes an effort gate for new toons. I wonder if LoR's launch was stunted because of Rep. For me my Rom got leveled to 50 and parked because my 3 fed mains are still in the rep system. My KDF toons are long forgotten because the KDF fleet starbase is second shelf to our fed one, and more holdings and rep systems in the future probably are going to inhibit their catching up.
I feel like the Rep system solved a problem preFleet starbase (nothing to do or earn), but now with holdings and established rep systems we have a problem brought on by the solution of the last problem.
Rep should be account/faction bound IE all fed toons and all kdf toons, yes that makes you do more if you have KDF and Fed, but really doing rep twice is better than 4-5 times or more as some have posted.
I get the feeling Dilithium and doffs have been thinned out and EC is so easy to earn that it will never be thinned out. But this game is killing the social gamer than wants to be competitive. At least put something that lets us earn rep exponentially faster in the Zen store. Let those of us with busy lives spend our money to make up for our limited time!
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
If Cryptic could implement these changes I think Star Trek Online would improve dramatically! It would go a long way to improving the game's Fun Factor and Quality of Life.
Thanks for visiting/reading. I welcome your feedback.
Problem - Solutions 1:
Meelikes...but just making rewards "Mark of Choice" for current T5 content would make a difference.
Problem - Solutions 2:
Increasing stacks is a no-brainer BUT there would be financial issues (extra storage).
Switching to EC instead of commodities would negate their existence in-game imo because the EC model can be utilized for their other uses.
If you're going to have an autofill why not an autobuy as well?
FYI...getting rid of the Rep will get rid of the clicking.
Problem - Solutions 3:
No, the Rep is not Alt friendly to the average player imo (note I indicated average as in a player that doesn't spend HOURS at this game in one session).
Instead of discounts/xp bonus it's better to just throw the rep system out the airlock for Alts.
Account-wide unlocks is still the best solution if we're forced to keep the Rep.
NO to ARC RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
I like your suggestions, they are creative and would go a long way to alleviating some of the unrelenting grind and boredom of the current systems.
In addition, if you're so inclined, I once had the idea that Expertise should be an account-wide currency.
This would allow you to pool expertise, so you could play what you want on the characters you want, when you want.
We use expertise to train our own boffs.
We use it to input into starbases, "lending our expertise" in a sense.
I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to lend that same expertise to other VAs who are in our roster. Even from an RP standpoint it can be justified.
I love these ideas. They seem fair and not too hard to implement. That said, it will be hard to convince them to stop it with this "Playing as Intended" TRIBBLE.
I like your suggestions, they are creative and would go a long way to alleviating some of the unrelenting grind and boredom of the current systems.
In addition, if you're so inclined, I once had the idea that Expertise should be an account-wide currency.
This would allow you to pool expertise, so you could play what you want on the characters you want, when you want.
We use expertise to train our own boffs.
We use it to input into starbases, "lending our expertise" in a sense.
I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to lend that same expertise to other VAs who are in our roster. Even from an RP standpoint it can be justified.
I'd also like to see the end-of-rep completion reward- you know, the big hunk of marks and dil you get at the end- changed to an account-bound box. Less important for the dil, but being able to send 750 marks to a new alt would get them off to a great start that rep system.
Anybody think that they ought to put out a challenge to the community for special Rep system mission creation? Like, in three months or so people submit a five chain mission set that could be implemented into the Rep system for marks and/or other things.
Good to see a general consensus that the Rep System could do with some tweaking, and for the most part people like my ideas either as is or possibly with their own variants versions. And I'm pretty ok with most of those too.
The one thing that keeps getting brought up, that I just can not get behind, is a full account-wide Rep. Example: Finish Omega Rep on Character Alpha and all your other characters get T5 Omega Rep access at the same time. I do not like this idea.
When we level-up our Captain's Rank we unlock passive powers, access to ships, gear, etc, etc. That is done per character, and is generally accepted as the norm. Leveling in the Rep system similarly offers passives powers, access to gear, new missions, and so on. It should require work to complete for each of your characters.
As described in the OP, some adjustments could be made, but a straight one-and-done? I personally don't think it's fair.
Note that combining the three Reps, I've reached Tier 5 26 times over nine characters (with a 10th alt about a week away from three more T5s, and four more allts slowly chugging along). In ways most people probably don't, I appreciate just how much of a grind the system is.
This isn't a feeling of "Everyone should have to suffer like me.", either. I just think the Rep payoffs are worth the effort required to attain them. Mostly (again, could use some tweaks).
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Good to see a general consensus that the Rep System could do with some tweaking, and for the most part people like my ideas either as is or possibly with their own variants versions. And I'm pretty ok with most of those too.
The one thing that keeps getting brought up, that I just can not get behind, is a full account-wide Rep. Example: Finish Omega Rep on Character Alpha and all your other characters get T5 Omega Rep access at the same time. I do not like this idea.
When we level-up our Captain's Rank we unlock passive powers, access to ships, gear, etc, etc. That is done per character, and is generally accepted as the norm. Leveling in the Rep system similarly offers passives powers, access to gear, new missions, and so on. It should require work to complete for each of your characters.
As described in the OP, some adjustments could be made, but a straight one-and-done? I personally don't think it's fair.
Note that combining the three Reps, I've reached Tier 5 26 times over nine characters (with a 10th alt about a week away from three more T5s, and four more allts slowly chugging along). In ways most people probably don't, I appreciate just how much of a grind the system is.
This isn't a feeling of "Everyone should have to suffer like me.", either. I just think the Rep payoffs are worth the effort required to attain them. Mostly (again, could use some tweaks).
For PvE yeah, I agree. It's all about attaining gear.
The problem is in PvP, Rep systems like we have are a huge obstacle.
They deter newer players from partaking, they create a wide gap in power potential between new & old characters, as well as new vs. established players.
Creating extra hurdles, that are all entirely PvE focused, are extremely frustrating for players that really want to log into the game and just PvP to have fun.
...The problem is in PvP, Rep systems like we have are a huge obstacle...
Is it the fact that it's a time-gated 36 days (ie you can't play harder/more to get done sooner), or that you have to bother using up a fair amount of gameplay time fighting pixels (PvE) instead of other players? Or both? How would you resolve the problem?
And you quoted my thoughts on account-wide unlocking... Are you suggesting if the Rep was one-and-done, you could make all the future PvP alts you want and they'd already be competitive?
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
So, I agree that the Rep System is bad. And I do think that opening the tiers to the account BY Faction is the best way to do it. But to get the special abilities that tier gives and the store gear to be bought, have the alts do an assingment to unlock that ability. And this thing can require more resources that the the first character did to open it. It will reduce the grind but still require some effort to unlock the abilities and gear for use. Nothing is free, but it should never feel like a job to get to the end game gear. And the harder you make it to get to, the more likley you will see people search for greener pastures. I have 4 character at max level, and I am trying to rep grind all four. But I don't get to log on every day due to family life. And the rep system I have hated since they have implemented it. I wished they had taking a better route than they did. And I hope they would take a look at this thread and the various suggestions and complaints presented.
I had seen a couple of these threads complaining about the Rep system and most of them were just "Whaa! I don't wanna do the work for the gear, give me the gear!" But this post was well thought out and has some really good ideas. I'm trying to figure out a way to grind the rep system efficiently on my 14 alts on this account and finally decided on 3 toons at a time, which still doesn't give me much time to enjoy leveling 1 new toon (#15). Sometimes getting the marks for getting 1 toon going can take 1 hour, especially around tiers 4 and 5 and this is a huge pain in the hind, especially with the amount of variation there is in how to get the marks across various Rep systems. After having gotten 3 toons to T5 and than they added Nukara which meant I had to go back and do it again, I just find 1 high mark rewarding mission and do it over and over and over again (as shown in my Master Shopping list), just to get a surplus of marks. This has to end!
EDIT: And don't get me started on lacking expertise, thank you Mirror Hour, but even grinding Mirror for an hour is getting old!
Hi, my name is: Elim Garak, Former Cardassian Oppressor
LTS, here since...when did this game launch again?
So, I agree that the Rep System is bad. ... Nothing is free, but it should never feel like a job to get to the end game gear. And the harder you make it to get to...
For the record, *I* don't think the Rep System is bad. Pretty sure in my first sentence of the OP I even states that I like it, so I'm not sure what you think we're agreeing on. :P
I mean, yes, it's flawed, but it's not bad.
As for not being a job to get end game gear... Consider it's fairly easy to complete one Rep on one character. 15mins or less worth of play per day for 36 days. That's not really much effort, certainly not what I'd consider a job! Even if you count three Reps, it's still only about 30-40 daily mins or so to get the necessary resources and click a bunch of buttons. And the best part is you don't have to play each day. You can take as much time off as you'd like and it'll be right were you left it.
Is it Grindy? Yeah. I have solutions for that in the OP.
Does it involve Mindless Clicking? Yeah. Again, OP has solutions.
The Rep system only really starts to become problematic when you consider running it on multiple characters, but then, I have suggested solutions for that too.
You might argue the Time Gating factor sucks, I'm likely to agree there. Especially if you take a day off from the game, then you basically stretch completion out another day, with no way to "make up for it." I'm considering adding that as a Fourth thing to Fix in my OP.
I had seen a couple of these threads complaining about the Rep system and most of them were just "Whaa! I don't wanna do the work for the gear, give me the gear!" But this post was well thought out and has some really good ideas. I'm trying to figure out a way to grind the rep system efficiently on my 14 alts on this account and finally decided on 3 toons at a time...
Thanks for the compliments. I'm feeling the same. I've been doing my 14 Alts about 3 at a time too... I'm almost done. Two more finish up all their Reps in the next couple days - Yay! - I'm likely to take a break for a while. The last three alts I have that haven't done any (much) Rep just aren't played enough to warrant the effort, so I may not even bother with them.
Just make reputation account bound and have it over with
Good lord, do you people even listen? The Devs have stated that they will never make the Reputation system account bound. Accept it and move on. The sooner you do the sooner they'll actually listen to you. Havelock's suggestions, even if I don't really agree with all of them or have ideas of my own I'd prefer are good, solid and acknowledges that the Devs will not make the reputations account bound.
Just make reputation account bound and have it over with
Good lord, do you people even listen? The Devs have stated that they will never make the Reputation system account bound. Accept it and move on. The sooner you do the sooner they'll actually listen to you. Havelock's suggestions, even if I don't really agree with all of them or have ideas of my own I'd prefer are good, solid and acknowledges that the Devs will not make the reputations account bound.
I took Axelightning's post as a jest. Sort of saying something just to rouse the crowd. But as you say Canis36, it wouldn't happen either way, so we have to try to come up with something else. Thanks for the kind words, BTW.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Is it the fact that it's a time-gated 36 days (ie you can't play harder/more to get done sooner), or that you have to bother using up a fair amount of gameplay time fighting pixels (PvE) instead of other players? Or both? How would you resolve the problem?
And you quoted my thoughts on account-wide unlocking... Are you suggesting if the Rep was one-and-done, you could make all the future PvP alts you want and they'd already be competitive?
Worse the 36 days that you need to get the rep passives, are just the start. They add up, then comes the set gear, special consoles, etc. this is a huge resource drain, that gets you on square one for pvp.
I consider someone without access to assim set to be actively handy-capped. Somewhere on your way to T5 in all rep systems you can enter pvp on square one concerning gear.
To do that much rep grind effectively you want a dps focused build, using some of the rep goodies. This distracts you/ takes resources away from creating an effective team build for pvp.
Basically its a huge resource drain away from usefull pvp gear, forcing you into pve builds, and a giant "waste" of pve time.
I think two approaches are needed to help with this:
1) account wide discounts for new alts.
2) Match making mechanics in the public queues, that take both gear level and pvp experience (based on account) into consideration.
I don't have numbers for this for obvious reason, but i wonder how many people level an eng to be a healer, and then at endgame stay away from pvp after they realize they would have to do it all over again, because science healers is where it is currently at.
Good lord, do you people even listen? The Devs have stated that they will never make the Reputation system account bound. Accept it and move on. The sooner you do the sooner they'll actually listen to you. Havelock's suggestions, even if I don't really agree with all of them or have ideas of my own I'd prefer are good, solid and acknowledges that the Devs will not make the reputations account bound.
I'm sorry, I didn't know that they said that. I meant it in a lighthearted way, because I'm sure many of us would like it to happen.
...Basically its a huge resource drain away from usefull pvp gear, forcing you into pve builds, and a giant "waste" of pve time.
I think two approaches are needed to help with this:
1) account wide discounts for new alts.
2) Match making mechanics in the public queues, that take both gear level and pvp experience (based on account) into consideration...
Clearly I agree with approach #1. I don't PvP, but I get your points and I also agree with your #2 solution.
Is it the fact that it's a time-gated 36 days (ie you can't play harder/more to get done sooner), or that you have to bother using up a fair amount of gameplay time fighting pixels (PvE) instead of other players? Or both? How would you resolve the problem?
And you quoted my thoughts on account-wide unlocking... Are you suggesting if the Rep was one-and-done, you could make all the future PvP alts you want and they'd already be competitive?
For the record, *I* don't think the Rep System is bad. Pretty sure in my first sentence of the OP I even states that I like it, so I'm not sure what you think we're agreeing on. :P
I mean, yes, it's flawed, but it's not bad.
As for not being a job to get end game gear... Consider it's fairly easy to complete one Rep on one character. 15mins or less worth of play per day for 36 days. That's not really much effort, certainly not what I'd consider a job! Even if you count three Reps, it's still only about 30-40 daily mins or so to get the necessary resources and click a bunch of buttons. And the best part is you don't have to play each day. You can take as much time off as you'd like and it'll be right were you left it.
Is it Grindy? Yeah. I have solutions for that in the OP.
Does it involve Mindless Clicking? Yeah. Again, OP has solutions.
The Rep system only really starts to become problematic when you consider running it on multiple characters, but then, I have suggested solutions for that too.
You might argue the Time Gating factor sucks, I'm likely to agree there. Especially if you take a day off from the game, then you basically stretch completion out another day, with no way to "make up for it." I'm considering adding that as a Fourth thing to Fix in my OP.
.
Thanks!
I was agreeing that the Rep system is not good or perfect. That it could be made better. Sorry for the lack of clarity.
As for the account wide unlocking...yes and no. Yes all of the Rep Tiers unlocked, but no to having all the store items unlocked to be bought. Each character needs to unlock each store item, or do what's needed to get the special gear. And that gear is character bound. But the Rep Tier itself unlocked per account. There is a 'mission' that has to be run to claim the tier, and that's what I think can have an increasing cost and time factor on a per character basis. Each successive character that starts the claim increases the cost for the next character at that tier. This reduces the grind but still makes some effort to be applied to gain any benefit from the tier. That is what I was thinking, hopefully presented more clearly.
As for it being a job, it is, but not in sense that you presented. The time involvment to get one character loaded up with the marks and materials to start the rep gain mission is not excessive for one rep. But, typically for the time I am online, I take 20 minutes to get one mission started for one character for one rep. 3 reps each having 2 missions equals a total of 6 missions. 6 missions at 20 minutes is 2 hour comimitment for that one character. For four characters is 8 hours. That is a time slot of a normal job. And this is just to do the rep. Does not include doing anything that yoiu want to do for fun! SO yes, it's a job. I have paired this down to 1 hour per charcter by cutting half of the missions (I only do the mission that gets me the 2000 rep points and not the 800). This alone will take 50 days, if I did it every day. But I can't log in everyday. And I can't get to every character everytime I log in so this is going to take me months. I would really like to reduce this time sink and increase time for having fun.
And before you say I don't need to do this, I do. If I want to be the best that I can be for my fleet, I have too. Otherwise why be in the fleet? I am only hurting them.
And the time gate actually doesn't bother me. It's just the repetative nature to have to do the rep for each character over and over again is what bothers me for the small number of characters I have, compared to you. And I do not look forward to have to go through this same grind for my planed 5 more characters.
Problem:Excessive Boring Clicking!
To me the least fun aspect of the Rep "Grind" is visiting vendors, buying the same old hypos, shields, regens, commodities, etc. over and over again... It's better now that ground items let us buy in quantities of 100 (with the frustrating exception of Power Cells, still at 20). But I still have to make too many trips to a vendor, and click too many shops, slide too many sliders, etc. And then once I get the resources, I have to click too many times in the Rep window on Contribute, Sliding the Bar, etc.
Sliding Bars Online
Now found frequenting MWO short term and then Star Citizen long term. Raged Quit PVP long ago
- Gohan (House of Beautiful /Sad Pandas)
Brandon posted links to his Twitter feed where he was sharing a bit about the new S8 Vorn Rep. There are ito be fewer inputs and some sort of account-wide-helping mechanic... And earlier Dev reports say that the new Vorn Rep mechanics are intended to be retro'd to the older reps if they go well.
Brandon posted links to his Twitter feed where he was sharing a bit about the new S8 Vorn Rep. There are ito be fewer inputs and some sort of account-wide-helping mechanic... And earlier Dev reports say that the new Vorn Rep mechanics are intended to be retro'd to the older reps if they go well.
I'm...cautiously optimisitic. That's only the 2k rep project and we have no idea if these are the new system's marks (implying only one mark per day!?) or some item like the Shards from the CC event.
I'm...cautiously optimisitic. That's only the 2k rep project and we have no idea if these are the new system's marks (implying only one mark per day!?) or some item like the Shards from the CC event.
That's a smart stance to have; Cryptic will get it's time and money from you one way or another. Sure, you wont have to tediously click for hypos anymore, but you WILL have to stay in a mission longer, or you WILL get paid less on average by missions relating to that particular rep.
Bran said that rep could not be account bound because it is not your character earning rep. Then make it a "Task Force Reputation" and have it bee account or atleast faction/account bound while considering our captains on an account to be of a task force. Reputation doesn't have to be for the individual, army units have reputation.
This might have to be faction specific, but i would take that over anything. I am already committed to doing this twice. I think they are letting their grand idea act as a major barrier to lots of play possibilities. Effectively they have shut off my kdf side because I have to make choices.
Nothing short of account bound or similar rep will make me happy. that would be different if they offered 10-15 missions to complete that were engaging and fun, but running the same mission 50 times on each toon has burned me.
The things they are talking about are better than nothing and I am very encouraged that it will make it easier till they realize the error made in two more seasons. However any help versus what we have now will be like getting jabbed in the eye with a steel poker and getting jabbed in the eye with a red hot steel poker.
Making it so repetitive is bad, making it less repetitive is less bad. Making it account bound is good.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
Comments
I like those ideas.
I feel like the Rep system solved a problem preFleet starbase (nothing to do or earn), but now with holdings and established rep systems we have a problem brought on by the solution of the last problem.
Rep should be account/faction bound IE all fed toons and all kdf toons, yes that makes you do more if you have KDF and Fed, but really doing rep twice is better than 4-5 times or more as some have posted.
I get the feeling Dilithium and doffs have been thinned out and EC is so easy to earn that it will never be thinned out. But this game is killing the social gamer than wants to be competitive. At least put something that lets us earn rep exponentially faster in the Zen store. Let those of us with busy lives spend our money to make up for our limited time!
Problem - Solutions 1:
Meelikes...but just making rewards "Mark of Choice" for current T5 content would make a difference.
Problem - Solutions 2:
Increasing stacks is a no-brainer BUT there would be financial issues (extra storage).
Switching to EC instead of commodities would negate their existence in-game imo because the EC model can be utilized for their other uses.
If you're going to have an autofill why not an autobuy as well?
FYI...getting rid of the Rep will get rid of the clicking.
Problem - Solutions 3:
No, the Rep is not Alt friendly to the average player imo (note I indicated average as in a player that doesn't spend HOURS at this game in one session).
Instead of discounts/xp bonus it's better to just throw the rep system out the airlock for Alts.
Account-wide unlocks is still the best solution if we're forced to keep the Rep.
RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
In addition, if you're so inclined, I once had the idea that Expertise should be an account-wide currency.
This would allow you to pool expertise, so you could play what you want on the characters you want, when you want.
We use expertise to train our own boffs.
We use it to input into starbases, "lending our expertise" in a sense.
I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to lend that same expertise to other VAs who are in our roster. Even from an RP standpoint it can be justified.
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
I'm giving it all she's got cap'n!!! :P
The one thing that keeps getting brought up, that I just can not get behind, is a full account-wide Rep. Example: Finish Omega Rep on Character Alpha and all your other characters get T5 Omega Rep access at the same time. I do not like this idea.
When we level-up our Captain's Rank we unlock passive powers, access to ships, gear, etc, etc. That is done per character, and is generally accepted as the norm. Leveling in the Rep system similarly offers passives powers, access to gear, new missions, and so on. It should require work to complete for each of your characters.
As described in the OP, some adjustments could be made, but a straight one-and-done? I personally don't think it's fair.
Note that combining the three Reps, I've reached Tier 5 26 times over nine characters (with a 10th alt about a week away from three more T5s, and four more allts slowly chugging along). In ways most people probably don't, I appreciate just how much of a grind the system is.
This isn't a feeling of "Everyone should have to suffer like me.", either. I just think the Rep payoffs are worth the effort required to attain them. Mostly (again, could use some tweaks).
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
For PvE yeah, I agree. It's all about attaining gear.
The problem is in PvP, Rep systems like we have are a huge obstacle.
They deter newer players from partaking, they create a wide gap in power potential between new & old characters, as well as new vs. established players.
Creating extra hurdles, that are all entirely PvE focused, are extremely frustrating for players that really want to log into the game and just PvP to have fun.
And you quoted my thoughts on account-wide unlocking... Are you suggesting if the Rep was one-and-done, you could make all the future PvP alts you want and they'd already be competitive?
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
KDF: Dahar Master Kan (Borg Klingon Tactical)::Dahar Master Torc (Alien Science)::Dahar Master Sisteric (Gorn Engineer)
RR-Fed: Citizen Sirroc (Romulan Science)::Fleet Admiral Grell (Alien Engineer)
RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
Dom-Fed: Dan'Tar (Jem'Hadar Science)
Dom-KDF: Kamtana'Solan (Jem'Hadar Science)
CoHost of Tribbles in Ecstasy (Zombee)
EDIT: And don't get me started on lacking expertise, thank you Mirror Hour, but even grinding Mirror for an hour is getting old!
LTS, here since...when did this game launch again?
I mean, yes, it's flawed, but it's not bad.
As for not being a job to get end game gear... Consider it's fairly easy to complete one Rep on one character. 15mins or less worth of play per day for 36 days. That's not really much effort, certainly not what I'd consider a job! Even if you count three Reps, it's still only about 30-40 daily mins or so to get the necessary resources and click a bunch of buttons. And the best part is you don't have to play each day. You can take as much time off as you'd like and it'll be right were you left it.
Is it Grindy? Yeah. I have solutions for that in the OP.
Does it involve Mindless Clicking? Yeah. Again, OP has solutions.
The Rep system only really starts to become problematic when you consider running it on multiple characters, but then, I have suggested solutions for that too.
You might argue the Time Gating factor sucks, I'm likely to agree there. Especially if you take a day off from the game, then you basically stretch completion out another day, with no way to "make up for it." I'm considering adding that as a Fourth thing to Fix in my OP.
Thanks for the compliments. I'm feeling the same. I've been doing my 14 Alts about 3 at a time too... I'm almost done. Two more finish up all their Reps in the next couple days - Yay! - I'm likely to take a break for a while. The last three alts I have that haven't done any (much) Rep just aren't played enough to warrant the effort, so I may not even bother with them.
Thanks!
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Good lord, do you people even listen? The Devs have stated that they will never make the Reputation system account bound. Accept it and move on. The sooner you do the sooner they'll actually listen to you. Havelock's suggestions, even if I don't really agree with all of them or have ideas of my own I'd prefer are good, solid and acknowledges that the Devs will not make the reputations account bound.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Worse the 36 days that you need to get the rep passives, are just the start. They add up, then comes the set gear, special consoles, etc. this is a huge resource drain, that gets you on square one for pvp.
I consider someone without access to assim set to be actively handy-capped. Somewhere on your way to T5 in all rep systems you can enter pvp on square one concerning gear.
To do that much rep grind effectively you want a dps focused build, using some of the rep goodies. This distracts you/ takes resources away from creating an effective team build for pvp.
Basically its a huge resource drain away from usefull pvp gear, forcing you into pve builds, and a giant "waste" of pve time.
I think two approaches are needed to help with this:
1) account wide discounts for new alts.
2) Match making mechanics in the public queues, that take both gear level and pvp experience (based on account) into consideration.
I don't have numbers for this for obvious reason, but i wonder how many people level an eng to be a healer, and then at endgame stay away from pvp after they realize they would have to do it all over again, because science healers is where it is currently at.
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
I'm sorry, I didn't know that they said that. I meant it in a lighthearted way, because I'm sure many of us would like it to happen.
It's ok, I only mentioned it in the OP. :P
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
I was agreeing that the Rep system is not good or perfect. That it could be made better. Sorry for the lack of clarity.
As for the account wide unlocking...yes and no. Yes all of the Rep Tiers unlocked, but no to having all the store items unlocked to be bought. Each character needs to unlock each store item, or do what's needed to get the special gear. And that gear is character bound. But the Rep Tier itself unlocked per account. There is a 'mission' that has to be run to claim the tier, and that's what I think can have an increasing cost and time factor on a per character basis. Each successive character that starts the claim increases the cost for the next character at that tier. This reduces the grind but still makes some effort to be applied to gain any benefit from the tier. That is what I was thinking, hopefully presented more clearly.
As for it being a job, it is, but not in sense that you presented. The time involvment to get one character loaded up with the marks and materials to start the rep gain mission is not excessive for one rep. But, typically for the time I am online, I take 20 minutes to get one mission started for one character for one rep. 3 reps each having 2 missions equals a total of 6 missions. 6 missions at 20 minutes is 2 hour comimitment for that one character. For four characters is 8 hours. That is a time slot of a normal job. And this is just to do the rep. Does not include doing anything that yoiu want to do for fun! SO yes, it's a job. I have paired this down to 1 hour per charcter by cutting half of the missions (I only do the mission that gets me the 2000 rep points and not the 800). This alone will take 50 days, if I did it every day. But I can't log in everyday. And I can't get to every character everytime I log in so this is going to take me months. I would really like to reduce this time sink and increase time for having fun.
And before you say I don't need to do this, I do. If I want to be the best that I can be for my fleet, I have too. Otherwise why be in the fleet? I am only hurting them.
And the time gate actually doesn't bother me. It's just the repetative nature to have to do the rep for each character over and over again is what bothers me for the small number of characters I have, compared to you. And I do not look forward to have to go through this same grind for my planed 5 more characters.
KDF: Dahar Master Kan (Borg Klingon Tactical)::Dahar Master Torc (Alien Science)::Dahar Master Sisteric (Gorn Engineer)
RR-Fed: Citizen Sirroc (Romulan Science)::Fleet Admiral Grell (Alien Engineer)
RR-KDF: Fleet Admiral Zemo (Reman Tactical)::Fleet Admiral Xinatek (Reman Science)::Fleet Admiral Bel (Alien Engineer)
TOS-Fed: Fleet Admiral Katem (Andorian Tactical)::Lieutenant Commander Straad (Vulcan Engineer)
Dom-Fed: Dan'Tar (Jem'Hadar Science)
Dom-KDF: Kamtana'Solan (Jem'Hadar Science)
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http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=876541
I like the direction of these improvements.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
I'm...cautiously optimisitic. That's only the 2k rep project and we have no idea if these are the new system's marks (implying only one mark per day!?) or some item like the Shards from the CC event.
That's a smart stance to have; Cryptic will get it's time and money from you one way or another. Sure, you wont have to tediously click for hypos anymore, but you WILL have to stay in a mission longer, or you WILL get paid less on average by missions relating to that particular rep.
Bran said that rep could not be account bound because it is not your character earning rep. Then make it a "Task Force Reputation" and have it bee account or atleast faction/account bound while considering our captains on an account to be of a task force. Reputation doesn't have to be for the individual, army units have reputation.
This might have to be faction specific, but i would take that over anything. I am already committed to doing this twice. I think they are letting their grand idea act as a major barrier to lots of play possibilities. Effectively they have shut off my kdf side because I have to make choices.
Nothing short of account bound or similar rep will make me happy. that would be different if they offered 10-15 missions to complete that were engaging and fun, but running the same mission 50 times on each toon has burned me.
The things they are talking about are better than nothing and I am very encouraged that it will make it easier till they realize the error made in two more seasons. However any help versus what we have now will be like getting jabbed in the eye with a steel poker and getting jabbed in the eye with a red hot steel poker.
Making it so repetitive is bad, making it less repetitive is less bad. Making it account bound is good.