I've played sto for about 3 years but took a long break just before the f2p transition. Wish I would of stayed subscribed for my vet rewards but couldn't afford to with family to provide for.
I've been back about 4 months and just finished grinding the TRIBBLE out of all 3 reps on my main char, it was horrible but it's all finished.
The problem is I have 5 more lvl 50 chars and I can't face doing it all again.
Anyone wanna motivate me to do it all again? Lol
Admiral Karaz - Level 50 Tactical - U.S.S. Predator XII - Heavy Escort Carrier
I've played sto for about 3 years but took a long break just before the f2p transition. Wish I would of stayed subscribed for my vet rewards but couldn't afford to with family to provide for.
I've been back about 4 months and just finished grinding the TRIBBLE out of all 3 reps on my main char, it was horrible but it's all finished.
The problem is I have 5 more lvl 50 chars and I can't face doing it all again.
Anyone wanna motivate me to do it all again? Lol
Omega's the easiest. Do an eSTF on each character, you've got enough O-marks for a day or two's worth of projects.
If someone would like to point to what you can do for Rom and Nuk marks, I'm all ears.
Grind those Reps out, Mister! Right now! If you don't, I shall replace ALL your Boffs with Tovan Khev clones and not allow you to change them out. Ever. :P
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
Well unless you plan to do PvP on all five of those characters, or really, really, really want some item from the rep track, you don't need to do them all. Each character can specialize in some reputation or another. PvE is ridiculously easy, rep bonuses are just icing on the cake. Omega is the easiest because of the generous marks from STFs, and Omega has the good rewards at the end.
I have no intention of grinding out T5 on all of my alts.
My main (Vulcan Sci) just got T5 Rom, and already has T2 Omega and T1 Tholian. I might drive him up to T3's, might not. If he ever maxes out the other two, it will be purely incidental and only over time. I haven't even bought gear for him yet -- still deciding what I want to do.
I have a Caitian Tac I plan to eventually rep for T5 Omega. But I'm in no hurry.
I agree the best way is to pick one specialization per character and work toward that as T5. Doesn't hurt to get to T1 or T2 in the others just for the passives.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
So, I've played sto for about 3 years but took a long break just before the f2p transition. Wish I would of stayed subscribed for my vet rewards but couldn't afford to with family to provide for.
I've been back about 4 months and just finished grinding the TRIBBLE out of all 3 reps on my main char, it was horrible but it's all finished.
The problem is I have 5 more lvl 50 chars and I can't face doing it all again.
Anyone wanna motivate me to do it all again? Lol
I gave up on the reputation system. Even though I could have pushed myself, I gave up because the system was too boring. Everything in the system is highly expensive. Cool down timers are an annoying mechanic. Someone would have to be unemployed, lonely, and depressed to play through the system.
Instead of trying to level your other avatars, I would just find another mechanic to play.
Do not torture yourself.
Sometimes a spade is just a spade. Regardless about how anyone will rationalize things, the reality is that the reputation system is a crappy game mechanic.
Agreed. The rep system as it is now is very taxing. From the constant grind for marks, to hoarding even more marks and dil for the items, not to mention how the star base, embassy, and dil mines all require work too. It's a rather cumbersome system that doesn't need to be replayed for more than one or two characters, unless you like to torture yourself.
Formerly known as Echo@Rivyn13
Member since early 2011
Agreed. The rep system as it is now is very taxing. From the constant grind for marks, to hoarding even more marks and dil for the items, not to mention how the star base, embassy, and dil mines all require work too. It's a rather cumbersome system that doesn't need to be replayed for more than one or two characters, unless you like to torture yourself.
It's a grind and its not a grind, other games that I've played rep requires an insane grind. Here in STO, nothing, even back when STF gear was based on drops, is that insane of a drop. I remember raids where one rare piece of gear dropped once in a great while and than it was a fight/argument/ninja and run, a full set took dedication.
You can be dedicated and get all the marks you need in 1 weekend (doing events rather than Epohh farming), than its just dumping every thing into the system. I would hold off on collecting gear until you hit T5, but for some that can be kinda hard considering the 2 week wait between T4 and T5. Use the time to grind out marks so in a few minutes of hitting T5, you have your full set.
The hardest part is the expertise and the wait.
Hi, my name is: Elim Garak, Former Cardassian Oppressor
LTS, here since...when did this game launch again?
It's a grind and its not a grind, other games that I've played rep requires an insane grind. Here in STO, nothing, even back when STF gear was based on drops, is that insane of a drop. I remember raids where one rare piece of gear dropped once in a great while and than it was a fight/argument/ninja and run, a full set took dedication.
Its does not matter what happens in other video games.
What matters is what happens in "Star Trek: Online".
Thank you for bumping my other thread, but I just like to point out this is nothing like political spin, its a fact. This game is an MMO, a very watered down MMO (no offense), but not quite as watered down as say a Disney/Nick Jr. MMOs. The fact remains, it is an MMO. In respect to difficulty this MMO is somewhere in the middle (PvP it can get pretty advanced). The difficulty mirrors the players that this game was suppose to attract, mainly fans, not people from a strong MMO background and thus the grind reflects this. "Grinds" in this game are a joke, just like how I can create 14 (almost 15) full characters that I feel comfortable playing "end game content" with. The only thing that has kept me in this game, coming back and paying money (sometimes in the hundreds of dollars a month) for the years that this game has been around is the fact that it is Star Trek and the game has its fun moments and I enjoy the way the system is set up (I really wouldn't mind if it were more advanced, god not in the least). Honestly the developers have made choices in this game that if this were any other title I would of walked away and never looked back (choices in monetization and dilithium).
This, what we have, is not a grind it is a timed gate. A little over 1 month from the time that you reach lvl 50 to get end game gear with all the resources you need literally handed to you. The only people that this system punishes are people with lots of toons (and I don't mean 3-5, more like 6-15). The system is set up in a way to keep a player around for a while and not just get to lvl 50 in a day/week and bored in another week, but coming back and actually playing.
Hi, my name is: Elim Garak, Former Cardassian Oppressor
LTS, here since...when did this game launch again?
out of my 24 toons I did 7 with all three reps maxed to t5. all I can say is, what else is there to do in this game at the end other then grind out the reps? all I know is if the system doesn't become easier I will not be doing more reps because it is far too much work for 7 toons.
aside from the mark grind I think the part I hate most is the reputation interface, actually I might hate the interface babysitting even more than the mark grind.
It would be so much nicer if you could just load up the items like fleet projects and let em run till it finished the tier/tiers rather than needing to babysit it every day. Would also alleviate the alt annoyance a bit since you could farm like mad and then just load up the project and ignore it and do whatever. Making the marks account bound/shared would make this even nicer.
The rewards could really use better sorting options and a option to hide the ones you don't care about would be nice as well.
Ideally, the reputation levels themselves would carry over to all characters on an account. You'd still have to do the grind on an individual character in order to get the gear you want, but there's no real reason they can't do something to make the reputation levels an account wide system rather than character based.
PWE/Cryptic needs to take a step back and really look at what they want to do with STO. Since the PWE merger, they've turned the game into a Korean grindfest, and those sorts of games just don't do well here.
Starbases are a huge grind, and more than enough to keep people going back to play the same content over and over again, especially for small to mid sized fleets who don't have the resources of the mega fleets. Making people grind their way through multiple faction reps for every character is more punitive than it needs to be.
1) Grind resources to cap a given tier.
2) Grind more resources for the privilege of being able to access the next tier so you can grind yet more resources to cap that one.
3) Grind even more resources for the privilege of adding items to your individual 'store'.
4) Grind yet even more resources in order to buy the gear that you just added to the store.
The person that thought up that system, let alone the ones that thought it was actually a good system to implement, should be fired. Preferably with real fire. Even the starbases suffer from that idiotic grind, but at least it's spread out over a larger pool of people, so it's less painful.
Using that same mechanic on an individual level, not once, but three times (and possibly more down the road) isn't adding value to the game, it's punishing people for playing. Even Blizzard eventually woke up and figured that out. BioWare got wise early on when they started their rep system for SWTOR and made a fair portion of that account wide as well, so players wouldn't be punished for having alts and actually playing the game. It's probably past time Cryptic rethought the process here and streamlined it so it's not so punitive for the people that are actually paying the bills.
Here's some motivation for ya
Theres another rep-grind on it's way down the pipes.....this one i believe addresses tactical consoles.
There see?
Motivated!!!!
[SIGPIC]tritrophic mutualism: we get a viable game experience, and perfect worlds new ai "ARC" dines on our zen[/SIGPIC]
Unlock what you want for any given character, but don't bother killing yourself to get to T5 on all of them unless you plan on playing all of them in PvP, as there's not really any need for all the bonuses on the PvE side of things.
If you feel Keel'el's effect is well designed, please, for your own safety, be very careful around shallow pools of water.
Ideally, the reputation levels themselves would carry over to all characters on an account. You'd still have to do the grind on an individual character in order to get the gear you want, but there's no real reason they can't do something to make the reputation levels an account wide system rather than character based.
PWE/Cryptic needs to take a step back and really look at what they want to do with STO. Since the PWE merger, they've turned the game into a Korean grindfest, and those sorts of games just don't do well here.
Actually, there is a reason to not unlock account-wide.
Now I agree that the grind is ridiculous, don't get me wrong. But going back to the days of pen and paper gaming, there has always been the concept of a separation between player and character, and that persists today in MMORPGs. Basically, just because you know something doesn't mean your character does. And just because someone in the game (NPC, alliance, whatever) knows one of your characters, it doesn't mean they know all of them.
Now I do agree that the grindfest should be more reasonable. I'm sure there are ways to do that. For example, why should I....
1. Grind marks
2. Use those marks in timer-based missions to gain rep points
3. Grind more marks to use to claim my reputation that I already earned in step 2.
4. Grind more marks to buy items (or unlock "stores") so I can get the items I already earned in steps 2 and 3...
5. Rinse, repeat to ridiculous extents.
There's gotta be a better way that doesn't just give everything away, but doesn't drive you insane with grinding the same missions over and over again.... One of those things could (and should) be to get rid of the marks requirements for steps 3 and 4. If you have the rep, then you have it - right then, right there, no need for double and triple marks taxation.
Ya know, the Omega grind isn't too bad - at least once you hit the elites you can get 100+ marks per STF. But Rommie is insanely time-consuming, and honestly the mark requirements should reflect the ability to gain marks. Especially when it seems that some times there are hardly any players actually out there doing the actions and you wait 10-20 minutes just to get into something - for a return of 25-40 marks. Or, I suppose, you could do the new rommie quests...but that return is pretty small also for the time you have to invest.
One thing the devs could consider when it comes to actually farming the marks is give us other ways to get marks that isn't dependant on other players, but gives a comparable return in rep gain.
Finally comes the question of - why even bother? I ask myself this all the time. I have 5 toons, 2 of which are T5 with all reps, with an additional 2 that are in the T4-T5 "home stretch" in some or all of their reps. This is, sadly, the substitute for a true "endgame." And that is one of the biggest flaws of the game as far as I can see it. What keeps people going in other games, like WoW, is the challenge of serious eng-game "dungeons" fighting multiple "bosses" who drop loot based on unique loot tables of items that you can't get anywhere else in the game. That strengthens those games, and strengthens guilds/clans/whatever. That could easily be tied into the other rep systems as well - "bosses" who drop fleet and (whatever appropriate) marks that could be split among the players on that run.
One last vent (and yes, I know this is going off-topic, but I do love this game, just wish it would reach for its potential) is the lack of drive for "exploration." Hit level 50, finish the episodes - what is left? Many of my ships never leave orbit of their faction's home world. Sure, I could go DOFFing, or try to collect all the Red Alerts. But what happened to the exploration, that was so key in the cannon? "Explore strange new worlds" and all that? Sure I could fly into various systems - but why bother?
The answer there is - a working crafting system. All it takes is an interface that is worthwhile, the ability to queue projects, and not needing to run back and forth to vendors for "patterns" for every single thing you want to make. Heck, you could consider the R&D console a "vending machine" and just charge the EC there. And put in some things that, when you reach the top levels, are comparable to the T5 gear. Maybe even do like WoW did a while back and make some things that are unique to a particular profession ("Sci officers gain TRIBBLE"), or add in some item enhancements that can be crafted. How does this fit in with the lack of ongoing "exploration?" Make missions where you have to go out and "quest" for crafting items - maybe some unique items that can only be found in certain areas, and are (moderately) rare appearances.
TL;DR: Every frustration in this game *could* easily be fixed. I love this game, I keep playing it aside form these "annoyances" - but sometimes it's almost like a parent looking at their kid and saying "you have so much more potential, if you would just work toward it."
Comments
Omega's the easiest. Do an eSTF on each character, you've got enough O-marks for a day or two's worth of projects.
If someone would like to point to what you can do for Rom and Nuk marks, I'm all ears.
Its really not that difficult when you have the numbers of things to do in front of you, found this and its a great guide
My main (Vulcan Sci) just got T5 Rom, and already has T2 Omega and T1 Tholian. I might drive him up to T3's, might not. If he ever maxes out the other two, it will be purely incidental and only over time. I haven't even bought gear for him yet -- still deciding what I want to do.
I have a Caitian Tac I plan to eventually rep for T5 Omega. But I'm in no hurry.
I agree the best way is to pick one specialization per character and work toward that as T5. Doesn't hurt to get to T1 or T2 in the others just for the passives.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
This way it doesn't feel like a grind and yet all of my characters make steady progress.
Instead of trying to level your other avatars, I would just find another mechanic to play.
Do not torture yourself.
Sometimes a spade is just a spade. Regardless about how anyone will rationalize things, the reality is that the reputation system is a crappy game mechanic.
Member since early 2011
Its like poking a dead horse.
You can be dedicated and get all the marks you need in 1 weekend (doing events rather than Epohh farming), than its just dumping every thing into the system. I would hold off on collecting gear until you hit T5, but for some that can be kinda hard considering the 2 week wait between T4 and T5. Use the time to grind out marks so in a few minutes of hitting T5, you have your full set.
The hardest part is the expertise and the wait.
LTS, here since...when did this game launch again?
What matters is what happens in "Star Trek: Online".
Link: Please top the political spin control.
Please and thank you.
This, what we have, is not a grind it is a timed gate. A little over 1 month from the time that you reach lvl 50 to get end game gear with all the resources you need literally handed to you. The only people that this system punishes are people with lots of toons (and I don't mean 3-5, more like 6-15). The system is set up in a way to keep a player around for a while and not just get to lvl 50 in a day/week and bored in another week, but coming back and actually playing.
LTS, here since...when did this game launch again?
It would be so much nicer if you could just load up the items like fleet projects and let em run till it finished the tier/tiers rather than needing to babysit it every day. Would also alleviate the alt annoyance a bit since you could farm like mad and then just load up the project and ignore it and do whatever. Making the marks account bound/shared would make this even nicer.
The rewards could really use better sorting options and a option to hide the ones you don't care about would be nice as well.
PWE/Cryptic needs to take a step back and really look at what they want to do with STO. Since the PWE merger, they've turned the game into a Korean grindfest, and those sorts of games just don't do well here.
Starbases are a huge grind, and more than enough to keep people going back to play the same content over and over again, especially for small to mid sized fleets who don't have the resources of the mega fleets. Making people grind their way through multiple faction reps for every character is more punitive than it needs to be.
1) Grind resources to cap a given tier.
2) Grind more resources for the privilege of being able to access the next tier so you can grind yet more resources to cap that one.
3) Grind even more resources for the privilege of adding items to your individual 'store'.
4) Grind yet even more resources in order to buy the gear that you just added to the store.
The person that thought up that system, let alone the ones that thought it was actually a good system to implement, should be fired. Preferably with real fire. Even the starbases suffer from that idiotic grind, but at least it's spread out over a larger pool of people, so it's less painful.
Using that same mechanic on an individual level, not once, but three times (and possibly more down the road) isn't adding value to the game, it's punishing people for playing. Even Blizzard eventually woke up and figured that out. BioWare got wise early on when they started their rep system for SWTOR and made a fair portion of that account wide as well, so players wouldn't be punished for having alts and actually playing the game. It's probably past time Cryptic rethought the process here and streamlined it so it's not so punitive for the people that are actually paying the bills.
Sir I must protest your signature for unusual amounts of wisdom and wit.
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
Theres another rep-grind on it's way down the pipes.....this one i believe addresses tactical consoles.
There see?
Motivated!!!!
Actually, there is a reason to not unlock account-wide.
Now I agree that the grind is ridiculous, don't get me wrong. But going back to the days of pen and paper gaming, there has always been the concept of a separation between player and character, and that persists today in MMORPGs. Basically, just because you know something doesn't mean your character does. And just because someone in the game (NPC, alliance, whatever) knows one of your characters, it doesn't mean they know all of them.
Now I do agree that the grindfest should be more reasonable. I'm sure there are ways to do that. For example, why should I....
1. Grind marks
2. Use those marks in timer-based missions to gain rep points
3. Grind more marks to use to claim my reputation that I already earned in step 2.
4. Grind more marks to buy items (or unlock "stores") so I can get the items I already earned in steps 2 and 3...
5. Rinse, repeat to ridiculous extents.
There's gotta be a better way that doesn't just give everything away, but doesn't drive you insane with grinding the same missions over and over again.... One of those things could (and should) be to get rid of the marks requirements for steps 3 and 4. If you have the rep, then you have it - right then, right there, no need for double and triple marks taxation.
Ya know, the Omega grind isn't too bad - at least once you hit the elites you can get 100+ marks per STF. But Rommie is insanely time-consuming, and honestly the mark requirements should reflect the ability to gain marks. Especially when it seems that some times there are hardly any players actually out there doing the actions and you wait 10-20 minutes just to get into something - for a return of 25-40 marks. Or, I suppose, you could do the new rommie quests...but that return is pretty small also for the time you have to invest.
One thing the devs could consider when it comes to actually farming the marks is give us other ways to get marks that isn't dependant on other players, but gives a comparable return in rep gain.
Finally comes the question of - why even bother? I ask myself this all the time. I have 5 toons, 2 of which are T5 with all reps, with an additional 2 that are in the T4-T5 "home stretch" in some or all of their reps. This is, sadly, the substitute for a true "endgame." And that is one of the biggest flaws of the game as far as I can see it. What keeps people going in other games, like WoW, is the challenge of serious eng-game "dungeons" fighting multiple "bosses" who drop loot based on unique loot tables of items that you can't get anywhere else in the game. That strengthens those games, and strengthens guilds/clans/whatever. That could easily be tied into the other rep systems as well - "bosses" who drop fleet and (whatever appropriate) marks that could be split among the players on that run.
One last vent (and yes, I know this is going off-topic, but I do love this game, just wish it would reach for its potential) is the lack of drive for "exploration." Hit level 50, finish the episodes - what is left? Many of my ships never leave orbit of their faction's home world. Sure, I could go DOFFing, or try to collect all the Red Alerts. But what happened to the exploration, that was so key in the cannon? "Explore strange new worlds" and all that? Sure I could fly into various systems - but why bother?
The answer there is - a working crafting system. All it takes is an interface that is worthwhile, the ability to queue projects, and not needing to run back and forth to vendors for "patterns" for every single thing you want to make. Heck, you could consider the R&D console a "vending machine" and just charge the EC there. And put in some things that, when you reach the top levels, are comparable to the T5 gear. Maybe even do like WoW did a while back and make some things that are unique to a particular profession ("Sci officers gain TRIBBLE"), or add in some item enhancements that can be crafted. How does this fit in with the lack of ongoing "exploration?" Make missions where you have to go out and "quest" for crafting items - maybe some unique items that can only be found in certain areas, and are (moderately) rare appearances.
TL;DR: Every frustration in this game *could* easily be fixed. I love this game, I keep playing it aside form these "annoyances" - but sometimes it's almost like a parent looking at their kid and saying "you have so much more potential, if you would just work toward it."