People Leaving during Fleet Alerts

kingspore · October 2013

So this kind of really annoys me and is really disappointing to me when half the team when the boss ship comes in during the Fleet Alert. Its incredibly unsatisfying when half the team leaves after the boss ship comes in and makes you lose. Now that the AFK problem is mostly fixed, I think that this one should be the next one fixed. Is there anyone out there that agrees with me?

markhawkman · October 2013

It does seem rather odd that the mission doesn't give you a CD, but DOES give you rewards for bailing half-way through...

rylanadionysis · October 2013

Our fleet has adopted a policy to the members that we are not to leave this early just to farm it like others are doing. I cant count the number of times I see people bug out as siege wave spawns. Fortunately I usually have the firepower to do it on my own, but less geared ships would just have no chance.

Not only is it really cheap, but it screws over people trying to get their accolades done, and especially those who are lower level and looking for some xp out of the fight.

The fleetmarks shouldnt award during the waves, they should award in a box at the end like most other fleet actions do.

NWS is the only one I am aware of that also uses the wave by wave mark award mechanic, but in that one leaving early denies you something good.

vsilverwings1 · October 2013

Perhaps then scale it like NWS so those wanting fm are given the incentive to stay.

kpg1usa · October 2013

Have you even considered the possibility that the connection is dropping? That has been happening recently, you're playing, and then the "Disconnected from server" error pops up. That's not the player's fault, and the player doesn't get marks when that happens.

rylanadionysis · October 2013

kpg1usa wrote: »

Have you even considered the possibility that the connection is dropping? That has been happening recently, you're playing, and then the "Disconnected from server" error pops up. That's not the player's fault, and the player doesn't get marks when that happens.

No, that isnt it with many of these people. It is the same ones I see time and again, and ive even been invited to do it before.

Connection dropping might cover all of 2-3 out of 100 times someone leaves.

deaftravis05 · October 2013

drives me nuts when they do that. Sometimes I can complete it solo, but not always...

and no, it's not a connection issue. If you see starbase beside their logo, they're quitting. If they disconnect, there is no transition stage for them, they just disappear.

milanvorius · October 2013

I don't think I noticed that before. I haven't ran fleet alert in a long time unless it was a group of friends.

To be honest I never considered that, but now that you bring it up I will probably bug out for the last wave......just kidding.

I have tried to get a team for fleet alert on the ESTF channel and never get many takers which surprises me.

gerwalk0769 · October 2013

rylanadionysis wrote: »

No, that isnt it with many of these people. It is the same ones I see time and again, and ive even been invited to do it before.

Connection dropping might cover all of 2-3 out of 100 times someone leaves.

Some people use the method to farm Fleet Marks. It is very annoying and sometimes has cost us the match. I have been invited to participate in matches to use the farming method also.

doffingcomrade · October 2013

reyan01 wrote: »

Agreed - it's most Fleet Mark farmers presenting as the problem here.

Given that FM is the ONLY reason to play that silly thing, whatever behavior yields the best amount of FM (and frankly, it's pretty paltry), is the correct behavior.

Therefore, it is YOU that is doing it wrong. When you consider that sticking around gets you approximately 3 marks and a big fat ban for your efforts, it's easy to see why anyone with sense is leaving before they get hit with a banhammer for staying.

Of course, all of the people farming that stupid thing are wasting their time anyway, the yield is absolutely terrible, and they're letting whiners leech their pay.

rylanadionysis · October 2013

doffingcomrade wrote: »

Given that FM is the ONLY reason to play that silly thing, whatever behavior yields the best amount of FM (and frankly, it's pretty paltry), is the correct behavior.

Therefore, it is YOU that is doing it wrong. When you consider that sticking around gets you approximately 3 marks and a big fat ban for your efforts, it's easy to see why anyone with sense is leaving before they get hit with a banhammer for staying.

Of course, all of the people farming that stupid thing are wasting their time anyway, the yield is absolutely terrible, and they're letting whiners leech their pay.

Um, not to jump at you or anything, but there are members of the STO community, myself included, that are achiever archetype (look it up) and are seeking the accolades sets of bosses. Are you saying your gameplay is more valid than mine?

Well here is my retort:

The marks are just candy as far as I am concerned. I dont even need them.

Do not justify your behavior or that of someone else with some garbage about "its ok to do it cause its design is beneficial to this type of player"

Who cares if its only 3 marks for "gasp" another 2 minutes of effort. And its actually 5 marks, for the record. About 55-60 all told for the whole instance.

Oh and the other thing, if you need to exploit the no-cd timer on fleet alerts for marks, youre seriously doing it wrong. I get over 300 a day (yes every day) just from running my commendation missions. I always have 3, and sometimes 4, ready to run. (not even 1 minute of time spent)

shoddyavenger · October 2013

I've Seen Countless times of this being done, and personally have NO problems with it. People here seem to disregard there are those out there that actually help out with the Named Siege Ship and THEN warp out. Heck, give THOSE people an extra 10 fleetmarks as far as I'm concerned. They don't HAVE to help out but they do (generally in my experience) and everybody gets their accoldaes.

This is NOT as big a deal as it's being made out to be. I kinda like buddies attitude there that everyone else is doing it wrong lol. But ya, I'll definately get flamed for that. Honestly who cares. It's a VIDEO GAME.

It's been said before, but i'll re-word it. If you LOSE the event, are you really gonna cry about 4 or 5 fleet marks? if you HAD intended on finishing it you'd have a 30 minute cooldown right? Makes no difference. There's probably lots of ppl that will leave at the end of wave 4 (ALSO only worth 4 or 5 marks). Heck, let's just all Beg Cryptic to let us gueue the event, sit there for that RIDICULOUS one minute "BRIEFING" TRIBBLE, hell, i'll even watch the cutscene, and RIGHT THEN AND THERE recieve 47 - 53 fleetmarks so we can all leave.

There's a reason people try to find shortcuts in this game.
-Gold Pressed Latinum. (ok, who cares. it's a dead currency. how does a currency die?)
-Lobi Crystals. (I dunno. i'm not made of $$, and the amount of time required to grind dilithium to exchange to zen, or enough energy credits to buy enough keys to open enough lockboxes to get enough.... ya'know what.. I've had enough of Lobi. Keep your ferengi whip I don't need it.)
-Reputation system. OMFG!!!!! is 20 hours friggin necessary?
-Duty officer Reaching tier 4 in all areas (I think i'll be level 1 on Recruitment FOREVER)
-Starbases. (NUFF SAID)
-Energy Credits . (you CAN get them fast. but with everything going fleet who cares)
-Dilithium. (Have you EVER seen a mission reward REFINED? would it KILL them to ease up on the 8k limit by,,,, a LOT ?)

-And of course, Fleet Marks. One of the few things that yields a somewhat ALMOST decent amount of Fleet Credit. Heck, dilithium gets you like a 1:1 return? WTF? there's NO CAP on Fleetmarks of ANY KIND (YET) but friggin DILITHIUM gets you BOLLOCKS in return for contributing.

So to the Early Leavers I say Do it as MUCH AS YOU CAN, WHILE you still can. Because lord knows, When I work at my job full time for a thankless paycheque, all I REALLY care about is putting in just as much time and effort into my STO "game"..

Guess we can't call it a "game" cuz it's more like a second job...

Hey Cryptic! EASE UP on all the GRINDING TRIBBLE in this game so that people don't start posts like this one ******** up a storm all because people are sick of cooldowns and grinding so they look for ways around it!

You've essentially killed the EC market once you release fleet tac consoles. Remember when you guys killed Gold Pressed Latinum? DERP! lol

Somewhere in all this mess is apparently a "GAME" where people have "FUN".
And yet all I see are countless forums with people complaining that they can't have fun because of one thing or another. Cryptic, can you turn this back into a GAME please?

markhawkman · October 2013

doffingcomrade wrote: »

Given that FM is the ONLY reason to play that silly thing, whatever behavior yields the best amount of FM (and frankly, it's pretty paltry), is the correct behavior.

Therefore, it is YOU that is doing it wrong. When you consider that sticking around gets you approximately 3 marks and a big fat ban for your efforts, it's easy to see why anyone with sense is leaving before they get hit with a banhammer for staying.

Of course, all of the people farming that stupid thing are wasting their time anyway, the yield is absolutely terrible, and they're letting whiners leech their pay.

It's one thing to setup a PRIVATE instance where you do that, but it's another thing altogether to do that in PUGs. Like Rylan and Reyan pointed out, people have a wide variety of reasons to play, and your behavior is destructive in a PUG.

@ Shoddy: I've said it before and I'll say it again, what else would you do if you weren't "grinding"? Whining about how you have nothing to do?

shoddyavenger · October 2013

markhawkman wrote: »

It's one thing to setup a PRIVATE instance where you do that, but it's another thing altogether to do that in PUGs. Like Rylan and Reyan pointed out, people have a wide variety of reasons to play, and your behavior is destructive in a PUG.

@ Shoddy: I've said it before and I'll say it again, what else would you do if you weren't "grinding"? Whining about how you have nothing to do?

No, materials and marks and whatever else still need to be collected. My problem is the amount of time needed to get them. you either concentrate all your time on gathering as much of one commodity as you can, or get a very small amount of as MANY as you can. either way, the grinding required to get anywhere eats up so much time it doesn't leave enough time to play the other content and really enjoy the game. It's not the worst, but it's not the best it could be either. changes need to come in place so that more can be accomplished in a restricted timeframe. we can't all live in mommy & daddy's basement playing all day. some of us have real lives, so game time SHOULDN'T feel like a second job just to make significant progress. I've said my peace, many people agree, many don't. i just think it needed to be said. and if it's been said, it needs to be said again till cryptic listens and acts on it. I don't take "That's just how the game is" as a good answer.

markhawkman · October 2013

shoddyavenger wrote: »

No, materials and marks and whatever else still need to be collected. My problem is the amount of time needed to get them. you either concentrate all your time on gathering as much of one commodity as you can, or get a very small amount of as MANY as you can. either way, the grinding required to get anywhere eats up so much time it doesn't leave enough time to play the other content and really enjoy the game. It's not the worst, but it's not the best it could be either. changes need to come in place so that more can be accomplished in a restricted timeframe. we can't all live in mommy & daddy's basement playing all day. some of us have real lives, so game time SHOULDN'T feel like a second job just to make significant progress. I've said my peace, many people agree, many don't. i just think it needed to be said. and if it's been said, it needs to be said again till cryptic listens and acts on it. I don't take "That's just how the game is" as a good answer.

Yeah.... about that. Rep is optional. If you don't feel like it you don't have to. Unless you want the rewards.

ankokuneko · October 2013

shoddyavenger wrote: »

I've Seen Countless times of this being done, and personally have NO problems with it. People here seem to disregard there are those out there that actually help out with the Named Siege Ship and THEN warp out. Heck, give THOSE people an extra 10 fleetmarks as far as I'm concerned. They don't HAVE to help out but they do (generally in my experience) and everybody gets their accoldaes.

This is NOT as big a deal as it's being made out to be. I kinda like buddies attitude there that everyone else is doing it wrong lol. But ya, I'll definately get flamed for that. Honestly who cares. It's a VIDEO GAME.

It's been said before, but i'll re-word it. If you LOSE the event, are you really gonna cry about 4 or 5 fleet marks? if you HAD intended on finishing it you'd have a 30 minute cooldown right? Makes no difference. There's probably lots of ppl that will leave at the end of wave 4 (ALSO only worth 4 or 5 marks). Heck, let's just all Beg Cryptic to let us gueue the event, sit there for that RIDICULOUS one minute "BRIEFING" TRIBBLE, hell, i'll even watch the cutscene, and RIGHT THEN AND THERE recieve 47 - 53 fleetmarks so we can all leave.

There's a reason people try to find shortcuts in this game.
-Gold Pressed Latinum. (ok, who cares. it's a dead currency. how does a currency die?)
-Lobi Crystals. (I dunno. i'm not made of $$, and the amount of time required to grind dilithium to exchange to zen, or enough energy credits to buy enough keys to open enough lockboxes to get enough.... ya'know what.. I've had enough of Lobi. Keep your ferengi whip I don't need it.)
-Reputation system. OMFG!!!!! is 20 hours friggin necessary?
-Duty officer Reaching tier 4 in all areas (I think i'll be level 1 on Recruitment FOREVER)
-Starbases. (NUFF SAID)
-Energy Credits . (you CAN get them fast. but with everything going fleet who cares)
-Dilithium. (Have you EVER seen a mission reward REFINED? would it KILL them to ease up on the 8k limit by,,,, a LOT ?)

-And of course, Fleet Marks. One of the few things that yields a somewhat ALMOST decent amount of Fleet Credit. Heck, dilithium gets you like a 1:1 return? WTF? there's NO CAP on Fleetmarks of ANY KIND (YET) but friggin DILITHIUM gets you BOLLOCKS in return for contributing.

So to the Early Leavers I say Do it as MUCH AS YOU CAN, WHILE you still can. Because lord knows, When I work at my job full time for a thankless paycheque, all I REALLY care about is putting in just as much time and effort into my STO "game"..

Guess we can't call it a "game" cuz it's more like a second job...

Hey Cryptic! EASE UP on all the GRINDING TRIBBLE in this game so that people don't start posts like this one ******** up a storm all because people are sick of cooldowns and grinding so they look for ways around it!

You've essentially killed the EC market once you release fleet tac consoles. Remember when you guys killed Gold Pressed Latinum? DERP! lol

Somewhere in all this mess is apparently a "GAME" where people have "FUN".
And yet all I see are countless forums with people complaining that they can't have fun because of one thing or another. Cryptic, can you turn this back into a GAME please?

Why is there no like button ?

And STO to a lot of people is all about time/reward ratio. There is no reason to ban yourself for 30 minutes by completing the event

azurianstar · October 2013

kingspore wrote: »

So this kind of really annoys me and is really disappointing to me when half the team when the boss ship comes in during the Fleet Alert. Its incredibly unsatisfying when half the team leaves after the boss ship comes in and makes you lose. Now that the AFK problem is mostly fixed, I think that this one should be the next one fixed. Is there anyone out there that agrees with me?

I complained about this many times, Cryptic doesn't care.

There is one Klingon Fleet who does this regularly and its bad enough the Klingon Queues are empty, so this is a major reason why I stopped playing Fleet Events on the KDF. No point dealing with this frustration.

markhawkman · October 2013

ankokuneko wrote: »

Why is there no like button ?

And STO to a lot of people is all about time/reward ratio. There is no reason to ban yourself for 30 minutes by completing the event

Hopefully Cryptic does the smart thing and adds a leaver penalty for this. Maybe an hour...

kingspore · October 2013

Well its nice to see I'm not the only one! A lot of it for me is the immersion factor, like who would just leave when the flagship comes. Its just mainly rude because other people like to finish what they start. Anyway, leaving isn't really a shortcut or will get you marks faster, there is other events to do. Isn't it really boring to just do fleet alert over and over anyway?

adjudicatorhawk · October 2013

Any time rewards per minute per effort are out of line, aberrant behavior follows.

This one's been on my radar for awhile now, but takes a couple of people working together to fix, so it's nontrivial (we have to restructure how the mission gives out rewards, rather than just changing the rewards that are being given, if that makes sense). Hopefully we'll get to change this in the near future - I agree it's unfun to have your "allies" abandon you just because "gotta get my farms".

sean2448 · October 2013

well i noticed once the bulk of marks are given players are bolting so the rewards need to come at end
nice to see you are watching it

futurepastnow · October 2013

I suppose the solution is to have a scoring system with a reward given only at the end, based on score. Like ANR or the Spire mission on Tribble.

markhawkman · October 2013

sean2448 wrote: »

well i noticed once the bulk of marks are given players are bolting so the rewards need to come at end
nice to see you are watching it

Well, the final wave gives nearly no marks.... if it gave twice the marks of the second to last wave then it'd be a lot better.

@ Hawk: would it be possible to simply change the reward numbers to give the waves increasing payouts?

therealguru · October 2013

the people that leaves fleet alert at boss spawn are hunting those boss for accolades. that's why they leave.

They should get a penalty for leaving on purpose.

dukedom01 · October 2013

adjudicatorhawk wrote: »

Any time rewards per minute per effort are out of line, aberrant behavior follows. This one's been on my radar for awhile now, but takes a couple of people working together to fix, so it's nontrivial (we have to restructure how the mission gives out rewards, rather than just changing the rewards that are being given, if that makes sense). Hopefully we'll get to change this in the near future - I agree it's unfun to have your "allies" abandon you just because "gotta get my farms".

When you find the time to work at this please make sure to investigate how it behaves with an active fleet mark bonus pool too. Because at least during the event hour an active bonus pool actually decreases the amount of fleet marks you get.

doffingcomrade · October 2013

rylanadionysis wrote: »

Um, not to jump at you or anything, but there are members of the STO community, myself included, that are achiever archetype (look it up) and are seeking the accolades sets of bosses. Are you saying your gameplay is more valid than mine?

I would point out that both Mark Farmers and Achievement Hunters are forms of Achiever gameplay. Both of them are attempting to optimize their payouts here...

therealguru wrote: »

the people that leaves fleet alert at boss spawn are hunting those boss for accolades. that's why they leave.

...and as someone else neatly pointed out, it's your fellow accolade hunters that are ditching you, for the specific reason that the game gave them the wrong named boss. For THOSE people, YOUR people, staying earns them a 30-minute ban and no accolade for their trouble. In fact, since you discount the marks as valueless, your people are going to continue bailing on you when they don't get the named boss they want. So basically, yes, I understand your position...but perhaps unfortunately for you, the logical outcome of both goals is bailing. If anything, the Mark Farmers are easier to convince to stay than the Achievement Hunters. Since Mark Farmers want a specific numerical reward, merely increasing the reward to match their needs will get them to stay. But the Achievement Hunters, like yourself? They don't get their named boss, the entire exercise was a waste of time, and you don't even care about the marks, and staying nets them a 30 minute ban for their trouble. Why should they stay and get banned on your behalf? If they are particularly generous, they might help you do some damage before they extricate themselves, but they're running serious risks of getting banned here for doing it, if you kill the thing before they can break off and leave.

rylanadionysis wrote: »

Oh and the other thing, if you need to exploit the no-cd timer on fleet alerts for marks, youre seriously doing it wrong. I get over 300 a day (yes every day) just from running my commendation missions. I always have 3, and sometimes 4, ready to run. (not even 1 minute of time spent)

You'll get no argument from me there. I pointed out this very thing in my post: That the people farming the thing were doing it wrong just by being there, as the pay is TRIBBLE, and you lose 20% of that pay for each non-fleet member present, as nonmembers effectively leech your pay for no return.

markhawkman wrote: »

It's one thing to setup a PRIVATE instance where you do that, but it's another thing altogether to do that in PUGs. Like Rylan and Reyan pointed out, people have a wide variety of reasons to play, and your behavior is destructive in a PUG.

You'll get no argument from me there, either. I agree with you. Those people are short-sighted fools. This thread is a testament to that. This thread should not exist, and would not exist if not for their short-sighted idiocy. You'll never see me pugging this mission, ever, for the simple reason that doing so costs me between 20-80% of my pay.

The fact that this behavior exists, however, is the logical outcome of the system.

rylanadionysis · October 2013

adjudicatorhawk wrote: »

Any time rewards per minute per effort are out of line, aberrant behavior follows. This one's been on my radar for awhile now, but takes a couple of people working together to fix, so it's nontrivial (we have to restructure how the mission gives out rewards, rather than just changing the rewards that are being given, if that makes sense). Hopefully we'll get to change this in the near future - I agree it's unfun to have your "allies" abandon you just because "gotta get my farms".

Im curious about this actually. Why couldnt you just go into whatever line orders the instance to award "4" marks on completion of that wave, and just change that 4 to 24 or something.

Add a 2?

vsilverwings1 · October 2013

I'm also of the achiever/accolade archetype and do not care for FM from FA, more profitable ways to get it and do this is sort of thing solely for the accolade (so changing the reward system won't necessarily deter accoladers leaving). Once I've got them I do that event if I feel like it or want to help those that are accolade hunting (and yes I do help, I frequently shout out or offer my help in Accolades channel).

In this specific case of Fleet Alerts, the one thing I feel that makes it worse (people leaving) is the randomness of the accolades not to mention the mislabeled ones. The Khellid accolade is the biggest culprit and I feel has turned a huge amount of the accolade community off from trying to earn them or stop accolade hunting altogether because they can't take the Cryptic random generator TRIBBLE them over. If there wasn't the need to repeatedly try our luck at this sort of thing then you'd solve the problem of the accolade group leaving. STF accolades are based on completion so why not FA's? Give people an incentive to stay not reasons to bail (aside from the 30m vs few less fm reward and chance to trying to get the accolade they want).

nicha0 · October 2013

I'm not really sure why people think this is fleet mark farming, if it is.. these people are too bright, many ways to get more marks faster. Since FA gives you a chunk of completion marks and only a few on the way to the end, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

The real problem is people are trying for the accolades, which is ridiculous to try and get. If you are lucky enough to get the race you want (plenty warp out on first spawn) then you need to be lucky enough to get the boss you need. The odds of getting what you need for an accolade are stupidly low, its grinding pushed past the limits of tolerable.

With a T5 starbase I'm hoping to face T4/5 enemies, not T1 enemies constantly. There needs to be ways to fix this, here and in incursion as well.

doffingcomrade · October 2013

nicha0 wrote: »

I'm not really sure why people think this is fleet mark farming, if it is.. these people are too bright, many ways to get more marks faster. Since FA gives you a chunk of completion marks and only a few on the way to the end, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Well, the thing with this particular case is that Alert, specifically, is front-loaded. The first three waves pay over 10 marks apiece...the 4th wave and the boss fight pay practically nothing, at least nothing that justifies the half-hour ban that results. When we were first forced to look for alternate sources for mark-farming, I noticed this first. We ran it this way a few times, but ultimately decided it just wasn't worth it and abandoned this action completely. The pay on this just isn't good enough for FM farming. Since then, it was widely assumed that this was the case: Naive farmers who haven't figured out that the pickings are too lean to bother with. For my part, I wasn't even aware there was an accolade involved.

It was rylanadionysis and therealguru who brought this "Accolade" notion to my attention, and based on the descriptions of when people leave, it seems far more plausible that this is what they're actually looking for. As such, adjusting the reward upward for the final waves, and in general, might actually improve the lot in life for other Accolade Hunters, by bringing in a larger population of Mark Farmers, who will fight to the end given a larger paycheck. If the mark gain is reduced or simply left bad, the mission will continue to be run primarily by the Accolade Hunters, and they're going to ditch no matter what you do with the pay adjustments, often immediately when they see that they're not getting what they want. At least with more Mark Farmers, the farmers would fight to the death because they don't care about the boss.

So any adjustment should be aimed at making this mission more profitable to farm, bringing it up to where we'd seriously consider it. Because as it stands, the yield is, well, bad.

nicha0 · October 2013

Isn't there a 20 mark completion bonus on this though?

Defera runs are better FM Farming if you get enough alts

People Leaving during Fleet Alerts

Comments