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Player Power Trips and STO
rylanadionysis
Member Posts: 3,359 Arc User
With a recent smattering of posts relating to a chat issue, and others relating to fleets in previous months... I am quite curious about something, Cryptic.
Why are players given ways via many different mechanics to be Overlord *******?
Now follow me here for a moment. I will explain why this really irks me.
Players like to play god. Give any fool a power over another and 9 times out of 10 that fool will turn into Benito Mussolini overnight.
You see this with Fleet Holdings where a Fleet leader will let people contribute until a certain point and then lock the contributors away from what they have helped him earn, to be doled out at his whim. Some fleets have a level where they open access, some dont. The point is that there are mechanics that could be abused very very easily here, and in fact are from what I have read. id hate to be the person that spent a year building a fleet with someone, just to get tier 5 done and get locked out because the leader decided he wanted to micromanage provisioning despite me having more contributions than he did, etc.
Luckily I dont have that problem (good fleet, good people), but many others do. But why is this actually a problem? Because a fleet takes a hundred people one year to grow, and just ONE person can then deny all of those people access to the best stuff in the game. Every time you join a fleet and start contributing, you do so knowing that there is a chance someday all your hard work (or even real life money) will be for absolutely nothing.
Then you can go beg for fleet access in ESD and pay out the rear for it. OR you can join some player constructed channel for the purpose of help and whatnot, just to find it is in fact extremely popular but not under the control of Cryptic at all. You find some guy with a stick up some place runs it and requires you to be oh so prim and proper in HIS channel, just because he can be that way. Sucks to be you, right?
its one thing to have global channels and fleets... but when you start tying content and gear in with the possibility for someone to play lord emperor of the universe and control who is allowed to have it....
Yeah no. This needs addressed. I have played many many many MMOs in my lifetime, but I have never seen anything like this before.
Why are players given ways via many different mechanics to be Overlord *******?
Now follow me here for a moment. I will explain why this really irks me.
Players like to play god. Give any fool a power over another and 9 times out of 10 that fool will turn into Benito Mussolini overnight.
You see this with Fleet Holdings where a Fleet leader will let people contribute until a certain point and then lock the contributors away from what they have helped him earn, to be doled out at his whim. Some fleets have a level where they open access, some dont. The point is that there are mechanics that could be abused very very easily here, and in fact are from what I have read. id hate to be the person that spent a year building a fleet with someone, just to get tier 5 done and get locked out because the leader decided he wanted to micromanage provisioning despite me having more contributions than he did, etc.
Luckily I dont have that problem (good fleet, good people), but many others do. But why is this actually a problem? Because a fleet takes a hundred people one year to grow, and just ONE person can then deny all of those people access to the best stuff in the game. Every time you join a fleet and start contributing, you do so knowing that there is a chance someday all your hard work (or even real life money) will be for absolutely nothing.
Then you can go beg for fleet access in ESD and pay out the rear for it. OR you can join some player constructed channel for the purpose of help and whatnot, just to find it is in fact extremely popular but not under the control of Cryptic at all. You find some guy with a stick up some place runs it and requires you to be oh so prim and proper in HIS channel, just because he can be that way. Sucks to be you, right?
its one thing to have global channels and fleets... but when you start tying content and gear in with the possibility for someone to play lord emperor of the universe and control who is allowed to have it....
Yeah no. This needs addressed. I have played many many many MMOs in my lifetime, but I have never seen anything like this before.
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
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Whilst I agree, I don't really think it's something that Cryptic can "fix".
The only real workaround I can advise is joining one of the aformentioned "good" fleets, ones like yours and the one i'm a member of, where the banter is good, the rules on playing and contributing are relaxed and the fleet has a set open access point for provisioned stores.
There will always be *******s who play the game, and have positions of (relative) power. The trick is to not play with them.
Oh I understand that, but there is always that chance, even if the fleet seems good in the beginning. Once a fleet leader gets the idea in his mind he could just kick everyone off of access and sell access for EC... thats usually the way it goes.
it makes me wonder at times if people dont bother contributing for this reason.
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
I think we'd have to warn new players and ensure that they make informed choices. IE, community driven effort over the devs.
(Some times, I think the devs exist only to give us more grinds and more toys, cos we seem to be doing every other job. It says a lot about our community since for most parts its still working! LOL)
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This is a true statement, however. The player does retain whatever fleet credit they have earned through donations to Fleet Tightwad. That can be used at Fleet Better Than Tightwad.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to manage human asshattery via code. Personally, I do gate opening the fleet stores until you have earned 125k in credits from our fleet, but after that... if you have the credits, and we have the provisions... go at it.
As you mention there are a few fleets at T5 that offer free access to all to their holdings... since I am not at T5 (yet), I have mixed emotions about this.. I think it takes some itiative away from the members donating to our own projects, but on the flip side, I recognize for smaller fleets this is a means to get equipment.
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Shut downs and controls by the fleet managers are necessary. Since we are on the topic of fleet, when did that become five people that can start a fleet, get fleet credits by donating to something that they just use to farm fleet credit, then go to the public service channel and as for a T5 invite. Or fleet maps invites that supposedly are good for "PR" of your fleet...this is nothing but a pacifier to give people what they want without having to grind it out like the people in their fleet. Lets see, I can get enough credit to get what want from a better fleet and never have to donate again. These things don't sound like a fleet of people working together to me.
IJS maybe the issue isn't the overlord
mack
To fully deck out a ship nicely takes about 300k fleet credits. 25k is not going to get you anything substantial. By making the commodity so cheap you remove any value it has to a new member. There are very few new members that can set up their ship correctly the first time. By keeping it that low new member are going to waste their fleet credit, get frustrated and leave. I like 125k. Enough to buy a couple of weapons and a few consoles, enough to make a difference in ship performance.
Mack
What goes totally unmentioned are the quiet fleets, which go about their day to day business run by leadership that isn't insane, where nobody causes any drama, there aren't any restrictive rules and demands, and nothing explodes. Many more fleets than not are like this. It's only the high-profile explosions that you hear from, and frankly, when a fleet is sufficiently interested in chest-thumping and posturing to get you to hear about them in the first place, it's only matter of time before an explosion occurs there.
You hear about famous things exploding because those famous things are famous precisely because the people running them had the kind of chest-thumping egomania to make them famous in the first place.
Our fleet is mid size we have over 200 captains when a new member joins he's on a 30 day trial this is so we can get to know them. after 30 days we promote them regardless of there contribution. We have no rule our feeling is donate if you choose to. How ever if a new member doe's contribute and gets a 100.000 fleet credits we will promote them before the 30 day trial is up. Once there promoted up they can buy what they want when they want if we run low on provisions instead of locking down the store we simply run more missions..
About the only thing locked down in our fleet is the bank members have access to the free tab but nothing else if a member needs anything from the bank they seek out a senior officer and they get it no questions asked we do this because we have seen people come in and snipe your bank.
Our simple system works we are a tier 4 starbase our embassy is completed and our minning is on the tier 3 upgrades our members seem happy and filling projects is not a problem for us.
But these really bad fleets? I've yet to run into any of them...
system Lord Baal is dead
I agree the fleet system is terrible. Especially when tons of top end gear is locked behind it with no alternative method to acquire it that does not involve a fleet.
And that is why I created my own solo fleet. That now somehow despite my best intentions has actual real members but they read the disclaimer and seem to really like it so that is actually pretty cool and I'm happy to have them.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
A simple fix would be to keep the current provision projects but have them add provisions directly to the members who donated to them ontop of the fleet itself. Make the amount each person who donates gets a percentage based on the donation percentage to complete the project.
Another solution and I like this better is personal provision projects. Below the upgrades section in the projects list add a new personal category with 1 project slot per category of provision. Make the requirements what one would expect for a single person to be able to do and reward an applicable amount of provisions to that person. These provisions can be used in another fleet or even if between fleets by getting a fleet holding invite but can only be earned while in a fleet. This would be the most fair for everyone because a jerk leader cannot stop you from using fleet stores, others cannot use the provisions you paid for, and you are responsible for getting your own provisions. But to keep people from just doing personal provision and never donating to the fleet make them only produce FC after the holdings are finished.
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Which exact rights + contibution lvl is totaly open for discusion.