...I have told them that if they turn it into a dilithium sink I won't bother helping with it, so NO stupid special projects that take a fortune of dilithium and give NO points towards completing the mine. It is after all a mine and a mine does NOT need to be pretty. Almost no one hangs out at the starbases and we do all of the stupid dilithium sink projects there, there is no logical reason to waste fleet member's dilithium on making a mine pretty.
but there is a logical reason to run all the 'featured projects': fleet credit.
i run all of these and i fill all the dil for them simply for the fleet credit, which i use to finance all the doff contributions.
I think a lot of people start fleets for their own selfish purposes. I see people spamming that they need 5 to start a fleet all the time. Maybe they want to be in control of others or they don't feel secure joining another fleet where they are not in control at all. Maybe some people have not noticed, but there is a lot of drama and childish behavior in fleets.
Provisioning items is an anonymous group process, but buying items is an anonymous individual process. I can spend all the dilithium needed to provision an item, but by the time I log in the items I helped provision are no longer available. Then there is the double dilithium whammy of you need it to provision items with it and then you need more to buy the item that you have no guarantee of being able to buy. Large well progressed fleets don't really suffer from this so much.
I think fleet progression should be a group effort, but provisioning items should be an individual effort similar to the reputation system. If I want a Fleet Elite Item after the fleet has progressed to the point where they can be bought then I should have to provision a single one for myself and pay the bill for the resources alone. Nobody gets ripped off and nobody can really take advantage of the hard work of other players.
I believe that the current system breeds mistrust and contempt for other fleet members. Fleets need to be large to make any real progress and that makes it hard for people to get to know each other. In many cases people just mass recruit people they have no intention of getting to know or treating fairly. I don't think I have read one comment about how to positively encourage fleet members to be active participants, but I have read a lot that sound like, "How can I better force or manipulate my selfish fleet members to help me get what I want out of MY fleet." I think many people in fleets feel like they are being used. If you feel like you are being used than you probably don't have any problem using the user.
I like that idea! Have an officer on SB (or even better just an exchange button on the fleet screen, which hails the officer) and ANYTHING you put in there generates credits for you, and fleet resources for the fleet, and leave it at that one single currency for all fleet projects.
All projects will just require different amounts to fleet resource credits.
Depending on the item converted, an appropriate amount of fleet credits / resources are generated.
This way no one has to donate dil. (which is the main problem), or EC, which will allow one to use those on themselves for their personal star base.. err Reputation :P
Players who have a ton of Fleet Marks (from grinding PvEs) will have a place to donate them, because that's what they have, not have to search out other ways to donate. They are more then willing to part with Fleet Marks because that is the marks sole purpose.
I really enjoy just running Colony, FFA, Incursion, over and over, with a few fleet BtPlanets in there too. I have a bunch of Fleet Marks, but no projects to put them in.
This would also eliminate the issue of having alts in the same fleet, as I just made my first alt, joined the fleet my main is in, but am having trouble earning fleet credits. I have a bunch of fleet marks, but no projects to put them in. So my options are to spend EC or Dil, which I have very very little of, being a new alt, or to leave the fleet I love just to convert marks into credits. But with a conversion officer one could just Hail them and dump the marks into the fleets reserves as fleet resource credits, and one would earn fleet credits to spend in the fleet stores.
Also this would eliminate the "double dip" of dil for the fleet store unlocks, provisions, then finally the actual purchase of the fleet item. (I never understood why in the end when one wants a fleet ship, or fleet gear, they need to spend dil on it. Thousands of dil was already spent just for that pack of 5 provisions, hundreds of thousands was spend just to unlock the ability to get that item. And millions of dil was spend to just get to that point)
Unfortunately as stated before, the purpose of the SB is to line Cryptic pockets from ZEN buyers to fill the 1.8 million dil requirements for one upgrade. And when you hit some one in the wallet, that get's their attention real fast. The players don't want to part with their dil/ZEN/$, just as Cryptic doesn't want to loose any income.
The only way it MAY change is if we all cry out and stop buying ZEN, in demand for SB change. This is our game, Cryptic just programs it.
White Doff's can be obtained by downgrading Green ones through the Personnel officer at the respective Academy.
1 Green = 4 White
As others have said, Dil is used for just about everything. Which makes contributing to Fleet Projects a balancing act.
If you are saving Dil to buy something, you do not want to contribute it to the Fleet Projects.
Dil, to me, is the biggest limiter for Fleet Project's. All other commodities are pretty easy to get, but each player is limited to 8K refined dil a day, resulting in hoarding for personal use.
I think a lot of people start fleets for their own selfish purposes. I see people spamming that they need 5 to start a fleet all the time. Maybe they want to be in control of others or they don't fill secure joining another fleet where they are not in control at all. Maybe some people have not noticed, but there is a lot of drama and childish behavior in fleets.
Provisioning items is an anonymous group process, but buying items is an anonymous individual process. I can spend all the dilithium needed to provision an item, but by the time I log in the items I helped provision are no longer available. Then there is the double dilithium whammy of you need it to provision items with it and then you need more to buy the item that you have no guarantee of being able to buy. Large well progressed fleets don't really suffer from this so much.
I think fleet progression should be a group effort, but provisioning items should be an individual effort similar to the reputation system. If I want a Fleet Elite Item after the fleet has progressed to the point where they can be bought then I should have to provision a single one for myself and pay the bill for the resources alone. Nobody gets ripped off and nobody can really take advantage of the hard work of other players.
I believe that the current system breeds mistrust and contempt for other fleet members. Fleets need to be large to make any real progress and that makes it hard for people to get to know each other. In many cases people just mass recruit people they have no intention of getting to know or treating fairly. I don't think I have read one comment about how to positively encourage fleet members to be active participants, but I have read a lot that sound like, "How can I better force or manipulate my selfish fleet members to help me get what I want out of MY fleet." I think many people in fleets feel like they are being used. If you feel like you are being used than you probably don't have any problem using the user.
Sounds pretty reasonable to me, I kind of like the idea that fleet provisions should be something each member pays for individually. This will guarantee they get what they need so long as they pay for it with their own resources.
Commodities aint cheap (even at the cheap vendors or embassy)
Dilithium is limited release over time
Doffs are a huge PITA to get (30k each, or you have to spend your previous fleet credits to get more, or wait 2-4 days at a time to get like 10)
There are your reasons.
Oh and I have probably put 2-3 million of my fleet credits back into the fleets I am in, just to help fill doff stuff. =/ (doffs are universally the last thing to get done because they are the hardest thing to get a lot of)
They really need to do something particularly about the duty officers. They are way too time gated.
To start, I love Wonka. When I see your icon, I think, "Tell me again how..." :-P
Ok, Doffs. The thing is this. You can't put them in the bank. You can't mail them around the universe any more, and you can't always predict what you will need when while planning days ahead on paltry recruitment missions. You either A) have to spend your fleet credits to fill needs as needed or wait days and days to get lucky for a handful of them and sell them if you don't because you don't have room to collect weeks worth of them waiting for a mission to pop up. We have ZEN store unlocks, fine and dandy... for people willing to part with say, the value of a fleet module or two to store doffs. I did but do I really want to ask our people in the fleet to spend money or exchange zen to store doffs? I cringe at asking people to do anything because they are here to have fun, not answer to fleet officers about their daily production. Tier 5 for us is very close and it can't be coming soon enough. I think most are sick and tired of the grinding and robbing reputation for the base holdings. They want tier 5 but they want reputation items. They want fleet weapons and supplies that cost the same thing (dilithium and not doffs but they are related) as donations. I have said myself, "I just spent 140,000 fleet credits and 70,000 dilithium on weapons and in about 6 weeks, who knows what the elite ones I want to replace these with are going to be." Me? I'm about to the point where advanced is fine with me. But our players want elite gear. Doffs hold us back more often then dilithium. And I don't blame them one bit for not wanting to dump mission doffs for base slave labor and not wanting to buy more slots to store them.
I would suggest a "Doff Pool" on the starbase, like a bank for doffs that is gated so it is your own safety deposit box like your bank account is. You can add to missions right out of the box (at the base to make it less convenient if you will). The doff pool would be a project unlock just like the tailor etc. It sure beats asking your fleet to buy expansion slots for doff storage and I think people would donate to it just to get rid of the hordes sleeping around their ship waiting for exile to labor on a base.
I don't know if anyone's suggested, but you can always do what our fleet does: set up fleet ranks w/ varying degrees of access to the bank and fleet provisioning. Then, tie the fleet ranks to fleet credits earned. Sure, the FM and expertise will continue to be filled first, but if members want to access the shinies, they will be forced to contribute other needed items.
This is pretty much how the fleet I am in does it also, I probably didn't explain it clear enough in my previous post
I think a lot of people start fleets for their own selfish purposes. I see people spamming that they need 5 to start a fleet all the time. Maybe they want to be in control of others or they don't fill secure joining another fleet where they are not in control at all. Maybe some people have not noticed, but there is a lot of drama and childish behavior in fleets.
Provisioning items is an anonymous group process, but buying items is an anonymous individual process. I can spend all the dilithium needed to provision an item, but by the time I log in the items I helped provision are no longer available. Then there is the double dilithium whammy of you need it to provision items with it and then you need more to buy the item that you have no guarantee of being able to buy. Large well progressed fleets don't really suffer from this so much.
I think fleet progression should be a group effort, but provisioning items should be an individual effort similar to the reputation system. If I want a Fleet Elite Item after the fleet has progressed to the point where they can be bought then I should have to provision a single one for myself and pay the bill for the resources alone. Nobody gets ripped off and nobody can really take advantage of the hard work of other players.
I believe that the current system breeds mistrust and contempt for other fleet members. Fleets need to be large to make any real progress and that makes it hard for people to get to know each other. In many cases people just mass recruit people they have no intention of getting to know or treating fairly. I don't think I have read one comment about how to positively encourage fleet members to be active participants, but I have read a lot that sound like, "How can I better force or manipulate my selfish fleet members to help me get what I want out of MY fleet." I think many people in fleets feel like they are being used. If you feel like you are being used than you probably don't have any problem using the user.
I think this is one of the best suggestions yet - provisions should be tied to the player and not the base. If you want to buy stuff you can run a special provision assignment at the base. That would be completely fair, especially since things like ship provisions cost about 40k Dilithium past T4.
The only concern I seem to face is that of Dilithium. Generally the fleets I'm in have little issue with anything else. It's just the Dilithium that lets us down. Wouldn't be so bad if it was worth more (fleet credits) but it isn't, and it can (especially for casual players) be hard to acquire.
but there is a logical reason to run all the 'featured projects': fleet credit.
i run all of these and i fill all the dil for them simply for the fleet credit, which i use to finance all the doff contributions.
I finance 99.9% of all the doff contributions. I don't need to turn the mine into a dilithium sink to do this.
I think a lot of people start fleets for their own selfish purposes. I see people spamming that they need 5 to start a fleet all the time. Maybe they want to be in control of others or they don't fill secure joining another fleet where they are not in control at all. Maybe some people have not noticed, but there is a lot of drama and childish behavior in fleets.
This is so true it hurts. In my experience, those are mostly the same people who also join existing fleets for entirely selfish reasons too and then complain about the 'restrictions'. It's fine if it's all up front and open, as in 'I'll join, dump my marks/dil, grab my gear and be on my way', but those restrictions are most often put in place to protect to group against the (selfish) individual.
Also, small fleets or large fleets with few contributors most likely won't have the provisions to cater for members who are just in it for the gear, no matter what tier they're at and I can see why some folks might resent some new guy who just wants gear actively seeking a T5/T3/T3 fleet without having done the massive collective grind it takes to get there.
As an aside, I really don't see people's problems with those so-called restrictions. All most fleets are asking is that you are an active member of their community. It's a MMO after all... and in most cases, the requirements for store access are not much more than what the stuff you'll want to buy will cost in Fleet Credits anyway.
"So my fun is wrong?"
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
I think this is one of the best suggestions yet - provisions should be tied to the player and not the base. If you want to buy stuff you can run a special provision assignment at the base. That would be completely fair, especially since things like ship provisions cost about 40k Dilithium past T4.
Just wanted to say a few things regarding this post...
My fleet, though I am not the leader of it, it absolutely thriving and players are almost in competition to donate to all fleet projects.
Mostly I think it is all about fleet participation, and how much the leaders in the fleet do to strive to get people to participate in fleet events. This can be as simple as helping fleet members who need help completing missions or organizing fleet groups for STF play. The fleet the plays together stays together and from that the fleet will want to contribute all resources to all fleet projects.
As we are nearing completion of all of our fleet holdings it has become really difficult for new fleet members to get any fleet credits. So we had to make a "sister fleet" and have it available so fleet members can go join it and make contributions to that fleet and then come back and join the main fleet again.
This is a serious problem with fleets in general and I wish Cryptic would take a look at allowing fleets like this to ally with each other so that each fleet can remain where they are and still be able to contribute to both fleets projects. By doing this all you would need to do is find a new fleet that is small and already formed and convince them to ally with your larger and almost completed fleet, instead of actually creating a fleet and having members quit one to contribute to the other.
Another thing I hate about fleet projects is when a project requires Dilithium provisions and you do not get any fleet credits from donating them. Is this something that needs looking at by Cryptic devs? It sure does seem like it.
I have a few thoughts after reading a good chunk of this thread. If some of what I mention has already been said I'm sorry.
I think the symptom is basically getting something for nothing and just recruiting random people. I love my fleet, I'm pretty much a loner in the game and don't do much with my fleet other than chat and help others in the game. It works for me. But in my fleet we all know we need to contribute and just do it. We were running into dil problems but our fleet project leader asked us to contribute 2k a day and things got right back on track.
I think they should add as a t3 mine reward something that I call a refiner. It would allow the fleet members to add unrefined dil and it would automatically refine it for 8k a day to only use for projects. Just my thoughts as I have over 200k of unrefined dil sitting doing nothing but waiting to go down the 8k refining tunnel.
One thing I did to get extra dil was bought 1000 zen and play the exchange. I can usually make an extra 2k a day. Just never use the 1000 principle.
I don't understand the problem with dil provisions. You spend fleet marks to get them so why would you earn it back by contributing. Plus you can get it for free doing the mine doff daileys. And doffs just go to strafleet academy and talk to the different officers and also go the recruiting officer and do the doff recruiting missions.
I think honestly it's a matter of knowing where to go and doing the work for it. This all takes me about a half hour of transwarping and flying around. But it works. I hope this can help others. Also this takes time. It sucks but it is what it is.
OK, so the vast majority of us seem to have the most trouble with dilly and doffs. Some seem to be having issues with commodities as well, but that doesn't hold true in my fleet. It's just the dilly and doffs that hold us up. It seems like that's a pretty solid indicator that that contribution balance is out of whack.
A simple solution? Higher FM and commodity requirements, lower dilly and doff reqs. Especially FM. In my fleet, it's a race to see who's around when a project goes live, and that person wipes out the FM reqs. Obvioulsy, there are more FMs in the game, and not enough uses for them.
Another solution. Instead of dilly being required for fleet store purchases, how about FC/FM prices?
Yet another random idea: Split dilly reqs into refined/unrefined. I think this was brought up before, but it's a good idea.
Is it gonna happen? No. Dilly = $ for Cryptic. It's something that we as players have to come to grips with. But I'll add this. As Cryptic adds more and more things that require dilly to obtain, they need to balance that out and give us access to more dilly. This is where the idea of a 10 or 12k refine limit instead of the archaic 8k comes into play. If you want more of our dilly for game projects, let us have more. It's a business to you, a game to us.
As far as doffs go, it's WAY simple to go run a Bobo or other farm foundry and take that EC and buy 10-15 doffs out of the exchange for projects. But yet again, it's a hassle and another grind to deal with. And how many fleet members will actually go out and DO it? But if enough players did, how much quicker would that doff req fill up?
The biggest problem here is that Cryptic keeps dumping more and more stuff on us that we need resources for, and NOT giving us better/more efficient means to obtain those resources. All because we can buy dilly for real world $. Taking advantage of that to keep the game up and running is one thing, but it's getting out of hand. Like I said, that 8k/day limit is getting spread more and more thin as things get added to the game. And it seems like fleet projects are the first thing that's suffering for it.
I personally vote for higher FM/commodity reqs and lower dilly/doff reqs.
"...but provisioning items should be an individual effort similar to the reputation system. If I want a Fleet Elite Item after the fleet has progressed to the point where they can be bought then I should have to provision a single one for myself and pay the bill for the resources alone. Nobody gets ripped off and nobody can really take advantage of the hard work of other players."
+1, amen, hurra, I like.
Individual Fleet Provisions, and an unlimited Fleet Mark Conversion Bank to Fleet Credits = Most issues solved. Not all but most.
"...but provisioning items should be an individual effort similar to the reputation system. If I want a Fleet Elite Item after the fleet has progressed to the point where they can be bought then I should have to provision a single one for myself and pay the bill for the resources alone. Nobody gets ripped off and nobody can really take advantage of the hard work of other players."
+1, amen, hurra, I like.
Individual Fleet Provisions, and an unlimited Fleet Mark Conversion Bank to Fleet Credits = Most issues solved. Not all but most.
If all these things contribute to the XP of the fleet holdings in some way, then I'm all for these ideas. If not, I can see them having the result of less fleet holding contributions.
a separate 'quickie' tab with 3 or 4 larger project slots that give the same relative (to reqs) XP as the current ones might help too. I'd hate to see people joining fleets just to do their own mini 'fleet-rep' and never really 'join' the fleet.
"So my fun is wrong?"
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
If all these things contribute to the XP of the fleet holdings in some way, then I'm all for these ideas. If not, I can see them having the result of less fleet holding contributions.
a separate 'quickie' tab with 3 or 4 larger project slots that give the same relative (to reqs) XP as the current ones might help too. I'd hate to see people joining fleets just to do their own mini 'fleet-rep' and never really 'join' the fleet.
The whole concept is you would need be part of a fleet to gain access to said rep projects for individual provisioning, and too member's must contribute to advance the fleet far enough to even get access to those provisional rep projects!!! So in turn xp would still function accordingly, but less burden is put on fleet's to try and provide and fill provisions for them to be depleted so quickly!!!
The whole concept is you would need be part of a fleet to gain access to said rep projects for individual provisioning, and too member's must contribute to advance the fleet far enough to even get access to those provisional rep projects!!!
IE, work it like the rep stores? Sounds interesting.
IE, work it like the rep stores? Sounds interesting.
Something to that effect, heck they could easily find a way to implement it even if it has to be done at one of the fleet's facilities instead of your UI, or added to the UI however!!!
This is so true it hurts. In my experience, those are mostly the same people who also join existing fleets for entirely selfish reasons too and then complain about the 'restrictions'. It's fine if it's all up front and open, as in 'I'll join, dump my marks/dil, grab my gear and be on my way', but those restrictions are most often put in place to protect to group against the (selfish) individual.
Also, small fleets or large fleets with few contributors most likely won't have the provisions to cater for members who are just in it for the gear, no matter what tier they're at and I can see why some folks might resent some new guy who just wants gear actively seeking a T5/T3/T3 fleet without having done the massive collective grind it takes to get there.
As an aside, I really don't see people's problems with those so-called restrictions. All most fleets are asking is that you are an active member of their community. It's a MMO after all... and in most cases, the requirements for store access are not much more than what the stuff you'll want to buy will cost in Fleet Credits anyway.
I am in two very large and successful fleets one KDF and one FED. Most of the time I have a hard time donating anything at all. Fleet credits are a dime a dozen and if you have a lot of people chomping at the bit to donate even dilithium gets filled fast. One of the fleets I am in I am not too trusting of because of drama between the fleet leaders, members, and other fleets, but the other I don't think the fleet leaders are malicious. I have been in some fleets over time that had really bad characters running them or just a bad collection of people in general.
Each one has restrictions on what players need to donate to get access to the fleet stores that I passed a long time ago. The fleet stores are never empty and I never get mail threatening to kick people who don't donate whatever is perceived to be enough. However, I feel there needs to be a system for fleet members to get what they want from their fleets with little risk to them and their investments and to the people who run the fleet. Right now I think there is a big trust issue. People want to be trusted, but they don't want to be trusting. This is for both good and bad reasons. I think the more hard restrictions or changes that are built into the system out of the control of fleet leaders the less this matters. Being able to donate what you can when you can and provisioning and paying individually for what you want for yourself is the best way to do it.
I don't think players should get fleet credits for individual provisions. It doesn't add anything to the fleet. Maybe still have mass provisions that everyone can donate too that still have restrictions, but these items should be cheaper for an approved individual to buy. This way the fleet can still earn progress and players can still earn credits by provisioning gear. It could also be used as a way to earn the privilege to buy gear from the fleet cheaply as compared to a possible individual fleet provision that only gives one item to one person when they want it.
Anyway that is just my opinion and I honestly think the fleet system is built the way it is for a reason. It comes off as being more about funding the game through the ZEN for Dilithium exchange than being a fun interactive experience for players. That is why dilithium value to a fleet is high in quantity, but what the individual gets for donating it is if very small and then they need it to buy the gear they may have just helped provision. I think dilithium needs to be worth more Fleet Credits than Fleet Marks, but maybe that is just me. I would think it should be worth much more.
The whole concept is you would need be part of a fleet to gain access to said rep projects for individual provisioning, and too member's must contribute to advance the fleet far enough to even get access to those provisional rep projects!!! So in turn xp would still function accordingly, but less burden is put on fleet's to try and provide and fill provisions for them to be depleted so quickly!!!
I get the concept. But which members would have to contribute to advance the fleet far enough? The ones who did the T5/T3/T3 grind or the ones who just joined yesterday?
"So my fun is wrong?"
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
As a big 'doffer' I quite like the doff contributions. They aren't used by everybody in the fleet like FMs are, so I have more opportunity to donate (until Grouchy comes along, anyways!), and they both provide access to FMs and keep the resale on exchange value quite high, so doffs can be ground up, acquired and swapped in a manner that makes EC, FMs and even a little dilithium and recruitment CXP.
Again, the commods situation I'm generally fine with, as long as the amounts needed are low enough. The 'mulicultural symphony' FC generation project requires far too many comms arrays, Its totally impractical for someone with even maxxed bank and inventory.
My biggest gripe on the project front is the damn cooldown times. We have a lv 20 fed base, so no problems here, we are just cycling through multicultural symphony missions with their 30 mins cooldown.
However KDF side we are level 15 (?) and donating anything is pretty damn tough as, like most international fleets (I guess) we are made up of about 2/3rds Americans and 1/3rd Europeans.
This means that the 20 hour projects seem to get stuck in a cycle that means the project is only open as long as the Amis peak playing hours, so about 3-4 then! Which for me and others in CET means about 4-8a.m!
I am in two very large and successful fleets one KDF and one FED. Most of the time I have a hard time donating anything at all. Fleet credits are a dime a dozen and if you have a lot of people chomping at the bit to donate even dilithium gets filled fast. One of the fleets I am in I am not too trusting of because of drama between the fleet leaders, members, and other fleets, but the other I don't think the fleet leaders are malicious. I have been in some fleets over time that had really bad characters running them or just a bad collection of people in general.
Each one has restrictions on what players need to donate to get access to the fleet stores that I passed a long time ago. The fleet stores are never empty and I never get mail threatening to kick people who don't donate whatever is perceived to be enough. However, I feel there needs to be a system for fleet members to get what they want from their fleets with little risk to them and their investments and to the people who run the fleet. Right now I think there is a big trust issue. People want to be trusted, but they don't want to be trusting. This is for both good and bad reasons. I think the more hard restrictions or changes that are built into the system out of the control of fleet leaders the less this matters. Being able to donate what you can when you can and provisioning and paying individually for what you want for yourself is the best way to do it.
I don't think players should get fleet credits for individual provisions. It doesn't add anything to the fleet. Maybe still have mass provisions that everyone can donate too that still have restrictions, but these items should be cheaper for an approved individual to buy. This way the fleet can still earn progress and players can still earn credits by provisioning gear. It could also be used as a way to earn the privilege to buy gear from the fleet cheaply as compared to a possible individual fleet provision that only gives one item to one person when they want it.
Anyway that is just my opinion and I honestly think the fleet system is built the way it is for a reason. It comes off as being more about funding the game through the ZEN for Dilithium exchange than being a fun interactive experience for players. That is why dilithium value to a fleet is high in quantity, but what the individual gets for donating it is if very small and then they need it to buy the gear they may have just helped provision. I think dilithium needs to be worth more Fleet Credits than Fleet Marks, but maybe that is just me. I would think it should be worth much more.
This all depends on what we want to be more freely available: Fleet Credits or Provisions.
1. If Fleet credits are the issue, then they need to be easier to get in those fleets where there is a lot of competition to contribute while still making actual contributions to the fleet a requirement for getting them.
2. If provisions are the issue, and we make it so that they are individual, then many people are simply not going to bother contributing more than what they need for the next item on their shopping list. Net result is less overall fleet progress. Besides, if you still need Fleet Credit to buy the gear, and you are having issues getting them, see point 1.
"So my fun is wrong?"
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
I get the concept. But which members would have to contribute to advance the fleet far enough? The ones who did the T5/T3/T3 grind or the ones who just joined yesterday?
Both, just as it is now any have access so long as they are granted permission and have enough dilith and FC's.
Fleet members get to start thir own "provisioning" projects that will do the same like the fleet wide ones but that they can fill out alone, the provisions go into the fleet store pool for everyone to use.
Its just so that people can get the chance to donate fleet marks and stuff and get a better return.
The project cab not be canceled so once you start you have to finish.
I think more people would be willing to donate doffs, if when you buy them from the starbase, you get refunded the same amount of Fleet Credits as it took to buy them in the first place!
As it stands, I can dump 50k Fleet Credits on doffs, but when I donate them, I only get 10k back...
It should be: Buy 50k worth of doffs, donate them and get 50k back.
I think more people would be willing to donate doffs, if when you buy them from the starbase, you get refunded the same amount of Fleet Credits as it took to buy them in the first place!
As it stands, I can dump 50k Fleet Credits on doffs, but when I donate them, I only get 10k back...
It should be: Buy 50k worth of doffs, donate them and get 50k back.
The problem with this is that if you buy them from the exchange the fleet donation doesn't know what you paid for them, so it is just a standard ratio like everything donated except the freaking mine and embassy provisions which are a negative to your fleet creds.
* Provisions should be purchasable by an individual.
To the individual fleet member - particularly new ones - fleet weapons look like a pretty good deal. 20K FC, 10K dil. If you compare them to rep weapons - the only things in the same range of quality, they come out ahead: Romulan hybrid plasma is 28K dli per unit.
The thing is, that means someone in the fleet had to pay like 20K dil to provide the provision. That means that in practice fleet weapons are actually more expensive, but the cost is split between two people and the person getting the weapon actually pays the smaller share.
On the one hand, this *can* be a good thing: if more experienced players want to defray the cost of advanced or elite weapons to help their newer friends gear up, that's great...
But it also means the constant potential for shortages or raiders.
They should make provisions an item that you can purchase one at a time in order to use the fleet store, in addition to having a common pool of provisions to help newer members gear up.
That way, altruistic fleet leaders could keep a provisioned store to help new members gear for STFs/PvP, but people could also be guaranteed the use of fleet holdings they contributed to whenever they want, instead of hoping the store has provisions. (Particularly since contributors to provisioning just made sure they have less dil to use to buy items than people who did not.)
* If they won't offer us a mass DOFF grinder, they should let higher quality DOFFs be handed in.
I DOFF a lot in the background while I'm working. As a result, it's pretty trivial for me to get trash blue and purples DOFFs from repeated colony supports, Caitian Field Flight Training, etc. However, grinding them down to whites is prohibitively time consuming. Like a lot of people have complained, you run back and forth between the personnel officer and the mailbox a lot, not to mention clicking on every single stupid one of them.
If Cryptic doesn't want to code in a mass grinder, or the option to grind blue/purple directly down to white, I would love the ability to just hand in higher quality DOFFs for their equivalent value: green should count as 3, blue as 9, purple as 27. (Or they could go like 2/6/18 or something, to reflect imperfect conversions.) Seriously, there are a lot of DOFFs I could be handing in that I don't just because it's such a ridiculous and unnecessary hassle.
* Dilithium Mine Provisions / Embassy Provisions / etc. are ridiculous.
Basically, they're just a way of saying "We're paying you too much for fleet marks." They don't even contribute to your standing on the leaderboard. Like, nobody even knows if you donated them.
Those should go away entirely. They could up the costs on something else if they needed to, but those are completely uncalled for.
Comments
but there is a logical reason to run all the 'featured projects': fleet credit.
i run all of these and i fill all the dil for them simply for the fleet credit, which i use to finance all the doff contributions.
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Provisioning items is an anonymous group process, but buying items is an anonymous individual process. I can spend all the dilithium needed to provision an item, but by the time I log in the items I helped provision are no longer available. Then there is the double dilithium whammy of you need it to provision items with it and then you need more to buy the item that you have no guarantee of being able to buy. Large well progressed fleets don't really suffer from this so much.
I think fleet progression should be a group effort, but provisioning items should be an individual effort similar to the reputation system. If I want a Fleet Elite Item after the fleet has progressed to the point where they can be bought then I should have to provision a single one for myself and pay the bill for the resources alone. Nobody gets ripped off and nobody can really take advantage of the hard work of other players.
I believe that the current system breeds mistrust and contempt for other fleet members. Fleets need to be large to make any real progress and that makes it hard for people to get to know each other. In many cases people just mass recruit people they have no intention of getting to know or treating fairly. I don't think I have read one comment about how to positively encourage fleet members to be active participants, but I have read a lot that sound like, "How can I better force or manipulate my selfish fleet members to help me get what I want out of MY fleet." I think many people in fleets feel like they are being used. If you feel like you are being used than you probably don't have any problem using the user.
All projects will just require different amounts to fleet resource credits.
Depending on the item converted, an appropriate amount of fleet credits / resources are generated.
This way no one has to donate dil. (which is the main problem), or EC, which will allow one to use those on themselves for their personal star base.. err Reputation :P
Players who have a ton of Fleet Marks (from grinding PvEs) will have a place to donate them, because that's what they have, not have to search out other ways to donate. They are more then willing to part with Fleet Marks because that is the marks sole purpose.
I really enjoy just running Colony, FFA, Incursion, over and over, with a few fleet BtPlanets in there too. I have a bunch of Fleet Marks, but no projects to put them in.
This would also eliminate the issue of having alts in the same fleet, as I just made my first alt, joined the fleet my main is in, but am having trouble earning fleet credits. I have a bunch of fleet marks, but no projects to put them in. So my options are to spend EC or Dil, which I have very very little of, being a new alt, or to leave the fleet I love just to convert marks into credits. But with a conversion officer one could just Hail them and dump the marks into the fleets reserves as fleet resource credits, and one would earn fleet credits to spend in the fleet stores.
Also this would eliminate the "double dip" of dil for the fleet store unlocks, provisions, then finally the actual purchase of the fleet item. (I never understood why in the end when one wants a fleet ship, or fleet gear, they need to spend dil on it. Thousands of dil was already spent just for that pack of 5 provisions, hundreds of thousands was spend just to unlock the ability to get that item. And millions of dil was spend to just get to that point)
Unfortunately as stated before, the purpose of the SB is to line Cryptic pockets from ZEN buyers to fill the 1.8 million dil requirements for one upgrade. And when you hit some one in the wallet, that get's their attention real fast. The players don't want to part with their dil/ZEN/$, just as Cryptic doesn't want to loose any income.
The only way it MAY change is if we all cry out and stop buying ZEN, in demand for SB change. This is our game, Cryptic just programs it.
1 Green = 4 White
As others have said, Dil is used for just about everything. Which makes contributing to Fleet Projects a balancing act.
If you are saving Dil to buy something, you do not want to contribute it to the Fleet Projects.
Dil, to me, is the biggest limiter for Fleet Project's. All other commodities are pretty easy to get, but each player is limited to 8K refined dil a day, resulting in hoarding for personal use.
Sounds pretty reasonable to me, I kind of like the idea that fleet provisions should be something each member pays for individually. This will guarantee they get what they need so long as they pay for it with their own resources.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
To start, I love Wonka. When I see your icon, I think, "Tell me again how..." :-P
Ok, Doffs. The thing is this. You can't put them in the bank. You can't mail them around the universe any more, and you can't always predict what you will need when while planning days ahead on paltry recruitment missions. You either A) have to spend your fleet credits to fill needs as needed or
I would suggest a "Doff Pool" on the starbase, like a bank for doffs that is gated so it is your own safety deposit box like your bank account is. You can add to missions right out of the box (at the base to make it less convenient if you will). The doff pool would be a project unlock just like the tailor etc. It sure beats asking your fleet to buy expansion slots for doff storage and I think people would donate to it just to get rid of the hordes sleeping around their ship waiting for exile to labor on a base.
This is pretty much how the fleet I am in does it also, I probably didn't explain it clear enough in my previous post
I think this is one of the best suggestions yet - provisions should be tied to the player and not the base. If you want to buy stuff you can run a special provision assignment at the base. That would be completely fair, especially since things like ship provisions cost about 40k Dilithium past T4.
I finance 99.9% of all the doff contributions. I don't need to turn the mine into a dilithium sink to do this.
This is so true it hurts. In my experience, those are mostly the same people who also join existing fleets for entirely selfish reasons too and then complain about the 'restrictions'. It's fine if it's all up front and open, as in 'I'll join, dump my marks/dil, grab my gear and be on my way', but those restrictions are most often put in place to protect to group against the (selfish) individual.
Also, small fleets or large fleets with few contributors most likely won't have the provisions to cater for members who are just in it for the gear, no matter what tier they're at and I can see why some folks might resent some new guy who just wants gear actively seeking a T5/T3/T3 fleet without having done the massive collective grind it takes to get there.
As an aside, I really don't see people's problems with those so-called restrictions. All most fleets are asking is that you are an active member of their community. It's a MMO after all... and in most cases, the requirements for store access are not much more than what the stuff you'll want to buy will cost in Fleet Credits anyway.
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
Here here aye second this idea!!!:cool:
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
My fleet, though I am not the leader of it, it absolutely thriving and players are almost in competition to donate to all fleet projects.
Mostly I think it is all about fleet participation, and how much the leaders in the fleet do to strive to get people to participate in fleet events. This can be as simple as helping fleet members who need help completing missions or organizing fleet groups for STF play. The fleet the plays together stays together and from that the fleet will want to contribute all resources to all fleet projects.
As we are nearing completion of all of our fleet holdings it has become really difficult for new fleet members to get any fleet credits. So we had to make a "sister fleet" and have it available so fleet members can go join it and make contributions to that fleet and then come back and join the main fleet again.
This is a serious problem with fleets in general and I wish Cryptic would take a look at allowing fleets like this to ally with each other so that each fleet can remain where they are and still be able to contribute to both fleets projects. By doing this all you would need to do is find a new fleet that is small and already formed and convince them to ally with your larger and almost completed fleet, instead of actually creating a fleet and having members quit one to contribute to the other.
Another thing I hate about fleet projects is when a project requires Dilithium provisions and you do not get any fleet credits from donating them. Is this something that needs looking at by Cryptic devs? It sure does seem like it.
I think the symptom is basically getting something for nothing and just recruiting random people. I love my fleet, I'm pretty much a loner in the game and don't do much with my fleet other than chat and help others in the game. It works for me. But in my fleet we all know we need to contribute and just do it. We were running into dil problems but our fleet project leader asked us to contribute 2k a day and things got right back on track.
I think they should add as a t3 mine reward something that I call a refiner. It would allow the fleet members to add unrefined dil and it would automatically refine it for 8k a day to only use for projects. Just my thoughts as I have over 200k of unrefined dil sitting doing nothing but waiting to go down the 8k refining tunnel.
One thing I did to get extra dil was bought 1000 zen and play the exchange. I can usually make an extra 2k a day. Just never use the 1000 principle.
I don't understand the problem with dil provisions. You spend fleet marks to get them so why would you earn it back by contributing. Plus you can get it for free doing the mine doff daileys. And doffs just go to strafleet academy and talk to the different officers and also go the recruiting officer and do the doff recruiting missions.
I think honestly it's a matter of knowing where to go and doing the work for it. This all takes me about a half hour of transwarping and flying around. But it works. I hope this can help others. Also this takes time. It sucks but it is what it is.
End giant wall of text.
A simple solution? Higher FM and commodity requirements, lower dilly and doff reqs. Especially FM. In my fleet, it's a race to see who's around when a project goes live, and that person wipes out the FM reqs. Obvioulsy, there are more FMs in the game, and not enough uses for them.
Another solution. Instead of dilly being required for fleet store purchases, how about FC/FM prices?
Yet another random idea: Split dilly reqs into refined/unrefined. I think this was brought up before, but it's a good idea.
Is it gonna happen? No. Dilly = $ for Cryptic. It's something that we as players have to come to grips with. But I'll add this. As Cryptic adds more and more things that require dilly to obtain, they need to balance that out and give us access to more dilly. This is where the idea of a 10 or 12k refine limit instead of the archaic 8k comes into play. If you want more of our dilly for game projects, let us have more. It's a business to you, a game to us.
As far as doffs go, it's WAY simple to go run a Bobo or other farm foundry and take that EC and buy 10-15 doffs out of the exchange for projects. But yet again, it's a hassle and another grind to deal with. And how many fleet members will actually go out and DO it? But if enough players did, how much quicker would that doff req fill up?
The biggest problem here is that Cryptic keeps dumping more and more stuff on us that we need resources for, and NOT giving us better/more efficient means to obtain those resources. All because we can buy dilly for real world $. Taking advantage of that to keep the game up and running is one thing, but it's getting out of hand. Like I said, that 8k/day limit is getting spread more and more thin as things get added to the game. And it seems like fleet projects are the first thing that's suffering for it.
I personally vote for higher FM/commodity reqs and lower dilly/doff reqs.
"...but provisioning items should be an individual effort similar to the reputation system. If I want a Fleet Elite Item after the fleet has progressed to the point where they can be bought then I should have to provision a single one for myself and pay the bill for the resources alone. Nobody gets ripped off and nobody can really take advantage of the hard work of other players."
+1, amen, hurra, I like.
Individual Fleet Provisions, and an unlimited Fleet Mark Conversion Bank to Fleet Credits = Most issues solved. Not all but most.
If all these things contribute to the XP of the fleet holdings in some way, then I'm all for these ideas. If not, I can see them having the result of less fleet holding contributions.
a separate 'quickie' tab with 3 or 4 larger project slots that give the same relative (to reqs) XP as the current ones might help too. I'd hate to see people joining fleets just to do their own mini 'fleet-rep' and never really 'join' the fleet.
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
The whole concept is you would need be part of a fleet to gain access to said rep projects for individual provisioning, and too member's must contribute to advance the fleet far enough to even get access to those provisional rep projects!!! So in turn xp would still function accordingly, but less burden is put on fleet's to try and provide and fill provisions for them to be depleted so quickly!!!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
IE, work it like the rep stores? Sounds interesting.
Something to that effect, heck they could easily find a way to implement it even if it has to be done at one of the fleet's facilities instead of your UI, or added to the UI however!!!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I am in two very large and successful fleets one KDF and one FED. Most of the time I have a hard time donating anything at all. Fleet credits are a dime a dozen and if you have a lot of people chomping at the bit to donate even dilithium gets filled fast. One of the fleets I am in I am not too trusting of because of drama between the fleet leaders, members, and other fleets, but the other I don't think the fleet leaders are malicious. I have been in some fleets over time that had really bad characters running them or just a bad collection of people in general.
Each one has restrictions on what players need to donate to get access to the fleet stores that I passed a long time ago. The fleet stores are never empty and I never get mail threatening to kick people who don't donate whatever is perceived to be enough. However, I feel there needs to be a system for fleet members to get what they want from their fleets with little risk to them and their investments and to the people who run the fleet. Right now I think there is a big trust issue. People want to be trusted, but they don't want to be trusting. This is for both good and bad reasons. I think the more hard restrictions or changes that are built into the system out of the control of fleet leaders the less this matters. Being able to donate what you can when you can and provisioning and paying individually for what you want for yourself is the best way to do it.
I don't think players should get fleet credits for individual provisions. It doesn't add anything to the fleet. Maybe still have mass provisions that everyone can donate too that still have restrictions, but these items should be cheaper for an approved individual to buy. This way the fleet can still earn progress and players can still earn credits by provisioning gear. It could also be used as a way to earn the privilege to buy gear from the fleet cheaply as compared to a possible individual fleet provision that only gives one item to one person when they want it.
Anyway that is just my opinion and I honestly think the fleet system is built the way it is for a reason. It comes off as being more about funding the game through the ZEN for Dilithium exchange than being a fun interactive experience for players. That is why dilithium value to a fleet is high in quantity, but what the individual gets for donating it is if very small and then they need it to buy the gear they may have just helped provision. I think dilithium needs to be worth more Fleet Credits than Fleet Marks, but maybe that is just me. I would think it should be worth much more.
I get the concept. But which members would have to contribute to advance the fleet far enough? The ones who did the T5/T3/T3 grind or the ones who just joined yesterday?
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
Again, the commods situation I'm generally fine with, as long as the amounts needed are low enough. The 'mulicultural symphony' FC generation project requires far too many comms arrays, Its totally impractical for someone with even maxxed bank and inventory.
My biggest gripe on the project front is the damn cooldown times. We have a lv 20 fed base, so no problems here, we are just cycling through multicultural symphony missions with their 30 mins cooldown.
However KDF side we are level 15 (?) and donating anything is pretty damn tough as, like most international fleets (I guess) we are made up of about 2/3rds Americans and 1/3rd Europeans.
This means that the 20 hour projects seem to get stuck in a cycle that means the project is only open as long as the Amis peak playing hours, so about 3-4 then! Which for me and others in CET means about 4-8a.m!
This all depends on what we want to be more freely available: Fleet Credits or Provisions.
1. If Fleet credits are the issue, then they need to be easier to get in those fleets where there is a lot of competition to contribute while still making actual contributions to the fleet a requirement for getting them.
2. If provisions are the issue, and we make it so that they are individual, then many people are simply not going to bother contributing more than what they need for the next item on their shopping list. Net result is less overall fleet progress. Besides, if you still need Fleet Credit to buy the gear, and you are having issues getting them, see point 1.
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
Both, just as it is now any have access so long as they are granted permission and have enough dilith and FC's.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Its just so that people can get the chance to donate fleet marks and stuff and get a better return.
The project cab not be canceled so once you start you have to finish.
As it stands, I can dump 50k Fleet Credits on doffs, but when I donate them, I only get 10k back...
It should be: Buy 50k worth of doffs, donate them and get 50k back.
The problem with this is that if you buy them from the exchange the fleet donation doesn't know what you paid for them, so it is just a standard ratio like everything donated except the freaking mine and embassy provisions which are a negative to your fleet creds.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
* Provisions should be purchasable by an individual.
To the individual fleet member - particularly new ones - fleet weapons look like a pretty good deal. 20K FC, 10K dil. If you compare them to rep weapons - the only things in the same range of quality, they come out ahead: Romulan hybrid plasma is 28K dli per unit.
The thing is, that means someone in the fleet had to pay like 20K dil to provide the provision. That means that in practice fleet weapons are actually more expensive, but the cost is split between two people and the person getting the weapon actually pays the smaller share.
On the one hand, this *can* be a good thing: if more experienced players want to defray the cost of advanced or elite weapons to help their newer friends gear up, that's great...
But it also means the constant potential for shortages or raiders.
They should make provisions an item that you can purchase one at a time in order to use the fleet store, in addition to having a common pool of provisions to help newer members gear up.
That way, altruistic fleet leaders could keep a provisioned store to help new members gear for STFs/PvP, but people could also be guaranteed the use of fleet holdings they contributed to whenever they want, instead of hoping the store has provisions. (Particularly since contributors to provisioning just made sure they have less dil to use to buy items than people who did not.)
* If they won't offer us a mass DOFF grinder, they should let higher quality DOFFs be handed in.
I DOFF a lot in the background while I'm working. As a result, it's pretty trivial for me to get trash blue and purples DOFFs from repeated colony supports, Caitian Field Flight Training, etc. However, grinding them down to whites is prohibitively time consuming. Like a lot of people have complained, you run back and forth between the personnel officer and the mailbox a lot, not to mention clicking on every single stupid one of them.
If Cryptic doesn't want to code in a mass grinder, or the option to grind blue/purple directly down to white, I would love the ability to just hand in higher quality DOFFs for their equivalent value: green should count as 3, blue as 9, purple as 27. (Or they could go like 2/6/18 or something, to reflect imperfect conversions.) Seriously, there are a lot of DOFFs I could be handing in that I don't just because it's such a ridiculous and unnecessary hassle.
* Dilithium Mine Provisions / Embassy Provisions / etc. are ridiculous.
Basically, they're just a way of saying "We're paying you too much for fleet marks." They don't even contribute to your standing on the leaderboard. Like, nobody even knows if you donated them.
Those should go away entirely. They could up the costs on something else if they needed to, but those are completely uncalled for.