Added a matte material variant to Caitian Atrox.
Added a matte material variant to Caitian Stalker.
pics please? if its anything like a darker Jem'hadar shield visual then no thanks....then again ilike the steamline reflection...make the ships seem etealthy
I find this line of replies sadly hilarious. We put a lot of work into the massive list of fixes/changes above, and ya'll are hung up on the ability to skip our content. =p
And that is hitting the nail straight on the head as too why cryptic would do such move like this. they want bodies here longer.
I'm disapointed with this blatant and underhanded move to accomplish this, but that is the only reason I can see them artificially extending out the process like this
I agree that keeping people in game longer is something they want. I actually don't blame them for that. It makes sense for them to want to keep as many people in game for as long as they can.
However, I disagree with them that simply increasing the grind is the way to accomplish that. Personally speaking, there comes a point where the grind actually does the opposite. When I see a grind that, in my opinion, is too much, I end up thinking "lolno" and then going and finding something else to do with my time.
That's what I'm feeling right now looking at those numbers. I already have Omega/Fleet stuff, so why would I need to bother with those, especially at those prices? So instead of staying in game longer to get them, I'll actually be ignoring those items and just use what I already have. That makes me play the game less.
So I would say in an attempt to keep people in game longer, they're actually going to do the opposite here.
If people are going to use math to argue against this, can you at least use the right bloody figures, for crying out loud?
It's 2500 EXP for the 20-hour Commendation project, and 150 EXP for the hourly 20 Voth Marks project.
Doing the Allied Zone Daily will get you the Commendation, 50 Voth Marks, 960 Dilithium, and whatever Voth Marks you manage to pick up along the way by doing the small missions. Probably at least enough to get you to 60 Voth Marks including what you get for the daily.
I mean, seriously, argue all you wish, it's your right, but at least get your facts straight before you do.
While I myself am wondering why they upped the marks you need to spend, to think that this is some horrible grind...well, you should never play almost any other MMO ever. A lot of normal games, too.
I hope you all realize that the EC price inflation is just an evil plot to inflate the energy credit prices of lock box items on the exchange beyond the EC cap for non-freemium players...
If people are going to use math to argue against this, can you at least use the right bloody figures, for crying out loud?
It's 2500 EXP for the 20-hour Commendation project, and 150 EXP for the hourly 20 Voth Marks project.
Doing the Allied Zone Daily will get you the Commendation, 50 Voth Marks, 960 Dilithium, and whatever Voth Marks you manage to pick up along the way by doing the small missions. Probably at least enough to get you to 60 Voth Marks including what you get for the daily.
I mean, seriously, argue all you wish, it's your right, but at least get your facts straight before you do.
While I myself am wondering why they upped the marks you need to spend, to think that this is some horrible grind...well, you should never play almost any other MMO ever. A lot of normal games, too.
Your math still proves the point. 150 exp per hour, meaning you need to do 2 hours of straight game play, and you still need to pay 40 marks to get 300 rep exp.
So it still stands, just the numbers are a bit better. If you play one character for 2 hours, you'll come out ahead, but you'll have to pay more marks to do it. Those who play less then 2 hours, or have more then one character, will come out behind.
Oh and the gear costs as much as the other rep systems.
So 30 minutes of play will still net you the marks you need to reach 2800 but you'll need to dedicate a bit more time to it in order to actually reach 2800, it's not a fire and forget. Okay it's looking better, at least I can now see the arguement for "same as" the old rep systems
Still not the "better rep system" we were told to expect, but that's a bit more argementative.
Increased the Dyson Sphere Mark cost of equipment projects.
Ground set pieces now cost 500 up from 250.
Secondary space sets now cost 500 up from 300.
Space sets now cost 900 up from 450.
Increased the Energy Credit cost of secondary space set pieces from 12,000 to 30,000.
Increased the Dyson Sphere Mark cost on the hourly reputation XP project from 10 to 20.
Increased the Energy Credit cost on the hourly reputation XP project from 2000 to 7500.
Items awarded from Dyson Equipment Requisition boxes now sell for energy credits again.
Wasn't one of the goals of the Dyson Rep system to decrease the amount of grind involved? Because unless the Dyson Mark rewards are getting a boost as well you've more or less just put the grind back into the system. It'll take less to level up the reputation yes, but let's be honest here the bulk of the grind in the systems now is experience after you reach Tier 5. And with the Dyson Mark rewards stated to be significantly less than other reputation systems setting the number of marks required for obtaining the gear to these new levels you're setting the Dyson Rep to be one of the grindiest ones yet.
Please reconsider ARC. Please make it optional, at the least. PLEASE.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
So based on the wiki, assuming I am reading it correctly, the other reps need 1526 marks to get from t0 to t5.
For the dyson one we need (assuming 36 days to complete-2800 xp per day) 36*40=1440 marks (based on the 2500 project and 2 150 xp projects)
Since you get 50 for completing the daily mission (unless that has changed) the actual tiers are a bit less grindy assuming daily play and ability to log in twice that day.
On the other hand if you try to make it go faster the mark cost increases the minimum amount of time needed to complete will be 15.2 days and will require 7273 marks (granted this assumes one can play all 24 hours.
Min time to complete: 15.2 days and 7273 marks
Max time to complete: 40 days and 0 marks (only use the 2500 xp project)
Difference from other tiers: uses 86 less marks for the same amount of time
My conclusion is that getting through the tiers is still slightly less grindy than previous tiers, however the item cost still seems over priced to me.
Ok, I haven't been on Tribble in a while since my patience for watching anything update short of Holodeck is nonexistent. But I've kept up on blogs and youtube, and...good God cryptic. What in the REDACTED are you thinking? HYPER-INJECTION Warp Core + COMBAT Impulse Engines=WTF? And a mk XII REGENERATIVE Shield Array with less regen and cap than the mk XI Borg shields? Sure I might just get this set for looks on some ship just because I can, and people are making the prices for this stuff out to be much more ridiculous than even close to what they really are, but, for Kahless' sake. This season is gonna be a train wreck. I'll stick to stfing and doffing around until 'Escorts Online: Season 9: A New Rep' is released this upcoming May. Live long and WAKE THE REDACTED UP, CRYPTIC.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] "The Borg - party-poopers of the galaxy"~ The Doctor
I hope you all realize that the EC price inflation is just an evil plot to inflate the energy credit prices of lock box items on the exchange beyond the EC cap for non-freemium players...
I think it's more aimed at correcting the gross imbalance between ground and space gameplay in terms of profit. Right now, nobody plays ground, precisely because the vendortrash value of ground items is negligible. This change is apparently an attempt to equalize this imbalance and shift people to playing more Ground content.
So based on the wiki, assuming I am reading it correctly, the other reps need 1526 marks to get from t0 to t5.
For the dyson one we need (assuming 36 days to complete-2800 xp per day) 36*40=1440 marks (based on the 2500 project and 2 150 xp projects)
Since you get 50 for completing the daily mission (unless that has changed) the actual tiers are a bit less grindy assuming daily play and ability to log in twice that day.
On the other hand if you try to make it go faster the mark cost increases the minimum amount of time needed to complete will be 15.2 days and will require 7273 marks (granted this assumes one can play all 24 hours.
Min time to complete: 15.2 days and 7273 marks
Max time to complete: 40 days and 0 marks (only use the 2500 xp project)
Difference from other tiers: uses 86 less marks for the same amount of time
My conclusion is that getting through the tiers is still slightly less grindy than previous tiers, however the item cost still seems over priced to me.
I actually posted most of this information in post 15 of this thread, although it ended up as thicker blocks of text. Don't forget the 25 DM you will need for the level up projects.
I'm also glad that someone corrected the ones saying it is 2k for the 20h one when its been 2500xp for the 20h one for over a week.
The EC cost increase should not be really noticable with the increase in the value of the ground gear and the ability to sell the free items from the project boxs. However this is going to result in a huge increase in EC across the board as the ground gear that was worthless suddenly goes to 4-5x in value. i need to remember to log in just after the servers go live and empty the exchange of all those items posted at 2k, they are going to sell for double that much of the time. I'll clear off the exchange, number them on a vendor and make nothing but profit..
has charts at the bottom with all of the costs in EC and Marks for Omega and Romulan Reputation systems. This also gives you the data you need to do the calculations for the new system so you can compare the total costs.
Doubling the costs of the gear went from "Sure I'll work on that" to "Um, no. Not worth the time". I'll probably get the photon torp and maybe the console but not going to both with any of the rest of it.
Its really sad to. I was looking forward to the new stuff as it was fun and progress was at a reasonable rate and cost. The mark cost increase with the current amounts granted by the missions makes it a non-starter.
I really don't think they will, because it's fairly in-line with the importance of the Omega Directive: no one has to know about the existence of Omega particles, until such time as they're forced to deal with them.
Since Season 8 hasn't officially happened yet and all players haven't physically come into contact with omega particles, with our own ships, we're not supposed to know about them either
Obviously we know, but our characters don't by all rights
An omega particle is in the room where Captain Shon gets captured in the featured episode on Holodeck. When you get in the room where Shon is taken, look up above the platform and there one is.
You need to do 2 hours of straight game play, and you still need to pay 40 marks to get 300 rep exp.
Depends. If you log in and don't have a small project in progress, or if it's at least complete, and you have marks stockpiled, you could start a project at login and then another 1 hour later. If you play for 2 hours, you could potentially start three 150 rep XP projects.
The feth is this? Those dyson changes look like you've got a bit of conflicting goals. On the one hand, we need to make it less of a grind. On the other, OH NO, WE MADE IT LESS OF A GRIND, ALL HANDS REVERSE COURSE! AOOGA AOOGA!
I really don't think they will, because it's fairly in-line with the importance of the Omega Directive: no one has to know about the existence of Omega particles, until such time as they're forced to deal with them.
Since Season 8 hasn't officially happened yet and all players haven't physically come into contact with omega particles, with our own ships, we're not supposed to know about them either
Obviously we know, but our characters don't by all rights
Actually, all Starfleet captains are briefed on the Omega directive by Starfleet Command when they reach the rank of Captain. However it's ONLY the captain that knows. Even the XO doesn't.
Now, whether this applies to battlefield commissions is not certain.
How else would Captain Janeway have known about the Omega directive without contact to Starfleet?
As for the rep:
I'll probably just reach T5 to get the new abilities.
Okay, this is coming from someone who hasn't tested any of this, but has just read this, and a few other related threads.
Now to me, doubling the mark cost of equipment, that most people seem to say isn't as useful to the various Omega sets, and quite a few mentioned that it's way worse than the Rom sets as well, yet now the cost of these items is roughly equivalent, I have to agree with other posters that said this. I willna bother with getting them, except maybe if I really have a slew of time to kill, and am extremely bored. probably not even then, as I could find far more constructive ways to spend my time, (Borg STF's for dilithium, marks, and BNPs anyone? Lol). If your going to increase these costs, then the usefulness of these items really need to be adjusted upwards. Or better yet, downgrade the costs again. After all, a couple posters have agreed that the Dyson special equipment sets are only about as useful as a couple of the lower end Mk XI sets you can get from story missions, (Breen was specifically mentioned).
Now granted, I'm usually against making things too easy. But hey, if you REALLY want to upgrade the difficulty of the game, then make the AI smarter, to begin. Also make penalties for exploding stiffer, or better yet, make it so if your ship is destroyed, you have to pay an EC cost to get it fixed,, as well as it being down for a certain amount of time, and while it's in the "needing a rebuild" status, make it so you can't just decommision it, and get a new one in it's place. And there's a ton more ways to increase the difficulty of this game, making it far more fun, and "woohoo-worthy when you achieve stuff", then doubling the costs of equipment that a lot of people seem to be agreeing is pretty lame.
Another thing I'd like to see (and I'm pretty sure some, if not a lot of people will boo me for this one, but...) make the xp neede to make a level at least x3 what it is currently, if not around x10. I mean, you spend so little time at those lower levels, that the lower tier ships and equipment doesn't get hardly any use. Maybe an hour or two, 4 at most. And that's not even power-levelling. Some I've heard go from 1 to 50 in about 10 hours. Sure it might make levelling a bit more of a "grind", but hey, when you gain that level, and especially that new tier for ships & equipment, you would really feel like you accomplished something, especially as there is a pretty good variety of stuff you can choose to do, to gain those levels, unlike the marks, which only have like 5-6, maybe 8 at most, ways to get them, so you really end up replaying the same old stuff over & over ad nauseum.
Anyway, just my 2 cents.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
Depends. If you log in and don't have a small project in progress, or if it's at least complete, and you have marks stockpiled, you could start a project at login and then another 1 hour later. If you play for 2 hours, you could potentially start three 150 rep XP projects.
Cheers,
Brandon =/\=
True Brandon, but the point is, you still at one point or another have to grind for the extra marks, and the time is still there. You're just shuffling it around a bit.
The other issue is, the space set is now the same price as the other rep systems... at 900 a piece... and yet there's ANOTHER piece to the space set. It's a four piece set, not a three piece, meaning an extra 900 marks you need to get if you want the entire set.
So we're looking at 6600 marks, to get the entire Dyson set (ground, secondary, and space) and we're looking at MORE marks now to accomplish the smaller boost, while at the same time leaving the mark income at a rather lowish (equivalent to the Romulan set give or take).
Basically... when compared to the Romulan set bonus, one token is worth approx what... 20 Romulan marks. It costs 9 Romulan Marks to get 800 rep experience, so the 300 were getting should cost us what...3 Romulan marks equivalent... since the prices are basically the same. Instead we're paying 7 times that cost for equivalent reputation exp, while getting the marks at about the same rate.. and having to pay 900 extra marks in the end for an entire set.
So at the very least we can say that the Dyson reputation system is almost equal to the Romulan space system, and I can still see the argument for it technically being worse since for the set bonus you need 900 extra marks, something that no other rep system gives.
In other words, IMO we don't have any improvement here. We've got a new currency that masks basically, at the least, the status quo. So instead of improving anything, we've got the exact same thing we had before.
So based on the wiki, assuming I am reading it correctly, the other reps need 1526 marks to get from t0 to t5.
For the dyson one we need (assuming 36 days to complete-2800 xp per day) 36*40=1440 marks (based on the 2500 project and 2 150 xp projects)
Since you get 50 for completing the daily mission (unless that has changed) the actual tiers are a bit less grindy assuming daily play and ability to log in twice that day.
On the other hand if you try to make it go faster the mark cost increases the minimum amount of time needed to complete will be 15.2 days and will require 7273 marks (granted this assumes one can play all 24 hours.
Min time to complete: 15.2 days and 7273 marks
Max time to complete: 40 days and 0 marks (only use the 2500 xp project)
Difference from other tiers: uses 86 less marks for the same amount of time
My conclusion is that getting through the tiers is still slightly less grindy than previous tiers, however the item cost still seems over priced to me.
The one thing your forgetting there is they have repeatedly said when faced with low mark reward complaints that the reason that this rep rewards less marks than omega, romulan, or nukara reps is because it requires less marks to progress. Now here we are with it requiring 94% of the marks of the other reps and still rewarding far less. The gear costs just as many marks as the other reps but yet we are still rewarded far less marks.
All of this adds up to make this rep even more grindy that prior reps, especially for those of us with more than one character. This is exactly what we were promised would be address, and had been addressed to most of our satisfaction until this patch.
They need to make all rep less grind as they add new rep but in total the same grind as they had for Omega alone and at worst Omega and Rom. It is one thing for someone with all older reps completed to have no problems completing the new rep super fast if it is just as much grind as any other but think about a new player just starting and hit 50. 4 reps with so much grind per rep will be a turn off. Future long term players will be turned away when they are new, older long term players will whine and cry about a new rep but at the end of the day they have all the old rep done on atleast 1 character if not many.
A new player trying to grind out 3 rep's on just 1 character alone is a daunting task. 4 and it is a turn off.
The thing I am seeing is cryptic is looking at a tree and ignoring the forest when they add new rep or new fleet holdings. Yeah it is simple to trim that one single tree in decorations but to do the same exact amount of decorations on 2, 3, 4, 5, and more becomes an excersise in futility and frustration. If they are afraid of the old players who did it before and now see the requirements drop when a new holding or rep is added then they could simply say that it will cost those new players just as much as it did you but more spread out. Or just ignore them which seems to be the SOP with Cryptic.
Join Date: Nobody cares.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
I don't care about the rep, i never saw the interest in it anyway because it is so grindy. i am not jumping through 500 hoops just to get the items on the other end. so this rep is either much kinder on how to reach the t5 rep or it remains ignored.
as for the season 8 update, quite like the running around trying to control sectors by myself, poses an interesting challenge that so far the game was sorely missing.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
It is not only the grind that is the problem. End game is just too repetitive for many of us who have maxed out characters. More like stock rotation and slider syndrome! Why wont they increase it so that it takes time to rinse and repeat before completion, and so we do not cry there is nothing to do.
I remember the joy of creating my first character when STO was new. It had so much to offer. Then once you have gotten to the end game the most thing now worth looking forward to is the Feature Series and maybe New Season content. I am not entirely impressed by the Jurassic pack and Planetside 2 themes. Just my opinion. I continue to pace myself on the content and never even pay heed to the sequenced time slot events. My enjoyment on my own time, with friends and fleet mates. Romulan and Nukara Reputation are still in thier T4 and T3 respectively on my main character, the most played one.
On the other hand, I suggest people try not to breeze through the content because the more you do, the more angry you may become at the grind. If you cannot find anything to do alone or with fleet mates and friends (which is much better) while you wait for the new season, then just take a break. You might even treat STO as a TV series, at the end of the series, you just have to patiently wait for the time when the new series will begin.
I personally would be curious to hear their defense as to why they decided to double the costs for gear, cause ultimately this makes zero sense at all.
Oh don't worry , I'm sure the CDF will be right along explaining how this is all whining , and you don't know how to play and that this is actually for your benefit and what was before on Tribble was an exploit .
Did I forget anything ?
DOOOOMMM perhaps ? Yeah , that was it .
... I think I can hear Gecko somewhere laughing ...
Comments
pics please? if its anything like a darker Jem'hadar shield visual then no thanks....then again ilike the steamline reflection...make the ships seem etealthy
I agree that keeping people in game longer is something they want. I actually don't blame them for that. It makes sense for them to want to keep as many people in game for as long as they can.
However, I disagree with them that simply increasing the grind is the way to accomplish that. Personally speaking, there comes a point where the grind actually does the opposite. When I see a grind that, in my opinion, is too much, I end up thinking "lolno" and then going and finding something else to do with my time.
That's what I'm feeling right now looking at those numbers. I already have Omega/Fleet stuff, so why would I need to bother with those, especially at those prices? So instead of staying in game longer to get them, I'll actually be ignoring those items and just use what I already have. That makes me play the game less.
So I would say in an attempt to keep people in game longer, they're actually going to do the opposite here.
Mine Trap Supporter
It's 2500 EXP for the 20-hour Commendation project, and 150 EXP for the hourly 20 Voth Marks project.
Doing the Allied Zone Daily will get you the Commendation, 50 Voth Marks, 960 Dilithium, and whatever Voth Marks you manage to pick up along the way by doing the small missions. Probably at least enough to get you to 60 Voth Marks including what you get for the daily.
I mean, seriously, argue all you wish, it's your right, but at least get your facts straight before you do.
While I myself am wondering why they upped the marks you need to spend, to think that this is some horrible grind...well, you should never play almost any other MMO ever. A lot of normal games, too.
https://youtube.com/channel/UCJZ5FBJ9bFaZ6yAFiNpZiRQ/featured?view_as=subscriber
Twitter:
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Your math still proves the point. 150 exp per hour, meaning you need to do 2 hours of straight game play, and you still need to pay 40 marks to get 300 rep exp.
So it still stands, just the numbers are a bit better. If you play one character for 2 hours, you'll come out ahead, but you'll have to pay more marks to do it. Those who play less then 2 hours, or have more then one character, will come out behind.
Oh and the gear costs as much as the other rep systems.
So 30 minutes of play will still net you the marks you need to reach 2800 but you'll need to dedicate a bit more time to it in order to actually reach 2800, it's not a fire and forget. Okay it's looking better, at least I can now see the arguement for "same as" the old rep systems
Still not the "better rep system" we were told to expect, but that's a bit more argementative.
Wasn't one of the goals of the Dyson Rep system to decrease the amount of grind involved? Because unless the Dyson Mark rewards are getting a boost as well you've more or less just put the grind back into the system. It'll take less to level up the reputation yes, but let's be honest here the bulk of the grind in the systems now is experience after you reach Tier 5. And with the Dyson Mark rewards stated to be significantly less than other reputation systems setting the number of marks required for obtaining the gear to these new levels you're setting the Dyson Rep to be one of the grindiest ones yet.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
For the dyson one we need (assuming 36 days to complete-2800 xp per day) 36*40=1440 marks (based on the 2500 project and 2 150 xp projects)
Since you get 50 for completing the daily mission (unless that has changed) the actual tiers are a bit less grindy assuming daily play and ability to log in twice that day.
On the other hand if you try to make it go faster the mark cost increases the minimum amount of time needed to complete will be 15.2 days and will require 7273 marks (granted this assumes one can play all 24 hours.
Min time to complete: 15.2 days and 7273 marks
Max time to complete: 40 days and 0 marks (only use the 2500 xp project)
Difference from other tiers: uses 86 less marks for the same amount of time
My conclusion is that getting through the tiers is still slightly less grindy than previous tiers, however the item cost still seems over priced to me.
having not done any tribble testing for 2 weeks, you actually just ruined that for me
"The Borg - party-poopers of the galaxy" ~ The Doctor
I actually posted most of this information in post 15 of this thread, although it ended up as thicker blocks of text. Don't forget the 25 DM you will need for the level up projects.
I'm also glad that someone corrected the ones saying it is 2k for the 20h one when its been 2500xp for the 20h one for over a week.
The EC cost increase should not be really noticable with the increase in the value of the ground gear and the ability to sell the free items from the project boxs. However this is going to result in a huge increase in EC across the board as the ground gear that was worthless suddenly goes to 4-5x in value. i need to remember to log in just after the servers go live and empty the exchange of all those items posted at 2k, they are going to sell for double that much of the time. I'll clear off the exchange, number them on a vendor and make nothing but profit..
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Reputation_System
has charts at the bottom with all of the costs in EC and Marks for Omega and Romulan Reputation systems. This also gives you the data you need to do the calculations for the new system so you can compare the total costs.
Doubling the costs of the gear went from "Sure I'll work on that" to "Um, no. Not worth the time". I'll probably get the photon torp and maybe the console but not going to both with any of the rest of it.
Its really sad to. I was looking forward to the new stuff as it was fun and progress was at a reasonable rate and cost. The mark cost increase with the current amounts granted by the missions makes it a non-starter.
An omega particle is in the room where Captain Shon gets captured in the featured episode on Holodeck. When you get in the room where Shon is taken, look up above the platform and there one is.
Re: Math -- do make sure to check your figures
Depends. If you log in and don't have a small project in progress, or if it's at least complete, and you have marks stockpiled, you could start a project at login and then another 1 hour later. If you play for 2 hours, you could potentially start three 150 rep XP projects.
Cheers,
Brandon =/\=
Actually, all Starfleet captains are briefed on the Omega directive by Starfleet Command when they reach the rank of Captain. However it's ONLY the captain that knows. Even the XO doesn't.
Now, whether this applies to battlefield commissions is not certain.
How else would Captain Janeway have known about the Omega directive without contact to Starfleet?
As for the rep:
I'll probably just reach T5 to get the new abilities.
Now to me, doubling the mark cost of equipment, that most people seem to say isn't as useful to the various Omega sets, and quite a few mentioned that it's way worse than the Rom sets as well, yet now the cost of these items is roughly equivalent, I have to agree with other posters that said this. I willna bother with getting them, except maybe if I really have a slew of time to kill, and am extremely bored. probably not even then, as I could find far more constructive ways to spend my time, (Borg STF's for dilithium, marks, and BNPs anyone? Lol). If your going to increase these costs, then the usefulness of these items really need to be adjusted upwards. Or better yet, downgrade the costs again. After all, a couple posters have agreed that the Dyson special equipment sets are only about as useful as a couple of the lower end Mk XI sets you can get from story missions, (Breen was specifically mentioned).
Now granted, I'm usually against making things too easy. But hey, if you REALLY want to upgrade the difficulty of the game, then make the AI smarter, to begin. Also make penalties for exploding stiffer, or better yet, make it so if your ship is destroyed, you have to pay an EC cost to get it fixed,, as well as it being down for a certain amount of time, and while it's in the "needing a rebuild" status, make it so you can't just decommision it, and get a new one in it's place. And there's a ton more ways to increase the difficulty of this game, making it far more fun, and "woohoo-worthy when you achieve stuff", then doubling the costs of equipment that a lot of people seem to be agreeing is pretty lame.
Another thing I'd like to see (and I'm pretty sure some, if not a lot of people will boo me for this one, but...) make the xp neede to make a level at least x3 what it is currently, if not around x10. I mean, you spend so little time at those lower levels, that the lower tier ships and equipment doesn't get hardly any use. Maybe an hour or two, 4 at most. And that's not even power-levelling. Some I've heard go from 1 to 50 in about 10 hours. Sure it might make levelling a bit more of a "grind", but hey, when you gain that level, and especially that new tier for ships & equipment, you would really feel like you accomplished something, especially as there is a pretty good variety of stuff you can choose to do, to gain those levels, unlike the marks, which only have like 5-6, maybe 8 at most, ways to get them, so you really end up replaying the same old stuff over & over ad nauseum.
Anyway, just my 2 cents.
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
True Brandon, but the point is, you still at one point or another have to grind for the extra marks, and the time is still there. You're just shuffling it around a bit.
The other issue is, the space set is now the same price as the other rep systems... at 900 a piece... and yet there's ANOTHER piece to the space set. It's a four piece set, not a three piece, meaning an extra 900 marks you need to get if you want the entire set.
So we're looking at 6600 marks, to get the entire Dyson set (ground, secondary, and space) and we're looking at MORE marks now to accomplish the smaller boost, while at the same time leaving the mark income at a rather lowish (equivalent to the Romulan set give or take).
Basically... when compared to the Romulan set bonus, one token is worth approx what... 20 Romulan marks. It costs 9 Romulan Marks to get 800 rep experience, so the 300 were getting should cost us what...3 Romulan marks equivalent... since the prices are basically the same. Instead we're paying 7 times that cost for equivalent reputation exp, while getting the marks at about the same rate.. and having to pay 900 extra marks in the end for an entire set.
So at the very least we can say that the Dyson reputation system is almost equal to the Romulan space system, and I can still see the argument for it technically being worse since for the set bonus you need 900 extra marks, something that no other rep system gives.
In other words, IMO we don't have any improvement here. We've got a new currency that masks basically, at the least, the status quo. So instead of improving anything, we've got the exact same thing we had before.
The one thing your forgetting there is they have repeatedly said when faced with low mark reward complaints that the reason that this rep rewards less marks than omega, romulan, or nukara reps is because it requires less marks to progress. Now here we are with it requiring 94% of the marks of the other reps and still rewarding far less. The gear costs just as many marks as the other reps but yet we are still rewarded far less marks.
All of this adds up to make this rep even more grindy that prior reps, especially for those of us with more than one character. This is exactly what we were promised would be address, and had been addressed to most of our satisfaction until this patch.
A new player trying to grind out 3 rep's on just 1 character alone is a daunting task. 4 and it is a turn off.
The thing I am seeing is cryptic is looking at a tree and ignoring the forest when they add new rep or new fleet holdings. Yeah it is simple to trim that one single tree in decorations but to do the same exact amount of decorations on 2, 3, 4, 5, and more becomes an excersise in futility and frustration. If they are afraid of the old players who did it before and now see the requirements drop when a new holding or rep is added then they could simply say that it will cost those new players just as much as it did you but more spread out. Or just ignore them which seems to be the SOP with Cryptic.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
as for the season 8 update, quite like the running around trying to control sectors by myself, poses an interesting challenge that so far the game was sorely missing.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I remember the joy of creating my first character when STO was new. It had so much to offer. Then once you have gotten to the end game the most thing now worth looking forward to is the Feature Series and maybe New Season content. I am not entirely impressed by the Jurassic pack and Planetside 2 themes. Just my opinion. I continue to pace myself on the content and never even pay heed to the sequenced time slot events. My enjoyment on my own time, with friends and fleet mates. Romulan and Nukara Reputation are still in thier T4 and T3 respectively on my main character, the most played one.
On the other hand, I suggest people try not to breeze through the content because the more you do, the more angry you may become at the grind. If you cannot find anything to do alone or with fleet mates and friends (which is much better) while you wait for the new season, then just take a break. You might even treat STO as a TV series, at the end of the series, you just have to patiently wait for the time when the new series will begin.
Oh don't worry , I'm sure the CDF will be right along explaining how this is all whining , and you don't know how to play and that this is actually for your benefit and what was before on Tribble was an exploit .
Did I forget anything ?
DOOOOMMM perhaps ? Yeah , that was it .
... I think I can hear Gecko somewhere laughing ...