Bonus Mark Weekend - thoughts?

gofasternow · January 2014

Well, while we're still a little less than halfway from the end of this, I do wanna put my two cents in, and do it somewhere where it isn't going to be drowned out by the whiners who are going "lol Cryptic gives me reasons to quit".

IMO, the Bonus Marks Weekend Event holds a lot of merit and does work as it is intended to do - do give players a chance to go through a reputation they haven't been able to tear through. Or, if they have, give them a chance to build up Marks for something they want. I'm sitting at nearly 3k Dyson Marks and I'm trying to decide if I wanna stop and just get the Ground Gear or keep going and get the Space Parts, especially for one of my ships (I'm trying to decide between my Fleet Galaxy or my Obelisk)

One of the big complaints I've seen is that it takes away marks that people need and makes grinding "harder", especially with Fleet Marks. IMO, Fleet Marks and (especially) Omega Marks are the easiest thing to grind even without Bonus Mark Events. Defera nets you over 200 when you deal with all four Hard rounds, Starbase Defense nets you over 100 if you have competent players, Crystalline Catastrophe nets you 65, Fleet Alert nets you almost 50 if you decide not to keep running away before the last fight... The Omega Marks? If you're fast enough and have competent players, you're looking at 285 marks and 2880 Dil by hitting the three more active events.

I think there should be a lot more love for the Romulan and Nukara Marks events. Especially Romulan, since a lot of their events give TRIBBLE-level numbers.

What do you guys think?

gonalius · January 2014

I like it. It gave me the impetus to get my second character through the last few plot-quests so he could head into the sphere, and he's gathering quite the collection of marks and commendations - Not to mention Dilithium. That said, the Battlezone pays out plenty of rewards anyway, and it would have perhaps been better to have this (By implication) first of a series of mark weekends (Not that I expect one every weekend) elsewhere. My first character for example has only briefly touched the Nukara and Defera ground-zones, and some impetus to spend more time there would have been nice.

Overall? A nice little bonus.

artan42 · January 2014

Great. I got 1000 marks just today so I got the gun and shield (not up to 5 for the armour yet). I hope we have a Nukara one someday.

bobbydazlers · January 2014

I would much rather they held a plain bonus marks event, where all marks earned would get bonuses, be they dyson romulan omega nukara or fleet.
I guess you could say I did tear through dyson getting all 3 of my characters to t5 before Christmas but its not like I put a lot of effort or time into getting there in fact I found it to be the most easiest of reps we have had even without the reputation sponsorship shortcut.
having said that dyson is a fun zone and I will revisit it at some point just not right now as im busy doing other stuff.

captainrevo1 · January 2014

I enjoyed it, but would like to see them alternate the weekends, so the next one is fleet, the one after that is omega etc.

there is something to be said for just making it a mark weekend, but it does help to fcus the playerbase to one type of content for the weekend. helps with queue times and teaming etc.

mrcaton1 · January 2014

To me, these events will get people playing, which is what it's all about. The Lobi event would be great to return for a weekend thing from time to time--I didn't miss a day while the Lobi/featured episode thing was running. I hadn't played in a few days due to doing some other games, but I came back this weekend to take advantage of the bonus.

bobbydazlers · January 2014

I guess as long as some players are benefiting from this it is good however we don't know if another bonus mark weekend will come up or if it does how long it will be before a bonus event that is useful to other players who might like some extra marks of a certain kind might comes around.
this is why I felt a general overall bonus event on all mark types would have been more appropriate, sure it might motivate some players to play for dyson marks but some players may not need any more dyson marks but may need motivation to play for some other type of mark like nukara or romulan say what about them.
an overall bonus mark event would have motivated more players to finish any reps they had not completed even if they had finished with all the others.
and any player who has completed all reps can always use more fleet marks.

sunfrancks · January 2014

I didn't do any more Dyson content than I already do.

Still not really enough to make up for the daily nerf, that would make me go back there to grind more than once per day...

burstorion · January 2014

I only have one thought:

Borg rep weekends, with every leecher and useless sod in sto filling elite stfs, turning the fun of the roulette wheel that is pugging into a living hell

eazzie · January 2014

Only normally go into the sphere daily to get the commendation, but having the dil rewards gave me more of a purpose to go more into the sphere. Removing the allied zone daily as it previously stood I think was a mistake. If they were to offer say around 60 -80 dil for doing allied zone missions such as find missing ships etc I think it might be popular.

rinkster · January 2014

eazzie wrote: »

Only normally go into the sphere daily to get the commendation, but having the dil rewards gave me more of a purpose to go more into the sphere. Removing the allied zone daily as it previously stood I think was a mistake. If they were to offer say around 60 -80 dil for doing allied zone missions such as find missing ships etc I think it might be popular.

My italics.

This is the point. This weekend was just a quick bandaid to the problem they created with the nerf.

crm14916 · January 2014

Now, I'm not sure I understand this thing... Each day there are at least two (only two I can play because the others are too early in the am or too late in the pm) sets where we can earn bonus marks. If they take these away from us and make them weekend events, then we'll have to wait forever for the turnaround to hit the bonuses we need. At least as it is now, if you miss one, you have another tomorrow you can get.

If this future Nukara weekend is on a weekend I can't play, does that mean that it won't come back around for weeks on end? Instead of having a 3-hour daily bonus, they are trading this for one weekend each month? Sounds like a bad trade-off... To me at least... I'm finished with the Nukara, and now working on the Romulan rep. I have tons of marks (from the epohhs), but am waiting the days (20hr perionds) to grind thru the rep. If I want to start the Omega next, I'm worried that it will be something I can only earn marks for once a month...

Am I interpreting it correctly or am I way off?

Thanks!
CM

jeffel82 · January 2014

crm14916 wrote: »

If they take these away from us and make them weekend events, then we'll have to wait forever for the turnaround to hit the bonuses we need. At least as it is now, if you miss one, you have another tomorrow you can get...Am I interpreting it correctly or am I way off?

If it's truly a "bonus," then by definition, nobody needs it. Or at least, nobody should feel like they need it.

I do see your point, though. For those who are currently able to play during the bonus period daily (or nearly daily), waiting for a bonus weekend will be disappointing. For others, it will probably be a welcome relief, because for a couple of days they'll be able to play according to their own schedules and still get the bonus marks.

crm14916 · January 2014

I'd been playing the CE for so long on daily bonuses to get myself thru the Nukara rep, that I feel cheated if I don't earn the 960 dilithium and the 80 Marks... Even though I'm not, as you mentioned, jeffel82...

The bonus marks had allowed me thru my grinding of the Nukara rep to get about 100-200 Nukara marks each day (hitting one CE and one ground, or two of each depending). Waiting for a special weekend would mean I'd have to get used to the 60 and 15 instead of the 80 and 20, and count the extras as blessings when they come around. Even on weekends I don't play for hours, so from my p.o.v., I'm getting short-changed. I'll have one or two good bonus days a month instead of 28-31 of them...

CM

jeffel82 · January 2014

crm14916 wrote: »

The bonus marks had allowed me thru my grinding of the Nukara rep to get about 100-200 Nukara marks each day (hitting one CE and one ground, or two of each depending). Waiting for a special weekend would mean I'd have to get used to the 60 and 15 instead of the 80 and 20, and count the extras as blessings when they come around.

I hear you, the Nukara rep in particular is not terribly fun to go through, IMO.

Also, when they announced that the current Calendar was going to be removed, they said that some of the events would become weekend events like the one we just had, but also that some of them would be adapted into daily missions.

I wonder if we'll see some sort of daily mission to get some bonus marks (even if it's not as many as we could have gotten during the old daily event).

Edit: Also, I only go dilithium mining when the bonus event for that is active, so I definitely understand your mindset. :P

shockwave85 · January 2014

Nukara is where this is really going to hurt. There is no way of getting Nukara marks that is not slow and tedious. Every bonus helps. Trying to run CE and a set of Nukara ground missions during the bonus marks events is about the best way I've managed to come up with. For whatever reason, the Dyson Battlezone never ceases to be fun. I'll sit there and play through 2-3 zone completions back to back. But man I get sick of Nukara Prime and CE. One run through per day, if that, is all I have patience for anymore. Trying to align that with the 3-hour marks event once per day allows me to spread that out so I don't burn out on it so much. The new way, I'd have to wait for a "Nukara Weekend" then play the TRIBBLE out of it to maximize the time I'm putting in.

Unless Cryptic's metrics are showing people getting too many marks too fast thanks to the hourly event. I'd believe that for the other three, but not Nukara.

rodentmaster · January 2014

Making a weekend event for a type of reward is fine ONCE IN A WHILE, but when the content blows massive chunks, it entices nobody to join in.

Further, if the ONLY way you can get people to play the blows-massive-chunks content is to remove all OTHER event content, by process of elimination, you have utterly failed in both gameplay design/development and reward balances for missions.

This is killing the game. Mark my words.

EDIT: Just today I was debating subscribing for a short while again. I went to the webpage to go to my account to re-add a subscription method, but stopped when I saw the blog entry. After reading that I said "hell no" and will not subscribe.

No point in subscribing if they're doing their best to ruin the game for everybody. I'll just get fed up and leave again so no point in doing it now.

Bonus Mark Weekend - thoughts?

Comments

When I think about everything we've been through together,

maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,

and if that journey takes a little longer,

so we can do something we all believe in,

I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.

When I think about everything we've been through together,

maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,

and if that journey takes a little longer,

so we can do something we all believe in,

I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.