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Those Blasted Reputation Grinds
opo98
Member Posts: 435 Arc User
Very complex rant incoming, sorry in advance for if I accidentally break TOS:
I don't know about you guys, but I end up not being able to play very reliably, and even hyper optimizing a rep grind it takes 40 days the first time around.
I know, I know, I may be falling into the trap of instant gratification, but darn if those rep grinds aren't the most painful thing I've ever seen. If you do the rep grinds one by one, it takes you 160 days of play to finish just the current ones in game.
I had more enjoyment out of watching someone else get prototype technology drops and get none myself in the old system than I do do now filling in bars and waiting for a month. I may be super lucky, but after a month and a couple hundred STFs, I would have full Mk XII space/ground gear, and I wouldn't be down 405000 dilithium like I am with the rep grinds. With the new system, not only are they taking your time, but they also take your money. That Omega Reputation grind alone is worth .01% of your lifespan, coupled onto the fact that the gear itself now totals about 37 USD, with the former being the most painful aspect.
It's starting to feel more like FarmVille than an awesome live action Star Trek themed arcade shooter/role playing game. Quite frankly, its hard to enjoy all the hard work the devs put in the awesome environments and stories when your fresh vice admiral character has an empty rep staring at you. I'm not sure how some of you have actually done the rep grind on multiple toons, or even avoided it all together. Really, kudos on that. I'm not sure how you folks have that kind of strength of will, because I certainly don't have the patience for a video game feeling like a job.
That's why I stopped playing for a while, because I am waiting for the option from the devs to use dilithium/zen based speed ups on my rep timers. The rep grinds were literally the sole reason why I stopped for now, because as soon as they add more reputations, it just magnifies the completionist pain level one more notch, and if there is no option to subvert the timer, I'd much rather (god forbid) mine ore to get a new ship in EvE, since even that is less painful now.
I don't know about you guys, but I end up not being able to play very reliably, and even hyper optimizing a rep grind it takes 40 days the first time around.
I know, I know, I may be falling into the trap of instant gratification, but darn if those rep grinds aren't the most painful thing I've ever seen. If you do the rep grinds one by one, it takes you 160 days of play to finish just the current ones in game.
I had more enjoyment out of watching someone else get prototype technology drops and get none myself in the old system than I do do now filling in bars and waiting for a month. I may be super lucky, but after a month and a couple hundred STFs, I would have full Mk XII space/ground gear, and I wouldn't be down 405000 dilithium like I am with the rep grinds. With the new system, not only are they taking your time, but they also take your money. That Omega Reputation grind alone is worth .01% of your lifespan, coupled onto the fact that the gear itself now totals about 37 USD, with the former being the most painful aspect.
It's starting to feel more like FarmVille than an awesome live action Star Trek themed arcade shooter/role playing game. Quite frankly, its hard to enjoy all the hard work the devs put in the awesome environments and stories when your fresh vice admiral character has an empty rep staring at you. I'm not sure how some of you have actually done the rep grind on multiple toons, or even avoided it all together. Really, kudos on that. I'm not sure how you folks have that kind of strength of will, because I certainly don't have the patience for a video game feeling like a job.
That's why I stopped playing for a while, because I am waiting for the option from the devs to use dilithium/zen based speed ups on my rep timers. The rep grinds were literally the sole reason why I stopped for now, because as soon as they add more reputations, it just magnifies the completionist pain level one more notch, and if there is no option to subvert the timer, I'd much rather (god forbid) mine ore to get a new ship in EvE, since even that is less painful now.
Post edited by opo98 on
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The receive character then runs the 'Claim Sponsorship' upgrade project (which just requires the one token created by the T5 character as outlined above.)
End result? Reputation EXP is now doubled on the character that ran the 'Claim Sponsorship' upgrade project. (Oh, and both the Token creation project and Claim Sponsorship project complete in 5 seconds, so they're definitely designed to be done for multiple Alt characters as needed.)
I think that's about as much as Cryptic's going to do to reduce the Rep Grind for Alts once another of your characters has finished their T5 Rep at the 'normal' rate.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I surely hope for my future with the game that this is not the case. Even at the reduced rate, the rep grinds are too much of a chore. Since I know they won't do away with the rep system for obvious reasons, I wish they would make it so I can at least use something to speed them up. I only have time to play on the weekends, and that ends up turning the "paltry" 20 day rep grind into a half a year to me, where on the days I can play, I often do it for 3 or 4 hours. 3 hours for me is enough to finish 9 STFs, which provides enough marks for me to go up an entire tier in 1 day, it is just the time gate tells me I can't.
But hey, maybe they don't want the people who are annoyed with the rep grind around anymore.
You are my hero! People keep saying that it's not instant gratification. I don't want instant gratification, I want to earn my stripes. But I don't want to spend months and months and billions of EC getting them. One month would suffice for an entire set.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
Amen, preach it!!! Those of us who don't live in the MMO don't really have the time to grind Starbase/Emabssy/etc missions out, grind out reputation, AND play end game content (PvP) , but are locked in a viscous cycle where to be competitive you need the top tier SB and the Top tear weapons/consoles/etc. and the bonuses from the rep's because the guys that spend all of their fun time ( 40+ hrs a week in many cases from some people I know) in the game have the time to grind it out quickly. There needs to be some kind of balance so the game can be played and enjoyed by the working Joe with a job, family, and the house with the white picket fence.
PRECISELY! This is not my career, this is my hobby. How can I have fun with my hobby if all the end-game stuff is crawling with elitists whose actual jobs are the hobby? Just because PWE has found a bunch of people with wonky priorities doesn't mean that there's more money to be had there. If they catered to us GAME players too, it would still be epic.
This is hilarious. Folks in this thread are likening the game to Farmville and then claiming Cryptic is catering to hardcore grinders and PVP nuts.
Don't you guys see that the elite hardcore PVP people, the ones that "live in the game" are diametric OPPOSITE of Cryptic and PWE's target audience with STO?
If this were really a game that catered to THEIR priorities and THEIR playstyle it would cost virtually NO time OR money to get top-tier gear. Skills would be fully balanced and the only upgrades you could get for real money are cosmetic, in the interests of preserving PVP balance. There would be actual new PVP content that's worth a damn.
Seriously, if the game was really, REALLY intended to be played by the kinds of people who "live in the game", living in STO would be much easier.
But no, it's actually the opposite case. Cryptic's target audience is the people who have an hour or two to play day but a lot of loose cash to spend. Everything you need to tweak the sliders and start new timer tasks can be acquired by doing queue missions with virtually no travel time and can be completed in a few minutes. And those pesky dilithium farming limits can be circumvented with money.
Virtually everything about the structure of STO today, outside leveling to 50 via story missions, is aimed at getting you to log in once a day for about an hour or so, then logging out.
TL;DR: STO is casual now (though IMO it's far better as a casual game than it ever was trying to catch up to WoW's coattails). If you're into PVP or staying competitive, you have to make your own fun, because Cryptic is not going to help you do it.
Its not that I mind having rep's and some general grinding, but it has become the order-of-the-day now and is an impediment from me from doing other things in game that I want to do with what time I have available. As is however, if I don't grind all of what has to be ground, I fall behind and am no longer competitive as those who do spend a tremendous amount of time in the game.
I love the game, but I love my wife and daughter more and I loved setting my priority of graduating with my degree TRIBBLE Laude so I can work a job that I will love so I can enjoy a game like this.
Let's face it.... What else is there to do at L50 besides grind? :P A carrot on a string gives the players something to do.
My character Tsin'xing
I agree that the PvP is dreadfully lacking for content, but I argue that the balance that they have struck with the rep's/fleet bases etc. is heavily leaning towards the benefit of the heavy volume players. I'm not saying they should make it easy, but it shouldn't take forever to complete them either. Cryptic would also not be the first organization to have targeted an audience and missed. I will say that the Spire rep has come the closest to balanced that I have seen among them.
If the game had more PvP content that was more involving of the players, one wouldn't need to grind. I miss the good ol' days when Restuss was highly populated on SWG, I felt treuly involved in those PvP fights
This is a discussion mainly of the rep grinds, but yes, the Fleet system is STO's concession to heavy volume players, and likely an unintentional one, since the standard fleet behavior is for 10% of players to do 90% of contributions rather than the "everyone gives a little bit" ideal they probably had in mind when they first designed the system and priced out the costs.
And also yes, for those heavy volume players the project completion timers are painful. 20hours at the most should be the maximum any fleet has to wait just for a tier to upgrade.
My point is, in case anyone didn't get it from the TL;DR note, is that while STO is casual, it's got space for hardcore, heavy-volume, highly-competitive types. It's just that they'll have to fight for that space and deal with the fact that the game is not built FOR them. Or maybe quit, which is a sensible strategy since F2P games live and die by daily participation metrics (see how many daily missions there are in STO? If you log in, they win).
For the record, I'm exactly in the target audience, and my play habits post-50 line up perfectly with what they want - except for me never buying Dil, I suppose. So take what you will about my comments.
Sometimes some of the rants I see on these forums sound like someone complaining about a lack of vegetarian options in a steakhouse called "Meat Lovers". They have valid concerns, but at some point need to realize that they might not be the most compatible clientele. Could the restaurant be better by catering to them, too? Maybe. Probably, but if they don't, maybe it just isn't meant to be.
I completely understand what you are saying. But the problem with the reputation system being a grind isn't necessarily the reputation system itself, but that one has to grind the reputation system, doff system, and fleet bases system as well. When all three are added together, it makes for a day at work, grinding.
Like I said, and you said, the Fleet system is the game's concession to the heavy grinders that people mistakenly think are STO's target audience. A sane casual person doesn't do fleet stuff, he or she joins a fleet and reaps the rewards (or not, only hardcore people would ever want to pay the cost of a fleet ship that only unlocks on a per-character basis). For most people Rep gear is the best gear they'll ever encounter (which makes me long for the day we get rep-quality exotic phasers and disruptors like the Romulan plasma).
And for completionists? They're hardcore by definition. Casuals are not completionists, or at the very least they're patient ones.
That's also a funny thing, since unlike more "hardcore" MMOs with more balanced PVP, STO has the balls to gate access to the absolute best stuff behind the insane investment of a fleet system, which is virtually exclusive to people working as a group. You can't solo a starbase and expect to get to Tier 5 before the game shuts down for good. No other MMO besides EVE (with its player-driven industry) does that.
Just to be clear, I am a casual player that can only get on on certain days. I can't afford the time to get on every day, thus the reputation takes a very long time. All I wanted was a way to use some zen/dilithium to speed up the timers a bit so I can play on my schedule rather than theirs.
Oh, make no mistake, I have pretty much your habits as well. I've been here since beta and only recently hit Tier 5 in some reps.
Anyway, regarding rep shortcuts, I'm sure they'll cater to you eventually. Rumors suggest that a "Daily Mission Reset" token is in the works, and if they decide that that's a thing that will work on speeding up timers, it'll happen.
Of course forumers will blow up and start a "riot" (if you can call it that) if that happens, but whatever.
My character Tsin'xing
I know, I know, the timegates are there to make sure you keep playing for a while. But that's just a stopgap, and I think the devs can do better. It's also annoying. We need something that's true endgame content -- something for AFTER you get all the high-end gear. You know, a venue to actually use that gear.
to me i tended to keep any focus off the grinding aspect and kept no opinion on the subject, that way so far i havent felt it was a chore. so far thats held true.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Pity Cryptic has hired someone to come to our homes to put a gun to our heads to force us to do the Reputations as fast and as frequently as possible on every character we have. It's so unfair.
Same here. A little grind is a good way to prevent games from being over too quickly, but this isn't a "little" grind, or even a chore - this is practically a 9-5 job, if you want to progress through these at any rate. I just don't see running the same four or so instances all day for a long time to get gear. (Since said instances are currently the only viable way to get any non-microscopic amount of marks... which isn't right.)
Why are you continuing to post this in every thread where someone question's Cryptic's decisions to make the game un-fun?
It's a legitimate complaint. People are choosing to play the game for fun. Having to grind is un-fun, so people are complaining about something they find un-fun. He's said outright he's not looking for instant gratification, simply an adjustment so he doesn't have to spend half a year trying to get better gear.
I had to hunt, in Eq1, a damn seagull that took 3 weeks to spawn for me....camping was part of the game and was generally accepted.
Nowadays everyone wants instant gratification and the devs seem to want to cater to them as well.
I have been a raider in eq2 for years and still do not have a complete set of a certain raid gear........
IMO that is the problem with this game......gear is far too easy to get. FAR TOO EASY....once we get the gear what is left? Nothing.......the game is far too light in content.
I can only speak for myself but I enjoy the challenge of getting the items.......I ,just after many months, fully equipped my 13th toon in full mk 12 gear and for his ship too. I still have 1 mk 12 console to work on though....for an optimum set up.
My point is there needs to be a healthy balance of content driven quests and goals and gear that is tough to get and they need to pander to the casual instant gratification crows.
so... there's two extremes here, grind till you pass out, or play mission once and celebrate.... Honestly, I like to think STO is finding a happy medium. Nothing in STO requires the level of grinding D2 did.
My character Tsin'xing
Its only optional folks.
Lastly I only play on weekends. So I know what it means to grind for a couple months to do it. However this grind is a lot better than the other games. I grind for a lot of points. Then a week or 2 later go at it again. Since I built up so much to turn it. So it wasn't like I have to be on it each day like the other games. Thus making it lot less a chore. While that rep was building, I took the time to work on my alts. Since I only logged into that character to collect and start another project. Only getting out to get more points after I ran out.
Bottom line, this Rep grind is the easiest and less "chore/work" than the rest. I used to loathed Rep grinds until I did this one.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
so grinding is good....I guess
YES! :mad: Yes you are!
* tapes combage *
Beam down Tactical platoon!
* a platoon of 50+ security officers materializes right behind YOU! *
* pointing at you *
Alright girls and grunts, GET HIM!
Nice know'n ya.
[/SIGPIC]
It could be argued to that the reputation sets are also good and I can see that, I run a Omega 2 Set plus Elite Fleet Shield and I also have the borg set that goes with the aforementioned shield as sometimes I need defence not pew pew.
My advice to anyone starting out on the rep these days is to not burn yourself out. With the Mirror Universe no longer in game (It might be coming back as a daily or something like the CE Queue mission?) You can't make the same Experience as you could before and running 3 or more rep systems at once will drain your soul. If you do get Rank 5 in any of the Reps do make a token for your alts they will save you so much time and effort.