Bring Back Hourly Events: Some Ideas

hunterap · February 2014

I can't say that the game has been, "ruined," for me since the calendar has been gone, but I can say that I've cut back on my playing time by about 90% because it's hard to find people to play with for the things that I want to do.

I really think that you guys threw the baby out with the bathwater here. Most of the fleet that I'm in has disappeared since this change, and I can understand why. I think that you guys need to do a reverse course on this ASAP. I believe that you can make the original system considerably better by offering the following daily/hourly events with a 10-15% bonus:
An hour for each reputation, Omega, Romulan, Nukara, Dyson
An hour for, PvE Queue Events that reward dilithium and fleet marks
Mirror Universe Incursion (how could you get rid of this?!?)
An hour for Foundry missions
An hour for PvP
An hour for Crafting
An hour for Episodes (yes, give us an hour with some perks for re-running episodes)

That's 10 hours of content. Each event will run at least twice a day, giving people in all time zones a shot at the stuff that they want/need.

You can leave out the mining event... You can leave out the multiphasic event. Leave out the shuttle event. (or expand the shuttle event with more shuttle content) Keep tour the universe the way it is now. Get rid of the Academy event. Get rid of the Path to 2409.

I also think that you should experiment some... Perhaps, once a week or so, have a, "gambling hour," where Dabo rewards are doubled, and opening a lock box gives you a slightly higher chance of good stuff, or special items that don't normally drop from lock boxes. (this might even result in an increase in master key sales)

Perhaps a, "mini-games hour," where Dilithium mining, scanning for particle samples, etc all gave a boost.

If you notice that a specific event isn't getting much play time, then perhaps you need to update that content, or the rewards for that content. Or you need to try finding something else to run during that hour.

Now, I would be totally cool with you turning all of these hourly events off for the "big weekend events," but on a day to day basis, I really think that the hourly events helped to bring people together to run content.

phyloe · February 2014

Interesting, I haven't noticed any change in the ability to do anything that requires a group. But, I guess it's different for everybody. I tend to think that the development team has already taken a look at the numbers which is why they are doing this. They have probably already got an idea of what people are doing at what times.

I understand the distress some might feel at not having the events hourly. However, most of the complaints are from people that haven't given the weekend events a chance. I say this because we have barely had the opportunity to run through a series of events. You may find that the bonus event coming this weekend more than satisfies your mark needs for the month freeing you to do other things.

hunterap · February 2014

I'm currently free to do anything I want at any time. The problem is that everyone else is also free to do the same, and everyone is going in a variety of different directions.

I challenge you to pop on a Klingon toon and quickly find a Defera group, or a battlezone group during off-peak hours. I spent 20 minutes trying to find a KDF group on Defera the other night. I gave up and logged off.

With the hourly events, there was a much greater chance of finding people to do this kind of stuff during off-peak hours. In my opinion, it was one of the best features of STO.

And I have no complaints about the weekend events. I was quite happy with the extra dilithium during the last event, and I'm sure that I'll be happy with the extra marks from the next one... but what about the dead zone in between? Essentially, going to this, twice a month schedule of events is going to cause me to only play during those events. In the mean time, I'm going to find other games to play, and that's going to mean no more money for STO from me.

I don't see why we can't have both the weekend events, and the daily/hourly events. Again, it's not that I'm upset about the lack of bonus from the daily events... I'm upset about the lack of people participating in various content. Before the player base had some direction, and players would gravitate towards the same content at the same time. Without that structure, it is considerably harder to find groups.

I am a canary. I'm usually one of the first ones to go. I try to let people know before it's too late, but they rarely listen. The removal of hourly events will slowly deplete the player base of STO. They would do well to bring them back ASAP, before too many people find something else to play.

rahmkota19 · February 2014

Agreed with your solution.

Although my fleet has stayed intact and I'm still doing what I was doing before the calendar removal, its harder for me to contribute to the fleet (not being able to log in every day due to real life). I cannot be sure that when we finally get a Fleet Mark weekend, I'll be there. I missed the entire Dilithium weekend due to real life.

Your suggestion not only restores the Calendar, it also gets rid of all stupid events. Maybe put 2409 back there for the accolade hunters (such as myself :})

phyloe · February 2014

My point was that it should make it easier to do a variety of activities as opposed to hitting a specific zone at specific times because that is what everyone is doing. If there is no real pressure to grind marks or dilithium, then people are free to play the game without being so task oriented. I think the dead zones are something they are trying to address.

I haven't noticed any change in my ability to group regardless of faction. I am not saying it hasn't impacted others. I suspect they will be working on the dynamics of the event system over the coming months, hence the suggestion that we wait and see. I don't really see the game hemorrhaging players because the hourly events are gone. I know many, like myself that seldom managed to catch the hourly events with any frequency.

airbear8 · February 2014

I agree. I really miss the Bonus Marks 3 hour windows. And weekend events don't cut it for me since I'm frequently traveling on weekends and don't have an opportunity to play. And without the Mirror Universe to rapidly advance a new Captain I won't be starting any new Captains. I mean really, after 6 Captains do I really need to do all those episodes AGAIN?? Before I only did the missions I had to and the ones that awarded gear I needed. I could advance 3-4 grades in a single 1 hour Mirror Universe event to make up for the missions I skipped.

Here's what I'd like to see:

-An expedited path to level 50 for players with other level 50's already. Something like what they're doing with the reputation systems.

-hour events brought back (especially Mirror Universe) without the ones few people used

I'm a "Wallet Warrior", I love trying out new ships and frequently sell lots of Master Keys to raise enough credits to buy ships off the exchange. What I spend (averaging $300/month for the past 11 months I've played the game) probably puts me in the top 5-10% of players. But lately my interest in the game has been decreasing. I even took a 3 week break back in December. The only thing that got me back in it was starting a new KDF Engineer Captain. If the game continues as is I probably won't be playing it much longer.

AirBear
Omega Rangers

farginwar · February 2014

hunterap wrote: »

I can't say that the game has been, "ruined," for me since the calendar has been gone, but I can say that I've cut back on my playing time by about 90% because it's hard to find people to play with for the things that I want to do.

I really think that you guys threw the baby out with the bathwater here. Most of the fleet that I'm in has disappeared since this change, and I can understand why. I think that you guys need to do a reverse course on this ASAP. I believe that you can make the original system considerably better by offering the following daily/hourly events with a 10-15% bonus:
An hour for each reputation, Omega, Romulan, Nukara, Dyson
An hour for, PvE Queue Events that reward dilithium and fleet marks
Mirror Universe Incursion (how could you get rid of this?!?)
An hour for Foundry missions
An hour for PvP
An hour for Crafting
An hour for Episodes (yes, give us an hour with some perks for re-running episodes)

That's 10 hours of content. Each event will run at least twice a day, giving people in all time zones a shot at the stuff that they want/need.

You can leave out the mining event... You can leave out the multiphasic event. Leave out the shuttle event. (or expand the shuttle event with more shuttle content) Keep tour the universe the way it is now. Get rid of the Academy event. Get rid of the Path to 2409.

I also think that you should experiment some... Perhaps, once a week or so, have a, "gambling hour," where Dabo rewards are doubled, and opening a lock box gives you a slightly higher chance of good stuff, or special items that don't normally drop from lock boxes. (this might even result in an increase in master key sales)

Perhaps a, "mini-games hour," where Dilithium mining, scanning for particle samples, etc all gave a boost.

If you notice that a specific event isn't getting much play time, then perhaps you need to update that content, or the rewards for that content. Or you need to try finding something else to run during that hour.

Now, I would be totally cool with you turning all of these hourly events off for the "big weekend events," but on a day to day basis, I really think that the hourly events helped to bring people together to run content.

Mirror Invasion NEEDS TO COME BACK!!!!!!!:mad:

hunterap · February 2014

Hopefully there are enough of us voicing our concerns to get Cryptic to take a look at this. I would think that the KDF queues would provide enough evidence to show that there's a real problem here.

hunterap · February 2014

Oh, and one other suggestion, should you bring these back... Allow us the option of having a broadcast message just before an event is scheduled to start, and when an event starts. This way, we'll get a popup letting us know that the event is starting. (Similar to the popups we get when someone gets a ship from a lockbox.)

priestofsin420 · February 2014

Out of all the events, I miss Mirror Universe the most. My rep grinds have come to a halt, because I'm simply out of experience points. Also, I (stupidly) attempted to rework my whole build, and spent the majority of yesterday grinding out experience points just to max the skills and dump exp into the items I need. Mirror Universe needs to return as a queue-able STF, with an Elite version for level 50s for even more glorious exp.

As far as the bonus mark events go, this bonus weekend better be like double the normal amount of marks...

risingstar2009 · February 2014

Lvl 50's were on a single map. May not have been Elite difficulty (ok, medium or easy for some folks), but you wouldn't be teamed with anyone lower than yourself.

I know this cause I wanted to help out a friend/fleet member who was lower level and it wouldn't let us que in to it. Other lvl 50 friends/teammates, no problem. 49 or lower, no go.

absolutwill · February 2014

Taking away the hourly events has reduced my play time as well as the involvement in my fleet. When you design the game to be a huge grind, people are only going to play if the rewards are worth the time and the grind. Removing the hourly events have just made the grind that much more painful. Whats the point in grinding for marks of dilith during the week when you know you should be earning more? Going from having each event every couple hours, to only one event every OTHER week can only be accurately described as a Nerf to everyone. Not to mention the fact that many players don't work Mon-Fri, 9-5. Many of us work weekends and therefore we are punished for wanting to play the game during the week.
On top of all of that there is no way I'll be starting another character until the mirror event returns or XP earned is greatly increased in PvEs.

john98837 · February 2014

I agree they should be brought back, as I am not desparate for any marks I have pretty much stopped playing. Not about to farm marks without a bonus event if I don't really need them.

At the very least these weekend events need to be run every weekend not every other weekend, and one of them should be for expertise in some way. If not Mirror then maybe just every PvE queue mission you complete gives you 5 or 10k expertise with its reward.

hunterap · February 2014

leadme2kirk wrote: »

Why not go one step further and instead of running just one thing (ie) Bonus Marks Weekend, run them all and let the players choose which ones to do. It'd be a lot better that way and much less of a grind as there would be options where there are none now.

I don't think that you understand my issue here. The problem is that this isn't a million player community. With the hourly events, players gravitate towards those events. As such, when the events are running, there are lots of people in the zones/areas/queues for those events. During non-hourly event times, it's anyone's guess if you'll even be able to run the content due to a lack of players.

Log on a KDF toon and have a look at the queues. Most of the time, it's impossible to run any of that content. There's 4 or 5 queues that actually have a sufficient number of players, the rest are empty. Want to run "Federation Minefield?" Good luck. How about, "The Big Dig." That's a laugh.

With the hourly events, there was a chance of being able to run some of this content. My original post gives some suggestions to improve the system to make it better, which I believe is a much better idea than throwing the system out.

sabremeister1 · February 2014

Having the weekend events is, in general, a bad thing.

It used to be that you logged in to STO, looked at the calendar, saw which event was happening and maybe did something to benefit from it (bonus marks for 3 hrs, run some STFs). Then stay on for another hour and do the Mirror event. And, oh look, the hour after is Time To Craft, maybe I can finally get the last console I need for my build at 50% of dil store price, I'll stay logged in. This sort of thing worked even with lots of characters.

Now that the long weekend events are on, this is what happens: Log in straight after patch to find out what the event is. Do something to benefit from the event. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Oh look, it's Monday morning, the event's over, and all I've done this weekend is grind dilithium/rep marks/tribbles, I haven't actually done anything to improve my ship, my character, or my playing experience.

Doubtless there are proponents and opponents of each method of offering players the chance to earn extra currency of various types, but I think they all would agree that grind is bad, variety is good.

A good solution would be to have a mixture. Does Tour The Galaxy really need an hour all to itself? No, keep it as a daily (but for Bob's sake, increase the time limit to something reasonable so you don't have to have the latest super-ship and extra-speed-gear to get it done in the time available). Does The Vault need an hourly event? Not since they started the Romulan Rep, so make it a daily for bonus marks, or just leave it so it gets included in a Bonus Rep event. And run those Bonus Rep/Dilithium/Fleet marks events every day, for four or five hours at a time. Cycle these bonus sessions with the other hourly events between them, so that everyone has a reasonable chance of getting a couple of hours of Bonus-time and a couple of hourly events in each play session, and regularly change the order of the hourlies so people can experience different ones. Then at weekends you can have Bonus Rep/Dilithium/Marks running all the time so those four-hour bonus sessions don't have have any effect, but people can still do other stuff usefully. They can choose to continue to grind Rep, or they can choose to take advantage of the hourly boost to XP from the Mirror event.

Bring Back Hourly Events: Some Ideas

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