I don't see why you're so endlessly fixated on nonsense like "relax" and "fun". Relaxing is unhealthy and frankly rather gruesome. Why do you think it's the favored activity of dead people?
You know what, I'm having a really bad day - and this is the first thing today to make me chuckle, so thank you, I needed that.
Oh you do not want to get me started on this topic.
I have no problems with the foundry, I think it is great fans can make and play out stories in the realm of Star Trek.
However, it is not Star Trek Online "content" - it is 3D fan fiction. I did not sign up a life time sub in open beta for fan fiction, I did not keep spending in the C-Store for fan fiction, I did not ask for fan fiction to replace what Cryptic should be doing. I do not buy fan fiction books, comics or follow any fan fiction youtube remake of TOS. I signed up for a professional writer to take my imagination around the galaxy.
Even a monkey does not fall for this one. Equal pay for equal work, or the monkeys go on strike. Surely you are not implying that a monkey is smarter than you, here.
I see no reason why I should do the same work for inferior pay if I can just wait for it.
My issue is: There is a lot of interesting content in the game. The foundry alone offers a lifetime of content.
But instead we have the choice between "fun content" and "Content that offers progress".
funnily enough I seem to get both all the time.
I have yet to find anything in the game that is not fun and whatever I play gives me progress in one way or another with or without bonuses.
guess I must be unique, or maybe just easy to please.
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.
Most of my fleet's game time was played on weekdays during the bonus mark events now the most any of us login for is to get the daily qmendations done during the anniversary event then log off. most of the fleet either have work and real life/family commitments on weekends. while certain weekdays they have their time to game so they are playing other games that have events going on at those times. At least with the couple hour block for bonus marks it was just mention it was bonus mark time and they would be right over to STO. Now none of us feel that incentive to play STO when they can be getting the bonuses else where.
They need to bring something out for weekdays that is on par with the weekend events to inspire play. as someone else pointed out they do the weekend plus hourly events on NW why not here?
I have real issues with the Weekend events... I work thursday to monday, and thus find myself in a cramped timeframe to play or no time at all to even enjoy them. Since the Weekend event came out I have dropped to near dead last on my fleets leaderboard (from a solidly upper mid point), and to top it all off, the first 2 they did were parts of the game I don't enjoy, and would skip as hourly events... this is poorly thought out, and is an reason for people not to play.
However I have noticed one thing, it does seem easier to get people to que for the 20 man Fleet Defense, cause if we are going to wait in que for a while, might as well be for something worth our time in fleet marks.
A lot of my various characters have now ground to a halt waiting for a replacement to the Mirror Universe event.
Until such time as a replacement comes along, I see no reason to log in.
I get my fun from the reputation system. Without ways to earn large amounts of Expertise I am forced between massive grinding or logging off to spend time offline.
Oh you do not want to get me started on this topic.
I have no problems with the foundry, I think it is great fans can make and play out stories in the realm of Star Trek.
However, it is not Star Trek Online "content" - it is 3D fan fiction. I did not sign up a life time sub in open beta for fan fiction, I did not keep spending in the C-Store for fan fiction, I did not ask for fan fiction to replace what Cryptic should be doing. I do not buy fan fiction books, comics or follow any fan fiction youtube remake of TOS. I signed up for a professional writer to take my imagination around the galaxy.
So because YOU don't want to use that part of the STO content no one else should?
I'm not asking for removing anything else or not adding anything else, I ask for mission Replay, foundry mission, exploration mission and even PVP to become part of the actual content circle = being rewarded appropriately.
funnily enough I seem to get both all the time.
I have yet to find anything in the game that is not fun and whatever I play gives me progress in one way or another with or without bonuses.
guess I must be unique, or maybe just easy to please.
Then we are playing different games.
Because replaying any Story missions right now do not offer me anything i could use and couldn't earn much faster WHILE earning Marks.
Cryptic wants us to grind for marks Rep and Fleet, this is the way the game is designed right now. And a major parts of this games content do not have those and do not add anything to the progression.
Tau Dewa or new romulus may be fun now and then, so are the STFs, so are the Dyson zones. But all of that gets repetitive very fast, and then... well its not fun. At least not for me. And obviously a lot of people share that feeling.
I have real issues with the Weekend events... I work thursday to monday, and thus find myself in a cramped timeframe to play or no time at all to even enjoy them. Since the Weekend event came out I have dropped to near dead last on my fleets leaderboard (from a solidly upper mid point), and to top it all off, the first 2 they did were parts of the game I don't enjoy, and would skip as hourly events... this is poorly thought out, and is an reason for people not to play.
However I have noticed one thing, it does seem easier to get people to que for the 20 man Fleet Defense, cause if we are going to wait in que for a while, might as well be for something worth our time in fleet marks.
so you work 24hrs a day from Thursday to Monday wow!
I start my first day of a 8 day long shift tomorrow 12hrs a day, 5 days 3 nights, 96 hours total time, I have 1 day or 24hrs off then do another 5 days 3 nights 12hr shifts.
sure I need the overtime, families are expensive you know.
if I can find time to play anyone can.
still after that I go back to my normal shift pattern of 3 days 3 nights 12hr shifts then 3 off.
till the next lot of overtime comes up that is.
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.
I do miss the hourly events. At least you could work on dilithium or EC's in the same weekend.What if they split the difference and had hourly events last 2 or 3 hours?
They're not really gone, as long as we remember them
To me it was a good thing. As I made great on the Dil weekend. I earned more than I could during the hourly event. I didn't like the hourly that much cause I rarely hit the event I wanted. So most of the time I didn't even do them. The weekend one is better since it last all weekend so I can do it. And the rewards is lot greater.
However for the weekdays only group. I really hope they make it during the week as well for those. So both groups can get a chance to enjoy the event.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
some valid points in here,for and against.
what i've noticed is that my friends list ( a big one since being here from the beginning) is now more often than not empty,how many players are seeing the same thing ?
surely this is a bad thing for cryptic ? i don't understand how less players is better for them,maybe some money crunching person up high told them this is the way to go for maximum profit.
Hourlies and not dailies. We have no idea how it will work out until we have gone through a few of them. Until then it is an exaggeration to either call it a resounding success or an abject failure. Even calling it a weekend event is a misnomer as it starts on Thurs and ends on Monday, pretty much 5 days.
As I said earlier I think they missed out on the opportunity to turn some of the "lesser" hourlies into dailies and even create a few new ones.
Colour me suspicious but I see this as either an attempt to prolong the grind or just a half baked idea that's had no proper thought put into it.
I could get used to the idea of weekend special events, however this is actually BI-WEEKLY. So, for instance, you want a reputation mark event (such as this weekend) you have to wait for it.
Say what you like about the daily events but at least you stood a good chance of running your favorite at least once a day.
So why not run both Cryptic?
I know they are increasing the amount of "bonus" you get during the weekend events however its still placed firmly behind a form of time gate.
So my personal view, I preferred the dailies however switch the weekend events to EVERY weekend and I'd be happier.
So because YOU don't want to use that part of the STO content no one else should?
I'm not asking for removing anything else or not adding anything else, I ask for mission Replay, foundry mission, exploration mission and even PVP to become part of the actual content circle = being rewarded appropriately.
Hold your horses there, I never said I didn't use any part of STO, I never said no one else should use any part of STO.
What I said was, I did not want "Fan Fiction" to replace actual real professional content in the game.
And by asking for "Fan Fiction" to give the same rewards as professional content, Cryptic won't have to bother making real content anymore as you provide them with excuse of - You get paid the same for foundry missions, so why do we have make missions.
I'd rather the professionals not sit around making shiny virtual trinkets for the store and finish off the story arcs they started - not leave us to finish ourselves off (and yes, I know that sound rude :P )
So before accusing me of saying something - you should check first what I ACTUALLY SAID.
Professional content does, and should, pay more than fan made content.
What I said was, I did not want "Fan Fiction" to replace actual real professional content in the game.
Oh, I think we're waaaaaaaaaay past that already, in terms of story content. Some of that 'Fan Fiction' work is far far better than the official content, even with the limited resources the authors have at their disposal.
We used to have these bonus weekends AS WELL AS our daily/hourlies
Cryptic need to stop pretending this is some brand new idea that works out better for the playerbase, just admit you wanted to put the bonus mark % in lockbox consumables instead !
Also every 2nd week isnt a weekly anyway you cut it.
Oh, I think we're waaaaaaaaaay past that already, in terms of story content. Some of that 'Fan Fiction' work is far far better than the official content, even with the limited resources the authors have at their disposal.
Oh, I do not doubt that some of the fan made missions are really good.
But when I hand money over to PWE/Cryptic, I expect that money to be used to fund the games development, add new content and continue the existing storylines (Fed / KDF war, Dyson Sphere and Voth, the diplomatic situation with the Romulans (a full faction would be nice) things like this).
Playing fan fiction, is it's own reward. Taking part in PvP is it's own reward (braggin rights, etc)
The foundry is not Star Trek Online "content", just like the fan made TOS series on YouTube is not "canon TOS".
Asking for them to be rewarded equally is an insult and a laugh, I don't pay to be entertained and rewarded by "amerture hour" - if I wanted that, I'd go watch X-Factor or Britain's got Talent.
Then we are playing different games.
Because replaying any Story missions right now do not offer me anything i could use and couldn't earn much faster WHILE earning Marks.
Cryptic wants us to grind for marks Rep and Fleet, this is the way the game is designed right now. And a major parts of this games content do not have those and do not add anything to the progression.
Tau Dewa or new romulus may be fun now and then, so are the STFs, so are the Dyson zones. But all of that gets repetitive very fast, and then... well its not fun. At least not for me. And obviously a lot of people share that feeling.
i stand by what i said i have not found anything in the game that is not fun, if it was not fun i certainly would not play it.
i also stand by what i say that whatever i do gives me progress in one way or another.
even replaying story missions, dont you get xp every time you take out an enemy on ground or in space, dont you bother to pick up any drops that even if not useful can be recycled for ec, dont you get rewards and more xp and items that can be recycled on completing the mission.
i get all these things and they are all things that even if its only a small amount still all adds to progress.
you want more faster, as long as i have fun i dont care if its little but often fun is much more important to me.
the other thing is i dont play the same thing again and again until it becomes repedative.
i play a bit of this, a bit of that and so on and so on, veriety is the spice of life and there is plenty of veriety in sto if you bother looking for it.
this is half the problem that people have they get a new rep with new stuff like dyson then they play it solidly excluding all else till they are sick of the sight of it.
all i do is play a little here and a little there then go do somthing else so i am always happy to play any of the stuff even long after my rep is complete.
lets face it if you had chicken for every meal you would soon get sick of it but as part of a ballanced menu every now and then its always good to eat.
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.
Addressing thread title:
Yes, I think losing the hourly events was a bad idea. They afforded certain boosts to rewards which encouraged me to play certain activities. It made me log on the game and stay around certain points because I felt it was worth it - especially to ease whatever grind I'd be working on.
And we'd get other weekend events on top of that.
Now, today, we get just the later, and I'm very unenthused about it. Getting Dyson marks, for one, takes a long while and it an especially tedious grind in comparison to the Borg rep stuff.
I do think the hourly events needed some pruning/consolidating. But removing them altogether is, in my opinion, a rather monumental misstep.
It was a bad idea. I agree. But mostly because cryptic is not doing what they said. Weekly events.
We already had a dilithium one almost 1 month ago, and nothing since then. Because i refuse to think the anniversary event is replacing the ongoing weekly one. Its stupid. Maybe because cryptic is so bad skilled that they cant even make the event banner to show 2 of em at the same time.. who knows LOL.
So, people that normally will log-in only a couple of hours at day (not in the weekend) to make some events and not waste time, now they wont (honestly i will do the same, i dont have enough time to wast after work and i need more important things, and now that i even dont have hourly events, why should i login to waste 2 hours doing almost nothing useful? lol. ), so in the end, only a few players are playing from monday to thursday.
Almost that is what i think (and that makes sense...).
But if cryptic keeps not doing weekly events as they promised, lol, well, i dont care anymore, but i think a lot of people will really upset. For some players, to gather some dilithium now in a couple of hours its just almost impossible. 2 months ago you could just do the academy event and gain 4000-5000 dilithium just for 1 hour of your time. Or the dilithium mine event. But now.. meh xd.
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.
Bad idea, queues are taking a long time to fill, population seems to be declining, yesterday I never saw more than 500 people in ESD instances and about 200 people in Sol instances, that's well under 1000 people throughout the day. You want to run Mine trap? Put something on the TV whilst you wait, same for SBFD, and you can forget about running almost anything on the KDF side.
They removed mirror with nothing to replace the missing XP so people can't be bothered to level new toons any more, they removed the Dil from the Dyson space so there are never enough peeps to finish a contested zone run, they removed hourly events and replaced them with bi-weekend events when a lot of people are busy with family activities and can only get on a few hours. People in our fleet are playing other games when on TS, asking them why they are not on STO the answer is there's nothing to do except grind and the rewards are so miserable I'd sooner play something else.
Don't want to be a doom sayer, I've never been one for that, but I frankly don't see a single thing they have done to encourage people into the game more since S8.5, in fact quite the opposite. Still, I'm saving lots of money not buying Zen, so it's not all bad. :rolleyes:
Beta, LTA, CE, Multiple preorder Versions, all Addon Packs except AoY, nearly all KDF/Rom and ~50% of all Fedships, over 25 LockboxShips, Endurer of Atari's "Year of Hell", but...
Bad idea, queues are taking a long time to fill, population seems to be declining, yesterday I never saw more than 500 people in ESD instances and about 200 people in Sol instances, that's well under 1000 people throughout the day. You want to run Mine trap? Put something on the TV whilst you wait, same for SBFD, and you can forget about running almost anything on the KDF side.
They removed mirror with nothing to replace the missing XP so people can't be bothered to level new toons any more, they removed the Dil from the Dyson space so there are never enough peeps to finish a contested zone run, they removed hourly events and replaced them with bi-weekend events when a lot of people are busy with family activities and can only get on a few hours. People in our fleet are playing other games when on TS, asking them why they are not on STO the answer is there's nothing to do except grind and the rewards are so miserable I'd sooner play something else.
Don't want to be a doom sayer, I've never been one for that, but I frankly don't see a single thing they have done to encourage people into the game more since S8.5, in fact quite the opposite. Still, I'm saving lots of money not buying Zen, so it's not all bad. :rolleyes:
I agree almost in everything but.. you say "they removed hourly events and replaced them with bi-weekend events when a lot of people are busy with family activities and can only get on a few hours", sorry but its the opposite. Weekly events are great because everybody can do it and it doesnt matter if you are out for 10 hours, you know the event is still for the whole weekend and you will have your opportunity to play it.
BUT thats the only advantaje of the weekly events. For people that need to go to workk every day, and they only have about 2 free hours of free time, the daily events were just great and the exact thing they needed.
You name the season 8.5 as a flat point when cryptic started to discourage people. Honestly ive been playing for only 5 months, but i dont need more to realize how things are working since years ago. The only thing that keeps cryptic doing stupid things and discouraging people to play are the customers theirselves. And everything evolves to the same, money. Cryptic is a company that will do EVERYTHING in their hands to make money and abuse of their customers, and this happens since years ago. Now, if people doesnt change, cryptic will never change. Thats the reason i say most of the times i dont care anymore for the bugs or anything, because i dont see this is going to change.
Too many rich users that provides cryptic with a real high base of money every month to let cryptic keep doing what they want, new content and absoultely zero efforts on fixing bugs and improving the game. Unfortunately, those type of users doesnt care about bugs, only about new content, and they are the only ones that matter for cryptic. SO, sit tight, be patient because this will never change. lol.
I too have only been playing a short while, started at the end of August last year, so coming up on six months. I signed up for Gold after the first month because I am mostly enjoying myself and want the game to exist, but don't feel comfortable opening my wallet every 2 or 3 days for more zen.
Lots of running in circles on this one. To be answer the title, I think it was done poorly. I often participated in the Dilithium Mining event if it happened to be running, the Academy Event if it happened to be running, the Multiphasic and Time to Craft events if they happened to be running on my alt that crafts. I would stay logged in an extra hour or two if something I wanted to do was coming up.
Did I enjoy the Dilithium Weekend? Yes AND no. I earned a pile of dilithium. First time I had ever gotten a backlog in Unrefined, and that backlog last 8 days of not mining, nothing. That being said, I did nothing but run from dilithium-grinding event to dilithium-grinding event for four days, which burnt me out on the game - didn't log in two or three days after. My normal play time has been evenings that my wife is working, so maybe 3 or 4 nights a week for 4 hours an evening, and every second or third weekend.
Last weekend - lo and behold - no event! Look ahead at the calendar, because curious to see what is beyond the marks event - lookie here - nothing so far. No schedule set, so no indication if it is going to be interesting weekend events or just "Grind Dil This Weekend!", "Marks at LOW LOW PRICES!", maybe even - "LOCKBOX MAYHEM, all drops lockboxes for the next 4 days!"
I get the metrics on some of the events (even some of the ones I liked) were "poor", but I seriously doubt it was COSTING Cryptic anything to run them. The schedules were setup and running, I highly doubt Branflakes was sitting behind a PC adjusting rewards sliders by hand for his pay.
What do I think? (Not that anyone cares, seems to be two entrenched camps ) I think some sort of hybrid could be used. Want to concentrate rewards down to weekend events? OK, have them. On weeks where they can't be bothered to run an event, 7 days of the old hourlies for those who are interested or can't play on the weekend.
I suspect in the long run - it'll be less dil per month than randomly doing Academy or Mining Events, and less marks per month as well. Unless those are the only two events they are planning to run, over and over and over and over. Time will tell, still too soon to know.
Don't get me started on Tour The Universe. Running with pretty good Driver Coil skill and the Dyson Core I can't even come close to finishing that thing now. The old way I used to take the event, drop into any Borg alerts or dailies that I wanted to do on my pass, and finish with time to spare - now it's a 15 minute race to see how many EC I can rack up, instead of you know, touring the universe and dropping in and out of places, seeing what's going on.
Asking for them to be rewarded equally is an insult and a laugh, I don't pay to be entertained and rewarded by "amerture hour" - if I wanted that, I'd go watch X-Factor or Britain's got Talent.
But that's just the thing - some of the official missions in the storylines are 'amateur hour' compared to some foundry missions.
Take for ex. "Divide et Impera" - that the worst, most amateur mission I've ever seen. I put it way below 'Battleship bonanza' or whatever that foundry grinder was called. :P And don't get me started on the rehashed Fed. missions painted red and called KDF missions. Entire storylines can be formed from the foundry KDF content that are much much better and catch the essence of being a KDF than that rehash.
I don't understand why us being rewarded equally for doing some of that content is an insult, especially after the wretched "Divide et Imera" where I really felt mu intellect insulted and myslef insulted as a Star Trek fan.
I'm not saying slap high rewards to any foundry content, but select missions that fulfill certain quality and lore requirements should be utilized to fill the obvious gaps in STO's story content while giving out solid rewards to those who play them.
I don't want to log on or participate during this weekend event. Seems like all our feedback on these new events are getting ignored so we need to do more then just give feedback like not participating.
But that's just the thing - some of the official missions in the storylines are 'amateur hour' compared to some foundry missions.
Take for ex. "Divide et Impera" - that the worst, most amateur mission I've ever seen. I put it way below 'Battleship bonanza' or whatever that foundry grinder was called. :P And don't get me started on the rehashed Fed. missions painted red and called KDF missions. Entire storylines can be formed from the foundry KDF content that are much much better and catch the essence of being a KDF than that rehash.
I don't understand why us being rewarded equally for doing some of that content is an insult, especially after the wretched "Divide et Imera" where I really felt mu intellect insulted and myslef insulted as a Star Trek fan.
I'm not saying slap high rewards to any foundry content, but select missions that fulfill certain quality and lore requirements should be utilized to fill the obvious gaps in STO's story content while giving out solid rewards to those who play them.
I've been racking my brain to find a way to phrase this in an easy way, so here comes the analogy;
You see an advert for a famous entertainer, who will come to your home and entertain you for a few hours - so, as you like them, you contact them and book some regular times for the famous person to come and entertain you.
But, after a few visits, the famous person lost interest in entertaining you (but didn't lose interest in your money), so they start to send a "look-a-like" to you, but kept the prices the same.
How do you feel?
Cryptic Studios, is licensed by CBS to produce (and reproduce) and use "official" Star Trek material / names / places and so on and so on. Part of this content they are licensed for, is the "storytelling" aspect. They can "officially" continue or create stories using the aforementioned names, places, likeness and so on.
I paid, in good faith, to be entertained, officially, within the realms of the Star Trek universe, by Cryptic Studios. I have continued to support Cryptic Studios in good faith for the same reason.
Foundry user XYZ does not work for, or represent Cryptic Studios, CBS or any other entity that may hold IP rights. I did not pay in good faith for foundry user XYZ to entertain me.
I did not ask for the look-a-like and if that is what we are getting now, then the C-Store prices should be 1/4 (or less) of what they are now - as look-a-likes do not cost as much as the "real" thing.
"
Again, do not misunderstand - I fully know and understand that "Foundry user XYZ" may have written exceptional stories that would blow my mind, but lots of people did not come here because of foundry user XYZ - they came here due to the official Star Trek name being here and expecting official content to be added to the game - not being fobbed off to foundry user XYZ
Again, do not misunderstand - I fully know and understand that "Foundry user XYZ" may have written exceptional stories that would blow my mind, but lots of people did not come here because of foundry user XYZ - they came here due to the official Star Trek name being here and expecting official content to be added to the game - not being fobbed off to foundry user XYZ
Sorry, but Im with Shpoks on this one.
As the theoretical customer in your analogy, I would want good content, not necessarily licensed content.
Comments
You know what, I'm having a really bad day - and this is the first thing today to make me chuckle, so thank you, I needed that.
Oh you do not want to get me started on this topic.
I have no problems with the foundry, I think it is great fans can make and play out stories in the realm of Star Trek.
However, it is not Star Trek Online "content" - it is 3D fan fiction. I did not sign up a life time sub in open beta for fan fiction, I did not keep spending in the C-Store for fan fiction, I did not ask for fan fiction to replace what Cryptic should be doing. I do not buy fan fiction books, comics or follow any fan fiction youtube remake of TOS. I signed up for a professional writer to take my imagination around the galaxy.
Notice something ?
funnily enough I seem to get both all the time.
I have yet to find anything in the game that is not fun and whatever I play gives me progress in one way or another with or without bonuses.
guess I must be unique, or maybe just easy to please.
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.
They need to bring something out for weekdays that is on par with the weekend events to inspire play. as someone else pointed out they do the weekend plus hourly events on NW why not here?
However I have noticed one thing, it does seem easier to get people to que for the 20 man Fleet Defense, cause if we are going to wait in que for a while, might as well be for something worth our time in fleet marks.
Until such time as a replacement comes along, I see no reason to log in.
I get my fun from the reputation system. Without ways to earn large amounts of Expertise I am forced between massive grinding or logging off to spend time offline.
So because YOU don't want to use that part of the STO content no one else should?
I'm not asking for removing anything else or not adding anything else, I ask for mission Replay, foundry mission, exploration mission and even PVP to become part of the actual content circle = being rewarded appropriately.
Then we are playing different games.
Because replaying any Story missions right now do not offer me anything i could use and couldn't earn much faster WHILE earning Marks.
Cryptic wants us to grind for marks Rep and Fleet, this is the way the game is designed right now. And a major parts of this games content do not have those and do not add anything to the progression.
Tau Dewa or new romulus may be fun now and then, so are the STFs, so are the Dyson zones. But all of that gets repetitive very fast, and then... well its not fun. At least not for me. And obviously a lot of people share that feeling.
so you work 24hrs a day from Thursday to Monday wow!
I start my first day of a 8 day long shift tomorrow 12hrs a day, 5 days 3 nights, 96 hours total time, I have 1 day or 24hrs off then do another 5 days 3 nights 12hr shifts.
sure I need the overtime, families are expensive you know.
if I can find time to play anyone can.
still after that I go back to my normal shift pattern of 3 days 3 nights 12hr shifts then 3 off.
till the next lot of overtime comes up that is.
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.
Rayzee
excellentawesome#4589
torgaddon101
raeat
However for the weekdays only group. I really hope they make it during the week as well for those. So both groups can get a chance to enjoy the event.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
what i've noticed is that my friends list ( a big one since being here from the beginning) is now more often than not empty,how many players are seeing the same thing ?
surely this is a bad thing for cryptic ? i don't understand how less players is better for them,maybe some money crunching person up high told them this is the way to go for maximum profit.
me ? i don't get it.
As I said earlier I think they missed out on the opportunity to turn some of the "lesser" hourlies into dailies and even create a few new ones.
I could get used to the idea of weekend special events, however this is actually BI-WEEKLY. So, for instance, you want a reputation mark event (such as this weekend) you have to wait for it.
Say what you like about the daily events but at least you stood a good chance of running your favorite at least once a day.
So why not run both Cryptic?
I know they are increasing the amount of "bonus" you get during the weekend events however its still placed firmly behind a form of time gate.
So my personal view, I preferred the dailies however switch the weekend events to EVERY weekend and I'd be happier.
Hold your horses there, I never said I didn't use any part of STO, I never said no one else should use any part of STO.
What I said was, I did not want "Fan Fiction" to replace actual real professional content in the game.
And by asking for "Fan Fiction" to give the same rewards as professional content, Cryptic won't have to bother making real content anymore as you provide them with excuse of - You get paid the same for foundry missions, so why do we have make missions.
I'd rather the professionals not sit around making shiny virtual trinkets for the store and finish off the story arcs they started - not leave us to finish ourselves off (and yes, I know that sound rude :P )
So before accusing me of saying something - you should check first what I ACTUALLY SAID.
Professional content does, and should, pay more than fan made content.
Oh, I think we're waaaaaaaaaay past that already, in terms of story content. Some of that 'Fan Fiction' work is far far better than the official content, even with the limited resources the authors have at their disposal.
Cryptic need to stop pretending this is some brand new idea that works out better for the playerbase, just admit you wanted to put the bonus mark % in lockbox consumables instead !
Also every 2nd week isnt a weekly anyway you cut it.
Oh, I do not doubt that some of the fan made missions are really good.
But when I hand money over to PWE/Cryptic, I expect that money to be used to fund the games development, add new content and continue the existing storylines (Fed / KDF war, Dyson Sphere and Voth, the diplomatic situation with the Romulans (a full faction would be nice) things like this).
Playing fan fiction, is it's own reward. Taking part in PvP is it's own reward (braggin rights, etc)
The foundry is not Star Trek Online "content", just like the fan made TOS series on YouTube is not "canon TOS".
Asking for them to be rewarded equally is an insult and a laugh, I don't pay to be entertained and rewarded by "amerture hour" - if I wanted that, I'd go watch X-Factor or Britain's got Talent.
i stand by what i said i have not found anything in the game that is not fun, if it was not fun i certainly would not play it.
i also stand by what i say that whatever i do gives me progress in one way or another.
even replaying story missions, dont you get xp every time you take out an enemy on ground or in space, dont you bother to pick up any drops that even if not useful can be recycled for ec, dont you get rewards and more xp and items that can be recycled on completing the mission.
i get all these things and they are all things that even if its only a small amount still all adds to progress.
you want more faster, as long as i have fun i dont care if its little but often fun is much more important to me.
the other thing is i dont play the same thing again and again until it becomes repedative.
i play a bit of this, a bit of that and so on and so on, veriety is the spice of life and there is plenty of veriety in sto if you bother looking for it.
this is half the problem that people have they get a new rep with new stuff like dyson then they play it solidly excluding all else till they are sick of the sight of it.
all i do is play a little here and a little there then go do somthing else so i am always happy to play any of the stuff even long after my rep is complete.
lets face it if you had chicken for every meal you would soon get sick of it but as part of a ballanced menu every now and then its always good to eat.
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.
Yes, I think losing the hourly events was a bad idea. They afforded certain boosts to rewards which encouraged me to play certain activities. It made me log on the game and stay around certain points because I felt it was worth it - especially to ease whatever grind I'd be working on.
And we'd get other weekend events on top of that.
Now, today, we get just the later, and I'm very unenthused about it. Getting Dyson marks, for one, takes a long while and it an especially tedious grind in comparison to the Borg rep stuff.
I do think the hourly events needed some pruning/consolidating. But removing them altogether is, in my opinion, a rather monumental misstep.
We already had a dilithium one almost 1 month ago, and nothing since then. Because i refuse to think the anniversary event is replacing the ongoing weekly one. Its stupid. Maybe because cryptic is so bad skilled that they cant even make the event banner to show 2 of em at the same time.. who knows LOL.
So, people that normally will log-in only a couple of hours at day (not in the weekend) to make some events and not waste time, now they wont (honestly i will do the same, i dont have enough time to wast after work and i need more important things, and now that i even dont have hourly events, why should i login to waste 2 hours doing almost nothing useful? lol. ), so in the end, only a few players are playing from monday to thursday.
Almost that is what i think (and that makes sense...).
But if cryptic keeps not doing weekly events as they promised, lol, well, i dont care anymore, but i think a lot of people will really upset. For some players, to gather some dilithium now in a couple of hours its just almost impossible. 2 months ago you could just do the academy event and gain 4000-5000 dilithium just for 1 hour of your time. Or the dilithium mine event. But now.. meh xd.
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.
And people are surprised by this, why? exactly?
A few of us, from memory, can write a list so long of examples, we'd break the forums and the servers that host them. :P
I agree almost in everything but.. you say "they removed hourly events and replaced them with bi-weekend events when a lot of people are busy with family activities and can only get on a few hours", sorry but its the opposite. Weekly events are great because everybody can do it and it doesnt matter if you are out for 10 hours, you know the event is still for the whole weekend and you will have your opportunity to play it.
BUT thats the only advantaje of the weekly events. For people that need to go to workk every day, and they only have about 2 free hours of free time, the daily events were just great and the exact thing they needed.
You name the season 8.5 as a flat point when cryptic started to discourage people. Honestly ive been playing for only 5 months, but i dont need more to realize how things are working since years ago. The only thing that keeps cryptic doing stupid things and discouraging people to play are the customers theirselves. And everything evolves to the same, money. Cryptic is a company that will do EVERYTHING in their hands to make money and abuse of their customers, and this happens since years ago. Now, if people doesnt change, cryptic will never change. Thats the reason i say most of the times i dont care anymore for the bugs or anything, because i dont see this is going to change.
Too many rich users that provides cryptic with a real high base of money every month to let cryptic keep doing what they want, new content and absoultely zero efforts on fixing bugs and improving the game. Unfortunately, those type of users doesnt care about bugs, only about new content, and they are the only ones that matter for cryptic. SO, sit tight, be patient because this will never change. lol.
Lots of running in circles on this one. To be answer the title, I think it was done poorly. I often participated in the Dilithium Mining event if it happened to be running, the Academy Event if it happened to be running, the Multiphasic and Time to Craft events if they happened to be running on my alt that crafts. I would stay logged in an extra hour or two if something I wanted to do was coming up.
Did I enjoy the Dilithium Weekend? Yes AND no. I earned a pile of dilithium. First time I had ever gotten a backlog in Unrefined, and that backlog last 8 days of not mining, nothing. That being said, I did nothing but run from dilithium-grinding event to dilithium-grinding event for four days, which burnt me out on the game - didn't log in two or three days after. My normal play time has been evenings that my wife is working, so maybe 3 or 4 nights a week for 4 hours an evening, and every second or third weekend.
Last weekend - lo and behold - no event! Look ahead at the calendar, because curious to see what is beyond the marks event - lookie here - nothing so far. No schedule set, so no indication if it is going to be interesting weekend events or just "Grind Dil This Weekend!", "Marks at LOW LOW PRICES!", maybe even - "LOCKBOX MAYHEM, all drops lockboxes for the next 4 days!"
I get the metrics on some of the events (even some of the ones I liked) were "poor", but I seriously doubt it was COSTING Cryptic anything to run them. The schedules were setup and running, I highly doubt Branflakes was sitting behind a PC adjusting rewards sliders by hand for his pay.
What do I think? (Not that anyone cares, seems to be two entrenched camps
I suspect in the long run - it'll be less dil per month than randomly doing Academy or Mining Events, and less marks per month as well. Unless those are the only two events they are planning to run, over and over and over and over. Time will tell, still too soon to know.
Don't get me started on Tour The Universe. Running with pretty good Driver Coil skill and the Dyson Core I can't even come close to finishing that thing now. The old way I used to take the event, drop into any Borg alerts or dailies that I wanted to do on my pass, and finish with time to spare - now it's a 15 minute race to see how many EC I can rack up, instead of you know, touring the universe and dropping in and out of places, seeing what's going on.
But that's just the thing - some of the official missions in the storylines are 'amateur hour' compared to some foundry missions.
Take for ex. "Divide et Impera" - that the worst, most amateur mission I've ever seen. I put it way below 'Battleship bonanza' or whatever that foundry grinder was called. :P And don't get me started on the rehashed Fed. missions painted red and called KDF missions. Entire storylines can be formed from the foundry KDF content that are much much better and catch the essence of being a KDF than that rehash.
I don't understand why us being rewarded equally for doing some of that content is an insult, especially after the wretched "Divide et Imera" where I really felt mu intellect insulted and myslef insulted as a Star Trek fan.
I'm not saying slap high rewards to any foundry content, but select missions that fulfill certain quality and lore requirements should be utilized to fill the obvious gaps in STO's story content while giving out solid rewards to those who play them.
I've been racking my brain to find a way to phrase this in an easy way, so here comes the analogy;
You see an advert for a famous entertainer, who will come to your home and entertain you for a few hours - so, as you like them, you contact them and book some regular times for the famous person to come and entertain you.
But, after a few visits, the famous person lost interest in entertaining you (but didn't lose interest in your money), so they start to send a "look-a-like" to you, but kept the prices the same.
How do you feel?
Cryptic Studios, is licensed by CBS to produce (and reproduce) and use "official" Star Trek material / names / places and so on and so on. Part of this content they are licensed for, is the "storytelling" aspect. They can "officially" continue or create stories using the aforementioned names, places, likeness and so on.
I paid, in good faith, to be entertained, officially, within the realms of the Star Trek universe, by Cryptic Studios. I have continued to support Cryptic Studios in good faith for the same reason.
Foundry user XYZ does not work for, or represent Cryptic Studios, CBS or any other entity that may hold IP rights. I did not pay in good faith for foundry user XYZ to entertain me.
I did not ask for the look-a-like and if that is what we are getting now, then the C-Store prices should be 1/4 (or less) of what they are now - as look-a-likes do not cost as much as the "real" thing.
"
Again, do not misunderstand - I fully know and understand that "Foundry user XYZ" may have written exceptional stories that would blow my mind, but lots of people did not come here because of foundry user XYZ - they came here due to the official Star Trek name being here and expecting official content to be added to the game - not being fobbed off to foundry user XYZ
Sorry, but Im with Shpoks on this one.
As the theoretical customer in your analogy, I would want good content, not necessarily licensed content.