I, for one, am looking forward to this... It's a grind, yes, but it's a great way to earn marks and dilithium for our small fleet. Plus it's kind of a 15-day challenge to get the required Multidimensional Transporters. The purple Doff will be a nice addition, too...
The problem will be with the characters I need the marks and dilithium with. My main is pretty good at elite PvEs and STFs, but the others are pretty weak!
CM
"Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure science." - Edwin Hubble
The revamped MU event sounds like the Vault and CE got drunk on some cheap romulan ale and had a lovechild.
Just replace the Tholians with MU, use the anomalies from the previous large CE event and ready to change the diapers.
Might be fun, but lacking in originality to be honest.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
That's a pile full of assumptions. I'm sure that at least one person doesn't fit into any of those categories and still makes the 20hr cooldown (perhaps by quickly logging in, running the mission, and logging out).
Please. Show me a person that runs a 20-hr cooldown on the following schedule:
8PM
4PM
12PM
8AM
4AM
12AM
8PM
And I will show you a person that has either
absolutely no family/social responsibilities,
and/or
absolutely no monetary obligations (job).
(or is extremely lucky to have a job where they can get away with this activity.)
The EXCEPTION. NOT the rule. qed.
edit: (BTW, unlike the Anniversary Presents 2 minute clicky-chasey-bit, this is a 15-20 minute mission.)
Please reconsider ARC. Please make it optional, at the least. PLEASE.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
There's a whole hell of a lot of 'self projection' here.
Lots of 'I don't like this so it must be wrong'. lots of 'But *I* can't do this the way I want' and 'I liked it better the old way.' Oh and don't forget the "But I have 17 characters, this will be hell"
There's 200-odd comments here, and a lot of people have posted more than once. That's (let's be generous) 150 people, and not all are against it. That's not even a typical population of ESD let alone a representative sample.
There is a core of people here, who see themselves as the 'keeper of the flame'. You're not, get over yourself. You have 17 characters and you don't like the 'grind' - woohoo, so what. No-one forced you to make all those alts, nor were you required to. 3 characters is all you need to experience all the missions (a kdf, a fed and a rom). A dozen+ alts isn't even that common. but everything should be made simple and easy because you decided you wanted to do it with 15 personas?
Like with the Galaxy whiners, it boils down to this.
You want what you want, because you have 'a plan' that's to your benefit and you want it implemented. You don't care about anyone else, because everyone else clearly wants what you want, else they're idiots, n00bs, or cryptic apologists.
And while they're at it, Cryptic needs to keep producing new content all the time, and add lots of rewards, so you can level your characters faster, to get your overpowered stuff that you want, and easily breeze through a mission, and compete everything that isn't a 'grind', and then they need to make more stuff because the existing stuff is too easy.
You can't have it both ways, you want easy rewards, overpowered ships, and fast leveling, then you want Grind. Don't want Grind? Then you want a lot of nerfs and things made harder, and longer.
You whine about STO becoming TRIBBLE, well it's gotten that way accommodating YOUR requests.
If you don't like that some of it's being fixed, or that they're not capitulating to your constant whining, then can I suggest you go and find a game more suited to your abilities.
I imagine a number of players have reduced how much they play during the week, preferring instead to focus on the weekends.
However, the hopefully unintended consequence of this, is that those players find other things to do instead of STO on a weekday.
Which means, in turn, that a reducing number of players come back for the weekends.
Every other week.
Wow.... so many negative assumptions in one place.....
Yeah, seriously.... I doubt a single word of that exists outside your head.
Ktetch is right though. Peeps will whine on the forums about EVERYTHING. Heck peeps whine about being GIVEN FREE things. Seriously.... how can you take "criticism" seriously when it's that ridiculous?
Really, another 'Rep Grind' event? Welcome to 'Grind Trek Online'. (This really is getting ridiculous and the game design is really starting to follow the 'Asian MMO Grinder' model that Cryptic repeatedly stated PWE wouldn't impose onto STO back when PWE acquired the company. Times change I guess.)
I'm not sure how long you've been playing. Since the forum reset, it's hard to tell who's been here for how long.
Me? I've been around since the beginning, starting with Jack Emmert's announcement of Cryptic's acquisition of the title back in August of 2008, and I've learned a few things over the years.
The most important? Do not trust anything that a developer or publisher has ever told or will ever told you about STO.
Jack Emmert lied about what the game was going to be and what it'd have in it during that announcement in 2008 (I invite Jack himself to come refute that statement, because I still have videos of the webcast).
Atari lied about offering new players three free months of play when they cut the price of the game nearly in half only a few months after launch (back when you had to buy it, then subscribe) - then came out and said it never happened Even.Though.We.Had.Screen.Shots.Of.The.Offer. Cryptic and Atari lied when they said that the exclusive, pre-order items were never offered as pre-order "exclusives" when they put those "exclusive" items in the C-Store Even.Though.We.Had.Screen.Shots.Of.The.Offer.That.Included.The.Word."Exclusive".
Just about every Friday they dropped some other insanity on us and then high-tailed it home to play with their kids while people went ballistic and the forums blazed unmoderated in fires of serious anger all weekend over what Cryptic or Atari had done THIS time. Ah, good times. Such fun memories.
Of course, this was back when saying negative things about the game got you flamed by fanbois (yes, "bois"), but you didn't get a deleted post at best or banned at worst for having an opinion that dissented from that of the Evil Overlords.
So my sage advice is: Don't trust a freakin' thing they tell us about what this game is, what it's going to have in it, or whether or not things will "work as intended."
If history has taught me anything, it's that they don't deserve our trust.
And finally, this game is GETTING to be grindy? STO is nothing BUT grind. There is absolutely nothing to do once you're level 50 except grind. The only reason I'm still here is because the members of my fleet are fantastic people and good friends. If it weren't for them, I would have no reason to log on at all to Star Trek Online, also known as Star Trek OnlyGrind.
Why <sniff> That's never <sniff> happened to me before. <sniff>
I have never been right on the Internets!! (begins to cry. In a manly way, ahem.)
You complete me.
Please reconsider ARC. Please make it optional, at the least. PLEASE.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
I, for one, am looking forward to this... It's a grind, yes, but it's a great way to earn marks and dilithium for our small fleet.
When you think about it logically, it's not really that great of a way to obtain marks. Dilithium is pretty much the same too. Considering the 14 day requirement to get the rewards, they are actually pretty low.
If you have a fleet mark bonus (purchased from the Fleet Starbase) active, then running the hard missions on Defera grants 288 FMs a day. With a team of 5 and allowing for bugs (because Defera is the buggiest planet ever) it takes an average of half an hour to do that run. So 500 FMs for 14 days of running the mission, by comparison is pretty poor.
Dilithium, is also really not that great really. If you run the Dyson Battle Zone you can easily gain around 7k a day in just one complete run (capturing points etc, not just instance jumping for the boss as that actually rewards you less). That means you could earn 50K dilithium that way in around 7 days.
I'm not having a go about the event, just pointing out that the 'big flashy' rewards, are actually not that great when you consider other content in the game can get you the same amount in a shorter amount of time.
Join date is wrong, I've actually been around since STO Beta.
True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event rewards!!
When you think about it logically, it's not really that great of a way to obtain marks. Dilithium is pretty much the same too. Considering the 14 day requirement to get the rewards, they are actually pretty low.
If you have a fleet mark bonus (purchased from the Fleet Starbase) active, then running the hard missions on Defera grants 288 FMs a day. With a team of 5 and allowing for bugs (because Defera is the buggiest planet ever) it takes an average of half an hour to do that run. So 500 FMs for 14 days of running the mission, by comparison is pretty poor.
Dilithium, is also really not that great really. If you run the Dyson Battle Zone you can easily gain around 7k a day in just one complete run (capturing points etc, not just instance jumping for the boss as that actually rewards you less). That means you could earn 50K dilithium that way in around 7 days.
I'm not having a go about the event, just pointing out that the 'big flashy' rewards, are actually not that great when you consider other content in the game can get you the same amount in a shorter amount of time.
I was thinking of that also. If a player has 3 characters, they can do that amount of dilithium in 3 days. So, do that 3 times. Each character can have 50,000 dilithium in 9 days.
well I was hoping to see a crystalline entity event but this is just as awesome if not better prize wise.
please do a crystalline entity event soon though, I only need 2 more shards to finish my last project on my rom, please, please, pretty 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.
1st issue is the level gate of 50... so this event wont apply to the other players?
2nd issue... add a sponsorship token to this. That way alts will take less time, ie components required for this grind. But make it so that if you use the sponsorship token you can NOT do the sub event where you turn in items for the daily bonus.
I think that would be a fair trade. One toon grinds the full 14 days and can do the sub event... alts grind 7 days but can't do sub event.
Wow.... so many negative assumptions in one place.....
Yeah, seriously.... I doubt a single word of that exists outside your head.
uh huh. Because nobody has ever said on these fora that losing the hourlies has meant that they've lost incentives to play.
Or that all they do is log on to the weekend events nowadays.
Nobody has ever typed those words, ever, in the history of the fora.
either that, or you didnt read them thus they can be safely ignored for the sake of a good old fashioned slapdown.
Ktetch is right though. Peeps will whine on the forums about EVERYTHING. Heck peeps whine about being GIVEN FREE things. Seriously.... how can you take "criticism" seriously when it's that ridiculous?
Excellent rewards and it sounds like a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to it!
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
There's a whole hell of a lot of 'self projection' here.
Lots of 'I don't like this so it must be wrong'. lots of 'But *I* can't do this the way I want' and 'I liked it better the old way.' Oh and don't forget the "But I have 17 characters, this will be hell"
There's 200-odd comments here, and a lot of people have posted more than once. That's (let's be generous) 150 people, and not all are against it. That's not even a typical population of ESD let alone a representative sample.
There is a core of people here, who see themselves as the 'keeper of the flame'. You're not, get over yourself. You have 17 characters and you don't like the 'grind' - woohoo, so what. No-one forced you to make all those alts, nor were you required to. 3 characters is all you need to experience all the missions (a kdf, a fed and a rom). A dozen+ alts isn't even that common. but everything should be made simple and easy because you decided you wanted to do it with 15 personas?
Like with the Galaxy whiners, it boils down to this.
You want what you want, because you have 'a plan' that's to your benefit and you want it implemented. You don't care about anyone else, because everyone else clearly wants what you want, else they're idiots, n00bs, or cryptic apologists.
And while they're at it, Cryptic needs to keep producing new content all the time, and add lots of rewards, so you can level your characters faster, to get your overpowered stuff that you want, and easily breeze through a mission, and compete everything that isn't a 'grind', and then they need to make more stuff because the existing stuff is too easy.
You can't have it both ways, you want easy rewards, overpowered ships, and fast leveling, then you want Grind. Don't want Grind? Then you want a lot of nerfs and things made harder, and longer.
You whine about STO becoming TRIBBLE, well it's gotten that way accommodating YOUR requests.
If you don't like that some of it's being fixed, or that they're not capitulating to your constant whining, then can I suggest you go and find a game more suited to your abilities.
Sounds an awful lot like "I got what I want so you should all shut up and accept it."
Ok I get it, they want a new grinding event, they want to give some story to the old Mirror invasion event, i get that too. But when do we get something to help us level outside missions like the old Mirror Event? That was the best part of the Mirror event was the extra skill points. Until they put a replacement for it I will not be making a new character.
Its all subjective. Someone likes the color red, and another one likes the color fuchsia. We are all right and wrong. Each person has a particular preference. No worries.
Outside of the old school real-time strategy games, the grinding mechanic does not translate well. "Age of Empires", "SimCity 2000", and "Empires at War" are examples of strategy games, which utilized the grinding mechanic rather successfully. Only problem is that those games have a limited replay value. "Star Trek: Online" falls into the same category. Once you play through the same missions a certain number of time, "Star Trek: Online" becomes very stale and repetitive. Grinding mechanics only work on a small scale; therefore, the repetitious nature of certain tasks does not become too taxing.
Daily calender events brought a sense of diversity, which allowed players to play beyond the stf/fleet mission queues. Ironically the ground stf/fleet missions queues barely trigger. "Breaking the Planet", "Starbase 24", and "The Big Dig" are fantastic fleet missions, but they are primarily ignored by veteran players.
...and, I think that might just be the issue.
If the majority of the players are veterans, "Star Trek: Online's" problem might be from being top heavy. As a small pool of new players try to level, the ignored fleet action queues are causing an issue. "Mirror Universe" event gave new players an opportunity, for all player types were using them for leveling. "Mirror Universe" was guaranteed to trigger; therefore, new players could use the event to get useful xp. Now the new version of the event does not allow low level players. What is a new player to do?
Unless veteran players start filling fleet action queues, the new players will be stuck climbing a difficult hill. So, how do we solve this issue? How can Cryptic get enough veteran players to trigger off the fleet actions, so that the minority of new players can gain useful xp, dilithium, and gear? How many veteran players used the old fleet actions, so they could level their very first character?
I think a conundrum exists. When veteran players role a new avatar, they already have an established pool of resources. Instead of grinding everything from scratch, veteran players use their account wide bank for leveling. Veteran players are probably saying, "pfft... Who needs the fleet action queues? I don't".
I am confused by all of the people saying they need a new way to level characters with the removal of the Mirror Event. I'm not having a go, I'm just really confused by it.
Yes, the Fed mission arcs really need addressed because with them progression grinds to a very slow painful pace once you hit the middle of the Romulan arc. Cardassian missions are lucky to get you through a few grades. That problem stems from the four years of additional missions being put in to them though, when the Feds already had a stable mission progression. Instead of removing the more 'boring' missions, they just lowered the XP rewards for them.
However, I still hit VA on all of my toons (created post overhaul where system patrols were removed from mandatory progression and you had to run at least three star cluster runs to progress one grade) before I hit the Borg missions. Most of my newer toons have never even ventured to Borg space (save for when the B'tran cluster was worth going to for dilithium).
Like I say, I'm not having a go at anybody, I'm just really quite curious to know how everybody seems to have such a difficult time levelling a toon. I have 14 all at level 50 and if anything I actually found progression to be a little too fast (other than the Feds during the Romulan/Cardassian slump), and that was just from playing the story missions.
Oh also, just in remark to the comment about Veteran players using their account wide bank for levelling, I never have. All of my toons have earned their own EC/Dilithium/Equipment.
Join date is wrong, I've actually been around since STO Beta.
True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event rewards!!
Oh also, just in remark to the comment about Veteran players using their account wide bank for levelling, I never have. All of my toons have earned their own EC/Dilithium/Equipment.
I do not think you are being honest.
How about your mail? Have you ever moved duty officers across avatars? How about moving energy credits? Did you ever buy equipment with one avatar, and then give it to another one? I can name a million ways in which a veteran player has an advantage. Did you ever play the fleet missions queues, so you can level your first few characters?
I am confused by all of the people saying they need a new way to level characters with the removal of the Mirror Event. I'm not having a go, I'm just really confused by it.
I think the daily calendar events helped veteran players level.
I have only one avatar with barely enough resources to exist. My character is in stasis. How many do you have? How long have you been playing? If I cannot get my first character to build a strong resource pool, why would I want to bother building a another one? Its not logical.
How about your mail? Have you ever moved duty officers across avatars? How about moving energy credits? Did you ever buy equipment with one avatar, and then give it to another one? I can name a million ways in which a veteran player has an advantage. Did you ever play the fleet missions queues, so you can level your first few characters?
I think the daily calendar events helped veteran players level.
I have only one avatar with barely enough resources to exist. My character is in stasis. How many do you have? How long have you been playing? If I cannot get my first character to build a strong resource pool, why would I want to bother building a another one? Its not logical.
No, what's not logical is the fact that you assume that all Veteran players are the same. For instance, like khamseenair, I never used my mail nor my Account Bank for anything. The only time I've actively used it was moving some Lobi over to my main character. Beyond that, never touched it.
The daily calender events helped Veteran players? That's a subjective assumption. For instance, I never used the old Mirror Incursion events for anything because, nine times out of ten, when it came up, I was at work or in bed. I never had the chance to actively play it for how you guys do it. The Bonus Marks worked for me a little, but now that I'm drowning in Omega Marks, I don't know what to do with them!
Right now, I'll admit, I'm hurting XP wise. Why? Because I dumped all of mine into my Fleet's Tier 3 Spire project before turning around and deciding I want the M.A.C.O. Mk XII gear and realizing WHOOPS, I used up most of my XP. What do I do now? Slow and steady wins the race - I'm back into the ESTFs and missions. Maybe I'll pick up an XP Boost item and earn more.
Your problem, as I'm seeing it, is that you're using Mirror Incursion as a crutch. You think that this is the only way because you want it fast and you want it now. And I think, as a whole, this is the problem with the game: we want it fast and we want it now and when we get time-gated stuff, we get angry.
When you mean once a day u mean will be able to get Multidimensional Transporter thing for the hole week? and also is it possible for me to do it once on one caracter and do it again on another caracter in the same day? if so yay i mean i only use my Fed and Klingon so do it twice a day and get 100k Dilithium. I am only in for dem Dilithiumz.
However, I feel sad for Obisek, he must be cloning himself to be in almost every Romulan PvE. (My point is: can't you create a new character for the RR, this is getting repetitive.)
I'll have to admit, I never used the mirror event to level any of my toons. Have been surprised so many others did. I did however use it on max level toons to help woth expertise getting low from either fleet or rep projects.
Bonus XP weekends help much more for leveling than the old Mirror Invasion event.
Last weekend I leveled up my lvl20 toon to lvl40 in a few hours play. Also I queued into Starbase 24 and Fleet Alert - both of them gave decent XP outside the bonus XP weekend.
Duty officer missions also gives a lot of XP - 10-12 succesfull missions gives enough XP for half a level.
Hitting lvl50 was never an issue in this game - frankly, leveling is too quick in this game. Much quicker than SWTOR for example. Last time i barely used my commander level cruiser: I came out from ESD, went to Nimbus, hit lvl40 and I went back to ESD for my Galaxy.
Also if you think STO is grindy than you should play SWTOR. Which is much more about grind - with an awful random factor. In STO if you really want something you can acquire it within reasonable time. In SWTOR you depend from luck: is this item will be in the boss loot? And how many teammates will push "need"? Will I be lucky enough to acquire this specific lightsaber?
How about your mail? Have you ever moved duty officers across avatars? How about moving energy credits? Did you ever buy equipment with one avatar, and then give it to another one? I can name a million ways in which a veteran player has an advantage. Did you ever play the fleet missions queues, so you can level your first few characters?
I am not lying. I took you at your word, and simply asked for clarification. I don't appreciate being called a liar in response. I only make use of my account bank to transfer the occasional lock box Doff from one toon to another (if it's more suited to another toon than the one I open it on) but that's only EVER once I've hit level 50. I don't see the fun in transferring items or EC to other toons as it takes away from the experience of levelling them on their own merit. The only time I ever share EC across toons is if I'm buying something for Fleet projects (I am part of a small fleet, with people I've been friends with much longer than STO has existed) and that's only if it's absolutely required. Other than that, my account bank is pretty much only used for things like special events, for example during the winter event I mostly ran it with one toon and then sent items to other toons to pick up things from the event store.
I think the daily calendar events helped veteran players level.
I have only one avatar with barely enough resources to exist. My character is in stasis. How many do you have? How long have you been playing? If I cannot get my first character to build a strong resource pool, why would I want to bother building a another one? Its not logical.
I've been playing since closed Beta, I bought a Lifetime sub as soon as they became available. Getting resources is pretty easy these days, I mean I'm not one of these players who has 500 million EC or anything crazy but that's mostly because of the small fleet issues. I spend an average of 1.5 Million a day on items for fleet/rep projects. Until you hit level 50, you don't really need the 'best' high end gear because the PvE missions are relatively easy. Now at level 50 a run of the Battle Zone in the Dyson Sphere will get you around 7K dilithium a day, one and a half and you have more than you can refine in a day. Running a few Elite STFs and the Daily Fleet actions etc will usually get you enough to sell for at least around 900K EC. Add in a quick 15 minute tour of the galaxy for just under 500K more.
For my first few characters (created in the first year of the game) I did run fleet actions, that was before they were in a queue and you just went to the system and got placed into a team with other people running them. They were mandatory back then though and if you didn't complete them at least once then you wouldn't be able to progress in the story arc. The same was true for system patrols, you needed to do one system patrol in each sector block to proceed with the story. Usually, you had to also add in at least three runs of a star cluster to get the XP needed to progress. Things have improved a heck of a lot since then.
My most recent toon was started on the 1st of February (I watched the Fed tutorial livestream the day before and really wanted to play through the new tutorial for myself), I hit level cap with him on the 5th of February.
Like I said, I'm really not having a go at all, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't have a go at me for asking a question out of curiosity. Everybody has different play styles, and I am just curious what other people play like that causes them to have such difficulty. I do also dislike the removal of the hourly event calendar, but that's mostly because I'm not always free at weekends and I preferred playing each day as it came instead of grinding one thing continuously over the course of five days. Not because it helped me level.
Join date is wrong, I've actually been around since STO Beta.
True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event rewards!!
Comments
The problem will be with the characters I need the marks and dilithium with. My main is pretty good at elite PvEs and STFs, but the others are pretty weak!
CM
Just replace the Tholians with MU, use the anomalies from the previous large CE event and ready to change the diapers.
Might be fun, but lacking in originality to be honest.
Please. Show me a person that runs a 20-hr cooldown on the following schedule:
8PM
4PM
12PM
8AM
4AM
12AM
8PM
And I will show you a person that has either
absolutely no family/social responsibilities,
and/or
absolutely no monetary obligations (job).
(or is extremely lucky to have a job where they can get away with this activity.)
The EXCEPTION. NOT the rule. qed.
edit: (BTW, unlike the Anniversary Presents 2 minute clicky-chasey-bit, this is a 15-20 minute mission.)
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
Why are you so angry?
Yeah, seriously.... I doubt a single word of that exists outside your head.
Ktetch is right though. Peeps will whine on the forums about EVERYTHING. Heck peeps whine about being GIVEN FREE things. Seriously.... how can you take "criticism" seriously when it's that ridiculous?
My character Tsin'xing
I'm not sure how long you've been playing. Since the forum reset, it's hard to tell who's been here for how long.
Me? I've been around since the beginning, starting with Jack Emmert's announcement of Cryptic's acquisition of the title back in August of 2008, and I've learned a few things over the years.
The most important? Do not trust anything that a developer or publisher has ever told or will ever told you about STO.
Jack Emmert lied about what the game was going to be and what it'd have in it during that announcement in 2008 (I invite Jack himself to come refute that statement, because I still have videos of the webcast).
Atari lied about offering new players three free months of play when they cut the price of the game nearly in half only a few months after launch (back when you had to buy it, then subscribe) - then came out and said it never happened Even.Though.We.Had.Screen.Shots.Of.The.Offer. Cryptic and Atari lied when they said that the exclusive, pre-order items were never offered as pre-order "exclusives" when they put those "exclusive" items in the C-Store Even.Though.We.Had.Screen.Shots.Of.The.Offer.That.Included.The.Word."Exclusive".
Just about every Friday they dropped some other insanity on us and then high-tailed it home to play with their kids while people went ballistic and the forums blazed unmoderated in fires of serious anger all weekend over what Cryptic or Atari had done THIS time. Ah, good times. Such fun memories.
Of course, this was back when saying negative things about the game got you flamed by fanbois (yes, "bois"), but you didn't get a deleted post at best or banned at worst for having an opinion that dissented from that of the Evil Overlords.
So my sage advice is: Don't trust a freakin' thing they tell us about what this game is, what it's going to have in it, or whether or not things will "work as intended."
If history has taught me anything, it's that they don't deserve our trust.
And finally, this game is GETTING to be grindy? STO is nothing BUT grind. There is absolutely nothing to do once you're level 50 except grind. The only reason I'm still here is because the members of my fleet are fantastic people and good friends. If it weren't for them, I would have no reason to log on at all to Star Trek Online, also known as Star Trek OnlyGrind.
Methinks you're completely right.
Why <sniff> That's never <sniff> happened to me before. <sniff>
I have never been right on the Internets!! (begins to cry. In a manly way, ahem.)
You complete me.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
When you think about it logically, it's not really that great of a way to obtain marks. Dilithium is pretty much the same too. Considering the 14 day requirement to get the rewards, they are actually pretty low.
If you have a fleet mark bonus (purchased from the Fleet Starbase) active, then running the hard missions on Defera grants 288 FMs a day. With a team of 5 and allowing for bugs (because Defera is the buggiest planet ever) it takes an average of half an hour to do that run. So 500 FMs for 14 days of running the mission, by comparison is pretty poor.
Dilithium, is also really not that great really. If you run the Dyson Battle Zone you can easily gain around 7k a day in just one complete run (capturing points etc, not just instance jumping for the boss as that actually rewards you less). That means you could earn 50K dilithium that way in around 7 days.
I'm not having a go about the event, just pointing out that the 'big flashy' rewards, are actually not that great when you consider other content in the game can get you the same amount in a shorter amount of time.
Oh, wait, I don't have to do it if I don't want to!
Oh, wait... It turns out I do want to...
CM
I was thinking of that also. If a player has 3 characters, they can do that amount of dilithium in 3 days. So, do that 3 times. Each character can have 50,000 dilithium in 9 days.
please do a crystalline entity event soon though, I only need 2 more shards to finish my last project on my rom, please, please, pretty 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.
2nd issue... add a sponsorship token to this. That way alts will take less time, ie components required for this grind. But make it so that if you use the sponsorship token you can NOT do the sub event where you turn in items for the daily bonus.
I think that would be a fair trade. One toon grinds the full 14 days and can do the sub event... alts grind 7 days but can't do sub event.
uh huh. Because nobody has ever said on these fora that losing the hourlies has meant that they've lost incentives to play.
Or that all they do is log on to the weekend events nowadays.
Nobody has ever typed those words, ever, in the history of the fora.
either that, or you didnt read them thus they can be safely ignored for the sake of a good old fashioned slapdown.
Speaking for the devs are we?
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Sounds an awful lot like "I got what I want so you should all shut up and accept it."
The fun thing is that his post is filled to capacity with exactly the kind of "self projection" and ignorance it is supposed to criticize...
Outside of the old school real-time strategy games, the grinding mechanic does not translate well. "Age of Empires", "SimCity 2000", and "Empires at War" are examples of strategy games, which utilized the grinding mechanic rather successfully. Only problem is that those games have a limited replay value. "Star Trek: Online" falls into the same category. Once you play through the same missions a certain number of time, "Star Trek: Online" becomes very stale and repetitive. Grinding mechanics only work on a small scale; therefore, the repetitious nature of certain tasks does not become too taxing.
Daily calender events brought a sense of diversity, which allowed players to play beyond the stf/fleet mission queues. Ironically the ground stf/fleet missions queues barely trigger. "Breaking the Planet", "Starbase 24", and "The Big Dig" are fantastic fleet missions, but they are primarily ignored by veteran players.
...and, I think that might just be the issue.
If the majority of the players are veterans, "Star Trek: Online's" problem might be from being top heavy. As a small pool of new players try to level, the ignored fleet action queues are causing an issue. "Mirror Universe" event gave new players an opportunity, for all player types were using them for leveling. "Mirror Universe" was guaranteed to trigger; therefore, new players could use the event to get useful xp. Now the new version of the event does not allow low level players. What is a new player to do?
Unless veteran players start filling fleet action queues, the new players will be stuck climbing a difficult hill. So, how do we solve this issue? How can Cryptic get enough veteran players to trigger off the fleet actions, so that the minority of new players can gain useful xp, dilithium, and gear? How many veteran players used the old fleet actions, so they could level their very first character?
I think a conundrum exists. When veteran players role a new avatar, they already have an established pool of resources. Instead of grinding everything from scratch, veteran players use their account wide bank for leveling. Veteran players are probably saying, "pfft... Who needs the fleet action queues? I don't".
Its a conundrum.
Yes, the Fed mission arcs really need addressed because with them progression grinds to a very slow painful pace once you hit the middle of the Romulan arc. Cardassian missions are lucky to get you through a few grades. That problem stems from the four years of additional missions being put in to them though, when the Feds already had a stable mission progression. Instead of removing the more 'boring' missions, they just lowered the XP rewards for them.
However, I still hit VA on all of my toons (created post overhaul where system patrols were removed from mandatory progression and you had to run at least three star cluster runs to progress one grade) before I hit the Borg missions. Most of my newer toons have never even ventured to Borg space (save for when the B'tran cluster was worth going to for dilithium).
Like I say, I'm not having a go at anybody, I'm just really quite curious to know how everybody seems to have such a difficult time levelling a toon. I have 14 all at level 50 and if anything I actually found progression to be a little too fast (other than the Feds during the Romulan/Cardassian slump), and that was just from playing the story missions.
Oh also, just in remark to the comment about Veteran players using their account wide bank for levelling, I never have. All of my toons have earned their own EC/Dilithium/Equipment.
How about your mail? Have you ever moved duty officers across avatars? How about moving energy credits? Did you ever buy equipment with one avatar, and then give it to another one? I can name a million ways in which a veteran player has an advantage. Did you ever play the fleet missions queues, so you can level your first few characters?
:: LINK : http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=15650691&postcount=232
I cannot see how you can be confused.
I think the daily calendar events helped veteran players level.
I have only one avatar with barely enough resources to exist. My character is in stasis. How many do you have? How long have you been playing? If I cannot get my first character to build a strong resource pool, why would I want to bother building a another one? Its not logical.
No, what's not logical is the fact that you assume that all Veteran players are the same. For instance, like khamseenair, I never used my mail nor my Account Bank for anything. The only time I've actively used it was moving some Lobi over to my main character. Beyond that, never touched it.
The daily calender events helped Veteran players? That's a subjective assumption. For instance, I never used the old Mirror Incursion events for anything because, nine times out of ten, when it came up, I was at work or in bed. I never had the chance to actively play it for how you guys do it. The Bonus Marks worked for me a little, but now that I'm drowning in Omega Marks, I don't know what to do with them!
Right now, I'll admit, I'm hurting XP wise. Why? Because I dumped all of mine into my Fleet's Tier 3 Spire project before turning around and deciding I want the M.A.C.O. Mk XII gear and realizing WHOOPS, I used up most of my XP. What do I do now? Slow and steady wins the race - I'm back into the ESTFs and missions. Maybe I'll pick up an XP Boost item and earn more.
Your problem, as I'm seeing it, is that you're using Mirror Incursion as a crutch. You think that this is the only way because you want it fast and you want it now. And I think, as a whole, this is the problem with the game: we want it fast and we want it now and when we get time-gated stuff, we get angry.
When you mean once a day u mean will be able to get Multidimensional Transporter thing for the hole week? and also is it possible for me to do it once on one caracter and do it again on another caracter in the same day? if so yay i mean i only use my Fed and Klingon so do it twice a day and get 100k Dilithium. I am only in for dem Dilithiumz.
However, I feel sad for Obisek, he must be cloning himself to be in almost every Romulan PvE. (My point is: can't you create a new character for the RR, this is getting repetitive.)
Last weekend I leveled up my lvl20 toon to lvl40 in a few hours play. Also I queued into Starbase 24 and Fleet Alert - both of them gave decent XP outside the bonus XP weekend.
Duty officer missions also gives a lot of XP - 10-12 succesfull missions gives enough XP for half a level.
Hitting lvl50 was never an issue in this game - frankly, leveling is too quick in this game. Much quicker than SWTOR for example. Last time i barely used my commander level cruiser: I came out from ESD, went to Nimbus, hit lvl40 and I went back to ESD for my Galaxy.
Also if you think STO is grindy than you should play SWTOR. Which is much more about grind - with an awful random factor. In STO if you really want something you can acquire it within reasonable time. In SWTOR you depend from luck: is this item will be in the boss loot? And how many teammates will push "need"? Will I be lucky enough to acquire this specific lightsaber?
I am not lying. I took you at your word, and simply asked for clarification. I don't appreciate being called a liar in response. I only make use of my account bank to transfer the occasional lock box Doff from one toon to another (if it's more suited to another toon than the one I open it on) but that's only EVER once I've hit level 50. I don't see the fun in transferring items or EC to other toons as it takes away from the experience of levelling them on their own merit. The only time I ever share EC across toons is if I'm buying something for Fleet projects (I am part of a small fleet, with people I've been friends with much longer than STO has existed) and that's only if it's absolutely required. Other than that, my account bank is pretty much only used for things like special events, for example during the winter event I mostly ran it with one toon and then sent items to other toons to pick up things from the event store.
I've been playing since closed Beta, I bought a Lifetime sub as soon as they became available. Getting resources is pretty easy these days, I mean I'm not one of these players who has 500 million EC or anything crazy but that's mostly because of the small fleet issues. I spend an average of 1.5 Million a day on items for fleet/rep projects. Until you hit level 50, you don't really need the 'best' high end gear because the PvE missions are relatively easy. Now at level 50 a run of the Battle Zone in the Dyson Sphere will get you around 7K dilithium a day, one and a half and you have more than you can refine in a day. Running a few Elite STFs and the Daily Fleet actions etc will usually get you enough to sell for at least around 900K EC. Add in a quick 15 minute tour of the galaxy for just under 500K more.
For my first few characters (created in the first year of the game) I did run fleet actions, that was before they were in a queue and you just went to the system and got placed into a team with other people running them. They were mandatory back then though and if you didn't complete them at least once then you wouldn't be able to progress in the story arc. The same was true for system patrols, you needed to do one system patrol in each sector block to proceed with the story. Usually, you had to also add in at least three runs of a star cluster to get the XP needed to progress. Things have improved a heck of a lot since then.
My most recent toon was started on the 1st of February (I watched the Fed tutorial livestream the day before and really wanted to play through the new tutorial for myself), I hit level cap with him on the 5th of February.
Like I said, I'm really not having a go at all, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't have a go at me for asking a question out of curiosity. Everybody has different play styles, and I am just curious what other people play like that causes them to have such difficulty. I do also dislike the removal of the hourly event calendar, but that's mostly because I'm not always free at weekends and I preferred playing each day as it came instead of grinding one thing continuously over the course of five days. Not because it helped me level.
I like the fact that we don't have to do 2 week CE all the time. Now we will have this event too.
About shortage of xp, I think there is enough xp points in this game without mirror event, especially with xp bonus weekend.