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Powerboard fail - pay/grind to win
suaveks
Member Posts: 1,736 Arc User
Way to ruin an otherwise fun an interesting event activity, Cryptic...
I can't call this a real "pay to win", as you can grind favors for better powerboards, but that doesn't change the fact that the race is an unbalanced mess, where a person on a Rental/Basic Powerboard CANNOT beat a player using Superior Powerboard unless the latter makes some mistake or just sucks.
I've tried doing my best on a Rental Powerboard, but if there were people using Superior ones then most of the time they've passed me the moment the race started, and I kept losing them out of my sight.
On the other hand, when I was using a Superior Powerboard myself there were times I had to wait several seconds for other participants to arrive to the finish line after I've already won.
Considering this activity is time-gated, grants an accolade and a title for the first place, and is necessary to collect monkey tags, the fact that you've made it "P2W" is such a fail I can barely comprehend it. Were you really that desperate that you had to give players a pretext to grind even more favors, so they wouldn't be handicaped in what should otherwise be a fair race?
Fast and Flurrious at the very least was balanced, as the key to victory lied in individual players' techniques. In this case it's Powerboard first, player's skill second.
So yeah people, enjoy spending 1000 Favors (per character) on a Powerboard that will make you competitive in the event. Either that or just hope other participants will fail in some way or will make a mistake, as there's no way you're gonna beat a superior powerboard with a lesser one.
I can't call this a real "pay to win", as you can grind favors for better powerboards, but that doesn't change the fact that the race is an unbalanced mess, where a person on a Rental/Basic Powerboard CANNOT beat a player using Superior Powerboard unless the latter makes some mistake or just sucks.
I've tried doing my best on a Rental Powerboard, but if there were people using Superior ones then most of the time they've passed me the moment the race started, and I kept losing them out of my sight.
On the other hand, when I was using a Superior Powerboard myself there were times I had to wait several seconds for other participants to arrive to the finish line after I've already won.
Considering this activity is time-gated, grants an accolade and a title for the first place, and is necessary to collect monkey tags, the fact that you've made it "P2W" is such a fail I can barely comprehend it. Were you really that desperate that you had to give players a pretext to grind even more favors, so they wouldn't be handicaped in what should otherwise be a fair race?
Fast and Flurrious at the very least was balanced, as the key to victory lied in individual players' techniques. In this case it's Powerboard first, player's skill second.
So yeah people, enjoy spending 1000 Favors (per character) on a Powerboard that will make you competitive in the event. Either that or just hope other participants will fail in some way or will make a mistake, as there's no way you're gonna beat a superior powerboard with a lesser one.
Post edited by suaveks on
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I had favors from last year, so bought my main toon the Superior board and on my first race I won by a good 10 seconds. Looked like everyone else had the basic boards. Now, on my alt toons I bought the basic boards and can tell you it will be all but impossible to place, let alone come in 1st, against people w/ the superior boards.
People whined alot about the Winter race and that was a 'fair' race (except for the damn hoppers!). And this one suffers from the same finish line problem of having to 'grab' the flag but half the time the 2nd place guy somehow grabs it first.
Not sure who's idea it was to have Pay-to-Win hoverboards to get monkey tags, but it's a horrible idea. Do you guys actively look for ways to TRIBBLE up good things or does it just come naturally?
SOLUTIONS:
A.) Make all boards the same speed during race time.
B.) Make the minimum tag reward 6, so everyone gets enough tags for the day.
C.) Winners per board type. TRIBBLE races TRIBBLE, uber races uber.
My character Tsin'xing
Even at a fairly casual pace you can get the fastest board in a a few days, and in a couple weeks a lot less people will be doing it, just like the winter version, and you'll be able to easily get the accolades. It's June 5th, you have until July 17th to do everything.
But its easier to freak out and go straight to maximum hyperbole on the forums then have a modicum of patience or common sense.
/10char /threadwin
Yes because people should have to grind out the equivalent of 35 million EC worth of trinkets if you want to meanfully participate in the new activity. Whats a game without grind, even for the silly stuff, right? :rolleyes:
To the general topic though, I'd just be happy with the ability to pull my camera back enough to see, and the course to stay up between events so I can figure out how to get the jumps right.
lol, I DID win the first race I did, and I say it needs to be made fair. If you call being fair 'nerfed' then so be it.
Weird. As long as you finish the race you get 2 tags and 5 favors. Unless there's some weird limit to the number of times the Finish flag can be grabbed.
And as to the pay to win complaint, I've beaten enhanced boards while riding a rental. One time I finished first against a standard board (and a third guy who has no board...that was weird) and another I came in second against a well-populated race of standard and enhanced boards. In other races I didn't place but still came out in front of the pack of "I bought a shiny board and don't know how to race" types.
A board helps. Skill helps more.
As the seventy-fourth Rule of Acquisition clearly states, knowledge equals profit. And I am a very rich Ferengi.
Why not post a huge sign "NO FUN ALLOWED" while at it?
Here's a thought - Don't do the Event.
Here's another - Stop telling the rest us about it when you don't like something in STO.
Last thought - Go play something other than STO if it hurts so badly you cannot stop yourself from crying out in public.
Kidding aside, if someone has a solution to an alleged problem they should post this as well, along with their complaint. When I was on a game dev team, I learned quickly some people will always complain to complain. No matter what we did, they'd just proceed to complain about something else. All while offering no solution to the alleged problem. The complainers seemed to be drawn to a Feedback Section like moths to a flame. It also seemed they couldn't stop themselves. They were helplessly compelled to dislike something somewhere and they had to do so in public.
After awhile, when we clocked in and it was our turn to check the forums(or, as we so lovingly referred to it 'Our Day In The Barrel' - lol), we stopped looking for posters and words on a list we complied. We were not going to make them happy anyway so there was no point at all in trying.
OTOH, if someone had a solution and posted this as well, we would look at it. And we'd stay late to do so if it was good enough.
There are things you can buy with Favors that are useable outside of Risa, like the new Duty Officers or last year's Outfits.
Powerboards - with this P2W approach - are essential to remaining competitive in a PVP race. As I've said - unless players on Superior Powerboards don't know what they're doing or leave the track, you've got little to no chance of winning on a lesser powerboard.
And if you want to breed the new Feather Monkey pets you've got to grind the race, yet you only get two tags if you lose.
So in the end Cryptic expects players to grind 1000 Favors to buy a an expensive Superior Powerboard that will keep them competitive in a time-gated event necessary to obtain a new acco/title/non-combat pet.
Whether it's all necessary/useful is all up to an individual. As I've said in the first post - the race is actually FUN and well thought out, but Cryptic ruined it with the "P2W" aspect, making everyone with no time/money/will to get a Superior Board basically handicapped. With poor rewards at the end and no distinction between players, it's really discouraging. I don't mind losing as long as I believe everyone have the same chances of winning. If that was the case I would gladly "grind" this event "for fun".
EDIT
@thunderfoot006
We're not the devs. It's the devs who know better how to change things they've made. Most of the time players' suggestions are simply impossible to incorporate into the game. What is more - the fact that we dislike something is feedback as well, as long as arguments are presented as to WHY we dislike it. Even if you don't expect this particular issue to be fixed, it can be important when it comes to future content. Why do you think the Event ships now cost 40 Pearls on alt characters if you've already unlocked them? That's because of the Anniversary Grind that people were unhappy with. There were suggestions and complaints posted, but Cryptic couldn't and wouldn't do anything back then, yet now we see that they've taken players' complaints into consideration.
I don't know what could be done to fix the PvP race that woudn't involve nerfing the boards players already bought. Let's be realistic - such thing will never happen post fact. So aside of buffing the overall rewards for all participants (let's say, minimum 3 Tags for everyone) and hoping Cryptic won't make such a mistake again there's not much to say - thus the complaint.
Second race crossed the finish line in second but missed the flag and got DQ for leaving course while turning around,
Third race was way behind, but got 3rd thanks to everybody else missing the flag
Fourth race placed nowhere but I at least finished the race without a DQ
Those were run on rentals across three of my alts, now do those results bother me, not in the slightest as I'm doing it for fun, couldn't care less about the accolades as I don't actively collect them, if I get them then fair enough but if I don't then meh who cares.
I also now that as long as I finish three races I'll have enough tags to start on the monkeys, so it's not like you have too win the race.
--Red Annorax
My character Tsin'xing
Ummm... I posted some solutions on post #2. :P
Can't really be bothered with the powerboard race, but during winter event there were tons of people who just missed the flag because someone else grabbed it first, while the 2nd/3rd place appears in a different place.
Of course there are ways to deal with this, but overall this should be automatic, not involving any interaction with an object.
The below the water line was probably server/client graphics lag, as for them going faster than you that's easy to explain, there are speed boosts around the track and they appear to stack, I just beat two superior boards on a rental to claim first place thanks to those boosts.
That would be fine, if it were the speed boosts, but they got away right from the beginning...
The guy floating on the sandy ground has been there the whole race.
Maybe some broken set bonus or something like this?
i couldn't really tell if it did or not, as an extra 5 speed isn't really that noticable
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