devs break the game for over a week and then punish people trying to still have fun with the game?
there was nothing else to do but levelling with broken stfs, no kerrat and boring story missions.
and it wasnt even visible to endusers it was a exploit.
so this is the worst pr bull**** i had to read since geko said he cant tell constructive criticism from whining and so he ignores all feedback "cause he makes the game".
get it where im coming from?
you and your crew of devs knew this issue for months, yet decided you didnt care.
really take your team of the worst devs ever seen and get lost, make room for someone that actually can make correct decisions and public relations.
this year in sto been the worst ever, if that sad excuse of a team doesnt get fired it will get no better, ever.
so, take your your self righteous behind and carry it to somewhere it does no damage.
good bye d'angelo. fare well.
bye geko, bye smirk (and stick your "dev magic <snicker>" where the light dont shines, noob), bye trendy.
Do i get this right, you are saying that people that honestly tell you they were not part of any of the exploiting that was going on in Tau Dewa (heck i was there ONCE to do a marks daily mission) are liars?
This pretty much does it for me.
All i´ve been doing was delta rising story content, pve queues and Delta Quadrant Patrols.
Heck i am sure you could even check that if you´d pull your so called "DATA" on me correctly.
And because i showed my head ONCE in an area where people had the guts to exploit the system i am hit with spec-points loss even tho i have not taken part in anything of that.
I´ve really been struggling over the decision to stop playing this game in the last two days.
And thankfully you have provided me with the necessary reasons to do so.
I´ve been playing for quite a few years already but wow, this is the first time someone has made it so easy for me to move on.
Actually, there was an exploit going on, but it is not what everyone is flaming Cryptic for.
Huh?
Reread the Executive Producer's first post. Take a gander at my "cherry picked quote" below. The issue at hand is XP, pure and simple. I skipped a lot of the 47 pages of arguments because a lot of it is devolving into the usual "forum drivel".
Still, when the EP claims the issue at hand is XP related, 300 characters (250 accounts / people) are intended to be "punished", and it seems a lot more than that are taking a whack - combined with a large touch of "hey, you asked for feedback, we mentioned / questioned / reported this, it wasn't touched, people used it, and now you're busting people for using it", I don't see where there's a "hidden exploit" being corrected here.
Because obviously you don't dock XP from people who got way too much crafting mats. You roll back their crafting skills and/or upgraded weapons. Or remove/undo whatever got "exploited"...
The investigation uncovered several different bugs in the game that were combining to allow players to level at approximately 17x the rate that players were leveling anywhere else in the game. This was definitely not intended behavior.
Dear Mr. D'Angelo - I can understand not releasing the details of this, on one hand. Can't have anyone else "take advantage" of the issue here. However, as you yourself allude to in the part of the post that I cut out, 300 of 100,000+ characters are the "bad apples" of the bunch that "abused" this behavior, leaving 99k+ characters either blissfully ignorant, deciding not to abuse it, or trying to report it. How are the "good people" supposed to be able to help identify what's wrong when we aren't told what kind of bugs are contributing to the issue.
Such as all these people who are commenting, and ticketing, that they did the majority of their "grinding" in the Argala system - even though they might have set foot in the Japori system, as your trackers indicate. Is it not possible that the issues of Japori are, even partially, at play in the Argala system? We, as players, are unable to help you ascertain this because you're not telling us what's going on. I ran 2 elites in Argala myself, going from mid-54 to mid-55. Obviously one level is under your 10 level "cut off bar", so I'm safe from the "personal nerf bat", but still, it leaves a touch of a sour taste in my mouth to know that perhaps said level is "ill gotten gains". Which leads directly to the next part:
Our communication on this issue was apparently unclear. Ill finish up this afternoon by apologizing for not being more clear about what happened. We normally do not post about actions taken to correct exploits, and I did not expect this correction to require more than a simple post. I was mistaken and I hope this clarifies what happened for those that want a more complete story.
First off, let me state that the communications were not "unclear". Possible exploit detected, areas afflicted closed off. Clear. Small number of people "overused" said exploit vs the "masses" of people in the game. Clear. "Punishments" doled out. Clear.
What is going on here, though, is more a result of a lack of communication. Not about the exploit, per se, but the game in general.
Fleets were advertised to take a year for a large operation to complete. Worked out much as advertised. Crafting is advertised to take "a very long time" to actually max out, and a "decent" amount of time to reach a "usable" level. Maths show close to one year to max out crafting, but that lovely level 15, trait, and full unlock of the crafting system within a month to month and a half is also, "as advertised" (when one considers that 30 to 40 days is "reasonable", not the usual "I want it all and I want it now" mentality that many gamers suffer from). The repeated tweaks to dilithium income show that the "previously advertised" 3 to 4 hour time to hit cap is still being looked at and focused on. Sadly, this time it's more to cut back those who can cap out within 1 to 2 hours instead of those who play "semi casually" and were closer to that 4 hour marker to begin with.
DR came with none of that kind of advertising. Spec trees were advertised to take longer than the 1-50 trip. Well, a week is longer than days. On the surface, this is "as advertised". We were not told that there was a planned "rebalance" of all the NPCs to account for the increased level cap and extra power creep that said cap inevitably brings. This accounts for the massive spam on the difficulty of advanced queues, does it not? You advertised "advanced will be the same difficulty as elite was pre-DR". This advertising tells us to expect a L50 that steamrolls the then-elites to steamroll the "elite equivalent" advanced queues. Not that we'd have to be L60 with "above average gear" to steamroll advanced - which some astute forum regulars began to comment upon. We still aren't being told what to expect a L60 mob to "look like" compared to the stuff we saw in L50 elites. All we're being told is "we will continue to examine the mobs and adjust periodically". Heck, the whole "DR is coming" STLV "debacle" and fact that a quarter to a half of the "critical information" on one game system (Crafting and DOff revamp IIRC) came via untranscribed podcast only - a clear detriment to those who do not have the time or ability to listen. These are the "unclear" communications that cause massive forum uproars that spillover and taint Cryptic's name. This lack of guidance is what leads to massive and rampant speculation instead of a controlled discussion. You do realize that not once in the 40 pre-release blogs for DR did anyone state the costs of the new DR ships - nobody knew that they were $30 till the C-store opened 10/14. Nor that you'd have to buy 4 pack bundles to get the "truly equivalent" rates ($20 for C-store ship, +$5 for fleet module, +$5 from bundle to upgrade to T5U = $30). Going "one ship at a time" means that T5U is $2 more than a straight up T6 ($32 vs $30 because single upgrade chips are $7, not $5).
Apology borderline accepted. As many would probably agree, actions speak louder than words. While we're not really clamoring for 100% full disclosure of every mechanic in the game, "returning" to the days where we were much better informed as to what to expect, mechanics wise at least, would go far in restoring at least some of the trust and potential faith that has been lost in this past quarter, along with probably quieting down the forums and preventing rampant spillover into "uncontrolled by Cryptic/PWE" media.
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Instead of using your creativity, Stephen, to punish those players that clearly have shown that they way smarter and more creative then most of your devs, use your imagination, skils and mastery to fix the bugs that are in this game for years. Certain bugged maps are even not been touched for fixing since 3 - 4 years, the famous powertray issue has returned or better, hasn't fixed at all, coz it was still there before the DR launch and so on. Why not use your powers, creativity, imagination to rebuild this game from scratch on a more mordern game engine instead of adding badly tested expansions to an already failing game mechanism. Don't give me the TRIBBLE of it's software and sometimes it can fail, I don't believe that. Your collegue masters of Sysmatic, well known from Northon Internet Security, do seem to understand the wizzary of programing. Convince your bosses with your skills, creativity, imagination that this is a "need" before you go on with the next expansion.
Oh, one other thing, in the future if something happens like this, where your employees TRIBBLE it up, don't address the blame to those that enjoy your product, but kick the rear ends of those that are responsible for the mishaps.
OK, if I have to stay here for a while, your cieling ... looks idious.:D
Reread the Executive Producer's first post. Take a gander at my "cherry picked quote" below. The issue at hand is XP, pure and simple. I skipped a lot of the 47 pages of arguments because a lot of it is devolving into the usual "forum drivel".
Still, when the EP claims the issue at hand is XP related, 300 characters (250 accounts / people) are intended to be "punished", and it seems a lot more than that are taking a whack - combined with a large touch of "hey, you asked for feedback, we mentioned / questioned / reported this, it wasn't touched, people used it, and now you're busting people for using it", I don't see where there's a "hidden exploit" being corrected here.
Because obviously you don't dock XP from people who got way too much crafting mats. You roll back their crafting skills and/or upgraded weapons. Or remove/undo whatever got "exploited"...
Not really, it is more complex than "you have too much XP, *slash* " that the forum reduced it to.
There was an exploit where you could massively inflate the amount of XP to get in these patrols. This was a small group of players. (Which I wrongly did call a mythical scapegoat group and just an attempt to deflect blame in Trendy's thread)
People were also grinding out their skill points in the same patrols. This was a frakking massive amount of players.
Some people were doing A, some were doing B, and both arrived at result C of being well over level 60 by the time Cryptic realised they had dropped the ball and took the lot down.
Now, some people are losing XP for the first, and others are losing for being particularly efficient at the second, and typical communication f**k up operates a snowball to make it end up like it is.
The entire situation is Cryptic's fault, the issue was reported on Tribble, and it was rushed live as normal.
If anyone has had XP removed unfairly, then open up a support ticket.
Thank you for the explanation, but this has already caused a fleet member to stop playing in disgust, Tau Dewagate will continue to claim more casualties
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
If this thread does not show how wrong they are then im afraid nothing does.
I applaud you for saying it out loud and clear.
And lets be honest here.
At this point you can get punished and your progress reset for simply playing their game.
They mess something up in a patch?
Players have to play their game for a week in the messed up state and then get punished for playing the game, often without even knowing something was messed up to begin with.
In the end, Cryptic does not care, players can complain, moan etc... However; Cryptic knows that you all will linger and dab at their product from time to time. According to D'Angelo, he claims they have hundred of thousands of players on the server from all over the world. They are making their money, and your small voices on these forums will only resonate inside a tiny tin can.
It is funny how many players write thank you posts to D'Angelo, when we all know they are not getting read, the guy has no time for the forums. He just pops in and post the excuse for them then leaves never to see the responses. I'd be surprise if he does post again, or a response to what is being written on this thread alone.
The era where Cryptic Studios communicated with the fanbase here on these forums died along time ago, it died when people complained about the ethical issues regarding Jeremy's Jem'Hadar BUG gift to his former partner from STOKED. PWE PR Department put the final nail on that coffin & the era of "Need to know basis," was born.
Instead of using your creativity, Stephen, to punish those players that clearly have shown that they way smarter and more creative then most of your devs, use your imagination, skils and mastery to fix the bugs that are in this game for years. Certain bugged maps are even touched for fixing since 3 - 4 years, the famous powertray issue has returned or better, hasn't fixed at all, coz it was still there before the DR launch and so on. Why not use your powers, creativity, imagination to rebuild this game from scratch on a more mordern game engine instead of adding badly tested expansions to an already failing game mechanism. Don't give me the TRIBBLE of it's software and sometimes it can fail, I don't believe that. Your collegue masters of Sysmatic, well known from Northon Internet Security, do seem to understand the wizzary of programing. Convience your bosses with your skills, creativity, imagination that this is a "need" before you go on with the next expansion.
Oh, one other thing, in the future if something happens like this, where your employees TRIBBLE it up, don't address the blame to those that enjoy your product, but kick the rear ends of those that are responsible for the mishaps.
This! Dear god this!
Also: why do you not dedicate this creativity and technical knowlegde to get people in the game, that have not been able to enter for 2 weeks now? Why do you not dedicate this to solve technical issues that make hardware not work in our system?
This seems similar to the destiny issue. You have to ask yourself why players are performing an unintended behaviour over the intended. They would rather grind one map than experience the breadth of content. Admittedly, the advantage here was so excessive that it was exploited to a ridiculous degree, but many used just to be able to do more story.
Seems to me that PWI, and Cryptic would definitely have an eye these forums during a launch. Because they all have one other thing in common to worry about besides us....Investors. And an intelligent person who is considering investing in PWI due to a big launch might just check and see if the players like the game before investing.
I knew the day would come everybody else would be labeled an exploiter like I had been.
Slowly but surely, it's happening.
Yes, I'm an exploiter from way back when. My crime: I played Explore Strange New Worlds
at the same time as Chart the B'tran. Anybody without a mental disability that played either of those two would do the same.
When the time came to hunt down sources of dil and crush them underfoot, they came for me.
Called me a dirty exploiter for exploring.
This tactic is not new. I will never forget being besmirched and I have a feeling those you've
done this to this time around won't forget either. I generously support other mmo's, OTHER being the keyword.
So much pure PR talk, but iwas to be expected from cryptic. The totally failed at QA and now the Players have to pay, especialyl because it was reported on tribble. I guess a mob with 5+ times the HP is only worth 2 times the XP, something all players obviously should know. On top of that we have the blatant patch notes lie (1.75 -> 2.00 when it was in reality 5.0 -> 2.0) and i am not surprise a lot of Players are angry. So much Money grab, smoke and headless chicken mode, so sad.
The XP part is a small "glitch" or lie if you prefer in the patch notes.
Instead of being "changed XP from 5.0 to 2.0", they preferred the "changed XP from 1.75 to 2.0", whit 1.75 being what it should have been before DR. That was posted in the tribble patch notes thread.
Reads official statement...
Rereads patch notes...
ERROR! ERROR! DOES NOT COMPUTE! TARG MANURE LEVELS ARE OFF THE CHARTS!!!
First of all, I'm not one of the victims of Cryptic's policy since I only did one patrol and one story mission a day and a bit of doffing in between, so no one can claim that I'm a cheater or exploiter who's complaining about being caught.
Fact is, the elite XP were on Tribble, and they were the only thing that made playing through this sorry excuse for an expansion (really, after the awesome Legacy of Romulus you release THIS? Without the return of the original cast members this so-called expansion would have no saving graces at all.) half-way bearable. That people who are forced to grind do so in an efficient manner is only natural. Really sad to see how many people join Cryptic in calling their fellow players "cheaters" and "exploiters" for playing something the way it was released by Cryptic from the test server.
FKA K-Tar, grumpy Klingon/El-Aurian hybrid. Now assimilated by PWE.
Sometimes, if you want to bury the hatchet with a Klingon, it has to be in his skull. - Captain K'Tar of the USS Danu about J'mpok.
Really sad to see how many people join Cryptic in calling their fellow players "cheaters" and "exploiters" for playing something the way it was released by Cryptic from the test server.
Thank you EP for this clarification.
Good to know that swift actions were taken upon exploiters. And no, this is not sarcasm or trolling.
But you didnt do anything to stop them doing it again in the future.
Pls nerf the bad design mechanics like stacking, limit it somehow, both dmg resistence debuff and dmg buff stacking, instaid of nerfing the exp gained, thus punnishing the entire playbase...
So much pure PR talk, but iwas to be expected from cryptic. The totally failed at QA and now the Players have to pay, especialyl because it was reported on tribble. I guess a mob with 5+ times the HP is only worth 2 times the XP, something all players obviously should know. On top of that we have the blatant patch notes lie (1.75 -> 2.00 when it was in reality 5.0 -> 2.0) and i am not surprise a lot of Players are angry. So much Money grab, smoke and headless chicken mode, so sad.
From what's being said, it went 1.75-> 5.0 (erroneously) -> 2.0.
This is "Pre-DR", "Immediately after release DR", "Current and intended"...
Do note, that I haven't seen this be listed as a cause, or contributor, to the "17x 'normal' XP gain rate" that caused this mess, however, in another case of "lack of communication", I wouldn't be putting it past them...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
I am sorry, but this is complete and utter bull****.
This is probably the part where any moderator/developer stopped reading
Fleet Admiral Thomas Winston James a.k.a. The Grayfox Fleet Leader of:
Liberty Task Force/Liberty Honor Guard
Pride of the Federation/Pride of the Empire
Liberty Guardians U.S.S. Liberty, NX-42813-L, T-6 Legendary Odyssey Class
In the end, Cryptic does not care, players can complain, moan etc... However; Cryptic knows that you all will linger and dab at their product from time to time. According to D'Angelo, he claims they have hundred of thousands of players on the server from all over the world. They are making their money, and your small voices on these forums will only resonate inside a tiny tin can.
I can already tell you DR had not the success they hope it did. Free lobi event, another event for german/french, and some people receiving a "welcome back" gift with a ship upgrade token and keys ? You don't do that much when you have enough people. I don't remember any of it for LoR. Usually they do that between season, because that's when there is the fewer people online.
But DR is important to show the PWE overlords they have a lot of people online and all.
Also, Steamcharts are in, and while they only show steam players, and are not accurate for the total number of people in the game, they are accurate when it comes to see trends. And we can already tell they had about 30% less people at peak than LoR (5400 vs 7400), and it's already declining, MUCH faster than it did with LoR.
If it follows this trend, we should have the "average" number of player for the beginning of november, 2 weeks after the highest number (mid october), while it took about 2months for LoR. Clearly showing people came with the hype, and left right away with the nerfs/grind/cash grab.
Fun fact : DR had barely more than some seasons before (5400vs4500).
And that's just the peak number of players. Average players, it gets worse. With LoR, they had a 58% increase in average players. With DR, they had 34%.
Steamcharts here. Remember to select "all" for the graph, otherwise it's the last 48h. LoR is easy to spot, being the highest number of players. Pre-season are the small bumps, and DR is the second highest peak.
So, when they say the "the most successful update ever for Star Trek Online", that's just PR talk, and not near the truth. LoR was. Not DR.
Which is good IMO, that will show them what we want. Having a good cast and a bunch of missions in a sea of grind and cash grab is not what we want.
I'm sorry but I'm not one of those who used the Tau Dewa sector and I didn't lose points but several of the players I play with did even though they were nowhere near Tau Dewa and they have every right to be mad about it. The OP might have been rude but there's one thing he's not,
And that's Wrong!
These devs have a long history of allowing things to slip by in PTR and then changing something after live or not and allowing some bugs to continue.
However, that being said, this was neither a bug nor was it an exploit but they still followed their typical BS process and harmed the playerbase while blaming said playerbase for their blunder. That's not how you conduct a professional business. He deserves the backlash from this.
Me again...couldn't sleep, anyway I was wondering if you can tell us if the accused *excuse me* the guilty where using any type of 3rd party software or other communications to subvert the game?
Did they alter the game files in order to gain an advantage?
Did the circumvent the games or servers normal communication or behavior in some in way?
Separately:
And can you please clarify the harm this caused to the player base or any specific player?
(And keep in mind Mr D'Angelo, PVP is not optional excuse anymore because the concept of in game balance is in direct conflict with endless character progression, which as you know is the a main selling point for Delta Rising.)
The reason I ask is that for many people these are questions that if the answers was yes to even one of them many many players would agree that someone was indeed *Exploiting* the game; aka "Hacking" and/or "Cheating" in the gaming community. We are far far from agreement on that at this time.
And the knowing the answer to the last question would simply be nice.
For what little it may be worth, I can respect this decision. I cannot however respect the other decisions (with regard to reward limitations) that you have chosen, and the seemingly excessive costs of equipment upgrades.
For what little it may be worth, I can respect this decision. I cannot however respect the other decisions (with regard to reward limitations) that you have chosen, and the seemingly excessive costs of equipment upgrades.
So you telling us you didn't level in japori?
Anyway, where exactly should people go to level?
The queues? Or what about having to replay 600 story missions to max the leveling.
Is only 2 years per character if you a casual player that makes so much sense.
Look, just return the game to the premise we were playing under. Non nerfed EXP EVERYWHERE including for story missions and return our non nerfed dil, boom, problem solved.
The whole trying to save face blog has the opposite effect
These numbers make perfect sense to me. It is obvious that numbers are very low everywhere you go from queued, map instances and hubs. DR is an unmitigated disaster brought you by one of the most arrogant and inept dev leads out there.
I can already tell you DR had not the success they hope it did. Free lobi event, another event for german/french, and some people receiving a "welcome back" gift with a ship upgrade token and keys ? You don't do that much when you have enough people. I don't remember any of it for LoR. Usually they do that between season, because that's when there is the fewer people online.
But DR is important to show the PWE overlords they have a lot of people online and all.
Also, Steamcharts are in, and while they only show steam players, and are not accurate for the total number of people in the game, they are accurate when it comes to see trends. And we can already tell they had about 30% less people at peak than LoR (5400 vs 7400), and it's already declining, MUCH faster than it did with LoR.
If it follows this trend, we should have the "average" number of player for the beginning of november, 2 weeks after the highest number (mid october), while it took about 2months for LoR. Clearly showing people came with the hype, and left right away with the nerfs/grind/cash grab.
Fun fact : DR had barely more than some seasons before (5400vs4500).
And that's just the peak number of players. Average players, it gets worse. With LoR, they had a 58% increase in average players. With DR, they had 34%.
Steamcharts here. Remember to select "all" for the graph, otherwise it's the last 48h. LoR is easy to spot, being the highest number of players. Pre-season are the small bumps, and DR is the second highest peak.
So, when they say the "the most successful update ever for Star Trek Online", that's just PR talk, and not near the truth. LoR was. Not DR.
Which is good IMO, that will show them what we want. Having a good cast and a bunch of missions in a sea of grind and cash grab is not what we want.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I can already tell you DR had not the success they hope it did. Free lobi event, another event for german/french, and some people receiving a "welcome back" gift with a ship upgrade token and keys ? You don't do that much when you have enough people. I don't remember any of it for LoR. Usually they do that between season, because that's when there is the fewer people online.
But DR is important to show the PWE overlords they have a lot of people online and all.
Also, Steamcharts are in, and while they only show steam players, and are not accurate for the total number of people in the game, they are accurate when it comes to see trends. And we can already tell they had about 30% less people at peak than LoR (5400 vs 7400), and it's already declining, MUCH faster than it did with LoR.
If it follows this trend, we should have the "average" number of player for the beginning of november, 2 weeks after the highest number (mid october), while it took about 2months for LoR. Clearly showing people came with the hype, and left right away with the nerfs/grind/cash grab.
Fun fact : DR had barely more than some seasons before (5400vs4500).
And that's just the peak number of players. Average players, it gets worse. With LoR, they had a 58% increase in average players. With DR, they had 34%.
Steamcharts here. Remember to select "all" for the graph, otherwise it's the last 48h. LoR is easy to spot, being the highest number of players. Pre-season are the small bumps, and DR is the second highest peak.
So, when they say the "the most successful update ever for Star Trek Online", that's just PR talk, and not near the truth. LoR was. Not DR.
Which is good IMO, that will show them what we want. Having a good cast and a bunch of missions in a sea of grind and cash grab is not what we want.
Comments
there was nothing else to do but levelling with broken stfs, no kerrat and boring story missions.
and it wasnt even visible to endusers it was a exploit.
so this is the worst pr bull**** i had to read since geko said he cant tell constructive criticism from whining and so he ignores all feedback "cause he makes the game".
get it where im coming from?
you and your crew of devs knew this issue for months, yet decided you didnt care.
really take your team of the worst devs ever seen and get lost, make room for someone that actually can make correct decisions and public relations.
this year in sto been the worst ever, if that sad excuse of a team doesnt get fired it will get no better, ever.
so, take your your self righteous behind and carry it to somewhere it does no damage.
good bye d'angelo. fare well.
bye geko, bye smirk (and stick your "dev magic <snicker>" where the light dont shines, noob), bye trendy.
This pretty much does it for me.
All i´ve been doing was delta rising story content, pve queues and Delta Quadrant Patrols.
Heck i am sure you could even check that if you´d pull your so called "DATA" on me correctly.
And because i showed my head ONCE in an area where people had the guts to exploit the system i am hit with spec-points loss even tho i have not taken part in anything of that.
I´ve really been struggling over the decision to stop playing this game in the last two days.
And thankfully you have provided me with the necessary reasons to do so.
I´ve been playing for quite a few years already but wow, this is the first time someone has made it so easy for me to move on.
Thanks alot and good riddance.
Huh?
Reread the Executive Producer's first post. Take a gander at my "cherry picked quote" below. The issue at hand is XP, pure and simple. I skipped a lot of the 47 pages of arguments because a lot of it is devolving into the usual "forum drivel".
Still, when the EP claims the issue at hand is XP related, 300 characters (250 accounts / people) are intended to be "punished", and it seems a lot more than that are taking a whack - combined with a large touch of "hey, you asked for feedback, we mentioned / questioned / reported this, it wasn't touched, people used it, and now you're busting people for using it", I don't see where there's a "hidden exploit" being corrected here.
Because obviously you don't dock XP from people who got way too much crafting mats. You roll back their crafting skills and/or upgraded weapons. Or remove/undo whatever got "exploited"...
Dear Mr. D'Angelo - I can understand not releasing the details of this, on one hand. Can't have anyone else "take advantage" of the issue here. However, as you yourself allude to in the part of the post that I cut out, 300 of 100,000+ characters are the "bad apples" of the bunch that "abused" this behavior, leaving 99k+ characters either blissfully ignorant, deciding not to abuse it, or trying to report it. How are the "good people" supposed to be able to help identify what's wrong when we aren't told what kind of bugs are contributing to the issue.
Such as all these people who are commenting, and ticketing, that they did the majority of their "grinding" in the Argala system - even though they might have set foot in the Japori system, as your trackers indicate. Is it not possible that the issues of Japori are, even partially, at play in the Argala system? We, as players, are unable to help you ascertain this because you're not telling us what's going on. I ran 2 elites in Argala myself, going from mid-54 to mid-55. Obviously one level is under your 10 level "cut off bar", so I'm safe from the "personal nerf bat", but still, it leaves a touch of a sour taste in my mouth to know that perhaps said level is "ill gotten gains". Which leads directly to the next part:
First off, let me state that the communications were not "unclear". Possible exploit detected, areas afflicted closed off. Clear. Small number of people "overused" said exploit vs the "masses" of people in the game. Clear. "Punishments" doled out. Clear.
What is going on here, though, is more a result of a lack of communication. Not about the exploit, per se, but the game in general.
Fleets were advertised to take a year for a large operation to complete. Worked out much as advertised. Crafting is advertised to take "a very long time" to actually max out, and a "decent" amount of time to reach a "usable" level. Maths show close to one year to max out crafting, but that lovely level 15, trait, and full unlock of the crafting system within a month to month and a half is also, "as advertised" (when one considers that 30 to 40 days is "reasonable", not the usual "I want it all and I want it now" mentality that many gamers suffer from). The repeated tweaks to dilithium income show that the "previously advertised" 3 to 4 hour time to hit cap is still being looked at and focused on. Sadly, this time it's more to cut back those who can cap out within 1 to 2 hours instead of those who play "semi casually" and were closer to that 4 hour marker to begin with.
DR came with none of that kind of advertising. Spec trees were advertised to take longer than the 1-50 trip. Well, a week is longer than days. On the surface, this is "as advertised". We were not told that there was a planned "rebalance" of all the NPCs to account for the increased level cap and extra power creep that said cap inevitably brings. This accounts for the massive spam on the difficulty of advanced queues, does it not? You advertised "advanced will be the same difficulty as elite was pre-DR". This advertising tells us to expect a L50 that steamrolls the then-elites to steamroll the "elite equivalent" advanced queues. Not that we'd have to be L60 with "above average gear" to steamroll advanced - which some astute forum regulars began to comment upon. We still aren't being told what to expect a L60 mob to "look like" compared to the stuff we saw in L50 elites. All we're being told is "we will continue to examine the mobs and adjust periodically". Heck, the whole "DR is coming" STLV "debacle" and fact that a quarter to a half of the "critical information" on one game system (Crafting and DOff revamp IIRC) came via untranscribed podcast only - a clear detriment to those who do not have the time or ability to listen. These are the "unclear" communications that cause massive forum uproars that spillover and taint Cryptic's name. This lack of guidance is what leads to massive and rampant speculation instead of a controlled discussion. You do realize that not once in the 40 pre-release blogs for DR did anyone state the costs of the new DR ships - nobody knew that they were $30 till the C-store opened 10/14. Nor that you'd have to buy 4 pack bundles to get the "truly equivalent" rates ($20 for C-store ship, +$5 for fleet module, +$5 from bundle to upgrade to T5U = $30). Going "one ship at a time" means that T5U is $2 more than a straight up T6 ($32 vs $30 because single upgrade chips are $7, not $5).
Apology borderline accepted. As many would probably agree, actions speak louder than words. While we're not really clamoring for 100% full disclosure of every mechanic in the game, "returning" to the days where we were much better informed as to what to expect, mechanics wise at least, would go far in restoring at least some of the trust and potential faith that has been lost in this past quarter, along with probably quieting down the forums and preventing rampant spillover into "uncontrolled by Cryptic/PWE" media.
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Instead of using your creativity, Stephen, to punish those players that clearly have shown that they way smarter and more creative then most of your devs, use your imagination, skils and mastery to fix the bugs that are in this game for years. Certain bugged maps are even not been touched for fixing since 3 - 4 years, the famous powertray issue has returned or better, hasn't fixed at all, coz it was still there before the DR launch and so on. Why not use your powers, creativity, imagination to rebuild this game from scratch on a more mordern game engine instead of adding badly tested expansions to an already failing game mechanism. Don't give me the TRIBBLE of it's software and sometimes it can fail, I don't believe that. Your collegue masters of Sysmatic, well known from Northon Internet Security, do seem to understand the wizzary of programing. Convince your bosses with your skills, creativity, imagination that this is a "need" before you go on with the next expansion.
Oh, one other thing, in the future if something happens like this, where your employees TRIBBLE it up, don't address the blame to those that enjoy your product, but kick the rear ends of those that are responsible for the mishaps.
Not really, it is more complex than "you have too much XP, *slash* " that the forum reduced it to.
There was an exploit where you could massively inflate the amount of XP to get in these patrols. This was a small group of players. (Which I wrongly did call a mythical scapegoat group and just an attempt to deflect blame in Trendy's thread)
People were also grinding out their skill points in the same patrols. This was a frakking massive amount of players.
Some people were doing A, some were doing B, and both arrived at result C of being well over level 60 by the time Cryptic realised they had dropped the ball and took the lot down.
Now, some people are losing XP for the first, and others are losing for being particularly efficient at the second, and typical communication f**k up operates a snowball to make it end up like it is.
The entire situation is Cryptic's fault, the issue was reported on Tribble, and it was rushed live as normal.
If anyone has had XP removed unfairly, then open up a support ticket.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
I applaud you for saying it out loud and clear.
And lets be honest here.
At this point you can get punished and your progress reset for simply playing their game.
They mess something up in a patch?
Players have to play their game for a week in the messed up state and then get punished for playing the game, often without even knowing something was messed up to begin with.
It is funny how many players write thank you posts to D'Angelo, when we all know they are not getting read, the guy has no time for the forums. He just pops in and post the excuse for them then leaves never to see the responses. I'd be surprise if he does post again, or a response to what is being written on this thread alone.
The era where Cryptic Studios communicated with the fanbase here on these forums died along time ago, it died when people complained about the ethical issues regarding Jeremy's Jem'Hadar BUG gift to his former partner from STOKED. PWE PR Department put the final nail on that coffin & the era of "Need to know basis," was born.
This! Dear god this!
Also: why do you not dedicate this creativity and technical knowlegde to get people in the game, that have not been able to enter for 2 weeks now? Why do you not dedicate this to solve technical issues that make hardware not work in our system?
Would you recommend STO to a friend?
I knew the day would come everybody else would be labeled an exploiter like I had been.
Slowly but surely, it's happening.
Yes, I'm an exploiter from way back when. My crime: I played Explore Strange New Worlds
at the same time as Chart the B'tran. Anybody without a mental disability that played either of those two would do the same.
When the time came to hunt down sources of dil and crush them underfoot, they came for me.
Called me a dirty exploiter for exploring.
This tactic is not new. I will never forget being besmirched and I have a feeling those you've
done this to this time around won't forget either. I generously support other mmo's, OTHER being the keyword.
Bynr J. Dipjakmok
Diplomat Emeritus
Instead of being "changed XP from 5.0 to 2.0", they preferred the "changed XP from 1.75 to 2.0", whit 1.75 being what it should have been before DR. That was posted in the tribble patch notes thread.
Rereads patch notes...
ERROR! ERROR! DOES NOT COMPUTE! TARG MANURE LEVELS ARE OFF THE CHARTS!!!
First of all, I'm not one of the victims of Cryptic's policy since I only did one patrol and one story mission a day and a bit of doffing in between, so no one can claim that I'm a cheater or exploiter who's complaining about being caught.
Fact is, the elite XP were on Tribble, and they were the only thing that made playing through this sorry excuse for an expansion (really, after the awesome Legacy of Romulus you release THIS? Without the return of the original cast members this so-called expansion would have no saving graces at all.) half-way bearable. That people who are forced to grind do so in an efficient manner is only natural. Really sad to see how many people join Cryptic in calling their fellow players "cheaters" and "exploiters" for playing something the way it was released by Cryptic from the test server.
Sometimes, if you want to bury the hatchet with a Klingon, it has to be in his skull. - Captain K'Tar of the USS Danu about J'mpok.
This x1000's, everyone here cares about STO even if we hate it with a passion, otherwise we simply wouldn't be here posting at all.
Would you recommend STO to a friend?
Good to know that swift actions were taken upon exploiters. And no, this is not sarcasm or trolling.
But you didnt do anything to stop them doing it again in the future.
Pls nerf the bad design mechanics like stacking, limit it somehow, both dmg resistence debuff and dmg buff stacking, instaid of nerfing the exp gained, thus punnishing the entire playbase...
From what's being said, it went 1.75-> 5.0 (erroneously) -> 2.0.
This is "Pre-DR", "Immediately after release DR", "Current and intended"...
Do note, that I haven't seen this be listed as a cause, or contributor, to the "17x 'normal' XP gain rate" that caused this mess, however, in another case of "lack of communication", I wouldn't be putting it past them...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
This is probably the part where any moderator/developer stopped reading
Fleet Leader of:
Liberty Task Force/Liberty Honor Guard
Pride of the Federation/Pride of the Empire
Liberty Guardians
U.S.S. Liberty, NX-42813-L, T-6 Legendary Odyssey Class
Game Handle: Grayfox@GrayfoxJames
Website: https://www.libertytaskforce.com
Armada (STOFA Member Fleet): https://www.libertytaskforce.com/stofa
Discord: https://discord.gg/bGp9N7z
Twitter: STOFA@LTFGrayfox
Email: CSDynamix@Hotmail.com
But DR is important to show the PWE overlords they have a lot of people online and all.
Also, Steamcharts are in, and while they only show steam players, and are not accurate for the total number of people in the game, they are accurate when it comes to see trends. And we can already tell they had about 30% less people at peak than LoR (5400 vs 7400), and it's already declining, MUCH faster than it did with LoR.
If it follows this trend, we should have the "average" number of player for the beginning of november, 2 weeks after the highest number (mid october), while it took about 2months for LoR. Clearly showing people came with the hype, and left right away with the nerfs/grind/cash grab.
Fun fact : DR had barely more than some seasons before (5400vs4500).
And that's just the peak number of players. Average players, it gets worse. With LoR, they had a 58% increase in average players. With DR, they had 34%.
Steamcharts here. Remember to select "all" for the graph, otherwise it's the last 48h. LoR is easy to spot, being the highest number of players. Pre-season are the small bumps, and DR is the second highest peak.
So, when they say the "the most successful update ever for Star Trek Online", that's just PR talk, and not near the truth. LoR was. Not DR.
Which is good IMO, that will show them what we want. Having a good cast and a bunch of missions in a sea of grind and cash grab is not what we want.
And that's Wrong!
These devs have a long history of allowing things to slip by in PTR and then changing something after live or not and allowing some bugs to continue.
However, that being said, this was neither a bug nor was it an exploit but they still followed their typical BS process and harmed the playerbase while blaming said playerbase for their blunder. That's not how you conduct a professional business. He deserves the backlash from this.
Me again...couldn't sleep, anyway I was wondering if you can tell us if the accused *excuse me* the guilty where using any type of 3rd party software or other communications to subvert the game?
Did they alter the game files in order to gain an advantage?
Did the circumvent the games or servers normal communication or behavior in some in way?
Separately:
And can you please clarify the harm this caused to the player base or any specific player?
(And keep in mind Mr D'Angelo, PVP is not optional excuse anymore because the concept of in game balance is in direct conflict with endless character progression, which as you know is the a main selling point for Delta Rising.)
The reason I ask is that for many people these are questions that if the answers was yes to even one of them many many players would agree that someone was indeed *Exploiting* the game; aka "Hacking" and/or "Cheating" in the gaming community. We are far far from agreement on that at this time.
And the knowing the answer to the last question would simply be nice.
Thanks,
-Glass
Would you recommend STO to a friend?
The developer apologists comment? Stop posting because the developers don't read the forums!!1
Take your own advice developer apologists and stop posting, we don't need your kind around here bringing the game down
So you telling us you didn't level in japori?
Anyway, where exactly should people go to level?
The queues? Or what about having to replay 600 story missions to max the leveling.
Is only 2 years per character if you a casual player that makes so much sense.
Look, just return the game to the premise we were playing under. Non nerfed EXP EVERYWHERE including for story missions and return our non nerfed dil, boom, problem solved.
The whole trying to save face blog has the opposite effect
- Judge Aaron Satie
Makes sense.