Because people would scream bloody murder if they did it without explaining it.
Y'all wanted more communication from devs.
While both of these things are true, if the player progression rate remains entirely unchanged after the update.. then this is a pointless cosmetic change.. why even waste programmer time doing this unless there is some sort of.. ulterior motive that this is meant to obfuscate?
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
Because people would scream bloody murder if they did it without explaining it.
Y'all wanted more communication from devs.
I'm not unhappy about the post (althought that piece of art, as Virusdancer nearly called it, must have taken a lot of time to write as well), I'm asking why that update is being done. It will accomplish nothing.
The only understandable explanation is that by giving us bigger numbers to see, the devs think we'll be happier. But that's just so ridiculous I almost fall from my couch laughing.
This update is a great achievement in futility and absurdity (also it comes with a matching introductory post). Someone give them a medal!
And make them leave the game.
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
There is this one area of encounters in the game where players get amounts of progress we don't want them to have and since we cannot nerf the encounters themselves (without alienating players really) we just rebalance the whole leveling curve with those encounters in mind.
I predict the required xp above 50 will be increased by a factor of 5ish, xp gained for missions and critters above 50 the same, but since the most efficient leveling method currently in the game technically is a level 44 encounter that one will not be adjusted, and in turn nerfed by said factor, or whatever factor they end up using.
There is this one area of encounters in the game where players get amounts of progress we don't want them to have and since we cannot nerf the encounters themselves (without alienating players really) we just rebalance the whole leveling curve with those encounters in mind.
I predict the required xp above 50 will be increased by a factor of 5ish, xp gained for missions and critters above 50 the same, but since the most efficient leveling method currently in the game technically is a level 44 encounter that one will not be adjusted, and in turn nerfed by said factor, or whatever factor they end up using.
Bingo.
I think you hit the nail on the head, sir.
This fits in Cryptic's current nerf-scheme: do not directly nerf the thing you want to nerf. Change the entire system and nerf the thing along the way.
I'm so disappointed someone beat me with this comment, because that's exactly what I was planning to say.
Anyway, if I understand correctly, we'll have more XP for lvl50-60 while doing stuff, but we will need more to levelup ? So basically, it will stay the same ?
Well, on the bright side, it's not nerfed again.
Anyway, do you plan to check the xp curve sometime in the future ? Because grinding patrol mission 10times just to unlock.... another patrol mission, at every level, is the most stupid thing Cryptic ever did.
I don't mind it taking time. I have several alts that are at 53 now from mirror. The doffing method is going to take longer now based on what I read. While they might be standardizing the reward the requirement is going to go up.
Changing the numbers to make it appear you're getting something really isn't going to change player perceptions because in the end the bar isn't going to move any further any faster. The result is the same and the "number" is meaningless.
For now I'm just going to play my main toon who is level 60 until something meaningful changes. Alts at this point are only good for dilithium grinding. I was ready to buy this new ship bundle but every time they release this garbage I feel like it's an endorsement to do more of it. So now I have to rethink my purchase as a matter of principle and incentive to do something different.
Gold Sub since March 2010
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
There is this one area of encounters in the game where players get amounts of progress we don't want them to have and since we cannot nerf the encounters themselves (without alienating players really) we just rebalance the whole leveling curve with those encounters in mind.
I predict the required xp above 50 will be increased by a factor of 5ish, xp gained for missions and critters above 50 the same, but since the most efficient leveling method currently in the game technically is a level 44 encounter that one will not be adjusted, and in turn nerfed by said factor, or whatever factor they end up using.
Next they will restrict team play in certain areas and call of the half-peace treaty between factions.
Me too. I feel I just read a whole wall of text, told by a Dev, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
My preliminary understanding of it: "Doing DR missions between levels will yield the same result; doing everything else (like Argala), you will certainly feel our upcoming XP nerf."
N.B. And there I was, thinking they had already nerfed XP enough (and far beyond). I had hoped to see a blog outlining, for one, how they will undo the supposed accidental doff XP nerf. Guess not.
That speech. The guy responsible should pat themselves on the back with that one. There's probably people in politics that would love to have skills like that on their campaign staff.
So, all I got from that is they want to dot their i's. In other words, fiddle with the numbers to make them more consistent through all levels instead of the huge decrease in points after level 50 we have now.
But, since they are happy with the progression rate of 50+ levels, the levelling rate remains unchanged.
I can appreciate that rolling this one out would cause yet more rage, since people would assume they could finally get levelling faster only to learn themselves it makes no difference. I get that.
hahaha so the skill points being rewarded now is correct and the image of points earned is off and will be adjusted :0
you guys rock !
lesson: dont ever post or say anything that you feel is good... only post complaints or bugs. things that are good for player = not working as intended...
Because I leveled to 60 easily, without Grinding Argala. I did the story missions and the open missions on Kobali. It was no trouble at all. Only the Vocal Minority come here to whine. Only the overly entitiled feel they need to level like it was nothing.
That's strange. I was level 53-54 after doing the first 4 missions and various pve-queues. After that I did 14 Mirror Invasions and rest of the story missions up to 'Takedown' and I also replayed Argala patrol for a while to level up ship mastery. I just hit level 59 and I seriously doubt I will get 51,000 XP from a single mission. There must be a problem with my copy of STO since I seem to be getting a lot less XP than you do.
I do love it when developers drop into the forums, even if - as in this case - it was to tell us that nothing is actually changing with the game.
A lesser man would get all angry, turn on Caps Lock and write "IT WAS THE LONG TIME IT TOOK TO LEVEL UP THAT MADE EVERYONE HEAD OVER TO JAPORI IN THE FIRST PLACE!"
Not me though. Anyway, my battle in World Of Tanks has just started so I must go.
lesson: dont ever post or say anything that you feel is good... only post complaints or bugs. things that are good for player = not working as intended...
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
There is this one area of encounters in the game where players get amounts of progress we don't want them to have and since we cannot nerf the encounters themselves (without alienating players really) we just rebalance the whole leveling curve with those encounters in mind.
I predict the required xp above 50 will be increased by a factor of 5ish, xp gained for missions and critters above 50 the same, but since the most efficient leveling method currently in the game technically is a level 44 encounter that one will not be adjusted, and in turn nerfed by said factor, or whatever factor they end up using.
Given that otherwise nothing's changing by the looks of it, I guess that's a possibility.
Also perhaps why the fix (there's a certain spawning/not spawning/double spawning issue) on that encounter wasn't yet released.
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
So does this mean from now on we will only need to rerun a mission twice after the first playthrough to get to the next level? If so then that is an improvement on the 12 or so times it is currently.
While developing the Delta Rising expansion for Star Trek Online, there was a lot of work that went into creating the reward schema for skill points and the requirements of skill points needed to advance up through level 60. Throughout the creation and testing of these additional levels, much of the teams attention was focused on whether or not the rewards and the progression felt correct. Unfortunately, since the release of Delta Rising, we have discovered some issues with our initial math that have caused some anomalous player facing numbers that we are now addressing in our upcoming update.
The major issue we discovered is that we built our rewards off of how much of a level we wanted a player to earn by completing a given piece of content, but did not take into account what the actual number that showed up in the rewards would be. The end result is that if you completed a mission or duty officer assignment at level 49 and then completed the same mission or duty officer assignment at level 51, you would see a smaller reward of skill points for the mission completed at a higher level. While this may sound like players were getting fewer rewards than they should, that has not been the case as the required amount of skill points needed to achieve each level was set with these values in mind.
The fix for this is that we will be updating the skill point rewards throughout the game so that they will at least maintain the values seen at earlier levels, or in the case of critter kills increase in skill point rewards as you increase in player level. In order to maintain the desired rate of progression we spent a lot of time fine tuning while developing Delta Rising the required amount of skill points for each player level will also go up.
While there are a lot of numbers changing, we have taken extra care to make sure that the speed at which players level up will remain the same as it is now. This means that if a player chooses to level up from level 51 to 52 using exclusively missions and it currently requires that they play 3 missions to do so, then after the update it will still take 3 missions to level up from 51 to 52 if you use them as your sole source of skill points. This is true for whatever method a player might choose for leveling up whether it is missions, duty officer assignments or critter kills.
We will furthermore ensure that every players current progression is maintained while these numbers are updated. If you are halfway between levels 52 and 53 now, you will remain halfway between levels 52 and 53 after the update even though the total amount of skill points to achieve level 52 has gone up and the required skill points youll need to earn in order to become level 53 has also gone up.
We are sorry to be making such drastic changes so far after launch. Unlike the other changes we are making to tune balance, this should be a one-time change.
Charles Gray
Lead Content Designer
Star Trek Online
So, the TLDR version is something like this;
We have listened to player feedback on the low level of XP gained for playing content. To remedy this we're going to increase the XP gained from playing content, but to make sure sweet **** all actually changes we're also going to increase the amount of XP required by the same amount. In other words, we're changing all the numbers but they all mean exactly the same thing, now you'll just feel like you're getting more and hopefully people will stop complaining...
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!!
lesson: dont ever post or say anything that you feel is good... only post complaints or bugs. things that are good for player = not working as intended...
You know, I think you are right. I'm going to test that.
I really have to point out Bug Hunt is extremely difficult, and not fun at all. The rewards are crappy, if any. You should really do something.
On the other hand, I find the various time-gate and cash grab you introduced in this game recently, extremely fun and addictive. I would love to see more of them, and please, do not nerf them ! I would even go as far as thinking I have too much fun with those.
if they're raising the xp for the missions why not just increase the xp for those full patrol missions for the first time you get them in the story arc to the point where it will take you to the next rank
CVN-65 U.S.S. Enterprise - A ship so badass it survived John McCain.
We are increasing stuff, but are moving the goal posts to cancel out that increase.
Yup, that is how I read it too (see above). "Stay on the official DR path, and all will be fine; try and level up elsewhere (possibly 17x as fast), and we'll show you how far we really moved that goal post out."
From what little I can unscramble from the incoherent, nebulous mess of the original post it seems that leveling up will still take a stupidly long time...
Too confusing to understand and I level up as I level up in game I do not try to or look forward to it so I am both shocked and happy when it happens.
I care more about what YOU are gonna do about the missions to get the things we need to buy gear we want or need. The fact we have to spend weeks just to get BORG PROCESSORS for one piece of gear is making me nuts and have issues with thoughts of logging into the game.
You need to make this for a change to the game.
Normal: Borg Ques 1 Processor
Advanced: Borg Ques 2 Processors
Elite: Borg Ques 3 Processors
Any player that puts out close to or above 10k in DPS in a battle should be band from doing easier lower level Ques.
The fact that the most basic starting Reputation gear OMEGA is almost unattainable at times is causing a lot of issues for people to have a chance to do better in this game both on the ground and in Space.
Sorry but... what? pwgroverclvlnd, may you please repeat what you said? Apparently we didn't understand well, the post is confusing us
The OP says (in a truly wonderful way) that they're buffing all (or supposedly all) ways of earning xp while also raising the bar on higher levels. Their goal is for leveling to take the same amount of time to do as before while doing the same as before.
Nothing's changing, just all numbers are gonna be bigger. (And bigger is probably better for Devs. :P )
Damn I can't stop laughing...
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Huh? Really. I have to reread a dozen times. Sounds like a nerf.
Hey! Its totally a nerf. And that seems to be all these guys are capable of accomplishing.
The flip side is that I really don't care what level my characters happen to be at... As that is not how I play the game. In fact they could make it so that It tooK 5X as long to level and it wouldn't bother me a bit. Why? Well, for one, because I cannot afford the dillithium to upgrade my gear. And, for another, because being "level 60" has NO Reward, none, zero, nada...
So the question is: Why do the Devs care enough bother nerfing the TRIBBLE out of us?
Comments
While both of these things are true, if the player progression rate remains entirely unchanged after the update.. then this is a pointless cosmetic change.. why even waste programmer time doing this unless there is some sort of.. ulterior motive that this is meant to obfuscate?
Joined January 2009
I'm not unhappy about the post (althought that piece of art, as Virusdancer nearly called it, must have taken a lot of time to write as well), I'm asking why that update is being done. It will accomplish nothing.
The only understandable explanation is that by giving us bigger numbers to see, the devs think we'll be happier. But that's just so ridiculous I almost fall from my couch laughing.
This update is a great achievement in futility and absurdity (also it comes with a matching introductory post). Someone give them a medal!
And make them leave the game.
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
Let me translate that for the general population:
There is this one area of encounters in the game where players get amounts of progress we don't want them to have and since we cannot nerf the encounters themselves (without alienating players really) we just rebalance the whole leveling curve with those encounters in mind.
I predict the required xp above 50 will be increased by a factor of 5ish, xp gained for missions and critters above 50 the same, but since the most efficient leveling method currently in the game technically is a level 44 encounter that one will not be adjusted, and in turn nerfed by said factor, or whatever factor they end up using.
Bingo.
I think you hit the nail on the head, sir.
This fits in Cryptic's current nerf-scheme: do not directly nerf the thing you want to nerf. Change the entire system and nerf the thing along the way.
Anyway, if I understand correctly, we'll have more XP for lvl50-60 while doing stuff, but we will need more to levelup ? So basically, it will stay the same ?
Well, on the bright side, it's not nerfed again.
Anyway, do you plan to check the xp curve sometime in the future ? Because grinding patrol mission 10times just to unlock.... another patrol mission, at every level, is the most stupid thing Cryptic ever did.
Bets on how long before this game is just another 'theme park MMO' where players are simply along for the ride?
Changing the numbers to make it appear you're getting something really isn't going to change player perceptions because in the end the bar isn't going to move any further any faster. The result is the same and the "number" is meaningless.
For now I'm just going to play my main toon who is level 60 until something meaningful changes. Alts at this point are only good for dilithium grinding. I was ready to buy this new ship bundle but every time they release this garbage I feel like it's an endorsement to do more of it. So now I have to rethink my purchase as a matter of principle and incentive to do something different.
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
Next they will restrict team play in certain areas and call of the half-peace treaty between factions.
Me too.
My preliminary understanding of it: "Doing DR missions between levels will yield the same result; doing everything else (like Argala), you will certainly feel our upcoming XP nerf."
N.B. And there I was, thinking they had already nerfed XP enough (and far beyond). I had hoped to see a blog outlining, for one, how they will undo the supposed accidental doff XP nerf. Guess not.
Sigh.
So, all I got from that is they want to dot their i's. In other words, fiddle with the numbers to make them more consistent through all levels instead of the huge decrease in points after level 50 we have now.
But, since they are happy with the progression rate of 50+ levels, the levelling rate remains unchanged.
I can appreciate that rolling this one out would cause yet more rage, since people would assume they could finally get levelling faster only to learn themselves it makes no difference. I get that.
Did it really need the huge confusing speech?
We are increasing stuff, but are moving the goal posts to cancel out that increase.
You get a gold star for the most uninformative post of the year! Hell, you might even get an award...
you guys rock !
lesson: dont ever post or say anything that you feel is good... only post complaints or bugs. things that are good for player = not working as intended...
That's strange. I was level 53-54 after doing the first 4 missions and various pve-queues. After that I did 14 Mirror Invasions and rest of the story missions up to 'Takedown' and I also replayed Argala patrol for a while to level up ship mastery. I just hit level 59 and I seriously doubt I will get 51,000 XP from a single mission. There must be a problem with my copy of STO since I seem to be getting a lot less XP than you do.
Also, when is the ETA on this?
A lesser man would get all angry, turn on Caps Lock and write "IT WAS THE LONG TIME IT TOOK TO LEVEL UP THAT MADE EVERYONE HEAD OVER TO JAPORI IN THE FIRST PLACE!"
Not me though. Anyway, my battle in World Of Tanks has just started so I must go.
Free Tibet!
Thug rules, dude.
Joined January 2009
Given that otherwise nothing's changing by the looks of it, I guess that's a possibility.
Also perhaps why the fix (there's a certain spawning/not spawning/double spawning issue) on that encounter wasn't yet released.
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
Still waiting to be able to use forum titles
still what I want is: MORE XP
FASTER lvl up
its WAY too slow right now
So, the TLDR version is something like this;
We have listened to player feedback on the low level of XP gained for playing content. To remedy this we're going to increase the XP gained from playing content, but to make sure sweet **** all actually changes we're also going to increase the amount of XP required by the same amount. In other words, we're changing all the numbers but they all mean exactly the same thing, now you'll just feel like you're getting more and hopefully people will stop complaining...
I really have to point out Bug Hunt is extremely difficult, and not fun at all. The rewards are crappy, if any. You should really do something.
On the other hand, I find the various time-gate and cash grab you introduced in this game recently, extremely fun and addictive. I would love to see more of them, and please, do not nerf them ! I would even go as far as thinking I have too much fun with those.
Hope this works.
Yup, that is how I read it too (see above). "Stay on the official DR path, and all will be fine; try and level up elsewhere (possibly 17x as fast), and we'll show you how far we really moved that goal post out."
Keep up the good work, Cryptic.
Free Tibet!
I care more about what YOU are gonna do about the missions to get the things we need to buy gear we want or need. The fact we have to spend weeks just to get BORG PROCESSORS for one piece of gear is making me nuts and have issues with thoughts of logging into the game.
You need to make this for a change to the game.
Normal: Borg Ques 1 Processor
Advanced: Borg Ques 2 Processors
Elite: Borg Ques 3 Processors
Any player that puts out close to or above 10k in DPS in a battle should be band from doing easier lower level Ques.
The fact that the most basic starting Reputation gear OMEGA is almost unattainable at times is causing a lot of issues for people to have a chance to do better in this game both on the ground and in Space.
The OP says (in a truly wonderful way) that they're buffing all (or supposedly all) ways of earning xp while also raising the bar on higher levels. Their goal is for leveling to take the same amount of time to do as before while doing the same as before.
Nothing's changing, just all numbers are gonna be bigger. (And bigger is probably better for Devs. :P
Damn I can't stop laughing...
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
Hey! Its totally a nerf. And that seems to be all these guys are capable of accomplishing.
The flip side is that I really don't care what level my characters happen to be at... As that is not how I play the game. In fact they could make it so that It tooK 5X as long to level and it wouldn't bother me a bit. Why? Well, for one, because I cannot afford the dillithium to upgrade my gear. And, for another, because being "level 60" has NO Reward, none, zero, nada...
So the question is: Why do the Devs care enough bother nerfing the TRIBBLE out of us?