The main problem with your whole assesment is, you just assume what some people are supposed to think, put them all in one basket, mix them with some lazy sterotypes & platitudes (like all MMOs are Grind) ...
... just to complain about Complainers, who might not even exist, in the way you think they do ...
_______________
My personal opinion i.E. :
1. Ship upgrades / Dilithium Upgrades
Don't really care about them, because there is no point imho ... that's the problem, it's not about costing too much, too much time / effort, too hard etc ... why should I upgrade if it's just for the Grind's sake ... no rewarding new content to play with etc etc ... why should I care ...
Just "wasted" DEV Time, which results in "wasted" in-game resources ... imho
2. The Grind
see below
4. Alts
Meh it's pretty simple ... if it's not fun ... I won't do it more than one time ... I had fun with all my Alts for several years ... and MAYBE I will again ... but not with the DR Content ... did it on one toon ... got another to 59 through doffing to repeat the Story Missions one more time ... that's it for me ... no Motivation left !
Maybe there is enough fun stuff to do, to get some Toons from Lvl 53 to 56 within the next Expansion, 2 years from now (and so on, assuming DR is modus operandi) ... so yeah I'm not forcing myself & not in a rush either (which might be the real problem), but I just don't see most of my toons getting to 60 before the Server shuts down, realistically speaking ... which begs the question if there is any point to this Expansion for most of my Toons ...
All MMOs push you towards the latest content when levelling. You can do it other ways if you wish, but the Devs would like the new content, that they have been working on for several months, to be used.
Take WoW for example, I haven't played in years so it may have changed, but previously you slowly out leveled the old content until you reached a point where it gave you NO skill points at all and you HAD to do the new content. STO at least gives you a choice.
There are numerous options to leveling in STO, whether its the 50-60 or the post 60 points. You can Doff, STF, rerun old patrols/story missions, rerun new patrols/story missions. You may not get the best XP per hour, but that should not be a huge consideration. Just play how you enjoy playing and the XP will come.
1. Yes most MMOs push towards the latest content, but most of them also provide enough variety & extent, to ease the "Grind" ...
2. Well WoW for example provides different Zones & different Quests to lvl up (AT EACH LVL) ... WOW at least gives you a choice ... moreover WOW Endgame Content usually is rewarding (will get you the "best" Equipment etc) ... STO on the other hand will just hand out MK XII everyone already has for years, so you can pay for upgrades ... and once you got all your Epic Mk XIV Equipment, you might be able to do ELITES blindfolded, but they don't reward anything useful anymore, and never have ... again what's the point ... the reward/grind - ratio is just beyond silly, that's the problem, not the Grind itself ...
3. That's the thing I'm pretty sure most people complaining, DON'T enjoy it anymore because it's to repetitve with not enough variety (or other reasons) ... so what's your point ... you're just telling people to enjoy something they obviously don't ... also, most people want to see rewarding progress, to actually enjoy something ... it's not fun to build a sandcastle, which collapses every 5min, just to get it done after ~18h i.E. (it's just a sandcastle [or video-game] after all) ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
You are not a new player. You have EC and dil with a new alt and other resources, probably leveled crafter and more.
Actually, not with respect to my alts. Remember that I also have established characters to upgrade for since now with a level cap increase and a relatively unstricted upgrade system there's a lot of stuff that I could be collecting EC and Dil for (which is a quite desirable thing for an MMO). I only give the new critters a starting "boost" via a moderate amount of EC through my account bank and spare Doffs. Until it gets to supplying dilithium for reputation gear I don't pool my resources in favor of new characters.
What I experience then is analogous (except in terms of experience) to what a new player now has to suffer through. I don't have to rely strictly on imagination, I can see how things work out and approach the various problems of leveling in the context of an upgrade system. And I must say that I am having an easier time of it. I can take anything and make it better with a fair price to avoid undermining the rest of the game and its economy (ie. there's still a point in saving up for fleet gear or checking out the exchange to see if there's a less dil intensive solution to getting item X if that ever proves to be a limiting resource.) That definitely helps directly but then there's the indirect benefit of collecting upgrades and materials as a viable economic (ie. exchange) resource.
Altogether this state is preferable to old STO and I can't endorse the alternatives either. It may cost between 30 and 40k dil to upgrade rep gear to XIII but it would cost ~100k dil (at least, based on established XII costs and that's only looking at the direct Dil cost and not the additional cost of diverting 1,500 marks AWAY from dailies) to earn new sets again. As is we have a cheaper alternative to having to grind through mk 13 and then mk 14 without upgrades and considering the cost difference further price reductions (to set gear and particularly consoles, weapons could probably stand to be tweaked) are highly questionable.
Yes, its cheaper to upgrade... if you can get the upgrade items which are pricy and you cannot craft yourself and if you have the dil for it, which you won't because you are busy converting that to zen to get a ship and a ship upgrade token and saving it for omega gear and ....
But between fleet donations (dil often being the most available type), fleet gear, zen-based account upgrades, desired customization items, and then your typical fleet weapons, ships, and reputation gear you are already pressed to prioritize. Without upgrades your typical new player is still going to have a lot of work to do. However they will also lack a relatively inexpensive means of getting established quickly. They wouldn't be able to take cheap, low level VR gear and make it shine up to a respectable level (which, BTW, is a very useful feature especially considering that it makes low level gear economically relevant.) They wouldn't have up-to-rare crafting materials to support themselves with on the exchange. They'd simply be faced with a wall of end-game content with very few places to get started from (it basically comes down to what they earn from reputation bonus packs and lock box weapons if they can find them on the exchange.)
I think you misread that as "do away with upgrades". I am suggesting they should have the upgrade path, but there should be some new stuff too.
Which in order to NOT invaldiate crafting (which is particularly important for the established player demographic, they're the ones who are probably most responsible for material and upgrade demand which just about everyone can take advantage of) would need to be priced higher.
Upgrading is a new system but its not one that we should be looking for a short cut around. Its accessible (just get to level 10 and you're basically set, craft R upgrades and use that income to buy VR, and mind you that is NOT a difficult or time consuming process), its costs are generally reasonable, and while its something else to throw into the optimization problem that is income and expendatures that just signifies that it is a new thing. Any addition would create the same "problem" though in this case we have one that balanaces itself out with incredible utility and reductions in the alternatives (ie. the need to buy new gear.)
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It's not often I start a thread such as this, but I wanted to put a couple of points across to those still complaining about the injustice of it all.
1. Ship upgrades
There have been numerous posts where people complain about the cost of upgrading a ship they have already bought, whether it be the T5U upgrade or the T4/T5/T5U/T6 path.
All you bought was the ability to unlock the item, as it was, as that time. Its a digital item that, depending on the ToS of PWE, you may not even actually own. Lots of gaming companies retain ownership of all items within the game, hence why it is against the ToS to sell your account, as you don't own it anyway.
Complaining about not getting free upgrades or having to pay to upgrade a ship you already own is akin to asking to see the same movie at the cinema again and again, just because you bought a ticket once.
2. The Grind
I'm not going to break it to you gently here. ALL MMO titles are grind. You invest time, you are given progression as a result. You play, you level, you increase your abilities through gear.
STO is no different in that matter. We have just had a major level cap increase after several years without one. Take your time in levelling, THERE IS NO RUSH. You don't need everything now!
We have a good gear upgrade system in place. Again the costs are not over the top, not when you look at it logically. How much time did you spend grinding out all your equipment to XII. All the STF's you ran. All the Fleet projects you helped. All the dilithium you spent. I'll wager that the cost of all that is similar to the cost to upgrade items to the same rarity XIV.
Yes there is the ability to upgrade to EPIC. But you dont need that now, do it a little every day. If you are at the stage where you have a full set of XIV, upgrade one item a day, do it a little at a time.
This also leads on to specialisations. This is something that is meant to be achieved over time. Just play the game normally, as you did before DR and the points will come.
3. The Bugs
This is something where I'm in agreement with the rest of the community. There are so many awful bugs with everything introduced with DR. Some of those have been fixed, some are on the todo list, while some I wager will never be fixed.
The point to know here is that it is not the Developers fault for releasing the game with so many bugs. Its the people who pay the wages, the PWE 'board' for want of a better term. They will have picked a date to release DR and the Devs just had to get on with it.
Do you think they like releasing buggy content? I doubt it. But we live in the real world where time is money, friend. So they do what they can. PWE call the shots and the Devs fight fires, I know from experience as I worked for places like that.
As a player what can you do? If you don't like it vote with your wallet. Don't spend.
4. Alts
Just a quick note on alternative characters. I've seen lots of complaints from people who really don't want to spend the time levelling their 437 alts across 3 accounts. You had several years to level all those alts, just spend the same amount time over the next couple of years. Its the MMO way.
You may not have a full set of Epic XIV gear and full spec points, but its a damn ALTERNATIVE CHARACTER, it doesn't NEED them.
TL;DR Stop complaining and actually PLAY the game, you'll get there at your own pace.
its not sound as the upgrade system is mostly dilithium cost and untill pwe decides to stop the dilithium refinement cap instead of increasing the ore earned both the crafting and upgrade systems effectivly costing millions of dilithium your fleet mates cant help with the cost so to say the cost is even twice that of fleet projects is false hell your on your own with this system its simple and easy to explain that geting 1 piece of fleet gear up to epic is like doing a fleet project on your own most good fleet have more than it takes to start a fleet witch is 5 so to say that epic mk14 fleet antiproton beam is 5 times my cost of contributions to the fleet that is not half dilithium would be fair the dilithium system has allway had a cap and the dilithium exchange is made to sink money into from a credit card of some kind and if you noticed thares no ec to dilithium exchange as ec earning is not caped and not perchasable like dilithium making all things costing dilithium massively uncompairable to ec i cant even make an estimate on a possable exchange simply becouse more hours logged in game will not refine more dilithium so your whole statement is just false when all i can say easily is 1 dilithium is just up and over 100000ec value someware.
ps 1 acount can only have 12 toons so to 437 toonswould be more than a few accounts and trading for zenn to other acounts to do the same to get more dilithium on 1 toon does not work and for trading 11 toons dilithium cap to zenn to buy dilithium for 1 toon how much time do you spend geting 8k dilithium on a toon with only mk12 gear with dr i must say to do that you would be a crackhead as my main toon is still working up at endgame now still taking 2 or 3 hours to do some stuff and get 8k dilithium now your saying after geting 11 toons or have 11 toon at the old endgame level geting that 8k dilithium my math and what a person can do healthy totaly brakes down as thares no way to cut the daily time to 12 toons to just 12 hours and with just 2 alts i cant see a minimume daily time investment ever geting under 4 hours as i have tried it just to see and use a timer and did the dill cap task on my three toons took 10 hours i just dont jet how a person could without drugs with 12 toons with delta rising
The main problem with your whole assesment is, you just assume what some people are supposed to think, put them all in one basket, mix them with some lazy sterotypes & platitudes (like all MMOs are Grind) ...
... just to complain about Complainers, who might not even exist, in the way you think they do ...
Well said! I've noticed that a lot of players that pay to play also like to call people noobs and whiners. Well, there's not much to whine about when you need Dil and you can just whip out your plastic, buy some Zen and exchange it for REFINED Dil instead of having to wait and refine your 8k daily until you have enough refined to do what you're trying to do.
I have plenty of reasons for why I do not pay to play. I don't mind the grind....that's called "playing the game", but I NEVER pay for defective products!
It's not often I start a thread such as this, but I wanted to put a couple of points across to those still complaining about the injustice of it all.
2. The Grind
I'm not going to break it to you gently here. ALL MMO titles are grind. You invest time, you are given progression as a result. You play, you level, you increase your abilities through gear.
STO is no different in that matter. We have just had a major level cap increase after several years without one. Take your time in levelling, THERE IS NO RUSH. You don't need everything now!
We have a good gear upgrade system in place. Again the costs are not over the top, not when you look at it logically. How much time did you spend grinding out all your equipment to XII. All the STF's you ran. All the Fleet projects you helped. All the dilithium you spent. I'll wager that the cost of all that is similar to the cost to upgrade items to the same rarity XIV.
Yes there is the ability to upgrade to EPIC. But you dont need that now, do it a little every day. If you are at the stage where you have a full set of XIV, upgrade one item a day, do it a little at a time.
This also leads on to specialisations. This is something that is meant to be achieved over time. Just play the game normally, as you did before DR and the points will come.
4. Alts
Just a quick note on alternative characters. I've seen lots of complaints from people who really don't want to spend the time levelling their 437 alts across 3 accounts. You had several years to level all those alts, just spend the same amount time over the next couple of years. Its the MMO way.
You may not have a full set of Epic XIV gear and full spec points, but its a damn ALTERNATIVE CHARACTER, it doesn't NEED them.
TL;DR Stop complaining and actually PLAY the game, you'll get there at your own pace.
Points 1 and 3 i do somewhat agree with your opinion here and what you are trying to say.
(this is why i edited them out to cut down on space used)
Points 2 and 4 in my opinion are effectively the same thing because both come down to leveling.
The gripe people are having with the XP and levelling in this game is not the fact they have increased the grind (most will handle the grind in increased) Its the extreme scale of the grind that has changed, we have gone from what was an incredibly easy to grind system and be at end game to a really long winded grind and up there amongst some of the worst for a grind fest.
with every patch lately this grind has been getting worse with no signs of stopping in sight (yes i know the other post said this is the last time bla bla bla, but i do not believe that)
There are MMO's where the grind is worse and i have played them but the player levels are usually in the hundreds and not sub 100 at this point, one springs to mind Anarchy Online becomes a real grind past level 150.
I do get why they did what they did and add more grind and somewhat agree with it as it did need it but not to the extreme they have gone too to achieve this.
Pre 21st november patch was better than the 3x the grind it is now and at worst should have been left at that.
That entire post was just written so badly it confused a lot of people (including me) by claiming that nothing would change people would level the same and this just is not the case at all.
The number crunchers can not be wrong on this one as so many different people have pointed out there are dependencies in their numbers compared to what the post claims.
It is all well and good you making bold statements about people should just take their time bla bla bla and i wish you good luck with that i just hope they do not nerf something you enjoy that much to make you join the players that have been upset by this as this will most certainly come back to haunt you in the future.
Probably best not to upset those that are already upset with posts like yours to begin with.
Each to their own i suppose, Good Luck you will need it.
Rule #1 of MMO development: Everything you change will be complained about, including nothing.
And yes, that means literally everything. You could give people free stuff for doing nothing at all, some of them will just complain they aren't getting enough. Or that it was something they didn't want or already had, so they "deserve" to get something else instead. Etc, etc.
If MMO players were around when light first permeated the universe they would have called the light "ghaaay" and plunged the universe into eternal night by squatting their "T-Bags" over the light.
But that is out of your control, why not simply play the game and not worry about if you are earning XP 5% faster or slower than the previous patch?
Except it's not entirely out of our control. Okay yeah it's out of our direct control, but we can make our voices heard in a way that can sway the direction that development takes both in the long term and sometimes in the short term**. Take the dilithium removal from STFs several seasons ago. People were piiiiissed. The forums burned. The devs listened to those voices and reinstated dilithium as an STF reward.
It is in both Cryptic's best interest and our best interest for there to be an open dialogue with meaningful change (if/when change is warranted); players get to continue enjoying the game and Cryptic gets to continue having an income. If players are no longer happy with the game, they can 1) leave, depriving Cryptic of income, or 2) try to convince Cryptic to make some sort of change that will allow the players to continue playing, thus insuring income for Cryptic. A mass exodus of players is in nobody's best interest and if progression keeps getting nerfed in a linear or exponential fashion that is going to become an inevitability.
And to be a little pedantic for a moment, 5% is a gross understatement. Yesterday's patch has nearly doubled the amount of grind time, which comes on top of the already-existing progression rate nerfs that kicked in when DR went live and The Great Exploitening of 2014 happened. The time:progression ratio is way off now and frankly it is becoming less and less fun (and I'm not someone who has an aversion to grinding). Maybe that was an oversight and they'll correct it to take on the form that they originally stated "Requirements go up, but XP also goes up, for a net result of 0 change to the progression rate" which would be good because that rate was at least tolerable.
As for ship upgrades and gear upgrades, I'm not really phased by those. Even though I do have some pity for the players that can't upgrade their favorite Mirror ship, and I think the gear upgrade costs should come down by ~20% across the board, it's no real skin off my back and I'm not up in arms about it.
**p.s. Devs who may be reading this: Zip lines and rock climbing/rappelling on Risa next summer.
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.
That was a very nicely worded post OP, but you seem to not follow all the way through in your arguments.
1. Of course, legally PWE has every right to invalidate whatever content they like. You do know that they can simply remove everything from your account, purchased with zen, dil or ec... just because. Legally there is no problem with that since you agreed to the EULA.
Unfortunately, whether ethical equals legal and vice versa is an age old argument. The fact that they chose to put their player base through such an argument, is... argument enough for our little discussion here, don't you think ?
2. True, grind is what makes up for the major part of playtime in MMOs. There can be no other way. Even the most casual player will finish any content in a month or so; there's nothing left other than grind until the next content patch / expansion.
However, there's grind and there's grind. STO, after DR, has a type of grind that feels like spinning your wheels in the mud. Let's see the types of grind available to players:
a) Established players, that have been playing for years: they upgraded everything (ships with dil bouht zen) gear with dil stashed away for a long time, since they had nothing to spend it on. After that, all they have to do is buy or craft Mk II weapons, roll for mods, flip them to get MOAR ec. Why don't they play the content you ask ? Well, the missions, albeit nice, you do them once or twice and you are done. Those are not bugged to hell that is. Everything else in the game STFs, patrols, fleet actions is simply not worth their time - even if they are not bugged and complete-able. Only thing left is to get the remaining specialization points and get a couple of fancy traits/abilities. Oh wait....
b) Relatively new players who had established a toon or two before DR, but never had the chance to hoard resources: They have nothing to do in the game. Their pace is not their own, there's only one pace - 8k dil per toon per day. That's it. They, for the same reasons as the long established players, have no reason to go out there and play the content. Maybe a couple of STFs to get the purple mats they need, and that's it.
c) New players or really casual players: DR hit them while they had no resources like a 10 ton truck. They can't even do advanced STFs to get the borg implants etc they need. Who is going to carry them through the STFs ? The established players that do not care for those STFs ? You do know they have to wait - wait, NOT play - for at least 4 months to be able to craft any gear that will barely get them through any advanced STF.
I could elaborate more, but it's evident that whoever designed this either had no clue about the game or actually has no clue about what they are doing. They probably think that filling the game with pay-to-remove time-gates makes for an enjoyable product. Mind you, I have nothing against time-gates as long as the gameplay calls for them. I have nothing against time-gates as long as they are affordable. 1,25 euro per day per school of research when you need 7 shcools at 4 months, is not affordable. It's just insulting.
There is a very simple fix here, remove the 8k dil per day cap and let everyone progress at their own pace. But that would need some progressive thinking, the idea that "gamers that like to play your game, will pay for it anyway, no matter how "free" it is", is something that apparently eludes some very important people in the management. I'll just say this, 1 zen ship equals the sub for two months on MMOs with a LOT more content, a LOT more codebase and a LOT more support (customer and product). Now show me the most casual player in STO that doesn't own at least one zen ship.
In conclusion, the grind in STO after DR is just short-sighted money grabbing. It has nothing to do with gameplay. The only other reason (romantic, I know) someone would put it there would be to drain the hoarders off of their resources - but man, that's like imposing a 50% percent income and transaction tax on everyone in order to get the money of the rich 1%. Doesn't really work, everyone but them will... die.
3. The bugs ? The bugs ?! The launch of DR was not riddled with "bugs". There were too many self evident, game breaking issues that even the kindest critic would not dare to call mere "bugs".
Be a man, take responsibility and say "Sorry guys, we are delaying release for a couple of weeks." In conclusion, treat the playerbase dishonestly and they will just bite back. Treat them like adults and you might have a chance that they treat you respectfully. And respect is something that is easily lost but difficult to gain back.
4. Alts. Sure, why have 100 alts ? But, just re-read point 2. The grind (timewise or moneywise) and resources needed to bring each alt to a respectable level (as in to participate in advanced STFs) is simply to forbidding even to the most hardcore gamer. So your alts end up nothing more than pretty toons now - that almost idle in events like Mirror Invasion so that people that are actually playing the game carry them to the promised land of 50k unrefined dil.
The problem is that cryptic keep roling out new forms of mindless grinding the whole reputation thing,. dil mining even doing the stfs is gated.
Its like going out to play in the sand pit you can only do that once you fill the sandpit with sand you have to cary over in a tea spoon. and once you have filled the sandpit you have an hour to play after which the sand pit is emptied and you cant play in it till the next day.
You say all MMO have the grind but please give me one example of another MMO in which the grind was tripled in a patch which the devs promised would change absolutely nothing just the way numbers were presented...
You say all MMO have the grind but please give me one example of another MMO in which the grind was tripled in a patch which the devs promised would change absolutely nothing just the way numbers were presented...
be fair ... that is quite an example to duplicate.
and its also misleading. The xp per level tripled. But 3 days ago a replay mission gave me 700 xp. Now it gives me 2000. 7X3 is 21. .... that is "about the same" in my book. Some things are more efficient than others, and that keeps changing and is frustrating, and the NUMBER of levels needed is a HUGE grind (50 or so levels to max out the tree??) but the actual ratio of xp to level vs xp earned matches the very vague post from the developer.
That is not to say it is not broken... this is purely a mathematical observation. It *IS* broken because DO assignments are more efficient than actually playing the game. And because group efforts are less XP than doing old mission replays from the missions we had at level 10 (the easy, short, fast ones that reward much XP). And because they did not put in enough missions to go from 50 to 100 levels in the new expansion. And for numerous other similar reasons. But the actual math of xp needed vs xp earned matched.
Were that true I would be happy try any of the STF's on advanced same old exp. There are quite a few of us that would far rather run the queued stuff with friends rather than mindlessly farming Argala or bashing through old missions for the 500th time....
Your replays may have gone up but there is plenty of other content that has not changed one bit
Were that true I would be happy try any of the STF's on advanced same old exp. There are quite a few of us that would far rather run the queued stuff with friends rather than mindlessly farming Argala or bashing through old missions for the 500th time....
Your replays may have gone up but there is plenty of other content that has not changed one bit
It is all relative on the mindless comment. Some of the old missions are fun, where as doing ice for the 10 billionth time or a mission I have done maybe 3 times total ever .... there are merits to both.
I agree that group content rewards are too low. I think they are unchanged, making them effectively 1/3 what they were before. I do not think this was intended --- last 2 weeks, I leveled a lot in STFs. This week, I am doing old missions.....
I said it was broken in many ways. But I don't think the idea was to triple the difficulty --- the stf rewards have to be yet another bug, IMHO. Maybe we can get another fix next week.
Quoting what other mmos do is mostly irrelevant. Just because one has developed a certain tolerance for a level of grind doesn't make it either enjoyable or useful. In fact, cryptic is counting on such tollerance to keep us busy running on the hamster wheel.
Level increases serve no purpose but to make players push through grind to get back to enjoying thegame again. Its simply lazy game development from a "is it fun" standpoint. It has been said on these forums that companies exist to make money. Sure they do. But customers buy products when they see value in them. For a game company, the product ultimately is fun. The more of it we have, the more we will be willing to part with our money.
With DR we see a massive increase in effort and expense vs what went before. Both in regaining a similar end game situation we had and in maintaining ourselves as new products are offered primarily due to the upgrade system. The level cap went from 50 to 110 with the spec tree implementation. In short, we are being asked to spend far more not for things we will enjoy or have fun with but to avoid timegates, frustration and simply falling behind the spendthrifts. When any game becomes more hassle then fun, it is usually smart to move on.
All they would have had to do was give us the delta quadrant, intro the new intel ships, throw in an intrepid pack as they did the galaxy and we'd most of us would have been quite happy and willing to part with our time/money. No level cap increase necessary, no t6 ships to devalue our previous purchases, no holding our consoles and gear hostage in the upgrade system. Give us more stuff we can be creative with and give us more ways we can immerse ourselves in a star trek universe like customizable ship interiors. There would be no end of the cosmetic things you could add there for purchase....and we'd buy it because we are fans.
Deep breath...text rant over...guess the short is they could have made an expansion most of us would gleefully enduldged in and made money at the same time instead of this masive strain on our enduance and patience.
Just did a DR mission on my lvl 58.... Unlike many i did not use the patrol glitch to get to 60. I wish i had. Dearly wish i had. First playthough of the DR mission gave 4200 exp. I need another 145000 exp for next level. 59 will grant me one (and only ONE) mission that will also probably only grant 4200 or so exp. STFs only give 2-3k exp per run. When you start the game you get 1 level per mission. Now while i don't expect a level 57 mission to give me a full level i DO expect more than slightly less than 3% for my ONLY mission for that level. Am i REALLY expected to do 97 STFs to level? Oh wait, i can't because FEW if any are queing for STFs. Even if I WANTED to do 97 runs. Yes I expect SOME grind in any MMO. BUT not to this degree. PWE has taken a relatively non-grindy game and turned it into a major grind. To the point where I am having a hard time even trying to level. Already missing out on runs with guild members and friends because "i am not level 60 yet" Like i don't need a reminder that all those that exploited the patrol glitch to level up fast were not only not punished but now they have an advantage that those of us that did not exploit cannot catch up to without MONTHS of dedicated grinding.
A word about Alts.. I don't have "alts" I have characters. I play my FEd eng for a while, then swap to a KDF sci.. or rom tact or whatever. They are all fun to play at different times. Label one as a main is simply not realistic for my playstyle. Yet PWE seems insistant on forcing me to choose one and ignore the others. Ignore for a moment the lost sales of extra char slots, doff spaces, ship spaces etc from all those alts, WHY would any game try to limit players to one char while simultaneously increasing the boredrom factor by changing an easy leveling process to a major grind?
In conclusion, i can't decide if the OP actually believes the "fresh organic fertilizer" he/she is shoveling or if they are a DEV on an alt account trying to convince everyone everything is 'sunshine, unicorns and rainbows"
PS: IF a DEV is actually reading this, know that the only reason me and many of my friends still hang around is we all dearly loved this game as it used to be and are still waiting in the desperate hope that someone at PWE will see the player discontent and least dial back the stupid to a bearable amount.... SOON.
A word about Alts.. I don't have "alts" I have characters. I play my FEd eng for a while, then swap to a KDF sci.. or rom tact or whatever. They are all fun to play at different times. Label one as a main is simply not realistic for my playstyle.
This is the best way to maximize immersion, and my play style as well. Of course, it also requires a higher commitment to "farming" all the resources for full loadouts and build styles. Sadly, the bugs introduced since S9 are really hampering my ability to actually get satisfactory results in STF's and often missions as well on most of my char's.
For me at least, PWE has shot themselves in the foot thinking that a protracted grind would open my wallet to accelerate things. Quite the opposite, now that we can craft most items & upgrade them to whatever level needed. I've been here a year now, and have promoted 4 char's to lvl 56 without playing ANY DR content; I finally finished the Dyson series just last week. There is plenty to do without chasing the DR rabbit trail!
Costs are not a major heartache; I've helped build fleet holdings in 4 fleets now, and it's to be expected that you wait for equipment joy until the collective costs are paid. The inane part is how long things have been strung out. Does PWE make money on devoted fans who build everything from in-game resources? I'm betting "no"...
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STO player since November 2013
Comments
... just to complain about Complainers, who might not even exist, in the way you think they do ...
_______________
My personal opinion i.E. :
1. Ship upgrades / Dilithium Upgrades
Don't really care about them, because there is no point imho ... that's the problem, it's not about costing too much, too much time / effort, too hard etc ... why should I upgrade if it's just for the Grind's sake ... no rewarding new content to play with etc etc ... why should I care ...
Just "wasted" DEV Time, which results in "wasted" in-game resources ... imho
2. The Grind
see below
4. Alts
Meh it's pretty simple ... if it's not fun ... I won't do it more than one time ... I had fun with all my Alts for several years ... and MAYBE I will again ... but not with the DR Content ... did it on one toon ... got another to 59 through doffing to repeat the Story Missions one more time ... that's it for me ... no Motivation left !
Maybe there is enough fun stuff to do, to get some Toons from Lvl 53 to 56 within the next Expansion, 2 years from now (and so on, assuming DR is modus operandi) ... so yeah I'm not forcing myself & not in a rush either (which might be the real problem), but I just don't see most of my toons getting to 60 before the Server shuts down, realistically speaking ... which begs the question if there is any point to this Expansion for most of my Toons ...
1. Yes most MMOs push towards the latest content, but most of them also provide enough variety & extent, to ease the "Grind" ...
2. Well WoW for example provides different Zones & different Quests to lvl up (AT EACH LVL) ... WOW at least gives you a choice ... moreover WOW Endgame Content usually is rewarding (will get you the "best" Equipment etc) ... STO on the other hand will just hand out MK XII everyone already has for years, so you can pay for upgrades ... and once you got all your Epic Mk XIV Equipment, you might be able to do ELITES blindfolded, but they don't reward anything useful anymore, and never have ... again what's the point ... the reward/grind - ratio is just beyond silly, that's the problem, not the Grind itself ...
3. That's the thing I'm pretty sure most people complaining, DON'T enjoy it anymore because it's to repetitve with not enough variety (or other reasons) ... so what's your point ... you're just telling people to enjoy something they obviously don't ... also, most people want to see rewarding progress, to actually enjoy something ... it's not fun to build a sandcastle, which collapses every 5min, just to get it done after ~18h i.E. (it's just a sandcastle [or video-game] after all) ...
Actually, not with respect to my alts. Remember that I also have established characters to upgrade for since now with a level cap increase and a relatively unstricted upgrade system there's a lot of stuff that I could be collecting EC and Dil for (which is a quite desirable thing for an MMO). I only give the new critters a starting "boost" via a moderate amount of EC through my account bank and spare Doffs. Until it gets to supplying dilithium for reputation gear I don't pool my resources in favor of new characters.
What I experience then is analogous (except in terms of experience) to what a new player now has to suffer through. I don't have to rely strictly on imagination, I can see how things work out and approach the various problems of leveling in the context of an upgrade system. And I must say that I am having an easier time of it. I can take anything and make it better with a fair price to avoid undermining the rest of the game and its economy (ie. there's still a point in saving up for fleet gear or checking out the exchange to see if there's a less dil intensive solution to getting item X if that ever proves to be a limiting resource.) That definitely helps directly but then there's the indirect benefit of collecting upgrades and materials as a viable economic (ie. exchange) resource.
Altogether this state is preferable to old STO and I can't endorse the alternatives either. It may cost between 30 and 40k dil to upgrade rep gear to XIII but it would cost ~100k dil (at least, based on established XII costs and that's only looking at the direct Dil cost and not the additional cost of diverting 1,500 marks AWAY from dailies) to earn new sets again. As is we have a cheaper alternative to having to grind through mk 13 and then mk 14 without upgrades and considering the cost difference further price reductions (to set gear and particularly consoles, weapons could probably stand to be tweaked) are highly questionable.
But between fleet donations (dil often being the most available type), fleet gear, zen-based account upgrades, desired customization items, and then your typical fleet weapons, ships, and reputation gear you are already pressed to prioritize. Without upgrades your typical new player is still going to have a lot of work to do. However they will also lack a relatively inexpensive means of getting established quickly. They wouldn't be able to take cheap, low level VR gear and make it shine up to a respectable level (which, BTW, is a very useful feature especially considering that it makes low level gear economically relevant.) They wouldn't have up-to-rare crafting materials to support themselves with on the exchange. They'd simply be faced with a wall of end-game content with very few places to get started from (it basically comes down to what they earn from reputation bonus packs and lock box weapons if they can find them on the exchange.)
Which in order to NOT invaldiate crafting (which is particularly important for the established player demographic, they're the ones who are probably most responsible for material and upgrade demand which just about everyone can take advantage of) would need to be priced higher.
Upgrading is a new system but its not one that we should be looking for a short cut around. Its accessible (just get to level 10 and you're basically set, craft R upgrades and use that income to buy VR, and mind you that is NOT a difficult or time consuming process), its costs are generally reasonable, and while its something else to throw into the optimization problem that is income and expendatures that just signifies that it is a new thing. Any addition would create the same "problem" though in this case we have one that balanaces itself out with incredible utility and reductions in the alternatives (ie. the need to buy new gear.)
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ps 1 acount can only have 12 toons so to 437 toonswould be more than a few accounts and trading for zenn to other acounts to do the same to get more dilithium on 1 toon does not work and for trading 11 toons dilithium cap to zenn to buy dilithium for 1 toon how much time do you spend geting 8k dilithium on a toon with only mk12 gear with dr i must say to do that you would be a crackhead as my main toon is still working up at endgame now still taking 2 or 3 hours to do some stuff and get 8k dilithium now your saying after geting 11 toons or have 11 toon at the old endgame level geting that 8k dilithium my math and what a person can do healthy totaly brakes down as thares no way to cut the daily time to 12 toons to just 12 hours and with just 2 alts i cant see a minimume daily time investment ever geting under 4 hours as i have tried it just to see and use a timer and did the dill cap task on my three toons took 10 hours i just dont jet how a person could without drugs with 12 toons with delta rising
I have plenty of reasons for why I do not pay to play. I don't mind the grind....that's called "playing the game", but I NEVER pay for defective products!
Points 1 and 3 i do somewhat agree with your opinion here and what you are trying to say.
(this is why i edited them out to cut down on space used)
Points 2 and 4 in my opinion are effectively the same thing because both come down to leveling.
The gripe people are having with the XP and levelling in this game is not the fact they have increased the grind (most will handle the grind in increased) Its the extreme scale of the grind that has changed, we have gone from what was an incredibly easy to grind system and be at end game to a really long winded grind and up there amongst some of the worst for a grind fest.
with every patch lately this grind has been getting worse with no signs of stopping in sight (yes i know the other post said this is the last time bla bla bla, but i do not believe that)
There are MMO's where the grind is worse and i have played them but the player levels are usually in the hundreds and not sub 100 at this point, one springs to mind Anarchy Online becomes a real grind past level 150.
I do get why they did what they did and add more grind and somewhat agree with it as it did need it but not to the extreme they have gone too to achieve this.
Pre 21st november patch was better than the 3x the grind it is now and at worst should have been left at that.
That entire post was just written so badly it confused a lot of people (including me) by claiming that nothing would change people would level the same and this just is not the case at all.
The number crunchers can not be wrong on this one as so many different people have pointed out there are dependencies in their numbers compared to what the post claims.
It is all well and good you making bold statements about people should just take their time bla bla bla and i wish you good luck with that i just hope they do not nerf something you enjoy that much to make you join the players that have been upset by this as this will most certainly come back to haunt you in the future.
Probably best not to upset those that are already upset with posts like yours to begin with.
Each to their own i suppose, Good Luck you will need it.
If MMO players were around when light first permeated the universe they would have called the light "ghaaay" and plunged the universe into eternal night by squatting their "T-Bags" over the light.
Real join date September 2012
Except it's not entirely out of our control. Okay yeah it's out of our direct control, but we can make our voices heard in a way that can sway the direction that development takes both in the long term and sometimes in the short term**. Take the dilithium removal from STFs several seasons ago. People were piiiiissed. The forums burned. The devs listened to those voices and reinstated dilithium as an STF reward.
It is in both Cryptic's best interest and our best interest for there to be an open dialogue with meaningful change (if/when change is warranted); players get to continue enjoying the game and Cryptic gets to continue having an income. If players are no longer happy with the game, they can 1) leave, depriving Cryptic of income, or 2) try to convince Cryptic to make some sort of change that will allow the players to continue playing, thus insuring income for Cryptic. A mass exodus of players is in nobody's best interest and if progression keeps getting nerfed in a linear or exponential fashion that is going to become an inevitability.
And to be a little pedantic for a moment, 5% is a gross understatement. Yesterday's patch has nearly doubled the amount of grind time, which comes on top of the already-existing progression rate nerfs that kicked in when DR went live and The Great Exploitening of 2014 happened. The time:progression ratio is way off now and frankly it is becoming less and less fun (and I'm not someone who has an aversion to grinding). Maybe that was an oversight and they'll correct it to take on the form that they originally stated "Requirements go up, but XP also goes up, for a net result of 0 change to the progression rate" which would be good because that rate was at least tolerable.
As for ship upgrades and gear upgrades, I'm not really phased by those. Even though I do have some pity for the players that can't upgrade their favorite Mirror ship, and I think the gear upgrade costs should come down by ~20% across the board, it's no real skin off my back and I'm not up in arms about it.
**p.s. Devs who may be reading this: Zip lines and rock climbing/rappelling on Risa next summer.
Joined January 2009
1. Of course, legally PWE has every right to invalidate whatever content they like. You do know that they can simply remove everything from your account, purchased with zen, dil or ec... just because. Legally there is no problem with that since you agreed to the EULA.
Unfortunately, whether ethical equals legal and vice versa is an age old argument. The fact that they chose to put their player base through such an argument, is... argument enough for our little discussion here, don't you think ?
2. True, grind is what makes up for the major part of playtime in MMOs. There can be no other way. Even the most casual player will finish any content in a month or so; there's nothing left other than grind until the next content patch / expansion.
However, there's grind and there's grind. STO, after DR, has a type of grind that feels like spinning your wheels in the mud. Let's see the types of grind available to players:
a) Established players, that have been playing for years: they upgraded everything (ships with dil bouht zen) gear with dil stashed away for a long time, since they had nothing to spend it on. After that, all they have to do is buy or craft Mk II weapons, roll for mods, flip them to get MOAR ec. Why don't they play the content you ask ? Well, the missions, albeit nice, you do them once or twice and you are done. Those are not bugged to hell that is. Everything else in the game STFs, patrols, fleet actions is simply not worth their time - even if they are not bugged and complete-able. Only thing left is to get the remaining specialization points and get a couple of fancy traits/abilities. Oh wait....
b) Relatively new players who had established a toon or two before DR, but never had the chance to hoard resources: They have nothing to do in the game. Their pace is not their own, there's only one pace - 8k dil per toon per day. That's it. They, for the same reasons as the long established players, have no reason to go out there and play the content. Maybe a couple of STFs to get the purple mats they need, and that's it.
c) New players or really casual players: DR hit them while they had no resources like a 10 ton truck. They can't even do advanced STFs to get the borg implants etc they need. Who is going to carry them through the STFs ? The established players that do not care for those STFs ? You do know they have to wait - wait, NOT play - for at least 4 months to be able to craft any gear that will barely get them through any advanced STF.
I could elaborate more, but it's evident that whoever designed this either had no clue about the game or actually has no clue about what they are doing. They probably think that filling the game with pay-to-remove time-gates makes for an enjoyable product. Mind you, I have nothing against time-gates as long as the gameplay calls for them. I have nothing against time-gates as long as they are affordable. 1,25 euro per day per school of research when you need 7 shcools at 4 months, is not affordable. It's just insulting.
There is a very simple fix here, remove the 8k dil per day cap and let everyone progress at their own pace. But that would need some progressive thinking, the idea that "gamers that like to play your game, will pay for it anyway, no matter how "free" it is", is something that apparently eludes some very important people in the management. I'll just say this, 1 zen ship equals the sub for two months on MMOs with a LOT more content, a LOT more codebase and a LOT more support (customer and product). Now show me the most casual player in STO that doesn't own at least one zen ship.
In conclusion, the grind in STO after DR is just short-sighted money grabbing. It has nothing to do with gameplay. The only other reason (romantic, I know) someone would put it there would be to drain the hoarders off of their resources - but man, that's like imposing a 50% percent income and transaction tax on everyone in order to get the money of the rich 1%. Doesn't really work, everyone but them will... die.
3. The bugs ? The bugs ?! The launch of DR was not riddled with "bugs". There were too many self evident, game breaking issues that even the kindest critic would not dare to call mere "bugs".
Be a man, take responsibility and say "Sorry guys, we are delaying release for a couple of weeks." In conclusion, treat the playerbase dishonestly and they will just bite back. Treat them like adults and you might have a chance that they treat you respectfully. And respect is something that is easily lost but difficult to gain back.
4. Alts. Sure, why have 100 alts ? But, just re-read point 2. The grind (timewise or moneywise) and resources needed to bring each alt to a respectable level (as in to participate in advanced STFs) is simply to forbidding even to the most hardcore gamer. So your alts end up nothing more than pretty toons now - that almost idle in events like Mirror Invasion so that people that are actually playing the game carry them to the promised land of 50k unrefined dil.
Its like going out to play in the sand pit you can only do that once you fill the sandpit with sand you have to cary over in a tea spoon. and once you have filled the sandpit you have an hour to play after which the sand pit is emptied and you cant play in it till the next day.
All the nerfs are belong to us.
be fair ... that is quite an example to duplicate.
and its also misleading. The xp per level tripled. But 3 days ago a replay mission gave me 700 xp. Now it gives me 2000. 7X3 is 21. .... that is "about the same" in my book. Some things are more efficient than others, and that keeps changing and is frustrating, and the NUMBER of levels needed is a HUGE grind (50 or so levels to max out the tree??) but the actual ratio of xp to level vs xp earned matches the very vague post from the developer.
That is not to say it is not broken... this is purely a mathematical observation. It *IS* broken because DO assignments are more efficient than actually playing the game. And because group efforts are less XP than doing old mission replays from the missions we had at level 10 (the easy, short, fast ones that reward much XP). And because they did not put in enough missions to go from 50 to 100 levels in the new expansion. And for numerous other similar reasons. But the actual math of xp needed vs xp earned matched.
Your replays may have gone up but there is plenty of other content that has not changed one bit
All the nerfs are belong to us.
It is all relative on the mindless comment. Some of the old missions are fun, where as doing ice for the 10 billionth time or a mission I have done maybe 3 times total ever .... there are merits to both.
I agree that group content rewards are too low. I think they are unchanged, making them effectively 1/3 what they were before. I do not think this was intended --- last 2 weeks, I leveled a lot in STFs. This week, I am doing old missions.....
I said it was broken in many ways. But I don't think the idea was to triple the difficulty --- the stf rewards have to be yet another bug, IMHO. Maybe we can get another fix next week.
Level increases serve no purpose but to make players push through grind to get back to enjoying thegame again. Its simply lazy game development from a "is it fun" standpoint. It has been said on these forums that companies exist to make money. Sure they do. But customers buy products when they see value in them. For a game company, the product ultimately is fun. The more of it we have, the more we will be willing to part with our money.
With DR we see a massive increase in effort and expense vs what went before. Both in regaining a similar end game situation we had and in maintaining ourselves as new products are offered primarily due to the upgrade system. The level cap went from 50 to 110 with the spec tree implementation. In short, we are being asked to spend far more not for things we will enjoy or have fun with but to avoid timegates, frustration and simply falling behind the spendthrifts. When any game becomes more hassle then fun, it is usually smart to move on.
All they would have had to do was give us the delta quadrant, intro the new intel ships, throw in an intrepid pack as they did the galaxy and we'd most of us would have been quite happy and willing to part with our time/money. No level cap increase necessary, no t6 ships to devalue our previous purchases, no holding our consoles and gear hostage in the upgrade system. Give us more stuff we can be creative with and give us more ways we can immerse ourselves in a star trek universe like customizable ship interiors. There would be no end of the cosmetic things you could add there for purchase....and we'd buy it because we are fans.
Deep breath...text rant over...guess the short is they could have made an expansion most of us would gleefully enduldged in and made money at the same time instead of this masive strain on our enduance and patience.
Just did a DR mission on my lvl 58.... Unlike many i did not use the patrol glitch to get to 60. I wish i had. Dearly wish i had. First playthough of the DR mission gave 4200 exp. I need another 145000 exp for next level. 59 will grant me one (and only ONE) mission that will also probably only grant 4200 or so exp. STFs only give 2-3k exp per run. When you start the game you get 1 level per mission. Now while i don't expect a level 57 mission to give me a full level i DO expect more than slightly less than 3% for my ONLY mission for that level. Am i REALLY expected to do 97 STFs to level? Oh wait, i can't because FEW if any are queing for STFs. Even if I WANTED to do 97 runs. Yes I expect SOME grind in any MMO. BUT not to this degree. PWE has taken a relatively non-grindy game and turned it into a major grind. To the point where I am having a hard time even trying to level. Already missing out on runs with guild members and friends because "i am not level 60 yet" Like i don't need a reminder that all those that exploited the patrol glitch to level up fast were not only not punished but now they have an advantage that those of us that did not exploit cannot catch up to without MONTHS of dedicated grinding.
A word about Alts.. I don't have "alts" I have characters. I play my FEd eng for a while, then swap to a KDF sci.. or rom tact or whatever. They are all fun to play at different times. Label one as a main is simply not realistic for my playstyle. Yet PWE seems insistant on forcing me to choose one and ignore the others. Ignore for a moment the lost sales of extra char slots, doff spaces, ship spaces etc from all those alts, WHY would any game try to limit players to one char while simultaneously increasing the boredrom factor by changing an easy leveling process to a major grind?
In conclusion, i can't decide if the OP actually believes the "fresh organic fertilizer" he/she is shoveling or if they are a DEV on an alt account trying to convince everyone everything is 'sunshine, unicorns and rainbows"
PS: IF a DEV is actually reading this, know that the only reason me and many of my friends still hang around is we all dearly loved this game as it used to be and are still waiting in the desperate hope that someone at PWE will see the player discontent and least dial back the stupid to a bearable amount.... SOON.
For me at least, PWE has shot themselves in the foot thinking that a protracted grind would open my wallet to accelerate things. Quite the opposite, now that we can craft most items & upgrade them to whatever level needed. I've been here a year now, and have promoted 4 char's to lvl 56 without playing ANY DR content; I finally finished the Dyson series just last week. There is plenty to do without chasing the DR rabbit trail!
Costs are not a major heartache; I've helped build fleet holdings in 4 fleets now, and it's to be expected that you wait for equipment joy until the collective costs are paid. The inane part is how long things have been strung out. Does PWE make money on devoted fans who build everything from in-game resources? I'm betting "no"...
Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci
Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac
Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013