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How leveling 50-60 can ruin the game fun.
saross
Member Posts: 248 Media Corps
I know that many have complained on here about the leveling from 50-60 and that this might just seem like another one of those threads full of hate. But there is a point where logical discussion needs to be done to make the game seem more fun than like that job that we hate because we feel more like robots than people.
There was a point where you gained xp where you could level to 60 in like 30-60 minutes with a group of 5 people. I did this personally on one captain and stopped because I felt like it was abuse. Then for whatever logical or illogical reason they turn off the patrol missions because it was what they considered to be abuse. Upon review they punish some players by removing a ton of points from those who had maxed out their spec trees. This made me feel good about not maxing out my tree. Then they restored those said points and myself along with many others are now rushing as quick as we can to max out on our spec points to be on the same playing levels as those who did max out theirs.
To further add salt to the injury they cut the amount of xp earned from everything. So instead of getting enough experience from said missions plus maybe one or two argala runs to make up that which the missions didn't give, you'd have to do 3-5 runs of it. Ok, at 3 minutes solo that makes it 12-15 minutes total if you did it back to back to back.
They have since changed it. Claiming that they added some xp, they also tripled the amount of experience you need just to gain a level above 50. My Main Romulan has a ton of points to gain still just to get on an semi equal playing ground as he's what I use for chasing the DPS. What used to take a week to gain one point now takes a week and a half to 2 weeks unless I grind Argala non-stop which is less exciting than watching paint dry. My other captain which I have which I started working with again about 2-3 weeks ago in between things started at 50. She is now 57 and it is already costing 150k xp to gain one level. Which is the same as my level 60 captain needs to gain his spec points.
Folks the math doesn't add up here. Why is a captain who has lower in level needing the SAME amount of xp to gain one level as a level 60 captain needs to gain their after 60 spec points?
Did someone miss the math on that one? It has literally driven to the point where I am looking at alternate games to play instead or doing something completely different. As it is I have picked up my old completely free game I used to play which has a grind feel but you can see the difference in everything you do despite how long it takes to fully fill out the after 50 items.
I should also point out that this leveling bit is not encouraging me to play any of my other level 50 captains I have or finish some projects I started Pre-DR. Lack of encouragement means lack of need or want for ships. Lack of need and want for ships means I spend less money. I'm already very happy with my upgraded ships and equipment and really don't see a need to continue upgrading more things, and there is still things for me to upgrade.
IE if I want to get all Epic weapons, deflector, engines and shield on my Romulan and then turning everything to XIV and epic on my Fed captain that I started raising to 60. So there's plenty of need for Dil. I did start her on that, but I'm not going to push it further. The drain on me has left this game feeling like I'd have to play it 8 hours a day 40 hours a week for the next 3 months or more JUST to get to the point that I consider fun in trying to tune my piloting and character setup for the high DPS numbers.
As of this point I don't plan to spend another dime on this game, even for my fleet which I created that is still at T3 for the most part and has a ton of need for Dilithium. There's hundreds of dollars I was more than willing to spend to get that Dil to put into the upgrades, gather EC for parts, and finish fleet projects and Upgrades and other said things.
I like this game, but hate how it's being managed right now.
I understand that the 50-60 was not meant to be done in an hour or that the spec points were not supposed to gained in less than week. But for the grind to 60 to take someone like me who works full time, has a family, and other ventures and plays a considerable amount of time despite all of that to take 3 weeks to only get 7 levels that takes the fun out of the game. To take a week and a half to get spec points doing queued events and patrol missions to mix things up in order to get the skills that comes from those also takes the fun out of the game.
To break it down, I can be found on here for at least 4 hours a day, on saturday I can be found almost all day, on sunday most of the day. That time becomes 30 hours a week that I tend to be on here. That's time for a part time job and I have my kids who watch me, future STO players who at this rate may never get the chance to play because of how bad this experience is turning to.
/End rant.
Now as to make this game better and seem like a lot more fun. I think simply making it so that the experience gained is higher so that it indeed feels like you are making progress from everything done. 2k from a queued event or STF is not worth the venture. Making those the most would encourage people to play them more. The queues are empty, making them worth playing for everyone would benefit them getting played more. For some of them that it takes a set time that it is impossible to beat them in 3 minutes or less more xp should be given as a reward. Let's note that the Fleet defense is almost impossible to fill pug style because no one wants to spend 10minutes or more on a 2-3k xp reward no matter how many Fleet marks they need.
Adding fun back in like allowing players to get those after level things with an easier array of time won't hurt anyone. You can always create more spec trees or increase them to add in more on the current ones. It wouldn't hurt anything and would make the game more interesting. Right now the ones who benefit the most are those with more time or those who took time off to max out the trees using Japori when it was good. That kills things in more ways than one. Allow players to max out, than use the lessons learned from this to make the next set of spec points or after level things take a bit longer of a grind but be just as rewarding. IE saving/stocking points after maxing out the current trees.
There was a point where you gained xp where you could level to 60 in like 30-60 minutes with a group of 5 people. I did this personally on one captain and stopped because I felt like it was abuse. Then for whatever logical or illogical reason they turn off the patrol missions because it was what they considered to be abuse. Upon review they punish some players by removing a ton of points from those who had maxed out their spec trees. This made me feel good about not maxing out my tree. Then they restored those said points and myself along with many others are now rushing as quick as we can to max out on our spec points to be on the same playing levels as those who did max out theirs.
To further add salt to the injury they cut the amount of xp earned from everything. So instead of getting enough experience from said missions plus maybe one or two argala runs to make up that which the missions didn't give, you'd have to do 3-5 runs of it. Ok, at 3 minutes solo that makes it 12-15 minutes total if you did it back to back to back.
They have since changed it. Claiming that they added some xp, they also tripled the amount of experience you need just to gain a level above 50. My Main Romulan has a ton of points to gain still just to get on an semi equal playing ground as he's what I use for chasing the DPS. What used to take a week to gain one point now takes a week and a half to 2 weeks unless I grind Argala non-stop which is less exciting than watching paint dry. My other captain which I have which I started working with again about 2-3 weeks ago in between things started at 50. She is now 57 and it is already costing 150k xp to gain one level. Which is the same as my level 60 captain needs to gain his spec points.
Folks the math doesn't add up here. Why is a captain who has lower in level needing the SAME amount of xp to gain one level as a level 60 captain needs to gain their after 60 spec points?
Did someone miss the math on that one? It has literally driven to the point where I am looking at alternate games to play instead or doing something completely different. As it is I have picked up my old completely free game I used to play which has a grind feel but you can see the difference in everything you do despite how long it takes to fully fill out the after 50 items.
I should also point out that this leveling bit is not encouraging me to play any of my other level 50 captains I have or finish some projects I started Pre-DR. Lack of encouragement means lack of need or want for ships. Lack of need and want for ships means I spend less money. I'm already very happy with my upgraded ships and equipment and really don't see a need to continue upgrading more things, and there is still things for me to upgrade.
IE if I want to get all Epic weapons, deflector, engines and shield on my Romulan and then turning everything to XIV and epic on my Fed captain that I started raising to 60. So there's plenty of need for Dil. I did start her on that, but I'm not going to push it further. The drain on me has left this game feeling like I'd have to play it 8 hours a day 40 hours a week for the next 3 months or more JUST to get to the point that I consider fun in trying to tune my piloting and character setup for the high DPS numbers.
As of this point I don't plan to spend another dime on this game, even for my fleet which I created that is still at T3 for the most part and has a ton of need for Dilithium. There's hundreds of dollars I was more than willing to spend to get that Dil to put into the upgrades, gather EC for parts, and finish fleet projects and Upgrades and other said things.
I like this game, but hate how it's being managed right now.
I understand that the 50-60 was not meant to be done in an hour or that the spec points were not supposed to gained in less than week. But for the grind to 60 to take someone like me who works full time, has a family, and other ventures and plays a considerable amount of time despite all of that to take 3 weeks to only get 7 levels that takes the fun out of the game. To take a week and a half to get spec points doing queued events and patrol missions to mix things up in order to get the skills that comes from those also takes the fun out of the game.
To break it down, I can be found on here for at least 4 hours a day, on saturday I can be found almost all day, on sunday most of the day. That time becomes 30 hours a week that I tend to be on here. That's time for a part time job and I have my kids who watch me, future STO players who at this rate may never get the chance to play because of how bad this experience is turning to.
/End rant.
Now as to make this game better and seem like a lot more fun. I think simply making it so that the experience gained is higher so that it indeed feels like you are making progress from everything done. 2k from a queued event or STF is not worth the venture. Making those the most would encourage people to play them more. The queues are empty, making them worth playing for everyone would benefit them getting played more. For some of them that it takes a set time that it is impossible to beat them in 3 minutes or less more xp should be given as a reward. Let's note that the Fleet defense is almost impossible to fill pug style because no one wants to spend 10minutes or more on a 2-3k xp reward no matter how many Fleet marks they need.
Adding fun back in like allowing players to get those after level things with an easier array of time won't hurt anyone. You can always create more spec trees or increase them to add in more on the current ones. It wouldn't hurt anything and would make the game more interesting. Right now the ones who benefit the most are those with more time or those who took time off to max out the trees using Japori when it was good. That kills things in more ways than one. Allow players to max out, than use the lessons learned from this to make the next set of spec points or after level things take a bit longer of a grind but be just as rewarding. IE saving/stocking points after maxing out the current trees.
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Top DPS 102k
Top DPS 102k
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The fun has been removed and work added. The concept is perfect if it was a Collectible Card Game. However the dev's wouldn't know what a PC game is as the guys running the show haven't a damn clue.
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
No doubt that it has been said a million times. The biggest thing that needs to occur is for them to see a hit where it hurts them most, their pockets. But that has a side danger in it shutting the game down as well. But I know from me they are not making any more and I will freely admit that I spent my share of money on this game, of which will not go into something less enjoyable for the immediate now, like investing or savings. Which will technically be beneficial to me anyways.
Top DPS 102k
There is a good point about having to do all those patrols. I'm getting decent amount of EC from vendor trash. Some mats for R&D to keep that going. And a ton of Delta marks. So much I'm almost done with the Rep and just got Lv55. So soon I will get a big payout from that, and I see more marks coming. So all those will be converted into Dil. From what I'm seeing. Is profit in the wind.
I still think the game is fun, and keep playing when I get a chance. Either on my Fed, KDF, or Romulan. I'm not doing the Argala System burn like most do. Keep doing that same mission over and over. Your only asking for a burn out. My method is doing very nice on keeping it not so boring. Since I hit Lv55 I only did that system 3 times. Not bad so far.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I don't really get where you guys are coming from. Spend money on the game. Buy zen and keys and get all the dil you want and all the ec for upgrades etc. Buy all the boosts you need to level faster. Those exist in the store right?
Or, continue to be a free to play leech on this game and just cry about not getting what you want fast enough and stomp your little feets. haha. You guys are all making yourselves look like babies. Deal with it or go play something else.
No. If I have to pay for Gold or LTS then pay for boosts, just no. They can leech someone else's wallet. They can deal with it or go write something else to put on Arc with the rest of the stuff selling keys. I don't value lobi enough to spend $10 for 40 or 50 of them. There's pretty much TRIBBLE left in the Lobi store anyway.
If I was a FTP player that would be a different thing. But I'm not.
If this was just a bunch of whining it would be a different thing. But it is not.
I have played this game since Beta. I stopped when it went live because at the time I didn't have the money to get the sub. Things changed around the time it went FTP and I started back up and shortly after waited until a sale and went LTS. I spend $100 or so every paycheck I have gotten since then. Use it to boost my fleet or in the last spurts upgrade my one finished Romulan. So if you want to think this thread was just another "leech" then you need to stop assuming things. I have spent far more on this game than I want to admit, including buying several of the ship packs even when I saw them as junk ships with useless traits or poor setups.
The problem here is I want to be able to play this game on multiple captains. I want to utilize all 14 of my captains that I have, level them all up 60 but in the current environment it not only becomes impossible to work that goal but it's quickly acting like it needs to be another full time job JUST to get a captain from 50 to 60.
You want to buy the exp packs? Go ahead and be Cryptics whale. They will love you for buying those but personally, the amount of them that I'd have to get to level up 14 captains? Not worth it. This game won't see my money for those. It won't see my money getting zen to convert to Dil for my Fleet T3 and T4 projects which I have in the works. It won't see the zen to dil for the upgrades to make my ships the best they could be. It won't see anything short of my LTS giving 500 per month as of this moment.
You want to be the one that cryptic aims at who buys the Exp packs from the store several times to level all of your captains up? Well Cryptic thanks you I'm sure. Get off the forums if all you're doing is assuming that there is are FTP complaints, and whiny posts. You don't belong here at all. Especially if you are trying to represent the good of game itself.
Top DPS 102k
Not trolling or anything, it's just something that I've wondered with some of the complaints on various things that tend to involve needing to be at a certain point within a certain amount of time...or...having gear in a certain amount of time.
Yeah, I leveled to sixty during the first week...it took about a week to do so. When I started out, I hit a wall pretty quick - like level fifty-two or so. I asked about it, and folks mentioned running the missions at Elite. That carried me through the rest of the week and I didn't run into another wall until just before fifty-nine where I had to hit up a couple of patrols. Had I run any queues during that time, I wouldn't have run into that wall there at the end. But yeah, it took about a week to get from fifty to sixty for me. I know folks that didn't turn in various missions until after DR released, so with that and hitting up some Japori they were at sixty within about four hours. Hadn't heard of anybody doing it an hour. That's just...yeah...probably the folks Cryptic was talking about, eh?
But yeah, it's always been something I've been curious about - I know different folks find different things fun, but I've never quite understood the complaint (in multiple games) about the time to level...just so folks could repeat the same things over and over again at "endgame"...always felt like trading doing a bunch of stuff for doing a little bit of stuff.
Which gets into STO and how things changed with them increasing what has to be done and the complaint of how much has to be repeated during that leveling process...but uh...doesn't that simply make it that much more like "endgame" in that sense? Basically that "endgame" is still at fifty where you start repeating things, but instead of it not really going anywhere...at least it goes from fifty to sixty.
No doubt though, as mentioned, different folks enjoy different things - it's not a case of telling folks they're doing it wrong because they enjoy something different or they don't enjoy something...nothing like that. Just something I've always been curious about. It's a rhetorical curiosity, mind you - cause in the end, even with replies...it still just comes down to different folks enjoying different things and wanting different things. Just because it wouldn't ruin the fun for me, doesn't mean it wouldn't ruin the fun for somebody else. Likewise, mind you, just because it would ruin the fun for somebody doesn't mean it would ruin the fun for somebody else.
Just rinse repeat the same patrols over and over again to make a rank the story line should take you to.
I to hardly play, I may do a couple of logins a week at a push, get in, stare at screen, realise I'm bored already, logout, play elite dangerous.
I made a new toon over my extended christmas vacation (today I am back at "work"). About 4 week old character.
who is level 60, 5/5 in all rep but delta and 4/5 on it. I have every piece of gear that I want except for a fleet shield, which awaits fleet credit which is slow going and ground gear, which I will get in time. I did not do *any* of the story after choosing a faction (rom) until 60, I just now started and just arrested tovan's old girlfriend.
My unplayed alts are pretty much all level 56 and NONE have done even ONE mission in DR content --- they did the MU event for dil, which got 3 or 4 levels, and they do DO assignments, which net xp slowly.
I agree that leveling more than 1 character to max specialization trees is INSANE. Which makes alts difficult to deal with if you like to have them maxed out. But that is unrelated to reaching level 60. Reaching level 60 is not that bad, not at all. It takes what, about 1 full day to level, maybe 2 tops? 10-15 days from 50-60 average? That is nothing, really. Time your delta rep is maxed, you have it.
So, what is the complaint? Time taken to 60? Not really a big deal. Lack of interesting things to do? That is an issue, but it always was. Spec tree level grind? Huge problem. The title implies the big issue is just getting to 60 though... which is trivial compared to maxing out a spec tree, and only a minor step up in difficulty over 1-50 leveling.
In case anyone wondered I leveled off DO assignments, the early mission "the helix" which takes 3 min or less to run, empire defense series daily (dil and xp and loot all rolled into one), and after 50, tons of stf runs for marks and dil and all. And this guy was not full time... in the same 4 weeks I have gotten 3 or 4 spec tree levels on my other main chars, ground out the race on 3 chars (sigh..), done stfs on other chars, leveled a new lotro toon partially, played a bunch of warframe, and more... this game is, in spite of DR, still super fast leveling up.
I've just done the two level 56 delta missions, that's about 16k xp for the 2, it didn't even fill up two bars.
Average 1500 xp for some stuff, you barely see movement.
It takes 3-4 5500 xp patrols to fill a bar.
MU was worth a lot more at 50 than at 59. The bar moved quickly. One / day / char and level 54 from doing it enough times to get the reward, all chars level 50 when it started. 55 and 56 have been from DO assignments over time.
Most replays are worth 3k on the average, actually, between kills and the small replay reward.
THE REST OF THE GAME.
you don't get where these people are coming from? are you insane?
Look, I can deal with the new timegate paywall world post-DR STO.
But most people either can't or don't want to or BOTH. And there's no "good riddance" bull$hite that applies here. These games need every damn customer. And they flushed a huge portion of the population right out of the game. They flushed them right down the crapper, and a ton of those people would have been occasional regular buyers/spenders as well.
less people to play with ======> less fun, that's it, end of story.
The game isn't accessible to new players anymore (past 50 and the rep system) and many longtime players have just picked up their bags and left.
And I'm just as pissed off as other people about it
how you or anyone else can't see this is ... willful something, obstinance? I don't know what, but clear your head man.
No, to me, it's more about doing patrol mission over and over... to unlock patrol mission. Grinding for the sole purpose of unlocking another grind. Oh yeah.
But then, you reach 60, and all you have left to do is upgrading your gear, which mean spending thousands of dil per item, with a random chance for randomness.
Basically, you grind to unlock new grind, and when you're done, you unlock another grind with randomness built on top of randomness. Which means, more grind.
The other two, i brought up to about 57-58 by doffing, doing one Argala run per day (for delta rep, mainly) plus a few old missions that that i hadn't played since Cryptic reset story progression.
The level needs to be between 57 and 58 in order to play all missions, including What's Left Behind.
The three alts that are left are being leveled up to 57/58 by doffing exclusively (Gorn uprisings, high payout DQ assignments).
The xp payout for Gorn uprisings is insane on crits. Unfortunately, there's no adequate equivalent on Fed side.
It will take a lot of days but only about 5 minutes per day while i can concentrate on farming dil and improving my main.
Tha game becomes a lot less annoying this way.
No, srsly. I too think that cryptic far overdid the XP requirements for lvl 60. I mean they introduced the specialisations for post maxlevel. So the increased level requirement from 50-60 wasn't even needed to begin with.
It's only 'the same patrols' because you decided to play the same patrols. I have 3 characters, a fed, a klingon, and a Reman(K). My ferrengi hit 60 just before thanksgiving, and I only get to play now and then (I'm the lead researcher and community manager for a tech news site - I get busy with work.)
so my two KDF based ones are only at 54 (which they've done entirely through the mirror invasion, winter wonderland, and DOFFS).
However, to level my Ferrengi up, I decided to try and do every single patrol at least once. 'grinding'? no.
People 'grind' because they want to grind. There's more than enough content to pretty much level up 50 to 60 without having to repeat anything more than twice. You just don't WANT to. You want to get to the end as quickly and easily as possible, and since that means there's only one or two ways that will be the quickest and easiest, you keep repeating that, and that's then "grind" to you, because you chose to play that way.
The problem isn't PDE, its you, and your desire to grind.
*cough*bull*****cough*....
Oh wait, that's a long, long time ago in a MMO far far away.
Officially Nerfed In Early 2410
Oh no, it's there. You just don't notice it.
At a rough estimate, the replay of the story missions gets you 190k SP. I don't know how much the first run through gets you, alas, but let's assume you start at level 50. which is, I believe, 366,000.
level 60 is twice that, so 50 - > 60 is also 366,000
you already have 190k from redoing the story missions, so that leaves 176k left.
Then there's something like 40 patrol missions available. That's about 2k each (most are more, some are a lot less), for 80 thousand. Do each twice and thats 160k.
16k left. Doff missions, the battlezones, deferi dailies, PvE's, new romulus etc. + PLUS special events (mirror invasion, winter wonderland etc) ANd ship damage points. shouldn't be hard to make that up.
fairly easy to make the goal, I think, doing everything twice.
just because you don't think about it that way, doesn't mean it doesn't work that way.
Admittedly I'm here for the space ships and the space combat (ground combat is totally inept at best), but the storylines feel like they are written for 6yr olds. I know Star Trek as a show can be very cheesy prior to DS9 and even in Voyager a lot too. But the level of writing for this game is very low.
The other thing is, if the game is designed to have a lot of XP from X-Y levels then the content for those levels should cover it. If you have to go off and repeat a mission or patrol at all, it's terrible design, that's just basic fact. The game is also an MMO, it shouldn't penalise players for trying to play as a group either...
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Good idea, but its not correct. The first time you do a mission, you get a big amount of XP -- at 60, first-times of even lowbie missions grant about 10k each, some even more, a few less, but about that. But repeated missions grant about 2k each, 3k if you include space kills in the tally (but the 10k did not include kills etc). So a repeat of the story arcs would NOT get you 366k, not even close.
You would have to to do the story missions about 4 times over all the arcs, not just once, because the bonus for doing it ONCE is gone and repeats pay a paltry amount.
FWIW skipping ALL the arcs until 60, each mission for first time bonus is worth about 1 bar (not one level, but one BAR of one level).
If you wait for the level-up weekend, which is coming soon, you can get a bit more. I plan to do the story arcs during that, what is left of them, I got thru the first 2 already.
Totally new content.
Guess what, I did this content several time, and I don't see the point in redoing everything I've done because DR lack content. When I play something new, I expect... something new. Not a pop up window telling me I have to redo all the old stuff.
Anyway, I truly love when someone comes and try to teach someone else how to have fun, because the OP is clearly wrong.
Do please read what I wrote.