Agreed, Argala, like most of the content, can be fun to many. But, people are spending the majority of their time repeating it over and over again, not because it is fun, but because it is the fastest method to grind out the goal they are lead to obsess over.
Cryptic could have put more XP rewards everywhere. Could have given more XPs/Kill everywhere.
But they didn't.
Indeed.
When they added something similar than spec trees in Age of conan, they made sure we had proper XP reward doing dungeons. And added some "xp box" to the new dungeons. The more it was difficult (according to their scale, which was off, but that's another point entirely), the more XP you had.
In STO, that would mean you earn more xp than currently by playing STF and other endgame activities, and even more doing something like Bord disconnected advanced. And if you did for example Korfez elite, you'd have even more, because it's new content, and more difficult.
Alongside a dungeon specific loot table, it pretty much pushed people to play every dungeons, until they had the gear they wanted, then try to grind the hardest one for xp/random loot.
And then, for the most casual players, they had a time based way to unlock those new perks. The higher rank and importance the perk was, the higher the amount of time you had to wait. It also worked offline, obviously.
So you could say "I'm unlocking this with xp, and that with time".
Why not? You can use the Zen-Store and the Dilithium Exchange from everywhere. Plenty of R&D Boxes can be opened in the orbit of Argala.
No amount of money that can be spent would reduce the soul-crushing grind for Skill Points. At best, you'd be able to do it in a slightly shinier ship but why bother when you can do it in a T1 Conny just as easliy?
No amount of money that can be spent would reduce the soul-crushing grind for Skill Points. At best, you'd be able to do it in a slightly shinier ship but why bother when you can do it in a T1 Conny just as easliy?
Buying and trying a lot of different ships at least gives you some variety in your Argala time loop. So that's a good reason. And all the R&D Materials will at least allow you to grind upgrade kits and what not so you don't find yourself with 60 specialization points but Mark XII gear.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
My advice is to stop grinding spec points at all after you do 50% of it.
The final 50% it doesn't worth it the time required to complete it .
More if you play Fed Reciprocity+Battle ready are far better than anything spec tree offers in this moment.
I stopped grinding spec points by doing patrol missions immediately after Jaipori
(I have only finished pilot tree and it is enough for me )
I play Kdf so I dont have access to reciprocity but even so I prefer to play with two empty starship slots then grinding Argala
"There already is a Borg faction, its called the Federation. They assimilate everyone else's technology and remove any biological or technical distinctiveness and add it to their own."
I refuse to be content https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwI0u9L4R8U
mmm i know how to make better the Argala system. Just put one of these trading ship with a permanent bank and exchange there, and you wuold never, ever need to go another place...oh and a tailor too.:cool:
mmm i know how to make better the Argala system. Just put one of these trading ship with a permanent bank and exchange there, and you wuold never, ever need to go another place...oh and a tailor too.:cool:
Don't worry. It's "working as intended".... until they decide it isn't, at which point you will be labled an exploiter and have any/all speciaization points redacted. But hey! You can enjoy getting them all over again somewhere else in the Delta Quad.
You have Random enemies, two interesting allies ships, its straight forward no dull goofy stuff like finding the exact perfect point in the middle of no where which I hate btw.
No Agala works as simply fun when I wish to blow something up, or try a new tactic or ship or whatever.
You have Random enemies, two interesting allies ships, its straight forward no dull goofy stuff like finding the exact perfect point in the middle of no where which I hate btw.
No Agala works as simply fun when I wish to blow something up, or try a new tactic or ship or whatever.
Nope - I usually solo it and enjoy the run... especially when it's NOT Kazon... they just... annoy me. I never grind for the sake of grinding... where's the fun in that.
Don't worry. It's "working as intended".... until they decide it isn't, at which point you will be labled an exploiter and have any/all speciaization points redacted. But hey! You can enjoy getting them all over again somewhere else in the Delta Quad.
It is awarding more XP than anywhere else, why else is everyone flocking over there like sheep?
To participate in Cryptic's exciting social experiment ofcourse !
They turned the STF awards into sh^t , and then bumped up the perceived "awards" @ Argala .
Thus we were supposed to abandon our usual stomping grounds as the "cheese" was no longer there , and flock to the new "exploit" that was created by Cryptic on purpose (Argala) .
Then someone change their minds twice more and buffed the STF awards a little (late) and added the RD materials to the STF's & Fleet Actions to make us grind them too ... .
... one could almost say that this was all done with the best of intentions to give us more options (criteria) to grind for . One could say that until one notices the awards the STF's first offered in DR and the reaction of the players in general ...
You have Random enemies, two interesting allies ships, its straight forward no dull goofy stuff like finding the exact perfect point in the middle of no where which I hate btw.
No Agala works as simply fun when I wish to blow something up, or try a new tactic or ship or whatever.
Yes. Absolutely despise the place, but I don't know a faster place for ship specialization points. Sure you can build your own character specialization faster elsewhere, but for ships if there is something faster people are keeping it to private circles. Otherwise I'd Omega-Particle the entire sector.
if there is something faster people are keeping it to private circles. Otherwise I'd Omega-Particle the entire sector.
Yep Somebody mentioned Argala and look at this forum post. Now there are less players helping players find the good spots.
On another note.. OP please run a queued event of your choice with a random team and let us know how it goes. You will find this is why people avoid queued events with random players.
If you dont want players to farm xp, then they should return xp earned back to normal across all content. However nerfing Argal will only send players to another map and solve nothing.
Not so much exploit, as in futile exercise in extreme boredom. But that is the price you pay for wanting everything now.
It may be worth mentioning that perhaps the queues remain dead specifically because everyone else seems to prefer grinding away for spec points instead. Maximum efficiency/ROI and all that jazz.
Believe me OP, I do not WANT to grind Argala over and over again. But I have to, because the devs refuse to do a balance pass of the XP rewards for all existing PvE content, especially queues.
Believe me OP, I do not WANT to grind Argala over and over again. But I have to, because the devs refuse to do a balance pass of the XP rewards for all existing PvE content, especially queues.
Same here..
I'm so SICK of Argala.. I just can't progress any other way.
It sucks big time.. I can either find content I have fun doing, or I can progress my character but I can't do both. :mad:
Believe me OP, I do not WANT to grind Argala over and over again. But I have to, because the devs refuse to do a balance pass of the XP rewards for all existing PvE content, especially queues.
This.
Anyway, sometime soon, someone is going to tell us you can make a spec point every day in 5 minutes by doffing only, and it's optional anyway, we could have so much fun sniffing flowers on New Romulus.
Anyway, sometime soon, someone is going to tell us you can make a spec point every day in 5 minutes by doffing only, and it's optional anyway, we could have so much fun sniffing flowers on New Romulus.
If possible Im all ears. At current rate I get about 1 spec point per toon per week out of the doff system but at least with no effort put into it (a lot of good doffs though).
On a perverse note the best doff assignments for skill points seem to be on delta map right in visual range of the Argala system.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
I avoided Argala other that as doing it as part of the Patrol Wrapper Mission, but finally succumbed during this Bonus XP Weekend. As far as Specialization Points are concerned, i could care less. They come when the come. All of my 8 characters are level 60 and have between 15 and 17 total spec points each - some a hodgepodge. What i am using this Weekend for is to Level up Tier 6 ships for the Ship Masteries. Three Argals runs and a Borg Red Alert and you completely fill out a Ship Mastery from 0 to over what is needed to max out Tier 5.
You can bet it is easier for my two KDF and two Fed-Romulan characters as they have at most three to do, including the Sarr Theln. Most of those characters were pretty much done , except for the Sarr before the Weekend anyway.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I feel about the same way about argala and gerren. It was worthwhile this weekend. I got what I wanted out of them. But it was only worthwhile because it was double double exp. I treat it like the dilithium weekend. I put in some hard graft for a few days so I don't have to for the next 2 months.
I deployed a subspace buoy warning of biohazard contamination and won't be going back.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
The fact that people flock to it to the exclusion of all other content and STILL don't progress at a meaningful rate without a double xp bonus should be pretty telling.
The fact that people flock to it to the exclusion of all other content and STILL don't progress at a meaningful rate without a double xp bonus should be pretty telling.
Oh, it's telling all right: just not the story you think it is.
Argala is not an exploit; it merely stands out, XP-reward wise, because everything else got severely nerfed. I'm fair certain Geko wanted to nerf Argala too, but probably feared an outrage (and he'd be right).
What needs to happen is that the rest of the galaxy be brought up to par with Argala. I mean, 20 XP for a Borg Cube?! Now, *that* is blatantly abusive!
Unfortunately, the metrics thing makes complete sense.
To be fair, Cryptic clearly put a lot of effort into DR - it's the biggest change to the game since LoR - but they will need to justify that effort to their owners. How? Metrics showing that players are concentrated in the new areas of the game.
In the best of all possible worlds, they would have made Delta Quadrant gameplay so good that players wanted to be there anyway. Instead we have a relatively blunt stick of Delta Grinding being the only demi-rapid way to gain specialisation points.
I have a feeling that 6 months down the line, when the onus on justifying DR has gone, we'll see a CXP revamp that will balance things out.
Comments
It's because it's specifically designed that way.
Cryptic could have put more XP rewards everywhere. Could have given more XPs/Kill everywhere.
But they didn't.
When they added something similar than spec trees in Age of conan, they made sure we had proper XP reward doing dungeons. And added some "xp box" to the new dungeons. The more it was difficult (according to their scale, which was off, but that's another point entirely), the more XP you had.
In STO, that would mean you earn more xp than currently by playing STF and other endgame activities, and even more doing something like Bord disconnected advanced. And if you did for example Korfez elite, you'd have even more, because it's new content, and more difficult.
Alongside a dungeon specific loot table, it pretty much pushed people to play every dungeons, until they had the gear they wanted, then try to grind the hardest one for xp/random loot.
And then, for the most casual players, they had a time based way to unlock those new perks. The higher rank and importance the perk was, the higher the amount of time you had to wait. It also worked offline, obviously.
So you could say "I'm unlocking this with xp, and that with time".
It is a shame Cryptic has to be that way. If they weren't, I'd still be playing.
Why not? You can use the Zen-Store and the Dilithium Exchange from everywhere. Plenty of R&D Boxes can be opened in the orbit of Argala.
No amount of money that can be spent would reduce the soul-crushing grind for Skill Points. At best, you'd be able to do it in a slightly shinier ship but why bother when you can do it in a T1 Conny just as easliy?
Free Tibet!
Buying and trying a lot of different ships at least gives you some variety in your Argala time loop. So that's a good reason. And all the R&D Materials will at least allow you to grind upgrade kits and what not so you don't find yourself with 60 specialization points but Mark XII gear.
The final 50% it doesn't worth it the time required to complete it .
More if you play Fed Reciprocity+Battle ready are far better than anything spec tree offers in this moment.
I stopped grinding spec points by doing patrol missions immediately after Jaipori
(I have only finished pilot tree and it is enough for me )
I play Kdf so I dont have access to reciprocity but even so I prefer to play with two empty starship slots then grinding Argala
I refuse to be content https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwI0u9L4R8U
Still with signature
GG Cryptic.
dnirg eht nioj
If people were cooperating more, they could have a freighter up 100 % the time!
So we are you allowed to level up faster than normal in tua dewa, but we are allowed to level up faster than normal in the delta quadrant?
that's unfair
the delta/argala xp bonanza thing is just plain weird
no two ways about it
xp should clearly be better distributed in the game
but, maybe it is as people say, they need warm bodies in the delta quadrant for their bosses
if that's the case they should make another portal to the DQ, something at the "southern" end of DQ, it would at least make the zone more accessable
You have Random enemies, two interesting allies ships, its straight forward no dull goofy stuff like finding the exact perfect point in the middle of no where which I hate btw.
No Agala works as simply fun when I wish to blow something up, or try a new tactic or ship or whatever.
Nope - I usually solo it and enjoy the run... especially when it's NOT Kazon... they just... annoy me. I never grind for the sake of grinding... where's the fun in that.
This, indubitably.
To participate in Cryptic's exciting social experiment ofcourse !
They turned the STF awards into sh^t , and then bumped up the perceived "awards" @ Argala .
Thus we were supposed to abandon our usual stomping grounds as the "cheese" was no longer there , and flock to the new "exploit" that was created by Cryptic on purpose (Argala) .
Then someone change their minds twice more and buffed the STF awards a little (late) and added the RD materials to the STF's & Fleet Actions to make us grind them too ... .
... one could almost say that this was all done with the best of intentions to give us more options (criteria) to grind for . One could say that until one notices the awards the STF's first offered in DR and the reaction of the players in general ...
Yes. Absolutely despise the place, but I don't know a faster place for ship specialization points. Sure you can build your own character specialization faster elsewhere, but for ships if there is something faster people are keeping it to private circles. Otherwise I'd Omega-Particle the entire sector.
Yep
On another note.. OP please run a queued event of your choice with a random team and let us know how it goes. You will find this is why people avoid queued events with random players.
If you dont want players to farm xp, then they should return xp earned back to normal across all content. However nerfing Argal will only send players to another map and solve nothing.
Click to Join armadafleet.org/
It may be worth mentioning that perhaps the queues remain dead specifically because everyone else seems to prefer grinding away for spec points instead. Maximum efficiency/ROI and all that jazz.
Just a thought.
Same here..
I'm so SICK of Argala.. I just can't progress any other way.
It sucks big time.. I can either find content I have fun doing, or I can progress my character but I can't do both. :mad:
Anyway, sometime soon, someone is going to tell us you can make a spec point every day in 5 minutes by doffing only, and it's optional anyway, we could have so much fun sniffing flowers on New Romulus.
If possible Im all ears. At current rate I get about 1 spec point per toon per week out of the doff system but at least with no effort put into it (a lot of good doffs though).
On a perverse note the best doff assignments for skill points seem to be on delta map right in visual range of the Argala system.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
You can bet it is easier for my two KDF and two Fed-Romulan characters as they have at most three to do, including the Sarr Theln. Most of those characters were pretty much done , except for the Sarr before the Weekend anyway.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I deployed a subspace buoy warning of biohazard contamination and won't be going back.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Complete mockery of the game certainly.
The fact that people flock to it to the exclusion of all other content and STILL don't progress at a meaningful rate without a double xp bonus should be pretty telling.
Oh, it's telling all right: just not the story you think it is.
Argala is not an exploit; it merely stands out, XP-reward wise, because everything else got severely nerfed. I'm fair certain Geko wanted to nerf Argala too, but probably feared an outrage (and he'd be right).
What needs to happen is that the rest of the galaxy be brought up to par with Argala. I mean, 20 XP for a Borg Cube?! Now, *that* is blatantly abusive!
To be fair, Cryptic clearly put a lot of effort into DR - it's the biggest change to the game since LoR - but they will need to justify that effort to their owners. How? Metrics showing that players are concentrated in the new areas of the game.
In the best of all possible worlds, they would have made Delta Quadrant gameplay so good that players wanted to be there anyway. Instead we have a relatively blunt stick of Delta Grinding being the only demi-rapid way to gain specialisation points.
I have a feeling that 6 months down the line, when the onus on justifying DR has gone, we'll see a CXP revamp that will balance things out.