I've mentioned before in a few podcasts, I play STO every day with a character that has no special "dev hacks." I've worked up tier 5 in all of the reputations, earned starship mastery traits on multiple ships, and I'm still earning specialization points. I have multiple alts as well, across all the different factions and careers. When I decided that I wanted to fly the Vesta, I earned dilithium and posted it on the d-Zen exchange and purchased the ship bundle. And I'm not the only one who plays.
The assumption that "devs don't actually play the game" is decidedly incorrect.
We do play the game -- some of us a little, some of us a lot.
Okay. If you (either you personally or anyone on the dev team) play the game, why did you think this was a good idea? And that's the crux of it, Mister Heinig - we know you play the game. But because you're a dev, you play with a dev mentality. You're not playing the way we play. So when you nerf something and think "this will make things better cause we'll add this," your perspective and they players' are a long way off from each other. When you do things like nerfing the queues you are, it may not seem like a big deal to you, but it is to us. Let me summarize the feedback of now 19 pages of discussion and commentary:
Nerfing queues is a very bad thing.
We've thanked you repeatedly for promising to add XP buffs and Dilithium and Elite Marks to single-player missions. These are good things and you need to do a lot more of these. But you do not need to nerf queues at the same time. It gives players several very bad feelings (most probably unintentional, but present nonetheless):
That we are being forced to play what you want us to play, not what we want to play.
That you, the developers, are disconnected from the playerbase and the issues they are having.
By doing nerfs first and not including buffs at the same time, your actions perpetrate a feeling of players being punished for playing how they are.
Because of Cryptic's track record, some of us are unsure as to whether or not the promised buffs will happen in a timely fashion.
This all makes the players very wary of the changes you are making, turning what could be a very positive addition into a negative turn of events - or, rather, another negative turn of events after all the other nerfs we've gotten. Ultimately, the nerfs do not need to happen. If you were to include just the buffs, the anniversary update would be almost wholly positive and very positively received. That is the idea that seems to be unspoken but shared throughout most of the thread. So, I sincerely hope that this feedback is received and ultimately acted upon.
Thank you again for participating in the discussion, by the way. That in and of itself does quite a bit to help matters.
According to an anonymous post, claiming to be a current employee at Cryptic: They don't.
Apathy and ignorance towards the product and customers. Most of the developers don't play the games they make and some don't even play in the genre they're working in. That leads to a serious lack of passion on the development teams, and when faced with brutal deadlines, a lack of passion for the project shows in the end product.
Play the game for one month, every day (recommended that you join a fleet or have a group of friends to play with, but make sure you PUG and solo too);
Assemble new reports;
Get the changes going based on the new reports.
Then you will see why the current metrics are pointing you guys in the wrong direction.
Best post in this thread
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
The adjustments of the queues for the tribble patch making the requirements for Advanced harder are pointless. So what if the DPS crowd can do CCA in under 3 minutes. Just because the majority of runs are under 3 minutes doesn't mean that 5 mins is a good avg to rate the failure for the Optional. In the PUG arena (where the majority of CCA runs DON'T happen) they are lucky to get it complete under 9 minutes. If there's a good ship in there you can reduce it to 6-8 minutes (this is just an example for CCA, but can equally be applied to the other ones).
Currently the metrics are heavily biased towards the DPS crowd who can actually run those maps with coordination and far higher damage.
The dev's really need to play their own game on normal accounts. They need to find out the grievances and the grind for themselves, because despite the forums being full of only 3% of the players, they have been trying to explain the issues for years. Smirk you claimed you have noted these issues, currently I see no action to fix them.
Nerfing the queues rewards, is utterly TRIBBLE, they need to be buffed to get players back into them. Otherwise all you'll see is Bug Hunt runs as it's the only one paying out anything.
Chris Robert's on SC:
"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."
I've mentioned before in a few podcasts, I play STO every day with a character that has no special "dev hacks." I've worked up tier 5 in all of the reputations, earned starship mastery traits on multiple ships, and I'm still earning specialization points. I have multiple alts as well, across all the different factions and careers. When I decided that I wanted to fly the Vesta, I earned dilithium and posted it on the d-Zen exchange and purchased the ship bundle. And I'm not the only one who plays.
The assumption that "devs don't actually play the game" is decidedly incorrect.
We do play the game -- some of us a little, some of us a lot.
Lucky you that have so much time on your hand to play the game every single day. Many of us don't have that luxury. Plus you probably wouldn't need any "dev hacks" with the inside knowledge of the game mechanics that a dev would have. Knowing exactly what missions are the best to do. What each enemy weakness is and how to exploit those. I'm not saying players can't figure these things out, if they play a lot, I'm saying that many don't get to play that often, as we have things we need to do in our real lives that takes precedence over playing computer games.
That being said, these changes are being discussed and planned and while the details are still being hammered out, we are willing to commit to the following updates taking place in the next couple of months:
Increase the Skill Point and Expertise rewards in PvE queues.
We thank you for your continuing patience as we get these updates through the development process and out to the players.
Sure, no problem. Take your time.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Soooo...lemme get this straight, you're nerfing the PvE queues because they take less time to do, because you put out more powerful ships, because you wanted more money. So now in order to line it all up since the devs apparently didn't figure this when they made the DR pack and T6 ships with proper power, you plan instead to punish people for buying the DR pack or any T6 ships by nerfing difficult instances for people who didn't fall for the DR TRIBBLE pack and make it less worthy to play as a normal f2per? That about cover it? Good luck with that, since most people start as either beta testers or f2p to "test" a game to see if they want to play it or not. making hard instances harder and less payout fulfilling is sure to get you "more" P2P customers (insert sarcasm emote here) On the final note, if you are attempting to "force" everyone into higher dps ships...can your servers really handle that? Sometimes the entire instance is dumped when I'm walking to the tailor ffs!
Play the game for one month, every day (recommended that you join a fleet or have a group of friends to play with, but make sure you PUG and solo too);
Assemble new reports;
Get the changes going based on the new reports.
Then you will see why the current metrics are pointing you guys in the wrong direction.
Okay. If you (either you personally or anyone on the dev team) play the game, why did you think this was a good idea? And that's the crux of it, Mister Heinig - we know you play the game. But because you're a dev, you play with a dev mentality. You're not playing the way we play. So when you nerf something and think "this will make things better cause we'll add this," your perspective and they players' are a long way off from each other. When you do things like nerfing the queues you are, it may not seem like a big deal to you, but it is to us. Let me summarize the feedback of now 19 pages of discussion and commentary:
Nerfing queues is a very bad thing.
We've thanked you repeatedly for promising to add XP buffs and Dilithium and Elite Marks to single-player missions. These are good things and you need to do a lot more of these. But you do not need to nerf queues at the same time. It gives players several very bad feelings (most probably unintentional, but present nonetheless):
That we are being forced to play what you want us to play, not what we want to play.
That you, the developers, are disconnected from the playerbase and the issues they are having.
By doing nerfs first and not including buffs at the same time, your actions perpetrate a feeling of players being punished for playing how they are.
Because of Cryptic's track record, some of us are unsure as to whether or not the promised buffs will happen in a timely fashion.
This all makes the players very wary of the changes you are making, turning what could be a very positive addition into a negative turn of events - or, rather, another negative turn of events after all the other nerfs we've gotten. Ultimately, the nerfs do not need to happen. If you were to include just the buffs, the anniversary update would be almost wholly positive and very positively received. That is the idea that seems to be unspoken but shared throughout most of the thread. So, I sincerely hope that this feedback is received and ultimately acted upon.
Thank you again for participating in the discussion, by the way. That in and of itself does quite a bit to help matters.
Just fix the bridge officers from dropping off the roster on map changes :mad:
^
Best post in the thread in tone and substance. Please understand these measured and accurate remarks.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
I'm glad these concerns are being heard finally. I'll make this short and to the point.
There is no such thing currently in STO such as a mission or STF rewarding "too much". There are only a very small amount of areas that are rewarding a fair amount with regards to the myriad of dil sinks DR put in the game. You guys might want to hold off nerfing ANY rewards on any PvE content.
With that said, adding dil to missions and such is a move in the right direction. Its a positive sign that you guys and gals are finally understanding that increasing difficulty while nerfing rewards is pretty much a terrible idea. I made a post offering exactly what you guys are now contemplating. Change nothing/very little of the sinks but simply bump up our ability to get in-game currency.
IF this gets done reasonably and fairly and the rewards get loosened so the game I love isnt punishing me and my alts reward-wise, I could potentially see myself spending a little here and there again. We'll see. This entire DR experience has left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.
But...its a move in the right direction if done right. I'm sincerely glad you folks at Cryptic are actually tuned in to the reward issue. And thanks Mr. Gray. See? You ARE the "communication guy".
We understand the sentiment expressed that there are a lot of places outside of PvE queues that either feel like they are rewarding too much for too little effort or rewarding too little for too much effort. These rewards are typically of Skill Points, Expertise, or Dilithium, all of which touch many more parts of the game and therefore need extra due diligence before any changes are made. That being said, these changes are being discussed and planned and while the details are still being hammered out, we are willing to commit to the following updates taking place in the next couple of months:
Increase the Skill Point and Expertise rewards in PvE queues.
Reward more Dilithium at lower levels and throughout the game by adding Dilithium to mission rewards.
Increase all rewards for sector patrols that are taking significantly longer than their counterparts so that they all have similar rewards per play time.
Add Skill Point and Expertise rewards to all Adventure and Battle Zones.
Add ways to earn Elite Reputation Marks (i.e. Borg Neural Processors, Voth Cybernetic Implants, etc.) from single-player content.
We thank you for your continuing patience as we get these updates through the development process and out to the players.
Charles Gray
Lead Content Designer
Star Trek Online
These all sound like great QoL improvements, and I'm looking forward to seeing this in game.
I know I've asked for more ways to earn Dilithium through completing missions and I've definitely noticed the lack of skill points and expertise in the Adventure/Battle Zones.
Now if you guys would add Commendation rewards to more mission content and increase the progression to Tier 5 ranks, I'd love that!
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
There has been a lot of confusion expressed about some of the recent updates made specifically to PvE queues. Weve been monitoring your posts and would like to respond to the requests made by many of you for more information about why these changes (and those that came before) are being made.
Our recent updates have focused on PvE queues because we have the most data on them and because they are one of the only sources for reputation marks. As a result, they are a more closed system. The intent of these updates is to have all PvE queues reward at similar rates that take into account their individual makeups including (but not limited to) time investment, risk of failure, and number of players required. As the PvE queues exist right now there are outliers queues that reward a lot more for less time and less effort than other queues (optimal choices) and queues that reward a lot less for more time and more effort than other queues (sub-optimal choices). In fixing these discrepancies we are trying to remove the feeling of making a bad choice as a player for playing what you want to play instead of feeling forced to play something based on how much it rewards you for playing it.
We understand the sentiment expressed that there are a lot of places outside of PvE queues that either feel like they are rewarding too much for too little effort or rewarding too little for too much effort. These rewards are typically of Skill Points, Expertise, or Dilithium, all of which touch many more parts of the game and therefore need extra due diligence before any changes are made. That being said, these changes are being discussed and planned and while the details are still being hammered out, we are willing to commit to the following updates taking place in the next couple of months:
Increase the Skill Point and Expertise rewards in PvE queues.
Reward more Dilithium at lower levels and throughout the game by adding Dilithium to mission rewards.
Increase all rewards for sector patrols that are taking significantly longer than their counterparts so that they all have similar rewards per play time.
Add Skill Point and Expertise rewards to all Adventure and Battle Zones.
Add ways to earn Elite Reputation Marks (i.e. Borg Neural Processors, Voth Cybernetic Implants, etc.) from single-player content.
We thank you for your continuing patience as we get these updates through the development process and out to the players.
Charles Gray
Lead Content Designer
Star Trek Online
At last some movement.
PvE Advanced and Elite missions reward so little XP and require much more effort then patrol missions, which wouldn't even be played if STFs would reward nice amounts.
Also it would be nice to reduce Borg STFs cooldown to 30min like every other PvE.
By the amount of nerfs to content that players originally were able to win and based on the developer comments refering to their metrics about rewards and win chances, it is clear to see that the developers have specific numbers in mind that they want to hit.
That seems to be a limitation of how much xp and how much dil a player can earn in a specific amount of time.
Also it looks like the devs have a win-lose ratio that they want to see on specific (or all) missions.
The problem with such metrics is that they dont apply equally to the playerbase.
Lets just assume they want a success rate of elite missions of 5% (pure speculation since we dont know the exact numbers).
That does NOT mean that all players have a 5% chance to win the elite missions.
That does only mean that 5% of the playerbase (the top dps players) have a 100% chance to win these missions while the other 95% of the players have 0% success chance.
This is certainly an extreme example but it perfectly reflects how cryptic does balance the missions... based on the top players... not on the majority of players.
The sick thing about this kind of balancing is that the players which often lose the missions will at some point give up and stop playing these missions. This not only lowers the numbers of done missions... it will also change the success ratio of these missions (less losing players while the amount of winning players stays the same)... which motivates cryptic to do further adjustments to the difficulty in order to make their metrics look good again.
A never ending spiral of nerfs based on wrong metrics and wrong long term goals.
If you think this was the last nerf to these missions then you are wrong.
Cryptic would never admit that their decision were wrong or that their metrics do not really fit the reality.
At best we can expect to get totally ignored or we get to hear excuses such as "our metrics are correct... you just have a display bug". And lets face it... we all know that this so called "display bug" NEVER will get fixed (for the fact that it does not even exist).
It is certainly not correct that all cryptic devs are liars... but lets face it... we have been facing many developer statements, announcements and promises which simply did not fit into the category "honest".
Just alone when I read the posts on this forum, the comments on reddit, stuff on facebook and other websites it is clear to see that the players don't trust the developers anymore.
While this mistrust had a moderate level prior Delta Rising, this clearly changed to the worse in the past 3-5 months. This mistrust is justified.
Look at all the promises that were made in the past months.... and how badly they tried to fool the players with their excuses.
- "new adv. PVEs = exactly the same as the old elites".... yeah... and the massive amounts of additional HP of the NPCs or the new FAIL CONDITIONS.... ermm i mean OPTIONALS are certainly just an illiusion
- "you dont need t5u or t6 to play any of the content" ... weird... my old t5 ship performed very badly on missions that were no problem before.... the t5u upgrade solved that somehow
- "you are all exploiters for playing japori"... but playing argala is ok?
- "the 3x XP requirement increase will just be a change in numbers, and the rate of progression will stay the same"... you trippled the level-up requirements while only doubling the xp that the players get
- "empty queues are just a display bug".... yes sure, and since time is relative waiting 15mins for a PVE to start is absolutely normal
- "the doff assignments dont reward less than before -> its a display bug" -> players proved this to be wrong (since that no word anymore about this topic)
- "nerf it now... fix it later" (or "never" -> since a very common statement from the devs is "plans have changed")
- "players will get dilithium when they max out their spec points" - putting aside that this was instantly canceled I have to ask myself how this fits to the introduction of 30 new spec points and raising the limit every few months so nobody can ever reach the point that qualifies for such dilithium rewards.
- "we have to limit the reputation traits because of the power creep.... so we take away 50% of your traits but make the remaining ones twice as powerful" .... .... .... really? that was nothing but a lie
- "we have to limit the reputation traits in order to stop the power creep..." ... thats why you introduced the starship traits just a few weeks later?.... thats why you introduced even more power creep to the game?
- "we have raised the dil rewards in the battlezones by 50%".... yes and 2 weeks later you raised the requirements for getting these rewards
Now the developers tell us about nerfs and that they eventually will boost other areas of the game.
e.g. adding dilithium to story content
-> this was actually promised about 2 years ago already and until I really see this in the game (at adequate amounts) I will highly question this to happen.
Fact is, we have been fooled too many times already. The mistrust towards cryptic is justified and that is not the players fault. The players have done nothing wrong.
It is cryptics job to re-gain the players trust again.
Cryptic also has to step down from their high horse.
we are willing to commit to the following updates taking place in the next couple of months:[/quote
Willing to commit? That pretty much sounds like "we actually dont have to but we are showing our goodwill".
Your offers are like throwing a few breadcrumbs to starving people in the hope that they will shut up then. Some will shut up... but there are many which wont believe cryptics promises anymore.
We will see the nerf very soon... and maybe months later very little changes will be done to calm down the players again... and in a year when you ask about what happened to the many promises the player will get one the usual answers: *silence* or "the plan has changed".
The Glassdoor post says it all. They're pretty well forced to goose step to 2-3 people who are in turn forced to goose step to PWE's corporate line.
As far as "not trying to kill the game", Smirk, well, there's the proof in the pudding. Remember where PWE's main office is?
Communist China. STO especially is one I'm sure they'd see love to die, put Star Trek and freedom and hope for the galaxy in its grave, it's antithetical to pushing things under their jackboot.
Remember Tianamen Square. Anything that looks too much like press for 'free society' is to be stamped out. By tanks running over people if necessary.
The only reason they didn't just auto-kill it is because it makes their intention rather blatant, they'd rather make it as unfun as possible and cite 'lack of users' to close it, to avoid more negative press.
Neverwinter meanwhile is 'acceptable' because it doesn't say anything about that, so gets free run of things.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
That's just the satellite office, PW's main office is China. They are still completely bound by what their Chinese masters say.
Your logic is fun. These communist masters who have fully embraced capitalism now reject Trek's communist message. Hilarious.
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."
It does make up for the fact that CC takes as much time as any other queue because of your time gates. It may take 10 minutes. You still cant repeat fast so the time it takes to finish everything is around the same. You get the same amount of marks in the same period of time. So making it that much worthless to run, ruins its queue.
Fully embraced making money. Not freedom of anything else.
But that whole part is really not the main point, even if I suspect it.
Reading the Glassdoor post again, a lot of things on the forum are quite clear.
What the devs "want" to do and what the execs "allow" them to do are different. They're "allowed" to make nerf after nerf, but when they go to add something to compensate for it, they're told "no" from up top.
Then in order to keep their paychecks, ordered to defend it to the players.
As someone said once: Stop nerfing before adding things to balance, or hold them until the balancing things are there and approved.
Because otherwise, it'll be nerf yes, and compensate no, right from the top.
Fully embraced making money. Not freedom of anything else.
So we are safe until STO brings money, that's no different from other companies stationed in other "democratic countries", and please leave Tiananmen square out of this, I believe that political discussions are not permitted on this forum.
Max. One-Hit: 114,966 (Quantum Torpedo - Salvo II (Federation Typhoon Class Battleship))
I'd have said it, but happyhappyj0yj0y pretty much already did. Really, you could have brought the buffs first. I am eminently reminded of Season 7, when Dilithium was completely removed from STFs and the Foundry daily was completely deleted. We were promised more later, in other places. I do not recall seeing those places materialize since. This is only softened by the fact that Dilithium was re-added to STFs almost immediately... due to player outrage of a type similar to this. And j0y has another point: When is "soon"? I remember in a Priority One segment not long before Season 9.5, Geko himself said that the ability to choose item mods in Crafting was being built into the system, but was not ready for launch, but would be coming "soon." Now, six months later, devs have been quoted saying that the system was NOT designed for it and that it MIGHT happen in the future. We're JUST now getting Secondary Deflectors, and those have been "coming soon" for YEARS. Another fine example is the Galaxy Dreadnought Saucer Separation. A picture of it working internally was released a full two years and a month before it hit the game.
The "nerf now, fix later" model is a terrible one, especially when the playerbase of a game does not trust the developers. And I'll be direct: We don't trust you, Cryptic. Dilithium sink after Dilithium sink after Dilithium sink. Nerfs to XP given by patrols. Nerfs to the rewards of Foundry content (see Season 7). Bad design decisions regarding the level cap increase and how players got there. The massive Crafting grind. The debacle around the Upgrade system. The usually-steady power creep. The lack of transparency. And on top of it all, the fact that you expect us to grind out 7 crafting schools, 6 Reputations and contribute to Fleet Starbase projects, all on 8,000 Dilithium. The fact of the matter is, Cryptic... you've made some pretty terrible design decisions in the past, and have rarely given us a reason to trust you on these matters. We worry every time that the next update will harm us just that little more. You take, and you take, and you take. I love this game, and I love your enthusiasm for the IP... but your decisions are harming players.
If you're going to buff things, buff them now. It won't hurt to let players have a little more income for a little while. Call it an anniversary gift to us, if you like. Give us the buffs now, and nerf gradually later, if you insist on nerfing anything. After all, the biggest complaint 99% of players have is that the game feels like a massive grind. Why not just buff? Give players more? I mean, after Delta Rising, the power gap between fully-geared players and new 50s (when they can access end-game content and gear) is so vast, and takes so long to bridge, that it is effectively impossible for a casual player to cross. And all of it is done to be able to perform well enough to play content... that gives you more stuff for your grind. Where is the fun? What are we grinding for? There's no "challenging, but fun, rewarding boss" at the end. It's just grind for more grind. Every large update adds more. And that has been a development trend for years. Let me break it down:
Season 6 added the Fleet System. Huge grind. Probably the biggest in the game. Season 7 added two reputations as well as the Reputation system itself. Each new Reputation takes over a month to complete and requires several days' worth of Dilithium to get gear from, not to mention the marks you need to grind out. It also added the Fleet Embassy Holding, which is a big Fleet Gind. Legacy of Romulus added the Romulan faction (so you can grind out new level 50 alts to grind out Fleet stuff and Reputations), the Dilithium Mine Fleet Holding (another big Fleet Grind) and another Reputation (now 3). Come Season 8, we get the Dyson Reputation (now 4) and the Fleet Spire (the third Fleet Holding and thus, the fourth huge Fleet Grind). Season 9 gave us the 8472 Counter-Command Reputation (now 5 different Reputations), with its mid-Season partner (season 9.5) giving us the massive time-consuming Crafting grind. Then we get to Delta Rising, adding the Delta Alliance Reputation (now SIX Reputations), Item Upgrading and the massive Dilithium and resource sink it is, the horribly-botched Level Cap increase, Captain Specializations, so we can XP grind past the Level Cap, and Tier 5-U/Tier 6 Ships we can grind to master. And this doesn't even begin to count the Dilithium Exchange. Now we're getting this update (what, Delta point five?) with another new Captain Specialization, Secondary Deflectors added to Crafting, and a revamped BOff training mechanic which.. eh, it's not that bad, but it's still a Dilithium tax, and we have well enough of those. And this is all before the three winter events and two summer events to grind out free ships. And last year's Anniversary ship, which (quite frankly) makes me uneasy about this year's.
Simply put, there is so much grinding, that the players are not grinding. They are being ground up. The playerbase is so much like a fine powder now, that any breeze of other games or new nerfs blows them away from this game. This, from player mattjohnsonva's signature, is the three-month trend since Delta Rising. You are bleeding players slowly, and no one is recommending people join this game. Now you are removing mark rewards from content that few people play and funneling them into content you seem to want them to play. This is to your detriment. We do not need reward removals. We need reward increases. The grind has become unbearable.
I say this because I love this game, and I want it to succeed. I want to see this game become huge. And I want to see people enjoy it. So in that vein, I say this: The trend... must... end. We do not need more grind. We do not want more grind. We want to enjoy this game. Updates like this, that you insist you will remedy later, make people not want to play the game. Give us more rewards. Give us less grinding. Give us fun things to do that are worth doing. Adding Dilithium and "Elite Marks" to single-payer content is a GREAT first step. Increasing XP rewards will be a massive boon. But it all needs to happen sooner, not later. Please, Cryptic... give us a break.
Please, do not "nerf now, buff later (maybe)". We've already been through that. We're tired of it. It's getting in the way of the fun.
Let me start off by saying I have been playing STO for about three years now. I am a paid lifetime member, have the Delta Rising Pack, and have put a lot of my hard earned dollars into STO for my game play. I don't mind dropping a little cash into a game if the reward benefits us both, but here lately the only benefit I see is you taking my cash, and then making it hard for me to play the game if I don't drop in more cash. Look, I am at a point to where I am going to start looking for another game to play. I can't get into any of the Elite queues, we fail about 75-80% of the time in the advanced ones because of the "Must Do" optional(s), which by the way almost sounds like military intelligence, military guys and gals will get that one...:)
Look I get the idea this is a business that is FOR Profit and I am all for that. Make all the money you want, need or just pure greed. That doesn't matter to me. I just don't have to give you mine if I choose not to. I am not sure how many players have left the game in the last year but I can tell you we had a strong fleet this time last year, and now we only have about 3-4 people that contribute to building it up any more. Most of our fleet members haven't been back since all of these "New Changes" started. I guess in the grand scheme of things loosing a few players that don't put a lot of cash into the game is not a big deal, but how much will you loose if 1,000,000, 100,000, or even as low as 25,000 players leave. If my math is correct, and I do believe it is 25K at $20 a month amounts to oh let's say $500K in revenue, or if it keeps going what about that million gone that would add up to what $20mil in revenue?? Granted not all in either pay $20 a month into the game, but if I had to guess I would say that you loosing even $500K a month because players are leaving and going other places, or as in my case staying and just playing along with my monthly stipend, is going to hurt.
Your money is in your players, the more players you have in game, the more money you make. I have always believed that pulling $100 from one person is far hard then getting 100 people to give a dollar. Keeping players happy = $$$
TRIBBLE Players off = -$
Your game, Your choice.
Just thoughts from the peanut gallery.
I'd have said it, but happyhappyj0yj0y pretty much already did. Really, you could have brought the buffs first. I am eminently reminded of Season 7, when Dilithium was completely removed from STFs and the Foundry daily was completely deleted. We were promised more later, in other places. I do not recall seeing those places materialize since. This is only softened by the fact that Dilithium was re-added to STFs almost immediately... due to player outrage of a type similar to this. And j0y has another point: When is "soon"? I remember in a Priority One segment not long before Season 9.5, Geko himself said that the ability to choose item mods in Crafting was being built into the system, but was not ready for launch, but would be coming "soon." Now, six months later, devs have been quoted saying that the system was NOT designed for it and that it MIGHT happen in the future. We're JUST now getting Secondary Deflectors, and those have been "coming soon" for YEARS. Another fine example is the Galaxy Dreadnought Saucer Separation. A picture of it working internally was released a full two years and a month before it hit the game.
The "nerf now, fix later" model is a terrible one, especially when the playerbase of a game does not trust the developers. And I'll be direct: We don't trust you, Cryptic. Dilithium sink after Dilithium sink after Dilithium sink. Nerfs to XP given by patrols. Nerfs to the rewards of Foundry content (see Season 7). Bad design decisions regarding the level cap increase and how players got there. The massive Crafting grind. The debacle around the Upgrade system. The usually-steady power creep. The lack of transparency. And on top of it all, the fact that you expect us to grind out 7 crafting schools, 6 Reputations and contribute to Fleet Starbase projects, all on 8,000 Dilithium. The fact of the matter is, Cryptic... you've made some pretty terrible design decisions in the past, and have rarely given us a reason to trust you on these matters. We worry every time that the next update will harm us just that little more. You take, and you take, and you take. I love this game, and I love your enthusiasm for the IP... but your decisions are harming players.
If you're going to buff things, buff them now. It won't hurt to let players have a little more income for a little while. Call it an anniversary gift to us, if you like. Give us the buffs now, and nerf gradually later, if you insist on nerfing anything. After all, the biggest complaint 99% of players have is that the game feels like a massive grind. Why not just buff? Give players more? I mean, after Delta Rising, the power gap between fully-geared players and new 50s (when they can access end-game content and gear) is so vast, and takes so long to bridge, that it is effectively impossible for a casual player to cross. And all of it is done to be able to perform well enough to play content... that gives you more stuff for your grind. Where is the fun? What are we grinding for? There's no "challenging, but fun, rewarding boss" at the end. It's just grind for more grind. Every large update adds more. And that has been a development trend for years. Let me break it down:
Season 6 added the Fleet System. Huge grind. Probably the biggest in the game. Season 7 added two reputations as well as the Reputation system itself. Each new Reputation takes over a month to complete and requires several days' worth of Dilithium to get gear from, not to mention the marks you need to grind out. It also added the Fleet Embassy Holding, which is a big Fleet Gind. Legacy of Romulus added the Romulan faction (so you can grind out new level 50 alts to grind out Fleet stuff and Reputations), the Dilithium Mine Fleet Holding (another big Fleet Grind) and another Reputation (now 3). Come Season 8, we get the Dyson Reputation (now 4) and the Fleet Spire (the third Fleet Holding and thus, the fourth huge Fleet Grind). Season 9 gave us the 8472 Counter-Command Reputation (now 5 different Reputations), with its mid-Season partner (season 9.5) giving us the massive time-consuming Crafting grind. Then we get to Delta Rising, adding the Delta Alliance Reputation (now SIX Reputations), Item Upgrading and the massive Dilithium and resource sink it is, the horribly-botched Level Cap increase, Captain Specializations, so we can XP grind past the Level Cap, and Tier 5-U/Tier 6 Ships we can grind to master. And this doesn't even begin to count the Dilithium Exchange. Now we're getting this update (what, Delta point five?) with another new Captain Specialization, Secondary Deflectors added to Crafting, and a revamped BOff training mechanic which.. eh, it's not that bad, but it's still a Dilithium tax, and we have well enough of those. And this is all before the three winter events and two summer events to grind out free ships. And last year's Anniversary ship, which (quite frankly) makes me uneasy about this year's.
Simply put, there is so much grinding, that the players are not grinding. They are being ground up. The playerbase is so much like a fine powder now, that any breeze of other games or new nerfs blows them away from this game. This, from player mattjohnsonva's signature, is the three-month trend since Delta Rising. You are bleeding players slowly, and no one is recommending people join this game. Now you are removing mark rewards from content that few people play and funneling them into content you seem to want them to play. This is to your detriment. We do not need reward removals. We need reward increases. The grind has become unbearable.
I say this because I love this game, and I want it to succeed. I want to see this game become huge. And I want to see people enjoy it. So in that vein, I say this: The trend... must... end. We do not need more grind. We do not want more grind. We want to enjoy this game. Updates like this, that you insist you will remedy later, make people not want to play the game. Give us more rewards. Give us less grinding. Give us fun things to do that are worth doing. Adding Dilithium and "Elite Marks" to single-payer content is a GREAT first step. Increasing XP rewards will be a massive boon. But it all needs to happen sooner, not later. Please, Cryptic... give us a break.
This is so true. Also, if you think about it, the new players are the ones getting hurt by it the most. Granted, it is an insult to existing players to have nothing but grind, Dil sink, and Nerf to rewards thrown up in their faces. However, think about the new players.
At level 15, they can start the R&D grind. However, when they hit level 50, they are hit with all of the other grinds all at once, including an uber-grind to level 60 which is ridiculous. That is also why there was a huge influx of new players at the release of DR, but then it started to drop fast. As they were able to level up at a reasonable rate, per content, they were slapped in the face for doing so.
It is sad that the game has been diluted to this. I loved STO also. It was my 1st MMO I ever played, and it was fun. I am saddened to see it treated this way by the developers that are only concerned about money, and how to make players play just the content they want them to. It still has a lot of potential, just needs the right people to see this, and make it the success it could/should have been.
But icegavel, you are correct. They need to stop messing things up, and find out what makes a game an actual game. It is being fun to play. I now feel like a child that only gets to slide down the slide once after spending hours of cleaning the park. Then, I need to clean after that one slide, just so I can do it again. Punishment is not a reward.
Grinding in itself is not wrong, it can be fun, and has been before. But when the game is made into nothing but constant grinding, then it is wrong. Please see this, someone at Cryptic.
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Thanks for the update on this and for explaining a bit more.
I'm really pleased to see youll be looking into the time to reward aspect. That's an important issue.
Good to hear.
Okay. If you (either you personally or anyone on the dev team) play the game, why did you think this was a good idea? And that's the crux of it, Mister Heinig - we know you play the game. But because you're a dev, you play with a dev mentality. You're not playing the way we play. So when you nerf something and think "this will make things better cause we'll add this," your perspective and they players' are a long way off from each other. When you do things like nerfing the queues you are, it may not seem like a big deal to you, but it is to us. Let me summarize the feedback of now 19 pages of discussion and commentary:
Nerfing queues is a very bad thing.
We've thanked you repeatedly for promising to add XP buffs and Dilithium and Elite Marks to single-player missions. These are good things and you need to do a lot more of these. But you do not need to nerf queues at the same time. It gives players several very bad feelings (most probably unintentional, but present nonetheless):
- That we are being forced to play what you want us to play, not what we want to play.
- That you, the developers, are disconnected from the playerbase and the issues they are having.
- By doing nerfs first and not including buffs at the same time, your actions perpetrate a feeling of players being punished for playing how they are.
- Because of Cryptic's track record, some of us are unsure as to whether or not the promised buffs will happen in a timely fashion.
This all makes the players very wary of the changes you are making, turning what could be a very positive addition into a negative turn of events - or, rather, another negative turn of events after all the other nerfs we've gotten. Ultimately, the nerfs do not need to happen. If you were to include just the buffs, the anniversary update would be almost wholly positive and very positively received. That is the idea that seems to be unspoken but shared throughout most of the thread. So, I sincerely hope that this feedback is received and ultimately acted upon.Thank you again for participating in the discussion, by the way. That in and of itself does quite a bit to help matters.
According to an anonymous post, claiming to be a current employee at Cryptic: They don't.
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Cryptic-Studios-RVW5643970.htm
I have not seen a dev in game, aside from special events.
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You have not seen a dev in-game on their dev account. Remember, they have private accounts.
Best post in this thread
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
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Currently the metrics are heavily biased towards the DPS crowd who can actually run those maps with coordination and far higher damage.
The dev's really need to play their own game on normal accounts. They need to find out the grievances and the grind for themselves, because despite the forums being full of only 3% of the players, they have been trying to explain the issues for years. Smirk you claimed you have noted these issues, currently I see no action to fix them.
Nerfing the queues rewards, is utterly TRIBBLE, they need to be buffed to get players back into them. Otherwise all you'll see is Bug Hunt runs as it's the only one paying out anything.
"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."
Lucky you that have so much time on your hand to play the game every single day. Many of us don't have that luxury. Plus you probably wouldn't need any "dev hacks" with the inside knowledge of the game mechanics that a dev would have. Knowing exactly what missions are the best to do. What each enemy weakness is and how to exploit those. I'm not saying players can't figure these things out, if they play a lot, I'm saying that many don't get to play that often, as we have things we need to do in our real lives that takes precedence over playing computer games.
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T-Totally agree!!! 100%
^
Best post in the thread in tone and substance. Please understand these measured and accurate remarks.
There is no such thing currently in STO such as a mission or STF rewarding "too much". There are only a very small amount of areas that are rewarding a fair amount with regards to the myriad of dil sinks DR put in the game. You guys might want to hold off nerfing ANY rewards on any PvE content.
With that said, adding dil to missions and such is a move in the right direction. Its a positive sign that you guys and gals are finally understanding that increasing difficulty while nerfing rewards is pretty much a terrible idea. I made a post offering exactly what you guys are now contemplating. Change nothing/very little of the sinks but simply bump up our ability to get in-game currency.
IF this gets done reasonably and fairly and the rewards get loosened so the game I love isnt punishing me and my alts reward-wise, I could potentially see myself spending a little here and there again. We'll see. This entire DR experience has left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.
But...its a move in the right direction if done right. I'm sincerely glad you folks at Cryptic are actually tuned in to the reward issue. And thanks Mr. Gray. See? You ARE the "communication guy".
Why does so much thought need to be put into granting more rewards and awarding special rep items?
It does not appear that a lot of thought went into the sweeping changes brought about by DR.
These all sound like great QoL improvements, and I'm looking forward to seeing this in game.
I know I've asked for more ways to earn Dilithium through completing missions and I've definitely noticed the lack of skill points and expertise in the Adventure/Battle Zones.
Now if you guys would add Commendation rewards to more mission content and increase the progression to Tier 5 ranks, I'd love that!
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At last some movement.
PvE Advanced and Elite missions reward so little XP and require much more effort then patrol missions, which wouldn't even be played if STFs would reward nice amounts.
Also it would be nice to reduce Borg STFs cooldown to 30min like every other PvE.
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That seems to be a limitation of how much xp and how much dil a player can earn in a specific amount of time.
Also it looks like the devs have a win-lose ratio that they want to see on specific (or all) missions.
The problem with such metrics is that they dont apply equally to the playerbase.
Lets just assume they want a success rate of elite missions of 5% (pure speculation since we dont know the exact numbers).
That does NOT mean that all players have a 5% chance to win the elite missions.
That does only mean that 5% of the playerbase (the top dps players) have a 100% chance to win these missions while the other 95% of the players have 0% success chance.
This is certainly an extreme example but it perfectly reflects how cryptic does balance the missions... based on the top players... not on the majority of players.
The sick thing about this kind of balancing is that the players which often lose the missions will at some point give up and stop playing these missions. This not only lowers the numbers of done missions... it will also change the success ratio of these missions (less losing players while the amount of winning players stays the same)... which motivates cryptic to do further adjustments to the difficulty in order to make their metrics look good again.
A never ending spiral of nerfs based on wrong metrics and wrong long term goals.
If you think this was the last nerf to these missions then you are wrong.
Cryptic would never admit that their decision were wrong or that their metrics do not really fit the reality.
At best we can expect to get totally ignored or we get to hear excuses such as "our metrics are correct... you just have a display bug". And lets face it... we all know that this so called "display bug" NEVER will get fixed (for the fact that it does not even exist).
It is certainly not correct that all cryptic devs are liars... but lets face it... we have been facing many developer statements, announcements and promises which simply did not fit into the category "honest".
Just alone when I read the posts on this forum, the comments on reddit, stuff on facebook and other websites it is clear to see that the players don't trust the developers anymore.
While this mistrust had a moderate level prior Delta Rising, this clearly changed to the worse in the past 3-5 months. This mistrust is justified.
Look at all the promises that were made in the past months.... and how badly they tried to fool the players with their excuses.
- "new adv. PVEs = exactly the same as the old elites".... yeah... and the massive amounts of additional HP of the NPCs or the new FAIL CONDITIONS.... ermm i mean OPTIONALS are certainly just an illiusion
- "you dont need t5u or t6 to play any of the content" ... weird... my old t5 ship performed very badly on missions that were no problem before.... the t5u upgrade solved that somehow
- "you are all exploiters for playing japori"... but playing argala is ok?
- "the 3x XP requirement increase will just be a change in numbers, and the rate of progression will stay the same"... you trippled the level-up requirements while only doubling the xp that the players get
- "empty queues are just a display bug".... yes sure, and since time is relative waiting 15mins for a PVE to start is absolutely normal
- "the doff assignments dont reward less than before -> its a display bug" -> players proved this to be wrong (since that no word anymore about this topic)
- "nerf it now... fix it later" (or "never" -> since a very common statement from the devs is "plans have changed")
- "players will get dilithium when they max out their spec points" - putting aside that this was instantly canceled I have to ask myself how this fits to the introduction of 30 new spec points and raising the limit every few months so nobody can ever reach the point that qualifies for such dilithium rewards.
- "we have to limit the reputation traits because of the power creep.... so we take away 50% of your traits but make the remaining ones twice as powerful" .... .... .... really? that was nothing but a lie
- "we have to limit the reputation traits in order to stop the power creep..." ... thats why you introduced the starship traits just a few weeks later?.... thats why you introduced even more power creep to the game?
- "we have raised the dil rewards in the battlezones by 50%".... yes and 2 weeks later you raised the requirements for getting these rewards
Now the developers tell us about nerfs and that they eventually will boost other areas of the game.
e.g. adding dilithium to story content
-> this was actually promised about 2 years ago already and until I really see this in the game (at adequate amounts) I will highly question this to happen.
Fact is, we have been fooled too many times already. The mistrust towards cryptic is justified and that is not the players fault. The players have done nothing wrong.
It is cryptics job to re-gain the players trust again.
Cryptic also has to step down from their high horse.
As far as "not trying to kill the game", Smirk, well, there's the proof in the pudding. Remember where PWE's main office is?
Communist China. STO especially is one I'm sure they'd see love to die, put Star Trek and freedom and hope for the galaxy in its grave, it's antithetical to pushing things under their jackboot.
Remember Tianamen Square. Anything that looks too much like press for 'free society' is to be stamped out. By tanks running over people if necessary.
The only reason they didn't just auto-kill it is because it makes their intention rather blatant, they'd rather make it as unfun as possible and cite 'lack of users' to close it, to avoid more negative press.
Neverwinter meanwhile is 'acceptable' because it doesn't say anything about that, so gets free run of things.
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That's just the satellite office, PW's main office is China. They are still completely bound by what their Chinese masters say.
Your logic is fun. These communist masters who have fully embraced capitalism now reject Trek's communist message. Hilarious.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
@Desdecardo since 2008.
But that whole part is really not the main point, even if I suspect it.
Reading the Glassdoor post again, a lot of things on the forum are quite clear.
What the devs "want" to do and what the execs "allow" them to do are different. They're "allowed" to make nerf after nerf, but when they go to add something to compensate for it, they're told "no" from up top.
Then in order to keep their paychecks, ordered to defend it to the players.
As someone said once: Stop nerfing before adding things to balance, or hold them until the balancing things are there and approved.
Because otherwise, it'll be nerf yes, and compensate no, right from the top.
Second: I can't say it any better than icegavel did back on page 3:
Please, do not "nerf now, buff later (maybe)". We've already been through that. We're tired of it. It's getting in the way of the fun.
Look I get the idea this is a business that is FOR Profit and I am all for that. Make all the money you want, need or just pure greed. That doesn't matter to me. I just don't have to give you mine if I choose not to. I am not sure how many players have left the game in the last year but I can tell you we had a strong fleet this time last year, and now we only have about 3-4 people that contribute to building it up any more. Most of our fleet members haven't been back since all of these "New Changes" started. I guess in the grand scheme of things loosing a few players that don't put a lot of cash into the game is not a big deal, but how much will you loose if 1,000,000, 100,000, or even as low as 25,000 players leave. If my math is correct, and I do believe it is 25K at $20 a month amounts to oh let's say $500K in revenue, or if it keeps going what about that million gone that would add up to what $20mil in revenue?? Granted not all in either pay $20 a month into the game, but if I had to guess I would say that you loosing even $500K a month because players are leaving and going other places, or as in my case staying and just playing along with my monthly stipend, is going to hurt.
Your money is in your players, the more players you have in game, the more money you make. I have always believed that pulling $100 from one person is far hard then getting 100 people to give a dollar. Keeping players happy = $$$
TRIBBLE Players off = -$
Your game, Your choice.
Just thoughts from the peanut gallery.
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This is so true. Also, if you think about it, the new players are the ones getting hurt by it the most. Granted, it is an insult to existing players to have nothing but grind, Dil sink, and Nerf to rewards thrown up in their faces. However, think about the new players.
At level 15, they can start the R&D grind. However, when they hit level 50, they are hit with all of the other grinds all at once, including an uber-grind to level 60 which is ridiculous. That is also why there was a huge influx of new players at the release of DR, but then it started to drop fast. As they were able to level up at a reasonable rate, per content, they were slapped in the face for doing so.
It is sad that the game has been diluted to this. I loved STO also. It was my 1st MMO I ever played, and it was fun. I am saddened to see it treated this way by the developers that are only concerned about money, and how to make players play just the content they want them to. It still has a lot of potential, just needs the right people to see this, and make it the success it could/should have been.
But icegavel, you are correct. They need to stop messing things up, and find out what makes a game an actual game. It is being fun to play. I now feel like a child that only gets to slide down the slide once after spending hours of cleaning the park. Then, I need to clean after that one slide, just so I can do it again. Punishment is not a reward.
Grinding in itself is not wrong, it can be fun, and has been before. But when the game is made into nothing but constant grinding, then it is wrong. Please see this, someone at Cryptic.