Mr. Ricossa just released an official statement concerning the recent changes to the dilithium event. It was posted in the bug forum and I thought people might be interested in reading it.
thanks for the info
(1) cool, good on you (devguy) for putting it out there all proper
(2) I don't buy it for a second but still appreciate it (1)
I'm starting to think they have green-lighted an approach where the game is soaked for money until it folds.
That way they can dump the lifetime subs and negotiate morphing all this existing stuff into star trek online II.
Looks like absolutely nothing has changed here. Ongoing nerf after nerf because The Prophets forbid you might actually be able to play and progress for free GASP!
And heaven's forbid Cryptic try and turn a dollar off their product... GASP!
Actually, it averages out to 9k, because that veteran one is a 48 hr project, so you can only use it on alternate days. So if you refine 9.5k, the following day, you are limited to 8.5k.
And to those praising the game staff for their "prompt communication" of the changes to the dilithium event, sorry, NO. A "prompt" communication would be one that was sent (or in this case posted) before the event began. Just as a "prompt" notification that a scheduled maintenance period is being extended would have to be posted prior to the originally announced end time of that maintenance - something they failed to do in four of the last ten weekly maintenance periods.
Let the blind be blind and the ones that can see past the BS, fruitful. Well said my friend.
I can understand why in their eyes they have nerfed the bonus on marks but don't they realise there is a big picture they are not seeing.
by taking away the bonus for marks on the dil weekend whats the point in playing to get reputation marks, its just not worth the bother anymore.
one of my primary reason for playing every day was the gathering of reputation marks and now I just don't see the point.
sometimes I have many hours to play and will do a lot of different things but often I only have a short amount of time and I would log in only to do things that paid reputation marks.
even when I play events like the summer and winter events my no1 goal was summer birds and winter epohh to turn in for the marks, without this bonus there is little point in spending even half as much time playing these events as there used to be.
I spent a lot of time in game yesterday playing through the dust to dust mission with all of my characters and I would have spent a whole lot longer turning in reputation points, once I realised there was no bonus I just logged out and could not be bothered to play anymore that day.
as far as I am concerned they could extend the bonus weekend to a whole month it would not make any difference to me, there is just no reason for these dilithium weekends anymore as far as I am concerned.
and no point in the marks weekend either.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
No, the dropped the rep extra mark for dil missions from the weekend. So you now have less opportunity to collect unrefined dil than you did before. You are basically happy and praising a nerf
You missed the part where he quickly addressed our concerns and extended the event.
Just because he didn't give you what you want doesn't mean what he gave us isn't good.
In other words, "We want the dilithium bonus weekends to pad our metrics and you people aren't cooperating."
Imagine this - you played STO a while but stopped playing for reasons. But then you hear of a dilithium event - "cool, good time to get back itno the game and get a nice head-start."
"But hey, where is everyone? The queues are empty? The Zones are empty? Hello?! Is this game dead?!"
Finally, someone answers.
"No no, sorry, we are busy..." *character switch*
"... switching between characters and ..." *character switch*
"... turning in our hoarded marks!"
"Oh, that sounds like fun... " *logs out to be never seen again*
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
You missed the part where he quickly addressed our concerns and extended the event.
Just because he didn't give you what you want doesn't mean what he gave us isn't good.
Wrong. The concern was not addressed. It was fluffed over and ignored with apologetics (which is different from apologies). It was fluffy bull**** from start to finish.
There is only one way to address the problem: provide what was promised. We EARNED it by playing the damned game.
The extension was just to mollify the weak-minded.
I played approximately 10% of the time I normally play today, and then most of the time bitterly. It doesn't matter what you make during the week. It will be negated by some other slimy, underhanded move by Craptic. And Ricossa will blurt out fluffy bull**** again, and the weak-minded will buy it again trying to brown-nose their way to some sort of advantage.
Get this through your thick skulls: what Craptic just did they *WILL* do again, just like they have done it in the past as well. Maybe next time it is something that affects your gameplay and/or your reasonable expectations based on what was promised. And you will have nothing but the stench on your noses from the brown-nosing you are doing here to show for trying to play the game.
Maybe then you will finally understand why the brown-nosers and "white knights" are so thoroughly despised.
Wrong. The concern was not addressed. It was fluffed over and ignored with apologetics (which is different from apologies). It was fluffy bull**** from start to finish.
There is only one way to address the problem: provide what was promised. We EARNED it by playing the damned game.
The extension was just to mollify the weak-minded.
Again what I'm seeing is "I didn't get what I want, so it's wrong."
I don't disagree that restoring the rep projects for this one last weekend wouldn't have been a better solution, but you have to try to remain objective. An extension wasn't warranted - there was no game-breaking bug preventing us from utilizing this event, no catastrophic server failure preventing us from playing at all, none of the usual reasons for an extension. We were given this simply because of a clerical error Cryptic-side. This is an unprecedented act of compromise. And even if the response we got was just fluff that didn't actually solve anything, consider how often in the past we've gotten anything at all about an issue like this, let alone this fast.
It wasn't the answer you wanted, and that makes you mad. It wasn't the best answer. But that doesn't mean it still wasn't a good answer.
You missed the part where he quickly addressed our concerns and extended the event.
Just because he didn't give you what you want doesn't mean what he gave us isn't good.
People's concerns were not that the event was too short, but that they promised marks/rep projects would be included and then changed their minds after the event started.
It's not about getting what people want, but what they were promised.
If their goal is to change behavior then they need to say so before the event starts, changing it after won't change the way some people were playing the game BEFORE.
Extending it doesn't fix the problem of broken promises, it's supposed to make people feel better while also increasing the chance we'll pay more and increase their metrics.
People's concerns were not that the event was too short, but that they promised marks/rep projects would be included and then changed their minds after the event started.
It's not about getting what people want, but what they were promised.
If their goal is to change behavior then they need to say so before the event starts, changing it after won't change the way some people were playing the game BEFORE.
Extending it doesn't fix the problem of broken promises, it's supposed to make people feel better while also increasing the chance we'll pay more and increase their metrics.
Was there an official statement saying it wouldn't be changed, or were people just presuming it would work as it has done every other Dilithium Event?
The extension of the event was to address the fact there was no fore-warning, and, let's face it, even if there was some sort of advance warning, unless it was weeks ago, it would have made no difference to the vast majority of players who had been collecting marks to convert, so the entire complaint 'They should have told us!' is moot...
I played approximately 10% of the time I normally play today, and then most of the time bitterly. It doesn't matter what you make during the week. It will be negated by some other slimy, underhanded move by Craptic. And Ricossa will blurt out fluffy bull**** again, and the weak-minded will buy it again trying to brown-nose their way to some sort of advantage.
Get this through your thick skulls: what Craptic just did they *WILL* do again, just like they have done it in the past as well. Maybe next time it is something that affects your gameplay and/or your reasonable expectations based on what was promised. And you will have nothing but the stench on your noses from the brown-nosing you are doing here to show for trying to play the game.
Maybe then you will finally understand why the brown-nosers and "white knights" are so thoroughly despised.
Wow. Last time I saw a temper tantrum this impressive was when my two year old grand son was told he couldn't have a cookie until after dinner.
I suppose I might be a part time white knight. And I've been despised and reviled by better men than you'll ever be. Man, you can't even get first place in the Total Loser category. How very sad for you.
May I suggest a way to brighten your mood? And ours at the same time? Try playing ZERO percent of the time. Annnd, spending an equal part of day here as well. You'll be much easier to live with this way. No reason to plan your entire waking existence around a not very good video game when there are so many more things out there which demand the kind of juvenile passion and poor command of the language you've displayed here.
Aren't there some whales or something you should be saving? :P
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
"Was there an official statement saying it wouldn't be changed, or were people just presuming it would work as it has done every other Dilithium Event?"
Wow. Last time I saw a temper tantrum this impressive was when my two year old grand son was told he couldn't have a cookie until after dinner.
I suppose I might be a part time white knight. And I've been despised and reviled by better men than you'll ever be. Man, you can't even get first place in the Total Loser category. How very sad for you.
May I suggest a way to brighten your mood? And ours at the same time? Try playing ZERO percent of the time. Annnd, spending an equal part of day here as well. You'll be much easier to live with this way. No reason to plan your entire waking existence around a not very good video game when there are so many more things out there which demand the kind of juvenile passion and poor command of the language you've displayed here.
Aren't there some whales or something you should be saving? :P
Content-less evasion noted. Really, a two year old could stay on topic better than this.
"Was there an official statement saying it wouldn't be changed, or were people just presuming it would work as it has done every other Dilithium Event?"
it would have made no difference to the vast majority of players who had been collecting marks to convert, so the entire complaint 'They should have told us!' is moot...
Maybe for the vast majority. But I know I can say from first-hand experience if I had a week's warning, that would be one week I would not have spent gathering undine marks under the auspice I'd be cashing them in later for more than they were worth then.
If I had one day's warning, I would not spent the 4th in the Dyson Battlezone gathering more marks in preparation for Dilithium Weekend.
No, I'm sure the vast majority would still have been irritated and frustrated, but the earlier warning we would have gotten the better. There are a lot of games out there, and if I had gotten a week or more of warning, that would have been a week or more I would have been spent playing another game that wasn't STO.
This isn't to make it out to be a "I hate this change so much I never would have played STO if I knew beforehand." talking point, since I would still be playing STO. I just would not have invested more time than usual if I did not have the goal of stocking up on marks/elite currencies beforehand.
" By not offering a bonus on these projects, we are making mark conversion projects valid and valuable all the time, not only during the few Dilithium Weekends we run every year."
:o:o:o
You guys are too funny.
We didn't nerf the rewards. Nooo, we're making the rewards more valuable at times outside the event.
Edit: OP, thanks for posting this here.
I thought Stephen was doing quite well up to this point.
I wonder if these words are going to come back and haunt him over the next few months?
Kind of relieved I don't have to spend an entire weekend just filling rep projects tbh.
TBH, I check the calendar in game for the events, so I already knew it was happening; no surprise for me.
Still sat on 75% of the ore from last dil weekend (about 2 mil over a couple of toons, couldn't be bothered with the rest), so by my shoddy maths, the no-bonus isn't going to massively cut the amount of dil I can refine. I think.
Negatives: Someone forgot to edit a release. Woops.
Props: Someone apologised for it, and gave us summat else for it.
I think for me personally, I can accept now that the rep mark rewards are no longer part of the deal.
I can also accept that the event has been extended as compensation for the PR monster they created, a way to appease the masses with a longer reward period is a good idea.
BUT....
What I dislike is the growing trend in STO to try and force players down a specific route with regards to how they play the game.
Used to be you could just rock up and play any role you wanted when and where you felt like doing so. Now though if you find a better way to earn dilithium or marks or experience or whatever, you are treated by the devs as not playing the game the way they want you to.
The Great Ta Dewa Nerf of 2014 showed us and them that players will always play how they want to get the best return for their time invested, be it currency rewards or experience for spec points.
And with the dilithium weekends players are guaranteed to save up marks for cashing them in at increased rates.
You just cannot ever stop that sort of thing happening in a massive open world game like this.
It now is starting to feel not like and open world game, but more like some sort of social engineering project.
They only want us playing their chosen content.
They dislike it when we find an easier or more rewarding way (even if it is not an exploit).
The want to shoe-horn us into only following the path they deem acceptable.
They want us to play how they want so their dammed metrics can look good.
And they will force you to follow their way of thinking by nerfing everything else or calling you exploiters and punishing you if you dare to find a better route.
All of this is very bad for the game. You can take a horse to water as the old saying goes....
You'll push the players only so far before they get fed up with being pushed down specific roads and they say "I quit".
If you want to make people play your content then make it appealing:
1) give good rewards
2) make it possible to finish without some uber-DPS build
3) make it enjoyable
4) don't time-gate everything
5) loose the grind.
Want to know why the queues are dead? Look to the list I just made for you answer.
Want to know why people don't enjoy the DR story line? Same thing.
Want to know why people only patrol Argala? Yup...same thing again.
I wonder if these words are going to come back and haunt him over the next few months?
Nope.
You need to understand, when you save up the marks like that, you make a bad situation (dilithium weekend) worse for them.
This could very well mean more dilithium weekends, by stabilizing the rate of raw dilithium created during the event.
Plus, it's not like they're removing content. I despise the fact that they're targeting people who have done nothing worse than exercise prudent judgment in reserving their marks or final rep project for turn-in during the dilithium event, but sitting there turning in stacks of marks is beyond boring.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
If this change is meant to make me spend real money, it hasn't worked.
I was heartened to see Salami's approach to dealing with this issue and am happy to hear more sources of dil coming to the game, even if its more time-gated based nonsense.
But Im still quoting this as I share the sentiment. Im not spending a penny more on STO until I see how this shakes out in my gameplay. I *really* wish they would stop the overall policy of taking and then giving half of what's been taken back and acting like it's a good thing. The costs of dil sinks are still way out of balance.
The dil nerfs since DR were just insult to injury for me personally. There are so many broken and incomplete aspects of STO right now that I hope to see Cryptic devote some time to fixing. Enough with the "revamped" systems, already.
You need to understand, when you save up the marks like that, you make a bad situation (dilithium weekend) worse for them.
This could very well mean more dilithium weekends, by stabilizing the rate of raw dilithium created during the event.
Plus, it's not like they're removing content. I despise the fact that they're targeting people who have done nothing worse than exercise prudent judgment in reserving their marks or final rep project for turn-in during the dilithium event, but sitting there turning in stacks of marks is beyond boring.
The fact people save the marks and items up to convert on the weekend should tell them that there is a problem with the conversion process and not the weekend event. It is tedious and for some, myself included, the weekend gives the motivation to convert them. In some cases it even reminds me I have some to convert. If they want to increase their value in general then increase the rewards or increase the numbers we can convert at once.
People have been complaining about the tediousness of the conversion process for a long time. Therefore it should come as no suprise that it goes up during the dil weekend. aybe they will finally do something about this.
The removal of the bonus from tier 5 completion is something I could understand if they all just gave the dil on completion. They don't one requires a mission and after a couple of goes it is the dil weekend that gives me the motivation to do it. This means I am paying content during the event.
On the matter of Salamis response. Let's face it he has just taken over, this was done by D'Angelo, his "final FU" as I read in another post, so he really doesn't deserve to get it in the neck for something he is not responsible for. It is hard to make a genuine appology when you are not the one at fault. He extended the even to a week long one, which I doubt anyone was expecting.
If you look at it another way he responded quickly and, unusually, on the forums unlike our previous EP. Other than a couple of people Cryptic has never been known for its' communication. I am hoping this speedy response is an indication that communication is going to improve on the forums.
Wrong. The concern was not addressed. It was fluffed over and ignored with apologetics (which is different from apologies). It was fluffy bull**** from start to finish.
There is only one way to address the problem: provide what was promised. We EARNED it by playing the damned game.
The extension was just to mollify the weak-minded.
If I understand things correctly - the event calendar already showed the correct way the event would work.
So you were "promised" contradictory things.
Even the original blog entry was contradictory, because they mentioned both that event projects wouldn't give extra rewards and that they do.
They can't fulfill their promise.
As a consolation for the mistake, they decided to give you more days to earn extra dilithium.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I know it's no point even posting...they don't give a TRIBBLE.
First they encourage me to horde marks with how all the
past events was run.
Then you get slap in the face kick in the nuts a big ha ha ha
we fold you now go play how "WE" want you too
bow to the metrics GOD.
Well I say frak the metrics and this BS move.
Sad and angry LTS and from now on "former" zen buying Player :mad:
A small sticky plaster on a gaping wound infested with gangrene.
That's what Ricossa's words amount to.
The long term prospects for this game are not looking good, if their answers are short term 'fixes' like an extension on the dil bonus weekend grind, or a new tedious and also short term grind of gathering omega particles to soften the dil costs of their flawed and shameful crafting system. This is just a distraction, designed to grab your attention and log in so their metrics look good for PWE, which gives them the go-ahead to go back to ignoring bugs and introducing new ones, plus their continued mission to nerf the few stf queues which are still puggable.
Looks like my reply from this morning has been deleted, so I'll say again that they need to get away from this asian-style "free to play" grindfest business model they've been creating. It does not work here. Those kinds of games may be very popular in asia but they're niche games at best here.
And I hope the change in management isn't too little, too late. I also hope it's at the level that it's needed, IE the suits in charge of everything aren't calling the shots and sinking the ship.
I haven't logged in in days, I haven't bothered with the omega game, I don't care about getting the free anniversary ship, and I don't care about extra dilithium for an entire week. That's bad. Just a few months ago a dilithium weekend was fun and something I looked forward to. Now I'm debating whether to keep the game on my harddrive.
It's not the fault of the devs. They're not the ones making the poor decisions that continually chase players away.
If this game wasn't Star Trek I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole, but because it is I still hold onto some hope for the future. They're damned lucky it's Star Trek.
Comments
thanks for the info
(1) cool, good on you (devguy) for putting it out there all proper
(2) I don't buy it for a second but still appreciate it (1)
I'm starting to think they have green-lighted an approach where the game is soaked for money until it folds.
That way they can dump the lifetime subs and negotiate morphing all this existing stuff into star trek online II.
heck, they may even fix loadouts!
And heaven's forbid Cryptic try and turn a dollar off their product... GASP!
Let the blind be blind and the ones that can see past the BS, fruitful. Well said my friend.
by taking away the bonus for marks on the dil weekend whats the point in playing to get reputation marks, its just not worth the bother anymore.
one of my primary reason for playing every day was the gathering of reputation marks and now I just don't see the point.
sometimes I have many hours to play and will do a lot of different things but often I only have a short amount of time and I would log in only to do things that paid reputation marks.
even when I play events like the summer and winter events my no1 goal was summer birds and winter epohh to turn in for the marks, without this bonus there is little point in spending even half as much time playing these events as there used to be.
I spent a lot of time in game yesterday playing through the dust to dust mission with all of my characters and I would have spent a whole lot longer turning in reputation points, once I realised there was no bonus I just logged out and could not be bothered to play anymore that day.
as far as I am concerned they could extend the bonus weekend to a whole month it would not make any difference to me, there is just no reason for these dilithium weekends anymore as far as I am concerned.
and no point in the marks weekend either.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
You missed the part where he quickly addressed our concerns and extended the event.
Just because he didn't give you what you want doesn't mean what he gave us isn't good.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
Imagine this - you played STO a while but stopped playing for reasons. But then you hear of a dilithium event - "cool, good time to get back itno the game and get a nice head-start."
"But hey, where is everyone? The queues are empty? The Zones are empty? Hello?! Is this game dead?!"
Finally, someone answers.
"No no, sorry, we are busy..." *character switch*
"... switching between characters and ..." *character switch*
"... turning in our hoarded marks!"
"Oh, that sounds like fun... " *logs out to be never seen again*
Wrong. The concern was not addressed. It was fluffed over and ignored with apologetics (which is different from apologies). It was fluffy bull**** from start to finish.
There is only one way to address the problem: provide what was promised. We EARNED it by playing the damned game.
The extension was just to mollify the weak-minded.
Get this through your thick skulls: what Craptic just did they *WILL* do again, just like they have done it in the past as well. Maybe next time it is something that affects your gameplay and/or your reasonable expectations based on what was promised. And you will have nothing but the stench on your noses from the brown-nosing you are doing here to show for trying to play the game.
Maybe then you will finally understand why the brown-nosers and "white knights" are so thoroughly despised.
Again what I'm seeing is "I didn't get what I want, so it's wrong."
I don't disagree that restoring the rep projects for this one last weekend wouldn't have been a better solution, but you have to try to remain objective. An extension wasn't warranted - there was no game-breaking bug preventing us from utilizing this event, no catastrophic server failure preventing us from playing at all, none of the usual reasons for an extension. We were given this simply because of a clerical error Cryptic-side. This is an unprecedented act of compromise. And even if the response we got was just fluff that didn't actually solve anything, consider how often in the past we've gotten anything at all about an issue like this, let alone this fast.
It wasn't the answer you wanted, and that makes you mad. It wasn't the best answer. But that doesn't mean it still wasn't a good answer.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
People's concerns were not that the event was too short, but that they promised marks/rep projects would be included and then changed their minds after the event started.
It's not about getting what people want, but what they were promised.
If their goal is to change behavior then they need to say so before the event starts, changing it after won't change the way some people were playing the game BEFORE.
Extending it doesn't fix the problem of broken promises, it's supposed to make people feel better while also increasing the chance we'll pay more and increase their metrics.
Was there an official statement saying it wouldn't be changed, or were people just presuming it would work as it has done every other Dilithium Event?
The extension of the event was to address the fact there was no fore-warning, and, let's face it, even if there was some sort of advance warning, unless it was weeks ago, it would have made no difference to the vast majority of players who had been collecting marks to convert, so the entire complaint 'They should have told us!' is moot...
Wow. Last time I saw a temper tantrum this impressive was when my two year old grand son was told he couldn't have a cookie until after dinner.
I suppose I might be a part time white knight. And I've been despised and reviled by better men than you'll ever be. Man, you can't even get first place in the Total Loser category. How very sad for you.
May I suggest a way to brighten your mood? And ours at the same time? Try playing ZERO percent of the time. Annnd, spending an equal part of day here as well. You'll be much easier to live with this way. No reason to plan your entire waking existence around a not very good video game when there are so many more things out there which demand the kind of juvenile passion and poor command of the language you've displayed here.
Aren't there some whales or something you should be saving? :P
Yes, there was:
http://prntscr.com/61g7ae
Any more childish attempts to pretend legitimate concerns are not warranted?
Content-less evasion noted. Really, a two year old could stay on topic better than this.
And as per the official statement, that was an oversight, hence the week long event...
Any more childish attempts to pretend legitimate changes are not warranted?
Maybe for the vast majority. But I know I can say from first-hand experience if I had a week's warning, that would be one week I would not have spent gathering undine marks under the auspice I'd be cashing them in later for more than they were worth then.
If I had one day's warning, I would not spent the 4th in the Dyson Battlezone gathering more marks in preparation for Dilithium Weekend.
No, I'm sure the vast majority would still have been irritated and frustrated, but the earlier warning we would have gotten the better. There are a lot of games out there, and if I had gotten a week or more of warning, that would have been a week or more I would have been spent playing another game that wasn't STO.
This isn't to make it out to be a "I hate this change so much I never would have played STO if I knew beforehand." talking point, since I would still be playing STO. I just would not have invested more time than usual if I did not have the goal of stocking up on marks/elite currencies beforehand.
I thought Stephen was doing quite well up to this point.
I wonder if these words are going to come back and haunt him over the next few months?
TBH, I check the calendar in game for the events, so I already knew it was happening; no surprise for me.
Still sat on 75% of the ore from last dil weekend (about 2 mil over a couple of toons, couldn't be bothered with the rest), so by my shoddy maths, the no-bonus isn't going to massively cut the amount of dil I can refine. I think.
Negatives: Someone forgot to edit a release. Woops.
Props: Someone apologised for it, and gave us summat else for it.
Result: 100% Meh.
I can also accept that the event has been extended as compensation for the PR monster they created, a way to appease the masses with a longer reward period is a good idea.
BUT....
What I dislike is the growing trend in STO to try and force players down a specific route with regards to how they play the game.
Used to be you could just rock up and play any role you wanted when and where you felt like doing so. Now though if you find a better way to earn dilithium or marks or experience or whatever, you are treated by the devs as not playing the game the way they want you to.
The Great Ta Dewa Nerf of 2014 showed us and them that players will always play how they want to get the best return for their time invested, be it currency rewards or experience for spec points.
And with the dilithium weekends players are guaranteed to save up marks for cashing them in at increased rates.
You just cannot ever stop that sort of thing happening in a massive open world game like this.
It now is starting to feel not like and open world game, but more like some sort of social engineering project.
They only want us playing their chosen content.
They dislike it when we find an easier or more rewarding way (even if it is not an exploit).
The want to shoe-horn us into only following the path they deem acceptable.
They want us to play how they want so their dammed metrics can look good.
And they will force you to follow their way of thinking by nerfing everything else or calling you exploiters and punishing you if you dare to find a better route.
All of this is very bad for the game. You can take a horse to water as the old saying goes....
You'll push the players only so far before they get fed up with being pushed down specific roads and they say "I quit".
If you want to make people play your content then make it appealing:
1) give good rewards
2) make it possible to finish without some uber-DPS build
3) make it enjoyable
4) don't time-gate everything
5) loose the grind.
Want to know why the queues are dead? Look to the list I just made for you answer.
Want to know why people don't enjoy the DR story line? Same thing.
Want to know why people only patrol Argala? Yup...same thing again.
You need to understand, when you save up the marks like that, you make a bad situation (dilithium weekend) worse for them.
This could very well mean more dilithium weekends, by stabilizing the rate of raw dilithium created during the event.
Plus, it's not like they're removing content. I despise the fact that they're targeting people who have done nothing worse than exercise prudent judgment in reserving their marks or final rep project for turn-in during the dilithium event, but sitting there turning in stacks of marks is beyond boring.
I was heartened to see Salami's approach to dealing with this issue and am happy to hear more sources of dil coming to the game, even if its more time-gated based nonsense.
But Im still quoting this as I share the sentiment. Im not spending a penny more on STO until I see how this shakes out in my gameplay. I *really* wish they would stop the overall policy of taking and then giving half of what's been taken back and acting like it's a good thing. The costs of dil sinks are still way out of balance.
The dil nerfs since DR were just insult to injury for me personally. There are so many broken and incomplete aspects of STO right now that I hope to see Cryptic devote some time to fixing. Enough with the "revamped" systems, already.
The fact people save the marks and items up to convert on the weekend should tell them that there is a problem with the conversion process and not the weekend event. It is tedious and for some, myself included, the weekend gives the motivation to convert them. In some cases it even reminds me I have some to convert. If they want to increase their value in general then increase the rewards or increase the numbers we can convert at once.
People have been complaining about the tediousness of the conversion process for a long time. Therefore it should come as no suprise that it goes up during the dil weekend. aybe they will finally do something about this.
The removal of the bonus from tier 5 completion is something I could understand if they all just gave the dil on completion. They don't one requires a mission and after a couple of goes it is the dil weekend that gives me the motivation to do it. This means I am paying content during the event.
On the matter of Salamis response. Let's face it he has just taken over, this was done by D'Angelo, his "final FU" as I read in another post, so he really doesn't deserve to get it in the neck for something he is not responsible for. It is hard to make a genuine appology when you are not the one at fault. He extended the even to a week long one, which I doubt anyone was expecting.
If you look at it another way he responded quickly and, unusually, on the forums unlike our previous EP. Other than a couple of people Cryptic has never been known for its' communication. I am hoping this speedy response is an indication that communication is going to improve on the forums.
So you were "promised" contradictory things.
Even the original blog entry was contradictory, because they mentioned both that event projects wouldn't give extra rewards and that they do.
They can't fulfill their promise.
As a consolation for the mistake, they decided to give you more days to earn extra dilithium.
First they encourage me to horde marks with how all the
past events was run.
Then you get slap in the face kick in the nuts a big ha ha ha
we fold you now go play how "WE" want you too
bow to the metrics GOD.
Well I say frak the metrics and this BS move.
Sad and angry LTS and from now on "former" zen buying Player :mad:
works on everything except argala.
That's what Ricossa's words amount to.
The long term prospects for this game are not looking good, if their answers are short term 'fixes' like an extension on the dil bonus weekend grind, or a new tedious and also short term grind of gathering omega particles to soften the dil costs of their flawed and shameful crafting system. This is just a distraction, designed to grab your attention and log in so their metrics look good for PWE, which gives them the go-ahead to go back to ignoring bugs and introducing new ones, plus their continued mission to nerf the few stf queues which are still puggable.
And I hope the change in management isn't too little, too late. I also hope it's at the level that it's needed, IE the suits in charge of everything aren't calling the shots and sinking the ship.
I haven't logged in in days, I haven't bothered with the omega game, I don't care about getting the free anniversary ship, and I don't care about extra dilithium for an entire week. That's bad. Just a few months ago a dilithium weekend was fun and something I looked forward to. Now I'm debating whether to keep the game on my harddrive.
It's not the fault of the devs. They're not the ones making the poor decisions that continually chase players away.
If this game wasn't Star Trek I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole, but because it is I still hold onto some hope for the future. They're damned lucky it's Star Trek.