you guys are missing the point of honeyed words, probably copied-and-pasted by a secretary from an email
there are ways they could of handled this MUCH better. As someone above said, yes, saying this weeks ahead of time could of gotten people to prepare
they also could of just adjusted the % from 50 to like 20-30 and it would of helped keep players and meet metrics. They could of halved cooldowns on mining and contraband turn-ins.
there are tons of thing they could have done
I suggest everybody mine omega particles all they can so they can make dil-free upgrades. That is a good thing that they came up with, and is probably one of the only keep me playing. I have spent about 1k real money on this game, and I know others have spent a lot too. There are tons of players who are lifetime, and subscribers, you're making money, don't mess with your f2p players.
First of all, I would like to apologize on behalf of the Star Trek Online team for the incorrect information posted in the Dilithium Weekend blog and the confusion that followed. Even though the in-game calendar text for the event is correct, we should have made doubly sure that the text in the blog was also correct. We have indeed adjusted the Dilithium Weekend. Unfortunately, the blog did not have the updated event information. Im going to take it a moment to fully explain these changes and hopefully help everyone understand why these changes were made.
Our goal for the Dilithium Weekend is to provide the community of Star Trek Online with the opportunity to earn Dilithium at a significantly increased rate on any Dilithium earned through play for the duration of the weekend. As the event had been run over the last couple of years, we noticed a trend that fell out of line with the goal of players getting bonus Dilithium on anything theyve earned through play over that weekend. While the earn rates for Dilithium remained fairly constant for any type of content that provided it as a reward, the earn rate for Dilithium that was collected using the mark conversion projects during the event skyrocketed. When we allowed mark conversion projects to gain a bonus during the Dilithium event, the vast majority of people were only using mark conversion projects during the event. 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. We are committed to making sure that Dilithium is more available in game, and to that end we are currently working to introduce Dilithium rewards to episode and patrol play by the end of this month.
With that being said, it is understandably frustrating to expect one sort of bonus only to receive another. In order to make up for this error in communication, I will be converting the Dilithium Weekend we are running this weekend into a Dilithium Week. Everyone that logs into Star Trek Online can now earn Dilithium at an improved rate from the time you read this post through February 12th 2015 at 10 a.m. Again, I apologize for the lack of proper information in the blog and I look forward to seeing you in game and earning bonus Dilithium for an entire week.
Stephen Ricossa
Executive Producer
You, good sir, I already like you.
When Mr. D'Angelo made a statement when the XP point "riots" were about, he did show that he was capable to standing up and saying what was needed to be said.
As is for You, it seems You're not only capable of that but also able to do it on time, before people get overly salty about it. Not everybody may like that change, and it's fine, as long as there's reason for it.
Of course, it's not really nice to reduce the value of STF marks, but on the other hand, it kinda means it's not worth to stack them to ridiculous levels waiting for the dill weekend. That is true.
You're making mark conversions worth the same all the time, but also a worth a bit less, as people would wait for said event.
I can get over it.
When I'm more interested about is that the explaining was done, when it was needed to be done.
There's hope for STO yet >;)
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The beast at Tanagra.
Kadir beneath Mo Moteh. Kiteo, his eyes closed. Chenza at court, the court of silence. Darmok on the ocean.
Shaka, when the walls fell.
First of all, I would like to apologize on behalf of the Star Trek Online team for the incorrect information posted in the Dilithium Weekend blog and the confusion that followed. Even though the in-game calendar text for the event is correct, we should have made doubly sure that the text in the blog was also correct. We have indeed adjusted the Dilithium Weekend. Unfortunately, the blog did not have the updated event information. Im going to take it a moment to fully explain these changes and hopefully help everyone understand why these changes were made.
Our goal for the Dilithium Weekend is to provide the community of Star Trek Online with the opportunity to earn Dilithium at a significantly increased rate on any Dilithium earned through play for the duration of the weekend. As the event had been run over the last couple of years, we noticed a trend that fell out of line with the goal of players getting bonus Dilithium on anything theyve earned through play over that weekend. While the earn rates for Dilithium remained fairly constant for any type of content that provided it as a reward, the earn rate for Dilithium that was collected using the mark conversion projects during the event skyrocketed. When we allowed mark conversion projects to gain a bonus during the Dilithium event, the vast majority of people were only using mark conversion projects during the event. 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. We are committed to making sure that Dilithium is more available in game, and to that end we are currently working to introduce Dilithium rewards to episode and patrol play by the end of this month.
With that being said, it is understandably frustrating to expect one sort of bonus only to receive another. In order to make up for this error in communication, I will be converting the Dilithium Weekend we are running this weekend into a Dilithium Week. Everyone that logs into Star Trek Online can now earn Dilithium at an improved rate from the time you read this post through February 12th 2015 at 10 a.m. Again, I apologize for the lack of proper information in the blog and I look forward to seeing you in game and earning bonus Dilithium for an entire week.
Stephen Ricossa
Executive Producer
Great to see that someone actually reads these threads. Thank you for the response. :cool:
First of all, I would like to apologize on behalf of the Star Trek Online team for the incorrect information posted in the Dilithium Weekend blog and the confusion that followed. Even though the in-game calendar text for the event is correct, we should have made doubly sure that the text in the blog was also correct. We have indeed adjusted the Dilithium Weekend. Unfortunately, the blog did not have the updated event information. Im going to take it a moment to fully explain these changes and hopefully help everyone understand why these changes were made.
Our goal for the Dilithium Weekend is to provide the community of Star Trek Online with the opportunity to earn Dilithium at a significantly increased rate on any Dilithium earned through play for the duration of the weekend. As the event had been run over the last couple of years, we noticed a trend that fell out of line with the goal of players getting bonus Dilithium on anything theyve earned through play over that weekend. While the earn rates for Dilithium remained fairly constant for any type of content that provided it as a reward, the earn rate for Dilithium that was collected using the mark conversion projects during the event skyrocketed. When we allowed mark conversion projects to gain a bonus during the Dilithium event, the vast majority of people were only using mark conversion projects during the event. 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. We are committed to making sure that Dilithium is more available in game, and to that end we are currently working to introduce Dilithium rewards to episode and patrol play by the end of this month.
With that being said, it is understandably frustrating to expect one sort of bonus only to receive another. In order to make up for this error in communication, I will be converting the Dilithium Weekend we are running this weekend into a Dilithium Week. Everyone that logs into Star Trek Online can now earn Dilithium at an improved rate from the time you read this post through February 12th 2015 at 10 a.m. Again, I apologize for the lack of proper information in the blog and I look forward to seeing you in game and earning bonus Dilithium for an entire week.
Stephen Ricossa
Executive Producer
thanks for dil event extended to an entire week, however I can't agree with what you said about the choose to not add the bonus to marks conversion projects. IMHO what you do not understand is that actually the game requires so much resource grinding (dil first of all) that playing is no more fun but a job... even playing for hours every day, "old" players with severalk toons can't upgrade all of them, moreover new playes feel to hard, long and expensive building one toon and becoming competitive if compared the "old" players.
Moreover a lot of us are waiting for several bug fixing, there are too much bugs in the game and a lot of them are very old.
So if you are asking why a lot of players had gone angry for this (and other) changes, think about that... IMHO you really need to stop adding new content, spend time in bug solving and remove a huge amount of "need to grind"... Players should play your content because it's funny, not because they need to do if for resouces.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Playing STO spamming FAW is like playing chess using always the computer's suggested moves
Fellow players, don't fall for it. You will only be serving their interests so they have better player statistics to show to PWE.
Mr. Ricossa's empty words are nothing but a small plaster on a gangrene infected gaping wound.
But we're so used to being treated with contempt or outright ignored (the very conditions which lead to the 'Delta Rising is the Best Expansion Ever and the Players Love It' signatures which Tacofangs whined about) that to see something ever so slightly different from a dev has you sliding into sycophancy.
A better solution would be to reduce dil costs for everything, including upgrades for their shameful crafting system across the board. The disgusting failure of their rubbish crafting system, which they wasted so much time on making, is still randomised, frequently unrewarding and a frustrating waste of players resources and time. They know it and their answer was to introduce another grind of gathering omega particles instead of just reducing the dil costs by half. Again it improves their logged in player statistics but it's a short term 'fix'.
Just like this sad attempt at appeasement by extending the dil weekend. We're still expected to grind but will you still be motivated in the long term, after their sticky plaster wears off?
The gaping wound will still be there and the gangrene is spreading.
I'm sorry, where was the part I was supposed to be happy about? I'd laugh over the number of people basically saying "Thank you sir, may I have another?" if only it weren't so sad. I genuinely want to like this game, and as someone else said, it's basically the only game in town for significant Star Trek content at the moment. But penalizing your player base for making economically sound decisions is not a good way to go. Nothing about this gives me warm fuzzies, and really only speaks volumes about the trend for the future. Basically, from now on, if it can't be monetized, it's going to get nerfed or removed altogether. And it's not even that I have a problem spending money on ships or what have you, I've spent my fair share like many others. But don't take my money and then spit in my face. Right now the main reason I log in regularly is because of my fleet. If it weren't for them, I'd probably only play during events, if that. If you want paying customers to stick around, increasing the grind isn't the way to do it, because people will just get sick of it eventually. You want players that will stick around and buy things? I've got a few ways that will help that.
1) Ramp up development of content. If you don't have the resources internally to do this, maybe start compensating some of our players who create high quality Foundry missions to really churn out some content. It couldn't cost you that much to compensate them in zen or account-bound items for the amount of effort you'd be getting in return.
2) Start introducing permanent price drops on older C-store content such as uniforms and sub-Tier 5 ships. Some of these things that have been in the C-store for years, you've probably more or less sold the vast majority you're ever going to sell at the prices you have them now. I'm sure your own metrics reflect this when you actually have uniforms and ships on sale, the older content probably spikes slightly in sales. Well, why not start introducing permanent price drops over time? Selling something regularly for less is better than selling nothing at your full price.
3) Revamp your re-vamped upgrade system to actually allow people to select what modifiers they want when crafting. Nobody wants the garbage snare or thrust or pvp damage modifiers on weapons. If I could get a crtd x3 weapon more than once out of 100 attempts, I'd be very happy. And if you're worried about people flooding the exchange with them, I have a solution. Make it so that if people choose their modifiers, the weapons are account bind on pickup. So then you have a choice. You can randomly get modifiers and sell those items, or you can pick what you want and be able to use them on any captain on your account. Heck make it a level 20 R&D perk if you really want, I don't have a huge problem with that. But the current system as it stands is set up to take advantage of players and milk the most money out of them as possible with the least amount of benefit to them.
4) Introduce more content that caters to the various career paths. You have almost a start toward this with the Mirror Space PvE queue, but what you really need is missions with optionals that can be completed by different career paths, because as it stands right now, there's not much reason to be anything besides a Tactical captain, as dealing damage is without question the most important ability in the game. When people can complete queues in a minute or less and are maxing out DPS well over 100k, it's very hard to argue that anything else is even worth the time. But, you give people some optional objectives that will boost their rewards that can only be completed by say someone in an engineering or science career, and now you've made those characters relevant again. In that scenario, pure damage isn't the most important factor and the surest way to get the best reward the fastest. Yes it will still be important, but you'll actually make the game more engaging, for everyone.
I could probably go on and on, and in all likelihood no one at Cryptic who either cares or would think any of what I have said is a good idea will read this, but it needs to be said. If anyone who actually works on this game actually cares about the product they produce and how their customers feel about said product, they should probably start trying to find ways to keep their customers engaged before we all get sick of the grind and fizzle out.
Zaichal, thor561, you are forgetting something very important.
It's a step in the right direction. Hope that things might finally start to improve. That's why you're seeing positive responses, and I feel that gulberat got it right with his own post; the situation might not have been handled to everybody's satisfaction, but it was still a lot better than it could have been.
Admittedly, whether there is going to be more improvement as opposed to a return to the previous situation is anybody's guess. Regardless, I should remind you that Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will any burnt bridges be rebuilt in a day. :P
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
I'm sorry, where was the part I was supposed to be happy about? I'd laugh over the number of people basically saying "Thank you sir, may I have another?"
It's baby steps right now. We've gone from D'Angelo who spoke to us directly maybe 3 or 4 times during his entire tenure, to Ricossa who within a few days has already made a concise and clear explanation about a hot issue, and publicly apologised for the blog. It could mean better communication in the future, even if we dislike the decisions being made.
I remember a game of hourly events when you could slide for 5 or 10 minutes during that hour and not hoard at all...
Ahhh , but then Cryptic (D'Angelo) said "EVENTS !!!" and almost everyone cheered .
Some said that we had it better under the Hourly Calendar , but those were silenced by their fellow players as "EVENTS !!!" sounded so cool (and ppl didn't understand that with the Hourly Calendar they actually got more Dil even if they only played on weekends) .
Then those EVENTS !!! started showing up much-much less frequently then anticipated .
Now the most popular of them all got nerfed into the ground .
... I hope they enjoy your neutered events ... , what's left of them ... , as some ppl just don't know when they have it good ... or what's worth fighting for ...
I have a nerf idea i would like to pitch to the devs:
please make sure that for the next dilithium event, rich dilithium mining claims don't give a bonus reward.
Reason: people are also saving up on these and population on the rich dilithium field skyrockets during the event.
Please nerf this, too, willya?
And while you are at it: players also do lots of DOFF jobs with a short runtime like 30 or 45 minutes because these give out dilithium rewards much mor efficiently than those who run 4,8 or 20 hours.
Please remove the dilithium reward from these as well.
I have a nerf idea i would like to pitch to the devs:
please make sure that for the next dilithium event, rich dilithium mining claims don't give a bonus reward.
Reason: people are also saving up on these and population on the rich dilithium field skyrockets during the event.
Please nerf this, too, willya?
And while you are at it: players also do lots of DOFF jobs with a short runtime like 30 or 45 minutes because these give out dilithium rewards much mor efficiently than those who run 4,8 or 20 hours.
Please remove the dilithium reward from these as well.
I've already called this. This is my next move and one that will look bad on Cryptic's metrics so they'll remove it therefore making my rewards so players can make their rewards "valid and valuable all the time, not only during the few Dilithium Weekends we run every year"."
Then will come doffing because players horded assignments prior to the event so they'll go leaving just missions which one wonders when they'll just remove the event altogether because players will do anything they can to make their rewards work the most and that's during the events.
Ricossa also failed to give us the real reason for this nerf ... so much for clear and concise
The reason is fairly simple, actually. It makes sense based on how the rest of the weekend events work- you can't stockpile XP for the XP events (there are a few ways, but not nearly as significant as mark/rep turnins, persay), you can't save mark boxes for mark weekends anymore - they want to reward playing content, not saving for specific weekends.
Or you could read what he said:
As the event had been run over the last couple of years, we noticed a trend that fell out of line with the goal of players getting bonus Dilithium on anything theyve earned through play over that weekend. While the earn rates for Dilithium remained fairly constant for any type of content that provided it as a reward, the earn rate for Dilithium that was collected using the mark conversion projects during the event skyrocketed. When we allowed mark conversion projects to gain a bonus during the Dilithium event, the vast majority of people were only using mark conversion projects during the event. 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.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
Or you could read what he really said. During Bonus DIL weekends, no one grinds more DIL than normal because, even with a bonus, no one likes grinding. If we take away the ability to stockpile the grinding you have already done, then you will HAVE to grind on DIL weekends. We know this cuts the DIL you can get down a lot, which we are fine with even though we have dropped other DIL rewards and raised DIL expenses already. We also understand that you don't like grinding, but we really don't care if you actually enjoy the game, or if we put out a quality product, because this is like a TV Network Sweeps Week for us, and what we care about are our numbers, NOT our player base. Until we find a way to come into your homes, chain you to your computers, and block any program but STO from running on your computers we will have to use see-through ham-handed methods like this to keep you grinding away whether you like it or not.
What we REALLY need to do is start writing letters to Paramount explaining how we feel about STO. We play because we love Star Trek, not because we love the game, and we feel like we are treated like nothing but walking wallets. We feel abused because they are the only ones with the product we love, so they knowingly drop the quality and up the price, treating us like a drug dealer would treat an addict or a pimp would treat a *****, instead of treating us like valued customers and people who love and value the rich history and stories of the product they sell in such a sub-par manner.
We should remind them of the time when the producers of Star Trek thought they could do the same to us, that they could ignore the fan base because we would eat up anything labeled "Star Trek", and we said "No, no you cannot" and turned our back on the franchise. We were slapped in the face like this before, and that is why Enterprise died and early (but not early enough) death, and Nemesis was beat out on it's opening weekend by J-Lo's "Maid in Manhattan".
Maybe STO can't be fixed, and if we want a good Star Trek game to play, our focus as a community should be to express our desire for the very Star Trek license to be yanked from PWE so that someone, somewhere, can make a game that is actually worthy of being called "Star Trek". Preferably by someone who has the ability to actually get the job done right, and doesn't run the game like a Ferengi.
The reason is fairly simple, actually. It makes sense based on how the rest of the weekend events work- you can't stockpile XP for the XP events (there are a few ways, but not nearly as significant as mark/rep turnins, persay), you can't save mark boxes for mark weekends anymore - they want to reward playing content, not saving for specific weekends.
Or you could stop being a conspiracy theorist and understand that we're still getting more dilithium for the same amount of grind, which is consistent with the mark and XP weekends. We're just losing the ability to make huge stashes for the purposes of unloading them in one, concentrated burst.
(Speaking of stockpiling marks/mining claims, has it occurred to anyone yet that it takes longer to refine all that dilithium when you don't have a head start? The same head start that is given when you DON'T stockpile stuff? :P)
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
It makes sense based on how the rest of the weekend events work
It might make sense to apologists who suffer from video game stockholm syndrome.
Fact is that there is no difference in how you earn your reputation marks and if you directly convert them into dilithium, use them for reputation gear or stockpile them for future use. At some point, you had to play content Cryptic/PWE wants us to play in order to obtain them. And if we play now or if we did play yesterday makes no freakin' difference.
Fact also is that stockpiling marks for a future event that makes these marks more valuable and more useful (like previous Dilithium events did) is the logical course of action if you are a playing a grinder MMO. Players will always yearn for lower grind.
And, finally, getting all that extra dilithium ore does harm no one because there is a protection mechnaism in place for preventing a dilithium/zen inflation. This protection is called "refinement cap".
So, I would really like that Salami dude to be honest with us and tell us why PWE thinks we should earn less Dilithium. I mean, we all know the reason but it would be really nice to see someone from Cryptic/PWE being honest for a change like telling us the real reason why they don't want mark exchange project numbers to skyrocket in the first place. Because they surely did not care for that during the past bonus Dilithium events.
(Speaking of stockpiling marks/mining claims, has it occurred to anyone yet that it takes longer to refine all that dilithium when you don't have a head start? The same head start that is given when you DON'T stockpile stuff? :P)
I don't know what foggy logic you use there ...
But then again, as a paying player, my dilithium gets auto-converted each day :rolleyes:
I agree with frakr, and I guess we all know the reason, player number spikes for each weekend. Nevertheless, the dev post has shown some sympathy towards players, and I thank him for that.
Whilst I can see the logic in their reasoning, and think Stephen's response is fantastic (especially extending the event), I think this will probably make me log on less over the next few weeks.
I have more of an incentive to play when I can just log on for a few hours a day, refine the dil I've built up and play the game. Rather than feeling I have to play for 4-6 hours until my characters have hit their dil limit, by which time I'm utterly sick of the game and feel like I've wasted an entire evening, thus making me not want to play again for a couple of days (I usually end up playing over Midnight at that time and getting two days worth of dil refined as well)
But then again, as a paying player, my dilithium gets auto-converted each day :rolleyes:
Assuming you can hit the cap on a daily basis in either scenario, you'll get X refined dilithium sooner if you start in January than if you started in, say, March.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
First of all, I would like to apologize on behalf of the Star Trek Online team for the incorrect information posted in the Dilithium Weekend blog and the confusion that followed. Even though the in-game calendar text for the event is correct, we should have made doubly sure that the text in the blog was also correct. We have indeed adjusted the Dilithium Weekend. Unfortunately, the blog did not have the updated event information. Im going to take it a moment to fully explain these changes and hopefully help everyone understand why these changes were made.
Our goal for the Dilithium Weekend is to provide the community of Star Trek Online with the opportunity to earn Dilithium at a significantly increased rate on any Dilithium earned through play for the duration of the weekend. As the event had been run over the last couple of years, we noticed a trend that fell out of line with the goal of players getting bonus Dilithium on anything theyve earned through play over that weekend. While the earn rates for Dilithium remained fairly constant for any type of content that provided it as a reward, the earn rate for Dilithium that was collected using the mark conversion projects during the event skyrocketed. When we allowed mark conversion projects to gain a bonus during the Dilithium event, the vast majority of people were only using mark conversion projects during the event. 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. We are committed to making sure that Dilithium is more available in game, and to that end we are currently working to introduce Dilithium rewards to episode and patrol play by the end of this month.
With that being said, it is understandably frustrating to expect one sort of bonus only to receive another. In order to make up for this error in communication, I will be converting the Dilithium Weekend we are running this weekend into a Dilithium Week. Everyone that logs into Star Trek Online can now earn Dilithium at an improved rate from the time you read this post through February 12th 2015 at 10 a.m. Again, I apologize for the lack of proper information in the blog and I look forward to seeing you in game and earning bonus Dilithium for an entire week.
Stephen Ricossa
Executive Producer
Thanks for the response. Like the communication.
That being said, all I got out of that was the metrics were not looking favorable because dill starved players were only doing rep projects to get dil. So cut that out to force the grind else where that is more favorable to the metrics.
-Rule of Acquisition #113: Always have sex with the boss.
-I am one of the many victims from the hijacked Caspian Division.
I will not let the childish acts of a criminal ruin this game for me.
-The actions of Cryptic, on the other hand......
We can take all those extra marks from the Rep system and turn them in for Dill using a mission in the relevant Rep section? (What if you ever want to buy more Rep equipment from it?)
And people are upset because now this doesn't earn the bonus Dil from the bonus weekend?
The bug is with the original announcement, not the way things are operating. Those projects are not supposed to be affected from what I've been told.
If you are a grocery story, you have to honor the orginal price. And what does it hurt, the time gate and limit on refining dilithium is still in effect.
First of all, I would like to apologize on behalf of the Star Trek Online team for the incorrect information posted in the Dilithium Weekend blog and the confusion that followed. Even though the in-game calendar text for the event is correct, we should have made doubly sure that the text in the blog was also correct. We have indeed adjusted the Dilithium Weekend. Unfortunately, the blog did not have the updated event information. Im going to take it a moment to fully explain these changes and hopefully help everyone understand why these changes were made.
Our goal for the Dilithium Weekend is to provide the community of Star Trek Online with the opportunity to earn Dilithium at a significantly increased rate on any Dilithium earned through play for the duration of the weekend. As the event had been run over the last couple of years, we noticed a trend that fell out of line with the goal of players getting bonus Dilithium on anything theyve earned through play over that weekend. While the earn rates for Dilithium remained fairly constant for any type of content that provided it as a reward, the earn rate for Dilithium that was collected using the mark conversion projects during the event skyrocketed. When we allowed mark conversion projects to gain a bonus during the Dilithium event, the vast majority of people were only using mark conversion projects during the event. 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. We are committed to making sure that Dilithium is more available in game, and to that end we are currently working to introduce Dilithium rewards to episode and patrol play by the end of this month.
With that being said, it is understandably frustrating to expect one sort of bonus only to receive another. In order to make up for this error in communication, I will be converting the Dilithium Weekend we are running this weekend into a Dilithium Week. Everyone that logs into Star Trek Online can now earn Dilithium at an improved rate from the time you read this post through February 12th 2015 at 10 a.m. Again, I apologize for the lack of proper information in the blog and I look forward to seeing you in game and earning bonus Dilithium for an entire week.
Stephen Ricossa
Executive Producer
You probably wont read this, but what the heck.
First off, I'd like to say I appreciate you extending the event and for apologising for the Dev blog containing false information. Accountability has been very lacking of late and it's good to see you take that on. It gives me a bit of hope for the future of the game.
However, I do have to say that the 'logic' behind your reasoning for removing marks from the Dilithium event is entirely flawed. "By not offering a bonus on these projects, we are making mark conversion projects valid and valuable all the time", this statement is what I'm focusing on. By that same logic, the event itself should not exist because by your own admission it means all sources of Dilithium which it increases are worthless during the rest of the year...
The whole point in the event (from a player perspective) is to have some fun and get a bonus. We grind our butts off all year round, even more since DR brought the dreaded XP grind into the mix for the ever elusive next specialisation point, so yes some of us save up our marks and our processors and what not so that we can trade them in during the event and that way we feel less TRIBBLE about the grind we had to do to get them in the first place.
Now, had you said "we want to make these more valid and valuable all year round, so we're going to increase their output to X (whatever they are during the event respectively) as a permanent upgrade, but we're no longer going to give them a boost when the event is running", people would be a lot less annoyed. In fact, they'd probably be pretty damned happy which would be a nice improvement given the recent changes.
But what do I know, I'm only a player who has devoted more than four thousand hours of the past five years to playing this game. Just one of those nobodies who flies around wondering why he's still bothering when the end is no longer a set goal and he'll probably never manage to max any of his characters out on the new spec trees...
Join date is wrong, I've actually been around since STO Beta.
True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event rewards!!
First of all, I would like to apologize on behalf of the Star Trek Online team for the incorrect information posted in the Dilithium Weekend...
Stephen Ricossa
Executive Producer
I am going to say the following; however, I don't want anyone to take it the wrong way.
I apologize ahead of time.
After experiencing two different 'Free2Play' and/or 'Pay2Win' models, I personally think their usage needs to be closely monitored. 'Free2Play' and/or 'Pay2Win' games, as a whole, have been slowly becoming controversial. I don't think the model will survive. Government watchdogs need to take a serious look at the 'Free2Play' and/or 'Pay2Win' ideology. I see too much consumer exploitation.
Second, I don't trust Cryptic. While I may have trusted Cryptic before, during Season Five, Six, and Seven, I think the recent changes have caused allot of mistrust. Before I even think of reinstalling and playing "Star Trek: Online", I want to know the answer to the following:
~ Where are all these changes leading? Unless I understand the path ahead, I cannot see myself spending money on 'uncertainty'. I see a whole boat of changes taking place; thus, the new direction we are seeing is very scary. Prior to buying a game off the shelf, I usually read up on its exploits. What does the game have? What does the game offer? What type of game is it? Will I like the game? I don't know what "Star Trek: Online" is becoming.
~ Where is the rewarding experience? 'SWTOR' may have many flaws; however, the game's reward system works for the casual player. Within an hour's worth of effort, I can walk away with some very useful gear. I cannot do that with 'STO'. I have to fill deep buckets and wait behind timers. "STO: Season Five" and "Legacy of Romulus' were beautiful experiences. I use to buy 'useful' gear on an hourly basis. I don't quite understand why the new direction includes: (1) waiting for cool down timers to expire, (2) rewarding players with the lowest denomination, and (3) overly charging players for the purchasing of gear. Within an hour's worth of effort, while playing "SWTOR", I can obtain the fundamentals for everything I wanted. No cool down timers. No endless grinds. Sure, the game has some repetitive mechanics; however, I always feel rewarded at the end of my casual play through. "STO" just doesn't feel as rewarding.
khamseenair you are right, these weekend events need to completely removed from the game.
If something this small causes so much grief, we don't need it from distracting our normal game play.
Comments
there are ways they could of handled this MUCH better. As someone above said, yes, saying this weeks ahead of time could of gotten people to prepare
they also could of just adjusted the % from 50 to like 20-30 and it would of helped keep players and meet metrics. They could of halved cooldowns on mining and contraband turn-ins.
there are tons of thing they could have done
I suggest everybody mine omega particles all they can so they can make dil-free upgrades. That is a good thing that they came up with, and is probably one of the only keep me playing. I have spent about 1k real money on this game, and I know others have spent a lot too. There are tons of players who are lifetime, and subscribers, you're making money, don't mess with your f2p players.
You, good sir, I already like you.
When Mr. D'Angelo made a statement when the XP point "riots" were about, he did show that he was capable to standing up and saying what was needed to be said.
As is for You, it seems You're not only capable of that but also able to do it on time, before people get overly salty about it. Not everybody may like that change, and it's fine, as long as there's reason for it.
Of course, it's not really nice to reduce the value of STF marks, but on the other hand, it kinda means it's not worth to stack them to ridiculous levels waiting for the dill weekend. That is true.
You're making mark conversions worth the same all the time, but also a worth a bit less, as people would wait for said event.
I can get over it.
When I'm more interested about is that the explaining was done, when it was needed to be done.
There's hope for STO yet >;)
Kadir beneath Mo Moteh. Kiteo, his eyes closed. Chenza at court, the court of silence. Darmok on the ocean.
Shaka, when the walls fell.
Great to see that someone actually reads these threads. Thank you for the response. :cool:
thanks for dil event extended to an entire week, however I can't agree with what you said about the choose to not add the bonus to marks conversion projects. IMHO what you do not understand is that actually the game requires so much resource grinding (dil first of all) that playing is no more fun but a job... even playing for hours every day, "old" players with severalk toons can't upgrade all of them, moreover new playes feel to hard, long and expensive building one toon and becoming competitive if compared the "old" players.
Moreover a lot of us are waiting for several bug fixing, there are too much bugs in the game and a lot of them are very old.
So if you are asking why a lot of players had gone angry for this (and other) changes, think about that... IMHO you really need to stop adding new content, spend time in bug solving and remove a huge amount of "need to grind"... Players should play your content because it's funny, not because they need to do if for resouces.
Playing STO spamming FAW is like playing chess using always the computer's suggested moves
Mr. Ricossa's empty words are nothing but a small plaster on a gangrene infected gaping wound.
But we're so used to being treated with contempt or outright ignored (the very conditions which lead to the 'Delta Rising is the Best Expansion Ever and the Players Love It' signatures which Tacofangs whined about) that to see something ever so slightly different from a dev has you sliding into sycophancy.
A better solution would be to reduce dil costs for everything, including upgrades for their shameful crafting system across the board. The disgusting failure of their rubbish crafting system, which they wasted so much time on making, is still randomised, frequently unrewarding and a frustrating waste of players resources and time. They know it and their answer was to introduce another grind of gathering omega particles instead of just reducing the dil costs by half. Again it improves their logged in player statistics but it's a short term 'fix'.
Just like this sad attempt at appeasement by extending the dil weekend. We're still expected to grind but will you still be motivated in the long term, after their sticky plaster wears off?
The gaping wound will still be there and the gangrene is spreading.
1) Ramp up development of content. If you don't have the resources internally to do this, maybe start compensating some of our players who create high quality Foundry missions to really churn out some content. It couldn't cost you that much to compensate them in zen or account-bound items for the amount of effort you'd be getting in return.
2) Start introducing permanent price drops on older C-store content such as uniforms and sub-Tier 5 ships. Some of these things that have been in the C-store for years, you've probably more or less sold the vast majority you're ever going to sell at the prices you have them now. I'm sure your own metrics reflect this when you actually have uniforms and ships on sale, the older content probably spikes slightly in sales. Well, why not start introducing permanent price drops over time? Selling something regularly for less is better than selling nothing at your full price.
3) Revamp your re-vamped upgrade system to actually allow people to select what modifiers they want when crafting. Nobody wants the garbage snare or thrust or pvp damage modifiers on weapons. If I could get a crtd x3 weapon more than once out of 100 attempts, I'd be very happy. And if you're worried about people flooding the exchange with them, I have a solution. Make it so that if people choose their modifiers, the weapons are account bind on pickup. So then you have a choice. You can randomly get modifiers and sell those items, or you can pick what you want and be able to use them on any captain on your account. Heck make it a level 20 R&D perk if you really want, I don't have a huge problem with that. But the current system as it stands is set up to take advantage of players and milk the most money out of them as possible with the least amount of benefit to them.
4) Introduce more content that caters to the various career paths. You have almost a start toward this with the Mirror Space PvE queue, but what you really need is missions with optionals that can be completed by different career paths, because as it stands right now, there's not much reason to be anything besides a Tactical captain, as dealing damage is without question the most important ability in the game. When people can complete queues in a minute or less and are maxing out DPS well over 100k, it's very hard to argue that anything else is even worth the time. But, you give people some optional objectives that will boost their rewards that can only be completed by say someone in an engineering or science career, and now you've made those characters relevant again. In that scenario, pure damage isn't the most important factor and the surest way to get the best reward the fastest. Yes it will still be important, but you'll actually make the game more engaging, for everyone.
I could probably go on and on, and in all likelihood no one at Cryptic who either cares or would think any of what I have said is a good idea will read this, but it needs to be said. If anyone who actually works on this game actually cares about the product they produce and how their customers feel about said product, they should probably start trying to find ways to keep their customers engaged before we all get sick of the grind and fizzle out.
Vice Admiral of - Starfleet Command -
It's a step in the right direction. Hope that things might finally start to improve. That's why you're seeing positive responses, and I feel that gulberat got it right with his own post; the situation might not have been handled to everybody's satisfaction, but it was still a lot better than it could have been.
Admittedly, whether there is going to be more improvement as opposed to a return to the previous situation is anybody's guess. Regardless, I should remind you that Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will any burnt bridges be rebuilt in a day. :P
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
It's baby steps right now. We've gone from D'Angelo who spoke to us directly maybe 3 or 4 times during his entire tenure, to Ricossa who within a few days has already made a concise and clear explanation about a hot issue, and publicly apologised for the blog. It could mean better communication in the future, even if we dislike the decisions being made.
Ahhh , but then Cryptic (D'Angelo) said "EVENTS !!!" and almost everyone cheered .
Some said that we had it better under the Hourly Calendar , but those were silenced by their fellow players as "EVENTS !!!" sounded so cool (and ppl didn't understand that with the Hourly Calendar they actually got more Dil even if they only played on weekends) .
Then those EVENTS !!! started showing up much-much less frequently then anticipated .
Now the most popular of them all got nerfed into the ground .
... I hope they enjoy your neutered events ... , what's left of them ... , as some ppl just don't know when they have it good ... or what's worth fighting for ...
please make sure that for the next dilithium event, rich dilithium mining claims don't give a bonus reward.
Reason: people are also saving up on these and population on the rich dilithium field skyrockets during the event.
Please nerf this, too, willya?
And while you are at it: players also do lots of DOFF jobs with a short runtime like 30 or 45 minutes because these give out dilithium rewards much mor efficiently than those who run 4,8 or 20 hours.
Please remove the dilithium reward from these as well.
I've already called this. This is my next move and one that will look bad on Cryptic's metrics so they'll remove it therefore making my rewards so players can make their rewards "valid and valuable all the time, not only during the few Dilithium Weekends we run every year"."
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=22136971&postcount=136
Then will come doffing because players horded assignments prior to the event so they'll go leaving just missions which one wonders when they'll just remove the event altogether because players will do anything they can to make their rewards work the most and that's during the events.
Ricossa also failed to give us the real reason for this nerf ... so much for clear and concise
The reason is fairly simple, actually. It makes sense based on how the rest of the weekend events work- you can't stockpile XP for the XP events (there are a few ways, but not nearly as significant as mark/rep turnins, persay), you can't save mark boxes for mark weekends anymore - they want to reward playing content, not saving for specific weekends.
Or you could read what he said:
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
Or you could read what he really said. During Bonus DIL weekends, no one grinds more DIL than normal because, even with a bonus, no one likes grinding. If we take away the ability to stockpile the grinding you have already done, then you will HAVE to grind on DIL weekends. We know this cuts the DIL you can get down a lot, which we are fine with even though we have dropped other DIL rewards and raised DIL expenses already. We also understand that you don't like grinding, but we really don't care if you actually enjoy the game, or if we put out a quality product, because this is like a TV Network Sweeps Week for us, and what we care about are our numbers, NOT our player base. Until we find a way to come into your homes, chain you to your computers, and block any program but STO from running on your computers we will have to use see-through ham-handed methods like this to keep you grinding away whether you like it or not.
What we REALLY need to do is start writing letters to Paramount explaining how we feel about STO. We play because we love Star Trek, not because we love the game, and we feel like we are treated like nothing but walking wallets. We feel abused because they are the only ones with the product we love, so they knowingly drop the quality and up the price, treating us like a drug dealer would treat an addict or a pimp would treat a *****, instead of treating us like valued customers and people who love and value the rich history and stories of the product they sell in such a sub-par manner.
We should remind them of the time when the producers of Star Trek thought they could do the same to us, that they could ignore the fan base because we would eat up anything labeled "Star Trek", and we said "No, no you cannot" and turned our back on the franchise. We were slapped in the face like this before, and that is why Enterprise died and early (but not early enough) death, and Nemesis was beat out on it's opening weekend by J-Lo's "Maid in Manhattan".
Maybe STO can't be fixed, and if we want a good Star Trek game to play, our focus as a community should be to express our desire for the very Star Trek license to be yanked from PWE so that someone, somewhere, can make a game that is actually worthy of being called "Star Trek". Preferably by someone who has the ability to actually get the job done right, and doesn't run the game like a Ferengi.
Well said.
Or you could stop being a conspiracy theorist and understand that we're still getting more dilithium for the same amount of grind, which is consistent with the mark and XP weekends. We're just losing the ability to make huge stashes for the purposes of unloading them in one, concentrated burst.
(Speaking of stockpiling marks/mining claims, has it occurred to anyone yet that it takes longer to refine all that dilithium when you don't have a head start? The same head start that is given when you DON'T stockpile stuff? :P)
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
It might make sense to apologists who suffer from video game stockholm syndrome.
Fact is that there is no difference in how you earn your reputation marks and if you directly convert them into dilithium, use them for reputation gear or stockpile them for future use. At some point, you had to play content Cryptic/PWE wants us to play in order to obtain them. And if we play now or if we did play yesterday makes no freakin' difference.
Fact also is that stockpiling marks for a future event that makes these marks more valuable and more useful (like previous Dilithium events did) is the logical course of action if you are a playing a grinder MMO. Players will always yearn for lower grind.
And, finally, getting all that extra dilithium ore does harm no one because there is a protection mechnaism in place for preventing a dilithium/zen inflation. This protection is called "refinement cap".
So, I would really like that Salami dude to be honest with us and tell us why PWE thinks we should earn less Dilithium. I mean, we all know the reason but it would be really nice to see someone from Cryptic/PWE being honest for a change like telling us the real reason why they don't want mark exchange project numbers to skyrocket in the first place. Because they surely did not care for that during the past bonus Dilithium events.
Honesty, you know, goes a long way ...
I don't know what foggy logic you use there ...
But then again, as a paying player, my dilithium gets auto-converted each day :rolleyes:
I have more of an incentive to play when I can just log on for a few hours a day, refine the dil I've built up and play the game. Rather than feeling I have to play for 4-6 hours until my characters have hit their dil limit, by which time I'm utterly sick of the game and feel like I've wasted an entire evening, thus making me not want to play again for a couple of days (I usually end up playing over Midnight at that time and getting two days worth of dil refined as well)
Assuming you can hit the cap on a daily basis in either scenario, you'll get X refined dilithium sooner if you start in January than if you started in, say, March.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Thanks for the response. Like the communication.
That being said, all I got out of that was the metrics were not looking favorable because dill starved players were only doing rep projects to get dil. So cut that out to force the grind else where that is more favorable to the metrics.
-Rule of Acquisition #113: Always have sex with the boss.
-I am one of the many victims from the hijacked Caspian Division.
I will not let the childish acts of a criminal ruin this game for me.
-The actions of Cryptic, on the other hand......
We can take all those extra marks from the Rep system and turn them in for Dill using a mission in the relevant Rep section? (What if you ever want to buy more Rep equipment from it?)
And people are upset because now this doesn't earn the bonus Dil from the bonus weekend?
Is this correct?
I will have to check my mark levels and see if I have any I wish to purge.
I'll have to also check on those Dailys as I have maxed all the Reps.
Nice of the EP to post.
your apology not accepted!
If you are a grocery story, you have to honor the orginal price. And what does it hurt, the time gate and limit on refining dilithium is still in effect.
You probably wont read this, but what the heck.
First off, I'd like to say I appreciate you extending the event and for apologising for the Dev blog containing false information. Accountability has been very lacking of late and it's good to see you take that on. It gives me a bit of hope for the future of the game.
However, I do have to say that the 'logic' behind your reasoning for removing marks from the Dilithium event is entirely flawed. "By not offering a bonus on these projects, we are making mark conversion projects valid and valuable all the time", this statement is what I'm focusing on. By that same logic, the event itself should not exist because by your own admission it means all sources of Dilithium which it increases are worthless during the rest of the year...
The whole point in the event (from a player perspective) is to have some fun and get a bonus. We grind our butts off all year round, even more since DR brought the dreaded XP grind into the mix for the ever elusive next specialisation point, so yes some of us save up our marks and our processors and what not so that we can trade them in during the event and that way we feel less TRIBBLE about the grind we had to do to get them in the first place.
Now, had you said "we want to make these more valid and valuable all year round, so we're going to increase their output to X (whatever they are during the event respectively) as a permanent upgrade, but we're no longer going to give them a boost when the event is running", people would be a lot less annoyed. In fact, they'd probably be pretty damned happy which would be a nice improvement given the recent changes.
But what do I know, I'm only a player who has devoted more than four thousand hours of the past five years to playing this game. Just one of those nobodies who flies around wondering why he's still bothering when the end is no longer a set goal and he'll probably never manage to max any of his characters out on the new spec trees...
I am going to say the following; however, I don't want anyone to take it the wrong way.
I apologize ahead of time.
After experiencing two different 'Free2Play' and/or 'Pay2Win' models, I personally think their usage needs to be closely monitored. 'Free2Play' and/or 'Pay2Win' games, as a whole, have been slowly becoming controversial. I don't think the model will survive. Government watchdogs need to take a serious look at the 'Free2Play' and/or 'Pay2Win' ideology. I see too much consumer exploitation.
Second, I don't trust Cryptic. While I may have trusted Cryptic before, during Season Five, Six, and Seven, I think the recent changes have caused allot of mistrust. Before I even think of reinstalling and playing "Star Trek: Online", I want to know the answer to the following:
~ Where are all these changes leading? Unless I understand the path ahead, I cannot see myself spending money on 'uncertainty'. I see a whole boat of changes taking place; thus, the new direction we are seeing is very scary. Prior to buying a game off the shelf, I usually read up on its exploits. What does the game have? What does the game offer? What type of game is it? Will I like the game? I don't know what "Star Trek: Online" is becoming.
~ Where is the rewarding experience? 'SWTOR' may have many flaws; however, the game's reward system works for the casual player. Within an hour's worth of effort, I can walk away with some very useful gear. I cannot do that with 'STO'. I have to fill deep buckets and wait behind timers. "STO: Season Five" and "Legacy of Romulus' were beautiful experiences. I use to buy 'useful' gear on an hourly basis. I don't quite understand why the new direction includes: (1) waiting for cool down timers to expire, (2) rewarding players with the lowest denomination, and (3) overly charging players for the purchasing of gear. Within an hour's worth of effort, while playing "SWTOR", I can obtain the fundamentals for everything I wanted. No cool down timers. No endless grinds. Sure, the game has some repetitive mechanics; however, I always feel rewarded at the end of my casual play through. "STO" just doesn't feel as rewarding.
If something this small causes so much grief, we don't need it from distracting our normal game play.