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Continued Dev disconnect under new EP
aelfwin1
Member Posts: 2,896 Arc User
First off let me tip my proverbial hat to our new EP .
He has shown an interest in ... either making a good start, or at least a seeming public awareness of some goof up's .
Having said that , I'll admit that I set the bar for him pretty high ... , namely fixing the queues , which at this moment make players suffer from the fail timer's .
(and before you start on how those timers are not an issue , we had a JHinig --a Dev fail several pugs because of them)
Sooo , this may sound crazy or unreasonable but I had imagined that an executive command to remove those timers (from the Advanced queues at least) was in the realm of the possible , or at least update them to something more player friendly .
And this is when we hit the issue of the disconnect , as Al Rivera seemed to think that the (not played queues issue) was just a matter of adding more awards .
Now he's right about there being an award issue across the game (be that XP and other incentives).
What he's wrong about is this being a "fix" for the queues, as the timers that have chased away the players won't be any more forgiving with additional awards ... , so additional awards will change things how exactly ?
Yes, Al said that the players will follow the awards .
What he didn't mention was that there was no timer in his pet project (the Dino-Dil-shooter) , nor is there one on Argala , thus the examples from those realms are irrelevant to the queues .
And let me add this:
The timers are not just an annoyance / fail component .
They are an anti-fun component .
After all , they do not effect or slow down pre-made teams .
But they do effect those so either can't or don't want to play as fast as possible .
For me this is exemplified in CE & ISA .
I can do both , but neither is fun any more , as a part of me can no longer see it as an awesome battle , but just a battle to beat a timer .
Neither the Borg nor the CE deserve to be demoted to a timer .
There is no joy in that , no fun in that (unless you happen to be into sports or something) .
In short, this is where we stand:
We've had the awards slashed on the arrival of DR .
They have had 5 months now to look at metrics and make adjustments .
Instead they tell us how hard it is to make adjustments to the awards and how it will take so much more time to make them .
And then they turn around and dump a Dil free Upgrade Token mini game into the game to get those who gave the middle finger to crafting into the crafting / upgrade grind .
And this is what does not add up .
When they want to do something , they seem to find a clever way to do it .
Thus at this point I have to ask:
Are the increased awards awaiting a new system ?
Is removing or updating the fail timer's awaiting a new system ?
And as to the awards -- Cryptic obviously have several award criteria and several groups of mission categories .
We're not talking about literally figuring out the award's for each mission in game, but rather each groups of missions .
Are they telling us that there are so many groups of missions that someone can't do 6-8 hours of math to get some projections as to how much Did / EC will flow into the game's economy if they add X, Y, Z into their 6-10 groups of missions (6-10 being random illustrative numbers) ?
Things get done when the top ppl want to get them done .
And right now sadly, some things don't look like a priority .
... which kind of justify some player feeling that "fun" was one of the unintended casualties of DR ...
He has shown an interest in ... either making a good start, or at least a seeming public awareness of some goof up's .
Having said that , I'll admit that I set the bar for him pretty high ... , namely fixing the queues , which at this moment make players suffer from the fail timer's .
(and before you start on how those timers are not an issue , we had a JHinig --a Dev fail several pugs because of them)
Sooo , this may sound crazy or unreasonable but I had imagined that an executive command to remove those timers (from the Advanced queues at least) was in the realm of the possible , or at least update them to something more player friendly .
And this is when we hit the issue of the disconnect , as Al Rivera seemed to think that the (not played queues issue) was just a matter of adding more awards .
Now he's right about there being an award issue across the game (be that XP and other incentives).
What he's wrong about is this being a "fix" for the queues, as the timers that have chased away the players won't be any more forgiving with additional awards ... , so additional awards will change things how exactly ?
Yes, Al said that the players will follow the awards .
What he didn't mention was that there was no timer in his pet project (the Dino-Dil-shooter) , nor is there one on Argala , thus the examples from those realms are irrelevant to the queues .
And let me add this:
The timers are not just an annoyance / fail component .
They are an anti-fun component .
After all , they do not effect or slow down pre-made teams .
But they do effect those so either can't or don't want to play as fast as possible .
For me this is exemplified in CE & ISA .
I can do both , but neither is fun any more , as a part of me can no longer see it as an awesome battle , but just a battle to beat a timer .
Neither the Borg nor the CE deserve to be demoted to a timer .
There is no joy in that , no fun in that (unless you happen to be into sports or something) .
In short, this is where we stand:
We've had the awards slashed on the arrival of DR .
They have had 5 months now to look at metrics and make adjustments .
Instead they tell us how hard it is to make adjustments to the awards and how it will take so much more time to make them .
And then they turn around and dump a Dil free Upgrade Token mini game into the game to get those who gave the middle finger to crafting into the crafting / upgrade grind .
And this is what does not add up .
When they want to do something , they seem to find a clever way to do it .
Thus at this point I have to ask:
Are the increased awards awaiting a new system ?
Is removing or updating the fail timer's awaiting a new system ?
And as to the awards -- Cryptic obviously have several award criteria and several groups of mission categories .
We're not talking about literally figuring out the award's for each mission in game, but rather each groups of missions .
Are they telling us that there are so many groups of missions that someone can't do 6-8 hours of math to get some projections as to how much Did / EC will flow into the game's economy if they add X, Y, Z into their 6-10 groups of missions (6-10 being random illustrative numbers) ?
Things get done when the top ppl want to get them done .
And right now sadly, some things don't look like a priority .
... which kind of justify some player feeling that "fun" was one of the unintended casualties of DR ...
Post edited by Unknown User on
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
If the sale ends at 7, and you show up at 7:30...you get the item but not as good a deal.
edit: You know, that might come off a bit flippant...but it's kind of the "obvious" thing, which makes it difficult not to be flippant about certain things.
In trying to build the tension toward the climax, reaching that story limit, they've basically got the choice of timelocks or optionlocks, no? Timelocks are far less burdensome, easier to implement, and would likely lead to less frustration on the player's part in being able to expect something consistent with which they could deal with rather than optionlocks that could totally throw the group depending on the group involved.
I'd prefer more of the latter, but I can see why Cryptic would do more of the former.
I've seen that particular issue brought up several times. The failure is not because of time expiring, necessarily, but because simply not enough ships actually spawned during the time.
While I get your meaning , I have to ask: why March?
Is it the big limbo between the Anniversary and the Summer Event ?
Surely they'll plaster it over with an "event" or two .
And yes, we as the players have joked about them just wanting to make it to the Winter Event & the Anniversary .
But those were jokes and in a weird way I think some heads @ Cryptic are OK with the status of the queues as is .
Some say that their priority is to keep us in the DQ, and that means that they are even willing to put up with Argala ... , as "no Argala = significantly less endgame players in DQ" .
They don't like Argala but they tolarate it for the sake of the metrics .
If anything , I think that when they nerf Argala, you can write it down as the metrics have been satisfied with the DQ and Cryptic have moved on .
And as to the qeues, how you explain D'angelo's "parting shot" at the queue goers with the 4 minute timer added to CE just recently ?
... aside from a FU at the players in general ...
Hmmm, true , must have been thinking of BDA ... .
... it is the middle of the night here and sleep seems to be eluding me ...-
Yeah, again, at the moment, they seem to be continuing to rely on special events and offers to keep players logging in. I'd say eventually they have to be running out of those, but if the calender in game is correct, they're going to be running the Crystalline Catastrophe event soon after the end of the Anniversary event. I suppose it remains to be seen if they can keep distracting players with new reasons to keep logging in and grinding.
IIRC a new liberated borg ship spawns 20 or 25 seconds after you free the previous one. you can't slouch and you have to free the ASAP.
as much as i hate to state it, probably wont do any good anyway. the EP has only been around a short time in his position, it takes months for any of his ideas and plans to get to the playerbase depending on the schedule cryptic are under.
i would suggest trying to ask in a few months from now, perhaps around summer risa event time, because by then there is no excuse if nothing has made its way through.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
While that is a fair thing to consider , we can also consider that our previous EP has had two quick "executive decisions" to his name (the S7 return of the STF awards after they have been removed in favor of the Fleet Actions , and more recently when he decided to shut down parts of the game in the Japori incident) , and our new EP decided to extend the Anniversary event (either as an apology to the players, or as some cynic's have noted, to keep us busy longer
So while schedule's are important , they are not the end all and be all of things .
Even DStahl noted that things changed because other things came up .
Now if I had asked for an immediate implementation of a new award system , that might have had the "entitled" label on it .
What I asked was to allow more players to play the game successfully , and no less importantly -- in a fun way .
That was part of my point tho .
DR has been out for nearly 5 months .
That's more then enough time to observe , sample and deduct .
What will a few more months tell them exactly ?
So we have that and we have the "awards will fix everything" train of thought .
Problem is, awards alone may not be enough .
They can put a 10K Dil award to BDA or ANR and ppl will still fail .
Unlike IGA, where you can save the day if someone crosses the invisible line -- in these missions you can't .