Looks like a decent update, hopefully it will populate the PvE queues a little more. I was sick of Argala runs but I'll reserve judgement to whether this was a buff or a nerf when I get on holodeck.
Looking for a dedicated Star Trek community? Visit www.ufplanets.com for details.
All Adventure Zone and Battle Zone missions award Skill Points and Expertise for completion.
We added Elite Marks (Borg Neural Processors, Ancient Power Cells, Voth Cybernetic Implants, and Isomorphic Injections) to Adventure/Battle Zones. We wanted to respond to feedback that there were not enough places to earn elite marks outside of PvE Queues:
Borg Neural Processors have been added as a once per day reward to the following missions on the Defera Invasion Zone: Modus Operandi, Getting to the Bottom of Things, Uninvited Guests, Counter Offensive
Ancient Power Cells have been added as a once per day reward to the following missions on the Kobali Prime Adventure Zone: At the Gates, The Last Stand
Note that you can already earn Voth Cybernetic Implants by defeating a V-Rex on the Voth Ground Battle Zone and the Undine Isomorphic Injections from defeating the Planet Killer in the Undine Space Battlezone in the Solanae Dyson Sphere.
[...]
We look forward to you enjoying the new improvements and, more importantly, your feedback.
So, unless I just did the wrong mission on Kobali Prime three times, this new feature doesn't work. I haven't received a single APC for doing the mission.
Unless "At The Gates" and "Defence At The Gates" are different missions.
You're just a machine. And machines can be broken.
completely disagree here.
Your point is only true if you feel compelled to have max everything right now.
You see, when finishing some reputation to max, you don't ever come to play those missions, right? Same is with patrols or with missions with unique accolades.
that's why they have put various other rewards to missions(materials etc)
They have finally realized(it seems) that catering to farmers is a long term very bad solution.
Said farmers when they finish their farm will simply move to other "game" where they can farm more. They don't care if that game is Star Trek or wizards&elfs related, is mission with blue orbs or kazon, important factor is the farming possibility.
This patch is a very good thing for bringing back actual PLAY factor in GAME.
I would welcome another step in the right direction though.
I would scale the XP and dil/material rewards by actual difficulty/effort needed to finish the mission. I would even give generous bonuses for beating it fast, with no deaths, no failed mini-objectives etc. So for example HSE, HGE, Korfez, BDE would have much greater rewards then everything else in game, scaling down to easy ones. And PUG teams would be given even larger bonus on top of that to keep the queue population balanced with private queues.
That way you can ensure that people are not farming easiest/fastest missions over and over, and after not complaining on forums how they can't just repeat it over and over or whatnot.
That is balance of progression through challenge, not trough time spent.
Surely some of you still can remember games where higher difficulty meant better rewards, bonuses, secrets etc. Where you would get rank S A B C D E F based on your actual performance, time, no deaths, no special gear etc?
i want to max things as fast as i had for the nearly 5 years i had been playing befor DR, how unreasonable of me. :rolleyes:
i want a maxed out character as quickly as possible so i can pvp were the only variable left is my skill, an exceedingly difficult proposition these days when this game is so gear and ship dependent. the pve in and of itself is not worth playing, i have little or negative fun doing any of it because the npcs dont even rate as placeholders. having to do the amount i have to now to attain my goal, its beyond the point of not being worth it by an order of magnitude. so i went from a player that spent multiple hours in game 5 to 7 days a week for 4 years strait to 0 hours 0 days a week, after i completed the delta rep. it was clear by then that cryptic was never going to make this game as approachable and the grind as reasonable as it was pre DR, not until enough of the player base stopped bending over, rationalizing it and white knighting it.
i don't have the issue were i max out a character and get board and stop playing, like pve'ers have, so don't even bother trying to convince me of anything. when my character is maxed, only then do i get to have fun, the work is over. but for pve'ers, it was 'too easy' to max, and there was 'nothing to do' after they did, and would only come back when a new season launched. we have these people to thank for the ruination of this game at everyone else who was actually having fun's expense.
I would argue that STO isnt old but rather young to mid age in MMO terms, now if you want "old" you only have to look at WoW to see what truly old is in mmo terms.
WoW is just a baby compared to Ultima Online. Yes that ancient geezer is still around.
So, unless I just did the wrong mission on Kobali Prime three times, this new feature doesn't work. I haven't received a single APC for doing the mission.
Unless "At The Gates" and "Defence At The Gates" are different missions.
They are indeed different. "Defense At The Gates" occurs at the entrance to the Kobali city. "At The Gates" occurs at the entrance to the Vaadwuar base in the north.
They are indeed different. "Defense At The Gates" occurs at the entrance to the Kobali city. "At The Gates" occurs at the entrance to the Vaadwuar base in the north.
Well.
Now I look like a plonker.
You're just a machine. And machines can be broken.
I welcome all efforts on Cryptic's part to achieve actual balance in game rewards! I won't be able to log in & test it for a few hours, but I look forward to testing out the new rewards.
Expendables Fleet: Andrew - Bajoran Fed Engineer Ken'taura - Rom/Fed Scientist Gwyllim - Human Fed Delta Tac Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
I'd like to give everyone praising additional XP/SP rewards a gentle reminder that there's currently a double XP event taking place.
As always, despite all their other problems, Cryptic really knows how to time these events. The XP event is going to skew people's perceptions of the changes made to XP earned. Not sure what kind of smoke and mirrors Cryptic plans on using once the event ends and people find how little they're really still earning.
Knowing their pattern, they'll probably just run another event.
"There will never be enough blood to wash away my need for vengeance! A single world...I could destroy a million worlds and it would not be enough! Your existence is an insult to the memory of my people! I will continue my fight, even if I must fight alone!"
As always, despite all their other problems, Cryptic really knows how to time these events. The XP event is going to skew people's perceptions of the changes made to XP earned. Not sure what kind of smoke and mirrors Cryptic plans on using once the event ends and people find how little they're really still earning.
Knowing their pattern, they'll probably just run another event.
They got the real way to launch NERFs this time around...after 5 years. Heck even an infant can learn quicker.
Wait till Monday (XP bonus weekend end) to see where those white knights will be today.
... who needs to play the game for entertainment, the blogs and resulting forum storms are far more entertaining and free! Free 2 Laugh!
Wait till Monday (XP bonus weekend end) to see where those white knights will be today.
More like the following Monday, because so many of them seem to be weekend warriors who probably don't average more than ten minutes in-game per weekday.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
Adding Ancient Power Cells to some of the missions on Kobali Prime (it's the one Elite Mark I've been unable to get, and I need 13 of them to complete my Delta Quadrant Reputation armor set/costume. Nice to know I'll be done in ~2wks now!).
The addition of Dilithium to regular story missions along with the 25% XP increase on replay.
Skill points added to Adventure/Battle Zones, and the increase to queue missions.
The Less-Good:
While overall, I think this update is a step in the right direction, it really feels like a step forward after already taking 10-steps back. Missions, DOffing, Queues, etc... All those already had XP nerfed with DR. So while increasing it sounds great (and it is!), it's really just adding (some of) it back.
I still feel the spec tree takes too long to fill, especially if I want to have alts characters. Perhaps you could reduce the amount of XP required, add a "shared account XP" or "sponsorship" feature (similar to what you added to Reps).
Nerfing Argala... I've played Argala, even playing 3-4 times in row a couple of times, but I don't feel I've been "grinding" it as others have talked about. I just go about playing other things. That being said, I always felt that if "Argala was the best", it was still short. So lessening it to bring it down in line with other patrols seems the wrong decision. Raising the other patrols to match Argala would have been preferred.
As others have mentioned, the goal of X time for Y rewards sounds great, but given how it might only take 10mins to complete an STF versus 40mins to (re)play a story mission, I don't think I'm getting 4x the rewards.
More Dil is great, and I know the purpose is to give us options for how to get it, not necessarily to get us more, but I really wish there were more options to refine it. The 9k daily refinement limit (including Vet/Fleet bonuses which cost time/effort and a DOff slot for that extra 1k/day) just isn't enough.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
As always, despite all their other problems, Cryptic really knows how to time these events. The XP event is going to skew people's perceptions of the changes made to XP earned. Not sure what kind of smoke and mirrors Cryptic plans on using once the event ends and people find how little they're really still earning.
Knowing their pattern, they'll probably just run another event.
Agreed. I did a Defend R'hihhohohohoh Station Elite and it paid out 5k XP. I was like "Cool! This is where it should be! TRIBBLE Argala!" But then I remembered its XP boost time, so it's only like 3k or so.
All Adventure Zone and Battle Zone missions award Skill Points and Expertise for completion.
We added Elite Marks (Borg Neural Processors, Ancient Power Cells, Voth Cybernetic Implants, and Isomorphic Injections) to Adventure/Battle Zones. We wanted to respond to feedback that there were not enough places to earn elite marks outside of PvE Queues:
Borg Neural Processors have been added as a once per day reward to the following missions on the Defera Invasion Zone: Modus Operandi, Getting to the Bottom of Things, Uninvited Guests, Counter Offensive
Modus Operandi doesn't have a neural processor listed as a reward. I'm guessing as it's the only easy mission listed, and all the others are hard, this is an error in the statement? Or is it meant to be on that mission?
*******************************************
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
"First-play rewards for repeatable Delta Rising missions have been improved from Mk XIII Rare rewards to Mk XIII Very Rare rewards." Retroactive upgrades or folks who already played em are SOL?
It seems they actually want to force everyone to play the game one specific way.
The problem is, they can't really take away the choice from a player. "Either you play the game like we want you to or you don't play at all" The answer is easy... just don't play.
No. The changes are to allow you to pay the game the way you want to. Virtualy aything you do in the game earns you Dilitium and XP. The only proviso with that is they don't want everyone repeating the exactly same thing over and over again.
And these changes even affect the devs too. Geko admitted he headed to Argala to level up any new T6 ship he got.
No. The changes are to allow you to pay the game the way you want to. Virtualy aything you do in the game earns you Dilitium and XP. The only proviso with that is they don't want everyone repeating the exactly same thing over and over again.
And these changes even affect the devs too. Geko admitted he headed to Argala to level up any new T6 ship he got.
The way you want to? Are you insane?
This change, along with ALL cooldowns on content, forces you to NOT play the way you want to. You CAN NOT solely play the missions you like. It forces you to play the content you DON'T LIKE. Or, y'know, not play AT ALL.
You like Argala? Too bad, you can only do it once per half hour. You like Infected? Too bad.
This change, along with ALL cooldowns on content, forces you to NOT play the way you want to. You CAN NOT solely play the missions you like. It forces you to play the content you DON'T LIKE. Or, y'know, not play AT ALL.
You like Argala? Too bad, you can only do it once per half hour. You like Infected? Too bad.
Didn't read my small proviso abot the cooldowns, eh?
But I am quite sane and playing the content I want to play. I like patrol missions. Argala was nice because of the kill XP helped level up ships in Mastery. ButrI accept that I can't do that repeated back to back any more. But there are lots of Patrol missions for me to play.
I just got ouft of Japori in Tau Dewa. I just picked up a Daily Bonus for Romulan Marks, 7K of Expertise, 7K of Specialization XP and 720 Dililithium Ore. I'm gonna be living like a King now. Ever better than before.
PvE queues have had their Skill Point and Expertise rewards increased significantly. For most, this is approximately a three-fold increase.
Dear mister Gray,
I tested out the increased SP reward in Undine Infiltration Elite yesterday after the patch.
- Killing of ground critter grants 17 SP in elite mode.
- SP reward for successful completion for this match was ~5300 SP in elite mode
Those rewards would indeed seem as an in increase if it hadnt been for skill point weekend where I got them which makes your whole communication close to absurd.
If you want that your customers have trust in your future announcement I suggest refraining from relative terms like greatly or three-fold increase because for the players the outcome is basically nothing when the base value already was nothing.
It was obviously not in your intention to grand players SP rewards by playing endgame queues because the completion of approximately SIXTY would be needed to gain one specialisation point. You may have been pleased with this announcement but considering that you have nerfed other means in game for level progress I suspect that players who hoped that this adjustment will fill the empty queue lists won't be.
Your disappointed, unhappy but loyal customer
- Connor
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Dilithium rewards in the Voth Battlezone have been halved. Arnold's Dailys, capture rewards, every Dilithium reward has been cut in half.
Why, Cryptic? Why won't you let us have fun? I hope the backlash to all of these nerfs will make them rethink their strategy. These "XP Boosts" they speak of are non-existant.
Why, Cryptic? Why won't you let us have fun? I hope the backlash to all of these nerfs will make them rethink their strategy.
There have been people complaining, and actually leaving, since DR came out, and this still hasn't made them rethink anything. They are apparently content staying the course, so long as there are people, however fewer, still playing and paying.
Heck, the sudden increase in Command Ships I've seen everywhere must mean their ship sale, at least, was a success. They're probably too busy drooling over the money they got from that, to be worried about will happen when people realize that XP rewards are still anemic. They'll just throw another event or sale again, to continue propping things up.
"There will never be enough blood to wash away my need for vengeance! A single world...I could destroy a million worlds and it would not be enough! Your existence is an insult to the memory of my people! I will continue my fight, even if I must fight alone!"
Cryptic, you guys went the wrong way with this in most areas. The addition of dil to mission and undoing the normal stf dil rewards was the only good move Im seeing. Others will begin to feel the pain after the bonus weekend is over. Clever move though doing these changes and hiding them behind the bonus weekend. You guys are nearly sinister in TRIBBLE players from a dark, unseen corner. Im sadly impressed.
The patrol nerfs and timegates are a HUGE mistake, Im calling it now. There should have been buffs to Patrols making Argala-level rewards across the board.
Its getting old to have decent reward systems, you guys nerfing them and getting 10-50% back and calling that a buff. Its like buying players a pizza, taking it away and then giving us a single slice and calling it a buff to pizza.
Time for me to finally put my ships in permanent drydock. The changes made have effectively time-gated the entire STO experience. That seems the intent so well done, I guess.
Im guessing there will be a sentiment at Cryptic that players should be grateful. Good luck with that.
Last night I played a couple-three of my Alts who haven't reached L60 yet (they were L51-L52 when I started). On each character I completed DOff missions, did Q Event/Academy Dailies, 5-8 patrols, 3-4 STFs, and one or more story missions (varied, but each played at least Dust-to-Dust).
I felt like I made little progression for the efforts I did.
I think at most I gained 3/4 of a level, so some characters didn't even advance one level! This is extremely disappointing, considering this thread refers to the addition of rewards and we are supposed to be in a double-XP weekend.
So, after this bonus weekend, all these currently set XP rewards are going to get halved?
Honestly, guys, this is just too few XP. Too few, by far!
:mad:
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Cryptic, you guys went the wrong way with this in most areas. The addition of dil to mission and undoing the normal stf dil rewards was the only good move Im seeing. Others will begin to feel the pain after the bonus weekend is over. Clever move though doing these changes and hiding them behind the bonus weekend. You guys are nearly sinister in TRIBBLE players from a dark, unseen corner. Im sadly impressed.
The patrol nerfs and timegates are a HUGE mistake, Im calling it now. There should have been buffs to Patrols making Argala-level rewards across the board.
Its getting old to have decent reward systems, you guys nerfing them and getting 10-50% back and calling that a buff. Its like buying players a pizza, taking it away and then giving us a single slice and calling it a buff to pizza.
Time for me to finally put my ships in permanent drydock. The changes made have effectively time-gated the entire STO experience. That seems the intent so well done, I guess.
Im guessing there will be a sentiment at Cryptic that players should be grateful. Good luck with that.
100% agreed...lots of noobs think it was a great change...dont count your golden eggs till Monday hit you on the behind
Comments
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So, unless I just did the wrong mission on Kobali Prime three times, this new feature doesn't work. I haven't received a single APC for doing the mission.
Unless "At The Gates" and "Defence At The Gates" are different missions.
i want to max things as fast as i had for the nearly 5 years i had been playing befor DR, how unreasonable of me. :rolleyes:
i want a maxed out character as quickly as possible so i can pvp were the only variable left is my skill, an exceedingly difficult proposition these days when this game is so gear and ship dependent. the pve in and of itself is not worth playing, i have little or negative fun doing any of it because the npcs dont even rate as placeholders. having to do the amount i have to now to attain my goal, its beyond the point of not being worth it by an order of magnitude. so i went from a player that spent multiple hours in game 5 to 7 days a week for 4 years strait to 0 hours 0 days a week, after i completed the delta rep. it was clear by then that cryptic was never going to make this game as approachable and the grind as reasonable as it was pre DR, not until enough of the player base stopped bending over, rationalizing it and white knighting it.
i don't have the issue were i max out a character and get board and stop playing, like pve'ers have, so don't even bother trying to convince me of anything. when my character is maxed, only then do i get to have fun, the work is over. but for pve'ers, it was 'too easy' to max, and there was 'nothing to do' after they did, and would only come back when a new season launched. we have these people to thank for the ruination of this game at everyone else who was actually having fun's expense.
WoW is just a baby compared to Ultima Online. Yes that ancient geezer is still around.
http://www.uo.com/
They are indeed different. "Defense At The Gates" occurs at the entrance to the Kobali city. "At The Gates" occurs at the entrance to the Vaadwuar base in the north.
Well.
Now I look like a plonker.
... But your Avatar looks nothing like Rimmer!
It is pretty confusing though.
Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci
Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac
Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
Free Tibet!
As always, despite all their other problems, Cryptic really knows how to time these events. The XP event is going to skew people's perceptions of the changes made to XP earned. Not sure what kind of smoke and mirrors Cryptic plans on using once the event ends and people find how little they're really still earning.
Knowing their pattern, they'll probably just run another event.
right, its not like any of us know how to divide by 2....those devs are sooo sneaky
That would make it exactly the type of needlessly complicated mechanic that Cryptic likes.
But clearly they're counting on many players overestimating the value of the base experience increases made in this patch, due to the bonus event.
Some of us may know how to divide by two, but others wander into advanced/elite space with 3-digit DPS.
They got the real way to launch NERFs this time around...after 5 years. Heck even an infant can learn quicker.
Wait till Monday (XP bonus weekend end) to see where those white knights will be today.
The Good:
The Less-Good:
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Agreed. I did a Defend R'hihhohohohoh Station Elite and it paid out 5k XP. I was like "Cool! This is where it should be! TRIBBLE Argala!" But then I remembered its XP boost time, so it's only like 3k or so.
Ugh.
Modus Operandi doesn't have a neural processor listed as a reward. I'm guessing as it's the only easy mission listed, and all the others are hard, this is an error in the statement? Or is it meant to be on that mission?
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
No. The changes are to allow you to pay the game the way you want to. Virtualy aything you do in the game earns you Dilitium and XP. The only proviso with that is they don't want everyone repeating the exactly same thing over and over again.
And these changes even affect the devs too. Geko admitted he headed to Argala to level up any new T6 ship he got.
The way you want to? Are you insane?
This change, along with ALL cooldowns on content, forces you to NOT play the way you want to. You CAN NOT solely play the missions you like. It forces you to play the content you DON'T LIKE. Or, y'know, not play AT ALL.
You like Argala? Too bad, you can only do it once per half hour. You like Infected? Too bad.
Didn't read my small proviso abot the cooldowns, eh?
But I am quite sane and playing the content I want to play. I like patrol missions. Argala was nice because of the kill XP helped level up ships in Mastery. ButrI accept that I can't do that repeated back to back any more. But there are lots of Patrol missions for me to play.
I just got ouft of Japori in Tau Dewa. I just picked up a Daily Bonus for Romulan Marks, 7K of Expertise, 7K of Specialization XP and 720 Dililithium Ore. I'm gonna be living like a King now. Ever better than before.
Sorry, what were we talking about?
Dear mister Gray,
I tested out the increased SP reward in Undine Infiltration Elite yesterday after the patch.
- Killing of ground critter grants 17 SP in elite mode.
- SP reward for successful completion for this match was ~5300 SP in elite mode
Those rewards would indeed seem as an in increase if it hadnt been for skill point weekend where I got them which makes your whole communication close to absurd.
If you want that your customers have trust in your future announcement I suggest refraining from relative terms like greatly or three-fold increase because for the players the outcome is basically nothing when the base value already was nothing.
It was obviously not in your intention to grand players SP rewards by playing endgame queues because the completion of approximately SIXTY would be needed to gain one specialisation point. You may have been pleased with this announcement but considering that you have nerfed other means in game for level progress I suspect that players who hoped that this adjustment will fill the empty queue lists won't be.
Your disappointed, unhappy but loyal customer
- Connor
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Why, Cryptic? Why won't you let us have fun? I hope the backlash to all of these nerfs will make them rethink their strategy. These "XP Boosts" they speak of are non-existant.
There have been people complaining, and actually leaving, since DR came out, and this still hasn't made them rethink anything. They are apparently content staying the course, so long as there are people, however fewer, still playing and paying.
Heck, the sudden increase in Command Ships I've seen everywhere must mean their ship sale, at least, was a success. They're probably too busy drooling over the money they got from that, to be worried about will happen when people realize that XP rewards are still anemic. They'll just throw another event or sale again, to continue propping things up.
What ARE you dribbling about?
Cryptic, you guys went the wrong way with this in most areas. The addition of dil to mission and undoing the normal stf dil rewards was the only good move Im seeing. Others will begin to feel the pain after the bonus weekend is over. Clever move though doing these changes and hiding them behind the bonus weekend. You guys are nearly sinister in TRIBBLE players from a dark, unseen corner. Im sadly impressed.
The patrol nerfs and timegates are a HUGE mistake, Im calling it now. There should have been buffs to Patrols making Argala-level rewards across the board.
Its getting old to have decent reward systems, you guys nerfing them and getting 10-50% back and calling that a buff. Its like buying players a pizza, taking it away and then giving us a single slice and calling it a buff to pizza.
Time for me to finally put my ships in permanent drydock. The changes made have effectively time-gated the entire STO experience. That seems the intent so well done, I guess.
Im guessing there will be a sentiment at Cryptic that players should be grateful. Good luck with that.
I felt like I made little progression for the efforts I did.
I think at most I gained 3/4 of a level, so some characters didn't even advance one level! This is extremely disappointing, considering this thread refers to the addition of rewards and we are supposed to be in a double-XP weekend.
So, after this bonus weekend, all these currently set XP rewards are going to get halved?
Honestly, guys, this is just too few XP. Too few, by far!
:mad:
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
100% agreed...lots of noobs think it was a great change...dont count your golden eggs till Monday hit you on the behind