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Tribble Maintenance and Release Notes - May 1, 2015

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    jackal1701apwjackal1701apw Member Posts: 669 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    well, i remember talking to Heretic about this.

    These missions were given an above curve reward boost to encourage a certain type of play (sign in twice a day at the beginning of the day and when returning home from work).

    There was a meaning to it - it wasn't an error it was deliberate gaming of the system based on research and game theory. Getting people hunting out the higher payouts (that aren't impossible difficult to find and have a specific turn over/cooldown)

    But hey, you guys are much better devs than he ever was... right? Because what you have done since he left has been the best ever and all the players love it.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

    ...#LLAP...
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    spyralpegacyonspyralpegacyon Member Posts: 408 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    I think I would agree more with your design instincts on this if I saw the pattern as you described it. But I also don't believe that was a formula error. I seem to recall Geoff explaining that he wanted an assymetrical distribution like that such that playing the DOff assignments once or twice a day yielded more reward than playing them a few times a week or playing continuously. Basically, the high multiplier level is the intended rate of play and longer and shorter DOff assignments are penalized for being too casual or too hardcore.

    Spit-balling, but I'll play Bort for a moment:

    The initial design was OK when skill points and commendation points had a hard cap. Geoff here was successful in making these the missions he wanted players to run, the problem was that he never planned for the specialization system. These missions originally lost their value once you were maxed out in skill and commendation points. Now that we have a continually floating skill point cap, the missions are now incredibly more valuable. Perhaps more so than other doff missions. If everyone - hardcore, casual, and their grandmother - are running these missions to the exclusion of others, you've got a balance problem.

    'But why not rebalance everything higher?' Because then you've turned a doff balance problem into a game-wide balance problem. Cryptic in all likely has this all planned out, and part of that planning is keeping skill point gains in line with how fast they can come up with the next set of specialization trees. Hence why there hasn't been any improvement in XP gains, all the while craking out a whole new two levels of Pilot spec trees to aim for. Throw in the lag issues likely putting a governor on any new spec trees, and its likely they're going to hammer out every single bump so that we're not all spec'd out well before we get tree number five.

    TL;DR: Geoff never designed doffing around Cryptic increasing the vertical progression.
    tumblr_n1hmq4Xl7S1rzu2xzo2_400.gif
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    proteus22proteus22 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    well this would really cheese me off bort except I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO LOHIN AND PLAY SINCE SEASON 10 STARTED. WHY FIX THE DOFF ECP MESS WHEN PLAYERS CAN'T EVEN LOGIN?
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    darkknightucfdarkknightucf Member Posts: 1,546 Media Corps
    edited May 2015
    proteus22 wrote: »
    well this would really cheese me off bort except I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO LOHIN AND PLAY SINCE SEASON 10 STARTED. WHY FIX THE DOFF ECP MESS WHEN PLAYERS CAN'T EVEN LOGIN?

    I heard that if you fix your PC, that you'll be able to log in... it's either that, or you're using AOL (damn, I just dated myself).
    @Odenknight | U.S.S. Challenger | "Remember The Seven"
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    alienfrombeyondalienfrombeyond Member Posts: 141 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Because systems cannot be maintained, improved, or expanded safely if they are built on inaccurate data.
    So that's why we've gotten so many improvements to XP gain in other areas after "inaccurate data" has been "fixed" in places like Japori/Argala/Gerren/patrols in general/Red Alerts right? Then why do I feel like queues are a waste of my time except for marks/materials? Or that I can't be assed to do Episode Replays even with this week's incentive unless there's a Replay Event going for free lobi? How about random Deep Space Encounters being something people hunt down and join together for instead of rolling your eyes at as you fly past to your actual destination?

    When oh when will we actually see "improvements"?
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    themariethemarie Member Posts: 1,055 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    The solution was to fix a problem they noticed, one I am guilty of.

    It is entirely possible to level a toon using just DOFFing. Then you run the missions and power-ball your way to the top. Done it three times now.

    I suspect a few of us... myself included... have done the same thing with one or more of our Deltas. This is not working as intended, we are not playing the game the way they dictate the game should be played.

    DOFFing apparently was never meant to be more than a lol-level pittance of XP and the occasional T4 reward. Hunting and running those high-payout missions... that's not how the game was meant to be played. This is a GRINDING game, not a casual-time-sink. If we are not GRINDING relentlessly we are not playing the game correctly.

    It would have been very simple to bring the other numbers up to match the "error" thus leveling the floor. But no, instead the decision was made to take away yet another source of XP in hopes of forcing people to grind.

    Not amused. Gets harder and harder every day to justify logging in. I simply don't have the time to spend grinding the same missions over and over again.


    You want us to play? Give us numerical rewards that actually contribute twords leveling progress. I shouldn't have to play the same mission 100+ times to level up once.
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    leviathan99#2867 leviathan99 Member Posts: 7,747 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Spit-balling, but I'll play Bort for a moment:

    The initial design was OK when skill points and commendation points had a hard cap. Geoff here was successful in making these the missions he wanted players to run, the problem was that he never planned for the specialization system. These missions originally lost their value once you were maxed out in skill and commendation points. Now that we have a continually floating skill point cap, the missions are now incredibly more valuable. Perhaps more so than other doff missions. If everyone - hardcore, casual, and their grandmother - are running these missions to the exclusion of others, you've got a balance problem.

    'But why not rebalance everything higher?' Because then you've turned a doff balance problem into a game-wide balance problem. Cryptic in all likely has this all planned out, and part of that planning is keeping skill point gains in line with how fast they can come up with the next set of specialization trees. Hence why there hasn't been any improvement in XP gains, all the while craking out a whole new two levels of Pilot spec trees to aim for. Throw in the lag issues likely putting a governor on any new spec trees, and its likely they're going to hammer out every single bump so that we're not all spec'd out well before we get tree number five.

    TL;DR: Geoff never designed doffing around Cryptic increasing the vertical progression.

    All fair if that's what Cryptic intends. Cryptic's devs can intend anything they want to. I've given up on that fight for awhile now, aside from the idea that their design intent may or may not work and may or may not create an enjoyable game, which consequences will bear out better than forum posts.

    I'm not saying that they shouldn't change it. Maybe you are right. I just think it's important to understand that the current design wasn't an error on Heretic's part. It was deliberate at the time.

    And maybe they need better internal documentation of design intent if they run across things like that and assume that every lump in the floor is an error. That doesn't mean you don't remodel now and then and you just made one valid case for it. I just think it's important to check for buried gas lines and wiring before you remodel a house. You want to be careful when removing a load bearing beam.

    In this case, evening things out might well be a fine choice for reasons that you outlined but that might also mean it would be good to have other concurrent changes planned before you regularize what's in place. Or it might not.

    But this does represent a change in the intent behind how the system is used. I'm not finding fault with the idea of that. I'd have a LOT of big changes with the system. I thought what Geko said on P1 recently echoed what I was saying before DOffing even launched. It's linear. It's non-visual. It's separated from the game. There's minimal emotional connection to the officers in the way that there might be to creatures in a Magic deck or Pokemon or whatever. I'd be all for big changes to the system.

    I'm just interjecting to clarify that this is a design intent change and not a spreadsheet error being fixed and that, consequently, it's a pretty fundamental change. Not that I wouldn't make this change or bigger changes. But it's not an error.
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    virusdancervirusdancer Member Posts: 18,687 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Because systems cannot be maintained, improved, or expanded safely if they are built on inaccurate data.

    QFT.

    We just wish that this kind of mentality could be applied to the rest of the game, and with expedience as well as due diligence.

    Thank you.

    There are various things where that has taken place...usually followed by half a dozen or more threads complaining about PvPers getting stuff in the game nerfed. ;)

    edit: It's kind of funny, since the complaining that I've seen is basically the same with other things. Things that are painfully obvious that they're broken...and...yet folks are complaining. It's kind of a trip...and...definitely a sad commentary on some in the community. But oh well, it's nothing new...
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    leviathan99#2867 leviathan99 Member Posts: 7,747 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    themarie wrote: »
    It is entirely possible to level a toon using just DOFFing. Then you run the missions and power-ball your way to the top. Done it three times now.

    I suspect a few of us... myself included... have done the same thing with one or more of our Deltas. This is not working as intended, we are not playing the game the way they dictate the game should be played.

    Except, as noted, none of this is actually accurate. DOffing was created in part to provide a zero combat leveling system. It may not be what is intended NOW but it is what WAS intended with the introduction of the system. If the intent has changed, say that the intent has changed. But don't pretend the original intent was a big error, not when we had Heretic and even the game's EP cite DOffing as an intended alternative leveling track.
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    erikossserikosss Member Posts: 65 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Doffing is already a very slow grind.
    Now they are making it slowing. OMG :(

    Why not just add the taken points to other points in the progression.
    That way can doffing does not become even more slower.

    There is more critical bugs to resolve in the game ..... like LAG caused by server expensive powers.

    Just getting very tired of the increased grind and reduced rewards.

    Very tired.
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    architect13architect13 Member Posts: 1,076 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Let me try and clear up a few misconceptions and possibly even cool some heads around here, regarding the Doffing XP adjustment. Fix. Let's call it what it is: we fixed an error in the code.

    When you see a string of numbers laid out as:

    10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 40, 3, 2, 1

    ... you don't presume it's correct. And once you've determined that the series has an inconsistency, you find yourself with what we in Design sometimes call "a bump in the floor."

    As in, if you have a big flat floor with one obvious bump in it, you don't raise the entire floor to the level of the bump. You take a hammer to that thing, and you fix it.

    This fix was not made with the conscious intention of decreasing anyone's enjoyment of the game, or ability to earn XP/CXP, or anything else we're currently being accused of. The fix was made because it is a fix -- a problem existed, and had to be corrected.

    So, yes: Doff Assignments with durations between 12 and 15.9 hours were awarding roughly 10x the amount of numerics they were designed to reward. I'm sorry if you assumed that was an intended part of the system, but it was, in fact, an egregious misplacement of a decimal place, and needed to be corrected.

    We will take another look at Doff Assignment XP gain as a whole in the near future, and see if it's reasonable to consider any sort of systemic increases. But we aren't going to add back in a bug, or revert a fix to such an obvious error.

    Actually . . . the entire floor needs to be raised . . . simple solution!


    Player enjoyment of the game . . . "a bump in the floor."
    Have you tried the new forum on your phone?
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    jrichard1979jrichard1979 Member Posts: 73 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    That is correct.



    Any chance of those referral photonic officers ever being allowed to be reclaimed? I no longer play my old main and would love to get my referral photonic on my new main.
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    thutmosis85thutmosis85 Member Posts: 2,358 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Any chance of those referral photonic officers ever being allowed to be reclaimed? I no longer play my old main and would love to get my referral photonic on my new main.

    Pretty sure they are "reclaimable" .... -> "Legacy Unlocks"
    Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
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    reximuzreximuz Member Posts: 1,168 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    If y'all devs love Korean MMO style grinding mechanics so much, I suggest quitting your jobs and going to develop there, instead of torturing us.

    LOL, this is the least grindy Western MMO I ever played, even World of ******** oft accused of catering to casuals on its forums, is massively more grindy than this game is. I seriously doubt that anyone who compares this game to an Eastern MMO has ever played one.

    If you want all the rewards instantly, why don't you go use a hack on a single player game instead of posting here and torturing us?
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    thutmosis85thutmosis85 Member Posts: 2,358 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    reximuz wrote: »
    LOL, this is the least grindy Western MMO I ever played, even World of ******** oft accused of catering to casuals on its forums, is massively more grindy than this game is. I seriously doubt that anyone who compares this game to an Eastern MMO has ever played one.

    If you want all the rewards instantly, why don't you go use a hack on a single player game instead of posting here and torturing us?

    Meh probably depens of your Def. of Grind ... played plenty of WoW on several Servers etc ... always felt "motivated", but STO's "Grind" is just soul-crushing afaik, given up on Spec. Points or anything like it, a long time ago ...
    Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
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    sardociansardocian Member Posts: 187 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Tribble is being brought down for maintenance to update it to build ST.50.20150425a.4.
    Systems:
    • Placed a hard-cap of +50% on the +CritChance gained by “Particle Manipulator”.
    • Reduced the Critical Chance benefit per point of “Particle Generators” from .25 to .20.
      • Added a Critical Severity buff.
    • Each point of “Particle Generators” will grant .1% Crit Severity for Exotic Damage abilities, and there is no cap on this benefit.
    Interesting bit with the Particle manipulator. So it was never meant to be a all ways Crit trait? I assume I can use added Crit Hit from consoles to boost Crit Hit with exotic damage past 50%(Vulnerability locators, Tachyokinetic converter)?

    Critical Hits in general didn't get capped. Just the benefit this specific Trait offers.

    Just curious, is there any other way to raise the crit chance of exotic damage, other than this trait? If not, you are essentially capping the crit chance to ~50%
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    somebobsomebob Member Posts: 556 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    When you see a string of numbers laid out as:

    10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 40, 3, 2, 1

    ... you don't presume it's correct. And once you've determined that the series has an inconsistency, you find yourself with what we in Design sometimes call "a bump in the floor."

    Except one big thing - when you look at DOffing as a whole, the 'exp gain per time invested' is more like:

    5, 4, 3, 2, 40, 3, 3, 3, 1, 0.5.

    Have you even LOOKED at the longer DOff missions in the Delta Quadrant? Even LOOKED at the 40 and 70 hour missions that reward JACK SQUAT for your time invested? Those are the missions that need to be fixed, need to be fixed IMMEDIATELY, and why this nerf needs to not go Live next week.

    Of course, you've already made your decision. It (nor DOffing as a whole) won't get fixed. We all know this.
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    virusdancervirusdancer Member Posts: 18,687 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    sardocian wrote: »
    Just curious, is there any other way to raise the crit chance of exotic damage, other than this trait? If not, you are essentially capping the crit chance to ~50%

    Any of the generic increases will do it.

    Romulan SROs
    Vulnerability Locators
    Intelligence Flanking
    Various Universal Consoles that increase CrtH
    Attack Pattern Alpha
    etc, etc, etc.
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    jrichard1979jrichard1979 Member Posts: 73 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Pretty sure they are "reclaimable" .... -> "Legacy Unlocks"

    Mine is not. Neither is my photonic tribble. I also cant reclaim my escort i bought long time ago that came with cloaking device. Tried going through support 4 times already. Finally just gave up. Would be nice if somebody at cryptic would reply here and at least tell me to stop wasting my breath. Support already told me that. :(
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    thutmosis85thutmosis85 Member Posts: 2,358 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    osric200 wrote: »
    I never understood why doffing gave player experience to begin with since your character is not doing anything. There are many many good reasons to doff, this is not the apocalypse people.

    Define "not doing anything" since you already had to fly around and look for those "special" Assignments ... does it equal "not shooting 5 Waves of generic enemies" by any chance ... you know the true spirit of "Star Trek" ?
    Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
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    lucho80lucho80 Member Posts: 6,600 Bug Hunter
    edited May 2015
    Let me try and clear up a few misconceptions and possibly even cool some heads around here, regarding the Doffing XP adjustment. Fix. Let's call it what it is: we fixed an error in the code.

    When you see a string of numbers laid out as:

    10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 40, 3, 2, 1

    ... you don't presume it's correct. And once you've determined that the series has an inconsistency, you find yourself with what we in Design sometimes call "a bump in the floor."

    As in, if you have a big flat floor with one obvious bump in it, you don't raise the entire floor to the level of the bump. You take a hammer to that thing, and you fix it.

    This fix was not made with the conscious intention of decreasing anyone's enjoyment of the game, or ability to earn XP/CXP, or anything else we're currently being accused of. The fix was made because it is a fix -- a problem existed, and had to be corrected.

    So, yes: Doff Assignments with durations between 12 and 15.9 hours were awarding roughly 10x the amount of numerics they were designed to reward. I'm sorry if you assumed that was an intended part of the system, but it was, in fact, an egregious misplacement of a decimal place, and needed to be corrected.

    We will take another look at Doff Assignment XP gain as a whole in the near future, and see if it's reasonable to consider any sort of systemic increases. But we aren't going to add back in a bug, or revert a fix to such an obvious error.

    Quite frankly Bort. I saw your and Geko's numbers, but on the other hand, the XP gain from doffing is quite insignificant past level 50. Moving the decimal point of all the other assignments would have been nicer.

    In general, there is a lot of discontent about the XP gain, specially past level 50, and some adjustment up would be appreciated. Like I said before, the only time the xp gain seemed fine was during the delta week bonus. Having to play 5-6+ hours to gain a single spec point sucks.
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    sardociansardocian Member Posts: 187 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Any of the generic increases will do it.

    Romulan SROs
    Vulnerability Locators
    Intelligence Flanking
    Various Universal Consoles that increase CrtH
    Attack Pattern Alpha
    etc, etc, etc.

    Thank you!

    I wish I knew that earlier (not that it was needed earlier :))... time to go adjust my build...
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    faxmachinefaxmachine Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Let me try and clear up a few misconceptions and possibly even cool some heads around here, regarding the Doffing XP adjustment. Fix. Let's call it what it is: we fixed an error in the code.

    When you see a string of numbers laid out as:

    10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 40, 3, 2, 1

    ... you don't presume it's correct. And once you've determined that the series has an inconsistency, you find yourself with what we in Design sometimes call "a bump in the floor."

    As in, if you have a big flat floor with one obvious bump in it, you don't raise the entire floor to the level of the bump. You take a hammer to that thing, and you fix it.

    This fix was not made with the conscious intention of decreasing anyone's enjoyment of the game, or ability to earn XP/CXP, or anything else we're currently being accused of. The fix was made because it is a fix -- a problem existed, and had to be corrected.

    So, yes: Doff Assignments with durations between 12 and 15.9 hours were awarding roughly 10x the amount of numerics they were designed to reward. I'm sorry if you assumed that was an intended part of the system, but it was, in fact, an egregious misplacement of a decimal place, and needed to be corrected.

    We will take another look at Doff Assignment XP gain as a whole in the near future, and see if it's reasonable to consider any sort of systemic increases. But we aren't going to add back in a bug, or revert a fix to such an obvious error.

    Sure, I'm buying every bit of that.:rolleyes:
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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    gigaman123gigaman123 Member Posts: 76 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Foundry editing is still not up... It's the only thing I care about for the time being. Hopefully it'll be up in the next patch, and soon.
    Veteran of STO, had it for 5 years. Unfortunately, my Original account is gone.

    "Make it so" - Captain Picard

    Build I am working for my Federation, Klingon, and Romulans.
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    dareaudareau Member Posts: 2,390 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    osric200 wrote: »
    Your character gives an order. That's it. He doesn't learn to give orders better.

    So let's take the "in character" viewpoint of the typical battle, say, ISA...

    Captain: Prepare for Combat. Beams: Fire at Will. Load Torpedo spread and fire as soon as loaded. Execute Attack Pattern Beta. Tactical Teams, keep an eye on our shields diverting power to incoming attack vectors. Divert emergency power to shields.

    30 seconds later, repeat the above order sequence.

    30 seconds later, repeat again.

    Guess what, 30 seconds later, another repeat.

    ...and so forth till combat ends. Occasionally toss an "activate hazard emitters" or "spawn a gravity well on sphere #7"...

    Heck, don't many captains have the primary order sequence on a "keybind" - the game equivalent of leaving a recorder in the captain's chair that plays the sequence on a repeating tape...

    Yeah, the captain here's doing such a great job of learning how to give orders better...
    Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...

    To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
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    kaspa000kaspa000 Member Posts: 45 Arc User
    edited May 2015
    Because systems cannot be maintained, improved, or expanded safely if they are built on inaccurate data.

    So solution could be to hold off until such a system is ready to be put in place. Give us the players another option. What harm is it causing right now? Leave it be and work on a system that is rewarding to replace it with. You are about to lose a lot of players. I for one will cancel my gold subscription as soon as this goes live and there will be no more zen charging. Al Rivera will forever be known in gaming and Trek circles as the man who oversaw the sinking of STO :/
    Who made the pool yellow? :confused:
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