Y'know, it's players like you who are the reason Devs are like this. "Oh, something's broken and needs to be fixed? Oh, I know - I'll insult them with my knowledge of Star Trek and then tell them how superior I am over them because I throw my money elsewhere. OHOHOHOHOHOHO!"
Or on the flip side of your coin from many players point of view
Thank you Sir may I have another ( Smack )
Thank you Sir may I have another ( Smack )
Thank you Sir may I have another ( Smack )
Thank you Sir may I have another ( Smack )
From many players point of View this is what the Devs have did to us
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
I spent my last cash on this game i knew better but with dil prices as they are grinding for the bortasqu pack isnt really practicle.
And now yet another XP nerf i think its time to start looking for a new game the constant nerfs and uber grinds has officially gotten out of control.
Idk about you people but imo STO has jumped the Shark and it jumped that when DR released anyways im gonna start searching for a new game one thats actually .....FUN.
Y'know, it's players like you who are the reason Devs are like this. "Oh, something's broken and needs to be fixed? Oh, I know - I'll insult them with my knowledge of Star Trek and then tell them how superior I am over them because I throw my money elsewhere. OHOHOHOHOHOHO!"
Or maybe its because the Devs dont care about the players as people in the first place, eh?
Curious, as I'm on the other side of the fence here..
What other MMOs have you able to log in for a total of 10 minutes, queue up something that in a day or two, nets you 2 spec points (basically an entire level if you think of it like that) rinse and repeat.
The spec system at this point is finite, as they are intending to add more, some of you here have openly stated that you plus all of your alts have maxed out all of the spec trees for your characters. You lament that any new players are not going to have such a breeze doing it as you did, I'll give you that.
They could always reward a spec point or 2 after finishing STFs on Advanced or Elite, who knows, either way, that system was never necessarily meant for the casual player to achieve in a month, lets say, but for those who put in the work pound for pound blasting baddies along the way and doing "dungeons".
The way it is or has been, is you're being rewarded(largely) for logging in and out and doing something else away from the game. This is the way it appears to me, and plenty of you will disagree I'm sure.. We are mostly all victims of near instant gratification and reward with little effort, gameplay or otherwise.
Oh and before the response of "grinding is not fun", I totally agree with you, droning away at a task for 2-3 hrs lets say each day isnt fun, though it does depend on what that task is. Plenty of you have done this "grinding" wittingly or not - in games like say WoW, running the same damned dungeon for pieces of super gear or reward so you could sit in the main city and pose for the peasants..
Anyway, this is turning into a needless rant and I apologize. Trendy, you asked for feedback, you are getting it, as far as I am concerned the underlying problem is cutting back xp rewards for doing things in the game. If you guys intend to increase the rewards for participating in events, such as global missions or something everyone can participate in as opposed to singular 1 click projects or tasks, then I think that would be a good idea.
It would be a good idea to let your intentions be known in announcements that while you intend to adjust these rates that its going to be a give and take situation. You take from that and increase this. You want the players to feel like they are accomplishing something worth the effort.
I would like to know how you are getting 2 spec points in a day or 2 from doffing. Inquiring minds want to know.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
From what I've noticed with those 12hr assignments in the Delta Quadrant, when you crit, the rewards (especially specialization points) sometimes scale wayyy too high, thousands of points too high, and sometimes only double the amount. I think it's only supposed to be double.
Methinks you cry too much. Only babies cry about things like this.
"Intelligence is finite, stupidity is infinite" -- Umberto Eco
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Curious, as I'm on the other side of the fence here..
What other MMOs have you able to log in for a total of 10 minutes, queue up something that in a day or two, nets you 2 spec points (basically an entire level if you think of it like that) rinse and repeat.
Genuinely curious here. What queues are you running, that takes a total of 10 minutes, and nets you 2 spec points? If that queue truly exists, I'd like to know.
Genuinely curious here. What queues are you running, that takes a total of 10 minutes, and nets you 2 spec points? If that queue truly exists, I'd like to know.
Even though I read it twice for some reason my brain thought I had typed in 1-2 spec points. But the entire wording in that sentence was wrong. You'd queue up multiple (of the right) doff missions in a span of 1-2 days and reap the benefits. Not that you'd be interested but people have stated which missions yield bigger benefits with the doffs critting earlier in the thread.
I didnt mean you'd log in now and then tomorrow do it, given the 12-20 hour factor, you could log in, max out your schedule, log in wednesday and to the same, ideally you could take another couple of minutes in between to finish up the projects that take a few hours to do and repeat those. If your doff layout is epic, with the right traits for the right assignments, you cannot fail!
If you have an underlying concern that you feel has been waylaid in regards to the leveling curve and XP, then I need to discuss that. I cannot assume nor exact the actions of my predecessors, but if there's an underlying concern that is longstanding with this then I mean to address it with people, not shy from it.
Let's work on this together, eh?
If you are willing to listen, some feedback:
Level 50-60:
Story missions do not give enough xp. There are always gaps that need to be filled which is kind of a problem. Queues do not really give you any meaningful xp as well. So even if you say a lvl 50+ char should farm marks anyway it just does not feel rewarding. Replaying missions also gives reduced xp so not even that is really an option.
You can go grind somewhere, like look for borg alerts. But these days there are cooldowns everywhere and I would rather have a more fun option to gain lvls.
The whole thing is not helped by the fact that new missions are for lvl 60.
The doff missions kind of rescue you at the moment. If you just do like 1-2 missions each time you are on and doff between you can kind of avoid the gaps.
My suggestions:
Double xp for all missions lvl 50+
Reduce the lvl of the missions 50+ so that the new missions can be played sooner.
Level 60+ :
Honestly the only reason I still play is, I pretend there are no spec points. I mean, I will use them if I get them, but I considered taping something over my xp bar. I do not own the necessary microscope to track xp progression at lvl 60+
Every time I do something that rewards xp I feel like I am getting punished. There is absolutely no rewarding experience to be found xp wise.
Honestly I enjoyed the queues a lot more when I had no reason to do them. Every time I look at the specs I just see cool stuff that i will never have. And that makes me sad.
I would at least double any kind of xp gain. Probably triple it for advanced/elite mobs. And make every queue into a x5 xp zone like the borg alert.
Curious, as I'm on the other side of the fence here..
What other MMOs have you able to log in for a total of 10 minutes, queue up something that in a day or two, nets you 2 spec points (basically an entire level if you think of it like that) rinse and repeat.
At two spec points a week, it would take over a year to max out all spec trees currently made.
As for gaining XP through doffing, providing an alternate leveling mechanism was explicitly one of the goals announced for the system. Several other mmos, like EVE online, have similar systems.
If you have an underlying concern that you feel has been waylaid in regards to the leveling curve and XP, then I need to discuss that. I cannot assume nor exact the actions of my predecessors, but if there's an underlying concern that is longstanding with this then I mean to address it with people, not shy from it.
Let's work on this together, eh?
Well, it would be a necro thread and you would have to ban yourself if you posted in it, but there's such a discussion in the review thread I linked in my signature, as an example. I actually speak to the DOFF system and how it fits into the overall whole, among other things. Honestly, the thread takes the WHOLE expansion all at once, instead of trying to divorce any one component from the big picture.
(Yes, it is a TON of reading. But the cool thing? Not once did that thread erupt into a flame war. I am very proud. :sniffle sniffle: )
I may do a retrospective thread at some point, as I have seen improvement in some areas. But to be totally honest, leveling is *not* the area where I have seen meaningful improvement.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
I would like to know how you are getting 2 spec points in a day or 2 from doffing. Inquiring minds want to know.
I'd love to know as well. Earlier in the thread my math was about if you gained a spec point every week only with DOFFing. Which is about how fast I earn them. And again, at that rate of speed you'd take seven and a half months to fill one primary spec from empty to full.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
If you have an underlying concern that you feel has been waylaid in regards to the leveling curve and XP, then I need to discuss that. I cannot assume nor exact the actions of my predecessors, but if there's an underlying concern that is longstanding with this then I mean to address it with people, not shy from it.
Let's work on this together, eh?
I am two points away from finishing the Pilot spec (I had it to 15, and saved up points from the moment the increase was announced). All of my other specializations have about 10 points split between them, with the bulk in Intel. I also have a lot of alts since I like to try new things. However, none of them have progressed much beyond 60.
I bought the Intel ships when they came out. It seemed a decent pack since it gave T6 Intel ships for all three factions. However, I don't have a single character with a maxed out Intel specialization. It's true you don't need the specialization to command an Intel ship, but the synergy is a good reason to do so.
Having those ship options is good, although at this point I'm probably never going to get good use out of them. Then the Command ships came out. With specialization such a slow process, buying them is not a good choice for me. I would never get good use out of them since I cannot level the specialization at a decent rate.
I am greatly anticipating the Pilot ships. I am an escort captain, and have a lot of fun in such ships. However, the rate of specialization gain has me seriously considering if buying more than just the Fed ship(s) is a good idea. It has taken me this long just to finish one specialization on a single character, that I cannot justify putting in the same amount of effort and money into my other characters.
:rolleyes:
Using duty officers was my main method of leveling alts, even without seeking out the assignments soon to have reduced rewards. At this point, I have enough alts that cycling through them all and only taking assignments available in whatever system they're parked takes about an hour. The rest of my time gets used leveling my main, or helping fleet mates with their needs.
So although I will continue playing, and plan to buy at least the Fed Pilot ships, I am increasingly cynical about Cryptic's goals for player advancement, and the game itself. Several times throughout Delta Rising, there have been announcements that changes were being made to rewards to normalize/standardize them. Some things lost, some things gained, but overall we end up with less reward than initially.
:mad:
There are also several cases of devs/CMs claiming to be trying to open communication with the players on these leveling issues, but I haven't noticed anything happen except more reward reductions. I seriously hope this latest attempt is sincere. Trendy, you're one of the best CMs we've had; if you can't pass on our concerns, no one can.
You claim that 100 per hour is "baseline"? Right... Each of those is 6 hours, but have xp of 441, 360, and 294... each of which is substantially lower than 100 per hour.
Heretic himself said that xp per hour is supposed to get lower as you get into longer assignments. Thus comparing a 12 hour with a 30 minute is silly. A much better comparison is things with a similar time to completion. So if it has a drastically better reward per hour than a 6 hour assignment? Yeah It seems obvious what is bugged.
Soo... to get rid of that nasty sampling Bias.... I went to sector space and screenshotted every assignment available. Mmmm data....
Actually that's a good idea. I agree that merely 'numbers' isn't enough to justify more rewards, but specific stuff would be a good reason to do so. I would say maybe a 1% increase if you need something semi-specific, or 2% if you need something very specific. Might not sound like much, but it can add up if factored in with the other stuff I proposed.
Are any of the above arguements showing payouts taking into account the differance in payouts for a crit? Some missions offer items if crit (including contraband) when they don't indicate a item reward. Some xp on a crit is insane on low paying missions, others offer titles on crits.
If I wasn't so busy maintaining a steady spc gain on my main and forcing myself through the Card missions on my delta, I'd spend some time on tribble testing this but, meh, not sure they listen anyways....
NOTE- The haggle missions need to come back. eventually I will run low of these items, and their uses generate alot of xp in doffing.
suppressing Gorn is a generic boring assignment. Actually only a few assignments have any titles associated.
I would say the average is not 100 but more like 50. In fact when I look anything that is 60 exp per hour or more is gold to me. The 6 hour 360's and the 4 hour 240's. There are many long missions that are more like 10 or 20 / hour, which I think will be the new standard. The new 12 hours are close to that come thursday.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I want to break down what I see as some of the problems that could be addressed (and which have been hashed out before):
TL;DR: The exponentially increased leveling curve post-50 has turned a lot of players away as many sources of XP besides missions gets nerfed. The nerfs make it so one has to grind constantly for long periods of time to stay competitive with captain specialization points and leveling. This is not casual friendly as it takes weeks to months for casual players to unlock specialization points and levels. The nerfs are also what leads players now to jump to the conclusion that a bug fix for doffing is really intended to nerf XP gain.
1. Leveling Difference Between Pre- and Post-50 Characters
Up until level 50, characters can normally gain a level for every 1-2 story missions they do. It's a decent xp per time spent ratio and leveling feels fast and efficient. Then you hit 50 and all of a sudden it takes like 10 times more xp to hit the next rank. Instead of filling half the xp bar for a level, a story mission now maybe fills 1-2 bars. This seems unsatisfying.
As you can see, it's a huge curve after hitting 50. While there are good reasons for making it steeper than the pre-50 track (e.g. so you can't max out captain specialization points within 3 days of hard grinding), this curve is far too steep. You are either required to enter a non-stop 8-10 hour grind of STF's and and patrol missions just to reach the next level when 1-2 hours would have done the trick in pre-50 leveling, or you're required to resign yourself to taking weeks if not months to level your character playing a few hours a day.
2. Methods of Leveling
Missions:
Mission XP rewards don't scale the same way that levels do. As a result, it takes more missions to get to the same point post-50 as you would reach doing 1-2 missions pre-50. This feels like a huge disparity. Something could be done here to provide more XP rewards.
Patrols:
Patrols used to be the bread and butter of leveling once missions dried up (there are 1-2 missions per level, which accounts for around 10-15% of a level post-50). Not all patrols were or are equal. The reason people gravitated to certain ones was that destroy ship patrols rewarded more XP than other types of patrol due to the additional XP gain from destroying enemy ships at higher difficulty levels. With the nerfs to patrols, it's more difficult to level quickly and engage in the grindfest required to hit the next level.
Red Alerts:
Red Alerts have also been nerfed recently. Borg Red Alerts had bonus XP and provided a quick way to level captains and gain specialization points (1 Alert could bring in 20-30% of a level). Now they are time gated, which prevents hopping from one Red Alert to another.
The sum total of all these changes are that we get the feeling that every source of XP beyond lackluster mission rewards are being nerfed systematically.
Only when you calculate it as xp per minute... and only when you use carefully chosen examples...
[STUFF]
So yeah... I don't see how this is balanced at all.
Hmm... yeah, sounds good.
suppressing Gorn is a generic boring assignment. Actually only a few assignments have any titles associated.
Try looking in the west side of Cardie space.
If you want to take a very one dimensional look at it and only look at XP/assignment length, then you're naturally going to get a very skewed picture. DOFFing has a lot of parameters to it. Assignment availability is a big one.
If, we can somehow find 20 12 hour assignments on Monday morning, can we find 20 more Monday night? Probably not. I don't think you can even find 20 12 hour assignments at the same time.
How many are there? Once done when do we get to use them again? If I do them Monday morning, when is the next time I can find them? Tuesday morning? Probably not. Wednesday? Thursday even?
If you get hung up on XP per assignment length, you're going to get a very distorted picture of things.
Further, what do these assignments require, what are the casualty risks and the success chance? That needs to be factored in as well.
The end result is that when Heretic made this 12 hour class of assignments, they were extremely rare to find and had other factors made them much more difficult than others, and thus more rewarding. There may have only been 2-3 total originally. When you look at it that way, they are far, far more balanced than just looking at XP/hour, yet that is being entirely ignored.
Now Cryptic is overusing the time class and nerfing everything rather than properly slotting the easy 12 hour jobs to another time class. That is the crux of the issue.
I want to break down what I see as some of the problems that could be addressed (and which have been hashed out before):
TL;DR: The exponentially increased leveling curve post-50 has turned a lot of players away as many sources of XP besides missions gets nerfed. The nerfs make it so one has to grind constantly for long periods of time to stay competitive with captain specialization points and leveling. This is not casual friendly as it takes weeks to months for casual players to unlock specialization points and levels. The nerfs are also what leads players now to jump to the conclusion that a bug fix for doffing is really intended to nerf XP gain.
1. Leveling Difference Between Pre- and Post-50 Characters
Up until level 50, characters can normally gain a level for every 1-2 story missions they do. It's a decent xp per time spent ratio and leveling feels fast and efficient. Then you hit 50 and all of a sudden it takes like 10 times more xp to hit the next rank. Instead of filling half the xp bar for a level, a story mission now maybe fills 1-2 bars. This seems unsatisfying.
As you can see, it's a huge curve after hitting 50. While there are good reasons for making it steeper than the pre-50 track (e.g. so you can't max out captain specialization points within 3 days of hard grinding), this curve is far too steep. You are either required to enter a non-stop 8-10 hour grind of STF's and and patrol missions just to reach the next level when 1-2 hours would have done the trick in pre-50 leveling, or you're required to resign yourself to taking weeks if not months to level your character playing a few hours a day.
2. Methods of Leveling
Missions:
Mission XP rewards don't scale the same way that levels do. As a result, it takes more missions to get to the same point post-50 as you would reach doing 1-2 missions pre-50. This feels like a huge disparity. Something could be done here to provide more XP rewards.
Patrols:
Patrols used to be the bread and butter of leveling once missions dried up (there are 1-2 missions per level, which accounts for around 10-15% of a level post-50). Not all patrols were or are equal. The reason people gravitated to certain ones was that destroy ship patrols rewarded more XP than other types of patrol due to the additional XP gain from destroying enemy ships at higher difficulty levels. With the nerfs to patrols, it's more difficult to level quickly and engage in the grindfest required to hit the next level.
Red Alerts:
Red Alerts have also been nerfed recently. Borg Red Alerts had bonus XP and provided a quick way to level captains and gain specialization points (1 Alert could bring in 20-30% of a level). Now they are time gated, which prevents hopping from one Red Alert to another.
The sum total of all these changes are that we get the feeling that every source of XP beyond lackluster mission rewards are being nerfed systematically.
The stretch for Rear Admiral (5 levels, times 2) I have simply condensed into 1. By this curve, each level would require 1000 XP pre-50, and 5000 XP post-50. Obviously numbers would need to be tweaked accordingly, as currently pre-50 Episodes reward anywhere from 6-10,000 XP.
In my opinion, completing an Episode should reward you with almost an entire level, to allow players to move from episode to episode without much interruption. Episode content tends to take longer than Patrols or PVE Queues.
Patrols should be optional content, to augment your XP gain and (nowadays) Dilithium gain. Not required as part of the leveling content (post-50). Delta Quadrant Patrols need to be REMOVED from the leveling progression, and made optional, without being "forced" into grinding them to level up.
The current system of "level gating" episodes, especially in the Delta Quadrant needs to be revisited as well. While I haven't taken a recent count, there's gotta be at least 60 Episodes in the game, to allow a player to level almost exclusively doing PVE story content, without resorting to needless "grinding".
Y'know, it's players like you who are the reason Devs are like this. "Oh, something's broken and needs to be fixed? Oh, I know - I'll insult them with my knowledge of Star Trek and then tell them how superior I am over them because I throw my money elsewhere. OHOHOHOHOHOHO!"
Seeing as they're the ones getting paid, you'd think they'd exhibit some level of professionalism. Instead they just QQ about player QQ.
Based on this course of action, I can't decide if Cryptic is stupid, or stupid.
I guess Cryptic knows the only way they can exceed expectations is to find new lows to sink to.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
Seeing as they're the ones getting paid, you'd think they'd exhibit some level of professionalism. Instead they just QQ about player QQ.
Based on this course of action, I can't decide if Cryptic is stupid, or stupid.
I guess Cryptic knows the only way they can exceed expectations is to find new lows to sink to.
No doubt but saying stupid is just giving them credit/understatement. Cuddle with your local romulans who love space bunnies, dinosaurs with laser beams, space zombies, etc are what you would expect but I am not sure what could be lower but I'm sure they will find something heh lol.
Curious, as I'm on the other side of the fence here..
What other MMOs have you able to log in for a total of 10 minutes, queue up something that in a day or two, nets you 2 spec points (basically an entire level if you think of it like that) rinse and repeat.
Currently none - INCLUDING STO in it's present state. There is no Doff mission currently that nets you two spec points in a 24 hour period (Hell queuing 23 doesn't net you ONE in a day.) maybe you should PLAY the content under discussion prior to throwing out wild claims that have zero basis in actual gameplay mechanics currently.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Hey guys! Just wanted to get back to you on this. I'm talking with the team about the leveling curve and progression rates. I'll let you know once I have a little more info.
Hey guys! Just wanted to get back to you on this. I'm talking with the team about the leveling curve and progression rates. I'll let you know once I have a little more info.
I really hope something positive can come out of it. Currently the game is more frustrating than fun when it comes to rewarding playtime. Also thank you for keeping us rowdy rude bunch of people informed!
Hey guys! Just wanted to get back to you on this. I'm talking with the team about the leveling curve and progression rates. I'll let you know once I have a little more info.
Thanks for being awesome and keeping the community in the loop on this one
Comments
Or on the flip side of your coin from many players point of view
Thank you Sir may I have another ( Smack )
Thank you Sir may I have another ( Smack )
Thank you Sir may I have another ( Smack )
Thank you Sir may I have another ( Smack )
From many players point of View this is what the Devs have did to us
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
And now yet another XP nerf i think its time to start looking for a new game the constant nerfs and uber grinds has officially gotten out of control.
Idk about you people but imo STO has jumped the Shark and it jumped that when DR released anyways im gonna start searching for a new game one thats actually .....FUN.
Or maybe its because the Devs dont care about the players as people in the first place, eh?
What other MMOs have you able to log in for a total of 10 minutes, queue up something that in a day or two, nets you 2 spec points (basically an entire level if you think of it like that) rinse and repeat.
The spec system at this point is finite, as they are intending to add more, some of you here have openly stated that you plus all of your alts have maxed out all of the spec trees for your characters. You lament that any new players are not going to have such a breeze doing it as you did, I'll give you that.
They could always reward a spec point or 2 after finishing STFs on Advanced or Elite, who knows, either way, that system was never necessarily meant for the casual player to achieve in a month, lets say, but for those who put in the work pound for pound blasting baddies along the way and doing "dungeons".
The way it is or has been, is you're being rewarded(largely) for logging in and out and doing something else away from the game. This is the way it appears to me, and plenty of you will disagree I'm sure.. We are mostly all victims of near instant gratification and reward with little effort, gameplay or otherwise.
Oh and before the response of "grinding is not fun", I totally agree with you, droning away at a task for 2-3 hrs lets say each day isnt fun, though it does depend on what that task is. Plenty of you have done this "grinding" wittingly or not - in games like say WoW, running the same damned dungeon for pieces of super gear or reward so you could sit in the main city and pose for the peasants..
Anyway, this is turning into a needless rant and I apologize. Trendy, you asked for feedback, you are getting it, as far as I am concerned the underlying problem is cutting back xp rewards for doing things in the game. If you guys intend to increase the rewards for participating in events, such as global missions or something everyone can participate in as opposed to singular 1 click projects or tasks, then I think that would be a good idea.
It would be a good idea to let your intentions be known in announcements that while you intend to adjust these rates that its going to be a give and take situation. You take from that and increase this. You want the players to feel like they are accomplishing something worth the effort.
That's all I have to say about that.
Thanks
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Methinks you cry too much. Only babies cry about things like this.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Genuinely curious here. What queues are you running, that takes a total of 10 minutes, and nets you 2 spec points? If that queue truly exists, I'd like to know.
Even though I read it twice for some reason my brain thought I had typed in 1-2 spec points. But the entire wording in that sentence was wrong. You'd queue up multiple (of the right) doff missions in a span of 1-2 days and reap the benefits. Not that you'd be interested but people have stated which missions yield bigger benefits with the doffs critting earlier in the thread.
I didnt mean you'd log in now and then tomorrow do it, given the 12-20 hour factor, you could log in, max out your schedule, log in wednesday and to the same, ideally you could take another couple of minutes in between to finish up the projects that take a few hours to do and repeat those. If your doff layout is epic, with the right traits for the right assignments, you cannot fail!
At least until now.
If you are willing to listen, some feedback:
Level 50-60:
Story missions do not give enough xp. There are always gaps that need to be filled which is kind of a problem. Queues do not really give you any meaningful xp as well. So even if you say a lvl 50+ char should farm marks anyway it just does not feel rewarding. Replaying missions also gives reduced xp so not even that is really an option.
You can go grind somewhere, like look for borg alerts. But these days there are cooldowns everywhere and I would rather have a more fun option to gain lvls.
The whole thing is not helped by the fact that new missions are for lvl 60.
The doff missions kind of rescue you at the moment. If you just do like 1-2 missions each time you are on and doff between you can kind of avoid the gaps.
My suggestions:
Double xp for all missions lvl 50+
Reduce the lvl of the missions 50+ so that the new missions can be played sooner.
Level 60+ :
Honestly the only reason I still play is, I pretend there are no spec points. I mean, I will use them if I get them, but I considered taping something over my xp bar. I do not own the necessary microscope to track xp progression at lvl 60+
Every time I do something that rewards xp I feel like I am getting punished. There is absolutely no rewarding experience to be found xp wise.
Honestly I enjoyed the queues a lot more when I had no reason to do them. Every time I look at the specs I just see cool stuff that i will never have. And that makes me sad.
I would at least double any kind of xp gain. Probably triple it for advanced/elite mobs. And make every queue into a x5 xp zone like the borg alert.
My stomach is clear and my mind is full of bacon!
A proposal on suggested rewards, in the form of "Skill Points" from the Duty Officer system.
At two spec points a week, it would take over a year to max out all spec trees currently made.
As for gaining XP through doffing, providing an alternate leveling mechanism was explicitly one of the goals announced for the system. Several other mmos, like EVE online, have similar systems.
Well, it would be a necro thread and you would have to ban yourself if you posted in it, but there's such a discussion in the review thread I linked in my signature, as an example. I actually speak to the DOFF system and how it fits into the overall whole, among other things. Honestly, the thread takes the WHOLE expansion all at once, instead of trying to divorce any one component from the big picture.
(Yes, it is a TON of reading. But the cool thing? Not once did that thread erupt into a flame war. I am very proud. :sniffle sniffle:
I may do a retrospective thread at some point, as I have seen improvement in some areas. But to be totally honest, leveling is *not* the area where I have seen meaningful improvement.
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I'd love to know as well. Earlier in the thread my math was about if you gained a spec point every week only with DOFFing. Which is about how fast I earn them. And again, at that rate of speed you'd take seven and a half months to fill one primary spec from empty to full.
I am two points away from finishing the Pilot spec (I had it to 15, and saved up points from the moment the increase was announced). All of my other specializations have about 10 points split between them, with the bulk in Intel. I also have a lot of alts since I like to try new things. However, none of them have progressed much beyond 60.
I bought the Intel ships when they came out. It seemed a decent pack since it gave T6 Intel ships for all three factions. However, I don't have a single character with a maxed out Intel specialization. It's true you don't need the specialization to command an Intel ship, but the synergy is a good reason to do so.
Having those ship options is good, although at this point I'm probably never going to get good use out of them. Then the Command ships came out. With specialization such a slow process, buying them is not a good choice for me. I would never get good use out of them since I cannot level the specialization at a decent rate.
I am greatly anticipating the Pilot ships. I am an escort captain, and have a lot of fun in such ships. However, the rate of specialization gain has me seriously considering if buying more than just the Fed ship(s) is a good idea. It has taken me this long just to finish one specialization on a single character, that I cannot justify putting in the same amount of effort and money into my other characters.
:rolleyes:
Using duty officers was my main method of leveling alts, even without seeking out the assignments soon to have reduced rewards. At this point, I have enough alts that cycling through them all and only taking assignments available in whatever system they're parked takes about an hour. The rest of my time gets used leveling my main, or helping fleet mates with their needs.
So although I will continue playing, and plan to buy at least the Fed Pilot ships, I am increasingly cynical about Cryptic's goals for player advancement, and the game itself. Several times throughout Delta Rising, there have been announcements that changes were being made to rewards to normalize/standardize them. Some things lost, some things gained, but overall we end up with less reward than initially.
:mad:
There are also several cases of devs/CMs claiming to be trying to open communication with the players on these leveling issues, but I haven't noticed anything happen except more reward reductions. I seriously hope this latest attempt is sincere. Trendy, you're one of the best CMs we've had; if you can't pass on our concerns, no one can.
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VD grabbed a few nice ones: http://i.imgur.com/1adbWtW.png
You claim that 100 per hour is "baseline"? Right... Each of those is 6 hours, but have xp of 441, 360, and 294... each of which is substantially lower than 100 per hour.
Heretic himself said that xp per hour is supposed to get lower as you get into longer assignments. Thus comparing a 12 hour with a 30 minute is silly. A much better comparison is things with a similar time to completion. So if it has a drastically better reward per hour than a 6 hour assignment? Yeah It seems obvious what is bugged.
Soo... to get rid of that nasty sampling Bias.... I went to sector space and screenshotted every assignment available. Mmmm data....
http://marhawkman.deviantart.com/art/25m-1-5h-530978168
25m:
133 xp/85 cxp (requires a holographic doff, easy to get) per hour: ~320/204
30m:
46/46 (per hour: 92/92)
187/109 (gives 1-4 contraband) 374/218
37/41 (eats commods, gives EC) 74/82
240/133 (eats a doff) 480/266
46/46 (92/92)
240/133 (480/266)
46/46 (92/92)
46/46 (92/92)
46/46 (92/92)
average xp per hour: 208 But, most of these give LESS than 100 per hour.
45m:
42/43 (gives crafting mats) 56/57
42/43 (gives crafting mats) 56/57
54/? (gives vendortrash) 72/?
64/54 (vendortrash, mostly mines) 85/72
average: 67 hmm... also less than 100/hour
1h:
87/64
43/44
84/62 (eats a med supply)
87/64
87/64
56/50 (gives crafting mats)
98/69 (eats 2 med supply)
average; 77 also less than 100
http://marhawkman.deviantart.com/art/2-4h-530978457
2h:
50/47 (gives a buff on crit) 25/24
112/75 (56/38)
64/54 (32/27)
112/75 (56/38)
112/75 (56/38)
112/75 (56/38)
average: 47
3h:
132/84 (gives crafting mats) 44/28
109/74 (36/25)
84/62 (28/21)
average: 36 Heh, getting smaller...
4h:
155/440 (eats 5 med supply, gives bonus dil) 39/110
155/440 (requires Shroud, gives bonus dil) 39/110
62/53 (15/13)
481/241 (requires Shroud) 120/60
245/135 (61/34)
187/109 (eats and gives GPL) 47/27
160/444 (needs resolve, gives bonus dil) 40/111
140/426 (gives bonus dil) 33/107
147/91 (chain, eats commods) 37/23
160/444 (needs shroud, gives bonus dil) 40/111
124/81 (31/20)
245/135 (61/34)
280/151 (eats 2 med supply) 70/38
155/440 (bonus dil) 39/110
Average: 48
http://marhawkman.deviantart.com/art/6h-530978685
6h:
330/597 (eats commods, bonus dil) 55/100
441/223 (74/37)
330/597 (eats commods, bonus dil) 55/100
360/187 (60/31)
294/157 (49/26)
240/516 (requires TK, bonus dil) 40/86
187/468 (bonus dil) (31/78
280/151 (requires 1 ent Prov) 47/25
360/187 (60/31)
Average 52
http://marhawkman.deviantart.com/art/8h-530979573
8h:
329/596 (bonus dil, requires TK) 41/74
134/85 (17/11)
112/75 (14/10)
112/75 (14/10)
314/166 (chain, eats an ent Prov) 39/21
356/185 (needs resolve and commods, bonus dil) 45/23
449/227 (eats 5 contraband) 56/28
44/45 (random item) 6/6
54/49 (random item) 7/6
44/45 (random item) 6/6
44/45 (random item) 6/6
518/767 (requires TK, eats cntraband, bonus dil) 65/96
139/425 (bonus dil) 17/53
112/238 (14/30)
269/542 (eats ent prov) 34/68
314/166 (eats 6 synthale, requires bartenders) 39/21
209/119 (26/15)
179/461 (requires shroud, bonus dil) 22/58
219/497 (requies telepath, bonus dil) 27/62
average xp: 23 per hour
http://marhawkman.deviantart.com/art/12-20h-530979834
12h:
1202/566 (100/47)
1202/2310 (100/193)
average 100 xp per hour.... um yeah... you really gona tell me that looks right?
20h:
673/1304 (eats Bateret) 34/65
299/593 (15/30)
179/294 (9/15)
336/664 (eats a blue R&D mat) 17/33
349/688 (chain, eats Nepeta) 17/34
640/1241 (32/62)
523/810 (eats a med supply) 26/41
164/271 (bad klingons you're supposed to GIVE information to the Orions) 8/14
145/90 (7/5)
149/92 (7/5)
194/112 (10/60
149/167 (spend EC to buy deployables) (7/8)
149/167 (spend EC to buy deployables) (7/8)
149/167 (spend EC to buy deployables) (7/8)
116/199 (6/100
149/249 (7/12)
average xp per hour 13....
now for the LONG ones: http://marhawkman.deviantart.com/art/40-72h-530979995
40h:
280/445 (7/11)
48h:
164/271 (3/6)
197/321 (4/7)
197/400 (4/8)
72h:
673/1035 (eats provisions) 9/14
692/1341 (requires a photonic doff) 10/19
Yeah that's right... those 12 hour assignments have better BASE rewards than almost every one of the longer assignments!
So yeah... I don't see how this is balanced at all. Hmm... yeah, sounds good. suppressing Gorn is a generic boring assignment. Actually only a few assignments have any titles associated.
Try looking in the west side of Cardie space.
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TL;DR: The exponentially increased leveling curve post-50 has turned a lot of players away as many sources of XP besides missions gets nerfed. The nerfs make it so one has to grind constantly for long periods of time to stay competitive with captain specialization points and leveling. This is not casual friendly as it takes weeks to months for casual players to unlock specialization points and levels. The nerfs are also what leads players now to jump to the conclusion that a bug fix for doffing is really intended to nerf XP gain.
1. Leveling Difference Between Pre- and Post-50 Characters
Up until level 50, characters can normally gain a level for every 1-2 story missions they do. It's a decent xp per time spent ratio and leveling feels fast and efficient. Then you hit 50 and all of a sudden it takes like 10 times more xp to hit the next rank. Instead of filling half the xp bar for a level, a story mission now maybe fills 1-2 bars. This seems unsatisfying.
Numbers wise:
Rank - Amount of XP Required From Previous Rank
LT - 13,000
LCDR (+10 levels) - 20,000
CDR (+10 levels) - 60,000
CPT (+10 levels) - 80,000
RADM (+10 levels) - 90,000
RADM (+5 levels) - 50,000
VADM (+5 levels) - 53,000
ADM (+5 levels) - 380,420
FADM (+5 levels) - 748,200
As you can see, it's a huge curve after hitting 50. While there are good reasons for making it steeper than the pre-50 track (e.g. so you can't max out captain specialization points within 3 days of hard grinding), this curve is far too steep. You are either required to enter a non-stop 8-10 hour grind of STF's and and patrol missions just to reach the next level when 1-2 hours would have done the trick in pre-50 leveling, or you're required to resign yourself to taking weeks if not months to level your character playing a few hours a day.
2. Methods of Leveling
Missions:
Mission XP rewards don't scale the same way that levels do. As a result, it takes more missions to get to the same point post-50 as you would reach doing 1-2 missions pre-50. This feels like a huge disparity. Something could be done here to provide more XP rewards.
Patrols:
Patrols used to be the bread and butter of leveling once missions dried up (there are 1-2 missions per level, which accounts for around 10-15% of a level post-50). Not all patrols were or are equal. The reason people gravitated to certain ones was that destroy ship patrols rewarded more XP than other types of patrol due to the additional XP gain from destroying enemy ships at higher difficulty levels. With the nerfs to patrols, it's more difficult to level quickly and engage in the grindfest required to hit the next level.
Red Alerts:
Red Alerts have also been nerfed recently. Borg Red Alerts had bonus XP and provided a quick way to level captains and gain specialization points (1 Alert could bring in 20-30% of a level). Now they are time gated, which prevents hopping from one Red Alert to another.
The sum total of all these changes are that we get the feeling that every source of XP beyond lackluster mission rewards are being nerfed systematically.
If you want to take a very one dimensional look at it and only look at XP/assignment length, then you're naturally going to get a very skewed picture. DOFFing has a lot of parameters to it. Assignment availability is a big one.
If, we can somehow find 20 12 hour assignments on Monday morning, can we find 20 more Monday night? Probably not. I don't think you can even find 20 12 hour assignments at the same time.
How many are there? Once done when do we get to use them again? If I do them Monday morning, when is the next time I can find them? Tuesday morning? Probably not. Wednesday? Thursday even?
If you get hung up on XP per assignment length, you're going to get a very distorted picture of things.
Further, what do these assignments require, what are the casualty risks and the success chance? That needs to be factored in as well.
The end result is that when Heretic made this 12 hour class of assignments, they were extremely rare to find and had other factors made them much more difficult than others, and thus more rewarding. There may have only been 2-3 total originally. When you look at it that way, they are far, far more balanced than just looking at XP/hour, yet that is being entirely ignored.
Now Cryptic is overusing the time class and nerfing everything rather than properly slotting the easy 12 hour jobs to another time class. That is the crux of the issue.
A better curve overall would be:
LT: 10,000
LTCMDR: 20,000
CPT: 30,000
RADM: 40,000
VADM: 50,000
ADM: 75,000
FADM: 100,000
The stretch for Rear Admiral (5 levels, times 2) I have simply condensed into 1. By this curve, each level would require 1000 XP pre-50, and 5000 XP post-50. Obviously numbers would need to be tweaked accordingly, as currently pre-50 Episodes reward anywhere from 6-10,000 XP.
In my opinion, completing an Episode should reward you with almost an entire level, to allow players to move from episode to episode without much interruption. Episode content tends to take longer than Patrols or PVE Queues.
Patrols should be optional content, to augment your XP gain and (nowadays) Dilithium gain. Not required as part of the leveling content (post-50). Delta Quadrant Patrols need to be REMOVED from the leveling progression, and made optional, without being "forced" into grinding them to level up.
The current system of "level gating" episodes, especially in the Delta Quadrant needs to be revisited as well. While I haven't taken a recent count, there's gotta be at least 60 Episodes in the game, to allow a player to level almost exclusively doing PVE story content, without resorting to needless "grinding".
Based on this course of action, I can't decide if Cryptic is stupid, or stupid.
I guess Cryptic knows the only way they can exceed expectations is to find new lows to sink to.
No doubt but saying stupid is just giving them credit/understatement. Cuddle with your local romulans who love space bunnies, dinosaurs with laser beams, space zombies, etc are what you would expect but I am not sure what could be lower but I'm sure they will find something heh lol.
Currently none - INCLUDING STO in it's present state. There is no Doff mission currently that nets you two spec points in a 24 hour period (Hell queuing 23 doesn't net you ONE in a day.) maybe you should PLAY the content under discussion prior to throwing out wild claims that have zero basis in actual gameplay mechanics currently.
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You get XP gain after getting certain Veteran Reward milestones.
I really hope something positive can come out of it. Currently the game is more frustrating than fun when it comes to rewarding playtime. Also thank you for keeping us rowdy rude bunch of people informed!
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It is a peculiar phenomenon that we can imagine events that defy the laws of the universe.
Thanks for being awesome and keeping the community in the loop on this one
For science.
i do not fancy your chances on this one, good luck!