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Marks... Marks... and more Marks.
anazonda
Member Posts: 8,399 Arc User
We've discussed this before... Several times in fact: The Marks.
Us "STO Oldtimers", from pre-F2P all remember the medals we got from exploring nebula clusters, that were eventually replaced by Dilithium because it was simply a mess...
Now we have 9 rep mark systems + fleet marks, and eventually the question has to be raised again: Are there too many?
My answer - ironically - is both yes and no.
See the thing is: Cryptic naturally wants to draw attention to new queued content, and no... They can never make the better content every time... Quite simply: Everyone has different taste and you can't hit the nail on the head every time...
For example: I hate Mine-trap... It's an aweful map with a bad story and a bad villan... yet, often I see people asking for when it comes back... Some people like it... Me... I did not even notice it was gone until about 3 months after it was remved.
So my solution is to make a "transition period"...
Release a mark type with a given season / expansion, and then leave it in there for 3-6 months. Once the 3-6 months are over, convert the systems that use these marks into a "overall" mark system, sort of a "shared pool" of generic marks that can be used with all but the newest rep system.
That way, you can earn marks, Cryptic gets attention for their new stuff and those who don't like the new missions can focus on just doing a few missions that allows them to collect the special items required for elite gear, and nothing more, because they can farm their marks from any mission giving marks.
Is this a solution? Is there are better one? is there none?
Edit: Forgot: My idea here still requires people to run the associated missions to get the "special" items for the elite gear.
Us "STO Oldtimers", from pre-F2P all remember the medals we got from exploring nebula clusters, that were eventually replaced by Dilithium because it was simply a mess...
Now we have 9 rep mark systems + fleet marks, and eventually the question has to be raised again: Are there too many?
My answer - ironically - is both yes and no.
See the thing is: Cryptic naturally wants to draw attention to new queued content, and no... They can never make the better content every time... Quite simply: Everyone has different taste and you can't hit the nail on the head every time...
For example: I hate Mine-trap... It's an aweful map with a bad story and a bad villan... yet, often I see people asking for when it comes back... Some people like it... Me... I did not even notice it was gone until about 3 months after it was remved.
So my solution is to make a "transition period"...
Release a mark type with a given season / expansion, and then leave it in there for 3-6 months. Once the 3-6 months are over, convert the systems that use these marks into a "overall" mark system, sort of a "shared pool" of generic marks that can be used with all but the newest rep system.
That way, you can earn marks, Cryptic gets attention for their new stuff and those who don't like the new missions can focus on just doing a few missions that allows them to collect the special items required for elite gear, and nothing more, because they can farm their marks from any mission giving marks.
Is this a solution? Is there are better one? is there none?
Edit: Forgot: My idea here still requires people to run the associated missions to get the "special" items for the elite gear.
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
Like Duty Officers? Support effords to gather ideaspwebranflakes wrote: »Let me put the rumors to rest: it's definitely still the C-Store (Cryptic Store) It just takes ZEN.
Post edited by anazonda on
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Buy marks.
Any reasoning behind this, or is it just "to be opposite"?
I believe if a reputation matters to you, you should work for it. More variety means more build options and reflects better actual effort put into the game.
That makes sense, I guess...
The problem - From my point of view of cause - is that we are gradually getting more and more of these marks, that you can only use for one type of gear.
Cryptic originally removed a similar system a long time ago, because of this very issue, and it became relatively frustrating for everyone in the long run.
I think we had 12 different kinds of medals (the equivalent of maks in this conversation) back then, and eventually Cryptic just got rid of it in favor of dilithium.
But basically I am re-opening the conversation on, if this is in fact an annoyance or as you suggest not an issue at all.
Maybe... My suggestion did involve the need to run the "base mission" to get the thingies... Or wait...
Na just scrolled up... Seems I forgot to include that part. Sorry.
Thing is, I don't really see the "marks" as any sort of issue. All the reps (with all that unique equipment) is the real problem. Think about it from a new players perspective. You hit level 50 and you're suddenly looking at this mountain of work to grind through. I haven't been around all that long, just over a year now, and there's been 2 new reps added since then. It's just too much. Having 1 mark system doesn't resolve that particular issue. You could have all the queues let you choose which marks you wanted instead of having 1 mark system. But again, that doesn't really fix the real problem.
I think this is actually worth a thread on it's own?
It presents a whole different aspect of the issue, that I have actually never considered, and it could be fun to see what solutions people come up with?
If you decide to make a thread on it, be sure to toss me the link ok?
I disagree...
It would have been simpler for Cryptic to just create a leveling store, than to replace the entire system back then, but they specifically said that it was because there were too many currencies (among others, just like the one you mentioned).
In this case it would probably end up with people doing endless runs of ISA and CCA to farm marks for other reps because they can't be bothered with the new content because it "takes too long".
You can already see this happening every day in STO, people don't play CSA anything like as much as ISA, because in ISA they get their daily box in 2 mins with little effort required.
I think having a generic mark is just going to end up with a proportion of the players ignoring content to go the easy route. Which is a shame because some missions deserve attention. So cryptic has to use a bit of a complex way to get you to play all content.
You're more or less chained to the rest of the playerbase and their desire for the newest/easiest-to-earn marks, which means certain marks become harder to acquire if players aren't running particular queued events for said marks.
Cryptic has helped address this by adding Temporal Marks and Chroniton Buffers to the Badlands battlezone, but there are certain types of currency that are only reliably acquired by doing Borg Disconnected ad nauseum.
Mostly Delta Marks and Dyson Marks. Bug Hunt is touch-and-go with queued players, and the Dyson Sphere ground battlezone is a victim of powercreep, having not been updated to current meta standards.
Even the "choice of marks" should be removed except for special event rewards. It makes no sense. If a particular mission fits under multiple groups' jurisdiction, the marks should be divided among them, not have players choose after-the-fact which group it was for.
And if there is a chance to get different type of special items, they should be given randomly, not let players choose after-the-fact what loot they've found. That doesn't make any sense either.
There is no such thing as too many mark types. At most they would need to give them a separate tab in te resource window to avoid clutter.
The generalization of queue rewards is responsible for the current situation in which only a few queues are actively played. Queues should have more diverse range of rewards, not less. Players should be strongly encouraged to play different Queues, not just whatever happens to be the fastest to finish.
They introduced Emblems just before Dilithium so it could have been made into the universal mark, but Cryptic wanted to make an economy with Dilithium and this is what we got.
1. Sets turned into mission rewards (like for recent FEs, replay the mission for the whole set)
2. Traits released from kill accolades (an accolade revamp has been mentioned)
3. Generic items from zone specific vendors (want all those Romulan plasma arrays, grab them only from New Romulus)
4. Kits and other small items linked to smaller missions (daily or side quests on Kobali or Defera now offering special items as a bonus)
Of course players who have maxed out current reputation should be compensated in some way - e.g. discount at the new vendors or something. But for new players it would certainly look a lot less daunting!
To me we should be looking at how to make an keep these older reps more relevant, and how to make them into content we can enjoy, while also using them to steer people to visit more of the content we have as well. Thing like getting updates to the older reps that might be new tiers we can complete going thru the newer rep-stfs we have for them, new projects that we could unlock, as well as new story-missions that tie into these reps showing what has been happening with them since we last did them. I mean are you going to tell me nothing has been happening with the Omega rep an their fight with the borg. that they have not been monitoring the borg all this time. I could see also there being missions you collect from the reps that has you do specific stfs that you gain additional rep marks (normal and elite), while also having additional rewards you have a chance of getting like vanity items or even doffs an very small chance of a ship/s too.
I would also say we should trim down the amount of available ques we have up on the public que, and then alternate thru a list of 12 ques that are actively in the public que system on a weekly or bi-weekly schedule. If you make sure that we have at least one stf for each rep, and a que for both ground an space missions, than players will have more of a chance to play thru more of the ques by the sheer fact of taking away the draw of quick easy grinding ques like Infect space. Though also a rework to the reward payout of the ques would be nice to make sure that they pay more reasonably to keep up pace witht he other ques that are more difficult, and lengthy to do yet pay equal or slightly higher payouts than the much faster grinding ques such as cca or infected space, as than you could make these more reasonable to do in the eyes of some players that see the time to reward payout as unreasonable.
It is a great time to get Iconian and Delta Marks with the Summer Event and trading in Birds and Monkeys. Doing 1 Artifact Hunt during the event and 1 Horga'hn Hunt per day gives you enough Favors to get 1 Bird Egg per day which amounts to 60 or 100 marks of your choice including the new Temporal Marks. Then there is the 40 Marks per day from running the Flying High mission after you get the Summer ship. Then just get the 60+ marks per day from running the two missions on Kobali Prime.
This way you can grind up the reputations doing any content you so choose but the rate is limited by how fast you can reach a particular level, rather than a fixed time gate.
As the whole idea of reputation is seemingly one way (unlike in say EvE online) the idea of growing and developing your character's transferable skills, seems perfectly logical in that sense.
You could then also leave in the "elite" level items as part of the cost, available only from the specific STF content or with the current mark to item conversion mechanism. They could also make these items purchasable through the C Store/Exchange or for a specific amount of Lobi Crystals.
A few weeks ago during the Crystalline Event I had my last Delta Recruit level up all eight (at the time) Reputations at once. Was Sponsored and did it in about 20 or so days.
Between the Crystalline Event, the Na'Kuhl Red Alert, Tholian Red Alert, Borg Red Alert, and Kobali Ground, there are plenty of sources to get more than enough Marks of all types to level fairly quickly. Sadly, some of those sources are gone.
Battlezones are good for the Marks and Elite Marks as well. Defera Ground for the Omega Elite.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'