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Increased assig. cooldown on "Turn In Contraband" assignments from 4 hours to 20 hours. Good or Bad?

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Comments

  • tacticalrooktacticalrook Member Posts: 810 Arc User
    Also to be noted, simply adding another huge dil sink to the game will do absolutely nothing to dissuade Contra farmers who will completely ignore any and all "optional" dil sinks regardless.

    A new fleet holding, wont even phase the full time contra farmers, they'll just continue hoarding, and ignore it.
    It will only hurt the regular joe players who are not actively looking for backdoor ways to earn RL currency.

    Kinda seems like you're saying farmers are not the same as "regular joe players", and that farmers are looking for backdoor ways to earn real world currency while "regular joe players" are not. Is this what you meant?
    /channel_join grind
  • warmaker001bwarmaker001b Member Posts: 9,205 Arc User
    Good Idea
    If it means whittling down the KDF size to more of its real players, I don't mind at all.
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  • taylor1701dtaylor1701d Member Posts: 3,099 Arc User
    Good Idea
    Also to be noted, simply adding another huge dil sink to the game will do absolutely nothing to dissuade Contra farmers who will completely ignore any and all "optional" dil sinks regardless.

    A new fleet holding, wont even phase the full time contra farmers, they'll just continue hoarding, and ignore it.
    It will only hurt the regular joe players who are not actively looking for backdoor ways to earn RL currency.

    Kinda seems like you're saying farmers are not the same as "regular joe players", and that farmers are looking for backdoor ways to earn real world currency while "regular joe players" are not. Is this what you meant?

    "Regular Joe players" aren't running 40 KDF alts solely for the purpose of accruing currency by precise means, ignoring most of the game entirely in an effort to maximize their daily zen yields.
    It's not the same at all. More so if these players are funding black market operations.

    If you have trouble understanding that simple fact, then there's nothing I can tell you, or on Earth that will help you understand how some individuals are exploiting the game reward systems through these methods of "play".


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  • kitsunesnoutkitsunesnout Member Posts: 1,210 Arc User
    Good Idea
    Well, I am someone who farmed contraband en-masse with many KDF characters, however, even though this would somewhat impact me, I do feel it's a greater good measure. However I always sell contraband for EC, I don't turn it in. Furthermore due to the infinity box and many things I want being far cheaper than they used to be, I'll still be farming contraband for EC. So for that reason this won't stop me and won't be particularly upset about it. Still going to be a good deal for me when everyone gets used to it.
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  • jexsamxjexsamx Member Posts: 2,803 Arc User
    Good Idea
    At the present time it's a great idea.

    Dilithium farming is easier than it's ever been, and as a result the dil exchange has inflated almost out of control. The simplest way to counteract that is to reduce the amount of dilithium entering the system. The refinement cap already in place is easily circumvented by alts, and the easiest, fastest way to amass lots of dilithium with a bunch of quickly made, otherwise unused alts is turning in contraband. So the simplest and most effective way to combat the influx of dilithium is to put the brakes on the easiest way to get it.

    Dil is incredibly easy to make these days on any toon that sees play, and the change should only really impact people who were abusing alts anyway, so there's no sensible reason for most to oppose this change at the moment.
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  • where2r1where2r1 Member Posts: 6,054 Arc User
    Bad Idea
    I am voting "Bad Idea" only because I feel kinda sad losing the assignment, but I only ran it once or twice a day (except bonus Dilithium weekends, then it would be 3).

    Although, it was the main impetus for me to sign in a second time to play in a day. It may be a good thing to get me off this computer once in a while. I should be entertaining the rambunctious cat before he tears up the house in boredom (real life cat, not the Ferasan).....or reading all those books I have piled up on the Kindle. LOL!

    But I understand that the "factory farming" associated with Contraband turn in may be a bigger problem than I am aware of. So, though I am sad losing an easy option for filling in shortages on Dilithium refinement cap for the day, I "get it".
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  • fluffymooffluffymoof Member Posts: 430 Arc User
    What did it really do? Cut down on ONE way to earn lots of Dilithium. There are a lot of other ways to farm it.

    So what did this change really do? And did it really SOLVE the problem?
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  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,236 Arc User
    Good Idea
    fluffymoof wrote: »
    What did it really do? Cut down on ONE way to earn lots of Dilithium. There are a lot of other ways to farm it.

    So what did this change really do? And did it really SOLVE the problem?
    it only really impacts people who make alts for farming dil via contraband.
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  • sarreoussarreous Member Posts: 336 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    People complained that there was too much dilithium in the game. Cryptic responded.

    I'm going under the assumption that Cryptic also has the hard numbers to back up this decision, if they felt the need to defend it.
  • sovereign010sovereign010 Member Posts: 641 Arc User
    Good Idea
    It'll be business as usual- for alts that you only log into once a day, just to offload contraband from KDF assignments it's not going to have much impact. If you're going to be logged in for more than 4 hours at a time it will have a greater impact.
  • davefenestratordavefenestrator Member Posts: 10,647 Arc User
    Good Idea
    The problem with this is it's targeted at those who game the system with a metric asston of alts making hundreds of thousands of dilithium but it also hurts normal players like me who only have a half dozen or so. This was entirely too big a sledgehammer, and it doesn't address the fact that the big time farmers will just figure out another way to game the system.

    What I propose instead is a per account refining limit, for example say 80k a day. That's max capacity on ten characters, whoever uses more than that can be safely said to be heavy duty farmers that are forking up the exchange for the rest of us. That's a change that would effectively target the people actually causing the problem while leaving the more average players unharmed.​​

    You're beyond the norm if you have 5+ alts turning in contraband more than once a day.

    If you are, you're farming, and lowering the value of dil for the casual players that log in once a day.

    Casuals do not generate 80k dil a day.

  • agentorange555agentorange555 Member Posts: 2 New User
    Bad Idea
    This is horrible. I have played this game for years and have over 3500 hours in game and have 21 characters. Contraband is how I get most of my dil. Farming out stuff is the only reason I still play this game. I would stop playing this game if they keep it as is. It would be a shame to stop playing this after so long. I was excited about the console launch until now.

    If the devs want to change that system they could make it have a 10 hour cd, cost 10 contraband, and reward 4000 dil. Something where I can still get 8000 dil a day would be nice. If the problem is people getting dil too easy, then get rid of other sources and keep the old cooldown.
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  • monkeybone13monkeybone13 Member Posts: 4,640 Arc User
    Good Idea
    maddscott wrote: »
    BAD IDEA.... As it stands now, with the POS RNG, I can run the same 2 VR Doffs for Turn-in, and get a CRIT on one turn-In, and on the next Turn-in get a Failure or Disaster. Very rarely do I see a "Success"; either it's a disaster, or Failure, mostly Disasters.. So, with my amount of play time, it basically becomes a daily..

    So, once again, Cryptic takes away from the player. They probably will NOT increase the rewards or adjust the RNG to compensate for yet another "feature" nerfed on the players behalf.

    In regards to not enough Dil Sinks.. Fleet projects are still held back due to an unwillingness to contribute Dil. I do have to admit though, 800K - 2.2mil dil for a project is just obscene..

    tyvm..

    You must be thinking of Confiscate Contraband assignment. That fails on me about half the time, even with good doffs. I don't think I've ever seen Turn in Contraband fail (it's possible since it has a 5% chance for disaster).
  • davefenestratordavefenestrator Member Posts: 10,647 Arc User
    Good Idea
    This is horrible. I have played this game for years and have over 3500 hours in game and have 21 characters. Contraband is how I get most of my dil. Farming out stuff is the only reason I still play this game. I would stop playing this game if they keep it as is. It would be a shame to stop playing this after so long. I was excited about the console launch until now.

    If the devs want to change that system they could make it have a 10 hour cd, cost 10 contraband, and reward 4000 dil. Something where I can still get 8000 dil a day would be nice. If the problem is people getting dil too easy, then get rid of other sources and keep the old cooldown.

    It's good to hear some evidence that the change will have the intended effect on farming.
  • monkeybone13monkeybone13 Member Posts: 4,640 Arc User
    Good Idea
    sarreous wrote: »
    People complained that there was too much dilithium in the game. Cryptic responded.

    I'm going under the assumption that Cryptic also has the hard numbers to back up this decision, if they felt the need to defend it.

    "If they felt the need to implement it.", actually. They haven't defended it, or given us any kind of answer, at least not yet, as to why they did it. I'm fine with the change though.
  • synfoolasynfoola Member Posts: 156 Arc User
    Bad Idea
    Meh...I had 5 toons before AoY, now 6. All 5 of those pre-AoY captains are level capped and geared. I didn't create them just to turn-in contraband and, when I did turn it in, it was maybe 2x/day and up to 4x/day on Dilithium Weekends.

    I didn't bot. I didn't scoop up the CB on the Ex and just turn them in. I spent 40'ish minutes on 2 KDF toons doing the DOFF missions as well as stopping off at clusters to drop off prisoners and colonists...using the 30 minute no-fail one you get once the cluster is at 5/7, meaning that I earned that mission by exploring every single cluster as well. Did I have fun? I used the time to wind down while chatting with my channel buddies so, yeah, it was fun for me...just as fun, if not more than bouncing Crystal and ISA's on multiple toons over and over. I have my own business, a family, and a fitness regimen and that hour total/day or every other day wasn't turning me into WoW-grind caricature. So I'm not really getting behind that whole, "They were all bots/farmers with no life" thing.

    That being said, I'll just sell the CB for EC now and be stingy with the dil I have. This will affect my buddy who just hopped on more than myself, I think. I don't think it's the end of the world, but 20 hours seems a bit excessive to me.

  • ikonn#1068 ikonn Member Posts: 1,450 Arc User
    Good Idea
    I went for Good Idea simply because this seems to, at least from my POV, begin addressing the issue of dil farming. The KDF does have a small group of dedicated players and I feel that people making KDF toons solely for the purpose of dil farming is giving the ACTUAL KDF players the bad reputation of "working the system".
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  • agentorange555agentorange555 Member Posts: 2 New User
    Bad Idea
    > @davefenestrator said:
    > agentorange555 wrote: »
    >
    > This is horrible. I have played this game for years and have over 3500 hours in game and have 21 characters. Contraband is how I get most of my dil. Farming out stuff is the only reason I still play this game. I would stop playing this game if they keep it as is. It would be a shame to stop playing this after so long. I was excited about the console launch until now.
    >
    > If the devs want to change that system they could make it have a 10 hour cd, cost 10 contraband, and reward 4000 dil. Something where I can still get 8000 dil a day would be nice. If the problem is people getting dil too easy, then get rid of other sources and keep the old cooldown.
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > It's good to hear some evidence that the change will have the intended effect on farming.

    If this is the intended effect, this is just another game that caters to casual nubs. Hardcore gamers get no love.
  • warmaker001bwarmaker001b Member Posts: 9,205 Arc User
    Good Idea
    The dil exchange measures the willingness of players to spend real money to get dil.

    Its not hard to understand why fewer people are willing to spend real money to get dil these days than 2 years ago.

    Even back during the now "Good 'ol 80-something exchange rate" days, I felt that rate was already pretty high. Today? HELL NO.
    XzRTofz.gif
  • farmallmfarmallm Member Posts: 4,630 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    Good Idea
    I only turn it in 1 time a day anyways. So this won't affect me what so ever.

    Seeing the ones crying about it is glorious!
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  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,236 Arc User
    Good Idea
    And if you say players only played KDF to farm Contraband, you've never actually played KDF. It's actually fun!
    YES!!!! Where else in game can you walk into the underworld and kick out the demons that live there? >:)
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  • farmallmfarmallm Member Posts: 4,630 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    Good Idea
    And if you say players only played KDF to farm Contraband, you've never actually played KDF. It's actually fun!
    YES!!!! Where else in game can you walk into the underworld and kick out the demons that live there? >:)

    Very true, they are really missing the fun. Specially when you can go around and hack into stuff with a Bat'leth! If a enemy gets in face. They don't last long! >:)
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  • alexvio1alexvio1 Member Posts: 389 Arc User
    Bad Idea
    farmallm wrote: »
    I only turn it in 1 time a day anyways. So this won't affect me what so ever.

    This is a lie. It will affect everyone who even have 1 toon and run the mission once per day because now you have only 4 hours to restart the mission instead of 20 hours as it was before the nerf.
  • ltminnsltminns Member Posts: 12,572 Arc User
    Bad Idea
    What??? How can there be players with 40 KDF Alts? I thought Cryptic said not many people played KDF!!!

    Now while they may be doing this to curtail Contraband farming, the timing of this change I believe is related to an upcoming Temporal Recruit Dilithium World Event.
    'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
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  • gpatton3gpatton3 Member Posts: 55 Arc User
    Bad Idea
    Here is a thing to think about. If we used basic business rules of Supply and Demand, Cost of goods, etc, if there is an "oversupply" of dil to be traded then it should, key word "should" cause the value of dil drop in relation to the zen. Meaning if I sell Zen for Dil I want a very high amount, lets say 1000 Dil per 1 zen (since my zen is more rare and in demand, while dil is plentiful (based on my example and what cryptic just did). Now using same 1 to 1000 dil example, it means I have to give more dil to get a single zen. Yes you might say well it is close to that now, no it isn't. If there is such an oversupply of dil, then it should be more than just a handful of dil, we are talking instead 10's or even 100's of difference. For those who want more info on this idea, look up Supply and Demand and Equilibrium (this is a topic taught in business school so I don't want to leave people wondering if I dreamt up this concept)

    Would that have not made more sense???????

    Limiting it to a 20h cooldown, well I guess I should sign in just once a day now, skip events, don't do doff missions that reward contraband, not to mention, it kills one of the nice features of a kdf affiliated/rom-kdf. Sure you might say well this will kill off the farming of contraband. Well why not reduce the amount of contraband awarded???? Like the Fed player whose only real chance to get any contra via doff is to confiscate from crew and it is what 1 for success and 2 or 3 for critical (don't remember as I just click collect rewards) so a fed player runs that mission twice a day, they should have enough contra to turn in so they won't need the exchange. So contraband appears to be your way of countering farmers, instead you are going to hurt non-farmers as well HOW?
    1) Well 20 hr cooldown, sign in once or twice a day, confiscate from crew, turn in, then come back in 20 hours, no need to buy it or do other riskier doff missions to get contraband.
    2) People will start having an issue with dil bloat in their inventories so people will not be interested in the contraband item on the exchange, end result YOU JUST KILLED CONTRABAND value on the exchange. People then won't really bother with earning contraband with their doff's.
    3) And you still have that 8000/day cap. So what if they end a day with 1,000,000 dil. Sure they can share it on the acct by leaving the purchase on the exchange, the dil itself can can only be converted over 8000/day. Sure if they are running 20-40 toons, it adds up, well I can name several things that benefit from more toons.
    a. Delta and Temporal recruits bonus given out to all those on that account (39 delta rewards, 39 temporal - 100 fleet marks here per toon and 10,000 of this and so on.
    b. Selling stuff on exchange. Instead of just 40 slots per toon, 40 toons would allow you to sell 1600 items a day on the exchange
    c. Bank slots, 40 toons x however many bank and pers. inv, well you do the math
    d. 1 toon buys an unlock, now 39 other toons have that item unlocked (if you remove this feature, I am going to find a time ship and travel back in time and code it with a feature lock that could never be removed)
    e. Possible Faster reputation, after all, each toon does the "flying the course" or whatever on risa, 1/day, 40 rep points. So while one toon is working on lets say temporal and they need 1225 as the first toon to complete, then they need another 3900 to buy the sponsorship, while the other toons of course would need around 625 (please note I might be off a little but think these are right) and at a rate of 40 per day, so 15 days of doing that mission. So after the main toon has done the rep, just with that risa mission (about 5 min a day) it would take about 31 days. So in 45 days, you now have 40 toons with maxed out rep.

    So saying the number on the toons plays a role

    I play almost all fed toons, I have 3 kdf toons for the contraband mining. The 8000 cap really means nothing in this rule change other than now players will have to log more hours of repetitive, repeat, dull, ad nauseum, play mining game, and repeat if they want to get enough dil a day. For those with more than 1 toon, this will soon become a burden. Yes admiralty, missions, or whatever might have increased dil production for toons. However now they are forcing players to have to spend more time getting their dil.

    This is almost the #1 dumbest thing yet to come from Cryptic, sorry but no offense. Sure I would like to see them do something to kill off the overseas farming business in certain countries (hopefully all understand what I mean). It would be nice to find a way to cut off the stupid messages about hey buy from us, 10% off your first purchase, meaning farming business selling what they have farmed or people sold to them. However to tell players, who as one poster said, might sign in every 4 hours to do the mission "Turn in/over Contraband", sorry we demand you play longer to get to your 8000 cap a day refined.
    REAL BRILLIANT.

    Lets see what should be the next cooldown rules,
    1) You can only sign in and out of your character once every 4 hours, once logged out there is a 4hr cooldown before you can log back into that toon on the acct.
    2) STF cooldown should go from 30 min to 5 stf per day per toon
    3) Change maint. time for ships in admiralty to 1 week in real time
    4) Have to pay 200 dil to access your bank and move any inventory in/out
    5) A fee to talk to any NPC for selecting active ship, move ships in and out of drydock, essentially if it demands interaction with an NPC then they need to be paid, after all isn't there a minimum wage law? (ha ha)
    6) I could go on for days with other loony ideas

    Well we will see what happens in the dil/zen market and maybe even player base.

    I am that 1%
    nikephorus wrote: »
    Unnecessary. It will annoy a lot of people, but I don't believe it will have a huge impact on the exchange rate as the refining cap will remain the same. As a contraband farmer myself I can say this change won't affect me.

    Refine cap doesn't even matter when someone has 20 - 40 alts contraband farming.
    8000x40 = 320 000 refined dil per day

    Dil Exchange @ 450 Dil per Zen =
    711 Zen per day for these leeches.

    All that dil you refined can be placed on the dil/Zen Ex and then consolidated to one character.
    Refine cap has nothing to do with it.

    Personally, I'm elated that they're finally shutting down these serial contraband farmers.
    They're destroying the exchange rate for regular, non exploitative players.

    Sorry but they should've done this years ago.

    Well I am that 1% who is non-exploitative, I struggle to keep my characters dressed in proper ships, gear, etc. I don't have an open wallet to buy from the cryptic store (even if I did, why would I want to buy a non-physical item that will go away with the game, great I own the pilot bundle of ships, when this game shuts down, what do I have to show for it - excluding memories) so I depend heavily on any mission that rewards dil at a rate per hour in game and my real time that is a good payout rate.

    In addition, maybe others do this to get ahead, but I am not stupid enough to buy from farmers, not only do you risk a ban in the game, you also risk your credit card and personal information, like oh your zip code, the bank you do business with, your full name, the credit card number itself with the 3 digit secure code - I don't know if many realize that I doubt all these companies selling stuff for real money are practicing safe credit card purchases and others well I am sure they are doing this farming for reasons other than to get paid for their time, they could depending on where they are in the world, enjoy a quick shopping trip, then you waste your time cancelling your card, getting your bank to not make any negative marks on your credit report, etc. In simpler terms, the risk is just way to high to bother or chance it by buying from all these farming companies (lose everything in your alt reality or lose things in your reality or both)

    In addition, why buy the game and not have the good feeling everytime you level up if you pay someone to level you up. You might say well if you do all the missions on one toon then all other toons benefit from gear purchases (i.e. a vr item is bound to account) so instead of wasting resources or money or time, you just reuse (isn't recycling important?????) and isn't that just as bad as buying it from one of these farming companies (since you brought that up).

    If you are going to start playing with the mechanics of the game, like doff missions that yield dil that can be used to buy zen, perhaps ALL aspects of the game need to be adjusted to balance this out. Reduce STF to maybe 100 dil per try. Reduce admiralty rewards. Reduce the VIP Mining item (heck that is 10,000 per ticket/contract/whatever) per 20/hrs - of course you need to get it from a lockbox as you can't buy on exchange.

    They need to focus on the game issues and not on pruning the dil exchange. My gosh I remember when it was 100 for 1 zen. However it took much longer to get 8000/day, or more grinding. Just adjust the exchange, and you have a simple fix right there. Instead last night I watch a trio of Orions together drop down dead get back up and repeat the death animation. I at times watch what my dhc, beams, torps come from behind my ship. I fall through the ESD. I get stuck in the console or wall and have to log in/out. The treasure trading station mission, if you don't follow a certain "workaround" then you could be stuck repeating that mission forever. Bugs that BLANK out of me when they worry about aspects of a game that aren't nearly as important as the presentation and experience. Dropping because of server issues in the middle of a STF and can't rejoin. Watching characters appear in their computer drawing or cgi (so I see the lines, then the templates, then the coloring, then the final product, yeah reality for me.

    I have been asked why do I play this game still, well it is really the only Star Trek thing around. Plus Cryptic keeps throwing in new gizmos for doing things 30 times in a 40 day period that could come back to haunt you if you didn't get that item. I put more hours in per day in this game than the steam games that start with a,b,c combined (well total of list over 200, but whos counting :smiley: )
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